History
In the early 1990s, many people were talking about forming a new political party. These discussions centered around populist themes. The eventual result of the movement that followed was United We Stand America, followed by the Reform Party, and in some states the Independence Party.
The early history of UWSA revolved around establishment of chapters in all 50 states and citizen activism against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The organization also supported Ross Perot's fiscally conservative and socially liberal platform. The first state granted a charter by the national leadership of UWSA, Virginia, was chartered in June 1993.
In November 1993 Ross Perot and Vice-President Al Gore conducted a nationally televised debate about NAFTA on CNN which is still the most widely viewed political program in US history.
UWSA remained active under Perot's leadership until late 1995 when the paid staff was moved to a new organization dubbed "Citizens for the Reform Party" which actively campaigned to petition the Reform Party on to the ballot in all 50 states for the 1996 presidential election. The name of Perot's organization conflicted with that of a United Way-type LGBT group, which had copyrighted the name 'United We Stand'.
Read more about this topic: United We Stand America
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“the future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world. The past is thus as real as the present.”
—Charlie Dunbar Broad (1887–1971)
“... the history of the race, from infancy through its stages of barbarism, heathenism, civilization, and Christianity, is a process of suffering, as the lower principles of humanity are gradually subjected to the higher.”
—Catherine E. Beecher (1800–1878)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)