No Kings - Philadelphia

Tom Paine Would Be Deeply Disappointed

• A Moment Of Consolidation Of Trump Fascist Power Requires Direct Response

Good crowd today, despite a cool rain. The protest began at Love Park and marched to the Art Museum.

I sensed somewhat of a subdued mood in the crowd - it could have been the dank weather, but it seemed to me more like a conscious effort to tone things down and avoid violence. Walking on eggshells kind of shit (and all this was done long before the Minnesota assassinations today).

I got the same impression from the selection of the location of the protests with respect to the organizer's advise NOT to go to DC (e.g. to avoid violence and "Trump declaring Marshall law") as well as the relatively muted message, particularly in not emphasizing the Trump fascist program and instead adopting the "King" meme, which is more a caricature than a political designation.

(I suspect that the strategic avoidance of DC was more influenced by a fear of looking "anti-American" or not sufficiently patriotic on Flag Day and in the presence of a military parade purportedly celebrating the 250 anniversary of the Army. This is rank cowardice, not strategy. In fact, organizers were handing out US flags and there were many US flags in the crowd. Obviously that was a cowardly response to the Trump and MAGA propaganda out of LA showing Mexican flags waving over burning police cars.)

At a time when the President repeatedly has violated fundamental core values; violated the Constitution and laws; attacked and defied the judiciary; usurped Congressional powers via radical Executive Orders; weaponized the federal government to attack political opponents, a free press, academic freedom, public schools, and universities; unilaterally dismantled the federal government, civil service, and science; put unqualified billionaire tech bro’s and political loyalists in charge; demonized migrants; is kidnapping and renditioning people, including US citizens, to foreign gulags in direct violation of law and judicial Orders and without Due Process or Habeas Corpus; has federalized the National Guard in all 50 States in violation of law, Posse Comitatus, and longstanding norms; threatened to invoke Martial Law; and held a Military parade in the Nation's Capitol that would make Hitler, Goebbels and Leni Riefenstahl blush, it is not the time to avoid Washington DC and fail to call out Trump as a Fascist.

This is EXACTLY the moment to go to DC and directly confront and call out the fascist threat.

Because the son of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr spoke, I feel compelled to point out Dr. King's word with respect to the strategic need NOT TO AVOID CONFLICT. Just the opposite: Protests should be designed to create “tension”. From his famous Letter From A Birmingham Jail:

You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.

Again citing Dr. King, I guess you could say that I strongly disagree with the organizers' strategy.

Dr. King wrote:

First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I was on my bicycle and getting wet and cold so left early. Some scenes:

(“They fear diversity more than dictatorship” - and note the juxtaposition of Love and Grateful Dead!)