Challenging Bush’s Empire: The Right to Resist Saturday,

**new speaker added!**

Challenging Bush’s Empire: The Right to Resist Saturday,
March 26, 7pm

Broadway Presbyterian Church
114th St. & Broadway (1/9 trains to 116th St.)

New speaker: Ewa Jasiewicz, organizer with Iraqi oil workers in occupied Basra, member of Iraq Occupation Focus, UK

Brenda Stokely, NYC Labor Against War, recently reinstated President of AFSCME DC 1707*

Kim Rosario, mother of GI stationed in Iraq

Hadas Thier, International Socialist Organization, CCNY student arrested for protesting military recruiters

Lubna Hammad, Columbia University graduate student, member of Stop McCarthyism At Columbia

*for identification purposes only

As the Bush Administration pushes ahead with its self-declared mandate for world domination – under the cover of “spreading democracy” – the Right has simultaneously
launched a concerted campaign to discredit efforts at dissent. A new McCarthyite campaign has begun against professors, especially those of Middle Eastern descent, who
speak out against US foreign policy.  Soldiers who refuse to deploy to Iraq have been branded as cowards and traitors. Inside Iraq, any resistance to the occupation is painted as
fanatical terrorism.

Yet opposition to the war is spreading both inside the US armed forces and among military families, as well as among students who are fighting to keep military recruiters out of
their schools. Despite the lies and intimidation of the Right, polls show that more people oppose the war than ever before. Join us to discuss strategies for how to fight the US drive for empire at home and abroad. For more info, please email nyciso@hotmail.com or call 212-502-0707

Sponsored by the International Socialist Organization
www.socialistworker.org

More information on the speakers:

Ewa Jasiewicz is a Polish-English journalist, writer and activist.  After the US invasion of Iraq, she worked with Iraq Occupation Watch in Baghdad documenting and protesting
the horrors of the US war.  In the following months, she worked with Iraqi trade unionists organizing oil workers in occupied Basra.  In 2004, she was part of a group of activists who traveled to Palestine to take part in solidarity actions to prevent the destruction of Palestinian homes.  She was detained and expelled by Israeli authorities for her solidarity activities.  She currently lives in England and is an activist with Iraq Occupation Focus.

For interviews with and articles by Ewa, please visit:

http://vitw.org/cat/voices-from-iraq/ewa-jasiewicz/

http://www.socialistworker.org/2005-1/534/534_06_EwaJasiewicz.shtml

http://www.streetnewsservice.org/storyPrint.html?StoryID=18995

http://www.progressivetrail.org/articles/040114Jasiewicz.shtml

Brenda Stokely is a long-time labor and social justice activist. She is co-convenor of NYC Labor Against War and the president of NYC public sector union AFSCME, DC 1707. Targeted for her vocal support for and participation in antiwar and other social justice movements, Ms. Stokely was briefly removed as president of her union without a membership election. After going public and gaining widespread support both inside and outside the union, she was recently reinstated as president. For more information on Ms. Stokely’s fight for union democracy, please visit:
http://nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/143663/index.php
http://www.socialistworker.org/2005-1/532/532_11_DC1707.shtml
For more information on NYC Labor Against War, please
visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LaborAgainstWar/

Kim Rosario is from the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn and has a 19-year-old son in the US armed forces who has been stationed in Iraq since September, 2004. She has been
speaking out against the war in Iraq as part of the movement to end the occupation. At a recent press conference, she told reporters,  “If you truly support our troops, you want them to come home and be safe, you would speak out and write to politicians, march, you’d protest, because they don’t belong there. Bring the troops home now.”

Hadas Thier is a socialist, a social justice activist and a student at City College. After students twice successfully, and peacefully, forced military recruiters to leave campus,
campus security struck back at the school’s career fair. Student protesters were arrested and brutalized by security guards, slapped with multiple charges and Hadas was suspended from school and barred from the campus. A defense  campaign has been launched to get justice for the students and to make it known that the counter-military recruitment
activity will not stop.  In addition to her recent activites, Hadas has been an anti-war and pro-Palestine activist for a number of years.  Below are some of her articles.
http://www.isreview.org/issues/38/zionism_antisemitism.shtml
http://www.isreview.org/issues/17/Ariel_Sharon.shtml Lubna Hammad is a graduate student at Columbia University and is part of a new campus group, Stop McCarthyism At Columbia (SMAC). SMAC was formed in response to the right-wing attacks on several of Columbia’s professors who were targeted for being critical of US and Israeli military policies. For more information about SMAC’s campaigns, please visit:

http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/2005-March/017657.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/junaid03022005.html
http://www.socialistworker.org/2005-1/533/533_16_RashidKhalidi.shtml