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"You talkin' to ME?"
for release 09-28-05
Washington D.C.
Saturday, we were watching the news in hopes of seeing what the peace demonstrations were doing. The mainstream media did its usual muted coverage of such events, preferring to focus on scandals and disasters.
As we were watching the news, the phone rang. It was some lady who said she was from an Adult Detention Center in (location undisclosed for family security purposes). She told us that doreen's son was in custody after being arrested at the peace demonstration for some obscure charge like 'obstructing pedestrian traffic.' In other words he was standing in the street with a bunch of other demonstrators and when the cops demanded that he move, he uttered the forbidden question, "Why?"
In the mean time the demonstrations in Washington were the largest since the Vietnam war. Cindy Sheehan and thousands of others are asking the same forbidden question, "Why?" She was still demanding to ask that question on Monday when they arrested her for demonstrating without a permit.
The president and his staff hastily evacuated Washington D.C. in anticipation of Hurricane Cindy. They went to higher ground in Colorado so they wouldn't have to confront the category 3 demonstration that drew over 100,000 people of all makes and models.
It was reported that President Bush aboard Air Force One, was standing in front of the bathroom mirror during the nationwide demonstrations like Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver rehearsing different ways to say, "We must stay the course." and "We are there for a just cause," (or was that 'just because?') and "You talkin' to ME?"
Before we could wire the money to bail out doreen's son, he called on the phone to say that his comrades had secured his release. His arrest, like Cindy Sheehan's, was symbolic. But I'm proud of them both. They put their bodies on the line for the causes they believed in. They were not, as Karl Rove so coarsely categorized them--clowns. And when they appear in court to answer these trumped-up charges, they should both report waving a copy of The Constitution. You know, The Constitution of the United States of America that has little technical clauses like THE RIGHT TO PEACEFULLY ASSEMBLE and FREEDOM OF SPEECH. The Constitution should override local permit 'violations.'
The Bush administration has been characterized by its own actions as being willfully oblivious. These people systematically deny cold hard evidence. It's much more than the WMD hoax or the tenuous connection between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks. The oblivion that I'm talking about is even more insidious. It includes the refusal to acknowledge the obvious fact of global warming, a worsening energy situation, the existence of a persistent underclass in our country that suffers unduly in times of trial like Katerina, the fact that our borders are as leaky as a colander, and now they are trying to deny the very existence of an anti-war movement in this country. Willful oblivion.
The Poet's Eye is peeking over Bush's shoulder into the bathroom mirror aboard Air Force One. Yes, Mr. President, we're talkin' to YOU. And what are we asking? "Why?"
"You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Then who the hell else are you talkin' to? You talkin' to me? Well I'm the only one here. Who do you think you're talking to? Oh yeah? Huh? Ok.
--Robert DeNiro (Travis, in Taxi Driver)
