In the middle of a major snow storm about 25 people attended a rally in Northampton on Martin Luther King day. The goal was to get congress to pass voting rights bills. Congressman Jim McGovern and Northampton city councilor Garrick Perry were at the rally, Debby Pastrich-Klemer told the Valley Post. She is a leader in the Northampton Democratic party.

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Green Mountain National Forest is near Brattleboro. Activists who have a web page at

www.facebook.com/xRebellionVT

are organizing a January 29 march in Burlington to stop logging in the forest.

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About 40 people attended a rally in Greenfield on January 8. The goal was to close the Guantanamo Bay prison. Paki Wieland was at the Greenfield event. She works for a group that has a web site at www.CodePink.org. She told the Valley Post that about 40 people were at the rally. The group that organized the event has a web site at http://WitnessAgainstTorture.com.

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On January 6 in Northampton about 175 people attended a rally to demand Congress pass three voting rights bills. “People were somber and serious but also hopeful. It was uplifting. So many people care about getting these voting rights bills passed,” organizer Larry Pareles told the Valley Post in a voice phone interview. He said people should go to www.IndivisibleNorthampton.org for more information. The below photo shows the rally. It was taken by Pareles. To enlarge the photo click on it, then scroll down and click "see full size image."

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About 100 people attended a rally to demand politicians provide good quality homes for homeless people. The rally was in Montague, Massachusetts, which borders Greenfield. It was on December 24. Cate Woolner organized the rally. In her speech at the rally she said, “Welcome and thank you for choosing to spend some of your Christmas Eve here, shining a light on the fact that on any given night, not just Christmas Eve, there are 30 – 40 community members sleeping in cars and tents, couch surfing from friend to friend or in the hospital or other facility with no where to go upon discharge.

In Brattleboro and Northampton about 45 people attended abortion rights rallies. The Brattleboro rally was on December 1. About 10 people were there, organizer Tracy Donahue told the Valley Post. “It was cold but we were happy we gathered together because we were all angry about the U.S. supreme court deliberations,” she said.

On November 23 in Hadley, Massachusetts there was a protest rally outside Whole Foods. Hadley borders Northampton and Amherst. Whole Foods is owned by Amazon. About 10 people were at the rally, organizer Jackie Velez told the Valley Post. They handed out fliers to customers. Velez works for Massachusetts Jobs With Justice.

According to a press release from the group, Amazon's “demands are so high that people working at Amazon warehouses collapse from exhaustion and some have died on the job. All the while, Amazon shareholders and executives rake in outrageous profits.”

In Holyoke on November 14 there will be a climate march. It starts at 1 p.m. at Crosier Field. The number one cause of climate change is over-population. The average American uses much more fossil fuels than the average resident of a poor nation like Mali or Afghanistan. On average, in the USA and globally, the more education, and the more money, a person has, the fewer kids they will have. One of the groups that's promoting the Holyoke march has a web site at https://350vermont.org.

Data on population and climate is at:

On October 31 a land trust announced 150 acres of open space in Amherst has been permanently protected from development. The USA is losing 6,000 acres of open space to development every day. Kestrel Land Trust said the town of Amherst had saved the land. The land is along West Pomeroy Lane.

At least six people from the Pioneer Valley, and at least one from Brattleboro, were among 655 people arrested for non-violent civil disobedience outside the White House between October 11 and October 15. The protests were to call on Biden to do more about climate change. The six Pioneer Valley residents are Paki Wieland, Priscilla Lynch, Marty Nathan, Sofia Perrotto, Sue Donaldson, and Russ Vernon-Jones.

About 950 people attended women's marches in Northampton, Brattleboro, and Keene on October 2. The goal was to protect abortion rights. About 800 people marched in Northampton. That event was organized by Deborah Pastrich-Klemer, Planned Parenthood, and a group called the Valley Women's March.

About 125 people marched in Brattleboro. That event was organized by Tracy Donahue and others.

The number one cause of climate change is overpopulation.

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