Creative erosion

A friend of ours has been torturing me with pictures she took at the recent San Francisco protest, giving me pangs of guilt that I should have made the effort to go to Washington D.C. or S.F. for the recent massive anti-war marches there. Funny thing, guilt. It doesn’t inflict anything on you, like some bacteria you pick up from badly cooked beef. It just amplifies what you already have churning away in you. Deep down, I knew last weekend’s protests were going to be big. I knew what was about to go down wasn't going to be exactly historic, but flirting with its event horizon.

Alas, some of us have to sit on the bench during the big game, but we hope we’ll get to go into play soon.

Actually, I hope I don’t. I hope the protests of last weekend act like a stake through the heart of this beast that so eagerly wants to make war. I’m optimistic when I say that, but I feel…I don’t know, a kind of change in the air.

Stuck at work today and paging through news accounts of peace rallies around the world, I was struck by how all these protestors in countries around the world are growing larger, more vocal, emboldened somehow. A tide is shifting, at least at last in America.

On one hand, there’s the protestors in the streets. On another flank are the ultra-rich saying, "That’s okay…we’re embarrassing wealthy enough as is." Meanwhile, even once Bush backers are getting queasy of an Imperial crusade in old Babylon.

What's going on? Death of a thousand cuts from protestors. No.

Chinese water torture with the GOP base revolting against Bush? No.

Wait…something’s there. A note was plucked, shaking something familiar in my head.

Erosion on a microscopic level, acting all at once on many fronts. Corrosion. Consumption. I’ve heard of this before.

Termites.

A quick search got me to "Termite Art", a critical way of thinking about culture that suggests certain performers break out of the walls of convention to create something off-kilter and remarkable in small nibbles.

And then it hit me: Termite activism.

It’s sort of a kin, maybe a cousin in spirit. Both are trying to find new ways around the problem. New holes created in the fabric. Subversive. Maybe dangerous. Numerous groups at once found a way to break through old paradigms. Protest groups, using the Web, got embraced by middle America. The wealthy realized they didn't want a neo-aristocracy.

Maybe it’s a mass awakening of sense, a time even when the generals are trying to pull the demons off the firing keys in master control. Combine the minimum 100,000 in D.C., the 20,000 in Portland, the tens of thousands in S.F. and the groups protesting in smaller numbers in the U.S. and all over the world, mixed in with the rich feeling embarrassed to be too-rich and the warriors going ill at the thought of a slaughter on their souls and you start to get this feeling that something is coming together.

And yet, this giddiness easily spoils into dread if you leave it out in the sunlight too long.

The continued fury of right-wing radio demagogues and stories about tiny, but vocal counter-protests at the D.C. march prove some wouldn't mind an endless war or soaking the poor for all their cash. Perhaps we’re coming to something in this country. A new model is emerging where two societies are growing up and apart: One believing all the spin doctoring coming out of the White House and through the glided tongue of the FOX News Channel. Another reading the foreign press and marching in the streets, fighting to break through the newsroom barrier and be heard.

And I don’t know what will bring us together. Blood of our sons and daughters? Defections from the Pentagon? Something either very wonderful or very brutal will shake us together as a nation.

But for now, it’s a game of mutation. Who will come up with the freshest angle, the most force, the best argument? Who will alter themselves so they can burrow in and win the hearts of those not yet marching, and almost-sure of wanting war? The White House or the marchers?

Today’s Word: Smile.

From One Word.

Happiness. Trust. Something I don’t have a good one of. Smiles are invitations. Smiles mean no one is mad at you; you made someone happy. Smiles are free, if they are honest. If they are lies, they cause all sorts of problems. I love it when my cat looks like she’s smiling. A human reaction.