DNC’s protesters are self-centered malcontents
This past weekend was the feast of St. Christine. She is a virgin martyr, which is kind of repetitive but gives you some idea about her suffering. That is why she is a saint. The woman was tortured by her own father, who was a pagan and who did not like his daughter converting to Christianity and thereby embarrassing him in full view of the rest of the animal sacrificers. Christine spent a good part of her life imprisoned in a tower, filled with snakes, where she was deprived of food, water and access to the internet (just included that to see if you were paying attention).
Other than the name, I never felt that I shared much with my patron saint. I’ve had a fairly comfortable life, and while I’m not the best Christian around, I can still say a Rosary in my sleep. It wasn’t until Monday afternoon when I realized that St. Chris and I have something in common: We were both trapped in a tower against our desires.
On Monday afternoon, over a four and a half-hour period, various motley groups of protesters made their way down South Broad Street right in front of my office. That office is located between three funeral homes, a tanning salon, and a florist. After a few hours of hearing “End the Race War,” “Legalize the Weed,” and “”What do We Want? JUSTICE! When do we Want It? After WE SMOKE THIS WEED!” I was ready to check in at one of the funeral homes and send myself an arrangement of flowers.
Like my namesake, I was trapped on the second floor of my office and could not get out. I mean, I probably could have made it to the subway and escaped the bowels of South Philadelphia if I really tried. There were some rather passive police officers standing at the corner in a bemused fashion, and I’m assuming one of them would have given me a protective escort to the orange line (and to those of you not from Philadelphia, that has nothing to do with Donald Trump).
But I realized that this was not going to be easy. The streets were filled with slow-moving protesters, some of whom probably started out on their trek from Woodstock and had gotten lost a few decades ago. Yes, they looked that scraggly.
Others were millennials walking with a particular jauntiness to their step and signs that said things like “The Government is Corrupt” and “Make Love, not the Dean’s List.” Every time I thought it was ending and I could emerge from my office to breathe the fetid Philadelphia air, another wave of malcontents came ambling down the street. At one point there was a group that approached chanting “Hands up, Don’t Shoot” and I wanted to tell them that they had more to fear from me than the police, who were behaving themselves magnificently.
Don’t get me wrong. These people were not a violent crew. In their own, crunchy, need-ashower way, they were rather polite. They were certainly more zen than many of the Trump supporters I’ve seen on television punching, cursing and loaded for bear. I know that a lot of conservatives think that the violence at Trump rallies was exaggerated, but television doesn’t lie. Those people were loud.
Bernie Sanders’ gang is not, not really. They’re relatively mellow, and given the giant inflated doobie that some of them were dragging down the street like a dirigible, I’m not surprised. On the other hand, it’s much easier criticize an aggressive loudmouth with an AK47 on his shoulders than it is to be annoyed at some peacenick with a hand-made sign strolling languidly down the street.
Others will say, oh come on, they’re just exercising their First Amendment rights to assemble. And that is true.
But when you dig a little deeper, you realize just how inconsiderate those constitutionalists taking their constitutionals really are. They don’t care that they are messing up your evening commute, you who have spent the whole day working so you can pay your mortgage at the end of the month in an office with faulty air conditioning. They don’t care that you can’t fill out that asylum application for a man who has suffered significantly more than they did, because you can’t hear yourself think over that out of tune chanting of “We Shall Overcome.” They really don’t care that you are happy and smiling that Debbie Wasserman Schultz is toast, and share their belief that she is the wicked witch of the Eastern Seaboard.
They only care about making their points, which no one who matters will hear or digest, because they are all in nice air-conditioned digs at the Wells Fargo Center about a mile and a half down the road. Tonight, they will be going to cocktail parties and ritzy soirees, and will be helicoptered or limousined to their destinations.
I, on the other hand, will be stuck in my office tower. But at least we had the exterminator in last week so I’m feeling good about the snakes.