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it's really hard to explain to people who don't live here how incredibly jarring it was to see the events unfold yesterday, not just because the events themselves were shocking, but because it completely upends the entire psychic geography of this place
fortress DC is, it turns out, a complete myth. and one that for the last 20 years we've been increasingly asked to put up with for... no reason at all?
and the response to this is going to be to double-down. to believe in the myth even harder! to give up more under the promise that that's what's needed
I biked through the capitol complex and past the white house everyday for 5 years. yesterday, with totally insane confidence, I said to my wife 'oh, those assholes will get fucked up if they mess with USCP. Those guys don't fuck around!'
because they don't fuck around... to a random bicyclist who strays slightly off the approved path. Or to someone with a bottle opener on their keychain. Or one of the million other reasons people who live here are routinely and pointlessly harassed
and you put up with it because 1) you have to (they're the guys with the guns!) and 2) because you buy into the belief that they do the petty shit because they're so locked in, so ready for anything, so mission-focused, so blah blah blah
but no, I guess not. They wilted. They do the petty shit because it's easy. And they don't do the hard shit because either they couldn't or didn't want to
so, that's where we are. It sucks. and because they wilted, the answer will be to get harder. to fortress up even more. to claw back even more space until the myth that more space is what's needed to Keep Us Safe
I'm sad and I'm shaken and I'm filled with apoplectic rage. So yeah, that's that.
this really took off. I don’t have a SoundCloud, but I would really like DC statehood https://the51st.org/contact-congress/
ok, so since this thing is still going and it's tangentially related to bikes, I'm going to plug @GearinUpDC, a local bike non-profit focused on job training and youth cycling http://gearinupbicycles.org/our-approach/
