Get Up, Stand Up For Your Rights!

Sadly. the Ides of March have come and gone and the three-headed lying-ass, dictatorial, kleptocratic cockwomble is still amongst the living. 

Fuck.

Yesterday was a big day for marching and protesting. From LA to Boston and New York to Florida and a shit-ton of places in between, Americans were out, loud and proud. We were demonstrating our First Amendment rights to protest against Trump/Musk/Vance and their horrific slashing of necessary jobs, workers, programs, etc. Vets were protesting the decimation of their rights and very existence. People were protesting the millionaire/billionaire class thieving from the rest of us and the insane, illegal abduction and imprisonment of Mahmoud Khalil.

Here are some pics: 

To Bostonians of a certain age, pissah means “awesome.” Trump is NOT pissah.
You’re welcome.

The Ides of March

Thousands rallied  on the National Mall and at capitals
around the country to protest obscene cuts by
Trump/Musk to veterans’ jobs, services and benefits.

Today is the Ides of March. It’s a day that oughta make even the least self aware heads of state a little twitchy.

I only mention it…

One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Let’s talk about civil disobedience.

What is it?
Civil disobedience is a public, non-violent and conscientious breach of law undertaken with the aim of bringing about a change in laws or government policies.

Civil disobedience can raise awareness and bring in more supporters to a cause. Violence is scary, risky, and can be wicked off-putting. Me? I’m more apt to take part in a revolution if I can be more or less sure of not getting my head bashed in.

Of course, all bets are off if the current rat fuckers eliminate Social Security and Medicare. If my death date is gonna be wickedly premature anyway, what have I got to lose? May as well go out in a blaze of glory.

From the Boston Tea Party to Mahatma Gandhi’s Salt March, and from suffragists’ illegally casting their ballots to whites-only lunch counter sit-ins, civil disobedience has often played a crucial role in bending the proverbial arc of the moral universe toward justice. (source)

Examples of civil disobedience?

Leaking sensitive documents: people who have access to sensitive information, like human rights violations and the scoop on politicians and corporations committing crimes, may *oopsie* decide to leak it to the press. Such as:

The Pentagon Papers

In June 1971, The New York Times published a series of excerpts from a top-secret Department of Defense report about U.S. involvement in Vietnam between 1945 and 1967. Part of a study commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, the so-called “Pentagon Papers” revealed that four successive presidential administrations had deliberately misled Congress and the American public about the scope, objectives and progress of the Vietnam War. Daniel Ellsberg, a military analyst who opposed the war and had surreptitiously photocopied and leaked the documents, was prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act, but the judge later dismissed the charges. (source)

Iraq War Logs

In October 2010, WikiLeaks posted nearly 400,000 classified military documents concerning the Iraq War, a massive info dump that dwarfed its release of some 77,000 documents on the war in Afghanistan several months earlier.
   ~~~
Among the revelations in the so-called Iraq War Logs was evidence that the U.S. military deliberately ignored abuse of detainees by its Iraqi allies, and that there were actually 15,000 more civilian casualties than previously acknowledged (source)

Unauthorized demonstrations:

Demonstration, peaceful protest, and freedom of expression of one's beliefs, is protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The First Amendment also applies to international visitors who are welcome to participate in lawful public demonstrations and protests. (source)

What makes a protest illegal? If or when it becomes violent, becomes unsafe, involves trespassing or violates other laws such as health or noise ordinances. Do it anyway.

Sit-ins and roadblocks: this tactic is used to create chaos and raise awareness for a specific cause.

This week’s example? The Trump Tower sit-in by Jewish Voice for Peace to denounce the ICE arrest of Mahmoud Khalil.

Other sit-ins?

The Greensboro Four

On February 1, 1960, the four students sat down at the lunch counter at the Woolworth’s in downtown Greensboro, where the official policy was to refuse service to anyone but whites. Denied service, the four young men refused to give up their seats.

Police arrived on the scene but were unable to take action due to the lack of provocation. By that time, Johns (a helpful local, white businessman) had already alerted the local media, who had arrived in full force to cover the events on television. The Greensboro Four stayed put until the store closed, then returned the next day with more students from local colleges. (source)

The 2016 United States House of Representatives sit-in

The House Democratic Caucus, led by Georgia Rep John Lewis, Massachusetts Rep Katherine Clark, and Illinois Representative Robin Kelly (along with 60 other House  Reps) declared their intention to remain on the floor until skank-ass Republican Speaker, Paul Ryan, allowed votes on gun control legislation in the aftermath of the Orlando nightclub shooting.

Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., ended the daylong protest surrounded by his Democratic colleagues. The civil rights leader proclaimed that this "is a struggle, but we're going to win this struggle.” (source)

Occupations: another way to create chaos and raise awareness.

The Occupation of Alcatraz

In 1969, six years after the infamous prison closed, 80 young protesters, led by Native American activists, Richard Oakes and LaNada War Jack, occupied the island for 19 months.

Thousands of Native people from across the country joined the original group of 80 occupiers. The Indians of All Tribes demanded that the federal government recognize treaties with Indian tribes, they demanded a Native American cultural center, and they demanded that land be returned. (source)

Occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota

On Feb. 27, 1973, some 200 members of the Oglala Lakota tribe, led by members of American Indian Movement (AIM), occupied the Pine Ridge Reservation village — which was also the site of the 1890 massacre in which federal troops killed as many as 300 Lakota men, women and children.

The activists set out to protest corruption in tribal leadership (BIA puppets) and highlight the U.S. government's failure to honor Native treaties. They went on to hold the town for 71 days, in what the U.S. Marshals Service calls the "longest civil disorder" in its history. (source)

Other options?

Boycotts, which I’ve talked about here and here. Marches, non-cooperation, fasting and strikes. Us creative types have to be able to come up with other attention-catching, dramatic ways to grab the spotlight and increase our numbers and voice. There must be more.

Be inventive and audacious!

It’s a Schadenfreude Morning

With apologies to Joni:

Woke up, it was a Schadenfreude morning
And the first thing that I saw
Was the sun through bright blue curtains
And a rainbow on the wall
Orange, yellow, green, and indigo to welcome you
Cobalt crystal beads to beckon

Oh, won't you stay? We'll put on the day
And we'll talk in present tenses

The Tesla Takedown is working!

It’s ultimately about hitting Musk in his wallet. We the people can have a real effect. We can fight back. Musk and Trump are NOT gods. Dismantle their wealth by making them and their products outcasts, unfashionable, embarrassments. Show the world they’re synonymous with hate, destruction, insane greed, and incompetence. Without their wealth, these two are nothing.

The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.
~ Elon Musk 

Yes, that human-shaped ruptured hemorrhoid really said that on failed comedian, Joe fucking Rogan's podcast.

The current backlash against Tesla across the U.S. and Europe likely has no comparison in the history of the automobile industry, the bank warned, slashing its first-quarter delivery forecast to 355,000 vehicles and reducing its price target to $120 per share.

JPMorgan auto analyst Ryan Brinkman warned clients the politically divisive entrepreneur is, in all likelihood, repelling far more prospective car buyers than he has gained through his proximity to President Trump and far right in Europe.(source)

How many of those 355,000 cars and trucks will actually be sold? How many will be torched? How soon before the Treason Transports are as much of a pariah as their Temu comic book villain CEO?

How does it feel to be the world’s most despised person?

Yes, I have this Dylan song  in my head now:

Once upon a time you dressed so fine
Threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?
People call say 'beware doll, you're bound to fall'
You thought they were all kidding you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hanging out
Now you don't talk so loud
Now you don't seem so proud
About having to be scrounging your next meal

How does it feel, how does it feel?
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone

As of Monday, March 10, Tesla had its seventh straight losing week and has lost half its value since its peak in mid December. GOOD! Keep it going.

In other happy, encouraging news, there was a glorious protest at Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan. At least 100 people were arrested after protesters, mostly Jewish activists, held a sit-in. They were protesting the ICE arrest, disappearing, and jailing of Columbia grad student Mahmoud Khalil.

Khalil is a lawful permanent resident of the US, has a green card AND his wife, a US citizen, is eight months pregnant with their first child.

In a new petition seeking his immediate release, Khalil's attorneys said his arrest was a "targeted, retaliatory detention and attempted removal of a student protestor because of his constitutionally protected speech."
~~~
"Neither Secretary Rubio nor any other government official has alleged that Mr. Khalil has committed any crime or, indeed, broken any law whatsoever," the amended petition said. (source)

That Khalil is in jail AT ALL is utter bullshit. HELLO First Amendment!

Some days I feel like weeping from disgust and tiredness over the rock solid racist stupidity, the proud, willful ignorance, and complete absence of self awareness and empathy in my fellow humans. Today though, I’m feeling joy and hope. 

Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
~ Denis Diderot

Random Bits

I’ve been cleaning out my phone’s camera over the last few days. It’s amazing, to me anyway, how many failed pics of Cake I have. There were, maybe, 20 bazillion of him curled up on the blankets. Ya know what they all look like? A black hole in the midst of a sea of color. FYI, it’s nearly impossible to take a good, fast pic of black cats.

There were sweet illustrations sent to me by my sister Celeste.

I found a few nice shots of my dear, recently felled by HUGE winds tree. I guess, what with the big fungi and all, I should’ve known Ralph wasn’t long for this world.

There were comix that resonated from Poorly Drawn Lines, Jen Sorensen, and Pearls Before Swine. Also, one of my favorites by Mark Stivers.

I found a painting that looked like Trump as done by Cian McLoughlin or Francis Bacon, if he painted in bright colors. 

There were a bazillion memes. Some, not just amusing but helpful, with good advice.

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
~ Ansel Adams

A picture is a secret about a secret, the more it tells you the less you know.
~ Diane Arbus

Taking pictures is savoring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.
~ Marc Riboud

The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.
~ Dorothea Lange

A good snapshot keeps a moment from running away.
~ Eudora Welty

When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice.
~ Robert Frank

 

Anonymous — Operation DreadNought

Some Happy News

Five of the billionaire bastards who stood with our very own burnt orange hued Jabba the Hutt in the Capitol Rotunda on the day he was sworn in, have now lost a combined $209 billion in wealth.

Found via Ten at Homeless on the High Desert and Hackwhackers, apparently the fluorescent tantrum toddler’s not terribly good for his billionaire boys club. Gee, such a shame, huh?

Elon Musk’s fortune is down $148 billion
Jeff Bezos' dragon stash is down $29 billion
Sergey Brin lost $22 billion
Mark Zuckerberg’s pile is down $5 billion
Bernard Arnault’s is out $5 billion

Sure, they’ve got plenty more where that come from but, HEY, it’s a good start.
~~~
Mark Carney, the new interim Canadian Prime Minister, is apparently no doormat. In his acceptance speech he said:

• "Canada will never ever be part of America in any way shape or form."

• "My government will keep tariffs on till America shows us respect."

• "Donald Trump thinks he can weaken us to divide and conquer. We can give ourselves far far more than Donald Trump can ever take away."

and

• "A person who worships at the altar of Donald Trump will kneel before him, not stand up to him." (source)
  

Dude is NOT taking any shit from the bloated buffoon. GOOD!

I only mention it but the heads of every other country on the planet make Trumpy, the Bozo Boy, look like exactly what he is—an incompetent, uneducated, deeply insecure, malignantly narcissistic, easily played fool. He’s nothing but an oafish rube in a bad suit and everyone knows it. 

Also too, the rest of the world can plainly see that there isn’t one spine to be found in the entire Republican Party.

Trump is clearly completely unhinged and they do nothing but parrot his ridiculous spewings like human shaped, dementia ridden echos.

Tapeworms, which, by the by, lack both spine and brain, are more principled and discerning.
~~~
Ya know who does have a spine? Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, that’s who.

In response to that gelatinous, fuckbrained, orange Satan worshipping, mommy’s boy Leon the ketamine clown, calling him a traitor, Kelly dismissed him as "not a serious guy.”

"Elon, I don't really, you know, take him seriously," Kelly said Tuesday on "CBS Mornings." "He's not a serious guy. He's been slashing and burning the federal government at the expense of folks that are trying to get by and live their lives, and many of those are veterans." (source)

THIS is how it’s done.

Also THIS—Jasmine Crockett does what every other damn Democratic House Rep should be doing—reading the Republican tapeworm eejits for filth.

“I know that many of you prepared for today’s hearing by making sure that you got a little bit of information about immigrants and crime in your cities. Let me ask each of the mayors, just yes or no,” Crockett said. 

“Have any of you been made aware of any immigrant that has had 34 felony convictions … that has still been able to roam in your cities?” she asked. 

Each of the four mayors predictably answered, “No,” or said nothing, and so Crockett continued. 

“I’m just curious because we are so concerned about crime, and I know that my Republican colleagues would never want anybody with 34 felony convictions roaming around, because that could be a danger to the community,” she said. (source)

Crockett’s the real deal. We need more of her. A LOT more.

Dismissed!

Burning Teslas in the state of Washington

A thought on boycotting—it’s ineffective to abstain from buying from morally compromised companies for a day, a week or a month. For major corporations that’s just a drop in their big ass bucket. Let’s make these greedheaded corporations REALLY feel some pain. Abstain from them until they change. Make 'em cry!

Look at Little Lord Avarice for instance. Tesla is around 75% of his enormous wealth.

Tesla loses $127 billion in one-day market bloodbath…
The EV maker’s shares sank over 15% on Monday, bringing its total 2025 losses to over 40%. Monday’s plunge erased about $127 billion from the carmaker’s market value. Tesla has now lost all its gains since November’s election of Donald Trump to the presidency. (source)

GOOD! Let’s bankrupt this smug, dimwitted, and cruel motherfucker.

These warthog sphincter headed people and corporations need to be renounced until/unless they have a come-to-humanity epiphany and change their people and planet destroying ways.

Newsweek posted this yesterday:
List of American Companies That Support President Donald Trump
Here are a few from their much longer list:

• Adelson Clinic for Drug Abuse Treatment & Research: $106 million
• Uline: $10 million
• Chevron: $2 million
• OpenAI: $1 million
• ExxonMobil: $1 million
• Amazon: $1 million
• Meta: $1 million
• Uber: $1 million
• Crypto.com: $1 million
• Bayer: $1 million
• Johnson & Johnson: $1 million
• AT&T: $1 million
  
• Comcast: $1 million
• Verizon: $1 million
• PayPal: $250,000
• HCA Healthcare: $250,000
• Coca Cola: $250,000
• Airbnb: $100,000

Do a search on the companies to see what they make/sell. For instance, Johnson & Johnson does medtech BUT they also make Band-Aids, Clean & Clear acne care crap for teens, Johnson's baby powder, pantyliners, wipes and more. Maybe, when you go to get your COVID or MMR vaccine, you don’t have a choice—it’s J&J or nothing. You DO have a choice in which baby powder or pantyliner you buy though.

Yesterday, there was some dustup on Threads about Leon’s 76 year old mommy dearest being a spokesmodel for Covergirl makeup. Apparently she’s just uttered some new inane horseshit about the boycott of her precious, robot-penised baby boy’s swastikkkars.

There’s now a hue and cry to boycott Covergirl. Do it. I don’t wear makeup but if I did, I damn well wouldn’t want to support a company who platforms this non-too-bright producer and cheerleader of a Nazi.

Cover Girl is owned by Coty Inc. which, according to Open Secrets, as a corporation, doesn’t appear to donate much if anything at all. Instead, political party/candidate donations appear to be from individuals and those seem roughly split between Democrats and Republicans. Still, in employing such a clueless, obtuse cheerleader of hate and misinformation, they’re contributing to the end of America.
Other makeup companies who support Trump?

Estee Lauder Companies which includes:

• Estee Lauder
• Clinique
• Dr Jart+
• Glam Glow
• La Mer
• Origins
• Bumble and Bumble
• Aveda 


Revlon hedges their bets and donates equally to Dems and Repubs. Their lines include:

• Revlon
• Elizabeth Arden
• Almay

You can find more boycott-worthy, problematic brands here.

Cosmetic companies who do NOT support Republicans?

• Sephora (despite what you may have seen on TikTok)
• E.L.F Cosmetics
• Mac Cosmetics
• Skylar Beauty

I imagine there are others but, as I’m not a cosmetics or perfume patron, I’m not in the know (apart from internet searches).

You can make a change, even if you’re old, disabled, and more or less housebound like me. Boycott the destroyers of democracy and all those who assist them—not for a day or a week either. Banish them from your wallet for good.

Hit these fuckers where it really hurts—their bank account. Be part of the change for the better.

Fight the Power

Just because something bears the aspect of the inevitable one should not, therefore, go along willingly with it.
~ Philip K. Dick, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer

It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.
~ Samuel Adams

Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no lying.
~ Mikhail Bakunin

Audacity, more audacity, always audacity.
~ Georges Jacques Danton

You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
~ Buckminster Fuller

Better to die fighting for freedom than be a prisoner all the days of your life.
~ Bob Marley

The first duty of a man is to think for himself.
~ Jose Marti

The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can’t be any large-scale revolution until there’s a personal revolution, on an individual level. It’s got to happen inside first.
~ Jim Morrison

If I can’t dance to it, it’s not my revolution.
~ Emma Goldman

Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn’t fit in with the core belief.
~ Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks

Sometimes you have to pick the gun up to put the gun down.
~ Malcolm X

You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.
~ Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia

Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.
~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Yes, and how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
And how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, and how many deaths will it take 'til he knows
That too many people have died?
~ Bob Dylan, Blowin' In The Wind

Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: freedom for slave owners.
~ Vladimir Lenin

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
~ John F. Kennedy

Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.
~ Adam Smith

A Nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but it’s lowest ones.
~ Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.
~ Mao Tse-tung

I want to be justice, love and the wrath of god all in one.
~ Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood

There is often talk of human rights, but it is also necessary to talk of the rights of humanity. Why should some people walk barefoot, so that others can travel in luxurious cars? Why should some live for thirty-five years, so that others can live for seventy years? Why should some be miserably poor, so that others can be hugely rich? I speak on behalf of the children in the world who do not have a piece of bread. I speak on the behalf of the sick who have no medicine, of those whose rights to life and human dignity have been denied.
~ Fidel Castro

The greatest purveyor of violence in the world : My own government, I can not be silent.
~ Martin Luther King Jr.

The revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be right back
After a message about a white tornado
White lightning, or white people
You will not have to worry about a dove in your bedroom
The tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl
The revolution will not go better with Coke
The revolution will not fight germs that may cause bad breath
The revolution will put you in the driver’s seat

The revolution will not be televised
Will not be televised
Will not be televised
Will not be televised
The revolution will be no re-run, brothers
The revolution will be live
~ Gil Scott-Heron

It’s been a long
A long time comin’, but I know
A change gon’ come
Oh, yes it will
~ Sam Cooke

Fight the power
Fight the power
Fight the power
Fight the power
Fight the power
Fight the power
Fight the power
We've got to fight the powers that be
~ Public Enemy, Fight the Power