Originally
Written on October 5th and 6th, 2012
Edited on
February 15th, 2016
On the afternoon of Thursday, October
4th, 2012 – the day after the first presidential debate between Barack Obama
and Mitt Romney – President Obama spoke at the top of Bascom Hill on the
University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. The event was planned four days prior,
and it took place during a severe lull in Obama's campaign schedule. Earlier,
Obama had cancelled a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu;
purportedly due to scheduling conflicts.
At about 10 A.M., I showed up on
Library Mall, which lies about a block away from the bottom of Bascom Hill. I
got there early, so that I could protest the people attending the rally, to
meet people and show them some of my signs, to inform them that I was running as
a write-in candidate for U.S. House, and to tell them about the most
murder-filled controversies of the Obama Administration, of which they'd
probably never heard.
One of the signs I carried displayed
124 possible Obama murder victims on one side. The other side read, “Pakistani
Innocent Children Killed by Obama's Bureaucratic Authoritarian Militaristic
Autocracy [P.I.C.K. O.B.A.M.A.]” and “Palestinian Israeli Conflict Kontinues
thanks to Random Old Miser Nobody Ever Yearned for” [P.I.C.K. R.O.M.N.E.Y.].
Coincidentally, there was a huge
pro-life display set up on Library Mall. I say “coincidentally” because the
pro-life group had planned their event several months prior, and thus, had no
idea that Obama would be around on the same day, until probably the day before,
or the day of. Their display featured at least a dozen three-foot by five-foot
posters, at least half of them showing aborted fetuses.
The pro-life group was comprised of
about 20 people. They represented the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, based in
Ohio. Significant
portions of their display were dedicated to defending the notion that abortion
is akin to genocide, being that discriminate murder can be targeted towards
those of different ages and genders,
in addition to nationality. What I took away from it was this: fetuses don't have
they own country, so there’s no genocide and I ain’t gotta listen to ‘em.
A 30-year-old man in a cowboy hat
named Darius spoke to me. He told me that he was brought up atheist, then
converted to Christianity. Using amplification, he asked me about my views on
abortion. Darius emphasized the desirability of an objective defense for a
position, and I admitted that I had no objective justification for my
pro-choice stance. We considered the legal, philosophical, ethical, and religious
justifications for abortion.
His defense for his pro-life position was
primarily religious, philosophical, and ethical. I defended the notion that subjective defense of the right to life
is objective, in the solipsist sense articulated by the likes of René Descartes
and Max Stirner, that we cannot know that anything outside our own perception
is real.
I put forth what I should have recognized as
an overtly “might makes right” type argument, in attempting to justify my views
on abortion, and explain my general views on rights. I forgot that the point
that I was trying to make was that the capability to exercise a right should be
taken into account; not that it is
necessary and sufficient to justify any and all action.
Darius pointed out that my justification of
abortion rested upon the ability to abort a fetus. The farthest that Darius and
I got in the discussion was agreeing that what the issue comes down to is
whether responsibility and consciousness are necessary to deserve the right to
live.
At one point, a few passers-by stopped to
talk to an older male member of the group. I barely overheard him saying “women
don't have penises”, for some reason or another, in defending his pro-life
views. I immediately felt an urge to shout “I got some links that'd prove you
wrong”, or “that's a generalization”, but I noticed that that would have been
inappropriate, because there were teenage girls nearby. So I quickly turned
around, to mask my maniacal, stifled snickering. For some reason, I have an
aversion towards offending Christians, except when it comes in the form of very
politely told jokes, or in the context of politics.
I especially hate to put-off beautiful
creatures such as Sarah, a freckled, blonde activist in her thirties, whom I
met at the event. To have been aware, right off the bat, that my interlocutor
was so brave, devout, conscientious, and empathetic, made for such an astounding
experience of the conversation; especially in those brief moments when I was
attempting to hold her gaze, and we discussed our common interests (namely Ron
Paul, Alex Jones, and hating on Obama).
It has been foretold that we will all one day
know the word of G-d. So why dwell on our differences, instead of love and care
for one-another, as son and daughter of the same Creator, in the meantime? I
wouldn't be surprised if the quality of our care of and empathy for one another
hastened the arrival of the Kingdom of G-d. Oh, my Christian sisters are such
angels! I'm so proud of them, especially those as patient, calm, and
open-minded as my Sarah. Sister Sarah, daughter Sarah, mother Sarah, L-rd, “I
knew you before I created you in the womb”, and I knew I loved you the moment I
met you.
We all share a common thread. We all help
write one another's stories. We all help create one another. We all help give
birth to one another. The nature of our intercourse is objective, because of
its mutual subjectivity. We are all universally relative, and relevant to, and
familiar with, and the family of, one another. As Martin Buber explained,
“they” disappears, and only “we” remains. It is gnosis over logos;
experience over word. Revelation incarnate, as carnal knowledge. The most
devout marry only the L-rd. Engage me, wife. Namaste.
Any-whatever, most of my discussion with the
pro-lifers took place between noon and 5 P.M.. I spent the 11:00 hour with an
Army mechanic named Cory, who described himself as “kind of a nihilist”. Minutes
after meeting me, he mentioned George Carlin's jokes about pro-lifers. I
recited Carlin's line “Have you ever noticed that people who are pro-life are
usually people you wouldn't want to fuck in the first place?" This
sentence is to remind you, for the sake of juxtaposition, of the subject matter
of the previous paragraph.
Although he was in the military, Cory didn't
know who the governor of Wisconsin was, didn't know who Tammy Baldwin was, and
didn't even know who was running to unseat Obama. He kept referring to Obama as
“my boss”.
Cory talked about his neighborhood on the
East Side of Madison (which is remarkably diverse, given its proximity to the
rural parts of the metropolitan area), and about his neighbor's kids. He said
the kids would ask him if he ever shot anyone in the military, and even though
he was only a mechanic and never saw combat, he responded to them, “If I told
you, I'd have to kill you. …Join the military!: I thought that was pretty damn
nihilist of him. Cory had "cognitive dissonance", "Nuremburg
Trials", and whatever the fuck Sartre was talking about, written all over
him.
After I informed Cory that I was running for
Congress, he insisted on buying me a soda. The “soda” turned into “let's go into
a restaurant”, turned into “two sodas and a red brat”, turned into “it's 11:15
in the morning but fuck it, I'm gonna order two whiskeys anyway, and hey, why
don't I order two cheeseburgers, even though I'm not hungry, and let you take
them home”. Dude paid for a bunch of food for me without even batting an
eyelash. I guess even the mechanics in the military get mercenary-level
compensation.
Cory was out of his fucking mind. He talked
to people randomly on the street a lot of the time during which we were walking
down State Street together, while I wasn't talking to him for the time being. I
was worried that he was going to piss someone off.
He asked when Obama was going to speak. I
told him that Obama would speak at noon, but I later found out that noon was
when the entrances opened; Obama ended
up speaking from about 3:00 to 4:30. I told Cory that he would have had to print out proof that he had already
R.S.V.P.’d, and then present it at the security entrance to the event. Security
at the event was tight; people weren’t even allowed to bring their own water
into the event.
Cory told me that he knew of an unguarded
entrance into the building in front of which Obama was going to speak; Bascom
Hall. Cory said he was going to try to sneak in, and then get into the rally
without going through security or having legitimate access.
Every time I heard the attendees
applaud an indecipherable, distant “uuuhhh… blah-blah-blah…” – it was the
clearest I’d ever heard the president articulate his ideas – I got creepy
Satanic chills. After those ideas poured out of Barack Obama’s dick-sucking,
crack-smoking (not that there’s anything wrong with that), lying mouth, for an
hour and a half, the rally let out, and hundreds upon hundreds of Obama
supporters poured from Bascom Hill onto Library Mall.
The Obama supporters passed me,
while I held a protest sign aloft, and shouted about Gabby Giffords having been
targeted as a Fast and Furious whistleblower; that presidential advisor and Air
Force undersecretary Jack Wheeler ending up dead in a landfill because he knew
Dick Cheney tried to hijack control of between one and 50 nuclear weapons and
redeploy them to the Middle East war theater; and that Obama was doing
practically jack-fucking-shit to end the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Libya, Syria, the Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Yemen.
What I had neglected to consider was
that all these hundreds of Obama supporters saw, was me in the middle of a
shit-ton of dead fetus pictures and shouting pro-lifers, holding a sign that
said “Obama murders” on it. I tried to make it clear – at least at one point – that
I wasn't holding a sign with a list of a bunch of names of dead fetuses on it.
I did this by drawing attention to the fact that Obama is spending his
supporters’ money to kill innocents abroad; I said “Obama is killing babies,
and I’m not talking about fetuses, I’m talking about Pakistanis!” I wasn't all
that successful; I got asked to defend the pro-life position by a couple people
by mistake.
I was told by the people walking by,
that my beard probably smelled bad, and that nobody was listening to me.
Another guy told me, earlier in the day, that he liked my “face-pubes”. A black
woman walked by, and yelled at a pro-lifer – whom I hadn’t heard say anything – that you shouldn’t even talk
about abortion unless you know what it’s like to be black. I miss the
connection there.
At one point, I yelled “Ahmadinejad
for President!”, referring to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the leader of Iran. I turned
around to notice three Tunisian guys. I told them that I think conservatives
are lying in their attempt to portray Obama as insufficiently supportive of the
State of Israel, when Obama is a staunch Zionist whom has repeatedly promised
to do everything in his power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Incidentally, it's a lot easier to get a dude from a Muslim country on board
with my views on Israel than it is to get Christians on board with them; not
that Darius wasn't intrigued and receptive about it.
At another point, I yelled “isn't it
great to get bombed by a liberal
president for once!?” This language heightened while a black helicopter or two
buzzed past overhead. “This is change!”, I yelled. “This is freedom! This is
liberal America!”. Stuff like “Freedom is the right to choose whether a liberal
or a conservative will monitor you with drones!”.
One of the people who thought I was
pro-life, was a speedy blonde girl, probably a college freshman. Before finding
out I wasn't pro-life, her response to my list of Obama murder victims was “What
president gets into office without
killing a shit-ton of people?". I responded, naturally, “are you saying
murder is acceptable as long as other
people do it?”.
She'd assumed that I was bitching
about Obama because I supported Romney, which I didn't. I told her that I
supported Gary Johnson and Ron Paul. She asked why I wasn't focusing on the shit
that Romney has done, and I responded that it was because Romney wasn’t
currently in power, and because I haven't heard of anyone Romney might have had
killed. If Romney showed up, I’d be focusing on how Romney sucks; not on how
Obama sucks.
Incidentally, I have told people that Romney
accepted campaign donations from Robert Lichfield, the founder of W.W.A.S.P.
(the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools), a teen boot
camp program that abuses at-risk minors both physically and psychologically.
I told the girl that a consistent libertarian
shouldn't vote, but also that I wasn't one to talk, because I was a
congressional candidate. I said that I wanted to take the system down from the
inside, and she responded that every candidate says that, and they never follow
through. I responded that Obama never said “I want to take the system down from
the inside” publicly, nor verbatim, in the same manner that I was willing to do.
That was enough to convince her to support me, but unfortunately, she lived in
Minnesota, and couldn’t write my name on the ballot for U.S. House in
Wisconsin.
A few minutes later, I saw my
Democratic opponent – Wisconsin State Assemblyman Mark Pocan – walk by. A few
days earlier, I found out that I had been excluded from the Rotary Club's
30-minute debate, and also from having a guest speaker spot at a general
membership meeting for local black businessmen's organization 100 Black Men of
Madison; due to time constraints and failure to achieve ballot access.
I shouted “Hey, Mark!” He turned,
presumably noticing the “Obama murders” sign in my hand, to watch me point to
my own face while shouting “Joe Kopsick for Congress!”. He didn't react much,
and continued walking. I later told this story to a friend, whom remarked that
that interaction was all the debate access that I would be allowed this
election season. Later in the month of October 2012, I ended up speaking for
five minutes at the end of a debate in DeForest, Wisconsin, between Mark Pocan
and Chad Lee.
At some point, soon after the rally
had ended, I saw Cory the Army mechanic again. He told me that he had sneaked
into the basement of Bascom Hall, and had gotten into the rally. He even
claimed that before the event began, he was in the basement of Bascom Hall, and
saw Obama in the hallway. Cory – whom was dressed in black slacks, a dark blue
button-down shirt, and a black tie, and had very short hair – told me that he
walked up to Obama, put his finger into his own ear, mimicking the action of a
Secret Service agent wearing an earpiece, and gave the president a high-five.
Cory told me that Obama was convinced that Cory worked for him (I suppose that
Cory does work for him, regardless).
Initially believing his story, I told Cory that he was a madman, and that if he
had wanted to, he could have taken the president out.
One of the people making rounds
during the pro-life protests, was a University of Wisconsin genetics student
named Michael, a secular-humanist whom had grown up Jewish, and described
himself as an “anti-theist”. I sat near him while he used geological and
genetic science to debate pro-lifers on creationism. He told me that each
Sunday, in the summer of 2011 – during the farmers’ market on Capitol Square in
Madison – he had debated creationists for solid six-hour blocks. It showed.
Two pro-lifers – one of them about
20 years old, and the other about 50 – debated Michael about creationism. The
older one tried to defend the notion that people who believe in the scientific
method, also, to some extent, base their epistemology on faith. I invited
Michael to comment on Terence McKenna's remarks that the scientific method is
flawed because the conditions of experiments are never perfectly repeatable. Michael admitted that I had a point, but he countered
that conditions can and must be satisfactorily
repeatable, and I agreed.
Then I noticed the 50-year-old
pro-lifer had walked away. Too bad for him, I guess. That wasn’t the only point
that day when I defended some pro-life arguments; I corrected a young woman who
claimed that fetuses do not have any legal protections.
I told Michael, and also Darius (one
of the leaders of the pro-life protest), about a gnostic experience which I had
in Georgia at the age of 23. I explained to Michael that my interest in Judaism
largely stemmed from my interest in Israeli politics and anti-Zionist Jewish
thought, and that I felt that the supernatural experience which I had,
confirmed that the subject matter in which I was interested at the time was
mostly correct, and should be explored, especially considering the substantial
knowledge of the topic which was possessed by the people whom I had met shortly
before the experience.
Two of the other people I met that day,
comprised a lesbian couple in their mid- to late- twenties; a freckled redhead,
and a brunette hipster-ish woman. The couple spoke to some of the pro-lifers,
promoting alternatives to abortion, such as contraception and homosexuality. Of
homosexuality, the brunette said “that’s
the solution I choose.” I fought the
urge to quip, “Oh, I didn’t know homosexuality was a choice; I thought people
were born that way”.
Rude shit like that went through my
head all day. The pro-life group dismantled their display, and packed the
pieces into their truck. A black dude beat me to saying that the stack of
posters of aborted fetuses was reminiscent of the menu at Denny’s. Fry them
shits up!
Before leaving Library Mall, as the
group dismantled their display, I made sure to give four different protesters
handshakes goodbye. Just as I finished my third goodbye, the group leaders
called the members together, to do a sort of prayer circle. I made my way
towards Sarah to say a quick goodbye, and noticed her hug a fellow member or
two.
Seeing that, for the time being,
that she was in the hugging mood – and seeing her shoulders buck forward the
slightest bit, while catching her gaze, and reaching for her hand – the urge to
hold her in my arms, tugged at me. But once again, just like another experience
I had in Minneapolis, it was to no avail. With every woman I meet, these are my
options: to choose to sin by disregarding their – and my own – needs for
affection and connection, or else to lose their friendship.
As I left the scene on foot, waves
of amusement washed over me; and also of longing, but also of irrational,
rationalized content. I walked to a friend’s house, smoked some dope (being a
dope-head), told him what had happened to me over the previous seven hours, and
decided that I needed to blog about it.
So, in conclusion, it turns out that
you really can learn something during
an Obama speech. And that’s why I’m voting to re-elect Buh-Black Blow-Blah-Blah
to the presidency in 2012.
