From mostly lurker Rustypickup in Rochester, New York:
Another lurker – marshstars at the United States Customs House in Charleston, South Carolina. We had 400 or more people there. The pic mostly shows those on the steps—the early/ on time arrivals. The event was organized late so it was a good showing. Great vibes! No hecklers. Closest other ones were Myrtle Beach, Columbia, & Savannah, Ga.
From MoebiusKlein in San Francisco. Look how far that group reaches!
Another mostly lurker, mg_65 in New York City. There’s a dog just for Balloon Juice jackals! Again, not all the photos.
From Joy in FL. The photo is from Spring Hill in western Florida.
From JoJo in Milwaukee. Here we are in blazing 100 degree heat, in front of Sen. Ron Johnson’s office in downtown Milwaukee. I’ve been to a lot of protests in this location, but this was the first one that shut down the street.
Good to see so many lurkers emerging! More to come! Might be tomorrow morning.
zhena gogolia
Fabulous pictures and signs!
Teddys Person
That first pic melted my heart [insert heart emoji]
Patricia Kayden
That last photo though!! Kids in cages should never be considered normal. We have a barbaric administration which wants to make using kids as a bargaining chip seem normal.
Mary G
Chrissy Teigen delivered a real stemwinder at the march in LA:
john
There were so many people in Chicago today.
Enough to hold the circle from Daley plaza to Balbo and back….
How does one send photos?
HumboldtBlue
So many decent people.
sheila in nc
A couple hundred here in Chapel Hill, NC. No counterprotesters. Even the police were on board. Several of us worked to register voters, and I handed out my slips of paper with the start date for early voting! Our excellent Congressman was there, gave us all the rundown on the inadequate “bipartisan” legislation that was still torpedoed by this White House. Administration has no interest in solving this problem.
Sorry, no pics, but it was a nice, chill, multi-race, multi-generational crowd. Very hot morning but we were all pumped anyway.
The Dangerman
Running on keeping families together is complete and total win. And I still wish someone would ask if someone seeking asylum off a boat from Cuba should be treated in the manner others have been treated. Go ahead, Trump, lose the Florida Cuban vote.
That said, running on abolishing ICE is stupid. Not saying ICE can’t use some SERIOUS reform, but reform doesn’t mean elimination. It’s a losing argument in an environment that is otherwise nothing but win.
cain
Apparently, we had a riot after the Portland protests were over at 1pm. The counter protest (what the fuck?) was violent, they came prepared to do war.
chris
@cain: Patriot Prayer and proud boys claimed to hold a free speech rally while wearing helmets and body armour. Local anti-fa group took exception. A good thing I think, Nazis should be afraid to show their faces in the public square.
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/police-deem-dueling-protests-riot-in-downtown-portland/283-569513207
Nelle
No photos but, in Lawrence, KS, more homemade signs than I’ve ever noticed before. The paper said that there were 700, more than I thought. Very very hot and everyone was clustered under shade trees for the rally that kicked off the march so it was hard to get a sense of the crowd size. I’m waiting for a hip replacement and can’t go far so we went into a pizza place with a counter facing the street so that we could watch the march go by. My husband went to get some cold drinks. The man at the counter said, Are you with the march? We said, “yes.” He said, “No charge for the drinks. Thanks.”
MobiusKlein
@The Dangerman: For me, “Abolish ICE” is shorthand for “ICE as currently constituted is unfixable, staffed by folks steeped in anti-immigrant sentiment. Start over.”
chris
There were over 700 marches today. Well done, America! Keep it up.
Cheryl Rofer
@john: Send them to me, Cheryl (at) nucleardiner (dot) (com).
efgoldman
@The Dangerman:
Wrong. That’s a “you’re protesting rong” statement.
Probably won’t happen, but it’s good to run on in blue or marginal districts. That’s how wewin those.
debbie
@chris:
Five bucks says Monday morning, Glenn Beck will be condemning Antifa as thugs.
Rustypickup
@Nelle: We were at the Rochester rally (hey, I’m a sometime lurker!), and the city is also having their big annual jazzfest this week so parking was at a premium. I figured to make it easy and just park in one of the garages and cough up the $7 event parking fee. Pulled in, guy collecting saw our signs on the seat and said we were all set, no charge.
JanieM
Especially love the “Do all lives still matter” sign from MoebiusKlein’s set.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: It also makes a bunch of sensible changes to immigration enforcement become a reasonable compromise position instead of a a radical, open borders position.
Mike J
@Omnes Omnibus: My position is a straight up swap of the leader of MS-13 for Donald Trump. Of course it’s just me being absurdist, but I honestly believe the US would come out ahead on the bargain.
If a Tree Falls
Went to the rally in Greenville, SC. About 250 people showed up. Was late to the party because of a map engine mishap, but that wasn’t an entirely bad thing, given how hot it was. Brought duct tape to effect repairs in the field in case of sign failure, but I didn’t have enough sense to bring water or sun tan lotion. My sign had the grim and unsmiling message of “YOU WILL NOT TORMENT KIDS IN OUR NAME.” Considered using “This isn’t what Jesus meant when he said to suffer the children”, but I wasn’t in the mood to be cute.
A smiling attendee told me not beat anybody up with my foam core as he passed by. The lady next to me wished aloud for some tape to fix her sign to a baby carriage and was astonished when I immediately produced the roll of duct tape in my pocket. Walking back to my car from the rally, I heard a young girl behind me telling her friends that she came because she wanted to be with like-minded folks and that she had been thinking a lot about Nazi Germany and what would she have done. My sentiments exactly. I wish I had turned around and told her so.
Favorite sign: “I love my country, but we really need to start seeing other people.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike J: I’ve had a couple of drinks, but, fuck it, I’m in.
MobiusKlein
@JanieM: that was mg_65’s pic.
I have a ton, but don’t want to clog the front page.
Kelly
@chris: The Oregonian says there were twice as many antifa than the bad guys.
https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2018/06/portland_police_revoke_permit
cmorenc
Best protest sign of the day here at the Raleigh, NC march, which easily drew 10k+:
I submitted some photos of the raleigh march to BJ front pager Cheryl Rofer. BTW: the News and Observer, the primary paper for not just Raleigh but the entire central part of the state, had a long, quite sympathetic article about the march (at least in online versions, haven’t seen the Sunday paper yet) – didn’t give any official crowd size in the article, simply saying “thousands”. But the article contained lots of nice pictures and a video.
There were no counter-protesters present whatever that I could see or hear today in Raleigh. They must at least realize they need to stay hidden under a rock about this particular issue.
Patricia Kayden
@The Dangerman: ICE is a fairly recent creation. I see no problem with running on eliminating it. At the very least, it needs to be reformed so it’s no longer a tool to terrorize immigrants.
Fair Economist
4000 in Orange County CA, according to a cop monitoring the march. We had about 45 minutes of inspiring speeches focused on voting (yay!) followed by a mile walk to a detention center. With 4000 people shouting “Quit your job” at the ICE I think we got noticed. They had OC Sheriffs doing gate security – I guess the ICE knew to be scarce.
chris
@Kelly: Good, Nazis should be outnumbered. can’t wait to hear how frightened they were.
On that cheery note, good night all, you done good today.
Peale
@Omnes Omnibus: I suppose. Look, if one side gets to vote in a racist, unprepared, ill tempered, insecure, erratic toad because it wanted to “shake things up”, I see no reason why we should limit our choices to thoughtful men and women in suits to get us out of if. Plus I’d enjoy the idea that Trump would need to go through a “beat in” to initiate into his new role.
Omnes Omnibus
@Peale: Work with me…
JanieM
@MobiusKlein: Thanks for the correction . . . and, mg_65, nice pic.
Chetan Murthy
There was one bona-fide deplorable at the SF march. [As I walked by] Guy was yelling at a woman for her to take off her Mexican flag (which she’d apparently draped on her shoulders, but I didn’t notice) b/c “this is America” (ed: derp derp). Man, the chant of “shame shame shame” was deafening (I’m happy to say I participated). Cathartic to scream at that fuckwit. I bet I’m not the only one who felt that way, who finally had a chance to scream out his white-hot rage at what’s being done in our name. The guy was so clearly outnumbered, and the woman (short) was rarin’ to launch herself at him like a missile — a big (heh: black) cop was protectig the guy fro the woman, hhahahahahahahaha.
There was also a guy with a megaphone standing on his car yammering on about Jesus Saves and all, but the crowd walking by basically just jeered back a little — mostly for the fun of it, I think.
And. That. Was. It. Big march. Lotta kids. Lotta babies. Lotta old people. Really neighborly and disorganized (my sis said that these “community marches” are like that, as opposed to the union marches, which are pretty organized, b/c they know what they’re doing). Took forever to get started, b/c I think they planned for a -much- smaller crowd than they got.
I think a good time was had by all (except two yammerers). ha!
Mnemosyne
@Mary G:
Both she and John Legend were great — he performed Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” and another song I can’t remember.
I don’t know if Ruckus or VFX Lurker reported in from a previous thread, but the main issue with the LA event is that the march started before the speeches ended, because the speakers went on and on (and on). Maxine Waters probably got the biggest hand of all of the politicians, but Kamala Harris got a great welcome, too. We wandered off when Gavin Newsom did his speech. We got about halfway through Little Tokyo because we were starving and Ruckus and I were both limping, and then stopped for lunch with VFX Lurker and her friend.
Then came the shopping. Oh, Daiso. Why must you have so many cute stationery items at such little cost?
I finally got home about an hour ago — as usual, my extremely poor sense of direction sent me the opposite way from the Gold Line station, but I got there eventually. Just finished icing my knee.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
I did report on an earlier march thread.
Do we have to tie a string around your thumb for you to remember which way to go?
And I’ve seen this before. A retired guy and his wife used to work for me at events and she had the worst sense of direction on the planet. The best way to get her to end up where you wanted her to go was to give her the exact opposite directions. She’d still get one turn wrong but at least only one. What a sweetheart though. Stayed at their house one trip and met their daughter. Less than an hour later we told her dad that we’d fallen in love at first sight and were planing our wedding. She was around 30 at the time. Dad freaked out but we all started laughing too early. I don’t think he ever forgave me for that one.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
I am the exact kind of person that the Google Maps phone app was invented for, but did I think to check it before I started walking? Of course not.
Oh well. I got there eventually. I basically went in a huge circle and realized at the end of it that I should have turned right instead of left when I started out.
Fair Economist
Anybody else getting ‘site borked’ when trying to comment on the top post?
Mnemosyne
@Fair Economist:
FWIW, Adam deleted the original post and did a new one.
tobie
Juicers rock!
bago
Chicago turned out 50k…
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
My problem with google maps on the phone is that I need my readers to see any detail at all. Which means pulling the readers out if I want to use it. Of course I carry a pair in my back pack and another in the car and……
I am mostly lucky, with a good sense of direction and location. But it has failed me spectacularly on occasion. Not so much a bother when by yourself but if you are driving a group to a specific restaurant, in a town which you show up to once a year, and miss by several miles, it is a rather major pain in the something. It doesn’t even rate a laugh. And of course because you are in a somewhat strange town, lost and stupid, you aren’t going to fix the situation yourself pre google maps/cell phones.
mg_65
Thank you Cheryl and everyone. I marched and protested in 2003 against the Iraq war and it did no good whatsoever. Now things are so horrifying again that I have to do something — I donated money to causes and campaigns but I felt like I should get my body into the streets, so I did. At least the media is covering these marches. It’s heartening to see all the people taking a stand against this horror, especially other shy introverts. Cheers to the Balloon Juice community, you guys keep me sane!
mg_65
@JanieM: Thanks! I love that pic.
Matt McIrvin
@mg_65: In 2003, the Iraq war had 60-70% public support. Street demonstrations probably weren’t going to budge that; only reality could, and that took time.
This stuff doesn’t have majority public support–a majority are actually horrified by it. The demonstrations are illustrating that this is the extreme position of a minority that has seized power, probably in part because many people assumed they wouldn’t really do stuff like this. I’ve read lots of stuff about how total fascist takeovers only require 20% or 40% support or whatever, but it assumes that all the intensity of belief is on the fascists’ side.
Michael Bersin
In Columbia, Missouri:
Families Belong Together – Columbia, Missouri – June 30, 2018