Why Is FOSS Force Reporting on a ‘No Kings’ Event in Elkin, NC

On No Kings Day in a small town in North Carolina, our reporter rediscovers that code, community, and politics are intertwined.

On Saturday, my friend–the other Christine–and I decided to do our part for democracy and attend a “No Kings Day” event.

Initially, I wanted to demonstrate in Chapel Hill, a university town in central North Carolina that still has some of the activist energy that Berkeley had in its heyday. However, Christine balked at the approximately 200 miles of round-trip travel that would entail, so we decided to look closer to home.

That basically left us with the choice of Winston-Salem, a medium-sized city with a population of about a quarter million, about 27 miles southeast of us, and Elkin, a small town about 18 miles away in the opposite direction.

We chose Elkin partly because we like its liberal, arty feel—which is unusual for this part of our state—and partly because parking was likely to be much, much easier there than in downtown Winston-Salem, where parking can be something of a nightmare, especially during a big event. This was a bit of a risky choice, however, because there was always the possibility that when we arrived, there wouldn’t be much of an event at all.

As liberal and arty as Elkin is, it’s surrounded by a township, as well as two whole counties, that are overwhelmingly red. In other words, we were likely to show up and find that we were only part of a handful of people who’d heeded the call to make noise about Trump’s ICE directives. I figured that if hardly anybody showed up, then the presence of the two of us would be all the more important—so off we went.

The 20-minute trip turned into 40, thanks to an improvised detour: the state highway we were taking to Elkin was closed in Boonville for some kind of parade.

We were already running late, and this only made us later. That was fine with me—I still tend to run on hippie standard time and figured we’d arrive well before the event was half over. The other Christine wasn’t pleased—she likes to arrive early or just on time to everything and was already fretting a bit because of our late start. However, about halfway through the detour, she began to relax and go with the flow.

No Kings in Elkin

Downtown Elkin sits on a hill above a floodplain on the Yadkin River, the largest river in central North Carolina and the main water source for the region. As we crossed the river on Bridge Street, we caught glimpses of the demonstration at the corner of Bridge and Market, just up the hill from downtown’s Main Street. Knowing the area a bit, we quickly found a parking spot within easy walking distance of the event.

The demonstration was taking place at a spot called “Hippo’s Lot,” a small city park carved out of about a quarter of a square city block on the edge of the downtown area, across the street from the town’s outdoor farmers’ market. We approached from the downhill, downtown side, where a greeter—who I’d guess was in his late 60s or maybe 70s—suggested we might prefer the other end of the block, pointing out the shade from a giant willow tree that dominates the landscape at that end of the park.

I hadn’t been to a demonstration since… well, since the early ’70s, when the issues of the day were Vietnam, civil rights, and Nixon. It’s not lost on me that war remains an issue, as does civil rights, and that we now have a new and worse version of Nixon in the guise of the president with the weird comb-over.

Much of the demonstration experience was just as I remembered from 50-plus years ago: the call-and-response chanting, the party-like atmosphere, and the sense that we were all there for the same purpose. The chants were different, crafted for the issues of the day, and the people were also different—mainly because the styles of the antiwar era are now a half-century out of date (and even the styles of the “Occupy” days are now 15 years old).

There were plenty of senior citizens, which I took to mean there were many like me who were veterans of ’60s-style radicalism. There were also some young neo-hippies, who have been part of every generation since the counterculture faded. But mostly, the attendees looked to be some version of American middle class—a group that, back in the ’60s, could be counted on to be totally unhip. That’s another thing that’s changed about the world, at least to some degree, in the last 50 years.

Free Software & the Art of Protesting

At this point, you might be wondering what a website about free and open source software is doing writing an article about attending an anti-Trump rally. In answer, all I can say is: why not?

I won’t dwell on the points about how FOSS—and especially Free Software—were born as radically political ideas (just as hippiedom started as an offshoot of the human potential movement, which was nothing if not political, since it called for building a radically different approach to both how we understand and live our lives and to the communities we build for ourselves). That understanding—that we are all connected and interdependent—was usurped by the mainstream media and reduced to “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll,” which is pretty much how the mainstream continues to define us today.

By the same token, FOSS and Free Software were born out of a political viewpoint: that sharing often trumps ownership, and that our quality of life is greatly improved when we promote sharing over ownership in many situations.

Unfortunately, big tech has largely discarded that belief, now defining open source as merely a “software development model”—one in which competing companies can collaborate on software, then claim ownership rights after adding their own secret sauce. (This is why you hear a lot more about “open source” these days than “FOSS”: the former allows eventual ownership of the code, while the latter does not.)

Don’t forget, all those cool and groovy software entrepreneurs of the late ’90s and early aughts—who were once so happy to share their good fortune with everyone from employees to philanthropic organizations, and who embraced progressive political causes—are now in lockstep with Trump’s antidemocratic ideas and were given most-favored-seating status at the Orange One’s inauguration.

One thing we learned quickly as hippies is that there is not a single area of our lives that is not firmly entangled in politics, whether we like it or not. Denying that truth will not make it go away.

People, Places, and Things

Of all the people I met at the demonstration, perhaps the most amazing was Carolyn, an 89-year-old who’s an old hand at demonstrations.

During our long discussion, she mentioned that she had been at another demonstration at the same park twenty-something years ago to protest Bush II’s regime-change invasion of Iraq. At that event, as part of the demonstration she helped plant a willow that’s now a full grown tree–the same tree that was shading us from the heat of the noonday sun at Saturday’s event.

To me, that was some sort of great serendipity.

I met plenty of others at the event as well. I’m sure most of them–maybe all–weren’t particularly tech-savvy. But when I took pictures of them holding their signs and told them I’d be posting the photos on a website, not a single one objected. Instead, they were interested in the site where they’d be posted, even asking me to show it to them on their phones so they could save the address.

When I showed them our site and explained that it’s not a political or social site but a tech site–and that I was going to write an article on the event that would focus on why tech sites should cover politics–they all got it. No scratching of heads or saying, “Huh?” Just firm agreement that it would be an article serving a real purpose… for the cause, so to speak.

I’d like to think that everyone who reads FOSS Force will also get it when this goes to press, but experience has taught me that probably won’t be the case. Most of you will get it, and will understand that this is just the beginning of more political coverage on this site for as long as the cronies who are friendly with the current administration threaten our democracy, our values, and our way of life. But some will write snarky comments about how this doesn’t belong on a tech news site.