Let's All Go!

[Gary Sisco]

Party over here!

And it just so happens I got my NRA.com press credentials in the mail, just this week.

Published on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 by Ted Rall
NYC to GOP: Drop Dead
by Ted Rall

Tourists are pleasantly surprised when New Yorkers act as friendly and polite as the people back home in Mayberry. However, delegates to this month's Republican National Convention shouldn't expect to be treated to our standard out-of-towner treatment. The Republican delegates here to coronate George W. Bush are unwelcome members of a hostile invading army. Like the hapless saps whose blood they sent to be spilled into Middle Eastern sands, they will be given intentionally incorrect directions to nonexistent places. Objects will be thrown in their direction. Children will call them obscene names. They will not be greeted as liberators.

Well aware that it is barren soil for their party's anti-urban, anti-immigrant, anti-feminist, overtly racist ideology, Republican leaders have wisely avoided New York City as a convention site for the past 150 years. Even as the rest of America turns red, we New Yorkers remain as liberal as the people's republic of San Francisco: fewer than 18 percent of the citizens of New York's five boroughs (which include relatively conservative places like Staten Island) cast ballots for Bush/Cheney in 2000. But White House strategist Karl Rove sees the continued exploitation of 9/11 for partisan political gain as Bush's key to victory in November. That means bringing the big bash three miles north of the hole where the Twin Towers used to stand, where most of the victims of 9/11 were burned, suffocated, impaled and pulverized.

Making hay of the dead is also the point of this confab's timing. The 2004 Necropublican National Convention is being held a full month later than normal, from August 30 to September 2. The original plan was to have Bush shuttle between Madison Square Garden and Ground Zero for photo ops to coincide with the third anniversary of the September 11th attacks. Bush's visits to the Trade Center site were quietly canceled a few months back after 9/11 survivors expressed revulsion at the idea. But it was too late to change the date.

Anti-Republican sentiment is rising to a fever pitch here as the dog days tick down to the dreaded affair. A poll cited by the local ABC affiliate shows 83 percent of New Yorkers don't want their city to host the RNC. And many of them are planning to do something about it.

Rejecting ex-mayor Ed Koch's call to "make nice" with the party that used the deaths of 2,801 New Yorkers--most of them Democrats--for everything from tax cuts for the rich to building concentration camps at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib to invading Iraq to enrich Dick Cheney and his fellow Halliburton execs, some groups are encouraging liberal-minded New Yorkers to volunteer for the city's squad of official greeters. Creatively altered maps of streets and subways will be handed out to button-clad stupid white men. Other saboteurs wearing fake RNC T-shirts will direct them to parts of town where Bush's policies have hit hardest. Rumor has it that prostitutes suffering from sexually transmitted diseases will discourage the use of condoms with Republican customers.

Anywhere between 250,000 and 1,000,000 anti-Bush demonstrators are expected to hit the streets of Manhattan, but the city and protest organizers can't agree on where to put them. Activists say they'll direct marchers to Central Park, their preferred site; city officials are threatening mass arrests if they do. Adding to the already combustible Chicago '68 vibe is a possible wildcat strike by city cops and firefighters. And now, as if everyone concerned wasn't already tweaky, FBI agents are traveling around the United States, to harass members of leftist groups planning to protest the New York RNC.

Strikebreaking policemen and private security personnel may be able to keep the protesters away from the convention hall. But Republicans who venture outside the Garden deserve the abuse ordinary New Yorkers will likely inflict upon them.

True, the Administration eventually coughed up the $20 billion aid package Bush promised the city after 9/11. But that sum--equal to the cost of occupying Iraq for four months--barely made up for such disaster-related expenses as police overtime, debris removal and rebuilding damaged subway stations and tunnels. New York's economy hasn't even begun to recover. As the nation's official unemployment rate hovers at six percent, the city's runs around eight. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Republican, opposes virtually every Bush Administration decision concerning New York City.

Even viler than Bush's urban neglect is his failure to avenge the World Trade Center victims as he pledged to do on 9/14, dusty firefighter helpfully posing under his arm on The Pile. After 9/11, Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were in Pakistan. They and the Taliban received funding from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The 19 hijackers, organized by Egyptian Islamic Jihad, were Egyptian and Saudi. But Bush didn't attack Pakistan, Saudi Arabia or Egypt. He went after Afghanistan and Iraq instead, nations that had nothing to do with 9/11 but offered business opportunities for GOP-connected oil concerns. Incredibly, he siphoned more money and arms to the Egyptians, Saudis and Pakistanis.

Not only did Bush let the terrorists get away, he raised their allowance.

If today's GOP retained a shred of the dignity and patriotism that it once possessed as the Party of Lincoln, it would have dumped Bush in favor of a candidate more interested in defending America than his wealthy contributors. Republicans are neofascists now, and that's why New Yorkers good and true will be yelling at them to go back home.

COPYRIGHT 2004 TED RALL

[RBS]

I'm all for non-violent protest, but being a New Yorker, and working two blocks from this stupid-ass convention, I hope the protesters take the high road -- and don't do something that will throw votes to the Republicans.

[Gary Sisco]

I bet I could get in no problem with my NRA creds. That'd be funny as shit. What fun I could have.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

Gary,

I can't go. The movie "The Out-of-Towners" sacred the bejeesus out of me as a kid.

Is the GOP planning a candle-light vigil at Ground Zero?

[Gary Sisco]

Funny as hell, D. The vigil, I mean. Can't you see them standing around like Quakers at the Fed Building.

Makes me wanna holler....

I love the idea of the fake t-shirt wearers giving phony directions. "Yes, sir, Mr Kansas Delegate. Just take the A-Train way uptown. Best food east of the ole Mississip, yessir."

[Root Doctor]

Originally Posted by Darryl G. Thomas

The movie "The Out-of-Towners" sacred the bejeesus out of me as a kid.

That's OK, Sandy Dennis used to scare me, too. All that damned twitching, I think.

[crawjo]

If Ted Rall is the average New Yorker, then this says something very, very bad about all New Yorkers.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

From the This Modern World blog:

August 08, 2004

Using the threat of terrorism to scare voters: all of September will be "National Preparedness Month"

(Note: this entry posted by Bob Harris)

I haven't seen any news stories about it, but I just got tipped by a guy who works in Washington, and this GSA page confirms: September is about to become "National Preparedness Month."

Heck, this Red Cross page flatly states that Tom Ridge will make the official announcement on September 9th.

Whoa.

(Why September 9th? That's awfully late, if it's supposed to be the entire month. My guess, thinking like Karl Rove: this year's 9/11 anniversary falls on a Saturday, so an announcement on the date or even Friday would only get a burst of free media on a weekend. But by timing it for the 6 pm news on Thursday, it'll reach the Friday papers, and thus be fully-injected into all of the emotion-laden anniversary coverage, plus the Sunday morning talk shows.)

The idea, obviously, is to throw a large amount of focus, possibly for weeks on end, on the only issue on which Bush outpolls Kerry. And of course this will come on the heels of the GOP convention. So where the Democrats' post-convention media got blitzed with terror warnings based on years-old intelligence, the Republicans' afterglow might well be favorably extended, implied message being:

"Why, with George Bush and enough shovels, we'll all be just fine."

Let's see... searching further... can't find anything about it on the Dept. of Homeland Security site. (No surprise; you want to maximize media impact, not piss it away with a bunch of pre-announcements. Hint to readers: letters to the editor, now, won't diminish any actual security value, but they will defuse the propaganda effect.)

However -- aha! -- the "America Prepared Campaign" has a downloadable .pdf calendar of events.

Fascinating stuff.

The very first scheduled event is an August 30 "preparedness quiz" in Parade magazine, coinciding with the kickoff of the GOP convention.

(Parade, incidentally, is a flag-waving Sunday supplement to over 340 newspapers, with a readership of (seriously) almost eighty million people; purchasing a full page costs over $800,000. As I write this, they're running an interview with Dick Cheney, in which he repeats, unopposed, a series of obvious distortions if not outright lies.* Nice. And they're plugging the GOP's key issue on the opening day of the convention, probably with a cover story, free of charge... sweeet deal.)

Other September Surprises: a whole "educate the family" campaign, with kits available at various retailers; an in-school "Ready Deputy" duck-and-cover training program; and a website called Readykids.gov (not yet online), all launched in the first week.

Brilliance. Tie the concept of Bush's only winning issue to family and children. Unspoken, deniable implication: "vote for Bush if you want your kids to live." Nice.

On the 7th, there's another newspaper supplement, then -- yep, the official announcement on the 9th. Look for Tom Ridge, possibly flanked by tremulous herds of frightened waifs, sometime around noon EST.

On 9/11 itself, there's a "NASCAR race in Richmond" listed. This would be the "Chevy Rock 'N' Roll 400" at the Richmond International Raceway. Obviously, a NASCAR race has nothing -- nothing -- whatsoever to do homeland security. It is, however, a GOP-friendly event in Virginia, a battleground state where Bush's lead is within the margin of error.

Hmm. There are two other NASCAR races in September: one in New Hampshire, the other in Delaware. Both are solidly in the Kerry camp. And, gosh, nothing is scheduled. Apparently non-swing state voters just don't need to be quite so, ahem, "prepared."

If we don't see "preparedness" rallies at the other two races -- and they ain't scheduled, folks -- that certainly suggests Bush et al are using fear as a political tool.

This is transparently a continuation of the Bush campaign by other means, financed with everyone's tax dollars, out of funds that could be used, say, to hire more actual first-responders, Pushtun translators, or troops to replace the exhausted guardsmen.

Bush should be called out on this, and now, by journalists, by the Kerry campaign, and by everyone who prefers actual security over campaign propaganda.

Our tipster said something I want to share:
Those of us who actually work on this sort of thing, in addition to wondering what the other 35 months since 9/11 have been, are of course not thrilled that this is so obviously being politicized.

Yes. Exactly.

It's three years after 9/11, and less than three months before an election, and now we get a National Preparedness Month.

And yes, let's ask Bush and Tom Ridge the simple question: what the hell do these people think the previous 35 months were?

*Cheney distortions published by Parade: Cheney bizarrely straw-mans all opposition to Bush's military policies as a return to "Cold War" strategies (huh? Mutual Assured Destruction?), a non-sequitur irrelevant to either the anti-war position or Kerry's suggestion that an ally or two might be nice; Cheney repeatedly implies the discredited notion that Iraq was allied with Al-Qaeda; and Cheney repeats the absolute falsehood that Iraq kicked out UN weapons inspectors in 1998 (they were withdrawn after a phone call from the U.S. rep to the UN, in advance of a U.S. attack).

UPDATE: less than 48 hours after this post went up, the Dept. of Homeland Security issued an official press release announcing September as National Preparedness Month. The timing is probably just a coincidence.

Still, they've confirmed damn near everything here. The "official" announcement really is on September 9th. They're really that brazen.

As far as this being a partisan enterprise, targeting the self-avowedly pro-Christian, pro-family, pro-business GOP base: the groups they've signed up to participate are really quite telling. Look at the list. You'll find the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, something called "The National Fatherhood Initiative" (which, one presumes, is courageously taking on the powerful anti-fatherhood lobby), the American Legion, the VFW, the USO, the Points of Light Foundation, and a whole slew of various military, religious, law enforcement, and business lobbying organizations.

Aside from the obvious inclusion of emergency health organizations like the Red Cross, there are only a handful of other listings (the DC Metro Transit Authority, for example). And while many of these groups are expressly conservative, you won't find a single group -- not one -- with a progressive agenda. Not one. Was the ACLU involved, to make sure that our civil liberties are factored into emergency discussions? Nope. Obviously, that's not part of the equation here.

This is, in short, a partisan, deeply politicized, Republican deal. On its face.

What troubles me most of all, really, is the one other set of groups pledged as active participants -- the media, in the form of the Ad Council, the NAB, the Outdoor Advertising Association, and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association.

... and then the deluge.

Don't say I didn't warn you.
posted by bob at 05:04 AM | link

[Dr Dave]

Originally Posted by crawjo

If Ted Rall is the average New Yorker, then this says something very, very bad about all New Yorkers.

I wouldn't set foot south of Dutchess County if I were you.

[Dr Dave]

Darryl: Thanks for the post. Karl Rove's intelligence is matched only by his utter amorality.

[Gary Sisco]

You know, if they didn't get so many tens of thousands of people killed every so often, they'd be the funniest bunch, ever. Hilarious.

[Gary Sisco]

Hell, I've been "prepared" since I was eleven. The Second Amendment, baby -- America's Original Homeland Security.

I can defend my land, no problem.

Apparently, they can't say the same.

[lynn]

Sounds like a Partee in NYC to me. After seeing the protestors in Seattle out run the police I know they must have a few new tactics up their sleeves.

I'm rooting for the home team.

[Dennis Gonzalez]

Originally Posted by crawjo

If Ted Rall is the average New Yorker, then this says something very, very bad about all New Yorkers.

Yeah, CJ, and I LIKE it!

9/11 made all New Yorker revoke their cynic snarling (hmm...reminds me of Dick Cheney). The RNC should bring it back in a really healthy dose!

[clinthopson]

I think the Repubics are hoping for street unrest and riots to point out their "higher morality."

They planned the NYC convention in hopes of this.

Now would Rove actually have a bunch of hooligans in place to get things going?

Huh?

[Darryl G. Thomas]

Aren't the protestors being restricted to some "free speech zone" way out in the middle of Bumfuck, NY? Of course, if 300,000 show up it would be hard to keep them in one place.

By the way, the concept of a "free speech zone", far from the folks you want to free speechify at, is kind of funny. It's sort of like naming a missile "peacekeeper".

I guess language has lost all it's meaning. Or maybe I need a new dictionary.

[Root Doctor]

Originally Posted by Darryl G. Thomas

By the way, the concept of a "free speech zone", far from the folks you want to free speechify at, is kind of funny.

What do you call the area outside of the "free speech zone?"

[Mingus]

Originally Posted by Root Doctor

What do you call the area outside of the "free speech zone?"

The "Go F*ck yourself area?"

[Darryl G. Thomas]

Root Doc,

The No Spin Zone?

[Mingus]

Originally Posted by Darryl G. Thomas

Root Doc,

The No Spin Zone?

more like the "ALL Spin Zone"