Reports are coming in from protests around the country against the 5 year and counting war in Iraq.

Send yours to reports@worldcantwait.net

Thursday, March 20, 2008

March 19 San Francisco — War
protesters converged in San Francisco Wednesday for the five-year
anniversary of the war in Iraq and, from early morning to late evening,
rallied, marched, shouted, sang, danced and committed acts of civil
disobedience to demonstrate their opposition. Roughly 150 people were
arrested, many of them in front of the office of U.S. Sen. Dianne
Feinstein. Many of those arrested were participating in an afternoon
“die-in” – collapsing en masse to evoke deaths in Iraq – though a few
actively scuffled with police””.Wednesday’s biggest demonstration in
the city occurred in the evening. Answer coalition organizer Richard
Becker estimated the crowd of participants at 7,000″..Some yearned to
renew the hope of those early days, emboldened in part by an upcoming
presidential election that does not include the candidacy of George W.
Bush””.”There’s been a lot of despair, a lot of feelings that the
protest movement couldn’t do anything and a lot of complacency,” said
Venee Call-Ferrer, who protested on the first-year war anniversary but
hadn’t done so again since Wednesday evening.” :  Full San Francisco
Chronicle story here

Day of anti-war rage By John Simerman and Kristin Bender

SAN FRANCISCO — Police used a power saw
to cut a chain that was binding anti-war protesters together in San
Francisco and more than 140 people were arrested Wednesday during
rallies to mark the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Rest of story HERE.

14 photos from DC Protests

Pasadena CA  From the Pasadena Star-News

PASADENA – Local activists marked the
fifth anniversary of the Iraq war Wednesday with vigils in front of
government offices and protests against companies they say have
profited from the conflict 

Anti-War Protest in Norfolk, Virginia, Home of the US Navy 2nd Fleet on 3/19/08

Seattle WA  read entire story HERE 

Anti-war protester Emma Kaplan, left, of
Seattle plays tug of war with an employee of Fisher Plaza with caution
tape that protesters had wrapped around the building. The employee was
removing it when Kaplan tried to pull it away from him. (Scott Eklund /
P-I)

Modest anti-war protests  Some focus on efforts against recruitment

Last updated March 19, 2008 11:50 p.m. PT By MIKE BARBER AND LEVI PULKKINEN 
P-I REPORTERS

Anti-war protesters took to Seattle
streets in modest numbers throughout the day Wednesday, recognizing the
fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war. Protests around the
city drew dozens to hundreds of activists. But the droves of protesters
common earlier in the war didn’t turn out on Wednesday. Early in the
day, a group of about 15 forced the closure of the Army and Navy
recruiting stations at 23rd Avenue and South Jackson Street. The group
had doubled in size by early afternoon for a rally against the
“mainstream media” at KOMO/4 near the Space Needle. At KOMO, protesters
set up a “truth booth” to disseminate news they said has been kept from
the public. A sign read, “Media lies, thousands die.” Speakers urged a
“shutdown of the complicit media.” At least two counterprotesters
shadowed the group throughout the day, waving American and military
flags and holding placards showing troop support. Those participating
were encouraged to wear orange, their chosen symbol of resistance to
“the Bush regime,” and many did, wearing orange armbands if not
clothes. Several carried orange placards with the message: “Iraq. Get
out; Iran. Stay out; Bush/Cheney. Drive out.” Protest spokeswoman
Maggie Lawless said activists were targeting recruitment offices.
People who oppose the war, she said, need to oppose the recruitment of
young men and women — who are the war’s “cannon fodder” — and
understand “what it means to walk through that door.”  Story HERE 

Anti-War Protest in Norfolk, Virginia, Home of the US Navy 2nd Fleet on 3/19/08 

RENO NV 200 anti-war activists protest 5th anniversary of Iraq invasionAssociated Press – March 19, 2008 10:04 PM ET RENO,
Nev. (AP) – More than 200 anti-war activists rallied at the federal
building in Reno this evening to protest the fifth anniversary of the
U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Louisville KYLouisvillians protest Iraq war

About 30 rally to mark fifth anniversary, say they hope it is the last

Iraq war protest leads to pepper spray, arrest

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) – “Police
used pepper spray on demonstrators protesting the Iraq war in downtown
Portland on its fifth anniversary. The demonstrators later hopped a
train and headed for a military recruitment center across town””.A
group of about 100 demonstrators headed away from the confrontation
toward a plaza for a rally, accompanied by police on bicycles,
horseback and motorcycles. They then piled onto a MAX light rail train
to a shopping center located near a recruiting station. A string of
police motorcycles and a van of police in riot gear followed the train.”

Honolulu March Against the Iraq War

Saturday, March 15

6pm on a Saturday night – and Waikiki was packed with tourists, beachgoers and GI’s.    

And then “Stop!  Stop!  Stop the War!!”  “The World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime!”  filled the streets as drums kept a steady beat.  People along the sidewalks stopped.  Tourists rushed to high-rise balconies.  Shopkeepers came to their doors.  It seemed that everywhere people were clapping, giving a thumbs-up, and joining in the chants.  Cameras, videos, and cell phones caught the action.   

About 100 people began our three-mile route but our numbers quickly swelled to about 300 as tourists, youth, and surfers with their longboards joined in.  The response was overwhelmingly positive.   A young U.S. Marine running along the route and videoing the march on his cell phone said happily:  “Wait til my buddies in the barracks see this!   We need more of it!”  He took the leaflet pointing him to Winter Soldier and said they’d check it out.  An Indonesian journalist followed alongside the march for the entire route, jotting down notes, capturing images, and recording the sounds for his readers back home.   An Australian tourist commented that they’d gotten rid of their warmonger and now it was our turn.  A Filipino service worker at a bus stop wistfully said: “I wish I could join you, but my kids are waiting for me to cook dinner.” 

Here and there along the route people gave a negative shake of the head, or a thumbs down or middle finger.  About 5 older guys had seemingly tried to pull together a counter-demonstration and held signs saying “Victory in Iraq” and “Traitors”, but got little sympathy.  A few soldiers said “we’re just doing what we gotta do” but they were completely outnumbered by those showing their support.  Leafleters passed out 1400 leaflets along the route before running out and the march was the top of the news on two mainstream TV channels Saturday evening. 

As we had built for this march lots of people talked about the horror of the war, but few committed to coming out to protest.  One activist commented only hours before that based on the responses he’d gotten, he didn’t expect more than a dozen people.   A young woman who came for the first time said she’d told hundreds of people and was really bummed out when none of them showed up.  Lots of people had questioned what protesting could accomplish.  Others said the horror of the Bush regime would be over soon so just kick back.  Thinking about the war was “just such a downer.” 

The response from the people along the route really went up against all of this.   Their faces filled with joy when they saw us.  They clapped and swayed to the beat of the chants.   They captured images of our march to share with their friends.  The marchers gathered energy as it went along.   One GI near the end commented:  “This gives me some hope!  Now just get us home!” 

From the Indonesian reporter, the GI’s along the route, the international tourists, and from many others, what we heard in many ways was: “You’re what we’ve been waiting for!”   People who participated in this march are going to have to really struggle with others to pull themselves out of their apathy and despair and help build the kind of movement of resistance that is both needed and WANTED!

---

Report from Seattle WCW on the Tacoma Recruitment Center Protest

March 15, 2008

“This will not be easy.  If we speak the truth, they will try to silence us.  If we act, they will try to stop us.  But we speak for the majority, here and around the world, and as we get this going we are going to reach out to the people who have been so badly fooled by Bush and we are NOT going to stop.” 

These words from the Call echoed back to me as we headed down to Tacoma, WA on Saturday.  We were going to a demo called by SDS and other groups to shut down the recruitment center in this city- a city that is 1 hour south of Seattle and right in the shadow of Ft. Lewis.  In other words, we were going into hostile territory to call for the shutting down of a gigantic recruitment center situated at the Tacoma Mall.  A recruitment center which targets minority youth and has the backing of a military town.  Two days earlier we heard that a local right-wing radio station was calling its listeners to come down and confront our “Shut it Down” demo.  The response? Bloggers like “Gathering of Eagles” and Michelle Malkin threatened to attack protesters, saying they were going to “bash heads in”, etc.  One of the bloggers offered to “put a bullet in the heads” of the anti-war protestors.  The Hell’s Angels piped in with other creative invectives. Add a “leaked” memo from the Dept of Defense warning people to stay away from the mall because protesters might cause violence and shut it down–and we were off to the races.  A friend from Progressive Dems of America told me: “These are the brownshirts. Careful.”  So from the start we knew the powers that be were trying to conflate a legal, non-violent demonstration with terrorism, and we weren’t going to let them set the terms of things. 

WCW Seattle issued a statement on Friday essentially saying, “We will not be intimidated”.  We remained firm in our goal: Shut it down!  But the attacks from the pro-war groups were starting to rattle the organizers in Tacoma.  One person asked us not to would turn people away from coming to the demo.   A statement was issued from SDS saying call out the troops for committing war crimes.  They were afraid this was too much, that it that they were changing their demo from “shut it down” to “demonstrate at” the recruitment center.  So we had a heart to heart talk and got into some struggle with them about the importance of what we were setting out to do, why we can’t back off of the truth about what it means when you join the U.S. military.  All this was going on as the Winter Soldier conference was in full swing and the initial reports were -and are- that the troops are being directed from the highest offices of the land to disregard the Geneva Conventions and commit incredible acts of brutality; that troops are being called upon to systematically murder, rape and torture innocent Iraqi civilians.  Still, there was a lot of defensiveness from the organizers and we weren’t sure what was going to happen until we got there. 

So we were a bit tense on the drive down. Several of us had gotten little sleep the night before; one youth woke up that morning and threw up from the stress. But we were also excited, because we realized that this call for pro-war people to show up was an indication that we were striking a nerve.  The battle of Berkeley had opened a door—what, exactly, does it mean to say you support the troops, but not the war?  How does it affect the political terrain -a terrain that is badly in need of being transformed–that Berkeley set a new bar for resistance?  We had read Malcolm Shore’s and Ken Thieson’s articles on the WCW website.  We had done the research on statistics.  Some of us had also viewed the incredibly sick videos of U.S. troops throwing a puppy off a cliff in Iraq and other horrific news that has been filtering out recently on YouTube.  We had copies of photos of victims of the war-graphic photos–to confront the reality of all this. (We got some of the photos from this website: http://www.robert-fisk.com/iraqwarvictims_page3.htm ).Our orientation came from the Call and an understanding that this may sharpen things up, maybe even polarize things, but that was good.  A line had been drawn and we were clear which side we stood on. 

Arriving at the recruitment center, at first, all we saw were American flags and a lot of grizzly old farts with beer bellies. They had come early and were set up in front of the recruitment center. Shit. Then we saw orange, more orange, our signs and, holy crap!, our side was there. Both groups were divided by two lines of cops: bike cops facing  their side, riot  cops facing ours. 

We pulled out our orange bandanas and signs and said, “Who needs orange?”  A guy came up to us and said, “Give me a bandana. They have their flag to unite them; we have orange to unite us.”  Many people donned orange after we got there.  

At that point the anti-war protesters (AWP for short; Pro war will be PW for short) were chanting something about supporting the troops too.  There were pairs of army issue boots lined up in piles in front of the building, with names of U.S. soldiers on them-then, interspersed throughout the boots were civilian shoes: women’s boots, men’s dress shoes, kids” sneakers and booties. These had the name of Iraqis on them. This was great, although there still was this defensiveness about the troops (some AWPs were yelling that they supported the troops, bring them home, while the PWs screamed obscenities back.) 

We started bringing out the pictures we had brought. All are graphic and horrific —all of men, women children, infants who are victims of the war and of torture. (You can get these off of many sites, including Robert Fisk’s site) We walked up to the police line and held them up. The other side howled.  A woman from the Tacoma AWPs stepped up and put some booties down on the ground. The other side was screaming and tried at times to rush forward or get around the sides to us.  We stood firm and held the pictures up, saying, “Is this what we should be supporting?  Are you proud of the troops who do this?”  Of course, this was met with a tirade of bile—we heard some old school stuff like “get a job” or “damn hippies” and of course our favorite was “10 out of 10 terrorists support you.”  We divided our time between talking with our side, connecting up with people, talking to them about not seeking common ground with these fascists. At first people didn’t want to be offensive. Our response was, “You know what’s REALLY offensive? TORTURE!”  We had some struggle with people about reality and why you have to tell the truth about these things. There is just no two ways about it. 

At one point a PW woman pointed at me and said, “My son is over there you B*itch! I’m proud of my son!” I held up my picture: a dead Iraqi child with his brains spilling out over a road somewhere in Baghdad and said, “Oh, did he do this? You proud of this?” She ran toward me, screaming “I”ll kill you!” 

An important point here was that while we at times engaged the PWs and used their backwardness to expose them and the war, we didn’t get bogged down in their terms. The more we calmly took them on, the more they freaked out. This shouldn’t be a hard and fast rule, but in this case the tactic worked and we got a lot of good exposure out there. And we united our side with a sense of moral certitude and that we had each others” backs. 

So this is how it went for a couple hours. The MC for our demo was Nathan, a veteran of the Afghanistan war. He joined up after 9-11, then his thinking about the war started to change once he was over there.  He’s a young middle school teacher, and had invited his students to join the protest. He was joined by his mother, who was also a veteran. Many youth were there with their parents. The crowd was overwhelmingly youth and students. It was an amazing mix of youth from Olympia (where the port protests had happened) to Tacoma and Seattle. Many had never been to a demo like this before, and they were just stunned at the behavior of the ProWars. But they continued to make speeches and chant. 

When Emma from WCW gave her speech, things started to turn in a way that galvanized the crowd. In her speech, which basically followed a lot of what we have been saying on the website, she brought out the points in Malcolm’s article around “support the troops to do what” and why we support war resisters. The crowd was into this speech, and when she was done she started to chant, “Rape, murder, torture war -that’s what they”re recruiting for!” The crowd totally took this up and went with it. It continued to be chanted the rest of the day. 

Midway through the rally a giant black death puppet with “America” written on it showed up. Our side started to chant “USA! USA!”, with people pointing to the puppet. Then the ProWars started to chant it to! I”ve never seen anything like it. They didn’t get it. Another piece of street theater was a woman dressed as Uncle Sam on stilts, manipulating an army grunt with strings -like a marionette. The soldier struts and marches but at times he starts to dance and screw up the strings. Uncle Sam tries to tame him, back and forth, then he pulls the strings off and dances. It was pretty cool. 

We talked to a lot of people who not only were in the demo but came up to the sidelines but didn’t join. Some of these were military people -or knew military people- who agreed with us, but didn’t feel that they could join in. Emma talked to a guy who she knew several years ago who had been a security guard but was now in the military. They went back and forth about the role of the troops. He said, “I’m OK with you protesting the government, but not the troops”. She explained why “just following orders” means committing war crimes in the service of this regime. He said, “Yeah, but we don’t need people calling us baby killers.” She said, “You”re right, we have to walk vets through things, through that process of seeing why this war is wrong etc. But let me ask you this: Did you kill babies?” He paused, then said, “Well, we gotta do what we gotta do”  They talked some more and he got a flier. 

In talking with vets -and some of us have this experience with Vietnam vets— we have to pay attention to their reticence and why they are so defensive about what they have done. Many have an emotional shut off valve and are dealing with a lot of shit. Many feel isolated when they get back, angry, not knowing what they have done or what the fuck happened. They don’t know how people are going to react to them.  But the point we made to veterans who wanted to talk, and who also came to the demo was that we need this kind of resistance and the vets who resist are a big part of that. 

A couple other things that happened: A guy came up to Nathan at one point and said, “You were in the military?” and Nathan said yeah. The guy -about 20 years old- said he was in a gang and that they had Nathan’s back. He told Nathan to be careful out there. 

Overall, at the end of the day we summed this up as somewhat of a victory. There were as many of us as the PWs; while we didn’t shut down the center, we did cause it to be a focal point for us and were successful in carrying out the demo. The printed press tried to make this an equal screaming match between them and us; but the TV media didn’t give the PWs much airtime. I was interviewed and able to get across our main message for the day. Emma was as well.  It was favorable coverage. 

Here are some things we think will be important for Wednesday -based on the Tacoma experience:

    * Everyone should come prepared to communicate facts regarding the overall program of the Bush regime, with attention paid to stats on the war, numbers of civilians killed, numbers of Iraqis who are refugees, etc.

    * Come with testimony from vets or BRING VETS WHO ARE WILLING TO GIVE TESTIMONY about their experiences in Iraq and elsewhere. There is nothing that can substitute for this. If it’s just not possible for someone to do it in person, ask for a written statement and read it at the demo.
    * If you don’t have vets in your area who can come to speak: Throughout the day we read excerpts from the Nation article.  The words of the vets were a stinging blow to the PWs—it is very powerful to bring this testimony out both through the statements and visually.  WE Can’t EMPHASIZE THAT ENOUGH.

    * We put a call out (see end of this report for a copy) to artists, videographers, etc. to come on Weds. So far we”ve gotten several responses—and the word is spreading among this section. ou want a record of what happens. 

    * Keep your purpose in mind and don’t let other things bog you down. If you have a plan for shutting a center down, stick with it. Have tasks for others to help with: flyering, witnessing, videotaping, photo, etc. so you don’t get caught up in doing that (especially if you have a specific task, like wearing a jumpsuit or doing a waterboarding).

    * Make sure you have someone who knows what to say to the press. Have 3-4 talking points and stick close to them. Send press to speak to them during the demo. 

    * BRING PHOTOS OF WAR DEAD. It is really hard, it tears you up to have to look at these, but they are AN ACCURATE REFLECTION OF THE TOLL THIS WAR HAS TAKEN ON THE IRAQI PEOPLE. This was the single most polarizing tool we had-it created a dividing line, a correct dividing line. When the truth gets put out, then people decide where they stand in relation to it. 

    * Talk to people who come to the event, get their contact info right away. Make sure you have a meeting planned a few days after the demo or night of so you can sum up the day. Make sure you communicate that to people.

    * BRING ORANGE, ORANGE, ORANGE, ORANGE in whatever form you”ve got. Ask others to bring it. Create a scene with orange.

    * If pro-war people threaten the group-either in print or by calling you,etc. Document it and send it to the National Office —and the press. Pay attention to their threats, but don’t let it paralyze you. Plan accordingly.

    * If you know the prowars are showing up to oppose you, GET THERE BEFORE THEM—even if it means you have to get there at 5am for a 9am demo. In Tacoma, the prowars were able to keep the doors to the recruiter center open because they got there early and made a path to the door.

Houston, TX Stands Up Against the War

Jamilah Hoffman

We definitely did not know what to expect when we called for people to join us at a military recruiting station in downtown Houston, Texas.  We called for people to join us for basic resistance to mark the fifth anniversary of the war.  Our protest was covered positively by our local Pacifica station, and our local NBC station came out to film us.  Even though they posed our protest against a wounded veteran as if the Iraq war was only about protestors versus soldiers rather than the people who lied to get us there and the millions of Iraqis who have died, been tortured or displaced, for the most part we were able to get our message across.  After 30 minutes we left to march and chant through downtown.  We even had two government escorts from some place with letters follow us, just to make sure we were OK. Lovely.

We walked a few blocks and decided that this was a perfect place for a “die-in”.  As bodies began to fall and outlines were being drawn with chalk around them, a speech was being made about the atrocities of this war. Security that belonged to the building came out and told us we had to leave and that we were on private property.  When I heard this, I decided to tell the crowd that, “even though people are being killed in Iraq, we were not allowed to draw on the sidewalk.  Even though people are being tortured and killed, they”re making us leave.  How are we going to stop the war? How are we going to stop the killing? RESIST! RESIST! RESIST!”  That’s when the people who “died-in” got up form the ground and we continued to march through downtown.

We moved on to another sidewalk and when we started the next “die-in” people actually joined us.  We met a woman from Colombia, who spoke no English, who actually got down on the ground with us and even led some chants in Spanish. Two students hitchhiking through the South joined us as well.

Overall, we were extremely pleased with this action.  We reached people whom we would have never reached during normal protests.  I believe we helped in creating resistance in this city, although more is needed.  The people we encountered were mostly supportive, perhaps two instances of disagreement-a middle finger here, someone yelling something there.  From our shaky start and some bumps on the road, we learned how to make the “die-in” more effective.  I feel inspired to be part of this movement.

March 19: World Can’t Wait takes the streets of Berkeley and San Francisco

Early in the AM, at the Marine Recruiting Station 

On March 19, the day marking five years since this war and occupation began, our actions started out early, just after 6:30 AM, with about a dozen people picketing in front of the Berkeley Marine recruiting station, while three orange jumpsuited and hooded activists stood in silent tableau.  They held photo placards depicting the real world results of the “work” of this recruiting station; bloodied children crying amidst the rubble of their bombed-out homes, other children horribly maimed by white phosphorous.  The Marine recruiters had decided NOT to open and remained closed for all of this day.

A line of police – who local media reported were “bracing for” the demonstrators on this day marking FIVE YEARS of this unjust war — stood guard at the front of the locked and gated station. We largely ignored them, and alternately chanted and read from the Winter Soldier testimony given by vets about the war crimes being committed in Iraq. 

Berkeley High Rally

At 11:30 AM, Berkeley High let out for lunch, and about 100 students came to a rally/speak-out co-sponsored by the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition and World Can’t Wait in the park next to the school.  It wasn’t quite the flood of students that came out on February 12.  For one thing, the snarling, flag-waving, bigoted right-wingers blasting their Toby Keith “music” weren’t occupying their park as they did last February 12.  For another, many students have been influenced by all the different arguments – the Marines have a “free speech” “right” to be there; protesting doesn’t make a difference and you have to rely on official channels like the elections; and protesting in Berkeley is just preaching to the choir – that they have heard from the media, the school administrators, a small but emboldened group of right wing students, and some very cynical and smug “antiwar” seniors.  Yet these, mostly freshman and sophomores that came out for the 5th anniversary of the war, see things much more clearly.  The “war on terror” has been going on as long as many of them can remember and it is wrong.  A million Iraqis are dead.  Their whole country has been destroyed in our name.  It is time to act to bring all this to a halt.  Even in Berkeley.  Especially in Berkeley . . . because what we do here can set an example and ripple and reverberate throughout the country.

After young people from WCW and ANSWER Coalition spoke, Cindy Sheehan, whose son, Casey, was killed in Iraq, spoke to the youth. She was followed by several Berkeley High students who got up and expressed their outrage about 5 years of war.  And then we were off.  Unpermitted, we took to the streets, about 120 strong, marching for the recruiting center.  Joining others when we got there, we took over the whole street in front of the recruiting station and parked the Bush “international war criminal” jail cell right in the middle of Shattuck Avenue.  The police tried halfheartedly to corral us onto the sidewalk — unlike previous protests, the cops did not arrest or beat people this time — and did not succeed.  There would be no business as usual in Berkeley today.

Taking it to the Streets of Berkeley!

After a short speak-out in front of the MRS we headed, against one-way traffic, for UC Berkeley and the crowded Telegraph Avenue.  We told people that we were determined to shut down the recruiters here in Berkeley and set an example for the rest of the country.  We called on the cars to honk their horns if they were against the war and the torture.  We put the challenge directly to them: “You in the Toyota Corolla . . . are you tired of 5 years of war?  Dude in the BMW, are you outraged?”  And the vast majority of them honked — loudly!  People’s faces lit up when they saw our very orange and youthful protest, with a sound system mounted on top of the rolling Bush jail cell.  Not because they were inconvenienced by our protest; it was because, as a bystander said who was quoted in the Daily Californian: “This protest is the most excitement I have had all year.  We need more of this. People need to wake up.”  About 10 people joined us along the way.  area.  We chanted and agitated about 5 years of war crimes, Falluja, Haditha, and other atrocities committed by the U.S. military.

“iPods Down! Cell Phones Down!”

We stopped at the corner of Telegraph and Bancroft right in front of UC Berkeley, chanting “iPods down, cell phones down, UC Berkeley stand up!”  Then we headed, against traffic, right down the busiest section of Telegraph, past People’s Park, and then back toward Shattuck Ave.  We hung a left and made our way to Berkeley City College, where we stopped for about 20 minutes calling on students to join us.  Although only a few came into the streets with us on the spot, many students who were standing around seemed to appreciate us being there.  Then we made our way back to the recruiting station where the speak-out continued until about 4:00 PM. That’s when we all got on the BART trains to San Francisco for the march through The City.

BART and “Judeo-Christian” Values

I rode over with about 12 loud orange-clad youth.  We got on the last car and made our way to the front chanting and flyering and calling on people to come to the protest.  A bunch of them said they already were.  When we got to the front car, I thought the excitement was over for a little while.  However, as it turned out, we sat down right next to a belligerent Israeli man who accused us all of being communists and hating Judeo-Christian values.  “If we don’t kill them, all you girls are all going to end up covered head to toe when the Muslims take over!”  This went on for the whole train ride.  The more we argued with this guy, the more people started paying attention.  And by the time we got off the train, at least one young guy who wasn’t planning on coming to the protest joined us. 

SF Civic Center

Giovanni and LaLa (a Berkeley High student), spoke to the crowd of over 7,000 at Civic Center Plaza, asking them, “Are you gonna kill and die for Bush?”  “NO!”  “Are you gonna fight for Cheney?”  “NO!”  “Are you gonna fight for Bechtel and Halliburton?”  “NO!”  And we called on them to go back to their communities and organize to shut down recruiting centers there.  We said that it is not enough to just have your anti-war opinion, to yell at your TV screen, to be the loyal opposition hoping and praying that maybe one day some politician will remove some troops (and then put them somewhere else).  No, we must bring this war machine to a halt.   

Taking it to the Streets of San Francisco!

This march seemed much more energetic and militant than the typical Saturday afternoon march.  There were more youth than normal, it was a weekday, and many of the people there had spent the day participating in “direct actions” in the streets of San Francisco — where 150 were arrested.  Maybe people are feeling a sense of urgency as the war grinds on, and in the face of public opinion to the contrary, Bush and Cheney continue to claim “The world is better and the U.S. is safer” because of the war.  Maybe the militancy of the day came from the simple fact that showing up to a protest, in the middle of an election season in which we are being told to wait for the Democrats to end the war, is in itself a radical act. 

Throughout the march, WCW organized five “die-ins” at the busy intersections: “On the count of 10 we”re gonna die-in, representing the one million dead Iraqis.  5 years ago, they called it “shock and awe.”  We call it mass murder!”  And then we would die-in and chant: “Rise up, with the people of the world!  Rise up, with the people of Iraq!  Rise up, with the people of Iran!  Rise up, with Afghanistan!  Rise up, with San Francisco!  Rise up, with the people of Berkeley!”  Expressing the urgency of the situation we chanted: “They”re bombing Baghdad/Kabul/Gaza by the hour.  What do we do?  Fight the power!  What do we do?  Fight the power!”  When we got to the Mission District (a largely Latino area), we made up the chant, “El que no brinca apoya la Guerra!” – which translated to: “Whoever doesn’t jump up and down supports the war!”  This got the crowd moving of course. 

Overall, March 19 was a good day in the Bay Area.  A new spirit of defiance has come onto the scene in the parched desert of Obama-mania.  Five years into this horrendous war, the world is still waiting for us to stand in the way of our government’s warpath.  The time is now.

Additional Berkeley Pictures  

 Washington DC

 New York TImes photo slideshow  

Washinton Times photo slideshow  

Atlanta

Raging Grannies

Many groups demonstrated at recruiting stations over the weekend, including in Tacoma where they shut down a mall recruiting station. See YouTube video at: Tacoma. One of the groups that has been active over the weekend, and will hold actions at recruiting stations at Times Square in NYC, D.C. and elsehwere, will be the “Raging Grannies.” Here’s an account of the arrest of 10 grannies in Atlanta this weekend.

ATLANTA, Georgia, Mar 17 (IPS) – As part of actions across the United States to mark the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, 10 “Grandmothers for Peace”, ranging in age from 57 to 80, were arrested Monday while trying to enlist in the United States Army. Acts of civil disobedience are planned this week in at least 17 other U.S. cities.

As exclusively observed by IPS, the Grandmothers for Peace entered the Army Recruiting Station at the Midtown Place Shopping Centre in Atlanta, Georgia at around 9:30 am. The women broke up into three groups, each approaching a different recruiter’s desk to engage them in questions.

“When do you get the bonuses? Do you get them right away?” a Grandmother asked.

“You guys are on a fishing expedition to catch people in lies,” declared one recruiter, who said her name was “Ms. Reed”.

“What we’re doing is, we’re very much against the Iraq war. We’d like for you to let us enlist,” said Bobbie Paul, 58, executive director of Atlanta Women’s Action for New Directions.

“We have to make sure people are physically pre-screened,” said a recruiter named Kevin Wells.

“Could we enlist today? So the youth don’t have to go? Can you give us a list of jobs?” Paul persisted.

“There are regulations we have to follow, set by the government, as far as entry and recruiting,” Wells responded.

“Would you take me? I’m 80,” said Doris Benit of Kennesaw, Georgia.

“Me personally? Absolutely! But as far as the Army, there is a process,” Wells answered.

“What’s the first step?” Benit asked.

“The first step is to have a seat,” Wells said. Then, the 10 grandmothers all took seats around his desk.

Meanwhile, dozens of activists were beating drums and chanting outside under a banner that read, “Take Us, Not Our Grandchildren!”

Los Angeles

March 19 in Los Angeles began early at a local high school, where a couple of us reached out to students as they came off the bus and into school. We asked them what they thought about the war; not surprisingly the vast majority of them said they hated it or “it sucks”. Many of them didn’t think they could do anything about it; and when we asked them how many Iraqis they thought had died during the five years of the war, only one guessed a million – most answers were in the low thousands. We handed out eviction notices, which they liked and took up and we asked them to take a stand and join with us that afternoon to shut down recruitment center.

We returned that afternoon before the last bell, armed with Robert Fisk’s enlarged photograph of the child whose leg had been blown off and an enlarged Eviction Notice. We planted ourselves directly in front of the students” path to buses and the busy crosswalk. That did the trick; the photos were stark, very shocking to many, some didn’t want to see it and turned their heads away. Others just stood and stared, taking it all in. Students took up March 19 flyers and eviction notices and promised to get them out. All day we were also handing out postcards announcing the Winter Soldier testimonies and asking them to check the website; hear it from U.S. soldiers themselves who hate what they”ve done and want this war to stop.  A handful of students were in ROTC uniforms, but they still took flyers and Winter Soldier postcards. Some student administrators came over, read our flyers, saw our signs and told us we had to leave the premises, but we countered with the fact that we were on a public sidewalk, not school property. They responded “we”ll see about that” but never came back.While some of us were at the high school, one WCW organizer went door to door to businesses in a 3 block area of the Hollywood recruiting station or The Armed Forces Career Center. She took the orange Iraq Get Out, Iran Stay Out, Bush/Cheney Drive Out and found seven businesses that agreed to put up the posters in their windows or near the cash registers. The majority of these businesses were run by either Middle Eastern or Asian immigrants, who wanted to visibly express their outrage on the fifth anniversary of the invasion. Some workers went ahead and put them up even if they weren’t sure that their boss would approve. This was a different response than in Berkeley, where the same activist had approached shops along in a five block area around Shattuck Avenue. Shops were asked to put up a cut out ad from the Berkeley Daily Planet that read, Berkeley says No Torture, No War, No Recruiters. While she was able to get some of the stores to post this ad, many declined stating they were worried about what their customers would think or they were unsure of the No Recruiters message.Nine World Can’t Wait activists joined the Answer-LA youth and student coalition who had called for shutting down the armed forces recruitment center in Hollywood. We had our orange, three orange suited detainees formed part of the WCW group. There were approximately 75 protesters; vast majority youth who formed a picket line and led determined chants about No to Oil, No to War; Money for Jobs, not Oil; Education not Occupation; No Peace/No Justice, and others.  Many of these youth were the same determined youth who had taken part in Saturday’s march against the war, the spirit was strong and constant.We brought in the stark enlarged photograph and large Eviction notice to the mix; both at the curb while many cars passed by and in the middle of the picketing. Later, a group of us joined with the picketers in a sidewalk march down Hollywood Blvd. We were two orange jump suited and hooded detainees, a person on a bull horn and the enlarged Robert Fisk photo. This visual caused many to stare. Hollywood Blvd was full of tourists, many families with young children. No one shouted at us to put the photographs away, and we decided to stand and agitate for awhile in front of the Kodak Theatre, site of the January 31 Democratic debate. We got a lot of thumbs up, lots of sober faces as people took in the horror of the photographs and the orange hooded detainees. People’s site-seeing and shopping as usual was paused for at least a while.  Similar to students, many who we talked to were unaware of the numbers of Iraqis dead and displaced over the past five years – guesses were in the low thousands and people were taken aback when we gave them numbers of dead, Iraqis and number of U.S. soldiers who had committed suicide, which far exceeds those killed in war.While small, the anti-recruiting protest was significant b/c some people had traveled numerous hours from San Diego, Santa Barbara, Ventura and Fullerton to take part. There were student media teams from two local community colleges; one of who interviewed Prof. Dennis Loo who had been at the center throughout the demonstration. There were other people documenting, including one group focusing on immigrants in the military, many of these lured by recruiters with promise of citizenship. There was also a couple documenting protests writing for a Japanese publication. And typical Hollywood, Spiderman joined in and got photo op with the signs.The recruiters shut their doors at 4:00 p.m.

March 20  – Inspired by Berkeley action, Code Pink has started weekly anti-military recruiting action in front of the Santa Monica Military Recruiting Center. Two WCW activists joined up with two Code Pink activists and were immediately joined by three middle school kids on skate boards who had passed by. They wrote “Honk 4 Peace” on the WCW picket signs and got out flyers as they skated around the block several times, counting 30+ honks of support as they skateboarded. 

Chicago

Chicago – photo album

A mass march and rally was called for March 19th in Chicago. Over 2,000 people marched through the business district and up the Magnificent Mile on the 5th anniversary of the illegal invasion of Iraq. After the permitted march, a group of about 200 people, mainly extremely disgusted students and youth took off on an unpermitted march down Michigan Ave. Traffic slowed down after multiple attempts to take the street, including by people sitting in intersections. The evening ended at the local ABC affiliate, where the “news” is read in front of windows right on State St. This evening, however, giant curtains were pulled down so the news anchors wouldn’t be disturbed by our presence” unfortunately for them they couldn’t block out the sound of our chants and drumming.

Columbia College Chicago, DePaul University, and high school students armed with World Can’t Wait signs, orange jumpsuits, petitions, flyers, a jukebox, free soup and other food, and a canvas for a group painting participated in Chicago’s “Day of Resistance” on March 20th by holding a one-of-a-kind artistic community festival outside the U.S. military recruitment center in the super-dormitory on Columbia College’s campus—a military recruitment center that the military prefer to call, for PR purposes, a career center.

Members of our group put a canvas up on a parking meter, took out some paint, and began to create a masterpiece of artistic expression that put the ideas of peace, justice, individuality, and resistance front and center in the eyes of the people who came by our action. The cacophony of color was magnificent and with music going, we were showing how fun it could be to resist the militarization of America.  

We unveiled a new petition we have started:  

“The illegal and immoral occupation of Iraq, which is now entering its sixth year, is proof of the criminality of the institution of the US army. This occupation has led several students to think the army ‘career center’ should be unwelcome on our campuses. The criminal offenses charged, which are related to the occupation, include, but are not limited to: intruding on a center of education, falsifying information, betraying the youth by sending them to death, suicide, and mental illness, murdering over a million Iraqi civilians, and breaking laws regarding human rights, including crimes against humanity such as torture.

We students will no longer allow these crimes and atrocities to be committed in our backyard and in our names. We demand an end to these criminal activities, and we demand that the recruitment center located in the University Center be shut down. We ask for the full support of the administrations of DePaul and Roosevelt Universities and Columbia College in fighting to restore our campuses as centers of education free of criminal activity. We ask the entire student bodies of the relevant schools to join us in clearing our campuses of this criminal operation, which supports a criminal Bush regime.”  

Students engaged in waterboarding demonstrations outside of Columbia’s campus buildings. They were also done outside of the Art Institute in Chicago where another

antiwar protest gathered. A number of students stopped as they came out of the campus buildings to watch and in front of the campus buildings and especially the Art Institute, professional people and tourists stopped to watch and felt inclined to sign our petition or take flyers. There were a number of people who dropped whatever they were doing and joined our small but energetic march on the spot, including one guy who was on a school trip from Milwaukee and ended up struggling with a couple of our activists not to leave early. He said, “What do you have to do that’s more important?? Look, I don’t even know how I’m going to get home tonight. But if we each continue with our lives as usual we’ll never stop this war.”  

Of course I said, “Can you move to Chicago? We need more people with that spirit!!”

The recruitment center was closed for the day, again. Apparently the recruiters do not feel welcome! In addition to hope that the elections will stop the war and solve the problems of the Bush era, we confronted a near-constant police presence. On the one hand, this shows that our actions over the past few months have struck a nerve. On the other, this shows a need for more creativity in our plans for the future.  

The hopes that people have that the war will end with Obama’s election, as well as the outlook expressed by the Iraq vet who argued with us, “that’s just your opinion; my opinion is that we”re helping people in Iraq,” needs to be confronted and overwhelmed by the rising of people who can’t ignore their consciences during a time of war crimes and atrocities.

Our plans for the future will combine the widespread use of our petition to shut down the recruitment center as an illegal operation along with the use of the best of the legacy of Thoreau, Emerson, Mario Savio and Martin Luther King Jr. in civil disobedience against the illegal actions of the government that acts in our names.

For all the people arrested on the 19th and the 20th, know that you”re in good company: “Ordinarily, a person leaving a courtroom with a conviction behind him would wear a somber face. But I left with a smile. I knew that I was a convicted criminal, but I was proud of my crime.” – Martin Luther King, Jr., March 22, 1956

Portland