Grassroots coalition tells Bush
'We don't want your convention'
By Monica Moorehead
New York
The warmongering Bush administration and its
looting corporate supporters arrogantly think they can waltz
into New York, a city with a majority of immigrants and people
of color, to hold their 2004 Republican convention without any
organized opposition.
A newly formed coalition of elected officials, union,
anti-war and community activists is demanding that they
reconsider this decision.
At a media conference held in City Hall on Sept. 23, the
"Grassroots Protest of Bush's Convention" working group
announced a citywide campaign to force the Republican
convention out of New York. At the same time and location,
billionaire New York Mayor Michael Bloom berg was hosting
another media conference to announce the Republican con
vention. Bloomberg, just days earlier, had declared war on the
city unions, stating that they dare not ask for wage increases
or better benefits from his administration.
The convention is scheduled to begin on Aug. 30, 2004, at
Madison Square Garden and will attract the likes of such
criminals as Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, John
Ashcroft and Colin Powell, along with George W. Bush.
Participants at the anti-Bush press conference included
Brooklyn City Council member Charles Barron, chairperson of the
working group; Rev. Herbert Daughtry, pastor, Brooklyn's House
of the Lord church; Nellie Bailey, Harlem Tenants Association;
Larry Holmes, International ANSWER coalition; Bill Perkins,
deputy majority leader, New York City Council; Uma Kutwal,
former president of AFSCME Local 375; Teresa Gutierrez and Sara
Flounders, co-directors of the International Action Center; Tim
Eubanks of Cities for Peace; and Mike Gimbel, a delegate to the
New York Central Labor Council.
The aims and objectives of this campaign are explained in a
petition to be circulated in every neighborhood and borough.
Headlined "NYC to George Bush: We Don't Want Your Convention!
Send Us Jobs Instead!" the petition goes on:
"We the undersigned residents of NYC call upon President
Bush to move the Republican convention ... and hold it
somewhere else. We believe that it is dishonest, unfair and
oppressive for you to impose a convention on the people of this
city ... and are vehemently opposed to your policies at home
and abroad. ... Instead of exploiting the 9/11 tragedy for your
own political purposes, we would rather you rescind the
enormous fortune you have handed to the wealthy through tax
breaks and send NYC its share of that badly needed revenue. ...
Bring our troops home. Restore the cuts to all of our vital
services and programs that your policies have mandated. Send
our city the funds we need to deal with the growing crises of
joblessness and poverty."
The speakers announced plans to forge a massive grassroots
campaign by reaching out to millions of New Yorkers, citizens
and non-citizens, in communities and barrios that have been
impacted by rent hikes, layoffs, fare and tuition hikes, police
repression, malnourishment, lack of health care and other
cutbacks.
The year-long popular campaign will include organizing
meetings, marches, work stoppages, boycotts, civil disobedience
and much more around a group of demands that is independent of
both capitalist parties, Democratic and Republican.
Reprinted from the Oct. 2, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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