Diana’s Little Corner in the Nutmeg State: No Kings

Monday, March 30, 2026

No Kings

The New York Times had five takeaways from the "No King" rallies...

The war seemed to galvanize younger voters.
Trump’s immigration crackdown remains a focus.
Dueling protests unfolded near Mar-a-Lago. (Grab ’em by the midterms)
Midterm candidates came out in force.
Democrats found fresh fuel for their ‘No Kings’ slogan.

The article ends with,

In a nod to the protests, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, the chair of Senate Democrats’ campaign arm, said on Saturday that she planned to introduce a bill to bar presidents from putting their name, likeness or signature on federal property or money.

“In America,” Ms. Gillibrand said in a statement, “we do not bow to kings.”

2 comments:

Richard Nelson3/30/26, 10:22 AM
Here is my take-a-way.
This about sums up how I feel about the No Kings business. It is good to see so many people out, and yes we must continue to educate and move them from being beholden to the democrats who we know are not a safe harbor. But waving the flag? I remember when QWB said no to the flag at our demos. As Mr. Dion says too much blood is connected. It still is beyond me after so many years why anyone would want to save this system. I may be old-fashioned but I still sing, "From the ashes of the old world a better worlds in birth." Here is what Mr. Dion has to say.
I left the demonstration today.
I couldn’t do it.
I’ve spent the last year organizing, protesting, trying to do something meaningful… trying to stand up to oppression. I got there this morning and saw 10,000 people dressed like American flags, and I know immediately that I had to leave.
Everyone was covered in red, white, and blue… but it all looked like blood to me.
They were playing patriotic songs and every single one of them sounded just like war.
It doesn’t matter if it’s red colonialism or blue colonialism. It is still extraction and exploitation. It doesn’t matter if we vote Democrat or Republican… they will still use Israel to stage an invasion of the Middle East. They will still use the military to bully the Third World. They will still strip the rights of people of color, the poor, the disabled, the queer, and the mentally ill… every time that white people feel like they are fed up with progress. They will still call Indigenous people “illegal” while brutalizing them, delegitimizing them, and removing them from the land of their ancestors. And will still march around the world bombing Black and brown people… labeling anyone who dares to resist a terrorist.
I got to the demonstration this morning… and it felt like a party. It’s one big party to these people. That’s all it is. The patriotism made me sick. It doesn’t matter if it’s wearing red or blue. A monster is still a monster. The machine is still a machine. The beast is still a beast.
This doesn’t feel like a revolution. It feels like a distraction.
Kalen Dion
032726.1031
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Quotes

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

A right delayed is a right denied.Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.

Martin Luther King Jr.

No one is born hating another person… People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Nelson Mandela

We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist
James Baldwin

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.
Newton Lee

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.
Albert Einstein

“A lie doesn't become truth, wrong doesn't become right, and evil doesn't become good, just because it's accepted by a majority.”
― Booker T. Washington

"We will not walk in fear one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason."
– Edward R. Murrow

"The point is that there are always obstacles, whether they seem insurmountable or merely bothersome. The question is not how difficult the path, but whether in your heart, you wish to undertake the journey."
Zandru's Forge

Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
Mahatma Gandhi

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

You've Got To Be Carefully Taught
You've got to be taught
To hate
And fear
You've got to be taught
From year
To year
Its got to
Be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to
Be carefully
Taught
You've got to be taught
To be
Afraid
Of people
Who's eyes are oddly made
And people who's skin is a different shade

South Pacific
Songwriters: Oscar Hammerstein II / Richard Rogers