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- Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
- Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!ukma!mont!pencil.cs.missouri.edu!rich
- From: Nigel.Allen@lambada.oit.unc.edu
- Subject: Ad Hoc Committee to Protest the Republican National Convention
- Message-ID: <1992Aug13.184923.16928@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
- Followup-To: alt.activism.d
- Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Sender: news@mont.cs.missouri.edu
- Nntp-Posting-Host: pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Organization: Echo Beach
- Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 18:49:23 GMT
- Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Lines: 85
-
- Ad Hoc Committee to Protest the Republican National Convention
- To: National Desk, Political Writer
- Contact: Gloria Rubac of All People's Congress, 713-524-4462, or
- John Anderson of Movement for a People's Assembly,
- 713-673-3912
-
- News Advisory:
-
- * Unity march denouncing 12 years of Republican abuse will "greet"
- GOP in Houston Sunday, Aug. 16, at 3 p.m.
-
- * Protestors will gather in economically oppressed neighborhood
- and march into River Oaks, local symbol of Republican privilege.
-
- * Photo opportunities include: giant puppets & posters, planting
- of enlarged photos of homeless in front of mansion of chairman of the
- convention host committee.
-
- A broad coalition of organizations promoting economic and racial
- justice, human rights and the end to the militarization of our
- domestic economy and foreign policy has formed to stage a Unity
- Demonstration against the Republican Party. The demonstrators will
- rally and march on the afternoon before the Republican Party
- convention begins in Houston.
- The demonstrators will gather at 3 p.m. in Wiley Park in the
- Fourth Ward, one of many neglected and exploited inner-city
- neighborhoods. They will then proceed two miles into the exclusive
- River Oaks section, where many leading Republicans have their
- palatial homes. Among them are Kenneth Lay, CEO of Enron Corp. and
- chair of the host committee for the national convention. They will
- rally again in Mary Elliott Park in River Oaks.
- Invited feature speaker at the rally will be Jim Hightower, former
- Texas commissioner of Agriculture and presently head of the Populist
- Alliance.
- John Anderson, an African American with the Movement for a
- People's Assembly and one of the Unity Demonstration's organizers,
- said, "Our march plan graphically illustrates what the last two
- Republican administrations have done to this country. They have
- created miserable conditions for millions of people. Unemployment
- runs rampant. Millions are homeless. Racism is fomented by a
- bigoted Justice Department and a right-wing Supreme Court. Every
- dollar for AIDS has to be extracted from a grudging administration.
- But the richest top 1 percent of the population has raked in the
- wealth through tax cuts and government favors."
- The Unity Demonstration organizers all emphasized that they are
- not rallying for the Democratic Party, but for policies that must be
- adopted if this nation is to secure the blessings of justice and
- peace for its citizens.
- Among the policy demands of the Unity Demonstration are universal
- health care; women's right to choose; deep cuts in the military
- budget and new spending on education, peace-time jobs programs and
- AIDS research and treatment; an end to U.S. military intervention in
- Third World nations; government action to end racism, sexism and
- homophobia; a dedication to environmental protection; and an end to
- police brutality and racial and economic discrimination by the
- criminal justice system, especially in its use of the death penalty.
- Among the sponsoring organizations are those representing Latinos,
- African Americans, organized labor, disarmament and peace forces,
- gays and lesbians and groups serving refugees from Central America
- and Haiti. In addition to those mentioned elsewhere in this release,
- some of them are Houston Black United Front, El Movimiento Nacional
- de la Raza, Jobs with Justice/Campaign for New Priorities, Houston
- Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, Campaign for Global Security and
- the Gray Panthers.
- Gloria Rubac of All People's Congress, another Unity Demonstration
- organizer, spoke about the way Republicans have worked on prejudice
- to divide the nation for their own political purposes: "'Family
- values' is a code word to authorize hatred and discrimination. It
- gives respectability to homophobia and gay-bashing. It prevents
- proper funding of programs like day-care to assist single-parent
- families. It says that men get to dictate the reproductive choices
- of women. The Republicans know exactly what they're doing, and it
- isn't strengthening the family."
- Teresa Gutierrez of the International War Crimes tribunal
- condemned the preparations for a renewed war in Iraq. "The military
- policy of this country has usually been controlled by the domestic
- political and economic agenda. The White House demonizes foreign
- countries and foreign leaders to hide the self-serving designs of
- the National Security State and its allies in the weapons industry
- and the energy corporations. George Bush's domestic policies have
- failed utterly, so what does he do? Create the specter of another
- war."
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