Coming Events and AFL-CIO SAYS NO TO WAR!

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"When Students Walk Out Agianst the War on Wednesday, March 5, Make Sure it is a Positive Experience."- Forum for Educators
Tuesday, March 4: 4-6PM Oakland High School, 1023 Macarthur Blvd

1. Coming Events
2. AFL-CIO HAS COME OUT AGAINST THE WAR!!!
3. Details about March 5 Moratorium
4. Los Angeles Middle Schools Will Conduct Teach-ins on March 5!!
5. Speach Against the War from a 12 Year Old
6. Letter from a Teacher Who is Stopping Business as Usual on March 5
7. More info on Poverty March for Peace Service on Sunday, March 2
8. US Diplomat Resigns, Letter in NY Times

Coming Events:
SUNDAY, MARCH 2, 3PM, GRACE CATHEDRAL, SF
War is not inevitable! Join an Interfaith Prayer Service Against Poverty and War,Grace Cathedral, Sunday March 2 - 3:00 p.m.
San Francisco, California @ Taylor
http://www.workingassets.com/interfaith

TUESDAY, MARCH 4: 4-6PM Oakland High School, 1023 Macarthur Blvd., Planning Forum for Educators on the March 5 Walkout Against the War: including an overview of the day; Discussion of Students' Civil Rights to Take Action; Curriculum Ideas; and Discussion on How We Can Build and Support and Active and Engaged Student Population
PLEASE PRINT AND DISTRIBUTE ATTACHED FLYER!!

TUESDAY, MARCH 4: 4:00, Oakland Tech, 4351 Broadway, Californians for Justice Press Conference and Rally Against the High School Exit Exam; More info http://www.caljustice.org, 510.452.3552

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5: NATIONAL MORATORIUM AND INTERNATIONAL STUDENT WALKOUT AGAINST THE WAR (http://www.notinourname.net, information bellow on East Bay Activities, Main event is a rally/vigil at 5PM at the Pillars Lake Merrit)

SATURDAY, MARCH 8: INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY: Benifit Concert, Great American Music Hall, 8PM, 415.202.7640 http://www.globalfundforwomen.org
All women are invited to join us for a massive "Women's Demonstration for Peace." We will form a huge, illuminated peace symbol by standing with strong flashlights on a clearly visible location (to be determined.) Contact: Eileen Rose eileenr [at] sonic.net 707-523-3919,

MONDAY, MARCH 10: 7-9 PM EDUCATION NOT INCARCERATION MEETING: Planning meeting for a major rally in Sacramento which will occur either in late April or in May, More Information: ed_not_inc [at] earthlink.net

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12, 4PM, OEA MARCH FOR NOT EDUCATION CUTS! REDISTRIBUTE CORPORATE WEALTH! Beginning at APL Building, 1111 Broadway

SATURDAY, MARCH 15, 11AM CIVIC CENTER: MAJOR ANTI-WAR RALLY!!! http://www.internationalanswer.org

MONDAY, MARCH 17, 11AM-2PM RALLY FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGES IN SACRAMENTO - Participants can get information on transportation and other details by emailing: noedcuts [at] yahoo.com

SATURDAY-SUNDAY, MARCH 29-30 PEOPlE'S INSTITUTE WEST'S "UNDOING RACISM" TRAINING, http://www.peoplesinstitutewest.org

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AFL-CIO OPPOSES WAR! E-MAIL NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION EXEC'S TO GET THEM TO FOLLOW THEIR LEAD!
leskelsen [at] nea.org, rweaver [at] nea.org, medwards [at] nea.org, dvanroekel [at] nea.org, mbillirakis [at] nea.org,iholloway [at] nea.org, mmarks [at] nea.org, rpringle [at] nea.org, dsakota [at] nea.org, msmith [at] nea.org


February 27, 2003
Union Federation Opposes War With Iraq
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Full Article available at http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (AP) -- The nation's largest labor federation declared its opposition Thursday to war against Iraq at this time, saying President Bush has not made a case for an attack without broad support from U.S. allies.

The executive council of the AFL-CIO, made up of 65 unions, ended its four-day meeting by unanimously passing the carefully worded resolution, which also says Saddam Hussein must be disarmed -- with ``multilateral resolve, not unilateral action.''

Organized labor had tough words for President Bush, without naming him directly, saying the United States has squandered the goodwill it enjoyed after the terrorist attacks and insulted the nation's allies.
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EAST BAY EVENTS FOR THE NATIONAL MORATORIUM AGAINST THE WAR: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 2003
http://www.notinourname.net
Buddhist Peace Fellowship will be open (1840 Alcatraz, Berkeley) For meditation To use its phones and fax machine to contact the White House and Congress

The First Unitarian Church of Oakland (685 14th St. @ Castro) will be open from 10 am to 4 pm as a gathering place for those who support the moratorium. You can:
View films, documentaries, etc. about peace and justice and the perils of war, Make signs and banners
Have informal discussions, The sanctuary will be open for prayer, meditation and reflection

Gather at freeway overpasses and/or busy intersections to display the banners and signs you?ve made

Gather for a candlelight vigil at Lake Merritt Pillars at 5:00 PM. The Pillars are located at the east end of Lake Merritt between Grand Ave. and Lakeshore Ave. near I-580. Coming from the north on I-580 exit on Grand Ave., continue to MacArthur Blvd., turn right on Lakeshore Ave. and go 0.2 miles. The Pillars are across the street from Our Lady of Lourdes Church. From the south on I-580 take the Lakeshore Ave. exit, turn left on Lakeshore Ave. and go 0.3 miles.
March to the Islamic Cultural Center with candles
Share a light meal
Celebrate and share experiences from the day
Hear music, spoken word, etc.
Share our vision for a peaceful and just society, both here in Oakland and around the world
Work together to build a strategy for achieving it!

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Dear Colleagues:

All history classes on Wednesday March 5 will be
devoted to raising awareness of the current situation
in Iraq. Class will be spent sharing information and
discussing issues. Our goal is to promote critical
thinking by increasing the amount and quality of
information our students have on all sides of the
issues: Iraq's position and role in the Middle East,
America's policies towards Iraq, the global response,
the role of the UN and other international agencies,
the possible effects and consequences (both positive
and negative) of a war, and what a post-war Iraq might
look like. This will be an objective discussion
centered on information, not opinions. Our hope is
that this will help our students formulate informed
opinions, make informed decisions and better
understand their world.

Additionally, we are setting up an Iraq resource room
for the day in the VDL. History teachers will be on
hand during their free periods and break to answer
questions and to discuss issues. We will have many
resources on hand for students to further their
understanding of the issues. Please encourage your
students to stop by during break or a free period to
see what we've got.

Your participation, creativity, and ideas are welcome.
If you have resources you'd like to contribute,
please give them to either Steve Chan or Julie
Schumacher by Tuesday. If you have free periods and
you'd like to come to the resource center, wonderful.


We'll be making an announcement during Monday assemble
to inform the kids of the plan.

On behalf of the Middle School History department,
thank you in advance for you support.

.
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Message from a 12 Year Old

Presque Isle, Maine Peace Rally Speech Before 150
Aroostook county residents from around the County

February 15, 2003 - St. Mary's Church

by Charlotte Aldebron

When people think about bombing Iraq, they see a
picture in their heads of Saddam Hussein in a military
uniform, or maybe soldiers with big black mustaches
carrying guns, or the mosaic of George Bush Sr. on the
lobby floor of the Al-Rashid Hotel with the word
"criminal". But guess what? More than half of Iraq's
24 million people are children under the age of 15.

That's 12 million kids. Kids like me. Well, I'm almost
13, so some are a little older, and some a lot
younger, some boys instead of girls, some with brown
hair, not red. But kids who are pretty much like me
just he same.

So take a look at me-- good long look. Because I am
what you should see in your head when you think about
bombing Iraq.

I am what you are going to destroy.

If I am lucky, I will be killed instantly, like the
three hundred children murdered by your "smart" bombs
in a Baghdad bomb shelter on February 16, 1991.

The blast caused a fire so intense that it
flash-burned outlines of those children and their
mothers on the walls; you can still peel strips of
blackened skin--souvenirs of your victory--from the
stones.

But maybe I won't be lucky and I'll die slowly, like
14-year-old Ali Faisal, who right now is on the "death
ward" of the Baghdad children's hospital. He has
malignant lymphoma (cancer) caused by the depleted
uranium in your Gulf War missiles.

Or maybe I will die painfully and needlessly like
18-month-old Mustafa, whose vital organs are being
devoured by sand fly parasites. I know it's hard to
believe, but Mustafa could be totally cured with just
$25 worth of medicine, but there is none of this
medicine because of your sanctions.

Or maybe I won't die at all but will live for years
with the psychological damage that you can't see from
the outside, like Salman Mohammed, who even now can't
forget the terror he lived through with his little
sisters when you bombed Iraq in 1991.

Salman's father made the whole family sleep in the
same room so that they would all survive together, or
die together. He still has nightmares about the air
raid sirens.

Or maybe I will be orphaned like Ali, who was three
when you killed his father in the Gulf War. Ali
scraped at the dirt covering his father's grave every
day for three years calling out to him,"It's all right
Daddy, you can come out now, the men who put you here
have gone away." Well, Ali, you're wrong. It looks
like those men are coming back.

Or I maybe I will make it in one piece, like Luay
Majed, who remembers that the Gulf War meant he didn't
have to go to school and could stay up as late as he
wanted. But today, with no education, he tries to live
by selling newspapers on the street.

Imagine that these are your children--or nieces or
nephews or neighbors. Imagine your son screaming from
the agony of a severed limb, but you can't do anything
to ease the pain or comfort him.

Imagine your daughter crying out from under the rubble
of a collapsed building, but you can't get to her.

Imagine your children wandering the streets, hungry
and alone, after having watched you die before their
eyes.

This is not an adventure movie or a fantasy or a video
game. This is reality for children in Iraq.

Recently, an international group of researchers went
to Iraq to find out how children there are being
affected by the possibility of war. Half the children
they talked to said they saw no point in living any
more. Even really young kids knew about war and
worried about it. One 5-year-old, Assem, described it
as "guns and bombs and the air will be cold and hot
and we will burn very much."

Ten-year-old Aesar had a message for President Bush:
he wanted him to know that "A lot of Iraqi children
will die. You will see it on TV and then you will
regret."

Back in elementary school I was taught to solve
problems with other kids not by hitting or
name-calling, but by talking and using "I" messages.
The idea of an "I2" message was to make the other
person understand how bad his or her actions made you
feel, so that the person would sympathize with you and
stop it.

Now I am going to give you an "I" message.

Only it's going to be a "We" message. "We" as in all
the children in Iraq who are waiting helplessly for
something bad to happen."We" as in the children of the
world who don't make any of the decisions but have to
suffer all the consequences. We" as in those whose
voices are too small and to far away to be heard.

We feel scared when we don't know if we'll live
another day.

We feel angry when people want to kill us or injure us
or steal our future.

We feel sad because all we want is a mom and a dad who
we know will be there the next day.

And, finally, we feel confused because we don't even
know what we did wrong.
*************
Charlotte Aldebron, 12, attends Cunningham Middle
School in Presque Isle, Maine.
Comments may be sent to her mom, Jillian Aldebron:
"aldebron-AT-ainop.com"

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Letter from a Teacher Who is Stopping Business as Usual on March 5

Working for Peace in the Community?s Classroom

by Alexandria Giardino

I work at a community college that serves 14,000 students, about half of them black, the other half Latino. I teach them how to write and, in my English classes, I often teach history and political science as well. My students are starving for knowledge; their schools have always been underfunded, and, as a result, they are undereducated. But one thing my students do seem to know a lot about is war. They come from Central America and South Central; many of them have been living in or running from a war zone since childhood. Now my students are angry and worried?they just aren?t sure with whom they are angry or about what they are worried. In this way, they are like most Americans. Unlike most Americans, though, they are the people who will be on the front lines, because my students are the typical soldiers--young, poor, available. Several are already reservists; many have been activated. Meanwhile, Governor Davis proposes to double their tuition, shrink their financial aid, and choke their educational resources, all in an effort to salvage our state?s wrecked economy. Just this spring semester, our college has lost $2.1 million in cut backs. Far, far more is on the chopping block for fall.

Something sinister is at hand. I am determined to teach my students, and myself, how to comprehend what is happening, how to articulate a meaningful position against it, and how to save their future in the process. In fact, I am contractually obligated to do so. As my contracts states, I ?have the academic freedom to seek the truth? and I must ?guarantee freedom of learning to the students.? I have found a few ways to fulfill my responsibilities.

Above all, I am supportive of my students, many of whom have become involved in Not In Our Name. Two in particular have walked our campus distributing NION flyers (which they translated into Spanish), talking to students, teaching peace. One of these women is engaged to a now-active soldier! On March 5, I will not hold regular classes. Instead, I will hold a teach-in about connections between federal politics and the state-level budget crisis. That same day, at the college?s main entrance, some students will hold a giant banner reading ?No War! Guerra No!? Others are planning a walk out. Yet others are already writing letters and making phone calls, fighting the Bush barrage. In these ways, they are taking what they have learned the hard way about struggle and war, and combinign that with the new skills they have learned in the communtiy college classroom: how to express their voices

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Poverty March for Peace Service March 2 in San Francisco Kick Off NCC's Second Annual "Poverty March" Observance

Event Emphasizes Connection Between War and Poverty

On Sunday, March 2, 2003, a "POVERTY MARCH FOR PEACE" in San Francisco will highlight the real connections between war and poverty. Interfaith prayers for peace at 3 p.m. in Grace Cathedral, California at Taylor, San Francisco, will be led by San Francisco Area United Methodist Bishop Beverly Shamana; Rabbi Stephen Pearce of Congregation Emanu-el, and Omar Ahmad of the National Board of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Sponsoring the service and procession are the National Council of Churches with several partners, including Working Assets, United Religions Initiative, San Francisco Interfaith Council, Grace Cathedral, and California Council of Churches/California Church IMPACT.

This event will highlight the real connections between the ongoing rush to war and neglect of domestic programs resulting in economic hardship across the country and the globe. It will advocate for peaceful solutions to the conflict with Iraq.

This event kicks off the NCC?s second annual "Poverty March," a month-long initiative to speak to the issue of faith communities? involvement in overcoming poverty. The event will include an installation of images of Iraqi children and a performance by folk singer Stephan Smith of his antiwar song "The Bell."

For more information, or to find out how your faith Group can participate, call 415-495-1709. Media inquiries should be directed to Parker Blackman, Fenton Communications, San Francisco, 415-901-0111 or (mobile) 415-990-4781; pblackman [at] fenton.com, or to Carol Fouke, National Council of Churches, 212-870-2252; news [at] ncccusa.org

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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/27/international/27WEB-TNAT.html?pagewanted=print&position=top

The New York Times nytimes.com

February 27, 2003

U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation

The following is the text of John Brady Kiesling's letter of
resignation to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Mr. Kiesling is a
career diplomat who has served in United States embassies from Tel
Aviv to Casablanca to Yerevan.

Dear Mr. Secretary:

I am writing you to submit my resignation from the Foreign Service of
the United States and from my position as Political Counselor in U.S.
Embassy Athens, effective March 7. I do so with a heavy heart. The
baggage of my upbringing included a felt obligation to give something
back to my country. Service as a U.S. diplomat was a dream job. I was
paid to understand foreign languages and cultures, to seek out
diplomats, politicians, scholars and journalists, and to persuade
them that U.S. interests and theirs fundamentally coincided. My faith
in my country and its values was the most powerful weapon in my
diplomatic arsenal.

It is inevitable that during twenty years with the State Department I
would become more sophisticated and cynical about the narrow and
selfish bureaucratic motives that sometimes shaped our policies.
Human nature is what it is, and I was rewarded and promoted for
understanding human nature. But until this Administration it had been
possible to believe that by upholding the policies of my president I
was also upholding the interests of the American people and the
world. I believe it no longer.

The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only
with American values but also with American interests. Our fervent
pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international
legitimacy that has been America?s most potent weapon of both offense
and defense since the days of Woodrow Wilson. We have begun to
dismantle the largest and most effective web of international
relationships the world has ever known. Our current course will bring
instability and danger, not security.

The sacrifice of global interests to domestic politics and to
bureaucratic self-interest is nothing new, and it is certainly not a
uniquely American problem. Still, we have not seen such systematic
distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of American
opinion, since the war in Vietnam. The September 11 tragedy left us
stronger than before, rallying around us a vast international
coalition to cooperate for the first time in a systematic way against
the threat of terrorism. But rather than take credit for those
successes and build on them, this Administration has chosen to make
terrorism a domestic political tool, enlisting a scattered and
largely defeated Al Qaeda as its bureaucratic ally. We spread
disproportionate terror and confusion in the public mind, arbitrarily
linking the unrelated problems of terrorism and Iraq. The result, and
perhaps the motive, is to justify a vast misallocation of shrinking
public wealth to the military and to weaken the safeguards that
protect American citizens from the heavy hand of government.
September 11 did not do as much damage to the fabric of American
society as we seem determined to do to ourselves. Is the Russia of
the late Romanovs really our model, a selfish, superstitious empire
thrashing toward self-destruction in the name of a doomed status quo?

We should ask ourselves why we have failed to persuade more of the
world that a war with Iraq is necessary. We have over the past two
years done too much to assert to our world partners that narrow and
mercenary U.S. interests override the cherished values of our
partners. Even where our aims were not in question, our consistency
is at issue. The model of Afghanistan is little comfort to allies
wondering on what basis we plan to rebuild the Middle East, and in
whose image and interests. Have we indeed become blind, as Russia is
blind in Chechnya, as Israel is blind in the Occupied Territories, to
our own advice, that overwhelming military power is not the answer to
terrorism? After the shambles of post-war Iraq joins the shambles in
Grozny and Ramallah, it will be a brave foreigner who forms ranks
with Micronesia to follow where we lead.

We have a coalition still, a good one. The loyalty of many of our
friends is impressive, a tribute to American moral capital built up
over a century. But our closest allies are persuaded less that war is
justified than that it would be perilous to allow the U.S. to drift
into complete solipsism. Loyalty should be reciprocal. Why does our
President condone the swaggering and contemptuous approach to our
friends and allies this Administration is fostering, including among
its most senior officials? Has "oderint dum metuant" really become
our motto?

I urge you to listen to America's friends around the world. Even here
in Greece, purported hotbed of European anti-Americanism, we have
more and closer friends than the American newspaper reader can
possibly imagine. Even when they complain about American arrogance,
Greeks know that the world is a difficult and dangerous place, and
they want a strong international system, with the U.S. and EU in
close partnership. When our friends are afraid of us rather than for
us, it is time to worry. And now they are afraid. Who will tell them
convincingly that the United States is as it was, a beacon of
liberty, security, and justice for the planet?

Mr. Secretary, I have enormous respect for your character and
ability. You have preserved more international credibility for us
than our policy deserves, and salvaged something positive from the
excesses of an ideological and self-serving Administration. But your
loyalty to the President goes too far. We are straining beyond its
limits an international system we built with such toil and treasure,
a web of laws, treaties, organizations, and shared values that sets
limits on our foes far more effectively than it ever constrained
America?s ability to defend its interests.

I am resigning because I have tried and failed to reconcile my
conscience with my ability to represent the current U.S.
Administration. I have confidence that our democratic process is
ultimately self-correcting, and hope that in a small way I can
contribute from outside to shaping policies that better serve the
security and prosperity of the American people and the world we share.