Dove Feathers in the Dust

Suppose you gave a peace movement and nobody came?

That’s the state we’re in now that the Cold War is over and hardly anyone is worried about nuclear missiles falling from the skies.

Well, yes, there’s that situation in Bosnia where children are dying in the snow, but since that doesn’t threaten us directly we can accept a little, you know, hell-raising here and there.

Everyone on this side of the old Iron Curtain cheered when the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union fell apart. The threat of annihilation was suddenly as cold as yesterday’s soup. But peace has its dark side, too.

For one thing, more than 100,000 defense and aerospace workers in L.A. County have lost their jobs because we don’t need all those guns and fighter jets and missiles anymore.

And Yakov Smirnoff, the Russian immigrant who used to make a living poking fun at Communism, has had to retool his shtick to embrace in-law jokes. Is there anything sadder?

I’m not saying peace is hell, but it comes close.

Even Jerry Rubin is looking for work. I know I said he was a publicity hound and I’d never mention his name again, but this is different. The guy has only $2 to his name and the wolf is at the door.

You remember Rubin. He’s our most visible peace activist. As director of L.A.’s Alliance for Survival, he was to international crisis what seismologist Lucy Jones is to earth tremors.

Whenever hawks rattled sabers, Rubin was on the tube waving dove feathers, and we cheered his efforts. But nobody’s cheering anymore, and the dove feathers are lying useless in the dust.

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The peace movement has been falling apart for about two years now, ever since the Soviet Union died, but it wasn’t until last New Year’s Eve that Rubin realized he had to find work.

Only 40 people showed up at the Alliance for Survival’s annual peace party. In the past, as many as 300 came, paying $20 at the door for an evening of food and entertainment. It was the alliance’s biggest fund-raiser of the year, and it flopped.

“We had a good time and sang ‘Auld Lang Syne,’ but my heart was broken,” Rubin said the other day. “No one came. It was over.”

The impact was more than psychological. As full-time director of the alliance, Rubin took half of its profits from various events to support himself. His share amounted to about $6,000 a year; not enough to maintain a lifestyle of the rich and famous but, with a working wife, an adequate amount.

The New Year’s Eve flop proved that no one is interested in peace movements anymore. But that was just one indication. Rubin has seen attendance at most alliance functions drop by 70%.

“There’s $2 left in my bank account,” he said in a tone usually reserved for those announcing the horrors of war rather than the horrors of peace. “I had to sell bumper stickers on the beach to pay the phone bill.”

Every peace group is suffering, Rubin says. “It’s not just us. Staff members are being laid off, and there are no retirement benefits. The movement just isn’t popular anymore. I’ve got to find a real job.”

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That’s not going to be easy for a guy who’s 50 and graying. Rubin has become a metaphor for the peace movement itself, growing older with limited options.

No one’s going to care that he’s worked 14 years on behalf of peace. Where do you put on a resume that you’ve gone to jail five times and fasted 15 times to help make everyone aware of the dangers of war? How do you measure the impact of marches and banners and buttons and bumper stickers? You don’t get the Nobel Prize for being a little guy out there in a corner of the world waving dove feathers.

“Look at me,” Rubin said disconsolately. “I’m a 50-year-old high school dropout with no skills. Well, actually, a high school kick-out. I don’t type, I can’t drive and I don’t hear too well. Who’s going to hire me?”

He’s got a point. When I asked what kind of a job he was looking for, he wasn’t even sure of that. He applied at some department stores, but was turned down. He’d rather not sell shoes anyhow.

He wants to consult or maybe have his own talk show, but both possibilities seem remote. Whatever happens, he’s going to stay with the alliance, probably on a weekend basis, and try to turn it toward the environmental movement.

“Peace isn’t a fad,” he said. “It’s a lifetime commitment. But I’ve got to eat.”

I’m not sure how you thank someone who once marched with crowds and now walks alone. I’m not sure how you say “you mattered.” But if it’s any consolation, Jerry Rubin, you did matter. Too bad that isn’t enough to pay the rent.