No Kings
How to tell when someone has no business being at a No Kings protest:
They live like a king.
They act like a king.
Allowing corporate politicians and corporate TV personalities to lead or sponsor your protest means chancing everything on the hope that the CEOs who employ them will randomly change their mind and go against everything they've ever known and been rewarded for.
How to tell when someone has no business being at a No Kings protest:
•They’ve previously called for the arrest or attack of people who protested genocide.
•They’ve committed war crimes.
•They say we need to strengthen our borders.
•They are on the payroll of billionaires.
•Their voting record shows them to be pro-ICE, pro-Pentagon, pro-Wall St, pro-Big Tech, pro-fossil fuels, or pro-Israel.
You are not a credible critic of tyranny if:
•You funded the extermination of a race of people.
•You repeatedly broke the law with no consequences.
•You are a multi-millionaire and didn’t raise minimum wage.
•You’ve voted for invasions, drone assassinations, and mass deportations.
•You are pro-ICE.
•You voted to increase funding for the Pentagon, Trump’s border wall, or police militarization.
•You failed to acknowledge that Palestine had a thriving culture that predated its seizure by Israel and Western grandees like yourself.
Politicians showing up at protests after doing nothing for two years to protect real protestors; Politicians showing up at protests after squandering every opportunity to defund ICE, demilitarize the police, raise taxes on billionaires, raise minimum wage, overturn Citizens United, call out genocide and apartheid, address mass hunger/poverty/homelessness, protect immigrants, cancel student loan debt, or rein in fossil fuel/Big Pharma/Big Tech/Wall St: You don’t belong here. Step aside. You’re not believable and you’re just giving the movement a bad name.
Corporate politicians and corporate TV personalities exploiting genuine popular outrage at tyrants and oligarchs to funnel protestors into voting “Blue No Matter Who” and watching more MSNBC are sabotaging movements against oligarchs and tyrants, not supporting them. Such people are the upholders and beneficiaries of tyranny. They have been hired by oligarchs to prevent a revolution.
In what universe are Schumer, Jeffries, Biden or Harris not kings? They demand tribute from their subjects, and decree how it shall be dispensed. Which turns out to be in exact opposition to the wishes of their subjects, whom they do not consult. 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.
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.
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.
How can politicians get away with saying “No Kings” while exhibiting such blatantly king-like behavior? Because 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. Though corporate media is careful to avoid presenting it this way, all of today’s major global crises are inextricably linked. They’re each the direct and predictable result of our collapsing politico-economic system.
AI, Palestine, ICE, government corruption, drone attacks on Venezuelan boats, record low approval ratings for Democrats and Republicans, economic recession, militarization of the police, homelessness crisis, data centers, inflated energy/food/healthcare/insurance bills, high GDP, big tech transitioning into war profiteering and fascism, record fossil fuel profits, and climate crisis — These are not unrelated, temporary headlines, they are all a single, ongoing story.
Spotify just happens to be a perfect synthesis of the big trends of the predator class, wrapped together in one big, stinking bundle:
•Big Tech transitioning to weapons.
•Big Tech backing fascism.
•Increased investments in mass violence and global instability.
•Economic bubbles based on investments in perverse and non-sustainable models.
•Billionaires enriching themselves by the work of laborers who get poorer and have their rights gradually taken away.
•Distracting an increasingly outraged public with meaningless publicity stunts.
•Becoming completely comfortable with straight-up lying, cheating, and stealing.
•Using the word “democracy” as a smokescreen for what is just simple war profiteering.
•Ownership increasingly replaced by rents and subscriptions.
•Human creativity and knowledge increasingly replaced by AI.
•AI data centers causing environmental harm and raising everyone’s electricity bills.
•Attempting to lull the population into acquiescence by removing autonomy, creativity, and wit.
AI may help you write your paper. It may be a cool way to try and destroy human music-making. But these are only side benefits. AI is mainly about weapons. Weapons used against you, your children, your grandchildren. AI weapons are not meant to win wars. Ek, Bezos, Theil, and all the AI war pigs want to make more war, not less. AI weapons are meant to protect the walled enclaves in which the rich and powerful increasingly live.
Continuing to participate in this politico-economic system means promoting the worst, most violent, greedy, unscrupulous and despotic people in our society, and turning them into kings. It means making life unlivable for future generations. Let’s show some wit. Let’s refuse to do the obvious. This asinine politico-economic system thrives on just enough people seeing what they could do but choosing not to do it. If we really believe in “No Kings” then let’s stop making excuses for why we need to keep giving kings our votes, our money, our labor, and our attention. Find targetted boycotts and strikes we may join.
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.
Do we really want to have to tell our children and grandchildren…
“Oh sure, we could have bankrupted Jeff Bezos, but we would’ve had to cancel our Amazon Prime subscriptions.”
“Sure, you could’ve inherited a world without slavery, but then we wouldn’t have had our new iPhones.”
“Yes, we could have given you a world without long covid, but we would’ve had to wear masks.”
“No, genocides weren’t always legal, but we were too scared to vote independent or third party.”
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