(no subject)

Been a while since I wrote a dream diary, hasn't it?

So last night, I went to bed shortly before 3:00 and woke up a bit before 7:00. And in that time, I managed to fit in a very convoluted set of dreams. It started with me as one of Oracle's operatives in DC's Birds of Prey comic. Not too surprising, since I just read "Dead Of Winter" yesterday. We had just finished beating up the Secret Society of Supervillains when a woman showed up with an offer for all the mercenaries on the other side: she worked for Stephen King and he needed somebody to ghost write his next (and last) book.

In any event, none of the villains were willing to undertake the project... and me being a writer (in addition to one of Oracle's operatives), I volunteered. Money is money, after all.

AS it turned out, the reason she'd been recruiting supervillains instead of, you know, writers, was that this book was going to be EVVILLLLLLLLL, as in the fru-its of the devilllll. When a certain passage in it was read by enough people at the same time (a statistical certainty, given the popularity of anything with Stephen King's name on it), it would result in the "resurrection" in real life of Randall Flagg, Stephen King's recurring villain who was given a poor send-off late in the Dark Tower series, who would then bring about an end-of-the-world scenario much like The Stand.

It wasn't clear why Stephen King wanted to do this, or why he needed another writer. Towards the end of the dream, I was suspecting he himself had been killed by whoever was actually masterminding Flagg's return.

So from there the dream shifted to me moving back with my parents (who were living in the house we had when I was growing up) while wrestling with the ethical dilemma of writing a book that would let a nigh-immortal demonic-warlock-terrorist-guy into the world. Yeah. In the dream, this was a real conundrum. I and everybody I explained it to were acting like ushering in the apocalypse was some huge poorly-defined gray area.

There was also a whole subplot in the dream where some of us (my family, other superheroes, and I) got stranded on a desert island and started doing the Robinson Crusoe thing, realized it would be a lot easier if we had a bunch of survival gear and gadgets, so made a raft and went over to a sporting goods store, where we realized that we had cell phone reception and were able to call and tell people where the island was, so we could get rescued when we got back.

Hey, it was a dream.

I woke up without any kind of resolution on the Evil Book thing.

He who would trade liberty for a little bit of security is probably using somebody else's liberty.

The Sitch:

http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2008/9/1/amy_goodman_and_two_democracy_now_producers_unlawfully_arrested_at_the_rnc
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/31/raids/index.html
http://permibus.livejournal.com/9468.html

While the Far Right's shills complain that Obama's attempt to stop libelous ads is interfering with their right to... uh, commit libel, apparently... something truly chilling is happening in the area around the Republican National Convention. Shocking, I know.

The crackdown on the exercise of free speech (and people who sort of look like they might exercise some free speech) in the Minneapolis/St Paul area is making me physically sick to contemplate. I keep getting more links from people dictating specific abuses, and the media's only interested in reporting on a few broken windows and making passing references to confiscated "buckets of urine".

(Today's story: Americans forced to live in squalor without adequate plumbing. Nine arrested.)

I just sent Garrison Keillor (author, humorist, radio performer of A Prairie Home Companion fame) an email asking him to speak out against what's happening in the Minneapolis/St Paul area. After I finish my work for the day, I may send a similar message to Neil Gaiman... though I'm not sure if he's as deeply invested in the image of Minnesota as GK is. They're simply the two people who come to mind when I think "Minneapolis" and "celebrity".

I don't know that this will do any good. Other people are contacting politicians, but generally the response to any sort of convention crackdown (whether it's a party function, WTC, whatever) is that it's okay because the "increased security" is temporary in nature, and the benefit to public safety for the duration is seen as outweighing the cost of civil liberties. Also, there's the fact that the protesters are often coming from all over the country... whereas the law enforcement personnel and local politicians and other people involved in the abuse are locals with strong ties to the community; i.e., they are constituents.

There isn't a lot of motivation for the people in power to care, in other words.

Call For Action

By the time any kind of national outcry is organized, the convention will be over and the nation will have moved on. The images that should have galvanized the country and sparked a massive outrage will be yesterday's news. So, what are we supposed to do?

I say we grab hold and not let go... keep on flogging, keep on blogging. Let the Minnesota politicians (and the local ones in Minneapolis and St Paul) know that we are not happy with how things have gone down in their state, we are not happy with their complicity in it. Anybody (like myself) who would otherwise be spending money in the state... well, I'll go to the Kansas City Ren Fair instead of the one up by Minneapolis. I'll forgo any future pilgrimages to the Mall of America. And so on. This will continue until there are some very public apologies, investigations, redress for any ongoing injustices (dismissal of spurious charges, waiving of fines, pardons, whatever it takes), etc.

Let's make people care. This isn't just about the injustices that have already happened... it's about any future convention situations, and it's about waking up the nation to the chilling tactics of the Party In Power. This is what eight years of Bush's "mandate" have done... eight years of trading OUR liberty for THEIR security... eight years of "but, terrorists!" as the answer to any question posed to those in authority.

Can we afford another four years of this?

Hell, no.

Let's shine a light on this thing, and not let it fade just because the convention will be over in a few days.

Let's make Minneapolis the blunt instrument we use to bludgeon the rest of the country into a state of greater political awareness.

Appeal For Help

Now, I've got thousands of readers... for my little fiction stories about college and sex and magic. That's a start for getting the word out, but they aren't a politically unified group. They're not coming to me as believers in any one message, and most of them are casual readers who come, read the newest installment, and leave. They don't pay much attention to my side announcements or anything but the story itself.

I'm also not a tremendously organized person, and I'm kind of short on the resources I'd need to front a major project like this would require. So, anybody out there with a blog... anybody with an audience... anybody with a platform... anybody at all who wants to take this and run with it, go ahead and run with it. I don't own this. Nobody owns it. Let's just spread the word as far and wide as we can.

If you run a Livejournal community... if you're active in one (and it wouldn't simply be spam)... or a forum or other website... spread the word. "Fandom counts", right? When a bunch of geeks get together to raise money for literacy or children's toys or to have a bood drive or something, we usually manage to kick ass collectively. Let's get some of that mojo going now. It's our country. We live here. We can't let this happen. (And those of you who don't live here... you have to put up with us and whoever we put in charge.)

I've already devoted a couple of hours to reading and writing on this issue when I really should be doing my paying work, but later this evening I'm going to be looking at the contact info for Minnesota politicos (the congressfolks helpfully posted here, by the Permibus folks.