PHA-Exchange> San Francisco Bay Area Gears Up for Mass Mobilization Against War, Corporate Rule, & G8

[Sarah Shannon]

Press Release
May 19th, 2004

San Francisco Bay Area Gears Up for Mass Mobilization Against War, 
Corporate Rule, & G8
Call to Reclaim the Commons unites Peace, Racial Justice, & Global Justice 
Movements

Activists pledge to shut down biotech convention in San Francisco

Bay Area Peace, Racial Justice, and Global Movement organizers have called 
for a mass mobilization to Reclaim the Commons, as the Group of Eight 
Nations (G8) makes ready for its yearly summit off the coast of Georgia, 
June 8-11, and the biotech industry prepares for its biggest convention 
ever in San Francisco, June 6-9. With over 50 endorsers, including Direct 
Action to Stop the War, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and Global 
Exchange, and thousands of protestors expected to flood the Bay Area in 
early June, activists are calling for No War on Iraq, No War on the Commons!

On June 8, the opening day of the G8 Summit, the Direct Action component of 
the Reclaim the Commons Mobilization (RTC) has vowed to
shut down the biotech convention in San Francisco as a demonstration of 
opposition to corporate rule locally and globally.  The announcement comes 
as popular opinion is rapidly turning against the Bush administration's 
polices in Iraq. Organizers are drawing connections to companies like 
Halliburton, whose scandal-ridden operations have come to symbolize 
corporate corruption and exploitation in Iraq.

"From the beginning of the anti-war movement, Direct Action to Stop the War 
has targeted the corporate interests behind the war that's why we shut down 
the San Francisco financial district the day after the invasion. Now that 
Americans are getting a terrible glimpse of US abuses in Iraq, while 
Halliburton, Bechtel, Chevron, and others continue to skim millions from 
this brutal occupation, it's time to connect the dots and expose how 
unchecked corporate power is the real culprit working through groups like 
the G8, they usurp democracy, oppress people, and appropriate the commons 
both at home and abroad. Reclaiming the Commons is where the Peace Movement 
is heading." said Meddle Bolger of Direct Action to Stop the War, whose 
anti-war protests last year resulted in over 2000 arrests.

With the nation still reeling over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq, 
mobilization organizers are making comparisons to similar inhuman
treatment of prisoners in the US, citing the recent California Youth 
Authority expose. Such comparisons strengthen the ties between the anti-war 
and racial-justice movements.

"This mobilization is making great progress toward uniting the Peace, 
Racial Justice, and Global Justice Movements into one single,
unstoppable movement,"  said Luna Pantera, a long-time racial-justice 
activist and single parent from Oakland, California. Pantera stated, "The 
links are obvious: What's happening in Iraq is happening here everyday, in 
our prisons and in low-income communities of color. The same corporate 
power-brokers who are defining international military and trade policies 
that exploit poor countries of color, are also responsible for domestic 
policies that institutionalize poverty and racism -- like huge tax breaks 
for the rich, staggering inequality in public education, unbridled prison 
spending, racist police brutality, and open season for big developers that 
favor Big Business and special interests over the common good."

Organizers define the commons as everything needed to support healthy life 
on earth -- from air, water, energy, and food to public spaces, airwaves, 
culture, and genes. As global public opinion turns strongly against 
biotech, and Monsanto abandons its costly five-year experiment with GMO 
wheat, activists cite the much-hyped industry as a case study of 
out-of-control corporate power,  "Most countries have adopted 
the  precautionary principle, but the biotech industry's revolving door 
policy with the federal government has allowed it to experiment with reckless
abandon their WMDs include irreversible genetic pollution and insidious 
bio-weaponry," said Mary Bull of Greenwood Earth Alliance, an RTC
co-sponsor.

RTC activists say they also intend to leave the Bay Area greener than they 
found it. Food forests, propagation for massive plant give-aways, and 
community gardens are already in progress. Plans are in the works for an 
eco-village for the homeless, intersection beautification projects, and 
sustainable-living showcases. "We are helping ourselves and others get off 
of the corporate grid. We envision thriving, sustainable local 
economies,"  said Eileen Rose of the Green Bloc, a national activist 
network that is pioneering solutions-oriented direct action.

Highlights of the week-long series of events include a teach-in with an 
impressive roster of international presenters, a "really, really free" 
market that contrasts an experimental gift economy with free-market 
capitalism, a biotech world cafi, where participants engage in deep,
democratic discussion of the impacts of the biotech industry on San 
Francisco, a peace march, biodiversity ball, and a racial justice day of
actions.




30,000 children will die in the next 24 hours from preventable diseases.
Click www.TheMillionSignatureCampaign.org,
   to join a campaign that demands
HEALTH FOR ALL NOW ! 
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