JANUARY 20!!! (READ AND RESPOND!!)

["Lou Paulsen" <wwchi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

All right, let's talk reality.  This is a POLL of the US subscribers to this
list.

Do YOU agree that we have to build for the January 20 protest against the
inauguration of Bush with a significant commitment of our resources?  And
are YOU going to do it?  Are you going to start tomorrow?  tonight?

And if not, why not?

Full disclosure: yes, it's true that my party has been working on plans for
a counterinaugural demonstration for weeks.  So you might be tempted to say,
"Please, Lou, we know you feel obliged to build your party's events, but
don't spam us with them."

I would like you NOT to say that.  In general I DON'T spam this list with
the activities calendar of Workers World or the IAC.  However, I believe
that things have changed since yesterday, and I HAVE to post this.  It's my
DUTY.  And you HAVE to address it.  It's YOUR duty.

I believe that even if the counterinaugural demonstration had been called by
my least favorite group on the left, I would be writing here urging people
to go to Washington on January 20, although first (in that hypothetical
case) I would be writing my party's leadership and urging them to take it
up.

Up until yesterday, you might have said, "Yes, a demonstration at the
inauguration would be a good thing, but then there are a lot of other things
going on.  There are a lot of national demonstrations.  We have local
responsibilities," etc., etc.  But things have changed.  This is NOT a
normal inauguration any more.  This is an inauguration which will FOREVER be
linked in history with racism, fraud, and the lifting of the pretty mask
that usually hides the rotting corpse-face of "bourgeois democracy" in the
United States.

It is the fruit of that election which, unlike all others since maybe
Debs-McKinley (1896), has momentary split apart the bourgeois parties and
caused some true things to be told about their racist system, their
hypocritical ruling-class courts, and their whole system of class rule.
Even as I write this, they are repairing the split.  Gore and Bush will now
shake hands and embrace and talk about "the things that unite us" being the
important things, WHICH IS TRUE, applied to them.  The workers and oppressed
whose emotions have been mobilized are being told to forget what happened,
to repress it into unconsciousness, to keep the secret, to keep their mouths
shut and smile and act as if everything was all right, as if they were
abused children in a dysfunctional family!

"There is a tide in the affairs of humanity which, taken at the flood, leads
on to revolution." (Shakespeare, revised.)  This is our chance.  NOW is our
chance.  We have not had a chance like this in the US in 30 years.  In the
next few days, tomorrow, TONIGHT, we should be getting out press releases
and calling the talk shows and saying, "NO!!! To hell with what Al Gore
says, we don't accept the outcome!  We don't accept Bush as legitimate, we
don't accept your whole system as legitimate!  We don't give a fuck for all
your commentators and pundits and historians and authorities who are telling
us about what wonderful fucking speeches Gore and Bush made about
reconciliation and bipartisanship and "healing"!  We are not going to be
'healed', we are going to come to the inauguration and protest!!  The whole
world WILL be watching, and we are going to tell the whole world what we
think of this president, this court, this Congress composed equally of open
enemies and craven sneaking lickspittle enemies." If we do this now, before
they solidify the iron wall, before they line up every 'labor lieutenant'
and every Democratic party hack to talk about how we have to look forward to
compromise and unity, we WILL be listened to.  We will be heard, yes, by the
youth, by the workers, by the poor, by the masses.  If not by millions -
then by thousands.  But who knows?  There are moments every once in a while
when we, yes, the 150 people on this list in the US, yes, the relatively
small numbers in WWP and in all the parties and formations represented here,
we are presented with an opportunity to AFFECT HISTORY.

Every sufficiently organized and angry person in this country who CAN make
it to DC WILL make it to DC.  Do you think the anti-globalization youth are
going to miss this?  They are making their own plans.  What about Florida?
Is it out of the question that thousands from the oppressed communities in
Florida will come up to have their voices heard if not their votes?   CAN
you sit this out?  CAN you stay at home and watch it on television??

This is a list full of Marxists.  Marxism is not a religion or a social
science or a hobby.  It is a commitment to CHANGE THE WORLD.  In a country
like the US that is a damned difficult proposition. And among the chief
difficulties is the "civil religion" of the US, as it has been called - the
belief in the system, in voting, in the constitution, in the wisdom of the
forefathers, in the impartial courts, in pledging allegiance to the flag, in
the "best government on earth, for all its flaws."  It is a more choking and
paralyzing dogma than any manifestation of Christianity or any other
religious fundamentalism.  Now, unpredicted by anyone, the noxious clouds of
this dogma have momentarily been dissipated.   WE DO NOT GET THIS KIND OF
OPPORTUNITY EVERY YEAR, or EVERY DECADE.  This is our opportunity to
AGITATE - to POLITICALLY EDUCATE - to fan the flames of the anger of the
masses.  Furthermore, it is an opportunity that comes just as a recession is
about to hit.

I am addressing this to EVERYONE here in the US.  I don't demand or expect
that you march under WW's banners.  You can like us, tolerate us, respect
us, scorn us, trust us, mistrust us, hate us, WHATEVER.  March under
whatever banners you feel like.  Organize however you feel is appropriate.
I'd like you to endorse it, but if you don't want to, don't.  But come!! If
there is a city, a state, or for that matter a campus, a union, a stratum, a
'sphere' where WWP is weak or nonexistent and your group / circle / tendency
is stronger, this is your chance to show how much better you can organize
than us!  But please, DO, recognize the importance of this thing.  Do
organize for it.  Don't miss this historic opportunity.  GET ON THE BUS.
But first, GET THE BUS.

Down with the racist dictatorship of the rich!  Protest the inauguration!

Lou Paulsen
Chicago

General info and press releases:  www.iacenter.org
NY and some local leaflets are at:   www.mumia2000.org
To endorse, go here:
http://home.earthlink.net/~npcboston/jan20end.htm