[News] Total Revolution or Nuthin'

[Anti-Imperialist News]

TOTAL REVOLUTION OR NUTHIN’

(Darkened stage. Jaunty whistling and cell-phone 
texting is heard, along with the footsteps of 
Converse sneakers on a dusty, small-town road. 
Suddenly, the screech of heavy tires, then a 
sickening thud and a groan. Lights up on the 
original American Gothic couple, sitting on the 
porch of their dilapidated house, up the hill 
from the road. Pa is snoozing in his rocker; Ma 
puts down her knitting and looks out, in the direction of the noise.)

Ma:     Hey, Pa.

Pa:     Yeah, Ma?

Ma:     There’s a big ol’ anarchist lying in the middle of the road.

Pa:     I believe I heard that one before, Ma.

Ma:     This ain’t no joke, Pa. A cement truck 
done come outta nowhere and knocked that anarchist feller down.

Pa:     How you know he’s an anarchist, Ma?

Ma:     Black jeans. Black t-shirt. Cell phone. 
Lack of personal hygiene. A woman knows these things, Pa.

Pa:     He ain’t one a them hothead terrorists 
what got arrested at the G-20 protest in 
Pittsburgh? (Gasps.) Ma! You think he’s the very 
one whose house the police raided?

Ma:     Maybe. (Pause. Ma goes back to her 
knitting. Pa, now fully awake, seems troubled.)

Pa:     Hey, Ma.

Ma:     Yeah, Pa?

Pa:     I feel kinda bad, sittin’ here on the 
porch in total comfort, while that 
anarcho-terrorist’s lying down there without his 
books, his computer, his notes, and all his 
personal belongings. You know, them police done 
took everything in that raid. Maybe I ought to 
throw myself down next to the anarchist in solidarity.

Ma:     Now, Pa. Don’t you go actin’ like one a 
them guilt-crazed, grass-roots socialists. You 
just sit right here and wait for them corporate 
organizers to come by and turn you into 
astroturf. I swear, ever since the bank took our 
farm, you just ain’t been yourself.

Pa:     (Pa’s hands go to either side of his 
head; his eyes open wide; he begins to rock back 
and forth agitatedly.) The bank, Ma! The bank!

Ma:     Oh, lord – I knew I shouldn’t a brought that up again


Pa:     Lookee here, Ma. The bank owned our farm, right?

Ma:     Right, Pa.

Pa:     And the bank told us what to do, right?

Ma:     Right, Pa.

Pa:     And the bank owns that cement company, right?

Ma:     Probably, Pa. But –

Pa:     You know, Ma, I’m beginnin’ to see a 
pattern, here 
 (Suddenly rises and declaims.) 
“It is organized violence on top which creates 
individual violence at the bottom.” That’s Emma Goldman, Ma.

Ma:     Pa, you’re not feelin’ well. Let me make you some hot –

Pa:     (Throws down his cane in exhilaration.) 
Hallelujah, Ma! I done had me a revelation! The 
same societal forces what took our farm also 
knocked down that poor little anarcho-terrorist 
feller. We have all been trampled under the 
wheels of a corrupt, white supremacist, 
imperialist oligarchy, writhing in the insidious 
throes of late-capitalist, male-dominated, 
police-state surveillance. Glory be, Ma! I’m a-speakin’ in tongues!

Ma:     Why don’t we just help the poor little terrorist up, Pa?

Pa:     (Begins to march around the porch, 
chanting.) Gay/straight; Black/White; Together We 
Struggle; Together We Fight! We gotta form 
coalitions with other oppressed groups, Ma. ¡La Lucha Continua!

Ma:     Now you listen here, Pa. Either you start 
talking sense, or I’m leavin’ you.

Pa:     I think what you mean, Ma, is that “A 
Woman Without a Man is Like a Fish Without a 
Bicycle.” Oh praise Mikhail Bakunin! He done put them holy words into my mouth!

Ma:     Pa! Don’t you know Obama wants you to talk like that?

Pa:     Au contraire, Ma. This is what democracy 
looks like! That anarcho-terrorist down yonder is 
making a, what you call, protest. He’s sayin’ 
that, although we may be knocked down by the 
Cement Truck of History – all our worldly goods 
repossessed and raided – there is still hope if 
we but have the courage to lie there and – (Ma is 
peering out at the intersection.)

Ma:     Uh, Pa, honey?

Pa:     Yeah, comrade Ma?

Ma:     He ain’t there no more.

Pa:     How’s that?

Ma:     The anarcho-terrorist done got up by 
himself and limped away. (Long pause, during 
which Pa sits back in his rocker. He looks shaken 
and hurt. Finally, he regroups.)

Pa:     Oh well. Anarchist dude has other towns 
to go to, other cement trucks to meet.

Ma:     I reckon. (Pause.)

Pa:     You know, Ma. Maybe we should do 
something nice for the little terrorist. Sort of say, “Thanks for lying there”?

Ma:     Like what, Pa?

Pa:     Hold one of them anarchist “raves.”

Ma:     I give up. Go ahead, Pa, if it’ll make you happy.

Pa:     Hot diggity! I’m gonna telephone the boys 
down at the V.F.W. to help me get the balloons all blowed up.

Ma:     Maybe if you asked real polite, Pa, I’d 
sew you some nice “FIGHT THE POWER” banners.

Pa:     And I bet we could blast the sound system 
all over town from that cement truck!

Ma:     What? Work within the system for social 
change? Are you crazy, Pa? This has got to be 
total Revolution or nuthin’
  (They continue 
fomenting peaceably, rocking back and forth, as the lights fade.)



                                    ©  Susie Day, 2009



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