Oc­to­ber 2011 is the 10th an­niver­sary of the in­va­sion of Afghanistan and the be­gin­ning of the 2012 fed­eral aus­ter­ity bud­get. It is time to light the spark that sets off a true de­mo­c­ra­tic, non­vi­o­lent tran­si­tion to a world in which peo­ple are freed to cre­ate just and sus­tain­able so­lu­tions.

Join us in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., on Oct. 6, 2011, to Stop the Ma­chine.

We call on peo­ple of con­science and courage—all who seek peace, eco­nomic jus­tice, human rights and a healthy en­vi­ron­ment—to join to­gether in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., be­gin­ning on Oct. 6, 2011, in non­vi­o­lent re­sis­tance sim­i­lar to the Arab Spring and the Mid­west awak­en­ing.

A con­cert, rally and protest will kick off a pow­er­ful and sus­tained non­vi­o­lent re­sis­tance to the cor­po­rate crim­i­nals that dom­i­nate our gov­ern­ment. orty-seven years ago, Mario Savio, an ac­tivist stu­dent at Berke­ley, said, “There’s a time when the op­er­a­tion of the ma­chine be­comes so odi­ous—makes you so sick at heart—that you can’t take part. You can’t even pas­sively take part. And you’ve got to put your bod­ies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the ap­pa­ra­tus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to in­di­cate to the peo­ple who run it, to the peo­ple who own it, that un­less you’re free, the ma­chine will be pre­vented from work­ing at all.”

Those words have an even greater ur­gency today. We face on­go­ing wars and mas­sive so­cio-eco­nomic and en­vi­ron­men­tal de­struc­tion per­pe­trated by a cor­po­rate em­pire which is op­press­ing, oc­cu­py­ing and ex­ploit­ing the world. We are on a fast track to mak­ing the planet un­liv­able while the mid­dle class and poor peo­ple of our coun­try are un­der­go­ing the most wrench­ing and pro­found eco­nomic cri­sis in 80 years.

“Stop the Ma­chine! • Cre­ate a New World!” is a clar­ion call for all who are deeply con­cerned with in­jus­tice, mil­i­tarism and en­vi­ron­men­tal de­struc­tion to join in end­ing con­cen­trated cor­po­rate power and tak­ing di­rect con­trol of a real par­tic­i­pa­tory democ­racy. We will en­cour­age a cul­ture of re­sis­tance—using music, art, the­ater and di­rect non­vi­o­lent ac­tion—to take con­trol of our coun­try and our lives. It is about coura­geously re­sist­ing and stop­ping the cor­po­rate state from de­stroy­ing not only our in­her­ent rights and free­doms, but also our chil­dren’s chance to live, breathe clean air, drink pure water, grow ed­i­ble nat­ural food and live in peace.

As Mother Jones said, “Some­day the work­ers will take pos­ses­sion of your city hall, and when we do, no child will be sac­ri­ficed on the altar of profit!”

We are the ones who can cre­ate a new and just world. Our is­sues are con­nected. We are con­nected. Join us in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., on Oct. 6, 2011, to Stop the Ma­chine.

Pledge:

“I pledge that if any U.S. troops, con­trac­tors, or mer­ce­nar­ies re­main in Afghanistan on Thurs­day, Oc­to­ber 6, 2011, as that oc­cu­pa­tion goes into its 11th year, I will com­mit to being in Free­dom Plaza in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., with oth­ers on that day or the days im­me­di­ately fol­low­ing, for as long as I can, with the in­ten­tion of mak­ing it our Tahrir Square, Cairo, our Madi­son, Wis­con­sin, where we will NON­VI­O­LENTLY re­sist the cor­po­rate ma­chine by oc­cu­py­ing Free­dom Plaza to de­mand that Amer­ica’s re­sources be in­vested in human needs and en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion in­stead of war and ex­ploita­tion. We can do this to­gether. We will be the be­gin­ning.”

For more in­for­ma­tion visit October2011.​org

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