Raging Grannies and Electric Cars

The Raging Grannies are a general activism organization.. I first ran into them at the 2004 San Francisco Autoshow which I'd attended because ZAP was first demo'ing their idea to import SMART car to the U.S. The link is to my long report on that day which might make some interesting reading. I was wandering the show floor trying to understand how people can be so turned on by engines, and off in the distance I heard a commotion. I went over that way, it was the corner of the show where GM was showing off the Hummer's, and heard these people chanting "Hummers not Hybrids" and saw a bunch of people dressed in pink, some standing on top of one the Hummers, holding banners talking about Hybrid vehicles, and this taunting scene going back and forth with challenges about who is more patriotic etc. I don't understand how patriotism means burning lots of oil, but that's what some were accusing the Code Pink and Raging Grannies people, of being unpatriotic for challenging these other peoples "right" to be pigs about wasting fuel and mucking up the environment.

Anyway, I knew I'd found "my people" at the show, and followed them as the gendarmes got them down off the Hummers and led them out of the building.

- David Herron, http://davidherron.com/