Saturday afternoon on August 8 I headed to downtown Seattle for a rally for social security. The guest speaker of note was to be democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
The event was held in the Westlake Plaza, the traditional gathering place for political rallies and gatherings in Seattle. A half an hour before the event was to commence, at least two thousand people had already gathered and they were streaming in by the hoards. People held signs saying Scrap the Cap (a campaign to raise the income limit on social security taxes). Another large banner read Get Big Money Out Of Elections and another that said, Money Is Not Free Speech. I saw union members, retired people, but it was not as racially diverse as I would have liked.
The event began with the highly entertaining Singing Grannies. These women must be in their eighties or even nineties and two of them used walkers. The Singing Grannies have been arrested for their actions for social justice. They wore colorful hats plastered with left wing political buttons and kicked up their heels as they sang songs about saving social security (it’s our money. We paid when we were young) which was sung to the tune of Solidarity Forever. Another song had them raising prescription bottles and singing about the high cost of drugs and about a world where all races lived in harmony and everyone had health care.
Next was a musical interlude with various local performers including Prometheus Brown of the Seattle rap group Blue Scholars. Speech after speech was given about the inequalities in the social security laws. Those who have prison records are not allowed to draw social security benefits (blacks and Hispanics are jailed far more than any other ethnic population in the US) and undocumented workers, many of whom pay into SS, are not allowed to draw from it in retirement.
Gerald Hankerton, representing Black Lives Matter iterated that when we invest in something we expect a pay out. Social Security is now 50 years old, but we’re still fighting for it. Voting rights are also 50 years old and we’re still fighting for that. It’s been two years since SCOTUS gutted the Voting Rights Act, which specifically alienates those who tend to vote progressive, including blacks, Hispanics, the disabled, college students and women and the elderly. He further mentioned that forty-two percent of African Americans rely solely on social security. When income disparity is mentioned one can’t separate one from the other. How can we raise no objection when people would die without social security and also raise no objection when the money is handed over to billionaire corporations who only pay minimum wage. This was followed by several chants of black lives matter!
State senators Jeanne Kohl-Welles, and Senator Maralyn Chase both were in attendance and a shout out was given to Jim McDermott, long time congressional rep from the Seattle area, for diligently fighting to save social security and expand it. It was also mentioned that Medicare has a three percent administrative cost compared to the private insurance companies which have up to a thirty percent administrative cost.
Marcelas Owens, a high-schooler and youth activist with Washington Community Action Network (a grassroots organization dedicated to social justice) got up and spoke of how his mother died in 2007 and he and his two sisters were being raised by their grandmother (whom he glowingly praised). His grandmother is unable to work since she was in a car accident and must rely on SS to support herself and her three grandchildren. This money keeps a roof over their heads and food on the table so he and his two sisters can concentrate on school.
Legendary Seattle folk singer Jim Page got up and performed a song about it’s not just me and it’s not just you. It’s all of us.
Another speaker brought up the issue of this being the eve of Michael Brown’s killing at the hands of the police in a St. Louis suburb. It was also mentioned how his body was left to lie in the street for over four hours while the police did nothing. Also mentioned was that liberals were the ones who brought us the 40-hour work week, ended child labor, brought us the Civil Rights Act, all to make life better for everyone and how it is up to all of us to carry on this legacy of what this country was founded on.
A bill is currently being introduced in D.C. to include the time spent out of the work force to stay home with children or to care for a loved one..
Rep. Adam Smith, whose district spans from south Seattle to the port of Tacoma and east to parts of Bellevue got up and spoke how he was one of only three reps in Washington voting against the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement and how this rally was not just about social security, but also about the huge income gap facing our nation currently. He reminded
everyone that the city of Sea Tac in his district was the first one to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and how we need corporations to pay their workers instead of just their CEOs and executives. He mentioned how a job his father had was a union job and provided six weeks of paid vacation and full benefits. Now that same job is non-union and pays minimum wage and offers no benefits. It’s time for these corporations to stop paying their CEOs $30 to $60 million a year while paying their workers only the minimum wage.
The participants in this rally were very diverse both ethnically and in age. Over and over again mention was made about the vast number of people in this country sitting in prison for non-violent crimes and the question was raised, why is there never enough money to provide socialized medicine, but never a shortage to bail out big banks or incarcerate people of color? This led the crowd in chants of, “Scrap the cap!”
Although Social Security is far from broke, this doesn’t stop the right wing from claiming it is broke and to “fix” it we need to raise the retirement age or we need to privatize Social Security. This rally was intended to garner support and awareness of the fact that if we raised the income level so that the SS tax didn’t stop being withdrawn after $118G, we could make SS sustainable for decades to come.
Then it was time for the person everyone was waiting for, the person many traveled from far distances to hear, Senator Bernie Sanders. Sanders has been a leader in the senate to expand Social Security and Medicare but just as he took the stage a small group of militants claiming to be from Black Lives Matter (their association with this group is dubious) hijacked the mic and refused to relinquish it. They literally pushed Senator Sanders out of the way and the alleged leader, a young woman named Marissa Johnson, started ranting about the gentrification of Seattle and how blacks were now being pushed out of Central Seattle as it became more and more unaffordable reality is that everyone of modest income is being forced from Seattle and a movement for rent control was mentioned at this rally). Many people began loudly booing her, but some, myself included, yelled, “let her talk.” However, once she had everyone’s attention she then demanded everyone give four and a half minutes of silence for Michael Brown or she wouldn’t relinquish the mic. Begrudgingly this was done, but then she still refused to relinquish the mic and let Senator Sanders speak. She called everyone there a racist for not hearing her out and that we were all white supremacists. Finally the organizers shut down the event and Senator Sanders never got the opportunity to speak. Mainstream media of course is only mentioning the interruption and not the content of the messages made over the course of two hours. Senator Sanders is the best candidate for ensuring equality — racial and social equality. In their haste to scoop this occurrence they didn’t research this Marissa Johnson to learn that her association with BLM is dubious. She set up a BLM Seattle FB page just a day prior to the rally.
Bernie Sanders is a candidate for all people. If black people felt underrepresented it was because they chose not to attend. This was held in a public area where all were welcome and I doubt this young woman was in attendance for much of the event since much of what she mentioned and already been addressed during the rally. She was rude and obnoxious and only alienated people from her cause. A lot of people traveled far and wide to hear Senator Sanders speak and that opportunity was stolen from them. No official word has come from the BLM people. I sent them a message that was never returned.
– Photos property of Holly Homan, all rights reserved.
