Greenbacks and Election Blues
DNC: Corporate Sponsors and Rubber Bullets
Ruth Conniff
Special to Corporate Watch
August 15, 2000
Los Angeles -- Towering over the fenced protest area outside the
Staples Center in Los Angeles is a giant mural with the faces of
Cesar Chavez, Eleanor and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Martin Luther
King and Robert Kennedy. As you get closer you see, at the bottom of
the mural, the Apple Computer logo and the tag line "think
different."
The wall is a perfect metaphor for what the protesters are up against
at the Democratic Convention. Inside the Staples Center, the
Democrats have learned to think differently enough to invoke the
icons of civil rights, labor, and progressive struggles, beneath
skyboxes plastered with corporate logos.
Take Terry McCauliffe, the chair of the DNC and star Democratic
fundraiser, who, after making a career of funneling money into the
party, earned a spot on the podium so he could declare "we will
always fight for the people, not the powerful."
Who can blame the public for being cynical?
Unfortunately, there isn't a clear alternative message emerging from
the protest pavilion. One obstacle is the heavy handed police
reaction to the protests.
Police Riot?
On Monday night, as Bill Clinton finished speaking, the Los Angeles
Police Department suddenly cut short a rally and rock concert. They
shot rubber bullets and fired teargas into a crowd gathered for the
permitted event outside the Staples Center, in what the ACLU later
called "an orchestrated police riot." There were hundreds of
injuries, according to protest organizers. Garrick Ruiz, who was
there to protest police brutality, was caught in a hail of rubber
bullets. "I counted the welts on my body, and there were at least
nine," he said, showing an ugly round, raw wound on the side of his
knee.
The police said they were provoked by a few protesters who climbed
the fence around the protest pen and threw rocks at them. It was "an
appropriate, measured, and strategic use of force," said police chief
Bernard Parks in a press conference Tuesday. But protesters,
journalists, and legal observers said the police overreacted by
launching an assault against the crowd of thousands of people who did
not have time to disperse.
"Excessive police overreactions has been in the making for many
months," said State Senator and longtime activist Tom Hayden. "I'm
convinced an investigation will show that hundreds of people were
victims last night of an arsenal of exotic weapons the police wanted
to use experimentally... including skipping bullets, gas, rubber
bullets," he added. Hayden supports a move by the Justice Department
to impose supervision on the LAPD.
Carlos Donoso, an L.A. transportation department employee who is
helping direct traffic at the convention was at the concert. "I don't
doubt the police overreacted," he said. "We had a training with the
police before this where they said, 'don't worry about what happened
in Seattle. It won't happen here. We learned from them, for one
thing, and we're not going to run out of ammunition.' It was like he
was stoked for something to happen," Donoso said of the police
trainer. "When I heard that, I said, 'I'm more afraid of the cops
than the protesters."
Shadow Convention and Indy Media Center Shut Down
Hours before the chaotic scene outside the convention center erupted
Monday night, the police descended on the building where the Shadow
Convention and the Independent Media Center (IMC) have their
headquarters. Claiming they were looking for a bomb, officers
partially evacuated the premises and held a satellite van hostage for
several hours, preventing the broadcast of an IMC program on cable
stations around the country.
Arianna Huffington, the former conservative glamour girl and host of
the Shadow Convention, along with panelists Christopher Hitchens and
Gore Vidal, moved the program onto the street. At that point more
LAPD officers arrived dressed in riot gear, objecting that the crowd
in the street was getting out of control. They told the crowd to
leave the street or they would start firing tear gas, according to
Huffington. "The police got closer, clearly intending to protect the
L.A. citizens from Gore Vidal," she quipped. Finally, the panel was
allowed to resume indoors.
"All this would have been Keystone Cops if it were not representative
of the same attitude which led to people being peppered with rubber
bullets and bean bag projectiles six blocks away," Huffington said.
"We are divided into two nations, one, inside the Staples Center that
has to be protected at all costs, and those outside in the streets
that is regarded as a threat to public safety."
Another threat to public safety was "freelance libertarian" and
drug-law reform advocate Ben Masel, who was clubbed by police while
he was standing at the delegate entrance to the convention center,
"I'm doing a performance piece on the Fourth Amendment," he said:
"Step right up folks and lose your constitutional rights. They don't
have warrants to search you, they don't have probable cause. But
you'll put up with it. You're sheep." The police didn't like Masel's
message to the delegates and demanded he leave. When he insisted he
had a right to stay, based on a federal judge's order granting
protesters access to the perimeter of the convention center, the
police clubbed him, he says, showing a nasty welt on his calf.
"They were mad about the judge's ruling, and they wanted to prevent
anybody from having any interaction with the delegates," Masel says.
Masel, the ACLU, and Tom Hayden are all involved in lawsuits against
the LAPD for unlawful use of force.
At a press conference Tuesday, protest coordinators objected loudly
to the police tactics, and everyone from Arianna Huffington to Shawn
McDougal of D2K, the umbrella group for the protests, had their own
take on the alleged police abuse. "They're afraid of what we can do
when we connect the dots" said McDougal. He listed many of the issues
protestors are attempting to link: the environment, labor, corporate
controlled media, the death penalty, education, prisons . "When you
connect the dots they all lead to Gore, Bush and their corporate
sponsors."
But rather than being a dangerously powerful message, the protests
seem to lack focus. With so many messages from so many different
groups, it is hard for any single idea to come across, besides a
general disaffection, and sour relations with the police.
It's true that city officials and police regard the protesters as
something of an embarrassment for their well-heeled guests. But so
far the protesters have not succeeded in driving home a single
ringing indictment of the proceedings.
One effort that came close, was an alternative radio and cable TV
broadcast produced by Pacific Radio's Democracy Now. That program
never aired, because of the bomb raid. The news program pointed out
that on Sunday a LA waterfront party for the conservative Blue Dog
Democrats hosted by Rep. Jim Breaux of Indiana was sponsored by,
among others, Philip Morris, Pepsi, and arms manufacturer Raytheon.
Raytheon, which reported $20 billion in revenue last year, has helped
carry out tests of a National Missile Defense System, and has a
direct interest in Al Gore's support for the Star Wars program.
According to the broadcast, Raytheon spent $1.5 million in lobbying
in 1998, including more than $82,800 for the Democrats.
Ruth Conniff is Washington Editor of the Progressive Magazine.
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
