After hosting scores of variety shows and circuses, I’m going to emcee my first political demonstration on Saturday June 14!
The rally will be at Alameda City Hall and the theme is You are Making a Difference. We’ll have, among others, a former Maryland Senator who now empowers voters in California’s Central Valley, two Poet Laureates, a 21 voice choir, and together we’ll make some phone calls to Washington D.C.
Many of the folks organizing this demonstration, and the morning rally a few blocks away at Chochenyo Park, are fellow veterans of ‘70s street protests. It seems right that we step up now, partly because we’ve done it before, partly because many of us have privileges that make it safer for us to speak out, and partly because we made big mistakes back in the day.
I grew up believing the slogan “Never trust anybody over 30” and didn’t expect to live long enough to become so completely untrustworthy. A few days ago, I happily celebrated my 68th birthday – we were wrong to cut off our elders.
We were also wrong to get so taken up by infighting – after the early Free Speech Movement, which included everyone from CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) to the Young Democrats, Young Republicans, and the Communist, Trotskyist and Socialist youth organizations, we started hating folks who held slightly different beliefs more than we hated our real enemies.
And many of us wrongly shunned the day-to-day practice of citizenship, sometimes even refusing to vote. As someone said in a planning meeting for this demonstration said, “Given how few people participate in our democracy, it’s surprising we don’t have even worse representatives.”
If we come out of this current crisis understanding, and doing, the daily work of making a difference, of creating a more perfect union, we may be able to build a better world together.
See you at Alameda City Hall, Saturday June 14 noon – 1pm!
