The most significant thing I noticed about Sarah Palin’s speech, was that when I finally turned off the volume and turned on the text function of the television, the subtitles were unable to identify the majority of what she said.
I am not criticizing her intelligence, I am criticizing her method of communication. Much like I have not gone into detail about each policy I support of Obama’s, but instead focused on the way in which he leads.
While a part of me would love to continue about how terribly she scares me and why, I simply do not have the energy. And from my viewing of the local news coverage, Palin is getting PLENTY of focus.
Instead, I will share something that has me unsettled which is not in the media spotlight. I know there are demonstrations occurring at the convention right now. 300 people were tear gassed yesterday. Every media search I have done has covered the highlights, but not looked wholistically at the protests, nor assessed the magnitude of the dissent. I find myself adding numbers from story to story, trying to paint a picutre of what is happening in terms of demonstrations. Assessing this should not be that hard for the consumer of news. The news media should offer us a broad view of what kind of opposition is raising their voice in protest at the RNC.
Last night, I checked with a friend who is part of the movement expressing dissent in St. Paul. He indicated the situation with the police was very out of control. He used the words scared and exhausted. He is also very happy he is there to be part of these critical expressions of opposition.
But, I am worried about the way protest has gotten construed since the WTO demonstrations. Many of the articles I read talk about raids prior to the Convention, and extended court battles over permits. There seems to be an inability to step outside of the box of the legal frame certainly by law enforcement, but also by some of the organizers of demonstrations (I recognize of course that all angles are needed, but I am unable to get a picture of what other avenues of directed dissent are being forged). There seems also to be a law enforcement misinformation situation where the “threat” of violence is treated like terrorism. Any dissenter is a terrorist in the laws functioning. This is unsettlingly close to the way communism was deployed during the mid-twentieth century, only this time it seems less overt, more a subversive underlying current.
This quote regarding a large-scale pre-protest police raid from Jordan Kushner, head of the mass defense committee of the National Lawyers Guild’s Minnesota chapter explains a portion of my dis ease:
“It’s an obviously blatant act of harassment and intimidation to suppress political dissent,” he said. “You do this in a police state. I guarantee you they are not going to find anything (illegal).”
I am sitting comfortably on my couch in Boise, Idaho, looking on the internet for information on protests at the RNC. I am coming up short. There are thousands of people gathered to oppose the policies and commitments embodied by the Republican National Convention. And my local news keeps flashing to pictures of Sarah Palin’s pregnant teenage daughter smiling in spite of the huge contradiction between policy and practice present in this scenario. Something is lost in translation, and my tv set is not the only one confused.
