This Friday evening, September 17, Colorado Springs activists can have their cake and eat it too. The Jim Hightower event and the Colorado Senate race debate are back to back. So it’s sheet cake.

Jim Hightower is still plugging his populist pun, The People Are Revolting, which may be true of the hoi polloi in the whimsical sense, but hardly describes their political momentum –unless you count the Tea Party and its pretend rebellion, if anything, a conservative counter-revolution to reinstate the tea tax. Though Hightower’s tales are getting as long in the tooth as his common super-citizens meant to serve as examples for us all, he’s still worth lots of laughs, and his material angers, even if it fraudulently attempts to raise hope. That’s at 4:45PM, at the Cornerstone Arts Building, the southern-most encroachment of the Colorado College campus.

At 6:30PM there’s a rally planned for outside Centennial Hall, where Michael Bennet will be debating Ken Buck for the US Senate seat. Democrats have organized to protest Buck’s campaign promise to privatize Social Security. A progressive group is supplying the placards which read “HANDS OFF MY SOCIAL SECURITY.” It’s a worthy message, but like all slogans pre-printed by the SEIU, it tempers the more appropriate syntax. “Hands off” should be “Do not steal.” The bid to swipe the public monies is more like pillage than misguided tinkering.

And will those attending the rally be directing their outrage at only the Republican nominee? What about Bennet, the Democratic incumbent, who’s already been doing Wall Street’s bidding without fail? Thorough activists might want to bring ther own signage, for example: TELL BOTH CORPORATE PARTIES: DON’T STEAL SOCIAL SECURITY or perhaps: PRIVATIZATION IS CLASS WARFARE.

Otherwise, both events are exercises in placating public unrest. This Friday evening you can pretend your voice is being heard by the senate candidates, while Hightower comforts you with stories of others who think they’re making a difference too.