A Great Juxtaposition ~~ Paul Street
https://youtube.com/shorts/bhIfU2QIwig?si=KLa-Z6-8-DxE1eFb
~~ recommended by collectivist action ~~
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Millions, NOT “Thousands”
The first time I heard the word on Chicago CBS2 last night, I was like “yeah right.” The second time I heard it on Chicago NBC5 I said “geez.” And when I heard it this morning on CNN I said, “get out of there with that bullshit.”
The word to which I am referring: “thousands.”
“Thousands,” as in “thousands marched in Chicago” and “thousands came out across the nation” to protest the policies of Donald Trump.
Thousands? Thousands?!
There were “No Kings Day” protests yesterday in thousands of US cities and towns yesterday – an estimated two thousand jurisdictions.
New York City saw 200,000 people come out.
Chicago had 75,000 to 100,000.
Look at this panoramic video of the Chicago’s north Loop yesterday, it’s incredible: https://www.threads.com/@rick_
Chicago was a sea of diverse humanity like I’ve never seen. Refuse Fascism (RF) comrades and I positioned a giant TRUMP MUST GO NOW! banner at Washington Street and Michigan Avenue to reach out to rallygoers as they marched. I agitated myself hoarse from a bullhorn, practically losing my voice as I tried to keep up with a seemingly endless procession of diverse and vibrant humans. “How many of you hate what this fascist Trump regime is doing to our country and the world?” I yelled every couple of minutes. Over the course of 40 minutes, my question easily elicited roars and raised hands from thousands of Chicagoans!
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same bullhorn, earlier protest
“Thousands” nationwide? Try millions! Yesterday may have been the single largest mass protest day in American history. Reliable estimates say 5 million at least.
That’s what Al Velshi reported this morning on MSNBC, to his credit, citing “protest organizers.”
It was bad enough that this truly historic day of anti-fascist protest had to compete with a fascist assassin in Minnesota, Trump’s early evening military parade in Washington DC (the trigger for the calling of the “No Kings Day” protests), and fascist Israel’s US-backed war on Iran for headlines last night and this morning. The minimization of the No Kings turnout was despicable.
Media’s Violence Fetish
There are three further and related problems with the media coverage of yesterday’s remarkable protests.
First, there’s the talking heads’ nasty fetish for violence. Despite the overwhelmingly peaceful nature of yesterday’s remarkable outpourings, the cable newsreaders can’t resist showing isolated clips of skirmishes between protesters and cops and National Guard troops in Los Angeles – skirmishes created by the gendarmes.
Specifically Fascist Authoritarianism
Second, I have repeatedly seen, read, and heard reporters describing the protests’ target as Trump’s “authoritarian overreach” and “authoritarianism.” That’s not quite right. I didn’t see “authoritarian overreach” or “authoritarianism” on any of the thousands of protest placards and posters I viewed yesterday. I did, however, see many references to FASCISM and even Naziism on those posters and placards. That plus the very positive response I and other Refuse Fascism (RF) activists got from the Chicago rallygoers (including support for our chants “2028 is way too late” and “Trump must go now!”) suggest that a large swath of the US population is on board with a proper understanding of the Trump presidency and Trumpism as forms not just of generic authoritarianism but more specifically of fascism, as usefully defined this way by RF:
“…a qualitative change in how society is governed. Fascism foments and relies on xenophobic nationalism, racism, misogyny, and the aggressive re-institution of oppressive ‘traditional values.’ Fascist mobs and threats of violence are unleashed to build the movement and consolidate power. What is crucial to understand is that once in power fascism essentially eliminates traditional democratic rights. Fascism has direction and momentum. Dissent is piece by piece criminalized. The truth is bludgeoned. Group after group is demonized and targeted along a trajectory that leads to real horrors. All of this has taken dramatic leaps under the Trump Regime. History has shown that fascism must be stopped before it becomes too late.”
Trump’s deployment of the National Guard and even — menacingly and insanely enough — the US Marines to repress peoples’ resistance to his racist immigration raids in Los Angeles has helped wake up many Americans to the fascist nature of his regime.
Playing Along with Indivisible et al.’s Surrender of Washington DC
Third, much of the mainstream reporting I’ve seen has falsely conveyed the notion that everyone in the anti-Trump movement shared the centrist and Democratic Party-affiliated “protest” organization Indivisible’s disturbing insistence on not protesting Trump’s military parade in Washington DC itself — the seat of national power, where the protest was of course staged. An example is the New York Times’ veteran national correspondent David Sanger’s reference today to “the protests, which organizers deliberately kept outside Washington to avoid focusing more attention on the military celebration…” (Sanger could have more accurately written “to avoid appearing to criticize the imperial US military in any way.”)
Wait a minute, David Sanger: which organizers worked to surrender the nation’s capital, the seat of US power and the Trump fascist regime, on No Kings Day? The milquetoast organizers Indivisible, Public Citizen, and MoveOn (with leftish 50501 playing along), yes. But not Refuse Fascism (RF), which criticized this as a significant mistake. RF courageously defied Trump’s threat to “hit” anyone who protested his “big beautiful” army parade with “big” and “heavy force.” It led an anti-Trump march of more than 1000 people to the White House. The Hill’s digital correspondent Jackie Koppel covered this event, reporting that “Refuse Fascism…is different from the No Kings’ protests. Those folks [that is, Indivisible, MoveOn, Public Citizen and 50501] said they didn’t want a DC protest because they didn’t want to appear as anti-military.” (Koppel’s reporting includes an interview in which RF leader Sunsara Taylor said that anti-Trump protests need to move from resisting different aspects of the Trump agenda to “demanding that the Trump regime be removed from power, nonviolently but in massive numbers…”)
A Damn Long Protest Pause as Fascism Advanced
Indivisible et al.’s surrender of place has been matched by its surrender of time this year. Yesterday was the first day of national mass protest that Indivisible has called since April 5th! The leading national Trump “protest” organizations – well-funded arms of the corporate-imperialist Democratic Party and its electoral agenda — let the last four weeks of April, all of May, and the first two weeks of June go by without calling a single national protest day. That was no small pause as Trump committed one outrage after another on his path to the potential consolidation and normalization of fascist rule in the United States. (With far fewer resources, RF led a march of thousands from the Washington Monument to the White House on April 19th and held significant anti-fascist protests in numerous cities on May 17th.)
Not Much Oligarchy Signage
Curiously enough, I saw very few Bernie-inspired signs about and against Oligarchy in downtown Chicago yesterday. And I’m okay with that. Sanders’ moment has passed, thanks in no small part to his stubborn fascism-denialism regarding Trump and Trump’s base. I’m no fan of oligarchy, of course (see my Occupy-inspired Obama-era book They Rule: The 1% v. Democracy), but the main “two Americas” in conflict right now are:
The decent country made up of the majority of Americans who hate what the Trump fascist regime is doing to their country and the world.
and/vs.
Neo-Confederate Trump fascist Amerika: the sizeable racist/sexist/xenophobic nationalist minority (including much of Sanders’ 99%) of the US population that is down with the Trump regime.
If we want to substantively overcome “oligarchy” — try capitalism — we must first defeat the fascist Trump regime and movement, starting with removing Trump from power. The same goes for overcoming and overthrowing white supremacism, patriarchy, nativism, militarism/imperialism, and (last but far from least) ecocide. Defeating those evils requires a root-and-branch socialist peoples’ revolution that is incredibly difficult to organize for under fascist rule.
A Sharp Juxtaposition
What a sharp juxtaposition we are now seeing in the United States. Look just at the last week.
On one hand, 5 million people from the decent America have risen up in their beautiful diversity, humanity, empathy, egalitarianism, and creativity against the fascist Trump regime.
On the other hand:
The widely hated malignant ogre atop the fascist Amerika and the US state gave an openly partisan far-right speech to American soldiers at the Confederately renamed Fort Bragg base, trying to turn the US armed forces into a tool of his personal and fascist agenda.
The widely hated malignant ogre atop the fascist Amerika and the US state viciously took over the California National Guard and ordered it and 700 US Marines into Los Angeles over the objections of California’s governor and Los Angeles’ mayor. He undertook this horrific action on the basis of the totally false claim that righteous protests against his racist mass deportation campaign in a small part of Los Angeles constituted a “rebellion against the authority of the United States government.”
This fascist narcissist Trump held an expensive taxpayer-financed military parade in his own honor – a grotesque glorification of the military and Trump himself meant to signal the armed forces’ loyalty to him and not the US Constitution.
The malevolent Hitler-admiring maniac Trump said this to a reporter at The Atlantic about the meaning of the longstanding right-wing phrase “America First”: “Well, considering that I’m the one that developed ‘America First,’ and considering that the term wasn’t used until I came along, I think I’m the one that decides that.” (In other words, for Trump “America First” means whatever he says it does, kind of like “the rule of law.”)
Kristi Noem, the sadistic Republi-Nazi sociopath and open ignoramus (she recently told a US Senator that habeas corpus is the president’s right to lock up anybody he wants) who Mein Trumpf placed atop the Department of Homeland Security told reporters that her deranged master sent in the National Guard and the Marines to “liberate” Los Angeles and California from “socialist” rule.
At Noem’s press conference, federal gendarmes wrestled the Latino US Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) to the ground and handcuffed him when he started to verbally challenge her ridiculous fascist remarks.
A fascist assassin shot to death the leading Democrat in the Minnesota state house and her husband and nearly killed a state Democratic senator and his wife.
The two Americas of 2025 are on bold display this summer: (1) the beautiful anti-fascist/anti-"king"/anti-
"authoritarian"/anti-racist/ anti-sexist/and anti-nativist majority and/vs. (2) the large, ugly, fascist, and neo-Confederate minority of Amerikans who are absurdly overrepresented in the halls of power. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
George Carlin - this country was founded by slave owners who wanted to be free.
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