At our November 2018 meeting in Cleveland, NWTRCC endorsed the No to NATO, No to Racism call from the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC), including a major mobilization to protest NATO’s meeting in Washington, D.C. on March 30, 2019, and other actions on April 4.
NWTRCC chose to meet in Chicago during the weekend of the major protests against the NATO meeting there in May 2012. We participated in the major protest march and leafletted heavily during the preceding rally. Our stand against militarism includes all spending for NATO and similar militarist alliances, whether ostensibly “defensive” or “offensive” in nature.
UNAC’s mobilization call says, in part,
“It was exactly one year before he was murdered [on April 4, 1968] that Rev. King gave his famous speech opposing the U.S. war in Vietnam, calling the U.S. government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world” and declaring that he could not be silent.
We cannot be silent either. Since its founding, the U.S.-led NATO has been the world’s deadliest military alliance, causing untold suffering and devastation throughout Northern Africa, the Middle East and beyond.
Hundreds of thousands have died in U.S./NATO wars in Iraq, Libya, Somalia and Yugoslavia. Millions of refugees are now risking their lives trying to escape the carnage that these wars have brought to their homelands, while workers in the 29 NATO member-countries are told they must abandon hard-won social programs in order to meet U.S. demands for even more military spending.”
A variety of groups will be in D.C. for the large protest on March 30 and for other events up through April 4. Among the groups planning additional events during the NATO meetings are World Beyond War and Black Alliance for Peace. You can see the full list of endorsers (so far) here.
Are you planning to attend any protests against NATO in D.C. this spring? Can we muster a war tax resistance presence to carry some banners, pass out literature, and spread the word about the power of refusing to pay?
