"No Kings" March: Portland
A quick view of what folks here in the great Northwest think of the orange fascist.
Here in Portland, the protests found me before I even made an effort to get to the protests. I heard the dog barking and some horns honking outside. I looked out the front window and saw a “Families Against Fascism” march going by:
It was totally sweet to see so many multi-generational families going by. These parents are bringing their kids up right (or, as the MAGA folks would say, they’re “grooming” their kids). At the end of this parade of probably a couple hundred people, a family with two kids had five-gallon plastic buckets with them and those squeezee sticks that you use to pick up things, and they were picking up all the litter along the way.
Shortly thereafter, I headed to the bus stop a couple of blocks away to get the bus downtown to where the rally started. The normally 9/10ths empty bus was full of people of all ages heading to the rally, with more getting on at every stop.
Walking the few blocks toward the waterfront, it became clear just how vast the assembling crowd was going to be — people and signs as far as one could see. Lots of car horns honking, music playing, and an overall positive vibe.
“Portland is full of old hippies,” proclaims one of my dear friends. They/we were all at the march.
Clearly this protester had paid attention to the Congressional hearing last week, during which Howard Lutnick had his banana handed to him on a platter.
It may be difficult to tell from this pic, but there was a steady stream of people walking across the bridge to get to the rally.
Folks did not hold back their opinions of the tangerine TACO tyrant.
It’s encouraging to realize that these are scenes being replicated in thousands of rallies and marches all over the nation, and beyond. We are a nation in desperate need of hope and, if nothing else, these events remind us that there are millions of us. As several of the protest signs I saw said, “There’s more of us than there are of them.”
There have occasionally been days when I’ve rolled my eyes at the preciousness of Portland. Today is not one of those days. I’m grateful that I’m so fortunate to live somewhere with these values.
Somehow my last comment just ended, without any proofreading or my last sentences, but I wanted to say, "good job," to you. I also enjoyed the random posters everybody seemed to have handmade. Lots of talent across our country I noticed.
I hope you feel more emboldened, or happier, or as less concerned as I do, about our common issue of a Brave new world that we don't want for the future. I am looking forward to our own , "Nuremburg" trials, and we can start with cosplay Bondi, in a pink prison garb, sans makeup and guns.
Portland is the old/new bastion of hippies, for sure. Working one day in a candle factory, braless, putting wicks into votives with all girls and women from the same tribe, and the machine breaking down almost constantly, gave me a glimpse into that established, "laidback" lifestyle, back in 1971. I didn't go yesterday outside my door. Las Vegas has so much diversity that random people in the street are simply oppugnant, and, never, or rarely often on the same page. Also, since hearing that Wed evening people were arrested for demonstrating, my ebullience was tempered by my caution, and my own personal necessity of maintaining somewhat of a schedule for the next 10 days, as I currently live in a half-moved in place, and need to get mi vivienda organizado para mover a un otro nuevo apartmento, 130 steps away. I want to be, "I me home" by El 30th de Junio, so jail time, or a very heavy force, or even getting shot in the legs was mot on my agenda. And forget the big plane to El Salvador. No. No tengo tiempo.