I had a bit of a crash day - a kinda tough work discussion, followed by a in-the-office alone day, and big waves of weary came over me.
There's a lot of people suffering post RNC stress disorder. I had a friend who was collared, tasered, tackled, tasered some more, and is facing felony charges. I saw him Saturday - four days after all this happened, two days after his release from jail - and he was a wreck. Big guy, pagan, quiet, powerful, a definite masculine energy; not the type of guy to cry in front of you. I saw him cry like five times.
We went to the intersection where it happened - he'd been targeted because he brought my three-stick Heart of the Beast puppet to the Poor People's March. The sticks were 'too big' and the cops started paying attention to him. He put the puppet back in, but he'd been marked.
"I was talking to the officer on the horse, at the edge of the crowd, when they held their hands up in the air with one or two fingers up. I started to think it was a bad place to be"
They grabbed him, dragged him back, tasered him three times with shootin' tasers, and tasered him on the ground. He lost awareness and only when he began shouting "I am not resisting" did they stop.
Anyway - there was a plan to do a healing, a processing. We went down to the intersection, watched. There was a music festival in the park - the lowertown community decided they wanted to purge the police state energy as well. So salsa music was playing.
About eight or nine of us danced around the intersection, chalked things up. He moved into the places where he was hurt- walking throught the intersection. The police were at the corner, and left (they've been amazingly out of sight for the last few days) and that was good. Chalk came out, the street got decorated. The most amazing healing chant was sung.
Sunday he came over, we talked, cooked, talked, ate. Every so often his eyes would fill, and he'd go off, sometimes with his sweetie. He couldn't make decisions.
Sounds to me like he was suffering PTSD. And he has reason to.
Today I had a bit of my own P-RNC-SD - sadness and lethargy. And a lot of work to get back to!!
3 comments:
Wow..I can only imagine how hard it must be for those who witnessed or were victims of the violence. I think there is probably a sense of melancholia (even among those of us who just watched in horror and were not anywhere near MN). Is this where we are as a country in 2008? Now, we know the answer.
I'm so sad to read this. It's good that you accompanied your friend back to the spot and are present for him as he goes through this. Every time I read some comments on a blog where some self-righteous snot sneers about "anarchists" and talks about property I think of stories like this one, and I have to jump in and speak up.
thanks guys - today is better. got some rest.
the anarchists say that the thing about breaking a glass window is it breaks the sacred property. and if you break that sacred property you find out how much people are valued in relation to that body.
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