I Love A Charade

Sometimes Coyote just loves the spectacle, the pomp, the splendor, and the excitement of a good old fashioned parade. Or is that charade? Sometimes Coyote can't tell.

Coyote drove the protester parade route yesterday, and even though Coyote needs new glasses, he could barely see the Pepsi center from the parade finish at Speer and Larimer.  Will the parade be within sight and sound of the delegates?  Hardly.

And then in court yesterday the Secret Service apparently confessed that the real reason the protesters would not be allowed to get too close to the Pepsi Center is that if a bomb went off there, the protesters might get hurt.  So keeping protesters away from the Pepsi Center is for their protection.  You buying that one?  Neither is Coyote. 

Don't jive the Coyote.  Just be honest.  Honesty is our friend.   If you don't like the protesters and you don't want them anywhere near the festivities, just say so, and let a judge decide if you are right or wrong.  But don't say the end of the parade is near the Pepsi Center, and don't say you are keeping protesters away for their own well being.  That's a lot of Coyote droppings.

Coyote hates a charade.

CoyoteJ

If Billy Joel Didn't Start the Fire, Who Will?

Ethicist and moral philosopher CoyoteJ asks you to consider the following hypothetical situation:

A large apartment building is completely engulfed in a terrible fire, and a huge crowd has gathered at a safe distance to watch this spectacular inferno.  Suddenly, a tall man with wild hair and a crazy look in his eyes stands in front of the crowd, and at the top of his lungs shouts, theater!  People in the crowd turn to one another.  What did he say?  The man screams again, theater!!  The crowd freezes for about two seconds, and then in a complete panic they turn and stampede away, trampling several and injuring many more.  Thus Coyote is forced to ask, is it ever morally permissible to shout theater at a crowded fire?

Good question.  And I think in a roughly analagous way, many protesters are asking this same question in terms of their behavior at the Democratic National Convention.  Walk with Coyote as he examines this interesting and important moral issue.

Of course, one of the first moral principles our parents taught us is you can't shout fire in a crowded theater.  We all understand this.  And many of the protesters I have talked to believe this basic moral message is the message they are getting concerning their protest activities at the DNC.  Look, they are told, things are going to be very tense in Denver during convention week.  There will be gigantic crowds of excited people, and things could get tense.  Please don't do anything stupid. Don't shout fire at this combustible situation, or things could stampede out of control very quickly.  Be good, don't be violent, and everything will be fine.

But many protesters see the moral issues from a different perspective.  They look at the world and everything is not at all fine, there is corporate and state violence all over the place, so, then, what exactly does it mean for them to be good?  What is the proper moral response to this problem plagued system on display at the convention?  Many protesters have turned be good, don't be violent, and everything will be fine on its head.  They are told to not shout fire in this crowded theater, and they ask, well, then, may we shout theater at this crowded fire?

And the operative word here is theater.  Everybody knows they will be on a gigantic world stage for four days in late August.  So, some protesters ask, how can we bring theater to this crowded fire?  In two ways.  First, literal theater.  Street plays, beautiful gigantic puppets, demonstrations, parades, and other creative endeavors.  The second way to bring theater to the fire is to shake things up, disrupt plans, and engage in various levels of civil disobedience.

The key moral question is this: is Denver a crowded theater or a crowded fire?  If you are the Mayor's office, the police, the Democratic Party, or the Secret Service, Denver in August is a crowded theater, and any fires must be stamped out immediately.  If you are a protester, Denver in August is a crowded fire, a blazing inferno of big money corporate interests, do nothing politicians, a war-without-end mentality, and a promise that nothing will change, all doing violence to the poor and the oppressed.  To this fire all forms of theater must be shouted from the rooftops, and acted out in the streets.

So, is it ever morally permissible to shout theater at a crowded fire?  Coyote thinks this is an important question.  A difficult question.

Coyote thinks he needs a nap.

CoyoteJ

A Loaf Of Bread, a Jug of Wine, and a Couch

Coyote has been running the numbers, and things just don't add up.

Mayor Hickenlooper says Tent State won't be a problem, because even though they won't be able to camp in City park, they will have friends who have plenty of couches to sleep on. Really?  Lets say only twenty thousand come.  Putting two or three Tent Staters in a room requires lots of couches, and lots of rooms.  And lots of friends.  Would all these rooms be within a reasonable traveling time from City park?  Probably not.  When the park closes at eleven p.m., where will they go?  Coyote can't help but believe that a group with the name TENT State will probably pitch tents (duh!), which will lead to police confrontations, and lots of other problems.  Do jails have couches?  Coyote smells problems.

But fear not, Coyote has an idea.  If you can't get the people to the couches, bring the couches to the people.  Therefore, change the name of the group.  Call them Sofa State, or Hide-a-Bed State, or Air Mattress State.  Then Jake Jabs can truck thousands of couches to City Park, get all kinds of free advertising, and everyone will be happy.  Sofa Staters won't be camping in City Park, they will be reclining.  There is no Denver law against reclining in city parks after curfew, is there?  See, Coyote can find a way out of every problem.

Can American Furniture also deliver several thousand port-a-potties?

Put it on lay away with

CoyoteJ   

Guns and Blubber

So there won't be goo guns, or sonic guns.  This is good.  And the ACLU will wait until after the convention to pursue its lawsuit. Maybe good.  To some degree the armies are standing down a bit, and that can't be bad.

But at the same time, Coyote can't help but notice that squirt guns are now the big concern.  Squirt guns?  If you haven't followed this story, urine trouble.  Anyhow, when goo and sonic guns fade from attention, and squirt guns become the focus, something isn't right. Coyote thinks the issue is not so much the super-soakers, but trust.  In light of this good faith gesture by the city, will the protesters now lay down their water guns? Coyote asks, can we all just get along?

Or maybe it is just boys posturing with their toys.  Like Freud should have said, sometimes a squirt gun isn't just a squirt gun.

CoyoteJ (who has a water cannon)

Lord, Who Is My Other?

Good Samaritan Coyote keeps wondering, am I my other's keeper?

There is a lot of "otherization" going on before the convention.  The protesters are very other. They are leftist, anarchistic, radical, Seattle inspired, pee-filled-squirt-gun-toting outlaws up to no good.  They are not me.  They are not us.  They are the other.  And because they are the other, we don't have to listen to them.  Their call to change may be safely ignored.  We must simply endure them, and control them.

And Coyote has heard the same thing coming from the other side.  Law enforcement is very other.  They are controlling, aggressive, belligerent, New York and Miami inspired soldiers of a corporatized  state.  They are not me.  They are not us.  They are the other.  And because they are the other, we don't have to respect them.  Their job of policing may be legitimately ridiculed.  We must simply endure them, and outfox them.

When Coyote hears this, he remembers the parable of the Good Samaritan.  In response to the question, "who is my brother?", Jesus said, the Samaritans, the most despised and the most "other" group in the culture.  Jesus said, the other is your brother.  Hard words, but they make a ton of psychological sense.

Coyote thinks humans have a deep need for consigning certain people to the shadowy world of the not me.  By doing this we define ourselves, and we make it okay to ignore those people in the shadow.  But if Jesus is right, then the other is my brother.  The not me is me.  What we have to do, then, is travel into those shadowy worlds of not me, and discover the totality of who we are.  Coyote, in his deep wisdom, believes this is the most difficult journey of all.  (This Jungian moment was brought to you by Coyote Inc. of Zurich Switzerland)

So for the convention, Coyote says, lets stop demonizing the other.  The protesters are not crazies.  They are good people with genuine concerns who deeply desire to see this world become a better place.  Listen to them.  And the police are not mindless robocops.  They are good men and women who are trying to maintain order, and make Denver safe for everyone.  Respect them.  And if the protesters get a little crazy, or the the police get a little hard handed, remember that craziness and hard handedness are not the other, it is all me.  We all have a little police and protester in us, for better and for worse.

Except for Coyote, of course.  All he has in him is his last meal.

CoyoteJ

Thin Lines

Coyote doesn't always see so well, but what he does see seems awfully blurry.

First there is the thin blue line, the fragile police line protecting society from criminality. Makes sense.  Then the line separating concentrated arbitrary power from ganging up on the people.  Call that line the Constitution.  Next, lines defining domestic as opposed to foreign, intelligence gathering as opposed to spying, and prisoners of war as opposed to enemy combatants.  Good, solid, understandable lines.  Except that now when Coyote looks at those lines, he can barely see them.  Maybe he needs bifocals.  Or maybe the lines are disappearing.

It seems the National Guard will be housing over five hundred troops in Denver during the convention.  National Guard troops are usually brought in when there are natural disasters, to provide stability and authority, and to prevent looters from stealing and destroying property. Makes sense.  But in this crazy world of dissolving boundaries, Coyote is very sad to wonder, are there any other reasons why the National Guard will be here?  If protesters get out of control, could the National Guard be used against them?  Could the streets of Denver arbitrarily be declared a disaster zone?  Could domestic protesters be declared terrorists? Enemy combatants?  Who exactly does the Constitution protect from whom?  Again, Coyote is very sad to even be thinking such thoughts, and asking such questions, but in this new world of Guantanamo and FISA, the questions must be asked.

Coyote imagines a can of paint.  When you look inside you see all kinds of colors, totally mixed together.  Pretty like a rainbow, but confusing too.  But then with a magical stick you start to stir the paint, and over time the different colors start to sort themselves out.  Greens, blues, yellows and reds all begin to clump together, and you begin to see boundaries between the colors.  This is what Coyote calls maturity, both for individuals and for groups.  If you are growing in the right direction, you slowly start to sort the mess out, and slowly begin to get a glimpse of how things fit together. 

But our world is going in exactly the opposite direction.  The hard won boundaries that our culture has fought for through its legislative and judicial structures, and its good old fashioned common sense, are disappearing.  The colors are starting to blend together again, and arbitrary power is beginning to reach across boundaries where it ought not go.  We are not maturing as a culture, we are regressing.  Our vision of how important things fit together is getting blurry, and poor old Coyote is left wondering if he is paranoid, or if he is indeed asking wise questions.

How about a thin brown line?  Imagine an army of coyotes patrolling downtown Denver, enforcing boundaries and getting into all kinds of trouble.  Sounds good to me, but who would clean up the streets?

CoyoteJ

Reservation Indians

Coyote has seen this play before, and it isn't a good one.

It seems that the different groups protesting the DNC are not in complete agreement.  Obama has turned too far to the right, so he and his supporters have lost their way.  They have accommodated too much.  Some say Recreate68 is too welcoming to Obama supporters.  They have accommodated too much.  And some say, maybe, Unconventional Denver has worked too closely with Recreate68.  They have accommodated too much.  I guess there is agreement.  Everybody has accommodated too much.

Same old play, just different actors.

Throughout human history, whenever there is an occupying force, those who oppose it can't agree on how much to accommodate, and how much to resist.  The classic example is the indigenous peoples of America.  When confined to an area by the U.S. army, those who accommodated were called Reservation Indians.  Those who didn't want to be Reservation Indians disagreed among themselves about how much to negotiate with the United States, and how much to fight.  Many times different tribes could not work together to form a unified plan of resistance.  Same play.  Only Coyote has noticed that nobody ever seems to realize they are in a play.

Many Americans  believe the Bush Administration has felt like an occupying force of shallowness, thoughtlessness, recklessness, and even lawlessness.  And now those in Denver opposed to this occupation can't agree on how much to accommodate, and how much to resist. Each tribe suspects the other tribe just doesn't get it, or worse, has sold out.

Is there no way out of this age old drama?

Wise Coyote has an idea.  Lets change the script.  Occupying forces are the least likely to change, so a new drama will have to come from the protesters.  How about this for an idea? Instead of protesting, how about if all opposed to the occupation became the front line of Denver's convention hospitality committee.  How about if the protesters made sure the police had plenty of water and sunscreen, made sure busses ran and intersections remained open, and insured that every delegate and visitor to Denver had the best possible time they could have.  And in this new drama of, lets call it "resistant hospitality," maybe the message of deep frustration and a deep desire for change would really be heard.  Maybe the tribes wouldn't fight with each other.  Maybe the world would change.

Or not.  Coyote doesn't know for sure.  But a totally different play would surely shake things up. People would notice.  Coyote reminds us, the play is the thing, in which we catch the conscience of the nation.

CoyoteJ  

Mixed Symbols

Coyote has his ears up, and he thinks there are a lot of mixed symbols these days.

On one hand, there is a lot of energy going into keeping a lid on anything that looks bad. On the radio Thursday, Mayor Hickenlooper said Denver no longer has a homeless problem, just look at the 16th street mall. Wow. He didn't say anything about the homeless on 17th street or anywhere else. Clearly, Mayor Hickenlooper is heavily invested in an image of Denver that is clean, beautiful, and problem free.  Anything that detracts from this image, including protesters, will be downplayed. 

And of course the Democratic Party wants everything to go well and look good.  By managing the convention well they will show that they can manage the nation well.  So they will downplay any protester issues that might make them look bad.   And Colorado Springs will be sending lots of police to help out during the convention. We can count on Colorado Springs police to keep a lid on trouble. They always do. And if they can't, there is always the freedom cage to keep problems contained.   All this energy is directed to keeping the unpleasant contained, bottled up, and off the streets.

On the other hand, Obama's move to Invesco is a symbolic opening up, a move to a bigger place. And Coyote believes that police training for the convention includes a great deal of time on how to protect protester rights and de-escalate problems. In fact, there is a rumor that some police think their convention preparation is weighted too heavily to accommodating protest, to the point of even jeopardizing police safety.  There is clearly some real energy working to enlarge the arena and engage dissent.

Coyote, in his infinite wisdom, believes these mixed symbols give mixed signals, and that this is indeed a very good thing. Mixed messages are the stuff of life. We all give ourselves mixed messages all the time. And the groups we live in are constantly giving us contradictory signals about what they want.  Mixed messages hopefully keep us humble, as we realize that we are often at the mercy of forces, both individual and collective, that are much larger than we are.   Mixed signals confuse, but in a situation like this they can also defuse.

Coyote would be truly afraid if we were getting only one message. An unambiguously unified message, sung by a unanimous chorus, always constellates its opposite, often violently.  This Coyote does not want.  If we begin to hear a consensus about what is coming at the convention, be afraid. Be very afraid.

CoyoteJ