Crossing the Red Sea

Moses did it with the help of God and one bad-ass rod...methinks these are the tools necessary for the job, because I sure tried it yesterday and it did not work. That's right, I foolishly tried to make my way about downtown Lincoln yesterday when I didn't realize that the inauguration of Husker football season meant the complete shutdown of everything. But it did. Flags everywhere. Not one person who didn't have some kind of red, black or white in their clothing, on their warpainted faces, or on their big foamy hands. At 10 in the morning I was surprised to find tailgate parties going strong a few blocks from my house (mind you I live about 15 blocks from the stadium), complete with beer gardens that had their own TVs and somehow access to cable. People coming in and out of bars at 12. Everyone making some sort of pilgramage to Vine Street, and culminating the day with the reason on the insanity: Nebraska vs. Western Michigan.



I ask myself why I went out. Having parents who are both Nebraskans, I am not unaccustomed to this sort of Huskers fever. I actually knew that it would be bad. But, also being someone who doesnt really care for sports at all, I guess I was still surprised at how intense it actually was. To what degree the city (read: state, as I beleive the entire state converged on the stadium as if it were the gates to some epherial world) was devoured by red clothed addicts. Its not just a game, its "our tradition" as signs throughout the city claimed. And an inevitable part of life in Nebraska, becuase even the cash register looked at you and instead of saying having a nice day, said, "Have a good time at the game" like it was some presumption that everyone she talked to was going to the game. And while I was questioning who Bo Pelini is, heaven-sent brochures were passed around claiming "the start of a new era" under the new coach, Tom Osborne's heir and savior to the Husker Nation. I am not surprised if at the game the spectators actually got down on their knees, facing the direction of their Mecca, Tom Osborne's office, and observed a moment of silence in commeration of the football god manifested on earth.

And I would bring up the seeming contradiction that it is the football team that is most recognized at our university, which to me is the embodiment of contradiction since the general idea of football (brutes attacking each other) goes against the very idea of a liberal education, but that would be moot. The whole football academic debtate will continue to be a contradiction and me raging about it will never change anything: the university needs it money, the NFL new recruits, and the American public their entertainment manifested in the form of violence. It will always be a contradiction that football players will get their books for free under their scholarships, although it is unlikely that they will read those books, and those who have comitted their lives to the study of said books and along with it have taken upon themselves the shackles of voluntary poverty (aka grad students) are expected to buy the books themselves with the little money with which they are compensated, so why rage about it here? Like I said, moot.

I dont even know who won the game, but will hear echoing in my head forever, "Go Big Red!"

Freud for kids...

We stand in opposition...

Today, in a headline from MSNBC (great source, I know),I read that on the eve of the Olympics, George W. Bush made it very clear, as he always does with those who clash with his fundamentalist doctrines and in his non-intellectual, Neanderthal manner, that the United States stands in "firm opposition" to the way the Chinese Government oppresses its people.

Oh please.

Now, we don't live in a country where outward physical oppression reigns, and as far as I know, Bush isn't such a tyrant that he is killing others (wait a minute...Guantamo?), or at least those who are good, white-blooded Christian, patriotic, gas guzlling, out of control consuming, Bible Belt Americans. Yet, this statement really seems like a highly diplomatic manifestation of the kettle and the pot. You know how that goes. The strongest leaders of fascism are often those who seem normal: Hitler, Mousillini, Franco (we are studying the Spanish Civil War, hence the easy throwback to facism) all seemed, at the time and only for a time, like good people just answering the will of the masses, whose abuse little by little amounted to the control that we have learned corrupts. And the fundamentalism that these leaders used is often terrifyingly similar to the propaganda we are fed daily from the idiots in charge.

So in honor of the spirit of Global Unity and the Olympics (Olympics, Global Unity? HA!) and just to be a ranting liberal, here are some of the injustices of which we (well, at least I) stand in opposition:

We stand in opposition of wiretapping.
We stand in opposition of our government knowing what books we check out from the library.
We stand in opposition of "misinforming" the public.
We stand in opposition of using said misinformation to wage a war.
We stand in opposition of religion being used as another piece in political chess.
We stand in opposition of our sensitivity toward terrorist attacks being abused.
We stand in opposition of a strategic plan that involves killing innocent people.
We stand in opposition of no real solutions.
We stand in opposition of knee jerk reactions that don't solve anything.
We stand in opposition of speeches with words like "misunderestimated".
We stand in opposition of denying our current economic situation.
We stand in opposition of the promotion of our over-consumptive society.
We stand in opposition of our President asking for more oil instead of making real strides.
We stand in opposition of the continual mistreatment of people of other races and creeds.
We stand in opposition of any kind of thinking that comes from Texas.

Maybe I am more irratated than usual about this because I see some of the same things Franco did in his government that are happening to this day in our country, or maybe because our high and mighty thinks he still has the authority to "firmly oppose" oppression with his right hand while he oppresses with his left, or maybe the fact that most people don't seem to understand or admit or even care that the freedoms they hold so dear, cling to and wear on their sleeves are merely illusions. Anyway you look at it, the more I think about it, the more fundamentalist and stupid and unfounded and of its rocker this whole administration looks, and the more stupid most people look for just sitting by and taking it. (Thanks their Bushy, want me to bend over so you can give it to me up the ass again while you ask for another cumshot of oil from Saudi Arabia? (thanks for the imagery Greta)).

And just for the hell of it, nothing like ending a blog rant with a call to stand in opposition of what we see, with a call to enlist in the fight against the jolly green fascist monster (yes, another thing I picked up from the Spanish Civil War, sorry, like I said, its what we are studying).

It says "Friends! Enlist in the Iberian Column. You will reenforce the battle against facism!" And I say the same thing today.