March of the Forgotten

Just back from the March for Education -- De la Guerra Plaza to the Courthouse Sunken Garden. Lively crowd, waving signs, pounding drums, blowing whistles, mostly City College and UCSB students who find themselves on the wrong end of budget cuts, tuition increases and relentless privatization; teachers and school employees frustrated by several consecutive years of budget cuts that have sliced to the marrow; local elected officials, school administrators, some regular citizens. The same groups were marching all across the state of California today.

The route up State was controlled by the Santa Barbara PD with barricades and cops on bicycles, pairs of cops on the corners, arms folded, watching; I saw one officer shooting video of the marchers, and I wondered what that was about. Tourists and office workers stopped to gawk, a few waved, others shouted words of encouragement.

Student organizers with bullhorns led the marchers in chants like “Hey ho, these budget cuts have got to go!” and “Whose education? Our education!” A year or two ago most of the students were in high school, and I wondered how many of them had ever before participated in an act of civil protest. It was difficult to gauge how many people were marching; in 2003 I marched this same route to protest the Iraq invasion; that crowd was much bigger. I saw the photographer from the News-Press and Paul Wellstone from the Indy.

The marchers streamed into the Sunken Garden, across the green grass, up the stone steps. They were fired up, punching the air with their signs, making their whistles shriek, hammering their drums. I moved off to the eastern side, away from the main body, to get a better feel for the turn-out; 350 or 400, maybe.

Speeches began, the speakers using a bullhorn rather than a PA system – always a mistake. Voices don’t carry well through a bullhorn, and much of what was said was unintelligible. Not that it mattered. There’s an art to speaking outdoors to a crowd that few will ever master. Telling the crowd what they already know – that budget cuts and fee increases are hurting people and driving a rusty stake through the heart of the American Dream – is less effective than asking them what they’re going to do when the march ends and everyone goes home. A large, well-organized public event is important, no doubt about it, but without follow-up action, what’s the point? Without phone calls, faxes, letters, e-mails, in-person visits and Twitters to local elected officials, Assembly members, state senators, members of Congress and U.S. Senators, the march is merely an event, a one-shot and out deal that will not sway the powers-that-be to listen, let alone change. Pressure must be applied strategically and continuously because the people are fighting a well-financed machine that has no interest in altering the status quo.

One lobbyist with a checkbook speaks louder than one hundred hard-up students.

I agree with what the students and schoolteachers want, but I wonder what they’re willing to sacrifice to get it. That’s the nut of the thing now – the cold fact that the people of California are unwilling to sacrifice in the form of taxes to fund effective schools, adequate public safety, social services for the poor and elderly, environmental protections, transportation systems, and on and on. People say they want these things, but when it comes down to paying for them, the people balk: not on my dime.

And so on a beautiful afternoon in one of the most beautiful cities in America, 400 or so people take to the street in a peaceful demonstration of common purpose and unity that will likely be forgotten by tomorrow’s sunrise.