To the major parties, dissent is a nuisance

[teach1st]

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/03/07/Columns/To_the_major_parties_.shtml

By ROBYN E. BLUMNER, St. Petersburg Times
Published March 7, 2004

Free speech has become something of a nuisance at our national political conventions, and organizers have been doing what they can to be rid of it.

At this summer's Democratic National Convention in Boston, organizers have floated a preliminary plan to relegate protesters to a small triangle of land that can hold maybe 400 people. As the Boston Globe describes it, the spit of land is "blocked off from the FleetCenter and convention delegates by a maze of Central Artery service roads, MBTA train tracks, and a temporary parking lot holding scores of buses and media trucks."

This is not acceptable, of course. Those organizing protests and the civil liberties groups watchdogging their rights have already raised objections; and police say nothing is yet set in stone. But this routinized convention dance - with protesters trying to secure their First Amendment rights to be close to their intended targets while the major political parties work with the local policing agencies to banish dissent to some small, distant locale - is nothing short of shameful.

Both Democrats and Republicans are guilty of trying to keep their ever-more scripted conventions unmarred by controversy, and by controversy I mean issues that people care enough about to take to the streets. Apparently it would be too disturbing to the feel-good, happy days atmosphere that occasions picking a man who may lead the free world if crowds of people were allowed near the festivities raising concerns about jobs, health care, decent wages, fair trade policies or getting out of the war in Iraq.

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[Hotler]

1. This is bad folks.

Iron fisting dissent is one step closer to fascism. If we ever needed a reason to march, this is one. First they stopped it in the media. Now they're working to stop it in the streets. Next it will be here, the INTERNET. And last, your home. Talk shit about the administration and off to the gulag you go.

[teryang]

2. Love the St. Pete Times

Great newspaper. Love that town.