MARCH 5 -
National Moratorium
to Stop the War on Iraq

The Next Phase of Conscience and Resistance To Stop the War before it Starts

No School, No Work, No Business as Usual

Whoever you are.

Wherever you are.

What’s that line you haven’t crossed yet to show your determination to stop this war?

The line may be different for everyone. But whatever it is, prepare to cross it on March 5,

in large and small acts of courage, singly and together

To stop the war on Iraq!

 “One day in March the Air Force and Navy will launch between 300 and 400 cruise missiles at targets in Iraq…more than the number that were launched during the entire 40 days of the first Gulf War…‘so that you have this simultaneous effect, rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, not taking days or weeks but in minutes.’” (CBS News, January 27, 2003)

If you had known about Hiroshima in advance, what would you have done to stop it? Today’s war-makers are telling us what they plan to do, including the possible use of nuclear weapons. This war will visit unspeakable terror and suffering on the people of Iraq, in the name of “liberating” them. It will put people all over the planet at risk, in the name of protecting them. It will, no doubt, be accompanied by even more severe repression within the U.S. against immigrants and against resisters. And it will mark another terrible step – the most horrific one yet – into a future of endless war and severe repression.

Despite huge outpourings of protest around the world, including here in the U.S., the war-makers refuse to listen. We must build on everything that’s been done to date and intensify our work to stop them.

We must act on our conscience and resist as if the future depends on it – because it does. We must inspire, organize and expand political resistance throughout society – where we live and where we work, where we go to school and where we raise our children, where we play and where we pray. Students have called for March 5 as a day to walk out of class. We are calling on all groups and all people to expand the day to one of society-wide resistance – a day to act together to manifest opposition to this shameful, unjust and racist war and our determination to stop it.

On March 5…

• You could call in sick (sick of war, sick of militarism…)
  


• You could close your business.
  


• Professors could cancel classes.
  


• Students could plan citywide high school walkouts and other campus actions, joining with student strikes being organized across the country.
  


• City councils and county boards that have passed resolutions against the war could mark the day with town hall meetings, teach-ins or other ways.
  


• Unions that have passed anti-war resolutions could call job actions.
  


• You could stand for peace at the nearest post office or government building.
  


• You could begin a campaign of bold letters to legislators, the president and his secretaries.
  


• You could establish “no war zones” with signs and banners at strategic intersections (as they are doing in Atlanta).
  


• You could hang banners from major overpasses (as they are doing in Chicago).
  


• You could bring your protest to a military facility, with acts of civil disobedience “supporting” the soldiers by attempting to stop the U.S. military machine from sending them off to war.
  


• Houses of worship could call for special services that day; could call their congregations to protest at military recruiting offices or elsewhere; could open their doors to conscientious objectors.
  


• You could engage in nonviolent direct action at appropriate locations.
  


• You could begin a dialogue on how to bring about a peaceful and just world.
  


• Afternoon or evening convergences could bring together everyone who’s acted earlier in the day to voice opposition in the streets and at community gatherings.

The possibilities are endless, collective and individual.
Lay something important in your life on the line,
Along with hundreds of thousands of others

On the same day.

TO STOP THIS WAR ON IRAQ.