Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 19:26:30 -0400 (EDT) From: Louis Epstein Subject: July Rally for Rebuilding WTC Towers I'm sending this email to my entire list of pro-WTC-rebuilding advocates (if I just added you and you don't want to be on,or if you no longer want to be on,rest assured that I always immediately honor removal requests). However,as it concerns planning for a rally in July, I will not send further emails concerning the rally plan ==>EXCEPT TO THOSE WHO NOW WRITE BACK AND SAY THEY WANT TO BE PART OF THE RALLY PLANS<==. Team Twin Towers will not be part of the rally, they are not a "rally" organization...I have generally deferred to them as the most organized/viable group in the rebuilding cause,but with regard to July at the Javits,they are committed to working the "inside", trying to get the rebuilding voice heard at the forum, while this rally is for those on the "outside". I want to emphasize this; ********************************************* *** *** *** The importance of demonstrating *** *** *** *** that this cause can muster *** *** *** *** a large number of warm bodies *** *** *** *** in one place *** *** *** *** CAN NOT BE OVERSTATED!! *** *** *** ********************************************* The anti-rebuilding "establishment" want to make us invisible. To make all pro-rebuilders feel that they are a small minority and their dreams unrealistic. Will the TTT "fundraiser with celebrity guests" fill the bill? I don't know. At "Listening to the City II",the July event at the Javits Center, for which no specific date has yet been announced, the Whitehead clique are going to put on a show of 5,000 carefully chosen people as stage-managed support for their view of a bin-Laden-compliant redevelopment of the site where the Twin Towers were taken from us,and forever belong. You can be sure that pro-rebuilding voices at this forum will be kept to a token minimum,just enough for them to pat themselves on the back for how inclusive they were in letting someone say such a thing,and proclaim to the world how obviously isolated such views are. All the better to move on with their plans with the intention that the millions who want the Towers back will roll over and accept the waste of taxpayer rebuilding money on symbols of surrender,and feel there's nothing they can do about it, it's just too bad. We need to be outside the Javits Center on the day, to show the world that this "listening to the public" is a sham,a false front,a Potemkin village. While on the subject of false fronts, let me take time to denounce the Lisa Bowstead design proposal at buildthetowers.org: fifty-story office buildings topped by empty shells to make them look like the Twin Towers. If we did this America would be a laughingstock! PRETEND rebuilding can not be accepted, nor can the idea that the terrorists won and DID scare us out of wanting to work on the highest floors! If you can't imagine any improvement on Yamasaki by all means vote for the Forbush plan,but the Bowstead idea is PHONY Yamasaki. (And please DON'T vote for any of the wacky pyramids and whatnot!) Digression over... This presence outside the Javits Center has to be carefully considered. It is not to march. Not to chant. Not to picket. Just to BE there,VISIBLY,and bear witness. If there are LOTS of us there it will help the cause enormously; if there are only a few it could very well hurt. We have to wear identical shirts so that we are seen as a group without doing anything that gets in other people's way,I would like them to be brightly colored with the Towers of course their main artwork. We should have leaflets to hand out,to offer to everyone entering the building.They should put the case clearly that anything short of the Towers rising again is a disgrace to America and the human spirit,without taking time out to attack the people trying to ensure that disgrace. I know "victim culture" offends some,as does the "milking the victimhood" that NYCS posters have roasted repeatedly... but on this day,we must show the world,WE ARE THE VICTIMS! The Towers were taken from us all,and now they want to spend our money on setting that in stone while only listening to those who agree with them. When we're there we must NOT be confrontational... if the person you're offering a leaflet to turns out to be John Whitehead or Monica Iken,BE POLITE. It's quite possible that the sight of lots of pro-rebuilders out to show their dedication is something they never thought possible. A lot of the handpicked attendees will be "innocents" with no real understanding how much bringing the Towers back means to people,and I want every one of them to walk into the Center having been handed a pro-rebuilding leaflet.Politely,not aggressively. We could well change some minds....that Whitehead and co. were counting on not changing. And if we GET confronted,this is vital again... BE THE VICTIM!!! When they see us there the organizers might ask us inside to drop off leaflets,rather than be outside handing them to people.But if their price for having leaflets there on a table for people to take is that we go away,that is not a price we can pay. I'm not sure what we can legally do without a permit, but up to a point I think we should do it anyway. If the spin is that the police are harassing people just offering their point of view,it's good...we have to NOT be harassing anyone ourselves in a reasonable person's opinion of how we behave. One more note...I think it would be good to have people there who travel a long distance to be there,as part of our press-interviewable contingent...make the point that it's NOT just the city that has an interest in the message that would be sent by letting the Towers stay gone. Nobody's landmarks are safe if terrorists know that one that gets destroyed stays gone...we should turn the "target" argument on its head! Also,a couple of you lost relatives on the 11th... I hope we can find a survivor-spokesman-for-rebuilding! Obviously the shirts and leaflets will cost money. We need to get the warm bodies there,we need to raise the costs.We need to network,we can't lose time. Hammering out the right text,the right shirt design, are part of it as well. We need to make sure we get plenty of press coverage at the right time,and with the right slant. IF YOU WANT TO BE PART OF THE RALLY,WRITE BACK; I WON'T SEND ANY MORE RALLY-RELATED EMAILS TO PEOPLE WHO DON'T ANSWER THIS ONE.(just le@put.com will reach me) I'd like to make sure you all know how responsible George Pataki is for all the anti-rebuilding establishment moves. He set up the Lower Manhattan under the Empire State Development Corporation,and named the ESDC chairman (Gargano) as vice chairman of the Port Authority after the Towers fell,as well as naming a new PA Executive Director.(PA chairman Sinagra is ALSO new since the Towers fell...he's from New Jersey,though). Though I've never voted for Pataki I feel sort of responsible for him since he was once my State Senator. The people saying it's inappropriate to bring the Towers back are people Pataki put there. May we meet on the 111th floor on 9-11-11! -=-=- The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again, at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.