On both Saturday April 5 and Saturday April 19 big crowds turned out to peacefully protest
what’s been going on in the White House since January. Big cuts to the VA, Medicaid,
Medicare, the National Parks, Head Start, Social Security, the IRS, and the elimination of the
Department of Education were all on people’s minds, and signs. More: disregard for the rulings
of the Supreme Court, disregard for the Constitution, disregard for the separation of powers.
The executive branch cancelling funds that had already been approved by Congress, the firing
of top scientists because their results prove that climate change is real, the cancellation of
money to USAid so that needy people won’t get their food or urgently needed medicines. Elon
Musk, a man not one person voted for, being given enormous power to unfairly fire an historic
number of Federal workers. All of this provoked righteous outrage. To use the words of John
Lewis, an icon of the Civil Rights movement, we were making “good trouble.”
These Federal employees were not fired to eliminate waste or bloat, as was claimed. Instead,
we protested because people were fired out of revenge and retribution. People are not willing to
see our democracy die, to be replaced by an oligarchy of billionaires. We stood out with our
signs because we must do something so that our voices are heard. Donald Trump’s alienating
our long time allies, while praising dictators, could be disastrous for all of us. His tariffs will
surely mean prices going way up, not down as he claimed before taking office. Many of us fear
for our country, and we are not going let our Constitution be trampled on. We will act.
I attended these two recent demonstrations, and estimates were that on April 5 about one
thousand people packed the borders of the sidewalk between the corner of Washington Street
and Hollis and the historic graveyard. It was part of a national movement that saw huge crowds
protesting in major cities all over the country. April 19th had none of the national publicity
beforehand, and still there were estimated to be 750 passionate souls out there. On both
Saturdays, the energy was palpable. There was music and chanting, and on the 5th one man
ran in front of the line many times carrying an American flag, shouting out “freedom” as call and
response. People driving by in cars were cheering us on, waving, honking their horns, and
giving us the thumbs up. I’ve never been so proud of our little town of only about 15,000 people.
The attached photographs only show a fraction of the signs being held high, and only show
crowds from April 19, so they don’t begin to capture the strength of this movement to take our
democracy back. We will continue to act.
Interesting, a “Press Release” littered with sentences that start with “I” and a lot of false statements right from the MSNBC talking point template. Sad to see wo many people wasting their time on such a beautiful Saturday afternoon.
That was my fault — I try to protect the identities of those who do not wish to be identified and in my view this was best left without a name. I’ve since updated it as the request of the original submitter.
It was not littered with “I” statements. There were two “I” statements: one about attending, and one about being proud. Those people chose to be there, and enjoyed the experience, so it certainly was not a waste of time.