make your reality... and run with it

i'm tired, hungry, and sleep-deprived having just returned from my first in a string of many more protests (right, "d"?) since the bombs started dropping a few days ago. it may seem to some that the logical thing to do right now is to hang one's hat just because the death and destruction has already begun and say, "well, we tried, but we couldn't stop the war." however, i realize more and more how that is not a luxury for me to have, nor do i want it. my initial advice to you, "v," is to TURN OFF THE T.V. there are legitimate journalists out there trying to give the news, but unless you have access to some fantastic satellite beaming you with news from outside the united states, i would not trust what you see on cnn and definitely not on any of your local news stations. (shit. i live in LA. they'd rather give full coverage of a car chase or some celebrity divorce than a peace march or protest anyday). like i posted before, i can't listen to NPR because i would never hear anything now about how dick cheney's company won a multi-billion dollar government contract to "rebuild" iraq after the war on npr nor on any other station like NBC or CNN. (note: my link may not work; just do a search for "cheney," and "halliburton.") instead, i'll hear technical analyses on what type of missiles the united states is dropping and "where is saddam now?" these channels would rather have us following coverage on "who really killed O.J.'s wife" while bombarding us with a lot of useless miscellany than really give us a picture of how disgusting and destructive these military "toys" are and how even more so we need to resist a renegade government bent on filling the pockets of dubya's already-wealthy cronies in the name of "liberation."

rather than fill my head with these particles of distraction, i think it's important that one does what they need to do to make their heads, their hearts and their bodies feel that nothing can be the same as yesterday and something needs to change right now. it does scare me with the audacity and shameless insanity with which this illegal administration and their bullshit "international" coalition is moving forward with their bloody and destructive plans of self-interest, but i would be more frightened if i thought that i can no longer move forward myself in resistance in whatever way. my friend gave me this yesterday, and i think it's more important even now:

"The dreamers are the saviors of the world.
As the visible world is sustained by the invisible,
so men, through all their trials and sins and
sorid vocations, are nourished by the beautiful visions
of their solitary dreamers.
Humanity cannot forget its dreamers;
it cannot let their ideals fade and die;
it lives in them; it knows them as realities
which it shall one day see and know.
Composer, sculpter, painter, poet, prophet, sage,
these are the makers of the after world,
the architects of Heaven.
The world is beautiful because they have lived;
without them, laboring humanity would perish..."

James Allen

i don't know if this was something he got in some mass e-mail forward, and i usually try my damnedest to avoid the tone of "cheese!" (anyone have wine?) in anything i write, but i think it really speaks to how we cannot go along with business as usual in our comfort zone and let other people dictate our world or our realities. i will continue to protest, to teach and organize, i may even go to work (it's not like i have perfect attendance in that arena), but i'll still keep my biting sense of humor and i will dedicate myself to never shutting up and sitting down (ask my brothers) to let some crazed, oil-thirsty imperialist twit run the world.

remember the subversiveness of "goofy." HI ASHCROFT! (hey! i think i may have rejoined the "club!"--see "let the bullshit begin," 3/20/03)

coming next... how tres LA is that?: musings on the LA anti-war scene.