Dear
Friends,
As we move towards January 20, we are all thinking about what we can do to
speak out and act in resistance to Trump. According to Forbes Magaizine,
Nov. 9, 2016, "President Trump is likely to boost US military spending by
$500 billion to $1 trillion." We need a strong presence on January
20 to call for an end to all warfare, including drone warfare.
The
National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance is planning an action in DC for the
Inauguration. Here are three ways to get involved.
1
- Join us in DC on January 20 for our action. We will be meeting at 10:00
am in the lower level food court at Union Station for a final planning meeting.
Some
of us will be risking arrest, but we need more who are willing to join us in
solidarity, holding signs and banners,handing out literature, and joining us in
witness.
We
will have to keep things fluid that day and make decisions as we move along,
but the plan will be to process from Union Station towards the Capitol with
signs, banners, model drones, coffins, and leaflets to distribute.
We
will go as far as we can to deliver a letter to Donald Trump, and likely do a
die-in.
If
you are considering risking arrest or would like to talk more about it, contact
joyfirst5@gmail.com
2
- If you live in the DC area and can offer housing, please contact joyfirst55@gmail.com
If
you need housing, please contact joyfirst5@gmail.com
It
is particularly important for this action because hotels are filling up.
3
- Below is the letter/petition we will be attempting to deliver to Donald Trump
on January 20. If you would like to sign your name to this
letter/petition, please contact mobuszewski at verizon.net with your name, city, and/or
organizational affiliation and Max will add your name.
Please
share this information widely
In
peace and resistance,
Joy
Protesters hold signs during a protest against the election of President-elect Donald Trump in downtown Seattle, Wednesday, November 9, 2016. (photo: AP)
Anti-Trump
Organizers Plan Massive 'J20' Event to Mark Inauguration Day
27 December 16
Organizers of inauguration protests speak to MintPress News about
Jan. 20 and the prospects for mobilization under the Trump administration.
Thousands of protesters who have mobilized nationally since the election of Donald Trump are planning a massive convergence in Washington against the presidential inauguration on Jan. 20.
“We believe that we
are entering a new period of mass mobilization in the United States,” Walter
Smolarek, a spokesperson for the ANSWER Coalition,
told MintPress News.
ANSWER, which
organized a number of major anti-war protests since its founding 15 years ago,
is one of many groups mobilizing against the inauguration.
“In some cities,
attendance at mass meetings focused on mobilizing for the inauguration protest
has been in the hundreds,” Smolarek said.
Other groups
planning inauguration protests range from anarchist collectives to networks of immigrants and women.
Online organizers,
including some associated with Occupy Wall Street, have also floated
proposals for a nationwide general
strike.
‘A shift in
awareness, concern and fear’
Organizers and
observers expect events to swell with the thousands of demonstrators drawn into
the streets since Nov. 8.
After the election,
a weekly meeting of one protest group in New York City, the People’s Power
Assemblies, grew to over 200 participants.
While the meeting’s
one to two dozen regular participants normally fit comfortably around a
conference table, newcomers the week after the election spilled out of a
Midtown office, with some standing in a hallway to hear the discussion inside.
Many spoke of their
participation in the protests that have taken place almost daily since the
election, some of them for the first time.
The outpouring
“indicate[s] a shift in awareness, concern, and fear,” Colin Ashley, a PPA
organizer, told MintPress.
“They indicate the
possibility of a larger, more radical movement, aligned with more left
policies.”
‘They feel
betrayed’
As new waves of
protesters have joined gatherings across the country, their different
perspectives have come into sharp contrast.
The night after the
election, tension erupted at a demonstration outside Manhattan’s Trump Tower,
as some participants chanted slogans against the New York Police Department
while others tried to discourage them.
Stark differences
between disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters and more radical Trump opponents
persisted at demonstrations over the following weeks, and may even continue
through the inauguration protests.
“The protests have
marginalized long-time activists and people of color,” Ashley said.
“These protesters
speak a language of peace and love, often not realizing that they are telling
the most oppressed that they should love their oppressors.”
Others find cause
for hope in the uneasy mix of ideas.
“Many people are
newly entering the movement and engaging in protest for the first time,”
Smolarek said.
“The more people
stay engaged in the struggle and are welcomed and mentored by long-time
activists, the more exposure they will have to radical ideas.”
And in the aftermath
of stinging losses at every level, attempts by Democrats to steer reactions may
produce few results.
“There is an effort
by Clinton supporters and the Democratic Party machine to keep the message
safe,” Sara Flounders, co-coordinator of the International Action Center,
which plans to protest on
Jan. 20, told MintPress.
“But people who
believed in the current electoral system just days ago are changing. They feel
betrayed.”
‘A very
positive sign’
Organizers agree
that the massive outpouring of post-election opposition, the scale of which is
unprecedented in U.S. history, bodes well for both protests on Jan. 20 and the
prospects for grassroots mobilization during the Trump administration.
The gatherings have
dwarfed much smaller protests against the contested election of George W. Bush
in 2000, while Barack Obama’s victory in 2008 saw little public opposition.
“These actions are
overwhelmingly composed of young people who are completely fed up with the
injustice and bigotry that Trump represents,” Smolarek said.
“Many have been
organized spontaneously on very short notice. We consider this a very positive
sign.”
“People who have
never been in the streets before suddenly feel compelled to act,” Flounders
said.
“They hated both
choices. The election campaign exposed the corruption and decay of all
political institutions in the U.S.”
The inauguration is
only the beginning of what promises to be a tumultuous administration.
“We have tentatively
started to plan a nationwide 100 days of action that would start with ‘J20,’”
Ashley said.
“Pressure from
people’s movements must be kept alive and continue to grow in an effort to
produce real, systemic and lasting change.”
‘A radical
shift’
The scale of
resistance under Trump may depend on his actions in office, whether they
continue the bellicose, often offensive rhetoric of his campaign or settle into
a more predictable presidential routine.
But his initial
steps toward a transition into the Oval Office — particularly his unexpected appointments to key roles — indicate that his administration may
prove less conventional than many had anticipated.
“As the Trump
administration begins to take shape, it is becoming more and more clear that he
has no intention of ‘draining the swamp’ and will fail to live up to the hopes
of those who supported him under the impression that he was the ‘change
candidate,’” Smolarek said.
The election itself,
an unusually toxic one that left most voters without a nominee they felt they could actually support,
may render the prospects of demobilization unlikely.
“There has been a
radical shift in the thinking of millions of people and a shift in what they
are willing to do,” Flounders said.
“There is motion
that cannot be channeled into the corrupt electoral system.”
C 2015 Reader Supported News
Dear President Trump:
We are
writing on behalf of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance as people
committed to nonviolent social change to urge you to renounce most of your
boastful campaign promises and instead to commit to a program which ends U.S.
militarism, income inequality and climate chaos. We presume some of your
acrimonious statements during the campaign –Mexicans are rapists, Muslims will
be banned and the U.S. military must be rebuilt—were just bombastic attempts to
garner votes and media attention. If you are to be the President of the
people of the United States, you must publicly and strongly repudiate these
statements of hatefulness towards others. As president, you must deal with so
many critical issues, but unfortunately your rhetoric and cabinet choices
suggest a future with death, destruction, racism, turmoil and unrest.
As members of peace and justice organizations opposed to our government’s
failed domestic and foreign policies, we are speaking on behalf of the poor and
those who suffer from a system which is designed to benefit a wealthy and
privileged elite. At home, our economic system has been a bust for most
everyone but the one percent. Overseas, U.S. warmongering has had a
devastating effect, most especially in the Middle East and Africa. For example,
the government is using militarized unmanned aerial vehicles (or drones) to
kill people, mostly civilians, in at least seven countries. The use of armed
drones is wrong on many levels: the illegality of assassinations, the violation
of international law and the Constitutional protection of due process, the lack
of Congressional approval and the disregard of sovereignty. Instead of
militarism, your administration should emphasize diplomacy and humanitarian
aid.
Disregard
of the scientific research for the causes of climate chaos is leading to the
destruction of the planet. According to the November 17, 2016 edition of
the Health and Environment News of the World Health Organization’s Department
of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health, this
was reported: "Ministers and senior officials responsible for health and
environment today committed to reducing the annual 12.6 million deaths caused
by environmental pollution. Gathering at the COP22 climate meeting in Marrakech,
over two dozen high level officials from both sectors signed up to the
Declaration for Health,
Environment and Climate Change. The goal is to reduce
pollution-related deaths via a new global initiative to promote better
management of environmental and climate risks to health." We believe that
another way is possible and that there are alternatives to the life threatening
policies that our government has promoted and that have been so destructive to
the people of the world. Of course, your administration must be supportive of
the decisions reached at COP22.
NCNR
members have vigorously protested the belligerency of the Bush and the Obama
administrations. This belligerency is a tremendous waste of precious tax
dollars and other resources. Currently our government spends more than 50% of
the discretionary federal budget on militarism. This is one of the
leading causes of income instability.
Poverty is adversely affecting the quality of life for too many citizens.
The people are suffering from lack of food, health care, education, a living
wage, adequate housing, and the list goes on. It is unconscionable that
we have children in the United States going to bed hungry. Just a portion
of the bloated Pentagon budget redirected towards human needs could alleviate
this suffering.
Unending war and imperialism is damaging both our country and the world.
Within the last 14 years we have experienced how the United States has
responded to international crisis with violence. Our government has waged
wars in violation of international law with a failed Middle East policy that
leaves a whole region mired in violence and instability, launched an illegal
drone war, tortured and illegally detained individuals, and refused to get rid
of nuclear weapons capable of annihilation of all life on the planet.
You
have been elected president, as the people are seeking change. Previous
administrations have failed to listen to the people, but you now have the
chance to change course. These changes would only be a beginning, but
would provide a good start:
1. End
all drone warfare. It is illegal and immoral.
2. Establish
a living wage for all workers.
3.
Take a real and meaningful role in the abolition of all
nuclear weapons of all countries.
4.
Initiate and work for an international treaty for swift
verifiable action to reverse climate change. Listen to the scientific
community and not the fossil fuel industry.
We have not had access to the decision-making process like the oil lobby, the
financial and corporate sector, or the arms industry have had over the
decades. If people and groups such as ours had this same kind of access
we very well may not have rushed to war and occupation on false pretense,
tortured people, continued to operate the criminally complicit Western
Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation at Fort Benning, had the
devastating and destructive oil spills in addition to still considering a
pipeline through sacred grounds, or had civil unrest caused by society's
structural violence, unresolved racism, and failed economic policies.
A new approach to leadership is required to address the problems and crises we
all face. We have the audacity to petition you to give serious
consideration to the demands stated here. Failure to do so will cause so
many of us to nonviolently resist an administration bent on continuing policies
which will lead to more war, more inequality and ecocide.
In
peace,
Joy First, Malachy Kilbride, Max Obuszewski and Janice
Sevre-Duszynska
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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