The demands of the demonstration

While we organize around the demand for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the U.S. from Iraq, it is essential that the movement show the connection between the war in Iraq and all the other fronts of the U.S. government's war for Empire, including the struggle of working and poor people in the United States. The demands for the demonstration include:

Stop the War in Iraq

End Colonial Occupation
from Iraq to Palestine to Haiti

Support the Palestinian People’s Right of Return

Stop the Threats Against
Venezuela, Cuba, Iran & North Korea

U.S. out of the Philippines
U.S. out of Puerto Rico

Bring all the troops home now

Stop the Racist, anti-Immigrant and anti-Labor
Offensive at Home, Defend Civil Rights

Military Recruiters out of our schools & communities

Call to Action

Issued May 12, 2005

The anti-war movement must make a precise estimate of the direction of the White House, the Pentagon and Congress as it charts its next steps for mass mobilization.

The people of the United States must mobilize against the global War for Empire that masks itself as the so-called “war on terrorism” and falsely promotes itself as the “march for democracy.”

The people of Iraq are insisting that the United States leave their country immediately. As in Vietnam, the people of the United States must demand the immediate end to this war of conquest. As we fight to end the war in Iraq, we recognize that it is not enough to focus on a single front in this War for Empire. We must unite on a principled basis that recognizes the reality of our epoch. How can this war drive come to an end? People in Iraq, in Palestine, in Haiti, in Venezuela, in Cuba are resisting but the people of the United States must become their allies. Their resistance is part of the universal aspiration to live free from foreign domination or threats of a military or economic character.

The war and occupation of Iraq cannot be seen in isolation. The U.S. is actively attempting to destroy every government that resists the Empire. The Iraq war is not an aberration nor is it a “mistake” of conservative politicians. The war in Iraq is a necessary component in the political program and the institutions of global conquest and exploitation. This is what we must be fighting. We don’t want the troops to be brought home from Iraq only so that they can be deployed in the next front of imperialism. The people of the United States have every interest in renouncing the War for Empire that is directed by the U.S. plutocracy. The plutocrats have the wealth but the plutocracy is in inherent conflict with genuine democracy and with the needs of the people.

This is not just Bush’s war. It is not only a Republican or a neo-conservative campaign. Congress again just rubber-stamped the next $82 billion appropriation to finance the criminal occupation of Iraq. The vote in the Senate was 99-0! The amount spent on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan is now over $350 billion. Likewise, it is the White House and Congress and both big business parties that wholeheartedly support the funding of the ongoing war against the people of Palestine. The occupation of Haiti, carried out by proxy forces, is nonetheless a project of U.S. and French imperialism. The U.S. establishment is preparing to overthrow the government of Venezuela, just as every successive administration has sought, unsuccessfully, to overthrow the Cuban revolution since 1959. While the Pentagon possesses the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet, the White House and Congress and both parties join together with the Corporate-owned media to paint Iran and North Korea as looming nuclear threats. For more than 100 years the people of the Philippines have struggled, and are struggling today, to reclaim authentic sovereign control over their own country, free from endless U.S. interference.

It is time to take to the streets again today, as we have throughout the last few years, to demonstrate the growing opposition inside this country to the War for Empire. Every working person in the United States must know that the corporate, political and military establishment is using our tax dollars, and the lives of our sons and daughters, to wage their global war. It is a war for domination. It is a war for the benefit of U.S. banks, oil monopolies, and transnational corporations. These are the very same corporate entities that are slashing wages, health care coverage, pensions and outsourcing millions of jobs to make super-profits from the super-exploitation of low-wage labor.

The Bush administration cries poverty when it comes to meeting Social Security’s obligations as well as the funding for education, health care and housing. There is no poverty claim, however, for the Pentagon and its corporate contractors: the real military spending level for the next year will be over $600 billion.

Instead of paying for endless war, we demand that the resources be used to meet human needs here and around the world. Instead of acting as shock troops for Empire, we demand that the soldiers and sailors in the U.S. military be provided decent paying jobs at union wages, the right to go to college, and an immediate increase in veterans benefits.

On September 24 we will march and rally starting at the White House in Washington D.C. There will be coordinated actions that day in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The U.S. government says it is promoting the march for democracy and freedom abroad. What a sham. They pretend to promote freedom abroad but at the same time fan the flames of racism, anti-immigrant discrimination, sexism, homophobia and bigotry of all forms at home.

There is nothing more urgent than to construct unity in the face of Empire. Real unity cannot be built by sacrificing the rights of some but rather it will be forged by embracing everyone’s rights and just struggles for liberation. United we are the majority. United we can fight and win.

Organizzazione Comunista Internazionalista