Feature Archives

Direct Action to Stop the War brought its anti-war focus to May Day actions in San Francisco and Oakland on May 1st. Starting at 5:45 a.m. at West Oakland BART, DASW lead a community picket to shut down the Union Pacific rail lines at the Port of Oakland. From 12:30-2:30pm, DASW marched from Justin Herman Plaza to protests at the Armed Forces Recruiting Center (670 Davis St. at Broadway) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (630 Sansome St. at Washington St.). DASW also had a contingent at labor and immigrant rights demonstrations on May Day.

On May 1, all 29 ports on the U.S. West Coast were shut down by the ILWU in protest against the U.S. war on Afghanistan and Iraq. The Bay Area ILWU local was the first American union to condemn the war. In April 2003, as invading U.S. troops reached Baghdad, six longshoremen were injured and a union official was arrested as police fired on hundreds of antiwar protesters in the port of Oakland. Supporters of the ILWU meet in San Francisco at Mason and Beach at 10:30 am on May Day. There was then a march to a 12 noon rally in Justin Herman Plaza.

On April 22nd, Students Against War organized a counter-recruitment action against the presence of military recruiters at UCSC's "Last Chance Job & Internship Fair." Outside the career fair, students demonstrated with banners, flyers, zines, photos from Iraq, theatre of tortured detainees, juggling and more. Meanwhile on the inside, student protestors were dancing, questioning military and FBI recruiters, chanting and otherwise disrupting the recruiting efforts of the FBI, Army, Marines and Police.

Santa Cruz resident Matt Childers, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, testified at the Winter Soldier hearings held last month in Silver Springs, Maryland. Matt served two deployments to Iraq as an infantryman with the U.S. Marines. Originally from West Virginia, he now makes his home in Santa Cruz and is a student at Cabrillo College. His testimony was given as part of a panel on racism and dehumanization of the enemy in Iraq.

anonymous anarchists write, "A Wells Fargo in downtown Santa Cruz was paintbombed during the night. Wells Fargo invests in the GEO Group, the contractor which runs the gulag in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In addition to running GTMO, the GEO Group is also contracted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to run its immigration detention facilities."

The 4,000th US soldier was killed in Iraq on March 23rd. Vigils and actions were held at the Military Recruiting Centers in Capitola and Berkeley on March 24th to express grief over so many senseless deaths in Iraq. In San Francisco, a vigil was held in Civic Center Plaza. CodePink shut down the Marine Recruiting Station in Berkeley by conducting a direct action inside of it.

The Army recruitment site GoArmy.com is one of the most heavily advertised web sites on the planet. It's a slick marketing effort to make enlisting look like the perfect job opportunity: a stable, safe way to make money and serve America. On March 19th, NoArmy.com was launched to present the facts missing in the Army sales pitch and show potential recruits what they can really expect if they enlist.