Well, I finished up the video today and wound down by finally listening to a bit of Dolly's new album
Those Were the Days, which feature protest songs from the '60s and '70s. Now, you know you live in strange times when Dolly Parton is at the vangaurd of the anti-war movement (even if it is in a "wink and nod" sort of way). I saw her perform back in October in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park to a crowd of aging hippie's and hipsters and really it wasn't so much comical as it was stirring. Of course, as most of you know- I'm biased. I love Dolly. She's really one of my heroes, because she proves that you can be a person with deeply held convinctions and be happy, successful and true to your beliefs.
This has also been the week where I've switched irrevocably into the peace camp. I was never a big fan of the war, but even when I attended the
F15 protest just prior to it's begining, I went as an observer, photographing and talking to people. Distance is a luxury that comes with peace. I don't think anyone can really sit on the sidelines now. George Bush's confirmation that he has
authorized the NSA to spy on us, is reprehensible. I know that the President believes that what he is doing is the right thing for America. I have no doubt that his motivations are to keep our country safe, but I jumped off the ship sometime around "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" and this new information- well, how can you expect Americans to trust their government when their government openly admits that it doesn't trust them?
This is beyond miasma or quagmire. This is beyond McCarthy, even. McCarthy didn't sanction torture and at least he'd hate you to your face. It's just too many things to take and it's been getting to me. I love my country deeply. We are the only nation on Earth united by a common vision of the future, not a common past.
I believe in apple pie, the 4th of July and all of that and I think most Americans do; we just want to feel that our pride is justified. It's hard to feel that way when the rich profit off of the disaster in New Orleans while the poor remain homeless, while Americans die abroad for a war which was not about our safety, but rather to test a political idea thought up by men who had never seen military combat, when even my little cousin's know that Karl Rove leaked Valerie Plame's identity to Bob Novak, when we are lied to and decieved and then called unAmerican when we demand timely and open answers.
So, I ask myself, "What would Dolly do?" Well, I have limited singing talent, so I can't put out a protest album, but I can follow in her spirit. Rather than cry about how much they're taking from us, I'm going to do my best to remind myself and others about the strength we have as a people. At the end of the day, America isn't and never has been the people living inside the Beltway and at the end of the day, all the great changes in this country have come from the smallest things: a woman refusing to give up her seat on the bus, a group of queers fed up with getting raided every night, a preacher talking, or a writer writing about being thrown in jail for protesting his beliefs.
Everyone of us still makes a difference.
Fight Club might tell us that we are not unique and beautiful individual snowflakes and perhaps, in reality, we're not, but where does that get us? Nowhere. Might as well just up and die now. I prefer to believe that each of us are precious, sacred agents of global change. The world you want to live in, might not be the same as the one I want to live in, but we're all better off when each of us has a hand in shaping the world, instead of just a scattered few.
