Ruminations on the RNC, New Orleans, the National Beauty Contest and Busting the Alternative Press.
It was kind of like a story out of the Bible. The Evangelicals were praying for it to rain on the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Instead God or nature, whomever you attribute the weather cycle to, chose to have it rain on New Orleans again– with Hurricane Gustav gusting winds all the way from Shreveport, Louisiana up to Saint Paul, Minnesota. Fortunately for the residents of the Big Easy, who haven’t fully recovered from the last disaster in hurricane Katrina, not to mention the Army Corps of Engineers hasn’t completed reinforcing the dikes and levies yet, Gustav swerved westward like floating curve ball before downgrading from a level-3 hurricane, flooding the Atchafalaya swamp.
The Republicans up north in St. Paul, not wanting to repeat the callus disregard for life in the aftermath of Katrina, created political whirlwinds of their own by canceling Bush and Cheney’s appearance at the RNC. This is the first time in living memory a sitting president hasn’t attended his own party’s convention––to the relief of many, if not most of the Republican leadership. It is so telling that Bush junior’s popularity ratings along with Dick Cheney’s are so low that nobody running for office wants to be seen standing next to them. And then there is Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska and newly designated Vice Presidential beauty queen.
Some on the political left say she’s already a disaster, but others of the more liberal persuasion cynically think this was the most brilliant move McCain could muster after the overwhelming show of unity by Democrats the week before. Thinking that the former beauty queen Governor––who according to Fred Thompson is the only VP candidate in history (except for perhaps Teddy Roosevelt) who can field dress a moose–– will sway 13 million Hillary voters. This along with her pro-life parenting skills of abstinence for her 17 year-old pregnant daughter and her anti-Roe v. Wade stance on abortion, plus her support of oil drilling in the ANWR national preserve isn’t likely to sway too many environmentally conscious or pro-choice women.
However, if we perceive the national presidential race as nothing more than a beauty contest, not unlike Dancing With the Stars or American Idol, then who you are dancing with can make a whole lotta difference, especially if you are voting by text message. Obama already has the email donation vote sewn up, having raised hundreds of millions of dollars without having to beg at the corporate donor trough. But can the McCain/Palin ticket out-perform Obama/Biden in the quick step or the tango? And will the debates Hip-Hop around the real issues of ending the War in Iraq, avoiding Universal Healthcare, rebuilding American infrastructures and ignoring public education? The dance goes on….
Meanwhile, during all of this confusion between covering the near disaster of New Orleans and the near disasters of the RNC, you will notice on our front page that the noted Democracy Now! Anchorwoman Amy Goodman was arrested following her coverage of the “preemptive raids” by the Saint Paul police and the Feds. These raids and arrests of journalists––only one of whom represented the mainstream press––should send a chilling message to this nation as to exactly what lengths a McCain-cum-inheritor-of-Bush policies would be willing to do to extend the voiding of our Constitutional rights. In countries like Russia and Mexico, they shoot journalists that report too much on either the crimes of the oligarchy or the drug cartels, and those countries are much the worse for it.
We walk narrowly close to the Kafka-esque model of totalitarian dysfunction and oppression of human rights at home with these extraordinary renditions of journalists, political activists and dissenters. What else can we expect from the Bush/Cheney reign of error of the last eight years? Oppression abroad has simply been imported back to America like a free trade deal of “mission accomplished.” The fact that this kind of repressive police tactic would be tolerated in a local civilian police department only shows how corrupt our local cops have become––bribed by Homeland Security grants as they are. Should we now send these domestic skeptics, critics of the power to be, down to Guantanamo and torture the truth out of them or should we let them print it of their own free will in the alternative press? Troubling decision for some. But could you imagine what would have happened if they accidentally arrested Tom Brokaw?
The reality is no one in power wants to hear the truth––not in St. Paul… not in Washington DC… not in Inglewood… and not in Long Beach, California. Keeping journalists from reporting the facts, particularly on police matters, seems to be as much a part of the government agenda these days as denying the phony intel is for Bush’s premise to invade Iraq to stop Saddam’s use of WMDs. And we tell the world that we are promoting democracy. Look at the example we’ve set. Arresting journalists, pepper spraying demonstrators, caging demonstrators in “safe” pre-designated areas, dissent was essentially quashed, just as it happened in Boston in 2004, and in Los Angeles in 2000. I wouldn’t be surprised if the RNC had hired Blackwater to act as their strategic security for the convention, allowing them to direct the Pauly Police.
It does seem odd to reiterate my comment about our foreign wars in this context, but I think it really fits. You can’t enforce democracy at the point of a gun! It wasn’t democracy that the St. Paul police were trying to protect. Maybe it wasn’t the Republican Convention that they were protecting either.
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