I like to run the streets to calm the demons in my head before bedtime. It’s like meditation or prayer, except you need good shoes and plenty of water, especially during heat waves like the one we endured while the Democratic National Convention was in Philly.
As I mentioned last time, the DNC took place near Broad Street, at the Wells Fargo Center, not far from the swamp where I live. It was capped Thursday night by Hillary Clinton’s acceptance speech, which had an intro from her daughter Chelsea, who raised the event to a new level of kitsch while reminiscing about Mom and Dad and even Grandma, who would have been “so, so proud” of Hillary last night.
After a few minutes of her dreck, I left the house and ran to Broad Street. I was serenaded by droning police helicopters to the south, circling the convention site, where protesters had gathered for the fourth straight day to show contempt for the Democratic nominee and the nomination process.
I knew the humidity was high because I could feel the sweat dripping off my fingers, and that protesters were active because cop cars were racing down Broad, followed by a big white police bus used to haul large groups of prisoners to jail.
And I knew from being at the site on previous nights that the protesters — there may have been a few thousand at times — wouldn’t get anywhere near the convention center because the “protest zone” created by the feds was hundreds of yards away from the center and fenced off like a cattle pen.
So I ran a few miles and went home just in time to see the end of Hillary’s dreadfully well-rehearsed speech. Then she and hubby Bill and other luminaries, flashing ultra-bright grins, pushed and poked at red, white and blue balloons, which had been released by the thousands after the speech.
The point is, convention planners made sure nothing inside or outside the convention venue was spontaneous or real — at least not for long. Even the balloon-poking seemed rehearsed.
Kudos to the cops for not engaging in the heavy-handed tactics that made Philly look bad during the 2000 RNC convention. This time around, in the name of keeping the peace, and with lots of help from the Democratic National Committee and federal agents, they smothered dissent almost before it could rear its feeble head.
So America can breathe easy now. The homeland is safe from those bomb-throwing Bernie bros. Everything is under control. We’re all in the same cattle pen.
Surprised to see this dreck on Suburban Guerilla, Susie.
Direct your remarks to me, please. Do you have any actual arguments or do you just want to suppress the remarks of someone who isn’t a cheerleader for Hillary?
Odd man, as Susie said in another post, conventions are about cheerleading. You don’t like the team getting these cheers. That doesn’t make them fake or contrived or kitsch. And, yes, cheers are choreographed and rehearsed. That doesn’t make them fake either.
It does mean you were sensible not to watch most of it. I’m not sure why you watched any of it, since these people clearly disgust you.
I’m even less sure why you feel it’s a good idea to express your dislike of this particular pompom waving. That implies you have no idea what this is about: somebody else’s party that you for some reason want to rain on. I’m guessing that’s the part Carolyn feels is “dreck.”
It isn’t a question of suppression, OR cheerleading, odd man. It’s a question of strategery, as a former president might say.
I assume you call yourself a progressive, or I doubt Susie would be giving you any real estate here.
So, as a progressive, what is your objective for November? Given that the candidates have been chosen for all four parties, what more is there for progressives? I submit that the objective needs to be to elect more progressives to Congress. What makes that more likely? Turnout. What depresses turnout? The kind of pessimistic drivel I see in your post.
I don’t care who you vote for for president, but I hope you’ll see the strategic advantage in keeping at least a neutral tone until after the election in November, so as not to keep people from the polls.
Quixote: It depends on what you mean by fake. The Democratic National Committee’s choreographers understandably wanted the TV-watching world to believe all Democrats were on board with Hillary’s nomination, but the fact is Bernie got 43 percent of the aggregate vote in the Dem primaries. Many of those voters suspect Hillary couldn’t have won without the Debbie Wasserman Schulz types who worked from the get-go to stack the deck against Bernie.
Also, I did watch most of the kitsch-y speeches, if only because I’m eager to better understand why the DNC embraced a candidate who is a war hawk, a buddy of Wall Street crooks and a big fan of so-called free trade agreements.
Lastly, this is my party as much as it’s yours. The difference is that my version of the Dem Party has its roots in the New Deal and Hillary’s is the creation of neoliberals who have done nothing for 30-plus years but take working people for granted. If you and Carolyn think my contempt for neoliberal Dems is dreck, I’m fine with that.
Carolyn: It’s really tiresome to read arguments that equate skepticism about Hillary’s candidacy with “pessimistic drivel.” No reasonable person would vote for Trump, but that doesn’t mean progressives shouldn’t keep challenging Hillary not to drift back to the right now that she’s the nominee. Here’s what could depress voter turnout: the inability or unwillingness of Hillary to address the concerns of the many Americans who think she’s joined at the hip with the powerful people largely responsible for, among other things, the huge and growing wealth and income inequality in this country.
Odd man, I know what you’re saying. In the 90s I was there myself in a small way. (I got cross with her for supporting some fairly lamebrained, “family” rating system for video games.) My problem is I don’t see your version of the facts.
2008, post housing crash but before the election, she had a detailed plan for helping homeowners that involved debt forgiveness and other targeted support for ordinary people. The bankers hated it, Wall St. hated it. It would have actually helped way more people than Obama’s / Geithner’s “foaming the runway.”
Her health care plan (back in the Paleolithic) would have done way more than Obama’s plan did to stop insurance company gouging. The companies hated it. The deciding voice that ended in transferring the Michigan delegates to Obama, which was a major step in handing him the 2008 nomination, was a top banana in the health insurance industry lobbying group.
By the way, those Goldman speeches everybody was hot and bothered about a while back. Male politicians have been giving those speeches and getting paid that kind of money since forever. But she’s supposed to be “purer” than that? She also gave talks to the Girl Scouts assoc. and the Canadian maple industry, and about twenty other groups. Again, just like male speakers. Again, without any legislative or policy record showing she was bought. But somehow this makes her, but not men, less than … what? … virginal?
She is no more of a war hawk than any other mainstream politician. Less so, if you look at her record. I mean, hell, even Sanders was pro-F35 if it brought jobs to Vermont. But again, somehow she’s supposed to be pure.
So, anyway, this is all a longwinded way of saying, no, on the evidence that I see, she is not a big hawk or buddy of crooks or willing to see ordinary people shafted to serve corps whether in trade agreements or otherwise. The people who’ve been repeating that non-stop for decades were Republicans, until Sanders (shamefully, in my view) started repeating it with them just in case it worked for him.
But repetition is not evidence. Judge her by the same rules used for male politicians and she’s center-left. If there’s something unusual about her, based on the evidence, it’s that she’s unusually truthful and accurate.
odd man: Do you really think that posting negative stuff about Hillary will further the objective of electing more progressives to Congress? I submit that it will do the opposite.
In 2008, I suggested to Obama fans that, once Hillary had conceded, they not give him a free pass, but hold his feet to the fire on his promises. He was my senator for about a minute, and I knew he wasn’t as progressive as they thought (and he led them to) believe.
That approach didn’t work with Obama, so why do you think it’s necessary now? Looks to me like a double standard.