The Dramatic Pause Of A Problematic Cause

"The Dramatic Pause Of A Problematic Cause"
essays
by Jake Kilroy

AN EXCERPT:
"Anarcho Politico: The Manifesto"
Written January, 2007.

I'm no anarchist. This is merely a college student trying to educate himself.

And I conquered the world when I was 17.

I just want those things clear up front.

The press has a stunning sense of stylistic spinal leakage. When Iraq was starting to pour into magazines and newspapers, no periodicals went through the laundry list of question marks the world was shaking where the bottom dots were fists. New York City Journalists were hardly even sweating. But, somehow, militant peacemongers now, in retrospect, seemed to have had some idea of where this tornado was jumping. Their reasons may have been sketchy but their ideals were there. The reasoning may have been oddball but the ideas were strong.

Press corps aren't scavengers struggling to crawl out of a grave. Or, they damn well shouldn't be.

I countered the Bush Administration's tap-dancing tactics and frat boy force of military hellfire in my high school newspaper when I had my own article. And, even then, I was told to knock it off with the politic rants and the young revolutions by students. Friends were telling me they didn't care about some broken plan of war. I got letters telling me to move out of the country and I had students telling me to just trust the administration that our parents voted for. Every time I brought up Nixon as a counter-argument, I got, "Well, that was different." Every time I mentioned Vietnam, I heard, "Oh, come on."

If some wise-ass-punk-commie-beatnik-dreamer can see the worrisome state of the world at 17, how can big-city-know-it-all-critic-attended-Colombia-cocky-journalist not?

Why aren't there letters to the editor everywhere? Why isn't the world clawing at their journalists, begging to know what's going on? Sure, they're no longer gatekeepers, because gatekeepers only let the country know a little bit and can control it, and that's wildly impossible with the advancement of the internet, but are they even trying? Are they even holding pens while they burn alive? While the print industry burns (pun...I guess intended), these forlorn journalists might as well be junkie rock stars or burned out poets. They're nothing but potential.
Where is Woodword and Bernstein? Where are the citizens? Where is the anger, the sadness, the rage that won't settle?

Remember when I was pissed off all the time about politics? Where did my heart go? Every morning my senior year of high school, I checked the paper to reassure myself that there was something wrong with the political scheme. I saw the landscape that was burning in the distance. I saw the disease of war and I saw the malnutrition of peace. I told relatives at family functions that I was considering revolutionary as a fair occupation. There aren't enough anymore, I figured. Of course I'd keep a job as a writer, but I'd be a revolutionary first and foremost.

Well, somehow, I dissected my own heart and let it fight other causes, personal causes, over the years. I must have been sleepwalking when I did it, because I sure as hell don't remember giving up or giving in. I just woke up one day and I was on a good path to being a yuppie.

I miss the sick-to-stomach feeling I consumed when I was head over heels for politics. I miss being furious with capitalists I'd never met. I miss knowing why I was right. I miss knowing why the swallowing darkness of every tedious branch of hate was wrong. I miss having arrogant goals that didn't really include me, but the betterment of civilization and democracy.

And I'm not saying politics is honest, or ever has been. But there's a line that poets and civilians and working mothers and fathers that should be clear by now. It should be neon. The line should be the first thing you see in the morning. You should read the paper, read the comics, read the body count and know that the world isn't the same now as it was when you were in R.E.M. hours ago. The world and the shadowy hand shakes that have build it are moving more than ever. This is the worst era of political damage and ethical malpractice since the days of yellow journalism. I ain't kidding. The Middle East is your worst nightmare. Just so you know. Right, right, right, you've heard it all before. But you haven't heard it in the right tone, the right key, the right pitch. It's panic. Journalists should be putting exclamation marks at the end of every sentence and trying to get us out of bed and into the streets.

But, they're not. They're too afraid of Karl Rove and fearing that their careers might end like that old running cartoon joke where the disobedient character ends up as an eskimo transfer in Alaska. Well, whatever. Get your balls back. At least look like you're a real writer. Act like you remember what your name was before it was a byline. There ain't glory in the breakdown, but you are the glory in a revolution. And when you get shot by the capitol's best character assassin, I swear I'll salute you. When your metaphorically bloody carcass is awashed in Washington DC's gutter with poets and filmmakers standing over you curious, maybe the time bomb will go off. Maybe they'll be the freedom fighters for the next year. Die on New Year's Eve and you can be the saint.

We'll see new graffiti, anarchic and artistic prose that makes sense, like:

- The Middle East is the new Cold War.

- The last real savage was before Christ.

- The laundry list grows longer.

- The sun always sets on an empire in flames.

- You were always my favorite destruction, America.

Do it. Pen the fights, resurrect the poets, and dodge the bullets of the White House. This ain't a war anymore, some harrowing shit you read in the paper but see no pictures. This is the new Western Lie. I want you to know that you've been lied to for years, but, this time, they aren't even bothering to cover their mouths or hide underground. They're lying over TV networks, not underground networks. Can't you see that they have nothing to hide because you don't care? They are lying at you. How can you not want to bite off their lips? This is a bad plan that you're a part of. Where were you when they dropped the bomb?

Right. You weren't alive when they dropped the bomb. But here's your chance to do something heroic, and you're sitting at home. You're worrying about relationships. You're worrying about cereal. You're worrying about air-conditioning. You're worrying about where you'll drink tonight. You're worrying about someone not calling you back. You're actually panicking about too many clothes.

Well, get it the fuck together.

Go outside and see a brand new sun. It's calling your name, and you better be off this block by sunset. You better be somewhere where you're doing something, where you're actually saying something. Get someone to feed your pets for a week, have your mother check your mailbox, have your neighbor take in your daily newspaper, and lock yourself in a motel room while you write the manifesto. Don't drink heavily and don't sketch out all lucid on us. We're depending on you.

You need to reinvent the system. You need to put fire back in my heart. You need to challenge those city suits to a duel out in the middle of Time Square. Please. Please care about what they're saying behind your backs. This is the end of the line in coming years. This could be the last stand of poetry and the final glory of revolutions inspired by college students. If you want to know what the world thinks of this teasing lifestyle of weekend sex and workweeks of drinking, watch MTV. The world should know us by CNN. They should see us on CNN. They should see us waving new flags of new colors and new designs on CNN. We'll wear name tags with some inside revolutionary joke. We're confident, but we're still us.

This is the manifesto I promised you. This is what I said I'd write years ago when I conquered the world at 17. I'm an adult now, and I've seen the test of time because I actually took the time to test it.

Why does it seem that every just cause is a lost cause.