This
past Labor Day I was honored to be
invited to speak at the Labor Day Celebration on Woodstock Square sponsored by Woodstock for Bernie Sanders
Volunteers. It was a glorious afternoon
and focused on the heritage and connection of Eugene V. Debs, Woodstock, and the origins and traditions of
Labor Day. And, of course, we got in a
good word or two for Bernie Sanders, the political
heir to Debs who is burning up the early Democratic Presidential race and scaring the hell out of the Hillary
Clinton campaign, establishment Democrats,
newspaper op-ed pages, cable TV talking heads, and, by the
way, the American oligarchy.
I
always intended to post my remarks as a blog
post. But in the end, after organizing my thoughts and reviewing material I am well versed in, I decided to wing it.
A written speech, no matter how well crafted, is, well, read. It compels the speaker to closely stick to
the written word. Without the technology
of the teleprompter, it means the
speaker looses eye contact and connection with the audience. Only a gifted actor or speaker can avoid the
dreaded drone of reading. An outdoor
speech quickly becomes in danger of becoming a stupefying sermon or droning
lecture.
Instead,
I reached back to my days as a Wobbly
soapboxer—loud, dramatic, passionate,
and even a tad bombastic. Neither a casual crowd nor an audience
has much chance to tune it out. I was
tutored in this nearly lost art by veteran
practitioners like the diminutive
Sheridan brothers, Jack and Jimmy, crusty old Herb Edwards with his thick Norwegian
accent, Frank Cedervall. I reached
back to days doing street corner rallies
in a Pacific Northwest
hop-on-the-freight Wobbly speaking tour, to May Days at the Haymarket and
at Bug House Square with Studs Terkel and Carlos Cortez. I drew on the
speeches at massive rallies by the great Civil
Right preachers, most notably the Rev.
Martin Luther King, Jr., although I would never claim to match the majestic
cadences of a good Baptist preacher. And there was Utah Phillips who preferred to woo an audience with a yarn and a song, but who, when the occasion demanded it, produce a spellbinder so compelling that it
raised the hair on your arms.
