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Support Student Right to Peaceful Protest- Morton West HS

Support Student Right to Peaceful Protest- Morton West HS

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Please consider signing the petition to defend the anti-war students at Morton High School who engaged in a peaceful protest against military recruiting at their school.

This is how the petition reads:

We are writing in defense of the students who now face excessive disciplinary actions at the hands of various Morton West school administrators. Our sympathies lie with the courageous and moral struggle that the students have taken up, and with their parents who still support them. The struggle for a peaceful and just society absent of war should not be met with punishment, but should be supported by the community as a whole, especially from within the educational setting. Furthermore, It is our firm belief that an injury to freedom for students anywhere is an injury to freedom for students everywhere. This is why we urge all Morton West administrators to drop all disciplinary action against the said students, and to remove any indications of said events from their permanent records. We urge you to respect these students right to free expression now and in the future.

Here is the notice I received about it:

Last Thursday, dozens of students at Morton West High School in Berwyn, near Chicago, staged a protest in the school cafeteria against the Iraq war, and specifically against the military recruiters who have set up shop inside the school. The students were threatened and cajoled into moving the protest out of the cafeteria, with the promise that punishment would be minor. But they were suspended for up to ten days, and 37 are now facing expulsion by the superintendent, Ben Nowakowski.

Immediately, parents went to the school to protest the suspensions. 60 people spoke in support of the sit-in last night at a raucous school board meeting. Because people are resisting the punishments, the story has been in the NY Times, Chicago Tribune, and on the local news. Parents report that in meetings with school officials, they have been pressured to get their children to “turn in the ring-leader”.

The father of a suspended student, wrote this about the protest, “The Army recruiters continue to aggressively hunt down every Hispanic male student as they enter the front door of the high school (since the school is 80% Hispanic) to promise them the world and then send them to Iraq or Afghanistan to get killed for Bush’s Oil, but a peaceful protest, in which the students cleaned up after themselves, is bad and worth losing their high school education over.”

This is exactly the time for people around the country – YOU – to weigh in for the Morton HS Students who protested.

Endorse & forward In Defense of the Morton West Antiwar Students Petition to the Morton West School District.

Most importantly, get on the phone Friday and call the superintendent’s office. Tell him there
Should be NO punishment for the students protesting military recruiters who prey on the youth.

Dr. Ben Nowakowski, Superintendent District 201
2423 South Austin, Cicero, IL 60804
bnowakowski@jsmorton.org
(708) 222-5702

Mr. Lucas, Principal Morton West High School
2400 S. Home Avenue Berwyn, IL 60402
jlucas@west.jsmorton.org
708-222-5901

Let me know what response you get and we will keep you posted on what happens.

Sincerely,
Debra Sweet,
The World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime

Rob Kall at Op-ed News has put together much more detailed information on this incident, including the threat of expulsion received by some of the students.

Mobilize Nov 2 – Start planning now

Mobilize Nov 2 – Start planning now

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Not in Our Name is trying to launch an initiative for November 2, 2005 called “The World Can’t Wait – Drive out the Bush Regime.” They envision mass outpourings of popular protest on the anniversary of the “re-election.” Politics as usual isn’t going to work, and dependence on semi-magical “leaders” in the Democratic party or elsewhere doesn’t appear to be a good option either. Silence and paralysis are irresponsible – what you will not protest and fight you will be forced to accept. We aren’t make much headway tackling issues one at a time.

Your government is openly torturing people, and justifying it.

Your government puts people in jail on the merest suspicion, refusing them lawyers, and either holding them indefinitely or deporting them in the dead of night.

Your government is moving each day closer to a theocracy, where a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism will rule.

Your government suppresses the science that doesn’t fit its religious, political and economic agenda, forcing present and future generations to pay a terrible price.

Your government is moving to deny women here, and all over the world, the right to birth control and abortion.

Your government enforces a culture of greed, bigotry, intolerance and ignorance.

People who steal elections and believe they’re on a “mission from God” will not go without a fight.

—-

We must, and can, aim to create a political situation where the Bush regime’s program is repudiated, where Bush himself is driven from office, and where the whole direction he has been taking society is reversed. We, in our millions, must and can take responsibility to change the course of history.

To that end, on November 2, the first anniversary of Bush’s “re-election”, we will take the first major step in this by organizing a truly massive day of resistance all over this country. People everywhere will walk out of school, they will take off work, they will come to the downtowns and town squares and set out from there, going through the streets and calling on many more to JOIN US.

This is the first of probably several actions that aim to represent the majority as the majority despite losses in freedom of the press – to repudiate this criminal regime, making a powerful statement that this regime does not represent us and we are committed to the refusal of being ruled and manipulated for aims that are not in our national interests.

Imagine if everything just stopped for a day – cars in the streets, people walking, talking with one another. Crowds in public places. They can’t block or arrest everyone. This is a country that is supposed to ensure the right of freedom of assembly – says nothing about permits or “protest areas” in the Constitution. What if major areas all over the country took that one day just to say that they reject what it being done in the name of Americans, and to America and its citizens?

Instead of hostility toward the ones who are still being fooled by Bush Inc – how about a reach out? How about some simple – and accurate – arguments? How about some visual aids? If the protesting is happening all over the place there isn’t a whole lot anyone can do about it! If assembly is peaceable, it’s protected. I say go for it.

This isn’t some nambly-pambly feel-good action. It really means to get out there. Grab ten of your friends and start making things for the camera to see. And…. keep your face off the camera – it’s not impossible that this administration would target you under the Patriot Act as a “terrorist.” And isn’t that part of what’s wrong?

Check out the site: http://www.worldcantwait.org/, and also http://www.notinourname.net/ if you haven’t been there yet. September 3/4 New York City National Organizer’s meeting.

Initiating signers of the World Can’t Wait Call include:

William Blum, author of Rogue State
Prof B. Robert Franza, MD, author of Control of Human Retrovirus Gene Expression
Nina Felshin, author of But Is It Art: The Spirit of Art as Activism
Margot Harry, author of Attention MOVE! This is America
C. Clark Kissinger, Revolution newspaper and initiator of Not In Our Name statement
Rev. Earl Kooperkamp
Travis Morales, Revolutionary Communist Party, SF Bay Area
Jeremy Pikser, screenwriter [Bulworth]
Frances Fox Piven, author of Regulating the Poor
Ralph Poynter, community activist
Michael Steven Smith, National Lawyers Guild-NY
Lynne Stewart, criminal defense attorney
Sunsara Taylor, Revolution newspaper