Onward
by Alice Embree (Ragstaff 1966-1967)
September 8, 2005
Let me preface this with a
note. The transition to
workaday life after the intensity of the reunion made me feel like Scott
Pittman in Seminole, Texas – left behind. I went to the great panel
discussion on reproductive choice before Roe v. Wade, finding many
Ragstaffers and the younger generation. Ragstaffers Barbara Hines, Judy
Smith and Victoria Foe were on the panel as was Bobby Nelson, Rag
contributor. That helped. For
me, the reunion wasn’t about the memories. It was wonderful to be with such
funny, articulate, caring, experienced folks. Did I say funny? That community is what I have
missed and I have more confidence that we can restore it in our
lives.
Ragstaffers gathered in Austin over Labor Day weekend sporting
reading glasses, not headbands, but it was clear that their vision of a
better society had not faded.
Their focus on the future had not blurred.
Sunday morning we began with memories of those who were gone, but
not forgotten: George Vizard,
Rita Starpattern, Clelie Moore, Susan Olan, John Lane, Tary Owen, Sara
Clarke, Scott Lind, Michael Eakin, Ken McHam, Greg Calvert, Donna Mobley,
Susie Ramsey, Charles Gandy, Roland DenNoie, Olga Petesch, Peggy Daniel,
Jim Blanford, Troy Stilks, Dave Lathop, Silent Jack, and Martin Wiginton.
The afternoon discussion did not focus on the past. Many expressed the urgency they
feel from current events. The
war in Iraq and the tragedy along the Gulf Coast make it increasingly
apparent that “the wheels are coming off the car.” Jeff Jones said that reaching
sixty had not made him retrospective. It had made him want to spend more
time agitating.
I agreed to write a summary
from my meager notes so that we could share the themes raised in the
discussion. I have broken
those themes down into the following areas:
Ongoing support and
communication
Almost everyone expressed
the importance of keeping up with each other. Everyone seemed grateful to have
re-established contact through the reunion. The event brought back the
camaraderie of shared struggle, of supper clubs, of late night
paste-ups. Dave Mahler said
it would be great to meet again in five years so that we didn’t have to
catch up with each other’s lives over the last three decades or more. David (Pratt) Hamilton offered his
house for an Austin area potluck in the near future.
Technology makes it
much easier to communicate - through the Yahoo group, side conversations
over e-mail, and even the Instant Messaging that the younger generation
uses for conversation. One
task, yet unassigned, is to compile the sign up sheet lists, checking them
against Bill Gordon’s master list, to ensure that we have the means to
communicate with each other through e-mail. A few among us – Phil Prim, for
example – do not use e-mail and we will need to accommodate that.
I received an e-mail
from Gregg Barrios who we did not reach in advance. He was disappointed that the
Chronicle coverage did not include people of color. I responded to Gregg, as did
Thorne. He intends to write
something for the Chronicle and we will notify others when that
happens. We must make an
especially diligent effort to expand the contact list to include Gregg,
Jerry Moctezuma and others we know we have missed.
In order to keep in
contact, we probably need a “circulation manager.” Bill Gordon served admirably in
that capacity, compiling the ever-changing list. He may be willing to maintain “the
list.” We can continue to
post messages to a common group.
We can meet occasionally in Austin in potluck format, and
occasionally in a more publicly accessible venue. We can perhaps do this again in
five years as Dave suggested so that the far-flung can come.
Technical
Support
We are fortunate to have
Hunter Ellinger, Bill Meacham, and others related through marriage like
Carlos Lowry who can program, design, maintain and keep us together
through web sites.
We have taken giant steps toward documenting the Rag’s impact on
Austin through this event.
Kudos, of course, to Phil Prim for being the unpaid archivist and
for assembling the Table of Contents. Then, kudos to Hunter Ellinger for
programming it into an interactive database that can be utilized for
inquiry and comment. Hunter
and I were the heroic typists (or should I say data entry
specialists).
We also have the ability to
scan documents, bringing them out of dusty file cabinets where a few can
see them and letting them live in cyberspace where many can access
them. The Texan and the
Chronicle used the scanned Rags that we put onto the nuevoanden.com
site. By scanning photos and
other images, we make them accessible to anyone who finds the site. Kudos to Hunter and Mary Parker
for setting up the scanning area and for Mary’s heroic scanning during the
Reunion event.
Technology provides us with
the ability to publish over the Internet. It also allows us to update
endlessly – no more rubber cement and double typing to justify. While it is a marvelous tool, it
is limited. In Hunter’s
phrasing: “Truth is not
limited by supply, but by demand.”
You have to be looking for Internet information to find it. You have to have to be computer
literate, must have access to computers and – more importantly – you
usually must be “in the choir” or among the converted, or part of the
academically interested. The
Internet does not have someone balanced on a chair on the Drag pushing a
copy of a paper for a pittance.
It does not have someone playing a harmonica and hawking a
newspaper. It does not have
the personal involvement and entertainment value of such salespeople. It does not have someone looking
you in the eye and conversing. You have, in Jeff Nightbyrd’s phrasing, a
“virtual relationship” over the Internet.
Organizing
The discussion of outreach through the Internet led into a
discussion of organizing.
Among us were some labor organizers – Connie Lanham Moreno and Cam
Duncan – and others with experience in that area. The skill of organizing through
personal contact, conversation, looking people in the eye is still alive
and well. It exists in
electoral politics as well - not just for candidates but also for
issues. Mariann Vizard
reminded us of the close electoral vote in Alaska on legalization of
medical marijuana. Texans
will need to mobilize soon on the “No Nonsense in November” vote on gay
marriage. And organizing efforts mobilize for national actions. Jeff Jones described the west
coast efforts to protest the New York Republican Convention as a recent
example. Of course, for all
of us, Cindy Sheehan has been a beacon of hope. She has galvanized action through
her courageous witness, her plain talk, her clear connection to the toll
of war, and her evolving radicalization. Many Ragstaffers went to
Crawford. More were present
at the demonstration August 31st that began the bus caravans to
Washington, D.C.
Again, the straight
media has focused only on Sheehan.
As Steve Speir reminded us, there were Hispanics in Crawford among
the Gold Star families for Peace – families from the Rio Grande Valley -
whose stories would have galvanized many more. Again, we must be reminded of the
limits and bias of the straight media.
David MacBryde called
for forming an organization, Seniors for Democratic Societies. [David uses the plural here, in
part, because he lives in Germany, which had its own SDS.] Sarah Foster spoke of organizing
the older generation. Many
said: “That’s us.” Some spoke
of organizing AARP caucuses.
If you re-read the Port Huron statement, you will find it spoke in
the voice of the younger generation.
It could be re-written to reflect the authentic concerns of our
generation. After all, as
Gavan Duffy eloquently put it:
“It’s our asses on the line.”
New Orleans brings up
another issue of organizing – the act of assuming leadership in crisis
situations. As we watch the
federal government replace FEMA expertise with Arabian horse expertise, it
is obvious that the public sector infrastructure is being dismantled. The lack of response from the
federal government is related to their opinion of public services and
public servants. Those in
charge are like pirates on privatization ships – offloading public sector
services “if they are profitable.”
Vision
Val Liveoak and Victoria
Foe, and others, spoke eloquently about vision – about the need to focus
on what a good society would look like. Too much of our work in our
separate areas of interest and expertise is defensive. As Ragstaffers noted, we find
ourselves debating on the turf that Karl Rove and their gang have
established, opposing the “Clean Air Act” and the “Healthy Forest
Initiative.”
George Lakoff’s book, “Don’t
Think of an Elephant!” speaks to the linguistic challenge facing
progressives. When I read
that book, I remembered vividly how easily we did not debate the war in
the framework that had been set up for debate – the spread of
communism. In the pages of
the Rag, we instinctively worked and wrote in a different paradigm. We wrote from our hearts. We wrote about values. We put forward the vision of a
good society in simple language.
Cam Duncan reported
that the public sector unions that he works with are beginning to work on
a vision for public services.
As a former state employee, I know that public servants can be
effectively mobilized when they have strong leadership and well
articulated goals. We need to
push for, and publish, these kinds of vision statements. In a side conversation after the
UT panel, I listened to David MacBryde and Victoria Foe talk about
universal health care in Germany and Canada. Canada is also moving toward
universal childcare. Germany
allows students to pursue higher education virtually without tuition. I felt like Scott Pittman again –
left behind. The degree to
which this country has abandoned families to scrabble for childcare,
burdened students with staggering loan debt, and left all of us uncertain
about health care is shameful.
We can, and should, talk to our fellow citizens about a societal
goal of taking care of people, a Cuban model of moving people out of
harm’s way when hurricanes threaten, a Canadian model of childcare, and
universal health care.
Art and Culture
A final theme was that of art and culture. Scott’s borrowed phrasing was that
“art is the portal that takes you to a new way of thinking.” It was mostly the political
activists and writers who stayed around for the gathering. Artists and musicians don’t
generally have the same tolerance level for long meetings as Kerry Awn
said and demonstrated. But, a
great deal of the impact of the Rag was in making a counter culture
accessible through reviews, art, comics, and advertising. It is through the arts that
community is often built and sustained. The arts also allow communities to
cross cultural divides.
In
summary, I hope these notes will prompt comments from participants and
give those who weren’t present a feel for the gathering. I think it would
be great, after we have slept, to create an online Rag and foster some of
the great writing that marked the paper during its eleven years.
Footnote from Funnel
Thorne Dreyer:
This remarkable gathering could
never have happened without the efforts of Alice Embree -- aka the
'Scan-Do-Kid.' -- whose vision,
energy, organizing acumen and silly sense of humor gave it form and whose fine
epilogue let us know in clear, consise language what had actually happened the
last four days. Which is a good thing, because most of us hadn't a clue.
Want to add comments to this summary? Send them to
Hunter Ellinger.
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