WE’VE GOT TO STOP IT!
THE IRAQ MORATORIUM BEGINS 9-21-07
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
New School Chapter
newschoolsds@riseup.net
www.iraqmoratorium.org
PRESS RELEASE
Contact:
Atlee McFellin…………………269.275.0420.
Meaghan Linick……………….734.218.3056.
Pat Korte……………………….860.912.3524.
Annie Matches…………………609.610.9398.
Monday, September 17, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SDS KICKS OFF THE IRAQ MORATORIUM AT THE NEW SCHOOL ON 9-21-07
New York, NY. The New School chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) is joining with community organizations from around the country to build the Iraq Moratorium and is calling for students, workers, and faculty to participate in the first of a series of escalating monthly actions to end the occupation of Iraq. The first demonstration will be held on Friday, September 21, 2007. Participants are asked to assemble at 12:00 p.m. at the New School for Social Research on 65 5th Avenue (between 13th and 14th Streets) in lower Manhattan. Once assembled, participants will march north up 5th Avenue to the Empire State Building (350 5th Ave.) to demonstrate outside the office of Lockheed Martin, a corporation that in 2005 reaped more than $19.4 billion in military contracts from war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Poverty grows and the killing continues while Lockheed Martin gets rich off the suffering of others, and we will be standing together to let them know that they are not welcome in our city.” says Atlee McFelon, an SDS organizer at the New School for Social Research. “It’s unfortunate that the U.S. has been engaged in a military occupation of Iraq since 2003 and yet the Left in general, and the anti-war movement in particular, has been unable to implement effective strategies to bring the occupation to an end and develop visionary alternatives to the capitalist system. We plan on changing that.”
Event organizers believe that September 21st will be the beginning of a surge in militant actions against the imperialist occupation of the Middle East by the U.S. According to the British Opinion Research Business, more than 1.2 million Iraqis have been killed by the U.S. occupation since 2003. Organizers hope that the slow train wreck in Iraq will clarify the present social system’s inability to give the vast majority of the world’s population good jobs, quality education, adequate shelter, quality medical services, and peace. Only by building a movement with a critical analysis of the present institutions of oppression, an uncompromising revolutionary vision, and long-term strategic programs will our generation be able to pass on a society built on the values of solidarity, freedom, self-management, justice, diversity, and equality. To begin this process, the people must force the U.S. government to immediately transfer resources to fund the creation of jobs, universal higher education, public housing programs, universal healthcare, and reparations for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Now, more than ever, with the death toll approaching 2 million, it is of utmost importance for us to struggle for an immediate end to these horrifying atrocities.” says Meaghan Linick, an SDS organizer from Eugene Lang College. “This series of escalating actions is necessary for us to continue building a movement that is visionary, strategic, and has the size and power to effectively end the illegal occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and all forms of U.S. imperialism and exploitation.”
The occupation, torture, and mass murder in Iraq have gone on for too long and it is time for the people of the U.S. to stand in solidarity with the people of the Middle East and begin raising the social costs for the political parties and corporate institutions that directly profit from and seek to maintain the imperialist domination of the Middle East. Through nationally coordinated local actions that allow communities to choose appropriate levels of commitment, SDS hopes to attract an increasingly larger number of people into the anti-war movement, solidify revolutionary commitments, and build power in communities to abolish not only the Iraq War, but all institutions that produce wars and injustice.
In the words of the Italian revolutionary Antonio Gramsci, “It is necessary with bold spirit and in good conscience, to save civilization. We must halt the dissolution which corrodes and corrupts the roots of human society. The bare and barren tree can be made green again. Are we not ready?”
If YOU are ready, we will see you on September 21st, October 19th, November 16th, and the third Friday of every month until we bring the U.S. occupation of the Middle East to a halt!
POWER TO THE PEOPLE!
– SDS
