The American Anti-War Movement Cannot Be Rebuilt Peacefully!

The American Anti-War Movement Cannot Be Rebuilt Peacefully!

The Anti-War Movement In The United States

Antiwar Movement Fighting Burnout And Awkwardness

On Saturday there was anti-war protest in Washington DC against America’s escalation in Afghanistan. Only one TV outlet paid it any pre-rally attention (25 seconds) and no TV Media outlet got around to its minimalist coverage until sometime Sunday. A group in Santa Claus garb by the White House got the premier Saturday Night spot.

The rally speaker’s list contained many formidable and respected voices. The announced goal was a crowd of 1,500; that was not realized despite the long and prestigious list of supporters. Despite the protective rhetoric of “rebuilding the American Anti-war movement” we are dealing with a problem that goes far deeper and whose solution will not be achieved by token rallies and weekend political feel-good theater.

One can only assume that several groups lent their names in support but did nothing significant to rally their members and followers. Being the recipient of most of the groups represented, emails; I can testify that, that is a fact.

The videos posted at http://www.enduswars.org will never be seen by the masses. If the weekend rally had been a tea bagger affair there would have enough media coverage to move one to vomiting.

The problem is quite simple and most of the components of that problem are to found in one form or another within this post. Folks like me who have howling in the wind for a 60’s style protest movement and societal upheaval know full well that though there is every justified reason for such an uprising; there coalescing of social issues and ferment has not taken place and problem will not take place until this nation is on the brink of absolute collapse. The 60s were driven by several forces, primarily The Draft and Civil Rights; this generation is driven by apathy, self and fear. The US is older now, mostly Middle Aged rather than most 18-22. Now in a decade or so that will start to change, the two generation youth bubble will reach age but that’s a long way off given the rapid persistent downward spiral into an American defined fascism.

We are divided and polarized by a 4 way political axis -- Left, Middle, Neo-Con/Right and Libertarian of which have very little in common. It’s hard to get a march together when there are no uniting issues or common solutions. We are politically and culturally divided. If Revolution were to break out tomorrow; it would not be televised. The Media needs a status quo to survive and they'll manufacture it if they have to. And sure as hell they won’t screen massive arrests of a jail state response. They are comfortable with American Wars and lip service patriotism, and where they screened body bag after body bag in the 60s on prime time they have to be dragged kicking and screaming to exercise the right they now have to broadcast returning flag draped coffins. There is no draft, no wide spread identification with our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, nothing to move the general populous to riot and mayhem. The wide spread social injustice sucks; the economy sucks; the inequity of the bailout formula sucks; foreclosures suck; but it’s all not really personal for enough people to get their asses up off their couches and out of the house and into the streets.

The growing disaffection, war-weariness with Iraq and Afghanistan has nothing to do with morality or principle, nothing to do with injustice or genocide, nothing to do with the destruction of innocent collateral damage life; it has everything to do with the notion that these wars are costing us too much. It is just that damn simple.

We are a compliance trained generation for whom all the stuffing for fighting for our nation as it should be has been knocked out of us by fear, by “Patriotism”, by Religion, schools and the media. We are supposed to believe in non-violence peddled in the name of Ghandi and King both of whom accepted the inevitability of violence when situations became intolerable. We have lost faith and trust in one another, in our leaders and yes in our anti-war leaders many of whom are beginning to look like profit making hypocrites. Send money, buy our book, bumper sticker or button; that’s what I hear and see; what about a damn good pitch fork and the cry to 100,000 people to come to DC and shut it down until we have our way; have our nation back?

Good lord what does it take? Judas Joe Lieberman stands poised to screw millions of Americans and wreck the Obama Presidency and all this nation can do is call him names. We are a pitiful whining group of wimps. All too many are caught up in that mental trap of “it probably won't work anyway” and a lot of people figure money talks, all others walk. Nothing going on is worth a civil war and a hundred million dead which is what they figure it would take. Slavery is preferred to resistance. Doing the little noise protest things eases our consciences…but damn it does not solve our problems because all the little feeble peeping can be and is ignored!

Protest? What Protest? American Media Don't See What They Don't Want (You) to See

A few days ago, I mentioned a line from an old science teacher: "If you can't measure it, it doesn't exist."

In what passes for corporate journalism in American, this concept has taken the form of, "If we don't report on it, it didn't happen."

That certainly was the case for the emergency protest organized by a coalition of anti-war organizations under the banner EndUSWars.org, which saw over 1000 people gather on short notice in the bitter cold on Lafayette Park opposite the White House to protest President Obama's escalation of the war in Afghanistan on Saturday, Dec. 12.

Not a word about this impromptu protest, which included many people who had supported the election of President Obama only a year ago, appeared in the New York Times. Nor did the Washington Post bother to mention the protest in its own back yard, not even in its Metro section pages. The other arguably national newspaper, USA Today, likewise blacked out news of the protest.

Granted, this first anti-war protest aimed at the new president within days of his receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, didn't feature any A-list speakers. Still, it did feature known names like Ralph Nader, former Rep. and 2008 Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney of Georgia, former Alaska Sen. and 2008 Democratic presidential contender Mike Gravel, as well as Ohio Rep. and former 2008 presidential contender Dennis Kucinich. Besides, even if a few hundred people protesting isn't that big a number, considering that past anti-war protests have numbered in the hundreds of thousands, even that constitutes a significant story in itself.

Furthermore, the Times did find newsworthy a small protest in Berkeley, CA outside the home of the chancellor of the University of California, which featured only about 60 demonstrators, and both the Times and the Post saw fit to report on a modest demonstration of 10,000 or so people in Copenhagen the same day.

There were reports on the White House protest in the American Spectator and the Washington Times, two conservative publications, and also in the Los Angeles Times, as well as on Voice of America, oddly enough.

Considering the pathetic performance of the US media in covering the run-up to the Iraq War and the handling of the Afghanistan war back in the early days of the Bush/Cheney administration, and the self-criticism that publications like the Times and the Post have made about their coverage of that period, it is nothing short of remarkable to see them doing the same thing all over again now, missing the early development of an anti-war opposition to Obama's escalation of the Afghanistan War.

What is the explanation for this behavior, which almost makes the state media in China look good?

Speaking as a reporter who worked at a number of daily newspapers back in the 1970s, I have to wonder. The news desks at the papers I worked for in those days were staffed by crusty veterans who for the most part made the decisions on what went into the paper. Certainly there were stories that higher-ups in the offices that had doors took an unseemly interest in, and these sometimes either got embarrassingly overplayed, or axed, according to the wishes of senior management (it was one such story of min getting axed that led to my protest and departure from my last daily newspaper job). But certainly a story like this one, about a demonstration in front of the White House, would not have been in that category, and I cannot imagine any of my old editors deciding that such a story didn't warrant some kind of coverage.

I find it hard to image that the senior management at the Post or the Times was leaning on the weekend news desks of those papers to black out the demonstration and hide it from the public. Rather, we've reached a sorry point, I believe, where the editors at the newsroom level are themselves completely enculturated to the idea that protest doesn't matter, unless there is violence or mass arrests or something, unrelated to the basic point of the protest.

People gathering together in front of the commander in chief's house to protest his war plans is simply not news to the arbiters of news relevance in today's American corporate journalism.

All the more reason why we need to turn to new sources of our information about what is happening in the world and in our own nation and back yards.

It is time to take back the media from the corporate hacks and flaks.

Dave Lindorff's writing is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net. He is a columnist for Counterpunch, is author of several recent books ("This Can't Be Happening! Resisting the Disintegration of American Democracy" and "Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Penalty Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal"). His latest book, coauthored with Barbara Olshanshky, is "The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office (St. Martin's Press, May 2006).

http://www.thiscantbehappening.net

First , People expecting a 60's style protest movement are in for a disappointment. Back then there were 2 big issues (The Draft and Civil Right) -- now we have no draft and we have a biracial President.

Second, The US is older now, mostly Middle Aged rather than most 18-22. Now in a decade or so that will start to change, the two generation youth bubble willr each age but thats a long way off

Third, the US has a 4 way political axis -- Left, Middle , Neo-Con/Right and Libertarian of which have very little in common. Its hard to get a march together when there are no uniting issues or common solutions. we are politically and culturally divided

Fourth. As was said before. The revolution will not be televised. Media needs status quo to survive and they'll manufacture it if they have to.

Fifth. Jail State nuff said there,

Sixth. People Seldom riot over this sort of thing. Social Injustice sucks but unless its really personal its not worth getting up for.

Seventh, Compliance trained generation. Zero Tolerance and School/Prisons knock the stuffing out of any will to fight. Throw in a little ADHD medicine and an MMO to bleed off the competitive spirit and you don't need Soma.

Eight, lack of trust. A lot of people don't trust there neighbors or any of the other people who say they want to change things. Go Read Bowling Alone is all I can say.

Nine, In many minds it probably won't work anyway. A lot of people figure money talks, all others walk. Nothing going on is worth a civil war and a hundred million dead which is what they figure it would take

ten, best and Last Don't count us out yet.

Are Americans a Broken People? Why We've Stopped Fighting Back Against the Forces of Oppression

By Bruce E. Levine, AlterNet. Posted December 11, 2009.

A psychologist asks: Have consumerism, suburbanization and a malevolent corporate-government partnership so beaten us down that we no longer have the will to save ourselves?

Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not "set them free" but instead further demoralize them? Has such a demoralization happened in the United States?

Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further?

What forces have created a demoralized, passive, dis-couraged U.S. population?

Can anything be done to turn this around?

Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not "set them free" but instead further demoralize them?

Yes. It is called the "abuse syndrome." How do abusive pimps, spouses, bosses, corporations, and governments stay in control? They shove lies, emotional and physical abuses, and injustices in their victims' faces, and when victims are afraid to exit from these relationships, they get weaker. So the abuser then makes their victims eat even more lies, abuses, and injustices, resulting in victims even weaker as they remain in these relationships.

Does knowing the truth of their abuse set people free when they are deep in these abuse syndromes?

No. For victims of the abuse syndrome, the truth of their passive submission to humiliating oppression is more than embarrassing; it can feel shameful -- and there is nothing more painful than shame. When one already feels beaten down and demoralized, the likely response to the pain of shame is not constructive action, but more attempts to shut down or divert oneself from this pain. It is not likely that the truth of one's humiliating oppression is going to energize one to constructive actions.

Has such a demoralization happened in the U.S.?

In the United States, 47 million people are without health insurance, and many millions more are underinsured or a job layoff away from losing their coverage. But despite the current sellout by their elected officials to the insurance industry, there is no outpouring of millions of U.S. citizens on the streets of Washington, D.C., protesting this betrayal.

Polls show that the majority of Americans oppose U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the taxpayer bailout of the financial industry, yet only a handful of U.S. citizens have protested these circumstances.

Remember the 2000 U.S. presidential election? That's the one in which Al Gore received 500,000 more votes than George W. Bush. That's also the one that the Florida Supreme Court's order for a recount of the disputed Florida vote was overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court in a politicized 5-4 decision, of which dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens remarked: "Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law." Yet, even this provoked few demonstrators.

When people become broken, they cannot act on truths of injustice. Furthermore, when people have become broken, more truths about how they have been victimized can lead to shame about how they have allowed it. And shame, like fear, is one more way we become even more psychologically broken.

U.S. citizens do not actively protest obvious injustices for the same reasons that people cannot leave their abusive spouses: They feel helpless to effect change. The more we don't act, the weaker we get. And ultimately to deal with the painful humiliation over inaction in the face of an oppressor, we move to shut-down mode and use escape strategies such as depression, substance abuse, and other diversions, which further keep us from acting. This is the vicious cycle of all abuse syndromes.

Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further?

Maybe.

Shortly before the 2000 U.S. presidential election, millions of Americans saw a clip of George W. Bush joking to a wealthy group of people, "What a crowd tonight: the haves and the haves-more. Some people call you the elite; I call you my base." Yet, even with these kind of inflammatory remarks, the tens of millions of U.S. citizens who had come to despise Bush and his arrogance remained passive in the face of the 2000 non-democratic presidential elections.

Perhaps the "political genius" of the Bush-Cheney regime was in their full realization that Americans were so broken that the regime could get away with damn near anything. And the more people did nothing about the boot slamming on their faces, the weaker people became.

What forces have created a demoralized, passive, dis-couraged U.S. population?

The U.S. government-corporate partnership has used its share of guns and terror to break Native Americans, labor union organizers, and other dissidents and activists. But today, most U.S. citizens are broken by financial fears. There is potential legal debt if we speak out against a powerful authority, and all kinds of other debt if we do not comply on the job. Young people are broken by college-loan debts and fear of having no health insurance.

The U.S. population is increasingly broken by the social isolation created by corporate-governmental policies. A 2006 American Sociological Review study ("Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades") reported that, in 2004, 25 percent of Americans did not have a single confidant. (In 1985, 10 percent of Americans reported not having a single confidant.) Sociologist Robert Putnam, in his 2000 book, Bowling Alone, describes how social connectedness is disappearing in virtually every aspect of U.S. life. For example, there has been a significant decrease in face-to-face contact with neighbors and friends due to suburbanization, commuting, electronic entertainment, time and money pressures and other variables created by governmental-corporate policies. And union activities and other formal or informal ways that people give each other the support necessary to resist oppression have also decreased.

We are also broken by a corporate-government partnership that has rendered most of us out of control when it comes to the basic necessities of life, including our food supply. And we, like many other people in the world, are broken by socializing institutions that alienate us from our basic humanity. A few examples:

Schools and Universities: Do most schools teach young people to be action-oriented -- or to be passive? Do most schools teach young people that they can affect their surroundings -- or not to bother? Do schools provide examples of democratic institutions -- or examples of authoritarian ones?

A long list of school critics from Henry David Thoreau to John Dewey, John Holt, Paul Goodman, Jonathan Kozol, Alfie Kohn, Ivan Illich, and John Taylor Gatto have pointed out that a school is nothing less than a miniature society: what young people experience in schools is the chief means of creating our future society. Schools are routinely places where kids -- through fear -- learn to comply to authorities for whom they often have no respect, and to regurgitate material they often find meaningless. These are great ways of breaking someone.

Today, U.S. colleges and universities have increasingly become places where young people are merely acquiring degree credentials -- badges of compliance for corporate employers -- in exchange for learning to accept bureaucratic domination and enslaving debt.

Mental Health Institutions: Aldous Huxley predicted today's pharmaceutical societyl "[I]t seems to me perfectly in the cards," he said, "that there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude."

Today, increasing numbers of people in the U.S. who do not comply with authority are being diagnosed with mental illnesses and medicated with psychiatric drugs that make them less pained about their boredom, resentments, and other negative emotions, thus rendering them more compliant and manageable.

Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is an increasingly popular diagnosis for children and teenagers. The official symptoms of ODD include, "often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules," and "often argues with adults." An even more common reaction to oppressive authorities than the overt defiance of ODD is some type of passive defiance -- for example, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Studies show that virtually all children diagnosed with ADHD will pay attention to activities that they actually enjoy or that they have chosen. In other words, when ADHD-labeled kids are having a good time and in control, the "disease" goes away.

When human beings feel too terrified and broken to actively protest, they may stage a "passive-aggressive revolution" by simply getting depressed, staying drunk, and not doing anything -- this is one reason why the Soviet empire crumbled. However, the diseasing/medicalizing of rebellion and drug "treatments" have weakened the power of even this passive-aggressive revolution.

Television: In his book Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (1978), Jerry Mander (after reviewing totalitarian critics such as George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Jacques Ellul, and Ivan Illich) compiled a list of the "Eight Ideal Conditions for the Flowering of Autocracy."

Mander claimed that television helps create all eight conditions for breaking a population. Television, he explained, (1) occupies people so that they don't know themselves -- and what a human being is; (2) separates people from one another; (3) creates sensory deprivation; (4) occupies the mind and fills the brain with prearranged experience and thought; (5) encourages drug use to dampen dissatisfaction (while TV itself produces a drug-like effect, this was compounded in 1997 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration relaxing the rules of prescription-drug advertising); (6) centralizes knowledge and information; (7) eliminates or "museumize" other cultures to eliminate comparisons; and (8) redefines happiness and the meaning of life.

Commericalism of Damn Near Everything: While spirituality, music, and cinema can be revolutionary forces, the gross commercialization of all of these has deadened their capacity to energize rebellion. So now, damn near everything – not just organized religion -- has become "opiates of the masses."

The primary societal role of U.S. citizens is no longer that of "citizen" but that of "consumer." While citizens know that buying and selling within community strengthens that community and that this strengthens democracy, consumers care only about the best deal. While citizens understand that dependency on an impersonal creditor is a kind of slavery, consumers get excited with credit cards that offer a temporarily low APR.

Consumerism breaks people by devaluing human connectedness, socializing self-absorption, obliterating self-reliance, alienating people from normal human emotional reactions, and by selling the idea that purchased products -- not themselves and their community -- are their salvation.

Can anything be done to turn this around?

When people get caught up in humiliating abuse syndromes, more truths about their oppressive humiliations don't set them free. What sets them free is morale.

What gives people morale? Encouragement. Small victories. Models of courageous behaviors. And anything that helps them break out of the vicious cycle of pain, shut down, immobilization, shame over immobilization, more pain, and more shut down.

The last people I would turn to for help in remobilizing a demoralized population are mental health professionals -- at least those who have not rebelled against their professional socialization. Much of the craft of relighting the pilot light requires talents that mental health professionals simply are not selected for nor are they trained in. Specifically, the talents required are a fearlessness around image, spontaneity, and definitely anti-authoritarianism. But these are not the traits that medical schools or graduate schools select for or encourage.

Mental health professionals' focus on symptoms and feelings often create patients who take themselves and their moods far too seriously. In contrast, people talented in the craft of maintaining morale resist this kind of self-absorption. For example, in the question-and-answer session that followed a Noam Chomsky talk (reported in Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky, 2002), a somewhat demoralized man in the audience asked Chomsky if he too ever went through a phase of hopelessness. Chomsky responded, "Yeah, every evening . . ."

If you want to feel hopeless, there are a lot of things you could feel hopeless about. If you want to sort of work out objectively what's the chance that the human species will survive for another century, probably not very high. But I mean, what's the point? . . . First of all, those predictions don't mean anything -- they're more just a reflection of your mood or your personality than anything else. And if you act on that assumption, then you're guaranteeing that'll happen. If you act on the assumption that things can change, well, maybe they will. Okay, the only rational choice, given those alternatives, is to forget pessimism."

A major component of the craft of maintaining morale is not taking the advertised reality too seriously. In the early 1960s, when the overwhelming majority in the U.S. supported military intervention in Vietnam, Chomsky was one of a minority of U.S. citizens actively opposing it. Looking back at this era, Chomsky reflected, "When I got involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement, it seemed to me impossible that we would ever have any effect. . . So looking back, I think my evaluation of the 'hope' was much too pessimistic: it was based on a complete misunderstanding. I was sort of believing what I read."

An elitist assumption is that people don't change because they are either ignorant of their problems or ignorant of solutions. Elitist "helpers" think they have done something useful by informing overweight people that they are obese and that they must reduce their caloric intake and increase exercise. An elitist who has never been broken by his or her circumstances does not know that people who have become demoralized do not need analyses and pontifications. Rather the immobilized need a shot of morale.

Bruce E. Levine is a clinical psychologist and his latest book isSurviving America’s Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2007). His Web site is www.brucelevine.net

My anger has turned to hatred. If I were not in poor health, I would have a Molotov cocktail in hand, trying to burn down Wall Street. Instead I phone and email my reps, and they generally ignore me or send back form letters. I don't feel anything will change until we form a screaming mob that scares the crap out of them..

About Us

We are a new coalition of antiwar organizations, peace and justice advocates, and citizens of conscience who challenge our elected leaders to end the US wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq and bring our troops home.

Our Purpose

We call for active, non-violent non-cooperation with US war policy. As we vigorously oppose a military escalation in Afghanistan, we encourage mass political mobilization and high-profile antiwar political actions across the country. As America continues to commit war crimes for the profit of the few and at the expense of the many, we engage and energize our fellow citizens to become disablers of war party mentality. We reject defeatist thinking and futile rationales by promoting effective war protest. We break cycles of hopelessness by engaging in immediate and direct actions, consistent with our commitment to non-violence. We believe our actions will produce the best methods for securing peace in our country and the world, and we direct our allegiance to that end.

Our Demands

• Reject any troop surge in Afghanistan.
• Declare an immediate cease-fire in Afghansitan and Iraq.
• Bring all US troops home in the fastest way consistent with the safety of our forces.
• Stop Predator drone strikes that kill civilians.
• Stop all covert CIA and private black operations in Pakistan and elsewhere.
• Stop extraordinary renditions. Shut down all CIA black sites/secret prisons once and for all.
• Stop torture of any kind.
• Treat all detainees according to the Geneva Convention.
• Close Guantanamo.
• Investigate and prosecute all war crimes to the fullest extent.

Our Supporters Are Associated With:

• ACTindependent
• AfterDowningStreet
• Americans Who Tell The Truth
• A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
• Antiwar.com
• Black Is Back Coalition
• Bush Indictment Council
• Cincinnati 9/11 Truth
• California Action Network
• Camp Alex for Peace
• Campus Antiwar Network (CAN) - Cincinnati, North Texas
• CODEPINK - Maine
• CODEPINK - National
• CODEPINK - Delaware River Area
• DC 9/11 Truth
• DC Statehood Green Party
• DIGNITY
• Gray Panthers of Metropolitan Washington
• Green Party - National
• Institute for Policy Studies
• International Action Center
• International Socialist Organization (ISO)
• Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW)
• Island Peace and Justice - Deer Isle, ME
• Jobs for Afghans
• Left Curve Publications
• Maine Green Independent Party
• Maine Veterans for Peace #001
• Manhattan Local, NYC Green Party
• Martha's Vineyard Peace Council
• Middle East Crisis Response
• Military Families Speak Out
• Movement for a Democratic Society
• Muslims for 9/11 Truth
• National Assembly
• National Network Opposing Militarization of Youth (NNOMY)
• New Broom Coalition
• New Hampshire/Northeast Impeachment Coalition/Women Making a Difference
• No Private Armies
• North Shore Coalition for Peace and Justice, MA
• Northeast Ohio Antiwar Coalition

(NOAC)

• Northern California 9/11 Truth Alliance
• Omni Center for Peace, Justice and Ecology
• Patriotic Response to Renegade Government
• Peace Action - Maine
• Peace and Justice
• Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine
• Planning for Change
• Progressive Democrats of America
• Proposition One
• ProsecuteThemNow.org
• Real Democracy Project
• Tikkun
• Topanga Peace Alliance
• True Blue Network
• Truthdig
• United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ)
• US Peace Memorial Foundation
• Vancouver for Peace
• Veterans for Peace (VFP)
• Voices for Creative Nonviolence
• Voters for Peace
• War Crimes Times
• War Is Illegal
• Wasatch Coalition for Peace and Justice (Utah)
• Washington Peace Center
• Waterville Area Bridges for Peace and Justice
• WethePeopleNow.org
• Women of the Spiritual UN
• World Can't Wait

Add your organization, uniting in opposition to these wars.

Join us to end US wars, one person at a time

Green Party Prez candidates Nader & McKinney headline Anti-War Rally 12/12/09

This is an updated new advisory — Ralph Nader has just confirmed that he will speak at Saturday’s rally in front of the White House. At least six and as possibly as many as nine of the speakers are Greens. Those who show up for the rally: please bring your Green Party (including DC Statehood Green Party & other state & local GP) buttons, signs, etc.

Rally in DC on December 12 will tell President Obama “No You Can’t!” send more US troops to Afghanistan

• Obama’s escalation plans will turn many of his supporters against him, say rally organizers and speakers

Emergency Anti-War Rally at the White House against President Obama’s planned military escalation in Afghanistan

• When: Saturday, December 12, 11 am to 4 pm
• Lafayette Park in Washington, DC, across from the White House, near the Farragut West Metro Station
• Organized by End US Wars http://www.enduswars.org

Thousands of Americans will gather in Lafayette Park across from the White House on Saturday, December 12, to tell President Obama “No you can’t!” send over 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan.

Speakers for the rally will include Rep. Dennis Kucinich, former Rep. and2008 GP Prez cand Cynthia McKinney, 2000 GP Prez cand Ralph Nader, former Sen. Mike Gravel, Kathy Kelly, Chris Hedges, David Swanson, Coy McKinney, Mathis Chiroux, Green candidate for Governor of Maine Lynne Williams , Marian Douglas-Ungaro and many others. Many of the speakers are available for interview: see the online speakers list (http://www.enduswars.org/guide). Statements from Colonel Ann Wright,Kevin Zeese , Jared Ball, John Judge and many more.

Ralliers will demand that President Obama announce an immediate ceasefire in Iraq and Afghanistan to end the wars and order our troops home, stop Predator drone attacks and covert operations in Pakistan, and begin immediate reconstruction and recovery in war torn regions.

If the President does not meet these demands, he will face intensified opposition, with anti-war candidates prepared to defeat his war policy politically.

Along with the rally on December 12, the film ‘Rethink Afghanistan’ will be shown Friday December 11, from 8 to 10 pm at Busboys & Poets, 14th and V Streets NW in Washington, DC.

Related: GP Prez cand Cynthia McKinney featured at 12/12/09 Anti-war Rally

Hello, fellow Peace-Lovers,

Did you write, email, phone and/or fax your congressional representative yet to direct him/her to co-sponsor Barbara Lee's bill HR 3699 to prohibit funding any surge?

If so, what reply did you get?

With no funding, we the People can stop the surge.

We just need more than the 26 co-sponsors to date and have to act fast.

Folks, Reach out to the low-hanging fruit - call all Reps who have cosigned J. McGovern's HR 2404 demanding an exit strategy, but have yet to sign HR3699 to commit to voting against funding. Tell them you didn't hear an exit strategy and they need to take the next. Stop the surge by blocking the funding.

If you haven't called, emailed and/or faxed your rep. yet, will you do it now, today?

You can find your Rep's contact information at congress.org.

The list of now 26 co-sponsors can be found here: http://www.govtrack .us/congress/ bill.xpd? bill=h111- 3699.

Thank you for all you're doing for Peace and health for our planet,

Here is the list (soon to be posted on http://JobsForAfgha ns.org)

Reps who signed HR2404 (demanding exit strategy), but have not yet signed HR 3699 blocking funds for the surge.

Representative-District-Phone

Bartlett, Roscoe G. -MD-6-202-225-2721

Berkley, Shelley -NV-1-202-225-5965

Berry, Marion -AR-1-202-225-4076

Bishop, Timothy H. -NY-1-202-225-3826

Braley, Bruce L. -IA-1-202-225-2911

Carson, Andre -IN-7-202-225-4011

Christensen, Donna M. -VI-202-225-1790

Clay, Wm. Lacy -MO-1-202-225-2406

Cleaver, Emanuel -MO-5-202-225-4535

Costello, Jerry F. -IL-12-202-225-5661

Davis, Danny K. -IL-7-202-225-5006

DeFazio, Peter A. -OR-4-202-225-6416

Delahunt, William D. -MA-10-202-225-3111

Doggett, Lloyd -TX-25-202-225-4865

Duncan, John J.-TN-2-202-225-5435

Farr, Sam -CA-17-202-225-2861

Fattah, Chaka -PA-2-202-225-4001

Fudge, Marcia L. -OH-11-202-225-7032

Gutierrez, Luis V. -IL-4-202-225-8203

Hare, Phil -IL-17-202-225-5905

Harman, Jane -CA-36-202-225-8220

Hastings, Alcee L. -FL-23-202-225-1313

Himes, James A. -CT-4-202-225-5541

Hodes, Paul W. -NH-2-202-225-5206

Holt, Rush D. -NJ-12-202-225-5801

Honda, Michael M. -CA-15-202-225-2631

Jackson, Jesse L.-IL-2-202-225-0773

Kagen, Steve -WI-8-202-225-5665

Kaptur, Marcy -OH-9-202-225-4146

Kilpatrick, Carolyn C. -MI-13-202-225-2261

Kilroy, Mary Jo -OH-15-202-225-2015

Lewis, John -GA-5-202-225-3801

Loebsack, David -IA-2-202-225-6576

Lujan, Ben Ray -NM-3-202-225-6190

Maloney, Carolyn-NY-14-202-225-7944

Matsui, Doris O. -CA-5-202-225-7163

Michaud, Michael H. -ME-2-202-225-6306

Moore, Gwen -WI-4-202-225-4572

Napolitano, Grace F. -CA-38-202-225-5256

Norton, Eleanor Holmes -DC-202-225-8050

Oberstar, James L. -MN-8-202-225-6211

Olver, John W. -MA-1-202-225-5335

Pastor, Ed -AZ-4-202-225-4065

Pingree, Chellie -ME-1-202-225-6116

Polis, Jared -CO-2-202-225-2161

Price, David E.-NC-4-202-225-1784

Richardson, Laura -CA-37-202-225-7924

Rohrabacher, Dana -CA-46-202-225-2415

Rothman, Steven R. -NJ-9-202-225-5061

Rush, Bobby L. -IL-1-202-225-4372

Ryan, Tim -OH-17-202-225-5261

Schakowsky, Janice D. -IL-9-202-225-2111

Schrader, Kurt -OR-5-202-225-5711

Serrano, Jose E. -NY-16-202-225-4361

Sestak, Joe -PA-7-202-225-2011

Shea-Porter, Carol -NH-1-202-225-5456

Slaughter, Louise McIntosh -NY-28-202-225-3615

Space, Zachary T.-OH-18-202-225-6265

Speier, Jackie -CA-12-202-225-3531

Spratt, John M. Jr.-SC-5-202-225-5501

Stearns, Cliff-FL-6-202-225-5744

Stupak, Bart-MI-1-202-225-4735

Sullivan, John-OK-1-202-225-2211

Sutton, Betty -OH-13-202-225-3401

Thompson, Bennie G.-MS-2-202-225-5876

Thompson, Mike -CA-1-202-225-3311

Tierney, John F. -MA-6-202-225-8020

Tsongas, Niki -MA-5-202-225-3411

Walz, Timothy J. -MN-1-202-225-2472

Waxman, Henry A. -CA-30-202-225-3976

Welch, Peter -VT-202-225-4115

Whitfield, Ed -KY-1-202-225-3115

Woolsey, Lynn C. -CA-6-202-225-5161

Wu, David-OR-1-202-225-0855

Yarmuth, John A. -KY-3-202-225-5401

22 Million Missing Bush White House Emails Found