RNC Vignettes

[lapsedmodernist]

I am tired. I finished my exams and it took forever to format them. By the time the last title was italicized I was so bleary-eyed, I couldn't make sense out of what I wrote. I tried to get the robot computer voice to read the text back to me, but the computer robot voice didn't do well with theory jargon, so that idea was nixed. I ran into one of my advisors today and he said my essay was great, and that Chair was also pleased with what I wrote. This is good news, since I was under the impression that I wrote completely cracked out answeres, I mean, you get me on a rant about history and mythology, what do you expect?

Tired, surreal humor has been the only way of dealing with all the scary stuff I may write about later when I process it. The implications, the undercurrents for the future, the way our lives are about to be split open in unexpected configurations. The conversations falling into the leaden asleep, or on the staircases, between this cancelled rally, between that unpermitted protests, the seething anger, directed unilaterally, but aggravated by the prickles from this side of things, stupid IMC bullshit, etc. The uneasy feeling in the pit of the stomach when the cops start putting on riot gear. This has happened several times in the last few days.


I spent several hours filming at Ground Zero yon Tuesday where the War Resisters League were planning a silent vigil/march in honor of those who died on 9/11 and during the subsequent wars. The WRL is an old super-pacifist organization, comprised largely of OLD PEOPLE who were not violating ANY laws, their procession was going to proceed in a line of twos on the sidewalk, which you don't need a permit for. In SILENCE. Before they got to march one block hundreds of NYPD with riot gear and those freaking orange nets arrived, NETTED all of them with the freaky orange nets they have been using despite a court injunction against them (as well as random bypassers, National Lawyer Guild observers and accredited members of the press and loaded them onto CITY BUSES which they had conscripted for these mass arrests.).

Wednesday pnts and I did dispatch at the IMC; more than half the calls I got was from people freaking out because their loved ones were detained, and central booking was, just, like, not answering, and NLG was too overwhelmed by their own getting arrested to be able to provide mass assistance. Someone called, worried about his roommate "he is an international student, and he is from India, so he looks, you know..."

In addition to asbestos galore, Pier 57 has motor oil and other shit all over the floor; people come out with rashes, not to mention nerve damage from the plastic cuffs. Shuttled around between cages. The protesters were detained for over 36 hours without being charged. The NLG brought a habeas corpus case for a hearing to court today; the judge ordered the detainees released, the NYPD REFUSED, the judge found the NYPD in contempt and fined them $1,000 per unreleased protester, but the NYPD DOES NOT CARE and neither does the city because as fengi pointed out, it's not their money that will be paying for the civil lawsuits that can't set precedents anyway, and even if they did, they would be trampled upon again.

The MNN show was a stress-a-thon. I was happy to do camera tonight, b/c it meant I wasn't in the control room, although I could still hear all the squabbling and chaos on the headphones. Amazingly, the show looked very professional every day.

Late Tuesday night pnts and I were coming back from MNN on the subway. Minutes earlier she had said: "If I don't see another cop for the rest of my life, it will be too many." We were in a mostly empty train car. Like, maybe 5 people besides us. On 34th street the train stops and 19 (I counted them) cops walk in. It's like the twilight zone, where everyone except us is a cop. We exchange bugged-out looks, and then one of the officers starts stripping, taking off his shirt, his kevlar jacket that says IF YOU'RE GONNA SHOOT ME YOU BETTER KILL ME and the next thing we know he's zipping up his pants. We fled the train at 2nd Avenue, laughing hysterically, emphasis on hysterically.

Yesterday I was taking the train, and I saw a tired-looking guy in an NYCLU shirt. He saw my Indymedia ID. We gave each other a little salute. It was cute.

The New York Press had a mostly obnoxious list of 1,001 things to hate about the Convention. A few were really funny, though:

1000. Delegates from Kansas spotting Dave Chappelle on the streets 50 times a day.

999. Rudy Giuliani caught backstage in Nosferatu pose, muttering, "Soon all this will be mine!"

846. Visiting women in expensive shoes overheard screeching, "Ohmigod! I feel, like, so Carrie Bradshaw


814. RNC delegates won’t shut up about Museum of Natural History’s evolution exhibit.


778. The myth of Rudy as hero on 9/11 taken out of deep-freeze, pumped full of bloodlike liquid, injected with vitamins. It lives!


742. French Revolution: no puppets. Paris Commune: no puppets. Russian Revolution: no puppets. Gandhi’s nonviolent overthrow of the British: no puppets. Velvet Revolution: no puppets.

741. Aug. 29, 2004: puppets.

732. Johnny Cash adopted as Republican symbol by way of the above-mentioned party at Sotheby’s, where an auction of Johnny and June Carter Cash memorabilia will be held in September. (Well, this one is not funny, but a hell of a reason to hate the convention)

669. NYPD’s policy of "take only photographs, leave only footprints" unfortunately applied to protesters and their heads.


645. Ran into numerous former lovers at the protest.


638. BladeRunner looking more like documentary every day.

541. New Yorkers forced to bet against themselves in terror pools.


537. Everybody spelling history with a capital "H."

397. New Jersey unveils hotline for citizens to report suspicious activity.

17. Ayn Rand smiling up from hell.


5. New York has never been more un-New York.

4. No better time than now, no better place than here to detonate that gigantic fucking nuclear bomb.

3. The sinking suspicion that, if they had their way, they’d run the whole country like this.

2. When all’s said and done, we will have helped Bush get reelected.

1. And he’ll still hate us

Last night we went to the Billionaires for Bush coronation ball where we met up with saintpeg and her boyfriend. Three people in a row asked if pnts and I were sisters, so finally I just said yes, and invented an entire family history and sibling rivalry on the spot (I am the older one). I was dressed in all silver, metallic dress, silver shoes with high heels, like slipping into a different skin after all week in uber-functional clothing, day in and day out. It was the first time this week that I relaxed a little bit. I stood on the boat, looking down the Hudson at the New York skyline, trying to reconcile...
I don't want to live in America and I don't want to leave New York.

Comments

[pirat-ponton.livejournal.com]

the ground-zero march sabotage that the cops pulled was really, really shameful

even though I don't believe they were calling the shots during the rnc, they still did the dirty work and I'm not sure when I'll be able to forgive them

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

Yes, shameful is the right word for it. I haven't been this angry since the first wave of 9/11 exploitation. I am getting out of NYC for a few days tomorrow, and I am glad. I have been so oversaturated with my own anger that I feel like I am coming apart at the seams.

[vulgarlad.livejournal.com]

i feel exactly the same way. i'm taking off on a roadtrip out to Montana at the end of next week. need to get away from here for a bit, for my own mental wellbeing.

~the lad

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

Montana, eh? I'm going to North Carolina. A little change of pace will be nice. I could do without feeling everything on overdrive for a few days.

[vulgarlad.livejournal.com]

whereabouts in NC?

~the lad

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

Baldhead Island for a few days, then I am doing screenings of our "Shocking and Awful" series with other people from my organization in...I believe Durham, Chapel Hill and Asheville. They are continuing on to Ohio then, and I will come back to NYC.

[vulgarlad.livejournal.com]

have a great time. i love Asheville.

~the lad

[twotoedsloth.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm left with a powerful feeling of "what the fuck." Playing good cop at the big protests, and then bad cop with elderly pacifists, lone sign carriers and bewildered bystanders. What the fuck.

Ignoring court orders, and keeping people in outrageously inhumane conditions until the convention was over. What the fuck.

Meanwhile, for the most part, standing around gossiping as if they were normal people. What the fuck.

Oh... not to mention the strip tease. I mean, seriously, what the fuck.

[3rdworldcinema.livejournal.com]

congrats on your comps!

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

oh, thank you thank you thank you. It is such a relief.

[klingrap.livejournal.com]

Thanks for, like, doing all this protesting and stuff for me while I was stuck at the office doing work for people who are most likely republicans themselves.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

I had this epiphany this morning that I think your lifestyle and politics dovetail quite nicely with Fuck the Vote at http://www.fthevote.com/
Secure the votes for Kerry!

[twotoedsloth.livejournal.com]

I would love to buy you a drink if you would like one.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

I would, I would like one! Are you in New York? I'm leaving NYC at, like, 5 tomorrow morning. Will you buy me a drink at the AAAs?

[twotoedsloth.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... I replied to this before, but it doesn't seem to be up here. Very mysterious.

I was in NYC, and would have loved to have bought you a drink there. However, I'm back in the, um, heartland. I will be at the AAA though, and I will definitely buy you a drink at the AAA.

Again, I must say how much I am totally bowled away by all you were doing at the RNC invasion, while you were doing comps and even finding time to post on lj. DAMN. And your comps were coherent! I'm totally impressed.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I don't know what happened with your comment either. Oh well, we'll have to meet up at the AAAs. I am giving a paper and apparently my film is going to be screened there as I just found out from googling myself. Um, thanks for telling me, AAA.

Also in retrospect it may not have been the brightest idea I ever had to schedule my comps immediately before/during the RNC week, but they are both done, so oh well. And thank you for your kind words...I really look forward to meeting you in person and having a whiskey (for me) and whatever your poison of choice is while our peers "signifying" alterity with their dress and jewelry flit by.

[maudm.livejournal.com]

congrats on the test. and WOW that you did comps *and* all this RNC organizing!

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

yes...in retropsect it may have been a bad idea to schedule the comps right before the RNC but I don't know when else I would have taken them...oh well, the important thing is that they are done. How are yours going?

[seltix.livejournal.com]

this stopped being america almost 4 years ago.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

See, I disagree with that. It's just a more extreme, desublimated return of the repressed of the American Empire trope, except the chickens have finally come home to roost. So I don't think there is a break between America four years ago and America now, except for the epicenter of horror finally expanding its radius to include The Homeland.

That is not the same as the argument that it's all the same in the corporate American system and the Republicans are the same as Democrats. Well, they kind of are, but these are not Republicans, they are radical reactionaries, and they have finally domesticated what has been confined to US adventures in foreign interventions.

So it's all America, there wasn't a big historical rupture the way I see it. But New York is still IN America, so you see my predicament.

[seltix.livejournal.com]

now, for me it has changed. i never used to worry about how our foreign policy has turned almost the entire world, including some previously staunch allies, against us. i never used to be concerned that the president and his administration would form policies to serve and help an elite few - including foreign billionaires - at the cost to 90% of the population. i never thought that the leader of our country would work to change the constitution to reduce liberties, or that things like the patriot act would ever be possible.

i never imagined that martial law would be an accepted policy, used at least on an annual basis. and that it would be used not to protect us from terrorists but from domestic advocates of free speech.

i didn't think that at this point in time scientific facts would be ignored and falsified in order to help corporations continue to damage the environment.

i know this is all just blah blah blah, but it's where i'm at. i also know that a lot of this stuff has been going on forever, by administrations throughout the history of this country, to some extent or another.

but i didn't know about it then. it didn't effect me. for 20-something years, the person or party in the white house had almost a negligible effect on the everyday lives of most americans. at least it appeared that way. i never voted because i didn't see any reason to. give or take a few party agendas, things didn't change dramatically.

4 years ago that changed. it changed enough for me to take notice and start asking some questions. it changed enough for me to start to care about politics for the first time in my life, because they were effecting me. yes, i used to be ignorant (more ignorant). probably self-centered in that regard as well. but that's why my america has changed.

now i know about the lies. i know about the dangers and the precedents that this administration has set. i know that there's a good chance (http://www.livejournal.com/users/seltix/) that it's only going to get worse.

i know that things like the plan to control the middle east have been lurking at least since around reagan's time. i know that the conservatives have been working to control the media at least since watergate ruined nixon. i know our foreign policy has been disastrous and self-serving from the beginning.

all of these kinds of things i've learned during the past 4 years. and my life is very different for it. i'm glad i know it. but it makes me disconcerted. it gives me too many other things to worry about, especially since i have so little control over any of it. someone like my brother, who really knows little to none of this stuff, is probably better off because he can deal with his job and family. his life changed 4 years ago because of those things (marriage, etc). but his america didn't change.

i know you're coming from a completely different point of view. i can certainly understand your angst and anger. but when i said that it stopped being america 4 years ago, that's what i meant.

i hope your trip to nc gives you guys a chance to catch your breath.

[twotoedsloth.livejournal.com]

Hmm... I would basically agree with anthrochica on this one (although I think thaings ARE different -- Bush is governing like the political class of a typical third world country (if such a thing exists), in that the main goal of the governing class is to maintain the power and wealth of a few families without having to redistribute any of it to the majority of its citizens. This is, indeed, a change in U.S. political culture which, since the 1930s, has coupled extreme forms of exploitation and control abroad (and in particular sectors of U.S. society) with a general committment to maintaining a large, stable domestic middle class. Our support for democracy, peace or human rights in other countries has varied from country to country, administration to administration. The fact is, however, that the government does have the power to impact peoples lives, and it always had mattered who was in charge.


That said, I find your post heartening, and the journal entry you linked disheartening. Heartening because -- hell, maybe there are a lot of people like you who haven't been interested in politics and haven't voted, but who have been angered enough by the past 4 years to give it a try. Disheartening because, aw man - your mom! I mean, isn't Kerry her senator (or the senator next door) for the past twenty years? Yet she knows nothing about him except the bullshit on Fox?
*sputters*
The lockstep media... man, that's what scares me the most.

[seltix.livejournal.com]

yeah, i know. it is her senator, and has been for a long time. and yet she knows nothing about him, other than basically what's been portrayed the last couple months at most.

i encouraged her to look up his record and his accomplishments. she said, "i shouldn't have to. it should be in my face. i should know everything he's done." so she's willing to vote on what she believes is bush's record, instead of giving the new guy a chance, or doing a little research to see if kerry isn't so bad after all.

her other "predicament" is apparantly that we're currently at war, and "now isn't the time to change administration."
this is wrong in so many ways. i'm just going to try to keep an influx of information coming her way so maybe eventually she'll see the light.

i have almost 2 months...

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

So what you are saying isn't contradictory to what I'm saying at all--part of the narrative of American empire is the ignorant complicity of its citizens, in whom ahistorical, diachronically challenged mindset is cultivated by the way history is taught and by the media. I, like you, didn't pay much attention to it until 2000, my arc from "token liberal" to "informed" to "involved" to "activist" has been gradual, but it's been there all along, we just tuned in after a major shock to the system.

[twotoedsloth.livejournal.com]

New York is still IN America, so you see my predicament.

Yeah. Not only that, but I'm not even in New York, DAMMIT.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

oh, that's awesome. Where's that, San Fran?