cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/26333935

PORT ANGELES, WA.—Nearly 500 park-lovers marched through downtown Port Angeles—gateway to Olympic National Park—and rallied March 1 at the Courthouse chanting “Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, Trump and Musk have got to go!”

It was one of nearly 100 protests at or near National Parks against the mass firing by President Trump and billionaire, Elon Musk, of 1,000 National Park workers and 3,400 National Forest Service employees Feb. 14. It is described by the terminated workers as the “Valentine Day Massacre.”

The crowd gathered downtown at the 1 st & Laurel Fountain, singing Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land,” accompanied by two local banjo players. The people were in high spirits, cheering, waving at the stream of cars and trucks that passed, horns honking, the motorists waving.

They marched through downtown and up the hill on Lincoln Street to the Clallam County Courthouse. Many of the signs were a play on the National Forest Service “Smoky the Bear” poster “Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires.”

A variation carried by a young man pictured Smoky with the message, “Only You Can Prevent Fascism.” Another featured an image of Smoky and the message, “I’ve Just Been Fired.”

Other signs targeted billionaire Elon Musk renamed “Musk-rat.” Many signs denounced Trump and Musk as fascists.

One was a lovely impressionist mountainscape with lupine blooming in the foreground. The slogan said, “Save ONP: Deliver Us From Evil!!” Praised for the beauty of the painting, she replied, “Its paint-by-numbers.”

Ed Chadd, a leader of Olympic Climate Action (OCA), an organizer of the event, told People’s World, “I did not expect so many people to show up, show such strong support.” Chadd warned that the Trump-Musk cutbacks both here on the Olympic Peninsula and nationwide at the National Parks and National Forests, “is going to have a huge economic impact. “I ran the county Stream-Keepers program,” he said. “I worked alongside these (fired) government employees at every level. They worked hard and cared about the job they were doing.”

Local jobs terminated

Locally, the jobs of five Olympic National Park employees and three National Forest Service Employees have been terminated but the protesters warn that many more workers face loss of their jobs by Musk’s self-appointed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Chadd said he grew up in Chicago and in his childhood took trips west with his family, visiting many National Parks. “I was here in the Olympic National Park in 1963, when I was nine years old.” He pointed out that the crowd included many children, one a four-year-old holding a hand-lettered sign, “Protect Our Parks” and beside her another four-year-old youngster, holding a sign, “Leave My Future Alone!”

Chadd recalled that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the bill creating Olympic National Park (ONP) in 1938. FDR visited Port Angeles in 1937, greeted by big crowds who delivered a message urging him to create ONP.

Roosevelt stayed in a cabin beside Lake Crescent Lodge which is part of ONP together with the majestic Olympic Mountains and 73 miles of the Pacific coast.

“These expenditures supported 415,000 jobs,” the NPS website added, “$19.4 billion in labor income, $22 billion in value added, $55.6 billion in economic output to the national economy.”National Parks in Washington State added $278 million in labor income, one of the largest contributors to the state economy.

The day of protest in defense of the National Parks was initiated by Resistance Rangers that reported mass demonstrations by an estimated 20,000 people in or near 100 National Parks. The protestors braved deep snow and ice like the 200 who gathered at Yellowstone National Park and 800 at Rocky Mountain National Park near Boulder, Colorado. At least 500 turned out at Golden Gate Presidio in San Francisco.

Writing in the local newspaper here, Emma Maple interviewed several of the workers whose jobs were terminated. Hazel Galloway, a science communications specialist with a degree in biology, working on “probation” was dismissed on specious grounds that she had failed to “demonstrate her fitness or qualifications…”

But Galloway also showed Maple her end-of-year performance review. She received “top marks across all categories,” Maple reported. Galloway was fired Feb. 14.

Sopjhie Merchant told Maple she is a botanist, a crew leader working to eradicate “invasive species” like poison hemlock. Last year, the crew treated 1,500 acres but that leaves 630,000 acres untreated.

Chadd sent out an email blast that proclaimed, “Stand Up for National Parks and Public Lands….Worth Fighting For!”