Street roots
S ep t 26, 2014
wj ig'J
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, from page 8
She just felt completely
overwhelmed and took this
exceedingly radical step of holding
reached out, and people suggested other
books and articles. It seemed to really hit a a potluck. Three or four people come, and
they don’t have any magic solutions but
nerve.
they agree to meet again. This time it
grows, and before long they’re reaching
R.R.: That was 10 years ago, and now the
book has been reissued. Are we still facing the out into small Nebraska towns. They get
this wonderful guy who is this long-time
impossible in 2014?
veteran rancher, looks like John Wayne,
political conservative, and he just says, “I
P.L.: It s hard to say, but in some ways,
will
not be bulbed. I’m not going to sell my
there’s almost more political
land to these people.” And they did these
demoralization than even 10 years ago. I
life-size cutouts saying, with a picture of
think some of it was that, for a lot of
him, “I stand with Randy. I will not be
people, there was a lot of hope that they
bullied.” So this is one of the hopeful
invested in Barack Obama in ’08, and they
themes, when you have coalitions that
had this image of “this would transform
extend past the usual suspects. We don’t
everything” if this president gets elected.
know
what’s going to happen with
You saw that quite literally [when] they
Keystone, but it’s been four years that it’s
adopted the brand of “Hope,” like our
been delayed.
brand is hope like Nike’s is a swoosh. I’m
In the same vein, I talk with a young
not really condemning them for doing it,
Egyptian woman about everything that led
but it did have this very unfortunate
up to Tahrir Square [a communal gathering
consequence that once you put hope on
any political figure, then if that figure turns space in Cairo that served as a focal point
for protests during the political upheaval
out to be fallible, your hopes get dashed/
called Arab Spring], to the point where
Be that as it may, I think there is just h
people were willing to come forward. And
sense that the system is broken, and
as I’m putting this together along with
there’s not much you can do about it, so
another piece, last summer, and things are
you kind of go home and deal with your
not really pretty in, Egypt, I am just
private life.
The other area that can undermine hope thinking “Is this evenhopeful? Is this
something that’s going to lift people’s '
is climate change. In 10 years, there are a
spirits, or is it going to depress them?”
whole lot more renewables out there, and
And this young Egyptian woman, who lived
that’s part of what the writers talk about.
in a city about 600,000, went down to
So we haven’t completely blown it. But
[Tahrir Square], and she was just saying,
compared, to the magnitude of the
“Well, yeah, there’s more work to do. It
challenge, it’s playing catch up. So people
hasn’t turned out the way that we wanted,
feel, I think, demoralized, a sort of
but millions of us learned our power and
paralysis sets in. In some ways it’s at least
our strength. We’ve overthrown two
as hard a time, and that was part of my
dictators now (President Hosni Mubarak in
hope was just to speak to that and say,
2011 and President Mohamed Morsi in
“Yeah it’s a hard time but: Is it harder to
2013). If we have to overthrow a third,
act in the United States in 2014 than it was
we’ll do i t ”
challenging apartheid South Africa or the
coming of dictatorships in Europe or the
R .R: I saw auH BO Eilm version of the
Argentinian dictatorships and death squads play “The Normal Heart. It’s about Larry
if you’re the mothers of the Disappeared?”
Kramer and the AIDS crisis, and how he
It’s pretty clear that, as hard as it is, you’re
became this vocal, angry activist who pushed
not going to get tossed in jail and tortured
Mayor Ed Koch in New York City and
and thrown off a helicopter. It’s easier.
[President] Ronald Reagan to address the
H
R R.: There are 55 people you reference in
this book. Do they have any qualities that are
the same? Or are their qualities all unique?
P.L.: I think a little bit of both. One of
the things that definitely is a core theme is
I had to stop (almost) every piece from
quoting [playwright and first president of
tiie Czech Republic] Vaclav Havel, because
the thing he said is hope is not the same
thing as optimism. It’s a fundamental!
quality that’s much larger, about the
possibility of your actions mattering. We
tend to use [the word “hope” a little bit
sloppily: “Oh, that’s a hopeful sign.” Even
in the absences of heartening
developments, like solar (energy) or
debating a $15-an-hour minimum wage in
Seattle, whatever it happens to be, there is
this quality called hope that drives you
forward. That’s a theme that everybody
shares: that you a c t It’s true whether you
talk about Johnathan Kozol (National Book
Award-winning author who writes about
discrimination in public education) looking
at these faces of these children and their
own joy amidst the most terrible
circumstances one could imagine, or
Eduardo Galeano, the great writer from
Uruguay, talking about people in jail
finding ways to communicate. It weaves in
and out of this sense that we can tap into
something larger. And, again, it doesn’t
have to be expressed theologically.
The other element of hope, that (author
and social justice activist) Howard Zinn
certainly articulates, is “the optimism of
uncertainty,” that you never know when
something’s going to turn. There is a great
story in the book of a friend, Mary Piper,
who is a bestselling psychology writer. She
has not particularly been a political
organizer. She lives in Nebraska and was
reading about climate change and just
getting demoralized, and then realized the
Keystone (XL) Pipeline was coming
through not that far from where she lived.
think that was valuable: Somebody willing
to dramatize it, people willing to take some
risks and then organizing. We don’t know
where exactly it’s going to end, but you
sort of see an interesting dynamic where, if
youfre pushing maybe for something, a
compromise occurs. Like, you really want
to give some leeway for small businesses
and starving nonprofits because they just
don’t have what McDonald’s does or a Gap
or a Starbucks. (Seattle companies will
phase in the $15-an-hour wage between
three and seven years, depending on the
company’s size and whether employees
receive tips and benefits.) So sometimes
the compromises are for good reasons, or
sometimes they’re what you can achieve
politically. I look back at the sprawling
mess of the Affordable Care Act, and I
would argue that it’s a step forward, and
had people been pushing more strongly,
you would have had a better bill.
R .R: You have a section in this book—i t ’s
one of my favorite titles - called “Rebellious
Imagination.”
P.L.: It’s everything, from a wonderful
Pablo Neruda story [where he writes about
lessons he learned as a child exchanging
gifts] and [his] sense of connection to,
other human beings, to [civil rights activist .
and U.S. Representative from Georgia]
John Lewis talking about this tiny house
that was going to blow off its moorings in a
storm. Hisaunt had the children, who were
all terrified, walk from side to side, where
the combined weight of their bodies could
hold it down.
There’s a theologian named Walter Wink
who does this brilliant look at classical
stories from the New Testament and how
they’ve been misinterpreted. He talks
about the “turn the other cheek” image.
People think, “Oh, that just means being
meek.” But he said this is very
sophisticated nonviolent resistance. ? A
R .R.: Is there anyone who’s not in this
book who inspires you?
P.L.: I think they’ve all kind of inspired
me, to be honest I personally got active ;
before I was reading authors, of this level
because I was still in high school. So I
think iny original activism preceded these
wonderful writers. But I would say Nelson
Mandela’s autobiography: It is stunning
RL.: In “SouPof the Citizen” I talk about because it is about how to maintain dignity
in the harshest situation. You’re forbidden
the “perfect standard,” which is the notion
newspapers, and you’re told you’re going
that you have to have everything
absolutely, immaculately perfect before you to die (in prison). So a guard has a
begin and be certain that it’s the right time sandwich wrapped in a newspaper and
somebody retrieves (the newspaper) from
and place and that you’ll win: a standard
the garbage can and copies it in code on
that no one will ever m eet You see it
toilet paper. How can you not be inspired
repeated in the book again and again, that
by something like that? The interesting
everyone has trepidations. Everyone’s
thing is, Nelson Mandela uses the phrase
uncertain: “Will this really work? Should
we really try it? Can it make a difference?” . “multiplication of courage,” where one
Everyone faces those same kinds of things, person’s courage inspires another. So to
me the stories are transferrable.
so to me, it’s part of the game. Then you
That’s so important because you can
learn as you go, and you get more
take the situation from somebody working
confident and there may be parts of the
in one particular context and historical
task that are always difficult, but at least
period in time, and you can apply it to a
you are more familiar with th a t
wholly different situation. So if We’re
working-on climate change, we can draw
R R : Earlier on, you mentioned the push
on the Arab Spring or the Civil Rights
for $15-an-hour minimum wage. How would
Movement We’re working on
you sum that up on the scale of impossible?
homelessness, we can draw on the
(Editor’s note: A t the time o f this interview,
Keystone folks or [Stranger Editorial
the Seattle City Council had not voted on the
Director] Dan Savage, who has this
measure. On June 2, the measure passed
wonderful piece where he’s reflecting on
unanimously.)
this fundamental rise in human dignity,
where 30 or 4Q years ago, gay people were
P.L.: It’s interesting because anything
that’s woh usually seems impossible before living in fear — then you end up with a U.S;
Supreme Court Justice [Ruth Bader
it’s won. Any victory. Granted, Seattle is a
Ginsburg] conducting a gay marriage in
healthier economy than some, places.
Washington, D.C. It’s just unthinkable. It’s
Might be tougher to do it in Detroit or
not to say it’s wholly universal everywhere
something like th a t But the fundamental
inthis country, but it’s a measure of
issue [is] that people who work are getting
paid so little: What allows that to be raised, progress in a way that the people who
drove that progress 30 or 40 years ago,, I
I think, is people raising the issue. Here’s
think, would find just astounding.
an example.
The Occupy [Movement]: It failed in the
Reprinted from Street Roots sister paper,
sense that it didn’t sustain its momentum,
Real Change News in Seattle, Wash.
but nonetheless put a bunch of issues on
the agenda — so maybe you call it a
partially failed movement - issues that
everyone knew were real in their hearts. I
AIDS pandemic in the gay male community.
I want to talk about being a reluctant
activist, about feeling as if you don’t have the
ability or the power to address some big crisis
or issue before you.
9
H
Autumn
by Susan Kristjansen
I love the fall because it
leads us to winter
And
Winter is my favorite season
The coolness of fall
Directs me to winter’s freezing cold
When icicles grow
and fall
Only to disappear in the snow below
Then I make an angel
Then I disappear
There I feel at peace
with myself, and, finally,
with the world
There I feel no pain
and there I shall remain
untilthe snow melts away -
Then, and only then
will you finally see me
and know that you were loved
So hurry autumn and bring
winter to me, ’
when icicles grow, so I can ;
finally disappear and
hold you one more time