April 19, No Kings Galesburg

Here are some pictures from the Saturday rally in Galesburg.

I asked around and the general consensus was, about 350, same as two weeks ago. It appeared to be mostly the same people, too. In the center of town, more drivers saw us, and most of them honked approval. The day was nice, not too hot or cold, very spring-like.

I get a little charged up when I'm pulled over by the police. Of course it brings up a few memories. But I'm reasonably sober these days: haven't drunk in over forty years, and don't get high even except maybe every few years or so. In any case, I was quite sober tonight.

But as I pulled out onto highway 150 at about ten o'clock, according to the policeman, I swerved across the line. That sounds like something I would do, I said, and I told him how my small car tends to swerve a bit even when I'm sober. It blows in the wind. I have to concentrate. So I admitted as how I might be guilty and he said he'd check my license and maybe write me a warning.

I had to get out of the car, because my cochlear implant battery had died and it was impossible for him to talk to my left ear, and impossible for me to turn around enough to use the right one. He seemed to have enough of a view of what was in there to not be suspicious though. Really I only had one teen who wouldn't look away from his phone.

It occurred to me that the teen, who we've been fostering, could have had enough issues himself that he didn't want to get involved. It could have been that he was not squeaky clean either and just didn't want to let on. It occurred to me that I really didn't know, but that I knew my own end, me and my car, we were clean. So as I stood there, I told him how I'd just seen him at the convenience store, where I was buying four sodas, one for my son and one for each boy I've been fostering or taking care of, and I think by the time he heard that he decided I wasn't worth bothering with. He was looking for a DUI. I was not a DUI. He pretty much said that.

I actually like most of the policemen I've met around here. They don't seem to have that jaded meanness that they do in other places. They do their job but they're also willing to let you go if they pulled you over by mistake, which has happened to me twice now. I swear they might just be pulling me over because they don't know me. Three years here, on highway 150 six times a day, maybe they just want me to prove I'm not trouble. But that's ok. The way I see it they're doing their job and as long as they're not out there targeting me or making me angry I'm ok with it. Maybe they just want to see how I respond to their flashlight all over me.

Not sure if this guy was Knoxville or Galesburg; he could have been either or they could be the same at 10:00 pm. He seemed to accept my explanation that I was from Galesburg and my boys were out in Knoxville. Glad it was me, not them. They're dying to get cars and are as irresponsible as God makes 'em.

Hands Off

The Hands Off rally in Galesburg on April 5 was a success in my view.

I saw over a hundred people there, maybe two or three hundred, though I'm no expert at counting or crowd estimation. It seemed like a lot for a busy town, though Carbondale, which is much smaller, had six or seven hundred in the pouring rain. Galesburg is a busy town, a working-class town, in my view, so when people actually come out for something like this, it's because they need to say something. That was certainly true for me.

I saw signs going in many different directions. A couple about Ukraine (mine was Greenland), a lot about social issues, one even mentioned the 401k (by the way, 401k holders lost as much as $50,000 on the day before simply because of the TH-FR-MON crash, the first two days had wiped out trillions of dollars. Hands off our retirement! Most of my friends, like me, are just coming into looking forward to a few years of kicking and using the money they'd saved over fifty years or so (unlike me; I was unable to save anything, really) - now they are in my boat, old and struggling. And angry.

I am personally more angry about the fascist tendencies, and the disregard for law, courts, and constitution. My next sign will say "I believe in the Law, the Courts, and the Constitution." Perhaps the police, knowing me, will laugh. But to me that's a big issue and I saw that, a little, on the signs. Lots of interesting signs.

You can use other sites to survey the kinds of things people said nationwide. It's a general concern 1) whether anyone notices or does anything as a result, and 2) whether the goons will come after us knowing they will be pardoned, knowing they're free from retribution. Personally, I feel that since everyone's a trillion or two poorer, a certain amount of protest willl likely be tolerated; they've got bigger problems on their plate than coming after some of us common people expressing our displeasure. But more important, I can't watch the dismantling of our democracy and do nothing. Someday we will look back on this time and say, what did you do when they were taking democracy away from you? Didn't you speak up??? I want to be able to say yes, loudly whether it did any good or not.