Young protester at the April 5, 2025, Oakland, Calif., Hands Off demonstration. Photo: Urszula Wislanka for News & Letters.

Oakland, Calif.—On April 5, millions came out in the streets nationwide, including several thousands here, against the fascist Trump/Musk government, demanding it take its “Hands Off”: “Our Democracy” (and “Voting Rights”), “Free Speech,” “Mahmoud Khalil” (and students here on visa who are being deported for criticizing Israel), “Immigrants,” “Cancer Research” (and all manner of medical and scientific research), “Our Future,” “The Environment,” “Our Bodies,” “Social Security” and “Health Care,” “Universities” (and all “Public Schools”), “National Parks,” “Yemen,” “Palestinians,” “LGBTQ Rights,” “Unions” (and occupational health and safety), etc.

New is the totality of these issues coming together in this moment. They point to both current struggles and hard-won historical victories in which past upsurges in civil society forced the government to expand civil rights, thus reining in the degradation of conditions of life and labor inherent to capitalist rule.

Trump’s fascist government is both breaking those reins and officially erasing the history of multiple freedom movements and using the full power of the government to attempt to impose that erasure throughout civil society, especially schools and universities. Can civil society’s multiple struggles find their own unifying non-state-oriented idea of freedom in the face of a state that can flip so quickly into one of pervasive authoritarian unfreedom, cruelty and extortion, all aiming to completely dominate civil society?

–Participant

Protester at the April 5, 2025, Oakland, Calif., Hands Off demonstration. Photo: Urszula Wislanka for News & Letters.

Protester at the April 5, 2025, Oakland, Calif., Hands Off demonstration. Photo: Urszula Wislanka for News & Letters.