World Can't Wait

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200 Students Witness WaterBoarding

200 students witness water-boarding demonstration at Diablo Valley College (CA)

from San Francisco Bay Area World Can't Wait
Diablo Valley College Inquirer article

On October 30, 2008 World Can't Wait and Contra Costa Radical Action organized a water boarding demonstration at DiabloValleyCollege in Pleasant Hill, CA, (a local community college in conservative suburban ContraCostaCounty). This action was organized to bring awareness and hopefully motivate the students to take some kind of action against the torture and war that is going in their names. The college has a very diverse group of students and the quad area is usually congested with people standing around in groups discussing the latest trends.

About an hour before the demonstration a couple of us walked around the campus informing and inviting the students to the demonstration. We asked them if they had heard about water boarding and if the had any opinions on it. Most had never heard of water boarding but were interested and wanted to check out the demonstration.

We set up in the middle of the quad on a stage with large signs that read "NO TORTURE" and a bench for the water boarding. As I walked through the crowds inviting more students to come watch I noticed that a lot of students were noticing the signs and became interested in what was going on. We ended up growing a large crowd of about 150-200 students.

We Are Not Your Soldiers in Hayward CA

On Monday June 8th, Carly Sheehan (whose brother Casey was killed in Iraq) and Rafael from World Can't Wait went to Hayward High School as part of the "We Are Not Your Soldiers" tour. Hayward High is a diverse working class school in the Bay Area that recruiters regularly come to. There is also a brand new recruiting station that just opened in Hayward, right next to the junior college. We did four seperate hour and a half long presentations, to about 120-150 students. Attached is a rough outline of our presentations. The whole thing was set up by a teacher and a student, who got a few other teachers involved.

Report by Carly Sheehan

Walking into Mr. Dwyer’s class at Hayward High School Monday, I had no idea what to expect from the students I was about to speak to. Speaking for the first time with the “We Are Not Your Soldiers” tour, I didn’t know if the students would be receptive to the message of resistance to recruitment and military service. I’m really heartened by what I found.

Through a multimedia presentation, Rafael and I shared the message of active resistance to military recruitment with the students. The students discussed the experiences of family and friends in the military and what they understood about how the military works. Their knowledge of these experiences was limited, ranging from “They said it sucked,” to “They said the military is a good opportunity.” We also asked if military recruiters had approached the students and if they planned to join the military. Many had talked to recruiters, and a couple actually wanted to join up after graduation.

The New School Students’ Demands & Occupation Are Righteous; NYPD Assaults & Arrests Are Wrong

The World Can’t Wait strongly condemns the NYPD’s vicious and unjustified physical assault on students at the New School, and the arrest of 22 demonstrators. We demand that charges against all of them be dropped immediately, and express our full solidarity and support for these New School resisters.

On Friday April 10, more than 100 police officers converged on students who were non-violently occupying their campus. Video evidence clearly shows cops repeatedly pepper spraying students—proving the NYPD’s earlier insistence that officers did not do so to be an outright lie—and also shows police beating demonstrators on the street. This sort of brutality would be outrageous in any situation, but the fact that the vast majority of it was meted out against students on their own campus is all the more reprehensible.

The demands of the New School students, which included the resignation of war criminal president Bob Kerrey and greater student control of the campus, are righteous. We applaud the courageous, defiant spirit of those who decided to demand change themselves, rather than placing their hopes in politicians who repeatedly promise—but never deliver—such change.

Volunteers Needed at Warped Tour Booth

Sun., Aug. 23rd – Carson California

(Home Depot Center)

The final stop of the national, annual Warped Tour is coming to L.A. This is a special opportunity to reach thousands of youth with our "We Are Not Your Soldiers" campaign and to get the word out about the anti-war protests in October.

Whether we can build a movement of youth who are mobilized in uncompromising resistance to the military on the basis of the horrors that it is perpetrating against the people of the world has everything to do with re-forging an anti-war movement that is truly capable of stopping the crimes of their government. A key part of this will be having a bold presence at Warped Tour this summer.

Warped Tour is a punk rock summer concert that attracts thousands of alternative youth and takes place around the country. World Can't Wait has been to Warped Tour before and had a overwhelmingly positive response from youth who otherwise would not have been reached with the World Can't Wait message.

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World Can't Wait mobilizes people living in the United States to stand up and stop war on the world, repression and torture carried out by the US government. We take action, regardless of which political party holds power, to expose the crimes of our government, from war crimes to systematic mass incarceration, and to put humanity and the planet first.

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