MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR:
Republicans Rally To Demolish Former HCDP Headquarters

Several of you have written me expressing alarm, concern, and disgust because the Republican Party has invited its members to take sledge hammers (to be provided by the Republicans) to the building which served as our headquarters before we moved to our new location last month and help tear it down. Personally, I'm kind of pleased with this.

The statement in the Republican announcement that we were "evicted" from our headquarters is, of course, a lie, but what else do you expect from Republicans: our lease term was up and we moved to better quarters. There was no "eviction" any more than Ronald Reagan was "evicted" from the White House when his term was up and he moved to California. But truth is not one of the virtues (family values) this bunch believes in or embraces.

Anyway, in my mind the "demolition derby" shows exactly what and all Republicans are all about -- tearing things down, destroying them, demolishing. That's exactly what Republicans do -- use brute force to demolish and destroy things. This is precisely the highest and best use of their members, and exactly what they stand for - destruction. They did it to our economy, to our jobs market, to our voting rights, to our democracy, to civility in government (bi-partisanship), to civil rights, to health care for children, to fair pay for teachers -- they took out their sledgehammers and smashed them to smithereens. What harm can it do for these folks to show off their main talent (demolition skills) by tearing down an old deserted building?

(Isn't it curious that the Republican Party of Harris County has sledge hammers they're ready to provide to their members? Sledge hammers are not part of the paraphernalia of the Democratic Party. Come to think of it, I wonder what other WMD the Republicans are stockpiling over there at their headquarters. The WMD must be somewhere; has anybody checked the Republican headquarters?)

At any rate, apparently the new corporate owner of the building needs some financial help. The Republican Party can't give the corporation any more tax cuts right now, so they'll just help out with free labor. Anything for a corporate friend in need.

I do regret that the Republicans will be taking paying jobs away from folks who need them by doing demolition work for the owner of the building for free, but that just shows what little concern Republicans have for working men and women in this community. I sure hope they'll at least provide hard hats for their unpaid workers (to go with their hard heads), but Republican disdain for worker safety concerns may foreclose their doing that. And if anyone gets seriously injured demolishing the old place, they sure don't have to worry about compensating for those injuries, given what the Republicans have done to access to the courts to obtain fair treatment. (Of course, if its one of their legislators who gets injured, they'll probably be able to get some insurance company to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars on that claim, regardless of whether their insurance policy provides coverage or not.)

All in all, I think this is a pretty good insight into what Republicans are all about -- destruction and demolition, helping corporate landlords, all at the expense of folks in need.

Carry on, Republicans. But you better be careful: your true colors are showing!

Gerry Birnberg
Chair, Harris County Democratic Party
August 20, 2003

Archive of Gerry Birnberg's Messages

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