August 25, 2008
Fun at the DNC by Marty
posted by Marty
It was an arduous trip from Berkeley to Denver, but we made it here last night. The city was nice enough to great us with a fireworks show. So nice of them.
Denver seems like a nice place. The people are friendly, the city is visually appealing, and with the exception of the temporarily excessive police presence, it's seems like a pretty chill place to be. We spent the day today running our "Conscious Carnival" games as part of the Green Frontier Fest, which was mostly an expo of green businesses, clean energy, and "sustainable" consumerism. (If only we could buy our way to sustainability.)
I had a lot of fun running the "Toss out Fossil Fuels" bean bag toss game. Something about encouraging small children to hurl chunks of simulated coal in order to "take out the power plants," as I like to put it, brings a tingle to my heart.
Being so busy with the Roadshow, I figured I'd miss the action that was bound to ensue
at the convention, but, by chance, I heard a report of a "riot"
breaking out not two blocks away from the Green Fest. I decided to
borrow a bike and ride over to check it out. The "riot" consisted of a
couple black flags, and a few dozen
storm troopers, in full regalia. As I expected, the only visible signs
of violence were embodied in the weapons of the authorities. I bet
they've been waiting all year to show off their new toys! People looked
on in awe, hesitating to jay-walk for fear of being pepper sprayed or
hit with rubber bullets and batons. Quite the demonstration of power.
Let's not forget who's in control. "Who's streets?" Their streets,
clearly.
Back at the festival, I decided to spend some time canvassing for RAN's agribusiness campaign. After a few minutes talking to the festival-goers, I found that the people were incredibly responsive to the mission and strategy of RAN. Nothing like flipping the ratio, and getting 9 out of 10 people to sign your list! I walked around, casually meeting people, and talking about rainforest destruction for palm oil. I've never had such an easy time talking about such heavy material. (Ironically, as I type this, I realize that the almond butter sample tubes that I've been enjoying for days contain... you guessed it, palm oil.)
As the event ended, and we began to break down, a couple familiar faces appeared. As they began to talk in wacky voices, accompanied by a camera crew, we realized they were correspondents from the Daily Show. They were doing a bit about the giant windmill blade, and how the DNC is so green that they trucked the gigantic blade all the way from Texas. We watched them shoot and reshoot the take several times, and then some of us decided to make a
move. Donning the "GMO Freakshow" posters, three of our eco-carnis
silently approached the crew. It was just awkward enough to totally
weird them out, and they were somehow convinced to give us some air
time, with an impromptu interview! Watch the Daily Show this Tuesday,
as they totally rip us into pieces! There's now such thing as bad
press... right?OK, well, that's just the end of day one at the DNC. 5 hours to sleep before a long day setting up for our full-blown eco-carnival on Tuesday. I'm also pretty psyched to be giving a short talk at the end of the "Procession for the Future," which I still have to prepare for. I'll let you know how it goes!
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