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Hands Off at the Edge of the Earth [1]

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Date: 2025-04-05

So. Spouse and I have just returned from the Hands Off protest at the edge of the earth, where the ocean falls into the abyss where dragons live…

Well, really, we just returned from the Hands Off rally in Soldotna, a tiny postage-stamp sized town in a cherry-red Alaska. The rally drew over 200 protesters on a cold, dreary day with a sharp north wind and rain sprinkles that felt like sand hitting the skin. That is a huge number for such a little working-class community where one sees compensatory pickup trucks with flags on the tailgate on a more or less daily basis. The protesters came from a radius of about thirty miles around, for geography nerds, from Sterling to Nikiski to Kasilof. It was a pretty good cross-section of the community, especially the age range which spanned from kids in strollers to great-grandparents with canes and walkers. The crowd was largely Caucasian, because the community is, but I saw plenty of non-white faces, mostly Native Americans.

Unfortunately the weather was too bad to bring my bodhran to beat a cadence, and it was hard to get these gentle people to take up a chant. A few people did shout along with “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Elon Musk has got to go!” but it wasn’t a “thing.” Too bad — chants can be fun. There were a lot of car honks and raised fists as people drove by, and a surprising shortage of those big flag-bearing pickup trucks that never get dirty.

Tiny counter-protest at the Soldotna, AK Hands Off rally 4-5-25

There was a tiny counter-protest consisting of about nine Trump supporters, maybe eleven by the time we left. They were largely polite, or polite-ish at least. Nobody accosted me when I crossed the street to try to get a panorama of the main event but as I passed them to cross the street again they broke into a spectacularly out-of-tune rendition of “God Bless America.” I had to suppress a laugh. I was saddened, though, by a gentleman from our “side” who volunteered himself to come along with me because he was afraid that I would be harmed. What a terrible thing that says about American politics right now.

By the way, there was too much traffic to get a panorama. This corner is one of the busiest intersections in Alaska south of Anchorage. Sorry. Suffice it to say that the rally spanned two city blocks and three of the four corners. We left the fourth for the Trumpists ‘cuz we’re nice. Maybe too nice, but free speech is free speech. Unfortunately there is no law against stupidity.

My dad killed Nazis also. I’m glad he didn’t live to see the situation in the US today.

All in all it was a very successful rally. The fact that it happened at all is heartening, and that it was both peaceful and (for here) huge is food for a little optimism. It also brought back some warm memories of a long, long time ago when there was a groundswell of anger about a self-serving and stupid war that should never have been started. How I wish we didn’t forget so easily!

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