Hillary and W: Stage managed rallies, staged realities
September 30, 2007
So a friend and I went to this afternoon's Oakland rally for Hillary. They themselves reported 10,000 very loyal people. If you paid $20 you got to see the podium. I won't give Hillary $20, so we wandered around, trying to find a way in so our signs could be seen. We wore pink Impeach Bush & Cheney shirts, and had signs in our purses re Iran. We were protesting her vote on the Lieberman bill.
Streets were cordoned off for several blocks in every direction. They kept saying it was a private event. On our Oakland streets? I wonder how much they paid to rent our streets and cops for an afternoon.
The event itself dragged on and on. She didn't appear till the bitter end, after a surprising number of people spoke for her (Gavin Newsome, Sandre Swanson, Don Perata among them). We finally decided we couldn't get close enough to be on her TV cameras, so we sat in bleachers set up for people holding Hillary signs. After a long time, we held our signs up. Her people went nuts, and stood in front of us, held their signs in front of us, blocked us from camera view, and were otherwise really obnoxious.
Fortunately, their behavior offended even the people in the bleachers, and several folks with cameras interviewed us and took our pictures later.
What did we conclude? This was another carefully orchestrated event, where questions or comments are off limits (like Bush's events). Hillary's people were prepared to violate our First Amendment rights without giving it a second thought, their excuse being that it was a "private party". Even the cops (whom they sicced on us) didn't agree, and wouldn't do anything to us.
I'd love a legal opinion on whose streets they are during an event like this.
- Susan Harman
Oakland, California
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