CA Unions & Others Demonstrate In Support Of WI Protestors @ Capital |
|
| By: marymccurnin Saturday February 26, 2011 2:29 pm | |
Saturday I went to a demonstration at the capital in Sacramento in support of the Wisconsin Protestors. There were probably a couple of thousand people. Rather than tell you about it I have chosen to post photos.
(more after jump) . . .
Additional Image Added Sunday.
About MyFDL
MyFDL is the community site of progressive political blog Firedoglake. Anyone can participate by writing a diary, commenting on others’ diaries, or joining groups to find other people in your area. Content posted to MyFDL is the opinion of the author alone, and should not be attributed to Firedoglake.
News. Community. Activism.
Firedoglake is a member-supported organization.
Help us continue our work for as little as $45/year.
Tweet
45 Comments
Gotta love some of those signs.
The “Chop From The Top” one should be taken up as a battle cry everywhere.
And thanks for going, Mary.
SCHWEEEET! Recc’d by 1 zillion!
Very inspiring, thank you, Mary.
Recc’d.
About 1500 people rallied at the Civic Center in San Francisco. We saw the Chop at the Top sign there too. The sound system wasn’t working quite as well as it could have been but there were some inspiring words. A few Walker is a Koch Whore signs. Lots of Tax the Rich or Tax the Banksters.
A block away at the UN Plaza, there was a small rally in solidarity with the protesters in Libya, and there were sporadic groups of people on Market Street with signs and Libyan flags, down near Powell and Montgomery, where there were also a few people left over from the Uncut rally, I think (Bank of America is there).
THanks for representing us in Sacramento today. Those are great pictures. Makes me proud.
Recommended. And thank you, Mary!
I LOVE “CHOP From The TOP”!
Mahalo, Mary…! Luv’d the Koch sucker sign…! ;-)
thanks for attending and sharing pics, mary! recc’d
Great photos! Great signs. People are waking up!
wonderful photos – thanks for the report mary
recommended
Thank you, Mary — wonderful photos and signs.
CHOP FROM THE TOP is my favorite.
Gee ondelette! If I’d known you were going to be there, I would have proposed meeting for coffee after! Hope to meet you some time! (And I agree, the loudspeaker was a little weak. I was glad the last speaker encouraged folks to head over to the Libya rally.)
My fav too. :-)
Thanks, everyone!
Next time all three of us should go to SF. I miss it.
Good Work. Thanks Mary!
I’d suggest, as a sign for the next rally:
Jail the bankers and take their money!!
or Tax the bankers; that’s where the money is.
The NYCers like it too (photos).
The banksters and friends really do act like they are “pry it from my cold dead hands” types. Sick. Note that the banksters literally do run away when presented with guys wearing hard hats (video here) so the lying and bluff is very big with them.
Thanks to you marymccurnin for the snap shots.
Rise up Americans the future is calling on us to fight.
Thanks Mary; a campaign against the little Hoover commission is needed. Did a short search and couldn’t find any counter stories but did find this:
“Gov. Jerry Brown, in comments to the Legislature on Thursday, at least hinted at some areas he might be open to changing.
“I believe people should be working longer,” said the 72-year-old governor. “I think institutional memory is a good thing. I don’t have a problem extending how long people have to work.”
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/24/BAJQ1HU9IP.DTL#ixzz1F5KnbYTA
Loved the comment; working longer? How about just getting a job Guv Brown?
Gov. Moonbeam is an odd duck. When he was mayor of Oakland he turned out to be an authoritarian of sorts.
Mary, thanks!
Thanks Mary once again…Brown was terrible in Oakland.
Like I posted somewhere else,we did not get to this messy point with just the GOP thughery & trickery…you can bet many Democrats were right there helping the GOP put us in this crap heap.
I’m the second one from the bottom (with the cowboy hat). My wife and I drove from the SF Bay Area to Sacramento to express solidarity with Wisconsin. (Hey, if the Egyptian revolutionaries can order pizza for the strikers …)
For more about my sign, including downloadable PDFs and the message on the other side, check out the following:
http://mosquitocloud.net/protest-sign-for-rally-to-save-the-american-dream-2010-02-26-noon-local-time/
Do you remember me taking your picture? I told you that I had already gotten the image on the other side of the sign. Dude, I wish I had known it was you.
I think I do remember! I had also noticed someone earlier with a Firedoglake badge or press pass – was that you too? (I have borderline prosopagnosia and can’t always tell easily whether I’m seeing the same person again, or a different person.)
My sign got a lot of photo requests! :-) I wish however that I’d used a stronger stick in making the sign. This was my first street protest in over a decade, and I had forgotten the wind factor. Several times the wind bent the stick so far it nearly broke!
I loved the “WALK LIKE AN EGYPTIAN” jacket, too. Someone was holding small U.S. and Egyptian flags in the same hand – did you see that? The Jasmine Revolutions were frequently referenced in some way at the protest, and I intended to express solidarity with the Libyan revolutionaries, as well as the protesters in Madison. The scent of jasmine is wafting around the world!
Thank you, Mary! Great photos.
Mary, having been there, would you like to comment on this report in the Sacramento Bee?
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/02/27/3433814/sacramento-rallies-draw-foes-backers.html
The author, Denny Walsh, claims there were 400 protesters and 150 Tea Party counterprotesters there. I got a mailing-list email from Pat Blackwell-Marchant of MoveOn, commenting:
My wife – who has not yet been informed about Walsh’s report – had told me on the drive back from Sacramento that she estimated 2000 protesters and 100 counterprotesters, a ratio of 20:1 instead of the roughly 3:1 that would correspond to Walsh’s estimates. I was in the crowd and did not attempt a count myself, but 400 sounds wildly low to me based on what I saw.
Thanks Mary, Nice work.
I think that your wife is right. I cannot believe that report. I told Ron that I thought that there were between one and two thousand union supporters there and one hundred Tea Partiers. I saw the altercation between the groups. The Tea Partiers came into the union crowd and started yelling. Several of the union people yelled back. Then the police made the Tea Partiers go back to their side of the street. It all lasted about five minutes and didn’t seem to be a big deal. Looking at the comments on the SacBee page you would think a lot more happened.
Camellia Capital represent !
thank you for attending and sharing with us Mary rec rec rec
my hometown, a union town :D
I and attilathehen also attended. One nice OT sign was Free Bradley Manning. Maybe not so much OT anymore.
Great idea! Let’s make it happen!
I got a picture of that. I should have posted it.
Bravissimo! Bravissimo! I am proud of you and all of the other FDLers who put their money where their mouths are.
With dedicated people like all of you where might just be a speck of light at the end of this ongoing nightmare called demofascist/repubofascist America.
Again, thank you.
“I loved the “WALK LIKE AN EGYPTIAN” jacket, too.”
That was me(she said shyly).
I posted the Manning image.
Awesome
I went to the one on Tuesday (a couple news videos I posted). Saw a lot of people I know, and met a lot of first timers. Like one guy from Clear Lake or somewhere close to there. He said that was the first time he’s been to Sac, let alone any kind of rally. A lot of people brought signs, and a lot of people made signs as they were there. All good people
And the story in the Bee overestimated the number of the lunkhead Tea Partiers in that article too. They said there were something like 30, but in reality there were maybe at most 15
Wish I’d have known you were going Mary, I would have probably gone again
My friend Bill took more pictures here
I agree. I participated marginally in the altercation (the only one I was aware of) myself – I was careful not to step toward the Tea Partier (I only saw one of them) as some of the other protesters did, but I yelled “Read my sign!” and turned the sign so that side B faced the Tea Partier. That’s the side that reads:
I slept really late this morning, but my wife had already seen the Sacramento Bee report online. She sat on the sidelines throughout the protest and took extensive photography. She and I will shortly be examining the photos together. She agrees with me that the Bee‘s estimate of 400 protesters is ridiculously low. This may end up making an interesting case study in distortion of the news by the mainstream media.
This was the first time I had participated in a street protest in over a decade. The vigorous response to the Walker power grab is directly related to the Jasmine Revolutions, and is likely to be a watershed event in American politics. To be honest, I don’t especially like participating in street protests, but I felt this was really important, and it was time to stand up and be counted. (I just wish the count had been more accurate – that means you, Sacramento Bee!)
Great photos. I believe over 500 rallied in support of the WI & midwest Union workers in San Diego on a cold, rainy windy day (for San Diego). So the turn out in SoCal was pretty good. Also I believe several thousand rallied in Los Angeles in solidarity with the workers in the mid-west.
In San Diego, it got a lot of air time in the local “nooz,” which was, for the most part, pretty objective about it.
I didn’t hear anything about any counter-protests, so it doesn’t seem like there were any… and east San Diego county has always been huge bastion of the John Birch Society, which was started by the Koch brothers’ father.
I was there in SacTown, the union rank and file were NOT. There were 50-100 Max Tea Partiers across the street. Pro-union “Protestors” numbering 400-500 max was the guesstimation of myself and 3 others that ACTUALLY attended in support of the now beloved Cheeseheads. The turnout here was pathetic. More than a couple of union leaders in attendance, some speaking to the crowd, with virtually none of their rank and file there. Kinda makes ya wonder.
Really! Then Attilathehen and I stood right behind you for a little bit. If you saw a hipster duffus with a beautiful lady, likely you saw us.