Almost everywhere I go to speak, during the Q and A portion, someone asks me where are “The Youth?”
Well, I have good news for all these people who have been lamenting over the lack of young people in our Peace Movement: they are out here at Camp OUT NOW on the lawn of the Washington Monument.
We set up our Peace Camp today (Obama flew over us in his helicopter twice) with very little glitches, except a few involving our permit and the Park Police. For the very first, very cold day, we had a solid 50 people, and the best news is, 25 of them are college students, and one of my organizers is a senior at Catholic University.
Today as I observed the young people interacting with each other and the other activists, I felt such energy and a renewed sense of real hope. For some people, the struggle for peace has lasted decades, even for me. I have been working so hard for almost six years now.
Besides a lot of peace energy being co-opted and diffused by the Obama campaign, a lot of us older activists are tired and in some cases cynical and almost bitter that our years of struggle have not produced our ultimate goal of peace—but it almost hurts to watch these young people burn with the fire of desire to make this world a better place.
I listened to them strategize and have discussions about the signs they wanted to make. Their discussions were deep and sophisticated as they struggled to get the wording just right so they could convey not just words, but engender feelings.
Camp OUT NOW started out great and it’s just going to get greater! Our “Dining with a Dose of Reality” kicked off in a very chilly evening with a yummy dinner delivered by Food Not Bombs and our talk from Kevin Zeese of Voters for Peace and Dr. Margaret Flowers who is a single-payer healthcare advocate (videos will be posted tomorrow).
I miss my grandbabies and kids in California, but I am very excited to be holding Camp again (with many Camp Casey friends) and I am going to draw as much wisdom and energy from “The Youth” as I can.
Watch a video of our set-up:
For more info about Camp go to: