September 7th organizing meetings will feature the following speakers:
(NY) Anurhada Baghwati is a member of IVAW (Iraq Veterans Against the War).
(NY) Father Luis Barrios is an associate professor in
psychology and ethnic studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City
University of New York and also an associate priest at St. Mary’s Episcopal
Church in Manhattan.
In addition, since 1997 he is a weekly columnist for El Diario La Prensa,
(DC) William Blum is an author of books such as
Killing Hope: U.S. Interventions in the Third World
since World War II, Rogue State- A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower, and
Freeing the World to Death- essays on the American empire.
(San Francisco) Larry Brinkin has been a gay activist for over
35 years. Currently, Brinkin is the Senior Contract
Compliance Officer for the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & HIV Division
of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission.
(NY) Elaine Brower is the mother of a U.S. Marine
serving in Falluja. She is a peace activist and leader of World Can’t Wait.
(NY) Kathleen Chalfant is a prominent stage and screen
actress. She was nominated for a Tony award for Best Actress in Tony Kushner’s
“Angels in America:
Millennium Approaches”. She has been on many television series such as Law
& Order and films such as Kinsey and Lackawanna Blues.
(San Francisco)
Chris Daly is on the Board of Supervisors for San Francisco, California.
(L.A.)
Jesse Diaz Jr. is a co-founder of the Los
Angeles March 25th Coalition, which organized a
historic demonstration of over one million for immigrant rights. He was
instrumental in initiating the call for the “Gran Paro Americano
2006” put out by the March 25th Coalition. This call led to a
nationwide boycott and political strike of immigrant workers in which millions
protested, went on strike, and walked out of school.
(San Francisco) Daniel Ellsberg is a former American military
analyst employed by the RAND
Corporation who precipitated a national uproar in 1971 when he released the
Pentagon Papers, the US
military’s account of activities during the Vietnam War, to The New York
Times. The release awakened the American people to how much they had been
deceived by their own government about the war.
(NY) Esther Kaplan is a radio and print journalist
and a community activist. She was acting senior editor at The Nation;
and writes for The Nation, The Village Voice, and other
publications. She is the author of With
God on Their Side.
(NY) Mark Crispin Miller is a professor of culture and
communications at NYU and author of Fooled
Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election & Why They’ll Steal the Next
One Too (Unless We Stop Them).
(NY) Chris
Owens is the son of House of Representative Major Owens, who was an early
signer of our Call. He is a Brooklyn native.
He has written and performed an anti-Iraq War song entitled “Love Is The Way”.
(DC) Malik
Rahim is a veteran
of the Black Panther Party in New
Orleans. For decades he has worked as an organizer of
public housing tenants both there and in San
Francisco.
(NY) Jean Rohe was the speaker at the New School
graduation before John McCain who decided to change her speech at the last
minute, to denounce the senator’s pro Iraq War sentiment.
(Chicago)
Jed Stone is one
of Illinois’ premier criminal defense
attorneys and a lecturer in the Department of Politics at the Lake Forest College,
where he also teaches a course in race and justice. He is a leader in the
movement against the Death Penalty.
(San Francisco)
Debra Sweet is the
National Coordinator of World Can’t Wait.
(NY) Jonathan Tasini is the president of the Economic
Future Group, a national consulting group. He is a strategist, organizer,
activist, commentator and writer, and former head of the National Writers
Union.
(NY) Sunsara Taylor is a writer for Revolution Newspaper
and is on the Advisory Board of The World Can’t Wait.
(San Francisco) Rev. Charles Tigard is Associate Pastor at Metropolitan Community
Church in San Francisco, California.
(Seattle) Bob Watada is the father of the U.S. Army First Lieutenant Ehren K. Watada, the first
commissioned officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq.
(DC) Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr. is the CEO of the Hip-Hop Caucus
(H2C) in Washington, D.C.
(DC) Kevin Zeese is currently president of Common
Sense for Drug Policy, an organization dedicated to reforming drug policy and
expanding harm reduction. He is also director of Democracy Rising, an
organization working to end the Iraq War.