It's been a very exciting weekend here in Chicago thanks to our idiot mayor thinking it would be a good idea to invite NATO to have their little conference in the Windy City. I hate this on so many levels it's going to be difficult to even remember to cover all of them here, some of my hatred is so inborn that I might not be able to consciously recall it. Normal people never have hatred that intense, it is all too common for me. Let's kick it off by attacking our friend Rahm, shall we?
Every time NATO has their summit the location become inundated with protesters. Why would anyone ever want to invite this trouble into their city? Rahm, that's who. Primarily our mayor has given two reasons for wanting to bring the NATO summit to Chicago. The first is that it would cement Chicago's place as an international city. Bullshit. Chicago is already internationally known and it wasn't for hosting a bunch of politicians. There have been things like The Camp David Accords that Rahm compared to the possible history that could be made by NATO this weekend. Imagine if there was a Chicago Accord. All that does is make 7 people around the world name check Chicago when bitching about something they disagree with politically, if Rahm thinks that boosts our rep he's a moron. Chicago is known for having one of the most amazing skylines in the world, fantastic food, shady politics and according to everyone I met in China for having Michael Jordan. NATO is going to do jack fucking shit in changing our reputation internationally unless something terrible happens. The other reason Rahm has given for wanting the summit is that it will bring an immense amount of money into the city. Really? Where is that money coming from? As far as I can tell everyone who has half a brain has gotten the hell out of the city this weekend. Downtown looks like a Romero movie; it's completely empty save for a few mobs of slowly moving zombies, er, I mean protesters. Does Rahm think that we're making a ton of money off of all the protesters who have been sleeping in parks? Is he that stupid? When you end up shutting down half of the city it's not going to give much of an economic boost, sorry pal.
This leads us to the protesters themselves. Goddamn do I hate me some protesters. The awkward thing is that often I find myself agreeing with them politically or at least I agree with the less batshit crazy of them. For example, I hate the idea of the city closing multiple mental health facilities. Yet I understand that I'm not going to change that by sleeping outside of Woodlawn. And I know that I'm damn sure not going to accomplish anything by protesting out side of Rahm's house when HE ISN'T EVEN HOME. (I'll admit personal irritation about this protest. Rahm lives in the next hood over and news copters were circling overhead around 7:30 waking my ass up way too early. Then when I tried to take the bus somewhere the assholes were marching around and blocking Irving Park. Argh) There are so many more productive things one can do to fight the power than protest. In my opinion all protesting really does is piss people off because you are creating an inconvenience. I respect the passion, I often agree with the stances, I just think that protesting is the wrong tool to accomplish the goals.
Specifically let's talk about that special little slice of the protesters that fancy themselves "anarchists." I know that the vast majority of protesters are going to be peaceful and just wave their signs and chant monotonous and unoriginal chants. This hatred isn't aimed at them, it's aimed at all the jackasses who rode buses to Chicago for no reason other than to start some shit. They'll be wearing hoodies, gloves, and bandannas to cover their faces while protesting in order to protect their identity. Here's the thing, you aren't going to try and stay anonymous if you aren't intent on causing trouble. Sorry, that's the truth. So you come to our city to fight our police and wreck our streets. Shockingly your behavior isn't going to woo me into agreeing with your stance that we need to smash the government. Look, I really like listening to old Anti Flag and Against Me too but that doesn't change the fact that anarchy would be fucking horrible. Across the whole world there is one constant among every culture, they have all established a society because living in anarchy is horrifying. There is always going to be someone bigger (or better armed) than you and they will destroy your ass, is that what you really want? It's such a short sighted and idiotic way to perceive the world. I hope these morons remember that if they had their precious anarchy the police that just arrested them wouldn't be charging them with a misdemeanor and letting them go after a few hours, they would be getting rid of them for good.
All of this hints at a bigger question, what's so wrong with NATO anyway? I understand from a strict anti war stance there are plenty of reasons to despise them. Although I think that it can be argued that the majority of actions that NATO has participated in were justified, I don't see a lot of people arguing for Milosevic. I don't understand the demonization of the group. Would I prefer if we lived in Candyland and there were no wars, sure. We don't. I have no problem with an organized world effort by NATO doing what was needed to get rid of Ghadaffi or the Taliban. It would have been nice if military action was never needed but that's insanely naive.
I'm going to be extremely happy on Wednesday morning when we have our city back. Hopefully everything will stay peaceful as it has so far. I hope everyone enjoyed their visit to internationally renowned Chicago and refrained from burning it down, we have a little problem with that from time to time. Feel free to come visit some other time, just leave your bandannas and pithy signs at home. Oh, this is a little uncomfortable, but can you please, PLEASE take a shower before you come back? Thanks.
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