Independence Celebration

Yesterday I attended an enormous family celebration that was attended by at least fifty people in addition to our family members.  I wore one of my "350.org tees" and brought Grace Bogg's latest book, "The Nest American Revolution."  The whole day was devoted to things that our forefathers did on July 4, 1776 when they approved the Declaration of Independence.  Naturally I am viscerally  involved in preserving our revolution.  I believe that revolutions are easier to make than to preserve. 

One person attending the festivities stopped me and asked about my 350.org Tee.  She thought it should more accurately display the message, "360.org."  Maybe that would be more symmetrical or something.  I can't say.  Then she noticed my Boggs book and wanted to know what it was about.  I explained about how I learned about Grace Boggs when John and I were in Detroit last summer for the US Social Forum.  She thumbed through the book.  The subject of activism having been broached, she asked me how I became involved in social issues.  I explained that I had always been sensitive to the status of people who are marginalized.  I shared about my experiences of working with students who have disabilities. She became silent and stopped asking questions.  I felt I may have been preaching rather than reaching out.  So I asked her about her experiences with activism.  After all she demonstrated an interest in mine.  This made her stand out in my way of thinking.

She was even more silent and alluded to some nondescript instances.  Then I asked her where she was from.  Seattle!  That was wonderful to my mind.  I asked her if she had been involved in the WTO protests?  I know the event as the "Battle in Seattle."  She immediately informed me that she had not and in addition, she was put off by the violence carried out by the "young people."  This is when I stopped.  My guess is that she only knew about the violence and not the underlying motivation for the Seattle activism.  The corporate media, being an organ of the ruling elites,  focused on the destruction  as a convenient means of distracting us from the underlying reality behind the action taken by the people in the streets.  They wanted to stop the WTO.  The WTO, an entity that contains no democratically elected individuals was meeting to render decisions that would impact all of us.  President Clinton could not even reach the event because of the action.  The decisions of the WTO impact the people and maintain the status quo of the ruling elites.  As I backed off from my friend at the lake side festival, I had visions of events now taking place in Greece, in Spain and in England.  The people are having their lives eviscerated by policies over which they have no control.  Seattle was a bench mark.  There will be others.  Another world is possible.