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cynicism pulls ahead
2006-01-31 @ 4:25 p.m.
i feel so... helpless. in the face of great loss. and i'm not talking about my relationship this time. the state of the union address tonight. bp says i should come to park chow and watch it, but, um no. i don't think i want to be the crazy person at the bar screaming at the television. not by myself anyway. i get loud. and besides, i've been known to throw things. i'm on my period, already emotional. and now the country is even more fucked. did the senate really need to hand down alito's confirmation the day of the fucking state of the union. and i can hardly wait to see if the speech writers worked in something smarmy for him to say about honoring the legacy of coretta scott king in one breath and then trashing brown v. board of education or something in the next. and this is weird for me, but i feel like there is nothing i can do. not a fucking thing. going down to union square tonight isn't going to change that. sometimes what should bring solidarity can bring me sadness. maybe i'm so beaten down or pessimistic that i feel like protesting in san francisco isn't going to change a damn thing. i always said that if roe v. wade was overturned that i'd get arrested protesting that decision. to which people have replied, well by then it's too late. and maybe that's a good point. but even if i did that it wouldn't even be effective unless i chained myself to the white house gate covered in wire hangers. and even that wouldn't make a media splash unless it was like a hundred people. and by media splash i mean that if CNN covered it millions of people would see it rather than the irritated guard, few tourists and brusque secret services agents who would haul me off to jail or guantanamo bay or where ever they're taking protesters these days. i often think that to be a good activist you need that right balance of cynicism and optimism. and at the moment, the cynicism and despair are outrunning the optimism. at which point that much-loathed thing called apathy begins to sink in. so if i get drunk tonight and swear at the television from the safety of my own living room and take notes on all the fucked up two-faced double-speak smarmy things bush says tonight and then rail about it for hours afterward with my equally drunk friend in dc (who i always do this with after the state of the union, for several years running now), does that mean i've averted apathy? can you avert apathy with anger and awareness alone? how much change to anger and awareness alone really effect?
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from my downtown office i hear the helicopter already circling, keeping an eye on people who just want a fucking democracy or a least some sense of justice and rightness (as opposed to righteousness) in this world. reminds me of downtown dc.
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11 pm update:
after all that, i went to the rally. after all. i just couldn't not go. one of my coworkers met me down there. and then another. and it was seriously one of the most amazing protests/rallies i've ever been to.
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