Nothing has touched us like the crowds of young (and old, but mainly young) protesters who have finally moved the best way the "powerless" can move in a democracy: en masse, peacefully and in public, against our greatest danger right now: the huge and growing division between the rich and the unrich.
I almost wrote, between the Gingrich and the unrich. In this division, "poor" is too small a category; the middle class is also withering on the vine.
Mark Twain said there's nothing so annoying as a good example, especially a lecturer preaching to a trapped listener, which is why I, an old codger, held off criticizing America's youth. They seemed to be so passive for so long. This "recession" has been building for a long time: the weakening of workers' and teachers' unions, the demise of major industries, outsourcing, and the deregulation of the money-movers. As the Tea Partiers moved noisily in, as is their right, I thought: Where are the young people?
When we were young we gathered and marched, against Vietnam, and for civil rights. Jeanne remembers that during St. Petersburg's garbage strike, after I was lifted (inelegantly, but gently) into the bus by two sweaty young policemen, I spotted a friend in the crowd, leaned out the window and yelled, "Tell Jeanne I'll be late for supper!" They carted so many of us to the Clearwater jail that they ran out of mattresses — cruel and inhumane treatment! — but James Sanderlin bailed us out in time for breakfast. It was my one and only arrest, and I wonder if my fingerprints are still on file.
We marched to the post office to mail letters to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara; in 1968 we gathered during the teachers' strike (we lost that one, and many of our best teachers); we hefted our young children onto our shoulders holding “Peace” signs and "Save Our Schools." For all these we were vilified, as the Occupiers are today.
Now, at last, we're happy to see that the young people are back, and in force. We hear they're unfocused, but they're not. They're pointedly warning us about the massive iceberg that threatens to sink our democracy: a Congress and Court and Country controlled by millionaires trying to dismantle the protections every civilized country gives to its citizens, and angling to defang regulations so that they can amass obscene amounts of money. No matter what they claim, that money does not create jobs and does not trickle down; the Census Bureau reports that the poor and the near-poor now compose nearly half of America, the richest country in the world. Why don't they take a bath and get a job? says presidential candidate Gingrich.
We don't know how this movement will end, but it's still spreading, and the word’s getting out. Let’s hope that, like the Solidarity movement in the dockyards of Gdansk, Poland (1980), its non-violent actions will open the country’s eyes — as it did on Vietnam — and stir the government to turn this foundering ship around.
Young people are involved again: Happy New Year!
Peter Meinke is the Poet Laureate of St. Petersburg.
This article appears in Dec 22-28, 2011.