Everybody loves a good fight. (A good PianoFight, that's for sure! I'm hilarious.) I like to think I'm fighting the good fight, working for change and hoping for some truly necessary new leadership. I'm from Pennsylvania, though, where the "Good Fight" looks totally different depending on which side of Amishland you live on. In the east, there are democrats, raging for change, and in the west, there are cow fields and Penn State and some die-hard Republicans protecting the home and hearth from terrorism. Which could strike any moment in their cow fields.
Ah, that terrorism. So scary. Radical Islamists parachuting from the sky like dark, Godless aliens with nuclear warheads strapped to their chests, ready to lay waste to the American countryside. To be fair, I guess terrorists have dropped a plane before into a Pennsylvania field, which is not an easy thing to accept. I haven't. I'm terrified of planes. Of heights, and guns, and war, and a painful death. Poverty. Defunct health insurance. Cancer. That girl from "The Ring," too. There are plenty of things to be scared of in this world. And now we've got this big ol' election looming up next week, and what have we've got: a black man running against an old war hero with a lady sidekick who makes feminism comparable to...well, shit. (Seriously, have you ever been to a cow field? Her campaign is just like that.) Jesus Christ, everybody's scared!
Scared of Arab tendencies and illegal voting, dangerous acorns, or that bitch socialism: America is peeing in its collective pants. It's not just about abortion, or health care, or the economy, or the North Pole turning into a polar bear Slushee. We're scared of our neighbors, because they look different. (Still.) We're threatened by homosexuality, because we don't want our daughters being taught they can marry princesses if they want, or our sons getting AIDS and joining bands called "Queen." We're singularly proud of our democracy, especially when we get the chance to force it down foreignors throats, like a sort of reverse-regurgitated present. We want things to look like they did before, when we were children, and the United States still had a sort of gleaming honor about it. These days, we've grown into an awkward and ugly national adolescence, and we're kind of like the douchebag teenager huffing "Dust Off" in the bathroom and pretending we're not failing algebra. And, on top of it all, we've turned into a wicked little pyromaniac about to set the whole school on fire.
I'm sick of this terror shit. I'm tired of the fear-mongering, and the people who are still resistant to change out of cowardice. America is not always right, and our good fight is not always good. I don't doubt the ferocity of a voter who is passionate about the issues at hand, but I challenge the motives of a voter who is afraid. Don't vote for someone because he is- or isn't- black. Don't vote for a woman because she has boobs. (She is a cow field.) Don't be scared, and not do anything about it. That's lame. And it won't change anything. And isn't that what all this is about? Change?
"America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts
factories, I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel."
Allen Ginsberg, America
PS Happy Halloween!!!! Oooooh spooky!
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wise words.
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