Beautiful Tragedy: Tent University and Town Hall with Anna Eshoo

Today I participated in two very different events:

First, I spent the afternoon in Santa Cruz at Tent University. Tent U is a project inspired by Tent State (www.tentstate.com) at Rutgers in New Jersey, and the idea is to hold a week-long convergence of students who run their own direct democracy and set-up a working community outdoors on their college campus. The Tent State initiative brings awareness to education budget cuts, and the link with increased spending on the war in Iraq, connecting global-local politics with the demand, "Money for Books, Not Bombs!" Tent U. at UC Santa Cruz was conceived by Will, this rockin' activist from Oakland, after he and I met the Tent State kidz at the UfPJ conference in St. Louis. It is incredible how Tent U. sprang up over a period of less than two months, and I was astounded by how much time and effort went into the planning process, which seems, from the outside, to be very organic. Tent U. began with a rally on campus and a march down the hill to the free speech zone. Students carried big paper mache puppets and signs, and walked en mass all the way down to the meadow. The whole thing was a beautiful site... when I wasn't bemoaning the thought that I gave up four potential years of schooling nestled in the redwoods and valleys overlooking the ocean ;-)

The administration is opposing the students' plans to camp in the free speech area, and threatened to make arrests if students slept there overnight. Because of this heightened tension (the Tent U. organizing team has had very little sleep, and...) the community spent the afternoon discussing strategies in small groups and taking their input to a large fishbowl dialogue. By the time I had to leave, at around 5 p.m., they had still not decided what they were going to do: occupy the space for the duration of the night, or move their nighttime activities to another area. Had I stayed, I would have been concerned about the lack of bathrooms for the 70 or so people who were there... and a group of students actually showed up to protest the bathroom/sanitation situation, mocking a proposal for composting toilets. Such is student life at Santa Cruz: for every protest, there is a counter-protest!

In the evening, I went to a Town Hall meeting with Congresswoman Anna Eshoo in Half Moon Bay. It seems that I have grown up with Anna in politics, as she has held office in our district since 1992. I have received letters from her office commending scholastic achievements, echoing her support of environmental measures to save the old growth trees in California, and updating me on her work with energy policy. I will never forget her speech during the California energy crisis, in which she shared with us her experience with the other politicians, who were each fighting with each other to be the "savior" of the crisis, to heroically produce the IT plan that would bring California out of its mess with private energy companies. This added to my formative understanding of the absurdity of martyrdom, and the crucial importance of teamwork and collaboration.

Anna took questions from the community written on notecards and answered a great deal of them. She spoke at length about social security and the dangers of privatization, the need to end our oil dependency and produce more fuel efficient autos using our tech savvy edge, and the disastrous effects of the Patriot Act, Leave No Child Behind, the carte blanc end of the Estate Tax, and the absence of a Congressional Ethics Committee (which was the only balance Republican-Democrat committee in the House, and now no longer exists, thanks to Mr. Delay). Anna told me she supported our campaign to bring the California National Guard home from Iraq. She was her usual humorous and optimistic self, and it was warming to see her speak so candidly and honestly, admitting when she didn't know the answer to a question, and joking here and there.

What was disheartening about the Town Hall was that the community assembled, which filled the IDES hall, was composed predominately white older folks. With the exception of Anna's aides, I felt like the only twentysomething in the room! And there was no Hispanic contingency to speak of! This demographic, in a town which is home to so many Mexican laborers and their families, and holds a burgeoning youth population, as the middle and high schools are hard pressed for space, is appalling. Anna seemed excited about the idea of holding a Town Hall at the high school, and this made me hopeful at least.

So there you have it: from youth uprising and university take-over, to political meeting with retired Caucasians. What can I say? Working with CodePink makes for an incredibly interesting life!

April in California

Spring showers of activism in the Bay include:
--Working from the Global Exchange CODEPINK office on everything under the sun-rushing to coordinate and plan and email and talk on conference calls, a dive into the activist world with little preparation that I will later look back on as experiential learning to the nth degree-a wonderful and intense time.

--Actions against the Minutement, the vigilante group that raises trouble and fear on the border by declaring personal war on undocumented Mexican immigrants

--Tent University (read the post!)

--A Holistic Passover Seder at my parents' house with over 15 people, using a Haggadah focusing on peace and social justice that my mom and I co-edit together. A second night Seder at Anna's college with the Greenbergs and late night musings in Palo Alto.

During April, Marla Ruzicka dies in a car bomb explosion in Iraq. Though I never knew Marla personally, by the end of two weeks of memorials and altars and stories and testimonials, I feel as if I had known her somehow, or at least that I am in touch with her spirit. Eva visits after attending the funeral. Something about Marla's death brings home the real-ness of the war and the dangers of the innocents who get mixed up in the middle. And in Marla's death the innocent victims she dedicated her life to get some attention, but their deaths are not marked by the same attention, because they are Iraqi. I think she would have despised that aspect of the media coverage. Her nonpartisan pro-peace work raised a lot of questions in me about my own work and it seems that as time passes this continues to be an evolving spiritual dialogue. To read more about Marla's work and the continuing work of the organization she founded, CIVIC, visit www.civicworldwide.org.

Salinas Library Read-In

I spend a full week in Salinas working with the Salinas Action League (SAL), UFW, LUPE, and other community organizations and activists to make sure that everything is ready for the Library Read-In at Cesar Chavez library. My favorite memories are of staying with Robin and Peter, doing a banner drop over Highway 101 with Adele at the crack of dawn, navigating around town and learning my way through the streets, flyering at the library before it opened and seeing the huge line of eager library patrons--realizing the great importance of this work, coordinating the CODEPINK booth area, making giant black and white printed poster signs that had slogans such as, "Libros no bombas!" "Books, not bombs!" "Libraries, not jails!"

The background is that the Salinas city libraries--3 total--are threatened with closure because of insufficient funds. We formed a coalition to organize around the issue and to pressure the CA government for more funding, linking the closing of the libraries with the cost of the war in Iraq.

The event was a huge success in grassroots organizing, in raising awareness at a national and local level, and in spreading a message of hope. However, the link to the local cost of war could have been stronger and the actual result--good fundraising enabling the libraries to be open a little longer and a field trip with a bus load of kids to the capital to present petitions and loby to elected officials--didn't yeild significant political or financial results. This will continue to be a big issue.

I will never forget the women who brought giant pots of champurado and chamomille tea in the middle of the night, the singing, the hoolahooping, the readings in the wee hours of the morning, the camping, the set-up process, the incredible muralist I met from Sunset Street, the man with a gree moustache making french toast in the morning, my parents' attendance, and so much more. To read more about this action, visit http://www.codepinkalert.org/article.php?id=188.