On the right (and by right, I mean left) side of politics

I love Obama. I really do. But I'm not shouting it from the rooftops like every other mother fucker in LA.

At the onset of the 2008 presidential election, a house around the corner planted an Obama For President sign on their front lawn. Months after the inauguration, that sign is still there. After the great proponent of change and media darling was elected, a small piece of paper amended the for: Obama IS president. 

Really folks? Really? What compensation do these neighbors expect for having been on the right side of politics? Why the incredible urge for the PDP (public displays of partisanship)? I find myself disenchanted with the extremely vocal pseudo-liberals wearing Obama like the latest fashion. I find that the loud Obama-loving Los Angelenos are not unlike the illiterate Harry Potter fans of yesteryear (I trust that my phantom readers will understand and appreciate that analogy without any explanation). 

And yet for all my griping, I too have shouted a few political sentiments. It is my own experience protesting the Iraq War that turned me off to overt displays of political partisanship. 

I was present at several anti-war rallies in the greater Los Angeles area, most of which received conveniently little press. One campus walk-out almost resulted in expulsion from my high school and a rally in Hollywood on Oscar night almost resulted in an arrest. 

But listening to the loud, inaudible voices that one hears at protests, I found nothing useful or effective. In my highly-regimented life of class to class to lunch to class to home to dinner to studies to bed, I was choked by the disorder. At a typical rally (yes, I've wasted enough time at rallies to know), there are a million different groups airing their grievances. At the Iraq rallies, anti-Iraq war posters and chants were drowned out by the other interest groups: The Free Palestiners, Free Tibeters, Labor Righters, etc..

Maybe Fox News didn't feature much of the protests because they were short on footage of relevant signs/chants? I kid... But I refuse to believe in or attend protests until unified messages are presented in a more organized and effective manner. Government interference in national elections brought the pro-democracy camp to the streets in Egypt in the past few years. With the multitude of issues plaguing the region, somehow the Egyptians managed to focus. Only in unity will the media be forced to cover the unavoidable truth of public sentiment. 

Unity aside, the few conversations that I had with my fellow protesters also revealed that they lacked any profound insight into the plight of the bombed Iraqi citizens and countless soldiers sacrificed. Few protesters seemed to know anything about Iraq or the Middle East. At the time, I myself was also somewhat misinformed (not that I'm a fucking expert now). 

Why then? Why protest a War in Iraq without understanding Iraq or the gravity of the situation? 

One sad answer is: The cool factor. Many of the pseudo-liberals that form an almost-religious presence at these rallies are involved in vast social networks. For these folks, it seems that liberalism is little more than a dinner party or a quilting bee. I won't name names, because I know some people who I don't want to offend. But allow me to paint you a picture:

They are vegans. Because so many of them are vegans. They collect money door-to-door to fund the tofu they occasionally serve the homeless. I sometimes wonder how much of that money really goes to tofu, but questions are seldom answered (funny how the pseudo-liberals themselves can be totalitarian). They believe in socialist principle and praise some of the most warped examples of socialism to plague the 20th century. BUT MOSTLY, they sit around drinking fair-trade beer, watching clever Michael Moore docudramas.

I'm not using any concrete information to support this claim. You have no reason to believe me. AND I must admit that my signature bitterness has made me a little unfair. But this is a blog. Go to a newspaper, phantom reader. 

In retrospect, maybe a large part of contemporary conflict in the Middle East would have been prevented if the average American, pro or anti-war, knew something of pan-Arab or international government and society. Even today, years after Americans started uttering their first Arabic words (Hamas and hummus), I find that Americans know relatively little about the Middle East for a world power. 

But so many of us talk about it like we know the Middle East quite well. It's just a lot of Ali Babas and kebobs, right? 

We are a culture of pins and t-shirts. We are a culture of Free Tibet stickers, because Richard Gere said so. 

And yet despite all my complaints about the United States and our general lack of substantial political consciousness, my travels have taught me that I would never live anywhere else. Like most every foreign country, I have the habit of complaining about this country and preferring it to all the alternatives. 

I just want some people take down their fucking yard signs. It's like Christmas decorations in July. 

M!