VFP MARCH AS CONVENTION FINALE

TV news coverage of the VFP march in Portland this morning as the convention ended. We had 300 people in the march, although the TV announcer said we had 1,000. Not very often the media so dramatically over estimates our numbers.

It was a great event though and people left the convention in good spirits. Last night Chris Hedges was the keynote speaker at the banquet that drew more than 350 folks. His hard and dark analysis of our future got some people taking exception to his very direct comments. He doesn't leave much squirm room and people want to feel good after such a speech. But Hedges doesn't do that.

It reminds me of when Native American chiefs were taken to Washington to meet the "great white father." They would come back to their tribes and say we are screwed. They would tell stories about the huge cities they passed through along the railroad trip east and the heavy weapons technologies they saw even during those days. They knew they could not ultimately stand against that power.

Hedges says that the collapse of capitalism is going to be harsh and that the crackdown on folks like us will be hard. He calls on us to find hope and courage in the moral acts of resistance to what he sees as a fascist dictatorship.