The various police agencies that will be present at the coming Democratic Convention in August should not be allowed to carry any lethal weopons!

The carrying of guns by police increases the likelihood of a police riot that could have disasterous consequenses. To facilitate such a weapons-free policy I suggest that we ask the Democratic National Committee for convention access passes for one representitive for each of the organizations that are part of the (D2K) protest organizing

committee. This committee needs to be granted a total of one hour of convention time on opening day to address the multiude of critical social issues that are being intentionally ommitted from their agenda.

The delegates to the convention, in reality, are generally bought and paid for by corporate America. For example, they show little or no interest in the ever widening income discrepencies between rich and poor, enviornmental deterioration, sexism and racism.

If our voices and views are INCLUDED for just one hour, out of the whole week of their convention time, we probably would be considerably more supportive of the operation of their corporate sponsored

convention and most likely would, then, become only cauual observers and

critics of its operation and objectives.

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Under such a senario there would be no need for police at all in the

convention area let alone armed police. Meter maids could handle the

crowds and cross roads just as was done a few years ago when 125,000

turned out to march against Prop.128. On that day there were no cops and

therefor peace and NO ARRESTS.

The chances of getting the above program accomplished are almost

nonexistent, however,

its pursuit will show the general public the extent of Corporate

Amerika's anti-social and undemocratic methods that they must resort to

to preserve their control over the people who do all the work in this

country and all over the world.

It is an insult that anyone would believe that we would support the DNC if only they let us have one hours time. This is a revolution, not reformist crap.

it would be a lie to say that we will all suddenly transform into casual observers instead of protesters if we were alloted one hour of time to voice our concerns. i hope we DON'T get that hour on those conditions, because the protests are going to happen no matter what, and doing this will only allow us to be labeled as liars and hypocrites.

I like the constructive thinking, and an hour would be nice, but I fear that it would only be a one hour reprieve from business as usual. If we were were to get up and address such issues as the wealth gap, campaign finance reform, education, environmental destruction, the prison industrial complex, national missile defense, etc., it would be too easy to either just write us off as leftist extremists or, as usual, pay a whole lot of lip service and then yield no results. I believe that a compete shutdown of the meetings is the only way to get our voices heard.

Brent