ACTION ALERT, ACTION ALERT, ACTION ALERT, ACTION

WHAT: Women's Contingent to International Protest to End Occupation in Iraq and Palestine and Everywhere! 
WHEN: Sunday, September 28
WHERE: Meet at 12 Noon at Hollywood and Vine to March 
Women's contingent meet in park/Metro stop at Hollywood and Argyle. Men welcome to march with us.
Rally 2pm at Hollywood and Vine
Monitors needed to help with the march - call us at 323-292-7405 

Sept. 25-28, people around the world will join in International Days of Protest Against War and Occupation on the third anniversary of the Palestinian Intifada (uprising). The Global Women's Strike (GWS) is a co-sponsor of the LA protest that has been called by International ANSWER. 

We invite you to participate in a women's contingent called by the GWS:
Women Say No Military/Corporate Occupation - Invest in Caring not Killing! at this first major anti-war protest in recent months. 

In the tradition from Palestine, the "Intifada" of the people of Iraq against the US occupation grows each day, and it is up to us to stand with them. All Iraqis are suffering unbearably, but we should know by now from long experience that women are always more vulnerable to occupying armies.  The Iraqi Women's League UK tells us about day-to day-life in Iraq: "We have no security, water, gas, electricity or food, and unemployment has risen to 70%. Women the carers, despite the lack of these necessities for life, are as usual working hardest for day-to-day survival. Yet women's situation is least likely to be considered." 

Similarly, in Palestine women do the grinding hidden work ensuring the Intifada continues against the genocide and apartheid conditions imposed by the occupying and invading Israeli military. Mothers and other women and girls do the caring for the wounded and the grieving, and the work of feeding and otherwise keeping families together and healthy while imprisoned in their own homes by bombings and curfews. They stand and wait in what seem to be unending lines at Israeli checkpoints which have made it all but impossible for women about to give birth and others in urgent need of medical care to get to hospitals, leaving those in need of medical assistance to the care of women in the community. Yet this heroic and essential work by Palestinian women is nowhere acknowledged. 

Women are often the hidden backbone of anti-war activism. However governments justify war, women of every race or religion point to the suffering, devastation and tragic loss of life. Grassroots survival, in Iraq, Palestine or in the US, is not Bush's economic priority, so women's survival work is invisible. Iraqi people and US soldiers are dying daily. 

Internationally 1.5 million children die from malnutrition each year. Here in the US welfare reform, which denies the value of the vital work that mothers, grandmothers and other family caregivers do, has resulted in cuts leaving millions of women and children destitute. There's no money for decent wages for women or men, childcare, healthcare, relative caregivers, disability or veteran's benefits, social security or students. War is the priority for which we're all doing without. 

The September 28 protest is happening in the context of an unprecedented refusal by Third World governments, pushed by thousands of protestors who tore down the wall around the WTO, to submit to globalization -- leading to the collapse of the WTO talks held in Cancun, Mexico. A delegate from Africa to the WTO meetings admitted that the group of 21 got the courage to stay the course against the US and EU because of the protests on the streets. 

Many are inspired by the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, which refuses to submit to the US economic and military killing machine. Grassroots Venezuelans continue to make dramatic economic and social changes. Most recently the government transferred one million hectares of land to low-income people, prioritizing single mothers and Indigenous people. 

This, despite the murder of 63 indigenous and rural leaders by opposition forces just before the land transfer, and a recent illegal US incursion by 15 Black hawk helicopters into Venezuela. 

Like military families in the US, we - mothers, daughters, partners, wives - demand that the troops get out of Iraq and come home now, alive and without more blood on their hands. Payday, a network of men, has set up a Refusing To Kill website tracking stories of refuseniks from around the world <www.refusingtokill.net>

Meanwhile, the Bush administration continues its slaughter and lies, still threatening Iran, Syria and others. Proxy wars in Africa, put forward as "tribal conflicts" representing the interests of the multinationals continue to ravage the entire continent. And destruction of the environment is reflected in "natural disasters" including killer floods in Chhattisgarh, India, Santa Fe, Argentina, and record-breaking heat in Europe. War, occupation, genocide, environmental devastation, it reflects the US agenda, that prioritizes war and profit over people and the environment, and we must make a difference. But everywhere, from South Africa to Palestine, to Iraq to Venezuela, women are refusing to be only victims and are standing against US policies, demanding that they and their families will survive. It is up to us to stand with them, it is up to us to stop Bush's "war without end". 

So, mark your calendars for Sunday, September 28th and come out to oppose occupation in Iraq and Palestine and all war. Look for our yellow banner WOMEN SAY NO MILITARY/CORPORATE OCCUPATION - INVEST IN CARING NOT KILLING. 

In the tradition begun by the Global Women's Strike, a truck will be available for elders and others unable to walk the march route. Bring your friends, circulate the info to your email list. To add your organization's name to the growing list of endorsers, call ANSWER at 213-487-2368. For more on the Women's Contingent call 323-292-7405 or 
email: la@crossroadswomen.net website: http://womenstrike8m.server101.com.

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