12.21 COLLABORATION CALL TO ACTION

Greetings! You are invited to join a national mobilization of creative, autonomous local acts of resistance to the war at shopping malls around the country on Saturday, December 21.

WHY MOBILIZE?

Our country has entered into a long winter where the winds of war are pushing us into disaster. On December 21, Winter Solstice and the last Saturday before Christmas, the United States will likely be launching its invasion of Iraq, irregardless of weapons inspection results. While our country goes to war this Christmas, millions of people will buy more stuff, oblivious to the global destruction caused by our culture’s ruthless appetite for cheap gasoline and other commodities. Since December 21 will be a major shopping day, we will invade our shopping malls across the country to disallow business as usual and tell consumers, “Stop the buying! Stop the dying!”

MOBILIZATION GOALS

The December 21st Collaboration has the following goals: 1) make the connection between US over-consumption and the global violence that allows us to do it, 2) force Christmas shoppers to take seriously the death that our military will cause, 3) reclaim our right to freedom of speech in public gathering places irregardless of shopping malls’ property claims, 4) show our government through a broad national anti-war collaboration that resistance after the so-called “electoral mandate” for war burns even stronger.



ACTION SUGGESTIONS

Each community involved in the Collaboration should choose its own non-violent form of protest. So far planned actions include the following:

1) standing with anti-war signs and leaflets by the entrance to shopping mall parking lots

2) strolling around inside the mall with anti-war t-shirts

3) making solemn funeral processions with cardboard coffins through the mall

4) guerrilla anti-war caroling

5) creating a semi-permanent presence through a “die-in” or other theatrical display which will require involuntary removal from the building

How you get involved as a community will depend upon your relationships in your city, how this date could tie into your ongoing work, and your ability to be arrested or need to avoid it. Ideally our actions will create strong-enough images to break through the autopilot rituals of consumption and force people to think and explain our acts to their kids. We hope to prevent or at least hinder shopping-as-usual from being conducted in our target locations. Though most people will be focused on the Iraq war, your community may find it appropriate to call attention to the U.S.-aided wars in Colombia, Mexico, or the economic warfare of the IMF and WTO that our government supports.

GETTING CONNECTED

Leaflets and sample press releases will be available for you to reproduce and use if you like. Please subscribe to our list-serv at http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/dec21 for idea-sharing and mutual empowerment. Our website will be up and running in the next few days. We will link you with initiatives we know about in your local area.

*** Please tell us if your community can do something or if you cannot take action but will publicly endorse this call to action in order to give it “more clout.” *** Send an email to tcap@mutualaid.org or send correspondence to Tri-City Action for Peace, Jeannine Collier Catholic Worker, 721 E. Holland Ave, Saginaw, MI, 48601.

By doing autonomous localized anti-war actions on a coordinated date, we increase the impact we can have in local media as well as empower each other with the knowledge that others are standing with us. Fostering collaboration between autonomous local anti-war organizations will mean increased creativity in developing more effective coordinated local anti-war mobilizations that truly reach local communities and increase grassroots control of the anti-war movement.