Local activists channel the love and rage of Candice King, rally against Trump

Presenter: A coalition of opposition groups spoke out against the Trump agenda Jan. 19, and KEPW’s Todd Boyle was there. With our recap, from the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Rob Fisette:

Rob Fisette (Party for Socialism and Liberation): As some of you may know, there was a tragedy this weekend in the community, a fighter, Candice King, who you may know from several years ago had a big rent strike over on Almaden Street. Huge community defense came out to support Candice. And ultimately the cops came and threw them out. She and her family have been housing-insecure ever since.

And that’s just one of the ways that this system will kill you. It will shorten our lives, make them more miserable if they can’t get out of us what they want, which is our time, our labor, our consent, and Candice never consented.

I worked with Candice a few years ago on some projects around her housing co-op that she was trying to start, and her energy, her love, her rage were unmatched by anyone else that I’d ever met, and I think anybody out there who knew her would feel the same…

What do we need to say about housing? You look around the city. We have the highest homelessness per capita rate in the country. Housing is a human right. Neither party thinks housing is a human right. We know housing is a human right, so we have to go take it…

A few years ago, Candice ran for City Council, and this was the quote that was leading her campaign page: ‘We owe nothing to the wealth hoarders and power junkies. We owe everything to ourselves and the next seven generations.’

[00:01:53] Presenter: Madison is a community organizer focused on community resilience and systemic change.

[00:01:59] Madison: The Trump regime is scared of us. Our queerness frightens them. They know, like we know, that our queerness, our very existence, is resistance.

Trump and his gaggle of far-right fascists have promised that 2025 will ban life-saving and gender-affirming medical care access to transgender children and adults, it will deny public restroom access to transgender people, and it will remove all language of LGBTQIA+ existence from federal [legislation] and documents.

This is not the first time the U.S. government has tried to stomp us out… Democratic President Biden signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act, which banned transgender service members and their families from receiving health care from the U.S. military.

This is a social war, this is a class war, and this is a revolutionary war.

This attack on our queer bodies, just like the attacks on people of color’s bodies, on women, on immigrants, on Palestinians, is an attempt to keep us afraid. It is an attempt to keep us too busy surviving to question the mechanisms of exploitation that continue to isolate and kill us, whether through lack of health care access or the police murdering Black and brown people on our streets.

This is a fight against an oppressive colonial state that has used violence as a means of control since they first landed here on Turtle Island.

Queerness is the revolution because it rejects the normal of the violent hetero-colonial state. Queerness is the revolution because within it we build new models of community where we choose our families and we radically care for them like we did in the AIDS epidemic and where we riot for them like we did at Stonewall.

Find your community, fight for them, and don’t let the state brainwash you into thinking that you can only be what they say you are.

[00:04:18] Presenter: Co-chair of the Eugene Chapter of the Pacific Green Party, Nora Newman:

[00:04:23] Nora Newman: This incoming administration has repeatedly demonized immigrants. It’s a pattern that we have seen throughout history where immigrants and minorities have been used as scapegoats for all the ills of society.

Immigrants are constantly depicted as criminals, but the reality is that immigrants boost the economy and are arrested at a lesser rate. We don’t take jobs from current citizens and we’re more likely to start our own businesses and contribute substantial taxes.

It is helpful for us to remember that less than 2% of the citizens of this country are actually from here; 98% of us are here thanks to violent conquest, colonization, slavery, ethnic cleansing of Native populations, and other massive crimes.

U.S. politicians from both parties have installed dictators, sanctioned governments, and decivilized societies all over the world. They have caused ecological catastrophes and crashed economies, all for their donors’ interests.

All together, these factors drive mass migration. There has been talk from both major parties about border security. We must guard against policies that are discriminatory, racist, and unconstitutional. Take, for example, the Laken Riley Act, which was supported by our congressional representative Val Hoyle. Policies like this vilify immigrants, increase racism and racial profiling while still failing to make our country more secure.

What we need is an economy that works for us, for everyone. We need to celebrate what we each other contribute to our society. We need to not only mobilize around this issue, but to organize against the system that pits immigrants against the working class. And the only way that we can do it is together.

[00:06:18] Presenter: The other co-chair of the Pacific Green Party, Justin Filip:

[00:06:21] Justin Filip (Pacific Green Party): On Wednesday, President Biden warned of an emerging oligarchy or rule by an elite few. Thanks, Joe, but you’re a little late to the game. It’s been 10 years since the study from Princeton and Northwestern concluded that the U.S. is already an oligarchy.

We cannot expect one corporate party with a billionaire agenda to save us from the other corporate party with a billionaire agenda. We need a radical shift that puts people, the planet, and peace before profits.

Be conscious of a media that controls and upholds this system. What stories do they choose to run or not run? Which voices are broadcast on the airwaves and in print? How do they manufacture consent? Be conscious of the ways they try to manipulate the narrative and divide us to keep us from forming class consciousness.

[00:07:14] Presenter: An organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Kaleigh Bronson-Cook:

[00:07:19] Kaleigh Bronson-Cook (PSL): We talk about women’s rights as if those rights just fell out of the sky one day, magically, out of nowhere. But those rights were struggled for. They were fought for and they were won, often at great personal sacrifice to countless women whose faces and names we will never know: Black women who led slave rebellions, risking torture, lynching and state-sponsored murder; women who were brutalized, arrested, and even killed fighting for the right to vote; women facing down fire hoses, fire hydrants, fighting for civil rights; women at the Stonewall riots; women in the movement for Black lives; women in the labor movement; and so many others.

Many of these rights have been that have been won in the rich history of the women’s struggle are under attack. One of many examples being the right to safely access an abortion, which was stolen from us by a right-wing Supreme Court, notably under the Biden administration in June of 2022.

Republicans are leading attacks on reproductive justice. And what has the Democratic Party done about it? Nothing. They have done nothing to actually fight back, to actually protect the rights that we won. We as working women, we know that while reproductive justice is a central part of the struggle for women’s liberation. That Palestine is also a women’s issue. That war is a women’s issue. That Indigenous sovereignty and self -determination is a woman’s issue. That mass incarceration, police brutality, housing, health care, child care, a living wage, domestic and sexual violence, racism, immigration, trans and LGBTQ liberation and climate change are all women’s issues.

The true fight for women’s liberation is the fight for a world free from capitalism and endless war.

We need to build a system that centers the needs of women and all oppressed people, and the only way we’re going to get it is together through a truly independent people-powered movement to defeat not just Trump, the racist, sexist, homophobic, disgusting sexual predator that that he is, and that his policies represent, but the entire billionaire agenda, the corporate duopoly, and the system that serves the interests of the elite and preys off of working women and working people everywhere, every day.

[00:10:54] Presenter: Speakers encouraged Eugene residents to join a group and organize to fight back. From Extinction Rebellion Eugene, Lori Harmon:

[00:11:02] Lori Harmon (Extinction Rebellion Eugene): We know that the single biggest emitter of greenhouse gases is the Pentagon. Over 50% of our tax dollars are going to fund wars at a time when we need those tax dollars to go toward mitigating climate chaos, funding healthcare, affordable housing, and education. And we know that Trump plans to do the exact opposite.

Right now, it’s 90 seconds to midnight on the Doomsday Clock. We’re in a moment of clarity. Our choice is between community and chaos, as Dr. King has told us. Our choice is between the Pentagon or the planet. Our choice is between extinction or rebellion, between unfettered capitalism or unrelenting strikes.

This rally is about coming together as a community to fight for the things that we need. We need a planet that’s livable for the next generation, and we need a mass movement to make that happen.

There are several nonviolent direct action climate groups with active chapters here in Eugene, including Extinction Rebellion, Planet vs. Pentagon, and 350. Please join us. As we say in Extinction Rebellion: Love and rage.

[00:12:27] Presenter: From the Springfield Eugene Anti-Imperialist Coalition, Kamryn Stringfield.

[00:12:32] Kamryn Stringfield (SEAIC): We must understand that the anti-imperialist struggle is the most important struggle. And so I hope that as we continue to organize together, that you’ll keep that in the forefront of your mind and understand why being anti-war is so important.

For the last year or so, I’ve been involved with a group here, the Springfield Eugene Anti-Imperialist Coalition. I want to invite you to our next general meeting, which is going to be on Thursday, Jan. 23 at 5:30 p.m. at the Growers Market at 454 Willamette Street. Join us then.

[00:13:15] Presenter: From the Democratic Socialists of America, Nikolai:

[00:13:18] Nikolai: The working class creates all wealth. Without our labor, nothing gets done… Get involved with your union and if you are not in a union, it is time to organize with your co-workers and make one.

[00:13:35] Presenter: From the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Sam Cook:

[00:13:38] Sam Cook (PSL): Thank you so much for coming. (Go Sam!) This is one of 82 ‘Fight Back’ events all over the country. There are thousands of people marching today and tomorrow against the fascist agenda that we are facing over the next four years. And all of the issues that have been touched on today—labor, women’s rights, the climate, LGBT rights, all of these are fundamentally important issues that we are collectively saying today: We will defend them.

So how are we going to do that? As Malcolm X said: ‘We are not outnumbered, we are outorganized.’ What we have is each other and we need to organize. If you are not in an organization, if you are not working to build the coalitions that put together an event like this today, I would highly encourage you to do so.

[00:15:00] Presenter: From the Democratic Socialists of America, Jen McKinney:

[00:15:03] Jen McKinney (Democratic Socialists of America): If you are not already in an organization, join one. That’s right. That is how we do it. We organize together. I organize with Democratic Socialists of America. I love it. We have a fantastic group of people and we fight for everyone in the working class. We have a meeting next Sunday 3:30 p.m. at Grower’s Market, 454 Willamette, across from the train station.

Please come, please join us and let’s fight. We need to organize.

[00:15:50] Presenter: Activists fight back against the Trump administration, with a rally and march Jan. 19. See the full video on Todd Boyle’s YouTube channel.