Sunday, August 04, 2024

Protest at Brunswick airshow on Saturday

  

A few of us got to the airshow while it was still raining at 8:30 am

 

Handing out flyers to cars as they entered airshow

This young woman and her mother came all the way from Presque Isle

Barbara and Lisa

Solidarity with Palestine

Veterans For Peace white flags

Tim, Eric and Will

The marching band was a hit with us, cars going in and police doing traffic

Russell from Hancock

Rosie from Brunswick

New Mainer Faisal made a great speech

New friends Cynthia and Lou both architects and sailors


We had about 40 folks come from around the state for this protest that began with rain and a much smaller crowd driving into the airshow than in the past years. The farthest any of our protest crew drove was from Presque Isle in northern Maine. It's 263 miles from there to Brunswick.

Usually the planes begin flying about 10:00 am or so but the Air Force Thunderbirds didn't get into the air until around 4:00 pm because of the weather. Lots of disappointed 'fans' had to wait along time for all that ear killing noise. We all remarked how this is what Gaza sounds like every single day - except there bombs provided by Washington slaughter people every day.

Surprisingly we got some media coverage (usually we don't) but it shows that the genocide in Palestine issue is indeed resonating out there in TV land. A sort of typical newspaper story here but a really good TV story here.

We were truly grateful to the IDEAL Maine Social Aid and Sanctuary Band that came and played two sets during the protest. It really made for a more interesting protest and was fun to see some car passengers entering the airshow getting into the music. The large contingent of cops (with not so much traffic to deal with) appeared to enjoy the band as well.

Lisa Savage MCed our speakers portion of the event. We had some new young folks who spoke beautifully about solidarity with Palestine.

Every month since February 2022 we've been holding peace protests like this in various places up and down the state of Maine. Our next one will be in Unity, Maine (near the Common Ground Fair) on Saturday, September 21 at 11:00 am. We'll meet at the corner of Main St & School St right next to the House of Pizza where we will stay for lunch after the vigil. There will be loads of traffic that day due to the fairgrounds being so close by.

Come and help us bring these crucial messages to the public.

Bruce 

2 comments:

DN said...

I am delighted that your protest got attention from the airshow audience, the local TV station and local news media. Hopefully, people will reflect on the misuse of American resources to murder innocent Palestinians to clear the land for European settlers. Maybe the same seed of doubt about this injustice penetrates Kamala Harris' political stand that presently agrees with Israeli genocide and American immoral support and supplies with weaponry and intelligence to magnify the genocide and theft of land and property. I wonder how many Americans mull over the right of English Lord Balfour 200+ years ago to decide to donate Palestinian land to the chosen people, according to their own self-talk, of God.

Bruce K. Gagnon said...

Harris is married to a zionist and long has given unconditional support to Israel. Her VP pick will be telling. Some think Pennsylvania Gov. Shapiro (a zionist who served in the Israeli military years ago) will be her pick which will lock in AIPAC control of the White House for another term.