By Malcolm Shore
Mainstream news coverage of the Democratic
National Convention last night was, in a word, vacuous.
Among both the speakers and the media
pundits, the lack of discussion of the grave issues facing the people
of the world – and, with very few exceptions, the lack of discussion
of any substantive issues at all — was astounding, if not surprising.
Between 8pm and 11:30 pm, I flipped back and forth between CNN, MSNBC,
and Fox News. I did not hear one mention of the word “Afghanistan”
– where U.S. airstrikes just killed 95 civilians, including 60 children,
according to Afghanistan’s president and the United Nations. Nor did
I hear the word “torture,” “Iran,” or “spying”
during that entire period. On the other hand, there was plenty
of mindless cheering for predictable platitudes about “hope” and
“change”; a sea of American flags; and several videos of Ted Kennedy
on his sail boat.
Just exactly what kind of “change” and “hope” are we talking
about here, Mr. And Mrs. Democrat?
Then, around 10:15, things got interesting.
I saw an item flash across the ticker on MSNBC: “Police in riot
gear have used pepper spray about a mile from the DNC.”
Some quick searching online led me to
a live feed on the Denver Post Web site of a crowd of protestors who
was chanting and refusing to be dispersed by the police.
As it turned out, at the same time the
mind-numbing speeches were being delivered to much fanfare inside the
Pepsi Center, police were using pepper spray on a crowd of hundreds
of protestors to prevent them from marching to the downtown 16th
Street Mall.
Police surrounded the crowd of protestors
near the mall, ultimately letting many go while a sizeable crowd remained;
it was difficult to tell from the video feed exactly how many protestors
were still in the crowd when I clicked on to the Denver Post Web site
around 10:15. But their chanting was definitely loud and energetic
at times.
The Denver Post was reporting Tuesday
morning that police arrested hundreds of demonstrators on Monday.
It was not clear to me exactly who was involved in the protests, although
the Post indicated that the Recreate 68 Coalition was at least part
of the original crowd of marchers dispersed by the police. The
Post further reported that, “Protestors told reporters they
were a mix of Tent State participants and those identifying themselves
as anti-capitalist, anti-fascist, anti-war individuals.”
Between roughly 10:15 and midnight ET,
I watched the live internet feed of the protest outside the convention
at the same time as I listened to the speeches the Democrats were
delivering inside the convention.
The contrast was remarkable.
Here is my running diary from Night
1 of the DNC..
7:52pm – On CNN, my first glimpse
of the night of the scene inside the Pepsi Center – – a sea of people,
both Black and white, dancing to Aretha Franklin’s “R-E-S-P-E-C-T”
and waving American flags. This scene will become very
familiar as the night goes on.; only the music of choice changes.
7:57 – On MSNBC, Keith Olbermann
and Chris Matthews interview Bill Maher. Maher can be infuriating a
lot of the time, but he can also be very refreshing. Maher sarcastically
describes the convention as “The pageantry of American politics at
its finest, even if it’s not that fine.”
Olbermann asks Maher : “Are we at an
all-time low politically?”
Maher responds : “In my lifetime, I
would have to say that things do seem to be getting worse.”
Maher says the reason things are getting
worse is that the American people are getting stupider and stupider
every election cycle. He says people will swallow anything fed
to them, including the idea that a Black man raised by a single mother
(Obama) is an elitist.
“They get the leaders they deserve,”
Maher says of the American people. “And they don’t deserve very
good leaders.”
At least two massive problems with that
reasoning: 1) The logical implication of Maher’s position is that
it is not only futile but immoral to resist the crimes being committed
in our name, because these crimes are the will of a “stupid” populous.
2) People aren’t born with a “propaganda susceptibility” gene,
Bill. The American people might be swallowing a lot of bullshit,
but that raises the question of who keeps feeding it to them.
8:02 pm – Keith Olbermann and
Chris Matthews debate whether someone with more than two syllables in
their last name stands a chance to be elected president. You can’t
make this stuff up, and you wouldn’t want to.
8:05 pm – Back to CNN. Anderson
Cooper goes to an internet correspondent with a captivating breaking
news report: Sources say Michelle Obama has sent a video out over the
Obama email list of Michelle and her family. The video shows them”
preparing for tonight’s speech! Don’t get excited yet,
it gets even better. Obama supporters are being asked to”” (drum
roll please)”..
FORWARD THE EMAIL TO OTHERS!
Anderson Cooper’s summation: “Yet
another use of the internet by this campaign, which has been so effective.”
You can’t make this stuff up either.
8:07-More people feverishly
waving American flags. Young and old, Black and white.
8:09 – CNN notes that Nancy
Pelosi is about to speak. By the way, for the people who think electing
Barack Obama would mean that “racism is over,” here’s a question:
Exactly how much has the oppression of women changed during the 18 months
in which we have had the first female speaker of the House? Just
wondering.
8:16 -Pelosi says Americans
should take every opportunity to thank veterans for their “courage”
and “sacrifice.”
“Because of them,” Pelosi says, “America
is the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
8:19 – Pelosi calls the Iraq
War “A catastrophic mistake that has cost thousands
of lives”. This calculation means either:
A)Nancy Pelosi is extraordinarily bad
at math, or
B) She is extraordinarily bad at counting
Iraqis as human beings.
8:22 – Wolf Blitzer says of
CNN’s coverage of the DNC –“You”ll feel all the excitement. You”ll
get all the information.”
Wolf? 0 for 2, buddy!
8:33 On Fox News, the first
truly interesting moment of the night. That’s not a typo. Bill
O” Reilly shows us actual footage of the day’s protests. The
images in his segment include:
*World Can’t Wait national steering
committee member Sunsara Taylor agitating in front of a crowd of “detainees”
dressed in orange jumpsuits and black hoods, explaining that this scene
is being created to draw attention to the conditions of actual detainees
in Guantanamo.
*Demonstrators chanting “Tell me what
a police state looks like? This is what a police state looks like!”
*Scenes of a Black protestor angrily
confronting Fox reporter Griff Jenkins about his network’s hateful
coverage of people of color as protestors behind him chant “Fuck Fox
News!”
*A demonstrator displaying the new constitution
of the Revolutionary Communist Party.
* A banner that reads “Impeach Bush;”
*World Can’t Wait’s signs that read
“Iraq: Get Out, Iran: Stay Out, Bush and Cheney: Drive Out!”
Of course, O” Reilly shows all these
images for the purpose of slandering any and all who protest the Bush
Regime and its program as supposedly dangerous, violent, fringe extremists.
At the end of the segment, he tells
reporter Griff Jenkins “Stay safe out there.”
O” Reilly also gloats repeatedly that
Ward Churchill, one of the demonstrators, “got his” and is no longer
employed as a member of the University of Colorado faculty. Churchill,
of course, was fired for “plagiarism” – which Webster’s Dictionary
defines as “political speech that denounces and exposes fundamental
assumptions the powers-that-be would like to promote about America AND
speech that is also protected by the first 1st Amendment,
thereby necessitating the fabrication of an alternate reason for punishing
the source of the speech.”
8:48 pm- After noting that his
father’s generation was the generation that fought against racial
oppression in Selma in the 1950s, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. said , “I know America is still a place
where dreams are too often deferred and opportunities too often denied.
But here’s what I also know. I know that while America may not be
perfect, our union can always be perfected.”
Jackson’s words here succinctly capture
a key theme of the Obama candidacy since its inception: “Relax,
it’s only white supremacy!”
8:50-More music. More American
flags.
8:55 – -More music. More American
flags. At this point, the mindless pseudo-fun of the Convention is starting
to resemble Times Square on New Year’s Eve.
9:05 – CNN’s David Gergen
notes, “We”re two hours into this and the Democrats have offered
virtually no substance for television purposes.”
So it wasn’t just me, then?
9:13 – More dancing, more middle-aged
people, Lots more American flags.
9:29 – After much speculation
about whether or not his health would allow him to appear at the Pepsi
Center, Ted Kennedy comes out, smiling and giving a thumbs up
to wild applause.
9:31 – A few minutes later, Kennedy
tells the crowd: “Barack Obama will close the book on the old politics
of race ,and gender, and group against group, and straight against gay.”
Instead, Kennedy might have parphrased
the late Richard Pryor: “What are you gonna believe? Me,
or your lying society?”
9:31 – Immediately after the
above statement, Kennedy tells the crowd “Barack Obama will be a commander
in chief that understands that young Americans in uniform must never
be committed to a mistake but always to a mission worthy of their bravery.”
Which mission might that be, Ted?
A mission in Afghanistan to murder 60 children? A mission
to drop nuclear weapons on Iran?
9:36 Approaching a dramatic
end, Kennedy exclaims: “Yes we are all Americans! This is what we
do. We reach the moon.! We scale the heights! I know it. I”ve seen
it. I”ve lived it! We can do it again.”
Unfortunately, due to time constraints,
Ted Kennedy was not able to read the entirety of this section, which
would have included these lines: “We torture people! We start
illegal wars! We leave hundreds of thousands of Black people to
drown or starve to death, force them from their homes and then demolish
those homes! We spy on our own citizens!”
9:43– More dancing. More American
flags.
10:09 -Chris Matthews notes
Joe Biden’s strong support for Israel while interviewing Rep. Debbie
Wasserman of Florida. Wasserman concurs, describing Biden as “A
staunch ally of the state of Israel.”
10:15 – News flashes across
MSNBC’s ticker: “Police in riot gear have used pepper spray about
a mile from the DNC.”
While leaving the television on, I begin
an online search for what the television is not showing me – footage
of the protest.
10:19 – I arrive at a live feed
on the Denver Post Web site. This commences a period of roughly
90 minutes where I am able to listen to the sounds outside the Convention
while taking in the sights and sounds inside the Convention at the same
time.
In order to provide some sense of this
juxtaposition, the rest of this running diary will consist of alternating
quotes from inside the Pepsi Center with bracketed notes on what is
happening in the streets outside and away from the Convention.
10:19 –
[Hell no, we won’t go!”
[“They say get back
– we say fight back!” ]
[“Periodic bursts of cheering. Perhaps
the cheering is in support of demonstrators being led away by police,
but I am not really able to tell.”]
[“The People United Will Never Be
Defeated“]
10:26 – -MSNBC shows Michelle
Obama talking about a video of Barack Obama.
[One protestor can be heard shouting:
“Martial Law!” ]
10:32–
[“Let them go! Let them go!”]
Craig Robinson, Michelle Obama” brother:
“My mother Marian
is here tonight. She remains our family’s anchor, and the sole reason
Michelle was willing to campaign at all was because she knows that Mom
is there to help take care of the girls.”
[“Let them go! Let
them go!”]
10:33 – [A massive line of
police in riot gear quickly forms in front of the demonstrators.]
Robinson, who is also the basketball
coach at Oregon State University: ” If
you”re looking for a political analysis based on his playing, here
it is: He’s confident but not cocky, he”ll take the shot if he’s
open, he’s a team player who improves the people around him, and he
won’t back down from any challenge.”
10:35 pm – Robinson introduces
Michelle Obama as “An
impassioned public servant, a loving daughter, wife and mother, my little
sister and our nation’s next first lady, Michele Obama.”
[“Freedom! Now!”]
[Police bullhorn saying
“Get out of the street” ]
10:37 pm Cheering mounts at the
Convention as Michelle Obama takes the stage.
[“Let them go!” ]
[“Freedom! Now! ]
10:38 – Michelle Obama: “I
come here as a wife who loves my husband and believes he will be an
extraordinary President. I
come here as a mom whose girls are the heart of my heart and the center
of my world. They”re the first thing I think about when I wake up
in the morning and the last thing I think about when I go to bed at
night. Their future and all our children’s future is my stake in this
election.”
[Helicopters churn overhead]
10:40 – [“Who do you protect?!
Who do you serve?”]
“He
and my mom poured everything they had into me and Craig. It was the
greatest gift a child can receive: never doubting for a single minute
that you”re loved and cherished and have a place in this world. And
thanks to their faith and hard work, we both were able to go on to college.”
[“Who do you protect?! Who do you
serve?!”]
“I come here as a daughter
raised on the south side of Chicago by a father who was a blue-collar
city worker and a mother who stayed at home with my brother and me.
My mother’s love has always been a sustaining force for our family
and one of my greatest joys is seeing her integrity, her compassion
and her intelligence reflected in my own daughters.”
[helicopters]
10:40 -“He
and my mom poured everything they had into me and Craig. It was the
greatest gift a child can receive: never doubting for a single minute
that you”re loved and cherished and have a place in this world. And
thanks to their faith and hard work, we both were able to go on to college.”
[Who do you protect? Who do you serve?!]
10:43 -Michelle Obama mentions
two anniversaries –
“the 88th anniversary of women winning the right to vote and the 45th
anniversary of that hot summer day when Dr. King lifted our sights and
our hearts with his dream for our nation. ”
She fails to mention
another anniversary, which occurs on the same day her husband will accept
the Democratic nomination: The 3rd Anniversary of Hurricane
Katrina.
10:50 – – “You
see, Barack doesn’t care where you”re from, or what your background
is, or what party, if any, you belong to. That’s not how he sees the
world. He knows that thread that connects us-our belief in America’s
promise, our commitment to our children’s future-is strong enough
to hold us together as one nation even when we disagree.”
[“Let them go! Let them go!”]
10:53 –“God bless you and God
bless America.”
10:54– Stevie Wonder’s
“Isn’t She Lovely” plays in the background as Michelle Obama exits
the stage.
11:22 – [“Where’s Obama
now?! Where’s Obama now?!” ]
11:30 – [Clapping and cheering
still audible.]
11:34 -[A protestor on a
bullhorn says that the police released about 200 demonstrators about
an hour previously. “You don’t always get everything,” he says.
“But when you struggle, you get a lot.”]