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Interested in coordinating an activity or event during the week surrounding the August 31st
partial withdrawal of troops from Iraq? Here are several ideas to get you ready for action!
Please list your action on our national
calendar.
See events
here.
If you have questions or would like support organizing
your action or contacting the press, please email locals@codepink.org.
ACTION IDEAS
- Organize a film showing:
For only
$5, you can get a copy of one of two riveting
DVDs: War
Made Easy or Iraq
for Sale. See a
full list of movies and documentaries about the
Iraq occupation on our newly updated website. Consider
hosting a film screening at a home, library, campus,
independent movie theater, or even outdoors if you
have access to a projector.
- Host a house party: Invite
friends, activists, and allies over to discuss the
impact of the war, share stories, and talk about next
steps for ensuring that all troops, contractors, and
war funding comes home and ways to hold those accountable
for leading us into the invasion of Iraq. Collaborate
with groups that serve veterans' and military family
members. Peace groups can bring a pie and vets' groups
can bring the coffee! Connect the pie
visual to the federal budget and talk about the
need to bring our war dollars home. Purchase our Peace
Pie Cookbook for delicious recipe ideas. Consider
screening
a film or reading
excerpts from a book on the war. **You can also raise funds and donate them to Under the Hood Cafe, place for soldiers to gather, relax and speak freely about the wars and the military. Support services for soldiers include referrals for counseling, legal advice and information on GI rights.
- Host a war criminal card party!
At your war
criminal card party you can spread the word about
where
the next war criminal is appearing, who made the
latest attempted citizens arrest, and how to pass
a city ordinance to promote executive accountability.
Purchase your deck
of War Criminal Cards here. Don't forget to
eat! Host a dinner with food from the Middle East.
Ask your friends to bring something along, so you
don't need to cook all week. Set aside a few minutes
before or after the meal to explain the latest on
the troop withdrawal and the ongoing occupations.
- Bring the bloody reality
and cost of war to your Congressperson: Stage an action with bloody hands to tell Congress
that by continuing to fund war the blood of the dead
is on their hands. Congress is in recess and your
rep may be home in district August 9 - September 12.
You can join Progressive Democrats of America's monthly
Brown Bag Lunch effort and remind your Congressperson
about what the recently passed $37 billion more for
occupying Afghanistan will create - more destruction
and death. Find
a vigil or create
your own. Morning rush hour is a particularly
good time for a picket -- lots of passing cars. When
your picket is over, take one of your signs up to
your Congressperson's office and ask the staff to
give it to him/her as a message from constituents.
Before you visit your congressperson, make sure you
know how s/he voted on the recent supplemental spending
bill.
- Freeway Banner Hang: Find
a visible freeway over pass or foot bridge and hang
a large banner over it. You may want to consider slogans
like "Bring Our War $ Home Too!"
or "Bring Home All the Troops!" or
"Hold Bush/Cheney/Rice/Rumsfeld Accountable".
- Teach-In: Activists
in Washington, DC are coordinating a teach-in on August
29th which will feature speakers on topics such as
"Are we really leaving - what's left behind?"
and "Is life for Iraq better?" and
"The cost of war" and "Accountability".
You can host a teach-in in your community - reach
out to college professors, refugees or people who
work with refugees, members of Military Families Speak
Out or Iraq Veterans Against the War, longtime activists,
etc. Consider hosting your teach-in at a library,
school, or other public place threatened or already
impacted by budget cuts.
- Parade, March, or Rally:
You can coordinate a parade or march to highlight
the cost of war, the ongoing occupations of Iraq and
Afghanistan, to cheer for troops coming home and advocate
for full veterans benefits, and to call for accountability
and prosecution of those decision makers in the former
Bush administration. Invite vets and other ally groups
to each put together a float representing the reality
of coming home from Iraq -- recession, foreclosures,
lack of jobs, looming redeployment to Afghanistan.
Make signs saying "No Soldier Left Behind"
emphasizing that 50,000 troops and tens of thousands
of mercenaries are still in Iraq or "Arrest
Bush & Co." for leading us into the illegal
invasion. Consider marching across a bridge in your
city, to symbolize building bridges between cultures
rather than bombing them. Don't forget a banner and
a camera!
Find instructions on how to make a banner here.
- Are you in Detroit or DC?
Join the Jobs, Justice and Peace march! The
Rainbow PUSH Coalition and the United Auto Workers
(UAW) have invited peace organizations to endorse
and participate in a campaign for Jobs, Justice, and
Peace. On August 28, 2010, in Detroit, the coalition
will march on the anniversary of that day in 1963
when Walter Reuther, president of UAW, Martin Luther
King, Jr., and other civil rights leaders joined with
hundreds of thousands of Americans for the March on
Washington. You can also join the August 28 Reclaim
the Dream Rally and March in DC called by Rev. Al
Sharpton and the National Action Network to begin
at 11 a.m.. at Dunbar High School, 1301 New Jersey
Avenue Northwest, Washington, DC. Bring the "Bring
all troops and war $ home" message to these rallies
and call for "Money for Jobs and Education,
not for Wars and Occupation!"
- Candlelight vigil:
Candles make a subtle and beautiful display. Choose
a public location (Congressional office, Federal Building,
school, library, park -- you know your community)
and read the names of troops who have been killed
in the occupation and/or our statement.
- Host a press conference:
Use any of the ideas or themes on this page
to host a press event, or stage a straight-forward
press conference with key speakers and organizations
represented.
- Art Installation: Provide
art supplies and invite your participants to create
art. If you have time and support, perhaps on a piece
of land post graves with names of the dead on each
one, or a name and photo (if found) of the dead mounted
in an exhibition in a line that people walk through.
Create a public mural or convene a group of artists
to do a chalk sidewalk mural in a public place.
- Don't forget those who created
this debacle! Thus far the U.S. has failed
to prosecute anyone up the chain of command for abuses
that have occurred in the highest offices of the United
States of America. That is why CODEPINK is modeling
justice (with a splash of pink) by calling for the
Citizen's Arrest of Bush Administration war criminals:
Rove, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice and others. As we stand
on the shoulders of the peace and social justice activists
who came before us, we know that change will not occur
unless citizens stand up for their rights under the
law. Make calls to the chairs of the judiciary committee:
Patrick Leahy and John Conyers; the White House and
Attorney
General Holder at the Department of Justice and Congress
or deliver bloody hand images to your congressional
leader.
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