In TEXAS!?!?!?
Published on Sunday, March 24, 2002 in the Austin American-Statesman
'We're Here to Take Back the World'
Rolling Thunder tour attracts thousands of liberal Central Texans
by Dick Stanley
With one swing of a red wooden mallet, Austinite Jeremy Hepokoski sent a metal slug
flying up a vertical track to ring a bell entitling him to a momentous choice: $17 billion to
buy 10,000 nuclear weapons or to hire 425,000 school teachers.
It was a no-brainer for Hepokoski, 20. He hired the teachers.
"I voted for Nader," he said at the Travis County Exposition
Center on Saturday. "That's probably as liberal as you can get.
I'm definitely not a fan of George W."
It was safe to say the president had few fans among the more
than 5,000 young and old Central Texans who paid $10 at the
gate or $5 in advance to attend the Austin kickoff of the Rolling
Thunder Down Home Democracy Tour.
It was a gathering of liberal activists who, feeling increasingly
marginalized in national politics, are determined to jump-start
what tour organizer and former Texas Agriculture Commissioner
Jim Hightower calls a movement of populist awakening.
"A day of fun, music and education. Who could ask for more?"
said Travis County Judge Sam Biscoe, who opened the noon to
9 p.m. event from a stand in the expo center's chilly barn,
which usually hosts groomed farm animals at livestock shows.
A stiff breeze through the open-sided barn unfurled an American flag whose stars were
replaced by corporate symbols such as McDonald's golden arches. A nearby sign
declared, "We are the true majority." The barn boomed with music from the likes of
Grammy-winning Tejano artist Ruben Ramos.
"It's a shame it's not a little warmer," said Fiona Essa, a recently transplanted Californian
and tour volunteer whose job it was to show reporters around the booths for groups ranging
from Amnesty International to the Lakeway Parents Concerned About Sewage Spray.
Food stands offered honey lemonade and veggie tamales. There was free massage and
acupuncture for the perpetually stressed.
"Have you been to the 171 (organization) tables yet?" asked Sue Johnson of Wimberley.
"It's not fringe so much as alternative, and there really is a difference. Our turn is coming."
Johnson, a representative of the Texas Organic Grower's Association, was distributing
newsletters in hopes of finding new members.
Every other person seemed to be handing out fliers for something. Behind Johnson, a man
yelled to a friend: "Molly's on now. Right now!"
Newspaper columnist Molly Ivins, who calls Texas politics "better than the zoo, better
than the circus," was one of several speakers who mixed progressive exhortation with
biting humor, always at the expense of the conservative opposition, whether Democrat or
Republican.
"I look at (U.S. House Majority Leader) Dick Armey," Hightower told the crowd, "and I
think: 100,000 sperm, and you were the fastest?"
It wasn't all fun and games. Workshops included: Stealing Elections 101, Culture
Jamming: Pranks With A Purpose, and Radiation in Our Food & Community.
Six weeks from now, organizers said, the tour will move on to bigger game in a dozen
more cities, including Atlanta and Chicago.
"This is not just an affair to complain about the world," Hightower said. "We're here to take
back the world."
© Copyright Cox Interactive Media, Inc.2001
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