Midtown rally sounds Trump-et for impeachment
BY TEQUILA MINSKY
Hundreds from the tri-state area
took to Manhattan streets on
Sunday, joining similar marches
nationwide, to make a demand on
elected representatives. The message
was singular, the chants focused: “Impeach
Now!”
Supporters of more than four organizations
— including By the People,
March for Truth, Rise and Resist and
Women’s March — plus hundreds of
unaffi liated groups rallied for the impeachment
of President Donald Trump
on Sunday at Father Duffy Square
amidst the crowds celebrating the long
Columbus Day weekend.
“The day we stop fi ghting for democracy
is the day we lose it,” organizers
said on the Facebook announcement
for this event.
By 2 p.m., marchers were well on
their way, completely packing the
east-side sidewalk on Broadway, holding
signs and chanting while walking.
(Times Square costumed characters
who work that side had an unexpected
break.)
It took about an hour to reach their
ultimate destination, Union Square.
Nods of approval and engagement came
from passersby in cars, those sitting at
Hundreds marched on Sunday to voice their support for the impeachment of President Donald Trump.
the tables at the sprinkling of new miniplazas
along the path, and some that
happened to get caught up in the fl ow.
The rally and march attracted all
ages. Grey-haired seasoned activists
were among those who are two generations
their junior. And, there were a
fair share of children holding their own
signs, too.
Dale Bratter took the train for one
hour from Connecticut with her preteen
grandson, Chase Karson. She approvingly
watched as he completed his
sign that read: “I’m 11. I know right
from wrong. Why don’t you President
Trump? And I can be a whistle blower
on you!”
Later, while marching with his grandmother,
PHOTO : TEQUILA MINSKY
Chase was spotted blowing a
whistle. Chase was asked, “Are you a
young activist?” Whistle in mouth, he
nodded “yes.”
Asked why she marched, Bratter
answered, “I want to have an answer
to my grandchildren—I have eight—
when they ask, “What did you to resist
Trump?”
Low Library at height of week-long Extinction protest
BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELL-DOMENECH
Columbia University students stormed the
school’s Low Memorial Library and staged a
sit-in as part of an Extinction Rebellion protest
on Oct. 9.
The protest was organized by the university’s chapter
of Extinction Rebellion, the environmental group
that uses non-violent civil disobedience to call for
government action on climate change. Yesterday’s
student-led protest was part of fi ve days of demonstrations
organized across the city.
Protests started on Monday, when Extinction Rebellion
protested outside of the New York Stock Exchange,
where some members laid in pools of fake
blood symbolizing the lives lost to the effects of climate
change.
“We will be present in the building for six days, six
for the sixth mass extinction, six for the number of
years we are giving this university to get to net zero
greenhouse gases,” said Joshua Scott, 27, one of the
founders of Columbia’s chapter of the environmental
group.
In September, Columbia University announced
the creation of a task force to examine what more
the institution could be doing in response to climate
change.
“While nations and the international community
struggle even to begin to come to terms with this
emerging reality, academic research institutions have
been and are increasingly engaged, necessarily, with
this subject,” reads the university’s online announcement
of the task force’s creation.
But students are not satisfi ed.
PHOTO : ALEJANDRA O’CONNELL-DOMENECH
Student protestors gathered on the steps of
Columbia University’s Low Memorial Library
after staging a sit-in inside the building. Students
called on the institution to reduce their
greenhouse gas emissions by zero.
Students began the protest by singing, chanting
and holding signs decorated with the group’s circle
and hourglass emblem at the university’s defunct sundial
before making their way to the library’s steps.
There, Scott announced that the group would overtake
the library and wait for Columbia to response to
the group’s four demands.
The student group called on the university to formally
recognizing the threat of increasing global temperatures
by declaring a climate and ecological emergency
and urged it to act quickly in reducing its net
green house gas emission (produced from its operations)
to zero. The group then called for the creation
of a community member-led assembly that would help
Columbia University through the process.
But the sit-in was short lived. Protesters, about 80
students and Extinction Rebellion NYC allies, left the
library after two hours when Matthew Patashnick,
the associate dean for Student and Family Support at
Columbia College of Engineering, said that the gathering
“might be in violation of university policy.”
According to Scott, students who prepared to stay
the full six days in the library were unable to because
of the building’s security. After they pushed their way
through the front entrance, security barred anyone
from entering the building.
Students decided to take the incident as a learning
experience.
“We are leaving with our heads high; we are leaving
with power and with the knowledge that we have
done something historic,” said Aysha Siddiqua, 20, an
Extinction Rebellion NYC member and an organizer
of the demonstration.
After leaving the library, several Extinction Rebellion
activists blocked traffi c at Eighth Avenue and
Broadway by forming human chains across two crosswalks.
Protesters called on drivers to think of the
their children when it came to the negative impacts of
climate change. According to the EPA, the country’s
transportation sector accounts for 29 percent of the
nation’s total greenhouse gas emissions.
Columbia University did not immediately respond
to a request for comment.
4 October 17, 2019 Schneps Media