For Mickey

In the post just below this one (Anyone But Bush?) you will see in the comment boxes an impassioned, though rather inelegant request for more content from me on this site. "Mickeyfuckinmouse" suggests I get my ass in gear...and this post is for him.

At first, from the nickname, I thought maybe this was Michael Eisner. He may be rich, but he's had a tough few weeks as head of Disney. Not only are the board (including Roy, son of Walt) trying to kick him out, he was also somehow stupid enough to lose Pixar, the finest computer animation studio on the planet. (Then again, perhaps Pixar is the end of genuine art in animation and represents the hollow, sterile shell our technological society has become. (Then again again, I really liked Finding Nemo. I thought Dory was funny. That whole speaking whale thing...I loved that.))

No, it's not Michael Eisner writing me. Why would he? My world and his world will never meet. His world OWNS my world, and yours too. And it's a complicated one, where such warm and fuzzy symbols from my own childhood such as Mickey and Donald can, to so many, correctly represent an aggressive cultural imperialism that has tried its damnedest to turn this planet (to mix my corporate metaphors) into one Small, Small McWorld,

No, THIS Mickey, our Mickey, who has come here howling, starving, hysterical, naked, is some guy who has had a very tough go of it. If his story is true (I don't know why he'd make it up) he spent a great deal of time and ALL of his mental, physical and emotional energy taking care of his dying mother. His mother, then, must have been with HIM during her time of ultimate need and not in some impersonal, sterile nursing home, death warehouse somewhere. I will assume that Mickey simply had the strength of character to do whatever it took to keep his mother out of such a place. So I am a fan of Mickey.

Mickey is crazy. Some say crazy is a rational response to an irrational world. My wife is crazy that way. She talks to plants and trees like a lot of people do...but with her, the trees talk back. When the electric company comes and starts hacking trees down to keep the power lines clear, my wife can hear them scream. That's some crazy shit. Here is some crazier shit...what if we ALL could hear them scream?

Mickey screamed at me, too. He's just like the trees, I guess. Been hacked and hacked in the name of progress. People like him just get in the way. He's dispensable. We're all dispensable. We are dispensable and the tree hackers rule the world.

So I guess the first step is to scream ourselves. Just like Mickey, I sit here helpless and watch my mother die, OUR mother die..this planet, this amazing, interconnected living breathing organism that regrets the day the four-legged's ever evolved to two's.

And I feel helpless and so I write this blog. THEY have all the money. THEY have all the weapons. THEY are already one step ahead. THEY control the media. THEY fixed the elections. THEY kill people who get in THEIR way. THEY are committing terracide. And we don't even have any idea who THEY are. Not really. We'll probably end up shooting at each other one day, arguing about it, while THEY just laugh.

Then again. THEY want us to despair. In fact, THEY are the ones who WANT us to think they are all powerful. THEY want us to give up.

But let's not forget who WE are. WE have power. WE have our scream, our protest, our scrawled graffiti of Basta Ya! Enough is Enough! WE are Hugo Chavez in Venezuela looking Bush right in the eye, and calling him an asshole. WE are the 9/11 widows who keep asking questions. WE are the Zapatistas in the jungles of Chiapas. WE are those college kids dressed as sea turtles taking rubber bullets to the head. WE are the Nigerian Women taking on the power of OIL. WE are Rachel Corrie. WE are Dorothy Day. WE are I. F. Stone. WE are the Underground Railroad. WE are Cesar Chavez. WE are King. WE are Malcolm. And we are millions more besides whose names are not in history books, but who are part of making history.

Oh, yes, and WE outnumber THEM.

THEY don't want you to scream. So scream just to spite THEM. Or scream to wake up your sleeping neighbors. Or scream for help. Or scream to feel alive.

As long as somebody is still screaming...THEY don't win.