from World Can't Wait, San Francisco chapter 

At last week’s UC Berkeley School of Law 2012 commencement ceremony, the now-famous orange ribbons that are worn to declare “No Torture in My Name," were highly visible.
 
World Can’t Wait gives a shout out to the 16 friends who joined the crew to distribute the orange ribbons and our flyer challenging UC’s continuing defense of “Torture Professor” John Yoo.  Thanks to you all.  You enabled many - we estimate over 15%, of the 430 graduating law students - to walk the stage to receive diplomas with the ribbons pinned onto their gowns, mortarboards and sashes. This was very significant and something that Boalt’s dean and torture apologist, Christopher Edley could hardly overlook.

Speech by Mary Ann Thomas, World Can’t Wait San Francisco, at April 19th rally saying No to Mass Incarceration

[Mary Ann began by walking to the podium in an orange jumpsuit & black hood, then taking the hood off.]

I'm MaryAnn Thomas, and I work with World Cant Wait.

Do I look like a Guantanamo Torture Victim? I should -- because this, my jumpsuit and hood,  is what they have worn since the prison at Guantanamo opened. The prison at Guantanamo – where the U.S. has detained, imprisoned, and tortured 100’s of prisoners from across the Middle East and South Asia. 

Guantanamo is a place of war crimes committed by the government of the United States.   

from Revolution 

On April 19, in cities around the country, people took to the streets to BREAK THE SILENCE in response to the reality that "Mass Incarceration + Silence = Genocide." What is the significance of these actions? And why do many more people need to join this movement?

The U.S. has the highest rate of imprisonment of any country on earth: 2.4 million people in jail or prison, almost one person per 100. Nearly five million more under "supervised control"—on probation or parole. Black and Latino people, who are 30 percent of the U.S. population, are over 60 percent of those in prison. One in nine young Black men are in prison.

Press Release from the Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars:

For Immediate Release:
Contact: Ed Kinane, 315-478-4571
Mary Anne Grady Flores, 607-280-8797

Today, in an action that included three women successfully reading a War Crimes Indictment at Hancock Air Field in Mattydale, NY, thirty-three members of the Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones were preemptively arrested by the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Dept. two blocks from the entrance to the base. Those arrested included an 87 year old woman in a wheelchair, parents (accompanying their children), a member of the press, and the group’s attorney Ron Van Norstrand. Cameras, camcorders and phones were confiscated by the Sheriff’s Department.  To view a video of the action, see upstatedroneaction.org.

Students at Stanford protested recruiters for the CIA on campus April 11.
CBS San Francisco reports:

by Stephanie Tang

Friday, March 30, Fremont CA:  Outraged by the March 11 massacre of 17 villagers in Afghanistan’s Kandahar Province, people took to the streets of Fremont, California in a bold anti-war march and direct action that shut down the local Armed Forces Career Center (recruitment office) for the afternoon.  

Fremont, an affluent suburb south of Oakland, is home to the largest Afghan community in the U.S.  There’s been no anti-war protest there for as long as anyone can remember, either by Afghans or anyone else. But last fall, a few dozen Afghans held a community peace walk and vigil against the U.S. war and occupation of their homeland on its tenth anniversary.  Now the Kandahar massacre has electrified new outrage, with emergency anti-war vigils initiated by Afghans for Peace spreading to 15 cities.* On March 17 a public rally in downtown Fremont drew 200 people from the wider Afghan community to denounce the massacre and although political views from the stage were mixed, the war itself was powerfully denounced by young members of Afghans for Peace, and others. 

Video by the Phoenix Foundation

KCBS


Read, listen to more of the report.

SJ Mercury: Afghan Americans protest military massacre in Fremont rally

from the San Francisco chapter of World Can't Wait  

March 19 marks nine years since the invasion of Iraq. This invasion was illegitimate, immoral, unjust, and based on lies when George W. Bush began it, and the continued U.S. domination of that country remains so.

The occupation of Iraq has caused the worst humanitarian crisis of our time: massive slaughter, displacement, wholesale destruction of infrastructure and dismantling of governing structures. Iraq's economy, politics, and military remain subordinate to and dominated by American imperialism. Thousands of U.S. diplomats, military contractors, CIA operatives, and other support personnel remain in Iraq. 

Read more...