By Dennis Loo
When I heard that police were raiding
– with guns drawn – the homes and offices of prospective
protesters in St. Paul in anticipation of the RNC, because protesters
were concealing weapons – weapons the police didn’t find because they
don’t exist – my first thought was how very deep into a police state
we now are.
Then I thought, how akin this excuse
is to the WMD hoax justifying the Iraq invasion. “They”re hoarding
weapons of mass destruction! Oh my god! We must crush them before they
get us!”
After which I thought, which part of
this is the bigger story?
Is it the fact that gendarmes of the
city, state and nation are behaving worse than those nasty Chinese police
during the Olympics who don’t appreciate the cardinal right to demonstrate
that we in America understand so well?
Is it the fact that the Democratic Party
set up “Democracy cages” in Denver to shield the Democratic Party
and its “Champions of the People” from protestors demanding real
change?
Or is it the fact that these police state
tactics are not deemed worthy of mainstream media attention from
the same media that lauded Bush’s complaints about Russia’s actions
towards Georgia and China’s “human rights” record?
Is it that the pre-emptive criminalization
of protest and of speech, the use of percussive grenades on peaceful
demonstrators, the tearing of peace activists out of their cars, the
arrests of journalists and charges of “conspiracy to riot in furtherance
of terrorism” and so on, are only bad when they”re done outside
the U.S., but they”re democracy in action when they”re done inside
the U.S.?
I honestly don’t know which is worse:
the fascist actions or the deafening silence and the myopic national
chauvinism of the corporate media about any of this.
* * *
At the DNC our-man-of-change Obama chooses
as his running mate a senator who was even more hawkish on Iraq than
were Bush and Cheney – if that is possible – and at the RNC the
maverick McCain chooses a Dominionist who reminds me of an even more
malevolent version of Nixon’s Veep Spiro Agnew – if that is
possible – a lipstick wearing, lying, mean-spirited, Hockey Mom/pit
bull, who mocks the need to give some smidgen of due process to those
being held at Gitmo since they”re all “terrorists” after all.
And the crowd goes wild from her words, gesticulating with signs that
say “Country First,” all the while looking to my eyes like Über
alles all over again.
From the German national anthem during
the Nazi years:
“Deutschland, Deutschland über alles,
Über alles in der Welt,
Wenn es stets zu Schutz und Trutze
Brüderlich zusammenhält.”
English translation:
“Germany, Germany above everything,
Above everything in the world,
When it always for protection and defense,
Brotherly sticks together.”
* * *
Welcome to the free, fair and glorious
celebration of democracy we call elections in America, version 2008.
Like Vista, we need to reboot because
it seems to freeze all the time when we try to write the words: End
the War. Stop the Torture. Impeach the War Criminals.