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Chicago
VIDEO of Chicago Action on January 31
Chicago: In driving snow and 12 below wind chill, about 65
people converged on the State of Illinois Building Plaza at 12 noon. Vets for
Peace and Code Pink from Indiana were the
first to arrive, followed by students from DePaul
University, Columbia
College, and Mother McCauley
High School who marched
in chanting and agitating. Students from the Chicago School of Psychology, Loyola University,
Northeastern Illinois
University, and University
of Illinois at Chicago also were present. World Can’t Wait
members from Chicago and Oak Park, Revolutionary Communist Party, and
the No War on Iran Coalition were there as well.
bout 40 people wore the orange jumpsuits (mostly students) while others walked
along with them. But the most important aspect of this action was the strong
and spirited presence of students and their determination to break from the
politics of the possible and bring to a halt the crime of torture and other
outrages of the Bush Regime. High school students led the way, reenacting the
painful positions to which Guantanamo
detainees are subjected and agitating to passersby about the outrages committed
in our name–and threatening to everything we’d like to see in this world.
We marched through the sidewalks of downtown Chicago, where we
received overwhelmingly positive responses from people shopping, on their lunch
breaks, and tourists doing some walking around. Many people took the fliers and
wanted to know who we were. Along the way, march monitors and a couple of the
students acted as “Counter Terrorism Unit” (the term the television
show “24” uses) personnel and gruffly and aggressively told those in orange
jumpsuits to get to their knees. When the detainees in orange fell to their
knees, the CTU would grab one of the detainees and performed a water boarding
demonstration while someone on the speaker described what water boarding was
and that our government was torturing people and using water boarding in our
name. Many people looked on as they walked by and would stop to get fliers.
But the most dramatic response we got was when we
approached the Barnes and Nobel bookstore at State and Jackson
streets which is part of DePaul
University. Many people
entering and exiting the building stopped as soon as they saw the orange jump
suited people on their knees and listened and watched solemnly as a detainee
was water boarded. Some people had horrified looks upon their faces. After a
certain point, security from DePaul
University told the cops
that they no longer wanted us on their property so we had to move on.
We then marched to the Federal
Building, where a Vietnam vet
gave a moving shout out to the high school and college students, drawing
parallels to the White Rose of Germany and calling on this generation to change
history. From there, we proceeded down Clark Street to another federal building
that houses FEMA offices. Here, many who participated in this action spoke very
eloquently to the outrages of the Bush Regime that are carried out by the FEMA
offices, especially the responsibility of this regime for the deaths of
thousands in New Orleans, the destruction of their homes and the forced
dispersal of their families. This is also local headquarters for ICE,
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as the Department of Homeland
Security. A Columbia
College student who
organized the waterboarding demonstration explained the new “Violent
Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention” bill being spearheaded
by the Democrats, once again showing that it is on us to change this fascist
direction–no saviors from this Democratic Party!
Houston
At the University of Houston, we presented a waterboarding action at the campus. Showing what waterboarding looks like had a tremendous impact on students. Many felt the waterboarding was intense, though there were students who started laughing at first and made fun of the phrases that were being yelled at the supposed detainee. However, we had a student say that watching the whole thing hurt her heart. I think that more guerilla theater and more actions of this nature are definitely needed.
At Bellaire High School, Some students decided to poster the Call of The World Can’t Wait all over their high school, while others passed out hundreds of copies of the call. A few other groups decided to wear orange jumpsuits that said “No Torture!” Even more students wore orange and orange armbands. Two women took around orange crepe paper, decorating their school, from trees to lockers, creating an atmosphere of dissent and resistance.
Our local Pacifica radio station flew a “No Torture” banner in front of their building.
New York City
New York City: Protesters gathered in front of the CNN offices at the TimeWarner Building, amid heavy police presence. Professional actors did a demonstration of waterboarding, which a crowd stopped to watch. An impromptu speakout by one of the actors, an activist from the Unitarian Universalist church, and a Ron Paul supporter was led by Debra Sweet. Many people stopped to say they didn’t know what waterboarding was, or that they had heard something on the news about Mukasey not identifying it as torture.
40 people took off on a march to Fox News, and then to the Armed Forces Recruiting Office at Times Square, where the doors were locked and closed. Several high school students sat in front of the doors. The last stop was at a corner of Bryant Park, across from the former Verizon Headquarters, where we talked to passersby about torture adn the “Protect America Act” expanding the powers of the federal government to surveil citizens’ email and phone calls.
Seattle: at ICE Headquarters, part of Homeland Security
We gathered outside of Homeland security with 30 people. The youth ecided that they were going to try and block the entrance in light of stopping usiness as usual. They weren’t able to get into the building because the police immediately responded to their approach and formed a line. It was decided that they ould just sit (non-violently) in front of homeland security wearing orange, hanting, and forcing the police to remain. There was some sort of immigration rientation happening inside and a line of immagrants formed out of the door. At irst all the immagrants weren’t interested in what we were doing and didn’t have any unity. After a short wile after hearing us speak out as to why we were there and what we ere trying to accomplish there was obvious unity within the crowd. which I think s excellent considering it was right outside of the homeland security immigration nd citizenship office.
A young organizer writes, “I didn’t hear once about “only one more year of bush” all the demonstrators I alked to understood the urgency of our situation. The immagrants who we were able o talk to also understood the urgency of our situation. I think that if we had een anywhere else (besides a Federal Immigration office) that we would have had a etter response from the people there.”
BERKELEY CA:
Two Days in a Row: Berkeley Marine Recruiters Shut Down
World Can’t Wait calls for “no business as usual”
Three protesters arrested by forty police in riot formation SEE Feb 1 REPORT HERE
New York Times article Berkeley Finds a Way to Make War Politics Local
KPFA Radio interview with SF Leadership High School Students
Photos: http://sfbaycantwait.org/pix/1-31-08.html
Video of Friday February 1 continued action at Marine Recruting Center in Berkeley
Thursday January 31: Is it that every time the Bay Area WCW chapter
calls for a protest we get a downpour? Could it be global warming? More
reason to drive out the Bush Regime and reverse their whole
anti-science oil-fueled agenda!
Today in Berkeley, in a freezing rain, close to 80 people – about
40 at any given time – turned out to SHUT DOWN the controversial Marine
Corps recruiting station. We were a combination of young students,
older Berkeley activists, World Can’t Wait activists and supporters,
Code Pink womyn, anti-war veterans, and – thanks to the National
Lawyers Guild – several dedicated legal observers, and many other
friends.
When we showed up at 3PM, as we had anticipated, the recruiters had
already cleared out early and left. However, we pledged we would come
right back in the morning and SHUT IT DOWN again. We marched up and
down the block chanting: “SHUT IT DOWN, SHUT IT DOWN — DRIVE OUT THE
BUSH REGIME! SHUT IT DOWN, SHUT IT DOWN — SHUT DOWN THE WAR MACHINE!”
Young people took turns on the bullhorn about why they had come out to
protest. We talked about torture and the criminal and immoral nature of
the war that these recruiters were sucking youth into. We asked the
crowd, “Are Obama or Hillary talking about withdrawing immediately from
Iraq, getting out of Afghanistan, stopping torture, or the Patriot Act,
or the Military Commissions Act?” “No!” they shouted back. “Who’s gonna
bring all that to a stop?” “We are!”
There were news reporters and some TV cameras. All kinds of motorists honked and waved in support of the very orange,
very wet protesters especially once they had begun to spill out into
the street. Right at 3PM, Berkeley City Councilman Maxwell Anderson
joined the rally and spoke powerfully to the reporters (see below for
the story of the Berkeley City Council’s vote to tell the Marines to
get out of Berkeley) about the righteousness of this demonstration –
speaking out against the recruiters. At 4PM as promised, we did a
waterboarding demonstration right out in the middle of the street, in
front of the Marines station. With protestors circled around, many
passing drivers were able to see the “prisoner” being waterboarded.
Then, many people took part in a dramatic “CIA TORTURE TAPE
DEMOLITION.” Next to a big sign explaining, “CIA TORTURE TAPES HERE”,
jumpsuited “prisoners” and students unreeled huge tangled piles of mock
CIA torture videotapes and began stringing it back and forth out into
the street, as they wrapped themselves in the tape, dancing, and
chanting “destruction of evidence!”
It was a highly spirited day, despite the downpour clearly having
kept more people from coming out. People had a lot to say, and stayed
out for several hours. And since we were all soaking wet, we had
nothing to lose! Several speakers also pointed out that the “weather”
is much worse in the freezing dungeons of Baghram prison, or in
Baghdad, or Kabul where “rain” might take the form of laser guided U.S.
bombs and missiles.
We were energized by a significant number of young people from schools
all over the Bay Area. There were college students from SF State, UC
Berkeley, Laney College in Oakland, Berkeley City College, and UC Santa
Cruz. 4 students showed up from Leadership High School in San
Francisco, a couple from SOTA (School of the Arts) and Urban in S.F.,
and several from Berkeley High. Since a group of right-wing youth (SF
State college republicans and pro-war Berkeley High students) showed up
to try and heckle us and defend the torture state, WCW youth had an
opportunity to take on their arguments and engage this brand of
arrogant chauvinism head-on.
We were also energized by some welcome news that just the day
before, the Berkeley City Council had approved a resolution declaring
the recruiters “Unwelcome” in Berkeley. The City Council also voted to
grant Code Pink a permanent sound permit to protest the recruiters and
a permanent parking space right in front of the station! For the
Oakland Tribune story about this resolution, go here:
http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_8127493
Washington DC
We took out January 31st and Wear and display Orange to a couple high schools in DC. One was Art-focused,where we got an overwhelmingly receptive hearing fromstudents. We also heard that students there had walkedout in large numbers on September 20th, as tens ofthousands converged in Jena, Louisiana, in support ofthe Jena 6.
The other high school was more normal, with a large proportion of Black students. The primary response to exposure of the direction the Bush regime is taking the country and the world was thoughtful.
We have our chapter meetings at the Potter’s House, a religious restaurant/coffeehouse; they have had their own “No Torture” banner hanging in front for quite a while. At our last meeting where we had our banners on along, and someone from an Amnesty International meeting there got one to hang himself.
On the 31st we took the No Torture banner with orange jump suits to an armed forces recruiting station in a neighborhood. A cop car was there when we arrived, oved to near where we were unloading with his lights flashing, then parked just down the street. We tookout our flyers to people waiting for the bus and assing by. Shortly after 2 pm the metal shutters on he recruiting station came down and they closed,though the sign on the door displayed the hours as “9 to 6”.
Los Angeles CA
At UCLA number of students came through the busy thoroughfare at Bruin Walk to pick up banners that said “Stop Torture” featuring artist Banksy’s image of a Guantanamo detainee. These are students who do not see an alternative in the Democrats, and took up the World Can’t Wait’s call to action. Ten banners were dropped throughout the campus at different points in the day. A few days before, a free alternative magazine “Campus Circle” published an article and photo of the January 11 waterboarding demonstration that was conducted at UCLA.
At noon, 20 people gathered in front of the ICE and Homeland Security offices, including two high school students, immigrants (one of whom had witnessed ICE raids in her neighborhood), youth with Revolution newspaper, and others. Orange banners read “No Attacks on Immigrants, No Ataques a los Inmigrantes” and “Stop Torture”. People going to lunch and about their business at the federal building area took flyers and orange flagging tape. We spoke to people about these attacks being part of the bush agenda and had much agreement, especially among the immigrants. We then moved in procession along with two orange jumpsuited “detainees” and an indigenous “danzante” with plumed headdress to Plaza Olvera, considered the birthplace of Los Angeles near a church that is part of the new sanctuary movement.
When the procession crossed the freeway overpass, we held our banners for about 10 minutes and got lots of honks, especially from the big rigs that were passing under us. As we approached the tall Metropolitan Detention Center, where many of those raided get processed and sometimes are deliberately “lost” in the main prison population, we stopped at the corner and tilted our banners so that those inside the cells could see and hear us as we spoke on the bullhorn about January 31st. The vast majority of
inmates/detainees in Metro Detention Center are black and brown youth and adult males. After a short while, from the narrow windows we heard tapping from some cells that got louder as we kept agitating about torture, unlawful detentions, deportations, and police brutality. We finally marched in front of the Metro Detention Center, where we demanded a stop to raids, torture, and called to drive out the Bush Regime! Personal accounts and stories from a recent report of human rights abuses against immigrants were read. The level of abuse and terror these stories relay surprised and angered many of us who were not aware of the depth of brutality and disdain towards immigrants.
At 5:00 pm a wild, colorful and cacophonous display rose up from the
streets of Hollywood in front of the Kodak theatre where the debate, or
rather, show of unity between Hillary and Obama was taking place
inside. Outside, the people chanted and sweated their outrage about no
more war, torture, racism, theocracy, women’s right to choose, attacks
on immigrants, Jesus loves you and impeach the criminals! There were
supporters of Obama, Hillary, Ron Paul, Edwards and Kucinich, anti-war
demonstrators, agitators for impeachment, Revolution Newspaper sellers,
CODEPINK and the World Can’t Wait. There were young and old, children
and babes in strollers. There were guitar players, artists, and actors
dressed up as Elvis from the Hollywood Wax Museum, all cavorting on the
sidewalks and competing for the attention of passersby and each other.
It was a wild and woolly scene, as police tried unsuccessfully to hold
back the crowd with bicycles, dogs and a general stance of intimidating
stares. A group of WCW activists focused on the issue of torture, with
some dressed in orange jumpsuits, and others displaying the “No
Torture” banners. Several artists dramatized a waterboarding in a
traditional Japanese art form, and hung a clothesline of orange
jumpsuits. A high school student who signed up with us recently and is
just learning about waterboarding, and the Military Commissions Act
brought 3 friends. They were full of excitement when they arrived. All
4 bought the orange bandanas and took off into the crowd to distribute
the orange flag tape. They had been part of walk-outs during the time
of the immigrant upsurge.
Several times the discussion
erupted into lively debate, especially when the Obama & Clinton
supporters were challenged around the stands of their candidates. Some
Obama supporters, the majority of the crowd, insisted that though he
may not be everything they want, he represents change and hope. (We
lacked some good chants that would capture our slogan “Your government
does not want what we want and the Democratic nominee of 2008 does not
speak for us…We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”) There were
some people who were really grappling with what to do. Two women spoke
to how they had set their hopes on Kucinich and Edwards, but now they
are no longer candidates – and they both disliked Obama and Clinton.
They spoke to how the media is framing the choices, and the debate, and
we talked about resistance, massive resistance, and how the Declare It
Now campaign unleashes that, but also in a deeper way how decisions are
made as to who will rule based on larger interests of those that rule.
We also talked to other people who felt that Bush is over, and that we
should get real because someone is going to be president. After
discussion about how major change has been made in society through
daring to step outside of the electoral framework, some raised that
that was true and suggested that we should both vote and build
resistance.
Houston photos credited to Everett Taasevigen