By  Kevin Gosztola

Standing at 16th St & Champa in Denver,
I looked straight ahead to see a band of Christofascists standing in
the middle of the street cordoned off by a group of police. The Christofascists
were holding signs that read, “Homo Sex is Sin”, “Repent the Wicked”,
“Real Americans Love Sean Hannity, O”Reilly, and Fox News”, and
one very long one that said, “Warning: Baby Killing, So-Called Christians,
Porno Freaks, Muslims, Drunks, Homosexuals, Party Animals, Rebellious
Women, Liberals, Jesus Mockers, Sex Addicts, Mormons—God Will Judge
You!”

The spectacle being put on by the Christofascists
was enough to hold anybody’s attention, but it was even better. Opposite
the Christofascists were a bunch of protesters holding signs that expressed
antiwar and anti-imperialism sentiments.

The two were going at each other despite
the intimidating police presence. A few of the Christofascists even
were crossing into the group of protesters. That was when things got
hairy.

The police and protesters became embroiled
in a heated exchange. I do not know what set it off. But, I saw what
looked like a tug of war game being played out as a policeman pushed
on somebody while that somebody pushed back. It take time for that somebody
to lose to the policeman and end up being wrestled down to the ground
by the police offer.

As the police officer wrestled the person
down, you could see a wave of people falling backward as the brute force
of the officer came down on the protester.

What happened next I feel was a blessing
for anybody looking to organize against this program that has brought
battalion after battalion of police to Denver to “secure” the convention
for Democrats. People who have had nothing to do with protests so far
and who were just innocent bystanders trying to get to some place began
to question the police control of the area.

I heard someone point out the horses,
the rifles, the tear gas, etc. and then say, “And it’s all for one
person, right?” One person. And most likely he had a bandana on and
was an “anarchist” or really an anarchist because the police do
not like those.

But, there’s a reason that police have
come after anarchists. There’s a reason I overheard a Legal Observer
telling somebody that the police surrounded a group of ten to twenty
“anarchists” who were on one corner lost in Denver and after
pinning them down, put them in a van and carted them away. There’s reason
police detained them. 

While I do not like to stick up for them
because they primarily are people who just want to provoke the police
and get arrested, the targeting of anarchists or even so-called anarchists
is all a part of a campaign in the Denver area to discredit activists
and protesters in general who would even dare to take to the streets
to challenge the system.

Anarchists are easy to discredit. As
I”ve heard before, if you”re not for capitalism & government,
than what are you for?

And as the anarchists go, so goes the
movement that takes to the streets. And so goes the people who are watching
this all on television portrayed as an act to disrupt their lives and
make it difficult for them to live while we are in Denver speaking out
against both Democrats and Republicans.

I attended an “An Evening of Conscience:
No Attack on Iran” presentation organized by the World Can’t Wait
at the Cleo Parker Robinson Theater last night. The presentation included
speakers Cindy Sheehan, Cynthia McKinney, Col. Ann Wright, Ron Kovic,
Jeremy Scahill, Pam and Ramona Africa, Sunsara Taylor, and others.

The event was kicked off by Phil Aliff
from Iraq Veterans Against the War who started his speech with, “If
people in Denver didn’t know that we were here before, they know now.”
He went on to say:

Ron Kovic, who led the peace march down
to the Pepsi Center, praised those in attendance and thanked them for
the march today saying:

“Today was a wonderful
day and a victorious day for us. They tried to stop us. They told us
we couldn’t march on the Pepsi Center. They tried to silence us. They
tried to silence dissent. They tried to silence democracy. But democracy
triumphed today. You triumphed today. And dissent triumphed. They did
not put us into a cage today. And for all those who were on the fence—for
all those who might have been afraid to come to the demonstration today—because
of all that you did, they have more courage and are ready to step over
the line now because of what you did today. Not only people in Denver
but people from all over this country and people all over this world
were affected by what you did today. Remember that.”

Ron Kovic then proceeded to read the
introduction from his autobiography “Born on the Fourth July”, which
was possibly one of the most moving readings I have ever been present
for in my life.

Jeremy Scahill later described how Ron
Kovic actually blocked journalists from getting into the convention
center when the march he led ended right in front of the Pepsi Center.
He also addressed some of the illusions Obama supporters and Democrats
are harboring right now.

“What we”re seeing here
in Denver and as we are going to see in St. Paul is a microcosm of how
this war operates and how this society operates. The corporations are
in total control. The corporations are driving the agenda. When it comes
to war and political conventions, there is not a Democratic Party and
Republican Party. There’s a Corporatist Party, which represents both
of those constituencies. And as much as the rhetoric of the Obama campaign
is about hope and change, he put the nail in the coffin of any honesty
to that statement when he selected Joe Biden as his running mate.”

Scahill described how Joe Biden cheerleaded
this war from the very start and cited the fact that Biden was the Chair
of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2002 and refused to call
any witnesses to testify at those crucial hearings that he chaired that
would say anything different than bomb the hell out of Iraq or bomb
them and invade them. (*This is worth an article, which I intend to
write next week after the convention is over.)

Cynthia McKinney came on and praised
World Can’t Wait for having this event and really being on target.
She went on to say thank you to everyone who has accepted her.

“Thank you to everyone
who has accepted me because I really did make a gross mistake. I started
out my political career as a Democrat. And I really believed in the
Democratic Party. How silly I was?”

McKinney said “what she saw inside
the Democratic Party was really the way this notion of empire worked.”

“Inside the belly of the
beast, however, I was able to see this phenomenon of hollow women of
the hegemon. I supported Nancy Pelosi as she sought to rise in the House
of Representatives. And I thought that my support for Nancy Pelosi was
reflection of the values that I had. Maybe they were a reflection of
the values, but what I learned is that women don’t automatically don’t
automatically share the values that we think ought to be prevailing
in our public policy. And so Nancy Pelosi has become one of these breeds
of these hollow women of the hegemon.”

She didn’t stop with Nancy Pelosi.

“These hollow women of
the hegemon. These women like Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza Rice,
whom at first we thought were going to represent the nobler ideals of
this country and then they sought to betray them. And they actively
betrayed them when Madeleine Albright that the price was worth it, the
price of half a million Iraqi children dead. The price was worth it.
And Condoleezza Rice prancing around on the international stage, an
African-American woman, a betrayal of everything the civil rights movement
stood for—A betrayal of all the people of color and all the people
who had confidence in her.”

She moved on to Jane Harman and assailed
her for putting together the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism
Prevention Act. She highlighted how this bill that would control how
people use the Internet used the community of example 7 young men who
were mostly poor and Haitian in Miami to justify the organization of
such an act.

The young men were accused of plotting
to attack the Sears Tower in Chicago, but the Liberty City 7 were not
found guilty, but the government is trying a third time now to find
some way to find them guilty despite two trials that have failed.

Cindy Sheehan came up after Cynthia and
asked, “What the hell’s the matter with this country?” Recounting
her day, she described how she had been feeling sick. She talked about
a person following her around who came up to her and told her that her
son is fighting in Iraq so that she can have free speech. She said she
responded to that by saying, “That’s bullshit! Your son’s fighting
for oil companies and war profiteers could get rich.”

She wasn’t out on the streets too long
and chose not to march to the Pepsi Center due to health reasons. She
told us how when she returned to the hotel she found her door open and
a person holding her hotel phone and a screwdriver. And she said, “What
the hell are you doing? Are you trying to rewire my phone?” And he
said, “Uh, no, we”re having phone problems.” She responded, “What
are you gonna do? Open it up and rewire the circuits?” And she called
the front desk who said that they were indeed having phone problems.

She continued talking about her difficulties
in gaining ballot access. She described running into a World Can’t
Wait person in orange who she asked to sign to get her on the ballot.
And he said, “Oh, I don’t vote. I’m a revolutionary.” She said,
“Start the fucking revolution then, why don’t you?” She added,
“Do you think I want to be doing this? Do you think I want to be running
for Congress? I”ll join you in the revolution but until then, it is
up to each and every one of us.”

Cindy Sheehan closed by describing her
platform and how she really wants to bring something to Congress that
other politicians refuse to offer to the people of this world.

By the time the event was over, it was
clear that the prevailing sentiment was that people should vote third
party or Independent in this presidential election, not put too much
energy into supporting electoral politics, and organize out in the streets
by connecting with people and expressing the importance of acting out
in ways not related to the elections.

I am disappointed that I do not have
the recording of Sunsara Taylor’s speech which she gave. For she (next
to Jeremy Scahill) was the best speaker at last night’s event, which
ended with Cleo Parker Robinson coming on stage to read the Not In Our
Name pledge in unison with all the speakers who spoke during the event.

Sunsara Taylor told us all during her
speech that despite the fact that 50,000 people did not show up to protest—despite
the fact that it was more like 500 to 1000—we should not be demoralized.
We should recognize that we have much work to do because the numbers
are so low. But, we also should recognize that we came out in the face
of police intimidation and in the face of a mass disinformation campaign
about protesters waged by the press in Denver.

Perhaps, the most bothersome thing that
I continue to see in Denver is the lack of interaction between people.

People from all over the political spectrum
are here and should be talking to each other freely and debating the
issues. But, people are concerned with Hillary’s delegates and buying
merchandise with Obama slapped all over it. McCain people just want
to put down the Obama people and the Christian Righties can’t keep Jesus
to themselves.

People also are walking up and down the
streets pretending nobody has entered the city that doesn’t normally
live here.

The police won’t let different groups
spar with each other. They violate free speech. And their own political
backgrounds often lead to them protecting pro-war veteran groups from
antiwar protesters looking to engage them and also prevent full-blown
exchanges between Christian Right people and pro-choice people.

Free speech doesn’t have to be limited
to a cage outside of the Pepsi Center. It doesn’t have to be because
people don’t know what free speech is, when it should be exercised,
or how to exercise it anymore.

I think I can include some who are participating
in the protests and rallies. Too many are content with cutting each
other off and not listening to what the other person has to say.

The left which decries shouting matches
on Fox News that O’Reilly might start engage in their own shouting matches
which marginalize the issues and policies which many Americans want
to advance.

People see what’s happening with the
police and the rise of fascism in this country and don’t know how
to articulate the message to deal with it. And being sucked in to just
getting angry at the police is not how to defend free speech either.
The system is propagating this, to use Cindy Sheehan’s favorite word,
horseshit.

Well, a truck with pornographic images
of a supposed aborted baby just rolled by, a guy selling Obama buttons
walked by on the street, police on horses just moved up the street blocking
the Free Mall Shuttle from getting by, the Minutemen are finishing up
their event to call attention to the inadequacies of Obama’s and McCain’s
immigration policy in Congress Park, and I am headed off to an event
titled, “What’s Behind the US Threats on Iran and How Can We Stop
Them?” Or, I might attend the Cynthia McKinney talk and the Obama
Girl talk at the Mercury Café.

Either way, with Day One of the Democratic
National Convention kicking into full gear, let me just make clear that
the streets is where real democracy is happening this week, not the
Pepsi Center.

Kevin Gosztola goes to Columbia College
in Chicago where he is studying film. He hopes to become a documentary
filmmaker. He is currently working as a production assistant on a documentary
called “Seriously Green” which traces the development of the
Green Party throughout the 2008 election.