in celebration of angry letters

I've never really been the protesting type. I'd rather sit privately at home and rattle off angry letters to elected officials or newspapers or right-wing conservative nutjobs. I'm also happy to donate to worthy causes or participate in my own boycott of corporations that donate heavily to conservatives. But lately, I've been feeling embarrassed as hell for America, and just sitting at my computer reading the news has only left me feeling more shocked and disgusted with each passing day. It's been a long and painful two years since the big, bad macho SUV-driving, oil-chugging U.S. invaded Iraq with a preemptive attack. So Saturday, I took part in the peaceful march from Dolores Park to City Hall.

I don't think the march will change anything or that protesting does much more than raise awareness, but I felt like I had to show up just so I could be surrounded by like-minded people. Seems like the 11:00 news is always focusing on potholes in Petaluma and not reporting with much significance on the death toll in Iraq (over 1,500 and more than 11,000 have been wounded in action). There has been no official count of the civilian casualties. We're throwing billions down the shitter on shady deals with contracters who are supposedly rebuilding. President Freakshow continues to refuse to specify when we will exit the country or be clear that America will not establish permanent military bases there. Literally billions of dollars in President Freakshow's latest budget will be used to build permanent bases that will extend the occupation indefinitely.

This is a pre-emptive war, might I remind you. No nuclear or biological weapons have been found to date. None. Iraq is less threatening to the U.S. than the proliferation of UGG boots and shawls. Osama's probably somewhere in Afghanistan on his PlayStation finishing off a 6-pack right now as I type this. He's probably calling in to vote for his fave on American Idol and laughing his ass off at how numb the American public is and how brutally honest that Simon is (which is much more than we can say for the President). Okay, that's all I need to say about the stupid war for a long, long time. Protesting felt good, the end.

Later that night, we performed at the very last Oral Fixation, a spoken word/literary/poetry night at Dolores Park Cafe. It was a nice way to end the day on a lighter note. We read selections from the collection of Open Letters from Dorothy B. [last name censored] to PBS. My friend lifted a collection of the letters from the mailroom at PBS. Dorothy rants about everything from the high number of morons and homosexuals in the United States to the creation of government-supported community housing with lots of flowers and trees dedicated to President Clinton. We're trying to remember to include a few of these letters in each issue of our zine, because they are such a wonderful and unique collection of one woman's thoughts. As the Oral Fixation host said, "Crazy people are funny." Like I'm not turning into her. Viva la angry letter! Viva la protest!