My earliest political memories go back to my grammar school days in Northern NJ. My father, a claims adjuster with a major insurance company, would come home from work, turn on the nightly news and sit down at the head of the dinner table. The news was filled with pictures of young soldiers crawling through mud filled fields and pictures of young Asian children, women and men running and screaming. Every night the same scene ensued, my eldest brother a stereotypical guitar playing 60’s hippie with long hair and mustache and my father would begin voicing their opposing views on the Vietnam War and Nixon.
Here I am forty years later in almost the same situation, my brother and father still have their differences but we don’t all have dinner together anymore. Much like in 1968 I see our young soldiers looking largely scared, tired and physically and mentally worn, and the people who live where the fighting is taking place are too scared to step out of their battered doorways. After eight long years of suffering under the Bush administration we have a chance for change, the 2008 Democratic Convention is taking place in my own backyard – Downtown Denver.
And despite the chance for change offered by the Democratic candidate there are going to be numerous groups of protesters all concerned with their own cause or agenda but existing more importantly to remind the candidates of the issues that are currently first and foremost on American minds; the economy, health care, immigration, the never ending war in Iraq, etc. It seems that every day the protesters are being pushed farther and farther away from the convention. First they were to set up “Tent State” at Denver’s City Park now the protesters are to set up base camp at Cuernavaca Park. Rather than having easy city access they are put in a park that sits on an “island” inside of the city, surrounded by the Platte River and Interstate-25. However, the city did go to the trouble of renovating an empty warehouse on the outskirts of town and filled it with numerous holding cells dubbed “Gitmo on the Platte” to house those who “get out of hand.”
The 2008 Democratic Convention will be a history-making event as the first black presidential nominee accepts his party’s nomination. However, I am afraid that this historic event will be overshadowed in the press by both Hillary Clinton’s myopic need to be on the ballot and the city of Denver’s fascistic control over the various protest groups. And need I remind you, Thursday, August 28th, the night Obama is scheduled to make his acceptance speech is also the same date Martin Luther King, Jr. made his historic I Have A Dream speech. I hope the media will realize the reverence of this day and show it the respect it deserves.
