Protests and Community
Woodstock NY, Kingston NY, and the Lower Catskill Region
Ursula Ruedenberg / Pacifica Radio Network
Ursula: People in Woodstock, New York, are out holding protest signs, and people driving by are honking their approval. On a Saturday, Residents of this iconic little town, with a population of around six and a half thousand, are protesting the actions of the Trump administration are happening. Woodstock is one of various towns in the lower Catskill region of New York State where protesters are out along the streets.
Protester: Here’s, our main Marshal.
Marshal: We’re in Woodstock on the village green. And our compadres here have been
coming out every Saturday, no matter the weather, protesting and making sure people
know we have to stand up. We have to say we count. We’re not going into a Stalinist-like
regime what Trump wants us to do.
Ursula: About how many people do you get out here every week?
Marshal: We get about 10, folks. But if we can get more, that’d be really cool.
Protester: We’ve had 150 on the big days, which is pretty amazing.
Marshal: We just have to stay strong. Stay together. Unity means everything. We cannot be fractured. We have fun because having fun really bothers dictators.
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Protester: You’re here, you’re in!
Protester: We formed tinhorn uprising, community-based brass band and we’re playing inspired, uplifting songs. We mobilize whenever we’re needed for actions and demonstrations, and we’re in demand, busier than ever because there’s so many rallies going on and it has spawned other bands in the region. It has really accelerated. We can have, like, three gigs in a weekend. Some of the band was in Kingston yesterday for the general strike the night before, the brass band was in Chester, where we’re fighting an
ICE detention center being built down there.
Ursula: From the honking. It sounds like you generally get support for what you do.
Marshal: Yes, we mostly get good honking.
Ursula: You want to read your sign?
Protester: Yeah, sure. I’m going to explain it. So it’s Trump, right? And if you remove the T, what do you got? Right? Meme, coin con. I prefer con. So if you’re not familiar with the Trump meme coin, Google the Trump family crypto currency. The family has accrued $4 billion and it’s one big fat con.
Ursula: Okay, want to read your sign?
Protester: No GOP Police State is what this says.
Ursula: That’s the Virgin Mary.
Protester: Yeah, it is, she’s in handcuffs. She’s got twist ties, handcuffing her. I thought it was an appropriate image. I feel very strongly about immigrants being deported. I added lights to the sign for an evening vigil. The lights are angels.
Protester: If we meet each other, people are one like love. We gotta show them the truth. Wake up and smell the fascism.
Ursula: How long are you gonna keep this up?
Marshal: We will never end until we get our freedom back. Ice out for good.
Ursula: After speaking with the folks in Woodstock. I went to nearby Kingston, New York, to another of the various demonstrations occurring in the area. Kingston has a population of around 24,000. There I was able to locate and speak with their marshal.
Monitor: This is the Kingston weekly rally and food tribe. We’ve been holding rallies weekly since April. We are Indivisible, Ulster, New York, we are here to stand up against the corruption and cruelty of the Trump regime. It’s only getting worse. So many of our people have been here for months, now, as a way to express ourselves in a peaceful first-amendment rights way. We build community. We always welcome newcomers. Kingston is a very active city; we’re really proud of our city. We’re at Midtown Kingston today, we had 79 people, and they came with their signs and their voices and their food donations for local food pantries. Sometimes, on the warmer days, there’d be 50 people on each of the corners, minimum.
Ursula: It’s a cold day.
Marshal: It is very cold. This morning, it was 17 degrees. But last week it was freezing too, and we had 78 people come. So, the cold doesn’t stop people from coming out. There are so many people who are concerned about ice, concerned about Venezuela, about free and fair elections. Sometimes it’s very joyful, even, which is such a balance to what’s going on in the world, right? This is a place where we come and we say hello to people that we care about. Out, and that matters in this environment. It helps us to not change.
Kingston was the first capital of New York and it’s a bit of a metropolis. There’s a
waterfront district. We’re on the Hudson River. There’s a large immigrant community here
in Kingston. It’s very diverse, there’s a lot of people helping each other and making
awareness happen; the people that are protesting out here are standing for all of us.
Ursula: Do you feel like you are making a difference?
Marshal: Showing up every week is a way to stay true to our own values, and it keeps us
hopeful. Everything that we do makes a difference; anyone speaking up in the smallest way is helpful.
Ursula: You’re pretty well received here. There’s a lot of honking going on.
Marshal: Somebody suggested last week that we should count the honks. I don’t know
how to do that, but I would say that 98% of the people driving by are very positive.
Ursula: A lot of homemade signs here too. Hello, you’re holding up this corner?
Protester: Yes, I am. Stop the cruelty.
Protester: Right on.
Marshal: When they did their national strike on Friday, they had a lot of high schoolers
coming over and brought signs quite intelligently worded with a lot of passion, and they were yelling along with the protesters.
Second Marshal: Would you like a brownie? I’m also in charge of marshaling, and every
week I bake something new – cookies and brownies for everybody. We try and take care
of everybody. This week we have hand warmers. We always bring extra flags. We really see ourselves as a community, because we need community right now, and we need
healing as much as we need to be fighting the regime.