November 8, 2002
Tens of thousands will converge in Washington DC January 18-19, 2003 for a MASS DEMONSTRATION
and the Convening of the GRASSROOTS PEACE CONGRESSWe wanted to let everyone know that momentum is growing for the January 18 Mass March and the January 19 Grassroots Peace Congress to say "No War in Iraq." Buses, vans and car caravans are being organized from communities, high schools and campuses all over the East Coast, South and Midwest. More than 150 cities organized transportation to be at the protest of 200,000 in DC on October 26 -- and those organizers left the protest pledging to continue to mobilize for an even larger turnout on January 18-19.
Millions of people outside of DC watched the rally on C-Span or listened to it on Pacifica Radio's live coverage. Many more found out about it through other media coverage -- including a major article that appeared in the October 30 edition of the New York Times (a much better article than the biased article that appeared on October 27 after the Times received thousands of angry phone calls and emails) -- and are now beginning to organize. 50,000 people have registered on the VoteNoWar.org website. This is in addition to the tens of thousands who have filled out paper ballots/petitions on October 26 and in the days since. A.N.S.W.E.R. offices around the country are daily being contacted by organizers and volunteers whose commitment to mobilize makes us confident that January 18-19 will be a massive outpouring of opposition to war in Iraq.
To ENDORSE the January 18-19 Mass Actions in DC, fill out the easy-to-use form at:
http://internationalanswer.org/campaigns/j18/j18endorse.html#endoIf you plan to ORGANIZE TRANSPORTATION from your area to be in DC January 18-19, fill out the form at:
http://internationalanswer.org/campaigns/j18/j18endorse.html#transpWHY YOU SHOULD BE IN DC JAN. 18-19:
When Congress rejects the will of the people, the people must act themselves. Congress has rubber-stamped Bush's criminal war that seeks to conquer the oil, land and resources of the Middle East. Bush and Congress have shown that they represent the interests of Corporate America rather than the people of the United States.
A people's movement is growing to stop them. On January 18 and 19 tens of thousands of people will participate in mass protest activities on the Martin Luther King Jr. anniversary weekend.
Dr. King publicly condemned the U.S. war in Vietnam, providing a powerful connection between the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement. In his "Beyond Vietnam" speech at Riverside Church in 1967, he stated, "The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today [is] my own government. . . [F]or the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent."
Dr. King believed that it was impossible to successfully wage a war on poverty at home while waging a war of aggression in Vietnam. The same can be said today about George W. Bush's global war drive. Social programs and services are being looted as Bush and Congress provide record-breaking sums for weapons of mass destruction and war. Bush has signed into law Congress's new defense budget that transfers a billion dollars a day from the people into the hands of the military-industrial complex.
The thousands who are coming to Washington, D.C., honor Dr. King and his legacy by opposing a criminal war in Iraq -- this time not in Vietnam, but in the Middle East -- and by demanding instead that these hundreds of billions of dollars earmarked for war instead be spent on jobs, education, housing, health care and to meet human needs.
The grassroots Peace Congress will be comprised of delegations from all communities who are coming together in the streets and in a People's Congress to forge the opposition necessary to stop the Bush Administration's war drive: labor, students and youth, fighters for civil rights and women's rights, the LGBT community and people of faith.
Join with others around the country by bringing a diverse delegation from your community to participate in the January 18 mass march and the January 19th People's Congress.
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