World Can't Wait

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LA Anti-War Protest on 7th Anniversary of Invasion of Iraq

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Report from the LA chapter
We had small but visually powerful contingent. Yahoo news reported couple of hundred, but to me it seemed like 3500 - 5000. WNYS contingent; two banner holders; two orange jumpsuits, 1 Stop torture banner and 2 folks agitating and passing out double sided orange flyers (Why we March with organizing meeting info and WANYS flyer). Flyers taken up easily.

LA We Are Not Your Soldiers    Obama belongs to corporations

Adela, in orange jumpsuit, got interviewed by KPFK both English and Spanish; key points; We Are Not Your Soldiers, Prosecute Torturers War Criminals, this is Obama's war and he is complicit with giving safe haven to war criminals.

Later on a Spanish language 5:00 p.m. Pacifica News cast when lines were opened. Adela again called in and added to what other callers were saying. Callers said March was 7-8000 (seems high). Most callers agreed that it was spirited, lots of banners represented from different organizations. Many brought up economy and need to focus on health care and jobs, not warfare. Adela followed a caller who said that yes, the economic crisis is great, but he was wondering where the unions were, the teachers who are getting laid off, etc. They should be out protesting. He felt numbers were too low given the situation and that he felt many folks were taken by Obama and disillusioned that change had not happened. Adela agreed with him, mentioning that in his campaign Obama promised to attack Afghanistan and that he would not hesitate to go into Pakistan. None of this is new. It is significant that all these groups came together across the country to protest Obama's war. This is Obama's war. What was great about march is the number of youth that were out. Our contingent was in front of spirited youth; lots of young women calling out the cost of war to women. (I think it was the Gabriela Network )

Call in to radio shows when possible! It's a good way of getting reports out.

Protesting John Yoo at the University of Virgina Law School

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John Yoo was protested by hundreds of people, including the mayor of Charlottesville, when Yoo spoke at the University of Virginia Law School on March 19. For more information on the everyday, ongoing battle to fire/disbar/prosecute John Yoo see firejohnyoo.org, a project of World Can't Wait.

Debra Sweet protesting John Yoo

Photo: Al Thompson

John Yoo

Photo: Shepherd Johnson

Video with Debra Sweet's speech at the beginning


Photos from Shepherd Johnson

Charlottesville, VA

 

 

David Swanson and Ann Wright

David Swanson and Ann Wright

 

Ray McGovern

Ray McGovern

 Protesting John Yoo

More photos, reports, and news coverage

John Yoo War Criminal 

Photo: Garrie Rouse

David Swanson's photos
Mike Hearington's photos
Video of Mayor of Charlottesville at John Yoo protest
Report from the inside with video, from Stark Reports
The Hook
News Plex (video and report)
NBC29 News
Charlottesville News and Arts

From the NY Times "At War" blog, December 6, 2009

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An antiwar demonstration in New York’s Times Square, where leaflets were handed out calling for protests to coincide with the ceremony to award President Obama the Nobel prize. It looks like President Obama is unlikely to get the Nobel Peace Prize without the occasion being marked by protests. At least one antiwar group is already calling for a midday march to the U.S. Armed Forces Recruiting Station in New York’s Times Square to coincide with the award ceremony in Oslo City Hall on December 10, the date on which Alfred Nobel died.
 
Days before the event protesters were already handing out leaflets headlined: ‘You Don’t End a War By Sending More Troops! Stop the Occupation of Afghanistan.”
 
Another group has already posted an online petition criticizing it as an “absurd” and “premature” decision.
 
The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced on October 9 that the prize would go to President Obama, citing “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”.
 
Responding to the announcement, President Obama said: “I am both surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the Nobel Committee. Let me be clear: I do not view it as recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.”
 

 

Shut Down the Army Experience Center in Philadelphia

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Press release from shut down the army experience center

TIME:   2:00 pm
DATE:  Saturday, September 12th
 
Franklin Mills Mall, Philadelphia, PA - This is the shopping center where the U.S. Army is teaching 13 year-olds to kill using simulated M-16 automatic rifles and M-240B light machine guns.  It's enough to cause several hundred activists in the Philadelphia area to take matters into their own hands. 

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Speak Out Against Torture: Fire John Yoo!

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Press release from:

firejohnyoo.org 

Where: University of California Berkeley, Sproul Plaza   

 

When: 12:30 PM until mid-afternoon [NOTE NEW TIME], WEDNESDAY, SEP. 9    BERKELEY

 

Anti-torture protesters holding frequent demonstrations at the UC Berkeley campus will appear there again Wednesday, September 9.  

The protesters call for UC law professor John Yoo to be fired, disbarred, and prosecuted for “war crimes committed through his work as legal handyman for the Bush-Cheney regime’s torture policies.”  

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Activists, UC Berkeley Alumni Protest Yoo on First Day of Classes

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 By Riya Bhattacharjee, Berkeley Daily Planet

 Four generations of UC Berkeley law school alumni joined activists, community members and lawyers on the Boalt Hall steps to protest former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo’s return to campus Monday.

The group called for Yoo to be prosecuted and fired from his position as professor of law at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law for writing memorandums which were used to justify extensive policies on detention and interrogation, even torture.

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Berkeley Protesters Demand: Fire John Yoo!

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 By Terence Chea (AP) 

 
BERKELEY, Calif. — Anti-war activists protested on the University of California, Berkeley campus Monday to call for the firing of a law professor who co-wrote legal memos that critics say were used to justify the torture of suspected terrorists.
 
Campus police arrested at least four people who refused to leave the university's law school building.
 
The demonstrators said John Yoo should be dismissed, disbarred and prosecuted for war crimes for his work as a Bush administration attorney from 2001 to 2003, when he helped craft legal theories for waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques.
 
Shouting "war criminal," the protesters confronted Yoo as he entered a lecture hall on the first day of class at the UC Berkeley School of Law, where the tenured professor is teaching a civil law course this semester.

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Tortured Past

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Protesters hound federal judge who crafted torture memos for Bush

US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jay Bybee had just finished hearing oral arguments in the case of Sprint v. Palos Verdes on Monday when Susan Harmon stood up and asked a question.
“We’re here to ask you when you’re going to resign,” said Harmon, a Bay Area member of the group Progressive Democrats of America, as she stared defiantly at the judge. Bybee did not respond while guards dressed in blue blazers removed Harmon and two other women from the courthouse.
 
“We will follow you,” Harmon vowed before being escorted out of the stately West Pasadena courtroom and rejoining a dozen protesters standing in front of the building.
Joining Harmon Monday were members of her organization and the anti-war groups Code Pink and the World Can’t Wait, all of which have been calling for Bybee’s resignation or impeachment since April, when President Obama declassified documents showing Bybee was an architect of former President George W. Bush’s torture policies.

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Anti-war Protesters at NAACP Convention

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By Saeed Shabazz 
 
The World Can't Wait anti-war coalition based in New York City says that while respect is due to the NAACP for their 100-year tradition of “standing up to White lynch mobs and sheriffs' dogs,” there is no excuse for continuing the relationship they have with military recruiters.
 
The anti-war community is demanding that the NAACP “dis-invite recruiters from its functions” starting with the 100th anniversary celebration in New York City from July 11 to July 16. There are demonstrations took place July 14 and July 16.
 
“It's a matter of principle and we cannot stand by as the NAACP and the U.S. Army pull more youth into the unjust wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” argues Debra Sweet, national director of the anti-war coalition.
 
“Does the NAACP not understand how dangerous Afghanistan is becoming for our soldiers; why July 6 was one of the bloodiest days with seven of our troops losing their lives,” she told the Am- News. “Is the NAACP saying these unjust wars are okay, and didn't the NAACP executive board pass an anti-war in Iraq resolution?” she asked.

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Protests This Week Throughout U.S. Demand Release of Torture Photos by Obama Administration, Prosecution of Bush Era War Crimes

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Media Alert: May 26, 2009
 
Media Contact: Linda Rigas
Office 866-973-4463/Cell 714-235-8213
 
Protests This Week Throughout U.S. Demand Release of Torture Photos by Obama Administration, Prosecution of Bush Era War Crimes
 
What: Highly Visual, Dramatic Protest Demonstrations/Photo Ops
When: May 26-27-28
 
Where: 15 cities: New York City; Los Angeles; Chicago; San Francisco; Boston; Seattle; Atlanta; Houston; Cleveland; Philadelphia; Honolulu; Fresno; Greensboro, NC; Portland, OR; Benton Harbor, MI
 
(New York City, NY) In the face of the Obama administration’s refusal to release a reported 2,000 additional photographs of detainee abuse, in spite of being ordered by a federal court to do so, torture opponents will hold visible protests to demand that the government make the photos public. In 15 cities, they will also call for prosecution of those who ordered, legally justified and carried out torture in US detention and secret prisons during the Bush years.
 
These protests, called by the national World Can’t Wait organization and others, will respond to the growing body of evidence of the construction of a torture apparatus and policies led from the top of the Bush administration as part of the global “war on terror” after 9-11. Torture opponents are also critical of Barack Obama’s plan for preventive “prolonged” detention of people who the US government thinks may commit crimes as announced in his May 21 speech on national security.
 
“The Bush regime floated the idea of preventive detention, but never tried it.  This has never been done by the US in its history.  What does it mean that Obama stated flatly that habeas corpus – the right to know charges against you and be able to defend yourself - will be indefinitely denied to a class of people?” said Debra Sweet, Director of World Can’t Wait. Sweet called on “people who care about humanity to takea stand against US torture, indefinite and preventive detention.”
 
 
Highlights of the planned protests:
 
Los Angeles Outside President Obama’s appearance at the Beverly Hilton, 3:30 pm Wednesday May 27, Los Angeles, displaying enlarged photos believed to be among the 2000 not yet released.
 
New York City Inside Grand Central Station, 5:00 pm Thursday May 28, a dramatic tableau will protest the US torture regime, followed by a march to the Union League Club where John Negroponte, former Director of National Intelligence presents an award to General David Petraeus, CENT COMM Commander, responsible for US military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
 
Michigan One of the first protests of George W. Bush in the United States since he left office, 5:00 pm at Lake Michigan College, Benton Harbor, MI.
 
Three co-ordinated protests at court houses within the Ninth US District, where Judge Jay Bybee, author of recently released “torture memos” sits on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. San Francisco, Portland, and Fresno will see dramatic protests demanding Bybee’s prosecution for war crimes. In San Francisco, the protest will feature an installation of “The Bybee/Bush Museum of Torture.”
 
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"No Torture" Banner at West Hollywood City Hall

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City of West Hollywood and World Can't Wait Hold Joint Press Conference

May 21—The large orange banner hung down from near the ceiling in the lobby of West Hollywood, California, City Hall read: "No Torture." The City of West Hollywood, a community between Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, had taken a stand. And in that lobby, an important press conference was held: "A Call to President Barack Obama urging him to release torture-related photos and prosecute war criminals, ex-top officials of the Bush Administration." The press conference was called by the City of West Hollywood and The World Can't Wait.
 
City Council Member and long-time defender of human rights, John J. Duran said, "President Obama must do what is right for our country's future and shed light on the last eight years of the Bush administration's half-truths, abuse of power and human rights both abroad and here at home. We will never be able to put this behind us if the truth is not fully revealed and if we don't atone for the way our country behaved." He was joined by: Debra Sweet, National Director of The World Can't Wait, the MC for the event; Mark Rapkin, a Los Angeles attorney who represented a prisoner unjustly locked up at Guantánamo and has continued to speak out against the continuing torture and imprisonment at that prison; actor John Heard; director and writer Paul Haggis, whose films include Crash and In the Valley of Elah; and actor and director Mark Ruffalo.

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World Can't Wait mobilizes people living in the United States to stand up and stop war on the world, repression and torture carried out by the US government. We take action, regardless of which political party holds power, to expose the crimes of our government, from war crimes to systematic mass incarceration, and to put humanity and the planet first.

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