Monsoon Season in Colorado: Stormy Weather Ahead

Original Link: http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/08/13/monsoon-season-in-colorado-stormy-weather-ahead/

By medusa

What’s going to happen in Denver during the Democratic Convention? Well, lots of out-of-towners are going to suffer from altitude sickness. And while it’s likely to hit 100 degrees with an average humidity of 12%, it’s also monsoon season, so the Pray for Rain brigade may luck out:

Thunderstorms are common in summer afternoons, specifically during the late summer monsoon season.

Recreate 68 has announced its lineup. It appears to be a training ground for protesters/ rock concert. The lineup is an alphabet soup of the marginalized, those mad-at-everybody, the unwashed dread lock-wearing, drum-circling, white, upper-class boys. Picture the crowd outside the gates of a Dead concert, alongside some with loud political agendas. While Ward Churchill will speak, Cynthia McKinney and the Green Party report that are listed by mistake:

Cynthia McKinney, Green Party candidate for President, and Rosa Clemente, Green Party candidate for Vice President are NOT participating in any Recreate ‘68 activities.

And inside the Pepsi Center you’ll find a convention designed as a “Town Hall” meeting with a series of themes. Clearly this allows the party to control for content and against spontaneity. ABC is sending Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer to Denver but oddly enough, al-Jazeera English will be located in Golden, CO, the home of Coors Brewery. If you’re anything like me, you don’t give a rat’s patooti about the presumptuous nominee’s pick for VP. In fact, the only thing I’m interested in is what impact Hillary and her supporters will have on the convention and the nomination process. According to CNN, delegates, super and otherwise, can vote for whomever they want:

Clinton can still win votes from delegates at the Democratic National Convention even if her name is not placed in nomination. Delegates are free to vote for anyone they want to at the convention.

Knowing how popular Hillary remains, and how devoted and disgruntled her supporters are, it’s not surprising that the Atlantic and other Obama-media outlets are once again dissing her, her campaign and of course, her supporters. The sexists insults continue (women are infamous for being indecisive, so why not say that Hillary couldn’t make decisions.) While Josh Green trots out emails and memos that demonstrate the “catty” behavior in Clinton’s campaign, Dowd uses the opposite end of the spectrum in her sexists putdowns: Hillary is “orchestrating” the events of the convention. In fact, if you read Dowd’s Op-Ed while ignoring her uncontrollable nastiness and jealousy toward all things Clinton, her portrayal of Hillary (and Bill) contradict all the Hillary-blaming in Green’s CDS Opus. For example, Dowd writes:

While Obama was spending three hours watching “The Dark Knight” five time zones away, and going to a fund-raiser featuring “Aloha attire” and Hawaiian pupus, Hillary was busy planning her convention.

Wow, if this is true, rock-on Hillary! The corrupt forces of Pelosi, Brazile, Dean et al, stole the election from Democracy, disenfranchising Michigan, Florida and 18 million voters, and Obama’s supporters want Hillary (and Bill) to:

“get in the box” or get lost if they can’t show more loyalty, rather than giving them back-to-back, prime-time speaking gigs at the convention on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Not only is Hillary not getting in the box (whatever that means), according to Dowd:

Hillary’s orchestrating a play within the play in Denver. Just as Hamlet used the device to show that his stepfather murdered his father, Hillary will try to show the Democrats they chose the wrong savior.

Yes, Dowd wrote “savior.” Wonder why that word came to mind? And while Dowd spins this as negatively as her one-track rhetorical skills allows her to, for many of us, what Hillary is doing is creating a moment of Real Democracy. The voices, desires, concerns, fears and objections, etc, of Dems who don’t want Obama will be heard. Dowd continues her sexism by calling Hillary’s female followers “gals” but even with Dowd’s green-eyed prose, this makes me proud:

{Hillary} said she thought it would be good for party unity if her gals felt “that their voices are heard.” But that’s disingenuous. Hillary was the one who raised the roll-call idea at the end of May with Democrats, who were urging her to face the math. She said she wanted it for Chelsea, oblivious to how such a vote would dim Obama’s star turn. Ever since she stepped aside in June, she’s been telling people privately that there might have to be “a catharsis” at the convention, signaling she wants a Clinton crescendo.

Clearly Dowd thinks the convention is just a pro forma performance to crown His Majesty; the paternalism in this statement is stunning:

Obama also allowed Hillary supporters to insert an absurd statement into the platform suggesting that media sexism spurred her loss and that “demeaning portrayals of women … dampen the dreams of our daughters.”

Of course, the Democratic Party has created this myth that Obama is the choice of the party. Sacha Millstone, who did valuable volunteer work for Hillary’s campaign and is a delegate for Hillary, is being brow-beaten by Party Officials:

The Colorado Democratic Party would like Boulder delegate Sacha Millstone, who is devoted to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, to give up her spot as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention.

Apparently, the CDP wants strict party loyalty to extend to speech:

Party officials said Monday that they won’t insist Millstone resign. But in an e-mail last week, Billy Compton, state political director of the Colorado Democratic Party, ordered Millstone into his office to explain disparaging comments she made about Barack Obama.

Sounding frighteningly undemocratic, Millstone receive this message:

“You are hereby directed to come in to the party Headquarters and explain your comments and why you should remain a national delegate to the 2008 Democratic National Convention in light of these comments,” the letter said.

A lesser person may have caved after receiving a letter like this, but Millstone hired a lawyer. She writes:

“Isn’t there a right to free speech? Isn’t this right in line with our time-honored tradition with the Dems?” she said. “These intimidation tactics have a chilling effect on people feeling comfortable speaking up.”

What’s happening in Denver? Much more than a convention paying homage to The One selected by a corrupted Democratic Party. What’s going on here affects you and I much more than we know.

State Democratic Party chair Pat Waak, who said it would be nice to have a united delegation when 50,000 conventioneers arrive in Colorado, called the Millstone matter “moot.” “We’re getting too near the convention, and she’s refused to come in,” Waak said. Any effort to intimidate Clinton supporters won’t work, at least not on at-large Clinton delegate Sonya Jaquez Lewis, who lives in unincorporated Boulder County. “It makes me angry,” Jaquez Lewis said. “It makes me want to now really be even louder about issues and concerns that before I was willing to look the other way.”