Inside the Belly of the Beltway Beast

There has been a call put out to the entire peace and justice movement to assemble in Freedom Plaza (downtown DC, along Pennsylvania Avenue), and to not leave until the U.S. Government begins withdrawing all it military forces from Afghanistan (this will be at the same time our nation completes a decade of war in this Third World country) and begins to redirect war funds to desperately needed social programs and protections for the environment. The original organizers are encouraging people not to leave until the demands are met. I think this does need to happen. But I also realize that those leaving their homes and camping out on the concrete slabs of Freedom Plaza will need support. They will need food and water brought into them. Folks will need to begin to organize themselves, as did the courageous protesters in first Egypt and Tunisia, and now currently in Spain. So will it last longer than a couple days, will the mass media largely ignore us? Again, I will repeat, this needs to h...

May we all take up the cause as Steve did, and perhaps more importantly in the *manner* that he did. I spoke with Steve by phone a week before he passed. He was in a whole lot of pain and the drugs were not helping. I forced back tears, as I was talking with him. The conversation was too brief, as was the time I knew this great guy. As I ended the conversation, I said "Steve, you know what? There's a whole lot of us in D.C. who love you." He just responded that he loved all of us, as well. I had been arrested with Steve a handful of times, as we resisted the empire's wars and its unjust detaining and mistreatment fellow human beings. He always arrived in DC with a smile and open arms for a hug and a kind word, or two, or three. Steve never had an unkind word for anyone. He became very involved with the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance over the last four years, and that's how I got to know him better.He always provided this wonderful source of positive e...

Hello, You participated in the largest arrest action in U.S. Park Police history on September 26, 2005. I was with you. I was one of the 374 people of conscience acting for peace that day, including scholar Cornell West and peace mom Cindy Sheehan. As the present co-convener of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, I want to invite and encourage you to join us again on the week the Afghanistan War will enter its 9th year of lost lives, lost hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars and lost direction and morality. This is a war that can not be won, yet the escalation continues. What are our troops fighting and dying for? Even President Karzai has said during his recent campaign that he wants to sit down at the negotiating table with the Taliban. It is time the war and occupation end, it is time to end indefinite detention at places like Bagram prison and begin the process of building peace and rebuilding infrastructures. Eight years ago on October 7, 2001, the U.S. and Br...

By Max Obuszewski In 2002, the Iraq Pledge of Resistance was formed to prevent a war with Iraq. While we failed, we continued to engage in nonviolent direct action to end the war and the occupation. Eventually, the group, in expanding its focus, became the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance [NCNR]. In light of the massive Capitol Climate Action on March 2nd, we would like to take the opportunity to describe what we as a campaign have committed ourselves to. We celebrate this opportunity to share our thoughts with other progressive activists. As a group with lots of direct action experience, NCNR has consistently encouraged organizations and individuals to recognize the difference between civil disobedience and civil resistance. We see the difference as being important in the struggle for nonviolent, positive social change. The classic definition of civil disobedience, as practiced by the civil rights movement, is the breaking of an unjust law with the intent of changing it...

Our fellow DC area activist-organizers, There has been much change during the last couple years within the local peace and justice movement. The changes we have witnessed have included dissolution of the DC Anti-War Network (DAWN) as a group but not the commitment of several of its participants, there has been an increase in levels of nonviolent resistance actions, the revitalizing of the Washington Peace Center as a dynamic force in the wider DC metro community, and most recently the founding of a capacity-building coalition for future mobilizations, known as Activist Coalition of DC (ACDC). However, there is an important and vital need to share resources, creativity, and skills to unite collective energies and move beyond being only somewhat effective to being successful in our peace and social justice struggles. This needs to be our highest priority. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said that the U.S. Government was the greatest purveyor of violence in the wor...

1. An End to All Funding for U.S. Military Operations in Iraq 2. Safe and Rapid Withdrawal of All U.S. Troops and Coalition Forces from Iraq, With No Future Deployments 3. No Permanent U.S. Military Bases or Installations in Iraq 4. Support for an Iraqi-led Peace Process, Including a Peace Conference to Shape a Post-occupation Transition 5. Return Control of Iraqi Oil to the People of Iraq, as Well as Complete Sovereignty in their Economic and Political Affairs 6. Support for Reparations and Reconstruction to Address the Destruction Caused by the U.S. Invasion, Military Occupation, and Thirteen Years of Economic Sanctions 7. Establish a U.S. “Peace Dividend” fo...

For the last couple months I knew it was coming, but now the wonderful anti-war nonviolent direct action INSIDE the Capitol Building has come and gone, I will be suspending my organizing activities with the peace and justice movement for two years while I am in grad school. I am studying Library and Info. Sciences at CUA, and following my completion I will need a few months starting my new career before I return to organizing. Sadly, I think the U.S. military occupation of the nation of Iraq will still be continuing, and we may also be engaged in a war with Iran at that point. So there will be a lot to organize around. Furthermore, D.C. will still not have a vote in Congress and our government will be spending more on military expenditures than health care and housing. So, there will be a lot of work for an anarchist archivist/librarian to help organize and support. The action yesterday inside the Capitol Building resulted in 36 people arrested. This was a joint nonviolent direct actio...

Please join Declaration of Peace and the National Campaign of Nonviolent Resistance September 20, 2007 to demand no more war and endless occupation of Iraq. Sept. 20th: Speak Truth to Power Join us as we remember all the victims of the immoral and illegal Iraq War. Let us remind the decision makers of the folly and human cost of continuing to fund the war. Action on Capitol Hill, 12 Noon, 9/20 Legal/logistical briefing, nearby church, 6:30 PM, 9/19 Questions and/or want to join us? Write to septembertruth@yahoo.com In hope for peace with justice, Pete

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, February 13, 2007 CONTACT: Kevin Martin, Executive Director, Peace Action and Peace Action Education Fund (301) 565-4050, ext. 307 (office), (301) 537-8244 (mobile) Iraq War to be put on trial in Washington, DC along with Non-violent Peace Activists on Valentine’s Day WHO: Over 50 religious and secular peace activists arrested on Capitol Hill last September for acts of non-violent civil resistance to the war in Iraq WHAT: Trial on charges of Unlawful Assembly and Crossing a Police Line WHERE: District of Columbia Superior Court, 500 Indiana Ave., NW, Washington, DC WHEN: Valentine’s Day – Wednesday, February 14, 9:00 a.m. BACKGROUND: On September 26 and 27, 2006, hundreds of non-violent protesters converged on Capitol Hill to bear witness to their opposition to the US occupation of Iraq. The protests were organized by the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance as part of a nationally coordinated campaign called the Declaration of Peace, in which thousand...

It was big. It was really really big. The mass media is of course downplaying the numbers, saying it was barely 100,000. Some reports say the Park Police doesn't give figures anymore for demonstrations, but "secretly said it was maybe a little less than 100,000." What kind of reporting is that? Well, it's false. I stood in about the same place I stood at that NARAL abortion rights rally a few years back that everyone said was 500,000 -- well this looked to me to be just as big. As the speakers started, thousands and thousands were still arriving from the Smithsonian Metro station. I would guess the crowd was between 400,000 and 500,000. UFPJ naturally went with the higher end and said it was definitely half a million. But beyond numbers, I think this whole mobilization with a long list of eloquent speakers made a difference and got enough news coverage to be noticed. Congress cannot ignore that this peace mobilization happened. They cannot ignore that a little more th...

The Declaration of Peace Defund the War and Declare Peace For Immediate Release Contact: Daniel Malec, 850-591-4009 Ken Butigan, 360-402-4761 http://declarationofpeace.org/ WASHINGTON – Today the American people learned of the 3,000th U.S. soldier's death in the war-torn and occupied nation of Iraq. Grassroots peace and justice activists throughout the nation are holding candlelight vigils and mourning the loss of life, both American and Iraqi, in a war they view as both tragically unnecessary and immoral. "Today, U.S. foreign policy disregards the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis in pursuit of U.S. hegemonic interests," said Danny Malec, organizer with Declaration of Peace, an anti-war coalition, which held more than 350 protests and numerous acts of civil disobedience against the Iraq war and occupation in September. "There is no other way forward than ending the occupation of Iraq and...

I was on a Declaration of Peace Conference Call last night. It was exciting to begin to hear the peace and justice movement getting ready to launch into its next phase following the midterm elections. The main thrust of the call was the campaign to defund the illegal and immoral war and occupation of Iraq. As part of this campaign, and probably the most intense, will be what Voices for Creative Nonviolence and the National Campaign of Nonviolence Resistance will undertake beginning February 5th and lasting through March -- visiting and probably sitting in at many congress people's offices. The Declaration of Peace Coalition has decided to join this effort. It is expected that during the month of February and into early March Congress will likely pass record-large supplemental budgets paying for the continued war and occupation. It is expected that the military requests will amount to somewhere between $100 Billion to $120 Billion. This intense phase will be called The Occupation P...