ANARCHY IN THE US

The state of the world is pretty much shit, isn’t it? It’s laughable to look back on even the last 30 years. There’s still many millions of us who were part of the cold war era. I was born in 1969, but the effects of the Vietnam war were evident all through my childhood. My dad went through many “phases” after coming home. Ya’ll have no idea how close I came to growing up on a fricking commune! He went from flower child to biker to full on broken human being. My grandmother got it early on. She said for years before she died that it was the war that was killing him. It finally did a few years ago. When my grandfather ~ his last real life line, really ~ died on Christmas Eve, he followed two weeks later.

Over the last week one of the big stories on the news has been Don Imus and the racist remarks that lead to his firing. Now, what kind of shit is that?! I’m not sure if I want to cheer for the way that we won’t tolerate such crap anymore or be totally disgusted that we even allow such shit to bother us! And, before anyone goes on about just how bad racism is, I’m Mexican, ok? I grew up being made to feel inferior to whites. I had it full on in my face that I should feel less. It was just accepted that I should know and accept “my place”. But, the thing is, I got to an age where I’d just had enough! I decided that no motherfucker on Earth would ever make me feel like I’m not worthy because of my race! And, because of that attitude no one would even dare try to hold me back. Even when I was profiled at the airport a year ago. I didn’t get on the horn to Jesse Jackson. I went on with my life knowing that it’s the feeling of terror in the air that made that airport attendant pull me aside and frisk me for weapons. Hey, women can be suicide bombers, too.

So, it’s been over 30 years since the Vietnam war, the assassination of Martin Luther King & Malcolm X and the feminist movement began. Where the fuck are we, huh?! You know, there were slaves on plantations who would rock their young children to sleep at night telling them how their life would be better. Right now ~ at this moment ~ there is some young mother rocking her young child to sleep and promising the same thing.

I’m sure if most people were to put down what they’re doing right now and think about their daily lives and their daily concerns it wouldn’t have anything to do with politics or religion or sex or racism. At the end of the day we’re all thinking about the bills or the idiot we’re forced to work with (or for!) or the fight our kid had in school or that pile of dirty dishes that damit! just won’t wash itself! As we surf the net and see those ads for degrees online, there’s the thoughts of making more money and how we’d pursue that degree or whatever would it is that would give us that edge for that better job if we had the time. I’ve never wanted to be a nurse, but I tell ya what ~ had I known years ago that there’d be such a shortage that nurses now are on the brink of “writing their own ticket”, I’d rethink the profession!

So, if politics and religion don’t really mean a fucking thing ~ I mean really, how many people can honestly say that what’s going on in congress right now actually affects their daily lives?! How many people can say that their religion factors into their daily life in such a way that it legitimizes the need for fucking bloodshed! If anything, politics only affect our lives in the sense of how little control we have over it. Even that’s not a daily life thing. The only person really holding me back is me. The only person preventing me from having what I want is me. So, let me return to the question that I strayed from. If it all really doesn’t mean a thing, why do we invest so much time in arguing about it?! Why do we invest any energy in it at all?!

We’ve been conditioned to believe that without government there’d be chaos and horror. But, would there really? Without a structured form of law, there’d be madness, right? People making their own sort of law and justice, right? Hmmm, isn’t that going on right now?! Wether it be in congress or the small town you live in or in the general public. Where has that structure really gotten us? I was recently mistreated in an emergency room to the point that I was slowly bleeding to death. Had it not been for a hospital in another town I could have died from the huge mistake that was made. But, the real insult is that I’ll probably not be able to file a malpractice suit against them. Thanks to the infinite wisdom of those in office, there is now a cap on damages from emergency room mistakes. Because of this, attorney’s now need to be so selective on which malpractice cases they take that I haven’t been able to find anyone to represent me. My case should be open and shut! EVERYTHING is documented. You know, I could really use that lawsuit money to help me move far away from this God forsaken town. But, what I REALLY want here is for them to own up to what they did. I want justice because of that smug piece of shit doctor who turned me away without examining me when I returned to the ER. I want justice for the initial mistake that forced me to return in the first place. I want justice for my daughter who was traumatized when she stood in the bathroom doorway and watched her mother hemorrhage all over the fucking floor! It’s been weeks and she still won’t sleep alone. It’s been weeks and she still falls apart at the sight of the smallest amount of blood. She has already been through enough! She lost her father before even having a concept of what a father is. Now, she almost lost her mother because of the ignorant mistake that was made. But, thanks to the way things are, I can’t even make my own campaign against them because they could sue ME!

And, what about religion? During a pretty heavy drunken haze awhile ago, it suddenly occurred to me how there’s kinda no way to make amends for the atrocities that where made by the Catholic church other than to dismantle the whole thing. For those of you non-Catholics reading this ~ that’s a pretty devastating thing to conceive of. The Jews will get it, because like us, their religion is tied directly into who they are. Things are changing now, but up until my generation, there really wasn’t anything that would make a mother prouder than to have her daughter grow up to become a nun or her son a priest. But, if we were to all stop and think about all of the bloodshed and injustice that has, and continues to come directly from the Catholic church ~ what excuses can really be made? I mean, that’s not to say that all churches and religions shouldn’t be held up for examination. Why do we need them? Why do we need a group of men who interpret the bible to suit their own agenda? If you believe in God, shouldn’t he be in your heart? Shouldn’t he be in your head and in your soul? So, why do we need to congregate and follow when so-say our greatest gift from God (beyond life itself) is our own minds? Our own sense of right and wrong.

In my personal opinion, the best thing we could do to make the world a better place for us and our children is to dismantle it all! Get rid of government and organized religion. The best thing we could do is take control of our own lives. I say, for the next election NO ONE VOTE! Send out the word that WE are the masters of our own universe! We could actually accomplish what the true hippies of the 60’s were trying to do! Think about it. Why did all of those people trapped by hurricane Katrina die?! They died because of the way that our government is structured. We had military forces ready to rush in and save every fucking body! But, they had to wait for the “official” ok to do so. What kind of bullshit is that?! There were countless firemen, policemen and military personnel who dropped what they were doing and used there own personal money to travel to the Louisiana border to help. They came from all over the country only to be stopped and sent away! SENT AWAY!

‘Rock The Vote’?! I say ‘Fuck The Vote’! Crazy? I bet there’s tons of people who would all say that we’re changing things....things are getting better due to shit that’s passed through congress......that we just need the “right” president, the “right” folks in office. Are you high or just deluded? There is no “right” anyone! What’s crazy is that we all have come to accept voting for the lesser of two evils! And, what I brought up earlier in this post. What has really changed since the women’s movement? Huh? At this point in the timeline it shouldn’t be a big deal that we have a woman speaker of the house. But, it is. Equal rights? Er, excuse me, but it only became against the law for POLICE to profile minorities a couple years ago! How many years ago did it become illegal to own human beings?! Yet, in this country and others who are considered civilized leaders of the world, there is still such a race barrier that it SHOULD sicken everyone! *sigh* But, instead of giving up the petty and bullshit beliefs that keep us separated, we all just sit back and wait for the “right” someone to fix it all.

When are we, as a race of human beings, going to finally “fix it all” our-fucking-selves?!