©Cecile Pineda, April 5, 2013
Although public transportation
crisscrosses its vertigo slopes, San Francisco’s Pacific Heights is a fortress
on the hill. Here on its tree-lined
streets, the mansions of the rich sport elaborate mansards, stepped fountains
of perpetually running water, manicured gardens, and security gates. Their blondes are the same as our blondes,
only a little more bottled, their jeans a little tighter, and their heels a bit
more platformed. They do not carry Gucci
knock-offs. They do not favor police barricades—probably even less than we do—and
certainly not in their neighborhood. When they drive by in their Simonized
BMWs, their eyes focus straight ahead. It’s where the political crass comes
trolling for megabucks—$30,000 a plate worth. It’s where two California Congresspersons keep their strongholds: Mrs. Richard Blum, and Nancy Mafiosi.
Already riding the Divisadero bus
up the dizzying inclines, I know this is going to be the way it always is in
San Francisco, no matter how terminal the cause: There’s a guy sporting a
wobblies’ cap who’s published a book on Judi Bari and the Maxxam Spring; a Code
Pink sister who’s walked the Golden Gate Bridge Peace walk with me for months
on end. It’s a party of smiling faces, cheering each other on as more people
pile on, displaying signs that read: Say No to XL Pipeline NOW; We’re ALL
outside the Green$Zone now; No Nukes.
Shut ‘Em Down, and What the Fukushima (at which a black church lady turns
away her disapproving eyes. I guess her starchy upbringing didn’t prepare her
for sacrifice zones).
The bus lets us off at Jackson
before it heads east for Russian Hill. We gasp the last slope together. At the
Pacific Avenue intersection, all four corners are crammed with demonstrators,
obedient behind police barricades. I walk up Pacific to Baker Street. Another
nicely-mannered crowd shivers, packed tight behind the barricades. But we are
nowhere near the mansion where the Emperor of the Universe will be sweating it
out, raiding the pockets of the rich, or where the rich will sweat it out to
get “access.” It is rumored that the doyen, now retired, does not favor OKing
the Pipeline, but never mind, they’ll empty their pockets just the same, and
anyway the Emperor will continue doing exactly what their opponent want,
enabling the Monsanto Protection Act,
still getting a pass from the Kool-Aid Lotus Eaters.
The crowd takes off to the left,
marching one block north to Broadway, packing the intersection even tighter.
The Brass Liberation Orchestra blows a few tunes, but they can’t play The
Internationale anymore because the younger ones haven’t learned the tune.
Crowds groove to the inane chant Hey, hey, ho, ho, Keystone Pipeline’s Got to
Go, while swaying to the music. The motorcycle brigade shares in the act. They
need to show off their patriotic red and blue headlights, and the spanking new
leaner meaner bikes they’ve traded for last year’s hogs. They practice their
gavotte, denying us the slightest spillage off the curb, although, aside from
their presence, there’s no other traffic in the roadway.
I press
through the crowd shouting Hey, hey, ho, ho, insurrection’s the way to go, but
we are domesticated, so numbed by our escalating griefs as one by one, our
health, our welfare, our housing, our landscapes, our aquifers are being waged
on the dice of those so elevated in power we never even get to see them—like
radiation which you can’t see, or hear, or feel, or smell, except on some days when
it visits you as a taste of metal in your mouth. Or when you fly cross-country
at 30,000 feet, and you notice that your wristwatch stopped.
I turn the
corner. The street swoops down into a hollow where it backs into the Presidio
Wall. In the far distance, shrouded in fog, a white party tent flaps in the
wind. Batteries of serving men, their black pants, white jackets emblem of
their servitude, wait in the cold with no apparent purpose. A battalion of them
marches in our direction. “They’re going to serve us dinner,” someone quips,
but at $30,000 a
head, it’s not a dinner anyone of us will ever afford. We
don’t even eat $30,000 worth of food in one year, although if we gorge
ourselves we might manage it in ten.
The night
grows chill. The skies darken, still no
sign of the Emperor. We don’t know whether he’s arrived even before we knew it,
or if his appearance is still expected.
We begin peeling off. I trot down the hill accompanied by a
25-year-old. We get to talking. I
commiserate with him, my 80 years to his 25, his country nothing like the one I
was born to, the Sixties, our breath of evening air before the night, where
people passing on the street actually made eye contact. He’s graduated with a degree in anthropology
“It’s the only thing that interested me, it’s why I stayed. Perhaps I should have done a business major.”
I reassure him. “No matter what,
everyone must live doing what he loves. There is no other way.”
We catch
the bus, the wait is long, the bus crowded, the driver hustles us toward the
back. All the demonstrators push their way in, happy to be out of the cold,
trading smiles and laughs, happy to have had our say, no matter how futile,
knowing that in the long term, it’s not results that matter so much as affirming
our right to walk our talk. Just as
Chris Hedges resigns from PEN, as James Hansen resigns from NASA, it’s what
we’re about and nothing less.
Home at
last, I check e-mail. The message from San Francisco Occupy Enviro Forum
catches my eye:
“Hey
Everyone!
"After I saw the motorcade (pass my house AFTER we had all gone
home), I got right on the phone to 311 (our hotline to the Mayor's
office where they'll take down a long statement and send it right to the Mayor,
including a request to be called back about it.)
"I said, "I was just at a large anti-keystone pipeline
demonstration to be held outside an Obama fundraiser in Pacific Heights. About
1500 + people were there to let our President (who WE ELECTED) hear our voices
against the pipeline. SF Police marginalized us behind the parked cars and at
the corners of the intersections at least a block away from the event. After
two hours of chanting, sign waving, and hot protest, an announcement went out
that the President had arrived and was already inside at the dinner: the
implication was that we'd been seen and should go home. Fifteen minutes later
as I arrived at my house (California and Palm) the motorcade carrying the
President zoomed by towards the event. My question to the Mayor is: Why
would you want to keep the People who are the voters and the taxpayers away
from our President who WE elected, who wants to hear our voices? A
Protest like this is how democracy is supposed to work! The
People do not appreciate being shushed up. I'd like the Mayor to call me back
and explain himself."
"I would like to have everyone write an email to Obama with
pictures and video of our protest and a line that says, "We were there. We
want to tell you how we feel about the XL Pipeline. Where were you?"
"Those self-appointed march deputies who herded us onto the
corners came out of nowhere, and we have no idea why they thought they were in
charge or what the strategy of being so passive and being ordered around like
children was. "Show me what democracy looks like!!! THIS is what democracy
looks like" Flooding the intersection with the whole crowd shouting, that
was a great moment!!!”
We
are too docile still. We like to huddle behind those neat barriers put up to restrain
our lukewarm angers. Now we need to "do it in the road".
Lie down, get arrested, 400 of us, 800 of us. We need to do this until
the emperor's new clothes are shown for the threadbarrrenness they are.
