And remember when "Assad the Butcher" must go because Democrats and Liberals cared so much about "human rights" and "chemical weapons" - Gee, seems like stupid Americans would eventually realize that wherever "we" stick our bloody little hands in the name of human rights (previously "anti-communism" or "anti-terrorism") things ALWAYS get worse and not better for the actual people involved. Point being, in a similar fashion to how you noted Yemen, suddenly there's nothing to beat Trump's head over in Syria despite the new, worse reality on the ground there.
All US ever does in/to other countries is to gain from their oil, gas or anything else tgat can be bought and sold by US$s. This has been their mode for so long people no longer see it staring them in the face. Each US government supports the energy companies and the military hardware companies because they pay politicians instead of paying their legal tax amounts. Same in Australia, the country would be able to do so much more, and I do mean much, much more, if these companies paid their fare share of taxes but, no, they are let off in so many ways that the ordinary folk never ever do, and still they rule governments in so many countries because they buy, cheaply, the politicians who are elected to work for the people thst elected them, with no votes, there's no being in government.
The whole business, and that's what it has become a business, is a total shame. And to have only two parties at the ballot box proves there us something terribly wrong, not just in America it has spread so far to other countries, they have become one name at the ballot.
The whole world needs to rise up in revolution before we end up with one big fat B over the whole planet. We all know who is hoping to be that one, and the hell on earth life would become if it us not stopped now.
OH BTW you are absolutely right about the arms merchants too. Most often, with exceptions being gulf monarchies most of which have oil and are part of the system, the weapons "sold" (really means rented out to) these target countries (new) leaders are as much for the purpose of intimidating or coercing the population as they are to threaten neighbors who may not be fully assimilated. It's also to ensure that chaos can be instigated whenever it's needed by stoking conflicts between countries in a given region now that they're well armed with Uncle Scam's weapons, even if they're otherwise cooperating - when there's a situation like "Israel" to distract people from. I ramble, I know. But you're correct about the weapons, and don't forget the surveillance and control systems these countries also "buy" - need to keep a close eye on the citizenry and prevent or destroy any pesky "socialist" uprisings - ya know, demand for an actual voice in their own government and use of their own tax money.
Yes, it most definitely goes way beyond oil and gas, or even other extractible goods and commodities. What they really want, at the end of the day, is akin to The Borg of Star Trek fame - full assimilation into the "US-based" "international order" meaning full access to and control (or as close or profitable as they can get) of the country's "markets" - people (consumers), social goods and services (transport infrastructure, utilities, education, health care, etc.) and to saddle the people of these countries with eternal debt whenever possible. This, of course, is done according to the same playbook as the oil, gas, minerals and crops - Privatization. Wresting not just the resources from the hands of the people (i.e., Venezuela's nationalized petroleum, etc.), but enslaving the country by "Americanizing" it and turning every possible aspect of life into a means of extracting rent and profit, turning citizens and sovereign nations into "consumers" of Western debt - aka the "financialization of everything."
Only those countries who refuse to bend the knee and offer sufficient cooperation with the "western" oligarch financial class (FIRE sector for short), are subject to mistreatment and meddling. The only difference is one of scope, scale and methods. For the ones who are already partially complying, perhaps a rigged election or soft coup. For the ones not really complying but maybe with enough (and sufficiently powerful) "upper class" rich people (most often those who obtained their wealth during the colonialism period - mostly land and property and ownership of minerals, etc. - and in countries where a severe (and completely false) strain of "anti-communism" remains from the decades of propaganda during the Cold War) to where a coup can be staged as non-violently as possible, and who will always be the class to place the next leader from among their ranks into power. Of course the further down the non-cooperation scale you go, the more violent it gets. Economic embargoes (Cuba), severe economic sanctions (Venezuela, Russia [in their delusional fantasies], formerly Syria, etc.) or straight up invasion and attempted regime change/destruction of the current order (Saddam, to be: Iran, Venezuela, etc.).
China is a unique case that has both obvious and not so obvious differences, the most obvious being that they are currently an economic and population powerhouse integrated enough into the Western supply chains that fucking with them in a serious manner would be like shooting ones self in the foot. But I digress....
Check out the following books if you haven't read them yet:
"The Racket - A Rogue Journalist..." by Matt Kennard
"The Jakarta Method" by an author named Bevins
"American Exeption" by Aaron good - more focused on the domestic side of this stuff.
Also happy to take any recommendations from others...
And it should be noted that the [Real] State's Ukrainian Nazi/CIA Army is and has been using both Chemical and Biological warfare against Russia - the latter of which will always 'blowback' to the USA, in ways convenient for the BioSecurity and [Real] State's Technocratic Totalitarian goals.
Remember, the US pioneered biological and chemical weapons - that is their actual use against populations. Nazi Germany and Japan were doing a lot of research and development, but TMK, they never deployed anything remotely as serious as the US did in Korea, Vietnam, and which the US helped Saddam gain capabilities to do against Iran, not to mention Assad's program.
Chloropicrin is a prohibited Chemical Weapon. The Banderite Regime in Kiev, and their US/NATO/CIA Mercenary Army (recruited in-part, by spooks like the failed-Trump-Assassin from Mar A Lago) has been using it against Russian Troops and NovoRossiyan citizens in the Donbass, for more than a year, at least.
And we know that the Georgia Lugar Lab was working on weaponized bat coronaviruses, since long before any of the Bio-weaponization work, of a similar nature was ever sent to China. And next door in Ukraine they were running as many as 30 CLANDESTINE Bio Weapons labs, since the CIA/NAZI Coup in 2014... So you're either a liar, or you're sadly disinformed, and ignorant.
And it should be NOTED - that the US and the British allegedly sent DU Munitions, along with Abrams and Challenger Tanks to the Donbass, earlier in the conflict - under Biden. Russia made clear that was another dangerous escalation that they would respond towards. It's not clear to me how they did that... But I suspect very much that they did.
They certainly BBQ'd an awful lot of those inferior tanks. O hope they're checking the wrecks with Geiger counters.
Indeed, the Assad regime was as brutal as Zionists. The creativity in torturing his opponents was beyond imagination. The sutuation here is completely different from what you are trying to say, as we only have the privilege of choosing between the lesser of two evils. Why do you thing Syria was a breeding ground for extrimist groups? Chiefly due to Assad's policies. What do you know about Syria? Systemic discrimination, unequal distribution of resources and opportunities (the vast majority of Syrians living in rural areas had no proper access to education and healthcare), people literally disappear for questioning the authority. Ironically, people in the west support Palestine and challenge the narrative that dehumanizes Palestinians, yet they romanticize and defend totalitarian regimes (Assad, Ghaddafi, and Saddam). In essence, the IDENTITY or BACKGROUND of the oppressor doesn’t erase the victim’s pain or make the oppression acceptable.
LOL you miss the point entirely. For starters, why don't you compare the brutality of the Assad "regime" for whoever and whatever it is that rules what is left of Syria now. This would include the Salafist head choppers who have been on sprees of murdering Christians, Druze, other Muslims - and - their buddies in the IOF.
You also know absolutely NOTHING about why Syria was the "breeding ground" for extremists if you are blaming Assad's policies. That's so nonsensical and historically ignorant that I hesitate even to respond. Yes, Assad could be called a totalitarian or authoritarian - and in most such cases there is a historical reason why such governments rose to power and stayed there, namely post-colonialist British, French and US foreign policy. So yes, a certain resistance (mostly non-violent) was bred, as is natural in such situations.
But the truth of the matter is - much like Afghanistan in the 70s and 80s - Syria was the "breeding ground" because the US and Israel made it so. The US facilitated the import of tens of thousands of foreign "jihadis" or more accurately the CIA's moveable feast of Islamic extremists from various countries around the ME and SW Asia. The initial uprisings and protests could and would have been (mostly) peacefully solved with concessions made to those communities away from Damascus with legitimate grievances (not all under Assad's control, BTW - such as drought conditions) but the US via the CIA and other agencies wanted a "civil war" so they provoked and manufactured one.
What do YOU know about Syria? And is it better off now or was it better off before the US-provoked "civil war" following the "Arab Spring"? Or is it better off now than under Assad and before the current regime of psycho formerly terrorist-designated individuals and groups took over with much US and Israeli assistance? Again, you missed the MAIN point - or you are a member of the group of liberals and Democrats I was calling out. You don't seen to care that as soon as Assad's regime fell, the DESIGNATED terrorist groups who took over were suddenly removed from the list and welcomed with open arms to Brussels and Washington while they continued to commit massacres and other atrocities along with the IOF. Hypocrite, much?
And then you go and mention Libya?! Wow, why don't you go there and see how well you do compared to how it would have been under Gadhafi? Were there open air SLAVE MARKETS when he was in control and trying to provide healthcare, water distribution and the best economy in all of Africa for its people? Too bad he dared to attempt a pull-away from the French currency, isn't it. Couldn't let that happen. And stupid liberals and phony/ignorant champions of "human rights" suddenly no longer care what's happening to the people in Syria or Libya. Which YET AGAIN was my whole point.
I did not miss the point. The fall of Assad regime was not something I hoped for, but it was inevitable. These extrimist groups (like it or not) represent the vast majority of Syrians, particularly those living in rural areas. Why do most Syrians prefer president Ahmad al-Chareh? Besides Israel brutality, five decades of oppression along with the spread of the Wahabi ideology redicalized people. What peaceful protests? without Hamas the Palestine cause is over; without Hezbollah Lebanon would remain under occupation. The Syrian revolution was unarmed for the first six months, yet Assad responded with force, leading to significant casualties among protesters. Moreover, Assad's regime released hundreds of Islamist extremists from Sednaya prison in 2011, at the beginning of the Syrian uprising, including (مصطفى علوش، ابو مصعب السوري، ايمن الظواهري).
Whether it is better or not? It is not a competition between who is less brutal; both are equally brutal. In other words, the regime knew very well how to agitate the Islamist threat in order to strengthen Alawi loyalty.
Syria war is very complicated and hard to understand for outsiders. Sadly, the first victim of war is always Truth. One can be opposed to Israel and US imperialism and also recognize the criminality of Saddam, Assad and Ghaddafi.
A NEVER-ENDING LIST OF PEACEFUL PROTESTERS WERE ELIMINATED BY THE REGIME. NOT TO MENTION HAFEZ (HIS FATHER) ATROCITIES AGAINST ALL SECTS IN LEBANON, PARTICULARLY CHRISTANS)
"These extrimist groups (like it or not) represent the vast majority of Syrians..."
You are a LIAR! Are you trying to tell us that the radical head chopping moveable feast of American imported Salafist criminals are the Syrian people!?!?!?!?!
Why are you Lebanese such PUSSIES? Fight your own wars. The rich among you simply take the Zionist murderer/massacrists side. Then you want us to care about Assad and Libya!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No. You were trying to propagate and amplify lies told to Western citizens and taxpayers who funded the fake "civil war" designed to topple Assad since before 9/11 and Wesley Clarke's speech about 7 countries in 7 years, and notably you did not offer a SINGLE point of fact to counter my LONG comment.
How do you think Assad and his father got to power in the FIRST PLACE?
Do you really think that Syria - or "Syria" was a real country like "Ukraine" is?
What do you not understand about the vestiges of COLONIALISM? Are you the child of RICH land or RESOURCE owning SYRIANS who were somehow "robbed" by the "wrong" government that ended up in power?
You are a Zionist pig. Better or not?! There are literal pogroms and murder/massacre sprees now. Against PEACEFUL NON PARTICIPANTS in the US/UK's covert war on the Assad government!!!
You are fucking scum man. Go fuck off and do your own thing. We don't need Zionist and expat Cubans, Syrians, Iranians, and other idiot children of RICH fucking beneficiaries of POST-COLONIAL SCUM forcing us American and western taxpayers to finance your wars for the return of your riches.
And remember when Obama, who had just been elected, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples"?
And remember when Obama said Assad using mustard gas on his own people was a "red line"?
And remember when Michelle Obama said, "When they go low, we go high?"
The Obamas have always been nothing more than grifters. Obama took more money from Wall Street than any candidate before him and allowed Citibank to appoint his cabinet. That was well documented.
Next I can tell you about Bill Clinton and Mena, AR.
And yes, the CIA, cartels and US based mafia have always been closely linked with Wall Street banks. In fact, probably enough so that during tough economic times (often Wall Street caused) they kept the bankers in the black.
It's interesting in several ways, actually. The main one to me is that any "liberal" or "progressive" president of the US in the past 50 years has been either severely vetted, tested and employed by the CIA covertly - no matter their previous upbringing or political history - or compromised by them and Mossad (not as unusual as you may assume). IOW these guys ALWAYS come after literal openly CIA asset presidents like Reagan and Bush and they're ALWAYS CIA (meaning Wall Street - look at that agency's history starting with the Dulles bros) vetted but still packageable as libs/progs. Never leftists in reality but always portrayed as leftists by the corporate Wall Street fete'ing media and Rethugs.
We are not living in anything remotely resembling a democracy or even a "democratic republic" with democracy at certain levels, at least if you stop at city councils. But even there the power of the AIPAC influenced GOP and DNC wield great power to create or destroy careers. Nobody who the "intelligence community" doesn't have the power to destroy instantly will or has ever been allowed to enter the real (s)Election process for the Senate or Presidency. See: Bernie - who because of his age and softness became a sheepdog/Judas goat for the moneyed powers. Not to say he wouldn't have been a much better president, but he a) never actually wanted to be that (just like Trump in 2016) and b) if he actually did anything "leftist" would have been taken care of after winning the election.
Consistent with all of this is that despite having been the editor of Harvard Law Review, Obama never wrote a law review article. A friend who was on HLR years earlier said that was very strange, as in unprecedented. Obama certainly seems to have had some powerful sponsors.
I remember when Obama immediately turned his back on women when he and Pelosi decided that women's productive rights were never going to be a priority.
I remember Obama promising to end wars. They didn't.
It's not that women's productive rights weren't a priority, it's that the Blue Team needed abortion as a hot issue to rouse their base. If they passed federal legislation supporting abortion, it would rouse up the Red Team base to a high pitch. So they left it. Thus making it obvious they are only interested in staying in power, not governance. Not that it did them any good.
well said feral. "Progressive" only as far as it suits their own agenda, then their true nature reveals itself once said agenda is concluded. Neither major political party really seems to care about human rights or the issues facing the people, just how they can push their platform, throw mud at the other side and blame them for everything, and garner more sympathy for their cause to perpetuate the same inane, ineffective 2 party system
Liberals love war and death as much as the other side. We must break with them on this, disgusting. Biden, Clinton, Obama, et al. were just as bad. Biden perhaps worse.
I know it is not a real revolution, but the fact that so many people came out at all might be a starting point. Who knows, maybe more people will start reading more non mainstream news and maybe they will start to figure things out.
Yes, we have to start somewhere, and after decades of skillful manipulation by the Powers-That-Be (i.e., Manufactured Consent) there is no longer much organized resistance based on concrete issues. Instead we get a lot of virtue-signaling, which seems to describe the No Kings event.
So, we (who seek real structural change) are in a kind of boot-strap position: How do we get organized when there's so little organization to build upon. The owner class has done a pretty good job at dividing the working class into mutually-antagonistic factions. The culture of internet and smartphones has accelerated the separation of people into individual silos and favors messages that reinforce separation (because it makes you feel more free to view yourself as an isolated autonomous being, instead of being a member of human society).
I think we need to re-build class consciousness (which fell apart in the late 1980s) and for that we need a positive vision of what that leads toward. And I don't mean the Scandinavian Welfare Capitalism shit-job that so many of my liberal friends have bought into. That just leads them toward a lot of whiny moralistic arguments about how unfair and hurtful the US system is. The postmodernist brain-rot of power theory and how we could all be happy living in basements and interacting through TikTok if we only had a government-supplied Universal Basic Income (UBI). Yeah, great, a UBI that's just enough to keep you out of abject poverty and that's ready to be snatched away again at the first sign of political opposition. Total separation of individuals and total demoralization. What a bunch of saps these liberals are! Kind of like the academic union I belonged to, that would spend years negotiating for meager salary raises and never had that huevos to go on strike. It's hard to convince a bunch of PhD academics that they are workers just like the gardeners and custodians. They almost all think they are above that.
I'm not a great organizer, and labor unions are difficult to organize in the US because the laws are so tilted against unions, but I think a broad project to build alliance among the working class would be a fruitful direction to move in. Organizing around the idea of Mutual Aid might work, and could build outward from Food Banks, where a lot of working people get their groceries. We can learn to stand together, so we don't fall apart. We can relearn the lessons of community; that the bonds of community are stronger than the differences between us.
And I agree with you completely on the UBI thinking - too many liberals/progressives falling for the ploy without realizing the bigger picture of control mechanisms and lack of changes in structural/systemic issues and systems (which is what is really needed).
Hi Susan, I saw this a lot- people saying didn't it mean something that so many people got off their arses on their 'day of rest' to go for a cathartic march and enjoyable rant in the sunshine with their friends. Or, on the other side of the political aisle and the Atlantic, in the rain protesting authoritarian governments not Kings.
The point is they were both deliberately given something to get excited about and positively encouraged to march about it. It makes them even less likely to notice what's really going on and even more likely to continue to read and believe their 'alternative' but totally corralled and controlled social media news outlets. It makes them even less likely to do something that would actually make a difference to the establishment like ditching their leaf blowers, jet washers, iphones, porn, booze, Netflix, all vaccines, most pharma products or going vegan.
The marches were not starting points. They were culminations of propaganda.
At every single one I've gone to they got to hear someone speak about current events in Palestine, West Bank, Gaza and hear people chant "from the river to the sea" and get exposed to all kinds of things and groups they never do sitting in their living room watching cable news. You are correct, it is a start.
Of course the boomers were out in force to protest. First time in their adult lives they've had their economic standing threatened by the culmination of decades of financial mismanagement of this country.
Meanwhile, GenZ are facing a life of destitution because of this mismanagement.
Three items were able to be seen as triggers for moving the world out of its current crisis.
However......
* Israel's !00 years years of planning is not going to stop and genocide is accepted by all Israelis as normal, a requirement needed to achieve their goals. Now in place.
* The Western Media as part-owned by the Jews as investors (controllers). Nothing is ever likely to change this potential trigger for change, being profitable for the Jews and well planned for decades for one purpose only. Propagandised, biased news. It's the norm today.
'The USA as a major country........ but 86% controlled by Israelis and the narcissictic Trump, and 25 Cabinet puppets.
I concluded that the first two were unchangeable and I know that is correct. I was waiting to see if the demonstrations throughout the USA yesterday could ever be seen as a trigger for the third item, a 'revolution' from within in the USA. It was something of a failure. No objectives named, nothing achieved, no change in direction....or anything else.
Yesterday's 'No Kings' effort was clear indication that this will not be the trigger for change.
Back to the drawing board.
Yes. I know that there is the now feeble United Nations, long since handicapped by the inability to take the reins of justice and make decisions of any values to the world.
The US veto has made this organisation a useless tool for peace, justice, in fact for any positive progress at all and as a result should be closed down.
This leaves the remaining option. The US Cabinet of Trump and his like-minded entourage of misfits, none of who have a single independent thought that varies from the dictatorial Trump. But it also means searching out the identical number of the old Biden followers, the Gaza conspirators, one cluster of useless humans the same as the other.
So, no solution in sight. More AIPAC / USA controls to be applied, many more cities to be occupied by Trump's uniformed ICE terrorists, thousands more Palestinians to be butchered by Netanyahu's stormtroopers, the oilfields of Gaza to get under way and the Trump Tourist Empire to become a reality. Applications for membership of Trump's Gaza Country Club now soon open. Jews only, of course.
Lay back and enjoy the show, world, while you can. You could be next.
I was born in Cuba and would never have left but I was 11 years old when my mother and stepfather decided to leave. I agree with you that the United States has always been a terrorist nation who has committed atrocities since its founding, but the protests are important because hopefully they will wake others to the need to change the status quo.
I am neither a Democrat or a Republican although I have voted Democrat three times in my life. Both parties are corrupt and support the same principles. As a socialist, I have no interest in anything the Government proposes.
I have been arrested multiple times for civil disobedience. I was an attorney for many years and found that in general, the system of justice is extremely corrupt. Once in a while you can find a decent lawyer or judge, but it’s a rare occurrence.
My issue with what you write is that you can’t paint millions of people with the same description. Many of the people I work and protest with seek to change a system of injustice and oppression to something else.
I have followed you and enjoyed your work for many years. Thank you for your service.
I attended a 400 person march and met boomers at their first march and I told them that both parties are corrupt and we need a socialist revolution. There were people
who listened and maybe it will sink in. Planted seeds of a general strike. I know it’s not happening as fast as we need it to, but I believe even small things matter.
there's a spectrum of options that range from activating normies into putting on largely performative displays all the way to things I won't even mention on the internet - but for most of us, just getting more involved in improving the conditions of our local communities is a great start
Exactly right in every detail. Caitlin understands this country better than 99% of its citizens. No matter who we vote for, we get John McCain. Or some equally horrific warmonger. Either don't vote D or R or don't vote at all. We're fucked here no matter what we do. Reject this whole corrupt system!
We go to the rallies and poach people that are looking for genuine action.
Treat it as a recruitment ground, not a protest. The cops and fascists are often just mingling doing the same thing, even if the latter is less obvious about it.
I've been voting 3rd party leftists (or not voting) that way for 50 years. Voting changes nothing, period. If it did it wouldn't be permitted. "We" have talked about what might bring real change for, I don't know, 200 years? It's been exhaustively discussed and written and published about, and now we're stuck in commenting mode, seemingly forever.
Organizing is the only solution, but since unions are in freefall and have been for decades, there's no reliable mechanism within which to organize anything that gets a bit of traction. Fragmentation is at record highs on every measurable front, there are multiple competing voices and outlets vying for our attention, and many other related factors that make us the most schizoid society to ever exist.
Fascism waltzes to our collective confusion and lack of direction as to how the fuck to proceed. Nobody can say because we have no coherence in our daily existence around any of this. It's a Tower of Babel problem that has morphed into a problem of how-to- live-in-a-world-that-can't-be-fixed, unless it's at the local level. We can only start from there, if we're resourceful and lucky enough to have local relationships that aren't exclusively digital or AI-driven, which so much of them soon will be.
I quite agree with this thoughtful comment. But I think there could be a path, if the big groups that are supposedly fighting for the environment, the climate, women's rights, labor, gay rights, rights for people of color, immigrants, indigenous people , antiwar groups, justice groups of every sort, came together, they could make a joint plan for a general strike, including agreement on what the demands should be. I think we need, as individuals, to pick a focus--for me it's the environment--but at the same time stay cognizant that it's all one fight and we must join together against our common enemies. Leaders of these groups are negligent in not getting on with this--we can't afford silos, and I wonder if it's because they're always obsessed with funding, and they compete for grants--if so, that's another way our enemies win because of their two enormous advantages--unlimited funds being one. And the other being ownership and control of virtually all the "mainstream" media and the electronic gateways.
We're very much on the same page, if not word for word, but who is? All those causes and issues you list I've done the same for years. Back in the '80s I was painfully aware of so many splinter groups that never were able or interested in coming together to Fight the Power that was already strangling every effort to bring about even a semblance of a peaceful, sane world, and I see zero improvement on that front. Most of them aren't even aware of each other and seem to think they alone have The Answer that could save us if only they could get enough funding.
I've known all along that money isn't going to advance us toward whatever we define as our goals--if we want to stop the people who are destroying the world. They will always have far more funding than we can ever imagine. We have the numbers but we're atomized into total incoherence, so they aren't worried about us. As it stands today, we're virtually their prisoners.
Now maybe you see why McCain was addressing the crowd following the Maidan massacre in Ukraine, after Victoria Nuland passed out he cookies. Cookies in exchange for regime change!
Yes, it’s all fake, and shallow, and won’t change anything. But it’s counter productive to criticize the first stirring of activism among a population which makes complacency the eighth deadly sin. They need the practice, let them get out there and maybe next time they’ll have more to say. I think that even if it was empty, it was a good and necessary beginning.
But that's as far as it will go--it will just be the letting off of steam with their funny signs. There's no call to action or demands made. No organizing of the No King protesters except the local Democrats will email and call them with their contact info taken in the "registration" sign up online. It was just a big DNC vote gathering psy-op. There hasn't been a "beginning" yet.
Not at our rally. We had tables to sign up for the Ernergncy Response Team. To grocery shop for people afraid to leave their homes. Take them to their doctor's or help them get legal help or remote court appointments. I know there are still so many who think Dem is the answer because DJT is the problem. It isn't. Local volunteering and organizing will help everyone regardless of administration.
in fact there are plenty of groups at these events making specific demands and attempting to organize the people that attend (including the fucking democratic party, but fuck them), even if whoever runs "no kings" has nothing going on
My government is telling me that anti-fascism is terrorism and that people who come out to protest authoritarianism and corruption hate America. To my contrarian soul that's the same as a dare so of course I went to the protest. Obviously I want more than than standing around with and chanting slogans for a couple of hours, but if that's what's on offer, I'm going, because I'll be damned if I let Mike Johnson and Stephen Miller scare me into staying home.
Thanks for attending! Next time you go to one, if you go to a large one, consider connecting and getting involved with one of the groups there that aligns with the change you want, that's an easy way to move to the next step beyond standing around. You might be real surprised by what else is actually "on offer".
Those two signs are stupid — no question. But I didn’t see a single Harris sign at the 200,000 plus march I attended. (Neither were there any palm trees). I did see a large contingent of anti-genocide/pro-Palestinian protesters, which I joined. And several speakers denounced and called for an end to the U.S. support for the genocide in Gaza to wide applause. I voted “uncommitted” in the 2024 presidential election, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one there who did. We’re not all stupid and complicit here, Caitlin. Many of us are like those of the rest of you in the Western world whose governments don’t represent you and who are trying to figure out what to do about it. This of course has been building for a long time. And you’re of course right about the two U.S. mainstream parties. And you’re also right that many (but not all) groups that organized the march have ties to the Democratic Party. Many of us know that neither party is going to save us — that they both got us to where we are now. My sign, btw, was about the Supreme Court, which orchestrated a silent coup when it held that presidents were immune from suit for “official acts” performed in office, whether or not those acts are crimes. The decision had no legal foundation and instead rewrote the Constitution, as did the “money equals speech” decisions of the Court dating back to 1976, legalizing bribery in elections and allowing billionaires to buy them. The question is, what do we do — what do the populations of the UK and France do when speech is criminalized? We can start in the U.S. by throwing out every politician who has taken AIPAC and other Israeli lobby money and supported genocide. And that of course includes Harris. The cult members of both parties will continue to vote for whatever party name is put in front of them. But what are the rest of us to do?
Very well articulated. Depicting an entire country as either silly "brunch" dems or GOP-worshipping trumpers is quite a wide brush to be painting with. People worldwide are struggling with their governments not truly representing the people as intended. Not understanding that the same is true here in the US is juvenile. The simple "performative Americans, protest is futile", yet not a single suggestion as to what they should do instead? Nihilism in its worst form. No Kings may be performative for many, and not everyone is taking the situation here as seriously as they should. However, humans are like that - discomfort IS uncomfortable. But to simply decry protesting? In any form? Sure, it isn't enough...but it's something. If you attack (as you see it) the only thing people ARE doing, you risk shutting down the chance they will ever do better. If you do in fact wish for better, then this is an incredibly counter-productive take.
Coming back to link another post, for everyone who thinks nihilism is the answer, and that "I miss brunch" is the average protestors sentiment. If common sense has failed you, maybe your eyes will not.
💯- these rallies have loads of people that are there to do way more than "get back to brunch", it's one of the few places the normies will get to see real activists that care about the genocide their country is funding and realize they aren't getting a complete picture on their rectangles
Agreed up to the "We can start by throwing our every politician who takes money from AIPAC..." No we can't, actually, since that's nearly all of them. This how ugly shit happens globally--we pretend voters have a choice when it's a choice in the US between two viable candidates, elsewhere more than two, but usually both of them are compromised because that's how it WORKS--when SCOTUS won't allow even weak, inadequate controls on political spending, and the one who spends the most wins 90% of the time, and all the major media is corporately or billionaire-owned and pro-corporate, pro-imperial, pro Israel...actually we CAN'T throw them out by voting.
What the rest of us can do starts with talking about it, instead of wasting so much time every four years arguing about whether voting for a third-party candidate who can't win is "throwing away your vote."
More and more politicians and candidates are refusing AIPAC money because it has become a political liability. And more senators voted in July to cut off funding to Israel than they did in April. I wrote to every Democrat who voted against the bills to cut off funding and also wrote to the DNC when a proposal to cut off funding came up for a vote. Although the DNC did not adopt the proposal, it withdrew the counter proposal. Not enough, but there’s been movement in the right direction. And that’s because of pressure from the people. It’s hard and too slow, but if everyone did this, think what an impact it would have. Doing something is better than doing nothing, although I agree, it has to be strategic.
This cynical rant reveals a shallow understanding of US politics. The focus now is public pressure and pressure on the courts to stop Trump from making fascism the norm. I was at the No King rally in Sedona, a small town of 10,000, where perhaps 3000-4000 people turned out, all resisting the turn to fascism (which includes support for genocide in Gaza), part of a mass movement of grass roots democracy which sees as the need of the moment to push back against fascism. If y ou think that is fake, you are cynical and ignorant to boot.
The game plan is public pressure and court actions to stop Trump, then in 2026, remove the fascist from power in Congress and thus neuter Trump and perhaps, for there is no other possible alternative to stop Israel, pushing thru a ban on arms shipments to Israel. There is no way to speed up the process, which invovles understanding the limits, but there is no other way that anyone has suggested. If you have an alternative to elected progressive Democrats who will vote to stop arms to Israel, what the fuck is it? Whining and demonizing and calling the largest protest in American history "fake' is something I would leave to Trump. Ok what's your alternative to Congress banning arms to Israel? Bueller? If you can't lend a hand, get out of the way (Dylan).
Weak take! The Ukraine proxy war was started and escalated by Biden and the Dems. The Palestinian genocide was started, funded, armed and escalated by Biden and the Dems. We've had fascism since 2021 under Biden and Harris with attacks on free speech, radical censorship of the web, massive propaganda operations waged against the people, mandates to take experimental medicines. Did you all "protest" in Sedona then?
Yes, since at least Truman's time in office for the USA. This shit started decades ago. Before the USA started calling the shots, it was Great Britain with the Balfour Declaration.
Yes, we are aware of the fact that Biden was President and support was by both parties. Are you aware that since 1988 (37 yrs ago), Bernie Sanders has proposed banning weapons to Israel and that in the last vote, the majority of Democrats voted to do just that. Either you support that or you don't. Which is it? I am not defending Biden, whom I consider a weak and pro-war President. I am supporting the effort, now supported by the majority of Democrats in the Senate, to stop sending arms to israel. Are you for that or not? That is the question today, not looking back in anger but working to build a consensus to actually defund arms to Israel. That is the issue you are ignoring so tell me: do you support the Sanders bill or not? If you don't, the IDF has a job for you.
The protest in Sedona, population 10,000 was beautiful and the 7 million nationwide and millioins in other nations protesting, formed the largest protest in history. If you mock the protests, you must be a Trump supporter. This is not about Biden but about stopping Trump from pushing fascism down our throats, which only massive public protest can stop, as it stopped 7 dictatorships in Eastern Europe in 1989, without bloodshed, a revolution that relies on the solidarity of the people, which you mock. You are now doubt envious of the loving protest that happened yesterday, a beautiful and effective measure to show the fascists that free speech and protest are alive and well in the US........we are not afraid. Perhaps you are so you mock the protesters just as the fascists do. Shame on you. You are not working to free Palestine but to spread hatred and distrust, when we can only win when we are united, as we were yesterday.
First let me say I'm envious of your protest--I was in Charleston, WV, population about 50K but drawing from all surrounding counties as well, which an organizer claimed 2000 but I think it was less. I enjoyed the protest, was pleased to accommodate a pair of 16-year-olds' first protest, think it was worth the drive.
But I also think your post is a bit naive. It's not like Biden was an anomaly. And if all the Democrats (except that asshole Fetterman) voted to stop arms shipments to Israel--AFTER two years of genocide, during what many imagine is a real ceasefire--here's a little thought experiment, suppose there is a midterm election (I think less than even odds of that) and the Dems sweep both Houses (but Trump will only allow an election if her can be pretty sure of being able to cheat hard enough to maintain control). Now they can actually block arms shipments, thus pissing off their Zionist and MIC funders. Think they'd even have a vote on it, let along again vote to DO it? And then there's Venezuela--even the Squad members go along with the "Maduro is a dictator, we need to restore democracy (meaning US control) in Venezuela" bullshit, if not the blowing up of fishing boats.
Biden was not an anomoly, nor did I say he was. I consider him an accomplice to genocide, but the people voting to stops arms shipments to Israelit, which is the focus of my comments and support, are not Biden centrists but a new wave of progressives far from the Biden mold. ....the bills by Sanders were started early on and gained momentum. I agree with Martin Luther King: It is always the right time to do the right thing. If you do not see positioning as strategic, you do not understand politics, which is about compromise to gain your goals. If you don't play the game and try to win, you surrender to impotence.....the protests the other day were to try to neuter Trump so he cannot turn us into a dictatorship....so it was an essentail part of the strategy to protect the right to take control of Congress in 2026 by those opposed to his policies.
We've had fascism (ie sticking together of white men) for as long as the British Empire started and was then handed over to the US one. It's just that it's been more hidden until now.
Yes there is continuity of agenda on war and global hegemony under all US presidents whatever R or D it makes no difference.
Except that Trump's admin is more out in the open- partly to make a backlash against it which also suits their purposes and deflects from themselves.
You know dale ruff...whenever I see your name, I think of dandruff. It's involuntary. You just gross me out without even reading your ignorant and utter crap.
You think Dems are better?! They're the same thing. The entire system is built to control the populous no matter which party wins. With people like you, we're sure to be stuck in this hellhole of a reality forever.
do you support the vote to ban shipping arms to Israel? Yes or No. If you do support it, why do you attack the people pushing it?
. In the recent Senate vote, the Sanders bill to do just that, got a majority of Democrats voting for it. If you want the US to continue sending arms to Israel, keep it up. My word to you is that your insult about my name is about a 2d grade level and your use of vulgar language suggests you have no rational or civil ability. I have asked: what is your alternative to banning shipping arms to Israel? And if you attack those who do, and those like me to support them, then I suggest you join AIPAC, whose criticism of the Sanders bill and the Democrats supporting it aligns with your stupidity. If you opposing Congress blocking arms to Israel, what is your alternative?. You have none. You are an ignorant troll, trading in infantile insults. Now go home. If you can't lend a hand to bring to power those working to stop US support for Israel, get out of the way.
Demands for Yes or No answers like that are sure signs of the Democrat Cult. There's a reason they always fall JUST a few votes short, and most of the votes in favor of whatever desirable thing are just psyops to sucker voters like you.
Bernie ("Israel has a right to defend itself) Sanders after 2 years can now say Genocide. Wow. Vote D or R for Israel. Hope Change Beleive. One State Palestine.
Do you support the bill to ban shipping arms to Israel: that is not a cult question but a simple question. Until a bill that changes course passes, it always falls short , by defintion, but for the first time, the democratic base thinks Israel is committing genocide, and the Sanders bill got the majority of Dems to support it. If you support the bill, enough gaslighting : just say so. Yes and no questions are meant to cut out the bullshit and get down to the core: do you support the Sanders bill or not? No more bullshit...just answer. It's not bait: it's a question of whether your support for Palestine is genuine.
Now this is just silly, the kind of binary thinking the Trumpers excel at. Either you support the Dems because when they have no power they vote to stop arms shipments to Israel, or you're in favor of the genocide. The real world is way wider than that.
Agree with you 100%. Some of the people commenting have no interest in persuasion. They just want to attack and belittle. Not a great way to win the future.
Lost you when you implied the Courts will "save us." THAT horse IS out of the barn. The summer of 2024 SCROTI 5 + 1 Hand Maid crowned, anointed preznit f*wit Fuhrer/King/Supreme Poo Bah. The Traitors have already "done the dirty deed." Why do people, many lawyers, still keep their fingers crossed: the courts will save us? NO. THE court that "counts" has already ruled.
When was the last time when your wonderful democray yielded an acceptable human being as candidate for the presidency? Or at least "kind of acceptable".
Ralph Nader. Jill Stein. Sanders, with all his faults, voted against funding the Iraq war. It would have made a difference to the Iraqis, if not to you.
I understabn where you are coming from. Th issue is, third party candidates have problems, substantial problems, to get on the ballot in all states. And then, those candidates will have problems finding the billionaires that slip them the odd 100 million, let alone 250 million. And if so, that mone might come, like elsewhere, under conditions. And then you have all the fakenewsers out there who will ignore and misrepresent the campaign of a third party candidate. You might check with your local library if they have "End Times" by Prof Peter Turchin. A book that explains the 2025 US in reasonably non-challenging language.
Stein was on the ballot in most states. Do not forget that more people did not vote for either Biden or Trump and that "not Vote" would have also won the electoral vote. I voted for Stein because of the Green Party platform and because both candidates, Trump and Harris, are genocidaires. Of course I live in CA where it is easy to vote one's conscience, since Trump would not win in Ca, but still, I am sick of voting for murderers and probably would have voted for Stein in a swing state.
And I did the same in West Virginia where also it made no difference. But in 2000 I was a Nader Trader--I voted for Gore--because that was when WV was crossing from heavy majority Dem to today's heavy majority Rep., so Gore had a chance--while someone in Maryland who supported Gore voted for Nader on my behalf.
Absolutely right about third parties, although I voted for them in the past. I’ll check out the book — thanks. BTW, I read somewhere recently that the Greens in the UK recently out-polled both the Labor and Tory parties. It’s not easy, but we have to keep trying.
Voting is not going to help, even if its for third parties or 'Greens'. Any party that's allowed to be elected will have to support continuity of agenda of the US interests (fossil fuels and arms etc) either before or after election. The 'Green' party in Germany is an example of a completely compromised shit show.
We can vote with our dollars, sterling and purchases though.
Good point about the German Greens, they started out from often far left, even communist orientated people associated with the peace movement and environmentalism. Now your average centre right, pro war party. Already back in 1999 in coalition with the Social-Democrats (by name only) dismantly the welfare state and in support of the war against Yugoslavia. Nasty, indeed!
Ultimately, it’s about voting. Our spending habits are not going to stop a genocide, for example, although they help. As long as people are willing to vote for candidates who support genocide, including those who are silent, we’ll get genocide. You can’t say that people voting for Trump — or Harris, for that matter — didn’t make a difference. Negative impact, but voting matters — for the better or worse.
We CANNOT solve anything by buying green. But we can keep our incomes low enough to not pay federal taxes, so we aren't supporting the US military, and we can shift from big box, chains to local mom and pops, and we can change our lives so we buy much less, instead doing more for ourselves, engaging in trade, and finding better things to do with our time than recreational shopping.
Thanks for indulging my typos. And yes, in Britain both major political parties are discredited. So Liberal-Democrats (also kind of discredited) and Greens as well as a new left movement around Jeremy Corby (formerly candidate for Prime Mnister of Labour) and the newly founded right-wing (can we call them Trumpists?) are havng high hopes for the future. This kind of happens in many European countries. Literature here by the Canadian Alain Denault, "Mediocracy The Politics of the Extreme Centre" (2015 / there should be some reviews out there which give you an idea). Cheers, and good luck!
So you get Drumpf kicked out and Vance steps in - oh, well, that will make such a difference won't it? No bloody way, just out of the pan and into the fires of hell with him in that job.
Do not assume we are belonging to either of the two corrupt political parties in control. I am 72 yrs. of age and haven't voted as a registered Dem since Jimmy Carter was POTUS, Democratic "leadership" is as much to blame as the GOP for drumpf being elected not once, but twice. P.S. It took millions of people demonstrating in the streets for four days in a row to drive the Marcos' crime syndicate from the Malacañang Palace in 1986.
The Filipinos had a specific demand. The No Kings protest did not. One does not effect real change by giving up brunch and then acting like it's some great sacrifice.
btw there IS a "specific demand" : An end to the drumpf crime syndicate but if that's not specific enough for you then by all means start your own solidarity movement.
OMG ... a long lost friend!! Good to see you again!
Too many "liberals" think the No Kings rallies were only protests against Trump. Sadly, they are probably right. Until putting an end to the billionaire class and capitalism, the system that empowered it, becomes the driving force of change, there will be no change.
Although it's been said many times, many ways: capitalism and democracy cannot co-exist. Liberal Democrats are mired in their narrow world of binary electoralism and fail to understand that is exactly why Trump holds power today. Genocide Joe was a total no go. The good news? A recent Gallup poll showed that 66% of Democrats now hold a positive view of socialism.
Trump's regime is out of control. They show no fear of ever being held accountable for their many corrupt and criminal actions. They display no concern about being reelected.
When the President's response to massive No Kings protests by outraged citizens is posting an AI video of himself wearing a crown, piloting a Trump branded jet and bombing Times Square protesters with feces, he needs to be removed from power, by whatever means are necessary.
i detest donald trump but I'm concerned about "removed by whatever means are necessary" considering that, dude -- he won. and the dem's loss was their own stupid ass fault. now. these were supposedly "pro democracy" protests. so...what are you suggesting?
So true they've convinced many in the country it's somehow a red/blue battle for the "soul of the nation," when in reality, it's the predator elites' non-stop war on the people.
Chris Hedges frequently uses the term “Inverted Totalitarianism” to describe US politics (he in turn got it from another commentator). The system’s rigged so that real power (capital, industry etc) places figureheads in office so we can point at them and argue with each other about who’s in office while the overall agenda remains the same.
I suggest reading Prof. Sheldon Wolins massive tome “Politics and Vision,” where the theory of “inverted totalitarianism” is explained in far greater depth.
I have observed that the same tactics used by US government, and its collaborators, to undermine Democracy in other countries, are being used to undermine Democracy in this country.
Been creeping in from the edges for some time now.
I first became aware of it during Reagan's tenure.
You wanna believe that if Trump thought that rally was of any importance, it would NOT have remained peaceful. If it were of any concern, there would have been resistance. If it were of any concern, it would NOT have been allowed to happen. It happened because it was a safer valve, nothing more
So true. As usual for all of Caitlyn's work. The choreographed spectacle was so very bourgeois...and performative... which I knew even as I was participating. And, at the end, I had an overwhelming feeling of emptiness as I walked to my car. Because I saw and felt what Caitlin described.
For true social change to occur, large numbers of people have to HURT. A lot. Seems that too many good 'murKKKans are now more interested in boycotting the Super Bowl...because they are RACISTS ...than they are in their country being invaded by storm trooper fascists. I don't see a way out of this collective, mass insanity. Might makes right. Wealth makes "right." And the worst part? Half the population think things are peachy. Fascism is peachy. Stranger in a strange land...
Remember how Team D was against the genocide in Yemen, but only for so long as it could be used as a stick to beat Trump with.
Once Biden presided over that genocide, they suddenly changed sides. Just like that.
And remember when "Assad the Butcher" must go because Democrats and Liberals cared so much about "human rights" and "chemical weapons" - Gee, seems like stupid Americans would eventually realize that wherever "we" stick our bloody little hands in the name of human rights (previously "anti-communism" or "anti-terrorism") things ALWAYS get worse and not better for the actual people involved. Point being, in a similar fashion to how you noted Yemen, suddenly there's nothing to beat Trump's head over in Syria despite the new, worse reality on the ground there.
All US ever does in/to other countries is to gain from their oil, gas or anything else tgat can be bought and sold by US$s. This has been their mode for so long people no longer see it staring them in the face. Each US government supports the energy companies and the military hardware companies because they pay politicians instead of paying their legal tax amounts. Same in Australia, the country would be able to do so much more, and I do mean much, much more, if these companies paid their fare share of taxes but, no, they are let off in so many ways that the ordinary folk never ever do, and still they rule governments in so many countries because they buy, cheaply, the politicians who are elected to work for the people thst elected them, with no votes, there's no being in government.
The whole business, and that's what it has become a business, is a total shame. And to have only two parties at the ballot box proves there us something terribly wrong, not just in America it has spread so far to other countries, they have become one name at the ballot.
The whole world needs to rise up in revolution before we end up with one big fat B over the whole planet. We all know who is hoping to be that one, and the hell on earth life would become if it us not stopped now.
OH BTW you are absolutely right about the arms merchants too. Most often, with exceptions being gulf monarchies most of which have oil and are part of the system, the weapons "sold" (really means rented out to) these target countries (new) leaders are as much for the purpose of intimidating or coercing the population as they are to threaten neighbors who may not be fully assimilated. It's also to ensure that chaos can be instigated whenever it's needed by stoking conflicts between countries in a given region now that they're well armed with Uncle Scam's weapons, even if they're otherwise cooperating - when there's a situation like "Israel" to distract people from. I ramble, I know. But you're correct about the weapons, and don't forget the surveillance and control systems these countries also "buy" - need to keep a close eye on the citizenry and prevent or destroy any pesky "socialist" uprisings - ya know, demand for an actual voice in their own government and use of their own tax money.
Yes, it most definitely goes way beyond oil and gas, or even other extractible goods and commodities. What they really want, at the end of the day, is akin to The Borg of Star Trek fame - full assimilation into the "US-based" "international order" meaning full access to and control (or as close or profitable as they can get) of the country's "markets" - people (consumers), social goods and services (transport infrastructure, utilities, education, health care, etc.) and to saddle the people of these countries with eternal debt whenever possible. This, of course, is done according to the same playbook as the oil, gas, minerals and crops - Privatization. Wresting not just the resources from the hands of the people (i.e., Venezuela's nationalized petroleum, etc.), but enslaving the country by "Americanizing" it and turning every possible aspect of life into a means of extracting rent and profit, turning citizens and sovereign nations into "consumers" of Western debt - aka the "financialization of everything."
Only those countries who refuse to bend the knee and offer sufficient cooperation with the "western" oligarch financial class (FIRE sector for short), are subject to mistreatment and meddling. The only difference is one of scope, scale and methods. For the ones who are already partially complying, perhaps a rigged election or soft coup. For the ones not really complying but maybe with enough (and sufficiently powerful) "upper class" rich people (most often those who obtained their wealth during the colonialism period - mostly land and property and ownership of minerals, etc. - and in countries where a severe (and completely false) strain of "anti-communism" remains from the decades of propaganda during the Cold War) to where a coup can be staged as non-violently as possible, and who will always be the class to place the next leader from among their ranks into power. Of course the further down the non-cooperation scale you go, the more violent it gets. Economic embargoes (Cuba), severe economic sanctions (Venezuela, Russia [in their delusional fantasies], formerly Syria, etc.) or straight up invasion and attempted regime change/destruction of the current order (Saddam, to be: Iran, Venezuela, etc.).
China is a unique case that has both obvious and not so obvious differences, the most obvious being that they are currently an economic and population powerhouse integrated enough into the Western supply chains that fucking with them in a serious manner would be like shooting ones self in the foot. But I digress....
Check out the following books if you haven't read them yet:
"The Racket - A Rogue Journalist..." by Matt Kennard
"The Jakarta Method" by an author named Bevins
"American Exeption" by Aaron good - more focused on the domestic side of this stuff.
Also happy to take any recommendations from others...
Read Smedly D Butler- 'War is a Racket'. He spelled it out 100 years ago. It has only gotten more deadly now.
B?
Bastard.
And it should be noted that the [Real] State's Ukrainian Nazi/CIA Army is and has been using both Chemical and Biological warfare against Russia - the latter of which will always 'blowback' to the USA, in ways convenient for the BioSecurity and [Real] State's Technocratic Totalitarian goals.
Remember, the US pioneered biological and chemical weapons - that is their actual use against populations. Nazi Germany and Japan were doing a lot of research and development, but TMK, they never deployed anything remotely as serious as the US did in Korea, Vietnam, and which the US helped Saddam gain capabilities to do against Iran, not to mention Assad's program.
The Japanese ‘research’ was, in effect, a substantial deployment - but mostly just upon civilians, in Manchuria.
That's completely bullshit
Sounds like you don't care for facts.
Chloropicrin is a prohibited Chemical Weapon. The Banderite Regime in Kiev, and their US/NATO/CIA Mercenary Army (recruited in-part, by spooks like the failed-Trump-Assassin from Mar A Lago) has been using it against Russian Troops and NovoRossiyan citizens in the Donbass, for more than a year, at least.
And we know that the Georgia Lugar Lab was working on weaponized bat coronaviruses, since long before any of the Bio-weaponization work, of a similar nature was ever sent to China. And next door in Ukraine they were running as many as 30 CLANDESTINE Bio Weapons labs, since the CIA/NAZI Coup in 2014... So you're either a liar, or you're sadly disinformed, and ignorant.
Depleted uranium is our horror of choice.
And it should be NOTED - that the US and the British allegedly sent DU Munitions, along with Abrams and Challenger Tanks to the Donbass, earlier in the conflict - under Biden. Russia made clear that was another dangerous escalation that they would respond towards. It's not clear to me how they did that... But I suspect very much that they did.
They certainly BBQ'd an awful lot of those inferior tanks. O hope they're checking the wrecks with Geiger counters.
Citations, please.
Not exactly what he's saying, but related.
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/04/14/ukraine-war-reveals-possible-u-s-preparations-for-biological-warfare/
Indeed, the Assad regime was as brutal as Zionists. The creativity in torturing his opponents was beyond imagination. The sutuation here is completely different from what you are trying to say, as we only have the privilege of choosing between the lesser of two evils. Why do you thing Syria was a breeding ground for extrimist groups? Chiefly due to Assad's policies. What do you know about Syria? Systemic discrimination, unequal distribution of resources and opportunities (the vast majority of Syrians living in rural areas had no proper access to education and healthcare), people literally disappear for questioning the authority. Ironically, people in the west support Palestine and challenge the narrative that dehumanizes Palestinians, yet they romanticize and defend totalitarian regimes (Assad, Ghaddafi, and Saddam). In essence, the IDENTITY or BACKGROUND of the oppressor doesn’t erase the victim’s pain or make the oppression acceptable.
LOL you miss the point entirely. For starters, why don't you compare the brutality of the Assad "regime" for whoever and whatever it is that rules what is left of Syria now. This would include the Salafist head choppers who have been on sprees of murdering Christians, Druze, other Muslims - and - their buddies in the IOF.
You also know absolutely NOTHING about why Syria was the "breeding ground" for extremists if you are blaming Assad's policies. That's so nonsensical and historically ignorant that I hesitate even to respond. Yes, Assad could be called a totalitarian or authoritarian - and in most such cases there is a historical reason why such governments rose to power and stayed there, namely post-colonialist British, French and US foreign policy. So yes, a certain resistance (mostly non-violent) was bred, as is natural in such situations.
But the truth of the matter is - much like Afghanistan in the 70s and 80s - Syria was the "breeding ground" because the US and Israel made it so. The US facilitated the import of tens of thousands of foreign "jihadis" or more accurately the CIA's moveable feast of Islamic extremists from various countries around the ME and SW Asia. The initial uprisings and protests could and would have been (mostly) peacefully solved with concessions made to those communities away from Damascus with legitimate grievances (not all under Assad's control, BTW - such as drought conditions) but the US via the CIA and other agencies wanted a "civil war" so they provoked and manufactured one.
What do YOU know about Syria? And is it better off now or was it better off before the US-provoked "civil war" following the "Arab Spring"? Or is it better off now than under Assad and before the current regime of psycho formerly terrorist-designated individuals and groups took over with much US and Israeli assistance? Again, you missed the MAIN point - or you are a member of the group of liberals and Democrats I was calling out. You don't seen to care that as soon as Assad's regime fell, the DESIGNATED terrorist groups who took over were suddenly removed from the list and welcomed with open arms to Brussels and Washington while they continued to commit massacres and other atrocities along with the IOF. Hypocrite, much?
And then you go and mention Libya?! Wow, why don't you go there and see how well you do compared to how it would have been under Gadhafi? Were there open air SLAVE MARKETS when he was in control and trying to provide healthcare, water distribution and the best economy in all of Africa for its people? Too bad he dared to attempt a pull-away from the French currency, isn't it. Couldn't let that happen. And stupid liberals and phony/ignorant champions of "human rights" suddenly no longer care what's happening to the people in Syria or Libya. Which YET AGAIN was my whole point.
I did not miss the point. The fall of Assad regime was not something I hoped for, but it was inevitable. These extrimist groups (like it or not) represent the vast majority of Syrians, particularly those living in rural areas. Why do most Syrians prefer president Ahmad al-Chareh? Besides Israel brutality, five decades of oppression along with the spread of the Wahabi ideology redicalized people. What peaceful protests? without Hamas the Palestine cause is over; without Hezbollah Lebanon would remain under occupation. The Syrian revolution was unarmed for the first six months, yet Assad responded with force, leading to significant casualties among protesters. Moreover, Assad's regime released hundreds of Islamist extremists from Sednaya prison in 2011, at the beginning of the Syrian uprising, including (مصطفى علوش، ابو مصعب السوري، ايمن الظواهري).
Whether it is better or not? It is not a competition between who is less brutal; both are equally brutal. In other words, the regime knew very well how to agitate the Islamist threat in order to strengthen Alawi loyalty.
Syria war is very complicated and hard to understand for outsiders. Sadly, the first victim of war is always Truth. One can be opposed to Israel and US imperialism and also recognize the criminality of Saddam, Assad and Ghaddafi.
باسل شحادة، ميشال كيلو، مازن درويش، فدوى سليمان، مي سكاف.
A NEVER-ENDING LIST OF PEACEFUL PROTESTERS WERE ELIMINATED BY THE REGIME. NOT TO MENTION HAFEZ (HIS FATHER) ATROCITIES AGAINST ALL SECTS IN LEBANON, PARTICULARLY CHRISTANS)
LOL ok. "Syria War"
Tell us who you really are.
"These extrimist groups (like it or not) represent the vast majority of Syrians..."
You are a LIAR! Are you trying to tell us that the radical head chopping moveable feast of American imported Salafist criminals are the Syrian people!?!?!?!?!
You are scum.
+ I was trying to have a respectful conversation. I am not a liberal: sorry I did not fit your prejudice.
Why are you Lebanese such PUSSIES? Fight your own wars. The rich among you simply take the Zionist murderer/massacrists side. Then you want us to care about Assad and Libya!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No. You were trying to propagate and amplify lies told to Western citizens and taxpayers who funded the fake "civil war" designed to topple Assad since before 9/11 and Wesley Clarke's speech about 7 countries in 7 years, and notably you did not offer a SINGLE point of fact to counter my LONG comment.
How do you think Assad and his father got to power in the FIRST PLACE?
Do you really think that Syria - or "Syria" was a real country like "Ukraine" is?
What do you not understand about the vestiges of COLONIALISM? Are you the child of RICH land or RESOURCE owning SYRIANS who were somehow "robbed" by the "wrong" government that ended up in power?
You are a Zionist pig. Better or not?! There are literal pogroms and murder/massacre sprees now. Against PEACEFUL NON PARTICIPANTS in the US/UK's covert war on the Assad government!!!
You are fucking scum man. Go fuck off and do your own thing. We don't need Zionist and expat Cubans, Syrians, Iranians, and other idiot children of RICH fucking beneficiaries of POST-COLONIAL SCUM forcing us American and western taxpayers to finance your wars for the return of your riches.
As told by Hillary. Not a good source of truth:
Mena drug smuggling
Uranium One/Russia $140,000,000/Clinton Fndn
CNN Brazil cheating questions
DNC Clinton control of money
DNC Bernie cheating no DNC
Las Vegas odds scandal
Steele Dossier
Computer/Email violations
CrowdStrike / Russiagate
CIA Surveillance
Seth Rich assassination
Durham Report
Mueller report
Good Dems wished she had stayed home and bake cookies. We are worse off than ever!
And remember when Obama, who had just been elected, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples"?
And remember when Obama said Assad using mustard gas on his own people was a "red line"?
And remember when Michelle Obama said, "When they go low, we go high?"
The Obamas have always been nothing more than grifters. Obama took more money from Wall Street than any candidate before him and allowed Citibank to appoint his cabinet. That was well documented.
https://mronline.org/2021/10/07/a-company-family-the-untold-history-of-obama-and-the-cia/
Next I can tell you about Bill Clinton and Mena, AR.
And yes, the CIA, cartels and US based mafia have always been closely linked with Wall Street banks. In fact, probably enough so that during tough economic times (often Wall Street caused) they kept the bankers in the black.
Thank you for the link. Very interesting.
It's interesting in several ways, actually. The main one to me is that any "liberal" or "progressive" president of the US in the past 50 years has been either severely vetted, tested and employed by the CIA covertly - no matter their previous upbringing or political history - or compromised by them and Mossad (not as unusual as you may assume). IOW these guys ALWAYS come after literal openly CIA asset presidents like Reagan and Bush and they're ALWAYS CIA (meaning Wall Street - look at that agency's history starting with the Dulles bros) vetted but still packageable as libs/progs. Never leftists in reality but always portrayed as leftists by the corporate Wall Street fete'ing media and Rethugs.
We are not living in anything remotely resembling a democracy or even a "democratic republic" with democracy at certain levels, at least if you stop at city councils. But even there the power of the AIPAC influenced GOP and DNC wield great power to create or destroy careers. Nobody who the "intelligence community" doesn't have the power to destroy instantly will or has ever been allowed to enter the real (s)Election process for the Senate or Presidency. See: Bernie - who because of his age and softness became a sheepdog/Judas goat for the moneyed powers. Not to say he wouldn't have been a much better president, but he a) never actually wanted to be that (just like Trump in 2016) and b) if he actually did anything "leftist" would have been taken care of after winning the election.
Consistent with all of this is that despite having been the editor of Harvard Law Review, Obama never wrote a law review article. A friend who was on HLR years earlier said that was very strange, as in unprecedented. Obama certainly seems to have had some powerful sponsors.
I remember when Obama immediately turned his back on women when he and Pelosi decided that women's productive rights were never going to be a priority.
I remember Obama promising to end wars. They didn't.
It's not that women's productive rights weren't a priority, it's that the Blue Team needed abortion as a hot issue to rouse their base. If they passed federal legislation supporting abortion, it would rouse up the Red Team base to a high pitch. So they left it. Thus making it obvious they are only interested in staying in power, not governance. Not that it did them any good.
Did Michelle Obama really say that? If she did she stole it from Jackie Chan who has used that for 40 years to describe how he differs from Bruce Lee.
well said feral. "Progressive" only as far as it suits their own agenda, then their true nature reveals itself once said agenda is concluded. Neither major political party really seems to care about human rights or the issues facing the people, just how they can push their platform, throw mud at the other side and blame them for everything, and garner more sympathy for their cause to perpetuate the same inane, ineffective 2 party system
Remember how Team D welcomed Mamdani with open arms?
Me neither, even as the man is well on the way to being housbroken.
Nope can't remember that. Anyone who doesn't fit their "narrative" gets the cold shoulder, or worse, from the so called "progressive" party
Biden hasn’t been President for 10 months. How is your comment relevant today?
It shows the depth of the Team D commitment to human rights.
And the current regime is, by contrast, laser-focused on human rights?
Nobody said it was, just that voting Team D just means more glib excuses.
Quit arguing with strawmen.
Are you playing dumb, or just dumb?
What a silly question.
It wasn’t a question
Could’ve fooled me.
Liberals love war and death as much as the other side. We must break with them on this, disgusting. Biden, Clinton, Obama, et al. were just as bad. Biden perhaps worse.
Amerikan dumbshit do fall for BS, and in fact, seem's to crave it -PCR_
I'm glad you wrote about the No Kings rallies, Caitlin. Your "Fake Revolution" description is GOLD!
I know it is not a real revolution, but the fact that so many people came out at all might be a starting point. Who knows, maybe more people will start reading more non mainstream news and maybe they will start to figure things out.
Yes, we have to start somewhere, and after decades of skillful manipulation by the Powers-That-Be (i.e., Manufactured Consent) there is no longer much organized resistance based on concrete issues. Instead we get a lot of virtue-signaling, which seems to describe the No Kings event.
So, we (who seek real structural change) are in a kind of boot-strap position: How do we get organized when there's so little organization to build upon. The owner class has done a pretty good job at dividing the working class into mutually-antagonistic factions. The culture of internet and smartphones has accelerated the separation of people into individual silos and favors messages that reinforce separation (because it makes you feel more free to view yourself as an isolated autonomous being, instead of being a member of human society).
I think we need to re-build class consciousness (which fell apart in the late 1980s) and for that we need a positive vision of what that leads toward. And I don't mean the Scandinavian Welfare Capitalism shit-job that so many of my liberal friends have bought into. That just leads them toward a lot of whiny moralistic arguments about how unfair and hurtful the US system is. The postmodernist brain-rot of power theory and how we could all be happy living in basements and interacting through TikTok if we only had a government-supplied Universal Basic Income (UBI). Yeah, great, a UBI that's just enough to keep you out of abject poverty and that's ready to be snatched away again at the first sign of political opposition. Total separation of individuals and total demoralization. What a bunch of saps these liberals are! Kind of like the academic union I belonged to, that would spend years negotiating for meager salary raises and never had that huevos to go on strike. It's hard to convince a bunch of PhD academics that they are workers just like the gardeners and custodians. They almost all think they are above that.
I'm not a great organizer, and labor unions are difficult to organize in the US because the laws are so tilted against unions, but I think a broad project to build alliance among the working class would be a fruitful direction to move in. Organizing around the idea of Mutual Aid might work, and could build outward from Food Banks, where a lot of working people get their groceries. We can learn to stand together, so we don't fall apart. We can relearn the lessons of community; that the bonds of community are stronger than the differences between us.
We can do this!
Apologies for the long post.
Well said Duane McPherson! 🙏
And I agree with you completely on the UBI thinking - too many liberals/progressives falling for the ploy without realizing the bigger picture of control mechanisms and lack of changes in structural/systemic issues and systems (which is what is really needed).
Hi Susan, I saw this a lot- people saying didn't it mean something that so many people got off their arses on their 'day of rest' to go for a cathartic march and enjoyable rant in the sunshine with their friends. Or, on the other side of the political aisle and the Atlantic, in the rain protesting authoritarian governments not Kings.
The point is they were both deliberately given something to get excited about and positively encouraged to march about it. It makes them even less likely to notice what's really going on and even more likely to continue to read and believe their 'alternative' but totally corralled and controlled social media news outlets. It makes them even less likely to do something that would actually make a difference to the establishment like ditching their leaf blowers, jet washers, iphones, porn, booze, Netflix, all vaccines, most pharma products or going vegan.
The marches were not starting points. They were culminations of propaganda.
Agreed. I hate the brunch sign too, but I don’t think sneering condescension toward all 7 million protesters is the way we create a better order.
a lot of sneerwells have never attended one of these or the one they went to must have been complete shite
At every single one I've gone to they got to hear someone speak about current events in Palestine, West Bank, Gaza and hear people chant "from the river to the sea" and get exposed to all kinds of things and groups they never do sitting in their living room watching cable news. You are correct, it is a start.
Yes, the first thing I thought was " this looks like a national day of Doo-Dah parades"
Of course the boomers were out in force to protest. First time in their adult lives they've had their economic standing threatened by the culmination of decades of financial mismanagement of this country.
Meanwhile, GenZ are facing a life of destitution because of this mismanagement.
Maybe some of us boomers care about Gen Z? Way to keep a movement small and pure.
Some do, no doubt.
But not too many of those that were out this weekend protesting.
Fact is, we’re not leaving them the best world we can, and that sucks.
Indeed, TTW.
Three items were able to be seen as triggers for moving the world out of its current crisis.
However......
* Israel's !00 years years of planning is not going to stop and genocide is accepted by all Israelis as normal, a requirement needed to achieve their goals. Now in place.
* The Western Media as part-owned by the Jews as investors (controllers). Nothing is ever likely to change this potential trigger for change, being profitable for the Jews and well planned for decades for one purpose only. Propagandised, biased news. It's the norm today.
'The USA as a major country........ but 86% controlled by Israelis and the narcissictic Trump, and 25 Cabinet puppets.
I concluded that the first two were unchangeable and I know that is correct. I was waiting to see if the demonstrations throughout the USA yesterday could ever be seen as a trigger for the third item, a 'revolution' from within in the USA. It was something of a failure. No objectives named, nothing achieved, no change in direction....or anything else.
Yesterday's 'No Kings' effort was clear indication that this will not be the trigger for change.
Back to the drawing board.
Yes. I know that there is the now feeble United Nations, long since handicapped by the inability to take the reins of justice and make decisions of any values to the world.
The US veto has made this organisation a useless tool for peace, justice, in fact for any positive progress at all and as a result should be closed down.
This leaves the remaining option. The US Cabinet of Trump and his like-minded entourage of misfits, none of who have a single independent thought that varies from the dictatorial Trump. But it also means searching out the identical number of the old Biden followers, the Gaza conspirators, one cluster of useless humans the same as the other.
So, no solution in sight. More AIPAC / USA controls to be applied, many more cities to be occupied by Trump's uniformed ICE terrorists, thousands more Palestinians to be butchered by Netanyahu's stormtroopers, the oilfields of Gaza to get under way and the Trump Tourist Empire to become a reality. Applications for membership of Trump's Gaza Country Club now soon open. Jews only, of course.
Lay back and enjoy the show, world, while you can. You could be next.
I was born in Cuba and would never have left but I was 11 years old when my mother and stepfather decided to leave. I agree with you that the United States has always been a terrorist nation who has committed atrocities since its founding, but the protests are important because hopefully they will wake others to the need to change the status quo.
I am neither a Democrat or a Republican although I have voted Democrat three times in my life. Both parties are corrupt and support the same principles. As a socialist, I have no interest in anything the Government proposes.
I have been arrested multiple times for civil disobedience. I was an attorney for many years and found that in general, the system of justice is extremely corrupt. Once in a while you can find a decent lawyer or judge, but it’s a rare occurrence.
My issue with what you write is that you can’t paint millions of people with the same description. Many of the people I work and protest with seek to change a system of injustice and oppression to something else.
I have followed you and enjoyed your work for many years. Thank you for your service.
Silvia Brandon-Pérez
I attended a 400 person march and met boomers at their first march and I told them that both parties are corrupt and we need a socialist revolution. There were people
who listened and maybe it will sink in. Planted seeds of a general strike. I know it’s not happening as fast as we need it to, but I believe even small things matter.
small things do matter
Thank you. I know we want big things to make big changes Now. And we deserve that. But still got to believe in all the things.
small things led to my own deprogramming, shitting on these rallies as 100% useless is stupidly incorrect
And what are the options beyond Armageddon? It is something we can do and there were many at their first protest. Got to start somewhere.
there's a spectrum of options that range from activating normies into putting on largely performative displays all the way to things I won't even mention on the internet - but for most of us, just getting more involved in improving the conditions of our local communities is a great start
Exactly right in every detail. Caitlin understands this country better than 99% of its citizens. No matter who we vote for, we get John McCain. Or some equally horrific warmonger. Either don't vote D or R or don't vote at all. We're fucked here no matter what we do. Reject this whole corrupt system!
Agree with you about what not to do — the question remains, what do we do?
We go to the rallies and poach people that are looking for genuine action.
Treat it as a recruitment ground, not a protest. The cops and fascists are often just mingling doing the same thing, even if the latter is less obvious about it.
Exactly. I feel like too many here are way out over their skis casting the whole thing as a complete waste of energy.
I've been doing "either don't vote D or R or don't vote at all" for 20 years--THAT doesn't change anything. We need to start talking about what might!
I've been voting 3rd party leftists (or not voting) that way for 50 years. Voting changes nothing, period. If it did it wouldn't be permitted. "We" have talked about what might bring real change for, I don't know, 200 years? It's been exhaustively discussed and written and published about, and now we're stuck in commenting mode, seemingly forever.
Organizing is the only solution, but since unions are in freefall and have been for decades, there's no reliable mechanism within which to organize anything that gets a bit of traction. Fragmentation is at record highs on every measurable front, there are multiple competing voices and outlets vying for our attention, and many other related factors that make us the most schizoid society to ever exist.
Fascism waltzes to our collective confusion and lack of direction as to how the fuck to proceed. Nobody can say because we have no coherence in our daily existence around any of this. It's a Tower of Babel problem that has morphed into a problem of how-to- live-in-a-world-that-can't-be-fixed, unless it's at the local level. We can only start from there, if we're resourceful and lucky enough to have local relationships that aren't exclusively digital or AI-driven, which so much of them soon will be.
I quite agree with this thoughtful comment. But I think there could be a path, if the big groups that are supposedly fighting for the environment, the climate, women's rights, labor, gay rights, rights for people of color, immigrants, indigenous people , antiwar groups, justice groups of every sort, came together, they could make a joint plan for a general strike, including agreement on what the demands should be. I think we need, as individuals, to pick a focus--for me it's the environment--but at the same time stay cognizant that it's all one fight and we must join together against our common enemies. Leaders of these groups are negligent in not getting on with this--we can't afford silos, and I wonder if it's because they're always obsessed with funding, and they compete for grants--if so, that's another way our enemies win because of their two enormous advantages--unlimited funds being one. And the other being ownership and control of virtually all the "mainstream" media and the electronic gateways.
We're very much on the same page, if not word for word, but who is? All those causes and issues you list I've done the same for years. Back in the '80s I was painfully aware of so many splinter groups that never were able or interested in coming together to Fight the Power that was already strangling every effort to bring about even a semblance of a peaceful, sane world, and I see zero improvement on that front. Most of them aren't even aware of each other and seem to think they alone have The Answer that could save us if only they could get enough funding.
I've known all along that money isn't going to advance us toward whatever we define as our goals--if we want to stop the people who are destroying the world. They will always have far more funding than we can ever imagine. We have the numbers but we're atomized into total incoherence, so they aren't worried about us. As it stands today, we're virtually their prisoners.
Now maybe you see why McCain was addressing the crowd following the Maidan massacre in Ukraine, after Victoria Nuland passed out he cookies. Cookies in exchange for regime change!
I said that we needed to vote for third party independents in 2024, trying to manifest that into existence.
But McCain was a MAVERICK!
Yes, it’s all fake, and shallow, and won’t change anything. But it’s counter productive to criticize the first stirring of activism among a population which makes complacency the eighth deadly sin. They need the practice, let them get out there and maybe next time they’ll have more to say. I think that even if it was empty, it was a good and necessary beginning.
But that's as far as it will go--it will just be the letting off of steam with their funny signs. There's no call to action or demands made. No organizing of the No King protesters except the local Democrats will email and call them with their contact info taken in the "registration" sign up online. It was just a big DNC vote gathering psy-op. There hasn't been a "beginning" yet.
Nope. The next planned march is a “Refuse Fascism” march organized by socialists, among others, with no connection to either major party.
Not at our rally. We had tables to sign up for the Ernergncy Response Team. To grocery shop for people afraid to leave their homes. Take them to their doctor's or help them get legal help or remote court appointments. I know there are still so many who think Dem is the answer because DJT is the problem. It isn't. Local volunteering and organizing will help everyone regardless of administration.
in fact there are plenty of groups at these events making specific demands and attempting to organize the people that attend (including the fucking democratic party, but fuck them), even if whoever runs "no kings" has nothing going on
My government is telling me that anti-fascism is terrorism and that people who come out to protest authoritarianism and corruption hate America. To my contrarian soul that's the same as a dare so of course I went to the protest. Obviously I want more than than standing around with and chanting slogans for a couple of hours, but if that's what's on offer, I'm going, because I'll be damned if I let Mike Johnson and Stephen Miller scare me into staying home.
Thanks for attending! Next time you go to one, if you go to a large one, consider connecting and getting involved with one of the groups there that aligns with the change you want, that's an easy way to move to the next step beyond standing around. You might be real surprised by what else is actually "on offer".
Yup. The sneering condescension in some of these comments is a great way to kill off any chance of winning the future.
That's fair.
Those two signs are stupid — no question. But I didn’t see a single Harris sign at the 200,000 plus march I attended. (Neither were there any palm trees). I did see a large contingent of anti-genocide/pro-Palestinian protesters, which I joined. And several speakers denounced and called for an end to the U.S. support for the genocide in Gaza to wide applause. I voted “uncommitted” in the 2024 presidential election, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one there who did. We’re not all stupid and complicit here, Caitlin. Many of us are like those of the rest of you in the Western world whose governments don’t represent you and who are trying to figure out what to do about it. This of course has been building for a long time. And you’re of course right about the two U.S. mainstream parties. And you’re also right that many (but not all) groups that organized the march have ties to the Democratic Party. Many of us know that neither party is going to save us — that they both got us to where we are now. My sign, btw, was about the Supreme Court, which orchestrated a silent coup when it held that presidents were immune from suit for “official acts” performed in office, whether or not those acts are crimes. The decision had no legal foundation and instead rewrote the Constitution, as did the “money equals speech” decisions of the Court dating back to 1976, legalizing bribery in elections and allowing billionaires to buy them. The question is, what do we do — what do the populations of the UK and France do when speech is criminalized? We can start in the U.S. by throwing out every politician who has taken AIPAC and other Israeli lobby money and supported genocide. And that of course includes Harris. The cult members of both parties will continue to vote for whatever party name is put in front of them. But what are the rest of us to do?
Very well articulated. Depicting an entire country as either silly "brunch" dems or GOP-worshipping trumpers is quite a wide brush to be painting with. People worldwide are struggling with their governments not truly representing the people as intended. Not understanding that the same is true here in the US is juvenile. The simple "performative Americans, protest is futile", yet not a single suggestion as to what they should do instead? Nihilism in its worst form. No Kings may be performative for many, and not everyone is taking the situation here as seriously as they should. However, humans are like that - discomfort IS uncomfortable. But to simply decry protesting? In any form? Sure, it isn't enough...but it's something. If you attack (as you see it) the only thing people ARE doing, you risk shutting down the chance they will ever do better. If you do in fact wish for better, then this is an incredibly counter-productive take.
Coming back to link another post, for everyone who thinks nihilism is the answer, and that "I miss brunch" is the average protestors sentiment. If common sense has failed you, maybe your eyes will not.
https://substack.com/@toshyou/note/c-168074845?r=6ky0qq&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Exactly
💯- these rallies have loads of people that are there to do way more than "get back to brunch", it's one of the few places the normies will get to see real activists that care about the genocide their country is funding and realize they aren't getting a complete picture on their rectangles
Agreed up to the "We can start by throwing our every politician who takes money from AIPAC..." No we can't, actually, since that's nearly all of them. This how ugly shit happens globally--we pretend voters have a choice when it's a choice in the US between two viable candidates, elsewhere more than two, but usually both of them are compromised because that's how it WORKS--when SCOTUS won't allow even weak, inadequate controls on political spending, and the one who spends the most wins 90% of the time, and all the major media is corporately or billionaire-owned and pro-corporate, pro-imperial, pro Israel...actually we CAN'T throw them out by voting.
What the rest of us can do starts with talking about it, instead of wasting so much time every four years arguing about whether voting for a third-party candidate who can't win is "throwing away your vote."
More and more politicians and candidates are refusing AIPAC money because it has become a political liability. And more senators voted in July to cut off funding to Israel than they did in April. I wrote to every Democrat who voted against the bills to cut off funding and also wrote to the DNC when a proposal to cut off funding came up for a vote. Although the DNC did not adopt the proposal, it withdrew the counter proposal. Not enough, but there’s been movement in the right direction. And that’s because of pressure from the people. It’s hard and too slow, but if everyone did this, think what an impact it would have. Doing something is better than doing nothing, although I agree, it has to be strategic.
This cynical rant reveals a shallow understanding of US politics. The focus now is public pressure and pressure on the courts to stop Trump from making fascism the norm. I was at the No King rally in Sedona, a small town of 10,000, where perhaps 3000-4000 people turned out, all resisting the turn to fascism (which includes support for genocide in Gaza), part of a mass movement of grass roots democracy which sees as the need of the moment to push back against fascism. If y ou think that is fake, you are cynical and ignorant to boot.
The game plan is public pressure and court actions to stop Trump, then in 2026, remove the fascist from power in Congress and thus neuter Trump and perhaps, for there is no other possible alternative to stop Israel, pushing thru a ban on arms shipments to Israel. There is no way to speed up the process, which invovles understanding the limits, but there is no other way that anyone has suggested. If you have an alternative to elected progressive Democrats who will vote to stop arms to Israel, what the fuck is it? Whining and demonizing and calling the largest protest in American history "fake' is something I would leave to Trump. Ok what's your alternative to Congress banning arms to Israel? Bueller? If you can't lend a hand, get out of the way (Dylan).
Weak take! The Ukraine proxy war was started and escalated by Biden and the Dems. The Palestinian genocide was started, funded, armed and escalated by Biden and the Dems. We've had fascism since 2021 under Biden and Harris with attacks on free speech, radical censorship of the web, massive propaganda operations waged against the people, mandates to take experimental medicines. Did you all "protest" in Sedona then?
Just one correction, the genocide of the Palestinians has been going on for far longer than Biden's presidency.
Yes, since at least Truman's time in office for the USA. This shit started decades ago. Before the USA started calling the shots, it was Great Britain with the Balfour Declaration.
We are aware of that. Why correct something not wrong?
Yes, we are aware of the fact that Biden was President and support was by both parties. Are you aware that since 1988 (37 yrs ago), Bernie Sanders has proposed banning weapons to Israel and that in the last vote, the majority of Democrats voted to do just that. Either you support that or you don't. Which is it? I am not defending Biden, whom I consider a weak and pro-war President. I am supporting the effort, now supported by the majority of Democrats in the Senate, to stop sending arms to israel. Are you for that or not? That is the question today, not looking back in anger but working to build a consensus to actually defund arms to Israel. That is the issue you are ignoring so tell me: do you support the Sanders bill or not? If you don't, the IDF has a job for you.
The protest in Sedona, population 10,000 was beautiful and the 7 million nationwide and millioins in other nations protesting, formed the largest protest in history. If you mock the protests, you must be a Trump supporter. This is not about Biden but about stopping Trump from pushing fascism down our throats, which only massive public protest can stop, as it stopped 7 dictatorships in Eastern Europe in 1989, without bloodshed, a revolution that relies on the solidarity of the people, which you mock. You are now doubt envious of the loving protest that happened yesterday, a beautiful and effective measure to show the fascists that free speech and protest are alive and well in the US........we are not afraid. Perhaps you are so you mock the protesters just as the fascists do. Shame on you. You are not working to free Palestine but to spread hatred and distrust, when we can only win when we are united, as we were yesterday.
First let me say I'm envious of your protest--I was in Charleston, WV, population about 50K but drawing from all surrounding counties as well, which an organizer claimed 2000 but I think it was less. I enjoyed the protest, was pleased to accommodate a pair of 16-year-olds' first protest, think it was worth the drive.
But I also think your post is a bit naive. It's not like Biden was an anomaly. And if all the Democrats (except that asshole Fetterman) voted to stop arms shipments to Israel--AFTER two years of genocide, during what many imagine is a real ceasefire--here's a little thought experiment, suppose there is a midterm election (I think less than even odds of that) and the Dems sweep both Houses (but Trump will only allow an election if her can be pretty sure of being able to cheat hard enough to maintain control). Now they can actually block arms shipments, thus pissing off their Zionist and MIC funders. Think they'd even have a vote on it, let along again vote to DO it? And then there's Venezuela--even the Squad members go along with the "Maduro is a dictator, we need to restore democracy (meaning US control) in Venezuela" bullshit, if not the blowing up of fishing boats.
Biden was not an anomoly, nor did I say he was. I consider him an accomplice to genocide, but the people voting to stops arms shipments to Israelit, which is the focus of my comments and support, are not Biden centrists but a new wave of progressives far from the Biden mold. ....the bills by Sanders were started early on and gained momentum. I agree with Martin Luther King: It is always the right time to do the right thing. If you do not see positioning as strategic, you do not understand politics, which is about compromise to gain your goals. If you don't play the game and try to win, you surrender to impotence.....the protests the other day were to try to neuter Trump so he cannot turn us into a dictatorship....so it was an essentail part of the strategy to protect the right to take control of Congress in 2026 by those opposed to his policies.
We've had fascism (ie sticking together of white men) for as long as the British Empire started and was then handed over to the US one. It's just that it's been more hidden until now.
Yes there is continuity of agenda on war and global hegemony under all US presidents whatever R or D it makes no difference.
Except that Trump's admin is more out in the open- partly to make a backlash against it which also suits their purposes and deflects from themselves.
You know dale ruff...whenever I see your name, I think of dandruff. It's involuntary. You just gross me out without even reading your ignorant and utter crap.
You think Dems are better?! They're the same thing. The entire system is built to control the populous no matter which party wins. With people like you, we're sure to be stuck in this hellhole of a reality forever.
do you support the vote to ban shipping arms to Israel? Yes or No. If you do support it, why do you attack the people pushing it?
. In the recent Senate vote, the Sanders bill to do just that, got a majority of Democrats voting for it. If you want the US to continue sending arms to Israel, keep it up. My word to you is that your insult about my name is about a 2d grade level and your use of vulgar language suggests you have no rational or civil ability. I have asked: what is your alternative to banning shipping arms to Israel? And if you attack those who do, and those like me to support them, then I suggest you join AIPAC, whose criticism of the Sanders bill and the Democrats supporting it aligns with your stupidity. If you opposing Congress blocking arms to Israel, what is your alternative?. You have none. You are an ignorant troll, trading in infantile insults. Now go home. If you can't lend a hand to bring to power those working to stop US support for Israel, get out of the way.
Demands for Yes or No answers like that are sure signs of the Democrat Cult. There's a reason they always fall JUST a few votes short, and most of the votes in favor of whatever desirable thing are just psyops to sucker voters like you.
You are mistaking a bad act for sincerity.
Bernie ("Israel has a right to defend itself) Sanders after 2 years can now say Genocide. Wow. Vote D or R for Israel. Hope Change Beleive. One State Palestine.
"Biden will be the most progressive president since FDR!" - Sanders
I saw a picture of Cory Booker with Netanyahu. When Cory runs for President, can BiBi be V.P. choice? We need more D and R's! One State Palestine.
Do you support the bill to ban shipping arms to Israel: that is not a cult question but a simple question. Until a bill that changes course passes, it always falls short , by defintion, but for the first time, the democratic base thinks Israel is committing genocide, and the Sanders bill got the majority of Dems to support it. If you support the bill, enough gaslighting : just say so. Yes and no questions are meant to cut out the bullshit and get down to the core: do you support the Sanders bill or not? No more bullshit...just answer. It's not bait: it's a question of whether your support for Palestine is genuine.
Now this is just silly, the kind of binary thinking the Trumpers excel at. Either you support the Dems because when they have no power they vote to stop arms shipments to Israel, or you're in favor of the genocide. The real world is way wider than that.
Lily, what is accomplished by starting your argument with a personal attack? It just discredits you. And that's POPULACE.
Agree with you 100%. Some of the people commenting have no interest in persuasion. They just want to attack and belittle. Not a great way to win the future.
When I see your fake name, I think: if I were going to insult someone with a juvenile taunt, I too would hide behind a fake name.
😘 flail more libtard
Lost you when you implied the Courts will "save us." THAT horse IS out of the barn. The summer of 2024 SCROTI 5 + 1 Hand Maid crowned, anointed preznit f*wit Fuhrer/King/Supreme Poo Bah. The Traitors have already "done the dirty deed." Why do people, many lawyers, still keep their fingers crossed: the courts will save us? NO. THE court that "counts" has already ruled.
When was the last time when your wonderful democray yielded an acceptable human being as candidate for the presidency? Or at least "kind of acceptable".
Ralph Nader. Jill Stein. Sanders, with all his faults, voted against funding the Iraq war. It would have made a difference to the Iraqis, if not to you.
I understabn where you are coming from. Th issue is, third party candidates have problems, substantial problems, to get on the ballot in all states. And then, those candidates will have problems finding the billionaires that slip them the odd 100 million, let alone 250 million. And if so, that mone might come, like elsewhere, under conditions. And then you have all the fakenewsers out there who will ignore and misrepresent the campaign of a third party candidate. You might check with your local library if they have "End Times" by Prof Peter Turchin. A book that explains the 2025 US in reasonably non-challenging language.
Stein was on the ballot in most states. Do not forget that more people did not vote for either Biden or Trump and that "not Vote" would have also won the electoral vote. I voted for Stein because of the Green Party platform and because both candidates, Trump and Harris, are genocidaires. Of course I live in CA where it is easy to vote one's conscience, since Trump would not win in Ca, but still, I am sick of voting for murderers and probably would have voted for Stein in a swing state.
And I did the same in West Virginia where also it made no difference. But in 2000 I was a Nader Trader--I voted for Gore--because that was when WV was crossing from heavy majority Dem to today's heavy majority Rep., so Gore had a chance--while someone in Maryland who supported Gore voted for Nader on my behalf.
Absolutely right about third parties, although I voted for them in the past. I’ll check out the book — thanks. BTW, I read somewhere recently that the Greens in the UK recently out-polled both the Labor and Tory parties. It’s not easy, but we have to keep trying.
Voting is not going to help, even if its for third parties or 'Greens'. Any party that's allowed to be elected will have to support continuity of agenda of the US interests (fossil fuels and arms etc) either before or after election. The 'Green' party in Germany is an example of a completely compromised shit show.
We can vote with our dollars, sterling and purchases though.
Good point about the German Greens, they started out from often far left, even communist orientated people associated with the peace movement and environmentalism. Now your average centre right, pro war party. Already back in 1999 in coalition with the Social-Democrats (by name only) dismantly the welfare state and in support of the war against Yugoslavia. Nasty, indeed!
Ultimately, it’s about voting. Our spending habits are not going to stop a genocide, for example, although they help. As long as people are willing to vote for candidates who support genocide, including those who are silent, we’ll get genocide. You can’t say that people voting for Trump — or Harris, for that matter — didn’t make a difference. Negative impact, but voting matters — for the better or worse.
We CANNOT solve anything by buying green. But we can keep our incomes low enough to not pay federal taxes, so we aren't supporting the US military, and we can shift from big box, chains to local mom and pops, and we can change our lives so we buy much less, instead doing more for ourselves, engaging in trade, and finding better things to do with our time than recreational shopping.
Thanks for indulging my typos. And yes, in Britain both major political parties are discredited. So Liberal-Democrats (also kind of discredited) and Greens as well as a new left movement around Jeremy Corby (formerly candidate for Prime Mnister of Labour) and the newly founded right-wing (can we call them Trumpists?) are havng high hopes for the future. This kind of happens in many European countries. Literature here by the Canadian Alain Denault, "Mediocracy The Politics of the Extreme Centre" (2015 / there should be some reviews out there which give you an idea). Cheers, and good luck!
Carter.
Thank you.
So you get Drumpf kicked out and Vance steps in - oh, well, that will make such a difference won't it? No bloody way, just out of the pan and into the fires of hell with him in that job.
Vance, Tulsi, Vivek... liberals think it's just Donald Trump when in fact the entire of Washington D.C. is corrupt.
Do not assume we are belonging to either of the two corrupt political parties in control. I am 72 yrs. of age and haven't voted as a registered Dem since Jimmy Carter was POTUS, Democratic "leadership" is as much to blame as the GOP for drumpf being elected not once, but twice. P.S. It took millions of people demonstrating in the streets for four days in a row to drive the Marcos' crime syndicate from the Malacañang Palace in 1986.
The Filipinos had a specific demand. The No Kings protest did not. One does not effect real change by giving up brunch and then acting like it's some great sacrifice.
btw there IS a "specific demand" : An end to the drumpf crime syndicate but if that's not specific enough for you then by all means start your own solidarity movement.
OMG ... a long lost friend!! Good to see you again!
Too many "liberals" think the No Kings rallies were only protests against Trump. Sadly, they are probably right. Until putting an end to the billionaire class and capitalism, the system that empowered it, becomes the driving force of change, there will be no change.
Although it's been said many times, many ways: capitalism and democracy cannot co-exist. Liberal Democrats are mired in their narrow world of binary electoralism and fail to understand that is exactly why Trump holds power today. Genocide Joe was a total no go. The good news? A recent Gallup poll showed that 66% of Democrats now hold a positive view of socialism.
Trump's regime is out of control. They show no fear of ever being held accountable for their many corrupt and criminal actions. They display no concern about being reelected.
When the President's response to massive No Kings protests by outraged citizens is posting an AI video of himself wearing a crown, piloting a Trump branded jet and bombing Times Square protesters with feces, he needs to be removed from power, by whatever means are necessary.
i detest donald trump but I'm concerned about "removed by whatever means are necessary" considering that, dude -- he won. and the dem's loss was their own stupid ass fault. now. these were supposedly "pro democracy" protests. so...what are you suggesting?
That video was genius. Trump is a gift in that he plays up to his role with such conviction. And he sees the funny side.
The point is they want you to think that Trump is the problem. You seem to believe it.
I guess you haven’t read any of my other posts.
The line between genius and insanity is non existent in those pulling Demented Donald’s puppet strings.
You keep cheering the depravity. I’ll keep calling out the traitorous regime.
So true they've convinced many in the country it's somehow a red/blue battle for the "soul of the nation," when in reality, it's the predator elites' non-stop war on the people.
Chris Hedges frequently uses the term “Inverted Totalitarianism” to describe US politics (he in turn got it from another commentator). The system’s rigged so that real power (capital, industry etc) places figureheads in office so we can point at them and argue with each other about who’s in office while the overall agenda remains the same.
I suggest reading Prof. Sheldon Wolins massive tome “Politics and Vision,” where the theory of “inverted totalitarianism” is explained in far greater depth.
Borrowed from library
🎯💯
Omg....America is full of dumb sheeple (also a lot of people across the globe are as well, but Americans take the cake).
God help us all...
Haha! 👍 That's one thing 'murKKKans do, "take the cake."
I have observed that the same tactics used by US government, and its collaborators, to undermine Democracy in other countries, are being used to undermine Democracy in this country.
Been creeping in from the edges for some time now.
I first became aware of it during Reagan's tenure.
You wanna believe that if Trump thought that rally was of any importance, it would NOT have remained peaceful. If it were of any concern, there would have been resistance. If it were of any concern, it would NOT have been allowed to happen. It happened because it was a safer valve, nothing more
So true. As usual for all of Caitlyn's work. The choreographed spectacle was so very bourgeois...and performative... which I knew even as I was participating. And, at the end, I had an overwhelming feeling of emptiness as I walked to my car. Because I saw and felt what Caitlin described.
For true social change to occur, large numbers of people have to HURT. A lot. Seems that too many good 'murKKKans are now more interested in boycotting the Super Bowl...because they are RACISTS ...than they are in their country being invaded by storm trooper fascists. I don't see a way out of this collective, mass insanity. Might makes right. Wealth makes "right." And the worst part? Half the population think things are peachy. Fascism is peachy. Stranger in a strange land...