From: Blythe Systems <nytransfer%igc.apc.org@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
Subject: NEWS:Demonstrators Crash GOP Party/WW
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Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
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Resent-From: "Rich Winkel" <MATHRICH@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 21:36:46 GMT


Via The NY Transfer News Service ^ All the News that Doesn't Fit


           Demonstrators Crash Republicans' Posh Party

                         By Gloria Rubac
                             Houston

Such a reactionary gathering of rich white men just had to
attract its opposite. And it did. AIDS activists, supporters of
lesbian and gay rights, pro-choice women and men, opponents of
war, racism and police brutality targeted Bush and the Republican
party here in Houston.

By the Aug. 17 opening night, as racist Pat Buchanan spouted
anti-lesbian drivel to the Republican National Convention, these
activists had already crashed the mayor's posh party and burned
Bush's effigy and more outside the Astrodome.

On the eve of the Republican National Convention, Aug. 16, the
days of protest began. A diverse a coalition of progressive
organizers as Texas has seen in years were more than satisfied
that their weeks of reaching out had gathered 1,000 people at
Wiley Park in the Fourth Ward.

Those that came had to brave police intimidation, both during the
building period and on the day of demonstration. Police pressure
was especially pervasive in the oppressed Black and
Chicano/Mexicano communities. Those that came knew they were in
for a struggle.

Organizers planned to march from the mostly oppressed Fourth Ward
into the high-income River Oaks section, a stronghold of racism
and the Republican party. Houston's Mayor Bob Lanier was hosting
a party for the delegates at his River Oaks mansion.

To the bankers, bosses and political hacks feeding at Lanier's
trough, the people on the demonstration only existed in
nightmares after a night of particularly heavy eating and
drinking. That nightmare was to blast through the calm of their
pre-convention partying.

Demonstrators defy cops

Houston police, many on horseback, tried to keep the march to
River Oaks contained on the sidewalks. Individual cops tried to
provoke demonstrators, poking them with their clubs. The
demonstrators refused to give in. After a half-hour
confrontation, they won the streets and brought their protest to
the sharply contrasted poor and rich sections of Houston.

Led by a contingent from the Ricardo Aldape Guerra Defense
Committee, the march crashed the party at the mayor's house.
Protesters beat drums and chanted as a band played "The Eyes of
Texas" on Lanier's lawn. The revelers got the message. Twelve
years of Reagan/Bush have brought suffering to workers and other
poor people. And the sufferers are fighting back.

Aldape is a Mexican immigrant now on death row in Texas allegedly
for killing a cop. His supporters say he is innocent, found
guilty because of anti-Mexican racism. They are fighting for a
new trial.

At the rally, Teresa Gutierrez of the National Coalition to Stop
U.S. Intervention in the Middle East told the crowd, "You can't
use us to go to Iraq to kill for the oil companies."

Timothy Sweeney, a representative of the Gay Men's Health Crisis,
said, "Over 150,000 Americans have been diagnosed with AIDS since
George Bush became president, and funding is being cut across the
country to those organizations educating the people of color."

The organizer for the Texas Movement for a Peoples Assembly, John
Anderson, chaired the rally along with Paul Mullan from Queer
Nation and Jane Collins from the Houston Coalition to Stop U.S.
Intervention in the Middle East.

The following night, as the most rightwing Republicans whipped up
the elitist rabble inside, ACTUP led a march to the Astrodome
parking lot. The demonstrators burned Bush in effigy, then added
wooden barricades to the fire until quite a blaze was going.
Police made arrests as they charged the demonstration to clear
the area.

                               -30-

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted
if source is cited. For more info contact Workers World,46 W. 21
St., New York, NY 10010; "workers@igc.apc.org".)


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