Hands Off Protest - Rochester NY
What I Saw Today
My wife and I arrived a bit too late to the protest to see its beginning. But this fortuitous tardiness (due to an important family commitment) actually enabled us to see the size of the crowd, and to march with the group for about half a mile. This meant that we could actually gauge the demographics and read a lot of the creative signs.
My initial estimate of attendance would be between 3,000 and 8,000 people (on another gray Rochester day). We saw a vast array of ages, many different constituencies, some labor unions, and a veritable sea of humanity.
The first lesson I learned, philosophically, is that the advice to us in the opposition in the early days of the Republican Administration - to not be overwhelmed by how they were “flooding the zone” was, as I had intuited then, utterly incorrect. NEARLY EVERY OUTRAGE THIS ADMINISTRATION HAS COMMITTED WAS REPRESENTED - Librarians, Scientists, the Abducted International Students, Due Process, the Humanities (Humanity Needs the Humanities was a favorite sign of mine), Immigration, Tariffs, Health Care (including stopping Medicaid and Medicare support), Clear-cutting National Forests, Firing National Park Rangers, DOGE in general, Support for Ukraine, Palestine, Greenland, Panama, Canada (and there was a reporter we met from the Toronto Globe and Mail covering the event), Support for Reproductive Rights, Support for LGBTQI Rights, Anti-racism, Opposition to Anti-Semitism AND to the cynical use of Anti-Semitism, and - explicitly - opposition to Capitalism, Oligarchy, and the Abuse of the Nation by and for Billionaires. There were NO signs in support of either the Democratic or Republican party. They didn’t matter. But there were signs about the Constitution, Due Process, the Bill of Rights.
So WE THE PEOPLE can handle the “flooded zone” strategy of Project 2025. We can see this attack in and as a TOTALITY, and meet it with a TOTALITY OF OUR OWN.
The second thing I observed, philosophically, is that people are articulating what they are for, what they treasure - human rights, health care, libraries, peace, diversity. It is inchoate but I think it will come to clarity sooner rather than later.
The third thing is personal. I started crying. Rosa Luxemburg wrote “The revolution is magnificent; all else is bilge.” The first time I read that quote I had to look up what the word “bilge” meant. “Bilge” is the filthy stagnant water that gathers in the bottom of a boat. I felt that spirit again - the magnificence of people against the most irrelevant but toxic bilge. We can win, because we are fabulous - and really magnificent!
I just got back from a short hangout on El Camino in RWC (had a birding trip in E Bay in morning). Lots of very creative, witty, heartfelt signs. Car horns beeping, riders giving peace signs, some cars even carried signs. But it seemed to be almost all white people, albeit of all ages. I wondered if this is another form of “white privilege”, that people of color don’t feel they can safely join? I was very impressed with the numbers of people, especially as this was only one of many nearby.