Winners and Losers in LA 2000 Showdowns

by Don Hazen

The Democratic National Convention itself proved to be a panorama of excess, set against a swirling, clashing background of festive protests and street anger. There were massive amounts of corporate largesse, a media frenzy fed by 15,000 journalists and police power beyond what anyone has ever seen in this country.

Such epic displays of resources and firepower tend to create unpredictable ebbs and flows of momentum -- Monday's apparent success can become Wednesday's failure. At first, it looked like the hoopla around the DNC might generate a lot of losers and no big winners. Until Thursday night, the only sure successes were the hundreds of corporations who reinforced their power by plowing millions into both the Democratic convention and the Republican convention. Perhaps the Democratic delegates also could be considered winners, since they walked away from LA with stuffed bellies and overflowing bags of corporate knick-knacks, including Barbie dolls and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. But in the end, a pretty clear list of winners and losers emerged from the heat of LA ...

For one thing, Gore's address moved the party's agenda back to the left. Maybe Gore was taking a cue from Ralph Nader's successful-to-date candidacy -- with his theme of protecting working families from corporate excesses, he reached out to the millions of Americans who have suffered at the hands of HMOs, drug companies, greedy monopolies and corporate polluters. At the same time, union members, minorities and progressives got a strong nod from the VP, instead of just being taken for granted. It's finally okay again to talk about holding corporations accountable and caring about poor children.

Cynics and pragmatists, of course, will suggest that Gore won't walk his populist talk, and that he's still as beholden to corporations as any Republican. Even so, he has publicly defined himself in opposition to the GOP. He has pledged to get specific, fight for issues and avoid the platitudes and personality conflicts that George W. has relied on so far. Gore gave the Democrats something and someone to fight for, and left Bush and the Republicans defensively crying class warfare.

So the biggest winners for the moment are middle and working class Americans -- too often ignored in the prevailing political climate -- and Al Gore, who gave himself a fighting chance to be elected our next president.

Los Angeles has lots of problems -- especially with its huge pockets of poverty -- but it is a beautiful, vibrant, multicultural city, a swirling, shifting political town where labor unions and Latinos are gaining serious political clout. But all that liveliness, all that makes LA admirable, vanished in the police state atmosphere. As LA Times columnist Robert Scheer writes, "You can't buy this kind of lousy publicity for a billion bucks. You need inflexible and panicked city authorities who have turned this jewel of a world class city into a lifeless monument to the petty tyrannies of power."

Virtually no one saw the real LA. The Staples Center, where the Democratic Convention was held, became a giant gated community encircled by what seemed like a private army of riot-gear clad storm troopers, whose sole mission was to protect the properly credentialed insiders. Everyone else, no matter what their age or purpose, became the enemy, liable to be trampled on with little or no provocation. Even some reporters who ventured to describe the activities became casualties.

Delegates rode buses with armed guards back and forth to their heavily protected hotels. Before the convention, police authorities publicly asserted they were anticipating between 50,000 and 70,000 protestors, privately knowing those numbers were absurdly high. But their scare tactics leveraged budget outlays for enough high-tech weapons and personnel to leave downtown LA looking like a scene from Blade Runner. LA will long remain in the public consciousness as a violent, lifeless place instead of a city with an exhilarating downtown and a promising future.

As the Nation's David Corn says, "The Shadow is not an organizing vehicle yet, and Huffington is not an organizer. She's more a networker willing to reach out a little to the other side. But she's an exceptional talent: she's imaginative, has no fear, combines heart and head and believes in the power of ideas. God bless her."

Demonstrators stepped into an impossible situation, missing the big clues they might have taken from their experience at the Republican convention in Philadelphia. They were up against the corporate media, which ignored virtually all their issues, focusing instead on arrests, small moments of violence, and the Black Bloc anarchists. In addition, with their firepower and sheer numbers -- cops outnumbered protestors at many events -- the police blocked protestors' best efforts at every turn (the LAPD has since boasted about how thoroughly their spies infiltrated activist meetings and groups to get the inside scoop on protesters' plans). The police also started beating protesters early in the week, and beating them pretty bad. As one protestor commented, "The cops are smarter, the media sucks, we have to rethink and change our tactics."

Let's face it, the admirable leaderless movement strategy leaves the protestors with no visible, media-savvy heroes to articulate and interpret their ideas. Street protests alone can be easily stymied. In LA, there were few attempts to engage delegates or put forth coherent ideas, and thus the important issues of the protests never got meaningful attention or debate.

The satire of the Billionaires for Bush (or Gore), who pranced along in the march dressed as corporate fat cats, was refreshing. "We're bipartisan," the Billionaires proudly announced, "we buy Republicans and Democrats. When we buy both candidates, we can't lose on Election Day." Their critique couldn't come at a more appropriate time: sixty-six major corporations donated gobs of cash to put on both conventions. The Billionaires, sponsored by United for a Fair Economy and the, are key organizers in the fight against the wealth gap, sweatshops and corporate abuses.

Instead, liberal Democrats at the Shadow attacked him for claiming there is no difference between Gore and Bush. Only columnist and pundit Barbara Ehrenreich -- and many of the protestors in the streets -- were left to argue back.

The New Sanctimony appeared in the Democrats' relentless attack on Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez's planned party for Hispanic officials at the Playboy mansion. The very possibility of being associated with another aging, jovial lover of young women sent the Democrats into a prude tizzy.

But with much of Congress slurping from the trough of tobacco, liquor, oil, and other corporate monies, the morality display was pretty pathetic. On the other hand, does anyone think they would have treated a white Congressman, or even Jesse Jackson, Jr., the same way? It seemed the party heavies were trying to make Sanchez the Sister Soulja of 2000.

The choice of Lieberman, with his mini-crusades against sex and violence in the media, was another part of the Democratic morality play. How many times did Lieberman mention God in his first press conference? The message to voters was clear -- Senator Joe never got himself into any morally shady positions, unlike some Texas governors we all know.

And, as Professor Harry Levine points out, even though Gore may have turned populist on certain issues, he's still a dedicated drug warrior, supporting prison expansion, drug testing and mandatory sentencing. Someone quipped that during the convention it looked like every one of the 100,000 new cops the Clinton administration had promised America showed up in LA to protect the Democrats' party. Hopefully, some Black leaders have gotten fed up with the racist drug war enough to hold Gore's feet to the fire on this one.

The events in LA underscored the importance for activist, in-the-street press coverage to fight police brutality during major protests. The ad hoc media beehive known as the Independent Media Center (IMC), quickly pulled together press conferences throughout the week to combat mainstream misreporting.

To top it all off, the alternative LA Weekly published a daily edition, providing some needed coverage of many stories and angles the corporate media left out -- although, to be fair, the LA Times had pretty extraordinary coverage of the entire convention week, and gave plenty of space to covering the protests. Nonetheless, the Weekly Daily reinforced protesters messages and maybe even taught some delegates looking for good restaurant review a thing or two about the strength of the alternative press.

CNN showed footage of demonstrators in handcuffs and black clad, bandana-masked anarchists, and then quickly returned to "the business" of covering the convention. Mainstream journalists dismissed the protests, pleading that they didn't get what the protesters were talking about. At the Shadow Convention, Newsweek's Jonathon Alter showed the corporate media's true colors when he attacked the demonstrators for not having made their message clear to the media. Apparently, media worthy events now need good enough PR to absolve journalists of any responsibility for research, interviewing, or developing understanding on their own.

Senator Russ Feingold, who spoke the conscience of the Democratic Party. Feingold told the Shadow that the Democratic Convention was a "corporate trade show," and is at the forefront of limiting that corporate influence.

Maxine Waters, who is way out ahead of her colleagues in communicating the nefarious consequences of the drug war.

State Senator Tom Hayden and LA Times columnist Bob Scheer, who showed that old farts from the '60s still have fire in their bellies. Both combined their wisdom from past struggles and their respect for the young organizers into powerful, inspiring messages.

Ethan Nadleman, who is the single most forceful and articulate foe of the drug war. With his crack staff, Nadleman and his Lindesmith Center have become the vanguard in fighting for drug reform.