The Port Townsend Indivisible political organization held their first rally of the new year Jan. 9 at the corner of Sims Way and Kearney Street.
The group was rallying to protest escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran which have spiked over the last weeks with the assasination of an Iranian general on Iraqi soil ordered by President Donald Trump.
Similar grassroots rallies were held across the country, organized in large part by the progressive activist group MoveOn. The Port Townsend event registered with the larger event and some attendees, unaffiliated with Port Townsend Indivisible, said that is how they heard about it.
As of press time, the most recent news shows efforts of both the U.S. and Iran to de-escalate tensions. Pundits say Iran offered the U.S. an off-ramp with their retaliatory response of launching ballistic missiles at U.S. military sites that resulted in no reported injuries or deaths. President Trump promised new sanctions on Iran while the investigation of the Ukrainian passenger plane crash takes place. Iran has admitted it mistakenly shot down the Kiev-bound 737.
This is the second protest against the Trump Administration by Indivisible in the past month. The first took place Dec. 18, the day the U.S. House of Representatives voted on articles of impeachment against President Trump. The protest, which drew crowds of near 400 people, urged representatives to vote to impeach the president.
Organizer Cheryl Bentley said she while the two protests were similar in nature they were fundamentally about different issues. The first was to state that no one, even the president, is above the law and the second was about an overall opposition to U.S. military conflicts.
