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Do you still believe good will prevail?

Trump, Mental Health & our Farmers Market

By Alan “Lorax” Hirsch

Dear Nora:

You mentioned your need to curtail your exposure to politics and reading news as it often becomes too much.

I offer you an opportunity to recharge. Come down to the Saturday Davis Farmers Market between 8 and 1 and table with me as I pass out free “Love Your Neighbor” lawn signs.

As strangers walk by my booth I call out “Free lawn signs!” And “Make your neighborhood a friendlier place!”  Like a carnival barker. Rudely, Intruding into their conversations, texting, or thoughts of their shopping lists.

 In response I get not ignored, but smiles, hundreds of smiles. And people responding, “glad you’re here!” And “Thanks— I’ve got a sign.” “I wish I had a lawn- I live in an apartment” or “You inspire me.” Half the people respond somehow. And I get hugs from total strangers every Saturday.

About once a Saturday, someone, usually from Davis who has seen me before, will spontaneously offer a donation so someone else can have a sign, often as they live in an apartment or have a landlord that forbids signs. (Hey city council- this is social equity: why does Davis allow HOA or landlords to forbid signs, even in windows. It makes places impersonal, an abridgement of speech for renters.)

Today: an older homeless man pushing shopping cart came by. The cart was filled with empty soda cans and liquor bottles he was collecting presumably to recycle for cash. He stopped across from me in the market, slowly read my signs, and then came over to give me $1.17 in change as a donation.

I frequently have heartfelt conversations with strangers who reflect they struggling to maintain their equanimity in face of The Darkness. People from out-of-town express regret that the 18×24 lawn signs won’t fit in a suitcase. Thought my signs don’t flag they are political everyone “get it” that these values a refutation of Trumpism.

Today a visiting UCD alumna now living in “deep red” Iowa suggested I was needed there to table. Someone from rural Nevada told me about her neighbors…first demurring on a “Love Your neighbor” sign afraid it would upset them …then came back and took one.

These Saturday mornings’ experiences are like no other I have had in my entire life giving out my Love lawn signs.  “Love is one thing you get more of when you give it away.”

But I remember; it’s not about me.

It’s about people’s desire for a different way of being in an America now permeated with Trump’s rhetoric, a message that everything is transactional. We all feel vulnerable, helpless to push back. I am just offering one way: post a sign affirming the power of “Love” “Neighborliness” or Truth, i.e. my  “Support Science” Lawn Sign.

Or my new sign, an ML King quote: “Love is the only force that can turn an enemy into a friend.”  I come home after the market overflowing and want to share this experience.

I have shared it with my politically engaged wife Vera who comes often to drink in hope.   Nora, I welcome you or both you and Dean to join me in our beloved Davis’s community market area, even for an hour one Saturday to charge your batteries.

Alan

****

There is a mental health crisis in the US my therapist says. He has intimate conversions with Davisites and is in a group with other local therapists. He reports Americans are in need of comfort and hope, of a message of goodness from the larger world.  Or as another of my lawn signs say: “Please end the lies, chaos and fear.”

This crisis had deepened as Trump’s public rhetoric has gotten rawer and rawer in his second lame duck term. As I finish this up the New Yorker magazine has just posted a piece by Susan Glasser titled: The Curse of Trump 2.0, subtitled “What does it say that the President doesn’t even feel he needs to hide his most profane and radical views anymore?”   Unlike Trump term 1 he make no denials of the ugliness of his words (and actions) and his spokesmen/apologist bother claim his statements are a joke. And there are no leaders in the GOP who raise objections like in his first term (nonpartisan outcry to “good people on both sides”). The old “family values” GOP party, if it every really existed, has been replace by Trumpism. 

Strangely, as a Jew the best metaphor I can summon to characterize the troubling “virtues” now celebrated by our national leadership is “un-Christ-like.”

So, I share these stories from our Davis Farmer Market at this season as a bit of a pallet cleanser – a simple lawn sign can light a small candle to chase out the darkness.

—–

Alan “Lorax” Hirsch has been in the market most every Saturday since 2017 (with time off for Covid), passing out free “Support Science” and “Love your Neighbor” lawn signs. He is traveling for the holidays but will be back in the Markets community group areas of the market in January. He offers everyone who says hello a small heart sticker.

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Comments

8 responses to “Do you still believe good will prevail?”

  1. Tuvia ben Olam

    I’m curious: while a good part of the initial focus of the lawn signs is optically hyper-local*, apparently the conversations that come up at Farmers’ Market focus primarily on a single name brand: Trump.

    The swelling fascism** of the current administration and its close partners in global industry and a good number of governments around the planet is certainly enough to fill one’s plate – with leftovers for days*** – there’s obviously no need to look to Washington DC and certain golf courses to find delicious, steamy bowls of locally originating oppression, for example Yolo County supervisors – clearly also our “neighbors” – who:

    Support the corrupt and expert-dismissive creation of the I-80 Life Narrowing Project;

    Based on the complete lack of active, public transparency – and I’m including their deputies and colleagues or former colleagues going back a few years, so at least 20 people – inconceivably knew nothing of the origins of the murderous fireworks disaster;

    Very recently voted to continue the anti-environmental, genocidal gravel extraction crime – even more so as some couched it in “balance” and #wedoitbetterism.

    —–

    * Lawn signs can’t be seen at typical driving speeds – their aggregate broadcast disproportionately reaches people walking, and to a lesser extent cycling. Perhaps people that travel out the front door with their companion canine and don’t head immediately to their car are the group most reached.

    If we want to make “lawn sign” display more democratic or inclusive via legislation – yes, as mentioned – think for a moment about the apartment dwellers and perhaps some renters of so-called single-family homes who are excluded from this opportunity for political and social affirmation… sickening, isn’t it?… the name needs to be changed based on its actual function, and potential… and of course, an inherent disclaimer to protect any relevant property owners who are not actually creating the display. (It’s my understanding that the whole system at least in regards to City and County elections is criticized because the amount of visibility is completely dependent on funding, So perhaps that would have a different category than the signs that Alan distributes and similar.)

    ** Curious how many people at the market who visit Alan’s table bring up this generally completely justified f-word on their own.

    *** Make sure you check the more invisible parts of your fridge to ensure that there’s no oppression rotting back there.

    Reply
  2. Ron O

    . . .”they are political everyone “get it” that these values a refutation of Trumpism.”

    When I saw that sign and its asterisk, I viewed it as a “repudiation of straight, white, non-disabled people” (and maybe Asians) – or at least that they’re the only ones responsible for “loving thy neighbor” – as a one-way street. Never quite sure where Jewish people fit into these categories.

    In any case, white people need love, too! Though truth be told, I don’t look for that from acquaintances/strangers regardless of their skin color, orientation, etc.

    Reply
    1. Tuvia ben Olam

      The sign says “white”, yes? Or is your problem that you think it should be at the end of that list?

      Reply
      1. Ron O

        Tuvia: Thanks for pointing that out – the “whiteness” wasn’t in the original sign that I saw on the Vanguard – I just checked.) So maybe it’s an after-thought? (Now, if we can only work on inclusion of “straight” people, Jewish people, and Asians. Can’t think of anyone else at the moment.)

        It’s sort of like parking regulations – at some point, it’s more-efficient to just list the days/times that you CAN park.

      2. Ron O

        To clarify, I’m referring to the Vanguard’s post on Facebook – no “whiteys” on that sign. (Also, I’ve apparently been permanently banned on the Vanguard, itself. No reason provided.)

      3. Roberta Millstein

        I posted the picture that Alan gave me, which I believe is an actual photo of the actual sign that he distributes. I don’t know where Greenwald got his graphic — he seems to prefer to use his “own” graphics, often AI (thus the quote marks I added around “own”).

  3. Ron O

    Thanks, Roberta. I can still think of at least a couple of groups left off that list.

    Truth be told, no one cares about their “own” group in particular, either. Or at least, they shouldn’t. There are people who care about entirely-different species (pets), more than they do about some human with the same color that they share. (Not a judgement regarding that, since I’m not entirely-convinced that all life itself should have a hierarchy of value.)

    Reply
  4. Tuvia ben Olam

    Regarding “pets”: there’s not really an equivalent in German – they use the term “Haustier”, literally house animal… And in French, “compagnie animaux”, literally companion animal. That’s my preferred term, which has its wonderful corollary or complement, companion human. Sometimes I’ll say companion canine. Germans can also say “Familientier”, family animal etc.

    Obviously there’s no objective hierarchy with fauna, inclusive of homo sapiens. Everything is assigned and subjective or a reductionist explanation of how in the non-human world, for example, lions hunt gazelles, etc, and it’s totally chill.

    Reply

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