| WASHINGTON
- June 7 - News Advisory:
Sunday, June 10, a 2 p.m. rally in Lafayette Park across from
the White House will register widespread public opposition to
the Bush administration's push for a national missile defense
(NMD).
NGO leaders, journalists, activists, political humorists and
members of Congress opposing NMD will speak, missile placards,
banners and other visuals protesting the new NMD arms race will
be displayed in front of the White House.
The rally kicks off three days of citizen activism in
Washington against NMD, sponsored by a broad- based coalition of
national citizens' groups with combined membership of over
100,000. The groups include Women's Actions for New Directions,
Physicians for Social Responsibility , Peace Links, Global
Security Institute, Peace Action, and The Nation Institute.
In recent days some 40,000 e-mails, 6,000 signatures and over
10,000 snail-mailed messages opposing NMD have poured into
Washington, and mail continues to arrive at the rate of over
1000 a day. Hundreds of constituents from 30 states are also
traveling to Washington to urge their representatives against
NMD on June 11 & 12.
They argue that the Bush administration's missile defense
plan is costly, unworkable, destabilizing, will trigger a new
arms race, weaponize space and enrich defense contractors while
endangering Americans.
"You can't make lemonade out of this lemon," says WAND
director Susan Shaer. "Missile defense, no matter what President
Bush calls it, will waste billions of dollars and still not make
us safer from terrorists."
Polls show the more Americans learn about NMD, its costs and
strategic consequences, the more strongly they oppose it.
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld is in Brussels now, where he is
expected to reveal more details of NMD architecture to an unreceptive meeting of NATO defense ministers, while new polls
at home show President Bush's disapproval rating creeping up to
58 percent.
The rally and the other "Stop the New Arms Race" events take
place leading up to President Bush's June 12 departure for the
EU and Moscow summits, where for the first time he will face
European and Russian opposition to NMD first hand, but where he
cannot legitimately argue a majority of Americans solidly
support his NMD proposal, organizers say.
Speakers at the June 10 rally will include:
-- MEMBERS OF CONGRESS TBA
-- Tracy Moavero, Peace Action
-- Rev. John Dear, formerly of Fellowship of Reconciliation
-- Barry Crimmins, political satirist/humorist
-- Jackie Cabasso, Western States Legal Fdn., U.S. Campaign
to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
-- Jonathan Schell, author Fate of the Earth and New Yorker
writer, now at The Nation Institute
-- Ibrahim Abdil-Mu'id Ramey, Fellowship of Reconciliation
-- Kathleen Sullivan, Educators for Social Responsibility,
-- Students from SANITY, New York youth group that works with
Educators for Social Responsibility
-- Bruce Gagnon, Global Network against Weapons and Nuclear
Power in Space
-- Young women from STAND, Student Action for New Directions
-- Robert Bowman, Institute for Space and Security Studies,
former director of Advanced Space Programs Development
under Ford and Carter
-- Ira Shorr, director Back from the Brink campaign
-- Bill Hartung, senior researcher, World Policy Institute,
expert on defense contractors
-- Gordon Clark, Greenpeace
On June 12 at 12:30pm in the House side press triangle behind
the Capitol building, a dozen members of Congress will join "Stop the Arms Race" organizers and Frank von Hippel, Federation
of American Scientists Chairman and former Assistant Director
for National Security of the White House Office of Science and
Technology, for a press conference showing their opposition to
the Bush NMD agenda. Control of key Senate committees which will
make decisions on NMD funding and deployment went to Senate
Democrats this week in the wake of Senator Jeffords' party
switch.
June 12 is the day President Bush leaves for Europe and
Russia to press his NMD proposals, with this send-off from NMD
opponents at home. June 12 is also the anniversary of the
largest demonstration in American history, a 1982 rally in New
York's Central Park where a million demonstrators protested the
nuclear arms race and galvanized a national movement against
Ronald Reagan's Star Wars initiative. In a May 22 article "Bush
Plan for Missile Shield Reviving Anti-Nuclear Movement" Cox Newspapers reported on the June 10-12 "Stop the Arms Race"
events and other signs that a broad-based groundswell of citizen
opposition to the Bush NMD initiative is emerging today.
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