Tag: #Anti-trump unrest

Worker’s Over Billionaires Protest

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Worker’s Over Billionaires Protest

Worker’s Over Billionaires Protest

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”                                                                                                                                                  

By David L. Shadrick

This was our fourth protest in a season of protests. As usual Darlene, Vajra, John, and myself parked ourselves on our favorite bench under our favorite shade tree on 6th Street, Grants Pass, Oregon, kitty corner from the county courthouse. The turnout for the Worker’s over Billionaires rally was good, but not great.

I can also report that the opposition turnout, in deep red southern Oregon, was close to microscopic. I counted two rabid Trumpers in the crowd; one flipped me off and the other one, a jogger, stopped in front of my wheelchair and called me a “horrible person” and then accelerated his pace and headed to the safety of 7th street. Other than than those two events things were cool. We got lots of positive comments on our signs, in fact several folks stopped to take a selfie with me.

INDIVISIBLE came through with a new stereo system for our rally. It was cool being able to actually hear the speakers and some great music.  John and Vajra wandered through the crowd checking things out; they told us about a group way up on the other side of the street out of our field of vision that were causing a ruckus. It seems they wanted to protest FOR pedophilia. Holy smokes, I can see why that might cause a fight or two. I suspect they were just a bunch of Trump supporters being A-holes, trying to stir up some shit.

Despite the smaller size of the Labor Day protest in our little town, I will admit that in Grants Pass it was very hot and there were a lot of folks out of town for the last week-end get-away before school started.  With that said, we need to increase the pressure on Trump and his allies. We need to tell ‘ol Donnie Boy we are not going to stand for his masked thugs disappearing people from American streets, putting billionaires on the government dole when poor Americans are having health care and even food benefits snatched away. This isn’t ‘effin Russia, yet.

If these protests are going to have the intended impact they need to be getting bigger and bigger not smaller.  In my mind, turnout is imperative to keeping Trump’s attention. We can’t weaken or tire now; we have another 3 and a 1/2 years of  the Trump despot show. We can’t give in, give up or surrender to this lawless president and his corrupt allies; our freedom is literally at stake.

**Quote by Edmund Burke

Street View, NO Kings Protest

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Street View, NO Kings Protest

Street View, NO Kings Protest

By David L. Shadrick

Darlene, John, Vajra, and I arrived at the NO Kings protest at 9:55 for the 10 o’clock start. There was already a huge crowd of loud and noisy citizens. John was pushing my wheelchair, while Darlene, Vajra, and I, carried our signs, musical instruments and water.

The Josephine County Courthouse, just happens to be directly across 6th Street from the Republican Party headquarters. During the three previous protests, the Trumpers could only marshal 3 or 4 pro Trumpers to yell insults in our direction. Today, however, the Trump supporters, numbered as many as a dozen, carrying American flags and Trump Won Signs.

There wasn’t an inch of sidewalk space to be had on either side of the street due to NO Kings protesters crowding even the area in front of the Republican Headquarters. As we thought through  our options Darlene noticed a shady spot with an unoccupied bench a block down 6th Street on the Republican side of the street, not exactly in the middle of the action but the location made us a visible commodity, quite visible in fact.

I grabbed my trusty 8647 sign, my goat horn, and then rolled out onto the sidewalk where my sign could be easily seen by the slow moving and horn honking traffic. I could hear John and Vajra drumming while  Darlene rang her cow bell. We were basically a block down the street from the biggest part of the crowd when a dour looking Trumper made his way through the densest part of the crowd, heading in my direction. When he got close he said with a sneer, “Your sign is disgusting.”

I replied, “What’s disgusting are cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and Veteran’s benefits.”

After several minutes of harassing a disabled veteran  in a wheelchair he bent down close to my face and repeated, “your sign is still disgusting,” before retreating south toward the Wunder Bar.

The next Trumpers came in a gang of three, walking through the same crowd of protesters, without saying a word, making a bee line straight for me, apparently my 8647 sign really ticked them off. The first man, suggested quite irritably, that I “should go back to (my) pathetic life.” Before I could answer, I was interrupted by the second Trumper in the group, who was seemingly a decent person. He asked me why I was protesting and I told him that the cuts to all the safety net programs were going to force me to sleep in the street or on his couch. “Ok, well, I can understand that might be a problem,” he said, before he walked on. The third person in the group was a nicely dressed woman who suggested she liked “ice in (her) soda,” to Darlene who was waving a sign that said, “I.C.E. is best C-R-U-S-H-E-D.  After their interaction with us, the three simply got in a car and drove away.

While I was eagerly blowing my goat horn, another Trumper ran up in front of me and whipped out a megaphone from behind his back, and began chanting, “GO TRUMP, GO TRUMP, GO TRUMP” to which I yelled, “and you go with him.” From behind me I heard a chorus of voices, led by Darlene, chanting, “8647, 8647, 8647.” The volume of the chant grew and the increasing furor sent the megaphone master retreating back to the safety of the six remaining Trumpers securing the Republican headquarters.

An old white guy, in a battered pickup slowed down to yell “fuck you,” as he passed.

“Is that the only word you know?” I demanded at the top of my lungs.

He again repeated the “fuck you” insult.

And I repeated, “is that the only word you know?”

The third time he said, “fuck you,” I again repeated my question, “is that the only word you know?”

The frustrated old fart, gunned his truck engine, and headed down the street, after tossing, “asshole,” in my direction; at last proving, even Trumpers know more than two words.

Another Trump friendly driver, waved his two middle fingers in my direction before causing his rig to belch a huge cloud of black diesel smoke, leading protestors close by to cough, sputter, and spit. I ignored him.

The middle finger salutes, the cursing, the belching trucks, the negativity, the insults, all came from the MAGA crowd. Not one person on the No Kings protestors side was rude or insulting to anyone, certainly not to the first wheelchair bound person they could find.