Re: No Kings | Deerhoof
In what universe are Schumer, Jeffries, Biden or Harris not kings? ... They bomb whole populations out of existence in order that they and their aristocratic friends can live in ridiculous luxury, and spread their religion - capitalism - across the globe, violently, with despotic impunity and disregard for international law.
The current 'No Kings' movement is unfortunately not what it should be, not what you present it as.
No Kings means no more feudalism. No more laborers living in squalor and indentured servitude based on unforgivable debt and monthly payments to lords who do nothing but cash the checks of their passive income.
No Kings means no more nationalism. Replace the endless war-making and border protection with a new spirit of global cooperation.
No Kings means no more aristocracy. No more revolving door between the corporate world and lawmaking, where oligarchs’ lobbyists write our policies.
I wish the No Kings protests meant all of that. I do. But they're moreso focused, as far as I can tell, on the dictatorship led by Donald Trump and Nazi Republicans.
So I think establishment Democrats, as genocidal and capitalist as they are, do fit in with the current movement.
Your piece has more power as being a criticism of the No Kings movement itself:
If No Kings is only about venting some frustration, and giving corporate tools a chance to launder their image, fine, but then this is not a movement that will save us.
But I also firmly disagree that No Kings is about "venting some frustration". Yes, we should see a No Kings movement persist post-Trump, and carry this forward to end the oligarchy and empower the people, to empower workers.
But 'No Kings' is not a venting of frustrations toward the SYSTEM. It is a protest against Trump and Republicans dismantling the system, taking away checks and balances, kidnapping and murdering brown people, silencing free speech, erasing trans people from existence, banning books with LBGTQIA+ characters, and taking more moves that bring us toward a genocide in AMERICA.
While criticizing the status quo that so many wish to return to, you should not minimize the horrors of our Nazi regime by saying we are just "venting some frustration".
And also:
Global opinion has been moving away from capitalism for 20 years. It has reached a crisis for the few who have benefitted so much from capitalism's reign. Traditional methods of persuasion are no longer working, so a more extreme method has been put in their place: Anyone who stands in the way of capitalism’s continuation will now simply be physically attacked. That includes socialist governments, immigrants demanding livable wages, Palestinians inconveniencing Israeli real estate plans, anti-tyranny dissidents, underground economies, Amazon employees forming a union, and anyone who strikes, boycotts, or sues in the name of future generations.
Let's not forget that all these tactics are old tactics, and that the corruption of our government is even older. The U.S. has done coups and propaganda abroad for decades (Bay of Pigs, among others) to dismantle socialism and hold-up capitalism. Union busting did not begin in the last 20 years, but during the industrial revolution when factory labor first became real. Western influence and control of the middle east also goes back decades. During World War 1, global governments took sides in the civil war within Russia, trying to help the conservatives beat out the Bolsheviks.
My point is that "Traditional methods of persuasion" never worked in isolation, and have long functioned within the context of state-sanctioned violence and wealth-dominated politics. Some of it is worse right now, some of it has been getting worse for awhile.
Our criticisms of the present should keep history in mind, and we should not dismiss a new horror while criticizing existing horrors.
the news media, owned by oligarchs, treat current events like a random series of isolated, unrelated aberrations to an otherwise peaceful and functional capitalist society.
P.S. My criticisms are meant to improve your writing, not denounce it. FUCK the oligarchy. Let the people rise and the Kings fall.