Stifling Dissent In Living Color
One of the biggest problems the United States has overseas is the dichotomy between what values we preach versus what values we practice, and one of the most blatant examples demonstrating that we don’t really walk our talk here in the United States is about to be spewed across television screens all over the world: the major political party conventions.
While too many American citizens are “too busy” following the latest reality and performance contest series to bother with all that “boring political crap” (as one of my Good Orange County (CA) Republican [GOC(CA)R] coworkers recently put it), my research utilizing foreign media sources tells me that the world is very interested in our politics. As the US military is based in something like 700 bases in over 130 countries, and as US corporate interests infest the remainder under the protection of US-paid and trained military forces designed to keep the indigenous work force under control, a logical person can understand why a thinking citizen of a foreign land would pay attention to the events in our nation. They too often know better than American citizens about the important happenings of our nation, and how they will affect the affairs of their own.
One of the events which has to be attracting interest from foreign observers is the throttling of the Bill of Rights through the illegal actions of the two major parties in the name of Homeland Security. We’ve all heard a lot recently about FISA trampling on the Fourth Amendment, and even more about how the US Supreme Court has “protected” the Second with its recent ruling intended to throw a bone to the aged junkyard dog known as the NRA. (After all, the government is hardly worried about a bunch of self-styled Davy Crocketts and Daniel Boones when an Apache helicopter can take them all out with impunity at a range of two miles {maybe more} in total darkness. YouTube has lots of videos - look them up.)
But I’m not here today to stoke those particular fires. It’s the damage being done to the First Amendment that concerns me.
According to Wikipedia, “free speech zones” were first created by the City of Atlanta to protect the 1988 Democratic Conventioneers from having to endure seeing and hearing We, the People express our outrage. That strategy seemed to work so well that it was repeated for the benefit of both major party conventions in 1992 and 1996. Those successes led to the active suppression of public protest becoming a standard component of political convention planning.
There should be a serious outcry over these plans, but to date that has yet to occur. The National Lawyer’s Guild, in a publication entitled “The Assault on Free Speech, Public Assembly, and Dissent” [PDF], attempts to remind the American public that “Dissent is what rescues democracy from a quiet death behind closed doors.” Red flags of warning are waving intensely when the convention doors have been closed and barred, and patrolled by the political police, to defend the political elites from the influences of those they allegedly represent under the dictates of the US Constitution. You know, that thing George W. Bush deemed “merely a piece of paper” and thus of no consequence.
So put yourself into the shoes of a foreign citizen concerned about the growing lawlessness of American entities. Is there any hope that a respect for the rule of law will again peek out from under the secret sites of rendition? It’s very doubtful based on current events. Not even Obama and the Democrats are providing much hope for the return of the rights of redress of grievance.
In Denver, the Democratic? National Convention {sic} will meet behind numerous protective layers. The ACLU is attempting to defend the Constitution by seeking legal direction to the City of Denver and other authorities regarding disclosure of protest restrictions and whether the restrictions are unconstitutional. In addition, with Denver Police planning as many as “>1200 protester arrests, the ACLU is demanding publication of arrest procedures to avoid the temporary disappearance of those detained.
The Denver Post has joined the fray, declaring in an editorial: “what must not happen is controlling protesters to such an extent that their free speech and assembly rights are infringed.”
Sorry - that’s already a done deal. Limiting where and how one can express oneself is, by definition, an infringement.
Those entrusted with the enforcement of the unconstitutional restraint of free expression intended to protect the elites from the Voice of the People are a major part of the problem. Bill Johnson of The Rocky Mountain News relates his past convention experiences, including discovering that “avoiding jail at any political convention is often a matter of sheer luck” and:
“…if I had a quarter for every completely innocent convention-goer I’ve seen … hauled off to jail, I would be sitting right now with a mai tai on a beach somewhere.
Johnson was covering a public seminar on dissent and the First Amendment held by the Colorado Chapter of the National Lawyer’s Guild at the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law. Denver attorney David Lane told observing civil rights attorneys that “what (police) often mean by lawful order is ‘Stop watching me beat this person!‘” Sean Dingle, a former 10th Judicial District prosecutor, explained that “rank-and-file officers are not well-trained in First Amendment issues” and “law enforcement often clashes with free speech.” Summing up the likely result of the legal battle, David Lane told Johnson at the end of the gathering that the operating rule of the day will be “arrest everyone and let the courts sort it out.”
And when Barack Obama stages his personal Nuremberg Rally at Invesco Field on the last day of the Convention, the Secret Service is leaning toward designating 53,000 square feet of Lot A as the unconstitutional confinement area - I mean, the free speech zone.
Similar plans are underway in St. Paul, Minnesota, despite the serious lack of cooperation from area police agencies to thwart the poor from marching anywhere near those defenselessly wealthy GOP delegates.
Still think this is a nation of free speech? Ask retired Pittsburgh steelworker Bill Neel about his experience in 2002. Stefan Presser, head of the Philadelphia ACLU chapter, had then defined the strategy as defending “political security.” It hasn’t changed any since then.
Blogger Bob Avakian nails the problem on the head: “We don’t need change that we are allowed, and told to believe in — change that won’t really change anything fundamental — we need fundamental, revolutionary change.”
Blogger Charley Underwood of Minnesota issues the call:
We want our country back. …we already know what the New York police think of civil liberties. Stop buying all those expensive weapons and lining up all that statewide police overtime. Be our police.
Just don’t get in the way of our free speech.
So there it is. Will Americans finally notice that the time to take action has arrived? Or, will we continue to allow “the mis-channeling of our outrage” merely into complaining about who most recently got kicked off our favorite reality show?
This is the reality: actions speak louder than words, and all the world is watching - intently. They know they are next, because they read the PNAC Manifesto for World Dominance even if you didn’t. If you don’t act to defend your own rights, they will act to defend theirs - and you aren’t going to like it one little bit.