spring mobilization
March 19

San Francisco

These are tight times. I intended to write my thoughts on an aspect of dysfunction in the queer community but every day I overhear people talking about being laid off, being broke, how bad business is. I know how on edge I've been over my own finances, I am surprised this city is so quiet.

And then I see a photo of a smiling stockbroker as Wall Street rejoices at the announcement of war. "Oh, it's not that Wall Street is bloodthirsty', mouths the reader of the business news on National Public Radio, every day sounding increasingly corporate and selectively absent minded in its take on this administration, "it's just that it doesn't like uncertainty".

Justification: the efforts of half-hearted diplomacy, more accurately no-hearted diplomacy, "weren't producing results", I read, so businesses were sitting on their hands and besides, everyone is getting impatient, and no one wants to walk to the fast food chain because you'd look silly standing at the drive-through window waiting to pick up your Freedom Fries.

"Stock prices rise as oil prices plummet", said the radio, and now the average price of gas in this country is $1.76, yet here in California, the same state suing corporate energy speculators for creating a false crisis and rolling black-outs, in this state where you can drive by oil wells right off the highway and right off the coast, the cheapest gas in town is over two dollars.

I have no gardening jobs lined up and phone calls have dropped off to almost nothing, my print ads are consistent in that they come out looking like parodies, but I am not worried about that, I have a safety net of sorts, a roof and food guaranteed, and work is out there, I just did a video this weekend, after attending an anti-war rally. Yet I have never felt so deeply such a dread as I do about this war. It pulls at my brow throughout the day, wakes me up during the night, hangs around my neck when I wake up.

The total disregard of logic, the highjacking of due process, the dishonest excuses and emotional tantrums, the shutdown of access to information, the hostility to inquiry, the blatant hypocrisy, the self-righteous smugness. Anger and frustration soak my dread.

And so does desperation. I pray for the well being of the innocent people, many who will die very soon. I pray for the people who were injured and poisoned from the last war, for the children still suffering with birth defects resulting from the last US involvement with Iraq. For the Gulf War veterans who agonized over their decision to come forward and tell the truth about the command they obeyed to set oil fields on fire. For the young people sent overseas who will die in friendly fire.

I remember when I first left home and moved to a nearby city to go to school. Within the first week a freshman got stuck in a trolley car door and dragged to death. That could have been me, the excitement of moving to a new area and starting college, the entrance exams, the SAT's, saying goodbye to friends and family, a whole unmapped life ahead cut short by something that could have easily been prevented. I couldn't understand why.

And I can't understand this, apathy doesn't explain it all, self-absorbtion doesn't explain it all, we are like the frog sitting in a cauldron, most of us still unaware of the rising temperature. And those who complain, we don't know what to do, between trying to figure a way out and processing the attacks of those who refuse to open their eyes.

what I'm listening to: National Public Radio, the BBC, Working Assets Radio.
what I'm reading: National Geographic



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