By Dennis Hartley
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on April 5, 2025)
Stand, you’ve been sitting much too long
There’s a permanent crease in your right and wrong
Stand, there’s a midget standing tall
And a giant beside him about to fall
— from “Stand” by Sly & the Family Stone
Well…it’s been an eventful week for the resistance:
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a feat of determination, New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker held the Senate floor with a marathon speech that lasted all night and into Tuesday night, setting a historic mark to show Democrats’ resistance to President Donald Trump’s sweeping actions.
Booker took to the Senate floor on Monday evening, saying he would remain there as long as he was “physically able.” It wasn’t until 25 hours and 5 minutes later that the 55-year-old senator, a former football tight end, finished speaking and limped off the floor. It set the record for the longest continuous Senate floor speech in the chamber’s history. Booker was assisted by fellow Democrats who gave him a break from speaking by asking him questions on the Senate floor.
It was a remarkable show of stamina as Democrats try to show their frustrated supporters that they are doing everything possible to contest Trump’s agenda. Yet Booker also provided a moment of historical solace for a party searching for its way forward: By standing on the Senate floor for more than a night and day and refusing to leave, he had broken a record set 68 years ago by then Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, a segregationist and southern Democrat, to filibuster the advance of the Civil Rights Act in 1957.
“I’m here despite his speech,” said Booker, who spoke openly on the Senate floor of his roots as the descendant of both slaves and slave-owners. He added, “I’m here because as powerful as he was, the people are more powerful.”
On Wednesday, some familiar faces from Russia picked up the torch:
Pussy Riot, the provocative, political Russian punk band, came to Washington Square Park Wednesday to deliver a stern warning: “Wake up, America!”
Their faces hidden behind red ski masks, six members of the feminist art collective marched down Fifth Ave. and into the Greenwich Village park around 1 p.m. Standing in front of the Washington Square Arch, they unfurled two large banners bearing messages: “Don’t Give Up” and “Freedom of Speech?”
Two other members of the group held up a rotating collection of placards with phrases like “Fever Dream,” “1984” and “Great Again: The Greatest Greatness But Mine Is Greater (Again).”
“We’ve been imprisoned in Russia,” said band member Masha Alyokhina. “We’ve been persecuted. We are in federal wanted lists in our country. So if we appear on the border, we’ll be immediately arrested for our anti-Putin and anti-war — [a war] which he started — activities.
“We are here now because we see the [rise] of authoritarian[ism] here. We want to call people to not be silent and we want people to remember to not to give up, even in the difficult conditions — to have hope inside, to have belief.”
Well, someone was paying attention:
Protesters across the U.S. rallying as part of the “Hands Off!” movement on Saturday are taking to the streets, state capitals, federal buildings, congressional offices and city centers to protest the Trump administration.
Why it matters: President Trump’s political, economic, social, health and legal changes have mobilized a wide cross-section of Americans.
State of play: Demonstrators are also speaking out against Elon Musk’s involvement in the federal government as an unelected official running DOGE.
The anticipated protests prompted the White House to reschedule its Saturday White House spring garden tours.
By the numbers: More than 1,100 rallies, visibility events and meetings were scheduled in all 50 states as of Wednesday.
Organizers said they had more than 500,000 RSVPs as of Friday night. Dozens of advocacy organizations partnered to support Saturday’s mass mobilization
As I am writing this midday Saturday, it’s going pretty, pretty, well:
Looking strong here in the Pacific Northwest, too. Hail Portlandlandia:
Not too shabby here in Seattle today, either:
I’m sorry to hear the White House had to reschedule its Saturday White House spring garden tours, but as Malvina Reynolds sang…if that is Freedom’s price, we don’t mind. In the spirit of solidarity, I’ve picked a few more golden greats guaranteed to mobilize the troops.
The Beatles – “Revolution”
Frank Zappa – “Trouble Every Day”
Elvis Costello – “Night Rally”
Green Day – “American Idiot”
The Clash – “Clampdown”
Woody Guthrie – “All You Fascists Bound to Lose”
Bob Marley & the Wailers – “Get Up, Stand Up”
The Style Council – “The Whole Point of No Return”
Tracy Chapman – “Talkin’ About a Revolution”
John Lennon – “Power to the People”
Sly & the Family Stone – “Stand!”
Heaven 17 – “(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang”
Public Enemy – “Fight the Power”
Rage Against the Machine – “Take the Power Back”
Gil Scott-Heron – “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”
The Honeydrippers – “Impeach the President”
The Buffalo Springfield – “For What It’s Worth”
Billy Bragg – “There is Power in a Union”
Malvina Reynolds – “It Isn’t Nice”
Pete Seeger – “We Shall Overcome”