Mood:  sharp

you know what would be nice? inauguration day, presidential motorcade passing by. all the fools who think turning their backs on the president get shoved out of the way by some real protestors who, since they've been searched by the fbi and secret service (who, reportedly, will have "tightest security in inaugural history, with police planning to search every one of the tens of thousands of people expected to line the parade route"), will not have any signs or offensive shirts or any useful protest equipment (molotov cocktails or grenades, just for a couple harmless examples), wander out into the street and just lay down or sit or stand, whatever position feels right, anything to block the motorcade and fuck up the whole inaugural celebration, no violence (until the aforementioned fbi and secret service, backed up by the police and the national guard... oh wait, we don't have any of the latter left in this country, do we? anyway, until the authorities make a move), no subtlety, just civil disobedience en masse

except, that would hardly make a point, nevermind that bush would already have been sworn in by the time of the motorcade (right?). it's too bad we can't stop the swearing in... not that that would keep him from being president, as it's all just formality; he'll be emperor whether the inauguration goes to plan or not. this guy may have signed an executive order authorizing torture of "detainees" (according to the aclu today) and he's gotten us into a war we can never really win and scarred our economy and our reputation, made us the conquering enemy of the world, and we let him win the election, let him take it as a mandate to do whatever the fuck he wants, and we have become nothing, irrelevant. we're just those people who didn't vote for him, that minority (of some %49) who are so timid and powerless that we don't matter now that the religious Right have the floor. maybe if a few more of us could get over OUR religious beliefs and embrace something more realistic, we might get off our asses and fight for the country this is supposed to be...

of course, everyone will say this country was founded on religious ideals. our forefathers were all religious, the separation of church and state was there to protect church, not state. but, even the point misses the point. those men didn't know what we know today. they couldn't see, like we should be able to see today, that religion is dated and dying. thing is, though they were religious and founded this country on ideals that came from their beliefs, the whole reason they were here on this continent in the first place (well, at least the ones who get all the publicity, the pilgrims and whatnot) was to escape religious persecution, to get out of a country where they had to believe one way and only one way. and, now, what's become of this country. the leech of christianity has it's hold on everything. we dare show religious icons in a negative light and a study is done to show how evil we are. we dare suggest a new crusade on the holy land is wrong and we're antiamerican, unpatriotic, traitors to the empire

so, can we get a spectacle like the wto riots in seattle from five years ago? or do we sit by silently, maybe turn our backs and still go unnoticed? or, can we at least fall somewhere in between? or, should we just sit back and settle in and lament our loss and lick our wounds and wish ourselves better luck next time?

at what point do we give up? at what point do we fight?

at what point do we find some new promised land to escape perescution by the religious? what will be our mayflower and where will be our plymouth rock?