Community Corner

Debt Deal Doesn't Dampen Candle-Toting Activists' Resolve

Greater Brandon residents join political activists gathered outside Sen. Marco Rubio's offices at USF to express dismay with business as usual on Capitol Hill. Word that a debt deal had been reached didn't dampen the crowd's resolve.

A government held captive by certain interests that held “the debt ceiling hostage,” is what brought Tim Heberlein to the University of South Florida campus at sundown July 31.

More specifically, it brought Heberlein and a group of about 30 candle-holding citizens to the offices of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), where outside they expressed their dismay over the debt-ceiling impasse.

Indeed, during the “Save Our Nation” candlelight vigil, word came that a compromise in Washington had been reached, but that did not dampen the resolve of the people present to discuss and support each other’s beliefs that enough was enough with business as usual on Capitol Hill.

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“People in Washington can’t get their stuff together,” said Heberlein, representing the group that organized the vigil, the Florida Consumer Action Network. "And this is disconcerting to a lot of people, not just Democrats, not just Republicans, Independents, big business, small business and labor. This affects every single one of us standing here. This affects how our country will operate and how we do business.”

Kofi Hunt is an organizing member of Awake Pinellas, with Awake the State.

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“I think there’s a misunderstanding about what leadership is about,” he told the crowd. “Leadership is about serving. To lead is to serve. It’s not about agendas. It’s about exacting the will of the people, and the people in Washington seem to have forgotten that. They have their ideologies, and that comes before our voices.”

Eleanor Cecil is a board member for the National Organization of Women in Tampa and, as she put it, “a member of probably every progressive group in the state of Florida."

“We need to do more consciousness-raising,” she said. “All that is, is just letting people know what’s really going on. We have to inform people."

“There’s so many uninformed people,” she added, “and these people are carrying water to the very people who are going to drown."

The debt-ceiling impasse, Cecil said, has been a work in progress.

“We have come to this moment, it’s been decades, generations in the making,” she said. “This is where the conservative wing of the Republican Party has wanted to take us since we had Roosevelt and Johnson. They want to do away with the entitlement programs.”

Chris Radulich, of MoveOn.org, beseeched the gatherers to spread the word, “Don’t be afraid to step up and say what you believe."

“You can’t remain silent,” he added, “because by remaining silent you’re [supporting] the person saying the things you don’t believe in.”

Angie Angel attended the event wearing a T-shirt expressing her affiliation with the East Hillsborough Democratic Club, which meets at Barnacles of Brandon on the second Tuesday of the month at 6:30 p.m.

“Events like this are very important,” she said about the candlelight vigil, that her group promoted locally, in the Greater Brandon area, as an event open to citizens of all political persuasions. “It is a show of solidarity. Our numbers may appear small at this particular gathering but they are in fact quite large."

People in general, she said, “are very disillusioned.”

Despite the debt-ceiling compromise, she added, “there’s still a lot of work to be done, there’s a lot of people to put back to work."

Jean Wilson is the membership chair for the East Hillsborough Democratic Club. She knows firsthand the plight of the unemployed, under-employed and uninsured.

“I was unemployed for almost two years,” she said. “I got a job recently but unfortunately it doesn’t pay enough. I went through my savings. I went behind in my bills and my mortgage. I don’t have insurance. I know exactly how people feel, but I’m out here at these events, trying to get my voice heard, to do something about it.”

“If you don’t speak up, no one will listen."


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