SANTA CLARA, CALIF.
Bush dodges protesters
By Bill Hackwell
Santa Clara, Calif.
Over 500 people came out to the Santa Clara
Convention Center on short notice March 4 to protest President
George W. Bush's in-and-out lunch visit to the heart of the
economically devastated Silicon Valley.
The purpose of the president's touch-and-go appearance here
was not to talk about the two middle schools that had just
announced they were closing. He didn't use the opportunity to
acknowledge a new report by research economists at the
University of California-Berkeley that one in every six jobs in
Silicon Valley will be lost to offshoring in the next period,
although this is the highest rate in the country.
Bush focused on his agenda of endless war against the
nations of the world. He spoke to an audience made up primarily
of venture capitalists.
In his hour-long stay, Bush managed to rake in $700,000 for
his election war chest. His three stops in California raised $5
million for the Republican Party.
With no shortage of issues to protest about, people came
from all over the Bay Area to demonstrate against Bush. They
were against the U.S.-engineered coup in Haiti. Many union
workers protested the loss of 2 million jobs under Bush. Many
couples who had recently married in San Francisco came to
protest Bush's push for a constitutional amendment against
same-sex marriages.
Anti-war activists organizing for the March 20 international
day of protest came in large numbers to call for the end of
U.S. military occupations, from Iraq to Haiti to Palestine and
everywhere.
The boisterous demonstration was organ ized by the South Bay
Mobil ization and the ANSWER Coalition. It took place directly
across the street from the main entrance to the convention
center where the Bush event was being held. To avoid the
protesters, Bush came and left through a back door.
Richard Becker of the National Board of the ANSWER Coalition
commented: "People in the Bay Area have a deep hatred of Bush's
policies. That's why he only stays long enough to collect the
loot from his rich backers. Bush would never dare come to a
city in the Bay area like San Francisco."
Reprinted from the March 18, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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