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Posts tagged DNC

The bipartisan foreign policy legacy of Truman and Reagan

We will honor America's democratic ideals because a free world is a more peaceful world. This is the bipartisan foreign policy legacy of Truman and Reagan . . . .

— Mitt Romney, 2012 Republican National Convention

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Here is a mushroom cloud, seen from the ground, towering into the sky over a bridge in Nagasaki.
Here is a city street completely reduced to rubble, with fires smoldering in the background and smoke hanging in the air. A single Shinto gateway remains standing over the rubble.
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We will honor America's democratic ideals because a free world is a more peaceful world. This is the bipartisan foreign policy legacy of Truman and Reagan . . . .

— Mitt Romney, 2012 Republican National Convention

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photo: a woman with the pattern of her kimono burnt into her back
photo: a ruined residential neighborhood, with all the homes burnt or toppled
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We will honor America's democratic ideals because a free world is a more peaceful world. This is the bipartisan foreign policy legacy of Truman and Reagan . . . .

— Mitt Romney, 2012 Republican National Convention

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We will honor America's democratic ideals because a free world is a more peaceful world. This is the bipartisan foreign policy legacy of Truman and Reagan . . . .

— Mitt Romney, 2012 Republican National Convention

Every time they have another Democratic or Republican National Convention, some comfortable man in an expensive suit gets up on the podium and says more or less exactly this, in more or less exactly these words, and in tones of the blandest self-assurance. Every time some politician says this, I want to cry.

Show me what a police state looks like… (2012 edition, part 1 of ????)

These are from the streets of Tampa, Florida. The first is from Brian Miller, via Radley Balko (August 28, 2012) (via my cousin Emily): it’s a picture of the out-of-town police brought in to Tampa to guard the 2012 Republican National Convention. The others are from many sources, collected in Examiner.com’s article on the use of the newest technology in civilian surveillance and police weaponry in Tampa and Charlotte.

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Show me what elected government looks like…

(A photograph of a line of State Troopers in heavy body armor and riot gear.)

This is what elected government looks like.

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Show me what a police state looks like…

(A photograph of two police officers on a boat with a mounted carbine pointing off toward the top of the photo.)

This is what a police state looks like.

(A photograph of a huge crowd of bicycle cops arresting a young man in a Misfits t-shirt, while other bike cops hold onlookers off at a distance.)

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From the Examiner.com article:

Officials in Tampa are preparing for mass arrests; Orient Road Jail has been vacated to ensure that the 1,700 beds can be utilized if needed. It has been reported that an Occupy Tampa protester was arrested on August 27, 2012, for refusing to remove his mask at the request of the police. Occupy Tampa has also reported that homeless people are being arrested near the convention by !!!@@e2;20ac;2dc;secret service.'

Tampa received a $50 million federal grant just for security. Tampa bought high-tech security cameras, body armor, and an armored tank. During the RNC, Tampa will have boat patrols armed with fully automatic .308 caliber rifles. Trapwire surveillance systems have also been installed throughout Tampa . . . .

. . . According to 2012Tampa.com "The Convention is designated by the Department of Homeland Security as one of only four National Special Security Events (NSSE) to be held in 2012; other examples of potential NSSE events include G-8/G-20 Summits and the World Bank/IMF meetings."

— Chris Time Steele, Examiner.com (August 27, 2012): From the DNC in Denver to the RNC in Tampa, the surveillance state grows

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(A photograph of a crowd of sheriffs walking past an MSNBC pavilion.)

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Here is what I wrote a few years ago, during the paramilitary occupations of the Twin Cities during the last Republican National Convention.

. . . Remember that so-called electoral democracy — in fact, nothing more than an imperial elective oligarchy — never means that we (meaning you and I and our neighbors) are respected as sovereign individuals or left alone to manage our own affairs. What it means is that a highly organized, heavily armed elite insists on the privilege of representing us, ruling over us, and ordering us around, on the excuse that, once every several years, we are given some minimal opportunity to select which of two tightly regimented political parties will take control of the ruling apparatus. It is, in other words, not freedom, but rather a Party State, in which we are given only the choice of which of two bureaucratic political parties might control our lives and livelihoods, with their authority supposedly justified by the ritual of elections and the mandate of popular sovereignty. And if the people (again, meaning you and I and our neighbors) should dare to think that we might challenge the authority of the regime supposedly representing us, you'll find that it's the people that go out the window, not the rigged electoral system or the parties’ grasp on the authority supposedly derived from those people.

— GT 2008-09-03: This is what a police state looks like (part 1 of ???)

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(A photograph of a line of police in body armor and riot gear standing in front of a group of seated, unarmed protesters in casual dress.)

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Also.

From 2008.

Rank and file

The week before the election, I complained about an ad that DNC political hacks sent out, which (wrongly, and dangerously) suggested that political change amounted to nothing more than, and ended with the success of, an effot to get some millionaire professional politician installed in office. It turns out that MoveOn agrees with me, and they’re working on organizing Fired up and ready to go gatherings in every community the can, to keep their grassroots organizing moving forward. I know because they sent me an e-mail about it. <Well, bully for them. However, having read some of the comments that MoveOn specifically selected to represent the sentiments they were hearing from their members, when they asked about what to do after the election, I can’t say I’m terribly heartened by their idea of what kind of organizing you do after an electoral victory:

From: Nita Chaudhary, MoveOn.org Political Action
Date: 3:01 PM
To: Rad Geek
Subject: Fired up and ready to go

. . .

We need to continue the same level of involvement and commitment to whatever this Presidency needs of us to accomplish all that we believe can be done. Yes we can, Yes we did, and Yes we will!—Judith C., Salem, MA

. . .

We have to be prepared to go through with whatever we need to—even if that means some sacrifice. Obama will lead the way!—Sarah A., Greer. SC

. . .

Let Barack know that we stand ready to go to work. Take advantage of our energy and enthusiasm for the common good, put us to work.—Jeff R., Boulder, CO

. . .

Be willing to work with him and make personal sacrifice for the good of our country and our children’s future.—Stephanie L., Laguna Niguel, CA

I don’t know whether these sentiments are actually representative of the MoveOn membership, or whether MoveOn selected a few unusual comments that seemed most useful to their purposes. But in either case, this sort of sentiment — that grassroots, street-level organizations should stand ready, not as a countervailing social force to direct recently-elected politicians and to keep them on track for the grassroots’ own agenda, but rather as shock troops for some messianic leader to issue marching orders to and put … to work, even at great personal sacrifice, for whatever the leader may require — is the sort of thing that ought to disgust anyone who genuinely believes in people-powered community organizing, and ought to terrify anyone who believes in the principles of a free and open society.

I’ve seen that movie before, and I know how it ends.

I guess it really is time to Move On.

See also:

View images tagged “Complete Falsehoods” …

Here's an image of a highway sign with the number 08, saying The BALLOT BOX Is The Final Stop On The Road To CHANGE.

L. and I received this in the mail a couple of days ago. It’s the front side of an ad sent out by the DNC to convince us to get out and vote for Barack Be The Change, We Are The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For Community Organizer Obama, and then, apparently, sit back and call it a day.

The final stop? Even hand-wringing state Leftist Progressives used to know that you’re damned lucky if it’s even the first.

See also:

Cute.

(From a lot of places; most recently, Make No Laws 2008-09-30.)

Here’s the latest cheeky commemorative t-shirt from the Denver Police Protective Association.

It's a black t-shirt with a cartoon of a giant policeman looming over the skyline of Denver, holding an oversized bat, with the caption "We get up early, to BEAT the crowds / 2008 DNC

A laugh riot, I’m sure. According to CBS 4 Denver, every cop in Denver gets a shirt for free; cops for neighboring police departments, like the Lakewood police and the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department, have been clamoring for the shirts and have ordered dozens more. abc 7 NEWS in Denver tells us that the shirt pokes fun at DNC protesters. For reference, here’s how Officer Scott Stewart poked some fun at a protester named Alicia Forrest:

This past Tuesday, the Denver District Attorney’s office publicly refused to pursue assault and battery charges against Officer Scott Stewart, the violent thug seen in this video hollering Back up, bitch and knocking an unarmed woman, who posed absolutely no physical threat to anybody, down to the ground by smashing her with the long end of his baton. The cops say that there will be an internal investigation, which of course means that absolutely nothing will happen to hold this dangerous hollering misogynistic batterer accountable for what he did, or to protect the public from his violence.

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