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University of Illinois -- Urbana-Champaign |
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Saturday, December 08 2007 |
U of I CAN is back in full swing, fresh off our success at the RNC ! We already have an incredibly exciting line up for the first part of the semester.
U of I CAN is working closely with the Central Illinois chapter of iraq Vterans Against the War to hold a Winter Soldier testimony at U of Illinois on November 13, 2008. IVAW members from across the midwest will speak out about what they saw while serving in the armed forces. IVAW founder Camilo Mejia will also be speaking, as well as other guests.
For questions or comments, please email us at
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We also invite you to read our blog. Written by a number of UIUC CAN's members, it's a great way to read about what is happened in Champaign-Urbana, as well as what our memeber think about various issues related to the war - and you can add your own comments.
You can also contact our Liaison, Pete Rhomberg at
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, or call him at (708) 828-9926.
We invite everyone to attend our weekly meetings, held every Tuesday at 7:00 pm in 163 Noyes Lab.
Please visit out photo gallery
to see pictures from our past events, which include staging a local
Die-In, travelling to Washington DC (twice!) to join large national
protests, and a number of incredibly successful local talks and
panels. UIUC CAN has revitilized the Antiwar movement in the
Urbana-Champaign area in the brief year that it was existed.
We are also proud to maintain close ties to the local chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War.
9/30/08: How Students Ended the Last War... and Why We Can End This One, Too!
Pete Rhomberg gave a speech about the state of the student antiwar movement, with a look both into past antiwar movements and into a possible future for activists.
9/1/08-9/4/08: Republican National Convention Protest
On September 1st 2008, U of I CAN participated in the protest against the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. Some members led a student/youth bloc in the permitted march against the war, while others joined the CAN direct action contingent, setting up mobile blockades to try to disrupt the convention.
5/1/08: In commemoration of both May Day and the fifth anniversary of President Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech, CAN dropped some banners of our own. On a beautiful spring day, we spread the antiwar message off a few campus buildings - one of which was still hanging 8 hours later!
4/18/08-4/20/08: U of I joined the other Midwest CAN chapters for the first Regional CAN Conference, hosted by the University of Iowa Antiwar Committee. It was an incredibly successful conference, with approximatly 200 students in attendance from across the Midwest.
4/14/08-4/17/08: UIUC CAN co-sponsored the Arab Students Association's Palestine Awareness Week. There were speakers, a documentary screening, and a dance performance/workshop throughout the week. ASA estimates that over 200 people attended an event during the week, many of whom had not formed an opinion about the issue before attending an event.
4/12/08: UIUC CAN, along with the local high school organization Youth Awareness Project - Champaign-Urbana (YAP-CU) held a Die-In at the corner of Wright and Green to protest the continuation of the war. The Die-In was from 1:00pm-3:00pm, and even though the weather was not on our side, we still had a modest turnout of around 30-40 very energetic people. In addition, since it was Mom's Weekend on campus, many people were walking by, both students and their parents, and we received a lot of encouragement from passerbys (as well as the unfortunate opposition, but they were, as usual, in the minority). Since this was our second campus event in the span of a week, CAN is doing a good job of raising its visibility on campus, one of our goals for the second half of this spring semester.
4/4/08: UIUC CAN held a candlelight vigil to commemorate those killed in the occupation at 8:00pm-10:30pm at the Alma Mater. The vigil was broadcast live on local news channel 15, and attracted somewhere around 30 people over the course of the two and a half hours. A speech was given about the war, and the names of the Illinois soldiers killed were read, which took about half an hour.
3/19/08: While UIUC was on Spring Break, a number of our members joined our sister school of UIC to join the large Chicago antiwar march. The student block, including CAN chapters from 4 schools, was possibly the biggest single group at the protest, and brought a lot of energy to the event! This was a great example of how Midwest CAN chapters can come together and make people notice.
Meanwhile, a few of our members joined CAN and SDS chapters as they took to the Washington DC streets, claiming them for their own!
3/16/08: UIUC CAN had an extremely successful Week of Action last week!
We worked cloesly with IVAW on Monday to screen the film Winter
Soldier, helping IVAW raise more than $400 for Winter Soldier: Iraq and
Afghanistan - double what they expected!
Tuesday we held a successful counter-recruitment outside Champaign's SECOND Armed Forces Recruitment "Career" Center.
On Wednesday, CAN member Pete Rhomberg gave a lunch-lecture about
the antiwar movement, and also helped spread the word about Winter
Soldier.
Thursday saw the first large protest on Campus against the war
since September, and it the protest, march, rally, and die-in drew a
respectable 50 people.
Friday, CAN and IVAW members jointly aired the 6:00-7:30 panel of Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan.
3/2/08: UIUC CAN just hosted the incredibly successful Midwest Regional Retreat, which worked on creating a unified Midwest CAN, and started building for the April Midwest Regional CAN Conference in Iowa City
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