[A-List] Fwd: Cynthia McKinney Speaks at West Coast May Day Work Stoppage - No Peace, No Work

[tully <tully2@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello!  Today was a beautiful day.  Longshore and Warehouse workers all up
and down the West Coast, from the border with Canada to the border with
Mexico, refused to go to work for eight hours and rallied against the war
instead.  This work stoppage included Los Angeles and Long Beach ports, the
nation's busiest and second busiest ports, respectively.  Grassroots members
of the Democratic Party are unnerved at reports that Speaker Pelosi is
planning yet another "blank check," war funding bill for the President's
signature.  Today's action of resistance marked a distinct signal in the
heart of a core constituency of the Democratic Party that something is about
to change.  A representative of the Freightliner Five in North Carolina
joined us in San Francisco as an act of solidarity, even as they struggle
against their own corporate labor leadership.  Work stoppages of solidarity
were reported in New Jersey, Texas, and even in Iraq!  One thousand
marchers, Danny Glover, and Cindy Sheehan joined me at the rally.  Here are
my remarks:

Cynthia McKinney
ILWU Bay Area Remarks
San Francisco, California

May Day, 2008

It's a beautiful San Francisco day for a peace and dignity strike!

One day off to put peace and justice on the table!  Today's action is as
historically significant as the decision of four young university students
who sat in for justice.

The strong, proud men and women of the ILWU have drawn a line in the sand.  And
I am proud of you!

By your actions here today, you too have declared your independence:  from
the policy makers now responsible for every bomb dropped, every child
killed, every veteran maimed, every dream deferred.

Your line in the sand is a demand for public policy that reflects your
values.

Your line in the sand:

A livable wage,

Repeal of the Bush tax cuts,

Repeal of the Patriot Acts, the Secret Evidence Act, the Military
Commissions Act.

The right to unionize,

Single-payer health care,

Repeal of NAFTA,

An end to the Bush-Pelosi war.

Military Recruiters out and more teachers in our classrooms!

Nancy Pelosi wants to sneak another war-funding bill to the President.  She
thinks we don't know.  She thinks we won't care.  She thinks she can
bushwhack and bamboozle us from the Speaker's Chair.

But Nancy, we're watching you!  In fact, the whole world is watching.  We
see you when you choose to spend $720 million a day for war and yet teachers
are being laid off in your district!

Speaker Pelosi, we see you when you remain silent on torture that violates
the law; irreparably harms and sometimes even kills the innocent; and robs
us all of our dignity as Americans.

Speaker Pelosi, and my former colleagues, how can you continue to give a
half-trillion dollars annually to the Pentagonâan institution that's "lost"
$2.3 trillion, and that didn't even protect itself on September 11th?

Republican President Dwight Eisenhower told us that every dime spent on war
was in a very real sense a theft from those who are in need of food,
shelter, and clothing.

Senator Feinstein was forced to leave the Military Construction subcommittee
because she was voting on public policy that directly benefited her husband.
And hence, her own bottom line.

The ILWU and all of us gathered here today want our young men and women to
come home nowâalive.

All of us gathered here today understand what George Washington warned of
over 200 years ago:  He warned us to beware the false patriots who, by
cunning and ambition subvert the power of the people and usurp for
themselves the very reins of government.

Snipers' bullets and assassins stole my generation of true patriots.  One of
them said, "A man can't ride your back unless it's bent."  Our
representatives can betray our values only so long as we continue to give
them our vote, because it is our votes that give them their position of
power over us.

Another of my generation's true patriots said, "Some see things as they are
and say why; I dream of things that never were and say 'Why not?'"  With our
vision, values, and our votes, we can make real our dreams that never were.
Why not?

Thank you!

I travel next to Detroit to participate on May 3rd in special Water
Commission hearings as the right to and a lack of water is being discussed
by residents.  For more information on my schedule, please visit
www.allthingscynthiamckinney.com.

-- 
"And advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific
genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a
politically useful tool."
PNAC, Rebuilding America's Defenses, p. 60

The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and
policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish
idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two
parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can "throw
the rascals out" at any election without leading to any profound or
extensive shifts in policy.
-- Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in our Time