Slaughterhouse-Five

John Whitehead grew up on a farm -- a cattle ranch in Nevada, actually, where cows are raised for meat. This experience, he says, hasn't turned him into a thoughtlessly cruel mouth-breathing hick, as it has done to others. Instead, it's given him a chilling metaphor with which to get at the meaning of civil life in the United States. "I've been seeing the parallels between America and the cows for too long," he says, which sounds funny until he finishes his sentence: "I didn't want my 8-year-old rounded up and sent to the slaughter."

anna kuperberg

Reva Enteen: Challenging the herd mentality.

Details

Saturday, April 26, from noon to 5 p.m.

Admission is $5

575-5542

SomArts Cultural Center, 934 Brannan (at Eighth Street), S.F.

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More About

• John Whitehead
• Sheilah O'Dell
• Roberto Leni
• John Judge
• Evelyn Fielden

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Even before the war in Iraq broke out, Whitehead decided he couldn't sit idly by, and began to organize. "It's a response to post-9/11 America, post-election year, when we had our president selected for us. We've had a challenge to democracy unlike any other," he says, and cites isolation and apathy as serious obstacles to a healthy political system. "The Politics of Fear," a discussion on a subject that affects us all, is the surprising result of his awakening.

Far from the usual lineup of "inspirational" political types, musicians, and poets, the speakers here are people who can do more than preach to the choir. They're authorities on their subjects and survivors of severely repressive regimes, and they have practical, useful information to share. "These people are real experts," says Whitehead, "not just people who have opinions." John Judge, a political investigator, Reva Enteen of the National Lawyers Guild, and Sheilah O'Dell, private eye and surveillance expert, join two people with firsthand knowledge about resisting repression: Evelyn Fielden, a witness to the Holocaust, and Roberto Leni, who experienced the Pinochet regime in Chile.

Whitehead says he feels as confused and as powerless as the next guy, but he has an extra sense of urgency, culled from watching those cows. He hopes that after this event, people will overcome their fear and work together, "before they close the gates behind us and we can't get out."