DASW - Banner Drop for March 19th Action

For Immediate Release On:
March 15, 2004

Iraq Invasion One Year Later: Bay Area Resolves to Return to the Streets Banner Hangs on Highway Overpasses Invite Commuters to Join Anniversary Actions

San Francisco, CA As the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq approaches, Bay Area residents are preparing for massive demonstrations and non-violent direct action to challenge the Bush administration¹s policies of empire-building, permanent war and domestic cutbacks. Community members who are part of Direct Action to Stop the War (DASW) greeted morning commuters in both the East Bay and San Francisco with highway overpass banners urging people to bring their resistance into the streets at 7 am on March 19th.

Opponents of the war and occupation are uniting with teachers, parents, and health care workers upset about the budget cuts in social services that have stemmed from the occupation's $89 billion price tag. Tapping into popular resentment around the occupation's mounting cost the banners read "Education not Occupation," "Healthcare Not Warfare" and "Democracy Not Empire."

Last year, DASW coordinated the largest and most visible direct actions against the war inside the U.S. On March 20th, 2003 an estimated 20,000 people engaged in civil disobedience which shut down the San Francisco Financial District. In the following three days over 2,300 Bay Area residents from all walks of life were arrested for protesting the invasion. Throughout the spring, DASW's direct action campaign continued with mass actions at the offices of war profiteering corporations like SSA, APL, Chevron-Texaco, Lockheed Martin and Bechtel.

"Last year Bay area residents were part of the global majority opposed to the illegal and unjust invasion of Iraq. We are continuing to use non-violent direct action to expose how Bush's corporate cronies have launched a corporate invasion of Iraq using our tax dollars," said Susan Maxwell of Oakland.

The anniversary of the invasion comes as the Bush administration struggles to answer difficult questions about their motivations for its costly and unjust foreign policy. The fact that no evidence of weapons of mass destruction or links between Saddam Hussein's government and 9-11 has been found has led to a sharp drop in Bush's public approval. "The Bush Administration lied to the American public and took our country to war under false pretenses. Iraqis and American soldiers continue to die and billions are being spent on occupation while our schools and hospitals crumble. People need to take action to challenge our government's perverse priorities, " said Denise Castleton, a San Francisco educator.

Direct Action to Stop the War is a community-based mobilization organized through decentralized affinity groups and a directly democratic spokescouncil. The actions on March 19th will be the West coast kick-off of a "Beyond Voting" campaign to challenge the Bush administration's policies of empire-building, permanent war and domestic cut backs with grassroots mobilization for a real democracy.