A.N.S.W.E.R. COALITION UPDATE: Upcoming actions / Calendar of Events 2003
Organizers and activists around the country have already begun mobilizing for the October 25 International March on Washington to say "Bring the troops home now," "End the occupation of Iraq" and "Money for jobs, education & healthcare - Not war." In less than a week, over 750 organizations and individuals have endorsed the October 25 Call to Action. To read the call and to endorse, go to http://www.internationalanswer.org/campaigns/o25/index.html
A.N.S.W.E.R. is also initiating, along with others, activities timed to coincide with the third anniversary of the second Palestinian Intifada between September 25 and 28.
In addition to these and other activities initiated by A.N.S.W.E.R., the Coalition has endorsed and is supporting several activities initiated by other organizations and coalitions, which are taking place in July, August and September. These actions include:
1) July 27: Mobilize for Peace in Korea
2) August 1-3: Speakout at STRATCOM - No new weapons of mass destruction
3) August 23: 40th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington
4) September 13: Worldwide Day of Action Against Corporate Globalization and War
5) September 13: Millions for Reparations
Please read the following for more information about these upcoming activities, and for reminders about upcoming actions initiated by the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, which include:
1) September 25-28: International Days of Protest Against Occupation and Empire
2) October 25: International March on the White House and Pentagon
3) Summer 2004: Mass Actions at the Democratic National Convention (July, Boston) and the Republican National Convention (August/September, New York)-------------------------------------
Mobilize for Peace in Korea.
End the Korean War!
Peace Treaty Now!
July 26-27
in Washington DC
Bush is looking in East Asia for his next target. Through hostile rhetoric and threats of a preemptive strike, he is creating a crisis on the Korean peninsula that may result in war at any moment. This July 27th marks the 50th anniversary of the Korean War Armistice, which concluded open fighting without a commitment to peace between the United States and North Korea. Peace and justice activists will stand in solidarity with Koreans from the United States, the Korean homeland and around the world in order to commemorate this anniversary with a demand for change. On July 27th, community organizations and peace activists will stage public forums, cultural events and protests across the United States to demand fair negotiations towards a real peace treaty. From July 26th to July 27th Koreans and other activists from around the world will gather in Washington D.C. for a weekend of events culminating in a White House protest at 12:00pm on July 27th. Join us to prevent another Korean War and stop Bush's war on the world!For more information, go to http://www.july27.org
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International SOS: SpeakOut at STRATCOM
No New Weapons of Mass DestructionAugust 1-3
in Omaha, NebraskaSpeakOut at STRATCOM is a three-day, international event full of activities, including educationals/workshops, a commemoration of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a rally, peace concert and a march/vigil, all meant to inform citizens about the Bush administration's intentions, which are contrary to the goals of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and in violation of Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Dick Cheney and others are planning on meeting at STRATCOM the week of August 4th to discuss the proliferation of new nuclear weapons and find ways to break down the firewall between conventional and nuclear warfare.
Citizens Against Weapons of Mass Destruction (CAWMD) is sending out an SOS to the world. Please plan to join us (and bring others!) in Omaha, Nebraska this year to remember the US bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki just 58 years ago this August, and to insist "No New Weapons of Mass Destruction!"
For more information, go to http://www.sos2003.com
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August 23, 2003
Washington DCMarch to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington.
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September 13, 2003: Worldwide Day of Action Against Corporate Globalization and War
The International A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition joins organizations across the U.S. and around the world calling for actions protesting the World Trade Organization meetings in Cancun. We encourage you to endorse the call (attached below) for creative public demonstrations on September 13 against the WTO meetings. Please forward your organizational endorsement to msn@mexicosolidarity.org
The World Says No to the WTO September 13: Worldwide Day of Action Against Corporate Globalization and War Kicking off a Fall Campaign of Action for Peace and Justice
From September 10 to 14, the World Trade Organization (WTO) will hold its Fifth Ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico. Pushed by multinational corporations, the United States, the European Union, and other developed countries are seeking to launch a new round of "free trade" negotiations and expand corporate globalization - further eroding human rights, workers' rights, environmental protections, and democracy - in the interest of corporate control.
Popular movements in Mexico and their international allies will mark these meetings with massive demonstrations to demand a world that puts democracy and human dignity ahead of corporate profits. Solidarity actions around the world will focus on September 13 as a Worldwide Day of Action Against Corporate Globalization and War.
We call on people throughout the United States to join this global uprising for peace and justice by organizing events in your community throughout the week leading up to the WTO Ministerial and on September 13. Resist the WTO and the failed model of corporate globalization, militarism and "free trade," through a wide variety of creative means: teach-ins, vigils, protests, direct action, street theater, festivals of resistance, cultural events, meetings with elected officials, public forums, and so on.
These September actions to derail the WTO will kick off a powerful autumn campaign of action for peace and justice, involving major mobilizations for immigrant rights, against the Free Trade Area of the Americas, and against militarism and occupation.
Whose Trade Organization?
The WTO is designed and managed for the benefit of transnational corporations at the expense of most of the world's population and the environment. The neoliberal agenda of "free trade," deregulation, privatization and special corporate protections enshrined in the WTO leads to greater poverty, inequity, gender inequality and indebtedness, while concentrating the world's wealth in the hands of a few. The corporate agenda implemented by the WTO pits worker against worker and nation against nation in a race to the bottom.
The last time the WTO met in North America, in late 1999, tens of thousands of people converged on Seattle to expose the real agenda behind "free trade": devastating the environment and eroding basic rights, protections, and services for the vast majority of the world's population.
Four years after the historic showdown at the 3rd WTO Ministerial in Seattle, we live in a changed and even more dangerous world. Using the horrible terrorist attacks against the U.S. of 2001 as a pretext to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, the Bush administration is on a reckless quest for empire, combining the global might of the United States military with the global reach of massive corporations. The Bush doctrine of preemptive strike and permanent warfare goes hand-in-hand with a program of economic domination through "free trade," and, not coincidentally, masks the woeful U.S. economic situation.
The "Watchtower State"
Under the rules of the WTO and proposed agreements like the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the government role in regulating the market place to promote fair labor conditions, access to basic services, safe products and a clean environment are strictly constrained. WTO rules provide a "security exception" that protects and fosters weapons manufacture and the arms trade. Under agreements being negotiated now, virtually all other governmental services - including schools, health care, public transit, water supply and other public utilities - could be subject to corporate takeover. Basic worker and consumer rights and environmental protections could be jettisoned as "unfair barriers to trade." The vision of government enshrined in the WTO and the FTAA is a "watchtower state" - a fortress security state on a permanent war footing.
The Assault on Immigrant Rights
Corporate globalization has destroyed the lives and livelihood of millions of workers and farmers throughout the world. Many are forced to leave their homes, their land, and often their countries in search of increasingly scarce jobs. Yet trade agreements that protect the flow of money and goods across borders don't allow the free movement of people. Borders are militarized and immigrants are criminalized - even as millions of people are dislocated by "free trade."
More than nine million undocumented workers who live in the United States today lack basic legal protections and human rights, living in constant fear of round-ups, detentions, and deportation. The WTO and FTAA would create new injustices for immigrants by giving corporations the right to import people to work in industrialized countries like the United States, while maintaining the low wages and minimal worker protections of their home countries, creating a system of legalized sweatshops.
Another World Is Possible
We have before us a choice: the world of militarism and corporate globalization, or a world built on global solidarity, rooted in a foundation of democracy, dignity, sustainability, and cooperation. This fall we have an opportunity to bring our vision to life, through a series of actions and campaigns that will build toward a better world.
To ENDORSE THE CALL (above) for creative public demonstrations on September 13 against the WTO meetings, send your organizational endorsement to msn@mexicosolidarity.org
CALENDAR OF EVENTS (Inclusion in this calendar does not necessarily imply endorsement by all signers to this call to action)
September 9-12: Days of Global Action against the WTO. Use your creativity to organize non-violent actions in your community, including vigils, teach-ins, direct action, community meetings, meetings with elected officials, street theater, press conferences, concerts, etc.
September 13: Day of Global Demonstrations against the Corporate Agenda and War. Join movements around the world and send a powerful message to trade negotiators at the WTO meetings in Cancun. Organize local demonstrations, festivals of resistance, and teach-ins. No Business As Usual!
FTAA Ballot initiative: Join the AFL-CIO, the Alliance for Responsible Trade, Jobs with Justice, Citizens Trade Campaign, Witness for Peace and hundreds of organizations to vote NO on the FTAA.
Sept 20 - Oct 4: Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride. Inspired by the Freedom Riders of the Civil Rights Movement, immigrant workers and allies will set out from eight major U.S. cities and cross the country in buses in late September 2003, converging on Washington, DC, to meet with members of Congress and then traveling to New York City for a mass rally on October 4, 2003.
October 25: March on the Pentagon. International march on the Pentagon will include delegations from around the world demonstrating that the World Unites Against US Militarism.
November 19-21: FTAA demonstrations in Miami. Demonstrations, teach-ins and alternative conferences, as trade ministers from 34 nations in the Western Hemisphere continue negotiations on the FTAA.
November 22-23: Vigil and Direct Action at School of the Americas. Join thousands from across the Americas from November 22-23, 2003 at the gates of the U.S. military base Fort Benning in Georgia - home of the notorious School of the Americas (renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation), where the US trains the military muscle that enforces the corporate agenda throughout Latin America.
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Millions for Reparations
National Rally at United Nations
September 13
New York City
The Trans Atlantic Slave Trade and Jim Crow set the stage for the 21st century. The policy of entrenched racism has emanated from all branches of the United States government. From the days of the auction block to the recent United States government walk out at the United Nations World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa, the United States government has relentlessly held on to its white supremacist ideology.For more information: http://www.millionsforreparations.com
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International Days of Protest Against OCCUPATION and EMPIRE From PALESTINE to IRAQ to the PHILLIPINES to CUBA and EVERYWHERE
SEPTEMBER 25 - 28
The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition expresses its solidarity with the call issued by the Arab progressive movement, the European peace movement and others who are holding activities timed to coincide with the third anniversary of the second Palestinian Intifada (which began on September 28, 2000). Locally and nationally coordinated demonstrations will take place around the world between September 25 and 28. In the Arab world, most demonstrations will be on September 26 and September 28. In Europe, the coordinated day of action will be on September 27 (see www.stopwar.org.uk), and in other areas it will be on September 25. A.N.S.W.E.R. Chapters, in coordination with other organizations, will be holding events during that week. If you are holding an event in your city or school, fill out the form below.
If you are planning a local action, fill out the form at http://internationalanswer.org/campaigns/s28/#s28form
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SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25
INTERNATIONAL MARCH ON THE WHITE HOUSE AND PENTAGONMASS MARCH ON WASHINGTON TO SAY:
Bring the troops home now
End the occupation of Iraq
Money for jobs, education & healthcare - Not war
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.
To read the CALL TO ACTION, go to http://www.internationalanswer.org/campaigns/o25/index.html
To ENDORSE the October 25 International March on Washington, fill out the easy-to-use form at http://www.internationalanswer.org/campaigns/o25/index.html#endo
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SUMMER 2004 Unite Against War, Racism, Repression and Exploitation
The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition is mobilizing for Mass Actions at the Democratic National Convention (July, Boston) and the Republican National Convention (August-September, New York)
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