Alright some of you may be wondering why XOAVL is taking the political slant. Taking sides and all that stuff that might morbidly distort the image of the magazine. Few people have been pulling me aside wondering if this is the shape of things to come. Well its not and it is.
It’s not going to take sides with political posturing as we have seen in these recent years following the Bush administration. I can tell you that XOAVL started with a real focus on the fringe element of the city. Demonstrators hardly qualifies when one thinks of Asheville but this is nationwide we’re talking about and there is real threat or promise for change. That brings me to what XOAVL is, in all of this.
XOAVL is more than happy to stir the pot of possibility; especially when it means unsuspected futures for this country. Our recent declaration of support is not so much an act of taking sides for revolution (per se) but to lift the vibrant voices that resonate with new truths that might serve us better than our old ones.
The mainstream media cannot possibly wish to perpetuate this nationwide movement by disrupting the very institutions that support their “commercial” breaks and their entertaining prime time shows encumbered with idle laughter after a long day at work. In this changing world, it is asking to be run over by a fleet of tanks (pardon the war allusion) when one wishes to abstain from social demonstration of community solidarity when the powers to be continue in their old-minded early industrial-age ways.
In closing we support peace and understand that to have peace we must courageously offer peaceful non-participation. We must replace these last twenty years of despondence with something more (and I am referring to the great Timothy “Speed” Levitch): fun. Our hearts go out to those facing down the police in all the cities in America.