disclaimer. or exposition. (disposition? exclaimer??)

I knew when I was composing last night's post that there was no possible way to make it sound as though we were anything other than irreverent towards Sunday's rioting, and in fact, we absolutely were irreverent about the whole thing. I would venture to say that most, if not all, of us in our little party fell far more towards the Yuppie side of the scale--if only our friends across the street with the banner had known...! I would further venture to say, as well, that we are all truly sympathetic towards the cause(s) for which everyone was demonstrating, but that our sympathies ended there. I believe the true labor heroes of the day were the people who marched for their ideals earlier in the day, peacefully, and then went home to feed their families and to enjoy the rest of what was quite a lovely day.

Hooligans, ruffians, punkers, etc.: listen up. It's hard for me to lend my support to your cause when it seems that you're just out to express--via destruction of people's property and causing scenes that necessitate the spending of vast amounts of taxpayer dollars--your rage at the fact that there are no free handouts in life, that The Man is keeping you down, that everything's all [insert bank name here]'s fault, etc., etc. And in fact, I'm sure that you don't care at ALL whether you have my support. Which is fine, because I don't care what YOU think, either. But yup, life is unfair. Some people make more money than others. White-collar criminals go unpunished. Capitalism and democracy are not, by any stretch of the imagination, perfect. The solutions to these issues, however, do not involve rock throwing or dumpster burning or giving the police the middle finger.

So yes, I will attend a Yuppie-sympathizer barbecue to watch you make jerks of yourselves in public, and no, I will not treat you as though your actions merit reflection and sympathy. As with fanatics of any type, you bring only negative attention to your "cause." No matter how destructive you get, you will not bring down the capitalist pigs by being a public nuisance. I am, in all honesty, quite relieved that the riots were so small-scale this year, because I absolutely loathe the thought that a bunch of immature, angry reprobates, who think think that the rules which apply to the rest of us upstanding citizens (e.g., don't throw rocks at people's stuff) do not apply to themselves, believe they're making some sort of salient point by through destructive rebellion. Get some perspective, would you? This isn't Compton, it isn't wartime Beiruit, it isn't Taliban Afghanistan. You live in Switzerland, for crying out loud.

And now, off of my soapbox, and on to my German class. Thank you for your time.