Before the Protests, the Bids for Attention

Before the protests came the news conferences--four of them on Thursday alone, plus a minor demonstration as activists from Washington state to Wilshire Boulevard struggled to grab the media’s attention before delegates and protesters sweep into town for the Democratic National Convention.

Seeking their 15 minutes of fame, activists held separate news conferences Thursday against clear-cutting in national forests, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s spending on light rail and crumbling local high schools.

Even anarchists have got into the act, with a news conference earlier this week about their own gathering, which begins today. Organizers, some in pressed shirts and ties, sought to reassure everyone--especially police--that they will discuss ideology rather than plan violence.

A wide array of groups issued 25 different demands to Democratic Party leaders within 25 hours.

On Thursday, about 18 youth activists--joined by nearly as many reporters--gathered in front of the Ronald Reagan State Building downtown, unveiling 10 demands for Gov. Gray Davis. They asked the state to increase public school spending by billions of dollars and called for the repeal of Proposition 21, which lets prosecutors charge minors as adults in certain cases.

“As a youth, I’m sick and tired of having to endure these horrible conditions in our public schools, where our classrooms are too crowded, we don’t have any books and our teachers aren’t paid enough,” said 17-year-old Emilio Guerrero of Whittier.

After California Highway Patrol officers shooed the activists off state property onto the curb, the young people announced that they plan to march from the notorious, unfinished Belmont Learning Complex to the state building Tuesday morning to publicize their demands.

About the same time as their event Thursday, a group of mothers held a news conference outside a downtown Los Angeles welfare office. They announced plans to have hundreds of mothers gather Tuesday at Pershing Square to highlight women’s issues with their own march to the state building. They said they will engage in nonviolent civil disobedience but would not elaborate.

The mothers, who include members of such groups as the National Organization for Women and the Every Mother Is a Working Mother network, said women have borne the brunt of welfare reform and the new global economy’s impact.

“Welfare reform forces women into low-paying jobs with no thought to getting them a better education or child care,” said Edna Lopez, a single parent and a UCLA student.

In a preview of the street protests, a group of gray-haired activists known as the Raging Grannies sang a song to the tune of “Jesus Loves Me.” The lyrics included:

Hospitals are not hotels.

They won’t keep you till you’re

well.

Dope you up and ship you out.

That’s what this system’s all about.

Meanwhile, about a dozen activists marched outside downtown’s Arco Towers--which house the Democrats’ convention committee offices--to spotlight the Indonesian military’s brutality in East Timor.

They said that more than 100,000 East Timorese were taken to camps elsewhere in Indonesia during military-led violence there last year and have yet to be released. Though many participating Thursday will be on the streets next week, the convention-related protests are not expected to focus on East Timor. “It just seemed like there was so much going on during the convention, and we just wanted Al Gore, while there is a little space, to hear our demands,” said activist Mizue Aizeki.

Some of the demonstrators peeled off early Thursday because they belong to the Bus Riders Union, which held its own conference at its Wilshire Boulevard headquarters.

The group wants Gore to walk in its march Tuesday from MacArthur Park to Staples Center. They also hope that, under the Civil Rights Act, he will force the MTA to live up to a court order requiring the agency to buy more buses.

If Gore does not, said Maria Aguirre of Koreatown, “we will not vote for him. We will vote for Ralph Nader. Or we will not vote.”

Forest activists also had a message for Gore at a news conference a couple of hours later: Halt logging in old-growth forests on federal land.

Only one cameraman showed up for that news conference. Then his microphone broke, so he left. The six activists explained their plans to the remaining reporter. On Monday, they intend to observe what they call National Forest Protection Day, including a midday rally in Pershing Square expected to feature singer Bonnie Raitt.

The forest activists are veterans of recent mass protests, including those in Seattle last year. They don’t mind sharing the spotlight during convention week. “It’s all to the benefit of getting issues out that haven’t been heard for a long time,” said activist Antonia Juhasz.