"All options are on the table" (Read nuke, annihilate, 'Bomb you into the Stone Age'...anything but diplomacy) is another cringeworthy euphemism we'll be overexposed to all year. And don't forget about all those pressing family discussions "around the kitchen table"...you know, about rent, gas prices, nukes, whatever. It'll be a big year for make-believe tables.  

 

 

John,

Why do you suppose there is no antiwar resistance? Until the vast partisan divide that has existed since the Obama years is narrowed and your "Liberals, Ds, Rs, and MAGAs (whoever they are now)," start resisting the national pro-war, neoliberal agenda together, demanding real change, the U.S. will continue to accelerate in its downward spiral of imperial collapse.

These biannual No Kings festivities have been for the most part enormous Trump rant-fests, promoted and funded by oligarchs like George Soros and the Walton family. Do you think if Netanyahu apologists like 'I am a Zionist' Biden or AIPAC Kamala were occupying the White House waging war on Iran, providing more arms for Israel or Ukraine, arresting, deporting or detaining pro-Palestinian protestors, expanding mass surveillance on U.S. citizens and more that Open Society or 50501 would sponsor or promote one more No Kings pep rally?

That's what I thought.

Don't get me wrong. I support enormous street demonstrations and hope the turnout in Bellingham is huge. Solidarity can be invigorating. I have participated in my share - on my own dime - for decades. As a member of Military Families Speak Out and Veterans For Peace I demanded an end to the bloodshed in Iraq and elsewhere, with hundreds of thousand of others, with not a single oligarch sponsoring our efforts or a politician - aside from Dennis Kucinich, of course - acknowledging our existence. I would estimate, though, that most of the demonstrators knew why they were there, unlike most No Kings participants I tried to engage in conversations between harangues. The rest learned a few things they never they would have never been exposed to on CNN or MSNBC (now MS Now) or reading NYT; including valuable antiwar strategies to share and motivate others when they got home.

We're all angry, John, devastated emotionally. During the Bush/Cheney years, with a son in Iraq, I was livid. My hate meter was pegged for W and Rumsfeld, no less than for Neo-Caligula and Dumb McNamara. But hate is not a strategy, and a rant is not a weapon for change.

It might be a good time for No Kings and Indivisible organizers to marshal their partisan resources for a genuine, sustained antiwar resistance before US troops are forced to assault another impenetrable kill zone in another war of choice. It's probably too late to fend off their ingress, and a quagmire is likely without demanding an end to war, but Democratic pep rallies every six months are not going to "spark fear within the oligarchy," according to Dorothy Lennon. 

Lennon adds: "There are no serious demands from the festivities this weekend. The oligarchs will concede nothing this weekend. It will fall to us to build something with serious demands that will force the oligarchs to concede something."

Let's start with demanding an end to the war on Iran, and an off-ramp for WWIII. Or is that an overreach for No Kings. 

That's a tough one, Dick. What do we tell anyone? After Obama, Russiagate and Covid censorship, after Trump 1 and 2, and now the endless Russo/Ukraine slaughter and the Palestinian genocide, accompanied by anti-Semitic propaganda, self-censorship might be the only way to keep friendships and families intact, but it doesn't work for me.

You and I endured the chaos of the Vietnam War years and, unlike some of our friends, remarkably survived. I never thought it was going to end, but it finally did. Countless people took to the streets, with demands for peace. A frenetic, strategic, grassroots effort probably saved our lives, along with millions of Vietnamese freedom fighters.

I followed the buildup to the No Kings rallies, even attended a couple, but did not hear a single demand. They were clearly top-down, well-funded, get-out-the-vote rallies for the Democratic Party. Many of the participants could not tell me, definitively, why they showed up, except Trump, Putin, Musk, RFK Jr. bad.

How's that working? Indivisible and 50501 were fine with it. After all, they were playing a numbers game and the turnout nationally was incredible. For the time being, and maybe even by 2026, the status quo is safe.

One of the best commentaries I've read so far on No Kings protests was written by Margaret Kimberly of the Black Agenda Report. She compares it to the 1996 Million Man March which accomplished basically nothing for Black men. In fact, it was detrimental to their cause, in the wake of the 1994 Clinton Crime Bill and worse. 

 https://blackagendareport.com/no-kings-and-lure-spectacle

Kimberley in conclusion noted:

"The Million (Man) March is remembered as being a success, mostly because it took place at all. Yes, there were some individuals who organized together who ultimately did good work, but the impact of having a huge Black organized march should have been bigger and better. In 1996 Black people still voted for Bill Clinton in huge numbers. Clinton pursued and won media consolidation that destroyed Black radio, and financial services deregulation, which years later cost Black people their homes in the real estate bubble.

Political action must start out small and determined. Any victories must then be shared among activists, while big marches and electoral politics should be last on any agenda. If not, people will be in a crowd listening to numerological equations or following duplicitous political operatives who paved the way for Trump to be in office at all. Bigger is not always better. All politics are local, and those strategies must be mastered before the next No Kings spectacle. Surely there will be one, and hopefully there will be far fewer people in attendance."

And these future attendees might even have a clue why they are marching.

  

 

Carol, 

I went to two mostly boomer "resistance" protests hoping to start conversations, but quickly realized this was going to be pointless. We didn't get past "Orange Man Bad" or "Musk's a Nazi", the same weekend in June Elon Musk rescued our stranded astronauts. Both events in Bellingham were huge, but there were way too many TDS-afflicted participants to suit me. The people I spoke to did not seem to know why they were in the streets, except they did hate Trump, Musk, Putin and Tesla, for sure. But hating is not a strategy. Where were they when Obama, Genocide Joe and his cartel were killing, starting seven new wars, jailing journalists, or mass surveilling and censoring Americans, and more?

The corporate puppet masters and centrist "liberal" organizers are banking - and bankrolling - on chaos, even a fake rebellion, to pressure lawmakers and sway public opinion to support a war making status quo. The media, to say nothing of the MIC, are totally on board, all parroting the No Kings narrative while ignoring the shady funding behind it. It is the same playbook our hawkish Corporatocracy has used for years. 

I'm all for protests. I've even been arrested in a few of them, but they were genuinely grassroots, organic. No Kings doesn't make the cut.