STANDING ROOM ONLY FOR KERRY ACCEPTANCE SPEECH - DISGUIST FOR BUSH UNIFIES PARTY : AZ IMC

It was standing room only at a party held by the Pima County Democratic Party for John Kerry's acceptance speech at the National Democratic Convention.

Many in attendance, including many young people, said that because of Bush's awful performance as president, now is not the time to bicker over our differences but to find unity in what we have in common in order to defeat Bush in November.

Those who attended the party for Gore last election said that this time was much different, that people were energized, optimistic, and the packed hall showed it. Some attendees felt it was time to get politically active although they have not been in the past. Applause, cheers and standing ovations were heard often during the party especially during Kerry's acceptance speech for the party's nomination.

Afterwards, many felt that Kerry had given the best speech of his campaign because he spoke with passion and conviction. Many democrats have been hoping that Kerry could be more passionate in his speaking style and he delivered.

When asked about the protest against Kerry outside many attendees said that the Democratic Party is about diversity and that the Kerry protesters had a right to voice their opinion. However, many felt that since we have a two party system that the best way to bring change is to change the party from within. Party organizers said protesters were invited inside for refreshments but the protesters refused.

Heated moments erupted on a few occasions between Kerry supporters and the protesters but but a majority of those attending felt that they had a right to be there and should be welocomed for taking part in politics when so many are full of apathy.

Some people may have felt that they may had been sent from the Republican Party, because their signs did not indicate that they were against Bush too.

When interviewed, one of the protesters told me that we should throw out our entire political system and that we should not have a president. When asked what political system we should have instead he didn't seem to know other than say that the current system should be trashed.

If indeed they are against both candidates and not Republican protesters in disguise, then they should protest against Bush at the Republican's party during the convention. To many it seemed odd that if they were against Bush too, then why didn't most of the signs say so. A few signs railed against Bush too but the most didn't and the largest banner made no mention that they were against Bush too.

Photos/Text Copyright: Dean Zgoda/Eclipse Agency

I'd just like to correct a handful of facts presented in Dean's story. First, "many young people" were not in attendance. Just look at the photo. The democratic party should really address this problem (lack of youth involvement). For example, the College Republicans group at the University of Arizona has hundreds of members. The Young Democrats doesn't even come close.

Second, Dean says we gave no alternatives to the current system, but only cites a conversation with one protestor. There was over a dozen of us, perhaps looking into it a bit more would have helped you find out that many of us desire a collectivized system for society - something that respects the rights of all people, animals and the environment. This system is usually best summed up as anarchy, although we all have different takes on it.

Whether Kerry or Bush is elected this November is negligible. The argument that Kerry is better than Bush is lame. I don’t want better than Bush. Better than Bush is not saying much at all. We all know that on the main issues, Kerry is nearly identical to Bush (war, homeland security … whatever).

Many of the arguments I heard from talking to several democrats over the course of the evening (and thanks for allowing us to stay to express ourselves) were that it takes time and the system must be changed from within. Well, while we’re taking our sweet ass time changing the system from within with baby-steps, Iraqis are being murdered, farmers all over the world are being dumped on, forests and oceans are being annihilated (insert your favorite US-led atrocity here) (insert several more)…

We can’t continue taking our time. Our system is horrible. Electoral politics suck! And everyone working on the Kerry campaign is wasting their time. Everyone working on the Bush campaign is also wasting their time. Neither are truly interested in making the world any better. Nor will the candidate that will run in 4 more years. Or 8 more years.

So Dean, I’m glad you and your fellow democrats think that we have the “right to voice (our) opinion.” Do we also have the right to live in a world that doesn’t suck? Maybe if you look at that question, you can see that the two party system isn’t going to get us anywhere, and also that we don’t have to accept it as fact.

Finally, we never “refused” to come inside for food and refreshments. Someone came out and said we could come in and buy food, which we politely said “no” to. But, on that note, thanks for giving us the free leftovers afterwards.

The "ABB" strategy breaks down when the "anybody" is no better, and is possibly worse, than Bush.

Weekend Edition
July 31 / August 1, 2004*

Under Kerry's Tent

He's the (Any) One

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

Can someone win the presidency entirely on the basis of a negative
asset? I wouldn't have thought so, but here's John Kerry, just about 90
days shy of election day, promoting himself as a man of presidential
caliber entirely on the basis that he's the Anyone in "Anyone But Bush".
Aside from the flag wagging , that's what it comes down to, unless you
take the probably realistic view that when it comes to war-fighting in
the service of Empire he's far more bloodthirsty. Come next January the
Anyone behind the desk in the Oval Office may be a bit taller. There'll
be medals on the book shelf showing he killed Vietnamese in the service
of his country. Most everything else will stay the same. Kerry's been
pretty clear about that, letting his core constituencies know that as
President Anyone he's not going to cut them any favors.

The nation's hungry, its underemployed, its jobless? In April Kerry
announced that his economic strategy will be to wage war on the deficit,
which means he'll do nothing to alleviate problem number one in American
today, which is the lack of jobs and the rotten pay for those lucky
enough to have some form of work.

Women? Kerry, the man who voted for Bill Clinton's savage assault
labeled "welfare reform", on poor women, said he might well appoint
anti-abortion judges, adding magnanimously that he wouldn't want such
appointments to lead to the overturning of Roe v Wade.

Kerry vows to put more cops on the streets and there'll be no
intermission in the war on drugs which has played a large part in
producing the memorable statistic issued by the Justice Department last
week, to the effect that the number of people caught in the toils of the
criminal justice system grew by 130,700 last year. The grand total is
now nearly 6.9 million, either in jail in prison, on probation and on
parole, amounting to 3.2 percent of the adult population in the United
States. In many cities in the US a young black man faces a far better
chance of getting locked up than of getting a job, since the lock-up is
the definitive bipartisan response of both Democrats and Republicans to
the theories of John Maynard Keynes. Blacks have got less than nothing
from Kerry, aside from his wife's declaration that she too is an African
American, yet the Congressionlal Black caucus cheers the man who voted
for welfare reform and devotes its time to flaying Ralph Nader

The "Anyone But" strategy favored by most pwogs has meant that Kerry has
never had his feet held to the fire by any faction of the Democratic
Party. This has been the year of surrendering quietly.

War in Iraq? A majority of the country wants out, certainly most
Democrats. Kerry wants in, even more than Bush. When the DNC told
Kucinich to stuff his peace plank, Kucinich tugged his forelock and told
his followers to shuffle back in under the Big Tent and help elect a man
who pledges to fight the war in Iraq better and longer than Bush.
Feminist leaders kept their mouths shut when Kerry flew his kite about
nominating anti-choice judges. Gay leaders didn't open their lips to
utter so much as a squeak when Kerry declared his opposition to same-sex
marriages and to civil unions. Did we hear from Norman Lear and People
for the American Way as Kerry, the man who voted for the Patriot Act,
revived his Tipper Gore-ish posturing about the evils of popular
culture? Of course we didn't, even though Kerry voted for the
unconstitutional Communications Decency, a piece of legislation that
even the prudish Joe Lieberman couldn't stomach.

Kerry told James Hoffa of the Teamsters this spring that he wouldn't
touch the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge but would "drill everywhere
else like never before". There wasn't a bleat from the big environmental
groups. He pledged the same policy again to the American Gas Association
a couple of months later, throwing in the prospect of a new
trans-Alaska-Canada pipeline for natural gas from the Arctic. Once again
the big environmental groups held their tongues.

True, Andy Stern, head of the Service Employees Union threw a gobbet of
red meat onto the Convention floor by confiding to the Washington Post's
David Broder that another four years of Bush might be less damaging than
the stifling of needed reform within the party and the labor movement
that would occur if Kerry becomes president. After a couple hours of
being forced to stand on a milk crate with a copy of the party platform
over his head and electrodes attached to his penis Stern recanted and
said he was "a hundred per cent " for Kerry. Thus ended labor's great
revolt against a candidate who's cast his share of votes in US Congress
to ensure job flight from America and whose commitment to the living
standards of working people is aptly resumed in his pledge to raise the
minimum wage to $7 an hour by 2007, which is still far, far below that
the minimum wage was worth in purchasing power when it peaked in the
late 1960s.

Contrast the lib-pwog refusal to raise any sort of trouble with the
robust comment of the conservative organizer Paul Weyrich who recently
remarked, "For all of their brilliance, [Ken] and Mehlman and Karl Rove
made a very seriuous mistake with this [Republican]Convention's line-up.
It is one that the rank and file should not tolerate. If the president
is embarrassed to be seen with conservatives at the convention, maybe
conservatives will be embarrassed to be seen with the President on
Election Day."

For all the interminable thundering about the evils of George Bush, the
man has done a very respectable job of sabotaging the American Empire,
which is probably why so many liberals hate him. They think he's a
national embarrassment, hurling Imperial America over his handlebars,
landing on its ass amid world derision. But as Gabriel Kolko remarks in
his contribution to Dime's Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two
Evils <http://www.counterpunch.org/dimesworth.html>, the new book on the
election edited by Jeffrey St Clair and myself: "the United States will
be more prudent, and the world will be far safer, only if it is
constrained by a lack of allies and isolated. And that is
happening.Inadvertently, the Bush Administration has begun to destroy an
alliance system that for the world's peace should have been abolished
long ago. The Democrats are far less likely to continue that process. As
dangerous as he is, Bush's reelection is much more likely to produce the
continued destruction of the alliance system that is so crucial to
American power in the long run."

/A print version of this column appeared in The Nation, in the edition
that went to press the day before Kerry gave what is in my memory,
stretching back to 1972, the worst acceptance speech at a Democratic
convention, with the possible exception of Mondale's in 1984./

In the picture it looks like there's an empty seat.

In fairness to you I must say that by "young people in attendance", what I felt was that that given the amount of apathy in people I'm impressed if I see anyone under 30. So I suppose that is what I was thinking when I wrote it. Was not trying to mislead.

In your use of "collectivised system" I assume you mean communism/socialism which according to my history books has been a failure where it was tried.

Anarchists seem quite vocal in their complaints but few seem to be able to provide any feasable alternatives to the current system which is not very constructive. Sure, I agree that our system if flawed but to say we shouldn't have a president and such just shows a simplistic view instead of providing solutions.

In my opinion although Kerry may not be the left wing anarchist that you people want he's far better than Bush. The "Nader Effect" of the last election and the resulting win of Bush proves that when you split from the Democratic Party instead of trying to change it from within, the Republicans will win.

I'm glad that after your first report on being yelled at and mistreated you now admit that people were nice to you too. That was left out in your first report which I thought was unfair to those who believed you had a right to protest and offered you refreshments. I told them that you guys looked a bit hot and thirsty and since we had stuff leftover why not offer it to you protestors to show that we are not against free speech. We weren't trying to buy your opinion but were just trying to be kind and show that you are welcome in the Democratic Party because it is a party of diverse views. Would the Republicans have done that? You probably would have been called a terrorist by them not given refreshments after.

Yes we do have a right to live in a world that as you say "doesnt suck". But perhaps if you replaced some of your passionate idealism (which I admire that's why I respect your views) with PRAGMATISM you might get better results.

PS: Here's one of the "young people in attendance" coloring a George Bush coloring book which I found quite fun.
:)

Yah there's one seat in the pic empty. That guy got up to get something to drink. If you were there you saw all the people standing around watching because there were no empty seats.

actually the Dems wanted to call the pigs on us. It was a guy from the cerpentry guild (assumedly a dem too) that called them off.

We do not call for communism. At least not the kind your history book claims. Its called Anarcho syndaclism, look it up. We offer many solutions, you choose to ignore them.

The small child has no choice and was forced to the rally. Although she does look like shes having a good time she doesnt know shit about politics and fails your young people angle. The coloring book pictures were great.

I dont know who you were but few Dems came out to talk to us and usually just for a second. One woman, Martha actually took the time to come out and speak with us to hear what our issues were. She also talked to us about her points of view. Unlike the rest of you listening to the "slightly less" pro-war propaganda machine inside repeating the same tired promises she came out and conversed with us. She desired to learn something and teach something giving an active contribuion to the world. She is the best PR you guys have ever had.

The fact that the Dems did nothing to denounce the imprisonment of free speech and abolishment of dissent from the convention speaks volumes of your "values." They are not ours or the peoples values.

BTW the fact that you said We "offer no solutions to current problems" and posted it on Indymedia is far too ironic for me to even put to words.

Yes, I agree that we ALL have the right to live in a world that doesn't suck, even if it's not an anarcho-syndicalist one.

You reference the "baby steps" approach being ineffective in changing the world. What do you propose for right now that would effectively and quiclkly change the world to one that you desire? How could it be done without causing the death of many people? How would you persuade folks to support your vision? Sticking signs in their faces isn't going to do it...

"You can't have a mass movement without the masses" -- Fred Harris

First, it's nice to see some decent dialogue on Indymedia.

No, I don’t mean communism or socialism. And they never failed, but you can read up on that on your own (hint, don’t use a high school history book).

Yes, anarchists are very vocal. And perhaps we could provide a feasible alternative if the state wasn’t so bent on crushing us all the damn time. Providing solutions does require actions. In the US, action now almost always equals prison time. Who was against women’s suffrage (and now their right to chose)? The state. Who was against civil rights? The state. People were jailed, beaten and even killed by the state because they had some radical notion that skin color didn’t make a person an animal. So screw the state and its system. Democrats or republicans. We are wasting our time trying to make small changes within. So if you want to see what anarchists can accomplish, stop opposing us. You don’t have to join in if you don’t believe it, but you don’t have to crush it either. Case in point: Food Not Bombs. - anarchists giving out free, vegan meals and constantly being harassed by the police.

You know what we talk about at anarchist meetings? Community gardens. Unionizing Wal-Mart employees so they can get heath care. Stopping military recruiting in high schools. Planning educational conferences and teach-ins on subjects like sexism, racism, etc… Writing letters to and fundraising for political prisoners (one recently released from Tucson – Sherman Austin – not a lot of liberals jumping to decry his unjust imprisonment). Playing soccer. Watching movies. Helping indigenous villages. Starting a newspaper. Running an infoshop.

Meanwhile, Raytheon (and others) is developing weapons to use against us! People fighting for the rights of animals, plants and other humans are now terrorists! And Kerry is approving this stuff (ie – voted for the PATRIOT act).

Lots of democrats told us our time would have been better spent inside the union hall, working to get Kerry elected. If you want to talk about passionate idealism, I think I found it: Anybody But Bush… Great ideal.

PS: Nader didn’t cause the democrats to lose the election. Gore won. Spineless democrats, and not enough of you out in the streets protesting a stolen election, caused Bush to win. Don’t blame your loss and subsequent apathy on the people who actually voted their desires, not their fears.

To ann activist: I dunno, how would I persuade folks to support the anarchist vision? Well, I would like a media that doesn't constantly suppress and distort our vision. I would like a state that doesn't crush our vision (don't laugh - some european countries actually fund anarchists to run incredible squats...) I would like schools that teach real history. It's not that the masses don't approve of our vision, they just don't know about it ... yet.

I didn't attend the event. I would more likely have been outside than in.

Hint to both sides: don't pick on the details. One unhappy 8 year old at a party does not itself invalidate the entire event. The room looks fairly well populated.

I personally don't argue that Kerry and Bush are the same. I argue that Kerry would be a place holder for the next Bush. Clinton held up the Iraqi sanctions, inforced the illegal "no-fly" zone or Iraq (which included weekly bomb attacks that almost never made the news), he sold the White House to corporations left and right. And Kerry has already shown us that he is willing to be more of the same.

Many of us who voted for Clinton 12 years ago are feeling pangs of "Oh my god I have been here before". I listened to Clinton's inauguration speech in San Francisco in the Castro. Everyone was thrilled to have a president who would be a champion of gay rights, the environment and the poor and working class. What idiots we were. Many of us have decided that we won't be fooled again.

It is time for some major changes to the political system in the US. I couldn't vote for a president who didn't call for the incarceration of everyone involved in this administration and most of the last administration. If a George W. Bush can get elected into office, then your system is inherently flawed and should be replaced.

Don't call us impractical. Your version of practical is passing on all the social, political and environmental problems to the next generation (which most of the anti-Kerry protesters are part of). The young have a right to reject the world as it is being handed to them and to turn it towards a true democracy and not the sham-democracy that the US has always represented.

kerry or bush whats the difference. they are both war mongers. it doesnt matter if the canidate is
a democrat or a republican they are both for more war in iraq.

Michael Badnarik the Libertarian for President is the only canidate i know who is againt the war.

dont waste your vote on a republican or democrat war monger canidate. vote libertarian vote for Michael Badnarik.

If you oppose the war, be true to your belief and don't vote for the warmongers.

I wonder why there were two protestors disrupting President Bush's speech but I can't find any mention of any disrupting Kerry's?

To Mrs Leslie Howard Redweik, you really have to ask that question?

It's a well documented fact that Republicans are far better educated and much more well-mannered than their socially ill equipped and rude Liberal counterparts. Republicans repect others rights to gather peacefully - liberals do not. Republicans know that change is not caused by protest but by hard work - liberals do not. Liberals respect no one and if you disagree with one, they will try to shout you down and if that fails they will turn to physical violence, like they did the detective in NYC this week. Liberals are attention seekers and lack passion for anything other than what stunt can they pull next to call attention to themselves. Don't believe me? Why do you think Hollywood is full of liberals and the armed forces is full of Republicans?

The election is not going to be won or lost based on who's convention had protesters and who's did not. It does not even speak to who's party has unity and who's does not. It just goes to show that there is one more misguided and weak minded individual the liberals have successfully brainwashed. If protesters spent half as much time reading and researching facts instead of listening to liberal propaganda, perhaps they could stop their foolishness and become useful and productive citizens.

Give me a break. "Why did Bush's convention have two protesters and Kerry's had none?" The answer Mrs Leslie Howard Redweik is that Republicans have more class!