The 'Radical Left'

Outlaw, Outlaw, Outlaw (Dear God, I wonder could you save me?)

- Tupac Shakur

Seems the reich loves to toss out this expression when referring to those of us on the "left" who adamantly oppose THEIR president and the criminal acts of this admini$tration. This is the most common phrase by the likes of Hannity and Limbaugh (drug addict) when describing we "non believers." It's said harshly to make us all appear as dirty, violent, civilization hating maniacs who wish for nothing more than the complete collapse of this country and the "theft" of money by way of higher taxes. Nothing could be further from the truth. Except for the taxes.

I am in no way a "radical." Aside from the tattoos and a few choice piercings, I am as bland and boring as the regular American. The body art is simply my way of STILL holding some control over my own frame. There is nothing the religious reich would like more than to regulate not only what happens WITHIN our bodies but what we are permitted to do to the outside as well. Tattoos are my way of telling them to go fuck themselves, I'm still in control here. Like it or leave it, it still does not make me a radical.

Am I in some form or fashion a criminal? Is that where the term "radical" fits me? Well, I do have three unpaid parking tickets. Tickets which I have NO INTENTION of ever paying because the city in which I reside extorts it's residents by handing out parking tickets like, well, parking tickets, whether deserved or not. They KNOW you will pay them, so they rake in MILLIONS of dollars a year by writing illegitimate tickets. In fact, they paid for the new football stadium with revenue from parking tickets (they went up 300% in the year of the stadium financing. Nice.) Don't extort me. Come up to me and hold a gun to my head and demand the $15.00. At least that would take some guts. Parking tickets are the pussy way out. So the three I received when I was NOT parked illegally will remain unpaid until the day I die. For this am I deserving of the term "radical?" Hardly.

So it MUST be my appearance, right? I probably walk through town in an anarchy t-shirt and a bandana disguising my features. A can of spray paint shoved down the back of my baggy jeans, ready to write an epithapht on a barren wall or on some poor fellas SUV. My hair must be styled in a mohawk and I probably spit on the sidewalk a lot. I smack babies, too. I wish. As I write this, I'm sporting a pair of JCrew jeans, some white addias, a "Smiths" tshirt and a very nice Ann Klein watch. My hair is nothing to get worked up over, although it probably does need a comb run through it. I haven't smacked any babies in at least a week and my career in graffiti is limited to my bumper stickers and the erasure board in my kitchen where I write my weekly shopping list. I do own two pitbulls and two rats. Does that count? At last check, the pitbulls haven't attacked and killed anyone in the last year and the rats are tucked safely away in their cage. So far I'm pitifully failing the 'radical' check list.

So if it's not my crimes or my appearance, it must be my political beliefs. I mean, what else could it possibly be? So let's see where I stand on these telling issues. I don't believe our country should be pre-emptively attacking countries that were of no threat to us and I don't think the American people should be LIED TO in order to gain our support for a pre-emptive attack. I don't think our country should be borrowing one BILLION dollars a DAY to finance this "war" and to give the rich in this country $70 BILLION dollars in tax cuts. I don't think our debt ceiling should be $9 TRILLION dollars and I don't think our good paying jobs should be shipped overseas to save the employers money. I don't think money for the needy should be cut as well as loans for kids to go to college so this money can be transfered to the tax cuts for the already mega-rich. I don't think the drug companies should get tax breaks so they can continue to over charge us on their (often) unnecessary products. I don't think our Constitutional rights should be taken away so the president can spy on us, search us and arrest us at will.

I think the American people should be able to protest at will and should not be segregated in "free speech" zones where they are often arrested anyway. I don't think people detained by this government should be held with no charges for as long as the government desires to hold them. What if they one day they decide to detain you or me? Would YOU like to be held indefinitely with no chance of ever speaking to a lawyer? I doubt it. I don't think our environment should be destroyed so the chemical and oil companies can continue to rake in huge profits. I don't think global warming should be ignored and written of as a "radical" idea. I don't think the endangered species act should be nullified to benefit the developers, the chemical companies and (again) the oil companies. Who gave us the right to render other species extinct so we can build more mcmansions or put up another Wal-Mart? What happens when someday "someone" decides to make humans extinct? What goes around, comes around.

I don't think religious beliefs should be shoved down the throats of those who choose to think differently. Religion (ANY religion) shouldn't be taught in schools and it has no place in our halls of goverment. Americans should be free to worship whichever religion (or non-religion) they choose without fear of repercussions. Remember, this is one of the main reasons this country was founded in the first place. My body is my body and what I decide to do with it is up to me and me alone. If your religion teaches YOU otherwise fine, but since I choose not to accept your beliefs I should, in no way, be affected by them. IN NO WAY. Just as I would not expect a christian to be forced to follow the teaching is Islam, I do not expect chritianity to be installed as the official religion of this country.

I don't want our soldiers sent to a war zone on a lie and killed in the process. How am I "unAmerican" or any less patriotic because I don't desire to see my fellow Americans killed for no reason whatsoever? I don't want to see us preemptively attack yet ANOTHER country (Iran) and quite possibly start world war III. I don't think our media should all be owned by corporations that answer to the government and I especially don't believe strictly propoganda outfits such as Faux News should be allowed to function as if they're a legitimate news outlet. I don't like it that our elections are now administered and our votes counted by private companies, all of which are major contributers to the republican party.

I don't think this country should have fear shoved down their throats at every turn. I don't believe a citizenry run and governed on fear is a healthy or productive way to live. I don't appreciate your goverment trying to control my actions like a marrionette by constantly sending us running for cover. By doing so, by holding threats over our heads they are able to keep us silent. And by continually presenting us with something new to fear, day after day after day, they are able to keep us busy, keep our minds focused on the threat of fear, while they steal our treasury and bankrupt our coffers. By keeping the people continually fearful, awaiting the hammer to fall at any moment, they "convinced" us to relinquish our constitutional rights. No fight was offered, no great moral outcry was heard. Except from us on the "radical left." We were the only ones who spoke up, not just for ourselves, but for you, too. But we were IMMEDIATLEY maligned, deemed unpatriotic, labeled communists and our voices were more or less silenced.

And I don't like it that I could possibly be arrested for holding the beliefs which I just spelled out for you.

How many times have I been told "you're probably on a watch list" or "they're gonna come talk to you one of these days." For what? For simply stating the obvious and exercising my first amendment rights? Is this what you want for this country? Would you like it if we "radical lefties" were arrested and detained for speaking our minds? If so, then you desire to live in Stalin's Russia where the NKGB rounded up anyone and everyone who they "believed" was a detriment to those in power. They killed and imprisoned MILLIONS. For this, I feel bad for you for you have NO IDEA what you are getting yourself into. What kind of a hell of accusations and blame are you wishing upon this country? Just remember, you are not immune. In such an environment, all it takes is ONE person pointing the finger at you or dropping your name in a conversation. Just one inkling of doubt, one seed planted in the minds of those in power. Once the finger pointing starts, it never ends. No one is safe, no matter how religious or patriotic you think yourself to be.

Do these simple simple beliefs seem so "radical" to you? If these beliefs are what constitutes a "radical leftist" than this is a title I will wear proudly. Radical to me is a president who believes he has the power of a dictator over the people. Radical is disassembling our constitution right under our noses and declaring those who protest it "terrorist sympathizers." Radical is instituting a christian theocracy and regulating our daily lives based on the supposed "morals" of this religion. Radical is bankrupting the middle class, exporting our jobs overseas and nullifying peoples pensions that they have worked 30 years to attain. Radical is constantly raising the "threat level" whenever you need to shift the peoples attention from one criminal activity or another perpetrated by this admin$tration. Radical is obtaining authorization to drop a nuclear weapon on a country that has yet to attack us. Radical is silencing any question regarding the events that happend here on September 11th, 2001. Radical is locking up those who disagree with this admini$tration and spying on the phone calls and emails of it citizenry without the required warrants. Radical is lying to our armed forces and sending them overseas to get shot at and blown to pieces. Radical is OUTLAWING the photographing of these soldiers' coffins as they retrun home. Radical is manipulating the media to only report what you deem acceptable.

Radical is not standing up for your rights and accepting at face vale any and all things this government tells you. Radical is sitting by passively or actively assisting your country as it enters the abyss. Radical is bankrupting your own country.
We "radical leftists" are the same people who, 230 years ago, dared sign their names to that fateful document and took a bold swing at the most powerful country on the planet. We were the little guys, the farmers, the millworkers, the writers, the musicians, the sharecroppers, the store owners and the fishermen. The regular person who said "enough is enough" and fought back for what they believed to be rightfully theirs. They didn't demand much, only freedom. Freedom to speak as they wish, to worship, or not worship, as they wish. To live their lives free of governmental intrusion. To "Live Free Or Die." They picked up their muskets and formed a rag tag army to fight for a land they could call their own. A land where they could live and prosper as they wish. These were the "radical leftists." And I'm proud to carry the same title. You, on the other hand, could be labled a tory.

posted by America Is Fucked at 3/26/2006 10:07:00 PM

Link Here