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Title: Every Night a Halloween! Author: CrimethInc. Date: November 10, 2003 Language: en Topics: holidays, reportback Source: Retrieved on 7th November 2020 from https://crimethinc.com/2003/11/10/every-night-a-halloween
“Fuck you George—this one’s for my brother!” The war cry came from a
stocky gentleman in a leprechaun suit whose uplifted elbow was headed
straight for the president’s eye. Bush and the leprechaun toppled over
into a messy heap on the asphalt. We helped the two of them up and the
leprechaun stumbled away. I had just barely gotten the Commander in
Chief of the US military dusted off when another brutal blow, this time
a crushing uppercut, came out of nowhere and sent the president’s rubber
face sailing out over the crowd. The megaphone squealed and Larry’s
voice boomed out, “Ooooooooo that one had to hurt ladies and gentlemen!
Now whooooo’s next?” Meanwhile, Sarah had run off into a little cluster
of sumo wrestlers to fetch the weary face of the 43^(rd) president of
the United States of America. It was the fight of the decade! It’s
always a shame to have such a top billing performance to offer but not
know how to gather the crowd of thousands it deserves. But never fear!
As luck would have it Chapel Hill, North Carolina’s famous Halloween
carnival handled all the logistics for us. Viola, there they were,
75,000 excited people ready for a wild night. And hell, we’ve all been
to enough of these things to know how predictable they really are:
supermans by the dozen, way too many cross-dressing frat boys, fairies,
fairies, fairies, and that guy who just runs around screaming “wooooo!”
The scene was set for something, anything to go down.
That’s where George came in—and he arrived in style, hanging on the end
of a rope, attended by a parade of drummers, banner-bearers, stilt
walking capitalist puppeteers and their corporate marionettes, and, of
course, the “press.” Our effigy had a foam rubber head stuffed into a
stretchy Bush mask. He wore a dumpstered business suit (public figures
sometimes dress down for the masses) and a pair of red boxing gloves.
One of our number came in a tux with a bull horn. He was the ringside
announcer: “You, yes you can PUNCH the president!” “He knows you eat
tofu you spineless liberal, and he’s here to WHIP YOUR ASS!!!” “Texas,
Afghanistan, Iraq, now George Bush is here—Chapel Hill, you’re next!”
“It’s your turn to take a swing at the king!” and so on like that.
Actually, to our delight, we found that the crowd needed very little
encouragement. With a little coaching, meek liberals would give a
chuckle and a symbolic tap on the nose. Other folks, most folks
actually, took it to the prez with vicious abandon. The tightly fitting
mask was knocked clean off the “dummy” too many times to count. Over and
over the “puppet” was ripped from our hands by a hail of fists. When he
crumbled on the ground, the crowd would commence kicking and jumping on
his body as we are used to seeing cops do to the defenseless and poor.
Each individual’s response to the situation seemed to reflect the
particular way she felt she suffered at the hands of the regime: those
who belong to the demoralized and depressed middle classes tended to
smack point and laugh; those most likely to face imprisonment and state
violence were themselves ultra-violent.
On the way to the event a taxi driver with limited English pulled over
just to give the commander and chief a tidy thumping. The finale of the
night was a flying elbow from an imaginary third ring. It remains
unclear to me how either the dummy or the gleeful challenger walked away
from that blow. After three hours of continuous assaults our doll was
almost completely demolished. Hundreds had dealt blows. Thousands,
ourselves included, watched in astonishment at the anger he inspired.
My favorite aspect of the event was the humor and good cheer. Watching
the antics of the crowd, I hardly stopped laughing for three hours
straight. This atmosphere left little opportunity for the few pro-Bush
folks to try to do anything about the ruckus. A couple troubled
Republicans came up to the prez and told him he was a “good man,” that
they were “big supporters.” Appropriately, Bush would respond by socking
them in the face! Such realism!
Now let’s get something straight for the record: we do not suggest or
condone engaging in fisticuffs with the president. When dealing with the
president, we strongly advise against uppercuts, crushing rights, jabs,
roundhouse kicks, knuckle sandwiches, resounding smacks, boots in the
ass or crotch area, blows to the ribs or face, haymakers, hooks (left or
right), boxing of ears, or any combination of bonks, jabs, thwacks,
swats, or pokes. If you are concerned about the world and want to secure
power and effect change petty roughhousing is simply unacceptable, not
to mention illegal. We recommend going through the established channels:
for example, being ultra-rich, or rigging elections, or allowing
airplanes to fly into buildings. However, as keen observers, we feel
that it is our patriotic duty to report that we have witnessed in an
overwhelming majority of our fellow public holiday event-goers what
could be construed as latent feelings of violence, resentment, and
readiness to brawl directed at the president of the United States of
America.