March 21 Protest: Veterans to Lead Dramatic Actions in LA : LA IMC

Veterans Will Lead Dramatic Actions
At March 21 Protest in Los Angeles
Rally, March & Symbolic "Die-In" Targeting the War Machine

This Saturday, March 21, 12 noon
Gather Hollywood Blvd. & Vine St., L.A. (between Vine & Ivar)
March to Hollywood & Highland area
Map & Directions Public Transportation

Click Here for Detailed Protest Logistics & Parking Info

Click on the links below to get involved:
-Volunteer at March 21
-Endorse March 21
-List of Organizing/Transportation Centers
-Join the Youth & Student Campaign of Resistance
-Donate

March 21 is this Saturday and momentum is building. Thousands of people will converge at 12 noon at Hollywood and Vine for a major rally followed by a protest march. March 21 is the sixth anniversary of the criminal Iraq war, and despite what the media says, the war rages on.

Students, veterans, progressive activists, union members, working families and so many others will be there in LA with a message directed to the Pentagon and White House: "Stop the Wars, Fund People's Needs!" People need jobs, health care, education, and housing right here at home; not more money going to kill innocent people abroad; not more money going to bailout and enrich wealthy bankers and CEOs on Wall Street.

Rally, March & Dramatic Actions

This protest in Los Angeles will be different from others in years past. On Saturday, the main rally will start at 12 noon at Hollywood and Vine. There will be speakers, musicians, spoken word and more.

After the rally, there will be a march through the busy streets of Hollywood. The march will be led by a contingent of mock coffins draped with Iraqi, Afghani, Palestinian and U.S. flags to represent deaths caused by U.S. wars and militarism.

When the march reaches Hollywood and Highland, there will be a symbolic "die-in" led by veterans, students and young children. The "die-in" action is something in which everyone can participate. We will sit down and lie down at the busiest corner in L.A. It will be a symbolic action to visually represent the mass destruction wrought by the Pentagon war machine abroad.

The "die-in" will be followed by a dramatic procession of the mock coffins to the doorstep of the Armed Forces Recruitment Center in Hollywood. The recruitment station's only function is to get young people from our communities to be cannon fodder for the war machine. Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans will lead this procession. Anyone who is part of the march can participate in these dramatic actions. The march is fully permitted.

The dramatic actions will be followed by brief closing remarks from several community peace and justice organizers.

Bring everyone you know to March 21. This is a new beginning of resistance for the anti-war/peace movement. March 21 will be a critical opportunity to let the new administration in Washington hear the voice of the people demanding an immediate end to wars and occupation, and demanding economic justice. All out for March 21 in LA!

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Iraq War and Other Veterans on
Why They Are Marching on March 21 in Los Angeles
Veterans & Service Members Task Force of the ANSWER Coalition

Click Here to find out more about the Task Force and join the March 21 contingent. Below are profiles of two Task Force founders who live in Southern California and will march in LA this Saturday.

Iraq War Veteran Michael Prysner

“I’m marching against U.S. wars and the Pentagon war machine on March 21 in Los Angeles because, regardless of the new administration, service men and women are still dying in the streets of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan. They are dying not to serve a noble cause; they are not dying for freedom or democracy. They are dying to secure massive profits for U.S. corporations.

They are not dying because they want to kill and be killed in wars for the rich. They are dying because they wanted access to a college education; they are dying because they wanted a living wage, access to health care and a home for their families. I’m marching on the Pentagon because all the hardships that push working people to die for U.S. imperialism could disappear if the money used to feed the war machine was used to meet the needs of people instead.

I’m marching on March 21 because not a day passes when innocent people are not killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. I’m marching on the Pentagon because I believe in the right of all peoples to self-determination, and I oppose the murder of the poor and oppressed for the super-profits of a few multi-billionaires."
—Michael Prysner

Meet Mike Prysner:

Mike Prysner joined the U.S. Army when he was 17, between his junior and senior year of high school.

Mike left for basic training in June 2001, and spent six months training at the U.S. Army Military Intelligence Academy, where he was taught to operate a radar system used to call air strikes and artillery barrages on vehicle convoys. Mike was assigned to he 10th Mountain Division in Fort Drum, N.Y., and in March 2003 his company was attached to the 173rd Airborne Brigade to take part in the initial invasion of Iraq.

“I left this Army with a new understanding of the system under which we all live, and the nature of U.S. foreign policy. But, I still had the same drive to fight for freedom, justice and equality as I did when I joined, and I understood that fighting for those things meant fighting against the U.S. government, not on behalf of it.”

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U.S. Army Veteran John Acevedo

I will march on the streets of Los Angeles on March 21 because I’m tired of the lies and broken promises. George W. Bush is gone—but war and aggression are still here and have no end in the minds of U.S. politicians. Iraq remains occupied; the U.S. war machine has scheduled an escalation of aggression on Afghanistan; Palestine remains under siege.

The murder of millions of innocent people is being waged by warmongers who sit in the comfort of their plush homes while people like us do all their dirty work. I have more in common with the peoples of Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan than I do with the wealthy and privileged of this country.

The plundering and misery will not end by the kind hearts of the war-makers. We the people from below have to build our own movement, in the interests of all working-class people in the United States and abroad, to finally put an end to criminal wars."
—John Acevedo

Meet John Acevedo:

John Acevedo grew up in Boyle Heights, a neighborhood in East Los Angeles. His parents are immigrants from Mexico. John joined the Army right after high school and shipped off to Fort Sill, Oklahoma in September 1999.

John served in the Army from 1999-2003. He was stationed in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. His job description was Paratrooper/Field Artillery (cannon crew member) in the Alpha Battery, 1st Battalion (Airborne), 321st Field Artillery Regiment.

John deployed in early 2003 to Hungary where he was a member of a QRF (Quick Reactionary Force) team with Hungarian soldiers in a military base that served as a hold-over for Iraqi nationals.

Of his current political involvement, John writes: “I used to support U.S. actions in Iraq. I was even in the Republican Party! But when I came back home and rejoined my community, where there was an absence of jobs, healthcare and money to live a dignified life, I started to question where U.S. interests really lay. Also, keeping in touch with friends that had re-enlisted and deployed to Iraq changed my perspective. Luckily I knew progressive-minded people here at home who helped me get involved in the anti-war movement.”

Click Here to find out more about the Task Force and join the March 21 contingent.

Donate to the March 21 effort today

ANSWER needs to raise $3,000 dollars before March 21 to pay for the costs of the protest. Please donate to help make the action a success. We need your activism, your energy and your financial assistance. Please make donation today by clicking this link.

For more info call 213-251-1025 or email answerla@answerla.org.

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A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War and End Racism
213-251-1025
http://www.answerla.org
answerla@answerla.org
137 N. Virgil Ave., #201
Los Angeles, CA 90004
Join us at ANSWER meetings - contact us to get involved!

- At any given permit march there will be hundreds of police both in uniform and undercover.
- HLS, DIA, FBI and other federal agencies will also be there to monitor and gather intelligence.
- Every square foot of the parade routes typically granted permits are covered by video surveillance cameras.
- Anyone who stays in the street after the permit time expires will be subject to arrest.
- Corporate media coverage will be poor. Corporate media may be there but mostly likely to distort the message
- The organizers of the event may side with the police if there are any incidents of police violence.

- In the city of Los Angeles for example it costs $312 to apply for the permit and permit holders must also be bonded meaning they need close 1/4 million in funds to back up the bond. In addition applicants must sign an indemnification and hold harmless agreement, which means the applicant signs away to the right to sue the city for claims related to the event. The applicant also needs to provide proof of insurance. This insurance can cost 1,000s of dollars.

The high cost of permits effectively shuts out true grassroots groups from getting permits and allows only larger national organizations with connections to well funded political parties to be granted permits.

Activists should recognize that the permit requirement for protests is a violation of the first amendment of the US constitution in that it abridges the right to peaceable assembly. The permit process does precisely what it is designed to do: render authentic spontaneous protest illegal.

True grassroots activists should never take out a permit or “work with the authorities” in any manner. There are some important reasons for this: first, permit marches are not protests, a protest is when you do something in protest, something not approved by the person or institution you are protesting against.

The idea of asking for permission to protest is absurd. Permit marches are police controlled parades from start to finish. To ask for a permit to march and to follow the police approved route is to say the police have the power over the protest not the protesters.

By adhering to the permit process the protest is rendered impotent and ineffective before it even occurs. If you have to ask for a permit to exercise a right, you have already lost that right.

If the police feel for any reason they are not in control of the event they will attack it. The police define control has the capacity to deploy overwhelming force and end the event if so ordered.

Those who truly want to protest should consider NEVER attending any police controlled permit marches. Instead they should work within their local community to organize and prepare for meaningful authentic protests at sites where the policy they are protesting against is being instituted.

Symbolic protests at government buildings or heavily policed commercial sections of the city do not develop community solidarity the way local vigils and demonstrations can. (There are many tactically and logistical reasons why these are bad places for demonstrations.) National organizations who seek the formation of a mass movement for peace and social justice should consider changing their tactics and stop repeating themselves by continuing to plan protests at the same sites and same seasons of the year.

Non-aligned independent activists should consider forming their own community based protests and never attending permit marches organized by others who are working with the very authorities they claim to be protesting against.

Activists need to be more creative in identifying and organizing protests at sites that pose the greatest potential for preventing or impeding the government/corporate policy they are protesting against. To be effective a protest needs to work in some way to directly negate the injustice at hand otherwise the protest is merely symbolic protest and should not be considered an effective or worthwhile action.

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March 21 Protest: Veterans to Lead Dramatic Actions in LA

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