Issues

• How Democrats will build on our victories in 2001 to win Congress and elect Governors in 2002, and the White House in 2004, with the help of activists    
• How Bush is abusing our national unity to promote tax cuts for big corporations, create huge deficits, and destroy our civil liberties    
• How Bush refuses to deliver half of the $20 billion to rebuild New York     
• How the Supreme Court subverted Democracy by appointing Bush

December 12, 2001 marks the first anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's infamous decision in Bush v. Gore. Many legal scholars believe Bush v. Gore was the worst abuse of judicial power in American history, and a fundamental usurpation of democracy by five partisan Republican Justices. 

Recently, the media declared that the Supreme Court's decision to stop the count of 175,000 never-counted votes had no effect, since Bush would have won anyway. But that report was simply untrue. The actual data proved that Al Gore would have won Florida if all legal votes had been counted, as Al Gore wanted. The Supreme Court's decision DID change the outcome of the election - and the media is lying to the American people. 

History will show that the wrong man is in the White House, due to Republican manipulation of the recounts and the courts. Simply put, George W. Bush and the Republican Party stole the Presidency. 

The events of December 12, 2000 have been partially eclipsed by the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. But "12-12" has tremendous bearing on "9-11". 

• George W. Bush and his Republican allies in Congress want to reallocate half of the $20 billion appropriated by Congress for rebuilding New York City, thereby sending New Yorkers an unmistakable message: Drop Dead.      
• George W. Bush and his Republican allies in Congress are engaged in outrageous war profiteering. They are abusing the unprecedented spirit of national unity to cut taxes for big corporations and the rich, while cities and states are forced to cut services to the middle class and the poor. They are wasting billions on Missile Defense at the expense of Homeland Defense, and polluting the Arctic Wildlife Refuge instead of increasing the fuel efficiency of SUV's.      
• George W. Bush and his Attorney General, John Ashcroft, have used the threat of terrorism to abolish essential civil liberties and impose unconstitutional policies that even William Safire calls "dictatorial." These policies include indefinite detention without charges, surveillance of attorney-client conversations, military tribunals instead of trials, surveillance of all phone, e-mail, and fax communications, and infiltration of religious and political groups. No one expects the Republican Supreme Court to block the "dictatorial" actions by their hand-picked President.      
• George W. Bush and his Republican allies in Congress have turned the Clinton-Gore budget surpluses into deficits for as far as the eye can see, by cutting taxes for the richest 1% of Americans. These deficits threaten Social Security, Medicare, education, environmental protection, and the arts. They will also make the Bush Recession longer, deeper, and more painful to America's working families.

Just as New York is rising from the ashes of the terrorist attack on 9-11, so too must America rise from the ashes of the damage done by the Bush Administration, the Republican Congress, and the Republican Supreme Court. 

On December 12, we will gather near Ground Zero in New York to declare that a nation-wide campaign to rebuild American Democracy has begun. 

To win this battle, we will reinvigorate the Democratic Party to fight for the fundamental values that have made it America's largest - and the world's must enduring - political party. We will build upon the nationwide Democratic victories in 2001, and set our goals for the future: 

• In 2002, we will reverse Republican policies by sweeping Republicans out of Congress, and give Democrats veto-proof control of the Senate and the House.      
• In 2002, we will fix our broken election systems by electing Democratic governors in New York, Florida, and around the country.      
• In 2004, we will restore Democracy in America by removing George W. Bush and the Republicans from the White House.

This important forum will be held at the historic Great Hall at Cooper Union in New York City's Astor Place, near Ground Zero. The Great Hall was the birthplace of workers' rights campaigns, the NAACP, the women's suffrage movement and the American Red Cross. Past speakers include Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Grover Cleveland, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, and William Jefferson Clinton. 

If you care about America's future, we urge you to attend - and bring a friend!