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Rabble Rabble Rabble
Christ I’m in a bad mood. Get comfortable if you’re interested, there will be a few healthy pages of this when I’m through.
Oh hurrah. We had a ‘riot’ the other night. There was a citywide dance held downtown in my city. Now, keep in mind, that I can name more bars than I can regular events for teenagers… We have two ‘underage’ clubs in town and they’re expensive, concerts are very rare, we have a smattering of theatres, and there are all night diners… I can name more bars than this. So there’s this dance… it’s being put on for kids ages 14-19… keep in mind, ladies and gentleman, that one can only drive a car if they are sixteen and have done the requisite things to do so. It also must be provided that they have cars. Also keep in mind that it’s cold, here… colder than it was, though not as cold as it could be… but still bloody chilly. Below freezing, at night.
Suddenly, police run into this center waving pepper spray and billy clubs, telling everyone to get out and disperse. Apparently, there were some fights breaking out, which I can agree upon being a bad situation… but certainly not one warranting billy clubs and pepper spray. Bewildered I’m sure, kids started getting their things to go… (most of them) with the police still yelling in their faces. Apparently, there was then a really bad riot… I’m not sure I believe that. Every goddamn police officer in this city was downtown on this issue. These are the same ever faithful, every shrewd police officers that are pulling ambling motor-homes aside for having single tail-lights out coming out of the state fair at ten o’clock at night… the self-same state fair, at the self-same time, that is famed for being fairly dangerous because it’s on a relatively narrow road and… people tend to tear down it at up of eighty miles an hour. These are the same police officers, I’m sure, that are busying themselves harassing lone, 18-year olds walking home from a friend’s house in silence at some wee hour in the morning for ‘curfew violations’… in a neighborhood where much worse goes on on a level both well known and constant.
So this riot… Our mayor held a meeting to ‘answer any questions about the situation’ to the hordes of outraged parents and teens, both those who had been at the dance and those who hadn’t. In his opinion, the city and the police force have absolutely no reason to apologize for anything that happened that night, and that it would be far more appropriate for someone to be apologizing for the ‘behavior of the children’.
Our mayor also, shortly after getting in office, shut down a feature at the local public library involving homosexuality. As I recall, it wasn’t even a ‘gay pride’ display… it was an educational issue. Our mayor, in my opinion, is a certified public imbecile. I will remind you now that the word ‘imbecile’ is meant to mean, and used here, as someone so absolutely and irreversibly stupid that they cause harm.
I see these people all the way up the food chain of our wonderful democracy. AND! I’m not finished. There’s a lot more on my mind than our local ‘riot’. (PH33R!!)
There was on in Chicago, too… anyone hear about that? Similar situation on a far larger scale at a nightclub… apparently, 21 people were killed in a stampede to the door after police or security or someone came in with pepper spray and shouting and nightsticks to break up fights. Adding to the situation, many of the exits people stampeded too were bolted solidly shut for no apparent reason.
Now, onto our feature presentation.
Speaking of the ‘war on terror’ (or whatever they’re at war with today) (and yes, you were speaking of it, you just don’t know you were). Bush isn’t doing a very good job. Because I’m terrified. I’m very terrified. Or maybe he is doing a good job, because I’m certainly not terrified, or even nervous, about anyone in the Middle East… David Bowie said it best. ‘I’m Afraid of Americans’. I’m afraid of being a citizen of this country, I’m afraid of being under this umbrella of ‘democracy’, under this ‘government’. They frighten me. John Ashcroft and his oh-so-appropriate Patriot Acts. The fact that ‘Dubya’ is a pawn to people LIKE John Ashcroft and all those other names.
I’m disgusted by the fact that more people in Iraq and Afghanistan have died since 9/11 than anyone who even got debris sprayed in their faces from the collapse of the twin towers. I’m appalled by the fact that they want me to build some kind of ‘safe room’ out of Duct Tape and Visqueen (It’s NOT plastic sheeting. It’s Visqueen, god damnit). This catchy Rainbow of Terrorism that they’ve invented, or the fact that somehow can’t explain thoroughly, or publicly, enough for it to mean anything to me in the slightest, does not amuse me.
Once, people were slaughtered by the hundreds for the name of one god or another. Religion in a highly visceral thing, spirituality has been and will always be a heartfelt and integral part of any creative and thinking race. It is, however, considered barbarous to kill for one’s god… for one’s spiritual beliefs. These things are allowed to be different (and thank heavens, else I’d be road kill). It is not, however, barbarous to kill and die for one’s country. Blindly. It is heroic. It is patriotic. It may soon be REQUIRED. Nationalism and politics have replaced religion in this world of machines (of both metal and flesh). It horrifies me to think what a steamroller we have become. Little more than a big, hulking, stupid animal capable of massacring most things that would stand in its path. Selfish, hedonistic, cruel. This is the dream called America.
Thank you, Mister President, for your war on terror. I’ll repeat… I’m terrified for my own life, and not the beating of my heart but the free ticking of my mind. I’m terrified that the steamroller will take the man I love away from me and send him overseas for a cause he believes in no more than I do. For a cause that is so threadbare as to be silkily sheer.
‘For a freedom… so ironic, so despicable, so hypocritical.’
And for a more personal complaint, just to offset my angst at things I can do nothing for, at least in the short run… my head hurts, my spine is badly out of line and refuses to even pop for me now and I ache. My bed is my own, lonely, tonight and thusly cold. I do not think I will sleep until hours after I should. I am not looking forward toward the grind of school that the morning will bring. So ignorant and so every-day. I feel there should be change, perhaps unjustified. I feel that I have been robbed of my brief vacation by the other traumas that riddled the last three days. I want it back so that it will be different.
In short, I’m very vexed and very ornery… The morning should cool the ember, but it will not extinguish it. I take comfort in the fact that there was a three-line letter to the editor in the paper the other day simply outlining my previous religion-vs.-nationalism sentiment. The lady said that bombs wouldn’t make us any friends… She said that religion used to be spread by the sword, and no so is democracy. I felt a faint spark of hope, and some distant camaraderie, as if she’d somehow psychically and subconsciously connected with the turbulence of my thoughts on the matter. I want to write in a response, but I don’t know if I’ll get to it… I hope I do, but not tonight. This is all I can do for tonight… thoughts in a far more raw, far more casual sense. This is where it has to start.
Oh hurrah. We had a ‘riot’ the other night. There was a citywide dance held downtown in my city. Now, keep in mind, that I can name more bars than I can regular events for teenagers… We have two ‘underage’ clubs in town and they’re expensive, concerts are very rare, we have a smattering of theatres, and there are all night diners… I can name more bars than this. So there’s this dance… it’s being put on for kids ages 14-19… keep in mind, ladies and gentleman, that one can only drive a car if they are sixteen and have done the requisite things to do so. It also must be provided that they have cars. Also keep in mind that it’s cold, here… colder than it was, though not as cold as it could be… but still bloody chilly. Below freezing, at night.
Suddenly, police run into this center waving pepper spray and billy clubs, telling everyone to get out and disperse. Apparently, there were some fights breaking out, which I can agree upon being a bad situation… but certainly not one warranting billy clubs and pepper spray. Bewildered I’m sure, kids started getting their things to go… (most of them) with the police still yelling in their faces. Apparently, there was then a really bad riot… I’m not sure I believe that. Every goddamn police officer in this city was downtown on this issue. These are the same ever faithful, every shrewd police officers that are pulling ambling motor-homes aside for having single tail-lights out coming out of the state fair at ten o’clock at night… the self-same state fair, at the self-same time, that is famed for being fairly dangerous because it’s on a relatively narrow road and… people tend to tear down it at up of eighty miles an hour. These are the same police officers, I’m sure, that are busying themselves harassing lone, 18-year olds walking home from a friend’s house in silence at some wee hour in the morning for ‘curfew violations’… in a neighborhood where much worse goes on on a level both well known and constant.
So this riot… Our mayor held a meeting to ‘answer any questions about the situation’ to the hordes of outraged parents and teens, both those who had been at the dance and those who hadn’t. In his opinion, the city and the police force have absolutely no reason to apologize for anything that happened that night, and that it would be far more appropriate for someone to be apologizing for the ‘behavior of the children’.
Our mayor also, shortly after getting in office, shut down a feature at the local public library involving homosexuality. As I recall, it wasn’t even a ‘gay pride’ display… it was an educational issue. Our mayor, in my opinion, is a certified public imbecile. I will remind you now that the word ‘imbecile’ is meant to mean, and used here, as someone so absolutely and irreversibly stupid that they cause harm.
I see these people all the way up the food chain of our wonderful democracy. AND! I’m not finished. There’s a lot more on my mind than our local ‘riot’. (PH33R!!)
There was on in Chicago, too… anyone hear about that? Similar situation on a far larger scale at a nightclub… apparently, 21 people were killed in a stampede to the door after police or security or someone came in with pepper spray and shouting and nightsticks to break up fights. Adding to the situation, many of the exits people stampeded too were bolted solidly shut for no apparent reason.
Now, onto our feature presentation.
Speaking of the ‘war on terror’ (or whatever they’re at war with today) (and yes, you were speaking of it, you just don’t know you were). Bush isn’t doing a very good job. Because I’m terrified. I’m very terrified. Or maybe he is doing a good job, because I’m certainly not terrified, or even nervous, about anyone in the Middle East… David Bowie said it best. ‘I’m Afraid of Americans’. I’m afraid of being a citizen of this country, I’m afraid of being under this umbrella of ‘democracy’, under this ‘government’. They frighten me. John Ashcroft and his oh-so-appropriate Patriot Acts. The fact that ‘Dubya’ is a pawn to people LIKE John Ashcroft and all those other names.
I’m disgusted by the fact that more people in Iraq and Afghanistan have died since 9/11 than anyone who even got debris sprayed in their faces from the collapse of the twin towers. I’m appalled by the fact that they want me to build some kind of ‘safe room’ out of Duct Tape and Visqueen (It’s NOT plastic sheeting. It’s Visqueen, god damnit). This catchy Rainbow of Terrorism that they’ve invented, or the fact that somehow can’t explain thoroughly, or publicly, enough for it to mean anything to me in the slightest, does not amuse me.
Once, people were slaughtered by the hundreds for the name of one god or another. Religion in a highly visceral thing, spirituality has been and will always be a heartfelt and integral part of any creative and thinking race. It is, however, considered barbarous to kill for one’s god… for one’s spiritual beliefs. These things are allowed to be different (and thank heavens, else I’d be road kill). It is not, however, barbarous to kill and die for one’s country. Blindly. It is heroic. It is patriotic. It may soon be REQUIRED. Nationalism and politics have replaced religion in this world of machines (of both metal and flesh). It horrifies me to think what a steamroller we have become. Little more than a big, hulking, stupid animal capable of massacring most things that would stand in its path. Selfish, hedonistic, cruel. This is the dream called America.
Thank you, Mister President, for your war on terror. I’ll repeat… I’m terrified for my own life, and not the beating of my heart but the free ticking of my mind. I’m terrified that the steamroller will take the man I love away from me and send him overseas for a cause he believes in no more than I do. For a cause that is so threadbare as to be silkily sheer.
And for a more personal complaint, just to offset my angst at things I can do nothing for, at least in the short run… my head hurts, my spine is badly out of line and refuses to even pop for me now and I ache. My bed is my own, lonely, tonight and thusly cold. I do not think I will sleep until hours after I should. I am not looking forward toward the grind of school that the morning will bring. So ignorant and so every-day. I feel there should be change, perhaps unjustified. I feel that I have been robbed of my brief vacation by the other traumas that riddled the last three days. I want it back so that it will be different.
In short, I’m very vexed and very ornery… The morning should cool the ember, but it will not extinguish it. I take comfort in the fact that there was a three-line letter to the editor in the paper the other day simply outlining my previous religion-vs.-nationalism sentiment. The lady said that bombs wouldn’t make us any friends… She said that religion used to be spread by the sword, and no so is democracy. I felt a faint spark of hope, and some distant camaraderie, as if she’d somehow psychically and subconsciously connected with the turbulence of my thoughts on the matter. I want to write in a response, but I don’t know if I’ll get to it… I hope I do, but not tonight. This is all I can do for tonight… thoughts in a far more raw, far more casual sense. This is where it has to start.