On July 10-12 the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars & Occupations held its second annual national conference in Pittsburgh. 250 activists from around the country converged to share experiences and to plan antiwar actions for the coming year.
Here are three important dates that came out of the conference that you should mark your calendar with:
1. Aug. 24-25 the G-20 summit is going to take place in Pittsburgh. There will be a number of protests, including one organized by the Thomas Merton Center calling for money for jobs, not war. The National Assembly plans to be there, and calls on activists from around the nation to join us there in an anti-war contingent.
2. On Oct. 5 there is going to be a national protest in Washington D.C. to mark the anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. This will be followed by two weeks of action where local activists are encouraged to hold a wide range of activities to build up for a national day of action on Oct. 17.
3. On Oct. 17 the National Assembly is calling for a national day of action in which activists around the country are to hold local anti-war actions in their communities.
The conference also adopted a number of documents and resolutions:
2009 Action Program
Motivation for the Action Program
Resolution on Haiti
Resolution on Honduras
Resolution on Palestine
Structure Document
And here is a sampling of some of the speeches given at the conference:
“Assessment of the First Year of the National Assembly” by Marilyn Levin
Keynote Address to the Conference by Zaineb Alani
For more info on the conference, and how to plug into the ongoing work of the National Assembly, check out the NA website at www.natassembly.org
