The Inauguration -January 20th, 2005

For a Global Disruption of Empire

A Call for decentralized, local actions around the nation and world on J20

In Solidarity with the DAWN (DC Anti-War Network, http://www.dawndc.net/) call for groups from around the country and around the world to converge on DC, we call on those who cannot make the trip to Washington DC to organize local actions in their own communities.

Why This Call to Action?

The empire can only function with the complicity of its populace, and the empire we face is global in nature. As a result, our resistance must be as global as the empire we are opposing. The war, neo-liberal economic policies, increased militarization and border controls, the manipulation of the media only for propaganda are faces of the empire that we are facing all over the world. We make this call because our opposition is not only about stopping the inauguration of one president, but about creating a world of dignity, freedom and equality for people all over the world who are currently being crushed under the boot of global capitalism.

We make this call in the spirit of many global calls to action that have come before us, in the spirit of an open invitation. This is an invitation to join in a global insurrection and absolute rejection of the U.S. policies of torture, disappearances without trial and preemptive war, which under the guise of legality and legitimacy threaten to spread around the world and endanger the freedom and safety of all people.

Our Rejection

We call on people around the U.S. and around the world to join in our rejection of the U.S. policies, but also in a rejection of illegitimate elections. Widespread election irregularities and the systematic disenfranchisement of people of color have damaged any hope of a legitimate election in the United States.

Moreover, we reject an administration built on lies and illegal policies which violate not only the U.S. constitution, but violate the inherent dignity of the people of the U.S. and the people of the world.

We look to the traditions of Bolivia and Argentina who ousted their criminal presidents through non-violent mass mobilizations of people and we hope to do the same.

What Will J20 Look Like?

We call on the people of the empire to use their privilege of living within the empire to stop it from functioning on January 20th, 2005, the day that George W. Bush is to be inaugurated the next president of the U.S. Together, we can stop the gears of global capitalism from turning. We call for actions across the U.S. and around the world which are focused on stopping the machinery of war and global capitalism. These actions include both mass mobilizations, street parties, Civil Disobedience and Direct Action as well as Assembleas Populares, Encuentros and other forms of real, direct democracy.

Alongside the bodies in the streets, we also call for networks of
electronic civil disobedience, hacktivism, and tactical media to join
in the struggle. Against the bio-electronic forms of empire dominating
the conduits of capital, media, and everyday life, we make this call in
the spirit of the Critical Art Ensemble, Conglomco, RTMArk, and all the
radio pirates and Indymedia centers worldwide.

Who is making this call?

This call comes from that intersection of absolute militarism,indigenous resistance and the natural, organic movement of people that is known as the U.S. Mexico border. The call comes from a region which used to be part of Mexico, but is now known as San Diego, California. Living on the border, we have an influx of inspiration both from Seattle, San Francisco and Quebec City, but also from Chiapas, Buenos Aires and Cochabamba. We have seen both how war tears families apart as it sends our generation off to die and how occupation at home is very real and operates in our very neighborhoods.

We see hope in the People's Global Action hallmarks and we make this call under those hallmarks.

HALLMARKS:

1. A very clear rejection of capitalism, imperialism and feudalism; all trade agreements, institutions and governments that promote destructive globalisation;
2. We reject all forms and systems of domination and discrimination including, but not limited to, patriarchy, racism and religious fundamentalism of all creeds. We embrace the full dignity of all human beings.
3. A confrontational attitude, since we do not think that lobbying can have a major impact in such biased and undemocratic organisations,in which transnational capital is the only real policy-maker;
4. A call to direct action and civil disobedience, support for social movements' struggles, advocating forms of resistance which maximize respect for life and oppressed peoples' rights, as well as the construction of local alternatives to global capitalism;
5. An organisational philosophy based on decentralisation and autonomy.

The ORGANIC collective
Opposing Repression Globally and Nurturing Independent Communities
http://ORGANICcollective.org

 

I think the West Coast would truly do better as its own nation. It's socially progressive, anti-war, and rational on most economic issues (not bowing to idealogues on either side).

Rather than protesting and continuing to be ignored, perhaps its time Washington, Oregon, California, and Hawaii seceded (I'd be on the first plane to Seattle if it happened). The West Coast economy would be competitive with the rest of America, and King George would no longer have the soldiers or the tax dollars to continue his war in Iraq.

 

BTW, who's running that pirate radio station in DC that's calling for protests on inauguration day? Anyone hear its transmissions? I heard some scraps about it on the news, and the govt is trying to track down the persons responsible.

Reminds me of that old "Captain Midnight" movie back in the 70's where Uncle Charlie was trying to track down that teen boy running the pirate station. And that other guy in the 80s who outpowered HBO by using his own satellite dish as a transmitter and got his message all over the country on HBO stations. They caught him eventually. Actually, he turned himself in.

 

Good stuff. I am not sure about the "neo-liberal economic policies" though. I would ask whose and which policies that term refers to? But I am basically with ya. Gonna be an uphill battle to get the hundreds of millions of sheep to wake up and smell the fascism, but I guess ya gotta start somewhere.

Peace and justice, V=

 

Indeed what we need is a truly global revolution come evolution of the body of humankind.

 

well up to a million protesters are expected to show up in D.C. come J20, which will make the 20,000 who showed up to his first inauguration seem like a joke. And at the first, protesters outnumbered the supporters who showed up by around 100 to 1. Maybe 500 to 1, who knows.

Big times lie ahead people.

 

I'm sure the American corporate news media will censor whatever happens.

 

censor, distort, manipulate, downplay, exaggerate, lie outright, you name it, it'll happen. All except the truth. At least one corporate news source claimed 300 protesters came to bush's first inauguration.

 

I was watching Fox News briefly. Hannity and Colmes were on and said they would talk a little about the tsunami that killed 60,000 people. But first, they were going to talk about 'events surrounding the tragedy', namely the U.N. official who called America stingy, and they spent the rest of the show on that. Thanks for wasting everyone's time, Fox.

 

I'm surprised they even admitted that. I never even heard about the protests in 2001 on the American news networks.

But they did keep showing over and over that couple who suckered Clinton into looking at the dead fetus in the baby carriage when he was in office. They sure have a different set of standards for Bush.

 

I'm sure some people here have heard that the CIA and pentagon officials have infiltrated the U.S. corporate media to control and dicate what (dis)information the American public gets to know. I dunno how well this can be proved, but if it was true, I certainly would not be taken off guard lol. Thank god for the internet man!

Listen to Amy Goodman on "Democracy Now" on pacific radio. I've learned so much more from that one morning news show than all my history/social studies classes combined!
www.democracynow.org also her book "Exception to the Rulers", co-written with her brother. There is so much incredible information available that you'd almost be convinced we live in a democracy!!

 

you sad misinformed person. I'm not a Kerry supporter. I hate the democratic party as a whole. I hate Kerry. I think he was a prop-figure designed to help Bush win the next 4 years. I don't think Kerry ever had an intention of becoming the president (this is just a gut feeling I have, nothing that can be proven as of yet).

We've done our homework. Now do yours. And that doesn't mean watching FOX and believing every word you hear on it. What many of us here are against is the 2 party system. Calling people "sore losers" is extremely simplistic because it doesn't tackle the real issues being discussed. If we loved Kerry and desperately wanted him to win, then I could see calling people sore losers. What we're against is a fanatical party stealing their way to power by disenfranchising people's votes, thereby rendering our democracy officially null. Yet so many poeple like yourself are utterly blind to it. IT IS PATHETIC. Do your fucking homework.

 

I won't call you a "sore loser" or anything like that, because I too voted for Kerry because I despise George Bush.

But ask yourself this: If the names Bush and Kerry had been reversed in all the headlines from Nov. 2 to today, would you still be protesting the election as unfair and undemocratic? Methinks not.

The evidence that George Bush stole this election is simply not there. It was in 2000. You can see what you want to see, or you can objectively assess the evidence and reach the conclusion that the 2004 election was basically free and fair. Of course there are a few problems here and there as there are in every election, but there really weren't any massive-scale problems like there were in 2000.

 

Actually, I know a bunch of people who'd planned to be in DC either way. If Kerry had gotten the presidency, they'd be there to remind him of his promised to revamp the healthcare system and to review all trade agreements in his first 100 days of office. *gets misty for the inauguration protest that might have been*

As for the fairness of the election... I don't know. Here in Florida, I covered the election, with a specific emphasis on voter fraud. And, there was very little that was reported to me that did not come down to poll-worker error. There was one reported incident of Brown Shirt style voter intimidation in Valrico, but nothing large or organized.

The discrepancy reported in votes cast and votes counted in at least one county in Ohio was... interesting... but, it wasn't enough to have turned the election.

My personal theory: Bush won honestly and he cheated. That's why he got such a huge proportion of the vote.

 

A huge proportion? He won the popular vote by 3 1/2 million votes, it was 51% to 48%, that's not exactly huge in my opinion.

 

Point taken. I was thinking about the fact that he's a majority president, which is a rare thing. I had a link somewhere about percentages won in American elections, can't seem to find it now...

 

I wouldn't say that Bush didn't steal this election by any means, and I also wouldn't say that it's not obvious. Personnally, I don't trust the new electronic voting machines farther than I could throw them, and I'd be really interested to see how many place that used them went to Bush. There's no paper trail with those, I don't know about you, but I find that highly suspicious.

This time around, Bush was slightly less obvious about stealing the election, but also, the media has become far more complacent during the last 4 years, and especially after the whole Bush national gaurd issue. They're all scared of losing jobs or of losing this nice cushy deal they've got going with this administration of being told the news and then reporting it.

 

Oh that point, yea it is the 1st majority since Reagan, but there really was no strong 3rd party in this election.

 

out of anyone who's posted here, Paix is the only one who's thinking logically. I've heard numerous accounts of voter intimidation in several battleground states including New Mexico, South Dakota's Native American citizens, and others. They were NOT isolated incidents but systematic attempts at keeping democrats from the polls through ridiculous technicalities which were legally questionable at best, such as for PARKING VIOLATIONS, etc (that actually did happen in at least once instance). I don't know how "obvious" the unfairness of this election was (unless you listen to those who've done the math such as Amy Goodman and Greg Palast), and I don't particularly care about the obviousness. There are some who don't think the corruption in 2000 was obvious! What I do know is there is evidence out there that Bush did not win cleanly...AGAIN.

Greg Palast is one of the best independent, investigative journalists out there, and he's pointed out in detail the mechanisms used to guarantee Bush and co. another 4 years of New World Empire-building power.

Run a Greg Palast seach and do the homework yourselves. I cannot believe that you're all (except paix) buying what the mainstream media has said. Do you really thing they'd cover such stories of voter fraud and disenfranchisement? They didn't even do that in 2000. Greg Palast was essentially "blacklisted" for exposing the truth about good ole' Kathy Harris's and brother Jeb's malfeasance in 2000.

C'mon people, wake up and stop embarrassing me. People in Europe know more about what happened than some of you! Why? because they don't get their info from the U.S. corporate media establishment.

You can try to refute what I've said here, but it would be futile because the evidence IS out there. You've just been too lazy to search for it, so instead you repeat the party line from the corporate news. Meet my good friend, google.

 

You mention people in Europe know more then we do, then how come the European observers who were monitoring the election only complaint was that some of the voting line were way to long.

There's always voter intimadation from both sides in any election, cases here and there don't turn an election unless it was like in 2000 when it was decided by so few votes. Also though, I'm glad if Democrats were being kept from the polls after everything the Democrats did to try to keep 3rd parties out of the election, democratic my ass.