FOOLS RUSH IN

Is anyone in protest movements -- save environmentalists -- spreading
anything but bullshit?

It must have really bugged the involved citizens at the Democratic National
Convention this week when Jay Leno conducted a "test" of passersby in Los
Angeles, querying one college-educated woman who identified George W.
Bush's GOP as "the Elephant Party," and then a teacher who couldn't name
the Democratic presidential candidate.

These were intelligent people, but as they stammered before the cameras it
was clear they followed politics as closely as I follow monster trucking.
These two women represent the growing masses who are not involved in any
politics beyond that which takes place at their child's school or in their
company's staff meetings.

When millions of educated and intelligent citizens decide to "drop out" of
politics -- as millions have during the huge decline in voter participation
of the past decade -- it creates a tremendous opportunity for fools to rush
in. And act out, like they did outside the Democratic National Convention
at the Staples Center.

The week started out appropriately. First, the People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals miraculously got on national television by dumping a
truckload of manure in front of a hotel. It was actually pretty fun, but
the group immediately ruined its infamous moment by inanely screaming "meat
murderers!" at the cameras. Net result: For every person who decided to
join PETA this week, a far greater number probably decided to run as far
away from these nuts as possible.

That mangled stunt was followed by the first big street protest, staged by
a group made up of white twentysomethings, older longhairs, and black
college-aged dreadlockians. They were demanding a new trial for convicted
murderer Mumia Abu-Jamal, who has transformed himself into an articulate
author fighting to save his own life. The Mumia movement was inspired by a
hit rock song about him, and, like the convention week itself, is a muddled
and many-flanked affair waged largely by people who are blissfully unaware.

When I spoke to a handful of the Mumia protestors, none had a clue that
Jamal's case against his prosecutors is not only extremely flimsy, but his
murder conviction is not nearly as questionable as those of a half-dozen
other black men on Death Row. Unlike Mumia, some of them may actually be
acquitted with DNA testing. But the articulate Mumia gets all the attention
from this growing movement nationwide.

(A typical Mumia-fan response to my skepticism, which I got from a
dreadlocked man named Bob Jones, was: "Yeah, but they wrote a song about
Mumia!")

Everywhere I went this week, I saw throngs of people with a strong aversion
to facts and a real disregard for taking the time to think. Five different
conventions were under way, yet not surprisingly the public was only barely
engaged.

Although the dedicated activists who ran the show in the streets this week
were well-meaning, their idiot quotient was high -- which reflects the mass
departure of brainpower from grassroots and national political arenas.
Accomplished people are busy succeeding in business and careers in our gold
rush economy, and political movements have clearly suffered from the loss.
Of all the movements I sampled, only the environmental ones were making sense.

Besides the Democratic National Convention, there were the Shadow,
Homeless, People's, Mothers, and Anarchists conventions.

Railing about the ridiculous was particularly acute among the anarchists,
who held their convention in a modest studio in the long-neglected eastern
backside of Echo Park. Anarchist Convention czars were pursuing political
reasoning that was absurdly nuanced: They allowed a Los Angeles Times
reporter to attend their workshops, while pointedly barring a writer from
the Washington Post.

For those who paid the $25 fee to hear the anarchists -- who were,
amusingly, following a tightly organized schedule beset with all sorts of
rules -- their convention offered a long weekend of speakers sounding the
one note that government is bad.

Yet whenever I asked an anarchist what would be better for organizing
society than the current construct of democracy, I got that pitying
arched-brow response that is so popular among people who can't think more
than one move ahead in chess.

One anarchist, calling himself only Gary, told me: "If you don't understand
what we are saying, somebody really got to you."

It's not that the anarchists are mentally challenged, but that they see
darkness and death where most see opportunity and life -- which explains
why fewer than 200 people showed up at their weekend conference, at least
20 of them from European and U.S. media.

Speaker John Zerzan, one of the few anarchist presenters who would reveal
his full name, rambled on about how colonialism is alive and well in the
world: "The nations who practice it are in control of millions of people
who are enslaved to fulfill their corporate needs."

The problem is that comfy theorists such as Zerzan don't offer society an
alternative that's a smidgen better. Yes, people work for pennies in
Malaysia to make American shoes, but those increasingly secure and employed
Malaysians would not choose to give up their jobs and return to the chaos
of poverty.

An anarchist named EAE gave a talk in which he kissed off all the pacifist
protest groups as suffering from a mass "pathology" laid on them by the
greater societal powers. A guy calling himself Wolfi spoke with feeling on
behalf of "insurrectional anarchism" -- but never was able to explain why
he thinks insurrection is necessary.

The only real pragmatism I witnessed was in the content of two seminars
entitled "Chemical Weapons," and "First Aid," in which a paranoid bunch
known as the Black Cross Collective laid out the dos and don'ts of getting
gassed and beaten.

In toto, I saw a sadsack group of very concerned people. It was almost
screamingly clear that the anarchists are transferring their angst and
fears to unnamed masses who they insist are the ones dissatisfied. A
speaker named Joel seriously suggested "We need to abolish the white race,"
when probably all he really needs is a good therapist. Yes, he's white. But
he didn't commit suicide.

Back downtown, I ran into an anarchist named Em, who was searching the
streets for a vendor selling black T-shirts with the huge, red anarchists A
logo on them. "I want to relieve you of your job," he said to me. I hardly
knew how to thank him.

Luna Sol Cafe on 6th Street near MacArthur Park, a health-food restaurant
within walking distance of the Rampart police station, had become the
unofficial watering hole of the anarchists, Mumians, and unaffiliated
others whom I can only describe as kinda counterculture because they are
mostly college-age hipsters rooting around for something to do. One small
group described themselves as anarchists, even though they could not
immediately define the word. They were upset about a host of issues,
including "corporate greed" and "discrimination" against illegal immigrants
- -- particularly the pumped-up security at the Mexican border that has
prompted illegals to cross physically treacherous desert areas to get into
the United States.

Josh Burrows, who came in from San Diego for the week, said: "Anarchists
are picking up where the '60s left off, because the leaders in the '60s
stopped before they completed the job. I've read about [uh, the '60s], and
you can see a lot of the parallels."

What were the chances that Josh's nascent anti-establishment movement could
catch the attention of the Democrats, or anybody else, when the
establishment is so damn happy with itself nowadays? Nada.

Even the Shadow Convention, rich in well-educated and respected speakers
such as Gore Vidal, seemed to be virtually ignored by the media and the
Democrats. Perhaps it was the arrogance of power the Democrats have
acquired over eight years, but it might also have been because the
Shadowites seemed to mimic the anarchists on some days, featuring a number
of pigheaded theorists who hadn't a clue.

This was most acute in the person of has-been author Jonathan Kozol, a
faded darling of the left who is still stubbornly preaching his failed
philosophy of laid-back education that inspired such disasters as England's
Summerhill. A school freed of testing or teaching, Summerhill churned out
children who could not cope with college or demanding jobs.

Yet the highly defensive Kozol has over the years become so intolerant of
other viewpoints -- even though his theories have backfired in schools --
that he won't appear on the same dais with California's education reform
multimillionaire, Ron Unz.

At the Homeless Convention, which was covered only by a handful of U.S.
media types but by many more European journalists, lots of important
messages were interspersed with racial posturing. The angry rhetoric of
some speakers -- such as the ones who argued for federal reparations for
black Americans because their ancestors suffered slavery -- was as goofy as
anything I heard on the streets all week.

It's been fun to take a whack at the well-intentioned goofballs and
pigheaded scholars who have roamed L.A. during the DNC. But I am pretty
sure ridicule was not what they had in mind when they came here. Whether
they resorted to violence or not, they faced a daunting task -- to rile up
the populace and inspire change at a time when most everybody's bloated and
happy. I am pretty sure they failed.