Organizers plan fall actions to challenge war funding

More than 100 anti-war organizers, including many students and youths, labor, community and immigrant organizers, veterans and GI organizers gathered June 16 at the Solidarity Center in New York City for the National Anti-war Strategy and Planning Meeting. They came from as far away as California, Cleveland, North Carolina and Boston to discuss how to kick-start the anti-war movement into action following its pause after the Democratic Party-controlled Congress approved war funding this spring.

‘Let’s not forget that Haiti is occupied too,’ speaker at right. Below, Solidarity Center hosts discussion of anti-war work. WW photos: G. Dunkel

The meeting focused on a proposal for an action in Washington in late September, the next confrontation over the war. At that time the U.S. Congress will again debate funding the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and will hear Pentagon strategists report on the alleged status of Iraq following the U.S. “surge.” Troops Out Now Coalition (TONC) organizers proposed an Encampment to Stop the War at Home and Abroad in front of the Capitol to confront Congress beginning Sept. 22 and culminating in a mass march on Sept. 29.

Last March, TONC had organized an encampment in front of Congress just before its members voted to hand over more money for the war. That event, organized in just three weeks and characterized by a series of dramatic actions, was TONC’s first campaign to move “from protest to resistance.”

TONC organizers told Workers World that in a discussion at a breakout session, the suggestions that part of the encampment be a “People’s Peace Congress” during that September week aroused extensive discussion. At such a People’s Peace Congress, different groups could argue for better uses for the funds now earmarked for war. By demanding funds for health care, education and job creation, for example, they could directly confront the “war Congress” meeting at the Capitol.

“We need a grass roots movement to save the anti-war movement from becoming marginalized by the elections,” TONC spokesperson Larry Holmes told the meeting. Holmes said that the anti-war movement now has another chance to galvanize people to force the government to halt the war.

“This is an opportunity for the movement to intervene in a political crisis,” Holmes said. “Because when the struggle is taken from Congress and the courts and put on the street, that makes it more difficult for warmongers. It creates a new dynamic.”

Holmes emphasized that his organization “encourages all of the antiwar coalitions on the local and national level to engage each other in order to build a united demonstration that will be as large and as strong as possible.” He said that TONC was open to suggestions for improving the demonstration and could be flexible with dates, sites, etc., in the effort to achieve a united action.

The September encampment is aimed at developing this dynamic. “People are telling us we need a different approach, more than just another protest,” said Sara Flounders, a TONC coordinator and co-director of the International Action Center.

Regarding the content of the anti-war call, there was overwhelming sentiment that it should be for immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, with many expressing solidarity with the resistance movements in those countries and in Palestine and Lebanon. The TONC organizers took note of the U.S. threats against Iran and are raising slogans against U.S. aggression against Iran, too.

An Iraqi American reflected the meeting’s feeling of urgency to end the occupation. “I get calls every day from people in Iraq,” said Najim Chechen. “Hundreds in my family are homeless. We have no country.” Chechen said that even though he had been tortured under Saddam Hussein, he considered that Iraqi leader “100 times better than Bush” for the Iraqi people.

From the floor, a Haitian activist brought up the struggle against the U.N. occupation of his country, and TONC activists also distributed a leaflet calling for a solidarity demonstration with the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela in its decision not to renew the broadcast license of a counterrevolutionary television station.

Many participants joined Holmes in emphasizing the importance of uniting the struggle against the war abroad with the struggle against the war at home. Those at the meeting encompassing these struggles included Teresa Gutierrez, a leading organizer of the May 1st Coalition for Immigrant Rights, Brenda Stokely of the Million Worker March Movement, Larry Hales of the Colorado United Communities Against Police Brutality, along with many trade union activists.

These activists are fighting for immigrant rights and joining the struggle against racism that exists on so many levels, from police brutality to reparations for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. This is something TONC organizers want to integrate with the group’s anti-war work.

Members and representatives of many organizations—U.S. Labor Against the War, Freedom Socialists, the Greens, Freedom Road Socialists, Military Project, among others—raised additional proposals for anti-war actions or for strategies to unite the anti-war movement. The call for the September encampment, however, sparked the greatest discussion.

for September

Tyneisha Bowens, of Raleigh FIST (Fight-Imperialism-Stand Together) and Chapel Hill Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), described how students and youth are using the tools of the Internet, including the Web site Facebook, to mobilize young people.

Laura Bickford, of the same two groups, noted that students have become politicized by the war. In the summer of 2006 about 100 youth met in Chicago and since then students on campuses across the country have formed 250 chapters of SDS, which, she explained, differs from the 1960s SDS.

These students are also planning actions in September. Ben Carroll, of Raleigh FIST and Chapel Hill SDS, said students are formulating a call to action for high school and college students to stage walk-outs and strikes and join the encampment. He noted the rise of the student anti-war movement and its forceful protests over the past year, from blocking a recruiting station in New York City to taking over a congressional office in Wisconsin and blocking a state highway in California.

Tom Barton of the Military Project, who publishes a daily Web newsletter, GI Special, read letters from enlisted troops, showing a rapid growth in opposition to the occupation.

Milt Neidenberg, a former steelworker and longtime union activist, called on the labor movement to organize opposition to the war on a class basis independent of the two parties.

Four “breakout sessions” took place for students and youth, GI organizing, labor and community organizing, and to mull over tactics for the encampment.