DNC Protesters: Constitutional Rights Denied or Citizens’ Rights Denied?

Some say protesters, such as Code Pink and Recreate 68 and others, including small church groups and other groups no one has ever heard much about, are being denied their constitutional rights of freedom to assemble, and freedom of speech. Many protest groups have sued to gain access to convention gathering sites in Denver so they can be ’seen’ and ‘heard’ by conventioneers, pols, and newsmedia. Up close.

Like abortion protesters, kind of. That close.

But the big D doesn’t want that kind of closeness.

Thus, it seems, some in the city of Denver and DNCC seem to think the protesters ought be marginalized– a word usually anathema to Dems– and instead be kept to outlying portions of Denver…. out of sight of the old stadium where Obama will formally ‘accept’ the nomination, and away from conventioneers…. and away from the Capitol building (which is in downtown Denver) and away from the Convention building. Just generally, away from , instead of “fish-eye lens” up close.

The Denver Manager of Safety says it’s for safety’s sake. Some say Denver can’t handle the crush. One wonders at the wisdom of bringing in a huge convention where people are worried about ‘the crush’ of humanity. Denver is a small city laid out on a grid with skyscrapers on both sides of the downtown streets. These create tall, close-walled canyons with no easy ingress or egress…for gathering together, for marching—for hurrying toward or away from, if need be.

Freedoms of speech and assembly motivated Martin to cross the bridge even though there were NO concerns for the safety the marchers via the City government of Selma. I wonder if anyone reads history any more, learning form previous fatally chosen trajectories by ‘those in charge.’

The protesters have filed for and been granted all the proper permits months ago. It appears the protesters have attempted to follow the letter of the laws of Denver County in negotiating their presences.

But,
Last week The Mayor decreed that the protesters, some 50k expected, would not be allowed to sleep in the park.
The protesters said, Really? Watch this. We’re sleeping in the park.
Mayor Hickenlooper, said, Really? Watch this… we’ll turn all the sprinklers on.
The protesters said, Really? Watch this… we’ll overturn the dumpsters over the sprinkler heads to let them drown the grass underneath them

and so it goes. Or doesn’t. Love.

Denver is a small town in many ways. Good people. Often, laid back. Most of us have at least two pair of cowboy boots in the closet even though we no longer run cows.

But something else is at play here. Profound scripting by and of the DNCC in many ways I’ll be detailing more about as the week goes on. Certainly what has been built up here in Denver by the DNCC and the Mayor’s office makes it seem that the Democratic Convention is no longer a “people’s event,” but rather a petrified diorama that people are invited to come “look at.” But only up close…IF they promise to behave in a certain codified way. And then only a coveted few. A lottery of sorts for public attendance.

Those of us who live in the Rockies have listened to these back-and-forth arguments about protesters going on and on and ON for months now… for instance: Yes you can march, but only to the corner of ‘walk and don’t walk’ a quarter mile shy of the convention center, completely out of range of the crowd. Then you have to stop right there and turn around and go back the way you came.

I recognize the need for safety. And order. I’ve many friends in both PD and FD who are stalwart souls. I want them and the conventioneers and the protesters, all to be safe too. But, there’s something odd about the Demmies seeming to be so concerned that they begin treating valid protesters as sort of a “pre-criminal” element, if not some kind of ‘repeat offender’ organism.

Maybe it’s a clang because the generation of Demmies who are now in their late 40s, 50s and early 60s enjoined thousands of protests for the last many years, beginning with civil rights workers ‘rights, and coming straight through to war protests in this time. Those Dems’ fathers and mothers often marched on strikes with unions, or while attempting to gain the right to have or keep a union.

Protesting is in the Demmies’ blood.

Surely political evolution isn’t based on ‘I got mine, but I will impede yours.’ Vox populi re Constitutional rights, that is.