To our fellow students This letter was call regarding the planned student walkout for Friday, April 4th, at 12:00pm in Red Square. More than ever, we need a focused effort to put an end to the war on our hands! Students have changed things in the past, and there's nothing stopping us from doing it again this time around. There are a few issues we hope this letter begins to address, however. As you all know, our President has recently given Saddam Hussein an ultimatum to step down from power by March 19, after which we will invade Iraq. Bush declared that "The tyrant will soon be gone," and although that would be a good thing, we have to ask ourselves at what cost? The victims of this war will include more than just the invisible nameless faces over seas; this war will hurt the friends and families of our servicemen and drive a wedge through our communities. It will suck funds out of important programs, such as education, health care and other social programs. It will take much needed assistance away from the underprivileged, such as the poor, people of color, women, children and the disabled. For far too long on this campus, “antiwar activism” has been white-dominated. There is no simple explanation for why this is so, but we know we must all confront the question. The fact is that war and militarism disproportionately impact people of color in this country, and around the world. For the “peace movement” around the country and here on campus to continue to not take this into consideration in our goals and planning has been arrogant and foolish in the worst sense of the word. MLK Jr. spoke of the three evils of militarism, racism and poverty and how interconnected they are. Our activism needs to start being representative of his truths. We write this letter to call for a united and proactive opposition here on campus, an opposition that needs a message that will last well after an invasion begins. We need a plan for getting that message out to students despite all the media cheerleading; and we need a strategy for not only retaining this movement’s current numbers, but expanding them to the point where we can reverse government policy. If we do not unite and act swiftly we run the risk of letting our voices be further marginalized and isolated. In the face of such grim possibilities, we must begin by connecting the waves of new participants just beginning to speak out with communities of current campus clubs and activists. That sounds almost trivial, but there's nothing more demoralizing than staying home in isolation, watching Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld on TV. Even with supportive communities, keeping on will be difficult. But the more disconnected we are, the harder it will be. And if we're connected with enough sympathetic people, we can support each other, pass on alternative perspectives, and talk about all the issues that will remain whether or not Saddam Hussein gets removed from the Baghdad palaces where we helped install and maintain him. The potential power and influence of student movements on both the social and political level has been greatly underestimated by our generation. Soon after Richard Nixon was elected to his first term as president, for example, he threatened the Vietnamese with the use of nuclear weapons on Hanoi if they did not immediately surrender. It was hundreds of thousands of predominately student demonstrators who marched in cities across the United States in October and November that 1969 that caused him to modify his choice of weapons. Six months later, the 1970 nationwide student strike compelled Nixon to limit the U.S. invasion of Cambodia. To wrap this up, we are calling for a united front here on campus that isn’t just against this war, but for a society that wouldn’t be going to war in the first place. This letter was written to start a dialogue here on campus, so please, tell us what you think! Sincerely, The Western Walkout Crew