“Forbearance. Benevolence. Truthfulness.”

Those words to live by — and I suppose, if necessary, to die for — were the first I saw and heard upon arrival in my old hometown to attend the Democratic National Convention.

Not that any Democrats were espousing them, of course . . . instead it was the oppressed practitioners of Falun Gong — now Public Enemy Number One to the morally and philosophically bankrupt Market-Leninists still in control of China — who were marching by the thousands through downtown Boston.

The protest was meant to draw attention to the torture and murder visited on Falun Gong practitioners on a regular basis by the threatened Chinese “Communist” Party, but it might just as well be viewed as a Zen telegram to the politicians, delegates, voters and media hordes assembled for the first of dual quadrennial political Noh theatre performances staged by the two wings of our own single-party state.

Trapped by the shutdown of downtown for the march, I had little choice but to hang a bit and discuss politics with the nutty devotees of the ever-more nutty Lyndon LaRouche, the crypto-fascist cult leader who is once again ‘running’ for the presidency of the USA.

“You guys should take some tips from these people,” I told one of the four scruffy young men handing out literature like “Children of Satan III: The Sexual Congress of Cultural Fascism.”

“They’ve got thousands of followers!”

“Yeah, but what are their principles?” asked one.

“It says right there on their banner,” I responded. “Forbearance. Benevolence. Truthfulness.”

“I don’t even know what those words mean,” said the LaRouchite.

The Democrats at least pretend to, as I found out later at the Fleet Center.

Not Your Father’s Party

Fleet replaced the venerable old Boston Garden a few years back. I have fond memories of being attacked there by Townies during several classic Knicks-Celtics games, and of temperatures well above one hundred in the fusty rafters of the ancient, barely air-conditioned fortress that housed the Boston basketballers back when they were led by Bill Russell and beat everyone in sight.

The modern replacement has lots of conditioned air but not an ounce of soul, which is no surprise given that, like most modern sporting arenas, it bears the name of a large corporation — in this case a bank.

But then practically everything has changed in Boston since I decamped nearly two decades ago. Mayor Tom Menino, for example, is Italian-American — the first non-Irish leader of the city since 1925. As City Council president, Menino acceded to the mayoralty when Raymond Flynn left to become Ambassador to the Vatican.

It’s a city that has been in flux since then, with a population that’s now ‘majority-minority’ (i.e. more than fifty percent non-white). One of three people living here is between 20-34, and one in four is foreign born.

Meanwhile the Big Dig (the multi-billion dollar federally funded, semi-boondoggle highway project that was House Speaker Tip O’Neill’s deathbed legacy to his hometown) has transformed much of the city’s infrastructure and waterfront, real estate has skyrocketed in formerly barren parts of the city, and even South Boston — once home to surly, insular, racist, Angel-dusted thugs who would jump you just for the fun of it — is now profiled in the New Yorker not for its opposition to busing but for its views of the cleaned-up waterfront and proximity to downtown.

No, this is NOT your father’s Oldsmobile! The agony of busing is thirty years on . . . the Harbor is no longer a cesspool . . . even the Democrats’ agony of Michael Dukakis as nominee is sixteen years in the past.

Everything has changed — yet nothing is different…

I See Dead Democrats

For one thing, I see dead people — or at least ghosts of the Democrat party of the past — nearly everywhere I go.

Like Michael Dukakis, for example, heading to Time Warner’s “Rooftop at the Ritz” post-convention party last night, looking stooped and older than I had imagined — probably in part due to the fact that the Dems have turned him into a non-person in a manner reminiscent of the old Soviet Union days. (I wouldn’t be surprised to see him actually Photoshopped out of pictures from the 1988 campaign!) And people like Walter and Joan Mondale, Janet Reno, George Mitchell, Jesse Jackson, Jimmy Carter, Frank Lautenberg . . .

Meanwhile on the floor of the convention, Howard Dean is being mobbed, as is newly-anointed Great Black Hope Barack Obama. The Wisconsin delegates are wearing cheeseheads, and it’s still just the first night.

Air America’s Al Franken is trying to work but his celebrity keeps getting in the way. Nothing’s changed…and everything’s different…

Shakin’ to the Oldies

Speechifying is going on nearly all the time, with the lesser lights obviously up first. Their brief remarks are interspersed with bursts of recorded music such as “We Are Family,” “Dancing in the Streets,” and Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Goin’ On?’– seems like the Democrats greatest hits, like the politicos on the floor — are mostly golden oldies.

Still, it’s better than that lame Fleetwood Mac song Clinton and Gore adopted as their theme song in 92, no? And in any event, Democrat music is always a lot hipper than Republican, hands down — at least you can shake whatever booty you’ve got to it!

At 7:58, the PA announces that the convention will ‘pause to await national television coverage’ at precisely eight pm — a sign that, despite the networks’ paltry three hours total coverage, the media still matters almost above all.

And there’s more media than ever . . . more but different, of course. Bloggers such as yours truly (www.RoryOConnor.org) allowed access for the first time — but then blogging barely existed four years ago . . . and scads of cablenewsers, radio, foreign press, print outlets from dailies like the Times and Post to monthlies like Vanity Fair. . . and at least three directors I know making different documentaries about pretty much the same thing . . .

It’s old home week again for the floating crap game that is political coverage, and there are lots of familiar, ghosty media faces as well.

At precisely eight, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, still perhaps the Great Hispanic Hope, calls the convention to order and predictably cites ‘inclusion’ as the convention theme. He tosses smoothly to Bebe Winans for a soul-stirring version of the National Anthem.

Winans done, it is time for Al Gore to speak.

I see dead people.

Gore, ever the good party apparatchik, holds back from the virulent Bush-bashing that has characterized most of his speeches this year. Instead he subtly tries to whack the Republicans with a series of stale jokes that bring little laughter.

Certainly he deserves the time (what about poor Dukakis?) — but his presence feels uncomfortable to me, and no doubt to Gore himself. He even tries a reprise of the famous Tipper liplock of yore, but you can’t go home again, and there are no second acts in America, etc. In any event the staged affection is mercifully brief.

Later David Alston, now a fiery preacher but once a crewmate of John Kerry in Vietnam, injected some actual emotion into the evening and the crowd. If Kerry actually wins in November, it will no doubt be due in large part to people like Alston and others of the “Band of Brothers” who do so much to humanize the stolid, stentorian candidate.

Don’t Stop Thinkin’ About Yesterday

But the highlight of the night, of course, was the blast from the past. Twin blasts in fact — first Hill, who had to fight even to get onto the stage at all in the first place, and next Bill. All eyes were on them as Hillary finished her stemwinder and introduced her erstwhile hubby — no Gore-like liplock here, but a cooler, more cerebral, we’ve gotta do this so lets at least make it look cordial embrace of sorts–or out of sorts, as the case may be. (The next morning my house-host informs me that Bill is having “an affair with a women in Toronto, and everyone is Canada knows all about it.”)

When Mr. Bill turned to face the convention, there was the first real outpouring of genuine emotion — even if it was just nostalgic — of the evening.

You could almost hear the mutters: “Can’t we just amend the Constitution and bring this guy back instead?” And his speech was superb — a far cry from his first at the 1988 convention, which went on so long that he was cheered when he finally got to the “In Conclusion” part.

As Time magazine political analyst Joe Klein put it, “What can you say — the guy doesn’t have a peer. He can do the wonky stuff and make you love it . . . policy issues in a way that’s extremely accessible. And that’s what he did tonight.”

Indeed, Clinton easily and flawlessly limned the differences and ’stark choice’ between what he defined as a democratic vision of opportunity at home and cooperation abroad, and the more narrow Republican vision that he termed “far to the right of most Americans.”

And isn’t that, after all is said and done — and there’s so much more to be said (at least) if not done this week at the Fleet Center — isn’t that what this convention, this campaign, this race for the presidency is about?

That… and maybe even a little about forbearance, benevolence and truthfulness…and the past, for sure, and the future as well.

And why not? Nothing’s changed… but everything is different.

Coming tomorrow—new Democrat faces and voices, and new ideas???