Jason Walsh: Demonstration Days – from Sonoma to Washington

However rocky the path, the march forward continues|

“Everywhere I hear the sound of marchin,’ chargin’ feet, boy!” – Rolling Stones, “Street Fighting Man”

“Our lives begin to end,” Martin Luther King once said, “the day we become silent about things that matter.”

If one thing’s true about inauguration weekend – it’s that there’ll be little silence. Not in Washington, not in Sonoma.

While the presidential inauguration takes place Friday and the Women’s March on Washington follows Saturday, Sonoma will be flexing its own First Amendment right to assemble with a Friday rally in support of the new President on the horseshoe lawn on the Plaza at 3 p.m., and a “sister march” of the D.C. women’s march which is getting its feet in gear Saturday at 11 a.m. at City Hall. But wait, there’s more. On Friday at 5:30 p.m., a Sonoma “walk for life” will proceed from City Hall to St. Francis Church. The marches aren’t confined to this weekend, of course, nor to Sonoma’s older demographic. In November, dozens of Sonoma Valley High School students left class one afternoon to advance down Broadway to the Plaza chanting, “love trumps hate,” in a demonstration they characterized as a support for diversity. Say what you will about the deplorable rhetoric of the general election, it’s certainly resulted in a political awakening for a lot of folks – and that’s a good thing.

In the interests of political correctness – somewhat ironically in at least one of these gatherings – local demonstrators are stressing their desire not to protest others’ points of view but, rather, to be voicing support for their own causes. We appreciate the sentiments of diplomacy, but let’s not kid ourselves: It isn’t a demonstration if it’s not intended – at some level – to get under somebody’s skin.

While this year’s inauguration looks to be particularly demonstrative, factionalism every four years on Jan. 20 is nothing new.

According to historian Jim Bendat, author of “Democracy’s Big Day: the Inauguration of our President,” among the more riotous inaugurations in history were Richard M. Nixon’s two swearing-ins. Foremost, in 1969, thousands of members of the national Mobilization Committee to End the Vietnam War (MOBE) welcomed Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew to Pennsylvania Avenue by hurling rocks and horse manure, and skewering the new administration with their own mock “in-hog-uration” of a porcine president dubbed Pigasus.

Three decades down the line, while lacking the je ne sais quoi of Pigasus or projectile feces, the protests of 2005 were the largest in history, as an estimated 10,000 came to Washington to offer a collective middle finger to George W. Bush during the darkest days of the Iraq war. Two or three times that many are expected to demonstrate in the capitol this weekend. Marching among them will be several Sonomans, whose footsteps – whether they be in-step with the administration or wishing to kick it in the shins – will make their imprint on behalf of all of us with a 707 phone line, both sides of the aisle.

But that’s 4,000 miles away. Our demonstrations back home tend to feature less manure and more merlot. Marches in the 95476 zip code typically weave around the Plaza once or twice, culminate outside City Hall in front of Napa Street, enjoy their fill of supportive honks, and then disband in time for happy hour and dollar tacos. With that in mind, we raise our glass and offer the first toast to our Sonoma neighbors this weekend marching in Washington – you took the coach flight many of us wish we could take. Our second, to those they march for – the undocumented, the underpaid, the sexually assaulted, the uninsured, the disenfranchised and the impoverished. The sick, the lowly, the huddled masses. And whether we appreciate it or not, all this marching is for you, me, our children and their children’s children, as well.

“If you can’t run, then walk – if you can’t walk, then crawl,” Martin Luther King implored students at a rally in 1960. “But whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward!”

And so the marching continues. God bless America.

And God help it, too.

Email Jason at jason.walsh@sonomanews.com.

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