Viva Amy at La Martina’s tonight…
Okay my fellow Taosenos, forget the follies of the faces on the County Complex and join Robin Collier and the forces of “Cultural Energy” at La Martina’s in Ranchos de Taos tonight and celebrate that paragon of sense and secular saintliness, Amy Goodman. Doors open at 6:15. It’s a benefit for Cultural Energy but our attendance is a sign of appreciation for Amy of Democracy Now—a national radio program that offers facts and alternative views to mainstream America’s conformist and propaganda-ridden culture of the corporate behemoths.
For more than a decade Amy has been for me–a beacon of sanity–in this crazy world of lies and virtual reality–emanating from Washington D.C. where alleged god-fearing patriots order up the devil’s work: tax breaks for the wealthy, torture for people of color, and the denial of due process for First Amendment advocates.
You can buy tickets across from Wired Café and Albertson’s at 125 La Posta Road. Follow the signs on the winding path. If they tell you it’s sold out, show up anyway: the hall is huge and the management must learn how to sell standing room. Don’t let the lack of a chair stop you: “We don’t need no stinkin’ chairs.”
Some forty-two years ago, John Nichols, Robin Collier, et al and I attended a production of Luis Valdez’s Teatro Campesino, in a performance I have always referred to as Viva La Hulega at Old Martinez Hall—sometime during the summer of 1970 as I remember it. The hall was packed and Valdez’s commedia dell’arte troupe wound us up. We cheered the strikers in the Colorado Sugar Beet fields and jeered the bosses at Coors–the ones who handed out the short hoe: Viva La Huelga.
Cross-cultural supporters quit drinking Coors and ordered “Schlitz” (or Budweiser) in the bars. (Your current County Commissioners were still sniffing round the back seats at the Kit Carson Drive-in that night.) And, thanks to Cesar Chavez, we didn’t eat no stinkin’ grapes. When you went to the grocery store, you carried a long list of boycott targets.
Below, I post the latest news and poll results in the Presidential race. Romney, a proxy for rich Americans has surged ahead of the Black Prince, Obama, who, though present, was absent at the first debate. The good guys are losing. As Alice Walker said to Amy, choosing Obama over Romney is not about voting for the lesser of two evils but means voting against many evils.
We have nothing left but hope and Amy is its avatar.
From the San Francisco Chronicle, Tue. Oct. 9, 2012
“On a visit to pick up California votes and cash, President Obama said in San Francisco on Monday night that “I very much intend to win this election” and implored supporters to redouble their efforts because `we’re only going to do it if everybody is almost obsessive for the next 29 days.’
“Obama turned to his fiercest supporters on the day when the first major national poll since his presidential debate with GOP nominee Mitt Romney appeared. A national survey of likely voters by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found Romney leading Obama 49 to 45 percent. However, Obama still leads slightly, but close to the margin of error, in several key swing states. It was the first national poll in some time to put Romney in front.”