Statement of Support for Bay Area Youth and
Students who took part in November 2nd World Can’t Wait Activities to
Drive Out the Bush Regime.
DROP ALL CHARGES, REPRIMANDS AND REPRISALS
[This statement is initiated by Larry Felson and Marc Ter
Beek, members of the San Francisco Bay Area World Can’t Wait! Committee. You can sign it by email to lcfelson@earthlink.net
with a CC to sf@worldcantwait.org: ‘Add my signature to the Statement of Support
for Bay Area Youth and Students,’ with your name and ID as you wish to be
listed for circulation.]
Larry Felson, Oakland High teacher,
Oakland
Educational Association Site Representative
Marc Ter Beek, Attorney
On November 2nd, hundreds of Bay Area high school and
college students joined with thousands of students from over 200 schools
nationwide to change the course of history. They united with many people from
diverse backgrounds in at least 68 cities and towns to launch a political
movement to drive the Bush regime from power.
They were joined by parents like Cindy Sheehan and Juan
Torres who have lost children in the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan
and have spoken out to end these wars. The November 2nd protests have been
supported by many artists, writers, and intellectuals, including Harold Pinter,
Gore Vidal, Alice Walker, Studs Terkel, Howard Zinn, Cornel West, Jane Fonda,
Mumia Abu-Jamal, Tom Morello, Michael Eric Dyson, Bianca Jagger, Eve Ensler and
Kurt Vonnegut. Politicians from the Bay
area who endorsed November 2nd include State Senator Carol Midgen, Assemblyman
Mark Leno and San Francisco Supervisors Tom Ammiano, Chris Daly and Ross
Mirkarimi.
November 2nd was a real beginning. New alliances were
formed, people from all parts of society came out, and everyone talked about
the diversity and spirit of the demonstrations, especially the participation of
youth and students. High school students in particular brought tremendous
determination and energy to the rallies and embodied the defiant edge put
forward in the Call.
These youth and
students refused to sit by and watch as their government was committing acts of
genocide on Iraqis or heinous acts of torture on innocent people. They acted
heroically, with admirable conscience and courage and wherever they were met
with repression and reprisals at the hands of school authorities and/or law
enforcement, they must be supported: Across the country, students walked out of
schools in the face of harassment and repression, including threats of
detention and suspensions, and efforts
by school authorities to literally lock them in.
A student in Los
Angeles was suspended for passing out leaflets and
another hauled into the principal’s office for wearing a sticker. At one
school, the lockdown was handled by truancy officers and military recruiters!
Another Los Angeles student passing
out fliers was pepper-sprayed by police, grabbed and arrested, fingerprinted
and taken to juvenile hall and is now forced to wear an ankle bracelet for
trying to organize fellow students to oppose the Bush regime. High school
students in Oakland had to climb
over locked gates and barbed wire to escape the clutches of police, security
and truancy officers who suddenly had an interest in locking students in
schools. At Hampton University,
an ‘elite’ Black college in Virginia,
student organizers were followed by campus police, put under video
surveillance, forced to turn over their ID’s and then threatened with
expulsion. At UC Berkeley, students and others confronted law professor John
Yoo to condemn Yoo’s role as a key architect of the Bush regime’s torture
policies. At the time, these World Can’t Wait activists were detained and
investigated by campus police. After waiting over a month, on the eve of the
Winter break the University then issued a notice of administrative charges
against at least one student for daring to stage this powerful street theater
piece right inside Yoo’s lecture hall.
These actions by school authorities and police are nothing
but attempts to suppress dissent against the Bush regime and must be
opposed. We the undersigned educators,
parents, attorneys and others are outraged by these attacks against youth and
students who took part in November 2nd World Cant Wait/ Drive Out the Bush
Regime activities. Rather than accepting obedience training and tolerance of
injustice and corruption, these young people have instead shown the courage to
get involved in changing the world around them. For this they should be praised
and supported, not threatened and attacked. We join with the undersigned
signators to the Call for November 2nd in giving our respect, admiration and
support to these heroic and inspiring young people.
Larry Felson, Oakland High teacher,
Oakland
Educational Association Site Representative
Marc Ter Beek, Attorney
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Send your signatures, more statements and
messages of support and/or contributions to:
The World Can’t Wait!
SF Bay Area Committee
2940-16th Street,
Room 200-6
San Francisco, CA
Write checks to: SF World Can’t Wait.
For contributions over $100, make tax deductible checks out
to:
World Can’t Wait/AGJ or donate on line at www.worldcantwait.org
(Please note that only donations by check are tax
deductible.