The World Can't Wait
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
dedicated to mobilizing mass resistance to what it describes as crimes committed by the US government.
Formation and goals
World Can't Wait was formed in January 2005. Its headquarters is in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. WCW attempted during the Bush years to create a mass popular movement strong enough to force George W. Bush and Richard Cheney from office in disgrace. According to its original (2005) mission statement, by organizing people living in the United States, WCW seeks "to create a political situation where the Bush administration's program is repudiated, where Bush himself is driven from office, and where the whole direction he has been taking U.S. society is reversed."
WCW levied many accusations against the Bush regime, including: the Iraq war, prisoner abuse, torture of military detainees, the abrogation of their rights to habeas corpus, ubiquitous domestic wire-tapping and surveillance activities ordered personally by the President, the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
, and the administration's support for anti-abortion legislation which they state has a basis in the goals of the Christian Right
Christian right
Christian right is a term used predominantly in the United States to describe "right-wing" Christian political groups that are characterized by their strong support of socially conservative policies...
.
Founders of WCW included members or supporters of the Revolutionary Communist Party
Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
The Revolutionary Communist Party, USA , known originally as the Revolutionary Union, is a Maoist Communist party formed in 1975 in the United States. The RCP states that U.S...
, Greens
Green Party (United States)
The Green Party of the United States is a nationally recognized political party which officially formed in 1991. It is a voluntary association of state green parties. Prior to national formation, many state affiliates had already formed and were recognized by other state parties...
, anarchist
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
s, and people of various other political backgrounds. Organising in high schools, college campuses and on the Internet, by October 2006, the group gathered 24,000 supporters, including actor Sean Penn
Sean Penn
Sean Justin Penn is an American actor, screenwriter and film director, also known for his political and social activism...
, writers Studs Terkel
Studs Terkel
Louis "Studs" Terkel was an American author, historian, actor, and broadcaster. He received the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1985 for The Good War, and is best remembered for his oral histories of common Americans, and for hosting a long-running radio show in Chicago.-Early...
and Eve Ensler
Eve Ensler
Eve Ensler is an American playwright, performer, feminist and activist, best known for her play The Vagina Monologues.- Personal life :...
, Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
state assemblyman Mark Leno
Mark Leno
Mark Leno is an American politician, representing California's 3rd Senate district, which includes parts of San Francisco and Sonoma County, as well as the entirety of Marin County. He was elected in 2008 and is the first openly gay man to serve in the Senate...
and anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan
Cindy Sheehan
Cindy Lee Miller Sheehan is an American anti-war activist whose son, U.S. Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, was killed by enemy action during the Iraq War. She attracted national and international media attention in August 2005 for her extended anti-war protest at a makeshift camp outside President...
, and was able to organise protests in 150 cities across the United States, Canada and Switzerland. According to WCW national coordinator Debra Sweet, "In the beginning, we were what you might call the voice-of-conscience usual suspects. Since then, we've been opening our umbrella wider."
World Can't Wait stated during the 2008 presidential race that Obama would not be the redemptive figure that so many believed. Its National Director Debra Sweet said on November 7, 2008,
“Obama, the ’anti-war’ candidate, wants to leave 50 to 80,000 troops in Iraq, and move more combat brigades to Afghanistan. … People expected Obama, who taught Constitutional law, to protect their rights, but Obama went out of his way to make an unpopular vote to bolster the ‘war on terror’ and set the basis for expanded political repression. He voted for an amended USA PATRIOT Act that had more draconian curbs on political protest than the 2001 version.
“How can we feel Obama is ‘for the people’ when he put all his backing behind the bailout of Wall Street banks, but tells the people only to have faith in their leaders? When he supports the notoriously racist death penalty, and blames Black people themselves for the huge prison population? When he finds ‘common ground’ with the most rabid Christian fundamentalist plans to do away with abortion and gay marriage? The ban on gay marriage passed in California, benefiting from Obama's expressed opposition to gay marriage.
“This is not the time to ‘wait and see’ what Obama will do after January 20, or after 6 months or a year...or never, because if he does what's in the peoples' interests he won't be re-elected? He's telling us what he will do, and the worst thing would be to get passive in the face of more crimes being done in our name.”
In 2009 the WCW adopted a new mission statement that incorporated the major elements of its original statement and ended with: “This direction cannot and will not be reversed by leaders who tell us to seek common ground with fascists, religious fanatics, and empire. It can only be possible by the people building a community of resistance - an independent mass movement of people - acting in the interests of humanity to stop, and demand prosecution, of these crimes.”
In the fall of 2010 WCW took out an ad entitled "Crimes Are Crimes No Matter Who Does Them," stating that the Obama administration "either continued Bush policies or went even further than Bush". The ad appeared in the New York Review of Books, The Nation and the New York Times. .
Events organized
- November 2, 2005: Demonstrations attended in protest of the anniversary of the 2004 presidential elections; some 2,000 participate in New York CityNew York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. - January 31, 2006: Demonstrations attended in protest of President George W. BushGeorge W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
's State of the UnionState Of The Union"State Of The Union" is the debut single from British singer-songwriter David Ford. It had previously been featured as a demo on his official website, before appearing as a track on a CD entitled "Apology Demos EP," only on sale at live shows....
address. - February 4, 2006: Demonstration in Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
outside the White HouseWhite HouseThe White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
. - May 12, 2006: Demonstration at Wachovia Stadium to protest Battle Cry.
- October 5, 2006: A mass walkout from school and work and demonstrations in over 200 towns and cities.
- January 4, 2007: Rally in Upper Senate Park in Washington, D.C. at noon on the opening day of the 110th United States Congress110th United States CongressThe One Hundred Tenth United States Congress was the meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, between January 3, 2007, and January 3, 2009, during the last two years of the second term of President George W. Bush. It was composed of the Senate and the House of...
. - January 23, 2007: Demonstrations attended in protest of Bush's State of the UnionState Of The Union"State Of The Union" is the debut single from British singer-songwriter David Ford. It had previously been featured as a demo on his official website, before appearing as a track on a CD entitled "Apology Demos EP," only on sale at live shows....
address. - February 17, 2007: "Emergency Summit to Impeach Bush for War Crimes" was held in New York City.
- March 19, 2009: First national day of protest against the wars under President Barack ObamaBarack ObamaBarack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
. New York City event including a rally at Union Square and a march to the US Armed Forces Recruiting Center in Times SquareTimes SquareTimes Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...
. - December 1 & 2, 2009: World Can’t Wait participated, with other groups, in the demonstrations outside Obama’s West Point announcement of the increase in troops to Afghanistan, and the protests in New York City the day after.