A Short Trip To The Unknown

Or, "Will Goes To Washington."

"There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt taking place...or you stand on the wrong side of history. Either you obstruct...or sink into the miasma of despair and apathy. Either you are a rebel or a slave."

-- Chris Hedges; author 

"No person shall be...deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..."

-- Amendment V; U.S. Constitution

I've made my decision.

The time for half-measures - indeed; any measures other than civil disobedience - are over. The rich cocksuckers running the country via the Casino on Wall Street are holding the nation in thrall to a political system which has been purchased, via rulings like Citizens United and the tender ministrations of the Koch Brothers, their stooges in the Tea Party and the variant Fundie groups which would have us believe that their Imaginary Friend, Jesus H. Christ, Esq. (CEO of the Republican Party and founder of America), is in Charge of it All, and looking down beneficently while he polishes his flamethrower, ready to sort-out everyone who dissents.

Y'know what?  Fuck him.  Fuck them, too. I want my damn country back.

This might be my last post for a while.  I'm headed to Washington at the end of the week to help occupy the Capitol Mall as a part of October2011; depending on where you read this (my main writing-site or over on Subversify) I may be getting ready to go, or already there.  Regardless, wish us luck.

Yes, us.

We're all going to need it.  Not because I'm afraid of J.H. Christ, Esq. (he doesn't exist); I'm far more fearful of winding up in a Washington jail or worse, because I've violated one of the many and bizarre arcane rules, late of the last ten years, which preclude a citizen from speaking his or her mind.  Frankly, yes - I'm afraid I'll wind up with a 500 pound cell-mate with love on his mind, while a Federal 'keeper' laughs at the antics of such people in his human zoo. 

I'm still willing to go through with it. 

So should you.   Because whether or not you know this, you don't have a choice.

The other day, an American citizen by the name of Anwar al-Awlaki was unceremoniously killed - assassinated, it turns out, without trial or leave of appeal in spite of his rights as a citizen under the Fifth Amendment.  Citizens in New York City are being pepper-sprayed and arrested outside the New York Stock Exchange by police who stand more to lose from the bastards sipping champagne and sneering from the balconies than they do by joining the protesters.  Every one of the bastards in the photo below?  They deserve a rope and a slow-haul to the top of a lamppost - which, by the way, is no better than what al-Awlaki got from the U.S. Government.

Brokers, sipping champagne and watching protest.

From top to bottom, America has no sense of itself, and I'm given to wonder if the terrorists have really won, after all.   I know one thing - the cure (ten years of assaults on our civil liberties, two unwinnable wars which have bled the country white, Gitmo, and a host of other things) was (and is) worse than the 'disease', and we have to do something about it.

Yes, we.

Because, as I mentioned earlier, you no longer have a choice.  You're in this up to the hatband, and your only decision left is to either join the side which is demanding its freedom and its country back, or sit back in apathy and watch the country go to a Hell of the aforementioned bastards' devising.

I won't candy-coat this - the cost may be high.  Ask this fellow.  You may wind up in jail with me.  You may wind up pepper-sprayed; assaulted, or worse - because your rights as a citizen no longer apply - the family of al-Awlaki can tell you that.

"I can't,"  you say.  "I have a job."  Take some time off.  There's a damn good chance in six months you won't have it anymore, anyway.   "I have kids," you'll say.  Take them with you - you'll be teaching them several valuable life-lessons; the first of which is how to make history, rather than study it in a classroom.

"I can't get there."  That never stopped you when you were younger.  Hitchhike, if you have to.  "But I don't have a room when I get there," you'll say.  Fuck that.  Neither do I.  I'm packing this cool little tent, some long underwear, and a heavy coat.

"But I have a family, and too much to live for."  This is the lamest excuse, really - what are they going to do?  Take away your youth?  Your freedom?  Here's a clue, Mr. and Mrs. American - they've already done that.  If you give a damn about your kids, you'll grow a pair and do this.  For them.  For you, too.

The choice is yours.  You can watch the country go to Hell on CNN, or you can do something about it.

I've made my choice.

Join me.