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This week on Uprising:

* Reports from the Streets of Tampa: RNC Cancels First Day; Activists March in Tampa as Planned
* GOP’s RNC Speeches Invoke Virtues of Greed and Racial Resentments
* An In-Depth Analysis of Mitt Romney’s Acceptance Speech

* * *

Reports from the Streets of Tampa: RNC Cancels First Day; Activists March in Tampa as Planned

In response to tropical storm Isaac, the Republican Party this last week canceled the first day of their Convention in Tampa, Florida. This year’s RNC theme was “We Can Do Better.” A small army of delegates, GOP stalwarts, and media descended on the Tampa Bay Times Forum for a political bonanza that saw Mitt Romney formally nominated on Thursday as the Republican Presidential candidate. Speakers included famous and politically influential Republicans such as Speaker of the House John Boehner, Governor of Wisconsin Scott Walker, and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. Some delegates still loyal to former candidate Ron Paul used their clout to stage a protest against Romney.

Outside the Times Forum, a host of labor, student, and human rights groups gathered in Tampa on Monday morning to demonstrate against the policies of the Republican party. The “Coalition to March on the RNC” organized a mile long march from Perry Harvey Sr. Park to the Times Forum with over 60 social justice organizations participating. In a statement released ahead of time, organizers said, “We will be marching in the streets of Tampa, Florida, demanding jobs, healthcare, education, equality and peace….we want money spent on human needs, not on wars overseas and corporate greed.” Despite the cancellation of the RNC’s first day, the march has moved ahead has planned. We go now live to the streets of Tampa, Florida to speak with

GUEST: Carlos Montes, long time Los Angeles based activist, immigrant rights advocate, and founder of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression

Find out more at www.marchonthernc.com.

GOP’s RNC Speeches Invoke Virtues of Greed and Racial Resentments

With a number of speakers addressing the Republican National Party, we next take a look at some of the reigning themes of the convention, from the overt “We built It,” opening night theme, to the darker implications of celebrating voter ID laws that disenfranchise people of color. Over the course of the week, established and rising stars within the Republican party gave addresses including New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, and Florida Senator Marco Rubio. Also taking to the stage on the opening night was Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann, who’s task was to humanize her husband and introduce a more intimate side of him to the nation. Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan, a congressman from Wisconsin, gave a lengthy speech on Wednesday, also extolling Romney’s qualifications. And finally, on Thursday, Mitt Romney himself made his nomination speech. Both Ryan and Romney have come under fire for factual errors in their speeches.

GUEST: Ari Berman is a contributing writer for The Nation magazine and an Investigative Journalism Fellow at The Nation Institute. He has written extensively about American politics, foreign policy and the intersection of money and politics. He is author of Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics. Ari Berman is Uprising’s Election Analyst

I spoke with Ari on Thursday about the speeches leading up to Ryan and Romney’s – later George Lakoff will join us to dissect the Presidential ticket.

Meanwhile, outside the Republican Convention, protesters from all over the country organized events, marches, actions, and more. A small camp in the vicinity of the convention, organized by Occupy Wall Street, dubbed itself Romneyville, named after the Depression-era Hoovervilles, or shantytowns built by the homeless. On Thursday, the last day of the RNC, I also spoke with Janelle Irwin, a Senior Reporter at WMNF community radio in Tampa, Florida.

GUEST: Janelle Irwin, Senior Reporter at WMNF in Tampa

Visit rnc.wmnf.org for WMNF’s RNC coverage. And, follow them on twitter @wmnfnews.

An In-Depth Analysis of Mitt Romney Acceptance Speech

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney formally accepted the GOP Presidential nomination on Thursday night, delivering a speech considered to be the peak of his political career so far. The speech was designed to further humanize himself via vignettes from his family life. Romney has been painted by his friends and colleagues as someone who is not comfortable talking about his personal life but in his speech he referred to the bonds he shares with his parents, and his wife and children.

Predictably the majority of the speech was geared toward attacking President Obama’s record. While Romney acknowledged that many Americans were likely proud to have voted four years ago for the nation’s first black president, it was now time to give up on him. He accused the President of attacking American success, failing to create jobs, failing to reduce the deficit, and creating a hostile environment for businesses. He also blamed the president for not having what he considered the prime job qualification necessary for the Presidency – experience at running a business.

Romney rolled out a plan to create 12 million new jobs if he were elected President. His plan would take aggressive advantage of domestic fossil fuel energies, invest in job training, promote free trade agreements, cut the deficit, reduce taxes on businesses, and of course, repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Romney also briefly referred to the mainstay of the GOP’s Christian base by promising to “protect the sanctity of life,” “honor the institution of marriage,” and “guarantee America’s first liberty: the freedom of religion.”

GUEST: George Lakoff, a Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, he’s the author of a number of books including Don’t Think of an Elephant!, Whose Freedom? The Battle Over America’s Most Important Idea, and The Political Mind. He also writes for the Huffington Post

Click here to read George Lakoff’s latest article in the Huffington Post.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day:

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” — Martin Luther King Jr.