Sharp As a Razor Blade

(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Searching high . . .

Tampa expected 15,000 protesters for the Republican National Convention. So far, the city has seen no more than “a couple thousand,” Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor told reporters this morning.  “There aren’t nearly the number of demonstrators we expected,” Castor said.  One reason could be Hurricane Isaac, which forced some bus companies to cancel planned charters of protesters into Tampa Bay..

Searching low . . .

How little impact are the protests at the Republican convention making?  Well, let’s put it this way, yesterday the Tampa chief of police cancelled a scheduled afternoon press conference because there wasn’t enough to report. The Examiner reported Monday that the crowds were sparse at the protests and they haven’t gotten any larger since then. Reportedly, the largest crowd at any protest was 300 people at one at Ybor City, which is about three miles from the convention center.

Searching everywhere they know . . .

There were several protests Wednesday, but none of them were what city officials had feared.  The largest was sponsored by Planned Parenthood at Julian Lane Park about a mile north of the Tampa Bay Times Forum.  It featured speeches and chants like ” Ho ho, hey hey, Planned Parenthood is here to stay.”

At midday, there was a protest at speech featuring former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.  During the speech when Rice was talking about the compassionate Bush administration, a Code Pink protester, former Army Colonel Ann Wright, stood up and said, “You can’t be compassionate and kill people!” However, no one was arrested and for the most part, everything has been extremely calm.

Asking the cops wherever they go . . .

Have you seen dignity?

Just move along, protesters, get back into your free speech cages and quit bothering the guards with stupid questions.  You should know by now that there’s no dignity left in this country.  Maybe NASA’s latest rover will find some on Mars.

We had Freedom Riders, we had massive protests against the Vietnam War, we had huge protests against the Iraq War and at the RNC in St. Paul in 2008.  This is all we have now . . .

On Wednesday night, a band of fewer than 100 “Occupy”-style protesters tried to taunt police officers by dangling bagels and donuts at the end of fishing poles. “I guess they thought that was funny,” said Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor outside a downtown hotel, where she dealt with the protesters personally. The protesters took over intersections and refused to move for more than 15 minutes — until getting up and asking police for directions to their next protest site.

Chilly wind sharp as a razor blade . . .

“They’ve militarized Tampa. The chilling effect has succeeded,” Cara Jennings, a voter outreach organizer from Palm Beach County, said.

Hurricane Isaac missed Tampa, but Hurricane Depravity didn’t.

Tampa was hosting the largest gathering of criminals since the 2008 Republican Convention, the city was crawling with thugs in suits, serial perpetrators of voter suppression, abuse of power, obstruction of justice, co-conspirators in the financial crimes that brought the economy to its knees, pathological liars of a pig-circus party that’s become a cult, a cult that has declared war on reality, a cult the corporate media will always portray as choir boys no matter how much misery and suffering they inflict on this nation of targets formerly known as citizens.

You knew they were all coming to your hometown to flaunt their fascism right in your face, Occupy Tampa, and a couple thousand protesters was the best you could do?  

Sometimes I wonder if this country even deserves to survive.  It’s not going to unless we find some moral courage pretty damn soon and start defending ourselves.