23 students arrested occupying military recruitment center

Received from the Slamista listserve: At noon, Monday, March 12, 2007, nearly 100 students from area universities marched to the armed forces recruiting station on 157 Chambers Street. Twenty-three members of Students for a Democratic Society entered and occupied the recruiting station shutting down recruitment activity for nearly two hours. 

Outside dozens more protesters supported those being arrested with chants including, "Troops out now," "No justice, no peace. U.S. out of the Middle East," and "Stop the war. Yes we can. SDS is back again."

Member of Pace University SDS, Uruj Sheikh said, "The fourth anniversary of the occupation of Iraq is in one week.  Billions of dollars are being spent and hundreds of thousands have been murdered. Military recruitment has been systematically deceptive and we as students, as targets of recruitment, say something must be done to stop the war aboard and at home." 

Protester Rakshan Kateeb, sophomore at Pace University said, "The action was successful in that we are building up to the big mobilizing actions at the end of this week and the continued actions that will end this war."   

Visiting on Spring break from the University in Central Florida, SDS member, Matt De Vlieger said, "This demonstration was empowering and necessary. We need to step up our resistance to the war against Iraq and U.S. imperialism.  As the war escalates, so does our resistance." 

Jessica Rapchik, member from Antioch College SDS in Ohio said, "It was really encouraging to be there locking arms with our brothers and sisters who used civil disobedience for something they believe in."   

Jail solidarity is being held across from New York State court on 100 Centre Street.

Comments

[Christopher Day]

Bravo SDS!!!!

This is precisely the sort of action we need to see a lot more of this spring. Actions like these not only threaten social peace and raise the cost of the war, they advance debates like those we have here by shifting the horizon of what is possible.

Again, bravo!

[JB]

Yesterday I got the call at work and was like YES!

SDS is an important and growing student organiization that has the character and capacity these times require.

>Check out SDS

And it's not just here in New York. Ron Jacobs wrote up a piece on their ongoing efforts in Washington State for CounterPunch: Showdown at Port Tacoma

[Modern Pitung]

Contributing a writeup:

http://alloutforthefight.blogspot.com/2006/09/students-for-democratic-society.html

A brief update from that -- the activists were given a criminal trespass charge. Which is a great invitation to agitate around who, precisely, is guilty of a worse criminal trespass: 20+ students in a recruitment center, or 100,000+ soldiers in Iraq.

[Modern Pitung]

Apologies, here's the writeup.

Excellent!

True that on the tresspassing.

Who you calling illegal, Pilgrim?

[Matt]

The word on sds channels is that 20 people actually got arrested in nyc doing counter-recruitment; the 23 arrests (not all SDSers) were in Tacoma, resisting port militarization. And what went down in Tacoma was more brutal than the arrest numbers alone would suggest. There weren't enough protesters to effectively counter the cops and the tear gas, rubber bullets and pepper balls were freely circulating despite a commitment to non-violence on the behalf of protesters.
Video of the police teargassing and shooting sitting protesters here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfhUaUuG1sM
And more info at: tacomasds.org

[Renegade Eye]

I was in the original SDS. I have amnesia about which faction I was with; it started with the letter P.

I hope they do well.