Starting The Fire
Saturday morning brings a needed rain. Rain, even as my mind turns to the national No Kings rally scheduled for later in the morning. I plan to participate rain or no rain.
What will this multi-city demonstration involving millions of citizens amount to? Nothing at all in the immediate manifestations of human injustice. I mean the undeclared war on Argentina, occupation of Portland, San Francisco, Chicago by ICE, and policies fashioned to repudiate a global warming of the atmosphere and seas, etc., etc… The nation-wide non-violent action, – no effect whatsoever on the dictatorship-in-the-making. The Trump administration intends a dynasty-like season of power.
The idea is L’État, c’est moi (I am the state) attributed to Louis XIV. Whether King Louis actually uttered these words asserting the primacy of royal authority in defiance of Parliament is unimportant. This is what we raise our voices, and dedicate our bodies to oppose.
The demonstration is a ritual, a powerful reminder and public statement. That is to say administration of society should be inclusive, everyone considered, and biased in favor of those with little power: immigrants legal and illegal, women, children, the working class operating our warehouses, delivering goods to our door and of prime importance, — the welfare of the earth.
Rain or no rain I’ll join thousands of others alongside Randall Road. No Kings! These United States are bound for disassembly, that in some areas at least, a more just and peaceable management of affairs can prevail.
Here’s an anthem which I heard this morning. Rock of Ages (not the hymn) by Def Leppard. Enjoy!
2 thoughts on “Starting The Fire”
The fact that supposed intelligent members of society who have gained a certain credibility within the justice system and who have been elevated to a position on the United States supreme court can give away unchecked authority to a madman is beyond comprehension. These so-called originalists, regardless of their belief in whatever they think the nation’s founders intended, are allowing a progressive march towards exactly what we fought against during the Revolutionary War. It’s impossible for me to gain any understanding of what the majority of these people believe. I can see that Alito and Thomas are just self-indulgent sycophants who have zero moral compass and who don’t give a rat’s ass about the Constitution, but the others . . . . Somehow I want to believe that Barrett, Kavanagh, and Kennedy have at least a modicum of decency, that their internal moral compass is not completely bankrupt, but perhaps not. Perhaps they see the future of this nation as one where the dictates of a psychopathic, brain-dead idiot layout the best path towards a better future. It is truly incomprehensible.
But here we are. Millions will march today and, as you noted, it will have no bearing at all on the direction we are headed, though it will feel good to find the like-minded who will come out in force. But violence is in the cards, fomented by the goon squads who will be given carte blanche by the Infant-in-Chief and his greed monger handlers, so that they can declare a full initiation of the Insurrection Act and declare Marshall Law, hence negating any future election for “the good of the country”.
I wish I had a non-violent, intellectually oriented solution to this problem, but unless there is wide-spread action by those who understand the desperate situation in which we find ourselves, I don’t see a way past this blatant dismantling of our democracy. And I don’t mean a grand scale march every few months. I mean direct action through strikes, resistance, and placing ourselves in harms way to even remotely have a chance at turning the tide.
Seems that we agree on the big picture.