By DOUGLAS W. MOTLEY
Senior Writer
Some 75 to 100 mountain area residents assembled at the intersection of Lake Drive and Lake Gregory Drive on Friday, July 4 to protest against what they perceive as injustice from the current administration related to suspension of health care benefits such as Medicaid and food assistance, birth right citizenship, tariffs, increasing inflation and unemployment, denial of college education for foreign students, abandoning international agreements like the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement, increasing ICE raids on workplaces where undocumented immigrants may be working and the excessive use of executive power to run the country.
These demonstrators expressed their opinions.
Unlike last June’s demonstration against mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, last weekend’s rally had fewer participants and more zeal.
Asked what brought her to last Friday’s demonstration, Holliday Heller, president of the Mountain Bears Democratic Club, said she had just returned from driving 1,000 miles from Montana to organize and attend this event. “We are awake and concerned. What ever happened to ‘Love thy neighbor?’”
When asked why she thought last Friday’s demonstration was so much smaller than the June 16 rally, longtime Crestline resident Emily Foster opined, “Because of the holiday weekend, a lot of residents were vacationing out of the area, while others were celebrating the July 4th holiday in their own way, at home.”
In the meantime, a man donning a megaphone reminded the smallish crowd, “There’s no kidnapping allowed in America; you’re going to miss your rights when they’re gone.”
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