Protesters Call Cheney to Task

San Francisco -- It is a beautiful early morning and protesters are just beginning to assemble behind the barricades, across the street from the venerable Fairmont Hotel. Inside, preparations are under way for the arrival of the Vice-President of the United States, who will be the guest speaker at the Commonwealth Club of California. Outside, demonstrators are beginning to drift in front of the security forces of SFPD, and the cameras of CNN.

As the hour nears eight o'clock, the demonstrators grow rapidly in number and the police take up pre-arranged positions. The routine on both sides follows pre-determined paths of peaceful public demonstrations against the establishment. This happens whenever the leadership of the few, the Bush administration, find themselves vulnerable in the presence of those of us they claim to represent. Unless our national leaders are speaking to kindergarten students, or military gatherings they seem not to welcome the crowds that attend their appearance. That is definitely true on this occasion.

There are perhaps two hundred people now, and the block-long street in front of the hotel has been sealed off. The crowd begins to chant: "He's in bed with Corporate Crime -- Cheney should be doing time!" The cavalry arrives, six cops on horseback saunter their beautiful animals back and forth in front of the barricades. Their riot helmets rest quietly on the pommels of their saddles, but the body language of the officers is hostile. A paddy wagon stops in the middle of the street and plastic handcuffs are distributed to about thirty cops. The chanting continues: "Cover-up is Corporate Crime -- Cheney should be doing Time!"

Now the barricade, which was taking up about half a lane of the two-way street, is forcibly moved back to the curb. The plastic handcuffs -- a legacy created by Ed Meese for demonstrations of another kind -- are used to secure the barricades to street signs that line the crowded sidewalk. The crowd continues to cram itself into an ever-smaller space, and this intensifies the chanting. "Let's clean up the corporate slime -- Cheney should be doing Time!"

Enter the San Francisco Mime Troupe, with the entire cast of their current production, "Mr. Smith Goes to Obscuristan," starring none other than "Dick" Cheney. The star of their production, a man with an amazingly similar appearance to Cheney begins to make his jovial way through the tightly packed crowd. He gently waves in imitation of the very powerful while he says to one and all; "So nice to see all the little people here." It is a moment that one might find at Carnival and the crowd loves it.

The Cavalry is restless and finally they position themselves at either end of the street. The horses answer nature's call in front of the barricades -- adding a not-so-aromatic scent to the festive nature of the moment. On the California Street side of the demonstration a bizarre group of protesters now appear, surrounded by police. They are wearing all white, carrying black campaign placards that say Bush - Cheney. The signs, white letters on gloss black have a full color American flag beside the names. There are about half-a-dozen of these people led by a rather excited man with a bullhorn. To counter the larger crowd they begin to chant: Cheney! Cheney! Cheney! To this the crowd responds by inserting one word -- for the sound one makes when using a straw too fervently -- between each pronouncement of the vice-president's name.

Still photographers began to mingle with police, using telephoto lenses. Their faces are more like those of clandestine agents than professional photographers. But cameras are everywhere and most people pay little attention to them. There is a man just in front with a shirt that says: "Invisibile no more" in fire yellow on light purple -- that seems to capture the mood rather well.

The police try to create more space on the sidewalk between the administration's supporters of the guest, and the rest of us. Finally, the barricades are moved back to where they were in the street, leaving more room for the demonstrators, but encompassing rather large quantities of horse droppings for us to deal with. Spirits were still high and growing. Now there were about 400 people amassed in front of the hotel.

Here the Mime Troup was permitted to make a mock arrival 'at the hotel' across the street. Several startled guests who were trying to leave the building thought for a minute that they might be caught up in a situation. But instead everyone seemed to enjoy the humor of the moment.

As the next hour nears, the now nearly 500 people intensify their cry in unison: "He's in bed with Corporate Crime! --Cheney should be doing Time!" And a few more of us begin to drift away, back to our computers and back to the working half-life of this world.

In George Orwell's classic novel 1984, the "Ministry of Truth" declares: "War is Peace -- Freedom is Slavery and Ignorance is Strength." To these hallmarks of double-speak, the Bush administration has now added some obscenities of their own: "Promises are Prosperity -- Bankruptcy is Wealth and of course, Lies are Truth!

This morning's New York Times quoted Cheney as saying to the Commonwealth Club: "When there is corporate fraud, the American people can be certain that the government will fully investigate, arrest and prosecute those responsible."

Cheney is someone who has used his positions over the years to extreme personal advantage, both for himself and for awhile, for the "growth" of Halliburton as well. However those profits appear to have been more than simple exaggeration. His activities would seem to merit a full investigation, not only by the SEC, but also by a Special Prosecutor at the very least. Given this cloud of doubt that surrounds our second highest office-holder in the land, he should have choked on his own words to the members of the Commonwealth Club of California. Maybe he actually believes that "Lies are Truth."

He was once interrupted in the collegial setting of his speech. It seems that five people who disagreed with him, had actually acquired tickets to the lecture, and began to shout: "Corporate Criminal!" as they were being escorted from the room.

When will the gulf between reality and the declared goals of those who are supposed to lead this country come together? The public wanted answers to the accounting scandals, what we got was the PATRIOT act. When we pressed for prosecution of corporate crime, we got Homeland Security, something that was first dreamed up by Newt Gingrich of "Contract on America" fame. When the markets kept falling, and the public's concerns about the possibility of losing jobs, losing their future well being, and possibly their life-savings to 401K fraud: Bush and Co. began to push hard for simultaneously re-organizing the entire federal government while starting a new war with Iraq. And all of this on the eve of coming elections. Someone is not listening.

People are actually beginning to wonder what has this "War on Terror" accomplished? We still don't know about either Osama or Omar, and we have yet to find the author of the Anthrax letters. We've dropped a lot of bombs, held a lot of press conferences, and trashed the Bill of Rights, while preparing to make further incursions into the body of the Constitution itself. This campaign is under the leadership of a man who lost his last bid for public office to a dead man. The top-cop in America, who seems not to have even read existing law, now is the final authority on who's a threat and who's a patriot in these troubled times.

America needs answers to those things that most concern its working citizens. It seems that the wealthy have paid their way to incredible financial rewards, even if many of those "profits" turn out to be ill-gotten gains. It's the needs of the other four-fifths of us that are being ignored. And eventually -- unless this disparity between classes of income is addressed -- this wonderful experiment in representative democracy will lose its value. Of course, as in Orwell's novel, Big Brother might get away with this charade -- if and only if -- we continue to fail to pay attention to the events that surround us everyday.

For my part, I think "Cheney should be doing time!"

Jim Kirwan encourages your comments at Wildfire9of9@yahoo.com.