What’s Really Getting Trampled Here?

I’m not sure whether I was more amused or outraged by a story from BBC yesterday. Yes, yes, I know it’s strange to get your political news from the BBC, but since NPR seems to have taken several steps to the right, I’ve been getting more and more of my news from foreign sources. Just like I’ve watched more of the Olympics on the Canadian Broadcast System than on NBC.

Anyway, you need to take a look at this rather amusing article about why the Republican mayor of NY City decided that protests against the upcoming Republican Convention must be prevented.

Turns out that the Republicans are more concerned that the grass might get trampled than that people’s First Amendment Rights are being trampled.

How ironic that a party that has plundered the environment to benefit corporations should suddenly be so concerned about the quality of the grass in Central Park. Are they afraid that the grass won’t be able to counter the effects of acid rain from coal plants if it gets trampled on by thousands of protestors? Or is it simply that they know so little about the enviroment that they think the grass would be permanently damaged by environmental protestors?

Or, is this just another attempt by the Republicans to obscure their motives, to preserve their “good name” by once again calling a spade just an upside down heart. You’ve got to give them credit, the Conservatives have certainly mastered the fine art of shoveling it deep.

12 thoughts on “What’s Really Getting Trampled Here?”

  1. Well, you missed the Republican warning that those seeking to disrupt the RNC are releasing thousands of mice to frighten the convention goers, sending prostitutes with AIDs after the delegates, and deliberately misdirecting convention goes so they end up in ‘bad places’.

    This from the Republican convention site.

    Once upon a time, the Republican party had a noble purpose. And there are good people in the party– but where are they when all this is going on?

  2. Poor deluded anarchists.

    Everyone knows that Conservative Christians and their business allies are only interested in screwing the country, certainly not prostitutes.

    Personally, it would be hard to imagine any “bad places” that could be worse to be at than a Republican convention. That’s about as bad as it can get.

  3. I accidently found your website today and, damit, Loren, I like you. It’s not that I share your love of Eastern philosophy or read much modern poetry, although I like the way poets write prose, if that makes any sense. An example of what I’m talking about is http://anonymousrowhouse.blogspot.com/

    Anyhow, it’s nice to encounter a human being on the web.

    I’m retired like you, but considerably older. For complicated reasons, I find myself living alone in the campos, south of Veracruz in a vast house, without much by way of furniture or what are called conveniences. The experience of such enforced solitude is like swimming in a lake, the water calm, warm and opaque. And with all that, nature breaks through, always by surprise. Wonderful little birds, half the size of sparrows, who do acrobatic tricks when you provide them with an audience; giant gophers who get angry when the lawnmower levels their earthworks, and the rain that falls almost every night this time of the year.

    Well, enough for now. If you would like, I will write you again sometimes.

  4. I’m glad you like my web site, Paul.

    When I tried to email you at the address you posted, my email got bumped back to me.

    So, if you’d like to converse by email you’ll have to send another email to loren at lorenwebster.net with a different address.

  5. That’s quite the article there. And, no, you’re not weird for reading foreign news to learn about what’s going on in our country. The BBC is great for getting an honest view of what’s happening in America. As far as I know, they’re not trying to promote either party into power, so, it’s a more objective media source. I got a chuckle out of that article you linked. Good find :).

  6. I think you’re getting a distorted view of the motivation behind the ban. Protestors are treated much more openly in NYC than at Boston. Democrats isolated protesters in a cage. Central Park is a mile or two away from Madison Square Garden and would make a perfect spot to isolate demonstrators from the convention. Notice also that the article’s writer did not interview the mayor, the city’s legal team, or any of the Park Commissioners. One Side is not the whole story.

  7. “calling a spade just an upside down heart” – Great! Righteous rant, man.

    Odd of Hank to assume that criticism of Republicans precludes criticism of Democrats – whose behavior toward protestors and toward Al-Jazeera at their own convention was indeed scurrilous. There are way more sides than two. But every story, in order to become a compelling narrative, must be informed by a perspective. If you introduce other perspectives, you are simply embedding other narratives – which is fine, but confusing if you get carried away with it. One thing that makes the mainstream U.S. media so hard to take is this notion we have that truly neutral reporting is possible and desirable. This blinds so many – including some reporters and most media owners – to their actual biases: the pro-business, pro-establishment biases, especially. We saw where that led over the last couple years, with even the NY Times having to apologize to its readers for its extreme gullibility. Reporting on the Iraq war has become so dismal that one is crazy to rely solely on U.S. sources. (Just the other day i heard an NPR reporter talk matter-of-factly of U.S. soldiers’ “victory” in Najaf!)

  8. This whole article was written tongue-in-cheek, and I’m a little surprised anyone could think something this short could ever cover the “whole story.”

    I guess I’d leave it to Fox News to attempt to do that.

    What I was really protesting was the way Republicans consistently try to veil what they’re doing in verbal deception, like calling a program cutting back the Clean Air Act “Clear Skies” or calling attempts to “harvest” trees (as if they had actually planted the seeds) a “Healthy Forests Initiative.”

    You’d think if they actually felt they could justify what they’re doing that they could call it what is was, not give it some euphonistic, meaningless title,

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