Don’t Believe The Hype

Just now, coming down 23rd Street, I witnessed a fearsome sight. The police had stopped the traffic at the intersection of 8th Avenue and circled around a group of protesters. Here were armed officers on foot and on motorcycles, standing in the center of the street halting drivers sitting in vans with flashing lights, not even squad cars, but fifteen-passenger vehicles, ready to arrest anyone and everyone.

This protest march was mighty but fairly small, about 50 or so health food store clerks and massage therapists, commercial artists and bike messengers, mostly white kids with dreadlocks and black kids holding up signs shaped like oak leaves painted with slogans urging onlookers to protect the environment. They held together and went down the street in tight formation, flanked by cops on all sides.

The presence of obviously hostile law enforcement, combined with a gathering crowd of onlookers, about to jump into the protest themselves made the volume of the chant louder. “Bush Lies, People Die!”

The ridiculous number of police was due to a too well publicized incident last night, where a protester attacked an officer at the end of an otherwise uneventful and peaceful demonstration. What the news reporters neglected to focus on was the fact that the attack was provoked by the cop, who was repeatedly verbally harassing pedestrians and running over and into protesters with his scooter.

They’d rather focus on the protester getting angry and fighting back than tell the entire story, just like the cameras inside of Madison Square Garden doing a sweep of the convention floor, making sure they get all the people of color in attendance, pulling them into sharp focus. I have seen the same black man and Latino woman over and over again, both getting their groove on to canned disco standards like “September” while they wait in hot anticipation for Elizabeth Dole’s subtly hateful anti-choice/anti-gay speech.

It’s like they are saying, “Look at the funky face of fascism!” What is being shown on tv is a grand bait-n- switch, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it if you didn’t see what was happening in the street. The Republicans are desperate to show their tolerance, their multiculturalism, their feminism, but none of it is real, it is merely fabricated in order to secure voters in time for the election.

There is so much boasting of diversity, but do you think this is relevant to the delegates in the cowboy hats? Don’t believe the hype. Look outside. What is happening on your street?

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