There were several March For Our Lives protests in the Houston today. According to the City of Houston, there were 15,000 people at the main march downtown. There were also smaller protests in Sugarland/Missouri City, the Heights, The Woodlands and in Galveston. A team with Refuse Fascism went to the downtown and the Woodlands protests.
In downtown, while politicians, teachers and students spoke about gun control, many of the protesters expressed a more general feeling of rage at the culture of violence in the U.S. and their concerns that something bigger is going on. Several older people spoke about their fear of the U.S. embarking on nuclear strikes on North Korea, and the violence of the alt-right. A couple of women talked about how Trump is surrounding himself with people who agree with him. And a couple of other people talked how these people are hellbent on going to war. Other people talked about domestic violence, and a few talked about the violence of the police. A number of people said that there is something about the people in government today that is making everything worse than it has ever been.
One student in the Woodlands said that “they (the government) don’t care about us.” There were a significant number of homemade signs that said hopes and prayers (with a line through it) we want action.
Many people said, of course the Trump/Pence regime has got to go, and a significant number of people said that they agree that the regime is fascist, but then, a lot of them had a hard time breaking out of their hopes that elections will save people. Some people were outright defensive about the Democratic Party. One woman who was registering people to vote said that she feels torn because she is afraid that there won’t be elections in November.
A few others though, said that they know that it is up to us, the people, to stop them, but it seems daunting. An older woman said that she’s been asking people if they remembered studying authoritarianism in civics class, because that’s what we’re living through now. One woman talked about how it seems such a disconnect to her, that people are disturbed by what the government is doing, but they are going about their normal lives. A woman came up to us and said that she met RF a year ago and she has been thinking recently, that everything that was in the original Call has come true, and she thinks that now people are beginning to wake up to this. All these people who we met have been invited to a RF chapter meeting tomorrow.
We distributed 1,250 of the new Refuse Fascism call, 2,000 of the Refuse Fascism message to students, 650 palmcards of Bob Avakian’s talk “THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In The Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America: A Better World IS Possible!,” about 100 NO! signs, and raised about $60.