iraqometer. and just plain weirdness. and WTF?

“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.” James Douglas Morrison

what currently seems to be an attack by our own soldier on our own men made me think. bush was right, and we all know it. there is/was a connection between terrorism and iraq. but we already took care of it. his name was timothy mcveigh.

i hope it comes ramblin out like it use to do. still, i also wish i had some form to follow this erratic style. i also feel like ive said it all before. last night, bout 430, we started at federal plaza, chicago of course, sorry chris. but we gathered and the rain slowly stopped. we heard some speakers, and there was some media. it was bigger than i expected. the last speaker was aaron patterson, a released death row inmate. he said some shit, called bush a gangster. you can understand where that comes from. at these things, there is always a lot that i disagree with, but the overall idea is right. we need to stand against what we dont agree with. so aaron got us into the streets and marchin, and the cops helped, cleared the way. but they didnt seem to have a good plan. we marched around the loop, pissin off the cars stuck in traffic. strangely, not too many middle fingers and a surprising number of positive greetings. mostly, folks just frustrated that they were stuck. i wonder if they were nice out of fear too. minorities seemed the most positive, perhaps they understood that we supported bringin the unequally represented minority soldiers home. or maybe just ‘fuck the man’. whatever the reason, it was nice to see that. from the yacht club, the cops blocked off northbound lakeshore for us i think. southbound was stuck too, but i think that was just originally supposed to be due to the march having to cross in front of them. still, about half of the march seemed to decide to march among the cars on the southbound side, even handing out leaflets. with that separation, i ended up in the front of the northbound part with just some confused cops on bikes and other biking protestors. eventually, the cops got organized and stopped us on the part on a bridge over grand or ohio i think. strange, cause we couldnt dissipate anywhere at that point. stuck for a while, but eventually they let us move on further north, with cops in front. just before chicago ave, i noticed pete gray and tellone biking south between us and the lake. they jumped the barrier and joined us. we all continued on, and i gotta think it gained strength as we moved north. at the curve, before oak street beach and next to the drake hotel, we were directed off lake shore drive till we were at michigan ave and oak st. we took time to help those who needed it get over the barriers. they wouldnt let us any futher, even after we tried to chant “we just want to shop”. so we turned it back down the inner drive south and eventually turned down chicago ave. i guess the french embassy was on our left at that point, so some cheers in support of that government’s position went up. with the watertower to the front right and the mca behind us to the right, we were blocked by cops in riot gear from going forward or back. they positioned a line on both ends, and then moved to back them up with many more. to our sides were a wall and a huge building. cop buses pulled up, and some cops came into the crowd and grabbed people. i couldnt tell how they decided who to grab, seemed very arbitrary to me. still, i cant say i say too much real brutality, except for dragging people away. we were stuck like that for over an hour i think, and we asked and got no word from the cops. they didnt seem to have a plan, except keeping us from continuing in such a mass any further. it seemed no one was allowed to leave that whole time, even the elderly or people with children. by now, the corralled crowd was less than a thousand i think. eventually, the cops moved everyone into the street and surrounded us on all sides. then they let us go at about a rate of five at a time, demanding that we leave the loop. cops all around watched that we did so.
now for a little criticism. i barely went. it was rainin when i left paul’s and the ncaa, and the food. but it was way worth it. it was fuckin exhilirating, i must admit. the crowd grew huge as we marched, especially along LSD. it was a beautiful thing to look around at all the people. every kind of folk. im sorry folks got stuck in traffic, im sure that made some people on the fence of the issue go against us. i wonder how well the cops had it all planned out, im sure some of it came from the city council voting for a resolution against the war. im not sure that they were ready for us, or else i would have thought they could have cleared streets better. i would have felt better if no cars were actually stuck amongst us, but had only had to be routed along different streets. we took up chants of ‘whose streets? our streets’. i yelled back ‘theirs too’ a few times. levy pointed out that tying the cops up like that could have made a terrorism situation even worse. i must admit that i didnt think about that. funny how the federal administration put more security on disneyland or disneyworld than they did on chicago, as daley has recently complained. i must say, cops treated us pretty well, far as i could tell. and at all such things, i think i need to make my opposition understood against the threatening anarchists and annoying as hell spartacist socialists. ‘capitalism must be dismantled’ and ‘war is the pure form of capitalism’ bullshit. i need to talk to them more one on one about it. more of the left tearin itself apart. i think challenging them at these rallies would be too much, too counterproductive. ugh, them and their paper pushin and loudspeakers.
looks like the massive bombing did come, as they said it would. our tax dollars at use. our majority lower class and minority soldiers at work.
wisdom teeth out too, not too bad. same with ‘the ring’ and ‘barbershop’. adios, break has been alright too.

our interests first. so patriotic. hope you dont mind.

how bout this? hopefully ill be at daley plaza tomorrow at 2pm.

no war! there is no proven connection between saddam and bin laden, and the decision about whether iraq has fulfilled their obligations is up to the UN to decide. isnt that all of it? im procrastinating on my paper.

we all know the world is a scary place. instead of tellin you my opinions on why, i give you this. im unemployed, i really should have more time for this thing.