110 Take to the Streets

About 60 people attended a September 13 rally in Springfield. The rally was to call on congress to tax the rich and use the money to address climate change and pay healthcare workers more. One of the groups that organized the event has a web site at www.AriseSpringfield.org.

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In Brattleboro on September 12, about 40 people marched for abortion rights. One of the photos, below, shows some of the marchers. To enlarge the photo, click on it, then scroll down and click "see full size image." photo by Diana Whitney

Ada Melton-Houghton was at the march. She told the Valley Post, "It went well. Most of the passersby were supportive, though a couple people disapproved. One guy seemed to be yelling at us.... It would have been nice if more passersby had checked out the table we set up. The organizers contacted Planned Parenthood and the Women's Freedom Center and got some nice informational pamphlets which they laid out, along with condoms, the idea being that people could pick up the information and contraceptives for free. I don't know how much actually got taken, it didn't seem like much, but I did leave a little early."

She continued, "The rally made me happy. Teenagers as a demographic are often ignored in politics because we can't vote (for national elections, the minimum voting age is 18) but that doesn't mean we aren't politically opinionated, and I'm always glad to see my peers fighting the illusion of their own powerlessness. Members of Gen Z are still recently disillusioned for the most part. We can get very depressed at the state of the world and conclude that there's no point in fighting, that we've already lost. I can't say that isn't true. But we will fight anyway. The way I see it, we don't have any other option."

Diana Whitney was at the march. She told the Valley Post, “You can believe what you want to believe but you can’t legislate someone else’s body and future.”

The Center for Biological Diversity works nationally and employs dozens of lawyers. Stephanie Feldstein is the group's population and sustainability director. Last year she told the Valley Post, “We can’t ignore the reality that global population has more than doubled in the past 50 years and continues to rise. If we don’t address population growth through reproductive freedom and gender equity, our efforts to fight climate change will always be an uphill battle. And this isn’t just a problem in other countries – the average American has a carbon footprint 700 percent larger than the average person in most African countries, yet nearly half of all U.S. pregnancies are unplanned.”

She continued, “The climate crisis demands action on all fronts. We must simultaneously shift to clean, just renewable energy, hold polluting corporations accountable, transform our food system, and expand human rights to stabilize our population. When we avoid talking about population, we’re not only leaving out a critical piece of the puzzle to reduce emissions and advance reproductive rights, but we miss an opportunity to confront xenophobia and inequality as perspectives that have no place in the environmental movement and that interfere with real solutions.”

According to

https://ourworldindata.org/per-capita-co2

“In just 2.3 days the average American or Australian emits as much (carbon dioxide) as the average Malian or Nigerien in a year.”

While the chances of stopping climate change 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. This happened because millions of people took to the streets in protest.

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In Brattleboro on September 13 about a dozen people attended a health care rally outside 1154 Putney Road. People drifted in and out of the two hour rally. The organizers said, in the USA, “over 600,000 people have died from Covid during this pandemic, many of them because our country denies health care to the poor. This pandemic has revealed more clearly than ever before that the 140 million poor and low-income people in the United States are united by the fact that we, our families, and our communities are in a life-and-death fight for health care. We take action together to say that urgent action is needed now. Medicaid can and should be expanded to be a truly universal and comprehensive single payer healthcare system with no restrictions or hurdles.” The organizers have a web site at www.WorkersCenter.org.

One of the photos, below, shows the rally. To enlarge the photo, click on it, then scroll down and click "see full size image." photo by Eesha Williams

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Anna Gyorgy is on the board of a group that has a web site at www.traprock.org. She told the Valley Post that on September 18, there will be a rally near Greenfield on the Turners Falls-Gill bridge, from 11 a.m. to noon, rain or shine. The goal is to get politicians to “stop the massive destruction of fish and related river life by the Northfield Mountain Pumped Storage Station,” on the Connecticut river near the Vermont – Massachusetts border.

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Diana Whitney, who took the below photo of the abortion rights march, asked the Valley Post to mention a letter about sexual abuse at Brattleboro high school that she and more than 70 other people signed. For more information contact Whitney via her web site:

www.CoreFlowYoga.com


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