RNC Day 3 – Whose World Is This?
"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear." - Harry S. Truman
Dude! I was SOOO tired of protests by Day Three of the RNC that I was determined to do some safer stories. But my first story of the day was a protest right outside my hotel, and by the end of the night, I was being pushed by a police baton as I walked away from another confrontation after the Rage Against the Machine Concert.
I spent the early part of the day Wednesday updating my blog. My scheduled interview with Rosa Clemente had been postponed while she worked off the effects of a concussion grenade that landed near her at the previous night’s protest.
At some point that afternoon (for what reason I don’t remember), I walked to the hotel elevator and looked out the window. The pink dresses across the street from the Hilton next door were unmistakable: that’s CodePink!
CodePink’s peace activists have been protesting the war in Iraq since 2002, disrupting State of Union addresses and political events all over. Why were they protesting at the hotel next door?
Turns out Republican Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin was next door writing the dynamic speech that she would deliver that night, and John McCain had just arrived. The ten or so CodePink activists said they were protesting Palin because she “is not a woman’s choice.”
“[Palin] is for the war,” National Campaign Coordinator Dana Baliki explained. “She’s a self-declared ‘anti-environmentalist’. She is for Arctic drilling.” The members of CodePink believe the next vice-president “should have a peaceful voice.”
Green Party Vice-Presidential nominee Rosa Clemente has been raising her voice for peace and justice for years as a community organizer, an independent journalist, and as a founder of the National Hip Hop Political Convention. The day before our interview she was a leader of a Poor People’s March that delivered a citizen’s arrest to the door of Republican National Convention in St. Paul.
Much of the talk of the historic 2008 election has ignored the Green Party’s Clemente and her running mate, presidential nominee Cynthia McKinney. They lead the first ticket in US history to feature two women of color.
According to Clemente, the Green Party’s platform is focused on social justice and peace. The party wants to stop all of the nation’s wars, lower the Pentagon’s budget, establish a livable wage as instead of a minimum wage, develop a single payer health care program like Medicare for everyone, end the prison industrial complex as we know it and more. Though the Green Party’s platform is more in line the beliefs of a majority of Americans on these issues, most voters in the U.S will choose either a Democrat or a Republican in November.
Clemente speaks especially to the problems of young Americans. “Young people across the board are being criminalized right now at every level. Whether it’s protesting, dissenting… [Cities are] passing laws that young Black men with saggy pants can be racially profiled legally in Flint, Michigan.” She emphasizes that the rate of young adults in prison is growing and teenagers of sixteen can be put on death row.
“If [the Hip Hop Generation] can’t articulate what we want, and what social justice looks like, then essentially when you vote, when you vote for one of these parties, you’re not voting for change,” Clemente argues. “You’re just going along.”
Minneapolis born DJ/Producer K-Salaam thinks it’s unfortunate that people in America don’t think for themselves more. He and his partner Beatnik are doing their part to change that with their new album Whose World Is This? “When we’re asking ‘Whose World Is This,’ we’re trying to get people thinking, ‘Who controls everything around us’. Is it the people, or is it someone else? Because it’s not the people,” Salaam explains. Artists like Talib Kweli, Sizzla, Young Buck, Dead Prez, Buju Banton, Trey Songz and several others worked with K-Salaam to craft a concept album where each song speaks to that question.
Salaam is Iranian-American, and we spoke about the tension between his father’s nation and the U.S. “I think the causes have to do with fear, with propaganda,” he suggests. Salaam says the public believes the negative press about Iran because people in the U.S. are so brainwashed by the news and the media.
“I hope [the U.S. government] doesn’t bomb Iran,” Salaam admits. “I don’t think it would be a wise move to do it, but they don’t make their moves based off what’s practical and what’s right. They base them on greed and selfishness, but in this case, it’s stupidity.”
I’m not sure what inspired the police to assemble such an overwhelming and intimidating force outside the Target Center after Rage Against The Machine’s concert on Wednesday evening, but it was offensive.
Rage killed, entering the stage clad in the orange jumpsuits and black hoods of Guantanamo Bay detainees. The quartet whipped the capacity crowd into a frenzy with their bone crushing, politically inflammatory rock and hip hop.
At the end of the show, Rage front man Zack De La Rocha calmed the crowd, asking them to be on their best behavior when leaving the building. “When we leave here, let’s prove to them that we have more discipline than they do.”
But upon exiting the arena, the cheerful and laughing audience walked into a gauntlet of riot helmets, batons and television cameras. Before long, groups of teenagers were hamming it up for the cameras. The police and cameras had anticipated trouble, so some wanted to insure that they got the show they came for.
Though the cops ordered the crowd to disperse, many people stood around waiting to see what would happen. By the end of the night, the smell of tear gas filled the air and 100 people were arrested.
I was pushed by a police officer’s baton as I attempted to leave the area. Apparently I wasn’t moving fast enough. When I argued that I was with the press, I was pushed again and told to “Move!”
The police then proceeded to quickly and efficiently clear the streets of people. By the time the RNC delegates began arriving downtown from St. Paul for their private parties, the protestors and riot police had largely disappeared as if they were never even there.
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You Rock!
None of the videos worked for me.
I personally don't have much in common with the green party in terms of ideology, but Lord knows I believe they oughta be heard.
Its a damn shame when 3rd world countries have half a dozen established parties, and the supposed Guiding Light of Democracy has only two. And they have the nerve to criticize the dictators of suppressing their opposition. How about this two party plutocracy supplanting the will of some people and suffocating the will of the rest. because they do it with more fraud than force its tolerable??
Bullspit!
As for the police behavior at the RATM show, I guess the protesters were too peaceful for them, had to goad some riled up kids into a fight. Show the world how hostile the fringe groups are. I take great comfort knowing that some day, these people, the ones that give the orders and the ones that mindlessly and heartlessly follow them, will be held accountable. Partaking in the persistent and deliberate violations of the rights of innocent people is not excusable under the pretext of having bills to pay. Cops better stop thinking about their next promotion and raise, and start thinking about serving the community or they are gonna find themselves on the wrong side of an ugly confrontation.
Government has solved the age old dilemma of the alchemists. In order to turn lead into gold, just add blood.