------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Nov. 7, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
BUSH, CONGRESS SAY YES, PEOPLE SAY NO WAR Protesters Encircle White House, Flood Streets of S.F. By Deirdre Griswold Washington, D.C. What a difference a day makes. After the massive Oct. 26 anti-war march, in which the broad avenues surrounding the White House were packed solid with demonstrators, there can no longer be a shred of doubt about it: grassroots sentiment in the U.S. is opposed to the Bush administration's plans for a "pre-emptive" war on Iraq. On the same day, a huge demonstration in San Francisco showed that anti-war sentiment is just as strong on the West Coast. There were also demonstrations in major cities around the world. (See accompanying articles.) People came to D.C., the heart of the federal government, from every state in the U.S. The International ANSWER coalition, which initiated the call for the protest, reported 150 organizing centers around the country. Hundreds of chartered buses caused gridlock in the White House area. Tens of thousands also streamed into the city by car, van, plane and train. Two weeks of media focus on the sniper killings in the Washington suburbs and heavy rain that ended the morning of the demonstration may have cut down the numbers somewhat, but nobody noticed; it was one of the largest protests against war since the Vietnam era. It was remarkable in that today there is no draft, as there was then, and the all-out war Bush is promising has not yet started. Pacifica Radio and organizers put the numbers at 200,000. The Washington Post reported over 100,000. It based that figure on the Washington police, who said the crowd was significantly larger than the April 20 demonstration in support of Palestine. Police had estimated that earlier event at 75,000. The march followed a two-mile rectangular route around the White House. On its return to the rally site at the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial, the head of the march had to stop at Constitution Avenue and 17th Street where the tail was still marching out. All the broad streets and avenues around the presidential residence were packed with protesters. The crowd was generally very young, but included thousands of veterans of earlier wars and anti-war movements. The largest component was students, who came in buses from all over the East, Midwest, South and as far away as Texas. However, unionists with their banners were present in larger numbers than during the Vietnam protests. The drill team of the International Longshore Workers Union flew in from the West Coast to lead the march. These dock workers are in a struggle with both the bosses and the Bush administration, which has invoked the Taft-Hartley law and "national security"to force them to work under unsafe conditions without a contract. RALLY HITS WAR, POVERTY, REPRESSION Speakers representing a broad spectrum of progressive social and political forces attacked the policies of the Bush administration at a three-hour rally before the march. The rally was televised live by C-SPAN and also broadcast by Pacifica Radio. Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the ANSWER steering committee opened the rally and introduced her three co-chairs: Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation; Michel Shehadeh of the Free Palestine Alliance, and Larry Holmes of the International Action Center. Shehadeh and Holmes are also ANSWER steering committee members. A major theme of the speakers and of the many placards and banners carried by demonstrators was "No blood for oil." Hand-made signs caricatured President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as prime architects of a war for oil profits. The economic impact of the war on jobs and social services at home was another main concern, as was the wave of repression that has accompanied war preparations. Veterans of the Gulf War, the Vietnam War, the Korean War and World War II all rejected Bush's plans for a new assault in the Middle East, pointing to the nearby memorial that lists the names of the more than 50,000 GIs killed in Vietnam. Demonstrators had also erected a memorial to the Iraqi children killed by sanctions over the last decade. A high point of the rally was an impassioned talk by Ramsey Clark, founder of the International Action Center and a former head of the Justice Department, who has increasingly become an opponent of U.S. government actions and policies around the globe. Pointing to the nearby memorial site, he said that the "only decent respect for the Vietnam dead is to stop all U.S. wars. No more war memorials!" Clark didn't let the civilian authorities of the U.S. off the hook for their sanctions on Iraq, either. "Some 1.5 million have been killed by the genocidal sanctions," he said. "These are criminal offenses, indictable and impeachable offenses." Clark at one time occupied the Cabinet position of U.S. attorney general, held today by John Ashcroft, and speaks with authority on legal matters. RAMSEY CLARK: 'THIS IS A PLUTOCRACY' He called on this growing movement to "liberate this country from militarism and from corporate rule. This is not a democracy; this is a plutocracy. Let's liberate the USA. Let's work productively and reach out in friendship to everyone in the world." Clark's broad-ranging critique of U.S. society evoked loud cheers and applause from the huge crowd. The war that Bush plans to launch has already had grave consequences for Muslims and Arab people in the U.S., and many organizations representing these communities participated in the march and rally. They used the platform to acquaint the public with cases involving illegal detentions, attacks on mosques, deportations and other egregious assaults on civil liberties that followed the passage of the "Patriot Act." Mahdi Bray of the Muslim American Society said the real "regime change" needed was in Washington. Minel Omar, a student and respected activist in the Arab American community, told how Iraq had used its oil money to provide free education up to the university level. City University of New York students were represented by Zahra Khan, president of the undergraduate student body at Hunter College. The Student Liberation Action Movement there organized several buses to the march. Elias Rashmawi, a Palestinian, rejected the demonization of Arab people, saying that "Arab people are not a fifth column, we are part of this community." What began as police raids on people of Middle East descent have now extended even to their attorneys. Lynne Stewart, a New York lawyer now facing charges because of her legal defense of Arabs, said that was what had happened in Chile after the Pinochet coup of 1973: "They pick up the lawyers and think they can defeat the movement." Stephanie Schaudel, who has visited Iraq with the group Voices in the Wilderness, ridiculed the idea that Iraq has weapons that threaten the United States. "The U.S. has the most weapons of mass destruction," she pointed out. The African American community is affected by the war drive in many ways. Civil rights leader Al Sharpton described what the war budget is taking away from the people and summed up, "The president puts the interests of big business over human life." Congress member Cynthia McKinney of Georgia, who has been very outspoken about U.S. commercial motives in Africa, warned that "dangerous changes are taking place daily" in this country because of the Patriot Act. She decried the huge amounts of "money spent on the military while poverty affects millions," pointing out that one quarter of the homeless in this country are veterans and many suffer from Gulf War Syndrome. Jesse Jackson had the crowd with him when he called for unity of the movement and rejected bigotry of all kinds, including "homophobia and anti-Semitism." He warned the audience about "tricks for diversion. Saddam is not coming but the economy is falling. We must not be diverted" into a war. But many in the audience visibly disagreed with his characterization of the 1991 Gulf War as a "necessary war." The manipulation of the terrorism issue by the government was addressed by labor speakers, including Michael Letwin of New York City Labor Against War, a coalition of unionists that has been organizing ever since the war threats began after the disaster at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 last year. Clarence Thomas of the ILWU, fresh from the dock wars on the West Coast, reflected his militant union when he urged, "No colonial occupation of Iraq! No war against our civil liberties! The Maritime Security Act treats port workers like potential terrorists. Hands off the dock, stay out of Iraq!" FOR A PEOPLE'S ANTI-WAR CONGRESS The capitulation by the U.S. Congress to Bush's demand for authorization to launch a war at any time was lambasted by many speakers and slogans. Some signs praised Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, a populist who had voted against the war resolution and had just been killed in a plane crash, along with his wife and daughter. Speakers for the ANSWER coalition urged the crowd to "Vote no war" in a people's referendum that would expose the undemocratic character of the Congress. Brian Becker of the ANSWER steering committee explained how people could go online at the votenowar.org Web site to register their opposition. ANSWER expects many millions will take advantage of the Web site and of paper ballots being circulated so they can make their opinions felt--opinions that a majority of Congress completely ignored when they voted for Bush's resolution despite mail and phone calls running more than 100 to 1 against it. Besides this referendum, the coalition plans to build upon the success of the Oct. 26 demonstrations with a Grassroots Peace Congress in Washington on the Martin Luther King weekend, Jan. 18-19. Sara Flounders of the International Action Center emphasized that this people's congress would represent the millions who are furious at being disregarded by the politicians in Washington. This demonstration gave voice to every movement standing up to the Bush administration's war drive and repression at home. U.S. military expansion was challenged by speakers from South Korea, Vieques in Puerto Rico, and Chuck Kaufman of the Nicaragua Solidarity Movement and ANSWER steering committee. Atty. Leonard Weinglass called for solidarity with the Cuban 5, who are serving life sentences in U.S. prisons because they monitored the activities of anti-Cuban terrorist groups in Florida. Academy Award-winning actor Susan Sarandon added another dimension when she called on people to "resist this war and our impending oil war in Colombia." The lesbian, gay, bi and trans movement was represented by author and editor Leslie Feinberg. Support was voiced for political prisoners Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier and Imam Jamil Al-Amin. Touching people's hearts as well as their minds were singer Patti Smith and the Chicago hip-hop group Primeridian, which opened the rally. For many at the rally, it may have been their first exposure to many of these issues. The Bush administration's relentless march toward war is awakening layers of the population who have not belonged to any movement. They went back home with the pledge that they will organize, organize, organize to keep this movement growing and push back the war machine. n - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
