Yogi Berra was right.

(If you received this blog by email, you might want to visit the actual site. The pictures work much better there. 

Just click on the title “Yogi Berra was right”)

Have you ever written a long email, took you hours (it seemed), only to lose it when you hit some mystery key that snatched it into oblivion? I did something like that yesterday with a blog post. As I was pulling it together, a formatting goblin possessed it and refused to be exorcised no matter which of my clever editing tricks I used. Finally, not enthusiastic about re-typing the whole thing from scratch (I’m a slow and rotten typist), I took it as a sign that I wasn’t supposed to post that particular blog. I was ambivalent about it anyhow. The fact that I’m obsessed with post-election activism, I kept thinking, doesn’t mean everyone wants to read my latest rant. At great length.

So I decided to do the Cliff Notes version of that blog, and pass along some fun photos as insulation. After all, it’s solstice, and we should celebrate the return of the light … while doing our part to be sure it returns (I couldn’t resist that little hint of the goblin-esque blog).

  

So here’s that blog post, in brief:

Yogi Berra was right. It ain’t over til it’s over.

We can’t let the complicated distraction of the holidays—or our activism fatigue from being hyper-energized by this stuff for over a month—persuade us that it’s time to kick back and wait for our next best shot at a different president. We have to be active, stay active, protest, resist, organize … do what JFK called “the quiet work of centuries,”* keep building toward what MLK called “the beloved community.” 

A bunch of articles in recent days have heightened my awareness of how truly, deeply, genuinely scary this time is for our communities and our country. Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman described the moment like this: “If there is any hope of redemption, it will have to begin with a clear recognition of how bad things are. American democracy is very much on the brink.” Michelle Obama said to Oprah, “Now we’re feeling what not having hope feels like.”

To me, those are heads up, wake-up calls to action. For hints of what got me all riled up, read these articles:

How Republics End 

Donald Trump, This is Not Normal! 

In Poland, a Window on What Happens when Populists Come to Power 

Dear America, Why Did You Let Us Down? 

So what should we do?  

“Shout from the rooftops,” despite the exhaustion that comes from sustaining outrage (Charles Blow, NYT).

Stand up, speak up, protest, write letters, make phone calls, write emails, sign petitions, lobby elected officials, demonstrate. And then do it all again. (Paraphrased from comments by the ED of the Colorado ACLU at a recent community forum).

And from author Ken Burns, asked by a student what she should do in the face of the threat posed by Trump:

What to do, you ask? A million things, of course. But it begins with the first step of awareness and commitment, which you have already made.

Just go forward. Engage. Don’t despair. Find likeminded people—not from your social circle, but everywhere. Change the opinions of others, not with ridicule, but reason.

Finally, remember too that Barack Obama himself has said that the highest office in the land is not president, but citizen.

Be one.

He was talking to me. Be a citizen, he said. Be a participant in this marvelous experiment in Democracy—or share the responsibility if it crashes.

And remember, some people don’t have the option of stepping back. People of color, religious minorities, immigrants, people with disabilities, veterans, LGBTQ (especially trans) people, women … all of the people that this president elect and his nascent administration have targeted or promised to target—they/we are members of our communities, too, and we/they can’t sit back and wait. The dangers are every day for them/us. Those of us with great privilege need to spend it now, spend it toward the beloved community.

If we’re in this for the long haul—and we are, like it or not—we have to look beyond the cartoon image of a mass of orange hair hovering above the inaugural bible. We have to stay engaged when the ceremonies are over and the daily grind sets in.

P.S.     If you’re looking for some ideas about just how to get active, stay tuned for a soon-to-be-announced (by Out Boulder County and A Queer Endeavor) “Community 100-Day Plan”—a people’s equivalent to the president’s “first 100-days” plan. I can just about promise that something there will get you jazzed.

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* Aptly, the phrase “the quiet work of centuries” became the title of Resonance Women’s Chorus’ recent post-election concert.

© Janis Bohan, 2010-2015. Use of this content is welcome with attribution and a link to the post. 

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1968

     1968: Like a knife blade, the year severed past from future … Time, 1988

     1968: The year that made us who we are … Newsweek, 2007

Here it is, the start of a new year—a perfect time to talk about a different year: 1968! It isn’t just an arbitrary choice of a year. It came up because my partner and I finally made it to the Boulder History Museum to see the exhibit, "1968," which ended yesterday. Sorry if you missed it. The pictures below (except the cover of Time magazine) were taken there.

Boulder History Museum

We’re both amateur historians anyhow, and we’re especially intrigued by this era and this amazing year. Anyone who experienced it can’t help but remember, and  it all happened during our "coming of age" years. So seeing it displayed in the museum was sort of nostalgic and sort of painful. Just like the year 1968: complicated, expansive, and difficult.

As I was writing this, I found myself reflecting on the meaning of 1968. That took me on a rather long cultural / historical jaunt that you may or may not want to join me for. If you do, you’ll find that part a few paragraphs down (“1968 … Reminiscing”). If you don’t, the next few paragraphs are about the Boulder History Museum exhibit—which is its own good story.

Visiting the museum exhibit about this remarkable year was … well, remarkable. The walls were full of memorabilia from that time—informational signs were posted alongside album covers and posters, newspaper articles and classic photographs. (Interestingly some of the iconic photos weren’t there: Martin Luther King’s aides leaning over him and pointing in the direction of his assassin; Bobby Kennedy lying on the floor of a Los Angeles hotel kitchen; the “police riot” outside the Democratic Party convention in Chicago). The mix was what you'd expect. But I had forgotten some things, or forgotten that they happened in that year (how many thing can happen in one year?). It was strangely poignant viewing it all in one space and time, from the perspective of over 40 years.

In addition to the materials I anticipated, there was quite a lot of information about Boulder in 1968 (and the years right around that). This city was home to a lot of activism, as were most university towns around the nation. Boulder had its share of sit-ins and occupations, its share of roadblocks and protests, and its share of the “counter culture” buzz. This isn’t surprising, of course. Boulder already had a liberal reputation in the 1960s. Still, it was fun to see how this pivotal year played out right here.

          

            Allen Ginsburg calms an anti-war crowd
         in downtown Boulder

Boulder anti-war protesters block US 36

So, here at the start of 2012, I find myself wondering: if people did a museum exhibit about "2011," what would they include? Roadblocks again, but this time in the halls of Congress. Space trips, but this time saying goodbye to the fleet of shuttles that were born of the space program (which was launched by President John F. Kennedy  in the early 1960s, with the explicit goal of reaching the moon in that decade). Human rights movements, this time on behalf of the 99% of us against the richest 1%. Campus protests, complete with tear gas, but this time over financial inequality at the hands of the hyper-wealthy.

I wonder ... might history mark 2011 like this, Morrow's comment on 1968?

Nineteen sixty-eight was a perverse genius of a year: a masterpiece of shatterings. The year had heroic historical size, and everything … seemed momentous.

1968 … Reminiscing

I was in graduate school in 1968. I remember the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and of Bobby Kennedy. I remember the anti-war movement, the marches, the sit-ins, the teach-ins (which I participated in a bit), and the occupations of university buildings (which I didn’t). I remember astronauts orbiting the moon and the first pictures of the blue marble earth seen from space. I remember when Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Especially, I remember the sense of promise and of danger. Youth were on the move, and that was good. The society was in upheaval, and that was scary. I was in graduate school, and I missed much of it.

But I was very aware of the mood of the times. Things were different; I was sure of that. We were different. We had a different vision, a better one. If the old guard would just get out of the way, we could change the world. It was the classic, idealistic, and self-affirming conviction of adolescents. But this time, we had an advantage:  we were the baby-boom generation. Our sheer numbers gave us huge visibility. It was easy to believe that what we wanted would finally prevail.

It is true that this generation was extremely visible and vocal. Boomers were also extremely active. They swelled the ranks of the Civil Rights movement, the anti-war movement, the modern environmental movement, and the movements for women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, disability rights, Chicano/Hispanic/Latino rights, and elders rights. Most who didn’t participate in these things in 1968 knew about them. Of course, lots of folks didn't pay attention. Others knew, but were preoccupied with their own lives. Many of these people, too, were sure that their generation was special, was uniquely idealistic and daring.

But 1968 was not only about political activism. It was also a cultural whirlpool, drenched in ambivalence. Dreams of a better future stood side by side with longing for a safer, stable, known past. 

        

               The rock musical "Hair" promised
              "the dawning of the Age of Aquarius"

"The Graduate," where we heard
"Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio..."

The rock musical “Hair,” whose soundtrack was released that year, promised “the dawning of the Age of Aquarius”—the voice of youth imagining a new and far better age, if only because we would inhabit it. 

That same year, on the soundtrack for the movie "The Graduate," Paul Simon lyrics pleaded, “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you”—the voice of those yearning for the certainty, the stability of some vaguely defined past moment, past hero.

In 1988, the cover of Time magazine recalled the iconic year. A sense of simultaneous terror and promise weaves through the cover article by Lance Morrow:

1968: Like a knife blade, the year severed past from future

Nineteen sixty-eight had the vibrations of earthquake about it. America shuddered. History cracked open… 

Nineteen sixty-eight was more than a densely compacted parade of events … [It was] to some extent a war between the past and the future, and even, for an entire society, a violent struggle to grow up.”

For years, I assigned that Time article in my Psychology of Adolescence course. Not because it talked about adolescence (although it did), but because it talked about a national reckoning, that “violent struggle to grow up.” 1968 seemed to mirror the invigorating, scary, idealistic, painful process of adolescence. The nation was seeking its identity, trying to define who it would be, what it would believe.

1968 was the coming of age of the nation. And I was there, just coming of age myself. I imagine that 40 years from now, history will have something to say about 2011. But it’s hard to imagine that it will match Morrow’s description of 1968:

One is sometimes incredulous now at 1968, not only at the astonishing sequence of events but at the intensity, the energy in the air... Revolutionary bombast [and an] elegy for something in America that had got lost, some sense of national innocence and virtue.

And the music. What message will people glean from the music of 2011?