I am writing this diary to tell a story, or the beginnings of one.
To make a banal start, let us imagine two characters:
Two brothers, in some ways as similar as they can be, but as ideologically opposite as they can possibly be, coming from the same roots in "white trash poverty". Both elevated on their own gumption and moxy, to the high auspices of the lower and middle classes, both wanting to preserve their country in the ways they understand (which is sometimes little).
And an event, possibly representing a turning point in the dialog and discourse, representing a node in the future history of America.
Think U.S. Civil war, folks, hopefully without the bloodshed. Brother against brother. Passionate hatred of Republicans versus emotionless hatred of Democrats.
Character 1 is the older brother. He's a gay atheist, subversive-type in the sense of passing unnoticed through life, a tiny bit autistic in the hyperaware, un-people ready state, but adaptive. A programmer harboring delusions of being able to create the Matrix itself. Quasi-brilliant in an unstudied way -- a college dropout hoping to make a difference. But also a creature of Matrix-like guile, trying to find the intersection of people politics and mechanistic cyberperfection, a passionate Borg-like guy, heavily involved in the liberal blogosphere, knowledgeable in events, past, present and future, spanning things from the School of the Americas to Don Siegelman.
Character 2 is a family man, a solid Republican, ex-military, also brilliant in his own way, but with resentments toward the older brother, whom he thinks considers him "stupid". He has a job that intersects him with the lower levels of the corporate/government conspiracy against the American people, to the older brother's perspective. Though middle aged, has two baby daughters, whom he loves deeply, one of whom is dying tragically from a mitochondrial disorder.
And the event: Democratic Convention, Denver, 2008.
I got in my car Friday evening and drove down to Denver Sheriff's department headquarters to have a very unhealthy fast food dinner. It's family, you know? As always, I am waved through the checkpoint, and in some undefinable sense I find this funny. I'm a quintessentially nonviolent guy and have nothing against basic law and order even if I was.
So I'm waved through, and see my brother, and we pile into his SUV for this recently enacted weekly ritual. We were going to TGI Friday's, but as the wait was 20 minutes and I'm seeing my brother on his "lunch" break (he works nights). So we get Sonic artery hardener on my credit card.
The older brother wants to make jokes. You see, younger and older have had severe disagreements, and recently have not even spoken to each other much for most of the year. Recently, I've changed my diet on account of incipient diabetes.
So I'm trying middle eastern cuisine. Quite a change for from a red-meat-eating, corn fed cornball, gay atheist style! So I want to joke that if nothing else did, eating falafel and hummus and all those other good things will put me on the terrorist watch list, if nothing else did!
"There's no terrorist watch list, Andy," my brother says dourly. "You liberals and the ACLU wouldn't let us have one". (Keep in mind, I'm paraphrasing here, and throughout the story), but the ACLU was mentioned, and the lack of existence of a terrorist watch list.
That shuts the joking down, quick. "How are you doing?" I ask.
"Ok, he says, and I ask him about my niece. He tells me how they met with the geneticist recently, who told them to make the best of the time they have.
So then he starts talking about how he's on the fence about a national ID card and wants to talk about how he only supports torture in the most dire situations, such as terrorists blowing up Manhattan. I talk about the Geneva Convention, how nobody will trust us, and does he really want his country being identified with torturers in the eyes of the world? He gives me the America, shining city on the Hill speech, and this is the part where I tell him America is not lily white and pure, and mention School of Americas. My brother snorts.
Then he mentions "Recreate '68" and how they want to, in his view, disrupt the convention.
We get back to his office. He has a giant "Democratic Convention, 2008" poster on his wall. It's funny, I guess, to me, but you'd have to be there. In the past, he's told me how he likes the CIA guys and dislikes the FBI guys he works with for security at this convention. The FBI guys, you see, are arrogant.
Needing to push back, in my own tiny way, I mention Rush Limbaugh wanting violence at the convention. Had he heard about that?
"No," he says, more curtly than necessary.
So the conversation devolves to his non-dying daughter, my other niece. She's brilliant and smart and funny and tiny and oh so young and my brother's a good parent, a better parent than I could possibly be. He impresses me hugely when I we start talking about the limits of human potential. I tell him about things being different in potential when you teach people how to THINK instead of just facts and numbers and he tells me how he's raising her.
All taking place in less than an hour, on a cold average weekday in Denver.
I don't know how to help. I am a brilliant cyber-logician and tactician. I want to help my brother. I want to help my fellow liberals, but don't know how to apply my skills to the task. I'm torn.
Like my brother, I don't want violence of any kind at the Democratic convention, but I worry about him. He talks about national ID cards like they're a good thing and has a rosy idealistic view of surveillance and social order.
I'm as supicious as a person can possibly be of organizations like the NSA, the FBI (under Bush). He works with these people as part of his job. We both want a peaceful convention, and our city (Denver) to be safe.
What to do, what to do? What rough beast, comes round at last? Will '68 really be recreated?
