I received an email recently from John Gonsalves of Santa Rosa, a town an hour or so north of the Bay Area. He and his friends held a party July 29 to organize for Bernie. The video above is from that meeting. He mentioned in his email that he and some friends had traveled across the southwest. His email included this: Remain stout in your own convictions and continue to reach out to those in need of the hope Bernie represents. I asked him to elaborate.

– chris 

Hi Chris,

It was a Union group: a teacher, a firefighter and a nurse. I’m a CWA technician who went back to school to retool as an electrical engineer.

The firefighter and nurse couple picked us up at 3 a.m. in Santa Rosa. We stopped to dip in Lake Havasu, where the Colorado river passes through, to beat the 115 degree heat at lunch time.

We arrived in Phoenix at dinner time where it was now 116 degrees while talking with locals about Bernie’s platform, unions and our Constitution. The haves had A/C while the have nots did not. We stayed with an former IBEW electrician member who was told he could not come back to work at a power station after falling many stories, breaking his back during ’89 quake at its epicenter. Now he works IT from home with his underemployed wife.

Then it was off to the Grand Canyon and Flintstones Park where water rights and solutions, including conservation, water tables restoration and desalination/treatment, hit home, being a big issue back home in CA. We also talked about protection of First Nation Peoples and National Park assets with locals while slapping Bernie bumper stickers on many, many gas stations and power poles in our path. Flagstaff is another beautiful place full of conscious people where we stayed the night.

Our final stop was Las Vegas, where the inequality is stark. As you know, the work force for the haves’ playground lives in ghettos, outside of the proverbial silver sandbox. These workers didn’t know Bernie’s name, let along his fight for a $15 p/hr for a living wage! However, after talking with most of them, we were promised their votes for Bernie Sanders for president in 2016. This was a common trend throughout our five-day day trip. People loved his ideas once they got good information. As you know well, the entrenched media gives very little coverage of Bernie while keeping his platform as quite as possible from these working class people.

Our group saw the Blue Man group that night. Before the house lights went down the audience was quiet as we narcissistically drank our booze waiting to be wowed. What was really great about the experience was the entire structure of the two-hour show was to get people united. In unison we read funny things from rolling teleprompters while we laughed with our neighbors. By the end of the show we are all standing up dancing covered in streamers, basking in drum rhythms trying to make sense of the dozen huge white beach balls in the black light and strobe.

We saw this Vegas showroom as a metaphor for information dissemination in our country today. People of the 99% numb with the vice that is booze and gambling trying to make sense of the sensory overload. Through laughter and a common beat we acted together defending our neighbors and ourselves from heavy white balls of influence from the 1%. Walking out of the show past the cocktail waitress and the slot machines, strangers were talking and laughing about what just happened. Our country is full of such open, joyful people sampled in Las Vegas and all over, everyday. We just need to sober up, save our assets and talk to each about our opinions moving forward as a people. Someone like Bernie can help us truly turn the corner together.

We have tons of photos happy to share for your blog.

Thank you kindly for your interest,
John Gonsalves, 36 years old
Santa Rosa, CA