Cansec Arms Fair 2008 - Call-out

SHUT DOWN CANSEC!
SHUT DOWN THE WAR MACHINE!

CANSEC is Canada's largest weapons fair, held annually in Ottawa during the month of April. This year's gathering of war profiteers, including Boeing, Raytheon, Northrup Grumman, General Electric, and Blackwater, will be held on April 9th-10th at the Ottawa Congress Centre. Keynote speakers include War Minister Peter MacKay, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, a retired head of NORAD, and an ex-US Secretary of Defense.

This year the Network to Oppose War and Racism - Pacte Contre l'Agression, l'Intolerence et la Xenophobie (NOWAR-PAIX) and the People's Global Action Bloc (PGA Bloc) are organizing a number of events to oppose CANSEC, the war machine and the brutal occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, Palestine and Turtle Island.

FROM IRAQ TO PALESTINE
OCCUPATION IS A CRIME

Saturday March 29th
Noon - NOWAR-PAIX march through the market
Meet at York and Sussex
No to war! No to the CANSEC weapons fair!

Thursday April 3rd
6PM - NOWAR-PAIX and PGA invite you to a teach-in about CANSEC and the war machine.
Speakers:
-Mostafa Henaway (Block the Empire- Montreal)
-Richard Sander (Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade-Ottawa)
-More
Free coffee and cookies (homemade with love) will be served.
PSAC 233 Gilmour Street

Friday April 4th
PGA-Bloc Ottawa supper
6PM - Come fill your bellies with food cooked especially for you by the PGA-Bloc Ottawa. Open to all. Feel free to bring your favourite dish, or simply come eat the delicious feast that will be provided for free
2 Monk Street (near Bank and Fifth)
Free

Sunday April 6th
1:30 PM - Ottawa Anarchist Discussion Group
Jack Purcell community center (near Elgin/Gilmour)
PGA will be giving a talk about the CANSEC arms fair and the planned resistance to it at the OADG.


Wednesday April 9th
Noon - March of the war victims
Come expose the war machine for the suffering it creates.
March with PGA and NOWAR-PAIX as we visit local war profiteers and reveal the truly gruesome face of CANSEC and war.

5:00 PM - NOWAR-PAIX/PGA
Meet on William Street (corner of Rideau)
Family friendly mass march and picket against war and occupation
No to the occupations of Afghanistan, Haiti, Iraq and Turtle Island!

Thursday April 10th
11:00am PGA march to shut down CANSEC
Meet at Dundonald Park (Lyon/Somerset)
Bring noisemakers and symbols of resistance.
A respect for diversity of tactics is encouraged on this march.


More info:
www.pga.roadnetwork.org

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• ransack
• cansec
• ottawa
• 2008
• raytheon
• bae
• systems
• boeing
• general
• dynamics
• thales
• anti-imperialism
• anti-war

[lovelyvegan]

It was global violence perpetuated by war that severely hindered Britain's ability to control its colonial territories, and as such laid the necessary foundation for the success of Gandhi's movement.

[wykydtron42]

hahhahaha the use of violence to oppose the military and militaristic R&D... awesome... anyone else find this video to contradict itself? i sure do.. you fail ransackcansec... go smoke some more pot you hippie

[longsaber]

there is no such thing as non-violence.

[ThumperBunny43]

Good video. War sucks. Don't get too excited about "violence" from pacifists, it's just a bunch of drawings.

[lovelyvegan]

Both violent and non-violent strategies exist on spectrum of possible actions, and to claim that only one is effective is to have a selective historical memory. Many tactics are necessary, and act in concert with each other to bring about social transformation.

[lovelyvegan]

I am quite aware of history. Gandhi's success came in the wake of over a hundred years of often-violent struggle for independence by Indians. The Gandhi example, while obviously nonviolent, took place within a broader framework of a violent peripheral process. It was unique to a particular time in history in which the British Empire, and power was in sharp decline as a result of two world wars.

[SonofTomJoad]

What relativistic cynicism! Everyone and everything is fucked, etc. If I thought like that, I'd have done myself in by now. Also, if everything/everyone is violent and there's nothing we can do about it supposedly, how easy to excuse our own violence. Not far from a fascist view.

[SonofTomJoad]

Pacifism does not mean "passivism." I'm not sure you even know what non-violent civil disobedience is. Study some history. Look up what Gandhi, Quakers and many others have done. Environmentalists refusing to get out of trees, etc. BTW, tanks don't go by themselves (the boy next door is DRIVING it)!

[lovelyvegan]

Our society as it currently exists is based upon widespread structural violence, nothing about our existence as part of the Western world is peaceful. In the words of author/activist Peter Gelderloos; "There is nothing in this world currently deserving of the name peace. Rather, it is a question of whose violence frightens us most, and on whose side we will stand."

[lovelyvegan]

In the video the Molotov cocktail is thrown at the tank, and the building; inanimate objects, so no I do not define that as violence. As you said the tank is engulfed in flames, not people. Personally I do not find the statement make war on the war profiteers ridiculous. On the contrary, I find ridiculous and tragic the widespread notion that passive action will set into motion concrete change.