Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Skate or die

I heard something in my pre-waking fugue state this morning on NPR that I hope was only a dream. Apparently a protest against biotechnology companies in Love Park in Philadelphia, which is reasonably proximate to some of the mammoth pharmaceutical companies that profit from withholding drugs and treatments until they extort their king's ransom, was disrupted when a second, unscheduled protest erupted in their midst. Skateboarders, egregiously banned from skating in the park, upstaged the pharmaceutical protest by storming the premises and shredding to their heart's content. If this is true, it seems almost too quintessential: a bunch of privileged kids with an aggrevied sense of entitlement to live out their lifestyle disrupt a protest about actual live and death concerns and the "liberal media" joins in the chuckling about it. They even interviewed one of the skaters, who expressed how empowered he felt by his particpation in an act of protest. Could it be any more plain? Phony protests revolving around lifestyle choices and posturing usurp actual protests about matters of corporate greed. We have trained the generation that will succeed us very well indeed.

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