NYC - Convention
(09-05-2004)

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I had the chance to meet and get to know many of the protesters first-hand last Tuesday. It wasn't difficult, since I shared five different cell blocks with them for all of nineteen hours.

I was innocent, as the statement normally goes, but I will spare you all the sordid details. Suffice it to say that hundreds of innocent people were swept up in the widespread police entrapments that day; literally kidnapped. There was the guy who stepped out of his apartment to walk his dog, the female shopper from Europe who was scheduled to return the next day, and even a journalist from the conservative "American Spectator" who sat for hours in the cells, sometimes cuffed, mostly fuming. How's that for irony?

The protester group was indeed a motley crew and included some of the predictable characters: the young 'activist' who travels in that fog of ethics which separates responsibility from partying; the aged hippie who's out for one last dance with Miss Nostalgia; and the young counter-whatever cutie whose collection of face rings seem to spell, "This is so cool."

But most were in their twenties to forties, thoughtful and reflective: a senior financial analyst with a major firm, who lives in Westchester, and could eat French fries with a fork without raising suspicion; a designer from Brooklyn, married with small children, who could look quite at home in Salt Lake City; a very amusing mid-forties retired entrepreneur whose engaging quips worked like Windex on this Kafka-esque farce; and an activist from Fresno who really prefers a Bush victory (give the W regime more rope, as it were, so the entire right-wing house of lies will come tumbling down, destroyed).

The word "protesters" seems inappropriate; it conjures up images of yahoos who always used to tease the substitute teacher. Some of the media even used the word "anarchists", so far removed from the truth that every news item I'll read from now on I will take with the proverbial grain of salt, mixed with cayenne. But the common denominator of these 'concerned citizens' (better) is that they were all well-educated, well-read and quite knowledgeable about the various themes in this election. I'm a political junkie (New Yorker, C-span, Charlie Rose, you know, that type), but these articulate souls swam circles around me with their depth of knowledge and breadth of facts. I felt privileged to be among them.

That is in contrast to the delegates I met. My modus operandi was to observe the various protest demonstrations during the day then, in the evenings, hit the bars in the hotels where the delegates were staying. Unfortunately, many of the hotels were in a week-long lock down. Only those people with room keys or delegate passes were allowed in the front doors. It figures. These delegates live in gated communities, drive 'gated' SUVs, belong to gated country clubs, send their kids to private schools, vacation at gated resorts, so why shouldn't they travel in the same fashion, removed from reality? I secured the itineraries of many delegations. Buses would pick them up in the morning, bring them sightseeing (never to the lower east side or Harlem), then to private lunches, nap time, then private dinners before busing them to the convention and back to the hotels; in specially marked lanes, by the way. Other than the occasional stroll in Times Square to see the weirdoes, the delegates were, by and large, invisible.

However, I did meet a few. There was George, a delegate from Illinois, fifties, just retired and a contributor, of course. He kept buying me drinks while describing the book he will soon start researching, then writing. It's about the West vs.the Middle East. The conflict is all about religion, claims George, just like the Crusades, and we got to crush them now, before it's too late. But George must be a brilliant guy. How many people do you know can determine their conclusion before they do the research? By the way, George adamantly described how John Kerry got his purple hearts. It seems he picked up an M79 and cut his finger; and another when he threw a grenade into a rice paddy and the rice came shooting out and hit him in the ass. I asked him if that was on the military record and he replied "Hell, yes." Anybody heard of it?

There was the young delegate from Kansas who, after I asked him what the protester was saying when she interrupted Bush's speech replied, "Who the hell cares? They should take them away and shoot 'em on the spot. That's what the death penalty is for." And then there was the Lt. Governor from a New England state who said of the Cheney speech, "It was like a boardroom speech; not a lot of passion, but very logical."

I contemplated 'logical' then next day as I entered the NY ACLU store front office and spent an hour with one of the attorneys, describing what had happened to me two days earlier. How was it 'logical' that I could follow police instructions to the letter, ask a sergeant where it was okay to stand, and then get arrested for complying with his exact instructions? Maybe Dick Cheney can explain it to me, that is, if I can get into his boardroom. In any case, the ACLU intends to bring a class action suit, and they asked if I would be a witness. Sure. It's only logical.

During those nineteen hours of incarceration, we all engaged in quite a few conversations with each other. Possible friendships were explored, bonds were created, and every guy tried to help the next guy. And midst our meanderings through the jail structure, for fingerprinting, mug shots, etc., we all came away content in the time we spent with each other and convinced, more than ever, that this Bush mess is gonna need a whole lot of cleaning up.

Things I learned:

1. Police have a fetish; they like to tie people up. At times, we were even chain-ganged, in fives, just to move us to a different cell down the corridor. This, while under the close scrutiny of three armed policemen, with about 20 others in close proximity, in the most secure sight in Manhattan, which in turn was surrounded by hundreds more police outside. As he was being handcuffed with the neoprene handcuffs, the aforementioned quipster in our group looked at the young policeman and echoed that famous line from The Graduate, "Son, I've got one word for you. Plastics."

2. Every so often they gave us apples, milk, and some god-awful sandwiches which, wrapped in cellophane, had one thin slice of total mystery meat inside. While they're completely inedible, if stacked three-high, they provide for an adequate headrest.

3. The police are incredibly inefficient. It's not that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, it's that the left hand has no idea that the right hand is there at all. They miscounted people all night, misplaced paperwork, and even misplaced a couple of people. It's just a matter of time before most of their functions will be outsourced, just like what happened in the military.

4. We, all of us, unconsciously rub our nose or scratch our face more often than we might guess. When back-cuffed for hours, we learn that that response is a freedom we take for granted. By the way, they tie those neoprene cuffs so tight, that the back of my right hand is still a bit numb after five days. When released, we were met by people from the National Lawyers Guild along with medical volunteers who said that the cuff problem was number one. They treated me with salve, etc. Good people, and in return they received a good donation.

Addendum: Sorry about not posting pictures since last Tuesday. All of my equipment (video camera, digital camera, batteries and portable radio) were kept by the police as 'arrest evidence', for an infraction that was not a crime, not even a misdemeanor, but a violation, exactly like jaywalking. I met with the head of the lawyers' guild, and he said I may never see that equipment again, or at best, damaged; about a thousand bucks in all.

Aah, New York, if I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere...

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