Why are the streets so quiet?
Where are the demonstrations, the protests, the angry outbursts, the furious gatherings, the outraged marches? Where are the acts of civil disobedience?
Didn’t the disgraceful performance at the Oval Office the other day finally make something click? Didn’t the bizarre 90-minute speech to Congress, full of lies and craziness, do it?
Haven’t we finally realized that our democracy is being stolen, our privacy is being ransacked, our national reputation is being ravaged, our judges are being intimidated, our American soul is being sold and … pretty much nothing?
Well, some of our reps dressed in pink for the speech, and when one of them was escorted out of the chamber they angrily … held up paddles. And some of us decided the other day that to express our outrage, we wouldn’t shop at WalMart or Amazon. That’ll show ‘em!
Look, I didn’t buy anything during the economic boycott. My only economic activity was I ate lunch with a friend at a locally owned place and paid in cash, my (very) little thumbing of my nose at the rapacious corporate oligarchy that had eliminated DEI practices.
I stood, that is, firmly with the other middle-class people who found an easy way to say hell, no, we won’t go … to Whole Foods on just this day.
The truth, of course, was that this was just a performative exercise that has had—and will have—very little impact. It maybe made some of us feel good, and best of all, didn’t overly interfere with our other activities.
Why are the streets so quiet?
Is there any doubt that if what is happening to our country was happening in France or Spain or Holland millions would be demanding change, hundreds of thousands would be striking, tens of thousands would be marching, thousands would be disrupting? In Greece the other day, across the country, hundreds of thousands went on strike, all transportation was shut down, angry demonstrations, the largest in years, erupted in city after city, millions poured into the streets, all to protest … how the Greek government handled a deadly train crash two years ago.
Hey, I’m a 78-year-old with coronary artery disease, so I’m not going to be out there leading the charge and throwing petrol bombs at the seat of the legislature, as they were doing in Athens the other day. But where are the calls to do something more than refrain from using a credit card or sending an angry email to your congressional rep? Why aren’t there already plans for another woman’s march, another March on Washington, another levitating of the Pentagon, another nationwide mobilization?
Not all of us, but many of us, did get in the streets for civil rights and against the war in Vietnam. Why aren’t we doing something like that now? Where are the organizations that are saying meet us at the front of the Capitol?
Instead, as Trump and company shamefully play the toady to dictators, I keep getting emails and texts from liberal organizations and Democratic politicians asking me for money, for donations or to telephone my senator about how very truly upset I am. And, Dear Congressperson, please don’t cut Medicaid and leave Social Security alone.
Isn’t it already abundantly clear that we need to do more? I promise: I’ll get on the streets. Just let me know how and where and when and let me know when the streets are no longer quiet.