AN OPEN LETTER FROM LI ONESTO

author of Dispatches from the People’s War in Nepal, on why

THE WORLD CAN’T WAIT

After Hurricane Katrina I watched in horror as tens of thousands of Black people were hit by a government storm of willful neglect. The hurricane was a natural disaster. But it tore the roof off of a society and a government that is a social disaster for millions of people here and around the world.

Like many of you, I am deeply disturbed and alarmed by the direction the Bush government is taking this planet: Attacks on critical thought in academia. Assaults on science with evolution banned and religion injected into schools. The ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, justified by lies and conducted with extreme brutality. The filling of courts with judges who legalize torture, jail people without trials or lawyers and want to reverse Roe v. Wade. The demonization of gay people and the general promotion of ignorance and intolerance. All this is going full steam ahead and getting worse!

We have seen how the Bush Regime uses it’s “war on terrorism” to justify invasion and intervention. And in Nepal, where a People’s War has been going on since 1996, the U.S. is backing the reactionary monarchy – supplying the brutal Royal Nepalese Army with millions of dollars, thousands of automatic weapons and military training. The political and ideological program of the Maoists in Nepal clearly has nothing in common with the reactionary politics and religious fundamentalism of groups like al-Qaeda. But this hasn’t stopped the U.S. from putting the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists) on their official list of “terrorists.” And the pretext of “combating terror” is being used to justified military action against any and all insurgencies which threaten U.S. interests – including genuine revolutions aimed at overthrowing oppressive governments.

Millions of people here and around the world hate Bush. And he is part of something bigger. For the past 15 to 20 years, powerful forces within the U.S. ruling class have come together to change the governing "consensus" on what makes the government legitimate, and the morality and ideology underlying the "cohesion" of society -- and to change it to something quite different from what has gone before. These forces are going for a much more openly imperialist policy toward the world and a fascist form of rule within the U.S., which will at minimum include a very large element of fundamentalist Christianity.

The people’s will can and must be forged into organized political resistance which repudiates and reverses the whole direction of society, where Bush himself is driven from office. As the WCW call says:

“That which you will not resist and mobilize to stop, you will learn--or be forced--to accept. There is no escaping it: the whole disastrous course of this Bush regime must be STOPPED. And we must take the responsibility to do it.”

I urge you to join THE WORLD CAN’T WAIT – DRIVE OUT THE BUSH REGIME campaign which is calling for the first anniversary of Bush’s “re-election” to be a massive day of resistance.

November 2, 2005 must be a day when history starts to turn.

The people of the world today, and future generations, demand nothing less of us.

Read and sign the World Can’t Wait Statement.

Go to the website to get in touch and get involved: worldcantwait.org