Bring the troops home
Brooklyn anti-war rally builds momentum
By Heather Cottin
New York
Support is growing all over New York for a
major anti-war rally in Brooklyn's House of the Lord Church,
for over 40 years a center of peace and justice activism in the
Black community. The Rev. Herbert Daughtry and the MLK Jr.
Peace Now Committee of his church have called the rally to
"Bring the Troops Home Now."
Sponsored by International ANSWER, the rally calls for an
end to the colonial occupation of Iraq: "No more lying or dying
for oil. Money for jobs and human needs, not war!"
"I have spoken to a mother whose son came home dead. I spoke
to a family whose daughter is missing in Iraq," Daughtry told
Workers World.
His largely Black congregation is skeptical of the lies
about the war. "We in the African American community are born
skeptical. We live with lying presidents. We live with reneging
presidents, and we live with terror. Terror didn't start with
Sept. 11, 2001," said Daughtry, alluding to the terror that has
plagued the Black community since the beginning of slavery.
"Now the larger population is becoming more skeptical, but
this war was so unnecessary, so unjustified. It is so painful.
We have been saying that all along. The war in Iraq started in
1991, and it never let up. Right-wing religionists have invoked
'Godblessings' upon the Bushites' war on Iraq.
"Now we are learning to unravel the lies about 9/11, about
the non-existent weapons of mass destruction, the non-existent
links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. The administration
said, 'We are doing this to liberate the people of Iraq.' The
media abdicated any semblance of impartiality. And the people
[in the United States] went along with it.
"We were beaten with the American flag. 'You have to support
our troops.' Now our kids are being killed. Well, we say: Bring
them home! We don't want to be there to support the oil
companies.
"We were saying the war was wrong all along. We have invited
Cynthia McKinney to come to the rally. She was blasted for
telling the truth."
McKinney, who opposed Washing ton's war mobilization all
along, lost her position as representative from Georgia in the
U.S. Congress as a result of an unre lenting rightist campaign
against her.
"We are getting a good response already for Aug. 19," said
Daughtry.
This excitement is echoed by youth from International ANSWER
and the anti-war, GI-support group SNAFU, which have been
conducting street rallies around New York to get out the word
about the Brooklyn event. These rallies feature anti-war
speakers and the hip-hop sounds of Movement in Motion. The
activists have been leafleting and "raising anti-war
consciousness among working class people," according to Judi
Cheng, one of the ANSWER organizers. "We are telling people
about the dangers of militarism abroad and cutbacks and job
loss in our communities.
"Recruitment is a poverty draft," said Cheng. "When we meet
people in the streets, they are put off by the war. They're
saying, 'No way, we're not joining the military.' We're saying
to young people, 'Join the anti-war movement.'"
Movement in Motion singer David Rosen described a meeting in
Harlem where they played music and passed out leaflets in front
of an armed forces recruiting station. "We staged a die-in.
People were really engaged with the music and the street
theater. We are bridging the gap between the artists and the
activists. After we sang, we all lay down and there were dolls
covered in fake blood. One mother brought her kids up close and
said, 'That is what our government is doing, you'd better stop
and look at them.'"
Rosen said that Movement in Motion and organizers from SNAFU
and ANSWER would be at Utica Avenue and Eastern Parkway in
Brooklyn on Aug. 13 to perform and to leaflet for the Aug. 19
rally.
"We use our music as a tool for outreach, to let people know
about events like the Aug. 19 and Oct. 25 rallies against the
occupation," said Rosen. After a Saturday street meeting in the
Bronx, Monica, another SNAFU activist, said, "We gave out all
our literature. People were really positive and interested in
the Brooklyn rally. This event is really building."
Reprinted from the Aug. 7, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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