For the past several months, the Bay Area (like other left-leaning regions around the country) has been plastered with stickers, signs and posters advertising a movement called "
The World Can't Wait," which was to have its grand unveiling on November 2, 2005, the one-year anniversary of Bush's election (or non-election, depending on whom you ask).
Though it was promoted as a mainstream uprising to toss Bush out of office, many of the people I observed handing out flyers advertising the November 2 rally were well-known members of the local chapter of
The Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), a cultish political group devoted to the teachings of Chairman Mao.
Sure enough, several weeks ago
bloggers began pointing out the connection, and it was even noted
on Wikipedia that
"The World Can't Wait" (WCW) was founded by the RCP. After the RCP
started promoting WCW on its own Web site, the cat was out of the bag; even the
San Francisco Chronicle (perhaps stung by criticisms of their failure to fully divulge the nature of earlier anti-war protests) had no choice but to
join the chorus of outlets acknowledging that WCW was nothing more than a front for the RCP.
I was ready to write off WCW as a fringe political fantasy with delusions of grandeur, when I noticed that its
official list of endorsers included celebrities such as
Cindy Sheehan, Gore Vidal, Ed Asner, Alice Walker, Harold Pinter, Eve Ensler, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Rickie Lee Jones, Casey Kasem, Ron Kovic, Studs Terkel, Cornel West, and Howard Zinn; local politicians such as
Tom Ammiano and Chris Daly (San Francisco Board of Supervisors), and
Mark Leno (California Assemblyman); activist groups such as ANSWER and Code Pink; and many others.
Were all of these people aware that they were endorsing a Maoist group's call for revolution? Or do they just sign whatever politically correct petition that arrives in their In box, without bothering to research it?
November 2 arrived. I decided to find out.
It was already crowded when I showed up. The atmosphere of Bush-hatred was almost palpable.
People began to gather in front of San Francisco's City Hall to hear the scheduled speakers. About
two or three thousand people were there (according to later estimates, which seemed fairly accurate to me). With some time to spare before the speeches, I strolled around the plaza. First stop was the booth of the event's organizers, the Revolutionary Communist Party.
True to form, they were hawking a variety of Maoist tracts.
(Ryan's Note: I've always wanted to walk up to one of these setups and just start picking up stuff and walking off with it. When they complain, yell loudly about how they are running-dog capitalists and betraying the true spirit of Lenin and Marx. 
)
They even had copies of Mao's famous "Little Red Book" for the uninitiated. It really did seem like they were earnestly trying to bring back Mao-worship and
make it a mainstream political movement in the United States.
Of course, it's not just about Mao. It's about having a revolution of "real" communism as opposed to the watered-down neo-socialism offered by most Western governments.
Under a true communist system, everyone is well-fed.
The iconic Ernesto "Che" Guevara was more than just a fashion statement at this rally. Here, his politics mattered -- not his chic trendiness.
Flaming Che!
But for most people at the rally, Chairman Mao was the last thing on their minds. The focus was on one person and one person only: George W. Bush. And -- to put it mildly -- he was not a popular guy.
A typical "World Can't Wait"er.
Photoshop gone wild!
In case any of the other messages were too subtle for you, this one boils the entire anti-Bush movement down to three simple words.
There were actually
three main themes at the rally:
1. Let's have a Maoist/Communist revolution;
2. George Bush is Hitler and should be tossed out and/or killed; and
3. 9/11 was a government plot by the Bush cabal.
In fact, the "9/11 was a political ruse" booth was far more popular than the Chairman Mao booth.
On offer was a panoply of 9/11 conspiracy theories.
(Ryan's Note: DAMN!!! $15, $20, and $25 for horse s**t in a box?!?! I need to make myself a 9-11 conspiracy movie for the looney toons to buy and make myself rich off of their gullibility!! Unbelievable that people pay for that pap...)
The sale of 9/11-was-fake paraphernalia has become an economic sector all by itself.
Everyone's looking forward to the next invasion. Will it be Syria? Or Iran? Whoever it is -- hands off!
The RCP had
spent the morning rounding up truant students at local high schools and as a result a substantial portion of the crowd were teenagers.
As the picture above shows, the RCP folks printed vast numbers of protest signs -- far more than were needed --
(Ryan's Note: So where, oh, where is the RCP's money for all this coming from? Our old friends Russia and China perhaps?) so most people simply carried the preprinted signs that were stacked up for the taking. But in the sea of green there were still plenty of homemade political sentiments. Such as...
This one deserves a close-up.
One day some clever collector is going to make a fortune curating a gallery exhibit of "Protest Outsider Art."
Some signs are just too clever for their own good.
Someone came on stage and announced that the speeches were about to begin. Cindy Sheehan herself was the keynote speaker! Also scheduled were Stephen and Virginia Pearcy and various local politicians. I scampered up to the stage area to catch all the action. Come with me!
San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi kicked off the event with a rousing speech about revolution (QuickTime mpeg video, 1.2mb):
(Clicking on the link above -- and on all the similar links below -- will open a QuickTime video file in a new window. Below each link is an exact transcription of the speaker's words.)
Ross Mirkarimi:
"Revolution is in the air!
...
We need to commit to a revolution now!"
[Applause.] (Ryan's Note: And this is a mainstream SanFran politician!!)
The crowd was loving it.
Click here to see an audience member reacting to the speakers' exhortations (QuickTime mpeg video, .5mb).
One of the
leaders of the Revolutionary Communist Party tried to get the crowd on board with his Maoist program,
then was congratulated by his pal Cindy Sheehan (QuickTime mpeg video, 6.7mb):
Revolutionary Communist Party leader:
"And we stand for revolution. When a people themselves bring into being and create a new society and a new state which would put the interests of the vast majority of people at the foundation of everything it stands for, and everything it does. We have the understanding, we have the strategy and we have the leadership, the chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, Bob Avakian, to get us there, and we invite everyone to engage with us on this.
...
As our paper, Revolution, so aptly puts it: Conservative, my ass! These people are Nazis!
(Ryan's Note: One must first ignore that these neo-commies and the Nazis they hate are close ideological brothers but, I find it interesting how there is such similarity to ever present Russian "anti-fascism" and these RCP-ers touting the same "anti-fascism". Makes one wonder where they get their talking points. The Kremlin perhaps?)
...
... making this day the beginning of the end of this justly hated regime. The future is unwritten. Which one we get is up to us."
[Leaves stage, is greeted by Cindy Sheehan.]
You may have noticed in the previous video a strange girl in the audience, stumbling around like a zombie in front of the stage. I'm not sure who she was (and no, she's not me!), but she heckled almost every speaker and behaved very bizarrely throughout the entire event. I don't think it was an act.
You can see some of her antics here (QuickTime mpeg video, 2.1mb).
While waiting for her turn to go onstage, Cindy worked the crowd and posed for souvenir snapshots with her fans.
The strange thing about her (well, one of the many strange things about her) is that she never seems to stop smiling.
Next up was
another San Francisco Supervisor,
Chris Daly, who was aware of the growing characterization of the World Can't Wait movement as an extremist group, and
who counter-attacked by positioning it as mainstream (QuickTime mpeg video, 2.8mb):
Chris Daly:
"There are some who've criticized The World Can't Wait/Drive Out the Bush Regime effort by saying this is just another gathering of leftists. Well, most of us here may be leftists, but what they didn't tell ya is that a majority of San Franciscans and increasingly a majority of people across the country have been adopting the position espoused by leftists for some time now."
Stephen and Virginia Pearcy were also on hand to give a speech about their career as avant-garde artists -- having first gained notoriety by
hanging an effigy of a US soldier with an upside-down American flag in front of their former Sacramento home (and with an Iraqi flag in the window), pissing off their neighbors and a local talk-radio host; and then by managing to get their
amateurish painting of the United States in a toilet displayed in a state government building in Sacramento. Both of these incidents caused a media firestorm, and the Pearcys suddenly found themselves as liberal celebrities. Unfortunately, Stephen did not seem comfortable with public speaking, and his speech was monotonous and mostly inaudible (at least to me).
His young wife Virginia seemed to bathe in the limelight; she was ecstatic when fans asked for her autograph.
A baseball-cap-wearing WCW organizer
gave a fiery and rather hyperbolic speech about the coming end of the world if we don't kick Bush out and soon. Also notice how the number of World Can't Wait protesters swells from "thousands" to "millions" in mid-sentence (QuickTime mpeg video, 3.0mb):
WCW organizer with baseball cap:
"We have accepted the reality that we will be forced into fascism (Ryan's Note: There's that "f" word again!) if we don't do something right now! We have accepted the reality that the planet will be destroyed if we don't do something right now. But most importantly, we have accepted the reality that when thousands of people -- millions of people -- across the country gather in the streets on a Wednesday afternoon to protest the illegitimate president, we are officially rejecting business as usual!"
The WCW people then made a big dramatic production of unveiling their new slogan, which they obviously had spent countless hours in committee meetings and struggle sessions developing. The crowd, unfortunately, didn't appreciate the significance of the unveiling (nor did I), and it was quickly rolled up and forgotten.
Petite firebrand and
professional radical Medea Benjamin put her squeaky voice to use calling for Bush's impeachment. (QuickTime mpeg video, 2.7mb):
Medea Benjamin:
"And it is very nice that Lewis Libby has been indicted, but that is the bottom of the barrel. We want to go to the top. We want to see the -- not the indictment -- we want to see the impeachment of George Bush, and we will not stop until we get there. Power to the people! The world can't wait! Drive the Bush regime out!"
And FINALLY, after far too many warm-up acts, it was time for the Cindy Show!
She officially "went over to the other side" by
insisting that none of the people killed in Iraq are terrorists. When she was done, she hugged various RCP members. Notice how the only time her smile disappeared all day was the moment her speech was over, and she realized that she was no longer going to be the center of attention. (QuickTime mpeg video, 11.3mb):
WCW organizer:
We do stand with Cindy. Please, please, please [...long dramatic pause...] show your support for one of the most amazing women and definitely the mother of the new peace movement: Cindy Sheehan!
[Wild applause as Cindy takes stage.]
...
Cindy Sheehan:
The people that are being killed in Iraq are not terrorists. They're citizens of Iraq, they're members of the human race. They're our brothers and sisters. And last year, I worked really hard to defeat George Bush. But you know what? He refuses to be defeated, because if he loses, he cheats. And so he cheated himself into a second term. And I wrote a letter on April -- I mean November 4th. You know, I took a day off -- I was very devastated, very depressed....
...
Resist, stand up, speak out, and uh, we're going to Camp Casey on Thanksgiving: Join us! Thank you. I love you.
[Hugs WCW organizer.]
Afterwards, Stephen,
Cindy and Medea got all friendly with the Revolutionary Communist Party bigwigs.
Once the speechifying was over, everyone headed off for a much-anticipated march through San Francisco's downtown.
The action was just getting started!
Now that Cindy Sheehan was done eradicating whatever was left of her credibility, it was time to unfurl the Che banners and march!
The RCP handlers herded everyone off on a raucous roundtrip through downtown.
A clique of post-punk/post-feminist protest cuties paused to put the finishing touches on their outfits. Looking at those mysterious eyes, one has to wonder: maybe the Islamic veil isn't such a bad fashion concept after all.
Some people, on the other hand, still need a few pointers on how to make a protest mask that doesn't look like a prop from a slasher flick.
The logo of the Revolutionary Communist Party was on prominent display. (
The "PCR" part is their acronym in Spanish -- got to be multicultural, doncha know.)
Annotation for the confused: "You" = Bush and his supporters; "that piece of shit flag" = the United States flag; "They" = the 9/11 attackers; "We" = America; " 'em " = downtrodden peoples of the world. Got it?
I spotted several people in the crowd looking at copies of
Revolution, the RCP newspaper.
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow...
Soon we arrived at the offices of the
San Francisco Chronicle. The police guarding the entrance ran to investigate a diversionary ruckus, so that someone who was standing right behind me could...
...throw a Molotov cocktail at the building.
The police were either very unimpressed, or stunned -- it was hard to tell which.
Luckily, it had bounced off the building and landed on the sidewalk, where there was nothing flammable to catch fire.
After a short time, the flames were extinguished.
Chronicle staffers heard the commotion but couldn't get a good view out the window.
However, their rooftop security cameras caught the flames on film, so they
featured stills from the video in their coverage of the march. The burn mark above the entrance is where the Molotov cocktail struck the building before landing on the sidewalk.
After that incident, the police took no further chances: rows upon rows of them lined both sides of the march to prevent any more misbehavior.
Many of the marchers really and truly were hoping that a revolution would start right then and there. But no one quite knew how to kick-start it. Hmmm...the Molotov cocktail trick didn't work. Now what?
An enthusiatic die-in also failed to topple the Bush regime, to everyone's bewilderment.
Ah, maybe
this guy has come up with a workable plan.
Well, revolution or no revolution, the march must go on.
People pulled their masks up, ready for action. But there were just too many cops.
Frustrated that the march was nearing its end with no eruption of violence, a group of youngsters sat down in the middle of the street and refused to budge until they were arrested.
The police were more than happy to oblige. (As the linked article notes, they also arrested someone who was most likely the Molotov cocktail-thrower.)
And so we come to the end of a long revolutionary day. Farewell, comrade.
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Coverage of World Can't Wait events on other sites:
New York
Seattle
More Seattle
Photos of the SF arrests
World Can't Wait's own coverage of rallies in several cities
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE: Several sites
are reporting that
.
Who Are These Anti-War/Anti-Bush Activists?
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