Don’t just sit there; DO SOMETHING!

I know it can seem overwhelming.
It frankly is.
But… that’s the point.
“They” want you to feel overwhelmed and powerless, because then you won’t do anything about it.
You’ll just continue your normal routine to survive… for now.

You need to overcome that dread and fear.
I used to try my best not to be alarmist. I’ve been working towards privacy and security for myself and my family for years.
But if everyone does that and doesn’t speak out publicly, no one will know you’re with them and want to help…
You can’t tell that anyone else cares, so why should you?

If no one speaks out for fear of retribution, what does that say about our current situation?
And worse, the future situation?

Why am I now pretty alarmist?
The current presidential administration has taken apart the pieces of its own branch that were responsible for contemplating the Iranian responses to our actions just before launching an offensive on Iran.
It is inevitable that someone, either alone or as an organization, will counterattack, potentially on our own soil. (It’s possible that’s already happened, but I’m not keeping up with that news.) If and when that happens, there is the possibility that the federal Executive Branch (i.e. Trump and his buddies) will try to declare martial law and, among other things, postpone elections this year.

Even during peak World War II, our elections were held. I believe that the precedent says this is a blatant attempt to retain power, as the Republicans in Congress seem to literally just go with whatever Trump says, no matter what they say their “morals” are.

We cannot let this happen. The Executive branch has no power over elections. The Federal Government has no power over elections. (GovFacts page about this; I’m not an expert, but this seems to track with what I learned in freaking middle school!)

I do not claim to be a Democrat, Republican, Liberatarian, “enlightened centrist”, or member of any particular party. I believe a certain balance and discussion between our opinions is important to the success of our country.
We make hard choices.
We compromise.
We work together.

But the current administration has forsaken the actual goals of the founding fathers to make a balance of power and seems to create a new kind of kingdom. A democracy in name only.

Assuming my fears are correct, I despise this set of actions, and I believe you should, too.

I don’t know what you or I should do. I do know that doing nothing achieves nothing. So, I’m trying to do something.

The next No Kings Day protest is on March 28th. In Starkville, it will be at the Courthouse downtown from 10am to 12pm.
There are planned to be computers so you can check your voter registation status.

Please do something.
Even if just showing up somewhere to express discontent.
Even if just honking at us as you drive by.
Even if just starting to look into how things are going.

I know you’re tired.
We’re all tired.
Don’t stop trying to do something.

“Are you okay?”

- some of the last words of Alex Pretti

People: Renee Good’s Family Reacts to Alex Pretti’s ‘Deeply Disturbing’ Death: ‘We Urge All Americans to Trust Their Own Eyes’

Bloomberg News: ICE Agent Shoots and Kills US Citizen in Minneapolis

Most of us have seen the videos by now. It’s national news, whether or not your news sources have talked about it. If you were unaware of the above, either you’re too busy or you’ve been kept in the dark intentionally.

I remain optimistic that things can get better as long as people are willing to seek the truth, as hard as it is to digest sometimes.
Please continue to survive, be kind to yourself and others.
Almost every religion and culture seems to have some form of the Golden Rule (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”; basically be kind to other people), but it bewilders me that so many people seem to forget that includes the people you don’t like.

I can’t claim to know what will happen, but as long as good people continue to try to do good things, the next generation will hopefully find it worth it to be good themselves. 🙂

Also, I don’t keep entirely up with literally everything, so this may or may not reflect the “latest” events. You’re a responsible adult (probably); please do your own reading on events.

What is this site about?

Local citizens stand on the sidewalk in downtown to protest weekly (12-1pm on Fridays). This is to show our disapproval of either recent political events/decisions/actions or just the current presidential administration in general.

We believe that this president and his administration is causing harm to our country and to the world at large. Eveyone that attends voices individual concerns but are in general agreement with this understanding.

The poster shown on this page is one of the images posted to various social media about this event.
There is no central organization, but the poster represents the general ethos of most of us.

Why?

“A waste of time and resources”

- Paraphrased statement from a city official regarding the weekly protests¹

Well, that’s a fun comment.
But it is an opinion based on one’s perspective.

If you believe the goal of the protests is to “make the federal government realize the error of their ways and repent!”, then yeah, these protests would be a gigantic waste of time.

However, I don’t think anyone that attends these expects anything close to that. I believe some of the only things we are sure of are:

1. We always get more positive responses than negative responses²,
2. We feel more community when meeting together,
3. Doing nothing achieves nothing.

Where can I find more info?

I plan to update this website over time.
Information is currently posted in various spaces on social media, but you likely found this website through something like that anyways.

Facebook (Fed Up Friday Starkville)

If you want to message the manager of this site directly, the email is starkvilleweeklyprotests@gmail.com.

Historical Interaction Data

Date	Positive	Negative	Pos/Neg Ratio
2025-05-09	52	7	7.4
2025-05-23	65	14	4.6
2025-05-29	39	5	7.8
2025-06-06	42	6	7.0
2025-06-13	38	3	12.7
2025-06-20	25	4	6.3
2025-07-04	12	?	n/a
2025-07-11	18	2	9.0
2025-07-18	28	1	28.0
2025-07-25	61	5	12.2
2025-08-01	34	1	34.0
2025-08-08	74	13	5.7
2025-08-15	45	7	6.4
2025-08-22	42	4	10.5
2025-08-29	81	5	16.2
2025-09-05	44	4	11.0
2025-09-19	58	7	8.3
2025-09-26	14	2	7.0
2025-10-03	46	9	5.1
2025-10-10	50	3	16.7
2025-10-24	51	5	10.2
2025-10-31	47	4	11.8
2025-11-07	65	7	9.3
2025-11-14	104	4	26.0
2025-11-21	83	10	8.3
2025-11-28	n/a	n/a	n/a
2025-12-05	n/a	n/a	n/a
2025-12-12	67	11	6.1
2025-12-19	37	5	7.4
2025-12-26	n/a	n/a	n/a
2026-01-02	9	0	∞
2026-01-09	35	3	11.7
2026-01-16	31	10	3.1
2026-01-23	42	9	4.7
2026-01-30	42	5	8.4
2026-02-06	65	5	13.0
2026-02-13	82	2	41.0
2026-02-20	50	8	6.3
2026-02-27	70	6	11.7
2026-03-06	59	4	14.8

Footnotes

1. Just for disclosure, I was not personally present when this comment was made. I had to paraphrase from a retelling and don’t have any of the full context or nuance. ↩

2. This is a bit of a biased measurement, as I count a “honk” as generally positive, and any other interaction takes more effort on the part of drivers. We regularly get positive reactions at 4-7x the rate of negative reactions. Maybe that discrepancy is due to the difference in effort required, but maybe not. ↩