America, You Could've Done so Much BetterThe president made me late for work yesterday. Let me explain. You see, he decided to grace us with his presence yesterday. He came to this sunburned state to make speech, to try and get us to “stay the course”. Tuesday the two headed monster of Donald “I have a standing desk” Rumsfeld and Condi “Oreo” Rice gave similarly boneheaded rhetorical speeches.
I suppose it was karma striking back that made me late.
Yesterday I protested. The President, Rumsfeld, Rice, the whole fucking mess. Joining me, or I was joining about four thousand like minded people. A pro-war or pro-troops as I’m sure they’d prefer, rally only got 400 hundred supporters. Speakers included a Latino man in Che Guevera garb, and a retired marine. All were sincere. Rock Andersen Salt Lake City’s beloved mayor spoke for a half hour and in many ways summed up what all the speakers before him. His voice hoarse from shouting he implored us to demand truth and accountability from out elected officials.
Then we began the march up State Street, signs aloft. The front of mine said “I don’t know which atrocity to protest, there are SO many.” And on the back I wrote “Joyce, you could do so much better.” Joyce is Mrs. Rumsfeld. What blew my mind is this: While marching an older woman approached me and said she went to college with Joyce and that, yes, she though Joyce could’ve done better.
And maybe the world won’t change. It would be nice if others noticed the numbers who came out in such a Mecca of conservativism. (Fun Fact: Utah voted the highest percent republican in the last election!). And maybe this protest was masturbatory and self serving, letting us feel good about ourselves for a little while. Letting us pat ourselves on our back about what good we’re doing. But what are our other options? Apathy? Cynicism? Should we sip our coffee and watch them march by, nodding our heads, smirking at the hippies.
There has been so much lies, corruption, greed, fuck-ups and bad policy with this administration that thinking about it makes you want to bang your head against the wall or go to sleep and wake up wishing it was a dream.
The more I think about it, I feel damn good having gone to this protest. At least I know there are people out there as fed up with these old-money, greedy, pseudo theocrats as I am.
2 Comments:
so I just realized this and it may help you out. You don't have a title bar do you? To get one, go into your blog and go to the settings tab, then the formatting link. Then it's 9 things down. Turn it to yes.
Hey, homeboy. Just thought I'd add $.02:
"There has so much lies, corruption, greed, fuck-ups and bad policy with this administration that thinking about it makes you want to bang your head against the wall or go to sleep and wake up wishing it was a dream."
Bashing Bush and co. is quite the entertaining way to stick the proverbial .38 to the proverbial back of the proverbial skull of time (proverbially) and click 'til the kickbacks stop. I'm not sure, though, that this passage adequately describes the crimes of the current administering cabinet. Unfortunately, the stigma of the complete wrongheadedness of this right-field presidency has all but created a wormhole of self-imposed "nowness" that sucks the liberal populace into white-washing the crimes of past administrations. There's a sort of knee-jerk affect as well: don't many people who tend to align themselves with liberal causes (such as myself, when the goings are just) tend to rag on the Dubya administration without finding out for themselves exactly what's what? The same goes for the Clinton bashers as well.
In a nutshell, what I'm trying to say is that Clinton was responsible for many many many lies, corruptions, greedinesses, fuck-ups and bad policies as well. I'm not even talking about Lewinsky. And most people tend to forget about everything but Lewinsky.
This is not a partisan inquiry. It should be said that I do not swing either way within the two-party system. I find it sad that most of America is suckered into doing so--brainwashed into forgoing alternative options by default. Basically, I think all mainstream politicians are worthless and self-serving. I liked Clinton for his smoothness. My admiration pretty much stops there, though.
I'd be interested to hear/read a more detailed analysis of your opinion of the Bush administration.
Oh, also, hey man. How's it goin'? Likin' the new job?
Peace,
PATRICK
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