Iraq War Moratorium November planning Meet-up This Thursday November 8th 6:30 Lazzy Moon Options
Terminello
This month's third Friday event is approaching fast(next Week)
We will be hosting a meeting this Thursday 6: 30 at lazy moon on the
East side of orlando.
There is no concert plans for this month butt some of us have been
talking about a rally and possible banner drop.
So if you will like to help out with the event, or your group is
planning an event and need some help, please pass by
I have also added a recent article on the event
Enjoy
Iraq Moratorium: Not Your Parents' Antiwar Movement
by Meteor Blades
Wed Jun 20, 2007 at 03:50:05 PM PST
At the first big protest against the Vietnam War, in the spring of
1965, elements of the antiwar movement were embroiled in a major
political dispute. Many of us members of Students for a Democratic
Society had backed Lyndon Baines Johnson in the election against
Barry
Goldwater - "Part of the way with LBJ" was our slogan - a position
taken in no small part because of the Civil Rights Act that Johnson
had used his wiliness, arm-twisting skills and parliamentary acumen
to
wrangle through Congress in the summer of 1964 against the barricades
thrown up by powerful, segregationist Southern Democrats.
::
Within SDS, there was strong opposition to the Cold War policies -
both Republican and Democratic - that bolstered what Dwight
Eisenhower
had labeled the "military-industrial-congressional complex" in the
second-to-last-draft of his 1961 farewell address, dropping
"congressional" in the final version to keep from irking you-know-
who.
Moreover, many of us viewed the Great Society programs announced in
Johnson's 1965 State of the Union as weak tea. We saw, for instance,
well-intentioned halfway reforms like Medicare as potentially
undermining the broader, longer-term goal of providing health care
for
all. But we were torn because both the civil rights law and the Great
Society programs seemed like steps forward, however tentative, and
consequently, our opposition to the President's war policies was
initially muted.
That changed when LBJ began escalating, agreeing to General William
Westmoreland's request in late February to send two marine battalions
to Vietnam. In addition to the troops, that spring saw the first
heavy
bombing, the first use of napalm and a vastly stepped up spraying of
defoliants that had begun in 1962, under the code name Ranch Hand, to
deny food and cover to the Viet Minh/Cong guerrillas.
In the spring, local SDS chapters, on their own, or in alliance with
other organizations, conducted small protests in a handful of
communities against the bombing and sending of troops. In April 1965,
SDS organized the first large antiwar protest in Washington, D.C.
About 25,000 people showed up, large numbers dressed in suits, ties
and dresses.
Over the next five years, as the war dragged on and the fatalities
among Americans and Southeast Asians mounted, so did the size and
frequency of the protests, culminating in what some call the largest
outpouring of antiwar dissent in U.S. history on October 15, 1969,
when an estimated two million Americans across the country
demonstrated their opposition as part of the Moratorium to End the
War
in Vietnam. In November half a million protested in Washington, D.C.
Some communities, particularly in towns with universities, continued
the monthly moratorium protests for another year or more, with
massive
"strikes" and other protests on college campuses after the Nixon-
Kissinger invasion of Cambodia. But, soon, stunned by the killings at
Kent State and Jackson State, splintered by divisions about ideology,
riven by disputes over tactics and strategy, weakened by the gradual
withdrawal of troops and the draft lottery, SDS imploded, and the
antiwar movement became a shadow of its former self, remembered and
misremembered ever after by activists and foes alike with mixed
reviews as to its efficacy and influence.
Today, 34 years after the last combat troops came home from that war,
we've had 51 months of war and occupation in Iraq. We know the
statistics all too well. Thousands of Americans are dead, tens of
thousands are maimed, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead, more
than four million are displaced or in exile, hundreds of billions of
dollars have been spent, the number of Americans in uniform deployed
to Iraq has soared over the past four months, and the drums are being
pounded for military action against Iran.
Yet, even though a recent poll shows 59% of Americans believe troop
levels should be reduced, and 37% - the highest level yet - believe
the troops should be immediately withdrawn, antiwar actions are
largely invisible. Chalk that up in part to media failures, in part
due to a lack of imagination by national antiwar organizers.
Iraq Moratorium Day hopes to change that by transforming the third
Friday of every month - starting on September 21 - into a national
day
of local protest against U.S. policy in Iraq.
As ActivistGuy announced here Monday, this mobilization is truly a
grassroots-netroots effort. Here's the way the initiators of Iraq
Moratorium Day put it in their excellent question-and-answer section:
How do I join?
You don't join. This is not an organization, it's a project. You
endorse it. To take part you DO SOMETHING on the third Friday of
every
month. Ideally you do it with other people.
My group organizes in urban communities around the fact that the war
is draining resources that we need for our cities, schools, youth
etc.
Great! The war impacts every aspect of our lives, and the more that
point is made the better! We need local groups to bring campaigns
that
they are working on.
What is your relationship to other antiwar groups and coalitions?
This is not a group. It's a campaign. Many diverse and often
divergent
groups and individuals have signed on to this project and consult
with
us about plans and direction. We are not asking any groups to stop
doing what they are doing. Instead, we hope this project will be a
tool they can use to strengthen their mobilizing.
Huzzah. As I have argued since the 1960s, and continuously since I
began participating at Daily Kos five years ago, local organizing and
locally-based opposition is key to success, whether that's electing
more (and better) Democrats or finding other means to stop various
policies, including the PNAC-inspired foreign policy of the grotesque
Bush Administration.
I know many people who oppose the occupation want nothing to do with
protest marches. They consider them futile or counterproductive.
Sadly, many progressives highly mistrustful of the media's coverage
of
the Bush Administration have bought how the same media depict the
antiwar movement of the 1960s. We made plenty of dumb mistakes. But
images of dirty f'n hippies to the contrary, protest marches weren't
the end-all, be-all then, just a tool. Ninety-five percent of what we
foes of U.S. policy did in the Vietnam era was NOT organize marches
and rallies.
There were: vigils; sit-ins; draft counseling; election work;
veterans
advocacy; teach-ins; one-on-one persuasion of neighbors, friends,
parents, professors, editors, business executives, Congresspeople;
getting draft-age 18-year-olds the right to vote; civilly disobedient
tax avoidance; letters to the editor; Op-Eds; building alternative
newspapers (a parallel of today's blogs) and a host of other
activities, from 48-hour hunger vigils to pouring blood on draft
files.
Forty years ago, communication was far more difficult. We actually
did
considerable initial organizing via snail mail. Today, there are
computers and the Internet with all its advantages to communicate,
organize and amplify. A clever bit of street theatre can be
transmitted by YouTube and replicated or adapted in 100 communities.
A successful Iraq Moratorium Day is up to you, your organization, and
other activists in your community. It's your choice how to respond on
the third Friday. Read the names of dead American soldiers and Iraqi
civilians at the entrance to a mall. Protest at your Congressperson's
district office (or hold a public celebration if s/he is one of those
who actively opposes the occupation). Organize an afternoon of
letter-
writing. Petition your city council to pass a resolution urging
Congress to vote for withdrawal. Sponsor an antiwar art contest at a
local gallery. Meet with the editor of your local publication and
encourage her to write an editorial for withdrawal. Show a film. Go
to
a rally.
Perhaps you only feel comfortable showing your opposition by wearing
a
black armband or black ribbon on September 21 and subsequent third
Fridays. Nothing wrong with that. Indeed, that is the unifying
feature
of Iraq Moratorium Day.
We Will Wear Black Armbands & Ribbons to Show Mourning
We mourn the death and maiming of our troops
We mourn the death and maiming of Iraqis
We mourn the devastation of Iraq
We mourn the damage in our own country
We mourn the neglect of our cities, our towns and our countryside
We Will Wear Black Armbands & Ribbons to Show Determination
We are determined to bring our troops home
We are determined to bring our resources home
We are determined to end this war
We are determined to make our voices count!
You don't have to wait until September. You can start on the third
Friday in July or August. I plan to. Be prepared for conversation
with
your classmates, teachers or those you work with. You might even want
to bring some extra armbands or ribbons so those interested can join
you. That's the point, after all, to show the Administration, the
Congress (on both sides of the aisle) and the media just how many of
us oppose this misbegotten war and occupation.
Some people will argue that none of this will do any good. Changing
Congress and the Presidency is the only answer, they say.
The Iraq Moratorium Day initiators reply:
Nothing is going to change until after the 2008 election anyway, so
wouldn't it be better to concentrate on the elections?
We can't rely on our elected officials to do this. Unfortunately it
is
only unremitting pressure from the public that can bring this war to
a
speedy conclusion. Even after the 2006 Democratic sweep demonstrated
how overwhelmingly the people of this country want the war to end, we
have watched as the war escalates. After Nixon was elected in 1968 in
a campaign that promised to end the war, it took 7 more years before
it finally ended. As IM endorser Howard Zinn says, "We who protest
the
war are not politicians. We are citizens. Whatever politicians may
do,
let them first feel the full force of citizens who speak for what is
right, not for what is winnable."
For those determined to spend their spare time working for an end to
the war - for a change in U.S. foreign policy - the third Friday
isn't
the only thing to be done, it's something additional, something to do
collectively with other Americans that puts a megaphone to our
voices.
Something we in SDS used to call "participatory democracy," a
felicitous phrase and practice that ought to be revived, not just as
part of our opposition to the occupation but throughout our political
resistance to the authoritarians who seek to control us in every way
that matters.