part two – Democracy in the streets, and under them

As mentioned earlier, the important ideas were not being discussed inside the Kodak Theatre; fortunately, the hoard of media crews covering the debate were treated to real participatory democracy outside on Hollywood Blvd.  There, several hundred demonstrators made it very clear that Obama and Clinton were not advocating the wholesale changes necessary for our country to reclaim her former greatness.  Unfortunately, the news media will limit coverage of the protests to a few seconds of video showing the most outrageously attired demonstrators, while completely ignoring the issues advocated by the protest groups.   Only a few dozen of LAPD’s finest and the crowds passing by had the privilege of listening to the demonstrators as they held court outside the Hollywood & Highland shopping mall for the duration of the debate taking place inside.

Any good protest brings out counter-demonstrators and this one was no different; the single loudest individuals were the lone Huckabee supporter screaming about the ‘end of days’ while second place went to the Ron Paul supporter with his “no taxes” refrain.  The largest protest group was led by the ANSWER-LA organization while a smaller, but very determined group of World Can’t Wait folks put on a remarkable display of torture themed street theatre.  The WCW gang was also the most confrontational, getting up in the face of any right wing counter demonstrators to argue their points nose to nose. (it was remarkably refreshing to see that kind of borderline rage aimed at the ‘young earth’ crowd).

While the main group of ANSWER folks led a long running series of call and response chants aimed at the TV news reporters, the World Can’t Wait group was a little further down the Boulevard, where they had room for their anti-torture performance.  A half dozen prisoners in orange jumpsuits, blindfolded, handcuffed and looking suitably uncomfortable were then subjected to even more degradation.  A very strange, very tall women dressed up as the evil twin of the Statue of Liberty (lady Justice?) abused the poor prisoners in a series of humiliating ways.  For those who prefer a more literal representation of our country’s atrocities, one of the jumpsuit clad prisoners was then ‘water-boarded’ right there on the Walk of Fame.

As a fitting tribute to the loss of civil liberties that we have given up so easily, all persons attending the protests / debates who arrived on the subway were subject to a rather invasive search by bomb sniffing dogs.  Every Red Line train was stopped one station prior to the Kodak Theatre and two dogs were slowly walked through each car and led by their handlers to sniff each and every passenger on the train.  I was standing directly in front of the rear doors to the last car and both dogs had to walk right past me to enter the train.  One shoved his nose right into my jacket pocket while the other aimed his snout right at my crotch.  I love dogs, and have two of my own, but I was ready to throw a raw steak toward the third rail if it would have gotten those two off of the train a second earlier.  To make things more nerve racking, no announcement was made to the passengers explaining the situation, so hundreds of teen and twenty-somethings were almost in tears as they expected to be busted by the ‘drug dogs’ searching the train.  One 17 year old kid standing next to me almost fainted as the dogs squeezed past me and rubbed up against his jeans.  When the dogs were halfway through the car, I explained that they were not drug dogs; and that the train ran directly under the Kodak Theatre so we were all being searched for explosives.  I was thrilled to see the kid’s attitude change from abject fear to indignation as he realized what he had been put through for no reason.  Hopefully, another resister had just been created.