Berkeley Summer of Resistance: Rock the vote
BOAT!
Why YOU are needed in Berkeley this summer beginning July 15:
The anger
and frustration that millions of people all throughout the country have been
feeling during Bush’s second term has mostly remained at a low simmer, beneath
the surface, held in check by feelings of impotence and the illusion of a
Democratic savior.
This reservoir bubbled
up and overflowed this spring in Berkeley.
Hundreds of youth took to the streets to demand: military recruiters out of our
schools and out of our communities! Hundreds
of people of conscience – lawyers, psychologists, law students, torture
survivors – have been part of a growing movement to dismiss, disbar, and
prosecute “torture professor” John Yoo.
The
battles to shut down the Marine recruiting station in Berkeley
and to fire UC Berkeley professor John Yoo have become major fault lines which
have reverberated across the country and put Berkeley in the national spotlight as an
epicenter of resistance to the Bush program of unending war and torture. All summer long we will be mobilizing youth
to spark a movement that can transform the national landscape.
No more
sitting passively on the sidelines waiting for some politician to put an end to
the dangerous direction this country is heading. It’s not going to happen! If the Democrats really wanted to stop the
war, they wouldn’t keep funding it. They
just gave Bush another $162 billion!
We are the ones we”ve been waiting
for. Will we go down in history as the apathetic
self-absorbed generation who spent the summer playing video games while our
government tortured people and got ready to bomb Iran? Or will join the resistance movement in Berkeley, changing
ourselves and the world in the process?
SPECIFIC PLANS: Volunteers will begin arriving in Berkeley July 15. August 20 we”ll be heading to Denver to put out a
radical pole of opposition at the Democratic National Convention (Aug.
25-28). Here are some of the things we
will be doing before we head out there:
- “Shut Down the Recruiters”
tour: Build for a Bay Area-wide tour that becomes a major political
event. People can “hook up with”
the tour. This would be a one week
tour of recruiting stations and military bases around the Bay Area. Each day we would go to two different
spots, including off-the-beaten-track places like malls. This would culminate in a large civil
resistance at the Marine recruiters in Berkeley. - Street canvassing in Berkeley, including
fundraising. We will take out a
petition calling for shutting down the Marine recruiting station. We will also build support for the John
Yoo tribunal in the Fall. And we
will find people who want to come on the “Shut Down the Recruiters” tour
and to the DNC. - Mass flyering at concerts and
events all summer long. - A musical benefit show to
raise money for the DNC trip and get people onboard. - Youth mural project against
military recruiting. - Thursday youth gatherings. Young people can hook up with us
Thursday evenings for movies, discussion, brainstorming, and
planning. 4-6pm starting July 17 at
Spud’s Pizza (Alcatraz and Adeline in Berkeley) - Organize buses/vans/car
caravans to the DNC. Some youth
will go early and make stops at military bases, including the notoriously
right wing Christian fascist Air Force base in Colorado Springs.
What you can do to help make this
happen:
Come to Berkeley! If you
live in the Bay Area, get involved in these exciting plans!
Intern with World Can’t Wait: get school
credit for fighting the power and changing the world.
Berkeley residents: house World Can’t Wait volunteers from around the country. Email us back and let us know how many people
you can house and what the arrangements would be.
DONATE! DONATE!
DONATE! All this is going to take
money. What could be more important than
helping a youth volunteer get to Berkeley
and making it possible for them to be part of this summer of resistance? Adopt
an Actvist !
Several youth are ready to go make
history. Your generous contribution today will make it happen!
Adopt An Activist
– Resistance Summer 2008
Meet some of the youth activists in need
of adoption:
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Jamilah Hoffman has lived in Texas her entire “A Letter From Home: Why I’m Going To Denver” |
Ashley Parada, a sophomore at Columbia College in Chicago, started to act against the war in Iraq while still in high school by organizing fellow students against the constant presence of military recruiters. Outraged when confronted with the same vampires at college, she joined up with WCW to shut down the recruitment office at her college. Ashley also organized a successful fund raising concert for “The No War on Iran Two,” student activists arrested at an anti-war march. A writer, organizer, and fearless resister, Ashley believes in this new generation’s potential power and has never accepted the doctrine of compromise when crimes against humanity are being carried out in our names. |
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Rafael Malik is a host of a new youth activist radio show on KPFA in Berkeley called “Off the Chain Radio.” He became politically active in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when he became outraged at the Bush Regime’s neglect and abuse of hurricane survivors. Since then, he has been mobilizing college and high school students across the Bay Area, including anti-war protests, school teach-ins and walkouts, and reaching large student audiences on WCW’s “Mission of a Generation” speaking tour. In the summer of 2006 he joined WCW on its Red State Bus Tour across the southern states and was involved in mobilizing against the notorious evangelical youth group “Battlecry” when it came to San Francisco to recruit teenagers into a militaristic, Christian Right movement. In the last few months Rafael has been on the front lines in the battle to shut down the Marine recruiting station in Berkeley. He has also been active in the growing movement to fire, disbar, and prosecute UC Berkeley “torture professor” John Yoo. |
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