Sunday, August 20, 2000 Go to: S M T W T F S





Editorial

Clanging symbols

Why the protesters' message didn't echo.



The query was posed to a group of lawyers representing protesters arrested during the Republican Convention.

A reporter wanted to know: Why had the demonstrators decrying police abuse and corporate power elicited so little sympathy from Philadelphians?

The subtext of the question was obvious: This is a Democratic town, traumatized by the sort of post-industrial globalization the protesters denounced. There is a history of tension between the black community and the police. It's a city full of working class and poor people, lots of whom the protesters no doubt consider part of the "oppressed." So where was the local outrage?

The quick-and wrong-answer was shouted out by a protester: "It's you media, who aren't telling our story!"

Sorry, it isn't that simple.

The truth is Philadelphians know that real solutions require smart thinking, hard work, and money, not emotional ranting about evil corporations.

Philadelphia is desperately trying to sell itself as good place for businesses, families and jobs. This it must do to survive, so it can generate the taxes to address its schools, blight and crime.

The convention was widely embraced as a chance to showcase the city. Nationally broadcast chaos on the streets was a nightmarish thought. So does anyone really wonder why Mayor Street said he'd have zero patience for protestors who got out of hand? Bluntly put, shoot rubber bullets in Los Angeles and no one crosses the city off a list of places to vist. Not so Philadelphia.

For a practical application of Philadelphia's fiscal realities, and a grasp of how far the protesters must journey to reality, consider the city's prisons. The demonstrators-released after giving their names-say they're now going to work for better jail food, improved access to lawyers, and drug rehabilitation.

All great goals. But the hard part is figuring out where the money comes from. The state won't just give it to you. The city doesn't have it lying around. Philadelphia isn't, say, Seattle, where the much-hated corporate/global economy throws off the tax dollars needed for just those kind of services.

All that helps explain why so many of the protesters arrested on Aug. 1 after blocking streets, overturing Dumpsters or assaulting police were viewed as annoying out-of-towners with a holier-than-thou attitude. Their refusal to give police their names, while on the other hand demanding to be released, enhanced the image. (None of this it to minimize protesters's valid complaints about absurdly high bails nor to deny that police still need to justify the Aug. 1 raid on the protesters' puppet warehouse.)

The post-convention rhetoric by protesters fudges a key distinction. Protests on Sunday and Monday went smoothly and were sympathetically covered. Those who walked down Broad Street on July 31 to protest economic inequality had no permit but made their point well without violence.

To the limited extent the Aug. 1 demonstrators could explain what they wanted-an incoherence that went far beyond the missing puppets seized by the police-their message lacked the bright, clear moral line a protest needs.

The globalization of the economy has mixed impacts, here and abroad. Drug companies may be greedy-but they employ thousands in this region and produce life-saving discoveries. Abhor bio-tech food? That same agri-business has given this country the world's lowest food prices. Does that mean bio-tech foods and drug companies are uniformly good? No. It just means reality is uncomfortably complicated.

Philadelphians seeking social change -and there are lots of them-know that blocking traffic and throwing trash in the streets mostly distracts from the clear thinking and commitment needed to create meaningful reform.

And they know that a blanket, cynical rejection of governments, as offered by some demonstrators here and in Los Angeles, cuts you off from their very entitities you need to work the changes needed on the scale needed.

Perhaps, the demonstrators arrested on Aug. 1 will figure that out someday. Let's hope so, because their passion is needed, even if their immaturity is not.

I am most curious as to why the Los Angeles or Philadelphia Police Departments even bother with this. This is a waste of our tax dollars. Instead of more jails I would like to see less drug laws which necessitated the massive explosion of jail construction in the first place, less persecution of people exercising their Constitutional rights and more schools, day care centers, health clinics etc.

This militarization of the police is taking "food" out of my childrens' mouthes. Get an honest job officer!

Three points:

One: I was one of those arrested. I was not held in the Roundhouse, but instead in a holding cell in poor residential district. While we were locked up there we sang and sometimes made a lot of noise. After release some people in the neighborhood pegged me as a protester fresh out of jail. They praised whata we were doing and said they were happy to hear us stirring things up in the jail. I was amazed. Our "message" resonated with them very well, even if the only message was resistance to a corrupt sytem and society. That their voices didn't reach far enough for the authors ears is no surprise, the people who I spoke with are the historically disenfranchised. Also, while in jail, our fellow inmates treated us with respect and kindness. Our message seemed to resonate with them too.

Two: I was not arrested for tipping over trash cans, smashing windows or making puppets. My crime was videotaping a large group of cops as they stood around waiting for something. As it happens, they were waiting for me so they could rough me up, smash my camera, Mace me and then arrest me. We were no where near a protest or media. Streat's "zero tolerance" does not need any qualifiers. The PPD was not out to get unruly people, they wanted anyone that looked wrong to them.

Three: Regarding tourism, as I was lying on the sidewalk, injured and Maced, the officers were taunting me saying "Welcome to Philly, pussy", "This is the 'City of Brotherly Love', pussy", and "How do you like Philly now, pussy". I'm not sure they were concerned with tourism. Or perhaps it was just me.

Before preaching to about how to create social change show me something that works better. What have you done to make this a better society? I would rather be called immature that complacent.

The Inquirer says that two demonstrations were fine and dandy, in their estimation, and that those others, with all the "violence" (against dumpsters??) distracted from the message.

Right. A leaf fluttering to the ground would have caused as much distraction to them.

So...what's the effect of those "acceptable" demonstrations? One focused on Health Care...yet the Inquirer does not seem to contain any info about how we have to get the For-Profit, Private Insurance Corporattions OUT of our health care system. Indeed, these insurers are still there as strong as ever...despite little facts like about how the top insurers are HUGE investors in none other than the top Cigarette Manufacturers and probably every one of the MANY non-tobacco cigarette adulterants' suppliers like pesticides, chlorine bleach, pharmaceuticals, ag products, adhesives, etc etc...and how these same insurance firms also invest in (and insure) the War Machine, nuke plants, bio-engineered "food", the Prison Industrial Complex, logging and pulp industries, mining, oil and all the rest. These are our Health Care Providers!!!??? It's like calling the LAPD "Peace Officers".

The second Inquirer-approved demonstration focused on poverty, housing, homelessness, unemployment and the destruction of the welfare system. Well...how effective was this? Did the peaceful and polite nature of the big march stop any Corporate Welfare and apply the public money to public needs? Is the Inquirer presuaded to finally allow alternative voices into the paper to effectively outline the crimes of the Corporate-Corrupted Government with an eye towards ending such corruption and ending the misappropriation of Public Funds? Not likely.

If Gandhi himself brought tens of thousands of people to sit down peacefully to demand justice, and if not an iota of violence happened, the Inquirers of the land would STILL not do anything effective. The sense of "honor" of the Brtish Empire does not exist today. This is a Money Uber Alles situation; justice, humanity, empathy and other human characterists don't enter into it. No money in it. No corporate entities are capable of being embarrassed into doing the right thing for the sake of honor or reputation.

The Ghandis today would be (and are) inflitrated, ridiculed, attacked economically and physically, set up by provocateurs, censored, monitored, threatened, tortured in jail, harrassed and certainly denied access to the mainstream media.

Things to do:

1) Crucial to prioritize the topic of Mainstream Communications which means...today...the Broadcast Airwaves...specifically or at least the airwaves designated for and owned by the PUBLIC. Every interest represented in LA and Phila and etc demonstrations MUST join, somewhere, sometime and repeatedly to DEMAND removal of Private Corporate influence in Public Broadcasting and the establishment of a mainstream Non-Corporate, non-private broadcast system. One or two percent of mainstream airwaves is all it would take. Targets for demos and legal actions easy to find...your local "Public" broadcast Stations... especially during "pledge" drives perhaps.

2) Since the Insurance Industry is the thread that binds ALL the Criminal Corporations via investments and insurance, it must be a prime target. At very least, it MUST be removed from the Public Health Care system. If this industry merely (?) paid even half the liabilities it owes to the Public and to untold millions of victims of corporate crimes, there would be enough money to pay for health care until the next millennium...not that we'd NEED so much health care with removal of and public. corporate-free regulation of industrial toxins, carcinogens and other experimental, anti-life technologies.

One small step might be to expose any and all insurance links to any public official...including judges and jurors and scientists etc.

Another is to, ASAP, expose the insurance investment angles to prove to all that insurers are not at all interested in health care but more interested in profits from things that cause disease and death across the world. Certainly they like the idea of profitting again in the "cure" industry in tending to victims of their business investment properties and insurance clients. Think of this as Al Capone's Gun Shot Cure business.

That message was very unclear in many respects, but mostly it was totally unfair. The protesters "lack of maturity"? I was one of the demonstrators in Philadelphia. I was there from sunday to monday which as you stated, were totally peaceful, yet energetic. We got our messages out, even though they were suppressed by the mainstream media. So whatever immaturity you're talking about (aside from the very few testosterone driven teenagers who through rocks at the police on tuesday) 99.9% of the demonstrators were completely fired up, yet completely non-violent. It was the police who had the weapons, not us. I was there first hand witnessing it and experiencing it. And boy did it feel good.

Please do your research and listen to what we have to say before judging us. So typical of you traditional minded yuppies who's soul concern is profit at all cost.