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Tue, 07 Oct 2003 11:29:43 -0700
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25
International March on Washington DC
MASS MARCH ON WASHINGTON TO SAY:
Bring the troops home now
End the occupation of Iraq
Money for jobs, education & healthcare - Not war
Gather at 11 am at the Washington Monument
PEOPLE OF AFRICAN DESCENT
RALLY AND FEEDER MARCH
Gather at 9am - 12noon
@ Malcolm X Park, 16th and Euclid St NW
The people in Iraq want the U.S. occupation to end. The U.S. soldiers in Iraq want to come home. On Saturday, October 25, tens of thousands of people in the U.S., joined by delegations from countries around the world, will go back into the streets to demand End the Occupation, Bring the Troops Home Now! Under the banner, "The World Unites Against U.S. Militarism," the demonstration, marching from the Justice Department to the White House to the Pentagon, will also demand an end to the looting and destruction of social programs by the Bush Administration.
Every day, people are dying as a consequence of this illegal occupation. Every day human misery expands in the drive for world Empire and corporate globalization. Every day, vital social programs that serve and protect working people in the U.S. are being destroyed as the Bush administration cynically manipulates the slogan of the "war on terrorism" to carry out the social transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top. It has served as a public relations ploy for their Robin-Hood-in-reverse politics. Stopping Bush's war abroad and his war at home is a matter of life and death. None of us has the luxury of waiting. The time to act is now.
U.S. troops, frightened by the hostile environment and encouraged by the racist climate created by the military brass, are killing and being killed in a war that serves only the interests of U.S. oil monopolies and corporate elites - George W. Bush's real constituents. U.S. soldiers and their families are now realizing that high government officials, mostly millionaires who shuttle between corporate boardrooms and government posts, are using U.S. troops as a private security detachment for Corporate America's plunder of Iraq's oil riches.
The October 25 International March on Washington will include delegations invited from countries around the world whose banners will represent resistance to the threat posed by the Bush Administration's hyper-aggressive "preemptive war" strategy. The Bush Administration has also just won approval from Congress to proceed with the creation of a new generation of tactical nuclear weapons explicitly designed to be used in the Third World in coming conflicts. The march will demand an immediate end to this new nuclear arms race.
The demonstration will be followed on October 26 by an assembly with international delegates from the global anti-war movement to assess and strategize challenging the Bush Administration's war drive and the component assault on civil rights and civil liberties taking place in many countries under the cloak of "national security" laws, including the Patriot Act in the U.S.
THE WAR AT HOME
The Bush administration will spend $2.7 trillion in a vast expansion of the U.S. military-industrial apparatus, while eliminating or severely cutting taxes for Corporate America and the one percent of the richest part of the United States population to the tune of $1 trillion. The administration is pursuing a calculated strategy to create a fiscal crisis inside the United States so that lawmakers will be compelled to cut or eliminate social programs for which there will no longer be funds.
Pentagon officials now admit that they intend for the U.S. to maintain at least 150,000 troops in Iraq for the "foreseeable future," while the cost of the U.S. war in and occupation of Iraq is nearly $4 billion a month, a "burn rate" that will also continue.
The government of the richest country in human history is spending more for war than any government in human history and has its troops stationed in more than 750 military installations and bases located in more than 130 countries all over the world. This is the means by which the Bush administration, the Pentagon and Corporate America are advancing the goal of Empire.
The rapid expansion of U.S. militarism under the Bush administration is not only a threat to the people of the world, it is a calculated assault on the standard of living and rights of working people. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz have a plan to destroy every social reform that has been achieved since the 1930s. What are they seeking to destroy or privatize? Social security, medicare, medicaid, public education, affirmative action, civil rights, women's rights, reproductive health, l/g/b/t rights, environmental protections, and any other programs or social rights that are perceived as either a restriction on corporate power and profits or are a focus of attack by the ultra-right's political program. Under the Bush Administration, the war at home has also meant a rise in attacks against communities of color. Police brutality against the African American and Latino communities in particular have escalated, from New York City to Ohio and across the country.
The October 25-26 weekend is also the second anniversary of the signing of the so-called Patriot Act authorizing political arrests, indefinite detentions and domestic spying. As the Bush administration - which only came to power due to massive racist disenfranchisement and voting fraud -- violates international law it has been systematically engaged in a campaign of division and repression in the United States including a wholesale assault on the Bill of Rights, institutionalization of racial profiling, and aggregation of near dictatorial powers to the Executive branch. The demonstration will be a political challenge to the attack on civil rights and civil liberties and the expansion of the system of repression in the U.S. and in countries around the world which have also adopted new repressive National Security laws.
The people of the world went into the streets unparalleled global mobilizations before the war started. On October 25, we will go into the streets again. The anti-war, civil rights and social justice movement, whose ranks are being joined in ever increasing numbers by the family members of military personnel and U.S. veterans, can create the effective political force that will end the occupation of Iraq and bring the troops home immediately. It was only the people's movement that ended the invasion and occupation of Vietnam and it will be the global people's anti-war movement that will help end the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
People of African Descent Statement:
Activists, scholars and representatives of people of African descent in the United States, issue this call in support of the massive mobilization for October 25th march and demonstration in Washington, DC. This March, being called jointly by the coalitions United for Peace and Justice and International ANSWER, is demanding an immediate end to the US illegal occupation of Iraq and the immediate return of US troops.
It is essential that people of African descent, that segment of the US population which overwhelmingly opposed the Bush administration's war of aggression against Iraq, continue to make its collective voice heard and its presence felt in the halls of government. That can only be done through making ourselves visible and outspoken in opposition to the bankrupt and disingenuous policies of an Administration committed to promoting domestic fear while our sons and daughters are killed or wounded in an illegal and needless
conflict.
We call upon people of African descent to assert itself at precisely the moment when programs and services are being cut to the bone here in the USA, while funds are being siphoned off to prop up a failed Middle East policy of illegal war and occupation.
Rather than creating a sense of security, the Bush administration's failed policies have increased hatred of the United States overseas, led to the loss of thousands of lives in Iraq, and destroyed any semblance of economic security for people at home.
For these and many other reasons people of African descent must march on October 25th!
for more information:
International A.N.S.W.E.R. National Office:
39 W. 14 St., #206, NY, NY 10011 · (212) 633-6646
[EMAIL PROTECTED] · www.internationalanswer.org
for People of African Descent Rally and Feeder March information:
contact Black Voices for Peace/BVFP Peoples Action Network @
202-232-5690 or www.bvfp.org or [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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