Editor’s note: this is the closing piece of episode 3 of Unconvention.tv a and the last of the reprints here

I love America; Hell I even love Americans, I am proud to be an American, albeit not in a Lee greenwood kind of way.  I wouldn’t wear a flag pin, because I don’t do broaches.  I think that patriotism means more then “saying you’re patriotic” and putting a “support our troops” magnet from super America on your car.

I love what the US has achieved solely based on the concept of “intestinal fortitude “literally they had the guts to do it.  I don’t just love our country though, I love South America too, Europe, Asia, Africa, all of your continents, even Antarctica. I am just a big fan of the world and its people in general.

What I am not a fan of is people shooting each other, Lead bullets, rubber bullets, pepper spray what have you, I believe the world to be a better place when we aren’t firing projectiles at each other period.

Of course sometimes we have to, revolution is part of evolution, Thomas Jefferson said “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.” The manure part of the quote that often gets left out, he also might have wanted to mention that it is important not to over water his particular Liberty garden, or you’ll wind up killing everything.

Its funny, politicians love to evoke the revolutionary war, and make grand claims about the founding fathers, but the reality is not all the citizens of the colonies were behind them, most of the public was just as happy under England’s Rule, the founding fathers did what they believed in. at the end of the day it s all about a triumph of the wills, who want it more.

Of course if they did win, the question is “what do they want”, the protestors all seem to be saying they want a chance to “discuss” their views with the delegates, do they really think the delegates are unaware of the junior grade riots going on outside the convention center?

Do the protestors really think that if they got to yell “No more Bush” to a room full of his loyalists that its going to accomplish anything besides being a mild irritant?   Do they realize that while a number of the delegates are elected officials, the vast majority are just citizens like themselves? That if they really wanted to have an influence on them, they could easily join the part, and then have a much easier time of having their voice heard.

on the run

Sometimes we yell to be heard, sometimes we yell to hear ourselves

What I wonder is if this isn’t some sort of cultural tourism on both sides of the aisle; protestors getting to relive the 68 convention, which is a bit like doing a historical reenactment of the Alamo – their side didn’t win.

The cops also having their own ’68 flashback where they have to hold their ground. I’d hazard a guess that the twin cities police have unholstered more weapons in the last week then they have in the past six months.

I wouldn’t trade jobs with them for anything, think about it: somebody throws a rock at you; you’re going to get mad. Throw a rock at them or worse, the police have ability, to defend themselves they have the access to weapons and they have the restraint not to use them. How long would you get hit with rocks, in a crowd that outnumbers you 10 to 1?

All this noise to be part of a waning news cycle, each side gets bragging rights, but what really gets accomplished save that the rift between the two sides grows wider.  When do we build bigger bridges, instead of widening the river? Of course this is Minnesota and we do have this problem with bridges…

What if they gave a convention and no one came,
Well ok a lot of people came, and then they left.
Damn Hurricane Gustav, and by hurricane I mean the hurricane formerly known as Gustav now just a tropical depression.

I had a tropical depression once, it was in Key West, I cured it by getting drunk at strip clubs…. of course that might not work in this case.

So

No Chenney
No Bush at least not in person,
Surprisingly little McCain

A lot of journalists with an overly tapped story,
A lot of protestors looking for something to protest.

You did get Fred Thompson, which was nice; He’s my favorite actor/ politician now that guy who played Gopher on the Love Boat is no longer in the game

And somewhere Sarah Palin is drooling of a map of the Alaskan oil preserve while a campaign worker cobbles away at her wikkipedia entry

Meanwhile the news media keeps talking about “Anarchists” and their secret cabal, and all their organizations, aren’t anarchists by definition going to have a problem with. You know organizing….

Since when did we fear anarchists anyway, it’s been at least 100 years since anarchists held any sort of serious social status, I always figure modern day anarchy to be like socialism was in the 80’s You did it for a week or two till you moved onto the next youth trend for me it was “Frankie Goes to Hollywood”.

Maybe if the called them aging hippies, and punk kids who work at Co-op’s they wouldn’t be so frightening, or then again maybe they would.

Thing is the anarchists are scared: they think their world is going to hell and they need to do something about it. So they make signs and chant, and some of them get out of hand and do something stupid

The cops are scared they think their world is going to hell and they need to do something about it so they work proactively to keep the peace and some of them get out of hand and do something stupid

The city is scared they think their world is going look bad on TV and they need to do something about it so they work extra hard to maintain order and some of them get out of hand and do something stupid

Joe public is scared they think their world is going to hell because they see anarchist antics, and   police fierceness and they don’t need to do anything about it because it will just work itself out so they watch “CSI Somethingorother” until the whole stupid thing is over.

It’s seems to me that fear is a lousy method of making choices.
It is all very divisive, but isn’t that the point. It’s hard to win when you have no one to be against.

Of course in life you can’t  “win” anything, the reward comes in the playing.

Sort of like slot machines, where statistically you’re guaranteed to lose 15%, yet people keep playing, absolutely convinced they are winning.

Guess it’s a matter of perspective.

Given that we live on a globe, left, eventually becomes right and vice-versa, perspective can be hard to attain or for that matter maintain.

Anyway I should go, CSI is starting in a minute,

Xo

c

Editor’s Note: This is the piece that runs at the end of Episode one of Unconvention.tv. Part of the Walker’s “I Approve this Message” campagin.  Transcribed here for your reading pleasure…

Republicans, Democrats, Elks, Shriners, Dentists, a convention is a convention- a gathering for a large group to discuss their ideas, build strategies, and of course have sex with hookers, and generally make an ass of themselves.  The question I have to ask: is it news? If this was just a really big gathering of knights of Columbus would some 14,000 journalists be on our doorstep?

Think about it what is really getting accomplished here? At least in the “big story sense”, is the rousing speech from the head of the Idaho delegation, shouting his support for the candidate really news? Who is that going to surprise? I am sure newsworthy stories happen at both conventions- we just don’t hear about them till years after their prison sentences and pardons when they write the tell all biography for a high six figure deal from Random House.

People talk about conventions like they change the world, but no one has ever explained how. They whoop and holler in the most expensive pep rally in the world.  Sure it brings in tens of millions for the local economy and that’s great, but what if instead of using it as the prize in a financial lottery we used it to say…help wipe out Aids in Africa, or use it so subsidize wind fueled power generators. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good party, it just seems like we could do something better then hiring Sammy Hagar to sing loudly that ”he can’t drive 55”

The argument is that all the various party elite can get together to discuss things, but they have a place to do that already, it’s called congress. If they can’t get it together there does anyone really think that talking it over a piece of pie at Mickey’s will foster a better dialogue?

At the end of the day it seems Shakespeare said it best,”: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”

My name is Chris Strouth, I am a citizen of these United States, and I approve this message.

The RNC is over  and the Unconvention is at a close at least for me, however the shows are done. the question remains is what next. While I ponder that here are three of the four episodes (the first one has some good moments but it’s really not all that and a bag of chips…so ) here they are

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4