08 October 2002 ~ Soon the whole world will hear you...

I was the cutest ten-year-old in the world.

I had fuzzy, dirty-blonde hair, big huge puppy-dog eyes, and I wore turtlenecks and pleated skirts. And I wore glasses. Dorky early-90's glasses. I was very cute.

People shouldn't have let the cuteness obscure what a badass little radical I was.

I, Helena Thomas, was, at ten years old, a radical, devoted to world peace and an end to all forms of human suffering. I was also kind of against contemporary education, and if I'd been able to articulate it, would have seen the fourth grade as a particularly awful perpetrator of human suffering. But we'll talk about that in another entry.

When I was ten, I endeavored to personally stop the Gulf War.

Why?

Because it fucking SCARED me, that's why. Because I didn't want my country to maybe get bombed. Because I didn't want to get shot by army-people on my way to school. Because I didn't want my dad to have to go to war and get shot. I didn't want my teachers to go to war and get shot. And fucken, I didn't want to bomb OTHER people, either. People in Iraq who were getting bombed and shot were somebody's dad TOO, right?

My course of action was simple and direct. None of this "write your senator" bullshit. None of this "voice your support by marching." (I mean, they don't DO that in Binghamton, anyway... the only thing Binghamtonians march for is Saint Patrick's Day) I went straight to the top. When I couldn't find Saddam Hussein's phone number in the "government" pages of the phone book, I decided to write him a letter.

No, I'm not shitting you. I REALLY did this. I don't think I've EVER told anybody about this, except maybe Aaron.

My letter to Saddam Hussein went something like this: "Dear Mr. Hussein, Please do not start a war and invade Kuwait. I don't want to be in a war with your country. Why don't you ask them if you can have some of their oil? I bet they will say yes. Love, Helena."

I may have added a postscript, something like: "PS: please leave the Curds alone."

Cute, huh?

No. That ISN'T cute. It's BADASS, that's what it is.

I addressed my letter to:

Saddam Hussein
Iraq

The letter never came back. I had put my return address on it and everything. Either it never came back, or my parents found it, snickered over it, and never said anything. But I went on believing for a year or so that President Hussein MUST have gotten my note. Hell, maybe it did. I do remember being very discouraged when my mom told me that Hussein was "in hiding," and nobody knew where he was. I hoped somebody would find him and forward his mail at least.

Cute, huh?

NO. NOT cute. BADASS.

I was a badass ten-year-old. I KNEW what I wanted, which was for people not to die or get their houses blown up, whether those people were me, my family, or anonymous brown people in a desert someplace across some oceans and stuff. So it was fucking dorky for me to write to a foreign dictator appealing for peace. But I DID my part. Binghamton doesn't march, and my parents weren't exactly putting signs on the front lawn. But *I* wanted peace, dammit, and I did the only thing I thought I could do.

* * * * * * * * * * *

This ALL fucking happened twelve years ago. And I for one am fucking sick of it. I saw a kid yesterday who was about ten years old, and I thought of what must be going on in that little kid's head... Mommy and daddy going to fight wars, people in deserts getting blown up into little pieces, armies shooting at you on your way to fourth grade... I fucken REMEMBER that shit, and I don't want ANY other child to ever feel that fear.

If I ever have kids, I'll write letters to Saddam Hussein WITH them.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Twelve years ago, where were you?

* * * * * * * * * * *

Went to a peace rally last night. I missed part of it because I was at a meeting, but I grabbed a sandwich and ran my ass off to get downtown for the event.

We marched, beating on drums, and pots and pans, to the office of Brian Baird, a Congressman, where there was an enormous cacophony of yelling, chanting ("Hell no, we won't go; we won't fight for Texaco..."), dancing, screaming, conch shell wails, shaking of rattles, blowing of horns, tooting of flutes, screams from saxophones, hymn-singing, whistling, and general ruckus-making. Hundreds -- probably two or three hundred people -- of Olympians, making sounds. Loud, raucous, beautiful sounds.

You couldn't even hear yourself think. But that wasn't important; thinking, I mean. I've had twelve years to think about how I don't want to get blown up, and I don't want to blow up other people. So I didn't think; I yelled too. And a guy gave me a plastic water bottle filled with nails, so I shook that. Noise is good. Noise is energy.

Sound waves are infinite. They never stop, they just keep going and going. The more noise you make, the more energy, literally, you're putting into the universe.

* * * * * * * * * * *

The week of September 11th, 2001, George W. Bush went to New York City to survey the damage and to make a speech. There, he was met by firefighters and police officers, ambulance drivers, iron-workers, traffic-directors, and whoever the fuck else. They were all dirty, sweaty, and half-insane from their work. And I don't fucking blame them. Sorry to disappoint, but I'd really rather not ever have to dig bodies out from beneath bazillions of tons of steel and concrete. And if I ever did have to, I'd be dirty and sweaty and insane too.

George W. Bush made a brief speech to the firefighters. Or maybe it was a long speech, but the clip shown on television was a short clip and invariably the SAME clip on every station. George W. Bush's said, to a large crowd of dirty, sweaty, insane rescue workers who were cheering and stomping and screaming:

"I can hear you. And soon the whole world will hear you."

* * * * * * * * * * *

The whole world will hear ME, too. The whole world will hear the roar of Olympia, Washington. The congressman, the President, the media, the nation, the world, Saddam Hussein... They will hear me, and they will hear Olympia too.

Maybe making noise and marching in the streets isn't THE most productive way to get things done (though I can't think of many OTHER ways to get things done aside from infiltrating newspapers, nyah-ha-ha...), and maybe it's only slightly more helpful to one's cause than being twelve and writing letters to foreign dictators, but I'll be damned if the noise we made last night WON'T be heard!

I can hear you, Olympia. Soon the whole world will hear us.

~Helena Thomas*