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The World Can't Wait organizes people living in this country to repudiate and stop the fascist way the Bush Regime set out to remake the U.S., including the murderous, unjust and illegitimate occupations of Iraq & Afghanistan, the global "war of terror" of torture, rendition and spying, and the culture of bigotry, intolerance and greed. This direction cannot and will not be reversed by presidents who tell us to seek common ground with fascists, religious fanatics, and empire, but only by the people building a community of resistance, an independent, mass movement of people acting in the interests of humanity to stop, and demand prosecution of, these crimes.
TURN OUT THE TORTURE PROFESSOR

Pope Gregory Day, last Monday of Fall Semester (instruction ends December 1st)
Make this John Yoo's last class ever! 

-12PM Sproul Plaza 
Wear an orange jumpsuit to represent a torture victim. 
March through campus. 

-3PM Boalt Law School 
John Yoo's class starts at 3:20, Room 105.
Let's make a memorable conclusion.  

Call on law students and others to take a stand against torture. There is a battle raging right now over the future of the University of California. But the question is not only whether education will be affordable, but what kind of education it will be... 

If, as is too common, our universities are merely providing new technicians for sustaining the status quo, the debate over private vs public might indeed be moot. But, if we use higher education to accomplish higher ideals, as in experiments for realizing a better and more equitable world, the public could be best convinced that student demands are justified. 

The battle over higher education in California is really a battle over the shape of the future, not just in California, but the country. 
At UC Berkeley the question is starkly posed: 

What kind of University is it that harbors an international war criminal directly responsible for the torture of thousands of innocent people across the Middle East and South Asia, and yet arrests 4 people for protesting against him? 

What kind of country are we living in, where torture is carried out systematically in pursuit of oil, power, and empire - and we are taught that it is necessary to keep Americans safe? 

And what kind of people are we if we tolerate a torturer on our campus, in our community? 

What kind of students are we if we think only of our classes and our careers and not of the wars and torture being carried out around the world in our name? 

What kind of professors are we if we treat John Yoo as a respected colleague? In passively allowing the humanity of others to be violated, our own humanity becomes degraded. 

If you refuse to allow the next generation to be educated that torture is OK, take a stand.

It is up to us. 

In downtown Seattle , people taking their children to visit Santa and riding the carousel. Young people are shopping, looking for Black Friday deals for the upcoming holidays. All of a sudden out of nowhere, military soldiers come running out with their arms pointed like guns and yelling for people to get down on the ground. The soldiers grab people standing by and throw them on the ground. The people on the ground are screaming and crying as the soldiers keep screaming at them, "Shut the Fuck Up, you fucking hadjis. You are nothing. Get the hell down." All the while the people on the ground are saying, " We didn't do anything, we love America . What did we do?" People passing by stop and begin taking pictures on their cellphone and a group of skateboarders laugh out of nervousness. Children are asking their parents about what is going on...

Tuesday, December 1, 8:00pm East Coast Time, President Obama is speaking at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to announce a troop increase to Afghanistan and escalation of the unjust and immoral war there. 

This surge can only be stopped by sustained, independent political protest.

Demonstrations are part of a national day of action called by Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out, The ANSWER Coalition, National Assembly, National Campaign for Non-Violent Resistance, Pledge of Resistance, Voices for Creative Non-Violence, World Can't Wait, Code Pink and United for Peace & Justice.


LYNNE'S BAIL REVOKED 
Lynne's bail has been revoked, and she is now being held in jail after the Second Circuit ruled on her and the government's appeals on Tuesady, November 17, 2009. You can read the opinion and other motions to stay below. 

KEEP CHECKING BACK - MORE NEWS SOON

Lynne Stewart
Lynne Stewart speaking at a mass protest against the Iraq war.

To send Lynne a letter, write:
Lynne Stewart
53504-054
MCC-NY
150 Park Row
New York, NY NY 10007

A message from the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition:

Lynne Stewart was sent to prison today. People throughout the United States and around the world recognize this as a great miscarriage of justice.

Her indictment was an outrage. So too was her conviction. The fact that this seventy year old veteran civil rights attorney has been sent to prison is a crime itself. She is serving a 28 month sentence although the Court of Appeals has remanded her case back to the original trial court with the hope that her sentence will be lengthened. The Bush Justice Department had sought a 30 year sentence.

"Lynne Stewart should be set free," stated Brian Becker, national coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition. "Her conviction is part of an-going war against civil rights and particularly against the Arab-American and Muslim community. With her jailing the government is sending a definite and chilling message to all the attorneys in this country - 'do not represent Arab people and or Muslims.'

In recent weeks the government has seized mosques in the United States at the same time as they have implanted agent provocateurs and set up sting operations and carried out FBI assassinations targeting the American Muslim community and its leaders."

The irony and hypocrisy of Lynne Stewart's imprisonment can't be overlooked. This admired civil rights attorney who is struggling with cancer is sent to prison while the Bush attorneys who authorized and instructed the most sadistic torture occupy comfortable positions as law professors and serve as judges on the federal bench. It is they who should be disbarred, prosecuted and sent to prison.

The ANSWER Coalition is planning major actions protesting the Afghanistan and Iraq war on Saturday March 20. We will also be demanding an end to the persecution and repression of the Arab and Muslim communities. Lynne Stewart has marched with us and spoken at these major protests in past years. In spite of the threat of prison hanging over her, Lynne Stewart always marched in defense others especially the Iraqi, Afghan and Palestinian people. 


On this March 20, 2010 people marching together will now also demand Free Lynne Stewart!

SF Protest sponsors include:
 Lynne Stewart Defense Committee; National Lawyers Guild; Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal; National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations; ANSWER Coalition; World Can't Wait and many others. Call 415-821-6545 for more information.

Activists Protest John Yoo on UC Berkeley Campus

Elaine Pasquini, WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

An AUC Berkeley police officer instructs activist B. Johnson to move her sign, which he claims violates a law that allows only signs 30 square inches to be displayed on campus property. Johnson then moved her wheelchair with the sign attached to a public sidewalk nearby. Staff photo Phil Pasquini

Continuing to publicly call for the firing and prosecution of "torture memo" author Prof. John Yoo, members of the World Can't Wait protested Sept. 3 on the Berkeley campus of the University of California where the former Bush administration attorney teaches a class in civil procedures...

c/o Flagler College Gargoyle

Obama's Prize tells world 'War is Peace'

By Cal Colgan | JColgan@flagler.edu
Illustration by Hahau Yisrael

Last month, Barack Obama became the third U.S. president to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee lauded Obama for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

But unlike the countless followers of the lunatic Glenn Beck who think that our 44th president is turning our country into Stalinist Russia, there is a more rational argument to be made against Obama's recent award.

The Nobel Peace Prize was given to a man who, like a character in a George Orwell novel, kills in the name of peace. And as much as his doublespeak would like to drown out the cries of the victims of the sinister cadre of human rights abusers and war criminals that he supports, anyone with an elementary knowledge of current events knows that Obama's hands are muddied by the muck his allies have thrown on the peoples of the world...

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Defend Women, Defend Choice! Rightwingers Assault Both in Berkeley!

Seemingly out of nowhere, a horribly ugly assault on women and reproductive rights is happening right now at UC Berkeley. A Christian fundamentalist and Christian fascist road show calling itself the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform CBRMidwest [at] cbrinfo.org arrived at Sproul Plaza early this morning (Monday) to stage what it calls its "Genocide Awareness Project (GAP)." They state their mission is to "create debate" and "our main purpose is to disciple others to save lives." They appear from their websites to be a well-funded national campaign that is going to be travelling to campuses across the country; they see historically progressive (and pro-choice) UC Berkeley as especially crucial ground to take.
Center for Bioethical Reform, Genocide Awareness Project, Barack Obama, abortion, display early.jpgAll All day Monday this anti-abortion/anti-women group covered Sproul Plaza with (according to one outraged eyewitness) "...an elaborate huge huge display of bloody fetus pictures, targeting Obama, comparing abortion to Nazi genocide and lynching in the old south, and sporting a picture of Mario Savio as its "free speech" centerpiece." This horrendous display looks like it cost huge bucks, and they had a crew of dozens of anti-abortion "disciples" including their own "documentary" film crew and both speaker types but also plenty of them walking through the crowd dressed in pink or purple, mostly older but some younger, trying to engage students in conversations about the "horrors" of abortion. 

As of mid-afternoon, students from the Gender Studies Department and the local NOW chapter were texting everyone they know to get down to the campus, where they formed a line & locked arms in front of these creeps, chanting "Our bodies, Our choice" for hours. People hurried to bring signs they had at hand - "Abortion Doctors Are Heroes" - enlargements of a Revolution newspaper centerfold, "A Fetus Is Not A Baby" - and joined in. The situation was very tense. 

The GAP and the Pro-Life Institute are part of the same movement that has been terrorizing clinics and murdering abortion providers, most recently shooting down Dr. George Tiller in his own church on a Sunday morning. There can be no common ground with religious fanatics and Christian fascists, given their goals of ending women's rights to abortion and contraception. How could anyone who respects the dignity and humanity of women find common ground with people who murder and bomb to take those things away? 

The World Can't Wait movement is sounding the alarm: tell everyone you know: women and men, students and older people too -- get down to Sproul Plaza and make your presence count. This "GAP" assault is something about to hit other campuses and there has to be a resounding resistance seen, heard and felt in response. Come early (or any time) Tuesday - be with the students -- and take a stand. 

NOTE: The GAP display apparently will be at Sproul Plaza from approximately 9:00am until 5:00pm again on Tuesday. To check out this "Christian, life-saving" operation including its grotesque and totally unscientific lies about abortion, see http://www.abortionNO.org

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World Can't Wait super-picket contingent

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Indybay report here


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Scott Horton Interviews Debra Sweet

Scott Horton, October 14, 2009

Debra Sweet, National Director of World Can't Wait, discusses the post-Obama antiwar movement collapse, the strange confluence of The Feminist Majority and the Bush administration in selling the War in Afghanistan, the laughable notion that the Pentagon can be used to secure human rights, Afghan warlords allied with the Karzai government whose human rights records are no better than the Taliban's and how activists can make their voices heard on antiwar issues.

MP3 here. (25:46)


Listen to Obama's latest speeches: it is clear that no one in the top rungs of the U.S. government is prepared to end the Afghanistan war, an ongoing catastrophe that is now opposed by a majority of the American public. Within the next weeks, Obama will announce deployment of up to 20,000 more troops.  Will you just let this happen without response from those of us who live inside this country - those of us in whose names these crimes are being done?

Since the end of 2001 four wedding parties have been blown away -- murdered -- by U.S. air power in Iraq and Afghanistan. And there was probably at least one more. Back in May 2002, it was claimed that U.S. helicopters wiped out a wedding party in the eastern Afghan province of Khost, killing 10 and wounding many more. An Agence France Presse report at the time concluded: "A wedding was in progress in the village when people fired into the air in traditional celebration and US helicopters flying over the area could have mistaken it for hostile fire. An aircraft later bombed the area for several hours."

We have a responsibility to stop the death and destruction in Afghanistan. World Can't Wait joined October 7th anti-war action with a visible representation of the death and destruction caused over and over again by U.S. bombs raining down on Afghan wedding parties. Any normal social gathering of Afghan civilians may be mistaken for an enemy force and attacked by drones and missiles. This must stop! This is no "good war."

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The most blatant show of military and police force left protesters tear-gassed, subject to piercing sound, shot with rubber bullets, and not allowed to assemble, while the population of Pittsburgh was kept off the streets and rounded up along with people there to deliver messages of opposition to the G-20 ministers.

 
We put a quick letter together which we will deliver on Thursday.  Please circulate this link everywhere so that thousands sign on.

The week after our big protest at Boalt Hall (UC Berkeley Law) where we had confronted Torture Professor John Yoo himself, August 27 was the second day of classes for the main UC campus and World Can't Wait had called for another action.  This time, we took to the campus crossroads of Sproul Plaza during the noon hour to be out among the students there.  This demonstration - again protesting John Yoo's continued tenure at UC - was a great success.  In fact everyone thought the action was so successful that on the spot we agreed to do it again the following week, which we did.

On the 27th about twenty of us did this action together from World Can't Wait and some faith-based activist friends (Pax Christi, St. Joseph the Worker church, School of the Americas Watch).  And a man who had come because as a Korean American he felt especially moved to speak out against John Yoo.  Overall we got a good response from many students and others.  A lot of people got our flyers and signed up, during many good conversations.  This openness -- the fact that people weren't avoiding political leaflets and activists like so many often do at Sproul -- was partly because it was the first week, but also partly due to other factors.  A lot of students were gravitating to the people wearing jumpsuits on the ground, coming up to us, taking pics, asking what this was all about.  Many of them didn't know who John Yoo is; when they found out, they were upset that a lawyer who helped set up the whole torture state is actually on campus teaching at the law school, but they were literally learning about this for the first time from us, just now.  Others came up to talk, who knew more - many of them said they can't believe Yoo is still teaching, they had thought that he would've been fired by now.

Our hooded "detainees" posed standing or kneeling as others talked to students and gave out leaflets around them.   The "detainees" were mostly silent, but a couple of them shouted to the crowd: "I have been here five years without a lawyer...why are you torturing my son?"  and "John Yoo is a murderer, as guilty of torture as if he had performed the act himself."  In spite of the campus cops' prohibition of a bullhorn, we managed to keep people aroused and interested.

We passed out flyers,  had many opportunities for conversation and many signed out contact sheets to receive more information.  A few of us from World Can't Wait worked with other volunteers and activists to hand out flyers and talk with students and others.  A Brazilian student wants to be involved and stated that he's very against torture and is very familiar with what the U.S. did in supporting torturers in Latin America.  A Pilipino student also talked about what the U.S. did in supporting torture and disappearances in his country.  One woman representing an Asian-American student magazine was interested in interviewing Stephanie about John Yoo.  And a young woman who'd been in the recent "tree sit" came to join us.

Later, a man joined our crew with his own home made "FIRE JOHN YOO" signs.  He works at the labs on campus.  He told us he was upset about Attorney General Eric Holder only aiming to prosecute the low level people, not the people that gave the orders or the lawyers like John Yoo.  A woman from Wisconsin who was helping her daughter move into a dorm stated she was outraged about Yoo being on campus and Obama's attitude that people should only "look forward not back."

The next Thursday, September 3, was another great success! With 5 orange jump suited detainees, draped in chains, we returned to Sproul Plaza again.  We handed out hundreds of flyers, and signed up more new supporters, including a couple who are ready to get involved.  As with the week before, the predominant response was curiosity, and often too amazement that someone like John Yoo would be teaching law at UCB. 

One of our greatest challenges is to educate a population of students, many of whom seem largely ignorant of world affairs and how the United States promotes its "Dr. Evil"-like policies throughout the world.  One of us said later: "Only one person I talked to argued that it is good to have people like John Yoo at the university because it shows that we value diversity of opinions. He quickly backtracked when I told him it isn't a question of John Yoo's opinions, but his actions as a member of the Bush administration -actions that directly facilitated the torture of thousands of people.  Another person argued that 'interrogations' can be necessary to extract information that will protect Americans.  This person really thought that American lives were more valuable than the lives of other people around the world."

The highlight of the day was when a big group of Latino high school kids from San Jose walked up.  They were touring the campus with their teachers.   Right at that moment, one of our people was being harassed by the campus police because the cops claimed that her sign was larger than UCPD regulations.   Our friend wasn't about to lay down her sign, and said she did not mind being charged with a ticket, but then the cops threatened to confiscate the sign to be used as evidence against her.  She still said she would not give up her sign. An attorney with the National Lawyers Guild stood by to protect the rights of the protestor should she get arrested. Eventually she decided to go to the public area in front of the plaza with her oversized "super picket" and one of the "detainees."

A teacher with the Latino students asked for an explanation of what was going on. They gathered around Rafael from World Can't Wait for a quick orientation about what our protest was about. They listened and learned who John Yoo is, what he had done and why the police were trying to stop our message from getting out.  One young woman student called out, "Let's start a chant, what should we say?"  "No torture," was suggested which they all started chanting, with another student also yelling out "Fire John Yoo! Fire John Yoo!"  Finally as the police started to leave, we all started chanting "Police go home!"  Not surprisingly the high school students all got really into that one.

Serious protests and a climate and culture of resistance are what's required now, bold and frequent and growing.   Whether protest takes the form of marching or holding speakouts and press conferences, going among students with challenging information and calls to action, or organizing debates and programs, more and more people have to take part in challenging the entire university community over the presence of this war criminal.  John Yoo must be fired, disbarred, and prosecuted for war crimes. The world can't wait.

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Terrorizing Civilians in Afghanistan

By Kenneth J. Theisen
Thursday September 10, 2009
In May of this year, the Obama administration fired General David McKiernan as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. In announcing the decision, Defense Secretary Robert Gates stated he was seeking "fresh thinking" and "fresh eyes" on Afghanistan. McKiernan was replaced by General Stanley McChrystal. His selection marked the continued ascendancy of officers who have advocated the use of counterinsurgency tactics in Iraq and Afghanistan. General David Petraeus, the head of Central Command, was another such officer. He implemented COIN strategy in Iraq. Petraeus is McChrystal's commander. Gates praised McChrystal for his "unique skill set in counterinsurgency. 

When McChrystal took command of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, he claimed his implementation of counter-insurgency (COIN) warfare there would protect the Afghan population. His version of war would help win the "hearts and minds of the people" just as it did in Vietnam. This new emphasis on COIN strategy was supposed to turn around the downward spiral of the Afghan war. In theory, it was also suppose to limit Afghan civilian casualties. 

But we have recently seen the newest U.S. strategy in practice in that war ravaged country. On Monday, September 7th the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan claimed that troops of the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division invaded the charity's hospital in Wardak province on the night of September 2nd. 

Anders Fange, the charity's country director, asserted that American troops stormed through the hospital, broke down doors, and tied up four security guards and two hospital visitors. He also said the U.S. military forcibly removed patients from their beds during their search and barged into the women's wards. Fange claimed that such actions as entering rooms where women are in bed is a serious insult under Muslim culture. 

Fange further stated that the raid was a violation of an agreement between NATO forces and aid organizations that worked in Wardak province. He said, "This is a clear violation of internationally recognized rules and principles. If the international military forces are not respecting the sanctity of health facilities, then there is no reason for the Taliban to do it either. Then these clinics and hospitals would become military targets." 

Lt. Commander Christine Sidenstricker, a U.S. military spokeswoman, confirmed that the hospital was searched. She also said, "We are investigating, and we take allegations like this seriously. Complaints like this are rare." But abuses and even deaths of the Afghan population at the hands of the U.S. and its allies are far from rare. On Friday September 4th, a NATO air strike by U.S. jets killed many Afghan civilians. 

The independent human rights group, Afghan Rights Monitor reported that its visit of the attack site indicated the strike killed as many as 70 local villagers along the Kunduz River. In the past, other such U.S. air attacks have killed large numbers of civilians at wedding parties and a funeral. Almost any large gathering in Afghanistan can suddenly be attacked. This is how the U.S. really implements its COIN strategy. 

The "heart and minds strategy" will continue to kill innocent Afghans as the U.S., under Commander-in-Chief Obama, continues to escalate the war. In a short time we can expect thousands of so-called U.S. support troops in Afghanistan to be replaced by more combat troops, or "trigger pullers" as one U.S. officer referred to them in his support of the move. McChyrstal is also very likely to request additional troops from his commander-in-chief within a few weeks as well. He laid the political groundwork for this further escalation with his recent review of Afghan operations. That review was given to Obama last week. When Obama receives the request for additional troops, it is very likely he will grant it. He has already sent thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan. 

One reason that Obama is likely to approve an additional troop request is that the "successful" implementation of COIN strategy requires the introduction of many more U.S. troops into Afghanistan. COIN strategy is troop intensive as is indicated by the Army's new COIN manual, written in large part by General David Petraeus. To quote the manual: "No predetermined, fixed ratio of friendly troops to enemy combatants ensures success in COIN. The conditions of the operational environment and the approaches insurgents use vary too widely. A better force requirement gauge is troop density, the ratio of security forces (including the host nation's military and police forces as well as foreign counterinsurgents) to inhabitants. Most density recommendations fall within a range of 20 to 25 counterinsurgents for every 1000 residents in an AO. Twenty counterinsurgents per 1000 residents is often considered the minimum troop density required for effective COIN operations; however as with any fixed ratio, such calculations remain very dependent upon the situation." 

In 2003 the U.N estimated the Afghan population at nearly 24 million. At 20 troops per 1000 Afghan residents that would require 480,000 allied troops to meet the minimum density recommendation of the COIN manual. At 25 troops it would take 600,000 troops. Obviously to reach these numbers would require a massive troop escalation. 

Just like in Vietnam the rhetoric may claim the U.S. is "winning hearts and minds, but the reality is that the U.S. war of terror is killing and terrorizing people from Iraq, to Afghanistan, to Pakistan. In Vietnam 2-3 million Vietnamese died. Already there have been a million Iraqi deaths as a result of the 2003 U.S. invasion. Thousands more have died in Afghanistan since the October 2001 invasion. When do we say enough? What will you do to stop the U.S. wars? To see what you can do, go to http://tinyurl.com/lackss 


Kenneth J. Theisen is an Oakland resident and a steering committee member of World Can't Wait, which is mobilizing people to end the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The legacy of Condoleezza Rice



























Condoleezza Rice has been one of the most consistently duplicitous and dishonest members of the Bush administration, and it has been revealed that Rice not only sanctioned the United States' illegal use of torture in the poorly conceived "War on Terror," but actually chaired the meetings in her capacity as National Security Advisor. Then she proceeded to lie about it repeatedly:



 








> Warped Tour is the only summer concert
> tour of its kind
> around, not only in terms of punk rock music, but in terms
> of being a
> concentration point of a certain rural/suburban demographic
> that the military
> has its eyes on and in the many cases already has its hands
> on.  Warped tour is also a
> concentration of a lot
> of what is good about the culture today - the
> rebelliousness, including against
> religion, as expressed by bands like Bad Religion, NOFX,
> and Anti-flag - and also a lot of
> what is bad, and even downright dangerous. 
> There is the huge following that conservative
> Christian bands like Under
> Oath have.  There is the
> omnipresent
> macho bullshit and the total lack of standards when it
> comes to the treatment
> of women.  There is a growing
> contingent
> of youth who spew Fox News talking points as if they were
> facts.  And there is an overall
> ignorance, including
> among those who dislike military recruiters, about the
> causes and effects of U.S. wars in Iraq 
> and Afghanistan .  
> 
>    
> 
> With all that in mind, we hit two
> stops on the Warped tour, San Francisco and Mountain
>   View .  Here are
> some of the highlights from each.
> 
>    
> 
> San Francisco 
> 
>    
> 
> Even though our booth was right next
> to the communists from
> Revolution Books, we attracted more controversy by
> far.  In fact we spent a good
> portion of the day in
> debates with pro-military people. 
> There
> was one older white guy, who claimed he was there with his
> kids, who spent the
> entire day next to our booth trying to egg people on
> against us.  This was both good
> and bad.  On the one hand, we
> were able to draw forward
> a lot of the spectators to sign up with us by exposing how
> full of shit the
> reactionaries were, including the fact that some of them
> were also Christian
> fascists who thought these were holy wars against
> Islam.  And we were sometimes
> able to sow divisions
> among them, like when two military guys approached us and
> by the time they left
> the one who was about to deploy to Iraq was thinking about
> being a
> conscientious objector and the other one was trying to grab
> the GI rights
> hotline card out of his hand. 
> On the
> other hand, we often weren't able to pay the kind of
> attention we needed to the
> people who agreed with us.  
> 
>    
> 
> The pro-military people, some of whom
> were vets/active-duty
> and some of whom were just right wing youth, would come at
> us with all the
> typical arguments: Iraq is harboring terrorists... we're
> there to keep you safe...
> we're there so you can have the freedom to have this
> booth... we're building
> schools and hospitals... I didn't support the war, but
> you have to support the
> troops... yeah, murder, rape, and torture are happening,
> but that's war... yeah
> there's rape in the military, and that's why women
> shouldn't be in the
> military... you don't know the situation, you don't
> know what happened before
> that picture, that person's probably a terrorist
> (pointing at the pictures from
> Abu-Ghraib that we had displayed)... you must be an Obama
> supporter and watch
> CNN... what about all the Americans they've
> beheaded...what if your buddy was
> beheaded...
> 
>    
> 
> That's some of the flavor of
> it.  A lot of their arguments
> about the horrors of
> what the "terrorists" have done to Americans I would
> just answer with the
> simple, "who invaded who?" 
> I also kept
> returning to the basic points about both of these wars
> being based on lies and
> being wars of aggression waged for imperialist
> domination.  Some of the military
> people who came up to
> the table were more curious than hostile, but because of
> the reactionaries
> hanging out by the table egging them on (you know they hate
> the troops), things
> got heated right away.  I found
> myself
> repeating over and over again, "just because you join the
> military doesn't mean
> you lose your ability to think critically." 
> A couple of different active duty Coast Guard folks
> came up to the table
> at different times and talked about how they were against
> the war and just
> wanted to do search and rescue missions. 
> We talked about how the Coast Guard also specializes
> in anti-immigrant
> operations and, as a part of the U.S. 
> military, can be called on to do anything they want,
> including wage war (which
> is what happened during Vietnam ). 
> A number of veterans signed up with us,
> including one Native American veteran who attends Stanford
> now, considers
> himself a socialist, and wants to be part of the We are not
> your soldiers
> tour.  
> 
>    
> 
> One other really positive factor was
> the fact that we had
> two students from Hayward 
>  High School in our
> crew.  When they called on other
> high
> school students in the crowd to join the youth movement to
> get recruiters out
> of our schools, it had a powerful effect. 
> There were also a number of other friends of theirs
> who were at the
> concert who hung around the booth most of the day, creating
> a lively scene and
> the feeling of a movement.  
> 
>    
> 
> Mountain View 
> 
>    
> 
> We didn't stir up as much
> controversy on this stop as the
> last one.  For one thing, it was
> on a
> weekday (instead of a Saturday) and so the crowd was
> younger, with far fewer
> people with articulated right wing arguments. 
> Also, a lot of the bands that attract more
> radical-minded youth, like
> Anti-flag and Bad Religion, were not playing. 
> Another negative factor was the fact that our booth
> was right across
> from a very loud (they had a DJ and an amplified setup) and
> obnoxious "Truth"
> booth - the anti-smoking people. 
> Nonetheless, we managed to get out hundreds of
> flyers and sign up dozens
> of people.  
> 
>    
> 
> The most common response of those
> coming up to sign up at
> the table was, "Is this against military recruiters?  I fucking hate the
> recruiters!"  The challenge was
> trying to turn that into
> organization for October 6, the national day of resistance
> to military
> recruiters (also the 8th anniversary of war in
> Afghanistan ).  One high school
> student from Fremont said that he and his friend were
> already planning an antiwar protest sometime soon.  As it turns out, his friend's
> brother just
> came back from Iraq 
> and committed suicide.  Two
> young women
> who came up to the booth told us that military guys are
> always coming into the
> store where they work and arguing with them about the war,
> bragging about how
> they get to blow things up. 
> Another
> young woman came up to the booth and thanked us for being
> here and wants to
> hook up with the We are not your soldiers tour; her cousin
> died last year in Iraq .  A young
> guy who is doing Warped tour with
> PETA, got a We are not your soldiers bandana and told us
> about how he helped
> get the recruiters off his college campus in Illinois last
> year.  One woman from a small
> town near Sacramento came up to us
> and took a picture of our sign that says "Shut down the
> military recruiters!" and
> sent it by text to her brother in the Army. 
> Her brother texted back, "Then they can leave this
> country."  She took some flyers
> so she could have more
> ideological ammo to use against her "brainwashed"
> brother.  Her other friends that
> came with her are into
> straight edge vegan hardcore. 
> When they
> want to have fun they play "anarchist capture the
> flag," - in other words,
> going around and ripping off as many flags as they can find
> and burning
> them.  At the end, the young
> woman with
> the hardcore friends told me she's a Jehova's Witness,
> and encouraged me to
> read the Bible.  This was all
> part of the
> (very contradictory) scene at Warped tour. 
> 
> 
>    
> 
> Overall, I think we did some
> good.  We found the youth who
> hate the recruiters, gave
> them some more (and better) reasons to hate them, and gave
> them a vehicle to
> act (hopefully) on October 6.  We were
> able to draw out the better sentiments of the average
> concertgoer who didn't
> know much about the war and didn't really have an opinion
> about the recruiters,
> but after talking with us was pretty sure that they
> weren't going to join.  Only a
> couple people tried to argue that Afghanistan is
> the "good war," but didn't have any substance to back
> it up.  There was very little
> pro-Obama sentiment.