Alone Together

Amidst all the reasons to put “Go to protest rally” on your to-do list, the first one is to shock you out of your sense that you are carrying the pain of the world alone. Yes, you can get a sense that others feel similar things reading posts on social media or articles or books. But you don’t really know it viscerally in your bones until you show up and feel the energy of 50,000 people gathered together. The understandable despondency and despair and hopelessness we feel with each new assault reported in the mainstream media—Poof! Vanished in a flash. It will come back, for sure, and understandably so. But in that moment of gathering, you feel the tangible power of the group mind carrying the vibration of care and compassion.

 

My first rally yesterday was at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, where a few thousand spelled out with their bodies the message above. I was standing at the wall observing them when someone cranked up John Lennon singing Imagine. As he sang, “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one,” I pointed out to the people on the beach and thought, “You got that right, John!”

There were an estimated 2,600 different rallies across the U.S.— and more internationally in places like Korea and Ireland!— and an estimated 7 million people who took time out of their day to make it clear: “Not in my name.” 7 million! It was the largest known protest in the history of our country!

 

There’s more good news. I’ve been at protests since 1969 and often the dominant energy has been anger and the dominant action is confrontation with police. A lot of ugly (though deserved) name calling from the marchers to the soldiers or police paid to defend the undefendable. In my time the issues included the violation of civil rights, Vietnam war atrocities, homophobia, nuclear arms buildup, the Iraq war, police brutality and murder, women’s rights, environmental destruction. Now with this regime, the issues are equally undefendable and the consequences as serious. But with the growth of our collective frontal lobes, our gradual understanding that violence begets violence no matter how justified it seems, the whole tone of these rallies has changed. There is humor and whimsy and dancing and inflatable animals and an overall life-affirming spirit without diminishing one iota the seriousness of these threats to our democracy. For those brainwashed by the Fox News rhetoric, it’s just possible that it might be hard for them to take seriously the term “terrorists” applied to elder women playing ukeleles, the word “vermin” thrown out to describe the kind nurse who helped you, the lovely teacher who cares for and about your child, the grandparents holding their homemade sign up while sitting in their wheelchair. 

And another milestone. Not a single arrest, damage to property or act of violence. We were prepared to be taunted by MAGA plants or counter-protestors, but they never came. And if they had, we were ready to not engage, stay calm and march on. 

 

Well into his 90’s, our elder patriot statesman Noam Chomsky modeled how to resist with relentless intelligence. When asked by a student how to change the world, he would smile and say, “Start by noticing who benefits when you stop paying attention.”

 

The people wreaking havoc on our world have indeed benefitted enormously (monetarily, at least—we’ll see what St. Peter has to say to them), but now 7 million plus are starting to pay attention. The tide is turning. We are no longer alone. We are alone together.*

 

* Also the name of a great jazz tune.