Rather than stressing its waning peaceful remnants, all last Saturday afternoon in the heart of downtown Minneapolis at a No Kings rally, they grabbed the monarch by the balls and eventually ripped them off.
Like not a human being. Like the Sex Pistols. Attacked worse then the queen.
So this will be a straight first reaction, except for the Hudson rallies on Second Street that were barely a mini-warmup by comparison, although attracting as many as 50 people at many of their Moral Mondays and their own earlier No Kings protests. With all kinds of honks of approval, and very few a Fuck You.
The bottom line: There ended up being I would guess between 50,000 and 100,000 protesters there, (amongst millions country-wide), who slowly boiled and went from being Minnesota Nice to all-out angry.
— A Perfect 10, twice? For a limited time at Buffalo Wild Wings locations, you can get a big signature stein of beer, we’re assured the great genuinely German kind — across countries — of a name brand for $10! Oktoberfest in America. And while there, you can grab an ultimate platter of 10 total snacks — five pieces of one meaty (not necessarily cheesy) kind and four of another and throw in one more to boot — for just a bit more money.
And new at Arby’s by the way, (and also a version at Wild Badger and other area locations), grab a set of steak nuggets, not just the chicken kind, which is not as boring as those BOGO boneless wings! Wonder how many of these usually higher priced nuggets make a platter. —
And there was not even a small counter protest to be seen, as I peered around the big park (and way beyond) and tried to perceive even the most tiny. I may have missed a small scrum, but I doubt it. There was that smallish group on a sidestreet, but they could have been among the ones directed there and still anti-fascist, because of need, because of the swelling size of the crowd.
Where do I stand among them? May these phrases be an indicator, basically a disclaimer to all, friend or foe, who read much farther, (is that basically a triple negative or more accurately use of the Devil’s Tri-tone? Definitely not the Trinitarian.) This shows where my lashed loyalties lie.
Fuck Trump. Not just jump or dump him.
Or, God Bless the king. He ain’t no human being.
All these truths, that can be so clearly understood, simply require people to a-line the dots, reading between them to connect them. All those tens of thousands of signs said it all.
Based on what I experienced Saturday, we must continue to fight evil with more evil, in a good way. A new moral majority, and this time even accurate.
Or, I fear we’ll soon have marching, and rioting and blood in the streets, like even the ’60s didn’t see. Gimme Shelter times two, or three. Against the Helter Skelter.
Noteworthy on Saturday was the almost-encounter with the one, and the only one, MAGA man I saw, who said he was running for governor (scary) and walked along the front of a line of protestors for the good, with his screaming rant to them becoming more and more loud and violent as they continued to encounter his rank-and-file very vile behavior by basically killing him with kindness. Ignoring him, for now — and he thus grew even more chaotic without any charisims — until the next debate, with the guy next to you or shouting to a crowd, or on a debate stand. We were all asked from the mic stand to reach out to five others, preferably afterwards, and tell them why we went to this rally, five things about it.
We must still bludgeon them not with bullets, but with the basics of logic. Dumb down the dumb with rational debate. Note on these following pages the difference in demeanor between the two sides.
Before we even started marching along, going down those several what seemed either very long or very short blocks, with the crowd swelling, it became apparent in plain view the size of our crowd. It went way beyond the big park for which there was cited-by-sign, a permit needed for any event with more than 50 people. I guess that was us many hundreds of times over. Even before the event started, there were people as far as the eye could see from all sides from our front-diamond view, like looking at a baseball field including what was beyond the foul lines from the corner that is home plate, such a sea of protesters you could not see the horizon behind us. In any direction.
At first there were relatively few people beginning to congregate. This was around 11:30 a.m. The speakers didn’t start until 1 p.m. In between there was music piped in, including even some Prince, (see related story soon on a concert for him and a comedy show, both held two nights earlier.) The helicopters grew more and more of a presence in the sky as the affair went on, but the signs of a police presence were few, except for a lone cop as we parked, and until the marchers going home needed a bit of direction. I don’t know how many blocks the marchers went, as we decided to quit before they did.
Early on, I had stood with arms crossed in my I’m-passing-time mode at streetside, with few people beside me, wearing my yellow protest-in-union-with-other-countries-fighting-dictators shirt, and someone came up to me and asked politely, “excuse me but are you a marshal?” I replied, “no I’m just waiting for my wife, but that’s much the same,” and we both chuckled lightly.
The day went on and the humor and overall tone became darker. Well-spoken profanity on the very, very creative signs was everywhere on the political slogans. I saw a woman dressed up as The Statue of Liberty, (I think she had a sign too), was marching around attracting attention. and I wanted to say to her, “good to see you Lady Liberty, I thought you were dead.” But she weaved through the crowd, fore and aft, then finally sauntered the other direction.
The topics and subtopics on the signs numbered in the hundreds. The shouting in the call-and-response to the speaker or singer grew louder and a little bit angrier, although calm was maintained in an odd accommodation. In contrast to a concert, not even any near body-painted nudity. No one agitated with anyone, and that includes the above MAGA moron. Even a man who for some reason appeared angered by a quip I made, merely turned and looked the other way and continued his protesting business.
The most creative of the signs were the non-signs, purposely made not to say anything new but make it new by saying nothing. Nowhere fancy words or slogans, and as derivative as just Dump Trump.
I ran past one Minnesota person, like I had done to an organizer at a Hudson rally, who was organizing a political song list, the lines to Metallica’s Sad But True, which came out in an election year: “Hey, I’m your life/I’m the one who takes you there/I’m your life/I’m the one who cares” then later, “I’m the one who took you there … And I no longer care.”
The after party
The next night at home, I couldn’t help but notice while watching footage of a pro-shot metal concert filmed in of all places in front of German fans, the subtle slap in the face that was given to facism. The band started their encore with the war song Aces High, with the frontman replacing his typically worn German-American-style helmet with British-flyer headgear and eloquently singing about the English-led end of the Blitzkrieg. Everyone in the crowd knew what was coming when they heard the intro — a recording of a soon famous Winston Churchill speech. The crowd seemed a bit hush, overall, during the call-and-response, “live to fly/fly to live/aces high.” So immediately after that first encore song, where a silly, floppy birthday hat with candles was given to their longtime drummer, the frontman asked those who hadn’t sung a few moments earlier to please join in, participate in the singing of Happy Birthday. Next up for Iron Maiden, the band at hand, was The Evil That Men Do (lives on and on) and their final encore was Sanctuary (from the law). Both are not usual encores in their set list, and Aces High was in an atypical position. Still more Maiden altering their set list because of topical matters across country and world.
I don’t know if all this anti-Nazi symbolism was intentionally orchestrated, or if I am reading too much into it.
Or could it be like a presenter at the rally, who referred to Charlie KKK Kirk as such, a sentiment to which I’d concur, and maybe even on my sign find a way to incorporate yet another K. (One other person at the event spelled on his sign the name Carlie.)
The words fuck, Trump, King and ICE were each used thousands of times.
And about Trump being a hardass in negotiating, it worked, once or twice. But look how well the truce he bartered in the Middle East is going.
Let’s hold up on the Nobel Peace Prize talk, and wait for the bombings to quit for at the very least a few months. These guys can’t even handle a few days.
So, Trump complains that the press headlines are largely against him. His cited in various speeches 97 percent, as it approaches 98 percent and counting. Why? For cause. The process is due.