A U.S. Congressman named Rep. Sam Graves (Republican- Missouri) is getting $273,000 from the U.S. Department of Education- so that police and educators in his district can "identify Goth culture leaders that are preying on our kids".

An aide to Rep. Graves (ironic, huh?) goes on to say that "Some parents and law- enforcement officials are concerned that, beyond the dark fashions and music characteristic of that subculture, some "Goth" teenagers are drawn into potentially dangerous behavior".

You can read the rest of the article here:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/newstory.cfm?slug=20pork.h21

these stupid, frightened little down-home farmer joes are the yin to our yang, the light to our dark, the dull to our brilliance. what we are, the things we represent, scares them because we DON'T CARE if they accept us, they cannot make us want to be them...and that bothers them, aggravates them like a rock in their stinky work boot.

"why? why don't those freaks care that we think they're freaks? why do they want to be freaks? why?"

it bothers them that we don't find their talent for being average impressive. they don't quite understand that if you place supreme value on the expectations or opinions of others, then you are nothing more than society's whore.

i don't want people thinking they "know" me because they attended a seminar on "how to treat people in black that aren't foreign college students". i already hate talking to some gutter slut who thinks we're sisters because she's got a tattoo of a butterfly on her ass, or to some white hat ya dood who thinks he has a chance because he got his eyebrow pierce after seeing the latest Limp Bizkit video. the minute the public, the average, the usual, takes hold of an idea, even if it's the best idea ever, they'll smash it to bits to fit in their tiny little minds, overplay it, over expose it, suck it dry and discard it like big business did with the environment.

fuck the norms,
fuck the children,
fuck the schools and the police and the lawyers and the government.

don't let their banality touch you, affect you. just be who you are, unapologetically. people that hate you for being ifferent will both hate you AND mock you if you try to be "normal". That means they have won.

here's where i'm coming from, i'm not religious in the typical sense, but i believe that man should be constantly striving towards an ideal, a personal goal of decency, of respect for self and others. i have great respect for a noble soul.

i do not find being average sufficient.
i firmly believe everyone should try and be better, and yes, i have an attitude about people that don't try and be better. (yeah, i know. ego ego....i said i was trying to be *better*, not perfect ;) not for the sake of being superior, but just because average is not good enough to fix what's wrong with the world.

i'm not saying everyone that doesn't dress like me is going to be this average i speak of. they might be cool, intellegent, decent people. likewise, not everyone that listens to goth/industrial music is a person i'd trust watching my coat in a bar, never mind getting my back. you and i are both just humans, we were born and we'll die like every single human has done before us. we're not really different in a certain sense of the word. but honestly, do you not feel "different" from most people, people waiting in line in mcdonalds,people walking on the street, people talking on cell phones in cars? haven't you felt that most other people don't see what you see when you look at the world, that they won't see beauty in front of their faces but buy ugly deco art and buy whatever the media tell them to buy, and even worse, like it because the media tells the to buy it?

don't you feel different than them?

i do.