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 Excerpt from Mick Just Shrugs by Brian Dykstra Mick: high school student Kirks: high school principal MICK 52% of respondents in a recent poll would like to see the public execution of Osama bin Laden (if we catch him). And 40% would be willing to purchase the right to see it on pay-per-view. Presumably with a bowl of popcorn in their laps. Forty per cent. I would say that I don't know these people, but I must. I must know some of them. KIRKS That's a different issue. We'll need to take them- MICK Drug laws are stupid. KIRKS Do I even get to- MICK Pharmaceutical companies finance anti-drug campaigns in order to keep marijuana from cutting into market share by competing with their line of "mood enhancers." These anti-drug campaigns don't even bother telling the truth. It's just total scare tactics, trading on stereotypes that anybody who ever smoked a single bowl knows is total bullshit. Why should we believe you about other drugs? You lied to us about pot, half you all are addicted to booze and pills, and way too many of my friends were medicated with Ritalin or whatever made raising them easier on their lazy parents. And, of course, Africans with AIDS won't get a second look because they can't pay for the pharmaceuticals. That's just tough, huh. Sixty of the worlds leading scientists (including 20 past Nobel winners) have accused the White House of knowingly and wilfully lying about scientific realities in order to further pro-business and pro-military agendas. The administration's response up to present has been a big, fat, "So?" Companies get gift no-bid government contracts through political connections. Some states are considering not teaching evolution. Laws are being bent and judicial appointments made in order to further a Christian right wing agenda that's more interested in Armageddon than people. Environmental laws are castrated in the name of progress, so rather than wasting profits on clean up, corporations get to make more scratch, while the possibility of a clean environment becomes more and more remote. Global warming is joked about. But the ozone is depleting and we've lost almost fifty per cent of the worlds coral reef in my lifetime. I'm seventeen years old. If that isn't a canary choking to death in Dick Chaney's coal mine, then what is it? I can't remember the last time we were below something called Orange Alert. Political debate has devolved into partisan rhetoric in almost every forum. So truth is held hostage while Ultra-Conservative, pill-popping, right-wing assholes like Rush Limbaugh spew hate all over the airwaves and complain about something they keep calling the Liberal Media. Which, I don't even know what that is. Do they mean Hollywood? Because they can't possibly mean MSNBC, or Rupert Murdoch Fox. They can't mean talk-radio. They can't possibly mean the news. The Florida National Guard was mobilized to illegally turn away thousands of African American voters in the last Presidential election. Nobody had to answer for that. In the name of fighting terrorism, civil rights are being denied citizens of this country every single day. And most of the time, we don't even know it. We eat shit. Intelligent people are marginalized by being branded "The Cultural Elite" while the government is reacting to polling that gets taken in Darwin's waiting room. I haven't even really gotten started on Iraq. Half the people can't afford a hospital stay. SUV's get shitty gas milage. And nobody cares. We have gay men and women unable to marry, because the majority says
they can't. Never mind the majority is so fucking wrong on this issue it
should be so collectively embarrassed that it shouldn't be able to utter
the first syllable about it. In the fifties inner-racial marriages were
against the law. Well, outside of a few brainless white supremacist neo-nazi
shitheads, we all agree that law was wrong, wasn't it? No matter what the
majority said. Fuck the majority. And now they're squealing about a constitutional
amendment that's the first one since prohibition (later repealed, by the
way) that's designed to limit rights. Democrats are wishy-washy reactionary cowards who allow their political enemies to define them. Liberal is a dirty word because conservatives say it is. Politicians from both parties are in the pockets of business because if you don't have a huge war chest there's no way you can win an election. The Supreme Court just proved it's either a totally partisan body, or for the first time, it's become clear just how fallible it is. Neither option is particularly reassuring. Our total dependance on oil has not only created the terrorists but it gives them the dollars and weapons they need to attack us. And, rather than address the reasons for their anger, we decide to fight fire with fire and burn everybody down. Jesus is suddenly the star-slash-victim of a sadomasochist snuff-film rather than a loving and forgiving, anything. Now ready to fuel more religious tension in a country in need of a handful of dogmatic Valium. Can't watch the local news or read a paper because it's all about who died in what fire, what cop got shot, what rapist is on the loose, what politician got caught fucking the intern, and (in a related story) who screwed who out of what. In this environment, the idea that all I want to do is burn a flag, because I can't find anything else lying around that represents all the evils in the world, rather than gather up my most disenfranchised classmates, raid our daddy's gun cabinets, and try to break the Columbine record, should have you all heaping praise on me about my remarkable restraint. But, instead, just me mentioning Columbine is going to land me in deeper shit, because isn't it so much better if we just don't talk about these things? I totally understand assassination, now. I totally understand feeling like whacking the president might be the very best thing for everybody. That asshole. I'm scared. Okay? There's nothing to believe (or believe in.) The flag gets wrapped around every nutcase with a position and it's rotting from the inside. When all I can do is burn a flag, where do I go from there? I admit I'm too young to be this pissed off. I want to burn the flag. Which, last I checked, (falling under the heading of free speech) is one of those constitutional guarantees I guess you're not compelled to grant me. Fuck. That's all I have. For now. KIRKS It's not the flag's fault. MICK That's the best you got? KIRKS And it's lazy. It's the definition of lazy. Burning the flag. Whoopie. The last bastion of the disenfranchised quitter. MICK What do you suggest? KIRKS If it was me? MICK Yeah. KIRKS Make effigies. Courtesy of Margarett Dykstra, June 2004
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