Off to War

March 20, 2003
San Francisco

I awoke this morning to the sound of helicopter propellors thumping in the downtown sky. The air was tense, blue with spots of clouds, and I knew this day would be like no other. The anger, fear, anticipation were palpable. We are a country at war and my generation will never know a time of peace. These disheartening thoughts swirled through my mind as I began my short drive into downtown to start another work day. Yet there was nothing ordinary about my traversion toward my school. The public transportation stood still at Market and Powell Streets. Angry protesters linked arms and dared oncoming traffic to continue. Was this Bejing, 1989 or San Francisco? Though the protest displayed signs of peace, the vibrations in the air falsified this claim. The congregation reaked of violent resisitence. Looking up Powell Street a wall of human bodies stared across an invisible barrier toward a cable car stopped in its tracks. The car looked lonely, afraid, out of place. The driver released his hold on the cable rod and waited. He could do nothing else. Young men and women in gas masks paraded up the street holding upside down American flags graffited with words of distrust. It was no coincidence a bulk of protesters converged on Bush street. From the teachers’lounge on the second floor of our school building I watched the sunlight pulse in and out of the shadow of the circling ‘copters above. I sat in the middle of the room, feeling this represented everything about me. I was not delusional enough to agree with either side on this issue. To choose one dictator over another seemed a ridiculous notion.
Union Square was (and remains) barricaded, police in riot gear stoicly patroled the surrounding streets. Suspicious stares ricocheted off multicolored faces. A deep paranoia crept into my soul as I realized the future was now. What once was science fiction, fantasy, or satire (George Orwell, Frank Herbert, Aldous Huxley) seemed all too real. We have entered an age in which the common man and popular opinion have no power to thwart the greed of the empire. A time in which a cohesive, logical resistence is nowhere to be found (where the hell is MLK?)
I felt anger as I watched this protest, without a goal, without a leader, and with morals no loftier than those supposedly espoused by the powers that be. My anger was directed toward every protester that blocked my way to work, why not encirle the federal building? And it was also directed toward the smirk of greed that Bush, Cheney and the gang display with such pride.
So I suppose there isnt much to say except, let’s finish what we started. For this is but one battle, the first war, among many more to come.

Rager- reporting