Babes of Wrath

January 20, 2013 2:05 PM

Homelessness activist Diane Nilan and progressive activist and former Green Party candidate Pat LaMarche are embarking on a tour around the southwestern US to call attention to homeless children and youth in crisis.

Diane Nilan also has a column on AlterNet, a blog, Invisible Homeless Kids, and a Vimeo feed.

Pat LaMarche, also a former journalist, has a radio show, The Pulse Morning Show, a book, Left Out in America: The State Of Homelessness in the United States, and contributes to Common Dreams. (Full disclosure: she's also a friend of a friend, though I don't know her personally.)

They've done a similar tour before. This one is partly in honor of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Steinbeck's novel Grapes of Wrath.

posted by eviemath (10 comments total)

Grapes Of Wrath, a must read! I have great respect for what AlterNet does.
So many people are unemployed and houseless that we risk having anew social class created of people who come of families which never had a roof over their head.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 3:49 PM on January 20

Please understand that I consistently vote Green, so I'm speaking more out of resignation than snark, but...

The Green Party is hardly the solution for getting anything or anyone noticed. They need to raise some public awareness of themselves if the party is ever going to be anything beyond a footnote.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:26 PM on January 20 [1 favorite]

plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

Me, 1987
posted by _paegan_ at 6:05 PM on January 20 [6 favorites]

The Green Party is hardly the solution for getting anything or anyone noticed. They need to raise some public awareness of themselves if the party is ever going to be anything beyond a footnote.

Yes. Because nothing is more important than promoting one's own party, even if that means the party you're promoting doesn't stand for anything.
posted by Sys Rq at 7:25 PM on January 20

I can't tell if these are Green party assholes or Democrats incorrectly labeled as Greens. I'm going with Green party assholes, because anyone who doesn't immediately distance themselves from those scum are scum to me. Thank you, Nader, for 2001-2009.
posted by gum at 8:07 PM on January 20

Sys Rq, do you honestly think I was saying the Greens should chuck their ideals out the window? Or do you think I was saying it's a pity they can't get the message of those ideals out to more people?

After this article, do you suppose you'll hear anything else about this campaign again?

And gum, who are the assholes?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:28 PM on January 20

I'm a little unclear on how we got from a post about two folks trying to bring attention to the plight of homeless youth to debating the political implications of the Green Party?

Yes, one of the people, as part of the back story I supplied, has been a candidate for the Green Party, among many other things that she has done. I'm sorry gum, is that more important to you than homeless youth?
posted by eviemath at 8:45 AM on January 21

I was just pointing out the irony of a campaign for awareness being launched by a marginal, largely unknown political party.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:37 PM on January 21

The Green Party doesn't have anything to do with this campaign.
posted by eviemath at 3:50 PM on January 21

(sigh)

OK.

If you like, I will adapt my sentiment to say "I was just pointing out the irony of a campaign for awareness being launched by --a former candidate from-- a marginal, largely unknown political party."

I will never as long as I live understand the impetus for hanging out at the bottom of comment threads demanding stipulations and clarifications for comments that a) weren't that serious anyway and b) weren't particularly hard to follow.

It's entirely true that it was semi-off-topic and that the distinction between ex-candidate and the party itself would have been worth making. But I think my point was fairly obvious.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:52 PM on January 21