"Hello true believers!"
With these words, At City Hall, State Sen. Mark Leno, who represents the 3rd Senate District-- including portions of San Francisco, saluted us after our march, of course, it is always a pleasure to give and receive a hug and a peck on the cheek by an old friend who is doing many good things.
I'm so glad I did March, I saw so many beautiful people who are very committed to fight for True Health Care Reform for All.
I got to talk to Elizabeth Ward is a 53-year-old Republican who held a sign stating "Rational Republicans for Reform." - She is part of a disappearing breed, 'Rational Republicans'
I got to talk to members of two sight-seeing groups, from Spain and from Italy, they took pictures of us and maybe wondered: 'what is wrong with this country?'
A middle-aged Italian lady, borrowed my sign for her friend to take a picture of her holding it.
I do not own a camera and I didn't even take pictures with my cell, I was more focused on marching and displaying the signs I made -
I'm terrible at making signs, but they had a lot of work and loving care in them - in one I placed a picture or our dear and, sadly departed friend, Teddy, with the captions "THANK YOU TEDDY, FAREWELL!" "THE DREAM LIVES ON... IN US!", on the lower right hand side in a 8 1/2" by 11" page, I included two quotes from our President:
"If we are'nt willing to pay a price for our values, then we should ask ourselves whether we truly believe in them at all"
-- Barack Obama
From his autobiography "The Audacity of Hope"
The other quote was:
"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."
-- Barack Obama<> 'February 2008 Election Night'
My intentions for adding these quotes, were not so much to inspire us in following our President's beautiful words, no, quite the contrary, I wanted for us to let him know that we remember the words with which he inspired so many of us, to put aside our cynicism and loss of faith in politicians, and to believe against historical facts, that maybe in him we had found 'un frijol de un kilo' (A bean which weighs one pound (old Mexican saying)), and that he was ready to work with us to make the changes that the people in this country, and the country itself, desperately need.
There was no ambiguity during last year's campaign in what he proposed we would accomplish were he, with our support, be elected President; then, why the ambiguity now?, the parsing of words?, the compromising of the bargain we made during his campaign and which was sealed at the Ballot Box?
I wanted to tell him, yes Mi Presidente, I remember your words and I want to also ask you if you still believe that we must ask ourselves if we truly meant what we said, as you so beautifully stated, I know many of us did and still do, how about you?
Anyway, back to the story about our SF March, staff from the SFSU Student paper were covering it, Martha Vallejo, a staff writer wrote a piece and there were two staff photographers, Anthony Anastasi and Maria Katrina Echon who took some great pictures which they share in a photo gallery.
Well, that's about it on the March for HealthCare in San Francisco, organized out of OFA, except, that I can't get out of my mind the thoughts that I had while we were marching: "Many of us here worked very hard to elect B. H. Obama President and give Dems majorities" And there are many others, millions actually, who did the same, "Where are they?", "Did they lose their hope and faith?", "Did they miss the words 'it is up to you to make change happen' that our candidate kept voicing?"
Oh well, I guess it is much easier to complain that Barack Obama is not doing this, or doing that, hey! What a great way to relieve oneself of any responsibility, isn't?
While it is true that our President and the Dems seem to be ready to throw us under the bus, it is also true that many of us are abdicating our responsibilities inherent in a Participatory Democracy, albeit Representative in large part, it is still supposed to be participatory and allegedly is what we have in these United States of America.
But in any event, it is up to us because we are the stakeholders in this Franchise, yes indeed, we are the Government and whatever is done in our name or happens, it is on us.
There is a quote whose words I have been trying to find out, for quite awhile, who voiced them, Cesar Chavez's name keeps popping in my mind as the possible source, maybe one of us here can help me with it; I include it because I do so happen to believe it to be true, paraphrasing:
'Our Struggle will be lost the moment we take it from the streets to the boardrooms'
