Hundreds attend 17th annual Progressive Festival in Petaluma

The 17th annual Progressive Festival in Petaluma’s Walnut Park sold burritos, beans and rice Sunday to help support the event, but the main menu consisted of ideas, issues and information.

Several hundred people turned out to browse nearly 50 booths offering books, pamphlets, buttons and bumper stickers dealing with concerns regarding the environment, education, immigration, homelessness, social justice and more.

“By the time people get elected to public office, they’re several steps removed from the rest of the people,” said Chuck Shear, one of the organizers of the free event.

“We offer a perspective that is more grassroots and egalitarian,” he said. “We cover everything from local city politics to national and international issues.”

Booths included one for Truth 9-11, offering cookies and promoting fuller disclosure of the facts about the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Other booths represented the American Civil Liberties Union and the Green Party of Sonoma County.

“I like to look at the reading material at all of the booths, and listen to all the speakers,” said Rose Saint John of Geyserville, who has participated in Occupy Santa Rosa and other activist campaigns. “I come to this festival to hear what you don’t usually hear.”

The featured speaker of the day was Texas progressive political activist Jim Hightower, author of multiple books and host of a nationally syndicated radio show, scheduled near the end of the five-hour program on Walnut Park’s outdoor stage.

Festivalgoer Bill Frater of Santa Rosa came for the live music as much as anything else, he said, as the Bootleg Honeys band took the stage.

“Everybody has a cause, but mostly it’s preaching to the choir,” he said as he scanned the crowd.

The festival has a practical application, Shear said. Activists can get signatures for petitions and protests, seek donations and recruit volunteers.

You can reach staff writer Dan Taylor at 521-5243 or dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com.