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This is Not a Freak Show
The Environmental Movement Needs Discipline, Not Gauged Ears….
On April 26, 2019, I went to the Friday night Sunrise Movement “Green New Deal” talkfest at the Wilshire Ebell Theater in Hancock Park, Los Angeles.
In front of this stately old theater (which was old when I was a young child half a dozen decades ago) there was a milling crowd of people dressed in ornate costumes, some waiting to enter the building, others just talking and preening, waiting to be seen. It turns out that there was a fashion show going on in the front of the building. My venue was in the back, so I hied down the block to the correct entrance, showed my iPhone ticket, and was let in.
From my readings, I knew that the Sunrise Movement was “an army of young people” who were concerned about remaking American society. Their current movement du jour was the Green New Deal. That was what caught my attention and drew me in.
Imagine my surprise when I scanned the crowd and saw that well over half of it was substantially over the age of 60. The other approximately 40% of the guests were barely out of their teens and into their 20s. I saw few people between, say, 30 and 60 years old.
Judging from the number of grey and white beards, I’d say that quite a few of the men would have been teenagers during the mid-to-late ’60s. And looking…