Occupy Wall Street and the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell may mark the beginning of the end of an era of complacency, fundamentalism, and a privileged few.
The moment I realized I was gay, I also realized that I was going to get to make my life up. That is, if I wasn’t going to lead the life I was raised to live. My new life became a creative opportunity.
I also grew up in an era when the best things about being gay were that you didn’t have to serve in the army (provided you were courageous enough to be out) and you didn’t have to get married. I find I am gaining my rights, but am I losing my privileges in the process?
The phenomenon of the first baby boomers turning 65, my oldest brother among them, has me examining my generational heritage. As an activist, I am thrilled by the end of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and I cheer whenever a state grants marriage rights. However, as a hippie-generation Vietnam War protester, I am perplexed by how traditional this all seems.
Actually, I’d like to see the end of marriage: civil unions for all who want them, and marriage as a religious or social rite. As to the military, I know it sounds pie-in-the-sky and more than a bit naive, but I’d like to place metaphoric daisies in all the rifles and refocus on slogans such as, “War Is Unhealthy for Children and Other Living Things!”
Occupy Wall Street has done something I had begun to doubt would happen; they have taken on the mantle of activism and brought it into the 21st century—and with consensus decision-making, non-hierarchal structure, and no immediate goal other than to make it clear that complacency is no longer acceptable.
Our economy is top-heavy with military expenditures and underweighted toward art, nature, education, and their intersection. If Brazil and dozens of European nations, for example, can see arts funding as vital, then so should we. When I sold a house years ago and had $30,000 in capital gains tax, I despaired that I was possibly paying for one tire on a fighter plane. If I could have fed children or underwritten chamber music for toddlers, I’d have written that check with joy. I am one of those people who wouldn’t mind paying taxes if I could earmark my giving. Therefore, I use every loophole available and give money to works that make my heart sing: Friends in Deed, the Trevor Project, Doctors Without Borders, the Nature Conservatory, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Lambda Legal, to name a few.
Fuck the military budget. Fuck wars that solve nothing. And, please, enough with religion. I list myself on Facebook as a “free-range Buddhist” because I fear dogma, structure, and “us” and “them.” My great-uncle Joe, who was born in the 19th century, used to rant about burning down the churches and synagogues because they fomented hatred. Today, he would have added mosques to his list.
Call me unrealistic, call me an anarchist, call me bohemian, call me anything but a fundamentalist.
I am willing to give up the barefoot wedding in wrinkled linen on a beautiful sandy beach for the simple freedom to love and live and not kill. So let’s take a break from tradition and look at creating something new. The American dream is prime for reinvention: two cars and 2.2 children is outdated. John Lennon’s dream: imagine all the people living life in peace.
I have been impatient for post-gay culture. I have been looking to a younger generation to forge new visions of relationship, cooperation, and peace that transcend gender, sexuality, and race. We need to be pro-choice, pro-love, pro-peace, anti-homophobia, inclusive, and progressive. Occupy Wall Street may be the beginning of this new age.
And perhaps those of my generation who have survived AIDS and other challenges have the opportunity and the obligation to embrace being radical role models and do our part to help reclaim America’s good-guy image on the international scene, to present a 21st century model for strength: honesty, integrity, diversity, compassion, a willingness to correct for error, to make amends, and to support the well-being of all Americans and all human life.
—Photo The Washington Times (Susan Walsh/AP)
“Actually, I’d like to see the end of marriage: civil unions for all who want them, and marriage as a religious or social rite.” Good luck selling that to a romantic like me 😛 Actually, this reminded me of something a rather bigoted person I’ve since unfriended on Facebook posted once. He said “Can it really be called a marriage if religion isn’t involved? Or is that more of a civil union?” He intended this as a veiled attack on gay marriage, but being the heathen pansexual agnostic in a straight relationship that I am, I told him that I… Read more »
The Beatles were okay until they went to India and came back thinking they Knew Something. Downhill all the way after that. However, as to Lennon’s dream: If the lion and the lamb can lie down together, if it’s guaranteed to work and the people who guarantee it will work have ponied up the premium for a very large performance bond, I don’t suppose anybody would mind me being the lion? I mean, if it works, what’s the problem? If it doesn’t work, well, I’m in a better position than if I were the lamb. Nobody’s going to begrudge me… Read more »
“I am willing to give up the barefoot wedding in wrinkled linen on a beautiful sandy beach for the simple freedom to love and live and not kill. So let’s take a break from tradition and look at creating something new. The American dream is prime for reinvention: two cars and 2.2 children is outdated. John Lennon’s dream: imagine all the people living life in peace.” So well put! I have two children (no cars) and think it’s about time we started looking at what really matters instead of this distorted picture of the American dream. The American dream should… Read more »
“I wonder if we are now able to hypothecate more taxes and, introduce taxpayer choice as to which broad services they are individually prepared to fund.”
Yeahhhhhh. It definitely worked for American Idol.
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=106793642671758&topic=371
Its pretty obvious with a little understanding of human behaviour that this would lead to some programs being enormously overfunded and critical programs that everyone needs but know one remembers being enormously underfunded.
Of course, all that is selfevident. And people can also be incentivised to fund unpopular programs eg. titles(peerages), other privileges, tax rebates, tax holidays etc.
I’m for marriage, against the war.
As a veteran of the Vietnam protests with a bunch of arrests during the years when Act Up was staging die-ins at the FDA, inspiring us to chain ourselves to cuff ourselves to the White House fence, shutting down traffic at the CDC and marching through the streets of cities coast to coast & border to border. We were joined by many, many young people who had a vested interest in waking up a sleeping nation to the issues that were killing them. I was beginning to wonder “Where have all the children gone?” when voila! The universe took a… Read more »
I am a Vietnam era veteran – the first woman to enlist and serve from Creek County, OK. Here’s the deal. No one was protesting the war. They were protesting the Draft. It’s why no one is protesting the war now – no darling son is enlisted or serving. Certainly no precious Daughter is or ever has been forced to serve. It’s the ECONOMY STUPID! Gotta keep ’em down to keep up the all volunteer force. If free medical ever comes to this country the military ranks will disappear. No more giving your life for your child’s dibilitating illness. No… Read more »
Just a note on earmarking taxes: As someone in his twenties, I would never, under any circumstances, allow my taxes to go to either medicare or social security. I have no reason to believe either of those programs will be solvent in 40 years time, nor do I have any reason to believe that I will ever see benefits commensurate with the amount I pay in over the course of my life. I am frequently angry that people who came before me decided, before I was born, that they did not need retirement savings because they could reach into my… Read more »
I am one of those people who wouldn’t mind paying taxes if I could earmark my giving.
I wonder if we are now able to hypothecate more taxes and, introduce taxpayer choice as to which broad services they are individually prepared to fund.
(Im sure there’s current research out there, ill have to search for it sometime)
It is indeed time for a radical swing from the status quo. I too see Occupy Wall Street as one of the few glimmers of hope for the future; however, let’s not lose sight of the reality that restrictions our government has placed on our rights and the money our government appropriated for “Homeland Security”, all in the face of a fear that they wholly created, is now being used against us. The NYPD is a paramilitary force whose sole purpose is apparently to serve corporations and enforce unjust laws that trample basic civil and human rights. Mr. Levithan brings… Read more »
I welcome the challenge to explore mindful activism in these extraordinary times…