Inspired: Stephen Stills

On Monday night I attended a RISEUP: LA meeting.  It was a quickly put together meeting that was inspired after last week's election.   Their first meeting was on Wednesday November 9 when a hundred people in a park met to discuss their fears and concerns about the next four years.   From that meeting RiseUp was created.   My friend invited me to their second meeting on Monday and it was lovely.  They had guest speakers from Planned Parenthood and Tree People.   There was a trauma therapist who talked about fear and there was a small chamber trio who performed some lovely music.    All of that was lovely but I was most moved by their guest speaker Stephen Stills.

Stills is legendary singer from Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and his own solo career.   His music is iconic, even if we don't know it...we know it.   That's how baked in his songs are in our lives.

But he was not there to sing he was there to talk.   He has been political his whole life and he talked about as a teenager trying to drive across the south to hear MartinLutherKing speak and how in Alabama police told him to drive back home to Florida.  I was so taken by his words because they rang true for me because I am feeling the same thing he felt in 1968.   In '68 Nixon won by a landslide and GOP took houses and senate seats.   It was certainly a volatile  year for the Democrats who were split about Vietnam.     Stills said the first thing he did was dust himself off and support mid-term elections.  He backed campaigns of Congressional and Senate seats all over the country.   Slowly red seats went blue.   By 72 there was real movement.  

This is my own position.   And right now I am doing all I can to support Doug Applegate in Congressional District #49.   Provisional Ballots need to be observed by Democrat representatives in both Santa Ana and Orange County.   This is a real shot.  Issa is trying to shut down the provisional ballots!
In Lousiana I have financially supported Foster Campbell who is in a run-off against the republican candidate for the Senate.     We start right now doing what we can to take back the house and senate.   Just as Mr. Stills did in 68!

Here's a little Stills music to inspire.

Action Heals.