Signs of the Time - Again
Only 1,313 days to go...
“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” ~Elie Wiesel
In 1988 I lived in London. London is home to nearly 9 million people, but on an average weekday, the population of London swells to over 10 million people with residents, commuters and tourists. In the summer it’s even worse — the North Americans, Asians, Europeans, et al arrive and the crowds are unbelievable. One time I almost got hit by someone carrying a board, who wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings. In exasperation, I completely lost it and almost started yelling at the guy.
Now, I’ve never been a fan of crowds in any venue … annual meetings, airports, train stations, parades, fairs, amusement parks, concerts, big parties, etc. I would rather get together with a small group of people, play bridge, have nice conversations, eat a quiet meal - whatever… being with crowds has never been my thing. But after living in a London summer with millions of tourists, I find that I’m actually even a little fearful of crowds.
Given this, I was hesitant to attend the No Kings event in Asheville. BUT … since I am so utterly appalled by this adminstration, I thought it was was important to be courageous, get out of my comfort zone and show up. I’m so glad that I did. It was festive, educational, spiritual and even a little fun. It was a big crowd, with whom I was proud to mingle!
Thought I would share some of the signs from the event.
Check out these other amazing photos
Photos: ‘No Kings’ Protests Across America
‘No Kings’ Rally In Chicago Draws Thousands To The Loop -- An estimated 75,000 people flooded the Loop
Thought for the day…
“This is the power of gathering: it inspires us, delightfully, to be more hopeful, more joyful, more thoughtful: in a word, more alive.”
~ Alice Waters
Must Read Article:
Baby Boomers’ Luck Is Running Out
But recent policy changes are poised to make life significantly harder for Baby Boomers. “If you’re in your 60s or 70s, what the Trump administration has done means more insecurity for your assets in your 401(k), more insecurity about sources of long-term care, and, for the first time, insecurity about your Social Security benefits,” Teresa Ghilarducci, a labor economist at the New School, told me. “It’s a triple threat.” After more than half a century of aging into political and economic trends that worked to their benefit, the generation has become particularly vulnerable at exactly the wrong moment in history.
Quote of the day:
“It’s not about screaming slogans. It’s not about spitting hatred. It’s the calm, unified PRESENCE of MILLIONS of Americans who refuse to let our beloved, magnificent country be sold out to the wannabe KING/OLIGARCH and his RUTHLESS, cruel, scheming puppeteers.”
~Glenn Close
What I’m reading today…
“Parade organizers predicted a crowd of 200,000 would descend on the National Mall, and many D.C. natives anticipated counter-protests, part of the nationwide No Kings protests that also occurred Saturday. But parade attendance fell far short of expectations, leading to a relatively subdued and apolitical affair. Across the nation, however, millions of protesters participated in rallies against the White House and its policies, leading to a stark contrast in political energy between downtown D.C. and the rest of the country…
…The protests and law enforcement response were almost entirely peaceful, with the notable exceptions of mounted police forces briefly advancing on protesters who allegedly threw rocks and bottles in downtown Los Angeles and police using tear gas to disperse protesters who remained for hours in front of the I.C.E. building in downtown Portland, Oregon. A 39-year-old man was also shot on Saturday at a protest in Salt Lake City, Utah, and later died from his injuries, though law enforcement officials said he was not the intended target of the shooting.” (source: The Dispatch)
This past week didn’t reinforce the power Trump tried to project. It undercut it. His immigration crackdown collapsed into retreat. His Israel policy spiraled into unintended escalation. Protests, peaceful, organized, and nationwide, swelled. And, by Saturday night, what was meant to be a show of national unity—a military parade staged on Constitution Avenue—had become a footnote to a split screen filled with missile strikes and nationwide dissent.
Trump wanted a military spectacle. Instead, he got a history lesson.
The same anxiety preceded Saturday’s parade, especially after a speech earlier in the week by Trump at Fort Bragg, during which uniformed troops booed mentions of former president Joe Biden and California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and cheered Trump’s partisan MAGA message. But on Saturday, at least, the Army stuck to its familiar themes of service, sacrifice and duty. The result was a display of civics, not power.
The president was supposedly inspired to demand a military parade, an exceptionally rare event in recent U.S. history, after seeing a very different display on Bastille Day 2017, on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. Given Trump’s admiration for strongman leaders in Russia and China, there was worry that the Army parade might hew to the authoritarian geometry of military spectacles in totalitarian countries, especially the absurdist mix of camp and menace favored by the regime in North Korea…
One early warning sign of a shift in the Army’s allegiance will be a fraying of how it tells its own story: If it fires its historians — or attempts to coerce their compliance, as seems to be happening in other institutions, including the Smithsonian — there will be even more serious trouble ahead. But on Saturday, it kept that history in the foreground, and even the president looked bored during much of it, which isn’t surprising. The Army made it about the country, not the man.
We Deserved Better Than Trump's Sad Parade
Instead of honoring our service members with dignity and respect, Trump’s parade turned our troops into background props for his own birthday celebration. The $45 million extravaganza didn’t highlight our military’s strength; it undermined it. With empty bleachers, yawning administration officials, and visibly disengaged attendees – including the President himself – it became a visual metaphor for the vanity and emptiness of Trump’s leadership. We owe our military better. We owe our flag better. Most importantly, we owe ourselves better leadership. Leadership that genuinely respects what our flag truly stands for.
Photos: A Military Parade in D.C.
The administration, however, is orchestrating a parade not to honor service, but to celebrate power. Tanks and infantry fighting vehicles will tear up the capital’s streets as helicopters thrash overhead. Tough-guy stuff, in other words, designed to show the world that we are, in the much-overused word of the secretary of defense, lethal.
There are ironies here. The ironmongery on display is old technology, albeit continually updated and improved…. Inadvertently, what is being put on display is the Army’s repeated modernization failures as much as its successes.
The No Kings Day Protests Make History as one of the Largest Ever
More than five million Americans took to the streets for No Kings Day, marching not just in protest, but in powerful affirmation of our shared values: human rights, decency, and the belief that this country belongs to all of us—not just the privileged few in power… the message was clear: this isn't a moment. It's a movement… favorite sign? “If our political news is always breaking news, our country is broken.”
Sparse Attendance, Confusion and Disorganization: Dismal Scenes From Trump’s Military Parade
50 Thirteen founder Doug Landry shared a series of tweets that documented many issues with the parade Saturday. Landry described the event as “legitimately the worst executed mass attendance event I’ve ever seen” before sharing photos of a sparsely populated Washington Mall, the single checkpoint to which approximately 15,000 people were sent, maps that failed to offer clear direction, dozens of empty checkpoints, and empty VIP bleachers.
• New York: You could feel the tension break as 200,000 people surged into the city’s boroughs. At least 50,000 marched in Manhattan alone.
• Los Angeles: With an estimated 200,000 demonstrators blanketing the city, including 25,000 at the Civic Center, the mood was fiery but peaceful.
• Philadelphia: The birthplace of liberty welcomed its next chapter with 80,000 to 100,000 voices chanting beneath the shadow of Independence Hall. It was poetic. And powerful.
• San Francisco: Up to 100,000 people marched from the Embarcadero to City Hall. One photo from the top of Twin Peaks showed Market Street shimmering with protestors like a river of resolve.
• Seattle: Despite rain, 70,000 turned out. A now-viral image captured the crowd from the Space Needle, umbrellas out, fists raised.
• San Diego: 60,000 strong poured into Waterfront Park and Civic Center Plaza.
• Chicago: Between 15,000 and 20,000 people filled Grant Park, many holding signs that read, “We dumped one king in 1776. We’ll do it again.” (an estimated 75,000 people filled the Loop)
• Denver: 10,000 marched at Civic Center Park, the mile-high voices unmistakable.
• Houston: 15,000 to 20,000 came out in blistering heat, standing shoulder to shoulder in front of City Hall.
And this doesn’t even touch the thousands who marched in Des Moines, Birmingham, Portland, Kansas City, and smaller towns like Bozeman, Montana and Athens, Georgia. Each city added its own powerful chapter to this historic day.
Asheville 'No Kings' protest draws thousands
While officially planned in the park from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., protestors marched to Pack Square Park around 11 a.m., closing sections of College and Charlotte streets along the way. By that time, roughly 3,000 people had gathered in protest, Indivisible organizer Alyssa Morgan told the Citizen Times. By around 1 p.m., the crowd had grown to around 6,000.
"No Kings" anti-Trump protests attract millions, organizers say
"No Kings" protest organizers said the widespread movement marked the biggest single-day anti-President Trump protest during his second administration…More than 5 million people took part in "No Kings" demonstrations in over 2,100 cities and towns across the country, with an additional 300 "Kick Out the Clowns" rallies being held.
Trump’s Military Parade Was a Pathetic Event for a Pathetic President
And the majority of the parade was just soldiers walking by—not even marching in step with each other—in military garb from wars past. Children grew weary in the humidity, as did some adults…The embarrassingly low turnout was exacerbated by the fact that not everyone was there to support Trump.
Two veterans in attendance made it clear that they were separating the military’s birthday from Trump’s birthday, as they disapproved of the president but felt an obligation to the Army to be there. One older veteran told me he thought Trump wasn’t “thinking before he moved.”
Millions rally against authoritarianism, while the White House portrays protests as threats
…Though it is not an ironclad law, research shows that when at least 3.5% of the total population is involved in a demonstration, protesters usually prevail over their governments…
Protests can serve as a justification for a nascent autocrat to further undermine democratic practices and institutions. The Los Angeles protests offered the opportunity for that. Trump sent troops from the California National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles to contain the protests. That domestic deployment of the military is rare but not unheard of in U.S. history. And the deployment was ordered against the backdrop of the president’s partisan June 10 speech at a U.S. military base in North Carolina. The military personnel in attendance cheered and applauded many of Trump’s political statements. Both the speech and audience reactions to it appeared to violate the U.S. military norm of nonpartisanship.
What I am listening to…
What I am watching…
What I read every day…
