Intergalactic Anti-Jingo Bloodsuckers

Activists and Protestors: your time has come.

Days past, you were marginalized--even trivialized. Your genuine concern for the miserable state of the world was taken as your personal quest to make everyone else as miserable as yourself. No longer.

They gave you dismissive titles like "Flower" and "Children." They misinterpreted your odor. They Co-opted your music for advertising. They turned the mechanism of Capitalism against you. They wrote the local paper and jeered your grotesquely enlarged photos of abortions in letters to the editor.

You were relegated to nostalgia.
You became precious.
Your screaming from the legally cordonned "Protest Area" felt muted and sepia toned, like those photos of you in magazine retrospectives. And you were left to wonder, "I used to be so shrill . . ."

You couldn't stop integration. Or illegal immigration. You couldn't rid the world of poverty and war. No matter how loud and long you sounded the alarm, people still ate whatever they wanted, watched all the wrong television programs, and circumcised their male children. Pornography ran rough shod all over you. The Cubans and the North Vietnamese stopped returning your calls.

"Don't go!" you cried, as people unthinkably went on with their lives. The clamor of living and the tyrannical cacophony of comfort drowned out your pithiest chants, obscured the view they should have had of your soul bearing signage.
"But I'm so angry and conscious! . . ." your voice trailed off, "it used to count for something."

Don't stand for this. You will not be ignored.
The time has come to lift up your head. People may have long since stopped squinting at your bumper stickers, but your voice can still be heard. Why should you be the only one burning to a crisp as the unfiltered sun beats down through the tattered remnants of the ozone layer? Why should you be forced to warn teenagers about homosexuals from the obscurity of your lawn chair? Rise up!

You who single handedly prevented the otherwise inevitable nuclear holocaust of the 1980's were not meant to be a mere footnote in history. Rise up and take your rightful place lording over people who live and work quietly and get their consciousness fix from helping others. That kind of selfishness can't go on forever. The wind blows, the pages turn. It may have taken her several months, but Cindy did finally manage to get arrested.

So take heart. The sun also rises. An old day is dawning. The pendulum is swinging. Divisive galvanization will be cool again. Haves and have-nots alike will soon be ready to hear once more how seriously screwed up everything is.

Open wide.