All day long, Southern Californians heeded the call of the worldwide moratorium against Bush's War on Iraq.
It started early on Wednesday morning when the Interfaith Community United for Justice and Peace held an Ash Wednesday anti-war service at the Downtown Federal Building; and followed it up with some non-violent civil disobedience, which included blocking traffic at the intersection of Los Angeles and Temple for over one hour! Happens that Scott Galindez took some photos 1/2/3. And the global corporate media also took note.
I had a sense that today would be an eventful one on the wire, what with today being the March 5th Moratorium calling for student walkouts, sickouts, etc... And what do you know, students walked out. From South Pasedena, we recieved photos of the walk-out. News and photos came through of a walk-out convergence at Fairfax and Olympic. And though my 2:30 news-reporter didn't know, students in The Valley posted pictures of their school walk-out, and a speaker at the Venice High School walkout posted a report, as did a summary of the student walkouts throughout OC (followed by an OC update), and a summary of walkouts in Ventura County. At UCLA, well over 1,000 students attended a spectacular mid-day anti-war, pro-moratorium rally. And there were walkouts at countless other high schools (Marshall, LACES (see photos), Beverly Hills, Roosevelt et al., et al.), middle schools, and college campuses (USC, UCSB, Santa Monica CC etc, etc) across Southern California -- the reports are still coming in.
Driving home Wenesday evening, I heard announced on the the traffic report that an anti-war protest had blocked the street at Wilshire near the 405 -- the handiwork of the Westwood Not In Our name mobolization. RISE UP! LET'S STOP THE WAR!
Today, 1,000plus people descended on Taco Bell World Headquarters in Irvine, CA to rally in support of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers' (CIW's) struggle to win the first pay raise for Florida tomatopickers in a quarter-century. While highlights at the rally included talks by Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, and Anuradha Mital of Food First, sets by Slowrider and Los Jornaleros del Norte, and the puppets of Art and Revolution; the stars of the day were the 70 CIW members and supporters, who are now in the fifth day of their hunger strike outside Taco Bell's offices, one of the largest hunger strikes in U. S. labor history.
see Photos from the rally; and read a Report on the CIW struggle, posted to LA IMC just after the rally.
3/1 to 3/3/03 Newswire Updates: Photo Report - Irvine PD's Late Night Visit and photo sets:
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CIW communique on Day 8 of the Hunger Strike: Are Taco Bell's Tomatoes picked by Forced Labor?
SUPPORT THE CIW HUNGER STRIKERS -- Call Taco Bell Today!