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Throwing Shoes at Bush

found on facebook this morning:

“We are collecting shoes to bring to the gates of The White House on Monday, January 19th, Bush’s last day in office. In the Middle East, throwing shoes is a great insult and no one is more deserving of such a “gift” than Bush. Organize to collect shoes in your region and join us in a parting gesture to the Bush regime. Big party in DC later that night!”

this is a reference to the amazingly brave shoe-throwing incident last week, aka Shoegate.

All good, I’m feeling it. Yesterday my girl Dani and I were talking about how scared we are for that journalist’s life. Today, we had a moment of like – a shoe throwing campaign would have been so hot 5 years ago, to just make it a thing that everywhere Bush went, people were pulling off their shoes and throwing them at him.

It’s not too late.

I kind of like the idea of Bush’s last month being one full of thrown shoes, shoes from all walks of life, shoes we learned to take off quickly in airport security lines where we are all suspect, shoes with holes in the feet – recession shoes, boots from soldiers who didn’t make it home, shoes worn to funerals Bush wouldn’t attend, shoes from children left behind, manolo blahniks now too expensive for owners who lost everything in the past couple of weeks, shoes found in foreclosed homes, shoes shoes shoes.

And the throwing of them is sort of tender – an action full of anger, but so soft compared to all of the things bush has allowed to be lobbed in his name, in our name, bullets and bombs that can’t be ducked. its the insult of it, and the totality of it – i take this off of my body to throw at you. its got a nice baseball reference embedded in it, a strong arm delivering strike after strike. i’d love to see a shoe-throwing campaign that sounded like a mandate.

i have plenty of shoes.