Celebrating our 50th Anniversary in Durango, Colorado

Paul Cuthbertson, Mary Ellen Cuthbertson and Nancy Fey – demonstrating for an end to the Gaza genocide in Durango Colorado. August 31, 2025

What better way to mark our 50th anniversary and our long commitment to each other, to social justice and to building a socialist America than to demonstrate for an end to the U.S.-Israeli genocide in Gaza in Durango, Colorado on Labor Day Weekend, the same weekend that the city in the southwest corner of Colorado was having something akin to a “biker convention”.

Here’s how it came about we found ourselves in Durango irritating bikers and calling for an end to the Gaza genocide, and in support of cutting U.S. military (and other) aid to Israel.

I had posted on social media about the hot springs in Pagosa Springs (where we’re staying) who boasts of being the home of the deepest hot springs in the world, over 1000 feet deep. A “Facebook friend” and someone I had long worked with on Palestinian solidarity, Mary Ellen Cuthbertson Garrett (pictured above with husband Paul and Nancy) saw the post. She and husband Paul had moved to a co-housing community 40 miles down the road to the west just outside of Bayfield.

Mary Ellen invited us for a visit. She and Paul had been active in Friends of Sabeel, a national organization in support of all Palestinians, but particularly the generally underpublicized Palestinian Christian Community in the West Bank. She is also a musician of skill that has played both Celtic and African music. Nancy and I have worked with “Sabeel” people for sometime now, a dedicated, thoughtful group of Christian, and among the best in countering Christian Zionist apocalyptic nonsense. Interesting seeing their co-housing community in action.

Durango Colorado’s Opponents of Genocide in Gaza

Sitting and drinking an old, questionable bottle of champagne, made drinkable by adding orange juice to transform the liquid into mimosas, Mary Ellen mentioned a weekly Sunday afternoon demonstration and march in downtown Durango, just 20 miles from Bayfield. Unable to show our concern about the unprecedented slaughter, now almost normalized in the U.S. media, we decided to join the group in their peace and anti-genocidal efforts.

It was a small group, a dozen in all maybe, mostly young folk – by that I mean probably all except one –  under the age of 40. A tipsy Navajo Indian was talking to the group about how native peoples had survived Euro-American attempts at genocide, wiping out native culture, but had endured and survived. He might have been “on the bottle” but regardless, his words were nothing short of profound and relevant.

And then we – all a dozen of us – marched through downtown Durango. I was given the high honor of drumming – or mor accurately – banging on metal post as we chanted slogans of peace and solidarity with Palestine with a few pointed criticisms of Trump, Biden, and Colorado’s two worthless U.S. Senators, Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper. My impression was – the sneering bikers aside – most of the people we pass didn’t have a clue what we were doing, what is Gaza, Palestine, Zionism – these are not terms too many Durango-ers think about much – which is exactly the point. Perhaps the’ll go home to find out what were “these people” – us – marching and chanting about anyway?

Some of the bikers showed verbal hostility and the usual unfriendly hand gestures, but there were clearly many people who noded, some who gave a thumbs up. One religious fundamentalist got up in a dander and retched the usual apocalyptic nonsense. A police SUV passed by several times but did not stop. But overall, I have to admit, the reception to our protest was better than I expected. Perhaps this  shouldn’t have been so surprising as in Durango during the “No Kings” demonstration some 5000 people showed up to give Trump the same finger that some of the bikers gave us, itself an indication of the extent of the growing anger and opposition that exists everywhere in the country to Trump’s fascist moves to the right domestically and his foreign policy failures which are mounting up daily.  In the same vein, the local news source, the Durango Herald owned for decades by the Ballantine family, has covered both the activities of lcoal protesters and the situation in Gaza – well – considerably better than the Denver Post on Denver’s tv media.

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Durango Herald: Our view: Silencing Gaza’s journalists silences the world