While President Bush hopes to use his State of the Union address on Jan. 31 to rally public opinion around his agenda for the coming year, the organizers of World Can’t Wait are calling for political demonstrations across the country and in Washington, D.C., to demand that Bush step down and take his programs with him. The hope is to reinvigorate the anti-war sentiment of 2003 to break the silence of assumed consent by symbolically drowning out his address. The group is also seeking permits for a rally and march around the White House the following Saturday, Feb. 4, at 11 a.m. Deborah Sweet, national coordinator of World Can’t Wait, was recently interviewed by Burt Cohen, host of “Portside” on Portsmouth Community Radio, WSCA-LP 106.1 FM. Excerpts are reprinted here.

Burt Cohen: What’s been called for on Tuesday night, Jan. 31, is to bring out the noise. “In a cacophony of sound, we will drown out his address with music: from drums to violins, from hip hop and classical; and with noise: banging pots and ringing church bells, sounding car horns and lifting our voices.” This is something that each individual has the power to do. Critics have said this isn’t really dignified. Why don’t we just let the president have his say and then we have our say? What’s wrong with that approach?
Deborah Sweet: Well, the president is going to have his say. He has 100 percent access to news media at any time, particularly in this country. What’s not seen by people of the world and people of this country is regular serious cogent opposition, and particularly what’s not heard is the demand that he step down. In last couple of weeks you’re beginning to hear this, you’re beginning to see people even in Congress raise the idea of impeachment. … You’re seeing different congresspeople beginning to speak to the nature of his offenses being impeachable. What appeared unlikely last July when we raised this idea to people—that you’d have a movement demanding the president step down—is now increasingly more realistic and more possible. This administration is in real trouble. They have committed impeachable acts. … The lesson I draw out of the ’70s that is applicable to now is that in the fall of 1972, Richard Nixon had the biggest lopsided election victory in this country’s history. George McGovern got only one state. Less than two years later, there’s the picture of Nixon waving from the Air Force helicopter as he’s leaving in disgrace. That is a picture we can think about at this point….
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DS: We’ve talked about the fascist direction that Bush and his regime are taking the country, and even a year ago there were people who would say, “Oh, you can’t use the F word, it’s way to extreme, you’re going too far, they haven’t put people in death camps yet, they haven’t rounded people up.” And even a year ago you had to answer, “Wait, they detained 27,000 people of Arab, Muslim and South Asian descent right after 9/11.” Out of that, I think there were only two criminal prosecutions of anything related to domestic terrorism. They did round some people up on the basis of immigration violations, but they created a hysteria in this country by doing that.

BC: Fascism as far as I know it is concentration of wealth and power and authority in fewer and fewer hands, and it requires kind of a police state. And one of the things that has shocked people, even people that may have voted for Bush, was the revelation that Bush was angry that truth was revealed about this NSA having vast spying on who knows how many Americans. This whole idea of having big brother watching us is not a conservative American tradition at all, and it is edging on fascism. I would challenge anyone to suggest that “approaching fascism” is too strong a description to have right now. And this is not the American way. … Huey Long, one of my favorite politicians from the 1930s, said that when fascism comes to America, it will call itself Americanism, it will call itself democracy, but it will be fascism. …
DS: When (Bush) was caught on this (NSA spying), apparently he tried to talk the (New York) Times out of releasing story. When they came out with it anyway and he was caught, he didn’t react with any sort of regret at all. What he said was “I did it, I will continue to do it.” And you have even people in the administration, one of the special court, the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court judges resigned. The speculation I’ve heard is that this had to do with the fact that they began spying on the judges from private law firms who had, on a volunteer basis, been trying to provide some sort of legal representation for detainees at Guantanamo. Bush began spying on them, which set off some alarm bells. And the interesting thing is that this FISA court has I think only turned down requests for warrants four times since 9/11, after granting 15,000 warrants. For Bush to say we would not even go through the trouble of going through this court to get a warrant is really astounding. For a lot of the people who really believe in the rule of law in this country and think that this society should actually reflect the principles under which the Constitution and the Bill of Rights was written, I think that’s one of the openings we have to look at right now. 

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BC: If we were successful in pushing Bush out, wouldn’t that put Cheney in?
DS: We really need to repudiate this whole program. I don’t think we’re talking about a President Cheney. … We need a repudiation of this whole direction and the people who are responsible for authoring it, which certainly in this case are Cheney and Rumsfeld.

BC: There’s this push for a theocracy, also plutocracy, a government of, by and for the exceptionally rich and powerful and that is not the intention of the founders of this country. One of the traditions of this country is civil disobedience. It may not make it into history books that much, but the action that is being talked about on Jan. 31, is it civil disobedience?
DS: We’re calling for loud public protest, and there’s no particular act of civil disobedience planned for that. We’re standing on our First Amendment rights to make political protest. We’re encouraging people to seek permits where they’re necessary for public gatherings. We want to create an atmosphere where everyone from children to grandparents and disabled people, everyone will be able to come out and participate in this. On the other hand, there’s certainly a time for civil disobedience, time for a real determination. Every major movement for social change in this country and for social justice featured acts of civil disobedience and large protests, real resistance to what was going on. One of my favorite lines in our call, and I think this speaks to the seriousness of what we’re up against, is that people who steal elections and believe they’re on a mission from God will not go without a fight. I don’t think it’s a matter of merely raising a demand and presenting the truth, whether that’s in the halls of Congress or on the streets, and thinking that they will shrink away from where they have been relentlessly going, but I do think there’s a vulnerability in the hubris they’ve displayed and direction they’ve gone that leaves a huge opening for millions and millions of people to come now and take independent political action.

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BC: How will success be measured?
DS: I think part of the measurement will be, is this a major news story that night and the next day, is the world hearing about this? There’s also the growth of the effort—is this getting the Bush regime to step down?

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