Denver, Colorado, August 23, at 12 noon. I was in front of the fences that surround the "Free Speech" Zone where protesters are going to be parked like cattle in the last day of the convention. Today 500 or more journalists were there waiting to get in the Pepsi Center which is where the corporate media meets, right next to the Free Speech Zone and on the same block.

I ask seven different journalists, waiting to get inside the Pepsi Center, about their business for the day. "What was going to happen inside?" I got different versions of the same answer. "We're going to work." I then tried different approaches. "Is there a meeting there, a briefing, a press conference?" Only one journalist got a different answer. "Did you get your press credential yet?" They wouldn't tell me nothing.

Later in the day I went to register at the Colorado IMC orientation to get a IMC press credential. I was impressed by the number of people who showed up there, from all over the US. May be there were 50 or more. The IMC is expecting to have about the same number of applicants every day during the convention.

After the Colorado IMC party, I learned that the police removed the razor wire on top of the fences at the detention center, after Denver Channel 4 went to investigate about the need for it.

I also learned from a member of the Colorado IMC that workers in a big building in Downtown Denver were warned by security to have enough food and water in case the police close down the entire building. Apparently they might shut the building a long time, since they will be needing water and food. She got that information from her mother who work there.

Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, August 23, 2008.

Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, August 23, 2008.

Waiting to get in the cage

On the back on his T-shirt was written, "Black man running, and it ain't from the police." "so there aren't going to be any police state under Obama?" I asked. And he said that almost nothing was going to change with Obama. "There'll be still a police state under Obama, but it will be nice to have a black man as a president."

The author, a Ron Paul fan.

There's no police state now. Just people willingly going into a "free speech" cage.