291) Dear America, on your third No Kings Day

Good luck, America. It's another "No Kings" protest day. And while protest won't fix the fact that 1/3 of your population is so full of hate and empty of education that they march lock-step with fascism, and while it won't fix the fact that your political class is so owned by billionaire interests that it also marches lock-step with fascism, and while it won't fix the fact that the rest of the world, minus the dictators, is so sick of "American Exceptionalism" that your country is trusted by pretty much nobody at this point, still, I know the majority of Americans don't want any of the insanity your country has been dragged into, and are fighting for your democracy.

None of the problems will be fixed until a progressive government invests heavily in education and the de-corporatization of politics. And that will take a generation, at least.

But at least you are rallying. At least you are fighting. And I hope you put on such a display of solidarity today that it empowers the rest of the stay-at-homers to get the hell involved, and take back your country.

But protests alone won't do it. And neither will calling your representatives. Get involved with mass strikes. Shut the country down. Be ungovernable. I think it's the only way that America will ever reclaim its democracy.

Don't rely on the midterms. Hope for them, sure. But it's a slim hope that they will even happen in a fair and free way. Your electoral process is so compromised, you cannot count on it.

So let this third "No Kings Day" be the tipping point of mass civil resistance. Not just speaking out. Resistance.

Have families reach out to their members in the military and encourage them to honour their oaths and stop following illegal orders, which includes pretty much everything they are doing right now.

Have communities publicly out ICE members (because their families and friends and neighbours know who they are...), and shame them, so that everybody knows who they are, the masks come off, and they are forced to confront the truth of their cruelty. Every friend that tolerates them, every woman and man that dates them, every community organization that includes them -- you all have a role to play. You are enabling monsters, and that's your responsibility to change.

And above all, shut the country down. Mass strikes. Make America-as-a-fascist-state, impossible to function.

You have the numbers. You ARE the majority of the country. So stop letting the fascist minority, control everything. This requires fighting for your democracy, making yourself uncomfortable, not letting "normal life" lull you into complacency. It requires not merely hope, but getting involved, day after day, in your communities.

Or else you will just have another protest, while the country slides inexorably into outright fascism and becomes a police state and thoroughly broken country.

Find inspiration in your history. You have a history of rebellion. That's what led to America in the first place. That's what ended slavery in America. That's what the civil rights movement, the women's suffrage movement, were. The great gains made in American society have come through rebellion. It's the legacy of your great heroes and ancestors.

So, rebel.