This calendar has been adapted from the events announcements posted to After Downing Street. Click here to view ther complete calendar
September 16th
7: 00 P.M. - Military Recruitment in Maryland's Public High Schools (Silver Springs Library, 8901 Colesville Rd., Silver Spring, MD 20910)
Please join activists at the Silver Spring Library on Wednesday, September 16th at 7:00 pm for a discussion on military recruitment in Maryland's public high schools.
Participants will be invited to work on three ongoing campaigns:
- The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test, (ASVAB) is used as a recruiting tool in 182 high schools throughout Maryland and in 11,900 schools across the country. A student's personal contact information is automatically shared with military recruiters.
Legislation introduced by Sen. Paul Pinsky this year would have prohibited the automatic release of this information. This bill passed the Senate, but died in a House committee. The Peace Action campaign will organize public support to lobby state lawmakers.- Conducting a state-wide study on the Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps Program (JROTC). The JROTC program is offered at over 3000 middle and high schools nationwide. We will investigate instructors' credentials, in-school firing ranges, textbook bias, and other issues.
- Conducting a state-wide study to determine adherence to federal law that mandates military and college recruiters enjoy the same access to high school students. In many schools throughout the state, military recruiters are granted greater access to students than college recruiters.
7: 15 P.M. - How do we end the war in Afghanistan? (St. Paul & St. Andrew United Methodist Church, 263 West 86th St., New York City)
Yesterday's New York Times headline: "U.S. Buildup: a Necessity?" Yet another article questioning continued troop buildup in Afghanistan! 57% of the people in this country do not support continuing this war. How can we expand that majority as we did with the Iraq war in order to convince Congress and President Obama to take action to end the war in Afghanistan?
Join us on Sept. 16th to ask all the questions you need answered so that you can help to grow the grassroots movement against war in Afghanistan. Get all the information and resources to organize a house party as part of UFPJ's national day of action on Oct. 7, the anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan. Click here for information on hosting a "Peace for Afghanistan House Party".
This event is a fundraiser for NYC United for Peace and Justice. We are asking for $10 at the door. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
September 17th
7: 00 P.M. - Learn how Iraqi labor unions are trying to re-build Iraq (SEIU 1199 United Healthcare Workers East, 310 W. 43rd St., New York City, 10036)
Remember this past Spring, when IVAW members Aaron Hughes and T.J. Buonomo went to Iraq for the First International Iraq Labor Conference? There they met with union leaders representing all sectors of the economy from across Iraq. Well, this month, IVAW is excited to host five of those same leaders in an East Coast tour as they head to the AFL-CIO National Convention in Pittsburgh. We kick off this tour today in Washington, D.C., then on to New York City, and Philadelphia.
Five Iraqi Labor Federation leaders representing the largest unions in Iraq are here to make their case for expanded labor rights in their country to U.S. labor leaders, war veterans, and any one else who will listen. During their visit, they will also collect signatures on a petition to Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, calling on her to press the Iraqi government to legalize unions and protect the rights of Iraqi workers.
Sign the petition here and circulate it to your friends, family members, and union colleagues.
If you live in the Washington, DC, NYC, or Philly metro areas, don't miss this unique opportunity to hear directly from Iraqi union leaders about conditions for average working people under U.S. occupation.
September 20th and 27th
5: 00 P.M. - The Lonely Soldier Monologues: Woman at war in Iraq (La Mama E.T.C. . 74A East 4th Street, between 2nd Avenue & The Bowery)
This play is a dramatic treatment of Helen Benedict's book, "The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq" (Beacon Press, April 2009). The playscript was developed with the dramaturgical consultation by director William Electric Black, who saw the potential for a powerful theater piece when he read the monologues Benedict had fashioned from her interviews.
The play’s monologues are all the real words of the soldiers, who will be represented by actors. All but one of the soldiers has agreed to be identified by name and none of their stories have been changed.
In "The Lonely Soldier," Helen Benedict, a professor at Columbia University, humanizes the complex issues of war, misogyny, class, race, homophobia, poet-traumatic stress disorder and more through the compelling testimonials of five women of diverse ethnicities and backgrounds who served in Iraq between 2003 and 2006. By following the women from their childhood through enlistment, training, active duty in Iraq and home again, she vividly brings to life their struggles and challenges.
The play features monologues by seven female soldiers, gathered from Benedict’s interviews and correspondence for the book. Audiences will have the thrilling experience of being face-to-face with the characters, adding the immediacy of theater to what is already a rich literary experience.
More women soldiers are fighting in Iraq than in any other American war in history, yet they face a dual challenge: They are participating on combat more than ever before, but because only one in ten soldiers is female, they are often painfully alone. This isolation, along with a military culture hostile to women, denies them the camaraderie soldiers depend on for survival and subjects them to sexual persecution by their comrades. As one soldier said, "I ended up waging my own war against an enemy dressed in the same uniform as mine."
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