…………Politics is a rough game to play and it’s not only getting rougher, it’s getting personal. Sure, the rhetoric of the presidential election attracted a lot of voters to Trump. But when rhetoric turns into reality, it often hurts. Right now a lot of people are hurting and it seems like there’s no one to stand up for them. Our Senators, Shelly Capito and Jim Justice have been timid about the loss of jobs in our federal facilities. One would think that the loss of 200 jobs in the miner safety institute would evoke the ire of our federal and state officials. We are after all a State that has experienced horrific mine disasters and the latest downsizing came very near to the anniversary of the Big Branch Mine Disaster, but the fiery remarks which should have been forthcoming were tepid at best.
………..So the voters stood up for themselves in 1,300 “Hands Off” protest rallies across the United States. They were held in rural small towns and they were held in cities. It was an impressive show of force and the Trump administration needs to take heed. They have gone too far and are having a negative impact on our lives and those of people we love and we are carrying the message that we are ready to push back. From tariffs to tyranny, protestors carried signs lamenting deportations and DOGE…..vaccines and abortion rights,..Social Security………Medicare and Medicaid and the list goes on. One protestor summed it up by having “so many issues, so little carboard” written on his placard.” And everyone of us know the importance of solidarity and in standing up for your neighbors.
……..It’s been awhile in the United States since Presidential action has made the average person afraid. I remember Viet Nam; desegregation and the issues which we thought would tear us apart back in the sixties. We survived, but I don’t think we as a nation were ever the same again. Suddenly, those who could shut their eyes to what was wrong, had their eyes forced open. For me, it was watching what happened to the Freedom Riders when they travelled South. Though race problems had not arisen in our predominantly white County, it made me look around and see the inequities that existed and needed to be fixed. The fight for equal rights as women, touched home, but it took the marchers to make me realize it would take everyone of us to change the status quo. When my mother and father divorced in 1968, his world went on unscathed. My mother couldn’t get a credit card until 1973 when the Fair Credit Act passed Congress. It took millions of women willing to march and protest to show us women were second class citizens and things had to change.,
…………Let’s hope the protests opened the President’s, Elon Musk’s and our two senators’ eyes. Their aggressive actions ignore the human factor and trample on the very rights Americans fought so hard to preserve.
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