REGIME CHANGE BEGINS AT HOME

Although the war in Iraq is by no means over, despite what the hawks in government and the media might say, now is a good time for those of us who opposed this illegal act of genocide to turn our attention to the future. The mobilization against the war, both within the United States and especially abroad, was massive. Although this did little to deter the hawks in the Bush administration from carrying out their diabolical assault on innocent people, it gave countries like France, Germany, and Russia, as well as officials within the United Nations, the courage to stand up to the vermin who traded blood for oil, profit, and empire.

Hundreds of thousands--indeed millions in some cities--mobilized against the war in Iraq and the question now becomes, where do we go from here? Should we let the movement die because the architects of this criminal war say that it is over? Should we organize demonstrations against U.S. war plans in Syria, Iran, and North Korea? Should we protest the ongoing occupation of Iraq and the plunder of its oil and its archeological treasures? Or should we mobilize against the tyrants responsible for this mass murder and fight to remove them from power before they spill more blood in their quest for world domination? This is the course of action that will yield the most dramatic results.

We must organize on an even wider scale to demand an emergency election aimed at removing the Bush regime from the office that they seized. We need to get millions of people in the streets of major cities throughout the United States who are determined to remove these war criminals from office by the end of the year. We must also demand international monitors for this and all future elections--especially in areas where denial of voting rights is common--to ensure that there is no repeat of the gross irregularities that characterized the 2000 and 2002 elections. Historically, this scenario would be unprecedented but, then again, so was the Supreme Court's selection of Bush over his popular opponent in the 2000 election.

I am not a disgruntled Democrat angry with the Republicans for their coup d'etat. I did not vote for Gore in 2000 (nor did I ever vote for his predecessor). In fact, there's little doubt in my mind that Gore would have kept in place the murderous sanctions that have killed thousands of Iraqi people and also would have continued the frequent bombings that Iraq has been forced to withstand for over a decade. Republicans and Democrats both sanctioned the genocide in Iraq. We must all keep this in mind and, as they come up for reelection, we must vote out of office EVERYONE who supported this war, regardless of their party affiliation and any other redeeming qualities they may have. This would pretty much mean a clean sweep of congress.

We must employ the same tactics that we used to oppose the war in our effort to unseat Bush and the rest of his regime--only on a much wider scale. This includes widespread civil disobedience, rallies, and marches. Additionally, we must organize widespread strikes and economic boycotts aimed at making our presence felt. We must let the rest of this country know that, if a new election isn't held immediately and the war criminals aren't thrown out of office by the end of the year, we will shut the whole country down completely. Business as usual will be almost impossible. Employers will find large numbers of staff absent at all times. Schools will find classrooms that are half-empty. Businesses will experience a dramatic drop in revenue as people refuse to purchase all but the most essential products. There will be thousands of people demonstrating in the streets at all times. And the criminal injustice system will be hopelessly clogged with cases of people who blocked bridges, tunnels, major thoroughfares, and entrances to buildings owned by defense contractors in order to draw attention to our righteous cause. Sit-ins, die-ins, and hunger strikes will become commonplace. The rallies and marches that are organized will dwarf those aimed at preventing the war in Iraq. And we won't have to compete with "shock and awe" for media attention; we'll have the undivided attention of the entire world.

Even if we do not succeed in actually bringing about an emergency election and a premature end to the Bush regime's reign of terror, we will succeed in letting the rest of this country know that 2004 will be the last year that Bush and the rest of his criminal accomplices will be in power. Popular opposition to him will be so great that even his own party will have to think twice about nominating him for another term. And if any of this is not evident by the time of the Republican convention--conveniently scheduled for September 2004 to coincide with 9/11 memorials--millions of us will flood the streets of Manhattan during the convention to clear up any doubts. Also, by maintaining the mass mobilization initiated in Autumn 2002, we will be letting these vicious hawks know that we will oppose even more militantly any actions they are planning against Syria, Iran, North Korea, and any other nation that does not comply with the wishes of the United States.

After these war criminals are thrown out of office, we must make sure that they are tried in the international arena and convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Despite the self-censorship practiced by the mainstream media, there is a litany of evidence that these war crimes have occurred over the past couple of months; indeed they continue to occur on an almost daily basis. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and the rest of their cohorts need to spend the rest of their miserable, pathetic lives in prison. We must do everything in our power to assure that this comes to pass.

In addition to working tirelessly to rid the world of the plague that is the Bush regime, we must also fight to prevent young people from supplying the military with new cannon fodder. We must make sure that all high school students know they can deny permission for their schools to provide the government with their personal information. We must also brand ROTC recruiters as the cannibals they are. We all know that in a capitalist society, economic circumstances may lead young people to view military service as a viable option. We must take this option off the table for all but the handful of idiots who actually want to risk their lives for the narrow interests of the U.S. ruling class.

We must not fall prey to complacency at this crucial point in history. We've built a solid foundation of resistance against a tyrannical agenda and we will ultimately prevail against this agenda, but only if we keep the momentum going.