Kiev

Yesterday I suborned my regularly scheduled posts with a heartfelt, if somewhat narcissistic, post on the Ukraine.  Today I continue the trend, because I care about you, my imaginary readers. 

Obviously I am not on a plain to eastern Europe right now, though perhaps less obviously, I am not in an airport waiting for the flight either.  I feel I should be, but perhaps my lack of belief in God means I just can't abandon the wreckage of my daily life to go based on impulse and feeling... 

Since you only exist in my mind, dear readers, I chose to imagine you listened to the podcasts we originally started with, and thus have heard Burke speak, the one podcaster who is deeply religious and deeply involved with his church (Methodists, which is funny if you recall Blazing Saddles like I do...). So, while we disagree about the existence of God, he is a fine friend to call on when you are troubled by matters that extend beyond mere intellect. Call them spiritual, for that is as accurate a word as any. 

So I called upon Burke, not to talk me out of going, or into going, but because I needed, perhaps still need, spiritual advice. Like all men I needed, in that moment, someone to talk to. 

So here we are. I am still not convinced that staying here, following the roller coaster news reports, is the right choice, but I am at least convinced now that going is not necessarily the right choice either, which I suppose is progress of a sort. 

You see: It isn't so much that I care about the outcome of the protests, per se. It isn't that I have objective knowledge that one side is right or wrong... though unlike Vox Day, I find myself singularly untroubled by the fact that the protesters are armed and have reputedly taken 'hostages' from among the riot cops. 

My reason, perhaps my sole reason, of interest is that the people of Kiev, the protestors, are doing what Americans are content not to do.  As I explained yesterday, we are far more likely to see mass protests over the price of an iPad than the continuing failures of our self-appointed Philosopher-Kings in DC.  People protest out of envy and spite, not because the police are shooting random people in the streets.  

Mind you: I find this worse than what is going on in Kiev. The riot police there are shooting protestors, they are fighting according to sides. One can avoid the violence quite easily by simply choosing to, well, avoid it.  Here in the states, however, you are far more likely to be shot by accident by the cops simply because some asshole read an address wrong, out of malice and personal animosity, or simple incompetence. 

How the fuck do you avoid that?  The police have become lightning strikes, impersonal and deadly and almost entirely unpredictable, and just as unstoppable.

But they are just men, and unlike lightning they can, and should be held accountable for their actions. We simply chose to turn a blind eye and ignore it, however.

So that is why I care about the Ukraine all of a sudden. 

I care because THEY care, and you do not.   I am tired of waiting for Americans to wake up, tired of hoping that we will one day realize that while there is no boot physically grinding your face in the dirt, the boot is there and it is making you miserable in a thousand tiny ways.  Can't get a good job? Thank the government regulations that keeps employment low. Can't afford a doctor? Thank government regulations that mandate your insurance cover things you have no interest in, like gender assignment surgery.  Lost your mother to icy roads in New Jersey (surely an act of God!, not government!), thank the rules that have held up 40 thousand tons of road salt in Maine, a mere few hours drive away.  

It isn't my point that government is always bad (well.. it is always bad, hence the term 'necessary evil'...), but that you simply don't care to trace by the source of whatever your woes are to continuing government malfeasance and corruption, and I am tired of waiting for you. I am tired of raging against the dying of the light, but I do it anyway. 

I don't want to rage, I want to fight. 

I want to stand with people who care rather than stand uselessly alone because no one else does.