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Eating Political Fruit at Art Schwartz' table

If you take a pleasant stroll on Saturday morning in Santa Barbara, and happen to be at the intersection of Cota and Santa Barbara streets, you will find a horde of people in the corner parking lot. If you make your way there, wondering what was going on, you will find lots of little stalls with some exquisite produce. Fresh vegetables, fruits, flowers, nuts, oils, eggs and even pies. You've arrived at one of Santa Barbara's farmers markets. Someone may hand you a slice of peach, and you will taste flavors you could never have experienced from store-bought fruits.

If you meander past the stalls, you may find yourself at a table with no produce. Instead of baskets of tomatoes, peppers, avocados or cherimoya, you will find stacks of petitions, bumper stickers and lots of posters. Peer a little closer, and you will find President Bush with a Pinocchio-like nose, a President Bush talking doll and voter registration forms among other paraphernalia.

You've happened on the table of Art Schwartz -- a veteran activist whose total preoccupation is politics of the leftist persuasion. And this is not a diluted, little left-of-center, pragmatic, Kerry-supporting, anyone-but-Bush kind of a "left". It is a no-holds-barred, non-apologetic, radical left -- the kind that would display a doctored photograph of Bush with Osama's turban and proclaim Bush to be the world's biggest terrorist.

If Art happens to lock in on you, you may have to take your sensitivity, and put it in your pocket or purse for safe keeping. Even if you agree with his politics, you will be challenged by Art to do more, to take action, to sign his petitions, to wear his buttons (which sometimes he will hand out free), to have him tack on a yellow sticker to the front of your shirt (which may say something like, "Bush lies and people die"). You may desist, not wanting any of your clothing accoutrements to offend friends or acqaintances holding different opinions. You may want to play it safe, or cool, above all the nasty politics.

As you gently decline, Art will hand out more things to you, invite you to more events, ask you if you'd like to volunteer to sit at his table. You feel bad saying no, but you also feel bad saying yes. So, you start looking around, hoping he'll take a hint, hoping that someone will come over thereby distracting him from his attention to you. Or, you may just get pissed off and leave in a huff, fretting and fuming at his methods, believing there are better ways of informing and educating people about the truth.

Of course, if your politics is on a collision course with his, you may not even stop at his table. You may hang out at a nearby stall pretending to check out those purple cauliflowers. As the farmhand behind the counter is assuring you that the cauliflowers are edible, you may let your eyes roam over Art's merchandise. You may wonder, is this even legal? Can he call President Bush a murderer or a terrorist? And how dare he? Does he not have any respect for the flag? The gall of this man -- he has replaced the stars in the flag with the corporate logos of McDonald, Exxon-Mobil, Enron, etc. You may fret and fume, and you may even call the office of the Farmers market to complain. How can they allow this? Do they not have any decency? No respect for this great country and the bedrock principles of freedom and democracy it stands for?

Apparently, something like this happened recently. On the Saturday before the festivities of summer solstice, an angry voice mail set off a cold front in paradise. The voice mail was from a man claiming to be a "full-blown liberal" who had happened to be at the Saturday farmers market. According to him, Art was so loud and angry in yelling that President Bush was a murderer that his children began crying. He ended his call without identifying himself, but promising never to set foot in the market again.

The voice mail was received by Laurence Hauben, the Executive Director of Santa Barbara Farmers Market. She dashed off an email to Art threatening, "If you continue to cause a disturbance, I will expel you from the market." She then went to personally talk to him. Art however said that he had no recollection of such an encounter. No one has come forward as yet to corroborate the caller's version of the story.

This is not an unusual turn of events with Art. Even people with his politics disagree strongly with his methods. And needless to say, Bush-supporters find him offensive. And when public gathering places threaten to eject him, he's hard-pressed to find supporters. Undeterred, he still makes his way to each market event, whether on State Street, Tuesdays or in the city parking lot, Saturdays, taking an hour to set up his table and then an hour to dismantle it and make his way home. He is a grandfather who has served in the military (ask him about this, and he will display the bullet holes in his torso). Yet, his attitude with passers-by can hardly be called grandfatherly. Unlike Brooks Firestone whose deameanor is so grandfatherly that his opponents find him easy to be friendly with, even some of Art's fellow activists find it hard to support him.

When asked, Laurence Hauben will say that it is not the content of Art's material which bothers her, it is the way that Art chooses to deliver his message. To me, the pertinent question is: should his rights be marginalized because he or his methods are not likable? It is very easy to support a nice guy who has been violated -- people will immediately rally to his cause. But take someone like Art who can be obstreperous in his quest to convince passers-by of the causes he espouses, then people start having second thoughts about taking a stand on his behalf. Then also, there is the issue of the Farmers Market, a gathering that is so precious to regulars (including me), that many worry about tarnishing it with the slightest whiff of impropriety.

I would say farmers markets in their very presence and popularity are making as political a statement as Art does -- when he proclaims Bush a liar -- by denouncing the values of modern agriculture, its corporate underpinnings, its unquestioning faith in chemical pesticides and fertilizers to make the land submit to its bidding for more profits instead of seeing the land as a living partner which must be preserved for this and future generations.

If the Farmers Market can be considered political, isn't preserving free speech an important ingredient? And more importantly, should free speech be judged by the form with which it is delivered? Should we censor rap because it is too angry, too vulgar, too black? If Art's delivery doesn't exceed the bounds of legality into the realm of slander, why should he be censored? Or is preserving a "pure" experience for the shoppers of the market, shading their eyes from any color of politics and having their minds completely occupied by the scent of lavender, the redness of the plums and the genial hubub of community, that paramount a concern.

I suggest that people are capable of discerning what's important to them. If someone doesn't believe in Art's politics, they will walk by his table ignoring his message. The same goes for someone who doesn't like his methods or approach. And if someone is so insulted by his politics or his methods, then they should exercise their free speech rights with as much passion as Art does and set up an opposing table next to his. As for the others who do stop at his table and enjoy bantering with him, he provides them as serendipitous an experience of engagement in the political process as the Farmers Market does of community in a tourist's haven.