RISE Against Bush
SHINE For A Peaceful Tomorrow
A Call for Anti-War Actions in Washington, DC, January 20, 2005
Every morning, the sun rises up, penetrating and overcoming the darkness
of night. What once was dark becomes bright, changed by the force of the
sun's rays.
Our world is in darkness tonight, plagued with war, poverty, environmental
destruction, and attacks on many of the liberties that so many of us hold
dear. The darkness over our world has grown yet darker with the election
of George W. Bush to another 4 years in office.
In the dark of the night, we need only wait for the sun. However, in the
dark of our world, we cannot wait. If we are to see a new dawn, we must
take action now. The DC Anti-War Network (DAWN) calls on the people of
the world to RISE Against Bush and SHINE For A Peaceful Tomorrow.
We RISE
· Against the needless slaughter in and occupation of Iraq;
· Against the assault on civil liberties, as represented by such acts as
the Patriot Act and the immoral detentions at Guantanamo Bay;
· Against US support of the Israeli government's denial of human rights against the Palestinian people;
· Against U.S. overthrow of Aristide in Haiti;
· Against U.S. attempts to overthrow any other democratically elected
leader, including Hugo Chavez in Venezuela;
· Against any U.S. military action in Iran.
We SHINE
· For a world that embraces peaceful dialogue instead of war;
· For a world where we respect the liberty of all beings;
· For a world that looks out for all those who are now oppressed,
including the poor, women, racial minorities, workers, the disabled,
gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered, as well as the earth and its creatures;
· For a world that embraces social justice;
· For democracy and the autonomy of all people to have a full say in how
they are governed;
· For each other.
The Call
DAWN calls for people all over the nation and world to converge on
Washington, DC, on the day of George W. Bush's Inauguration, January 20,
2005, for peaceful anti-war actions.
While DAWN is coordinating with many groups for a day of actions, DAWN
calls additionally for these specific actions:
1. A permitted nonviolent anti-war rally followed by a march to Bush's
inaugural parade route
2. A nonviolent civil disobedience die-in, following the rally, in
memorial to the dead at the hands of Bush and his Administration
DAWN also calls for organizations, affinity groups, and individuals to
partner with us in organizing these two actions.
Next Steps
If you or your group or organization wants to endorse DAWN's call to
action, please send an e-mail to info@dawndc.net. Write also if you wish
to collaborate in the planning or offer financial donations or other
material support.
Find out more information about DAWN's and other groups' actions at
http://www.counter-inaugural.org, by participating in the DC Cluster
Spokescouncil meetings (refer to website), or by participating in DAWN's
weekly meetings. Check our website, http://www.dawndc.net for more
details. Housing boards, events boards, working group information, and
(soon) ride boards can be found at http://www.counter-inaugural.org. We
will post updates of our actions, as they become available, to that
website.
The new dawn begins with our rising up. It will take a lot of light to
break through such darkness, but we can do it. We have no other choice.
Join us on J20!
posted by geoff on 11/27/2004 02:15:42 PM
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www.counter-inaugural.org
posted by geoff on 11/23/2004 04:00:10 PM
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Kep quotes Daniel Ellsberg on the stop-the-inauguration list:
From Daniel Ellsberg's "Secrets: A memoir of the Vietnam War and
the Pentagon Papers"
pg. 336
"... The big event on that campus, just before our talks, had been the burning of the ROTC building. In the question period a student referred to this, with much applause and cheering from the audience, and asked me challengingly what I thought of it. The implication was that my questioner had taken part in the burning, though he didn't say that, and it was clear that it had been a popular act among the students. " I said that I had been trained in the Marine Corps to do violence and that I had seen a lot of it in Vietnam. Its effectiveness, which was ultimately its justification, wasn't just a hypothetical question for me. I had had a good deal of experience on which to judge that, and I was no longer so impressed with it, and I knew much more about how it could go wrong than when I had been a marine. I very well understood, and shared, the frustration of the students at their inability to stop the war. But it seemed to have a lot in common with the frustration of the troops in Vietnam, who were the same age as the students in this audience, at their inability to win the war. And the response I had seen in Vietnam was very similar. As I spoke, the memory seemed very fresh to me, as if I had just come back, though three years of war had passed since I'd returned from Vietnam. I told them of the soldiers in Rach Kien, burning down every hut they came to, for no real reason than to leave some mark that they had passed that way, that they were not just plowing the sea. It was understandable, but it didn't really help anything, it didn't change the situation. "It was very American, I said, to think that to be willing to use violence was to show seriousness and to be effective, but that was not what I'd learned in Vietnam. I said I could see that many people in the audience felt proud of what had just happened on their campus but that I couldn't tell them I believe that burning down ROTC buildings would be any more productive for ending the war than burning down villages in Vietnam. It would take commitment, and courage, and tenacity to end this war, not the imitation of the government's own destructive tactics. "
I think that this is a very good perspective, and articulates the reasonable concerns for violence as political dissent. I think if there are concerns, they should lie in these arguments and not from peoples prejudices about black-clad anarchists.
posted by geoff on 11/23/2004 03:52:32 PM
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Geraldine Sealy quotes Paul Krugman in a Salon article:
Paul Krugman, who actually is an economist, has an even scarier warning: We're turning into Argentina. In an interview, Krugman told Reuters he's most concerned Bush will ignore the advice of economists and push through more tax cuts while also trying to privatized Social Security. 'If you go back and you look at the sources of the blow-up of Argentine debt during the 1990s, one little-appreciated thing is that social security privatization was a important source of that expansion of debt,' said Krugman. 'So if you ask the question do we look like Argentina, the answer is a whole lot more than anyone is quite willing to admit at this point. We've become a banana republic.'"
posted by geoff on 11/23/2004 02:42:39 PM
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