upcoming convention
I have no desire to watch any of the Republican Convention this week, not even from a place of checking out what the “other side” is saying. We all know what they’re saying and I’m sick of listening to it.
As usual, I’m looking forward most to seeing how the protests go. Anything could happen and I expect there to be a lot of police brutality towards protestors and many arrests. I wish I could be there so badly; I actually considered plunking down the money for a ticket to NYC and just winging it. NPR had an interesting four-minute piece featuring Starhawk and others considering the question of whether civil disobedience could end up helping the Republican cause. Personally, I don’t think we can afford not to protest these days (roll over, yeah right!), and the media’s going to portray it however they portray it. As Jeralyn over at TalkLeft wrote, “The media will trumpet the outrageous and extreme, not mentioning that any such acts have little or no connection to the vast majority of protesters who are lawfully and peaceably exercising their First Amendment rights of assembly and free speech.” There will always be people who loathe and vilify protestors who won’t be moved, but when direct action is effective, it can cause countless others to think about things diffferently. I anticipate the next six days will be huge, like Seattle in ‘99, which got a lot of people aware of larger issues and involved in protest for the first time.
There was another NPR piece yesterday about the construction efforts at Madison Square Garden to customize it for the convention. The Republicans were boasting about how enough wood to build 90 houses was used. I repeat, this was a bragging point for them. And I’m thinking, how sick is that? All those trees… on top of that, if they’re going to cut the friggin’ trees down, there are hundreds of thousands of homeless people in this country who could sure use a house. 90 houses’ worth of wood for a one week convention. What’s so telling is that this fact is the source of conceit for the Republicans.
On her show last night, Randi Rhodes was also talking about the construction and saying that an raising platform stage had been built. She half-joked that perhaps the Republicans were planning to elevate Bush above the crowd after his speech Thursday night - you know, all Jesus-like. Wouldn’t surprise me.