WHO NEEDS PROTESTS WHEN WE HAVE THESE LEADERS?

Byline: Rob Sullivan

I believe I've come up with a simple solution to the containment of protesters during the coming Democratic National Convention at Staples Center: ban them.

That's right - ban the protesters and their protests, totally, irrevocably, and without any fuss-budgety concerns regarding the First Amendment and other assorted antiquated constitutional bric-a-brac.

The protesters are just going to sully the image of Los Angeles anyway - so get rid of them, before they get the chance to do their sullying.

As a matter of fact, let's go further than that: Let's ban all protests from the nation. They cost taxpayers money, are generally troublesome, and isn't any protest really superfluous and kind of downright nutty in this age of dot.coms and golden-parachute prosperity? I mean what's the protest about? The GDP is up, the deficit is down, and the stock market doesn't seem to have fallen flat on its back, despite the adjustments by the grand inflation-buster, Alan Greenspan.

Let's go one step further: Let's retroactively ban all protests from the history of the United States.

Why not? What has protesting ever done for this country? We'll start with the Boston Tea Party. Now there was some wanton destruction of property. A bunch of hooligans dressed up like Indians, tossing 342 chests of tea into the drink - what the heck were they trying to accomplish anyway?

And the Declaration of Independence thing: Who did these forefathers think they were, asserting their rights and causing all sorts of havoc for the authorities? Horace Greeley, John Quincy Adams and the rest of the abolitionists - reckless madmen, obviously on the wrong side of history - ban 'em.

And women! Let's soar back in time and ban all their frivolous protests about the vote. Why did women need the franchise anyway? What was the big deal? The suffragettes should have had enough sense to keep their silly complaints to themselves.

And workers! Let's go back to the 1930s and contain those idiots who protested against enforced overtime without compensation and lack of safety regulations. And while we're at it, let's erase the demonstrations regarding child labor laws and toss out the protests in favor of an eight-hour day.

And that Martin Luther King fellow - shouldn't he have been banned, or at least contained?

Wouldn't we be better off with a South that was still segregated and separate, unequal accommodations for the races? And the women's liberation movement - what were all their reckless shenanigans about? Why couldn't they have just stayed in the kitchen where they belonged? And gays? They would have been so much better off if they had simply stayed in the closet and never raised a peep in protest.

As for those who say hey fella, hold on there, these modern-day protesters can't be compared to the noble men and women who created our country and battled for our rights; these protesters are a bunch of crazed anarchists out to destroy property and rip asunder the fabric of our civic culture - didn't King George say pretty much the same thing about Madison and Jefferson? Frick and Ford and Carnegie weren't too fond of the working men and women who dared to raise their voices against the abject conditions in which they worked. And we all know what J. Edgar Hoover thought about Martin Luther King.

Imagine our country without the nettlesome history of protest. Hard to do, isn't it? Because first off, there wouldn't be a country, we would still be colonists, although out of the goodness of their hearts and the limits of their treasury, Great Britain might have granted us commonwealth status by now, I suppose.

Given that a United States of America couldn't have been created without protests and protesters, there would be no Constitution, no Declaration of Independence, no Liberty Bell, and no Fourth of July celebrations. We'd have no Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and James Madison raising their eloquent voices in righteous opposition to English tyranny.

African-Americans would not only still be barred from whites-only restaurants, hotels and bathrooms - they would still be slaves. We'd have no Sojourner Truth, no Harriet Tubman and no Frederick Douglas lifting their voices against the great injustice of bondage. Women would still be restricted to the kitchen and gays to the closet.

There would be no vote for women or minorities, and workers would still be laboring without any rights whatsoever, completely subject to the whims and caprices of employers. Sixteen-hour days would be commonplace, and children would be dropping out of sixth-grade to join the workforce.

But wait - why am I, a mere citizen, suggesting what the city of Los Angeles should do about protesters? The duly-elected officials of our good city are the ones in charge - they'll make sure that our hard-won civic image isn't sullied by the deeds of some kooky demonstrators. After all, they've been in charge of the MTA, the LAPD, and the LAUSD, and their handling of those institutions certainly didn't harm the image of Los Angeles, did it?

But, if they would ask for my humble advice, here's what I would say: ban 'em. America can certainly do without protests and protesters, especially when we have able-bodied police and astute politicians in charge.