To the editor:

I have been following the political conventions and am amazed at what I have seen.

In Denver the people who wanted to protest the war and some Democrats that keep supporting war crimes in Iraq were given “free speech” areas to do so. These are cages set several hundred feet from any conventioneers so as not to offend their delicate sensibilities.

It’s OK to support an atrocity, it’s just not OK to be reminded of collusion with the Republicans in this brutality.

In Minneapolis, the local police, guided by federal agents, began a “pre-emptive” systematic clearing out of independent news people who don’t represent the corporate media. Amy Goodman of “Democracy Now,” a correspondent for PBS, was arrested and hauled away to jail for attempting to document the protests.

American lawmen are turning on American citizens who have a differing opinion from the power elite that own this country and are being arrested when they try to document this travesty of justice. This is called “tyranny.”

George W. Bush is so popular with his own party that he address the convention via satellite from a room in the White House, kind of like Bin Laden from a cave.

Americans’ rights have been eroded to the point that to refer to America as a democracy is laughable, but at least we can still gather in cages and speak our minds.

Like most of you, I love America, but this country we live in today is not America.

Dan Freeman

Clinton