B: What do you got?
A: I got a message and it's hotter than hot!
B: How hot is hot?
A: We're going to stop the World Bank and IMF, yeah!
B: Uh-huh! Uh-huh!
A: We're going to kick the green out of you!
A and B: Jump! Shake the sytem. Jump, jump, jump - shake the system! Jump! Shake the sytem. Jump, jump, jump - shake the system!
Then Rebecca would sing it. Then Abi and then we'd usually give our lungs a rest and chant something else.
This morning at 8:30, I met up with Rebecca at the Farragut West station for the IMF/World Bank rally and march. I got to the station first and was waiting eagerly for Rebecca, feeling awkward and out of place since I was wearing neither a black hooded sweathshirt nor a bandanna over my face. But Rebecca came up the escalator with some friend, and whoo! I could relax and quit being scared of all the anarchist kids.
The anarchist kids are silly, indeed. And I was so glad Rebecca was there to indulge my making fun of them. She thought the tendency to wear bandannas over their faces was also real silly. These seem like the same type of people that get all excited about war games. They just are self-righteous about it and tell themselves they are doing it for The Cause. But, it's all bullshit - it's just a bunch of little boys who like to run around in camo's and do covert stuff, yell out codes, and antagonize their enemies - the pigs - or, if you're not a 17 year old boy into Rage then maybe you call them cops or even police officers. It was fascinating to watch though, this one silly bandanna'd boy run around, jump over fences, and yell out codes, and act like he was at the local paintball or lasertag center.
Can you tell that I'm not the most dedicated member of the anti-globalization movement? That I think most of the people involved with it are completely stupid, privleged white kids who are living out some variation of the cops and robbers game?
But, of course, I didn't hate all of the people. Just the really visible ones in their bandannas. There were lots of cool hippy people at the rally, too. Rebecca, Abi, and I danced wildly to a drum circle forever and the split was very appearant between the hippys dancing in the street and the sweatshirted "activists" standing around on the grass looking tough and conferencing with each other. In addition to Rebecca and Abi, I saw Siggy, Dell, and that first year Sam boy. And even though I'm not really great friends (or even friends) with most of them, it was still just nice to see some people that I recognized - people from New College on these beautiful streets of DC.
After the rally, we marched down H Street to the Washington Monument, where a rally was happening against US military aid to Columbia. The march was so much fun just because of Rebecca and Abi who were so fun and positive, chanting their Radical Cheerleader slogans and dancing. Then Abi's friend, Jamie, got us all do to cheers for the people on the sidewalks who were just watching the march. It was a sad sight. Me. I knew probably about half of each cheer and so just tryed to improv my way through them and follow the body movements of the other three. But it was still so much fun.
I left once we got to the Monument, hungry and thirsty, and not feeling like listening to another day of speakers. I bought a hotdog once I was out of sight of all the good, progressive, probably non-meat eating protesters.
I came home and napped and read the paper and watched the Real World Marathon. I then watched School Daze, just to work my way closer to seeing all of Spike Lee's films. It wasn't all that good, but it's between She's Gotta Have It and Do the Right Thing, two awesome movies - so it was pretty surprising how not stellar it was. But, I now see the continuation between the last scene with "Wake up" being yelled and the beginning of DTRT where Mister Senor Love Daddy is also yelling "Wake up."
Wake up.
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