The Mirror Demonstration!

I had never seen anything like it.

I wasn't a complete demonstration neophyte. I had "marched" with about five friends in the CNM teacher's union in front of the building where the CNM board was meeting to decide on salaries for CNM security. We had signs ready made. We marched in a circle and sang, "We shall overcome." (Don't get on to me for being in the union and doing this. I had my reasons, which I thought were very good at the time.)

Then there were anti-war demonstrations that I happened to drive through on my way to Wal-Mart. Those made me very nervous. The vitriol of the (small) crowd was palpable, even with me protected in my car. I'd just focus my gaze straight ahead and try to get through without running over someone mad enough to jump out in front of me. It never happened but that was my fear.

So at the Albuquerque Tea Party, I could very well relate to the few drivers who focused straight ahead and white-knuckled their way to the center lane. But there were so few of them.

A counter demonstration marched somewhere around Smiths, I heard, but I never saw any of them. Only one or two "nuts" wandered through doing their own thing that might have been contrary to us. I really couldn't tell. One guy dressed in a red t-shirt with a yellow hammer & sickle on it paused every few feet and waved a kind of anti-American flag. That is, its blue and white bars were vertical and the blue field with white stars on the American flag was on this thing a white field with blue stars. We ignored him and he wandered on.

Of the drivers, a few people shot us a finger as they passed. We just laughed. Actually, I had to keep asking the guy next to me which it was, a finger or a thumbs up. The clouds had dimmed the sunlight enough that without my glasses, my vision wasn't good enough to determine which was which. But during the entire three hours, Dale counted only three or four middle fingers, and maybe five thumbs down.

That left everyone else in the thousands of cars, SUVs, and trucks passing by, approving of what we were doing. It was a 5:00 rush-hour traffic jam until after 7:00! People reported that to get onto Montgomery from Carlisle and San Mateo, it took 15 minutes!

Did I say thousands of vehicles? Or were they the same ones on a loop, going round and round and round? Quite a few began to look familiar. We finally figured out that people had driven by, perhaps as a result of their daily tasks, gone home, collected their kids, flags, dogs, and quickly-scrawled signs. Then driving up and down the four miles of Montgomery, honking their horn, waving flags, thumbs up, and showing signs to the people they passed, they served as a kind of mirror demonstration for us.

One little girl had scrawled on her lined notebook paper, "Obama sucks!" She flattened it against the window as her mother drove slowly by us so we could read it.

Another lady held up a sign that said, "This is all the change Obama gave me!" Huge coins were plastered on it, one fitting within the O of Obama.

People perched in the opening of a Hummer-type search and rescue vehicle waving a full-sized "Don't Tread on Me" flag, the Army Rangers flag, and Old Glory, while the airhorn of an 18-wheeler sounded.

Children waved flags and sticks with teabags on them out the windows of their cars.

One driver jumped up and down in his seat, waving both arms, and grinning.

One old guy had four flags, one for each of his windows, sticking up around his car.

There were elderly people in Cadillacs, young parents with babies locked into carseats, Hispanics, blacks, and whites, men dressed in grungy t-shirts, men dressed in business suits, ladies in classic power suits, ladies in scrubs, trucks pulling trailers with motorcycles and trucks pulling trailers with landscaping tools. My daughter noticed that the driver of nearly EVERY truck or van that had a business logo on it went crazy honking, grinning, and giving the thumbs up. "It's because they're working," she deduced.

The numbers were hard to determine. People came and went on the sidewalks on both sides of Montgomery. Since the numbers seemed to come out as between 5,000 and 10,000, I'd just go with the more conservative 7,000. But that's just counting the people who stood on the sidewalks, not the mirror demonstration. What a boost we got out of the support we received.

Tomorrow's the day

Well, tomorrow's the day. Our weapons (signs) have been readied. The saber rattling was when we called our representatives and senators and told them we disagree with their spending. Lot of good that did! The two sides have positioned themselves. Just today, the media spread the word from the Department of Homeland Security that people who have a strong issue, such as anti-abortion or immigration, are right wing radicals. People who are against the federal government in support of the state or local government are right wing radicals. Disgruntled veterans can be right wing radicals. People who strongly support the second amendment are right wing radicals. Well, . . . I guess that's what we are. That's who we are.

We are armed for the battle by our education and preparation. We have our instructions and plan. Here is what we will do:
Protest the spending.
Yell how we feel.
Stand and wave our signs.
Show our numbers and solidarity.
Wave at drivers who honk.
Chant catchy slogans.
Have fun.
Show off for any cameras.

We will not break the law. We will not engage anyone who tries to push any buttons.

Thus will we prove just how "radical" we are.

I've actually gotten quite comfortable with my new role. I put up fliers last week advertising the Albuquerque Tea Party, but within three days, they all disappeared. All but the one next to my office door. I feel a little bad to have that one there because my office mate doesn't agree with me politically, but at least I won't leave it up forever like she wanted me to allow with some Obama fliers before the election. I don't consider this tea party to be partisan, anyway.

I've told my classes what I'm doing tomorrow. Told them I was protesting government spending. After each of two classes, a student hung around to ask me more details. So maybe they'll join us.

When I say I'm more comfortable, I mean the fear and anger don't wrap my gut into knots, any more. I don't feel the same anxiety that tells me to DO SOMETHING! NOW! Tomorrow is just one battle in what promises to be a war of years. We have to remember that we're in this for the long run and we need to pace ourselves, maintaining our level of energy and enthusiasm for what previously was the sole property of the left: activism.

Part of it, too, is realizing that nothing I do alone and right now will make much difference. It's only going to be through a series of protests, demonstrations, collaborations, and educations that we'll be able to make a difference.

All's quiet . . .