PTSD

Marching in the Capital of the Free World, Part II

Yes, it's weeks ago. Yes, I forgot about it (and, really, after reading the zillions of articles and blog posts on it, got rather bored). So, here I go: just to make those of you waiting in anticipation to hear what happened happy.

Did I march? No. I ended up watching the Corpse Bride instead. Btw, if yous are going to watch it, the ending sucks.

Oh, I did go to the anti-war concerts after the Corpse Bride. One could say the anti-war concert was good fun. But then one would have to have imbibed various sorts of (illegal) substances and narcotics at that time. Since I hadn't, I can't say that.

I guess I knew it wasn't going to be very coherent or even have anybody making a good argument for getting out of Iraq when the first thing I saw, when walking towards the stage (well, maybe not the first but one of the earliest things anyway) was a giant, inflatable globe (with a diametre of about ten feet) with a gigantic mosquito on top, apparently using its proboscis to suck at something on the Earth. It had the warning of "Stop Global Warming" (or something similar to do with global warming. I was too traumatised by the enormous mosquito to notice and memorise the actual words). Now, I"m all for stopping global warming and in favour of reducing greenhouse gases and all that. I just don't see what a huge mosquito has anything to do with it. It's not as if mosquitoes are causing global warming with their use of proboscii. Mosquitoes play a minor role in global warming. In the list of major factors of global warming, mosquitos would be towards the end. Far behind United States and other countries, vertebrates like cows and sheep and all that. Any sign with "Stop global warming" having a huge mosquito on top of Earth means that invertebrates, as usual, get a bad reputation. Their representation in popular culture, even among the so-called liberals who should be working to uplift the oppressed masses (of invertebrates), is highly negative. Also, the people who made the display really hadn't thought of the whys and wherefores of the mosquito-on-Earth. Notice how it was an invertebrate causing this havoc? It wasn't a vertebrate (cows-on-Earth or even sheep-on-Earth) supposedly causing global warming but a small, tiny invertebrate (though magnified in this representation).

After that, the concert itself was a letdown. It was just a case of a lot of loud rants against the current administration, constant refrains of how the last two elections were "stolen" from the Democrats (enough already!) and how "people power" would get the soldiers out of Iraq. Nobody mentioned what alternative strategies might be, what long-term planning might involve or much about the Iraqi people (yes, okay, let's get "our" soldiers out. But, what about those people who get left behind in this mess?). When yet another bloke went on about the power of the people, it was time to leave. In between all this, there were a few good songs. Very few. And, by the time I left at around 8pm (though the concert was supposed to go on till after midnight), not many people were around.

I heard the march was "huge". I wasn't there. I don't know. The concert, though, wasn't huge. It wasn't even very big. It was fairly small. And, the arguments for bringing "our" troops back? Well, they need better ones if anybody except the choir is to hear them.

posted by Priya @ 5:11 PM