ROLLING THUNDER DOWN HOME DEMOCRACY TOUR: A CELEBRATION OF AGITATION
rollingthundertour.org
I thank the sky and stars that not all so-called "liberals" see fit to waste their time bashing Clinton. Here's a rowdy bunch who don't think that's sensible a'tall:
azstarnet.com
Activists flock to Democracy Tour at TCC
By Tom Beal
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Finding the Rolling Thunder Down-Home Democracy Tour Saturday afternoon was simple if you followed the white Chevy van with the colorful plastic flower stencils and the dozen bumper stickers - "Save the Humans," "Respect Your Mother (Earth)" - into the parking lot of the Tucson Convention Center.
It was that kind of crowd.
They clapped when Wenonah Hauter of Public Citizen, a lobbying group, told about the activists who were defending Michigan's water supply by lying down in front of the Perrier trucks.
They cheered Tucson homeless activist Brian Flagg when he denounced the city's new Downtown police patrol as an attempt to sweep the homeless from the streets of an area the city wants to redevelop.
They stood and cheered for Tom Hayden and host Jim Hightower before either man uttered a word.
Hightower, author and syndicated radio and newspaper columnist, took straight aim at the Bush administration and all the "greedheads on Wall Street and boneheads in Washington" in his speech.
He told the crowd to embrace the mantle of "agitator." "Agitation is what built America," he said, citing a legacy that stretched from Thomas Paine to Mother Jones, Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez.
Agitation is essential when those in power are telling you to hold your tongue for the good of the country, he said. "If you do not speak up when it matters, when would it matter that you speak?" he asked. "The opposite of courage is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow."
Hayden, who was accused and acquitted of "outside agitation" and put on trial on charges of inciting riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention as one of the "Chicago Seven," said the nation's political parties need to be reminded when the people don't share their views.
"The Democratic Party today is starting to make noise about globalization and corporate greed," he said, but only after public uproar brought it around.
"This meeting is about globalization," said Hayden. He began his speech describing a photograph he carried of a woman in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, standing at a loom making sweaters that will be bought for $8 and resold for $100 in the United States, where they used to be manufactured.
Hayden said globalization is uprooting the rural economy of Mexico and will eventually send that woman and others north to seek a better future.
Hayden praised Southern Arizona activists for their historic and continuing support of justice for immigrants.
Hightower said he chose the name "Rolling Thunder" for the tour because it represented the prelude to the rain that wets the "grass roots" and makes them grow.
But he said it would also have resonance for older activists. "Rolling Thunder" was the name given President Lyndon Johnson's 1965 bombing campaign in Vietnam that started at the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Vietnam and rolled northward. It was used again by Bob Dylan for his 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue.
Opening the nine-hour program of speeches and music, Hightower took credit for bringing the thunder "and a very nice and much needed rain" to Tucson.
Hightower said his purpose in mounting a tour of progressive speakers and causes was to bring a variety of groups together in their hometowns. He is compiling a list of activists' e-mail addresses, giving out free tickets for Ben & Jerry's ice cream at the events in exchange for them.
Tucson was the third stop after Hightower's home base of Austin, Texas, and Chicago. Organizers estimated that about 3,000 people attended the Tucson event, counting the activists manning the booths. Paid ticket sales numbered slightly more than 2,000 by 7 p.m. The tour moves next to Seattle, St. Paul, Minn., and New Orleans.
For Micah Henry, 26, of Scottsdale, the tour was a chance to exchange ideas with like-minded people, something he says he has trouble doing at his job and in his social circle. "I don't really get to vent," he said.
He said he feels a bit left out when he reads of President Bush's high approval ratings. "It's a release," he said, "just knowing you're not by yourself."
He boarded a bus chartered by the Maricopa Green Party for the occasion.
He said he enjoyed immersing himself in the causes represented by the 130 groups who staffed tables throughout the center and held workshops on a variety of topics.
The groups represented an array of environmental and social justice causes, political candidates and parties -
Democrats, Greens, independents and even the Communist Party, but no Republicans were in evidence.
Jessica Martin, a 28-year-old grad student at the University of Arizona, said the gathering accomplished its goal of bringing people together, as far as she was concerned.
After one workshop, an older participant told her it was good to see a young activist for a change. "I usually only see activists in my peer group," Martin said. "We have been two different communities within Tucson and being here today brought us together." |
