16 October 2003
George W Bush is coming to London in November.
His visit is a provocation to every anti-war activist, anti-capitalist and trade unionist in the country. He expects to receive a standing ovation from the House of Commons to boost his ratings back home. Like the Roman Emperor he thinks he is, he hopes for a triumphalist tour of his UK outpost.
Let's send him packing back to the US on a wave of revolt and revulsion.
Staying at Buckingham Palace, toasted and applauded at banquets, he will arrive Wednesday 19 November and leave on the 21st after a three day junket.
Bush is an all-round right winger. There's not a cause he hasn't trampled on, so every progressive organisation in Britain should unite to give him a bashing.
Everyone will want to protest against Bush's wars and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq. He is responsible for 1,000 Iraqi civilian deaths a week - and that's after the end of the aerial and land bombardment in which thousands perished.
And all this so the US oil companies like Halliburton could control the second largest oil reserves in the world. Another company from the Bush stable, Bechtel, is now profiting from the "reconstruction" after arms manufacturers made a bomb out of the destruction of Iraq.
Hundreds of prisoners of war in Afghanistan have been executed in cold blood. Others sit, hooded in cages in Guantanamo Bay. Around the world, POWs are subjected to "Torture-lite", as one CIA agent called it. Even the US Army imam and Arabic translator attached to prisoners in Camp X-Ray have been charged with treason.
The Bush administration is now developing battlefield nukes and ripping up anti-ballistic missile conventions in order to build their Star Wars defence shield, using bases in Britain such as Fylingdales. When it's not firing them off itself, the USA is the biggest gun dealer around - no regime too dodgy, no dictator too unsavoury - as Bush's pet project Plan Colombia shows.
Dubya launched the War on Terror as a "crusade" - implicitly defining Islam as the enemy. This also meant a war at home on civil liberties.
The chillingly-titled "Department of Homeland Security" has rounded up and disappeared 2,000 US citizens of Muslim or Arab background.
This kind of racism isn't surprising of course - the Thief in Chief got "elected" due to his brother Jeb, governor of Florida, denying the right to vote of up to 100,000 black voters (Bush won the state, and the Presidency, with a mere 537 votes).
In October 2001 Bush forced West Coast dockers back to work on the pretext that their strike threatened national security. Bush has outlawed more strikes than any previous US president. Yet the bosses are free to cut wages and kill jobs - even during the economic "recovery". And just as Iraqis and Afghans have been exposed to full-scale privatisation of services, so too have US workers.
Unable to convince the United Nations Security Council to back his conquest of Iraq, Bush went ahead anyway, declaring France's use of its veto "unreasonable. Then when Israel declared it would assassinate Yasser Arafat, the elected president of the Palestinians, Bush's man vetoed a UN resolution condemning the policy.
Bush also ripped up the Kyoto agreement on global warming, because his friends and family in the oil business can continue to burn a hole in the stratosphere.
He has imposed his "family values" on the third world's poor by banning US aid to family planning organisations, forcing charities to close clinics and let go doctors. Now he is trying to block the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, another treaty his right-wing cronies cannot stomach.
George Bush represents the most rapacious elements of imperialist capitalism on the planet. Building the broadest, fighting alliance against Bush's visit is not anti-American. It's an act of solidarity with American workers, women, blacks and youth!
Millions in Britain simply see Bush as the face of US superpower arrogance (and ignorance) and would love to see him knocked down a peg or two. It is the "special relationship", the partnership of the US and UK governments, that represents the real "axis of evil".
Every city and town needs to set up Stop Bush committees to build mass action against him. There will be local protests up and down the country, with demonstrations and people's tribunals to raise awareness of Bush's crimes. Coaches will no doubt travel to London for a national demonstration and day of action.
We want tens of thousands lining the streets to greet Bush and Blair whenever they attempt to take to the streets.
To build it as big as possible, we need to mobilise on the same scale, and in the same way as we did for the day war broke out - Day X. Because Bush's visit falls during the week, we will need to organise strikes and walkouts.
This sort of direct action also punches a hole through the media blackout and increases the effect of the protest. Remember how the school strikes forced the media to cover the anti-war protests in March. This time, let's make sure they're not alone - unionised workers and college students should join the schoolkids on the streets!
Anti-war trade union leaders from Billy Hayes to Bob Crow should take the lead, calling strikes and vowing to defend anyone who is victimised for taking action. After all, Bush is a privatiser and a union-buster. Bush IS a trade union issue.
And if Bush comes to speak at the House of Commons, the anti-war MPs should walk out or disrupt parliament. This vote-stealer, from Florida to Iraq, has no place in any democratic institution, even parliament.
We want an army of Bush whackers out on the streets. A billion television sets around the world will be tuned in to watch his tour of London. News reporters from around the world expect to run the story that Britain, America's one true friend, welcomes war hero Bush.
Let's make sure that every speech, every soundbite and media staged event is ruined by a background noise of boos, drums and the chants of "Down with Bush, down with Blair, regime change everywhere!".
Instead of the flag-waving, greet Bush with placards, banners and burning Stars-and-Stripes and Union Jacks instead. Tens of thousands of well-prepared and angry protestors can really turn the tone of this state visit around, and deal a real blow to the "special relationship".
We can show the American people watching in the bars, schools and homes - most of whom despise their president - that Bush can't even step foot in Britain without arousing hatred. We can show them that the real "special relationship" is between the anti-war and anti-capitalist millions around the world. We can show them that another world is possible.
Let's do it!
