[Peace-discuss] info on Oct. 28 protests

[Ricky Baldwin]

Following up on last nite's discussion, here's what
ANSWER is saying re Oct. 28 protests (note the ref to
Sudan, related to another discussion topic last nite:

October 28 National Day of Action

We Are the Majority! 

Locally Coordinated Anti-War Protests from Coast to
Coast!

Vote With Your Feet 
 And Your Voices, and Banners,
and Signs!

Let Every Politician Feel the Power of the People! 

The people of this country should have the right to
vote on the continuation of the war against Iraq. If
this was a government of, by and for the people, the
November 2006 election would be a referendum on Iraq.
The popular will of the people is to end the war
against Iraq. But the question of Iraq is not on the
ballot. Most people will only have the chance to vote
for politicians from one of the Twin Parties of
Militarism. Neither represent the sentiment of the
people who favor the immediate end to a criminal
enterprise the selling of which has been based on lie,
after lie, after lie. 

Iraq is bleeding.  Hundreds of thousands of people
have died. U.S. soldiers are killing and being killed
in a war of aggression, and taxpayers are spending $2
billion each week for a repeat of Vietnam.  
The White House and the Pentagon have created a
death-squad government in Baghdad that is modeled on
the “Salvadoran Option” of the 1980’s whereby the U.S.
government employed military and police death squads
to quell a popular insurgency or resistance movement. 
The people of this country are confronted with a
choice in the face of this imperialist criminality.
What shall we do in a situation where the majority
sentiment favors an immediate end to the war but this
sentiment has no real voice within the established
political system?

The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition has initiated a call for
locally coordinated protests on Saturday, October
28th, just days before the pitiful charade known as
the 2006 mid-term elections. The people will force the
issue of the Iraq war onto the U.S. political stage by
taking to streets in demonstrations in cities and
towns throughout the United States. Tens of thousands
of people will take to the streets in Los Angeles, San
Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, New York, Miami,
Washington D.C. and in other large and small cities
and towns throughout the United States. 

Please make a tax-deductible donation today to help
pay the many expenses for the October 28th protests.
We are printing hundreds of thousands of leaflets,
posters, placards, and petitions. We can only meet
these and other expenses associated with building the
antiwar movement with your generous donation. [link]

>From Iraq to Palestine and Everywhere -- One War, Many
Fronts

The war in Iraq is part of a region-wide strategy in
the Middle East. The bankrolling of Israel’s
escalating war against the Palestinian people is a
central component of this strategy. The war against
Palestine, including economic strangulation, bombings
and assassinations, is paid for by the U.S. It is
central to the aim of re-organizing the Middle East
and to make it an outpost of U.S. neo-colonial
domination and a giant forward-base area threatening
the people of East Asia and South Asia and Africa. The
threats against Iran and Syria must be understood in
this context. So too should the widening war and
occupation in Afghanistan. 
 
We reject the call from the so-called opposition in
Congress that calls for a strategic redeployment from
Iraq and the placement of the divisions now deployed
in Iraq into nearby locations and bases so that they
can be used against other peoples in the Middle East.
That is not a “peace platform” but a tweaking of
imperialist military strategy.
 
We are building a global movement that unites rather
than excludes all those who are resisting occupation
and the threat of US military intervention.
 
The October 28 National Day of Action will also
connect the Iraq war to Bush’s illegal overthrow of
the government of Haiti and the continued occupation
of that country. U.S. foreign policy is a bi-partisan
program for aggression and threats against Cuba and
Venezuela and intervention in the Philippines and the
Sudan.

The People Can End the War!

The bloodbath in Vietnam only ended because of the
resistance of the people. In Vietnam the majority of
the people supported those carrying out military
resistance to the foreign military invaders. In the
United States, the people built a wide-reaching
movement that spread everywhere, grew in militancy and
included tens of thousands of rank and file soldiers
who were sick and tired of being ordered to kill and
be killed in a racist, imperialist adventure. 

The war abroad is also connected to the ongoing class
war at home. The corporations and banks are on a
rampage. Working class people in this country are
suffering from huge layoffs, low wages, the
destruction of pensions, and the slashing of
traditional job benefits, especially health care
coverage. Young people - who are taught that hard work
conquers all - instead face massive education cuts
that make their goals increasingly difficult to
achieve. 

At the same time as torture centers have been set up
at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and many secret
locations around the world, prisons are being
constructed at a record pace here. Prisons and jails
are constructed at a record pace as a new form of
social warehousing and punishment for working class
youth who are aggressively recruited not for higher
education and skilled jobs but to serve as foot
soldiers in the imperial army. 
Institutionalized racism is taking a devastating toll
as poverty mounts in African- American, Latino and
Native American communities. Hurricane Katrina proved
that the rich will use even the most devastating
natural disaster to intensify, not lessen, their
assault on the people. And yet working class
communities are fighting back. As the recent mass
demonstrations for immigrant rights prove, millions of
people are ready to take to the streets and struggle
for justice. The movement for justice at home and in
opposition to war and militarism are becoming one
united struggle. 

Millions of people in the U.S. have fought against the
war in Iraq since before the invasion started. Now we
can mobilize from the millions more who have turned
against the war and are sick and tired of the
government’s lies and deceit. Everyone must make the
effort to reach out to their friends and neighbors and
bring new people out into the streets.  

All out for October 28 National Day of Action!
Organize demonstrations, rallies, teach- ins, picket
lines throughout every community in the United States.

[more links]

 

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