“NO STATE TERROR” is the new NO KINGS!
What does “No Kings” demand even mean? Does this demand simply mean that Trump must honor the 2 term limitation? That would be a minimalist interpretation. It probably more accurately and somewhat vaguely means that Trump must follow the rule of law and recognize constitutional limits. It is very vaguely a call to remove Trump because he has overstepped but there is no real call for that action coming from the speakers. There are a myriad of legitimate complaints about ICE excesses, loss of speech freedom, attacks on health care and food security, but even around those complaints the NO KINGS do not make any specific demands for government to resolve. The thing being opposed, “Kings” is not even something that we truly face. It is a symbolic description probably because Trump is acting like he is king. That is also inaccurate because kings are often ceremonious positions and not the true wielders of power – Trump is wielding power he is not even suppose to have!
The biggest immediate threat to us right now is STATE TERROR! ICE and a myriad of other federal police agencies are currently the marauding force bringing terror first to the immigrants and their communities and next to those who are unified in struggle opposing the immigrant attacks by ICE, feds and local police engagement in many cases.
If NO KINGS wants to stay relevant it needs to consider a rebranding. You can NOT ignore the terror – it must be explicitly condemned and that includes the terror being launched against Venezuela and now Colombia, 32 passenger and crew members of fishing boats murdered without evidence or trial – summary executions ordered by Trump and carried out by US armed forces following illegal order and committing war crimes.
There are a myriad of Trump / US objectives with some Democratic Party support for the US escalations toward total war with Latin America. One of the objectives: THESE ARE DEMONSTRATION KILLINGS intended to send a message to us in the USA and to folks around the entire planet. The message is that Trump has no problem randomly killing people for the heck of it – it is an extension of his 2016 campaign utterance that he can “shoot someone on 5th. Avenue” and get away with it. He is showing us now that he believes he can randomly kill any number of people anywhere he wants, including US citizens and residents on US streets and there will be no consequences.
The messaging is clear and there is a constant drumbeat of lies being spewed by Trump, Bondi, Miller, Noem and others fostering the false narrative that they are facing some sort of threat that requires a violent response of massive state terror. Bondi clearly connected the attacks on the boats in the Caribbean and now the Pacific to future attacks on US citizens and residents. She states that the response to those labeled as domestic terrorists in the USA will be the same as to those declared cartels by Trump proclamation – which is a reference to their bombing.
The current “NO KINGS” rallies are not a serious challenge to the state terror being faced by immigrants and the opponents of the ICE crackdown. They totally ignore the very real threat by NSPM-7. Trump and his minions use labels of “ANTIFA” and “the Radical Left” as blankets of smear against those of us making specific demands against US support for Israel and genocide, against repression, against US war on Latin America, explicitly demanding that ICE be abolished completely. But those labels are also being thrown around as perjoratives toward the “No Kings” protests.
The immediate threat to the population in the United States is STATE TERROR, by ICE and other federal police agencies, by local police converging with ICE or otherwise repressing free speech activity, by military with threats to impose occupation by National Guard and possibly other divisions of Armed Forces on city streets and through the insidious NSPM-7 and other Trump executive orders attempting to impose thought control policing to falsely label us as “domestic terrorists” because we disagree with MAGA narrative on 10 named topics.
Any mass movement that does not very specifically define and condemn State Terror right now is in effect in coordination with that terror. You can not claim opposition to it if you do not even name it. I attended the Princeton No Kings on October 18 and I brought opposition to NSPM7 with my sign and conversations I had with 100s of protesters. But NOBODY EVEN MENTIONED it from the platform. There were good things said – my favorite was David Schraeger. But the event showed no critical analysis of a very direct threat to us existentially right now – those of us who in one or more of the 10 named topics in NSPM-7 have opinions that could put us on a secret domestic terrorist list and subject us to investigation by FBI coordinated Joint Terrorist Task Force (based in the FBI complex in Newark) and possible targeting for “full force” as Trump puts it military assault and that means lethal force.
Mobilizing around the demand of “NO STATE TERROR” will require those politicians being platformed to take action to defend us physically – to move beyond rhetoric about future election contests to how they are going to immediately halt physical attacks be they from ICE and various other masked temp fed cops, often fortified by local police and in some cases by military occupations or by Joint Terror Task Force per the illegal NSPM-7 memorandum Trump signed – it is in full swing.
Right now if your organization is mobilizing for mass protests of Trump-ism but you are not explicitly opposing with tangible demands STATE TERROR – you are enabling it. The power of those mass protests must be directed solely on providing the protection of communities now facing violent attack or who soon will be facing violent attack by state apparatus being weaponized – as it always has been when the system assesses potential crisis – against dissent. Speakers need to move beyond sympathetic mention of the terror to full on condemnation of the terror, a pledge to take action to stop the state terror with specific action plans.
To misdirect the energy away from opposing the state terror and instead into Democratic Party elections power – to elect candidates who have not even spoken up against the repression or done anything to protect us – is a misdirect that our survival can not afford right now.
NO STATE TERROR is the new NO KINGS!
Lets make the point clear!
