[376] in peace2
Students for Nader BBQ and Sign Painting
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Aimee L Smith)
Fri Sep 22 01:00:42 2000
Message-Id: <200009220500.BAA12790@mint-square.mit.edu>
To: peace-list@MIT.EDU, save@MIT.EDU, thistle@MIT.EDU
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Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 01:00:24 -0400
From: Aimee L Smith <alsmith@MIT.EDU>
Hi Everyone,
=================================
Students For Nader BBQ
Sat, Sept 23, 5:30pm
MIT BBQ Pits
=================================
The BBQ pits are near the Student Center off of Mass Ave (just beyond
the Toscinni's Coffee/ice cream shop)
Come to the BBQ and see what other students are thinking about for
the coming election campaign. It isn't too late to get involved!!
And while we are there, some of us will be building for the protest
against the corporate sponsored debates!
Local Greens are planning to build signs and 2-d sunflowers with signs
inside for the Oct 3 actions against the corporate sponsorship of the
debates. We want everyone who can make it to join us over at the MIT
BBQ pits near the student center to help paint and create and build.
The plan is to make large cut-outs of sunflowers, paint them, and
generate large light weight poles to hoist them on so they can be seen
far and wide. One side will say over-grow the government, the other
will have various symbols and expressions.
BRING ANY AND ALL OF THESE!!
Large cardboard pieces (e.g. from a bike or appliance store)
Utility Knife
Paint (Latex preferred- lt blue, yellow and GREEN preferred)
Brushes
Old Sheets
Pole materials
Wire
Duct-Tape
Markers
Brown Paper Bags
I Can't Wait!!
"The role of the revolutionary artist is to make revolution irresistible"
And Read on for inspiration!!
In unity,
Aimee
- ------- Forwarded Message
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 04:44:33
- - ----Original Message Follows----
From: Adam Eidinger <aeidinger@yahoo.com>
To: Waggers List <waggers@egroups.com>, A16 Planning
<a16-dc-planning@egroups.com>
Subject: [a16-mediagroup] Commission on Presidential Debates Occupied
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 11:29:20 -0700 (PDT)
More action to come next week!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 20, 2000
CONTACT: Adam Eidinger 202-986-6186 or Daniel Holstein
202-270-8387
Commission on Presidential Debates Occupied
And Investigated by the Open Debate Society
WASHINGTON, DC - Early this morning, members of the
Open Debate Society occupied the offices of Wagner
Communications and Brewer Consulting Group, the only
known address of the Commission on Presidential
Debates (CPD). Their aim was to put a face to the
name of the CPD, a stealthy private corporation
controlled by the Republican and Democratic parties
and funded by Anheuser-Busch, 3 Com, and U.S. Airways.
Members of the Society came to mark the offices of
Wagner and Brewer as the location of the CPD and
posted a sign correctly identifying the CPD as the
Corporate Puppets' Debate.
Today's actions are just the beginning of the
open-debate movement. Rallies are taking place every
Thursday in September at 1200 New Hampshire Ave at
12:00 noon in Washington, D.C. (the CPD's mailing
address). Tomorrow the New York City offices of
Anheuser-Busch at 350 Park Avenue between 51st & 52nd
from 4:30 to 7:30 PM will be targeted by Ralph Nader
supporters. By the time the debates kick off in
Boston, the event will be met with thousands of
protesters.
While its official-sounding name makes the CPD look
like a federal agency, it is actually a private
corporation with no storefront, office or physical
location. The CPD's website and literature gives the
Wagner and Brewer firms' address as its own. After
their office occupation, the Society did a follow-up
call to Carl Wagner at Wagner/Brewer. He told them
that Wagner Communications was sold over a year ago
and that the group no longer exists.
Of course, that morning during the occupation, he and
his lackey had also tried to convince the Society
members that they would not find the CPD within the
Wagner/Brewer offices. That ruse was up when they
tripped over a box of pamphlets, "Inside Debates,"
produced by the CPD.
During their occupation of the Wagner/Brewer office,
the Society demanded that the CPD return the debates
to the voters by opening the debates to third party
candidates and removing the corporations that have
highjacked democracy from the American people.
Members of the Society, carrying a boom-box playing
Beethoven, unfurled a giant American flag and postered
the office, all the time engaging the two male
employees present (the senior of which they believe to
be Mr. Wagner) in a debate over the debates. Their
slogans included "Open Debate Society Demands Citizen
Voice Not Corporate Choice" and "60.9% of Likely
Voters Want Nader to Debate." They also highlighted
the influence of Anheuser-Busch on the CPD: "CPD:
Drunk with Power and Turning our Democracy into a Frat
Party," "The People Are Sobering Up and Taking Back
the Debates," "You've got to be Drunk to let
Budweiser Steal the Debates," and "RNC and DNC Decide
Who Gets Debate? What? Are you Drunk?"
Campaing finance reform advocate Granny D also made an
appearance at the CPD's virtual location in the
Wagner/Brewer offices. She told of her walk across
the country for campaign finance reform and demanded
open debates.
The senior employee, after calling the police, sat
down in his office and answered some of the most
poignant arguments raised by the ODS with misleading
information. After being confronted with the
commission's private sponsors and procedures, he
mistakenly referred to the groups as a "public".
Similarly, after being questioned about the bipartisan
nature of the organization, he defined the commission
as "nonpartisan."
Adam Eidinger, an Open Debate Society member who took
part in this morning's occupation, explained his
concern over the way the debates are being run by
stating: "We're calling the CPD an insult to American
values of democracy, fair elections, and the right to
be informed. The CPD is an illegitimate body,
compromised by the fact that it's controlled by the
Democratic and Republican Parties, who have a
political interest in excluding third party
candidates, and funded by large corporations like
Anheuser-Busch and U.S. Airways."
###
------- End of Forwarded Message
