Mass protests against Trump & Musk

 

"If one of us stands up, they can pick that person off. If ten or a hundred or a thousand, they can pick those people off. And they're picking off people--immigrants, dissidents--to make an example of them. But if ten million people stand up, they cannot stop us all. And today we are millions. We stand up with each other, for each other, and for those who cannot stand up because they are in ICE detention or a nursing home losing its funding or gulags in Guantanamo and El Salvador; we stand up for the people who just lost their AIDS treatment in Africa and those who just lost their jobs in the federal government here; for the trans girl who just wants to play softball and the educators who just want to teach history. We speak up with them to tell the real history, the true history, as histories are being erased and corrupted. 

Are you in? Are you going to see this through with me? Are we in this together? Are you here for the duration? Tell me, are we in this together? Are we here for Abrego Garcia, who was illegally deported to El Salvador, for Rümeysa Öztürk, who was grabbed off the street by ICE? Are we here for those who cannot be here?

Right now Ukrainians are fighting for their freedom; Bangladeshis and Syrians are figuring out what comes after toppling an authoritarian regime; huge crowds are protesting in the streets of Turkey, Hungary, Serbia, the Republic of Georgia; Chile is governed by a young president who rose to prominence in student protests against a right-wing regime. South Korea just impeached and deposed a president who attempted a coup; the dictatorial former president of the Philippines is under arrest by the International Criminal Court for his human rights abuses. Across the world, time and time again, civil society has taken history into its own hands and written a better ending to an authoritarian story. Now it's our turn."

Rebecca Solnit @ Meditations in an Emergency

I don't like crowds. I've always tried to avoid them. But as Solnit argues there comes times when people need to show up and be counted; I also agree more or less with all of Jay Kuo's reasons for the Hands Off protests in his Calling Their Bluff post on substack as well. If this is not one of those times when people need to resist then I don't know what possibly could be?! Shutting down government services, firing government workers, as Musk's Doge is doing right now; circumventing the democratic process and the authority of congress is against the law. Deporting people from the US without due process (a report this morning claimed that 75% of the group sent to some hell hole prison in El Salvador have no criminal records at all) is against US law, contradicts the UN's universal declaration of human rights, and is blatantly fascist. And even Trump's counter productive trade war, assigning tariffs and regulating trade are supposed to be the job of congress, not a platform for his stupid dominance displays. Unless, apparently, we are in a state of emergency; or at war. But, as should be obvious to everyone by now, Trump is the emergency. There are problems with global trade, to be sure, privileging capital over labor and the environment, primarily, but global trade is not in a state of emergency; or, again, wasn't until Trump made it an emergency. The problem isn't just that Trump and Musk's policies are dumb, people make dumb mistakes, I make dumb mistakes, it's that they are so dangerous and destructive and corrupt. Shutting down government, trashing human rights, trashing our allies, and fluffing up murderous dictators will not make the world safer and will not make America stronger; it will make the world less safe and America weaker. I have really never been much of a flag-waving kind of guy, stamping my foot down about law and order, norms, traditions, and such, but I am now and I am because I think freedoms and human rights protections I have always taken for granted are under siege and at risk of disappearing. For me, once Trump's relationship to Putin was exposed that should have been more than enough evidence of treason for any truly patriotic American. But here we are. The opposition is planning another protest for Saturday, April 19th. I don't know what to do about this terrible mess but I know I do not want to go along with any descent into a fascist dictatorship. Going to protests is a way to be counted with the opposition and resistance. That's it. We are stronger together. Also, lots of cool signs.