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Greens Take Lead in Several Major Anti-War Actions at the CA State Capitol
By Cres Vellucci,
Press Secretary of the GPCA
SACRAMENTO - As the rhetoric increases regarding whether the U.S. should immediately begin a withdrawal from the occupation of Iraq - as the Green Party has called for from the beginning of the war - Greens in California have emerged in the forefront of many of the strongest actions calling for that withdrawal.
For instance, Greens in the San Francisco Bay Area helped pass a local initiative Nov. 8 - "College not Combat" -
which calls on San Francisco to discourage military recruiters in schools, and former Green Oakland City Council
candidate Aimee Allison continues her hard work as a Gulf War conscientious objector counseling others in the military and in the school about their options.
And, in Sacramento, the State Capitol of California, a contingent of Greens with Veterans for Peace have helped organize a series of aggressive, hardhitting actions designed to stop recruiting in schools, and at the Northern California Military Entrance Processing Station.
Pat Driscoll, a former Green Party congressional candidate and founder of the VFP Sacramento Chapter, was one of many Greens to participate in daily 5 a.m. vigils in front of the MEPS facility, where all new recruits are processed.
The very early morning vigils drew peace activists from throughout Northern California, including Cindy Sheehan.
At least one recruit - after seeing the pickets and reading counter-recruiting literature - decided to walk away and
not enlist, said Driscoll, who explained that "this is where our children will line up to die in an unjust war that can have no winners. The war in Iraq has nothing to do with terrorism - it is just using our troops as cannon fodder."
And, on Veterans Day (Nov. 11), Driscoll and VFP began a campaign - which is expected to go national - that
targets "War Profiteers," companies that make a profit off the recruiting and killing of Americans in Iraq.
At the first target of the "War Profiteer" campaign - the Radisson Hotel, which devotes an entire wing of its operation
to hold "orientation" meetings for young recruits, who are later processed at MEPS and sent to Iraq. These recruits
are housed nightly at the Radisson.
A picket of nearly 100 activists, organized by Driscoll and VFP, confronted the Radisson on Veterans Day to "take the profit out of war." Weekly, and eventually daily, pickets are planned at Radisson Hotels throughout the state.
After the first picket, Driscoll's tires were slashed at the protest site scene.
"I have now been clearly identified by those supporting the war as an opponent of the policies of the Bush Administration, and the war. Our local Veterans for Peace president has had threatening phone calls, and now my
tire has been slashed," said Pat Driscoll, who did not directly accuse any particular person of the crime. However, he noted the tire-slashing happened after a confrontation with about a dozen, pro-war motorcycle riders who jostled peace demonstrators. Greens also held a protest at a prominent conservative talk-show station — the home station of Rush Limbaugh—in Sacramento, which was the site of a"counter" caravan to Cindy Sheehan during in Crawford, Texas stay.
"The reactionary right represented by the caravan, and sponsored by a radio station using the public airwaves, is attacking a mother grieving for her son. It's not right and that's why Greens and others confronted them," said Driscoll.
Finally, in early November, the Sacramento City Council became one of the first cities in the country to not only oppose the Iraq War but to issue a resolution calling for a withdrawal from Iraq to "commence" in a "rapid" manner
- in effect, an immediate withdrawal. Greens helped organize the behind-the-scenes effort to convince the council members to vote against the killing. "Despite public opinion polls which clearly show the vast majority of Americans want the war to end, and the killing stopped, Democratic politicians refuse to call for an immediate withdrawal. They continue to de facto support the Bush Administration. The only honor that remains, the only moral and ethical thing to do to dignify, in any way, this loss of life is to immediately begin withdrawal from Iraq," said Driscoll.
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