The intrepid Mark Steyn mixes with the demonstrators:
Telling Al Gore from the trees
Convention security has cut down the palms to get a clearer view
Mark Steyn
National Post
LOS ANGELES - Over the weekend, Al Gore was in Springdale, Pa., the hometown of Rachel Carson, whose book Silent Spring did much to spur the environmental movement. Here at the Los Angeles Staples Center, there's been plenty of environmental movement -- the environment has been moved to the town dump. The swaying palm trees around the Center have been chopped down in order, the Secret Service guy explained to me, that they'd have clearer sightlines the better to protect Mr. Gore. Otherwise, the poor stiff could be in real danger: You know how it is when you can't see the wood for the trees.
Just who are these people Al Gore needs to be protected from? Well, as always there's the "Free Mumia" crowd. Mumia Abu-Jamal is a convicted cop-killer on death row in Philadelphia, but the anti-Mumia demos went so well in Philly they decided to take 'em on the road. "Hey, you were in Philly," said a familiar face from the anti-police brutality set. "The guy from the corporate media, right?"
"Since we last met," I said, "half of me has been sold from one corporate master to another."
"Like you care," she sneered, her nostril flaring so contemptuously that the metal stud briefly rose from her nose and hovered in the California haze like the spaceship in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. God, these anarchist babes look hot when they're putting you down. Alas, in L.A., the chicks can always trade up. "Hey," she said excitedly, "that's Casey Kasem over there." I turned around, and there was the famous leathery, orange, somewhat strained face of the host of America's Top 40, as syndicated to a gazillion radio stations.
"So I'm corporate media, but Casey Kasem's not?"
"He's supporting our cause, you're not," she said, giving me the corporate bum's rush. I wondered idly where Casey would put Mumia on the Top 40 of hot causes: 24 with a bullet? Or is that the guy's victim? But, aside from Casey, the Mumia demo had as usual picked up a vast supporting cast of other causes.
A small knot of women was waving placards reading "Democratic Convention Must Ban Breast-Feeding Now." I'd no idea why. It's true Hillary, in It Takes A Village, describes how when she first tried breast-feeding Chelsea the milk came gushing out of the little moppet's nose. But I don't believe she was demanding federal legislation. Not so Tess Hennessy, Chairwoman of Citizens Against Breast-Feeding. According to Tess, "Monica Lewinsky's oral gratification received from President Clinton had a direct relationship to her demented childhood slurping mother's milk. Ask any psychologist."
"It's a violation of babies' civil rights," explained a supportive male. "We wouldn't be having these arguments about the fundraiser at the Playboy Mansion if men like Hugh Hefner hadn't made millions from exploiting the incestuous dependency on the breast induced by encouraging people to suck their mothers' nipples. Without breast-feeding, there wouldn't be a Playboy."
A few blocks on, at Patriotic Hall, I came across the Millers. "So," I said, "what brings you to the convention?"
"We've been in jail for five months," said Madeline Carol Miller, whose tousled locks and healthy tan are a glowing testament to the benefits of the state penitentiary. "But then during prelim they dropped the $3-million bail and released us on our own recognizance. We support medical marijuana."
"My God, they throw you in jail for that?"
"No," she said, "they've charged us with five murders." She gave me a poem she'd written, called Chronic Pain:
Within three months I was arrested and jailed
One of the charges with intentional sass
Said according to the State Attorney General's office
I was A PAIN IN THE ASS!
I don't think it scans, unless you're on marijuana. Anyway, the Millers will be voting Libertarian in November and dismiss both Bush and Gore as former drug users who are hypocrites on the issue.
It seemed to me Gore is also a hypocrite on the tree issue, and I ought to do my best to turn it into an arboreal Playboy. A guy in a pig costume had been arrested for dumping four tons of horse manure outside the Wilshire Grand. He was from PETA -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. I asked a fellow PETA supporter, taking time out of her hectic schedule of "Meat Is Murder" chants, whether the organization was concerned about Gore's destructive environmental policies around the Staples Center.
She gave me a withering look. "We're People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. A tree is not an animal."
"Many animals live in trees," I pointed out. "Birds. Squirrels. Chipmunks. Owls."
"Owls come under the birds category," she said wearily. "Look, this is just a distraction from the real issues."
"You're calling for the town of Fishkill, New York, to change its name because it sends the wrong message," I said. "Doesn't this send the wrong message?"
But at this point we were interrupted by an anti-police brutality demonstrator. "He's not media," she said, referring to me. "He's a plant." Not a plant in the sense of environmentally friendly flora and fauna, but an agent of Republican Mayor Richard Riordan, who is apparently conspiring with the LAPD to provoke the protesters into rioting and looting in order to make the Dems look bad. For that reason, the anti-brutality people are stationed at every intersection videotaping the pigs.
Will the Dems vote to free Mumia? No. To ban breast-feeding? No. To legalize pot? No. To censure Gore for his tree-felling? No. But that doesn't mean he and his convention will be looking like a bunch of New Democrat centrists up there. Look at tonight's speakers: Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, Bill Bradley. That's not "America 2000" -- the Dems' convention slogan -- so much as "Mondale '84." The fringe lefties on the streets are at least new. The fringe lefties at the podium are about as tired as you can get. I don't suppose the guys on the street want to hear it, but right now Al's convention is pitched a little to the left of where he wants to be.
As for Republican-plotted riots, don't hold your breath. Tired of being tagged as a corporate lackey and a pig plant, I decided to live a little dangerously and go jaywalking, which, next to just plain walking, is one of the most basic laws you can break in L.A. I stepped out against the lights, sauntered across and made a guy in a Lincoln Town Car come skidding to a halt -- all in full view of the cops. One of the pig brutes approached me, his billy club twitching: "How are you today, sir?" he asked. "If you're trying to walk through to Figueroa, you might be quicker taking the next block."
I noticed one of the "Free Mumia" guys a few feet away had his camcorder rolling. "Don't worry," he said. "I got the whole thing on tape." The Rodney King of the 2000 Convention, that's me. By the time you read this, L.A. will be ablaze
nationalpost.com |
