About 5,000 turned out in Oakland for the April 5 “Hands Off” protest. Here is a short video and some of the photos I took. The posters people made up give a little window into what was on their minds, and you can see that many people put a lot of time and thought into their posters. Once again, the unions were almost totally missing in action. I might have missed some, but I didn’t see a single union banner or union contingent. What said it all was a conversation I had with one woman there. She is a worker for the City of San Francisco. She said she belongs to a union (probably SEIU) but didn’t even know the name of her union. Now, obviously, this woman is thinking about politics, or else she wouldn’t be there, but also equally obvious is that her union leadership did absolutely noting to try to involve the membership in the resistance.  Nevertheless, I think a dam might be breaking, but the big question is where it will go? All protest movements must decline at some point, so what will be left?

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This was what I put on my poster

These will give you a sense of the size of the crowd

Here is a short video that will also give a sense of the size of the crowd. Below it are many more photos.