General Understandings (or Points of Unity)

At our first mass meeting in January, 2008 in New York City, about 60 of us brought forward what we saw as our potential points of unity. After discussing these point, and doing away with those considered too controversial to linger on, we came up with the following this.

Since we have ranging opinions and try to be as democratic as possible, these should be viewed not as "by-laws" but as general understands we hold. These understandings should be carried out by those identifying with PMR out of a trust and respect for other people working in your network, realizing we put all of this on the table and generally agreed with it.

We do not intend to welcome folks who don't respect these ideas into PMR, as we have a strategy with very real and serious implications and don't want to see it destroyed by spontaneous, reactive behavior. Our actions will be carried out by staying focused and having faith in our strategy to effect changes towards ending the war.

Nonviolence: We are organizing all of our actions to be non-violent. Some of us are morally non-violent while others feel that there is no logical or justified role for physical contact to play in our actions. When doing civil disobedience or demonstrations, we intend to be prepared for the consequences and stay focused on the task at hand; stopping the war in Iraq. Many of us preferred the term "militant but non-violent", meaning we won't use force but we will be relentless, demanding and firm in our stance. In this, we are part of building a culture of non-violent direct action. Our non-violence understanding applies to all people we encounter, including soldiers, law enforcement, port workers, truckers, and other demonstrators.

Illegality/Immorality of War: The war is illegal under both domestic and international law. A recent report suggests that the Bush Administration lied over 900 times to lead us into this war. Our unilateral invasion (with the so-called "Coalition of the Willing") was a clear rejection for international law and general understandings of diplomacy. The humanitarian crisis that has emerged because of or in light of the occupation is blood on our hands. It is illegal and wrong.

Respect for Troops/Veterans: We are doing this because we don't want more lives lost to this illegal war. We have worked with Iraq veterans in the anti-war movement and we have support for the emerging veteran/GI anti-war voices within that. We support all soldiers choosing in any way, shape or form to resist the war. Our strategy sees port-actions as a connection point between us and active-duty soldiers, and our literature and messages will be directed towards those soldiers whose equipment we will be protesting. We will not be protesting the soldiers, rather we will be protesting their superiors who have chosen to send them to Iraq against the will of the American people.

Respect for Port Workers: We recognize that our demonstrations may be received negatively by port communities who benefit in jobs and wages from war shipments out of their port. We have no bones to pick with the longshore workers or truckers who will be involved in the operations, and we no bones to pick with the folks who want the shipments coming through locally. We respect the history of the struggles for just ages and conditions at the ports of the United States, and the critical role these workers play in putting food on peoples tables around the world. But the equipment being shipped is our, as tax-payers and as those upholding the popular demands of the majority of this country, so we have every right to oppose it. Of course we don't want port workers to suffer, but we also don't want soldiers and civilians to die or be horrible maimed daily in a never-ending occupation. So we have to take action and we have to face some hard discussion along the way, which is just one more side of this mess that the fat cats in Washington have gotten us into.

Disruption: We do intend to be disruptive, because every day the cost of the war goes up. The cost we are most concerned about is not economic... it's made of human lives. So every day counts. We see no use in protesting for the sake of being heard; we've tried that and it took us far as it could. Now the next step is to start making real changes.

Larger Movement: We are not only standing with other Port Militarization Resistance chapters and anti-war activists focused on the demilitarization of their ports, we are standing with people all over the world trying to stop the war in Iraq. So we see ourselves in this context, as being connected to a wider array of tactics, strategies and attempts to makes change. We intend to operate in a way that respects this and ask in return that the anti-war movement recognize and respect our efforts.

Local Organizing: For democracy's sake, and to make it easier to operate in a regional network, we prioritize the work of each local chapter to maintain the day-to-day needs of Mid-Atlantic PMR. We operate on a regional-basis as needed, but try to maintain efforts in port areas towards hosting a demonstration and in non-port areas towards mobilizing for demonstrations. When actions take place, local groups should have priority and deciding critical aspects of the demonstrations, since they will have to deal with any response far longer than anyone leaving town a few days later.

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