Call to Seattle anti-war organizers—
We invite you to a meeting to plan an October demonstration against the Afghan War
The brutal U.S./NATO occupation of Afghanistan enters its ninth year on October 7. With casualties mounting (now 1250 NATO troops and tens of thousands of Afghans), military and Administration officials have continued to escalate this “good” war and talk of being in Afghanistan for many years, if not decades. Now they’ve expanded the war into Pakistan, where hundreds have been killed and millions have been displaced.
We think that this situation demands that U.S. anti-war activists step up work in solidarity with the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan. As part of this, we would like to invite all anti-war activists and organizations to plan and build for a powerful demonstration on Saturday, October 10:
2:00 p.m., Sunday, August 2, 2009
Douglas Truth Library, 23rd and Yesler
Signed,
Seattle Anti-Imperialist Committee, mail [at] seattleaic.org
Vietnam Veterans Against the War Anti-Imperialist, vets[at] vvawai.org
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Report on August 2 planning meeting for antiwar march in October
This is a brief report on the August 2 public planning meeting for an October demonstration in Seattle against the U.S. imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These notes are approximate and, in places where I have made errors, I hope that others who attended can provide correction.
Nine people, in total, attended. Approximately half of those were supporters of the Seattle Anti-Imperialist Committee [SAIC]. There were also one or two supporters of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (anti-imperialist) [VVAW-AI] as well as a local progressive journalist and a few independent activists.
The main reason for the low attendence, in my view, is probably related to the support of the imperialist Democratic Party for the “good war” war in Afghanistan. Many of the progressive groups in the city that might be expected to support an antiwar demonstration are involved in a defacto alliance with the left-wing of the Democratic Party and are probably reluctant to piss off their Democratic Party allies by encouraging independent mass actions with potential to upset the existing status quo.
A secondary reason for the low attendence (again–this is my opinion) is the atmosphere of sectarian infighting and corrupt traditions that the antiwar movement has not yet overcome.
I attended the meeting for a bit over one hour. During this period we agreed to:
(1) change the date of the October action to avoid conflict with other actions that month in support of gay rights
(2) implement the principle of an “open mike” at the demo–so that all activists would have the right to speak out briefly
(3) implement the principle that the march route would be chosen on the basis of being directly visible to the largest possible number of people (ie: as opposed to relying on the mainstream media to cover this action in the news)
The topic that generated the most discussion concerned the principle that we needed an open mike. Everyone attending the meeting agreed with this principle. The disagreements were over matters of less importance (for example: should the time limit for each speaker be two minute or thirty seconds, etc).
The meeting in general was orderly and businesslike although also a little slow at times, with some who spoke being inexperienced with making points in a concise, concrete and focused way. These are skills which will be important to master in order to have larger meetings that make effective use of the time of participants.
I don’t know if a public email list or web site was set up to support the planning process. It would be useful if this were to happen.
We need to develop healthy traditions and principles that can help us to mobilize the masses into action and raise their consciousness. This meeting represented a modest but significant step in this direction and I would like to thank the sponsoring organizations and activists who helped to make this happen.
Ben Seattle
After Ben left there was a decision to produce and widely circulate an official report of the meeting. But until we see it, I would add three things to Ben’s report:
1) The DATE for the demonstration is Saturday, October 17.
2) The planned march route begins at SCCC (Broadway and Pine), goes south to Jackson, west through the International District to First Ave, north on First Ave. past the Market, and then east to Westlake. So along this route the march will indeed be greeted by large numbers of excellent people: working people, national minorities and youth!
3) An important thing Ben’s report doesn’t mention is that the meeting decided that it’s unity was simply to build for the demonstration under the orientation “U.S. out of Afghanistan, now!” And it did this, I believe, because it wants to involve the entire movement in building for this eighth-anniversary action. For example, no one is required to uphold a long list of demands or points of unity in order to be part of the working group; and all are free to mobilize for the event with their own slogans and politics, which they can also express as speakers at the event.
Finally, let us not forget that with Obama’s escalation the casualties among the innocent people of Afghanistan have only increased. Meanwhile, in July the U.S. and British imperialist casualty figures were the highest in almost eight years of war. But this is not enough! Gen. McCrystal wants more U.S. cannon fodder, Britain is sending more troops, and over the weekend British Ambassador to the United States Sir Nigel Sheinwald spoke of Britain having to be in Afghanistan for DECADES. And I haven’t even mentioned the expansion of the war into Pakistan.
During the past eight years we’ve had few demonstrations in support of the Afghan people, however, yet mass demonstrations remain just as vital of component of building a more profound anti-war movement as they were in the fall of 2001. Thus I encourage all who read this to find ways to build for October 17. Let us work to build the kind of movement that continually flares up, a movement that won’t be stamped out, and a movement that can eventually develop into the firestorm of mass struggle necessary to end war.