ON THE FRONTLINES
A national counter-recruitment conference co-sponsored by the Campus Antiwar Network (CAN) and Military Out of Our Schools – Bay Area (MOOS)
October 22-23, 2005
University of California, Berkeley
The protests on September 24, 2005 were a fantastic indication that the antiwar movement is a force to be reckoned with. Hundreds of thousands of people marched and rallied all over the US, reflecting that the antiwar movement represents a growing majority in this country.
Students have a tremendous role to play in this movement. Just as it is our generation that is on the frontlines of the war — targeted by military recruiters to kill and die in Iraq — so will our generation be on the frontlines of the movement that grinds this war to a halt. This process is already beginning. The Campus Antiwar Network’s “College Not Combat, Relief Not War” contingents on September 24 drew hundreds of students on both coasts, and our chapters have been at the front of a wave of demonstrations this past year to get military recruiters out of high school and college campuses.
Now it is time to take the student movement to the next step — to take the power of September 24 and bring it to every college campus and high school in the United States.
That’s why all student antiwar activists should come to the ON THE FRONTLINES national counter-recruitment conference at Berkeley (October 22-23). With Bush at the weakest point of his presidency and supporters of the war on the defensive for the first time, our side needs to come together to determine where the student movement will go from here. Activists from around the country — students, educators, veterans and more –will participate in and present workshops ranging from first-person stories from Iraq, to debates on whether military recruiters have a right to free speech, to practical discussions on how to start an antiwar chapter at your school. And democratic student organizing sessions will let us turn the opposition at all of our schools into a dynamic, grassroots, national force to stop military recruitment and the war.
We expect this conference to mark the beginning of a serious change in the contours of student politics in the US. Four decades ago, it was out of conferences like this that the Port Huron Statement was written and the Students for a Democratic Society was formed. Our generation’s Port Huron Statement remains to be written. We invite all of you to Berkeley in October to participate in the development of a movement which will not only write that statement, but ultimately will transform its demands into a reality.
For more information on the ON THE FRONTLINES conference, or to register or suggest a workshop, email frontlines.conference@gmail.com or visit http://www.campusantiwar.net/