5.27.2005

i am a coward

Check out this comment I just received.
People who give up and move in the face of challenging problems are cowards. If you felt The City was getting "bland" and that the country is moving too far to the right, what did you do to try to change things for the better? Robert Dinero created the TriBeCa Film Festival - You moved to Canada.

We are probably better off without you. Please DO give your apartment to someone who understands there is something worth fighting for here.
Too bad I couldn't create a film festival. That would have really ended the US occupation of Iraq, stopped future US invasions, and gotten the religious right out of the government.

Comments from the yahoos on the right never bother me. In fact, I enjoy them. I like laughing at their ignorance; it's a good reminder of why I feel so out of place in the US.

But these comments, presumably from a progressive, sting. Not because I believe what they say, but because I've tried so hard, and I recognize the limitations, and I wish it weren't the case. Our move is exciting and wonderful, but it's sad that we to leave so badly. Thoughtless comments like this underscore that sadness.

Much has been said in wmtc about courage, and the lack of it. Some thoughts on it here.

10 comments:

Rognar said...

From the producers of Kickboxer and Kickboxer II:

"War rages in the East....

Terrorists skulk in dark alleys....

Enemies plot death and destruction....

And America is powerless to stop them....

Until one man stands up and fights for Freedom....with a film festival

Celluloid Man"

directed by Michael Bay

laura k said...

Rob, you crack me up.

Funny thing about this post, you'd think no one ever left a city to go elsewhere. Isn't that what half the people in NYC did to get here in the first place? Why didn't they all stay in Wichita or Columbus or Memphis and start a film festival?

Anonymous said...

True, but we all know they are really upset not because you are leaving the N of Y, but the US of A.

We each have to do what we each have to do. What's best for each person is, well, the best they can do, and they have to proceed in that. It's the only way to live. Shit, if Mexico were best for you, where you felt you belonged, I'd be all for that, too.

A chacon son gout.

Some people just don't get that concept.

Fuck 'em.

laura k said...

"A chacon son gout.

Some people just don't get that concept."

Yes.

"Fuck 'em."

And yes.

Or as we say at Library Bitch, Fuckin' A.

Anonymous said...

Fuckin' A.

Kyle_From_Ottawa said...

You're moving here, so what? If it's a free country, why is it a such a deadly sin to leave it?

Quite frankly, that seems to be a uniquly American feeling. Throughout the rest of the world, people generally will move to someplace else if they feel it will make them happier. If after a couple of years up here, you decided that maybe Ecuador or something was more to your liking, nobody here would complain.

laura k said...

Yes! Rob has mentioned this, too. I agree, it does seem to be peculiarly American. People take it as a personal insult that you might prefer to live someplace else.

This "coward" business is a little different, though. This bunch understands why I am unhappy with the US but says it is cowardly to "give up the fight".

I don't really get that. Cowardice means lacking courage. I'm not afraid of the fight - I've been at it long enough! I'm just sick of it. Fed up, disgusted, frustrated, etc. so I am choosing to stop fighting. Coward is the wrong word there.

allan said...

Of course we are cowards.

We are leaving the country of our birth, and the city in which we have lived for approximately 20 years (me a little less, Laura a little more). Leaving city and country probably forever.

We are quitting well-paying jobs that allow us to persue our creative desires, jobs we have each held for nearly a decade. And we have no jobs waiting for us when we arrive.

We are leaving behind family and friends and moving to a town in which we know no one very well, if at all.

Don't you have to be a real chickenshit coward to something like that?

As opposed to the heroic stance of someone sitting on his lazy ass all day, jerking off to Faux News and leaving anonymous comments (always anonymous) on some stranger's personal blog ...

laura k said...

Stop. You're scaring me.

laura k said...

And it's true, these comments are always anonymous. Dr. Marco pointed out that irony in the post I linked to, above.