Nov 09 2011
The Activist Beat – 11/09/11
The Activist Beat with Rose Aguilar, host of Your Call on KALW in San Francisco is a weekly roundup of progressive activism that the mainstream media ignores, undercovers, or misrepresents.
It wasn’t difficult to find lifelong Republican Karen Ford at Occupy Monterey’s rally on Saturday. I simply told the crowd that I was interested in interviewing people who’ve never been involved in activism or an action like this before and five people stood in line to talk.
People clearly want to tell their stories. When do you ever hear people like Karen Ford in the national media? A self-described lifelong Republican, Karen has met Ronald Reagan and was good friends with Pete Wilson. She used to be an employment lawyer who represented multi-national corporations; today she says she represents humans.
She says the United States and the Republican Party have been hijacked. “You can’t have a decent society where just a few people earn a whole lot of money and everybody else is starving to death.” Karen says she was impressed with the Tea Party for two seconds and then it got hijacked.
Karen Ford defies all of the stale stereotypes we’re still hearing in the media. She decided to get involved with the Occupy Movement for the very reasons it’s being criticized by the talking heads, namely because there is no official set of demands.
She says bringing together a coalition of people with different points of view is extremely powerful. The common thread is that they all believe the current situation is untenable and the ultimate goal is to work together on solutions. That’s what got her to attend the Occupy Monterey rally and get involved. She says she probably won’t block traffic and get arrested, but she plans to stay in the movement.
People like Karen deserve to be on the cable shows. The problem is, the corporations that own the networks love to perpetuate the predictable liberal/conservative divide. It’s safe. Bringing on guests who challenge the fundamental system and defy the stale stereotypes is not allowed.
In addition to Karen, I met Joan Channon, a restaurant owner who employs 35 people. She says she’s in the top five percent and is happy to pay more taxes. She hasn’t been involved in activism since the 60s. She says simply seeing like-minded people take to the streets was enough to get her involved.
Retired teacher Charmaine Felton is another first timer. She’s spoken out at a few school board meetings, but she’s never attended a rally. She says the excitement of the movement pushed her to get involved. She’s also tired of the vilification of teachers. She believes teachers need to take back their profession by forcefully using their voices and taking to the streets. She said, “We’ve had enough.”
And then I met 25-year-old Spencer at Occupy Santa Cruz. His boss, who ran a construction firm, couldn’t get a loan to pay his bills, so he had to let Spencer go. Spencer traveled to Las Vegas and Seattle hoping to find construction work, but had no luck. So he came back to Santa Cruz, ran out of money, couldn’t afford to keep paying rent, and decided to set up camp. It’s been challenging, but he says it’s been an incredible experience.
Occupy Monterey and Occupy Santa Cruz, like so many movements in small towns across the country, are both growing. The excitement I saw at Saturday’s rally in Monterey and at the camp in Santa Cruz was palpable. It’s fairly easy to find information about the Occupy movements in major cities, but it’s rare to hear what’s going on in small towns. They are just as important.
Watch video interviews:
Lifelong Republican Karen Ford
Retired teacher Charmaine Felton
Small business owner Joan Channon
Videos by Rose Aguilar.
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