Gathering for Palestine near the Common Ground Country Fair

 

 

MB and our photographer and supreme car leafleteer Leann

Twenty-seven of us joined together yesterday in Unity, Maine to hold signs, banners and share leaflets while thousands of cars headed in bumper-to-bumper traffic to the popular Common Ground Country Fair. Some of us arrived at 10:00 am with others coming at 11am and we quit at 12:30. So we reached many fair-goers who generally were positive with many honks. 

I made a mental list of the license plates as cars passed by and came up with this - Maryland, Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York and Maine. 

I only heard or saw about one handful of negatives during my 2 1/2 hour time at the Palestine solidarity vigil. 

Later MB, Leann and I went to the fair for a couple hours and I asked one policeman how many people he thought were at the event. He estimated 25,000 visitors. There are basically two primary routes into the fair and we had one of them covered.  My conservative guess is that we had at the least 5-7 thousand cars pass us by during our time there. There were usually 2-4 people in each car. So it was indeed worth the effort and we were grateful to those who made the drive to stand with us.

Our next two events are as follows:

• Saturday, October 11 at Bath Iron Works during Keep Space for Peace Week at 11:30 am on Washington Street. BIW builds Navy Aegis destroyers that are outfitted with 'missile defense' interceptor missiles - part of the Pentagon's Star Wars program. BIW is owned by General Dynamics which is heavily involved in manufacturing weapons systems given to Israel for its genocidal attacks on Palestine. In addition these destroyers were used to attack Yemen and are today parked offshore Russia and China.

• On Saturday, October 25 at 1:30 pm we will hold another Palestine solidarity vigil in Waterville at the busy intersection near the fire station. 

We all agree that the support for Palestine is growing steadily these days. Being out on the streets in numbers with good visuals does indeed have an impact.

Bruce