School walkouts and protest are scheduled Oct. 5 in over a hundred cities, NYC starts 12 noon at the U.N. – March 1:30 – Union Square 4 pm

Tired of stewing in anger while "long war" and torture are normalized, working on campaigns that don't touch the highest powers and an activist culture where we tear each other down instead of pushing forward? Me too. That's why I'm getting involved in this fight and taking it to my neighbors, friends and the street on October 5. This is not a one-day fight. It's nobody's dog-and-pony show.

This letter is a personal appeal for your active involvement with World Can't Wait, on your own terms, starting now.

Momentum is building for the Oct. 5 protests, but many activists have yet to step up -- or even investigate for themselves the scope of this effort. The lull in the protest movement since the start of the war, exactly as the population has turned against this disaster is more confusing than it should be and, I'd argue, related to a passive orientation towards the elections........

Maybe you will vote, some will work on the mid-term campaigns. Some of you are active, some are rarely, a few of you have yet to volunteer in any capacity. We all have a way to engage this whole assault. World Can't Wait wants and expects participation on your own terms, with your own politics and culture, in agreement with the initiating call. Period. Anyone who says otherwise would rather you stayed home than took up this fight. We've seen where this kind of cynical passivity leads: to more to the same and worse.

Participation has spread far beyond the initiating group, and this is as they want it to be. I can say this, but coming to the forum tonight at Cooper Union is the best way to see who is actually involved, not the rumors and half-baked shit-talking that passes for debate too often. We can't let a fear of our movements' most radical (and honest) participants justify apathy, despair and disengagement. You can't let it.

Again, the genuine breadth of this movement is near unprecedented.

Cindy Sheehan, Jonathan Kozol, Suheir Hammad, Michael Eric Dyson, Alice Walker, Howard Zinn. From inside the system, Democratic lightning rods like Al Sharpton, congressional representatives such as Cynthia McKinney, John Conyers, and Major Owens have joined radicals like Mumia Abu-Jamal, Ward Churchill and Sunsara Taylor. Ralph Nader is urging people to come out. Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun Magazine and the Network of Spiritual Progressives, and Medea Benjamin of CodePink have urged everyone to get involved, and to make this their own. The very army general who ran Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has joined, as did the first State Department official to resign over Iraq and career CIA man Ray McGovern helped disrupt a Rumsfeld presentation on national TV alongside WCW activists.

Prominent signatories are one thing. The infrastructure of a successful movement is another.

Speaking directly, the range of signatories to the World Can't Wait call is broad, diverse and speaks to the unfolding moment we are in. Specifically among activists, including many receiving this email, there is considerable skepticism regarding communist involvement.

The role of the Revolutionary Communist Party is not a secret -- but despite claims to the contrary, World Can't Wait is not a "front group." This kind of accusation is not "telling uncomfortable truths" -- it is a distortion. This crude, dishonest and unprincipled red-baiting aims to convince honest activists (read: you) that they will be "secretly" controlled by some shadowy group. Nothing could be further from the truth. This kind of argument-by-slur aims to hinder participation without principled discussion by using fear instead of engagement. It's time to retire these vapid Karl Rove-style attacks within the left. Reject it, or at least don't accept it as the end of the discussion.

In my experience, those who urge "caution" or rely on crude political stereotypes to end discussion are arguing for passivity in the face of open horror. If you are not engaged in this fight to stop Bush's agenda in an ongoing, explicit way -- what are you waiting for?

Investigate World Can't Wait for yourself and make informed choices about involvement. If you are in NYC or SF, come to tonight's rallies and the Oct. 5 protests. See with your own eyes who is really involved -- and make your choices for the coming week (and months) accordingly. No one is trying to control anyone in this movement. It is about putting some new facts on the ground, refusing to accept the "new normal" and kicking Bush when he is down through the power of the people.

REGARDLESS, we must be in the streets -- and you must find a way not to just "get behind" the WCW banner, but to take up this campaign on your own terms.

Specifically: You have the space to operate as direct action activists, anti-authoritarians and community/labor-based organizers. This is a straight-up political pitch. It is not about signing up for any man behind the curtain. What you see really is what you get.

Seize the day, friend. Make history, and put that little cynic in the back of your head out of its misery.

In struggle,

Jed Brandt

repost of Jed Brandt