I'm sensing a darkness moving over this place we call the free world and its got me feeling sorry, angry and scared. Mostly I feel angry. So I've got a few axes to sharpen and some bones to cleave with them.
It would be a slight understatement to say some pretty significant shit has happened lately. I don't want to talk about it so I won't, but a few other things need mention. The world is polarizing and everyone is either with us or against us, depending who us happens to be. After I thought we were finally past seeing everything in black and white like dogs or children the world is once again ruled by absolutes, stone faced proclamations, cheers for vengeance or jihad.
Luckily common sense usually doesn't lie in any entrenched extreme positions, which means we can now rely on no common sense being used ever again. Lines are drawn in the sand. People like me rub their 2 brain cells together and arrive at completely uninformed compassionless conclusions then cling to them like lesbians to free verse poetry. All of a sudden every fucking idiot I meet is an encyclopedia of global race politics and the Muslim religion. Except they didn't spend the summer shooting a documentary on Islam in Asia, they were working at their Dad's furniture store.
The local fascists assume the position that civil liberties are a breeding ground for terrorism. The golden age of freedom has resulted in too much freedom and this has led to tragedy. But these tragedies can easily be avoided by ruthless oppression of all the non christian mongrel races, homo-fags, drug addicts, liberals, college students, teachers, and people who stay out late on weeknights. With no opposition our freedoms are being legistlated into the hands of shadowy old fat cops in long coats and fedoras who want to see and hear every whisper for hints of treason or a dirty word like fuck. They want to watch us with our pants down and no one who actually votes seems to care. The lives of innocent Afgans are casually dismissed as those broken eggs omellette makers always talk about. Their lives are disposable acceptable losses for the greater cause of American freedom. But this freedom is actually being threatened at home by its so called guardians.
A new ultra right wing attitude is emerging that goes like this, I trust the government. I accept that we have to do what it takes and make sacrifices for the safety our our shining republic. I'm not doing anything wrong, I have nothing to hide. Sure you do. Everyone is hiding, they just think they're too clever to get caught. You don't want want the state in your business, trust me. They are interested in scary things like your occasional daily visits to broom stick fetishist web sites, or your monthly sunny delight enema administered by a disciplinarianess dressed in a clown wig jack boots and a gingham dress. I too have perversions, but mine are simple, women's suits and speculums, just kidding.
But there is a resistance to this war on terrorism, equally devoid of common sense but brimming with venom and glibly dismissing the thousands of now dead innocents. America must die, they had it coming, this is the price for building a worldwide capitalist empire on the backs or the graves of starving billions. This seems to be the attitude of a lot of my fellow Canadians. These people fucking sicken me. They laugh as Americans die and declare allegiance to whomever they think is fashionable for the time being. Is it Che Geuverra? How about Lenin? How about Paul Mcartney? Its a giant crapshoot anyway because next year the Che Geuverra poster on their wall that replaced the Bob Marley Legend poster will be replaced by a poster of the next big whim, or better yet, the poster will be replaced by a framed Ansel Adams photo as the college rebel grows into yuppie adulthood.
Most of the world is starving, but we're not. Ever wonder why? We gladly watched Bob Newhart while eating sleeping and breathing immersed in all the conveniences and affluence that comes collaterally with American global military and financial hegemony. They trashed Vietnam, we did nothing, they fund Iran to protect their oil, they arm Iraq to fight Iran, they invade Panama, they bomb Bagdad, we do nothing. Of course American corporations spread misery and death globally, of course the CIA assassinates whoever it wants and puppet regimes rise in their place. We knew this, did we do anything about it? Nope, because membership has its privileges and we wouldn't want to give them up.
Hypocrites. Many of the pocket revolutionists I know haven't got the spine to modify their lives one millionth for anything they believe in, and neither do I. Some do, and I love and respect them for their incomprehensible strength of character and genuine compassion. I have neither and I know it, without these conveniences I would be dead.
Neither side is a just cause. The right wing wants to take away all my rights and massacre everyone in the middle east for their oil, the left wing wants to pretend no one except deserving Americans will ever die, if we can all somehow forgive terrorists they will suddenly be nice to us.
Hey, that worked for the French. Lets give it a shot.