Ode to Noam Chomsky

On a frigid January evening, a line of maybe a few thousand people stretched around the campus auditorium. Many had never heard of the aging professor who was there to speak, but they knew he was a big deal--the Washington Post headlined him in their "to do" pages as the voice of anti-capitalism, as someone whose ideas had definitely reached their time.

The crowd was diverse: college students who wanted to see what the buzz was about, aging hippies, people who had taken the Metro from the Occupy encampment, professors, suburbanites. More than half the crowd would be turned away, without seats or even standing room.

I like to think that many of them were like me--people who had spent way too many years feeling out of touch with a country they no longer recognized. People who had not only suffered through Bush, but also through Reagan, who had a vague feeling that things would never be right again, that even "hope and change" weren't enough. I like to think that there is a groundswell of people who want what they're not now getting--justice, fairness, sane policies toward our health and earth and each other.

In the end, I wasn't in line soon enough to hear Professor Chomsky's thoughts on "anti-capitalism." I hope I get another chance. What I took away from the hour I spent in line waiting, however, was just as thought provoking. And, maybe, even more hopeful.