MARCH 7-9, 2008 in Washington, D.C.: NCOR
National Conference on Organized Resistance
MARCH 10 to 12, 2008 (Monday to Wednesday) in Washington, D.C.: Stop-Loss Congress
This March, while tens of thousands of Americans in Washington, D.C., and all over the United States will be participating in acts of nonviolent civil resistance to protest the ongoing occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and involuntarily deployed U.S. soldiers and innocent civilian victims will begin another year of occupation, torture, and murder, U.S. congress members will be on vacation (from the 15th to 30th, technically a "district work period"), ignoring the killing and suffering they have enabled, supported, and financed.
To intensify the irony, Congress has condoned a widespread stop-loss policy in the military which requires soldiers to involuntarily extend their tours and prolong the killing. It is time to Stop-Loss Congress!
On Monday March 10, and Tuesday March 11, we will deliver "official" stop-loss notices to all members of Congress in their Capitol Hill offices. These will notify them that all of their LEAVES, VACATIONS and HOME VISITS HAVE BEEN CANCELLED until further notice. Just as they require that active-duty personnel endure involuntary extensions of their tours of duty, we, the people for whom they work, are notifying them that they, too, will have their tours of duty INVOLUNTARILY EXTENDED until every foreign soldier and mercenary is out of Iraq, and home. When all the troops and contractors get home, then Congress can go home, and no sooner.
Monday evening March 10: Party at George Washington University with political HIP HOP performers SON of NUN and HEAD ROC along with a great DJ from B'more for dancing. Admission is by donation.
Tuesday evening March 11: Premiere of the documentary short "DAD ON FIRE BLUES" by filmmaker Scott Haman at BUSBOYS & POETS in Washington, D.C. Carlos Arredondo will speak. Rick Burnley will recite poetry. There will be flamenco music. Afterward, there will be folk music at Saint Stephens Church.
On Wednesday March 12, we will take nonviolent action on Capitol Hill, to ensure that, while thousands of Iraqis, Afghanis, and foreign invaders die and are injured for life, the members of Congress and their staffs do not go home but remain to DO THEIR DUTY, and immediately end the funding of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. No members of Congress goes home until THE TROOPS COME HOME.
Also on Wednesday March 12: Ghosts of War.
Also on Wednesday March 12 for those not in DC: A congressional call-in day organized around the theme of "No to War, No to Africom."
To participate in planning these events, to learn meeting times and places, to help distribute flyers and organize travel, training, and other preparation, join this listserve.
Participating Organizations: Hip Hop Caucus, AfterDowningStreet.org, Backbone Campaign, Camp Casey Peace Institute, CODEPINK Women For Peace, Common Ground Collective New Orleans, Democrats.com, Global Network, Gold Star Families for Peace, Progressive Democrats of America, Our Spring Break, The Critical Voice, Artists Against The War, Cities for Peace, ConsumersForPeace.org, Grandmothers Against the War, Kennebunks Peace Department, New Orleans Voices for Peace, Daughters of Vietnam Veterans, Why Not News, DC Chapter of IVAW, World Can’t Wait – Drive Out The Bush Regime!, Peace Majority Report, Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice, Coalition for the Constitution, Grassroots Impeachment Movement, Florida Peace Action Network, Liberty Tree, Maine Veterans for Peace, Boston IVAW, National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, Washington Peace Center, Delaware Valley Veterans for America, Texans for Peace, North Texas for Justice and Peace, Campus Antiwar Network, Courage to Resist, Action Center for Justice, Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice,
MARCH 13-16, 2008 (Thursday-Sunday) in Silver Spring, Maryland: Winter Soldier
Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW)'s Winter Soldier Testimony
Details. Preview. Bush has been invited.
Winter Soldier will be held at the National Labor College, 10000 New Hampshire Ave., Silver Spring, MD 20903
Audio and video of panels will be available live online, and if possible over cable TV and on Pacifica radio.
Everywhere:
Local events supporting Winter Soldier.Other Anti-Occupation international events:
March 15 in London, EnglandOther Anti-Occupation local events:
March 15 in Santa Barbara, CA
MARCH 17 and 18, 2008 (Monday and Tuesday) in Washington, D.C.: Training, Lobbying, Restoring the Constitution
Training in Nonviolence in preparation for March 19, Training in lobbying, Lobbying and on the 18th: Take Back the Constitution Day.
March 18th, Tuesday: CODEPINK Action Day to Take Back the Constitution
Join us for a spirited day in the Halls of Power in Washington, D.C., from Congress to the Justice Department to the Parties' Headquarters to the White House, and an evening event with Constitutional scholars and writers. This is a call for impeachment, an end to the occupation, an end to torture.
9 am Meet Up: Meet at the CODEPINK House (712 5th Street NE, between G and H) for a day-long Restore the Constitution Tour/March that will be marked with actions at key points throughout Capitol Hill. The schedule is as follows...
10- 10:30 am Press Conference: Newseum Museum (555 Pennsylvania Ave, NW at 6th St.), a brand-new interactive media museum that has the 1st Amendment etched into the front of the building's stone structure!
10:30-11 am Restore the Constitution with Liz Holtzman: National Archives (700 Pennsylvania Avenue and Constitution, NW between 7th and 9th)
11-11:30 am Action at the Justice Department: Clean up your act! We will create a laundry line of all the investigations, airing out the Administration's dirty laundry and more!
11:30-12 noon: Don't Buy Bush's War Action with Ben Cohen: IRS building (Constitution between 10th and 12th). We'll unfurl our "Don't Buy Bush's War" banners and declare our resistance to being taxed for an unjust, illegal war.
Noon-12:30 pm MOST WANTED Action: FBI at the J Edgar Hoover building (Pennsylvania between 9th and 10th). We will target CODEPINK's MOST WANTED Terrorists in DC: Bush, Cheney and others. This action will continue on to the Reflecting Pool.
Special Cleansing at the Reflecting Pool with Visionary Activist Caroline Casey: We will make a brew from all the stops in our "Peace and Justice Cauldron".
12:30-2 pm March on Congress & lunch: Location TBA
2-5 pm Tour the Halls of Shame: We will be calling for Impeachment in Congress, marchers to visit their Members of Congress' offices on Senate and House side.
8:00 pm Evening event with Constitutional scholars and writers: Location TBA
Speakers will include: Bill Moyers, Larry Sabato, Liz Holtzman, Melanie Sloan, Jamie Raskin, John Nichols, Michael Ratner and others!
Participating Organizations: AfterDowningStreet.org, Grassroots America, DC Chapter of IVAW, CODEPINK Women For Peace, Our Spring Break, Democrats.com, Backbone Campaign, Progressive Democrats of America, The Critical Voice, Artists Against The War, Cities for Peace, ConsumersForPeace.org, Replace Pelosi (petition to be delivered), Grandmothers Against the War, Kennebunks Peace Department, Delaware Valley Veterans for America, New Orleans Voices for Peace, Daughters of Vietnam Veterans, Why Not News, Peace Majority Report, Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice, Coalition for the Constitution, Grassroots Impeachment Movement, Liberty Tree, Texans for Peace, North Texas for Justice and Peace, Campus Antiwar Network, Courage to Resist, Action Center for Justice, Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice,
Everywhere:
Local events supporting Constitution Day:
ColoradoOther Anti-Occupation Events:
Students for a Democratic Society Campus Events March 17-21
MARCH 19, 2008 (Wednesday) Everywhere and in Washington, D.C.: Nonviolent Resistance
Nonviolent Civil Resistance and/or Disobedience in All 435 Congressional Districts and in the Nation's Capital on the Fifth Anniversary of the Occupation of Iraq
Locations in each congressional district, to be determined locally, can include congressional offices (Congress Members and Senators will be in their districts on this day), federal buildings, military recruiters, weapons makers, war profiteers, or corporate media outlets. In Washington, with Congress out of town, the focus will be on war profiteers in the military industrial disaster-capitalism complex. Where possible, events will include a place for people not willing to risk arrest. Evening town hall forums can also include a larger audience.
LOCAL EVENTS: Post Yours! Update it.
WASHINGTON DC EVENTS: Join us!
Resources for nonviolent activism: HERE.
Participating Organizations: AfterDowningStreet.org, Backbone Campaign, Camp Casey Peace Institute, CODEPINK Women For Peace, Common Ground Collective New Orleans, Democracy Rising, Democrats.com, Global Network, Gold Star Families for Peace, Grassroots America, Hip Hop Caucus, Progressive Democrats of America, United for Peace and Justice, Voters for Peace, World Can’t Wait – Drive Out The Bush Regime!, DC Chapter of IVAW, Activist Responce Team (A.R.T), Washington Peace Center, Our Spring Break, The Critical Voice, Artists Against The War, Cities for Peace, ConsumersForPeace.org, Grandmothers Against the War, Kennebunks Peace Department, Delaware Valley Veterans for America, New Orleans Voices for Peace, Daughters of Vietnam Veterans, Why Not News, Peace Majority Report, Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice, Coalition for the Constitution, Grassroots Impeachment Movement, Liberty Tree, No War No Warming, Texans for Peace, North Texas for Justice and Peace, Campus Antiwar Network, Courage to Resist, Action Center for Justice, Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice, Sacramento for Democracy,
March 20 SDS Campus Protests
Students for a Democratic Society Campus Events
March 20-23 Split This Rock Poetry Festival
Stick around to TALK about what you've been doing, with Split This Rock in Washington, D.C.
Cosponsored by D.C. Poets Against the War, the Institute for Policy Studies, Sol & Soul, and Busboys & Poets.
For a person like me, being for any political party is highly problematic. I dont' trust a single politician since I know what his entailed in "getting elected" or not. It's a money game. Even to buying lawn signs, that one little detail can stop honest people for running for office.
There's the organizational nightmare of keeping people lined up for working for you and the inevitable breakdown in communications if you get successful.
I like many many many things about Dennis Kucinich - but even there I didn't like some of us his supporters and on the "party tests" I came up more closely aligned on the issues with Mike Gravel: but I could never support Gravel's negative income tax policies and I don't think he has such great economic advice.
I never worked for a political campaign save for two races which were won by the NDP - both of those were propelled to victory by vigorous support by young people. I could not support anyone in the provinical election: there was't anyone to support. Not one party addressed disabilities issues = the biggest concern for me personally. I can't support the Green Party in Canada because Elizabeth May has ties to William Clinton and the Alberta Green Party head is a scientologist, or so I am told. I cannot support the NDP because they don't have clear cut foreign policy and they are marveously devoid of developing one -
Nader, the Greens and 2008
January 25, 2008 | Page 7
TODD CHRETIEN, the Green Party candidate for senator from California in 2006, looks at the difficult prospects for a left-wing presidential challenge in 2008.
LESS THAN eight years ago, Ralph Nader's 2000 presidential campaign was electrifying U.S. politics.
Nader won almost 3 million votes, the best showing in at least 50 years for a left-wing presidential candidate running against the Republican-Democrat duopoly. Running on the Green Party ticket, Nader had support from significant sections of progressives and social activists--an important break from the long history of the U.S. left falling behind the “lesser evil” of the Democratic Party at election time.
Today, the picture is very different. Nader will probably run for president again, but neither he nor any other independent candidate to the left of the Democrats can expect to win more than a token number of votes. His support among people on the left has crumbled. And the Green Party that nominated Nader in 2000 is in a state of crisis, weakened significantly in terms of both voter registration and active membership.
So what happened?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE YEARS before 2000 saw some important struggles begin to develop on a number of fronts.
In August 1997, 185,000 Teamsters struck for two weeks and beat UPS, one of the most powerful corporations in the country. A few weeks after, transit workers and garbage workers struck and won in the Bay Area, and a strike by GM workers in a single brake plant shut down the auto giant's entire North American operation.
Meanwhile, the global justice movement was taking shape. In November 1999, 40,000 activists marched in Seattle and took direct action to shut down the World Trade Organization (WTO) talks.
Why was all this happening? Despite the hopes placed in him, Bill Clinton didn't bring fundamental change after a decade of Reagan-Bush trickle-down economics and conservative politics.
Instead, corporations continued to dominate a “one-sided class struggle.” Clinton himself displayed a Republican-like zeal for privatization, which shredded what remained of the social safety net. The prison population doubled, and 1 million Iraqis were starved to death by sanctions.
Anger with the failure of the Democrats to do much of substance for the majority of people was expressed in these still modest but growing mobilizations, culminating in Los Angeles in August 2000, when 40,000 activists protested outside the Democratic National Convention.
These struggles didn't translate automatically into a break with the Democrats--in fact, most people who took part in them continued to look to the Democrats as the “lesser evil.” Although the fact that Democratic Party delegates and officials looked on from the balcony of the Staples Center while the LAPD launched canisters of tear gas at the crowd certainly did help make the point that the party was still an evil.
In the months before the election, more than 100,000 people attended a dozen indoor “super-rallies” supporting Nader. Nader's stump speech called for the abolition of the WTO, tearing up NAFTA, slicing the military budget, investing dramatically in education, a national health care system, ending the death penalty and three-strikes laws, and defending abortion rights.
Nader slammed the Democrats as a corporate party, wholly owned by the richest of the rich. He ended every speech by invoking the struggles of the anti-slavery abolitionists, the suffragettes, the industrial unionists and the civil rights movement.
Socialists and radicals were welcomed into the campaign. On stage at the super-rallies, Michael Moore, Phil Donahue, Patti Smith, Medea Benjamin, Susan Sarandon and other well-known figures supported him. The California Nurses Association and the United Electrical Workers endorsed his candidacy and campaigned for him.
When it was all over, Nader won 2,883,105 votes, the best showing for a left-wing candidate since Eugene Debs ran for president from prison in 1920 for the Socialist Party and won 6 percent of the vote.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
AFTER THE Republican theft of the 2000 election that installed Bush--the loser of the popular vote--in the White House, and then the September 11 attacks and the start of the “war on terror,” many of Nader's former supporters turned on him.
Liberal writer Eric Alterman explicitly blamed Nader for Bush's crimes: “Thank you, Ralph, for the Iraq war. Thank you, Ralph, for the tax cuts. Thank you, Ralph, for the destruction of the environment. Thank you, Ralph, for the destruction of the Constitution.”
Most 2000 Nader supporters weren't nearly as snotty as Alterman, but the fact was that the momentum built up by the global justice movement and other struggles didn't survive the nationalist fury whipped up by politicians of both parties after September 11.
Only one Democrat in Congress, Barbara Lee, voted against the rush to war against Afghanistan. The invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in October 2001 was met by only very small protests.
When the Bush administration began its drive to war on Iraq, there was a massive outpouring in February 2003 to try to stop the invasion. But there was little organizational continuity with the global justice movement and the 2000 Nader campaign. Nader didn't involve himself in antiwar organizing, and the Green Party played almost no role.
After the invasion and Bush's “Mission Accomplished” speech, it looked as if progressive politics would be beaten back for a long time.
There were some exceptions in terms of relatively successful political campaigns. Green Party member and socialist Peter Camejo ran in the California recall governor's race and got into the TV debates. The Green Party's Matt Gonzalez came within a whisker of winning the 2003 race for mayor of San Francisco. Both these campaigns generated enthusiastic responses reminiscent of the Nader's 2000 run, and it looked as if the Green Party might recover, at least in California.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE 2004 election exposed the Green Party's internal political damage. Although registration figures continued to increase after September 11 (for instance, in California, the Greens grew from about 100,000 in 1999 to 165,000 in early 2004), much of the leadership of the party was in full retreat from openly fighting against the two-party “duopoly,” as Nader called it.
As the party's 2004 convention approached, a majority of the Green Party leadership and a part of its activist base turned openly against Nader and backed the little-known David Cobb. Cobb's strategy was to run a “safe state” campaign that wouldn't challenge the Democrats where it might cost them votes in the Electoral College.
The left wing of the Green Party did fight for Nader's nomination, but it wasn't helped by Nader's decision to stand aloof from the nomination procedure. Cobb won the nomination, and his campaign went on to serve its purpose, signaling to the Democrats that the Greens would not fight them. Cobb got just 100,000 votes (less than 0.1 percent) across the U.S.
Nader chose an independent campaign with Peter Camejo as his running mate and tried to duplicate his success in 2000. However, with grassroots movements in a shambles, the Green Party running away from the fight, and the strong desire among liberals to get rid of Bush, even if that meant voting for pro-war Democrat John Kerry, Nader's campaign was very weak.
This didn't prevent the national Democratic Party from spending millions of dollars to keep Nader off state ballots and tie up his campaign with dozens of spurious lawsuits. Nader's final vote total was just 500,000.
Nader's clear antiwar message stood out in sharp contrast to Kerry, and the campaign did demonstrate that there was still an audience for radical politics, but it also showed that there was virtually no organization to reach out to and orient that audience. The 2004 campaign was run by a small core group of radicals and longtime Nader supporters--there was nothing like the participation of thousands of people, especially young people, in 2000.
Worse, this difficult situation led Nader to make some desperate moves that partially undermined the clear left-wing message of the campaign--such as accepting the nomination of the rump of the right-wing Reform Party in exchange for ballot lines in a couple states.
In 2006, the left wing of the Green Party as well as antiwar and socialist activists tried to organize antiwar campaigns in several states. Despite much hard work, these campaigns all failed to win either a substantial protest vote or make a serious contribution to reorganizing the antiwar movement. For instance, my campaign for Senate against pro-war Democrat Dianne Feinstein got just 2 percent of the vote.
The lack of enthusiasm for these campaigns demonstrated that the majority of Green Party activists had retreated from the idea of building a genuine alternative to the Democrats--and that the antiwar movement was severely disoriented. In the end, the Democrats took back Congress. Though, as we predicted, they wouldn't do anything with their victory, the Democrats will benefit again this year from the popular hatred of Bush and the Republicans.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE GREEN Party's decline is likely to continue this year. For instance, in California, Green voter registration is down to 132,000, and the party has lost 25 percent of its registrants in its stronghold of San Francisco.
Although the party continues to attract genuinely radical activists who want to build a fighting alternative, like presidential candidate Jared Bell from Washington, D.C., most of the Greens' energy is focused on non-partisan, local campaigns, aimed at showing that Greens can be honest local politicians.
Worse, many Greens have accepted the practice of commonly endorsing Democrats at all levels and don't draw much of a distinction between “good” Democrats and “good” Greens. Some of this is based on demoralization and the relentless attack of Democratic Party officials and their supporters. But there is also a misunderstanding at the heart of the Green Party program about how social change comes about.
Certainly, many Green Party members believe that social movements are important, but many more believe that winning elections and forming blocks in local government bodies with “good” Democrats takes precedent over building those movements.
This confusion constantly pulls the party into “playing by the rules of the game”--even as many of its members understand that the rules have to be broken if we are to ever win a just society.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
AS IN 2004, Nader will not fight for the Green Party nomination, but only ask for its endorsement because he wants to run an independent campaign. This will leave the way open for the Greens to nominate, most likely, former Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney.
On the face of it, this seems like a positive development. McKinney has proven that she's far to the left of the mainstream Democrats and has taken many courageous political stands, which has earned her the enmity of her former party. On most issues, McKinney is as radical as Nader. The desire by the Green Party to reach out to the Black and Brown community is also healthy.
However, it is still not clear what kind of campaign McKinney intends to run, and if her break with the Democratic Party is permanent.
There are some reasons to take a second look. For instance, unlike Barbara Lee, McKinney did vote in the days after September 11 to authorize Bush's war on Afghanistan, and in May 2005, she voted in favor of the Homeland Security budget. These votes stand out in contrast to the bulk of her record, but it is hard to see why she cast them.
Also, there is her long-running dispute with former Black Panther Party leader Elaine Brown, who was also seeking the Greens' presidential nomination until withdrawing late last year. Some supporters of McKinney recklessly accused Brown of being an FBI agent. Certainly, McKinney can't be automatically blamed for the mistakes of her supporters, but her refusal to clearly and forcefully distance herself from these outlandish claims is not positive.
In 2008, the majority of working-class people will be desperate to get rid of Bush and the Republicans. And unlike 2004, when few people expected anything good from Kerry aside from the fact that he wasn't Bush, millions of people with left-wing ideas are going to be genuinely enthusiastic that Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton will end the war, reform heath care and find a way to raise living standards.
This is, as left-wing writer Norman Solomon said of Bill Clinton back in 1992, a “false hope.” But only the reality of the Democrats in power will begin to make this clear and lay the basis for rebuilding a new challenge to the two-party system and the corporations that stand behind it.
This will be a very tough year for independent, left-wing candidates. Whether they recognize this and use their campaigns to help build up the meager forces of a left committed to fighting oppression, war and exploitation or they succumb to the pressure to chase imaginary shortcuts will determine their value.
TORONTO - Legendary folk singer and poet Buffy Sainte-Marie brought 2,000 union delegates to their feet Tuesday with an anti-war message punctuated by poetry and a trademark anti-capitalist protest song that showcased the power and depths of her artistry.
At 66, Sainte-Marie exuded strength and serenity as she urged her rapt audience to remember that no single group of people, no nation, has a lock on wisdom or culture.
"For those of us educated in North America, it's as though European thought is the only option, and it's not," Sainte-Marie told delegates at a convention of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
"There's a whole treasure trove of other cultures. This world of ours is just a treasure trove of good stuff."
Sainte-Marie, who was born on the Piapot Cree reserve in Saskatchewan's Qu'Appelle Valley, spoke of the education she has received through her extensive travels.
"I had the privilege of going to the remote parts of the world that Madonna and Michael Jackson never get to visit," she said to laughter.
Over an artistic career that has spanned three decades, she has won an Oscar, been inducted into the Juno Hall of Fame, and received a star on Canada's Walk of Fame.
Sainte-Marie, who has also made a name defending and promoting aboriginal cultures in Canada and abroad, spoke bluntly of how indigenous North Americans had the misfortune to run up against Europeans "discovering" the New World.
"We were slaughtered by gangs of alcoholics, under the pressure of the Inquisition," she said.
The CUPE delegates rose to their feet on several occasions as Sainte-Marie spoke.
At one point, she spontaneously began drumming on the lectern and broke into a powerful song on the excesses of capitalism and what she called the "mindless greed" of modern politics. The crowd roared its approval.
People have forgotten or failed to learn that our primary purpose is to "make community," Sainte-Marie said.
"When one has a billion, and a billion have nothing, there's something wrong," she told the delegates, who are holding an anti-poverty rally in Toronto on Wednesday.
Sainte-Marie was especially scathing in her assessment of the conflicts raging in Iraq and Afghanistan.
She said those wars are nothing more than "money laundering" that loots local economies - the kind of outspoken position that saw her blacklisted in the U.S. during the Vietnam War era.
"It's got nothing to do with any of the ideals for which young people will enlist to protect their country, to preserve their traditions," she said. "It's a big fat lie."
She recited the lyrics from "Universal Soldier," the powerful anti-war song she wrote decades ago and which has been covered by such big-name artists as Donovan.
Yet despite her pointed criticism of capitalism, greed and how aboriginal peoples have been mistreated both in Canada and abroad, Sainte-Marie's message was an inspirational one of peace, forgiveness and redemption.
"Every single person has something to give," she said. "We have to have faith that we can teach each other and learn from each other."
