U.S. Keeps Shopping While Bombs Are Dropping On Gaza

Freeport used to be a sleepy fishing village in Maine. Because it is headquarters for LL Bean it has become a huge shopping destination with outlet stores of corporate brands. In summer there are crowds of international tourists, but on a cold windy Saturday before Christmas the shoppers appeared to be mostly white, affluent locals. (A deluxe waterfront home in Freeport goes for around $3 million these days.)

An odd location to protest the U.S.-Israel genocide in Gaza? Not really. Our monthly series of protests aims for locations with plenty of audience, so yesterday to Freeport we went. Forty of us represented all the generations and a multitude of coalition partners: Maine Voices for Palestinian Rights, Jewish Voice for Peace Maine, Communist Party of Maine, Party of Socialism & Liberation Maine, Peaceworks of Greater Brunswick, Maine Green Independent Party, and lead organizers from the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. 

There was a family including children with relations in Syria they're worried about. There was an elder with family in both Syria and Lebanon she's worried about as Israel's attacks on Palestine have expanded to include neighboring countries. There was a strong showing by the Union of Maine Visual Artists Artists' Rapid Response Team (ARRT!) including a new banner (above) that is a stark, powerful reminder of what Gaza suffers while genocide funders go shopping. 

Here's one of the original ARRT! banners about Gaza for comparison. A lot has been destroyed in ten years.

BDS proponents chanted "boycott Starbucks" and displayed the logos of corporate targets on signs cleverly made from hula hoops. 

They also handed out hundreds of flyers with information on how corporations support genocide in Gaza by supplying the Israeli military -- sometimes for free as a pr move that has backfired on at least two such corporations.

Most responses to our messages were positive: honking, waving, saying thank you. 

One Zionist heckler (seen here with orange gloves) followed us around before and after our march down Main Street hurling invective that included the word "rape" in every sentence. What is it with zios and sexual assault? Nearly every heckler I've encountered this year dwells on that theme. Is it the influence of the Epstein-Maxwell project to blackmail powerful men by luring them into documented raping of teenage girls? Is it their own propensity to violently sodomize Palestinian prisoners? I honestly don't get it.

A friend we've missed during his travels last year braved his family's scorn to join us yesterday and it was great to see him. I shared my belief that his children are watching his moral leadership closely even if, for now, they are not joining in.

I was also glad to see an organizer from Freeport who stands out for Gaza every other Monday at a different big intersection in town. They are an old friend and yesterday I missed their mom, who often stands with them. They told me how much they like reading my blog posts. I said thanks and added, I write my blog to keep my head from exploding but if other people find it useful, that's good.

This history major carried a great sign that I did not make but found in the trunk of my car. (The Zionist heckler can be seen behind me threatening someone with rape by Hamas. That lie debunked here.)

We'll be in Camden next month on a Saturday afternoon, exact date tbd. In the meantime, many of us will convene at General Dynamics' bomb factory in Saco each Friday at 2:30 resuming after the holidays on January 10. We'd love to see you there to speak up for the desperate children of Gaza.