Irregular Times: News Unfit for PrintOn September 24, 2005 two of us from Irregular Times journeyed to Washington, DC to attend an anti-war rally — not in our usual capacity as participants, but rather as careful observers. One of us stood near the rally stage on the Washington Mall south of the White House and recorded a whopping three and a half hours of audio — two and a half hours more than was promised. As you can read for yourself, speakers from the more radical ANSWER Coalition took up the bulk of the time and kept telling the crowd that really, no really, the march would start soon but everybody had to wait. The transcript below is a complete record of speakers’ remarks.
At the same time, another one of us stood at the corner of 17th and Pennsylvania, outside the Northwest corner of the White House, on the march route. Beginning at 12:30, a picture was taken every two minutes, no matter what was in front of the lens. The idea here, called systematic visual sampling, is to avoid the bias of observing only the “interesting” and instead take a ruthlessly representative set of pictures so that someone can see the mundane and exciting aspects of a protest march.
In the eight months since the march and rally, no one has stepped forward to offer a complete public record of the events of September 24, 2005. We are happy to fill in the gap. Without further comment, we offer our transcript and visual record of the anti-war march and rally that took place that day.
TRANSCRIPT: ANSWER Coalition / United for Peace and Justice RallyThe following is taken from an Irregular Times audio recording of a 3 hour, 27 minute long rally on the Washington, DC Mall on September 24, 2005.Eugene Puryear Brothers and Sisters, we’re going to get started with our program here today. We want to thank you for being here to join with us. Today is the start of a new day, we say. A new day of the first drive to destroy the Bush war machine. It is a day where, despite our political differences, we’ve been able to stand here together in the streets against racism and imperialism. And let’s make no mistake about it: our enemies are not out here; our enemies are in there [pointing to the White House]. We’re here today, black, white, Arab, Latino, young, old. We’re standing together, and some are saying that the anti-war movement is dead. We with the ANSWER Coalition (and we know you out there agree with us) say that the anti-war movement is alive and well. We see the havoc that is being wreaked by U.S. backed forces in Haiti and Palestine. We see the carnage, the violence and the poverty from Iraq to New Orleans. We are here to say that the anti-war movement not only is not dead, but that it will not go away. That it is a movement of the people. It is a movement that will continue to stay in the streets, and to agitate in Washington DC, in San Francisco and Los Angeles and back in your hometowns after this. We will never leave the streets. We will stay united, because truly if there is no justice there can be no peace. Virginia Redino Hello America! We are the majority! My name is Virginia Redino and I am the mobilizing coordinator for United for Peace and Justice. Welcome! I am humbled to stand here with you today in opposition to the senseless brutality and murderous pillage and plundering of Iraq and its people. Today we are out in full force demonstrating to the villains and the corporate puppets of the Bush administration that we all know that the occupation of Iraq was based on manipulated data and intentional deceptions which are very impeachable offenses. So we stand here today in glorious numbers. We are delegates for millions and millions of people who oppose this war; the millions of Americans who are demanding that the troops be brought home now, immediately, without equivocation. We stand here in solidarity with our sisters and brothers of our own Gulf, in Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama, who have suffered and died because basic services were refused to them, because their national guard were not home to protect them, because billions of dollars that are being squandered on killing the poor people of another country are not being spent to nourish and support the people of this country. Today we join in solidarity with demonstrations from around the world. We have already heard from London; they have 100,000 people in the streets. Mexico, Canada, Japan, Austria, Spain, South Korea, the Philippines, Ireland and Australia are also demonstrating today and demanding — the world is still calling for an end to the corporate and military occupation of Iraq. We want to stop the war and bring the troops home now! Thank you. Brothers and sisters! Right now our next speaker. You know on Sesame Street we have an alphabet: A, B, C. Today the letter is C. Let me hear you loud and clear. Say C! The C stands for character. The C stands for courage. The C stands for Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney! Cynthia McKinney Than you very much. If we didn’t know it before now, we certainly know it now: a cruel wind blows across America. Starting in Texas and Montana, and sweeping across America’s heartland, it settled here in Washington, DC. And despite our presence today, it continues to buffett and batter the American people. This cruel wind blew disenfranchisement into Florida and Ohio. IT blew hard-heartedness into the capital, division across our land, and wretchedness in high places. The American people have been forced to endure fraud in the elections of 2000 and 2004, criminal neglect on September 11, a war started on deliberately faked evidence, the outing of a CIA agent to cover up the truth, and now criminal incompetence in providing our security. When hurricane survivors had lost everything, it was there for all America to see: men wrapped in self-righteousness working to save their jobs instead of the people. As dead bodies lay strewn about the New Orleans Superdome, military recruiters flew into Houston’s Astrodome to reap the harvest. This ill wind that engulfs our country is also global in its impact. It dipped into the Carribean, hitting Haiti and Cuba. It reached into Latin America to slap Venezuela. It swept death, greed and destruction across Africa into Eastern Congo, and it breathes occupation onto the peoples of Iraq and Palestine. But just as sure as an ill wind now blows, it doesn’t have to be so. The people united can stop wars. We can stop injustice, and we can stop indifference. The people united can tear down the mightiest walls of oppression. These ill winds have brought high crimes and more than misdemeanors. But they’ve also brought us together, one answer united for peace and justice. Let’s stay together, because we have to get rid of these ill winds and breathe fresh breath into a new jet stream of life. We can do it, y’all, because they can’t fool us any more. Thank you very much. Cynthia McKinney! Now, brothers and sisters, hear from the individuals who organize every day for the working people of America. Please greet and give a thunderous round of applause for Fred Mason, United States Labor Against War Fred Mason Greetings comrades, brothers and sisters! You’re looking good out there. On behalf of US Labor Against War and all working people in America, we want to applaud you for being here to day, and to say the people, when we stand up, people of consciousness can win. We are proud the AFL-CIO after fifty years has finally stood up, spoken out and said that war is unjust, that the best way we can support our troops is to end the occupation and bring the troops home now. Thank you! Good morning everyone! I’d like to introduce Curtis Muhammad of Community Labor United, which is a coalition of grassroots organizations who are struggling to guarantee the people of New Orleans to have their say in rebuilding their city. Mr. Mohammed… Curtis Muhammad Ah, brothers and sisters, comrades all of you. We want you to remember we are here as anti-war protesters. A war being committed in your country against black descendents of slaves who are uneducated and poor. New Orleans cannot be forgotten. That was 150,000 poor black people locked in that city, who was locked down every chance they got to escape, who people turned away to get rid of them, 13 feet below sea level, and a president walked by looking down from an airplane, riding horses, taking his dog to the veterinarian, and six days of that shit. So if you are against the war, you must be against the war against black, poor, uneducated people. We want to say to you that we thank you for all the food and clothes and water that you have sent. But the time has arrived to honor those people, to honor their voices, to honor their genius and their hopes and their self-determination. It is your job now to find out what they’re asking of you, and I’m going to give you three things here today. One, we want to go find our people. They’re hiding them from us, they’ve scattered them all over the country. We have 250,000 of them in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We want to knock on every one of those doors, talk to them about all this activity, see if they want the space that they left, and if they built a condo on it it’s yours, and if they built a hotel on it it’s yours. Whatever they build on that spot of land that we had to leave, we want it. We are asking whatever town you live in to find our people, put it on our webpage, www.communitylabor.net, communitylaborunited.net. Tell us about our people, if you’re a teacher tell us where your children come from. If you’re a social worker, tell us where they come from. If you work for FEMA or the Red Cross, tell us who you know and where they are. They say they don’t know where people are. You know how to knock doors; we need volunteers to knock doors. Number two, we want the labor movement to pay for those door-knocking processes, and help to train volunteers to knock those doors. We’re going to use the month of October, we think, to knock on every door in Baton Rouge. Number three, we want the unions, the skilled crafts unions, to pay for and assist in the apprenticeship of our people in learning how to build their houses and put their lives back together. But you must understand that nobody has ever respected the voices of these people. So our number one program is to hear the voices of these people. Thank you. Thank you. Stop the war against black and poor people in America. Raging Grannies It’s been said that no rally is official until the Raging Grannies Sing. Grannies are still getting on stage. We’re here from Detroit, from Pittsburgh, from New York City, from Vancouver Canada, from Rochester, from Western Massachussets, from Vermont, Bellingham Washington, Maine, Boston and from Tucson Arizona where they got themselves arrested for trying to enlist at their local recruiting station. Cindy Sheehan went to Texas Bring them home right now Our national guard’s defending freedom Bring them home right now No more lies from Dick and Georgie Bring them home right now Anan Shalal Hey come on, let’s give it up to the Raging Grannies! Thank you very much. Good morning everybody. My name is Anan Shalal. I’m with Iraqi Americans for Peaceful Alternatives and I’m lending my voice to the millions of Iraqis and millions of Americans who say “No more war, bring the troops home now.” 2,000 U.S. soldiers and over 100,000 Iraqis are dead, and counting. We were told when we went into Iraq looking for weapons of mass destruction, which they knew there were none, we were told we could conduct this war on the cheap. We have alread spent $200 billion, and there is no end in sight. We were told it would take a handful of forces to conduct this war. We have over 140,000 troops and more are needed, many of whom are desperately needed on our own soil in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. We were told that “Mission was Accomplished,” 31 months later the war marches on. This administration has not missed the bullseye on this one, they have missed the bull altogether. But obviously this administration knows a lot about bull. How many more lives will it take before this administration stops the bull and levels with the Iraqi and American people? How many more Caseys and Sherwoods and Joses and Ahmeds and Mohammeds, how many more Katrinas and Ritas will it take before the administration stops the bull and lies? With each passing day, with each siege of an Iraqi city, the insurgency is growing, hatred toward our military is growing, anger toward Americans is growing. Iraqis are telling us they have had enough of this bull. Why? Because when you kill innocent people, when you destroy someone’s home, when you create conditions that make it not worth living, like cutting off water and electricity or access to hospitals, you leave people little option but to join some kind of resistance. Those of us who are gathered here today are the true patriots. We stand in solidarity with all peace loving people throughout the world. We stand together to tell this administration we are tired of their lies and we demand an end to this war and to bring the troops home now. Allison Bocello Thank you. My name is Allison Bocello. I work with the American Friends Service Committee’s Peacebuilding and Demilitarization Program. Responding to AFSC’s call to wage peace, untold thousands have turned out around the country to oppose the Iraq war. Currently our organization has adopted a policy to call for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. We grieve at the deaths of over 100,000 Iraqis, most of whom are civilians, as well as the 1,900 and counting U.S. military deaths. We are distressed at the U.S. personnel who have been wounded and the countless Iraqi men, women and children. Our outrage and grief as an organization and as a nation is demonstrated through Eyes Wide Open, an exhibition on the human cost of the Iraq war, featuring a pair of boots to honor each U.S. military casualty, a wall of remembrance, and a labyrinth of shoes to memorialize the Iraqis killed in the conflict. The American Friends Service Committee, along with United for Peace and Justice, grieves at the loss of life and the immense suffering and devastation being experienced right here in the U.S. right now due to the effects of Hurricane Katrina. THis is why, as an active member of United for Peace and Justice, the American Friends Service Committee is committed to providing this weekend, this whole entire weekend of events, and supporting the ongoing call for peace and justice. Today, in San Francisco and Oakland California, in communities throughout Chicago Illinois, and throughout New England, the American Friends Service Committee is joining the voices of hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of people, saying “End the War Now, Bring the Troops Home, and Justice for the People of the Gulf Coast.” Thank you for your continuing efforts to speak these truths, and for bringing the energy of today’s marches back to your homes and your communities. I’d like to welcome to the stage the national coordinator for United for Peace and Justice, Leslie Cagan. Leslie Cagan Hello! I can’t tell you how wonderful you look, and I can’t even begin to imagine how many people are here because from here we see them out on Constitution Avenue, and out on 15th Street. As far as we can see, the people have come to Washington, and we are on time. The president, that dangerous man who pretends to be the leader of this country, he won’t come talk to us, so we’ve come to talk to him! And not only that, we are here because it’s not only the White House where the problem is, but those people aside from a handful, aside from the Cynthia McKinneys and the Barbara Lees and the Lynn Woolseys and the Dennis Kuciniches — aside from them, the co-conspirators up there on Capitol Hill need to hear from us. We come to Washington at a moment when our nation is at a crossroads. Will we continue to pour billions of dollars and endless lives into a war based on greed and empire-building, or will we turn this country around and start by rebuilding the Gulf Coast? The choice is clear. You know what needs to be done. The problem is, the policy makers don’t know. So we’re here not only today in massive numbers, but today and tomorrow and on Monday in every way possible by marching and rallying and by civil disobedience on Monday at the White House and a day of lobbying on Monday on Capitol Hill. We say, “End the War, Bring the Troops Home Now!” Rev. Jesse Jackson Cindy Sheehan, we thank you for being a witness in the great tradition of Rosa Parks and Fannie Lou Hamer and Harriet Tubman. We thank you for being a witness without guns or bombs, but rather with honesty and integrity. Your light challenges the darkness. Your light is being seen and heat is being felt around the world. Thank you, Cindy Sheehan. America, the whole world is watching. National security begins in New Orleans, homeland security at home. Emergency preparedness was not prepared for the emergency. The Gulf States in America, the Gulf States in Iraq: the Gulf States policy at home and abroad has failed. We must go another way. In our quest to make this a more perfect world, a world of peace, there is a time for war and peace. We have the judgment to balance moral interests, national and global interests. There is a time for war. Some sense that evil is so intractable and entrenched that there must be wars of conscience to break down the walls to rescue the innocent. The walls of fascism, anti-semitism, racism, abounding theologies of oppression. There is a time to war: fighting the war to save the union and end slavery, a war worth fighting. Fighting World War II to fight fascism and anti-semitism, racism and religious bigotry. A war worth fighting. 55 million people killed, 6 million Jews in an hourrendous scheme, based on some perverse notion of God’s will and lust for power. Today we tragically say we waited too long to fight those wars, wars driven by high moral purpose. Our national interest wars are worth fighting. Invading Grenada was not such a war. Bombing Panama was not such a war. A war of choice in Iraq is not such a war. The Iraq war built on lies, a house built on sand, 2100 Americans dead, tens of thousands of Iraqis dead, $200 billion later we deserve peace and justice. No weapons of mass destruction. No Al Qaeda connection. We deserve another way, and better leadership. And so, Cindy Sheehan, thank you for shining light in darkness. In our quest for peace I know it is dark, but the morning cometh. Don’t let them break our spirit. Keep marching. It’s a long road, but keep marching. When we march, things happen. We’ll change the Congress in 2006. We’ll take back the White House in 2008. It’s dark but the morning cometh, so march on. Fight on. Forwards by hope, not backwards by fear. Turn to each other. Forwards by hope, not backwards by fear. End the war. Bring the troops home now. Bring the troops home now. Bring the troops home now. Let me hear you scream! Let me hear you scream louder! Our next speaker began her vigil in Crawford Texas in August of this year. Mother of specialialst Casey Sheehan, co-founder of Gold Star Mothers for Peace, and originator of the Bring Them Home Now Bus Tour, please welcome to the stage Cindy Sheehan. Cindy Sheehan Wow! I like that! I’m just reading all the signs and they’re great! I think I’ll just stand up here and read the signs and you guys talk amongst yourselves for five minutes, OK? This is amazing! You are part of history! Pat yourselves on the back for being here! We need a people’s movement to end this war. My good friends in the media aren’t doing their jobs. Most of the members of Congress aren’t doing their jobs. George Bush certainly isn’t doing his job. But so, you know what? We have to do our jobs as Americans. If nobody else will hold them accountable, we will. We’ll do our job. We’ll be the checks and balances on this out of control, criminal government. This government that condones torture. We don’t torture; we’re human beings! We have to reclaim our humanity. We have to show the world that Americans don’t torture and it’s not OK for anybody to torture another human being. Americans don’t invade countries and occupy countries pre-emptively that are no threat to our country. And it’s not OK for other countries to do that either. We are here in massive amounts of people to show our government, to show our media, to show America that we mean business and we’re not going home until every last one of our troops is home. I can’t believe it; everyone is coming up to me and saying things like “Thank you for being here.” Thank you for being here! If it wasn’t for the thousands and thousands of people that came to Camp Casey, if it wasn’t for the millions that supported us, I would still be sitting in that ditch. But you guys got me out of that ditch, you got me to the nation’s capital, and we mean business, George Bush. And we’re going to Congress, and we’re going to ask them, “How many more of other people’s children are you willing to sacrifice for the lies?” And we’re going to say shame on you! Shame on you for giving him the authority to invade Iraq! And we’re going to say not one person should have died. Not one more should die. Can you scream that to the White House? Not one more! Not one more! Not one more! Thank you, I love you! I’ll see you at 4:30 over there! Thank you Cindy. The next speaker is a member of the Executive Council of the AFL-CIO. Please welcome to the stage Nancy Wolforth! Nancy Wolforth Hi. My name’s Nancy Wolforth. I’m an executive council member of the American Federation of Labor - Congress of Industrial Organizations. I am extremely thrilled to be here today, and I want to tell you that this is an historic movement; for the labor movement to take a stand, a united stand against this war and the lies of this Bush administration. The lies of this Bush administration! We entered a war on false pretenses, and I can tell you where the weapons of mass destruction are. They are with the Bush administration! Those Bush administration FEMA creeps who would not rescue 150,000 poor and African-American people in New Orleans shows the truth of what they’re all about. If we weren’t fighting that war, if we weren’t illegally occupying that country, there would have been the troops home to rescue the poor people of New Orleans, and it’s not over yet. We’ve got Rita, and believe me, there will be massive displacements of African-Americans and poor people again, because the Bush administration does not give a damn about what happens to those people. Not one damn. And let me tell you that we in the labor movement do give one damn, and we’re going to be doing our damndest to see that the money, the job training and the rebuilding go to the people of New Orleans who can do the jobs. Not to the damn Halliburton who was the very first contractor given. One last point I’d like to make, and that is, guess who got the first contract in New Orleans? Halliburton! And guess who’s stealing the Iraqi country and its resources? Halliburton! Josh Rubner No more war! We can’t build a movement without your support, though. We need your support to make this movement as strong and dynamic as possible. And we’ve incurred a lot of expenses to make this movement happen today, to tell George W. Bush, “No More War!” So we need your all help. People have red buckets. Hold up your red buckets, folks. Don’t put coins in the red buckets. Put dollar bills, put five dollar bills, twenty, fifty, one hundred dollar bills. We need every single dollar that you can spare to help us build this movement. So go to the red bucket. If you want to write a check, write it to United for Peace and Justice or International ANSWER. For all of you who are at home watching on C-Span, go to the websites of United for Peace and Justice and International Answer and give generously so we can continue to build this strong movement. Thank you. Alright, let’s give it up for Josh Rubner! And now, to lead us in the song, Evelyn Harris! Evelyn Harris Hello, you all look awesome out there. Did you know that there are 4700 Louisiana National Guards in Iraq and Afghanistan? Did you know that there are 4200 Texas Guardsmen in Iraq and Afghanistan? Did you know that there are several thousands of other National Guardsmen from Mississippi and Alabama over there? Out of Gulf War, Into Gulf States! Gonna lay down my sword and shield I’m gonna lay down my burden Out of Gulf War, Into Gulf States! Let’s show some love to Evelyn Harris. The evacuees of New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina are meeting to my right. There’s a tent on the right side. The evacuees Howof New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina are meeting on that side. Thank you all. Peta Lindsay How’s everybody doing today? On behalf of the ANSWER Coalition ANSWER league of students, I’d like to welcome you all here today. My name is Peta Lindsay. I’m an ANSWER organizer and a Howard University student, and I know that hundreds of thousands of young people have come to be here today. They’ve come from all across the country: by car, by train, by buses. So young people, can I hear you? And we have come as part of a movement. A movement that stands with the people of the world against the aggression of the U.S. government. We are standing with the people of Iraq as they struggle and suffer and fight back against the brutal U.S. occupation. We stand with the people of Palestine as they fight for their homeland. We stand with the people of Cuba, who despite half a century of U.S. aggression are showing us what real solidarity means by offering medical aid to the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. And we stand with the people who right now are suffering due to Bush’s criminal negligence, and of course with working people all over the U.S. who fight every day for their right to health care, to jobs, to education, and for an end to U.S. wars of occupation. Now I’d like to introduce to you Brian Becker, the national coordinator for the ANSWER coalition. Brian Becker Sisters and brothers, as big as we are, here filling the ellipse, just on the south side of the White House, you won’t believe what it looks like on Pennsylvania Avenue and 14th, and 15th Street because it’s much bigger. Many of the New York buses have not even arrived yet. The metro system is completely filled with people with the same message. You know, there’s a ton of ink that’s written about the anti-war movement, but you don’t have to write about the anti-war movement. We are the anti-war movement, and we are here! We have a simple strategy! You know, the media asks us, “How can you stop the war?” Do you think George Bush is really listening? We don’t care if George Bush is listening. He’s a criminal! We have to do what we did in Vietnam, and that is to make sure that the thing that the government needs most to carry out a war for imperialism, that is human beings to go and fight and human beings who let politicians come to their community and human beings who let their tax dollars be spent in hundreds of millions of dollar for the war, we want to make it clear that the human beings in the United States say no to this war! We will not cooperate. If George Bush wants to fight the people of Iraq, let George Bush go, and let his children go! And they will see whether the Iraqi people greet them as liberators, or whether they greet them as imperialist occupiers and I think we know the answer to that question. Sisters and brothers, the ANSWER coalition has proposed and fought for a united front for this demonstration. Why? Not because everybody in the movement has to have the same slogans on their banners, but because we have to march shoulder and shoulder against our real enemy, and he’s in the White House. Let’s be strong today and after today. We are calling for people who are watching this today on TV to join the demonstration. If you go right now to www… What’s that? Why don’t they use the helicopters for hurricane relief instead of monitoring the anti-war movement? Why don’t they go rescue people who need help instead of spying on people exercising their first amendment rights? Sisters and brothers at home, go to the ANSWER website, www.answercoalition.org, and if you agree with this demonstration you can go to that website, click a button, and send a letter to 535 members of Congress and say, “Those hundreds of thousands of people who marched in Washington, they speak for me too. I am with them. Bring the troops home!” Elias Rashmawi Bring the troops home! Brothers and sisters, all the way from Britain, we have a tireless fighter. A fighter that had the United States Congress on its feet. A fighter that makes it clear where we as a people stand, from Britain to the United States and everywhere. It is our pleasure of the ANSWER Coalition, of our community, to introduce to you George Galloway! George Galloway Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Elias, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends. Wassalamu Alaikum, peace be with you. I have been asked on behalf of the Stop the War Coalition in Britain, of which I am the Vice President, to convey to this great rally here in Washington DC the fraternal greetings of one hundred thousand demontrators in London this afternoon, marching in the cause of peace and freedom and against the war and occupation. And I have just finished, or will this afternoon finish, a tour around the United States which has been attended by many thousands of people, and been attended by the sense in which there is an absolute need for your country and my country to stand shoulder to shoulder against the war criminals Tony Blair and George W. Bush. And to thus demonstrate to the people of the world and particularly the people of the occupied world that these criminals are not acting in our name. This is not any clash of civilizations. This is not a war between the people of the West and the people of the East. This is not a war between Christianity and Islam. George Bush doesn’t represent any civilization! And George Bush and Tony Blair certainly don’t represent Jesus Christ and the great religion of Christianity. Christians believe in the prophets, peace be upon them. Bush and Blair believe in the profits and how to get a piece of them. Mammon is their religion. And that’s what they are fighting for. And I was last night in Los Angeles with some war veterans, some former members of the Marine Corps who wanted me to say this to you: none of us are enemies of the soldiers in the British and American armed forces. We love our troops. In fact, we love our troops so much, we want to bring them home now, before any more of them are killed, before any more of them are maimed. Our soldiers, conscripted by high unemployment and low wages and poor prospects and racism and hopelessness, they are our brothers and our sisters, our sons and our daughters. It’s George Bush who’s sending them to kill and be killed on a pack of lies who hates our troops! And so, we look forward to, and we march for, a world without war, a world without exploitation, one of the other, and the despoilation of the Earth itself. We say that all the people of the world must be free. We say that the blood of every person has exactly the same value under God than the value of other people. We say there will be no peace without justice. You don’t need to be Einstein to work it out. No justice, no peace. No justice, no peace. No justice, no peace. Wassalamu Alaikum. Thank you very much indeed. Next I’d like to bring up a brave sister from Kentucky. Please welcome Anita Dennis, the mother of an Iraqi war veteran and resister. Anita Dennis My son is Darryl Anderson. He is an Iraqi war veteran with a purple heart who spent seven months in Iraq. Darryl joined the army after 9/11 to protect America after a terrorist attack. None of Darryl’s training had prepared him for what he was about to experience. Darryl said there were no soldiers to fight, just Iraqi civilians that were victims of our shock and awe. Many were teenage boys who had lost their families. We bombed their cities, killing innocent people. We’ve left them homeless, scared and desperate. One day, while Darryl was on guard duty at a checkpoint in Baghdad, a car was approaching. He could see it was a woman approaching with her children. Darryl was ordered to shoot. He could not. Later that evening he was reprimanded. They told him, “Next time you’re ordered to shoot, you shoot.” This was just one of the tragic events that convinced Darryl he could not support this tragic war. There are no weapons of mass destruction. Not one terrorist involved in 9/11 was from Iraq. No matter what lies George Bush tells us about this war, I know the truth because my son told me. He was there. Now he sits in Canada. If he comes back to the U.S. he will go to prison for refusing to kill innocent people. George Bush should go to prison, not my son. As a parent of a soldier that served in Iraq, I believe that not only George Bush but the United States Congress, should be held accountable for this war. It is our duty as Americans to take this country back from the corrupt politicians that serve corporations and not people. George Bush should be on trial for this. I call on Congress to follow the will of the people and impeach George Bush. End this war! Bring our troops home now! Impeach George Bush! Right now, we have a tireless fighter for the impeachment and removal of George Bush. To vote no war against him and for us, is Mara Verheyden-Hilliard with the National Lawyers Guild, an attorney and cofounders of the Partnership for Civil Justice, as well as a member of the steering committee of the ANSWER Coalition. Mara Verheyden-Hilliard Good afternoon, brothers and sisters. I brought one of the newer members of the anti-war movement with me. Unfortunately, when I began to explain to him why we were here today, he began crying and crying and crying, so I’m going to pass him to his father. But having a baby now, having a child, as so many of us here do, and so many of us have people that we love: sisters, brothers, partners, and you think about what it means, what it means for all of us to stand here together, and what it means for all of the people around the world who are suffering and watching their loved ones be killed, and die needlessly because of the criminals in the House behind me, because of the criminals who occupy Congress, because of the war criminals who are running the government of the United States, against the will of the people of the United States. When there is thunder outside at night and it is terrifying to someone so small as my eight month-old, I can pick him up, and I can sing to him, and I can tell him, “Honey, it’s just thunder.” But in Iraq, in Palestine, in Haiti, in so many places, it’s not thunder. It’s bombs and guns, and what do you say to your child? What do the mothers say to their children as they are terrified with the sound of explosions and fire and buildings crumbling? Night after night and day after day, year after year, and we the people of the United States know that the people of Iraq, the people around the world, they are not our enemies. They are our brothers and sisters. We stand here today to say we are in solidarity with you. We stand here today not just as a gesture because we’re trying to get some politicians’ attention and ask them to do the right thing. I mean, we don’t think this is aberrational. We understand their core constituency. We understand that they are taking money from the people of the United States and funnelling to their corporate backers, to Halliburton, to Bechtel, into a war machine. To kill and to conquer and to take over other people’s lands and resources. We stand here, not because we think there’s someone we have to convince and then they’ll change their mind and in a few years everything will be OK. We stand here because we are a grassroots movement, building a massive power stronger and stronger every day, because we are the power in the United States. We are taking control of this country. We have the ability to change the direction of this country. We have the ability to form a revolution from below! So I say to everyone today, to everyone here, and I have a fantastic vantage point, the crowd is enormous, you’re spilling out as far as I can see and I can’t see where it ends. People are still coming down 15th street. Buses are still coming from New York. This is a huge, huge turnout, and one that sends a message all around the world, and one that we will lead from, and we will get to work. We will continue working. We are going to work to change the way this government is operating, for money to be spent on human needs, not on the war machine! We are so honored here today. So honored to have with us a man that has stood for principle. A man who has spoken out at times of crisis, and at all times is a man of conscience. A man who fought against the Vietnam War, who fought against the war of economic sanctions on the people of Iraq that slaughtered so many over a dozen years, who had stood out now in the war against Iraq, who has travelled to Iraq when the bombs were dropping, who has fought for global peace and solidarity and for the people in the United States. And a man that has started the impeachment movement in the United States. I want to give all of you who are here and at home two websites to go to. One, for everyone who is at home today, please go to answercoalition.org because there we have set up an easy-to-use mechanism where you can join the demonstration from home, join the more than a hundred thousand people, possibly hundreds of thousands of people, it’s enormous today, and join them sending a message that, “I stand with the people of the anti-war demonstration” at answercoalition.org. Also, please go to impeachbush.org. This is a website that is founded by our next speaker. That man of great conscience, great principle, a fighter for human rights, and who is demanding that we uphold the constitution and hold the criminals in this government responsible. Please welcome former Attorney General Ramsey Clark. Ramsey Clark As the father of a 53 year-old daughter who has never heard a sound, I would like to thank the person who can talk to her. We should never overlook that important role. As a lover I would like to say, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. But there’s not time for love right now. I have to say, how many crimes has the Bush gang committed against human dignity? Let me count the ways. And there’s hardly enough world and time to count the ways. We can begin with what the Nuremburg judgment called, and it would seem that anyone who feels would recognize it, “the Supreme International crime.” The Nuremburg judgment calls the war of aggression the supreme international crime. It is the first crime against peace. There can be no war crime when there is no war. It leads to all crimes against humanity. It is supreme international crime. And George Bush’s shock and awe — a synonym for terrorism isn’t it, shock and awe? — is a war of aggression! No rational person can believe that Iraq was any threat under any circumstances, even if it was developing weapons of mass destruction, to the United States of America. And we know it. And the whole assault was built on deliberate lies. Not misinformation. And not poor intelligence. They knew damned well what they were doing. They wanted to do it, and they did it. And every moment of this invasion which takes the lives of Iraqi people, every day is an illegal occupation. And we as Americans have the highest responsibility. This is our country, we love it, we want to take it back. We want to end militarism in this country, and end aggression, and end the occupation in Iraq, now! We’re spending more on arms than any country in the world. We’ve got to slash that 90%. There’ll be no peace until we do. We destroy Iraq again because we say falsely they’re developing weapons of mass destruction. We’ve got more than the rest of the world combined. We’re developing three new generations of nuclear weapons in the face of the non-proliferation treaty and all the other laws of the world. And they’ll be used, because they’re tactical weapons. You can take out ten discrete blocks in Fallujah this time; you don’t have to send marines in to get killed. That’s what Bush is about. What more arrogant statement have we heard from any American president at any time? And President Bush’s statement about Haiti: “Aristide has to go!” The President of the United States, elected by a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court with a minority of the popular vote says that the most popular and beloved president in the hemisphere with the largest electoral majority serving as the president of the republic of Haiti, the only republic in the history of the world that liberated itself as slaves from French colonialism. And he dares to say Aristide has to go? I say Bush has to go! Aristide has to come back! Aristide would be a better president of the United States by far. He’s a gentle, loving man. He never hurt a soul. He loves the people. He lives in poverty. Fallujah? Fallujah’s the Guernica of our time. The city’s been destroyed. Thousands killed. And the eyes of the world. Abu Ghraib? It shows the heart of American respect for human dignity, doesn’t it? You torture them. You say, “Oh, it’s a few strays,” and then you continue to do the same thing. There’s no greater symbol on Earth for contempt for the idea of human rights and human dignity than Guantanamo. Our next speaker is Ben DuPuy, the former ambassador of president Aristide who was kidnapped by the Bush administration and also the secretary general of the National Popular Party in Haiti. Ben DuPuy Thank you, brothers and sisters. In the seventies I came to Washington and there was a huge demonstration against the war in Vietnam. And today, I see the same picture. The Vietnamese fought very hard to protect their independence, but the United States lost the war in the United States. And today, the United States, which George W. Bush is going to lose the war in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Washington. We know that the Bush administration is come with a concept of raging change. They have another concept: pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war has a meaning: it’s a war of aggression, and this is condemned by international law, by the charter of the United Nations. No nation has the right to pretend that they can export their democracy. Bush didn’t only lie about weapons of mass destruction. He lies about his exporting democracy. This is the biggest lie. How can W Bush send Special Forces to Haiti just like Ramsey Clark just explained, sent Special Forces to kidnap an elected, a democratically elected president? Is that democracy? Is that the kind of democracy we want? We know that Bush claims that certain countries are building weapons of mass destruction when they have the monopoly of weapons of mass destruction. Now they’re afraid of certain social movements taking place in Latin America and the Carribean. Why are they afraid of Cuba? Why are they afraid of Venezuela? Why were they afraid of president Aristide in Haiti? Was it because they have weapons of mass destruction? No! They have another weapon: it’s the example they’re giving that disturb the people in this country who have created pockets of underdevlopment. In the country, the richest country in the globe how can that exist? We have seen what happened in New Orleans. They reached only the rich people, and they left the other ones to fend for themselves. Last night we inaugurated a tribunal called the International Tribunal on Haiti. We had the first session. And we have indicted the main criminals who have been massacreing people in the barrios. And we’re going to bring those criminals to the International Criminal Court in the Hague, just like the generals in Argentina, in Chile who were massacreing people, we’re going to bring these people, and the 6th of October Ramsey Clark’s going to head an inquiry to bring evidence of crime against humanity being committed by W Bush. Thank you! Nothing makes us more proud than to stand with our brothers and sisters in the Haitian struggle. May the struggle live on, and may Haiti be free. And now, with a tireless proponent for human rights in the United States, and for the Palestinian people, from the Los Angeles Eight, a prominent Palestinian American activist, Michael Shehadeh. Michael Shehadeh Brothers and sisters, we are all here, we are all together today, united, unified in a noble cause of putting an end to an illegal and unjust war and to bring the troops safe back home. This is an agenda that is worth fighting for. This war was waged on a pack of lies. And when the lies were exposed, that there were no weapons of mass destruction, that there were no relationships between Iraq and Al Qaeda, that there were no connection between Iraq and 9/11, the liars changed the lie. The lie is now that they’re doing this, they’re waging the war and killing Iraqis because they’re bringing freedom, human rights and salvation to Iraq. Do you believe that? Do you believe that one can kill more than one hundred thousand Iraqis and still claim that they’re bringing them salvation? All George Bush has been talking about is that he’s going to protect America, that he’s going to make America safe. Today, we are telling Bush that you are a bigger disaster than the war, than Katrina, than Rita, than the dead all combined together! And George Bush is telling us that he communicates with God, that God talks to him, that he’s doing God’s work. And we’re telling him today, George Bush, you are on the opposite side of God. That God doesn’t like you. He wants you out. We want you out so we can start the process of cleansing America and the world from the destruction, from the agony that his policies have brought, and begin the ouster of George Bush from the White House and to prison. Let me end by telling you this is just the beginning. We’re not going to just end this war. We’re going to end all wars that are not waged in self-defense. We are going to be on the side of justice not against it as our government is doing in Palestine. We’re going to be on the side of liberation. On the side of the true fighters for democracy. Not on the side of oppressors and occupiers in Iraq. Bring the troops home, and end the war, and impeach George Bush. Thank you! Our next speaker also hails from Southern California. We have Margaret Prescod from Global Women Strike on morning drive time on Pacifica Radio’s KPFA. Margaret Prescod All right, let’s hear the women’s voice. I’m hear to bring the voice of grassroots women! All right. From tribal people in India to the countryside in Uganda, Africa, to mothers and grandmothers on welfare in South Los Angeles and North Philadelphia, to women and men in Las Teces, Caracas, the Global Women’s Strike brings our fiercely anti-war message: Invest in Caring, Not Killing! Poverty has a woman’s face. Women do most of the work in the world, and pay the highest price for war and occupation. As women we carry the burden of work and a world of suffering on our shoulders! Katrina has shown the racist face of genocide, including the genocide of poverty. But it is not only in places like New Orleans. It is in places like Benton Harbor, Michigan, which is 97% black, and people are earning $8,000 a year while across the river in Saint Jones, which is overwhelmingly white, they’re earning $41,000 a year. Apartheid and racism is alive and well in the United States and it is killing us! It is also genocide. President Hugo Chavez — I interviewed him last week with the Pacifica Network team last week in New York — he said that the $800 billion spent on Iraq right now could begin to address the hunger in Africa and Asia and in the Carribean and in Haiti and right here in the United States. Corruption, military recruiting, poverty and criminalization are used to prevent and disrupt grassroots organizing. The movement is here but we are hidden. The strike is strong and I’m here today to make it visible. The direction and demands of the grassroots movement must prevail in every movement for change. The revolution of Venezuela has shown us that it is possible to prioritize the caring for people and the environment, and we want that right here in the United States. From Iraq to Palestine to Haiti, we say no to war and occupation. Invest in caring, not killing! Invest in caring, not killing! Invest in caring, not killing! Invest in caring, not killing! Thank you very much. How’s everybody doing? All right, we’re going to keep the program going. The next speaker is the Reverend John Thomas, the president and general minister of the United Church of Christ representing three and a half million congregants. Please welcome Reverend John Thomas. Reverend John Thomas Friends, sisters and brothers, the peace of God be with you. We’re gonna march soon. 35 years ago, I stood where you’re standing right now. Joining people of faith and others determined to bring an end to the Vietnam war. I was here with a campus group from nearby Gettysburg College. Here challenging a war conceived in deception, pursued in arrogance, and destined to undermine the moral credibility of our nation. How is it that we have failed to learn our lessons? 35 years ago, we kept an obscene count with body counts and body bags, we slaughtered innocents, we left many precious members of my generation seared by the moral ambiguity and the violence of that war and by the neglect and the demeaning of our nation. How is it that we have learned so little? 35 years ago Pete Seeger sang that we were waist deep in the Big Muddy, and that the big fool was telling us to push on. Today, our leaders drive behind tinted glass windows and refuse to listen to a mother’s haunting question, going on to cultivate donors whose pockets they have lined. How is it that we have learned so little? Four years ago, on September 11, I was in Europe, and the world’s embrace of consolation and care and solidarity with us was overwhelming, but we lashed out. We claimed a privilege that we thought was only ours, and we rained down violence on the truly vulnerable in the world. Today when I travel I no longer hear of the world’s care and solidarity; I hear that they see us as a dangerous nation and they fear us. How is it that we have squandered so much? In recent days, Katrina’s fury has rained down on our poorest neighbors. “Left Behind” has come to mean far more than the title of series about Biblical End Times. “Left Behind” is now the life experience of countless neighbors. Those who lead this nation want nothing else but the church’s blessing, the church’s silence, the church’s complicity. The moral compromise they seek today is the same moral distortion they sought from us 35 years ago. Today let us say a resounding no. No to the deception. No to the arrogance. No to the moral betrayal of this land. And let us learn lessons we would rather forget. Let us say yes. Yes to the young men and women placed in harm’s way to satisfy our vanity. Yes to the poor who have been left behind. Yes to a true sharing of the world’s hope as well as the world’s hurt. Yes to a God who came not to lead a crusade, but to be among us as one who serves. So let us march not as warriors, not as crusaders, but as servants of the living, the still speaking, the compassionate and merciful God. Are you guys ready to march? We’ll be ready for you in just a few minutes. We’ve got a few poets ready for you, and then some great speakers, and then we’ll be ready to roll! All right. On August 31, 2005, three buses set out from Crawford, Texas carrying members of Gold Star Families for Peace, military veterans of the Gulf War and previous wars. Please put your hands together and give them an amazing welcome: to the Bring Them Home Now Tour! Eliot Adams Eliot Adams, Veterans for Peace, the Bring Them Home Now Bus Tour, carries the flame from Camp Casey and brings that flame to you. To honor us vets, you can stop war and stop it now! Elaine Johnson Hi, my name is Elaine Johnson from Orangeburg, South Carolina. And I brought four buses with me from South Carolina. And I think there’s over 100,000 people that’s here and my message is to President Bush: I’m not the only one that thinks you’re a liar. The rest of us think you’re a liar! Anne Roesler Good afternoon. My name is Anne Roesler, and I’m from Military Families Speak Out. My son is in the 82nd Airborne. He’s a staff sargeant currently serving his 3rd deployment to Iraq. He’s been in the war zone for over 500 days and we’re still counting. Unlike those who sent our loved ones over who get to lay and sleep in comfort in their beds at night, my son is sleeping in the sand. I lay awake at night waiting for a call from my son, because I haven’t heard from him since he deployed at the end of August. I lay awake praying to God that I don’t get a knock on my front door telling me that he’s no longer walking among the living. Chaos is reigning in Iraq. My son says that every single time he goes back, the chaos is worse. He fired more rounds and killed more Iraqis in the second deployment than in the entire first year that he was there, during the invasion. And he doesn’t want the job; he’d love to be able to give his two week notice. He and I were here about a year ago when there were many fewer of you out here, and I’m so glad to see so many of you out here today. He and I went to the Vietnam Memorial, and as we looked at the names of the fallen on the wall and read the names, I began to cry. He put his arm around me and he said, “Mom, I wonder how many names will be on our memorial.” So let’s take to the streets, let’s show the administration that they are criminals, that this war is illegal, that it is unjust, that it is immoral, that it is racist. And let’s bring our troops home. Thank you. Please welcome to the stage the founder of Black Voices for Peace, a national network of people of African heritage working for justice and peace in the U.S. and abroad. Damu Smith. Damu Smith I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: this is the most dangerous government to come to power in the history of the United States of America. We’re here today because our government is fighting an illegal, immoral, barbaric, criminal, unnecessary, reckless and illegal war against the people of Iraq. Our government is providing $6 billion a year in support of the barbaric occupation of the Palestinian people. We’re here today because our government left mostly black and poor people stranded at the New Orleans superdome and the New Orleans Convention Center. Abandoned. Stranded. Homeless with no food and no water and no medicine. The same government that deprives our people here in America is the same government waging occupationist, militarist policies abroad. We’ve got to bring both of these movements together. The movement for peace and the movement for justice. Right here in our neighborhoods, right here in the United States of America. Finally, let me say this: shame on Bush. Shame on Bush. We will leave here today organizing on the college campuses. Organizing in our churches. Organizing in our mosques and our synagogues. Organizing in our schools. Organizing at the civic associations and the recreation centers. Do not just come here for this great assemblage today. Go home and organize everybody into a massive movement to throw these thugs here in Washington, DC out of office. We’ve got to radically restructure our government and build a new society here and abroad! We must say in the war in Iraq, remember Katrina. In the war in Iraq, remember Katrina. In the war in Iraq, come on, remember Katrina. God bless you all. Thank you very much. Thank you, Damu. Our next speaker is George Martin from Peace Action Wisconsin, Green Party US, and National Co-Chair of United for Peace and Justice George Martin United for Peace and Justice, we are! United for Peace and Justice, more than 1400 groups and coalitions across this country, we’re the coalition that brought a half million people to demonstrate at the Republican National Convention. We’re the coalition that continues to drive this whole weekend of anti-war activities. We say no to the Bush agenda. We say no to war, to hate, to lies, to greed. We say end this occupation, and bring our troops home now! You know, earlier this year I was in Brazil at the World Social Forum. A hundred fifty thousand people. By chance I ran into the most awesome, inspiring man that any of our friends had met in Iraq. Ghishelad Al-Khalizy. And he gave us a chance to talk. You know the first thing he said to me? He said, “George, what are you Americans doing? We’re dying over here! Our kids are starving!” And I tell you, I told him what we’re doing is continuing to grow this movement, to grow and build up to the day. The movement is growing. It’s happening in the Congress, it’s happening through the leadership of our military families for peace, Iraq veterans who are speaking out. Gold Star Mothers, Cindy Sheehan. It’s rolling right now and we’re all rolling together today. United for Peace and Justice to end this occupation! In the name of my friend Vivian Felid from Bagdad whose car was in Baghdad as he was escaping shock and awe, her husband and three kids were killed in an instant, and Vivian said to me, “I want someone responsible to tell me why I had to lose my family so suddenly.” In the name of my friend Lila Lipscomb from Fahrenheit 9/11 whose son died guarding an oil tanker in Iraq. She said, “No one should have to die for somebody else’s greed and profit.” In the name of my friends the Lucies from Military Families Speak Out whose son came back from Iraq after serving our country, saying that he had killed women and children, and went to the garage, and hung himself. In the name of my friend Rita Lazar from 9-11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, who lost her son at the World Trade Towers. As she said, “No one person or family should have to endure such grief and sudden hurt.” In their name, we say “End this occupation! Bring our troops home now!” Thank you. Peace and love! Thank you, George Martin! Are you guys ready for a treat? Our next speaker is a poet, an artist and the diva of Def Poetry Jam. My friend, the incomparable Suheir Hammad! Suheir Hammad I love y’all. THis poem and this rally is proof to the Iraqi people that America is part of the world. We care about our world. They are part of our world. We take responsibility for our world. And the rest of the world lives here in America. I wrote this poems after Hurricane Katrina and the victims of the rescue effort. The rescue effort victims of Hurricane Katrina were viewed on television for of us, and they were called refugees. This is a poem for all the refugees in the world. On Refuge and Language I am not deaf to cries escaping shelters I will not use language I will not look away All I know is this No peoples ever choose to claim status of dispossessed What do we pledge allegiance to? A government that leaves its old People who are streaming I think of coded language I think of how it is always the poor I think of my grandparents Before the hurricane Refugees are the rest of the world Those left to defend their human decency Those who are forgotten in the mean times Those who remember Ahmad from Guinea makes my falafel sandwich and says Yes Amadou this my country Evacuated as if criminal Adamant they belong The rest of the world can now see Do not look away The rest of the world lives here too In America God bless y’all. We taking the streets! When Suheir came on, I mentioned I heard something ticking. She said it was her biological clock. OK, we have next is Mohammed Abed. He’s a Palestinian exile from the city of — come on, guys, it’s only a couple more minutes and then we’re gonna march — he’s a Palestinian exile from the city of Ja’afar. He works with the University of Wisconsin’s Divest from Israel campaign. Please welcome to the stage Mohammed Abed. Mohammed Abed Not so long ago, people concerned with justice and human rights, people like you, stood in resistance to two systems of oppression: one of them at home, and one of them far away. When people are told to go to the back of the bus because they are black, we felt ill and disgusted because racial segregation destroys the concept of humanity at the heart of our most basic values. The civil rights movement in this country worked to pull the roots of oppression clean from the ground. It didn’t attempt to replace Jim Crow with a lesser form of oppression. It didn’t suggest that racism here is wrong, but racism there is OK. When the Apartheid regime in South Africa concentrated blacks in disconnected homelands, and turned to the world and said, “This is self-determination! This is freedom!,” international civil society recognized this as a new form of an age-old ill. Apartheid and segregation are atrocities, irrespective of where they occur, and irrespective of who the victims and the perpetrators are. But in recent days, we have been told that by removing its military and colonists from six percent of the territory it controls, the state of Israel has made a historical concession on the road to peace. No! Few people mentioned that Israel has retained control of Gaza’s borders, its airspace, and its seashore. Few people mentioned that the Apartheid regime in South Africa had also withdrawn from the new homelands it had created for blacks, and reserved the right to address, beat and brutalize them at will. The definition of Apartheid is ethnic separation without self-determination for the oppressed group, and this is exactly the system of control that Israel continues to implement in historical Palestine, and it is for the sake of consolidating this system that the lie of the Gaza disengagement was born. While the world’s attention has been diverted, Israel has continued to build its apartheid wall. It has continued to concentrate Palestinians into Bhantustans. When Apartheid era South Africa did this, the world responded with a comprehensive boycott and divestment campaign. At the heart of that campaign were basic prinicples of justice and human rights. I ask all of you today, if you concerned with human rights and justice to join in this boycott and divestment campaign, and to work for peace in historical Palestine. Long live Iraq! Long live Palestine! Our next speaker is one of the highest-ranking Israeli officers to sign the Campbetton letter, refusing to serve in serve in the occupied territories of Palestine. Please welcome Israeli refuser _______ Stav Adivi Friends, I am an Israeli citizen and I stand before you wearing two very important hats. First, I am a member of ICAD-USA, a partner of the Israeli Committee Against Demolitions. ICAD and ICAD-USA needs your help. We are seeking support of Americans to end the Israeli occupation over Palestine, for the benefit of both Israelis and Palestinians. I am also a major in the Israeli Army Reserves. In the year 2002, me and another 600 officers and soldiers refused to obey orders in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the occupied Palestinian territories. As a soldier and an officer, I witnessed the devastation that the Israeli army is putting upon the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. While doing that, we were shuttering the morals of the Israeli Army, and corrupted the Israeli society. As a field worker for the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, I have witnessed Israel creating checkpoints, destroying Palestinian homes and olive groves, building and expanding settlements, building Army bases, all on confiscated Palestinian lands. These facts on the ground perpetuate the daily misery of the Palestinian people and make it all but impossible for them to have a just and viable state, or having normal life. The most visible symbol of this occupation is the wall around Jerusalem. With your help, this wall will fall. The wall must fall! This work has been very successful. The Gaza disengagement, withdrawal from Gaza, dismantling the settlements happened because Ariel Sharon was afraid he would have no soldiers. With our work, Israeli generals are afraid now to walk in the streets of London because they will be arrested for war crimes. We will keep doing those things! The same effects on the ground are now happening in Iraq. Friends, an occupation is immoral, and wrong, and foolish, and will never work whether it is in Palestine or in Iraq. The United States is now repeating almost every single mistake that the Israel had been doing. And if America will stay in Iraq, the American army will be devastated, and the American society will collapse. With your help, the Israeli government will remove its army and its settlers from the West Bank. The American government will move the American troops from Iraq. It can happen. We need to end these two occupations. We must, and we will. End the two occupations now! Thank you. Our next speaker is known for her work on the anti-privatization forum in Johannesburg — I know you guys want to march, but we’re getting there — next to the stage will be Virginia Setsheti. Virginia Setsheti Amantla! Amantla! Power to the people! Power to the people! Down with Hi, my name is Virginia, I’m coming from South Africa. I came for this big march and it gives me hope to see you all gathering here against the war. And I know we all want to march, I also want to march, I believe that power is on the streets. And I want to prepare you now for the march. On the way to march there, let’s say Free, Free Palestine! Free, Free Palestine! Free, Free Palestine! Free, Free Palestine! Amanta intifada! Amanta intifada! Amanta intifada! When you marching on those streets of Washington, DC, let’s bear in mind that as there is war in Iraq, there is also war in Africa and Latin America and Asia. And the war that is there in Latin America and Asia is an economic war. War policies of the economic forum and the IMF that are imposed from this city, and causing people to die of hunger, of HIV/AIDS. There are people without water, and they’re living without housing and electricity. And let us put together our thoughts and say “Enough is enough!” We want the better life and we want the better world! As we always say, another world is possible! Another world is possible! George Friday All right! So you might imagine that we haven’t filled the streets yet. What I’m hear to tell you is that the streets are full now, with thousands and thousands of people. In fact, it’s so full that we actually have to — there’s a bit of a traffic jam. So even though you all are waiting to get out there, and waiting to lift your voices and make really clear that there’s an end to this war, and some some re-priorities about some decisions we make, please know that there are folks on the street now, and they’re filling up now, and what we’re doing is to try to get people moving, on the route, so we don’t wind all y’all stuck being, “Damn, I thought we were supposed to be marching!” I don’t want to shuffle, I don’t want to stay in one place. Right now we know you’re in one place. Thank you for your continued patience. But we’re gonna move. We’re gonna move. I am here to thank you. I am George Friday. I am one of the co-chairs for United for Peace and Justice. I am happy to be part of the largest peace and justice coalition in this country. I stress justice because y’all know without justice there’s no peace. You ain’t got justice, there ain’t no peace. And I come from people who are hungry for justice, and today I appreciate your energy and effort to create genuine justice. Genuine justice, not bullshit justice. I’m talking about real justice. Now, I get to do one other great thing besides letting y’all know that there are thousands in the streets, we are going to be moving. We want you to stay here and hear our message. But you know what? We want to pay the bills. So I want you to find to find a red bucket, look for someone with a red bucket. Just a dollar. That’s all I want. Just put a dollar in the red bucket before the day is over. If everybody puts a dollar in, we all do our part, we can get it done. So I thank you in advance for that dollar in a red bucket, and we’re gonna move on with some poetry just now, and a nice treat, but I’ll have Allison tell you about that. Next up we have Alexis De Veaux. She is an internationally known author of Warrior Poet: a Biography of Audre Lorde, and a founding member of KickAss Artists. Enjoy the poetry of Alexis De Veaux. Alexis De Veaux Thank you! Thank you very much! I’m here representing KickAss Artists. We are cultural workers dedicated to a new humanism. And I have to tell you, too, today is my 57th birthday, and what an enjoyable, remarkable group of people to spend it with! Thank you. This poem is called When Earth Is and it’s to those who have abused our humanity. When Earth Is Fed Up When Earth is Fed Up Thank you. We have a very important announcement about the march itself, so I want to bring up Gloria La Riva from the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five to Bring You an Important Announcement from the march itself. Gloria La Riva Sisters and brothers, before I speak about a very important struggle in the United States, I want you to know that I just came from the corner of 15th and Constitution, and it’s so packed that it’s not possible to move right now. So you are actually doing better off to stay here for a little while longer, because it is totally jammed. I believe there must be at least 300,000 people. It is huge! And we’ve shown today that it’s the people who will stop the war. It’s the people who will win justice. It’s the people who will win peace. My name is Gloria La Riva. I’m coordinator of the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five. The Cuban Five are five Cuban men who were fighting terrorism in Miami, Florida. For forty-six years, the United States government has terrorized the people of Cuba for daring to take an independent road from Washington. The United States has had a blockade against Cuba, invasion, biological warfare, sabotage, bombings, assassination and assassination attempts. The five cuban men infiltrated terrorist organizations in Miami to stop terrorist groups that are financed, armed, trained and given the green light by Washington, D.C.. They have been in prison for seven years. And due to an unfair, outrageous trial in Miami in the year 2000, they were wrongly convicted. But we have a huge victory to announce, sisters and brothers. On August 9th, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta overturned all the convictions of the Cuban Five! The court judge decided that it was such hostile attitude and prosecutorial misconduct in Miami that it was impossible for the men to have a fair trial. And we say from this podium, and we say around the world, including the 11 million people of Cuba, that the Cuban Five were innocent from day one, and they are innocent today. We demand their immediate release from prison. We demand that they not be retried, because the government could still retry them. They are in five prisons across the United States. They’ve been seven years in prison. We ask for you to look at our website when you go home: freethefive.org. Please support these men. They were protecting all of humanity from terrorism, terrorism sponsored by Washington. We know they will be free with your support. Long live Geraldo, Ramon, Antonio, Cernando and Rene! Down with Bush’s war of terror in the Middle East! Next we want to bring up a crusader for civil rights and social justice here inside the United States of America and also one of the leaders of the Muslim American community. We want to bring up Mahdi Bray from the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation. Mahdi Bray We are here to say there is something wrong in America when we can dispatch troops quickly to go to Iraq to bring death and destruction, to kill and be killed, and yet we can leave black folks, poor folks, elderly folks in New Orleans to suffer the ravage of Katrina. Something is wrong, and there’s something sad about our nation when we live in a time that it takes a hurricane to remind us that we have the poor, the elderly and the dispossessed. We are here to say also to our nation’s leader, how dare you talk about democracy in Iraq while you are unlawfully detaining, profiling, and circumventing the civil rights and the civil liberties of our own American Muslims right here at home? And let me make it plain that we, the Muslim American Society and its Freedom Foundation, we are not standing in line today to wait to speak and be invited to the White House. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: I’m not worried about going to the White House if my brothers and sisters in Palestine can’t live and eat in their house. And let me make it even more clearly that we will not compromise the integrity of our faith nor will we compromise the aspects of our beliefs, nor will we compromise the sovereignty of our citizenship in America. We are not going to be second-class citizens. Our children here are not terrorist suspects. But they are America’s brightest prospects. And finally, let me say I read this document, and I want to make it very clear, it’s the United States Constitution. And in this document, it doesn’t say “We, Donald Rumsfeld.” It doesn’t say, “We, the Industrial Military Complex.” It doesn’t say, “We, George Bush and all of his cronies.” It says, “We the People” and we the people who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes. We who believe in freedom are going to work together as Muslims, Christians, Jews and people of all faith persuasions. As Black, White, Latino we who believe in freedom will not rest until it comes. So let’s make it very clear that we today are standing together shoulder to shoulder, going back home to the heartlands, going back home to the inner cities, going back home to all the various different places of America, as one people saying that we the people demand justice roll down like water and race like a mighty stream. We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes. Our next speaker is none other than the president of the Muslim American Society, Dr. Esam Omeish. Dr. Esam Omeish Peace be upon all. We in the Muslim American Society stand side by side, shoulder by shoulder with our brothers and sisters. We represent the largest grassroots Muslim organization in the United States. Chapters across the nation. We speak the voice and conscience of the Muslim community in America. And we say it loud and clear with our brothers and sisters: no, no to war. Bring our troops home. We support our troops and we want them home. My brothers and sisters, we have a different vision for America than the vision that George Bush and the White House have for America. We have a vision for America where we are leading the world, not by force and aggression, but leading the world by resolve and example. Where America is prosperous and charitable, not floundering and bankrupt. We have a vision for America where everybody, every religious community, every ethnicity is side by side, building a great America, not the divided America that Bush and his cronies want for us. We have a vision for America where we are a great nation because we cherish freedom and we cherish democracy and we cherish civil liberties, not the America that’s turning into a police state, the one that’s eroding the very foundations upon which our country is built. We stand side by side, as Muslims, as Americans, and as patriots to make America a better place, to make it a more virtuous and prosperous place. A more just and principled place, where freedom is, where faith is over fear. Bring the troops home. Bring the troops over home, and faith over fear, and justice for all. Thank you and God bless. Our next speakers are Mounzer Sleiman of the National Council of Arab Americans, and after him will be Musa Al Hindi of Awaada National. Mounzer Sleiman Good afternoon. Welcome to the largest demonstration against the war. We Arab Americans, we are calling on our community to open their hearts and their pocketbooks and give generously to the victims of Katrina and now Rita. The misplaced priorities of this administration of funding war abroad at the expense of the need of the peoples here, Arab Americans have been at the receiving end of the devastation of war, abroad in the Arab and Islamic world and the savagery of the so-called War on Terror at home that has fueled hatred, racism, bigotry and unlawful detention. We live in a virtual concentration camp of fear, harassment, and intimidation. Arab Americans demand and deserve respect. We will not be labeled as suspects. We are not visitors nor tourists in this country. We are an integral part of this society and its cultural fabric. You will find Arab Americans in all walks of life. We, like communities in this nation, have been at the core of making America what it is today. But there has been a deliberate effort to marginalize Arab Americans and exclude them from the national dialogue. We want America to lead in the cause of advancing justice and peace and not the America of illusion, domination and empire building. It is our patriotic to dissent and to reject the reckless policy of the Bush administration that is harming America and the world through the illusion of a war through illegal and immoral war on Iraq. We are, Arab Americans, we believe in America that is at peace with the world and itself. We demand the end of occupation of Iraq, the end of occupation of Palestine. There is no peace without justice. There is no democracy under occupation. Thank you. Musa Al Hindi I am a Palestinian refugee. I am here to raise the voice of the refugees of Palestine. I am here to represent Al Aouda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition. I am here to give a voice to self determination of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands in Palestine. The Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are the vanguard of the Palestinian revolution today, but there are people in the refugee camps, in exile. Our strategic depth: it was the refugees who planted and nourished the seeds of Palestinian revolution. It was the refugees who turned the camps into barriers. WHen the movement and the revolution was attacked and tried to be strangled, let it put it shortly: Palestine and the refugees are Palestine. I am here to tell you that the voice of Palestine will never be extinguished. Not by the settler colonial estate of Israel. Nor by any of its apologists in the United States. The world cannot reject racism, but expect the people of Palestine to accept it. Our vision of Palestine is that of a secular democratic state over the entirety of the territory of Palestine. From the river to the sea. The establishment of a democratic Palestinian state will not only allow for the return of the refugees, but would also free the Palestinian people under the yoke of occupation. And will free our enemies from their racism. The democratic vision of Palestine that we offer stands in contradiction to the illegitimate racist vision offered and manifested by the Zionist movement through the state of Israel. Long live Palestine! One, Arab, indivisible and free! From the river to the sea! Brothers and sisters, this person needs no introduction. You know him. Please meet and greet and give a thunderous round of applause for Ralph Nader! Ralph Nader Friends and citizens who have come here on this historic day, September 24 2005 to demand that our hijacked government reverse its treacherous and dangerous course in the occupation and war in Iraq, a government hijacked by a small clique of warmongerers led by the President and Vice President of the United States. It’s important, of course, for all people to recognize that you are here representing a reverse of federal government policy over there that is shared by a majority of the American people and a growing majority - 62% of the American people now say that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. Almost 70% say it wasn’t worth the price. 60% want out of Iraq. Representing the majority of the American people is an important asset for you to go back home and organize with a laser tight focus on the U.S. Congress. Already, we are within 100 votes in the U.S. House of Representatives of passing a resolution demanding that the White House establish an exit strategy. That’s 100 votes short. There’s a lot of ferment going on in the U.S. Congress that can be accentuated and punctuated by the folks back home when you get there. It’s also important to know that this war and occupation in Iraq was the first war in American history opposed by a majority of retired admirals, generals, intelligence officials, and former diplomats. More than a few of them spoke out when those of us here were trying to stop this invasion of Iraq. Admiral Shanahan spoke out, former head of the Pacific fleet. Retired Marine General Anthony Zinni spoke out repeatedly, and the Washington Post said his views were shared by most of the military officers. The U.S. Army in the Pentagon was against the invasion of Iraq because they no strategic purpose. They saw it would divert attention from focus on pursuing stateless terrorists. That it would get us into a quagmire and that there would not be enough resources to fulfill even a misguided strategy. The State Department informed George W. Bush that his assertions which were the rationale for the invasion were not substantiated. Here is a president who plunged our nation into an unconstitutional and illegal war in the form of lies, fabrications, deceptions and coverup. George W. Bush must be held accountable under Article 2, Section 4 of the United States Constitution! Our founding fathers provided that the Congress, and the Congress alone, has the authority to fire the President for high crimes and misdemeanors. There has not been a more impeachable president in our country’s history. He is and was the perpetrator, the progenitor, the promoter, the purveyer, the prevaricator and the presider over this illegal, criminal war that is jeopardizing our national security here at home and abroad. When the head of the CIA tells the Senate that the war in Iraq is creating more and more terrorists who will go back skilled to their countries we should listen. When Walter Jones, Republican of North Carolina, booster of the war, now has turned against the president in no uncertain terms, we should listen. When increasingly, Republicans themselves are meeting in the Congress, often with Democrats, to see how they can establish a strategy to get out of the war, we should listen. And we should also listen to someone as conservative as John Duncan, who says undeclared and unnecessary wars should be opposed, not only because of the deaths, but because there’s nothing conservative about a war with its massive deficit spending. I urge you, I urge you to log in to democracyrising.us, which will keep you current with the increasing turnaround in Congress. I urge you to encourage people to run next year for local, state and national office on an anti-war, pro-peace and pro-justice platform, the way Kevin Zees is running for Senate in the state of Maryland. And finally, make no mistake that George W. Bush is the leading underminer of the soldiers in Iraq. He has left them to die without adequate armor. He does not count the injuries when they’re not in combat, disrespecting the soldiers and their families. And when they come home, he cuts their budget for health care and pharmaceutical products. It’s important to know, finally, that all of us have a central responsibility of citizenship here. George W. Bush doesn’t speak for America. He doesn’t speak for that flag. It ends with the allegiance phrase “liberty and justice for all.” He doesn’t speak for a majority of the American people who oppose him, and it’s take to make that majority into a powerful political force with a laserbeam-like focus on Washington, DC! Thank you! Brothers and sisters, another person who needs no introduction. Star of the silver screen, please greet actress Jessica Lange! Jessica Lange Well, it’s always an honor to be here with you. We’re here again. And I understand George Bush is not here again. God forbid he could actually be anywhere where he could actually understand how the American people feel. However, I did read a quote of his. He did acknowledge our presence here today. He said, “I recognize their good intentions, but their position is wrong. Withdrawing our troops would make the world more dangerous.” And yet, here he is with another example of this man’s propensity to lie. There have been twice as many terrorist attacks in the three years since 9/11 than in the three years preceding 9/11. All their reasons for waging war in Iraq have been proven to be manipulation of facts, untruths and lies, lies and more lies. And then he dares accuse us of being guilty of wrong thinking. A man who trafficks in deadly lies. The front man for an administration who came into office with the intention of taking out Saddam and becoming an occupying force in Iraq. Members of the Project for the New American Century who promote an ideology of U.S. domination through the use of force, who have enforced their policy of scorch and burn on the American people and made us complicit against our will in their regime of shame. And who are these men? Who are these men? Let’s talk for a minute about the masters of war. These same men who are sending our sons and our daughters, our brothers and sisters, our mothers and fathers to fight an undeclared, an unconstitutional, an unwinnable war for them. Let’s talk about their service records. Karl Rove did not serve. And yet they expect the ultimate sacrifice from us. More than 1900 American soldiers dead. Tens of thousands injured. A very low injured. Tens of thousands of Iraqis dead, mostly civilian. And in modern warfare, civilian meaning mostly women and children. They say there is no way to withdraw now. The truth is, they never intend to withdraw. The plan was a continuing military presence in the Middle East, control over the region, control over the oil. They have their eyes on the prize, the master plan. And what they want of the American people, to remain in the dark, and to keep the American people unaware of the bloodshed, the torture and the devastation. And that is why there are never any official images, there is an offical Pentagon ban on photographing the dead or the flag-draped coffins arriving home. They are determined not to repeat the same, as they see it, policy mistakes that were made during the Vietnam war. Not one military funeral has been attended by George Bush or his cabinet. This disregard for human life only reinforces the knowledge that this man has no heart. So I read the names in the paper. That’s all we can do. If you look in your local paper, there is the little column that lists the names of the dead, and I say them out loud and I read the towns where they come from. And I know their names, their ages and Bush continues to say that we must continue to follow through with this mission to give their lives and deaths meaning. Could there be any more terrible cynicism than that? In truth, what we owe the dead is an end to the killing. So for all of us Americans, the majority now, who don’t share this administration’s scorched-earth brand of politics, who don’t share their vision of America and their policy of shame, we must remain vigilant. And we will not be deterred, because what it comes down to is a question of consicence, and that question is deeply patriotic. And we must hold them accountable and make sure that words like peace and freedom and compassion hold their original and essential meaning, and not become tag lines used by them to justify more atrocities, more killings. When I hear his empty words with phrases like, “Armies of compassion,” or “Culture of responsibility,” I understand how deep their mendacity runs. They are a lie. And they call us wrong. But I think we can be comforted because I believe that these monstrous men and the women who condone and support them are finally on their way out. That in their chosen isolation they are diminshed and defeated men. Because they do not embody the American spirit, or encompass the American heart, and they do not represent the will of the people. So we must remain steadfast in our knowledge that they are wrong and we are right. And we must remain hopeful that for our children and our children’s children that we are not a warring nation but we will embrace and practice true compassion and honor the ideals of peace and freedom and we will not give up. Peace! Peace! Thank you, Jessica Lange! All right! Brothers and sisters, a quick announcement: the march is twenty blocks long! We have encircled the White House. We estimate we already have more than 250,000 people in the streets. You the people, you did that! You did that! OK! Our next speakers are Christina Araquel from the Alliance for a Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines, Riya Ortis from the Network and Solidarity in the Philippines and the Campaign for Justice Not War in the Philippines and Sheryl U from the Women’s Anti-Imperialist League. Christina Araquel My name is Christina Araquel from the Alliance for a Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines. On behalf of the Alliance for a Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines, we join and raise our voices with the thousands and thousands of people around the nation who demand money for jobs, education and health care, not for imperialist war, occupation and intervention in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Philippines. Even as the Bush administration displays criminal negligence to its of citizens in New Orleans in the aftermath of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. continues to spend taxpayers’ in wars of aggression and for oil and profit. To date, Bush has offered already about 2,000 American lives at the altar of U.S. imperialist war and occupation of Iraq. In the Philippines September 21, 2005 marked the 33rd anniversary of one of the darkest in the Filipino people’s history. 14 years of martial law under the U.S. supported Marcos dictatorship saw tens of thousands of murders, tortures, and disappearances and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos, especially the Muslims in Mindanao. Until today, U.S. military intervention is more arrogantly displayed. Using the worn out “war against terror” as a pretext, U.S. military openly flexed its muscles on the armed forces of the Philippines to the extent of even manning checkpoints for Filipino soldiers in some towns in Mindanao. And to further assert the U.S. military’s stranglehold over the armed forces of the Philippines, no less than the immediate past U.S> ambassador Joseph Meliz said that Mindanao is next to Afghanistan as far as terrorism is concerned. Soon enough, he said, U.S. military intervention will be all over Mindanao, soon like that of Afghanistan. True to its interventionist character, the U.S. has also made its business to torpedo the peace talks between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. Likewise, the illegitimate Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, a hardcore puppet of Bush, lobbied to label legitimate the revolutionary forces as terrorists and tag the NDFP political consultant to the peace process, Jose Marias Cicon, as a terrorist. We demand the scrapping of those who named Cicon on the list of terrorists by the U.S. and the European Council so the peace talks can resume. But to the GRP and the NDFP the broad message to the Filipino people and the Alliance for a Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines reiterates its solidarity with the members of the International ANSWER Coalition and its allied organizations and demand: End the Colonial Occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan! Bring the Troops Home Now! U.S. Out of the Middle East and the Philippines! U.S. Hands Off Cuba, Iran, Venezuela and North Korea! Riya Ortis Rise up with the people of the World! This war is not in our name! From the ranks of the militant and progressive Filipinos in the U.S., we support the national mass march in Washington, D.C. and demand an end to the occupation of Iraq, and U.S. intervention in other countries. We from the Justice Not War in the Philippines Campaign believe that U.S. imperialism is the number one enemy of the world today. It promotes regimes of open terror, which are the worst kinds of terrorism. It wages wars against sovereign countries and peoples for the benefit of the U.S. banks, oil giants and other monopoly corporations. It oppresses and exploits not only the people of other countries, but also its own working people. We all have a common interest in stopping U.S. imperialism. The terrible suffering and unnecessary deaths of people in New Orleans is a consequence of the lower priority given to working class and people of color in this country. Bush is responsible for the massive diversion of public resources toward wars of aggression and the buildup of the homeland security. It is the same Bush regime that breeds many terrorists like the Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Arroyo cheated at the last presidential elections and abused her stolen position to manipulate the impeachment case against her. She claims to the United States that to remain in power, she herself has applied the U.S. anti-terror tactics in the Philippines. Just last Thursday, a day after the 33rd anniversary of the Martial Law in the Philippines, Nestle union head and labor leader Diosado Fortuna was shot twice in the chest and died shortly thereafterwards. This is one of the countless cold-blooded murders under the Arroyo regime. But we Filipinos all over the world condemn the brutal murder of Fortuna and other atrocities under this fake and illegitimate Filipino President. Just like George W. Bush. We say no to the brutal occupation of Iraq and call for the return of the U.S. forces in the U.S.. We say to the wars of aggression and plunder of the world. We call on progressive forces in the U.S. to develop the unity of the working and poor people. We seek to forge solidarity in opposing U.S. imperialism and wars of aggression for world domination. We call to develop broad international united front to oppose imperialist war and plunder. And we will advance the struggle of the world’s people for national liberation, democracy, social justice, development and world peace until victory is achieved. Struggle, don’t be afraid! Sheryl Uytiepo We are the Women’s Anti-Imperialist League and Gabriela Network. Because the war’s collateral damage weighs most heavily on women and children, because conditions of violence increases violence against women, sex trafficking and the constriction of women’s space by fundamentalists, End the war! Bring the troops home now! Because the war uses the poor as cannon fodder from the communities of color here in the U.S. to the working poor of India, Bangladesh, Latin America and the Philippines, because the poor are compelled to work in the war arena of Iraq so that their families can survive in the countries themselves devastated by multinational corporations, End the war! Bring the troops home! We don’t need no brainwash nation Next we want to bring up attorney Lynne Stewart! Lynne Stewart You know, I’m a believer. The people, yes. I do believe in the power of the people to bring about fundamental change. I also believe in the right of people to return home, whether home is in Palestine, or home is in New Orleans. Even though I now face 30 years in prison convicted by this unjust government for doing nothing more than a lawyer is supposed to do and defend vigorously, I still believe that by fighting the case, by fighting them, by speaking today, by acting, we can defeat them and restore the right to counsel as it was understood for all these years. I believe that today will shake the very foundations of corporate greed and defeat Halliburton, Blackwater, Rove, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice. I believe. I’m a believer in resistance. I was part of a resistance that ended the war in Vietnam and now must end that same war in Iraq. I’m a believer, and you too are believers. We are not a focus group. We are the vanguard of the great progressive movement. We will bring the troops home now, because we must. The people, yes. Thank you. Now brothers and sisters, I want to introduce from the Fellowship of Reconciliation and Muslim Peace Fellowship, an activist extrordanaire, Ibrahim Ramey! Give a hand for Ibrahim Ramey! Ibrahim Ramey Assalamu Alaikum. In the name of God most beneficent and most merciful. Look, the rain is coming, stakes and high and time is very short. We’ve heard some amazing speeches today. You’re not going to hear one from me. But I do want to acknowledge our solidarity today with all the press people, with all people who struggle non-violently for social justice, and especially with a brother who we cannot forget, Imam Jamil Alamim, who is in prison unjustly. I need to mention that all political prisoners in the United States must not be forgotten by any of us in any of our movements. Now, the essential task of our movement is to stop the war system, and I want to bring to your consciousness for one minute the work and the vision of one man that we have not heard about today, and that is Mohandas Gandhi. Gandhi understood that the essential task of stopping injustice lies in non-cooperation with evil. So say it, “Non-cooperation with evil.” And the way that we do not cooperate with evil is we take energy from systems of oppression and nonviolently transform them into systems of justice, peace and love. I hold up briefly today a card that says “I will not kill.” It is part of a gathering of conscience and courage that we had about nine months ago that we had in New York that we are now turning into a national movement. I will not kill (iwillnotkill.org) is a way for young people all over the world to connect to the idea that stopping war requires them to say no to killing. And when you say no to killing, you say yes to justice, you say yes to peace, you say yes to economic equality, you say yes to the end of all oppressive systems. So in closing, what I hold up is I Will Not Kill, it is a website, iwillnotkill.org, it is also a workshop that we will have in the counter-recruitment tent. So we will hope that people who see this will relate to the fact that Muslims and Christians and Jews and people of all persuasions can stop the war system that we will not kill. We will not kill for oil, we will not kill for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, we will not kill for Halliburton, and we will certaily not for Mr. Bush. I Will Not Kill. I Will Not Kill. I Will Not Kill. Next we want to bring up Andy Thayer from the Gay Liberation Network, and the National Action Coordinator for dontamend.com. Andy Thayer Greetings on behalf of the Gay Liberation Network from Chicago and dontamend.com. There’s only one thing worse than death itself, and that’s needless death, a life wasted for no reason. Recently the anger of the nation rose up with each image of a bloated corpse floating in the streets of New Orleans. Because we knew this was needless death, death that could have been avoided. Lives wasted for no reason except for bureaucratic incompetence and a stark contempt for the lives of African Americans and the poor. Multiply those lives wasted in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama by a factor of one hundred and you have the Iraq war. More than one hundred thousand Iraqi dead. For no decent reason, except for a racist contempt for their lives, a class-based contempt for the lives of U.S. soldiers, and a base desire to expand U.S. power abroad. Now Bush and his allies in the Republican and Democratic party leadership say the war is about building democracy in the Middle East. Well, we in the gay community know something about your so-called democracy, Mr. Bush. And we don’t buy it. We know what it’s like to have our lives wasted due to bigoted contempt, as when the government ignored the AIDS crisis for years and allowed it to grow into the largest epidemic in world history. And when Bush says this killing is about spreading democracy, we take note of the kind of democracy he spreads in this country when he pushes for constitutional amendments against the gay people of our country. We see the kind of democracy he embraces when he embraces the Saudi monarchy, which hangs gay people. And we see, Mr. Bush and your Democratic and Republican allies, and we do not buy your democracy, we know what this war is about, and we say no more wasted lives! Next I want to bring up Joribu Hill from Mississippi, Brenda Stokely and Amiri Baraka. Brenda Stokely It’s raining out here, but it’s not raining on the kind of movement that has to be built. Sister Joribu Hill is a long-standing activist working with workers in Mississippi and now working with those affected by the Gulf in the Hurricane. And I don’t need to introduce Amiri Baraka who has been here for a long time. We’re coming up here together because it’s very important to talk about the continuity of an important struggle, one that is not reaped with opportunism, one that is not reaped with competition, one that is not reaped with sectarianism. That is not the kind of movement that is going to save the lives of brothers and sisters in Iraq or down in the Gulf region. We cannot afford that. We must have one movement. That is principled, that is united, that is not about stars, and that is not about C-Span. The revolution ain’t gonna be televised! It’s gonna be organized in our communities. I’m gonna turn it over to my sister Joruba, my brother Baraka. Stand strong. Do not tolerate what ever group that you’re part of if there is this kind of divisive, stupid, asinine behavior that has nothing to do with building a strong, united movement. Fight against it! Build unity! Build a broad movement. Defeat racism, bring our troops home, and save the people that are in the Gulf region. Thank you. Jaribu Hill Good afternoon, brothers and sisters! I bring you greetings and solidarity from the state of Mississippi, the wretched state of Mississippi, the state that Bush forgot about, the state that says loud and clear that racism is alive and well, that an attack, an assault on poor people is alive and well. That human rights abuses in the United States of America are alive and well since people were brought here as human cargo to now, that has never changed. And we are brothers and sisters of the Gulf Coast of Mississippi who didn’t have anything before, and they have even less now. We have brothers and sisters in New Orleans who are hanging on rooftops because they’ve been forgotten. They’ve been left out of the Red Cross. They’ve been left out of the Salvation Army. They’ve been left out of FEMA, and we have to stand with those brothers and sisters and chastise the U.S. government for making sure that poor people stay poor and rich people stay rich. Fight against them. Fight against worldwide poverty. Struggle alongside those that don’t have anything except their struggle. Thank you brothers and sisters. Amiri Baraka I just got finished sitting in an Amtrak train station for five hours. They just cancelled all the trains coming south. Somebody said it was a coincidence. First I must confess that I’m a communist. So that makes me black and red and sometimes blue. But I understand that this is not the period when Mao Tse-Tung said revolution is the main trend in the world today; today counter-revolution is the main trend, along with revisionism, betrayal, and neo-fascism marching across the world with the pop-art moniker “Globalization.” And although I am a communist I will admit readily that we cannot stop this neo-fascist poison of Bush-led superpower world dictatorship under the most imperialist, the most racist, the most jingoistic element of finance capital by ourselves. Nor can any of you; none of your organizations, whether you are a nationalist, a vegetarian, a Democrat or a Republican anti-imperialist. None of us can stop them alone. We must build a united front. We must build a united front. We must build a permanent, stable, united front of all the anti-imperialist bodies, organizations, institutions, publications, and tendencies in this country aligned and allied with alike groups around the world. Otherwise, if we don’t domestic fascism in the United States is very probable. I would add, as an even more dire comment, that unless the Afro-American people can pull together a united front which is national in character, the goal which is an all-American united front, fascism in the United States is definite. I say these things because even though we are here for an anti-war rally, we have got to begin to understand that as long as imperialism exists, war will be a permanent phenomenon on the planet. I’m opposed to imperialist wars, wars of annexation and profit, but I am not opposed to a people’s war against imperialism, monopoly capitalism, national oppression and racism, because that is the only way these scourges will be eliminated. Any the only way to set the stage for the elimination of these crimes against humanity is to fight against sectarianism as the sister said, to struggle to bring together all those of us who oppose imperialism in the North American Democratic People’s Congress, where we can, from the stable base of national anti-imperialist organization, which much become institution, create an alternative superstructure, successfully alter the political culture of this country, and overthrow the six tenths of one percent that rule our lives and most of the people on this planet. A stable anti-imperalist united front and organization. And in addition, we must create a broad cultural revolution, so the people can take back the expression of their lives from the five manaical media corporations that have created an imperialist commercial culture of filth, reaction, lies and pornography. They have gotten so bold that they are attacking science itself. So I got somebody tapping me on the shoulder, so I have to leave. The only other thing I want to say is that you know the war on terror is a sham. They say that bringing democracy to Iraq, why don’t they start with New Orleans? That would help. And also, since 9/11 they have been able to attack Afghanistan, pull Palestinian ethnic cleansing, Iraq, and now they’re talking about the Axis of Evil, but I want to point out that these Assholes of Evil that are in Washington, why is it that all of their actions of Evil are against colored people? That’s why they have a Negro Secretary of State to run around threatening people including Venezuela and Cuba. The class struggle is intensifying every moment in this country. The principal terrorists in the world today are in the White House, the Pentagon and Congress. The family with the closest relation to the bin Laden family is the Bush family. We have to stop the imperialist war, but we must begin to seriously find ways to unite these parties and organizations and institutions against tendencies in this country to move even further to the right. We must stop the war, but we must also stop Bush, stop imperialism, stop nationalism, oppression and racism if we are to stop the war. In fact, I want to end with this little poem of mine, a lowku — which is like a haiku. This is called Lowku for Bush II Lowku for Bush II Unite to stop the war. Thank you. George Martin Hello, family. I tell you, this day is so good, looking at the parade, it’s moving, part of the difficulties is all the streets that have been closed out for other situations. We hope you understand that from this lectern we’re about an hour over in terms of what is planned. United for Peace and Justice, we are, this is a weekend of events. There is this festival across the Washington Monument. We have 18 interactive tents, theme tents. We invite you to come over. Tents around Iraq, around Israel-Palestine, around counter-military recruiting, around the war here at home, please join us over there. Tomorrow, on Sunday, the festival continues. There’s also be an entertainment stage of seven hours at the Sylban Theatre. There will be training for grassroots lobbying. We have a record of more than a hundred districts registered to lobby at our congressional people to end this occupation and bring our troops home. That is just tremendous. A hundred legislative districts registered to lobby. Also tomorrow, there will be training for nonviolent civil disobedience. We ask you to join us on Monday, lobbying at the White House, at Congress, nonviolent civil disobedience targeted at the White House. Please join us. Right how, because we are so backed up and under the situation, United for Peace for Justice, our last group of speakers, will speak at the free concert beginning at 3 o’clock in twenty minutes across the street. (3:11:17) Please join us across the street. United for Peace and Justice we are. We say end this occupation now. We say leave no military bases behind. We say stop the torture. We say fund human needs here at home. We say justice to the people of the Gulf Coast. End the occupation. Bring our troops home now. Join us across the street. United for Peace and Justice. We’re here with the AN |