THE WHOLE WORLD'S WATCHING BUT NOTHING’S BEING SHOWN! FIVE NOTES ON THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION!

By Thomas Brennan

Note Number One: In a past Chinese Year of the Monkey, 1968, the Democrats gathered in Chicago, staggering from a year of widespread opposition to the war raging in Viet Nam. The media at that time granted continuous all-day coverage to the relatively small number of protesters, many of whom were, as Illinois Governor Otto Kerner's official report on the riots pointed out, paid police provocateurs disguised as hippies. The major networks filled America's TV screens with anti-Viet Nam demonstrators for a full week. The protesters had a full run of manipulating coverage as they offered never-before-seen, thus highly effective, Pop Culure stunts, such as nominating an actual porcine individual named Pigasus for the presidency on the Yippie Ticket. Yes, we do mean an actual pig!

This year, what the pollsters traditionally call "average Americans," suburban families, teachers, clerics, and professionals from every conceivable profession, have taken to the streets of New York in numbers as large as 500,000, and coverage this time has been, on the average, 10-second spots on the major affiliates' evening news broadcasts. In Chicago, the protesters would chant, "The Whole World is Watching!," and it was a true assessment. This year, The Whole World is Watching, but Nothing is being shown!

In fact, since Chicago '68 is remembered by Bush's own generation as the turning point that wounded the modern Democratic Party for years, we can only guess why the anti-Bush legions, as representatively mainstream as they are and as incredibly large as they are, get no coverage. There have been three times the total number arrested in New York this week as during the Chicago Riots, and this is written with one full convention day to go.

In keeping with the phantom Iraqi war footage, a good guess would be that the current administration is aware that those in their teens and 20's and 30's, the most visually sophisticated generations of citizens ever (due to synapses being honed by computer-screens and video games) should not be shown anything, because they would then make a decision about this war and about this President. Young people, especially, are being cheated of visual access to what goes on in this nation. They've been shown nothing of the war. They've been shown nothing of the demonstrations. The night vision goggles surely must be rose-colored.

When I was a kid, CBS' Charles Kuralt would quite often take me, as I sat at home in the TV chair, on a cinema verite jungle tour through the fresh-laid tracks of the Viet Cong, filmed in such a way that the hand-held cameras would be brushing the thick branch leaves as if you were

trudging the path in lockstep along with the Marine platoon Kuralt was assigned to. You could see war up close and make your own decision if this looked like the kind of activity you wanted to participate in once you reached draft age. To deny visual access is to deny one a fundamental way of gathering the facts needed to express one's rights as an American. If more young people were to see the large numbers arrayed against Bush, they'd be more inclined to make a decision about the most unpopular president we've ever had. But we are not being shown how unpopular he is. And this is the Information Age, they keep telling us. If they could also see how ugly, mean, and destructive this war in Iraq is, they would make a decision about that too.

Note Number Two: Say what you will about the Clinton marriage, but Bill always shows up for Hillary's public speeches and beams his love and approval to her from a front-row seat. Tuesday night, we are to believe that Bush is too busy at a softball game in the countryside of Pennsylvania to come to Madison Square Garden to be present at his wife Laura's national prime time spot. It does not say much for their relationship that he gives her a quick "hi" on the jumbo screen and that's that. Perhaps the President's travel staff is at fault. But there are planes and even buses available for transportation from Pennsylvania to New York. Somebody could've even offered a ride, as a courtesy. Or maybe, Bush's particular religious orientation forbids him from showing respect to a woman speaking in public. After all, if Ashcroft blesses himself with Crisco oil, we all have the right to wonder about various oddball religious tenets the exotic Christian sects within the current administration adhere to.

Note Number Three: The New York Yankees, the most storied of baseball teams, suffered their very worst loss in the 101 year history of their team, at Yankee Stadium, on Tuesday night, with the Republicans in town. The final score was an unbelievable 22-0 at the hands of the Cleveland Indians. Two words: bad karma.

Note Number Four: If Arnold thinks the late Hubert Humphrey should be labeled a socialist, Arnold probably never even came close to seeing a Soviet-occupied territory, as he so often claims. Hubert Humphrey, who is not here to defend himself, wrote the Civil Rights plank at the 1948 Democratic Convention that would've given African-Americans the basic rights that finally came in the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, and was a tireless fighter against socialist and communist influence in the labor unions! Arnold's hero Richard Nixon, seemingly unbeknownst to Arnold, was certainly much cozier with commies, such as Soviet Premier Breshnev and Chinese Minister Chou En Lai, than Mr. Humphrey ever dreamed of being.

Note Number Five: Is the behavior of Delegates at the Republican Convention referring to filmmaker Michael Moore as a "fat pig" indicative of the decency that Arnold invoked for his political party? For these adults, resorting to playground, bully taunts, that they supposedly admonish their children from using, suggests one thing about the Republicans. They are very bad role models for our children. Let's see if they have to pay a price in the media for using Jeremy

Shockey-type epithets, or if politicos are allowed to be above the laws the rest of us American citizens must live by in the workplace. _________________________