 | |
Sometimes I feel near despair for my country, allowing this incoherent, childish egotist to run things. I have hope that our November congressional elections will bring a strong tidal change but fear that the process and results may be suppressed. As it happens, we will visit Hungary late this month. It will be interesting to see how things feel there.
It should be a pretty Easter weekend in St. Louis but I'm not very mobile. Thursday's nerve root ablation can't come soon enough.
According to Merriam-Webster:
Fascism : a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition
Sound about right? Again, from the No Kings rally. Don't know what I'll do over the Easter weekend since my mobility isn't very good.
I didn't listen to the president's speech last night - I wanted to get some decent sleep. Everything I needed to know was on the news this morning. Here's something that struck me. Although the U.S. and Israel started the war and Iran's closing the Straight of Hormuz was an obvious consequence, Trump thinks it's the rest of the world's problem to reopen it. Not ours. We spilled all the candy but somebody else has to pick it up.
Catholic Worker is a long-established left wing Catholic organization based in New York City. When I was in high school and had the run of the city by subway I think I ended up at some event there. A contingent of them was at No Kings Saturday, with this man calling out "Free burritos! Don't march hungry!" They gave a neatly foil wrapped snack to anyone in need. I guess that was part of their point.
The third No Kings demonstrations took place across America yesterday. There were 50 scheduled in Missouri, with a big one in downtown St. Louis. Mrs. C and I went, and an absolutely perfect day brought out a big crowd. No estimates yet of numbers. The mass of people marched 2 miles / 3 km down a main thoroughfare to the baseball stadium, where a game was about to end. My spine didn't carry me that far.
The president and his sycophants claim that the people at the No Kings rallies in every state were left wing loonies [sic], Hamas agitators, Antifa operatives (as if such an organization exists, while we are reminded that every American soldier who fought in World War II was antifa) or cranky, out of touch geezers (like me). All lies, and yet more lies.
In general, I think that mixing religion and politics creates a volatile brew. Your reaction may depend on whether you support or oppose the point being made this way, but in either case rational analysis suffers. Using religion with satire is maybe not so bad.
And that was the universal tone at No Kings. No America haters, just people who want to preserve the values of our democracy. And it was the same all across the country.
St. Louis’ No Kings protest spilled out of Kiener Plaza to the edge of Market Street, downtown’s main east-west thoroughfare. Lots of passing motorists honked their approval, even a city fire truck.
As with everywhere across the country, many protestors at No Kings day wore absurd inflatable costumes. It’s known as tactical frivolity. As the writer Gary Shteyngart said in the New York Times,
it shows the absurdity of the charge that all the protesters are armed militants. In contravention of the Trump administration’s claims that the protesters were all Hamas agents or antifa interns, the protest [in Chicago] was wholesome, nonaggressive and almost shockingly middle-of-the-road. It’s hard to call an inflatable chicken dangerous.
By the way, axolotls are Mexican.
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.
Another image from the No Kings demonstration in downtown St. Louis. It was scheduled to go from 2 to 5. I got there at 1:30 as a brief shower broke out. By 2:45 Kiener Plaza was very crowded, my old creaky spine was wearing out and I was soaked in perspiration. I left but people continued to stream in. Only the next day did I learn that thousands more arrived and began a march many blocks long along the adjacent main avenue. I missed it but it’s a consequence of getting old.
And by the way, Mr. Twain, it doesn’t.
There were at least six No Kings rallies around the metro area yesterday but the big one was downtown. I got there early and Kiener Plaza was already busy. By 40 minutes after the official starting time it was so crowded I could hardly get a clear shot, yet people were still streaming in. As of late Saturday night I have not seen an estimate of the number of people but it must have been well over a thousand. More to come.
