[Peace-discuss] UFPJ & the inauguration, etc.

[C. G. Estabrook]

[I have my hesitations about "World Can't Wait" -- really about its antecedent, 
the RCP -- but the following seems to me about right. --CGE]

    Are We Going to have an ANTI-War Movement in the US?
    Thursday, 18 December 2008 04:10
    by Debra Sweet

I was at the United for Peace & Justice National Assembly this weekend.  I met 
some of you there who read this list; and others who were not familiar with 
World Can't Wait.

I worked with others -- mostly peace coalitions from the middle of the country, 
not in the larger cities -- to get UFPJ to support a united anti-war march in 
Washington DC on the sixth anniversary of the war, Saturday March 21.  By 
111-49, that proposal was defeated, in favor of what UFPJ's program "Yes We Can 
... End the War" for a Saturday, April 4 march on Wall Street, focusing on the 
recession.

Not to directly challenge Obama's escalation of the war in Afghanistan is 
shameful.  On the anniversary of "Shock & Awe," and under a new president, the 
anti-war movement needs to be in Washington.  And many of us WILL be there.
World Can't Wait wrote a letter to the anti-war movement.  We posed:

"We in this country, and those of us in this movement, have a choice. We can 
side with our government, with the "good war" fought in our names, and act like 
American lives are more important than anyone else's lives.

Or we can show the people living in the Middle East, and the world, that in the 
U.S. there is a difference between the people and their government, and that the 
people are taking responsibility to end an unjust war and the war crimes that 
have been carried out in our name. We can act like we care about the whole planet."

  Visible action is urgently needed. Plan Now:

The USA PATRIOT Act, the Military Commissions Act, and Obama's FISA Act must be 
repealed; the U.S. torture state must be dismantled, and secret rendition ended.
*Visible - orange - protests on Sunday, January 11, the anniversary of Guantanamo.

Prosecute the war criminals and STOP the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan!
*The first anti-war protest of the Obama administration January 20, 2009, 
Washington DC,

Six Years of Illegitimate War - Resist the Recruiters!
*Wednesday, March 18 "We Are Not Your Soldiers" Day of resistance to recruiters;
*Thursday March 19: Local protests including school walk-outs.
*Saturday March 21: United mass protests.

We in World Can't Wait pledge to work with everyone who wants to build an 
ANTI-war movement.  Real change happens when people take independent action - 
outside the confines of government and in their own interests.

If we want to stop the continued horror of the largest imperialist power on 
earth dropping bombs, sending death squads and torturers anywhere with impunity 
-- in our names -- the only way is to face up to reality, tell the truth, and 
get out to the people with the message that we must stop the crimes of our 
government.