The Sideline Sanctuary...Therese vs. Eco Warriors and the American Dream

Eco Warriors. They love a good protest, living in trees, letting creatures live in their hair and not using tampons? I remember being wildly fascinated as a child when my Dad took me to visit some hanging out of the trees at the Glen of the Downs bypass. They looked like aliens but talked like people. One man had massive snakes growing out of his head, another tried to make me drink seaweed juice and I thought in that second-this wasn't going to be the life for me. Fanta tastes better.

When I look back now and realise the gusto it takes someone to physically shed everything they are surrounded and sheltered by in the world to go live in a forrest to prove a point, I can't help but be astonished. For a while I dabbled with protests myself. At 13 I started up an unsuccessful petition against a certain millennium spike that would appear on O'Connell Street. Having collected 1,400 signatures against it in one area alone I thought I'd at least get some kind of an official letter telling me my anger had been registered with the Taoiseach. I really believed I could stop it.

At 15 I was on the front lines of every march against the Iraq war. I was too cool to walk with my family so I donned the latest cringeable 'Bush Sucks' tee shirt and walked with my long haired boyfriend to go rage war on American foreign policy. This went on to transform itself into my Leaving Cert Art painting,the same year (I had just turned 16 leaving school). I painted an Iraqi prisoner at Abu Ghraib P.O.W camp, head covered with a sack, tied to a crucifix and dangling on an electricution death aid, a form of torture they were using against prisoners at the time. American soldiers had recently been forcing Iraqi prisoners to burn copies of the Koran upon punishment of death. They had also been safeguarding the many oil refineries of Iraq as we waited for them to dig up the Weapons of Mass Destruction. My painting depicted this as American soldiers pulling a wooden horse of Troy towards a burning oil field. Following the Leaving Cert I got my art projects rechecked. I had been awarded a C on the grounds that my painting was 'too politically challenging'. Free thinking apparently does not get you points in Leaving Cert Art. I had written letters upon letters of protest against the War on Iraq to everyone I thought would listen. I really believed I could stop it.

As a 23 year old living in 2011 I can't help notice the conflicted states I find myself in all the time. It's frustrating to remember the politically active naive little lady that fancied herself as the next Aung San Suu against the sexually active vodka bemused fan of Meet The Kardashians and American Apparell I am faced with today.

At what point do we decide not to stand up anymore? Have we grown weary? Did we never care in the first place? Or are we happy in our sanctuary watching abismal fates dealt out to our fellow citizens of earth from the comfort of our Sky Box? I would like to think I care. But when does it become more to me than the newspaper I'll buy the next day? It was lovely to spend the day recovering from my latest hangover watching the Japanese Earthquake unfold before me on Friday. When I'd had enough humanity kicks to the stomach, I monged out infront of a re run of America's Next Top Model and made another Annadin on the rocks.

It's easy to argue about what bitches America can be, I love a conspiracy theory as much as the next sucker...but at what point are we willing to give up the lives we  know and want and go do something about it? When I hit back down to earth I'm always faced with the reality that half of the jobs I work at and seek are for American companies, my favourite designer is Calvin Klein, and someday I hope to outrage my kids with explaining that in my day Lil Wayne was actually pretty ghetto for a rapper. I shall put them to sleep with these tales I hope, from the relief of my New York City sky liner that I screwed alot of myself over to attain.

Life is just too peachy on the sidelines? Fools rush in where angels fear to tread? Its hard to stand up for what you believe. It's harder to give it up altogether. The enemy has become alot bigger and closer to home now, do we fight for what we want?  Or fight against it?