Slow Life

After work, I decided to check out the A31 protest, theoretically beginning at both the Library (42nd & Fifth) and Madison Square Park (23rd & Fifth) before converging at the Garden (34th & 7th). I got to Madison Square Park, and they seemed to be sending people off in every direction. I wasn't interested in something less than "unified" and wanted to get a run in, so I left. I meandered down to Union Square (14th & Broadway/Fourth), which was kind of nice, if also a Polizeistadt. Soooo many police. Soooo many protesters, selling shitty t-shirts and buttons, etc. Very hippie. But maybe, after 3 or 4 days, cops and hippies are both getting itchy trigger fingers. A well-spoken, be-suited hippie was shouting to a small crowd, complaining about the arrests of Critical Mass bikers. Okay. I'm as "fuck the police" as anyone this side of MC Ren, but aren't you hear to complain about something else? And let's be honest: a majority of the police force is on your side. I think everyone that I have seen, on both sides, has been unbelievably great beyond belief. Nasty little skirmishes are popping up here and there, but I can't imagine things going any better. I kind of feel sorry for the folks who escaped to the trees for the week; not to be too gay about it, but I dig the overall vibe. People who are all, at the very least, pretending to passionately believe in something. Let's just stay on point, Well-Spoken, Be-suited Hippie Man.

But really, what this all amounts to is a bunch of white, tattooed & pierced twentysomethings desperate to be passionate about something, anything. Their actions betray the fact that they think history has somehow been torn away from them, used up like a natural resource by previous generations. This week may very well be the last violent gasp of the white, middle-ish class. White kids in search of history, deluded by the Idea of the 1960s, where similarly disenfranchised youths tried to take history back from the old folks. I'd everyone wants the future, but that wouldn't very American. More things now, please! I have no point. It's just kind of sad that as the world's gotten smaller, people have grown even further apart.

I do like how GWB is getting raked over the coals for actually saying something that's true: We can't win a war on terror. (But we may be able to win a few against genetics, Christians of Convenience.) No matter where we look or when we live, someone is gettingly marginalized and increasingly desperate.