... the Denver police got word that Jeb and AKA Sweetie were going to show up and wage a riot against Axelrod and his legion of sexists.

i have to say i find it amusing every time a liberal reporter runs into heavily armed riot cops and express their discomfort. what do you people expect? you have a meeting of one half of the political system that enabled one of the great humanitarian disasters of the past 25 years all while turning a blind eye to the shredding whats left of our rights. by all rights there should be more than just adoring crowds greeting the dems. having been on the receiving end of state repression while said reporters stood back and took pictures, well i don't find pepper guns to be that scary these days, and i don't really care to hear reporters fret over something they will likely never experience.

that we're spending too much on so-called Homeland Security.

Either that, or we're getting too paranoid about political gatherings of citizens.

And once again our government isn't being greeting as a liberating force.

...wielding their menacing blue pencils, with their ferocious copy-sniffing dogs off the leash!

The Denver cops are expecting Chicago '68 - all those angry lib'rul hippies coming to town! They had cages lined with barbed wire set up for protesters in a building that was deemed too hot to store voting machines. They've been cleared to arrest people who are not even breaking the law. And they've been warned to be on the lookout for protesters with maps, so if you're lost, don't let anyone see you look at one. Enjoy your visit!

During the Miami FTAA protests a few years ago, the city spent a ton of money trying to brutally control my comrades. Not only did the authorities fail at this, it completely blew up in their faces, as they ended up hurting a lot of innocent people and looking like the swine they are. I hope Denver is a good show, and I can't wait for the Battle of St. Paul. I tried to be there. Perhaps I can offer phone-jam support or something.

Tryin' to make us liberals look bad! FOX is going to eat this up.

There had better not be any murders or rapes or burglaries in Denver or Aurora over the next few days. We don't want our brothers in arms to neglect their real jobs, do we?

Yeah, we held the Republican convention that year, and Bush got elected, but we got some things right that year. Our police department did some very smart things (and yes, along with some very questionable things).

Protesters fail, either purposely or by naivety, to understand that people really do live and work in Denver, and by and large the residents just really want them all to go away as quickly as possible. Not because they disagree with their politics. They just hate it kids chain themselves together to block them from living their lives and getting to work and back.

In the case of Philadelphia in 2000 police in riot gear were rarely, if ever, seen. Our chief of police had his officers in bike uniforms. Not motorbikes, but on bicycles in shorts. They appeared more approachable, and less likely to want to fight. But if protesters got out of hand they would simply line up, lift their bikes up, and use them as barricades. Where they got it wrong is detaining large amounts of people until the convention was over and then saying, 'oops, our bad for keeping you locked up without charges for so long. But now you can protest all you want on your way out of our city'.

Sans the unconstitutional lockup technique, I'm surprised more cities don't adopt a similar, less threatening police image.

A machine gun is a heavier class of weapon.

And I can attest that the police are making their presence known in the streets of Denver. I was up there on Sunday to register for the music festival and sell some anti-McCain t-shirts my friends had designed and everywhere there were police.

It appears they're attempting to intimidate any problems out of existence, but I dunno. They had several white vans full of officers following the IVAW protesters who were a bunch of young kids, Code Pink ladies, some older folks, and assorted people with Peace on their mind. Noone I would think that requires such police supervision.

Frank Rizzo's Philly? Cops in shorts? On bikes?

Man... I guess SOME things CAN change.

All throughout the speeches last night I was struck by how much overtly heroic sacrifice is being put up for us to see and emulate. The father who gets up one hour earlier to go to work because MS forces him to dress up slowly; someone else talks about a brother who works the day shift and then, again, the night shift (wages from the latter to put a sibbling through college). And the moral of the story is always the same: If you sacrifice and are willing to work hard, you'll reap your just rewards. Why do we need more myths, quasi-religion? In the first place, these glamour stories bear no resemblance to the sacrifices of real people. You know what sacrifice is? It is working at a mind-dumbing job eight hours a day, after which all energy is sapped, except the energy to worry about unpaid bills. Many people would like to work two shifts: their physical strength is not what it used to be, though. Finally, it most certainly is not true that, if you work hard, you will be rewarded: tell that to the people who worked for years at a mine, only to see it cave in and, in the end, shut down. I do not know what "religion" they are trying to pull over my eyes with all these stories of sacrifice, but I think the emphasis is misplaced. Should truly progressive Democrats rejoice that, after working so hard, Michelle's father was able to send her to Princeton U? I think that truly progressive Democrats should bemoan the fact that Michelle's father, suffering from MS, still had to work after 30 years because he was his family's main provider. That's just the pity of it. That's what must be changed. No, do not tell me the man's life as an example to emulate! This is the cult of sacrifice that has no place in a truly progressive vision, a vision of joy, not a vision of Paradise tomorrow --- and by the way, suffer for now because we have no intention to change the circumstances that make your life so painful: "My father sacrificed, so can you."