The Haves and the Have Nots

My last two days in NYC were spent with very different groups, including RNC delegates and members of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign. From an interesting CBS News/ New York Times poll:

58% of the Republican delegates have incomes of $75,000 or above annually, compared to 33% of Republican voters nationally. 61% of Democratic delegates had income of $75,000 or higher. 27% (more than in either 2000 or 1996) of the 2004 Republican delegates have a net worth of $1 million or higher. More Republican delegates are millionaires than there were at the Democratic convention last month - 14% of Democratic delegates said they had a net worth of $1 million or higher.

That explains one woman's concern, voiced as we slowly moved through the extensive security checks at Madison Square Garden Monday morning, that jewelry might set off the metal detectors. (Many, many thanks to WORT 89.9 fm for obtaining RNC media credentials for myself and several other citizen journalists.)

What was it like being on the inside? It was good for me, a progressive member of a progressive community, since it bursted the "bubble" in which I usually reside. Yes, the GOP leadership is morally bankrupt and cynically manipulative, but party members are real (albeit privileged) people, many of whom truly believe that illegal wars are the best way to combat terrorism, that taxes are still too high, and that a woman's control over her own body and love between people of the same sex are both horribly wrong. How do we, as people working for social change, respectfully engage these conservative "real believers"?

A few interesting incidents from the Monday morning RNC session: I talked to several Wisconsin delegates, and asked them, among other things, what their reaction was to the large protest the previous day. One woman would only say that New York is "an interesting city" and that she, personally, had not been affected by any protests. Another woman laughed and said ah, well, there are always going to be a few people who aren't happy with anything. Ummm, try half a million people (see Largest Convention Protest ... Ever). One of the songs performed at the RNC that morning was a vocal / drum version of the Doobie Brothers' "Takin' It To the Streets." A reference to the ongoing demonstrations or simply a clueless song selection? I blog, you decide.

Speaking of FOX News, as I was sitting in an empty Nevada delegation seat, Bill O'Reilly came and stood right next to me as he prepared to report from the convention floor. They wound up not filming - I think because the convention sound system was so loud. But as he stood there waiting, he pointed up at Al Jazeera's press box, laughed and said, only in America... He then remarked to a colleague that, if a package came for Al Jazeera, the RNC folks should make sure not to open it.

What, don't you think it's funny to imply that an independent foreign news organization is run by a bunch of terrorists?

Monday afternoon was the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign's March for Our Lives. At the pre-march rally, speaker after speaker decried poor people's invisibility in the United States, condemned the Democratic and Republican policies which have devastated our country's social safety net, and called for an end to "the war at home." One of the most powerful speakers, to me, was a woman who challenged the dominant assumption that poor people are helpless and hopeless. Waving her arm at the thousands of supporters assembled, she yelled, "This all was organized by poor people!"

Plans were for the march to procede from the rallying point, next to the United Nations, to Madison Square Garden. It was a non-permitted march, and the police presence was very heavy and intimidating. Nonetheless, the march started south down 2nd Ave without incident. There were a few tussles, however, including when the group tried to turn towards Madison Square Garden at 34th Street. The police, on foot, on bikes and in paddy wagons, kept the march moving further south, to 23rd Street, when it was allowed to start moving west. Since it was getting late - and I was getting tired and hungry - I ducked into the 8th Ave subway stop to head back to the RNC and get some dinner along the way. Apparently I just missed some pretty heinous police provocation of the crowd, followed by arrests. NYC Indymedia has several accounts of what happened (see this and this).

I made my way through an even more onerous security check to gain entrance to the RNC Monday evening session, aka 9/11 Exploitation Night. Orwellian doublethink was in full effect, as a former assistant U.S. Attorney praised the PATRIOT Act and an Iraqi woman said, "America, under the strong, compassionate leadership of President Bush, has given Iraqis the most precious gift any nation has ever given another - the gift of democracy and the freedom to determine its own future." Yes, in exchange for at least 11,700 civilian deaths and control of their oil reserves.

Then came the popular Senator John McCain - an utter war hawk, albeit one who exhibits common sense and independent thought in other areas. McCain exhorted the delegates to stand firm in the "fight between right and wrong, good and evil" and - just before slamming Michael Moore - claimed, "Our choice wasn't between a benign status quo and the bloodshed of war. It was between war and a graver threat. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise." As if there are only two options (inaction or war) to address terrorism...

The full-on 9/11 salt rubbing began when three telegenic women who had lost either their husband or their brother spoke in front of a darkened screen with "September 11" written across it in large white letters. Their stories were truly heartbreaking. Of course, the 9/11 victims' families are just like any cross-section of the population. These three women drew from their tragic losses the belief that the United States needed to wage war and became (if they weren't already) strong supporters of George Bush. On the other hand, there are the 9/11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. (More on them later.) The women who spoke to the RNC are just as entitled to their opinions regarding the proper response to 9/11 as are the Peaceful Tomorrows folks. But there was something very disturbing about featuring these women and their pain at a political convention; I had an all-too-vivid mental picture of them being offered up on an ominous-looking altar.

Things didn't get any better when former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani spoke. Some gems: "Terrorists learned they could intimidate the world community and too often the response, particularly in Europe, was 'accommodation, appeasement and compromise.' ... [Repeating a horrible Bush quote:] Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. ... In any plan to destroy global terrorism, removing Saddam Hussein needed to be accomplished. ... [Hussein] was himself a weapon of mass destruction." I almost expected the screen behind Giuliani to burst into flames.

My favorite experience of the whole week came the next day, Tuesday morning, when I went to the Holy Apostles Church in Manhattan to get a response to the previous evening's RNC speeches from the group 9/11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. Some of their members were at the church as part of the Stonewalk, a joint effort with the Massachusetts-based Peace Abbey. The Stonewalk, which started in Boston during the DNC and (like DNC2RNC) traveled to New York over the past month, is a prayer-in-action, an educational and atonement effort of sorts, where people pull a massive, 1400-pound stone monument to unknown civilians killed in war. The month-long journey from Boston to New York was organized, in part, to highlight both major parties' shameful willingness to wage war.

I talked to several people involved with the Stonewalk, including the church's reverend. Tearing up, she told me that she had worked in the NYC morgues after 9/11 and that she had never dreamed that their grief would be used to cause others more grief. She invited me to observe their soup kitchen, the largest one in the city. Saying that the congregation wanted to facilitate dialogue, the reverend told me that not only was the church hosting the Stonewalk for a few days, but it had also invited Republicans to volunteer in the soup kitchen and was opening their doors at night to out-of-town protestors needing lodging.

Republican volunteers? With Compassion Across America? I asked to interview them, and a few minutes later was introduced to members of Alabama's RNC delegation. I asked one what would be her response to someone saying that Compassion Across America was just a photo-op. Well, you're here to cover it for your radio station, she said. She also pointed out that the President had called for ongoing volunteerism - although we can't help everyone, she pointed out. I resisted the urge to ask her whether raising the minimum wage might be a more effective way to address poverty than volunteering for a few hours, since I wanted to talk to others in her group.

I then asked the head of the Alabama delegation whether she had heard of the group 9/11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. No, she said, her face clearly showing displeasure. Well, they have a monument out in front of this church, I said, to honor the victims of 9/11 and all civilian victims of war. Do you have any response to that? She said, somewhat bitterly, that some people must have forgotten their history lessons, that there are times when the United States has to go to war to protect its freedoms. After all, we are the leaders of the free world. And people who question war are wimps, and we can't have wimps leading the United States at this point in our history.

Yes, I have it all on tape. Listen to "A Public Affair" this Friday, September 3, from 12 to 1 pm on WORT 89.9 fm.

It was a great week in New York - and, of course, the RNC and the protests continue. Check out NYC Indymedia and Democracy Now! (also on WORT) for more information.

Diane