6:28 p.m. - 2001-07-23
protest
I found myself in Naperville, Illinois on Friday night, at a protest against the G-8 Summit in Genoa, Italy. I hadn't gone there to protest, I'd gone because Jeremy had told me it was a street party. When the chants started and the tear gas started shooting and the police started wrestling and beating protesters to the ground, it didn't matter that I hadn't come to protest... It was the crowd mentality, the mass brain. The protest turned from Genoa to the brutality of the police, and I was in as completely as I'd come. Through the shirt I'd pulled over my mouth to shut out the tear gas, I ran with the crowd, screaming, ducking the clubs. A police officer pushed me almost a block with her bike before she turned a corner, hit a curb, and went down. I saw the police break a kid's arm, I saw them Mace a guy in the face so his skin was dripping with the liquid. I saw a club swing and a girl go down. Unbelievable, even now, I'm still sick to my stomach. Surprisingly unable to describe this here. When the group tired and stood, panting and coughing, in the town square, surrounded by squad cars and smirking police, these tired faces matched my own. It didn't matter what we'd come here for.. what mattered was we were all still alive. I was holding the hands of people I'd never seen before. That second, the only thing I wanted was to stay alive and stay connected with all these people. The next thing I wanted was for the police to Stop. Fucking. Laughing. At their own. Cruelty. Because they were. Standing in the streets, they're laughing like it was all a big joke. I could have killed them. I really could have. 'Look at that kid Bill, I broke his arm good didn't I? Heh heh heh..'

I hate them.

Another thing I hate, and Jeremy or Ed, if you read this, don't you dare try and defend yourselves. I saw the look on your faces. You meant what you said. All this time, all this violence in front of us, and he's going, 'Cool! Isn't this exciting? People are getting arrested! Let's go watch!'

And I'm standing there, and I looked at his face, smiling into mine, and I said, 'Look, you fucking closeminded insensitive sheltered suburbanite bastard, people are here standing up for themselves, getting beaten and clubbed and maced for it, and you're getting off on watching them get arrested? You think this is funny, you think this is all a game, a show for your own fucking amusement? Fuck you!' and walked off, found other people to talk to, people who were worth talking to, left him standing there, his mouth dropped open, amazed. Me, the softspoken, the laid-back.

Here we have it, the distinction between the loving and hating of humanity or an individual. The embracing of humanity, the abhorrence of an individual. I could just as easily flipside it, but I can't now; I need a cold bath. It's 100+ degrees outside and we don't have an airconditioner. My mind is not only fried, but FRIED. Literally.

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