To end funding for war in Iraq and to bring the troops home
For four years, people across the United States have voted, lobbied, vigiled, and marched to end the US war in Iraq. Now — as the war threatens to escalate even while a growing majority in the United States wants to see it end — the time has come to visibly increase nationwide opposition to this policy by organizing and participating in dramatic nonviolent civil disobedience in cities and towns across the United States.
At this crucial moment, the national anti-war movement is organizing an escalating campaign of bold nonviolent civil disobedience and other forms of peaceful resistance, March 16-19, 2007, at Congressional offices and other sites in as many as 100 cities across the country. These dramatic actions will respond to the growing emergency the war represents by calling on Congress: to vote NO on any funding for war in Iraq; to support the troops by bringing them home rapidly and safely; and to back a plan for peace. To oppose the war, we say to Congress, means opposing all funding for it.
Between now and mid-March 2007, The Occupation Project is organizing a series of nonviolent sit-ins calling on Senators and Representatives to oppose the Bush administration’s supplemental request of $93 billion in new spending for war in Iraq.
Then, building on these events, national and local organizations will organize nationwide nonviolent civil disobedience and other forms of peaceful resistance March 16-19. Preparing for these acts of conscience and resistance, groups will organize outreach to Congress, hold nonviolent action training, and develop plans for action.
The Declaration of Peace has joined with other national organizations and campaigns to participate in the March 16-19 civil disobedience and peaceful resistance campaign, including United for Peace and Justice, The Occupation Project, Military Families Speak Out, Code Pink, Democracy Rising, Voters for Peace, Hip Hope Caucus, American Friends Service Committee, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Not In Our Name, and others.
Join in this powerful nationwide campaign to end the U.S. war and occupation in Iraq! For more information:
United for Peace and Justice: http://www.unitedforpeace.org See UFPJ’s calendar of events being organized March 16-19.
The Occupation Project, initiated by Voices for Creative Nonviolence: www.vcnv.org.
The Declaration of Peace: http://declarationofpeace.org See tools and resources for Congressional action and to help your group prepare for nonviolent civil disobedience, including nonviolence training. Also see DOP’s events calendar.
Military Families Speak Out: www.mfso.org See letter being circulated about military – and military families’ — opposition to the war.
US Labor Against the War: www.uslaboragainstwar.org/ Sign the “Petition to Congress to End All Funding for the War & Occupation in Iraq and to Bring All Our Troops Home Now!”
“There is nothing wrong with a traffic law which says you have to stop for a red light. But when a fire is raging, the fire truck goes right through that red light… Massive civil disobedience is a strategy for social change which is at least as forceful as an ambulance with its siren on full.”
— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., The Trumpet of Conscience