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Weekly Worker 542 Thursday September 2 2004
View
from the US left
Martin Schreader, editor of Appeal to Reason, paper of the revolutionary Debs faction of the Socialist Party USA
What democracy looks like?
'Unprecedented’ is a word that has found itself on the tongues of
most Americans over the last four years.
In conversations about the theft of the 2000 election, the restriction
of democratic rights after the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001
(to say nothing of the attacks themselves), the invasion and occupation
of Iraq, or a myriad of other topics, the word inevitably finds its way
into them ... somewhere.
The recently held Republican national convention is no exception. Indeed,
last week can rightly be listed as one of the more ‘unprecedented’
periods of the last four years. Without a question, the presence of nearly
half a million demonstrators in the streets of Manhattan to protest such
an event is unprecedented. Never before, in the history of mass protests
outside a convention of one of the two major political parties, have so
many gathered to denounce it.
The number of protesters even overwhelmed the organisers of the main demonstration,
United for Peace and Justice (the more liberal and pro-Democratic Party
of the two main anti-war coalitions). Perhaps one of the reasons they
felt so overwhelmed was because of the large number of participants who
were there supporting one of the many ‘third party’ presidential
tickets: the independent populist bid of Ralph Nader and Pedro Camejo;
the socialist campaign of Walt Brown and Mary-Alice Herbert; the libertarian
ticket of David Badnarik and Richard Campagna; etc. Certainly, the fact
that UFPJ organisers, who are firm supporters of Democratic candidate
John Kerry, could not muster even a weak contingent for their candidate,
in an election year, is unprecedented.
The Republican convention itself was also unprecedented - a thoroughly
stage-managed affair, controlled down to the finest nuance. It was the
perfect merger of state, media and corporate power. The use of ‘New
York’ imagery, complete with a semi-parody of the opening credits
of the Saturday night live comedy show, and video montages of battle scenes
from the Iraq war, set to the anthems of the main branches of the US military,
was enough to make even the most shameless salesman blush.
The highlight for some was the appearance of outgoing Democratic senator
Zell Miller, who heads the unofficial ‘Democrats for Bush’ group.
Miller, one of the last reactionary Dixiecrats serving in Washington,
gave a performance that was more self-aggrandisement than political critique
- long on demagoguery and short on facts.
OK, so not everything was unprecedented. But, if there is one thing that
takes the prize for being the most unprecedented, it was the response
of the state to the demonstrations. Over 30,000 police were mobilised
for the week of protests around the convention. At certain times, armoured
riot cops outnumbered the unarmed, peaceful protesters.
This mobilisation was preceded by the dispatch of hundreds of New York
police officers to all parts of the country, with the mission of conducting
surveillance on suspected ‘anarchists’. In addition, NYPD officers
have been operating undercover for two years as members of leftwing activist
groups.
Bolstering the ranks of the state’s armed forces were units of the
New York National Guard and mercenaries from the private Vance International
and Securitas (formerly Pinkerton) security firms. Both of these private
armies are infamous for their brutality and history of union-busting.
Thus it should come as no surprise that more than 2,000 protesters were
arrested during the convention. While the police and their hired guns
were relatively calm during the ‘official’ march of over half
a million, they overwhelmed and brutally suppressed many of the ‘illegal’
demonstrations that took place after.
At an event organised by the pacifist War Resisters League, attended by
several leading members of the Socialist Party USA and held at the site
where the World Trade Center once stood, the police began arresting people
before the demonstration even started.
Similar instances of ‘pre-emptive’ arrests were reported throughout
the week by confused and angry protesters. Most of those detained were
taken to an abandoned warehouse along the Hudson River, which was last
used to service buses. Hundreds of detainees were held here, forced to
sit in puddles of oil and stagnant water, without access to food, water,
washroom facilities or legal counsel.
This detention facility quickly gained an apt nickname: ‘Guantánamo
on the Hudson’. This became all the more fitting after it was discovered
the NYPD used the plans for the Guantánamo ‘Camp Delta’
facility, where the US is holding hundreds of ‘unlawful combatants’
from Afghanistan and Iraq, as a model. Only after protesters turned their
attention to this facility, rallying thousands and catching the attention
of the local media, were the police ordered by a judge to release their
detainees.
Throughout the demonstrations, the chant of ‘This is what democracy
looks like’ could be heard echoing off the tall buildings of mid-town
Manhattan. And, in a sense, they are more correct than they know. The
erosion of democratic rights and civil liberties since 2001 has been steady
and pervasive, and has happened with the aid and support of both major
parties.
The fact that the NYPD could erect a ‘war on terror’ concentration
camp for detaining political protesters, could fill it with people held
on the basis of ‘pre-emptive’ arrests, and could do all of this
without so much as a word of protest from the Democrats or the major media
is ... well, unprecedented.
So, yes, this is what ‘democracy’ looks like - American ‘democracy’,
that is. Or, at least, what’s left of it.
