Why Up is Good is going to Ed Kelly's House on Monday

Why We're Going to Ed Kelly's House on Monday
And Where Lowcountry Up is Good has been for the past 9 years.

The demonstration and social are all set up for Monday, June 24th. at and near Ed Kelly's house in Carolina Park subdivision in Mount Pleasant, SC. You can sign up to participate and find more information through the link at the bottom of this post. Lowcountry Up is Good is fully committed to this safe, legal protest action. Nobody else has to come. We can handle this.

You can signup on Eventbrite at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dont-chicken-out-show-up-ed-kelly-protest-party-tickets-929641963137

Not everyone is cool with this and we expected that. That is what life is like when you are, as we have been, the most aggressive leftists PAC in SC, Lowcountry Up is Good PAC. 

• 
  People didn't like the tactics we used to drive Mark Sanford from office. We nailed him for opposing transit funding with saturation leafleting and online outreach in Summerville and downtown Charleston. Charleston County had already voted to build a transit system and passed the tax to pay for it. Sanford lost to Katy Arrington. Arrington lost to Joe Cunningham and the 1st District had it's first Democratic Congressman in 38 years. Cunningham decided to play safe towards the middle on the advice of the Democratic party and lost. 
• Lots of people thought the fight to build a major transit system was way beyond what we could do (we'll see) but we got it paid for (not built yet). We won a narrow victory the night other people, using traditional methods lost the entire country to Donald Trump.
• Affordable Housing- They wanted to do petitions and meetings, We built a tiny house on Martin Luther King Weekend, then a village, which the City demanded we get rid of. We did. We gave the tiny houses away with no record of who got them or where they went so it was impossible to track the new owners down and force them to give up that affordable housing. From what we know, people are living in those tiny homes today. (we still don't know exactly who has them or where they're located.)
• We saved one progressive Democratic incumbent from defeat by a suspect out of nowhere opponent in a primary in the middle of a pandemic. We held the challenger out of nowhere to 30% of the vote.
• 
  We fought for seven years to return pubic transit to the beach in Charleston. Now the Chamber of Commerce supports it. Louise Brown, aged 81, led a 4.8 mile march to the sea in 2015 from Mt. Pleasant Town Centre to the Front Beach at the Isle of Palms. It was 97 degrees. Image right . She led the march because William Hamilton was ordered on to the sag wagon for dehydration. Jack was 55 years old.
• We picketed Seacoast Church on Palm Sunday 2023 and learned profound things about how the Christian right was operating though local Mega Churches that helped prepare us for Unity City. We did it on public property and didn't block anyone from getting to church. The police were fully involved in the planning. We met with them. We had an agreed on safety plan. Seacoast refused to come down and talk to the PD. 
• We used Pirates to double ridership on the Bus to the Beach in two years, this year achieving a 92% increase in ridership for the first three weeks of service. In 2022, CARTA achieved a 3% increase over the first year of service. As the buses to IOP full, we're preparing a campaign to push transit out to Folly Beach. On July 12, IOP will stand for Isle of Pirates. You won't want to miss it.
• We backed up CARTA and the COG against the Exchange Club in the fight to keep a rapid transit stop at the fairgrounds. They stuck to their guns. They're going to court to take the property, as previously agreed by the exchange club before it suffered a right wing takeover. 

Every time before we went out and won, people told us to calm down and stay home. Calm people who stay at home lose. Now we're surrounded by Tumpism with our backs to the sea in SC. The entire state, except for Richland County and a few very poor rural counties, is under right wing control. Our Governor wants to hunt us with dogs. Progressive people are leaving SC for other places. At this rate we won't have the critical mass to sustain resistance six months after Trump is reelected, if that happens. It's now or never.

We didn't ask for this job. We went to a dozen other organizations to do this. We specialize in small, highly focused actions for Better Transit, a living wage and affordable housing. When nobody else stepped up, it was resist or run. We chose to resist. 

We're working actively with the police on the demo Monday. We're drafting a safety plan. It will be legal and should be safe. If anyone is going to be targeted at the demo or at their home, that's going to be William Hamilton and he and 32 Sowell are fully equipped to deal with that. If you want to participate, sign up. If not, we'll be down to full in the seats being empties at CCSD Headquarters as the first shift on what is supposed to be a very long and dysfunctional school board meeting goes home for their long delayed dinners. We will be fresh, well fed and ready to sit on top of the M4L people until 2 am if necessary.

Monday is no ordinary day. It was on that date, four years ago that Julia Hamilton left 32 Sowell Street for the last time in an Ambulence. She died the next day, shortly after a prayer from Louise Brown was made for her that she heard on her cell phone. Julia heard the prayer. We know because she squeezed Jacks hand, letting him know that she had heard at least some of what he and others had said to her that afternoon in the ICU. 

Eventbrite signup. - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dont-chicken-out-show-up-ed-kelly-protest-party-tickets-929641963137