Down River
By John Lipez
Height of Irresponsibility:
The whole thing turned out to be a sham, that counter-protest called for last Friday by, it turns out, a non-existent anti-Black Lives Matter group named Operation Backyard.
Andrew Powell was/is the local man behind Operation Backyard and after very few showed up to demonstrate against the Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Lock Haven, he basically said, “just kidding.”
Powell provided The Record an extended treatise on his effort and you can read it from an earlier story on therecord-online; we won’t waste the newsprint and ink on it in this print edition.
Just a handful showed up from Operation Backyard last Friday, they kept their distance while the BLM organization carried out its fourth peaceful protest for social justice across the street.
Powell can term his effort a “social experiment” and claim it was “never about a counter-protest.” It says here Mr. Powell was more in damage control than anything else in his post-Friday night assessment.
He said he wanted to cause a stir in Lock Haven and put the political left out of whack and claimed success in both regards. I failed to see a “stir” in the downtown and I’m not sure who makes up the “political left” in our community. The folks I saw Friday evening on the BLM side of the street looked anything but out of whack. I did see a pretty good cross-section of the community, among them four current or retired Lock Haven University faculty members and a veteran member of the Clinton County Bar Association, all with an extensive track record of commitment to the community at one level or another. Again, that was on the Black Lives Matter side of Main Street; I didn’t recognize anyone among the ten or so on the “Operation Backyard” side across the street.
What I also did see Friday evening was a potentially volatile situation, brought about by Powell’s advance social posturing/postings and a pre-event story containing some dog whistles in the Lock Haven Express (The Record had also been provided Powell’s pre-event announcement but in the interest of public safety/community concern elected not to post anything in advance on therecord-online. Instead we waited until the event was over before reporting on what transpired).
So there were 50 or 60 BLM members/supporters, maybe 10 who may or may not be members of Operation Backyard, if in fact there is an Operation Backyard; Andrew’s postscript was a little vague on that. And there were more than a few police from multiple area forces, all standing by, maybe 30 yards or so up Main Street from where the protest/counter-protest participants had gathered.
Fortunately, there was no volatility. The BLM group stayed on their side; the OB guys and gals leaning against the county’s Garden Building on the other side. But the potential, in this age of heightened racial tensions all across the country, was there for a blow-up. It has happened in other communities in this summer of unrest, it easily could have happened in downtown Lock Haven last Friday night.
It was a peaceful summer evening, Main Street cordoned off for the pedestrian mall, diners eating outdoors on both sides of the street, a musical group entertaining the next block up, at Main and Grove Streets.
But it all could have evaporated in one false move, one miscalculation from those at the intersection of Main and Jay. And had that happened, it would have been on Andrew Powell, the man who orchestrated his self-described social experiment. Fortunately for our community, there was no confrontation; there was no need to utilize the police.
It turned out to be a bit of gamesmanship on Powell’s part. He cried wolf, but few from his side responded. There was no wolf, just a local man making a futile effort to create a “stir.” Didn’t happen.
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Good Early News for the Grand Old Party:
The first post-primary voter registration numbers are out and they bode well for Clinton County Republicans.
It wasn’t all that many years ago that major party registrants were fairly even in the county, but in recent years a Republican registration edge has been building.
As a for instance, this time a year ago, there were 10,060 registered Republicans as compared to 7,723 Democrats, a difference of 2,337 in July of 2019. The latest 2020 numbers from county voter registrar Maria Boileau show 10,745 Republicans and 7,565 Democrats. That’s a difference of 3,180. Most troubling for Democrats has to be a net loss in registrants in one year’s time, down 158 in one year.
President Trump’s poll numbers may be abysmal nationally, but the GOP looks to be more than holding its own in July of 2020.
Other totals from July 2019 were 2,518 “others,” 25 Green Party members and 92 Libertarians. Fast forward to July 2020 and we see 2,534 “others,” 1 Libertarian, and 20 no affiliation; not sure what happened to the Green Party registrants in one year but it is of note that while there were no “no affiliations” listed last year, the number is 20 this year. Perhaps those 20 are disenchanted with both major parties? Could very well be, don’t you think?
