Reflections on the RNC

Things have calmed down for us considerably since the chaos and excitement of the DNC and RNC conventions. We are in Chicago trying to put ourselves back together and continue on our road trip, bringing our imagery of a better future around the country, supporting local movements and struggles as much as possible.

I am sitting in a cafe now in Chicago trying to put the pieces back together. The last couple of days have been focused primarily on rest – catching up on sleep and coming down off of all the caffeine that kept us afloat amidst the madness.

It is hard to remember the RNC without a flood of images both hopeful and frustrating, joyful and somber. I am struck with the video footage from the convention floor where a sea of white faces waved cowboy hats and fake homemade signs while outside the noise of concussion grenades and shouting filled the streets, where the police moved heavily armored into public spaces and arrested protesters by the hundreds.

Another image, one which I saw with my owns eyes, was a crowd of young people, many of them high schoolers, sitting down in front of the legendary political band Rage Against the Machine as they played an a capella set off stage, sharing a megaphone between the four of them after the police refused to let them on stage. From junior high on, Rage Against the Machine had been responsible for creating the political conscience for my generation. There in front of the empty stage lead singer Zach de la Roch told the crowd “They are not scared of us, They are scared of YOU!” Snipers could be seen on the roof of a nearby building, their guns presumably focused on us. The crowd looked up and waved. This was two days into the Convention.

I think what they are really scared of is the ability of “We The People” to hold our government leaders accountable. With Nanci Pellosi and other prominent democrats refusing to consider impeachment despite growing evidence and public outrage, what avenue is left us bit the street? Someday instead of focusing all the guns and teargas and plastic handcuffs on us they will be focused on the true criminals, the ones who tatter the constitution and lead us to war — The ones who break not only the Geneva conventions, but the backbone of democracy at home.

The political charade has reached astounding heights — with the Republicans running as a “change” party after eight years of rule, and the democrats in congress refusing to hold the Bush administration responsible for war crimes and lying extensively to the public. Can we expect anything this year but more voter fraud and less meaningful political dialog? Barack Obama is a wild card, simultaneously offering us “hope” while endorsing more violence in the middle-east, more coal and nuclear power, and immunity for telecoms complicit in the wire-tapping of our phones. But I digress.

Partly by luck we managed to stay mostly clear of police violence during our week in Minneapolis/St Paul, but news constantly reached our ears of new arrests, or weapons used against protesters. Most of what we learned came by word of mouth. I am still not sure how many arrests were made, or how many people were held under felony charges for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Estimates on arrests seemed to fall between six and eight hundred. Often entire crowds were corralled and zip-tied one by one with their faces on the concrete.

Here is another image: I am walking through a crowd of police, somehow unnoticed. A young man wearing a medic’s cross on his shirt is being loaded into a squad car. He couldn’t be older than nineteen. He has a calm look on his face. He looks at me as I take a photo, and we both know what we are doing there.

Two days earlier I am visiting the convergence center in the outskirts of Saint Paul. A five hour meeting is underway. Like the young medic, everyone knows exactly why they are there. It has the feeling of a war council, but most of the crowd seems way too young. A few activists with a lot of experience are facilitating the meeting, but for many this will be their first direct action. They are planning the best way to blockade the delegate buses that will be arriving at the convergence center the next morning. Most of them are planning to go to jail. In the end they were a small minority of those who did.

The meeting is run as a example of direct-democracy and consensus. Th group does not move forward until everyone is ready, and their voices heard. There are near a hundred people in the room, and many of them are representing their larger affinity group.   This is a model from Seattle.  It doesn’t always work.   They have come from all over the country.  I sit down with a good friend of mine, and her concern shows in her voice.  We had protested together in Europe.   “I think we are unprepared for what might happen,” she says.

Back in the streets we are returning from a long hot peace march with thousands of people. Two figures appear wearing huge paper mache heads of Bush and McCain. Sweat runs out from beneath their masks. They are dragging an enormous lady justice, blindfolded and dead along the road. Behind her long outstretched arm a pair of scales are dragging along the asphalt. The sound of steel rattling on the cement is chilling and the whole crowd falls silent as she passes us.  At the Xcel Center long lines of police, layers of chain link fence, and National Guard MPs stand between any onlookers and the Convention.

Often it came to us that police would box people in, give an order to disperse then pepper-spray and arrest the crowd. It has recently been reported by the Associated Press that as part of their deal with the city, the Republican Party’s host committee purchased insurance covering up to $10 million in damages and unlimited legal costs for lawsuits against police operating in St Paul during the convention. At least somebody guessed what was coming.

During an interview on Seattle’s AM1090 during the convention, host Lee Callahan asked me what I thought about the use of force against protesters, considering some of them broke windows and committed similar acts of “violence” against the property of corporations. I have been thinking about this issue for a long time. I have written about it sometimes on this site. I consider it “blaming the victim.” I urged Lee and her listeners to examine the symbolism involved in a broken Starbucks or Bank of America window. The young people in this country have every right to be angry, when they feel like they have been sold down the road by their parents generation, and that we have come to care more about our things than we do about justice, our future, and the future of the planet.

I am young enough to share this anger. I think we all are. Who could escape it who looks unblinking into the future even for a moment? The world is more and more uncertain — war, climate change, and nuclear proliferation continue to threaten our very existence. I think what they are saying is “either we listen, or we lose everything.” We need that unblinking gaze.

The “progressive” movement has left the young people behind in their never-ending quest for justice as long as we continue to sit and watch them be blamed for their passion and their conviction to risk so much to show how backwards our society it has all become. They could find a career, or they could fall through the cracks. Instead they offer us something different. We are lucky to have them, whether they are marching joyfully with signs or puppets, or illustrating for us the violence of the state — being bludgeoned or gassed on the police lines with nothing but bandannas over their noses. They are not hurting anyone, only sometimes the precious windows, and they are more educated than we guess. I think we would all do well to pay closer attention to these things — Anyway,  I am just trying to tell the story as I see it, one amongst the crowds.

From Chicago,

Logan