Wake Up and Smell The Gunpowder

One of the things that cracks me up about the so-called Tea-Baggers, besides for the name, is how closely it aligns itself to the values of the Sixties revolutionaries. I never paled around with Bill Ayres but I knew which the way the wind was blowing if you know what I mean. During my tenure as an activist, I rub shoulders with anarchist and subversives that not only really believed in the Revolutionary, they stockpiled and waited like other disciplines waited for Messiahs, the Rapture, and the start of the new NFL season. Betting the farm on the promise of hope and the feeling of rebirth that something gonna change.

The Tea-Baggers’ rallies are full of revolutionary vigor and the swagger that only comes from feeling that you’re ready to attack the Summer Palace, the Dean’s office and create a New World Order. The Baggers float with the giddiness of self-righteous anger not felt since the Crying Women’s Demonstrations’ of the Nineties when all women campuses were being forced for monetary reasons to allow the XY chromosome to register for classes. The Baggers’ desperate cries of Death Panels and forced Obama-care carry is very reminiscent of the passion that demonstrators I’ve marched with had too. After marching and demonstrating for or against various causes in my life, it’s interesting to note what got these lard-asses off their Cheetos-eating couches in the first place. But I digress...

Here’s my point today.

At the end of the Sixties and the very beginning of the Seventies, I was very political. I ran with Communist and those who lived under the radar. My main inspiration was theses Red-diaper babies that lived up the street from me. Their dad along with William Kunstler, help defend the Chicago 7. I saw firsthand people who were ready to die for change. There was talk about placing bombs at government installations and over-throwing Nixon and his ilk. But the talk soon gave way to some cheap jug wine, then we took Wayner’s bug over to the guy’s house in Minneapolis, cause he was ‘holding.’ Soon all the talk of revolution went up into the air. For me, that’s as far as it went. A few nights where it seemed anything might happen but the truth, we were all scared of getting caught. Hurting someone. It got the juices going knowing or pretending to know that everything was on the line. We wanted ten days that could shook a world. It felt like it was within our grasp. It was exciting and the advent of change meant anything was possible...

I don’t blame the Baggers. They are feeling that anti-government sentiment just like the Lefties I ran with long ago. They’re marching in the streets when a lot of us proclaimed, “We ain’t marchin’ no mo’.” But they are. Don’t get me wrong. In the last ten years, I’ve still marched against our involvement in...What is it? Two Wars? Three?? I’ve lost count...

What’s funny about the Baggers is they don’t know who they’re marching for if you ask me. They don’t want health-care? Really? They don’t want government spending? Really? They want wars and U.S. over-kill of fire-power to be the World’s Super Power. I mean seriously, what are they marching for? Freedom?

But this is really my point now...

I want to get a gun. I’ve thought about it for years now. For a while there with my mental condition being a little twitchy, the timing hasn’t been so right. Now as my mind gets right, I think I can handle me some home protection. I’m thinking about a Thirty-eight. Perfect for a hallway skirmish or a provocation at the front door that needs adjusting. A little something-something for the house if you know what I mean...

But this is really my point, no fooling...

In the last couple of weeks, an American flew his plane into an Austin Federal building and another man attacked the Pentagon. I don’t know if Glen Beck smiles at this kind of sad acts of desperation or if he feels any sense of responsibility. Before I get to my main point, I don’t blame Glen Beck for anything. He’s an entertainer, that’s all. He does like to build his audience into a revolutionary froth though, if for no reason than to see his people dance before him without the use of strings. But to my point, freaking finally, I know.

Both of these guys were coming from different ideological places. The Austin guy, showing no signs of right-wing anger previously apparently, still when you kamikaze into a federal building, it does squeak Ruby Ridge and Ok-la-homa, where the bombs scatter the prairie...But the Pentagon fellow was supposedly one of the 9-11 freaks, who shall we say listened to the left of the dial.

Two dudes who gave up their lives for their country, for different reasons, but for the same effect. Wake-up calls.

Neither one of them had an exit strategy. It was a one-way trip. I know there had to be some flight of mental reality that had to take place. Okay, NOT had to, but who is ready to die unless they believe in their own cause so strong. How do you wrap your head around being a suicide bomber or gun-toter that your death is going to be the catalyst for change?

I know the answer to that question. I saw it in the eyes of those who were ready to make others die for their cause, not themselves. I see it on TV when bugged-eyed Patriots are shaking their collective fists against government spending and their world as they knew it, changing right before their eyes. Starting with a black president.

The feelings of disenfranchisement are the beginnings of New Revolution. Welcome to the New Normal. And now it has affected Whitey. Anger has a cross-over hit in the new rallying song of “Hey, What about Me?”

After forty years of my people marching for one cause or another, we are being joined by these newbies who come packing and are rough and ready. But for what?

Maybe as Americans we should come up with a plan. The one, who has the most subversive one, wins.

More Later...