And let's hope on Monday, March 3rd, that a miracle occurs and the St. Paul Park lottery officials pull out and grant the permit request to hold our "Peace Island" picnic on the final day of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. I'm not kidding about it being a lottery. It's somewhat of a murky process but they apparently are holding an actual lottery to see whose blankets and picnic coolers get to occupy the precious green space on Harriet Island, which
as you can see from this photo is just across the mighty Mississippi from the Xcel Center where the Republicans will be meeting Sept 1-4 to anoint their presidential candidate. Permit issues aside, we're all keeping positive that our St. Paul city officials will remember to stay "Minnesota Nice" and amenable to providing space and facilities for lawful, peaceful picnic gatherings, even for voices of conscience against Bush-Cheney's war (and certainly against John McCain's ideas of continuing the war for another 100 years).
Having just returned from a pilgrimage to Beacon, New York, where I can attest to the continued reverberation of Pete Seeger's power of song across that beautiful, cleaned up Hudson Valley, we're also hoping to similarly liven up our Minnesota picnic with a little music. Nothing fancy, perhaps just a guitar or banjo or two, and maybe a small accordion. By then, the five and ½ long years of the horrors and terrible costs of the Iraq war will have taken their toll even worse than now, and we will really need to hear those old songs like "Bring 'em home"; "This Land is Your Land"; and "We Shall Overcome"--the same ones Seeger sang to invoke the importance of civil rights, get us through the 60's and finally home from Vietnam.
So everyone please, please cross your fingers!
Cross those fingers also for the 88 year old folk-singer's recovery from being stricken by a bad cold-flu virus last Saturday at the weekly peace vigil his Hudson Valley peace group instituted when the war started. Pete Seeger, by the way, just weighed in, a couple weeks before he got sick, to support the efforts of the Iraq Veterans Against the War (see the video below) in anticipation of their upcoming "Winter Soldier" event in Washington DC.
The image of the life-long peacemaker standing with his faithful Hudson Valley friends at their wintery vigil came at the end of the Norman Lear film that aired this week on PBS: Pete Seeger and the Power of Song. (And although he's the humble sort embarrassed by others' efforts to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize, you can also show your support by signing this petition.)
Anyway, Pete Seeger's grandson, Tao Rodriguez Seeger, just about brought the house down when we were out in Beacon last weekend with his moving rendition of "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy." I don't know what others in the place were thinking but I couldn't help thinking of the "big fool saying to push on" and McCain's call for another 100 years of fighting and dying in Iraq. So we've already invited Tao to come play that song again for our Peace Island picnic this September hoping somehow the Republicans will hear it across our own big muddy Mississippi.
Obviously that's if we win the St. Paul Park lottery and get our picnic permit.
So let's just cross our fingers!
If, in fact, it is revealed on Monday that the authorities are playing hanky panky in determining who gets the RNC picnic permits, won't we have an issue worth fighting for?!
The RIGHT to PICNIC! (including the RIGHT to MEET and SING! and the RIGHT to DISSENT!)
Option 2. Permit granted, cops taser, imprison demonstrators.
Peace..