The Five Difficulties: Life Under Creeping Fascism & Fun At The Fair

It was super depressing being at the Common Ground Fair yesterday in full view of the many, many liberal supporters of the warmongering president and his second term in office. Many of them stopped by where we Bring Our War $$ Home campaigners were tabling with Veterans for Peace, to parade their ignorance of facts on the depleted uranium-dusted ground in Libya and Afghanistan, and of the children's limbs scattered by drone attacks all over the Muslim world. (At least we did get some material for our upcoming installment of Shit Obama Supporters Say, the October Surprise edition.)

VFP had cleverly brought a button making machine which drew enthusiastic youngsters, many of whom created their own images of peace or silliness (a whale that moo'd). But I'm haunted by the dad who stopped by to look at the literature and told us his son had been in Iraq. VFP member Richard Clement: "So was my son. How is your son doing?" Dad: "Not good. He's in the psychiatric ward."

I should have felt encouraged that we distributed so many t-shirts and quickly recouped the cost of producing them. Or that I got some new folks who signed up to receive news of the campaign.

But co-coordinator Bruce Gagnon's talk about the BOW$H campaign Friday drew only about six people, while mine yesterday drew all of ten. Nobody wants to talk about the invisible wars and the invisible drain on our resources.

The Common Ground Fair is about producing organic food locally, and the many crafts and skills that go along with living sustainably. Never mind that the oiligarchs are trashing the planet and its people halfway around the world. Liberals are smug with the good looking African-American family in the White House. All those inconveniently indebted college students and recent graduates were kind of invisible, too. Except maybe at the Cultivating Medical Cannabis talk so well-attended it spilled out of the tent on both sides. If you're jobless, it could be a way to make a living I guess -- one of their dads told us that was his son's plan.

Well, on we go. Anti-drone Die-in at Obama headquarters on October 8, in an attempt to use street theater to communicate with the public.

Nowadays, anyone who wishes to combat lies and ignorance and to write the truth must overcome at least five difficulties. He must have the courage to write the truth when truth is everywhere opposed; the keenness to recognize it, although it is everywhere concealed; the skill to manipulate it as a weapon; the judgment to select those in whose hands it will be effective; and the cunning to spread the truth among such persons. These are formidable problems for writers living under Fascism. -- Bertolt Brecht