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News :: Civil & Human Rights : Elections & Legislation : UCIMC |
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Urbana-Champaign Organizes for Post-Election Initiatives. |
Current rating: 0 |
by Sascha Meinrath
Email: sascha (nospam) ucimc.org (unverified!) |
03 Nov 2004
Modified: 10:23:11 PM |
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Scores of local community members took part in a hastily assembled Community Meeting and Social to discuss new projects, ideas, and strategies following the 2004 elections. Earlier in the evening community members rallied in the cold and rain at the corner of Race and Main Streets in downtown Urbana to demonstrate against the flawed American election system. Over a dozen projects were unveiled and discussed as people channeled their anger, their concern, and their disappointment -- vowing not to give up hope, lessen in their community engagement, or cease resisting discrimination and the diminution of our civil rights. |
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People raised many concerns during the discussions and socializing including: the war on terror, civil rights violations, election tallies, energizing the peace movement, first ammendment violations, polarization of the country, decreasing tolerance, the draft, neoconservatives, war, increasing feminism, right wing agendas, healthcare, education, social regression, activating youth, civil liberties, political disengagement, cooptation of language, using the language of our oppressors, conservation, environmentalism, mainstream media, economic structural adjustment, repression of dissent, arrogance, cooptation of the "moral" and "religious" by the right, dissenfranchisement of minorities, facism in America, abortion, connecting the local to the national, outreach (both within the left and to the right) and education, unequal representation of constituencies in government, art, political appointments, human rights, empire, mysogyny, law enforcement, visas, blowback and opposition, demoralization, gay rights, dumb discourse, angry liberals, infighting, paying attention to the rightwing, death of soldiers, women's rights, the rhetoric of Kerry's submission speech, and revolution.
Projects spanned the gammit including initiatives to increase public commentary in our local mainstream media, build the local Green party, increase involvement in the IMC and its numerous projects (including the newspaper, outreach group, and Books to Prisoners projects), re-energizing Food Not Bombs, increasing membership in the NAACP, engaging in House Theaters, increasing involvement in the Teen Awareness Group to educate youth and protect women's rights, increased Anti-War Anti-Racism Efforts, renewed focus on innauguration protests and the Spring elections, joining CARE3 to initiate educational reform and teaching critical thinking among young students, creating community literature distribution systems, engaging in the gay rights movement, building bridges and engaging with traditional enemies, reforming the broken election system, fixing the foster care system, and building coalitions and affinities among local groups. |
This work is in the public domain |
