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Central Iowa Saturday Night

I Just May Be The Lunatic You're Looking For
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Back in the day, there was a country song called “Louisiana Saturday Night.” Catchy. Thought I’d send a look at a central Iowa Saturday night (the post title), although you can’t smoosh the syllables together in that quite like “Loosiana” is in the old country classic.

The song in the video clip though is a different genre — it’s a cover of Billy Joel, with these words:

“I may be crazy / Oh, but it just may be a lunatic you're looking for / It's too late to fight / It's too late to change me / You may be wrong for all I know / But you may be right…”

It’s accidentally a perfect video for the post, because this essay ends with me saying something about how I just may be the lunatic you’re looking for. More on that in a minute.

I’m sending the video here mostly for the crowd-panning look at people in small town America. It was actually a country music show by original artists; this song was one of the few non-country covers.

The video I wish I’d caught to share the vibe of the whole thing was at the end of the song “Where the Stars & Stripes & The Eagle Fly,” where the artist, Aaron Tippin, ended with something about supporting the flag… and if you don’t like it you can “kiss this.” The crowd went wild, and then erupted into chants of “USA” for a long moment. The next song, of course, was “Kiss This,” which naturally led to some intense and entertaining nonverbal communication within the audience. It was a wise song set order; one that has no doubt been used repeatedly by the band over the years.

In this crowd, the spontaneous “USA” chanting was raw patriotism with a bit of an edge. Overall it wasn’t blatant hostility; like something at a Trump rally. There was no “Let’s Go Brandon” chant. There were no loaded digs about standing versus kneeling for the flag — it was just about being for the flag.

The patriotic sentiment fit the night, and it fit the crowd. For example, there was a huge American flag flying over the town’s main intersection next to the show; hung by the local volunteer fire department’s ladder company:

A central Iowa Saturday night crowd at a small-town country show, with the fire department’s ladder company flying a US flag for the festival.

My Town

I write this so far like I was some kind of outsider; like I was a visitor to this unfamiliar place. But that’s not true.

The truth is that I grew up about three blocks from the intersection where the flag is hanging in a town called Nevada, Iowa. I know that’s the heart of the downtown because it’s my town. It was, anyway.

The “My Town” video here has some relatable lyrics for lots of folks, I’m sure. I get a lot of them too, but my story doesn’t exactly fit. Like although “It’s where I was born / where I was raised,” it’s definitely not “Where I keep all my yesterdays,” because I got the hell out of there as soon as I was able. It’s weird to go back, even still; and I only live 20 minutes away these days. Every damn time I have hesitation, and I’ve needed to go there a lot recently. Why the hesitation?

It’s the town where I got my edge. I hesitate because the people in the crowd Saturday night are descended from and made up of the same people who shaped my early life. They, too, have an edge. They’re part of the reason I have one.

Some of the people still there or from there are directly responsible for being just nasty when I was growing up. Some caused trauma back then. Surviving trauma causes a kind of hardening; I grew and sharpened the edge I’ve got growing up around dangerous people and finding ways to survive and maybe thrive despite that. People in the same community contributed to more recent trauma of a different kind; now it’s family estrangement. More people from the same town helped me survive that recent trauma and I’ll be forever grateful. Life is complicated.

Even with all of that, knowing the people in the community is why I understand the crowd yelling “USA! USA!” It’s why I get the intensity of that; just on the edge of something more. I know some of the people here can be dangerous, but I also know that the patriotism is genuine. More than one thing can be true at a time. It’s a community has been genuinely patriotic ever since I can remember.

This tiny town is the place where I learned patriotism; growing up in the 1970s. It’s where we tied ribbons in support of hostages, hung US flags along the streets on holidays, and had Fourth of July celebrations that were genuinely neat — for kids, anyway. It’s the place where I earned a state 4-H citizenship award by leading a citywide recycling effort that I talked a whole lot of people into helping with in the early 1990s. It’s the place where lots of folks in the community supported my own journey and my escapades through 4-H, through band and chorus trips, and even (don’t tell anyone) a pageant that I did as an early leap outside my comfort zone to learn stuff that might be helpful.

That town is where I got my ideas about community, too. It’s where people supported me when I asked, and a lot of times when I didn’t. I’d bet that a lot of them still would; even if they disagree with me. It’s a place where even now I’m certain that people who I know (through social media) have racist ideas would hear me out if we sat down one-on-one and talked about some of all that; if we could get to the point of having such a conversation. It doesn’t mean it would cause deep change, but it might provide food for thought.

None of it is simple, and I imagine that’s why it’s taken me two days and five drafts to figure out what to write about going to a community festival in my hometown over the weekend.

Values

That complexity speaks to the bigger issue in the country… because a whole lot of people from towns like this are supporting — let’s be honest — fascism.

A whole lot of pale people from towns like this have gotten increasingly hostile about most of the other people living in this country… people of color, women, LGBTQ+ people, Jewish people, and so on. Except: there is no “and so on.”

The real widespread resentment is about anyone who isn’t pale and male, or who isn’t an alabaster-hued woman willing to support the status quo that keeps white men running most everything. The real resentment is against anyone pushing inclusivity, evolution, character, integrity, equality, equity, anti-racism, healthy relationships, science, vaccines, open-mindedness, intellectualism, representative democracy, and mature strength in lieu of toxic masculinity and brute force power.

The thing is, though, that a lot of the hostility is pushed by associates of those who have refused for FIVE DECADES to invest in Americans and in American communities while shifting wealth to the already-powerful. You can’t explain it that way, though. People won’t hear.

They do hear it when you say that we need to invest in Americans, in American communities, in American small businesses, and in American innovation.

They hear it when you talk about plywood covering broken windows in downtowns; about vine-covered, abandoned factories all over the US. Again, check the words in the My Town song above: “There ain't much going on here since they closed the mill / The whistle still blows everyday at noon.” People hear it when you talk about how folks can’t afford to make a decent living, and how hard it is to make ends meet.

But we’re not talking about that stuff when the focus is on the targets of the scapegoating and the culture war ginned up over decades: the racism, the misogyny, the anti-Semitism, the spreading anti-Trans action, a resurgence against LGBTQ+ people, anti-history talk, anti-science drama, anti-public-health sentiments. The lists go on. But those grievance and resentment lists miss the core stuff. The values. The lives we want to and could have.

A Moral Shift

I think we could collectively fight for a moral shift that’s louder than all that and that gets big attention. Locally. Regionally. Nationally. For weeks and months and years.

I think we could push for a vision of an updated American dream. You can’t just fight against. We have to fight for something; for a whole lot of things.

I think we can push for a moral shift that’s about caring for humans. Investing in communities. Supporting families. Advocating for innovation. Taking care of women, men, and children in the ways we all actually need to be taken care of — for our health, and for our mental health. Looking after each other. Embracing and accepting who we are; no matter our complexion or gender or sexuality or religion or social status or wealth or whatever. Getting outside of our comfort zone. Getting better connected. Building stronger communities. Dealing with actual problems proactively; like being ready to handle (and mitigate) climate change and social media and artifical intelligence and competition from other superpower economies (like China) plus life on an increasingly complicated planet.

We can seriously fight a whole hell of a lot harder for all of that.

We need to fight a whole hell of a lot harder for all of that. Like: it’s urgent. The feedback loops of climate change alone are already well underway and we’re not doing a damn thing to either make it less bad or to be more ready, just as one example.

I think some of the angry, resentful people would even be open to some or all of the stuff we would collectively fight for if we’d get louder and more aggressive about the fight. But more than that, I think the huge majority of Americans who want a different country than what we’re currently building would like to see us all fight harder for a different future… and to actually create that different future.

People watch the way the wind blows. Right now it’s blowing to the far-right. Would the general public come along if public sentiment started to push more fiercely for values of inclusivity and investing in Americans and taking care of humans? Yeah, probably. Taking care of humans is kind of a big seller, morality-wise.

Raising Heck & Big Inspiration

Why aren’t we fighting harder?

I think we’re not because we’re not sure what to do. I think we’re used to fighting in the old ways, under the old rules. I think we’re too overwhelmed to fight. Plus lots of folks are just broke and/or broken and not in a position to fight. Decades of wealth inequality and wage stagnation will do that in a society where we don’t have good social structures in place to help people out who are deeply struggling in any of a zillion ways (another reason why taking care of humans could be a big seller).

I think we’re also not fighting because we’re hoping someone else will. I sure am. I would love it if some bunch of folks would get inspired to get out front and lead, because frankly I don’t want to. Only there aren’t enough out there leading, and we’re going to need way more of us to get out into the arena.

I know there aren’t enough out there leading because the US media is spending most of its time (as it has for decades) on the agenda and ruckus being pushed by a party that wants to support the rich and to metaphorically and otherwise starve our collective communities and people. The media covers the extremists because that’s who makes the news; they cover it often because we’re drawn to the unfolding horror like we’re drawn to watching train wrecks. The far-right crowd who get news coverage are great at drawing attention. The rest of us — the majority — we’re not. But we could be. And we could create and get news coverage and drive the narrative by doing things that aren’t real or metaphorical macabre, horrific train wrecks.

There are a zillion ways to get attention. We could do even some of those things and start making shift happen.

We could get attention and drive the direction this country goes in sooooooo many ways. There’s so much we could be out there advocating and fighting for. We just need to get better at it… and also actually do it.

We have to decide that it’s worth jumping into the arena; that it’s time to go. That it’s time to get creative. That it’s time to make new rules; to get uncomfortable; to define how the coming fight will be fought. No matter what we’ve done or not done up to here; no matter how creative or dedicated or not.

Now it’s a different fight. Now it’s a different moment.

Now we need more than protests and postcards and voter registration.

Now we need big inspiration and big leadership and big attention to counter the cynicism and apathy up in this country. We can create it. Now we need to drive the narrative in communities everywhere; in social networks in the real world and online. Now we need to drive the moral shift to take this country in a different direction. We can empower each other to do it together.

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The Power of Social Pressure to Light Up the Darkness

Anyway, this is the stuff I think about when I’m at a hometown country music concert; when the crowd is going crazy over the US flag.

In that kind of a moment, I think about how I’ve got this wild idea that we can take everything that a coalition of Democrats and activitists and ex-Republicans have done so far and take it all to new levels and make it all huger and bigger and messier so that we collectively change the direction this country is headed in.

I think about how I’m not scared of this crowd like I might have been years ago; when I was a kid and when they had power over me. No more. I’m still hesitant to join in in hometown stuff because of the complexity that community brings, but that’s different than how it was growing up.

Would I feel differently if I wasn’t a tall, blonde woman? Probably.

Would I have felt differently Saturday if everyone was wearing sidearms, or carrying AR-15s? Yes. Were there guns there at the concert? No doubt. This state is like aspiring to be Florida when it comes to all the laws for guns and against women and against history and anti-LBGTQ+ and anti-anti-racism and so on. But I didn’t see the guns, and luckily we all survived the event without getting shot (go United States!). There were enough cops and first responders on scene to maybe also help mitigate big trouble. There’s value in visual deterrence.

There’s also value in the institutions. You couldn’t help but notice those things meant to help hold society together on this central Iowa Saturday night: in addition to the gigantic US flag hanging over the whole scene from a fire department vehicle; there were local police, sherriff’s deputies (likely there on mutual aid), ambulances, EMTs, and probably half of the local volunteer fire department. The concert itself happened in the city hall parking lot and next to the local senior center. Well-known people in the community were staffing the beer tent, the gate, and the ticketing.

The social mores of all that institutional fuss in a small town compel people to behave, to a certain extent. Everybody’s watching. No one even needs to say that. No, it might not deter the most dedicated angry person with an AR-15. You can’t mitigate against everything (although having at least some gun buying or ownership laws would help for crying out loud). But overall, social pressure is often very powerful. Again, people watch which way the metaphorical wind blows.

We need more of all that in society as a whole — social mores, and social pressure to “do the right thing.”

We’ve lost that thread overall, but we can find it again and weave a whole new fixed-up social fabric that’s some kind of way more beautiful tapestry than the unhealthy, knotted mess we’ve got now.

We can help each other be better humans, and to walk together when we’re scared of our own neighbors. We can help shine brighter light on the darkness; and to push the racist, bigoted, hateful dangerous people back into the shadows.

Who am I to dare say such things? To so brazenly dream?

I Just May Be The Lunatic You’re Looking For

“I may be crazy / Oh, but it just may be a lunatic you're looking for / It's too late to fight / It's too late to change me / You may be wrong for all I know / But you may be right…”

Who am I? I’m a woman who grew up with some mean, rude kids in a small town that I thought I could get away from by leaving. I never thought I’d grow up and see a third of the country behaving in the same bigoted, angry, rude ways as the people I grew up around; or condoning that kind of behaviour. I never thought I’d see that kind of vulgar hatefulness get extra-empowered… by political leaders, by an enormous media machine, by advertisers, by cable services, and by a twice-impeached-now-indicted-ex-president. All that hate and anger needs a huge moral push to shove it back into its hidey-holes, and it’s been out now for a while.

Why listen to me? Because I believe we can push that darkness back, and because I believe our nonprofit has a unique approach to push that darkness back even as we take the country in a totally different direction.

Why take a chance on me? Because I know this country. I’m a woman who’s been to 45 states, lived in 10 of them, been a park ranger and wildland firefighter, worked in big wildfire management… and who gave all that up after 9/11 to help make this whole country better ready for disaster.

I’m a woman who found my way to exactly the jobs I wanted in the brand-new US Department of Homeland Security as it got staffed in 2005, and then as it evolved. I’m a woman who decided to get into politics when it became clear that a political movement on the far right was becoming a serious threat to national security.

I play a long game. I think big. I helped build the system every first responder in the United States uses, and I helped transform how critical infrastructure restoration and emergency response efforts are coordinated in disasters so US communities and economies can recover faster.

Now in this moment when the US is in the biggest disaster this country’s been in since the lead-up to the civil war… I’ll be damned if I’m not going to do what I can to help this country put itself on a path away from disaster and toward a more sustainable future.

To that end, I’ve worked to create the space with this nonprofit here (Shift the Country) for us to get together to find ways forward to make some serious shift happen (like on these Zoom calls here that you can sign up for).

The lunatic part comes in because sometimes you need a dedicated change agent (or thousands) to help push disruption from inside systems that are no longer effective in a fast-evolving risk landscape. I can be that disruptor, and I can help you do it, too. And all your friends. And all the groups.

Together we can help a coalition of the majority of Americans be way more powerful than we’ve been yet. We can grow political pressure and moral shift like this country hasn’t seen. We can leverage the power of the people. They have the big media machine and the big angry bigotry and the big resentment. We’ve got the hearts and minds of the majority of Americans who want a future that includes joy, love, thriving, flourishing, and taking care of humans. We just have to speak and act in ways that reach and inspire people and actually convey all that stuff, and a bit more. We can.

The lunatic part also comes in as I’ve gone to incredible lengths to grow this new shift, and because it takes a special kind of something to get a new political thing off the ground from outside the political establishment and from outside the DC beltway. Sometimes you need a true believer, and I’m all in on this democracy. Our board is too, and so are our early volunteers. Join us.

Let’s push a moral shift and light up the darkness around here, eh?

Get in on a Zoom call, sign up to volunteer, help with funding through the website or ActBlue (we need it!), or share our posts around to everyone and every group you know. The more the merrier. Seriously. Because we intend to push some fun, too. We can’t just go off and champion a different future without infusing joy into it as well, right? We need the good stuff.

Join a Zoom call

We’re starting by building a volunteer base and working on coalition-building (Thing 2), and then we’ll be getting more into the other 5 Things as we grow.

Be well, be safe, and as always — try not to get dead.

Onward.

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Vanessa Burnett