January 2013 Archives
January 22 marked the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruling that legalized
abortion. Yet today the procedure is more stigmatized, more dangerous to provide,
and more difficult to access than at any time since legal confirmation of women's reproductive freedom. Bay Area activists commemorated this important milestone from the steps of San Francisco City Hall. Video hereAre you outraged that the reactionary forces that would undo four decades of legal precedent target San Francisco with their hateful vision of repression? The use of violence and murder as "God's punishment" for abortion providers is intolerable and has no place in a decent world.
STOP PATRIARCHY: end the enslavement and degradation of women
In addition to a massive outpouring of grief, the suicide of Reddit co-founder, programmer, and Internet activist Aaron Swartz has prompted a great deal of anger among members of the online and tech communities who knew him best. Swartz was awaiting trial for using MIT's wireless network to download 4.8 million academic documents from JSTOR (he had legal access to the online library as Harvard researcher at the time) with the apparent intention of distributing them for free. Many seem to believe that the strain of the case, which the Swartz family called "the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach," pushed the already depressed 26-year-old over the edge...
Obama's second term officially started on Sunday at noon, as dictated by the Constitution, after a
private swearing in at the White House.
At noon on Sunday about two dozen protesters gathered at either end of the Golden Gate Bridge, some wearing orange jumpsuits to evoke images of Guantanamo Bay prisoners, to mark the eleventh anniversary of the notorious American prison camp.
KGO/CNN photo
Recently returned from a peace delegation into war-torn areas of Pakistan, Code Pink member Toby Blomé added: "Obama promised to close Guantánamo in his first year. Yet he just signed the National Defense Authorization Act which adds even further restrictions on the ability to obtain transfers for Guantánamo prisoners! Secret Black sites and extraordinary rendition continue. SHAME!".
Zero Dark Thirty opened Friday at the AMC multiplex in Emeryville to demonstrations by groups protesting the use of torture.World Can't Wait and other activists (including
Amnesty International and Code Pink) were there, flyering and agitating around a statue-still man in Guantanamo
jumpsuit, hood and chains. His
signboard read: "Torture is ALWAYS
illegal, immoral and unacceptable - Don't Buy CIA Lies!"
We
talked to scores of moviegoers and many reporters, and gave out about 1000
flyers. The audience going into the theater was receptive in the main - many
people of all ages knew something about the controversy over this film and
torture, most took a flyer, a few stopped to talk. One guy had heard of the controversy last month when Debra
Sweet was interviewed about it on KPFA Flashpoints, and came now to support us.
Coming out after the film, people's response was a lot more sharply opinionated. A lot of people told us
in various ways that yes, they recognized the movie is glorifying the CIA and justifying
torture as necessary to defeat terrorism.
Many were also sympathetic to our fuller denunciation of torture as a
war crime and crime against humanity, and our demand that war crimes and war
criminals be brought to justice. But
some - not nearly as many, but loud - told us off: they'd say torture is
necessary, they approved because it's protected "us," and why didn't we shut up
and/or go protest the terrorists who want to kill us, etc.
photo by Sean Havey, SF Chronicle
This
movie, somewhat of a societal controversy, is an important opportunity to seize
on because it's put these questions on the table as millions of Americans see
it.
It
was good to encounter so many people who weren't that sucked in by this (very
slick yet somehow very old-fashioned "white hat cowboys/violent dark savages")
film, including the woman interviewed In the news video posted by the SF
Chronicle. Where, by the way, a
large color photo of the "Guantanamo prisoner" is on today's front page with a
major article (and more photos of our protest) about the ongoing commotion over
the CIA's role in the making of this film, now that Senator Feinstein is
ordering the CIA to 'fess up about what that entailed. Good!
MEDIA
WRAP:
KQED
Short
video from SF Chronicle:
ABC
-KGO Channel 7 TV news
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/politics&id=8942685
Join the discussion of Zero Dark Thirty and these
protests on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/events/188289341311367/permalink/188289344644700/
World Can't Wait is calling on people around the
country to be at theaters, to say NO TORTURE IN OUR NAMES! CLOSE
GUANTANAMO and STOP ALL TORTURE NOW! People have to protest -- in direct,
creative, and public ways -- to expose and challenge the core message of this
film: that torture "works."
Download
and print our flier and take it with you to the film's opening near you
Get palm
cards for distribution
Go to showings with a stack of these fliers, posters and some friends donning
orange jumpsuits
Take photos and send them to reports@worldcantwait.net.
Post your protest to our event
page and we will help connect you with others in your area who put humanity
and the planet first.
Reichsluftschutzbund personnel march past near the Nuremberg Frauenkirche in the 1934 Nuremberg Rally-Screenshot from Triumph of the Will.
with the"propaganda amendment" of the 2013 NDAA, just signed into law by the president, that the future will hold much more overt corruption of Hollywood and the rest of US pop culture. This amendment legalizes something that has been illegal for decades: the direct funding of pro-government or pro-military messaging in media, without disclosure, aimed at American citizens.
National Website
Local Contact
San Francisco, CA 94103
sf@worldcantwait.org
415-864-5153
