Hollywood smoke screen

Still shaking his pom-poms, Mayor Riordan promised to show conventioneers "the best beaches, the best mountains, the best weather ... the best restaurants, the best theaters. But most of all, we will show them the most diverse and beautiful people in the world -- Angelenos."

That's as long as they aren't carrying a protest sign. In which case, convention organizers would rather you just looked the other way. "We're not going to let 200 criminally minded people ruin this convention," said Riordan. "It's going to be a wonderful, happy time." Even if it means suspending the Constitution -- including trying to search the protesters' headquarters without a warrant and illegally detaining protest organizers.

The local authorities seem intent on enforcing a zero-tolerance policy for anyone hoping to remind people of what one human rights activist called "the politics behind the protests."

"We have plenty of room" in the county jails, chirped Sheriff Lee Baca. It's difficult to imagine how, since Los Angeles has the state's highest rate of imprisonment of those convicted of misdemeanor drug possession -- a 2,700 percent increase since 1980. The price tag for locking up L.A.'s misdemeanor drug offenders for a year: a whopping $110 million. Is that what's known as "affordable housing" these days?

From the comfort of the luxury skyboxes at the Staples Center, life must seem so cozy, so secure and so safe -- not just from protesters but from ordinary citizens. And it's so easy to paint all the demonstrators who will fill the streets this week with the same brush -- demonizing anyone not buying into the Democrats' "progress and prosperity" charade. The message is clear: "Don't mess with our party." But a democracy dismisses its disillusioned, disaffected and disregarded at its own peril.

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