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big-D Democrat
Wednesday, March 5 2003
The local public radio station is WAMC and today they were in the heat of their fundraiser, talking, rehashing, and publicizing a disturbing news item they'd broken about someone who had actually been arrested for wearing a teeshirt bearing the message "Give Peace a Chance" at Crossgates, an upstate shopping mall. As often happens when a corporate megalith attempts to repress speech, the case has simply brought out greater quantities of the same sort of speech. Now this mall has to contend with 100 people wearing Peace shirts parading through their elaborate cathedral of consumerism.
For their part, WAMC took the story and applied it directly to the job of riling their listeners and getting them to contribute. Here it was, a classic example of what happens in a corporate-controlled fascist state, one that needs foreign conquests to distract us from domestic misery. In the face of this, they took the stance of the little guy standing up for free speech in a nation gone mad. It was an effective message. Listening to it today on the drive back from a housecall in New Paltz, I could feel what I can only describe as my blood beginning to boil. I was so angry at society that something primordial in me just wanted to smash my truck headon into a flag-flying-fascist, any flag-flying-fascist, in the oncoming lane. It would have been pointless, of course. If I was really going to cancel a fascist with my life he'd have to be more substantial than random Joe fascist heading southbound down NY Route 32.
Later I was talking to Kristen Ma$$on on the phone and she told me she'd heard my name on the radio. WAMC was listing off the people who had just given money to their fundraiser, and one of things they'd said was "Thanks to Gus and Gretchen in Hurley." On the ride down to Virginia we'd realized our indebtedness to public radio, and we'd agreed that we should make a contribution.
In other news, today I went to the Ulster County office building in uptown Kingston and got my New York State driver's license. It had to be my least painless DMV experience ever, lasting about fifteen minutes, and that included the process of registering to vote. Lordy, lordy, now I'm a registered big-D Democrat. This was the first time I'd ever stated a political party affiliation, something best done while holding one's nose.
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