An uplifting day
#40
An AI generated cartoon of the demonstration in Hayward, CA
Most of the time I am increasingly hopeful. The greased pig is on the run. Democratic and socialist candidates are defeating MAGA and Republican candidates almost everywhere. Resistance to ICE kidnappings is growing and becoming more militant. Trump’s popularity is falling. His gold-plated greed is hurting consumers. The MAGA movement is fracturing, most recently with 21 of 40 Republicans in Indiana voting against the redistricting Trump demanded. The chickens are coming home to roost.
My mood stays hopeful and then at times darkens when I think about the 71,000 immigrants, mostly from Latin America, who have been put in concentration camps or sent to the deadly prison in El Salvador. Or the 95 people off the coast of Venezuela who have been murdered by Trump’s and Hegseth’s extrajudicial killings. Or when I think that Trump may declare martial law rather than lose the mid-term elections or more likely, rather than be removed from office in the next presidential election.
Tuesday the darkness lifted as three local actions connected to big picture changes. Here’s what happened.
Home Depot
I began the day as part of an Adopt a Corner team at the Home Depot in Oakland. The teams are coordinated by Indivisible East Bay, coordinating with NDLON (the National Day Laborers Organizing Network). A person is stationed at each of four corners in two hour shifts, six days a week, to protect day laborers from ICE abductions.
Home Depot has been targeted because of its complicity with ICE raids against both day laborers and Latino customers, and because Home Depot’s co-founder, Bernie Marcus, has poured millions of dollars into Trump’s racist anti-immigrant campaigns.
When laborers and others drive by any of the corners and see us watching for ICE, they give a thumbs up, yell out thanks or offer a prayerful thanks. These little signs of appreciation and solidarity are happening everywhere.
NDLON has trained at least 2500 people to Adopt a Corner. Indivisible East Bay has 140 volunteers at this one Home Depot. There are at least six Adopt a Corner sites in Oakland. Countless other volunteers are working to protect day laborers at some of Home Depot’s 2,347 store in the United States.
You can sign up to Adopt a Corner through NDLON or in the East Bay through IEB
Ice Scraping Demonstrations inside Home Depot: Indivisible is escalating its resistance to Home Depot. As you’ve probably seen in the news, hundreds of people in Monrovia outside of Los Angeles demonstrated inside a Home Depot, buying ICE scrapers and immediately returning them, closing down sales for hours.
Demonstrations inside Home Depots are going national. A similar act of resistance happened at Home Depot in New York City, resulting in the store locking its doors, at least for the day. NYC HOME DEPOT
In Oakland this Saturday, December 20th at 10:00am hundreds of people will enter Home Depot at 4100 Alameda Avenue, between High St. and Fruitvale Avenue to buy and return ICE scrapers to protest Home Depot’s complicity with ICE. You can sign up to be part of the demonstration at OAKLAND HOME DEPOT
Johnny Appleseed
At a demonstration later that Tuesday, I met Sean Skeen from Hayward. He is a tall, dignified man with a shock of neatly combed white hair. He spent his life working for Caltrans, the California Department of Transportation, overseeing contracts to repair mud slide damage and bridge collapses. He had never been an activist.
After retiring, he saw Trump destroying our democracy and jumped into the fray. He began going to demonstrations in May and soon started organizing them himself, a kind of Johnny Appleseed of demonstrations.
He works with Indivisible Eden that organizes a weekly demonstration against Trump at Hayward’s farmer’s market near City Hall. The demonstration began the way so many pockets of resistance have blossomed across the country. According to Sean:
This demonstration began in May led by Marla Sather. She felt overwhelmed by the daily dose of outrageous news about the dismantling of our government, along with the cruel abandonment of all things decent. She began creating protest signs to relieve some of her stress. Soon her living room was full of signs. She decided to go to the Hayward Civic Center each Saturday, with her signs and invited anyone to borrow a sign and stand with her against the Trump regime. I joined with her in October and have been working with Indivisible Eden Area since then to build the demonstration and expand the resistance.
Sean began demonstrating against Trump in Castro Valley, Alameda Co., California, a residential community. The dozens of weekly demonstrators in Castro Valley were met with pushback from Trump supporters. An SUV with a retrofitted exhaust pipe stopped at the demonstration, spewing noxious gas over the peaceful protesters. These attempted disruptions happened several times but only strengthened the demonstrators’ resolve. Sean now goes to three or four demonstrations a week, helping to organize most of them.
The cartoon at the top of this Substack—of anti-Trump demonstrators in Hayward—was created by AI, ChatGPT, with instructions from Sean. As he says, it’s easy to create similar cartoons which you can turn into posters: Go to the App Store. Get the free ChatGPT app. Type in or say something like: Make a cartoon of four anti-Trump demonstrators in Hayward, and bingo. He also created and printed the poster he’s holding below.
Sean lives in Hayward where there are now two weekly demonstrations that began independently. The organizers of these demonstrations are joining forces to expand the size and impact of each.
Hayward Demonstrations
Thursday 4:00-5:00 pm Mission and B St.
Saturday 9:30-1:30pm 789 B St. at the Farmer’s Market and Civic Center
Just about every week I meet someone who’s never been an activist or has never been to a demonstration and has joined the resistance to preserve democracy. Fighting back is not only the way to defeat Trump, it is one of the most effective antidotes to feeling powerless and depressed.
Sean Skeen at the demonstration in Hayward with the AI generated cartoon he created
Pussy Riot and the Putin and Trump Masks
Last week’s Substack began with a mask of Trump. I only learned its story this week and its connection to Pussy Riot when Steve Brown removed the Putin mask he wore this week and told the story of the Putin and Trump masks, pictured below.
The story begins with Pussy Riot, a Russian, feminist, anti-authoritarian performance group PUSSY RIOT. This month the Russian Ministry of Justice added Pussy Riot to its list of extremist organizations. Members of Pussy Riot had previously fled Russia and performed throughout the United States, including in San Francisco.
Their performance in San Francisco included both the Trump and Putin masks which were made by an art collective in the Bay Area. The collective included them Zabrina Zabrisky, a courageous activist from Russia. Zabrina now works as a journalist with By Line News covering the war in Ukraine was part of the group. You can read her reporting here. BY LINE TIMES. The art collective made the paper mache masks—you can see the Russian language newspaper showing through Putin’s paper-thin skull if you enlarge the final picture below.
Zabrina gave the masks to Steve Brown for safe keeping. He wears them at the weekly demonstrations at the Grand Lake Vigil in Oakland and at other demonstrations in the Bay Area. The drive toward authoritarianism is international. So is the resistance.
Thanks to Risa Jaroslow for editing.
Steve Brown with the Putin mask made with Russian newspapers seen at the top of the mask