About 80 people were at a pro-democracy rally in the Pioneer Valley town of Northfield on May 24, Al Norman told the Valley Post. Norman has lived in Greenfield for decades. He led a successful movement to keep Walmart out of Greenfield. He runs a group that has a web site at https://sprawl-busters.com.

The rally was outside a speech by the man who runs the Heritage foundation. The speech was at Thomas Aquinas College. In 2021 in Brattleboro, anti-abortion students from the college held several rallies outside Planned Parenthood. The college is ranked number one in the USA for "most conservative students" by the Princeton Review.

On May 20, the New York Times published a news article that says the Heritage foundation is working to crush the pro-Palestine movement in the USA. As of 2023, Heritage had $415 million in assets, according to ProPublica.

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On May 30, Democracy Now reported that, “Israel issued new forced displacement orders for residents of northern Gaza and parts of Gaza City as its genocidal assault on the Palestinian territory entered its 601st day.”

In Brattleboro on May 31 at noon there will be a rally to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. The rally will be outside the main post office. A group that's promoting the rally has a web page at:

https://grassrootsfund.org/groups/upper-valley-action-affinity-group

While the chances of stopping the genocide may seem small, in 1989, the chances of Nelson Mandela -- who was then seven years into a life sentence in prison -- becoming president of South Africa were also small. In 1994, Mandela was elected president and one of the world’s most brutal and racist governments was overthrown.

In the United States, 160 years ago, ending slavery seemed unlikely. Women in the USA fought for and won the right to vote in 1920. Mass movements of ordinary people win justice.