inside the glass house

Bush’s Republican bash bracing itself for a bashing
NEW YORK - The Republican convention, which will formally nominate President George Bush as its candidate for re-election in November, rolls into town next week.

Unlike the traditional hoopla surrounding the arrival of the Barney and Bailey Circus every summer, there will be no tame elephants or lions on public display but plenty of political clowns.

At a time of hyped-up terror alerts from the Department of Homeland Security, parts of New York City will be subject to unprecedented security measures. And New Yorkers are dreading the very thought of living in a totalitarian environment.

The rigorous security restrictions -- including random police searches of cars and trucks, a ban on commercial vehicles, and closure of streets around the venue of the convention in Madison Square Gardens -- are threatening to transform the city into a military zone replete with checkpoints at all entrances to bridges and tunnels.

According to a poll conducted last week, about 12 percent of registered voters in the city say they would leave town during the week of the convention which is scheduled to take place from August 30 to September 2.

Not surprisingly, guns and knives are banned at the convention site. But umbrellas? The cops, unwilling to take any chances, have extended their paranoia to also ban umbrellas from Madison Square Gardens, the onetime home of world boxing championships.

The fear of the rain protector goes back to the days of the cold war when a Soviet spy used a poison-tipped umbrella to stab someone during rush hour in the crowded streets of London.

As some New Yorkers plan to flee the city, others wonder whether the holy city of Najaf in Iraq would be a relatively safer haven than the Big Apple. As a ploy to divert attention from the convention, the Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg has arranged for discounted tickets at off-Broadway shows and cheaper meals in restaurants if protesters wear lapel buttons which read: "Peaceful political activist."

"It's no fun to protest on an empty stomach," says Bloomberg who wants to lure protesters into the city's myriad of restaurants. But he admits he cannot prevent an "anarchist" from getting one of his peace buttons.

The anarchists are going to be in their hordes -- as they did at the 1999 World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting in Seattle, Washington where 500 were arrested after they wrecked the meeting, held delegates hostage and destroyed shops and properties that symbolised the ugly face of corporate America.

The protest in New York is directed at the Republican Party and President Bush primarily for waging an unjust war against Iraq based mostly on lies-- weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the perceived links between Iraq and the terrorist attacks on the US, both of which never existed.

With more than 500,000 protesters threatening to stage marches and political rallies in the city, Bloomberg has banned a proposed protest meeting in Central Park.

The reason? The meeting will kill the expensive green grass in the park lawn. But the protesters are taking the Mayor to court. Led by an anti-war group called United for Peace and Justice, the protesters have filed a complaint asking the State Supreme Court to force the Mayor to grant a permit for a Central Park rally by over 250,000 people.

"The city's refusal to permit protesters in the park can only be based on its hostility to the point of view being expressed by them,'' says Jeffrey Fogel of the Centre for Constitutional Rights.

At a news conference last week, Fogel also made a valid point arguing that when the city opens up its parks for corporate sponsors and cultural events, it cannot then discriminate against those who wish to discuss political ideas in the same venue.

To prove his point, he says that the Central Park lawn was used for a Paul Simon concert in 1991 attended by 750,000 people while a 1997 concert by Garth Brooks was attended by over 250,000.

A second organisation, the National Council of Arab Americans, is also going to court after being denied a permit for a rally of some 75,000 people in the same park.

At a time when civil liberties in the US are being violated in the name of fighting terrorism, the proposed protest rallies in Central Park will also be a test case on the constitutional right of assembly.

Meanwhile, the cops say they are prepared to tame the protesters, with plastic handcuffs and high definition surveillance cameras monitoring parts of the city. The police have also gone high-tech because it is now armed with speakers that emit a painfully loud shrieking noise aimed at disbursing protesters-- without beating them with nightsticks.

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