These days it seems like everyone is a political activist. At least, they like to think of themselves as such. Except, they don’t know their history. While I don’t bear any ill will towards the younger generation in their fight for a better world, they appear to be sadly ignorant of their elders who fought before them. To be more specific, I’m referring to the time when, I, a 16-year-old in 2004, spray-painted “BUSH” on a stop sign in my Ohio town.
I was on my way back from seeing “Chronicles of Riddick” at the dollar theater with my buddy Sven – basically the most fun you could have in Logan, Ohio. We were blasting the CD of “Rock Against Bush Vol. 1” he got from his brother at Oberlin. Well, Ministry’s “No W” must’ve been really hitting, because next thing I knew, I was having Sven act as lookout while I used a can of black spray paint and my burgeoning need to speak truth to power to turn a stop sign two blocks from where the Dairy Queen used to be into a vessel of civil disobedience.
Was this risky? Was it ever. After all, we lived in the kind of place where “Support Our Troops” bumper stickers were more popular than mufflers on cars, and if my father found out I stole that spray paint out of our garage he might actually murder me. But I had seen a photo of the same thing on the Something Awful boards, which led me down a whole rabbit hole about lies about WMDs and the Patriot Act and also some RealPlayer clips of Jon Stewart that activated my radical switch. I couldn’t vote – and even if I could, this John Kerry guy seemed like something of a stiff. But I could still make my voice heard. And through my courageous action, the likely-thousands of people who stopped at that intersection between September and October 2004 were forced to reckon with the fact that the 43rd President might not be the golden cowboy they thought he was.
Naturally, I was deeply disappointed to learn of Bush’s re-election. But I realized my action almost certainly influenced some voters. I saw six other “STOP BUSH” signs in Logan and neighboring towns between 2005 and 2008. Without hesitation, I can confidently say my letting the first domino fall made that possible. And now, 20 years later, we wake up every morning in a country where George W. Bush is no longer President.
You’re welcome.