I came upon Bolivar, one long morning,
in Madrid, at the entrance to the Fifth Regiment.
Father, I said to him, are you, or are you not, or who are you?
And, looking at the Mountain Barracks, he said:
"I awake every hundred years when the people awake."
When I first read these lines by Pablo Neruda in the late 1970s, they struck deep. I instantly agreed with Bolivar’s ghost: “I awake every hundred years when the people awake.”
Neruda wasn’t being snarky. He was a true man of the people. He was just exasperated with them for not fomenting rebellions as frequently as they should.
It’s an honest criticism. I’ve thought it myself many times. For years I listened to fellow workers bitching about working weekends and being chained to second (and third) jobs. I heard gripes about the countless Sunday-night-killing bosses they had to confront every Monday morning of their lives. They quickly learned that just going home and popping a Schlitz isn’t very effective. What next, they’d ask? I offered many a pamphlet and unloaded precious few.
For the past dozen years I’ve lived in Sun City Center, Florida, a retirement community at the edge of Tampa Bay. My neighbors rarely talk politics (or sex, but that’s another story). They play golf and join the photography or weaving club, or discuss bird plumage. Once every couple of weeks they attend performances of tribute bands playing The Shirelles or Jay and the Americans. They eat out at Bob Evans too, but the food is awful.
I’ve been to two protests down here. The first one was a 2018 demonstration decrying gun violence. No action was formulated to present to the authorities in Washington, but at least they got it right that something was wrong. But who was responsible? Gun owners? Gun manufacturers? Military culture? Macho culture? The government? There was nobody to pull back the curtains, nobody to blow away the fog.
The demonstration last week on March 29th was more focused. People were clearly upset about possible government cuts to Medicaid, Social Security, and veterans benefits. Some were questioning a government they’d never doubted before. Listen to the video and you’ll hear people mad at the “one-percenters,” right-wing politicians, and other guardians of the class structure. A few protesters even mentioned the threat of fascism and similarities to Nazi Germany.
Predictably, participants came from many levels of political awareness. Some may never have been to a demonstration, while others obviously have. I did ask some demonstrators whether they thought some other part of government could be cut back and room made for robust social programs. That puzzled many. I suggested “the US military, drones, bombs and all” but few people caught on. The days of Vietnam War teach-ins are long gone. If someone wants to know why the government’s plaguing their lives, they’ll have to scour for reasons on the internet. Maybe they’ll get lucky and find out or maybe they’lll just get sidetracked onto some shiny new diversion.
I also included an interview with a Trump supporter. It’s not because I’m particularly tolerant of them. I found her notable because she was there with only about a dozen other fellow travelers. I saw them in the parking lot before the demonstration. “This all we got?” one griped. It’s one thing to festoon your front yard with American flaglets every three-day weekend and sticker your truck with jeering slogans. It’s quite another to convince your besties to show up at a demonstration across the street from 202 chanting oldsters, convinced you’re all poltroons.
This demonstration was a leap up from the last one (which was conducted during the previous Trump administration). These retirees are clearly in revolt and they have a good idea who’s responsible. We’ll see what happens as the current administration matures and the donor class devises even more vile deeds for their politicians/employees to perpetrate.
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