Podcast. I'm your host, Angie Watson, her jam. And today, it is Saturday, 10/18/2025. And I am here at Shootingyo Park here in Alameda because there's a protest happening, not only here in Alameda, but across the nation. And I am here today to talk to people, you know, asking them, why are they here?
Angie Watson-Hajjem:What are they doing? What do they want to see happening from all of this activity? And I have two people who agreed to talk with me, Anne and Mary Claire. Hi, Anne. Hi, Mary Claire.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Hi.
Anne Clair:Great to meet you.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Oh, great to meet you too. Thank you for being part of our podcast today. So I wanna ask you both, what brought you here today? You guys?
Anne Clair:Well, so I'm here because I really care about democracy and climate, and there's this big all we it's no kings day. And so out in Alameda does an incredible event. The last time and no kings one, now no kings two, and people show up and learn a lot, and, you know, we're in community together. I'm a third act, which is for people 60 and older working on democracy and climate. So we have a table here.
Anne Clair:And I'm just thrilled to be here.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:All right. Yeah. So I'm Mary Claire. I'm the chair of All Rise Alameda. Our group has been together since 02/2017, and we've been working, against this administration since then.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:It's very important for people to be here today and all over the country. There's 2,500 different places where people are gathering to show that there are no kings in this country. This is democracy. People are free to gather. People have the right of free speech, and we want to show everyone and make it safe for other people to realize you don't have to be afraid.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:It's okay to be here. It's okay. We are Americans. Whatever else may divide us or whatever or bring us together, that's one thing we all know is that we support democracy. It's about everybody being able to express themselves in a safe way, and that's that's what we're doing here.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:And, also, just informing people about a lot of the other activities that are available after today. That's really important is what people do after today to stay engaged.
Anne Clair:You know? Well, first of all, just to say that there is an activist alley that's gonna be over at City Hall. So people will be encouraged at the city hall rally, which we'll be going to after we leave here, to go to one of the tables and sign up for canvassing, for phone banking, for signing petitions, and, you know, things they can actually do today. And that's really important. And then as far as tomorrow, Mary Claire?
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah. Well, we're having always Alameda is having a canvas in Alameda tomorrow. And I don't know if you wanna this is a partisan issue in some ways, but it's on the ballot for prop 50. We'll be talking to people in Alameda about that, which is all designed to level the playing field so that we do have free and fair elections. Beyond that, there's also it's very important.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I hope you'll talk to the people that are at our immigration table because the issues that are affecting our immigrant neighbors are affecting all of us. Yeah. And that's an important step. We also are having people can sign up to support attorney general Leticia James, who's under attack by this regime. And, we also have there's a voting suppression bill, that was dead in this in the congress, the SAVE Act, s a v e, and it will take, it's a really strong voter suppression.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:It's gonna require people to show that they're citizens by either a passport or a birth certificate. Millions of people don't have those forms of ID. It would cost them money. It's a barrier to voting. By Monday at 09:00PM is the last deadline for public comment on that.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:So we have information on that as well. So if anybody can go to we, you know, we have the QR codes for those things. Can give them to you after. But but so, yeah, it's really important. Whatever your issue is, whatever you care about, to take action beyond this.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Right. Exactly. Anything else you wanna say before we say goodbye to to LeMin?
Anne Clair:Well, I'm just thrilled to see all the people that are here already.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah.
Anne Clair:Moms, dads, kids, stories, joining Just lots of tabling, sign making, and people coming together and and, you know, learning and and, like I said before, being in community because that's more important than ever these days. Yeah. And we gotta fight and we gotta, like, you know, work together and and, you know, that's that's the only way that we're gonna have success in my opinion.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Right. And exactly having strong local community, that's what everyone is saying. That's what we need to protect each other, protect our neighbors. And as I said, if everybody could take one step out of their comfort zone to do one more thing we used to say do what you can when you can, and now we're saying do it now as much as you can.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah. Okay? Great. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you so Thank much having you for to me.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I appreciate it. Okay. Bye bye. Enjoy your day. So am here now talking to Toni.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:She's actually a very active person here in LMEs. She's been here for a while, doing some really great things in our city, and she's here at the protest. Hi, Toni. Hi there. How are you, Angie?
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Hi. Nice to see you again.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Great. Good to see you too. So tell me, what brought you here today, Tony?
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Well, today, I'm representing our Revolution East Bay, which is an organization an umbrella organization for progressives. I mean, which the Alameda Progressives is part of it. We're here to help people protest the No Kings rally by passing out signs and buttons and keeping people aware of of, you know, the the the the need for protesting against no kings. Yeah. Yeah.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:There are people here today as I walk look around the park, and I heard it's, 25, 2,600 groups coming together today across the nation. What do you hope for after today? After all this energy and all this, you know, coming together, what happens tomorrow? What do you wanna see come out of all this activist, all this energy rising in people that we're feeling today?
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I'm hoping that the energy will become an infection. And it will continue to grow. And won't just die out in this one day. Yeah. I hope that it will wake people up.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah. And we have to keep on doing this because one time is not enough and things are getting worse. So we just need to we wanna get activate people.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah. And I think that's coming together. It it for a lot of people, just the unity is just really cohesive, and it makes you feel you're not not by yourself. Yeah. Other people out here too together for for a big, big cause.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:What do you think we need to do? Because a lot of people are sitting at home still who are engaged, who see what let's see what's going on. They they hear the news. They they hear the podcast, but they still have not really been out there vocal. What do you wanna say to those
Angie Watson-Hajjem:people? Well, what I wanna say is that they just peek out the front door and listen. Look in look online and see if there's some organizations. Sign up for some mailing list. You can come to events like this because what you said about is so important about unity.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Because in unity, you don't feel alone. Yeah. When you don't feel alone, you don't get depressed. I mean, you're not depressed. You feel like you can actually do something.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah. So somehow, we have to reach out to people who are staying at home. There's a lot of organizations sending out emails to come to this route, to come to the event. I like the fact that the No Kings is not sponsored by any one organization. It's just a whole group of people, and people can come and then be exposed to organizations like mine and other ones and the new here because we have to get people activated, you know.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah. Because sitting at home and watching the news is very depressing. Yeah. Yeah.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:And nothing happens when you're sitting at home when
Angie Watson-Hajjem:your food's on. Yeah.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:You gotta get out and do something. Thank you, Tony, for speaking with me today. Thanks talking to me today. Oh, have fun today. I will.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:My having fun already. Come. Me too. So I am here with an old friend of mine. Now she's not old, but we've been friends for a very long time.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:About thirty years, we first met Lisa, and she's agreed to share with us a little bit about why she's here today. Lisa, what brought you here today?
Lisa:I'm here at where as many are because we're fighting for democracy and, also to show, my granddaughter who that someday that, what we are living through right now is not normal. It is extremely horrifying and scary, and that we want to do what we can to preserve democracy. And we've seen laws, that go on, laws being broken, corruption at the highest level all the way up to our supreme court. Just it it it's mortifying. It's scary, and we feel we must do what we can do.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Is it hard to believe that this is actually America? I mean, I just don't recognize this country. It
Lisa:really is. It really is. And and I just saw a interview this morning with Japanese immigrants and and how the woman was saying she couldn't believe what what she's seen and her parents were in terms. Yeah. And how we are seeing not just immigrants, United citizens Yeah.
Lisa:Snatched off the street and and put away for hours and hours without any due process. And and then even the immigrants are they're getting picked up and shipped off to other countries with no due process. It is no. It is my and and Kamala Harris made a good point that she said she couldn't even believe how so many Republicans have rolled over
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah.
Lisa:And just turned the other cheek while this is going on. Yeah. And, you know, and if you're any if you know anything about history, which I studied very a lot, that back in the day, many supported Hitler in his beginning days too Yes. And, you know, until it was too late. Yeah.
Lisa:And and what we are seeing now and the fact that we elected a convicted felon for a second time is so unbelievable also. Yeah. It's just mortifying. So I want my granddaughter to know we did fight. We did what we could and to help preserve democracy.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Right. Beautifully said, Lisa, thank you. Thank you for being here. I enjoyed the rest of your day. Thank you.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Thank you. Alright. Bye bye. So I'm here talking with Bob who was part of this protest, and I'm just curious to know, Bob, what brought you here today?
Bert:Well, we're here visiting our grandson, and we were planning on doing a no king's march in Southern California, but we're gonna do it here. Uh-huh. And we've got a son in New York that's already been marching there. Uh-huh. Like I say, I'm feeling really negative.
Bert:It's just the the racism that we see coming out of their mouths, the violence that and that they're picking up. We're the insurrectionists, and we're the violent ones when they're wearing masks of automatic weapons and carrying children out of their beds and their families and pushing people over in the street. But now I'm here. I don't think we're in a good situation.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah. And
Bert:and they have all the levers of power. You know, we just have us. Yeah. I hope that's gonna be enough. I think people do know.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Do you think that people coming together across the country for protests like this, that this will change something, that this will make a difference?
Bert:Yeah. I'm afraid what's gonna happen is they're gonna push more violence on us. I just hope there's no event today that they can use. I don't know. I mean, you know, they have the guns, and they have the the military firing missiles over Highway 5.
Bert:Did you hear that movie?
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I did not hear that.
Bert:Vance is down there with at at Camp Pendleton, and they're shooting missiles over the freeway. So Newsom has shut down, I think, 17 miles of the freeway there today.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Wow. And he that's what
Bert:he's very upset about. Yeah. They pick an odd day, don't they, to do a a military demonstration? With all of them. I I'm just very fearful.
Bert:Yeah.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I was talking to someone earlier. He was saying that, you know, we've gone through a lot of troubling times here in this country, and he felt like, hey. You know, we will get through this. There's do you have any specter of hope that we will survive this and we will move through this and we'll have better days? Are you like, we're just all doomed, Paul?
Angie Watson-Hajjem:No.
Bert:I I understand what he's saying, but I don't think we've ever had a situation in our history where the levers of power of the government are controlled by all these right wing people, and that the corruption of the supreme court, all of the rights that people fought for two hundred and fifty years to develop, you know, all of the the fourteenth amendment, first and all the things in my constitution. Our supreme court just walks over them. Just pounds them down into the ground, and it lets Trump do whatever he wants to do. It's like the he's on they're on speed dial for him. He just oh, give me a decision, and they always favor me.
Bert:So I I think it's more threatening than he is. Yeah. I I don't I maybe have a glimmer of hope,
Angie Watson-Hajjem:but Yeah.
Bert:You'll have to show me where it is. Okay. I'm not too sure where
Angie Watson-Hajjem:it is. Well, thank you, Bob, for taking time to speak with me. I hope
Angie Watson-Hajjem:you share it.
Bert:Oh, no.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I think most people go the same way you do here. It's not an anomaly at all.
Brock:We've lived through some very bad times in the past, we've been able to rise above it. Because guess what happened after eight years of Bush Junior?
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Got Clinton. Obama. Oh, well, we all well, Clinton, Major, Obama,
Brock:major change,
Angie Watson-Hajjem:right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Brock:So, eight years of Obama, Thank God. Yeah. And it means that we can swing back to to sanity.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:So I hear some hope in you, Brock.
Brock:There is hope. Yeah. There is hope. Yeah. Because without hope, we just have despair and that's what they want.
Brock:Yeah. That's what our corrupt leadership wants. They wanna have people fearful and divided, and they live on creating fear. Yeah. So in any event, that's that's why I'm out today.
Brock:That just the callous cruelty
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yes.
Brock:That that ICE is exhibiting all across the
Angie Watson-Hajjem:country. Inhumane.
Brock:It's totally inhumane. Ripping children away from their parents and and deporting grandmothers that have been here for decades. I mean, it's just this is not our country, and we need to take back our country from the extreme the the level of corruption right now is extreme. They said that Trump, since being in office the second term, has made a billion dollars. His family has made a billion dollars over the whole crypto scam.
Brock:Okay? That and that's just one. He just had a he just had a meeting at at, Mar A Lago, a million dollar a plate dinner. People are buying influence with the government, and it's paying off for them. You know?
Brock:And you have these chief executives of major firms. Apple Computer shows shows up at the White House giving Trump a golden iPhone. Right? I mean, what is going on right now? It it it's a it's a tragedy.
Brock:It's a tragedy, and they should not be allowed to get away with it. And sooner or later, sooner or later, there will be follow-up, and the people that are complicit right now will be held to task.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Well, thank you so much, Brock. And I am here today at Alameda with a bunch of people who are protesting what's going on here in our country. And I am now going to be talking to Margaret. I just happened to thumb up against her and she said, yeah, she would come on the show and and talk. So Margaret, thank you for being part of our podcast.
Margaret:My pleasure. You thank you for being out here.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:So tell me what brought you here?
Margaret:So what brought me here was I have a great niece and a great nephew and lots of little kids in this country and that's my fear.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I
Margaret:fear for them. I'm gonna survive whatever the heck Trump does to us. But I worry about the youngsters.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah. And what do you think things like this protest people coming together? Why do you think it's important?
Margaret:Oh, I think it shows solidarity across the country. There's like 2,600 protests, I believe, protests in 2,600 cities.
Bert:And
Margaret:if that doesn't show the current administration that there's people that are against what they're doing, then obviously they need to grow a spine
Angie Watson-Hajjem:and some balls and
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah.
Margaret:What have you.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:What do you wanna see happen after today? Because we have a lot of energy, a lot of excitement, people coming together, but then tomorrow, what what's next?
Margaret:I I would love to see the Republicans and the Democrats get together, reopen our government, and take care of the people. Take care of the people. Take care of our health care. Take care of our country.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah. Great. Anything else you
Angie Watson-Hajjem:wanna share with our listeners, Margaret?
Margaret:No.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:About the passion there.
Margaret:Yeah. Just no kings. I mean, we need to take back. We need to we need to do this. We need to do it peacefully, please.
Margaret:Please. No violence. No nothing.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah.
Margaret:That's it. Thank you.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Well, you, Margaret. Yeah. Thank you. Enjoy your day.
Bert:Thanks. You too.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I appreciate
Margaret:you guys.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:So I am here talking to another protester today first, who has agreed to speak with me for a couple of minutes. Bert, hi.
Bert:Hi, Angie. Nice to see you.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Nice seeing
Bert:you So nice being out here with everyone.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah.
Bert:We need and we wanna be together and get some change going on because this is awful, awful, scary stuff.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah. Yeah. Is that what brought you here because you wanna see a change here in this government?
Bert:Oh, I yes. Yes. You got it. And to be with everyone, I think that's so important. I'm gonna
Bert:be giving free hugs later.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Aw, that's nice. Okay.
Bert:That's what we all need to do for each other.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Do. You know, I've been talking to people and just and just feeling the energy of people here today. I'm wondering what happens next. What happens tomorrow? What do you wanna see come out of this protest?
Bert:It's all good. Come on down. Continuing this energy, continuing what it is all about is not lying down and giving up. That's what they want us to do. And if we don't do it, they're not gonna win.
Bert:I it's it's easy to lose hope. It's easy to be so upset and horrified by what's going on right now, and that is all true.
Bert:And we have to keep going.
Bert:If we give up, they win.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I was talking to a a a man earlier before I stopped to talk to you, and he was saying that, you know, this country has drifted through so much. You know, 1968, assassinations of, you know, peacemakers and people who were trying
Bert:to do good in the
Angie Watson-Hajjem:world and Vietnam War. It's just we've gone through so much in this country, and he really believes that we'll get through this as well. He he seems to have a lot of hope. Do you also have hope, Bert, that you will move through these troubling times?
Bert:I think it's such an important perspective, and I am lucky enough to talk up with people about these things all day long. I'm a therapist, and it helps remind me that to remind them that that perspective is true. And it's not only this country, it's human history. We have had these ups and downs, and it stinks that we're at that this stage at this moment, but it also means that the pendulum will swing,
Bert:and we're gonna do everything we
Bert:can together to have that happen sooner. Yeah.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Bert, thank you for being time talking to me. It was so great, and I hope that you enjoyed this wonderful day today.
Bert:Thank you, and I hope you do as well, and keep on talking.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:We will. Thank you, Bert.
Bert:Thank you.