Direct Action to Stop the War March 19th Media Advisory

Direct Action to Stop the War
http://www.actagainstwar.net


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACT:
March 18, 2008 Blake McConnell, 415 308 3343

Michael Reagan, 510 846 0490
MEDIA ADVISORY

Nonviolent Direct Actions Throughout San Francisco
Mark 5th Year Anniversary of the Iraq War

Group that shut the city down 5 years ago will again target war profiteers and politicians with nonviolent civil disobedience and other creative protests

WHEN: Wednesday, March 19, 7:30 AM, continuing all day

WHERE: Gather at Market and Sansome Streets. Protest actions will be held at various SF offices of government officials and war profiteering corporations

WHAT: Tomorrow on the 5-year-anniversary of the U.S. attack on Iraq, San Francisco will join some 300 cities throughout the United States that plan to resist the tragic and costly war and occupation. Coordinated by the group Direct Action to Stop the War, Bay Area residents from all walks of life will participate in nonviolent direct actions. Planned actions include:

• 7:30 am peaceful civil disobedience begins: War machine tours of shame leaving Sansome and Market throughout the day accompanied by the Brass Liberation Orchestra.

• Bikes Not Bombs: Bikers will be leaving Justin Herman Plaza at 7:30, 9:00 and 11:00am to support the day’s actions.

• 10:00am Guerrilla Street Theater with legendary performer Keith Hennessy

• 11:00am Words Against War, Market at Montgomery. City Lights Bookstore co-sponsors an anti-war read-out featuring Jack Hirschman, SF Poet Laureate; Guillermo Gómez-Peña, performance artist; Rebecca Solnit, author and activist; and MC James Kass of Youth Speaks.

• 12 noon Iraq War Moratorium action at Diane Feinstein’s office, Market at Montgomery.

• Decentralized actions continue throughout the afternoon. Contact Blake McConnell or Michael Reagan for updates.

• 5 pm Civic Center March and Rally organized by A.N.S.W.E.R.


Other actions may included sit-ins and blockades of building entrances targeting the offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and war profiteering companies such as Bechtel, Chevron, the Carlyle Group and URS Corp.

The actions in San Francisco and throughout the United States will highlight the human cost of the war – which includes more than 1 million dead Iraqis* and 3,900 dead US soldiers – as well as the loss of nearly $2 trillion in funds that could have been spent on people’s basic human needs instead of on death and destruction in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We want San Franciscans to stop and think about the damage that our government has done to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. Five years of war and destruction is far more than any people should have to bear, and we need to hold accountable the government leaders and corporations that have let this go on for way too long – or even want it to continue because they’re making a killing off the war,” said Michael B Reagan, organizer with Direct Action to Stop the War.

WHO: Direct Action to Stop the War is a decentralized network of individuals and organizations committed to ending the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. We demand an immediate and unequivocal end to the war. Tomorrow’s actions are in solidarity with the students who are protesting at the UC Regents’ meeting nearby, with those who are protesting at the Marine Recruiting Center in Berkeley, and with the acts of civil disobedience in Washington DC organized by United for Peace and Justice.

For more information about the San Francisco action, see http://www.actagainstwar.net. For a list of actions throughout the United States, including a massive nonviolent civil disobedience planned for Washington, DC, see http://www.5yearstoomany.org/

* Opinion Research Business, January 2008