Feb. 15th - Student Strike Against the War!

[BreadBros]

Tomorrow, students at several colleges and high schools throughout the US are planning a myriad of strikes, rallies and walk-outs as a statement against the war in Iraq and a call to end it. The aim of the events is to shut down business as usual at the respective schools in order to bring attention to the need to end the war. Students at several of these schools are also focusing on pressuring educatonal institutions to divest funding from the industrial-military complex that often provides funding to these schools in return for research capabilities. The date was chosen as it is the 4th anniversary of the Feb. 15th, 2003 anti-war protests (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_15%2C_2003_anti-war_protest) which are estimated to be the largest series of same-day worldwide protests in human history.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...&sn=001&sc=1000 (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/14/BAGVIO4DGD1.DTL&hw=student+strike&sn=001&sc=1000)


It hasn't reached the level of the campus peace movement during the 1960s, but students at more than a dozen colleges from San Francisco State University to Columbia University in New York will stage strikes and rallies Thursday to protest the war in Iraq.

The anti-war demonstrations come as President Bush prepares to send more troops to Iraq and are timed to coincide with the fourth anniversary of the massive protests staged in the weeks before Operation Iraqi Freedom began on March 20, 2003.

"Me and my roommate were hearing all these stories about the war, and we said we can't just sit around anymore. We really need to bring it back to the protests of the '60s," said Alysha Higgins, 19, a freshman at UC Berkeley, where a rally is planned on Sproul Plaza at noon. "We just need to target this war and start this movement."


At Sonoma State, students set up a half-dozen tents for a "camp-in" against the war in anticipation of Thursday's strike of classes and rally.

"It is time for the students to act and try to stop this war and make people aware of all the people who are dying," said Sonoma State freshman Ali Leeds, 18.

The students will stage a "die-in" where they will lie down in the student quad to represent all the people who have died in the war.


At San Francisco State, students will skip class and simulate the roadside checkpoints in Iraq, asking passing students for their identification. They will hold a rally at noon and then march to nearby Stonestown Galleria mall to protest in front of the military recruitment center.


Ironically, the anti-war organizing has been hardest at UC Berkeley, where students in the 1960s and '70s played a leading role in protests against the Vietnam War.

"People are really focused on school and career, and they don't pay attention," Higgins said. "A lot of people are against the war. If we get out there and we are constantly in their faces having conversations with people, hopefully, they will wake up. It is tough, but we have to start somewhere."

Schools that will be participating:

Colleges/Universities:
City College of New York (New York, NY)
Columbia College (Chicago, IL)
Columbia University (New York, NY)
Eastern New Mexico University (Portales, NM)
Fordham University (New York, NY)
Georgia State University (Atlanta, GA)
Lewis and Clark College (Portland, OR)
Mills College (Oakland, CA)
Occidental College (Los Angeles, CA)
Rutgers University (New Jersey)
San Francisco State University (San Francisco, CA)
Sarah Lawrence College (Yonkers, NY)
Sonoma State University (Sonoma, CA)
University of North Carolina Greensborough (Greensborough, NC)
UC Berkeley (Berkeley, CA)
UC Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara, CA)
UC Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA)
Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN)

High Schools:
Lowell High School (San Francisco, CA)
Fremont High (Oakland, CA)
Berkeley High (Berkeley, CA)

For more concrete plans on where people will be assembling and organizing on that day check out this page: http://www.worldcantwait.net/index.php?opt...d=3846&Itemid=5 (http://www.worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3846&Itemid=5) (yes, it leads to a World Cant Wait page, dont worry, World Cant Wait is only one of a myriad of groups organizing this, they just happen to have an updated list of campus actions on their site).

Message from Howard Zinn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Zinn):
"I would like to endorse the idea of a student strike on campuses all over the country on Feb. 15, to rekindle the flame of protest that flared up all over the world on that date four years ago, as ten million people protested the pending invasion of Iraq by the United States. A student strike at this time would be a great boost to the movement against the war and would send a signal to Congress that it should listen to the American people and act immediately to stop this ugly war."

Despite this being tomorrow, students, you can still get involved! If you have the contacts of friends who are anti-war you can organize a walk-out or ad-hoc rally on your campus. If you cant and you live near one of the above schools, ditch your classes and meet up with some anti-war students/radicals at the above-listed strikes/rallies. If you cant do any of those then start making contacts for further action later on.

Lets hope this event is a presage for further anti-war actions by students across the country that brings back the anti-war movement. Of course the anti-war movement needs as many revolutionary leftists as possible involved in it in order to steer it towards anti-imperialism and away from liberalism. I really hope this event works out and gets major coverage by the media so that hopefully an even bigger nation-wide action can be organized later this year.

So I just posted to let you all know about this action since I know MANY of the people on this site are students. What do people think? Criticisms/praise? What further actions should the left try to organize? What are you doing on your campus to organize?

[Sir_No_Sir]

Thats great. Ive called for a democratic student body with real power, but noone really cares. Ive asked if someone wants to start a student paper "The Bolingbrook Agitator", but noone responds. I think I might ask for some kind of action on May Day or the anniversary of the war.

[Guerrilla22]

Of course, my reactionary university isn't a participant. I wish I would have known about this sooner, I could have organized something.

[Kia]

I live in the Bay Area so I'm right next to about 5 schools that are participating in this strike. As usual though the community colleges (I currently attend one) are not participating at all in the strike. I will try my best to Inform everyone i know at Cal to strike.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

The community colleges have the most working class students, and that should be the first place things are organized. Unfortunately, the petty bourgeois leaders that are usually behind these sorts of things write community college kids off.

[BreadBros]

Originally posted by Compañ[email protected] 15, 2007 02:01 am
The community colleges have the most working class students, and that should be the first place things are organized. Unfortunately, the petty bourgeois leaders that are usually behind these sorts of things write community college kids off.
What petty-bourgeois leaders? These were are all organized at each school independently by the students themselves. There was no national selection of schools, students at each school decided to organize stuff themselves based on what they heard about other schools doing (thus the two clusters of organization around the Bay Area and NYC) and then contacted each other to let themselves known. Also many of those colleges listed are majority working-class.

[Kropotkin Has a Posse]

The community colleges have the most working class students, and that should be the first place things are organized. Unfortunately, the petty bourgeois leaders that are usually behind these sorts of things write community college kids off.

That's a little paranoid, as BreadBros said they're self-organised and community colleges could organise at any time. This is what I mean when I say that there's excessive labelling going on as far as what kind of social standing any prospective activist is.

I hope this goes down well and actually gets some fucking attention.

[Cheung Mo]

There is no socialism in America.

Hell, outside of the Bay Area and Burlington, VT, there isn't even social democracy.

[Kropotkin Has a Posse]

There's Noam Chomsky, and he's getting old...

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

What petty-bourgeois leaders? These were are all organized at each school independently by the students themselves. There was no national selection of schools, students at each school decided to organize stuff themselves based on what they heard about other schools doing (thus the two clusters of organization around the Bay Area and NYC) and then contacted each other to let themselves known. Also many of those colleges listed are majority working-class.

Yeah many are. If you'll notice, I said: "....the petty bourgeois leaders that are usually behind these sorts of things..." I'm not sure how much clearer I could be. I'm not sure who's behind this, but I know what the case is many times.

Whoever organized this, or "self-organized," should have done all they could to organize at community colleges, and for that matter, among workers. Student activism, alone, doesn't get much done.


This is what I mean when I say that there's excessive labelling going on as far as what kind of social standing any prospective activist is.


Get out of here with this liberal bullshit. There's not enough emphasis on class. I don't have time to explain historical materialism and class to you to right now.. see this thread for more on it. (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=62558&view=getnewpost)

[Janus]

Unless they get a huge number of students to participate or get the local populace involved, it won't achieve much. It's essential to get more involved as this is a national event rather than a simple college-focused issue that only affects the students.

[Guerrilla22]

Also, it seems very few schools are actually involved and those that are are primarily from the west coast.

[Luís Henrique]

How did it work?

Luís Henrique