Rage against the machine 


roar 

My rage has become palpable.

I suspect people see it now when they look at me and decide not to speak cause I look pissed off.

Every time I am on the stairmaster at the gym gay marriage is on the news. I get really angry when they interview the 'phobes. I am at the point where I cheer when someone smart says something about equality and fundamental rights and I say "A$$hole" when someone talks about protecting marriage. Especially Bushie. I want to raise my fist like a black panther every time the gay marriage issue is on the news, and I want all gay people and human str8 people to join me, one mind gathered to claim basic rights. Marriage is a right, not a heterosexual privilege.

Now I am really pissed at Kerry's separate and unequal doctrine. I will settle for NO LESS than full marriage rights. We have been patient. We played along with civil unions in VT. But this is BS - why are we setting ourselves up for separate and unequal. When heteros go get civilly unioned, then I will accept it. But until then, it simply is not enough. I don't care if some moron campaign manager thinks it makes Kerry more palatable to the general election. IT IS NOT ENOUGH. We must not support a candidate who makes promises of future good and says "Be Patient." Sorry Doug, you made the comment on one earlier entry that Kerry's strategy is right and we take baby steps. I disagree. America went down that road with equal rights for the descendants of slaves and with giving women the right to vote.... neither time was it appropriate, and it took many deaths and long protests to bring equality. I will settle for no less.

Where has this latest rage come from? Did you see Iron Jawed Angels on HBO? While I am not sure the film was well made, the story of women achieving a constitutional amendment to get the vote was truly moving. How on earth could people not see the foolishness of prohibiting the vote? How could a political machine move so slowly and yet so deliberately to prevent women getting the vote? How sick that women had to go to jail for throwing a president's words back in his face to show him his own hypocrisy! Yet that is where we are with Gay Marriage.

My iPod is updated with more great 80s/90s stuff... today it was U2s best two albums, Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby and REMs Automatic for the People . REM's song "Ignoreland" is this awesome protest song (for two reasons, one it says "So F- You now", and then last lines "I know that this is vitriol, but no solution spins better" well ok I think thats what he says, Michael Stipe can be unintelligible most of the time). I have nearly no idea what he is saying, but I interpret it to be about throwing Bush Sr out of office (the album came out in 92 after all). At the time I first heard the song, there were all these rumors about Michael Stipe being gay and living with HIV, (he used to refuse to label his orientation)(I stopped paying attention to them years ago, I have no clue if anything was ever concluded), and the song seems to be fury at ignoring the "STD toll's a million lives..." Fury at the Reagan policy of ignoring AIDS and ignoring the decline of our society so Republican voters could get wealthy. I remember hearing that song, singing/screaming along with Stipe and praying that Bush Sr would lose. Hearing it today tapped all that old rage too.

"I'm feeling better, having screamed at you......"

So, if you see a cute, iPod toting, bald guy at the gold's with his fist in the air when gay marriage is on the news, it's probably me. A "Right on, brother," is welcome. I won't bite.  

Posted: Sun - February 22, 2004 at 02:02 PM          
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