August 17,

Protests Are No Laughing Matter

by PAUL VITELLO
Staff Columnist

Los Angeles -- It is practically an intramural sport now among
reporters to
find something funny to say about the protesters.

They do something funny almost every day.

The protesters are ringed by police wherever they go. They are the ones
you
see on TV, penned in a sun-baked parking lot when they rally. They are
pepper-sprayed and beaten when they hesitate to follow a police order.
But
mainly, apparently, they are here as grist for jokes.

One story mentioned a protest march that fell apart on the way to the
Democratic National Convention because two horses were employed to pull
a
float -- prompting animal rights advocates within the march to lay down
in
protest.

Another story reprised a debate between two factions of apocalyptic
doomsayers, one of which yelled "One God!” while the other, assembled
two
feet away in the grim, fenced pen known as the protest pit, replied:
"Two
Gods! Two Gods!” Whatever.

Citizens Against Breast Feeding partisans hand out literature every day
(they are not kidding) which argues that breast feeding is the cause of
all
oral fixations including smoking, drinking and Monica-gate. They have
gotten
ink.

There is the requisite pilgrim hauling a cross. He shows up every day,
too,
and so does his picture, probably, somewhere in the United States.

But here is a bulletin update from the protest pit: the protesters are
talking about real stuff, and they are not all crazy.

They are mainly young, mainly earnest, mainly unbearably serious people
who
see their country's political process in the thrall of hugely powerful
multinational corporations.

Anybody disagree with that? This year, the two major parties are
expected to
spend a total of $3 billion.

The protesters scoff when politicians claim they can accept
career-making
campaign contributions from special interests and yet remain completely
dedicated to the common good.

You scoff, too. It is an incredible claim.

Protesters say they don't trust either the Democrats or the Republicans
to
vigorously pursue human rights and decent wages for the workers in
plants in
Indonesia, the Philippines and Haiti -- plants owned by some of their
biggest campaign contributors.

Do you feel otherwise?

Unfortunately, the people you see on the TV screen tend to be those
guys in
black, the so-called anarchists. The melee the other night began when a
couple of these decided to climb a fence in the pit and wave the black
flag.
It was quite a moment.

A non-anarchist on the ground shouted at them, just before the police
started firing rubber bullets and pepper spray, "You know! We don't
need
this!” according to one press report. She was ignored.

"We are basically leaderless, which is one of our strengths and one of
our
weaknesses,” said Chris, a red-haired young man who like many of the
protesters doesn't give his full name to reporters, for which you
cannot
blame him. "We are democratic.”

They are leaderless because no one person has yet emerged -- or may
ever --
capable of leading a crowd comprised of Green party Naderists,
anti-nuclear
advocates, Anarchists, socialists, homeless people, parents of jailed
addicts, parents of inmates sent away for life under the Three Strikes
laws,
anti-globalists, and old New Dealers who feel expelled from the
Democratic
party.

They have protested the death penalty, protested the so-called war on
drugs,
demonstrated for legislation protecting women from violence, and called
for
an end to the 9-year-old trade embargo against Iraq. All are issues
that
affect people with little influence in the national discourse.

With some exceptions, mainly in the Democratic camp, none of these
issues
has a place at the table of either party's convention.

But there really are 2 million people in prisons in the United States
-- and
many of them really are non-violent felons, or drug addicts caught in
the
gears of mandatory sentencing.

There really are people dying in Iraq because of the trade sanctions;
and
there is little debate about that. Doctors groups, Human Rights Watch,
and
agencies of the U.N. all have issued reports: More than a million
deaths
have occurred in Iraq in the last nine years as a result of food and
medicine shortages. Period. Is it Saddam Hussein's fault? Is it the
United
States'fault? An interesting debate. But suppose that was your child
dying
in a dismal Baghdad hospital?

"Delegates come out!” shouted the protesters the other day, holding
placards
in the form of tiny coffins up to the chain link fence. Delegates and
members of the media could see them only when they stepped out on the
second
floor terrace of the Staples Center, where convention sponsors such as
Chase, Bell Atlantic and Citicorp provided lovely barbecue dinners,
gratis.

"Delegates! Leave no child behind!” one protestor shouted.

What do you think of those people down there? the Democratic chairman
of
Gaston County, North Carolina, was asked the other day as she paused on
the
terrace for a snack.

She frowned. She looked ready to spit. "You don't want to know what I
think,” said Shirley Wiggins. Then she said it anyway. "I think they
ought
to get a honest job.”

Large corporations really have endangered and corrupted the political
process with the unregulated soft-money contributions they make. John
McCain
and Bill Bradley challenged their own parties to do something about it,
and
made good runs in the primaries on the strength of that issue alone.

The death penalty does sometimes cost innocent people their lives.

The suffering in Iraq is horrific.

The numbers of young men thrown in prison and forgotten for life is a
real,
human, national disaster.

Yet none of these issues is on the agenda of either party's national
presidential convention -- the quadrennial meeting for the public
display of
its political values.

So you tell me.

Who should be the butt of the jokes around here?