DNC Update, Hobnobbing With George McGovern

Yesterday evening, my wife and I were invited to a very private (50 people) cocktail and dinner reception given at the Denver Country Club for George McGovern. It had been over five years (see my blog 4/19) since we last saw McGovern in person, and when he gave his speech, I was reminded once again how honestly decent and intelligent he is. It’s downright disheartening to imagine how different the United States would look today if he had been elected president in 1972. For one thing, there would be 25,000 fewer names on the black wall of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington.

George McGovern was one of the few candidates for the nation’s highest office who held a Ph.D. degree, and his lopsided loss in the 1972 election was a clear demonstration of the fact that voters hold intellect and decency in very low esteem when choosing their president. For those who’ve forgotten their history, McGovern was trounced by Nixon, and we all know how that eventually turned out. Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton are exceptions to what I’m about to say, but for the most part, when a candidate possessing intellect and vision runs against a candidate possessing belligerence and truculent aggressiveness, the candidate of intellect and vision will lose the election. Americans are not great thinkers. They’re not even good thinkers. That’s why, when it comes time to pick a fight with some foreign country in the name of “peacekeeping,” Americans can’t wait to wade into battle. If you ask the average American to describe the role of the President, the majority of Americans will say, “Commander in Chief,” and voter selection for the role of President most often follows that guideline. The low public opinion of Bush at this time is not based on the fact that he took us to war. It’s based on the fact that he lost that war.

I write about this now, because 2008 is shaping up to be 1972 all over again. A man who might think first before acting is in a contest with a man who loves to pick a fight. Based on history, the thinker will probably lose to the fighter. It’s the American way.

Also see: Iraq- How It Will End

The DNC Can't End Too Soon

I’m angry! I live on a small farm in Golden, Colorado, with a magnificent view of the towering North Table Mesa out our back window. This morning, the view was different (see the photo above). This is exactly the kind of nonsense that I feared would accompany the DNC circus in Denver this week.

The Chinese Olympics, happening as it did just before the two political conventions, gives us a great insight into the ways that protest fits into the national agenda in China and in the U.S. China had zero tolerance for protests during their Olympics, and the U.S. critics point to this as another sign of disregard for human rights in China. Meanwhile, here in Denver, we see zero outrage toward the protests, along with little or no control, and the champions of the red, white, and blue see this as a good thing. But my question is this, “Does it really violate human rights to enforce the local laws against disorderly conduct?”

I was born during WWII, so my America was the America of the late 1940s, and the 1930s were recent history to me. I’ve always believed that the United States achieved its greatness during that time, and has been slipping backwards ever since. Here’s the thing. If you took videos of the streets in China two weeks ago, and videos of the streets in Denver this week, and you somehow went back in time and showed both videos to Americans in the 40s and 30s, and you asked them which video scenes most looked like America—the people of that time would choose the scenes of China. Back when America was truly great, not just in our mythology, but also in the eyes of the world, the United States looked like China today. We actually had strong laws against disorderly conduct, and those laws were actually enforced, and human rights had its limitations.

But those days are gone, and now I get to look at the anti-abortion message on my mountain every day. I know from hiking on the very spot where those letters appear that they are all over 100 feet high. That message required the work of many people (perhaps as many as 10) to spray paint those words in just one night. We also know another thing. Anti-abortionists put their cause above the cause of the environment and natural beauty. It’s the agenda of the Christian right wing ultra-zealots. Gee, wouldn’t Jesus be proud!

DNC Sunday Update, Protestors Fail To Show Up

The early score in the contest between the troublemakers and the police is 1-1. It’s a draw. Since I have the advantage of blogging from Denver, Colorado, my wife and I went down to the Pepsi Center at mid morning (Sunday) to scope out the action. At first, it looked like 1968 might be happening again. The 16th Street Mall (Denver’s main downtown shopping venue) was swarming with police. I found out by interviewing the heavily equipped boys in blue that several of the “unofficial” renegade protest groups had formed an alliance, and were planning to march against the war in Iraq up the 16th Street Mall—without an official protest permit. About 1,000 fearsome policemen, armed to the teeth with anti-protest gear, were there to stop them, By 1:00 PM, no protestors had appeared, and 1,000 of the boys in blue had been left cooking in the hot August sun for more than two hours. The protestors, by not showing up, had scored one for their side.

Across the downtown area, at 1:00 PM, at the foot of the front steps of the Colorado State Capitol, the “official” anti-war march was just getting started. This march had a proper permit. The expectation was that 25,000 to 50,000 protestors would show up, but barely 900 heeded the call. The protest was a complete bust. The cops kept their cool, and the score ended with a decisive win for the legions of the lawful. Pouring gasoline on the fire of this lame protest was none other than Ward Churchill. For those unfamiliar with the name, he’s the discredited CU professor who was fired from a tenured position for plagiarism in his writing, and for a false bio which claimed Native American heritage. Just think of a phony-Indian, liberal-left version of Rush Limbaugh, and that’s Ward Churchill—minus the 400 million dollar deal.

On a personal note, I made some points with my wife today. Since February, she’s been wondering, what’s the point of blogging. We happened across the temporary convention quarters of Daily Kos. His blog has grown into a full-fledged media source, and his digs in Denver are as spacious and comfortable as the big network’s headquarters, but he did, after all, start out as just a blogger. My wife is not holding her breath for me to repeat his feat.

Gitmo on the Platte, a DNCC Update

We returned a couple of days early from Bonneville (damaged engine) just in time to see another return to Denver. This was the reappearance of the six black helicopters full of armed commandos. As before, the “official” line is that it’s part of the ongoing war on global terror. No connection whatever to the upcoming Democratic National Convention. The Pentagon thinks that we’re all idiots, and for once they’re right about something. We are idiots.

Local news has been buzzing for a week, now, about something they’re calling, “Gitmo on the Platte.” It’s a giant warehouse that has been filled, from one end to the other, with cages made from electrified chain-link fence, and topped with razor wire. This is the temporary holding facility for protesters who are arrested during the convention. Two weeks ago, the DNCC and Denver city authorities denied that any such place existed. Now they are giving television news teams guided tours of the place. The warehouse itself used to be (30 years ago) part of the U.S. Air Force Accounting and Finance Center, so I guess you could say that it’s always had a connection with that macho, we’re-the-baddest-thing-on-the-planet fraternity known as the U.S. Military. Who knew?

DNCC spokespeople are, of course, rosy and upbeat, but a lot of us in Denver have a bad feeling about this convention. It has Chicago 1968 written all over it.

It’s My Party, and I’ll Cry If I want To

It’s My Party, and I’ll Cry If I want To. This pretty much sums up Hillary, and her approach to the Democrats at their national convention in Denver. We think we’ve seen it all, those of us who try to offer intelligent, non-hysterical political blogging with a somewhat jaded and cynical touch, but I must admit that I’m surprised by the Clintons. That’s not their fault. It’s my own naiveté. The Clintons are just being themselves, with the monstrous egos and petulant self-absorption that are their trademarks.

Here’s my mea culpa. I admit, much to my shame, that I pulled the R lever for George W. Bush in 2000. I was motivated to cross over to the dark side by my utter disgust for Bill Clinton— the man and the President. I thought that no president could be worse than Slick Willy. Of course, after the last eight years, I realize just how wrong I was. But looking back, I believe that a lot of Independents did what I did, for similar reasons, and collectively we boosted Bush close enough to a majority so that The Supreme Court could install him without being accused of staging an outright coup.

That’s water under the bridge now. For my atonement, I think I’ll vote for Obama this year, in spite of my doubts about the Democrats, perpetually afflicted as they are with nonsensical silliness, and always willing to appease any whiner who displays sufficient petulance. Right now that whiner is Hillary Clinton, who wants her name to be placed into nomination at the convention so that she can feel relevant. If she doesn’t get her way, Bill will limit his campaign activity to pouting and pontificating. In a perverse way this gives me something that I’ve wanted for a long time, a litmus test to prove to me that the party in power deserves to be in power. The Clintons will be that litmus test for me.

After the eight year nightmare that’s coming to a close, Obama should have been a runaway favorite to win the next election. However, I’ve never been all that comfortable with the certainty of his victory. I think that a lot of Independents, people who would never consider themselves to be racist, will get into the privacy of the voting booth and vote for the white guy, “Just to be on the safe side.” They might even lie about it to their friends afterward. Obama has to overcome that to win, and he needs 100% of the support from his party to do it. If the Democrats are sidetracked with trying so soothe the wounded egos of the Clintons, it could well cost Obama the election. For me, that’s the litmus test that I mentioned earlier. If the Democrats lose the presidency because of the Clintons, they deserve to lose it.

DNCC Update— Four Weeks To Go

Move over Mr. Barnum and Mr. Bailey, the REAL circus is coming to Denver in less than four weeks. Final preparations are almost all in place. The “Tip-Of-The-Spear” Special Ops, armored commandos have thoroughly scouted downtown Denver in their black helicopters (see my blog of 6/18), and they have now retreated to some undisclosed location where they are presumably waiting for a signal that will bring them swooping in to vanquish any evildoers. Several LRADs (Long Range Acoustic Devices) are on hand to disable protestors without actually killing them (see blog of 6/11). The newest wrinkle in this local arms race is that only credentialed delegates, press, and other “official” DNCC people will be allowed to carry bottled water. The thinking here is that a water bottle in the hands of a malefactor or blackguard or other evildoer might contain urine which could be sprinkled on convention people or peacekeeping constables. Of course, as the ordinance now stands, a water bottle would also be the best defense against the LRADs and the commandos since it would make the good guys and the bad guys indistinguishable from one another.

Howard Dean came through town last weekend like a suspicious father checking out his teenage son’s cluttered bedroom for contraband. He was said to be pleased with the preparations, but with Howard Dean you can never tell what he actually thinks. Even before his visit, preparations were underway to hide the vagrants and the homeless who might tarnish the downtown Denver landscape. These unfortunates are being given free passes for public transportation, and free passes for movies and museums so they will have someplace to go. Large HD flat screens are being installed in homeless shelters to keep them indoors. You can almost feel the love.

The official expectation is that 20,000 protestors will turn out for the anti-war parade on that first Sunday of the convention week, and four days later, on Thursday, when Obama gives his acceptance speech in front of 60,000 people at the football stadium, 50,000 protestors are expected to hold a parade and rally to call attention to immigration. Denver is one-third Hispanic, so native Denverites don’t need to have their attention called to immigration. Official PR people for the DNCC say that all these numbers are inflated. But 100 years ago, Denver also hosted the Democratic National Convention. The Denver population at that time was 200,000. During the convention week, the population swelled to 300,000. And that was long before television.

What’s at stake here might very well be the future of these types of conventions. Let me explain. Given the tarnished image of the Republican brand this year, an inanimate Mexican piñata should be able to defeat the Republican candidate. And yet, the race now is neck and neck. If the Denver convention becomes the disaster that everyone is predicting— if Denver becomes 1968 Chicago—it could well cost Obama the presidency. And if that happens, both parties will need to ask themselves if these conventions are useful anymore. The primary process from January to June now selects the candidate, so the nominating process at the convention is now nothing but a show. The main thing the convention did historically was give the party nominee a big positive PR boost going into the pre-election months. But if the convention generates even more negative PR, that negates the benefit. Just ask Hubert Humphrey. Most historians now say that the 1968 Democratic convention fiasco in Chicago cost Hubert the race. Denver is shaping up as a repeat.

Latest DNCC Update-- Protestors Beware

The “Tip-Of-The-Spear” commandos finally flew out of town in their black helicopters, still insisting that their reason for visiting Denver was to prepare for a possible conflict in the global war on terror (see my blog on June 18). By now, their CPS systems are sufficiently programmed with the anticipated flash points where global terrorists might be likely to spread mischief during the Democratic convention in August. Take heart, however, for the merriment is far from over. The circus is, indeed, coming to town.

Today, the city constables working together with the Secret Service announced that the convention demonstrators will be “partitioned with double prison fences, eight feet high, and spaced eight feet apart so that people on one side cannot pass anything across the barrier” (their actual words). No mention was made of the razor Cortina wire on top of the fences, but I guess this is implied by the term, “prison fence.”

Additionally, there’s a ban on any paraphernalia that can be used to attach protestors to one another. This includes padlocks, bicycle locking chains, carabiners, ropes, pipes, cables, handcuffs, and pretty much any filament longer or stronger than a shoelace. So much for opposition unity. As if this weren’t enough, CCTV (closed circuit) surveillance cameras are reportedly being programmed with new face-recognition software that was developed by an American technology firm under a contract from China for use with their Olympic security systems. It makes you wonder why this much planning and thought wasn’t brought to bear prior to the invasion of Iraq.

DNCC Update from Denver

The front of the local newspaper today showed a full-page photograph of a Blackhawk helicopter next to the Denver City and County Building. The accompanying story told us what we already knew: The low-altitude skies over downtown Denver are buzzing with military choppers full of Special Forces ops in armored battle gear and carrying assault rifles and other advanced weapons. The commandos call themselves, “The Tip of the Spear.”

Naturally, we all figured that this was preparation for the upcoming DNCC Convention in August. It did, however, occur to me that the level of lethal armament shown by Tip of the Spear seemed out of proportion for any simple confrontation with belligerent picket sign carriers. I wondered if, maybe, the creationists in Kansas had somehow armed themselves to the teeth, and were preparing to sweep across the Colorado border in August and vanquish the evolutionists gathered at the convention. That would explain everything. But, then, a Tip of the Spear spokesman said that the “training exercise” had “absolutely” nothing to do with the upcoming convention. The word, “absolutely” was included for emphasis.

According to the Tip of the Spear spokesman, the choppers and commandos are just doing routine practice to fight the global war on terrorism. (The practice has been going on for three days and will continue throughout the week, during both daylight and nighttime hours). According to the Tip of the Spear spokesman, Denver was chosen only because it presents a typical urban environment. The armed assault practice is just to “familiarize army personnel with the precise layout of downtown Denver and the ethnic makeup of the surrounding neighborhoods.” But, again, the spokesman said that all of this is unrelated to the upcoming DNCC Convention. He should have also restated the government position that Oswald acted alone.

Governments lie. They do it all over the world, and they do it all the time. With all that practice, wouldn’t you think they would get better at doing it? I suspect that what we are seeing in Denver this week is not just the Tip of the Spear, it’s also the tip of the iceberg.

The Next Sound You Hear Will Be.......

I saw my first acoustic cannon two years ago, in 2006, when it was deployed to ward off pirates in the Straits of Malacca. My wife and I were aboard a small luxury cruise ship sailing northwest from Singapore. We’d left port there about midnight, and when we woke up in the morning off the coast of Sumatra, the deck of the ship had a new look. Watchmen were stationed at the rail with binoculars, and deployed next to them were parabolic dishes, black in color, looking like slightly larger versions of the Direct TV satellite antennas that you see mounted on houses in America.

Fortunately, one of our table mates in the ship’s dining hall was a retired army weapons specialist. He told us about the new equipment on deck, explaining that the acoustic cannon is a non-lethal weapon designed to disable humans at distances up to one mile. I’ve stayed in contact with him for the last two years. I telephoned him yesterday to ask about a rumor that’s making the rounds in Denver, a rumor that acoustic cannons are being sent to Denver for the August Democratic convention. He verified that the rumor is true.

I’m struck by a kind of cosmic irony in this. We invaded Iraq, wishing to give them a democracy so that they would be more like us. We may be seeing our wish come true. Our democracy is becoming more like theirs, with elected representatives disunited and partitioned by competing ideologies to the point of dysfunctional non-governance. The only piece of the picture of similarity that was missing was the insurrection in the streets. Now, however, we seem to be on the verge of seeing that, too, come to pass. Denver may give us our first glimpse of the ugly next chapter in this pathetic saga.

The Geopolitics of Denver

When they start welding the manhole covers in place to deny sewer access, you know that some kind of extravagant dog-and-pony show is coming to town. For Denver, the big attraction will be the Democratic National Convention in August, and this seems like a good time to explain why, politically, Denver is like a pinball caught between the machine’s two bottom flippers. It all has to do with the location, and the pinball flippers are the two neighboring towns.

Twenty miles west of Denver sits a town that is often referred to with tongue in cheek as The People’s Republic of Boulder. To say it is “liberal” is like saying that Washington D.C. is political or Vatican City is religious. The description, while true, is insufficient. Like utopian residents living inside the hole of a donut, surrounded by a growth-inhibiting greenbelt of protected wildlife sanctuary, the left-leaning citizens of Boulder go about their daily lives, listening to NPR, and motoring about in their low-carbon-footprint compact Volvos while avoiding all use of forbidden tobacco products. The Federal Government always keeps a close eye on the citizens lest they betray their insufficient level of patriotism by advocating for peace. And everybody in town knows that the NRA would have fewer members if guns were used to perform abortions.

Democrats, even those with a middle-of-the-road, it-doesn’t-make-any-difference view, will probably feel right at home in Boulder. There’s a semi-socialist comfort to be found in the normal Boulder leftist way of looking at things, and certainly life in this town, for liberals, is vastly superior to what it’s like down the road.

Down the road means Colorado Springs, 70 miles to the south. It’s a place where the citizens really know now to put the “Right” in righteous, and where seldom is heard the discouraging words, “gay marriage.“ Here is to be found an incestuous colony of world headquarters for outfits like The New Life Church, and The Navigators, and Global Harvest, and Focus On The Family, and numerous other para-church think-tanks devoted to the overthrow of evolution and homosexuality and stem-cell research and any other facets of biology which they find offensive. I never get it, that hang up with biology, since nowhere in the Gospels, as far as I can tell, is there anything to say from Jesus on the subject of biology. Nevertheless, the self-righteous biology police are famous for periodically calling a national news conference to announce that they’ve found homosexual traits in yet another animated cartoon character from the make-believe world of kiddie’s television. For me, watching this is more entertaining than Saturday Night Live, but the local citizens tend to keep their TVs glued to the Fox News Channel.

As home to the United States Air Force Academy, NORAD, the missile defense center, and the huge Ft. Carson army base, Colorado Springs is, arguably, the most militaristic city in America. Only a couple-dozen or so sovereign nations on earth have more firepower and military infrastructure than this single Colorado town, so the citizens of Colorado Springs tend to think of themselves as the last great bastion of patriotism and 2nd amendment protection. But deep down, if they’re forced to admit it, they also know that the NRA would have fewer members if guns were used to perform abortions.

Convention Democrats in August, intending to sneak down to Colorado Springs and, perhaps, revel in some pro-war happy-talk, are urged to go incognito. Don’t openly display your convention credentials and remember to dress conservatively (no pun intended).