I'm trying to upload photos and am having trouble with the internets. I'm at the Uptake, an office set aside for bloggers right near the security perimeter outside the Excel Center. The scene here in St Paul is downright creepy. It's deserted, with chain link fences and barbed wire surrounding the downtown area and riot police running down the empty streets, chanting out load cheers like they are on a military missions. There are a few Republican delegates, some young Republican operatives, a few people hawking wares, and a scattered group of protesters with signs that takl about war and profit. It is anything but festive, a far cry from Denver in both the level of excitement and the overt fascist overtones.
The only interesting events going on here are the raids of local hippies by an aggressive and corrupt county sheriff, and I'll be heading to the formal protest in a few minutes. What's dispiriting is just how complicit people are in this security state; outside the Democratic rapid response center, I spoke to a (probably liberal) woman who expressed comfort at all the security in that it will help prevent bombs from the anarchists.
This is the essence of 'security theater', intended to intimidate rather than protect. I took pictures of the riot police, and I have to say I was scared in doing so because there was literally no one around, two squads of riot police, and brick buildings on one side and barbed wire fences on the other.
This isn't a Republican problem, by the way. The Fleet Center in Boston in 2004 was just as bad, and there's ridiculous amounts of security theater all over the country, supplemented by higher security budgets since 9/11 and a blanket acceptance of our loss of freedoms by citizens and elites. Go to Capitol Hill or the White House and you'll see what I mean, though the conventions are far worse.
My dream for the 2007 inauguration was Nancy Pelosi would take the speaker's gavel and order one symbolic cinder block removed from in front of the capitol. I would hope that the next President does something like that, though I don't think he will.
This country should not become a 'homeland', as the Department of Homeland Security refers to it, and our cities should not have green zones. This is an abridgment of freedom so egregious not because it is so frightening, because the police are generally nice and doing their jobs, but so accepted by all involved.
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