Joe Biden needs to know that this anti-war movement is not going away.

Today's Washington, D.C., march
captured on CNN, 1/13/2024

Those of us who lived through and participated in the anti-[Vietnam]war movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s know that this anti[Gaza]-war movement of 2023-24 will have an effect on the 2024 election, at least at the margins. Joe Biden, who was a politically-aware young adult finishing law school in 1968 when L.B.J. dropped out of the presidential race a little more than seven months before the election, should know this better than most.

Joe Biden needs to take this movement, which immediately brought thousands of students out on college campuses in October and hundreds of thousands of people of all ages to the streets of Washington, D.C., in November, December, and today, as seriously as Johnson took the demonstrators protesting "Johnson's war." For many of these protestors, the bombing of Gaza's civilians is as much "Biden's War" and the product of U.S. foreign policy and weapons as it is the fault of Benjamin Netanyahu.

The people in this march today -- these people and organizations posting on Twitter/X about the #March4Gaza today -- will not be voting for Donald J. Trump in November, but a significant number of them won't be voting for Joe Biden either. He certainly can't take young voters for granted in this cycle.

NOW: We've brought Biden's atrocities to his front lawn.

Since October 7th, US-backed Israeli forces have killed over 10,000 children in Gaza. The blood is on Biden's hands!#March4Gaza #LetGazaLive pic.twitter.com/rM8UlFRcUl

— CODEPINK (@codepink) January 13, 2024

Watch a time lapse video showing the enormous size of the historic National #March4Gaza! Organizers estimate that 400,000 attended

Initiated by the American Muslim Task Force for Palestine with ANSWER as National Partner, the action demanded: end the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza! pic.twitter.com/1fxevLzn3r

— ANSWER Coalition (@answercoalition) January 13, 2024

#GenocideJoe makes surprise appearance at #March4Gaza pic.twitter.com/fmB7fgR1pD

— #StopCopCity (@ChuckModi1) January 13, 2024

🇵🇸 It’s official! ✌🏼 400,000+ marched on Washington for Gaza today demanding President Biden end the genocide in Gaza and stop all funding to #ApartheidIsrael. #LetGazaLive #FreePalestine #March4Gaza pic.twitter.com/WkeAEPPY7Y

— American Muslims for Palestine (@AMPalestine) January 13, 2024

📣BIDEN, BIDEN YOU CAN’T HIDE! YOU’RE SUPPORTING GENOCIDE!

A beautiful crowd standing in solidarity with Palestine is now forming on Freedom Plaza for the #March4Gaza 🇵🇸 pic.twitter.com/LlDPXvioxx

— Party for Socialism and Liberation (@pslnational) January 13, 2024

"Our Long National Nightmare is [Almost] Over"

 I hope President Joe Biden's first remarks as President of the United States [in an hour from now] nod toward the speech of President Gerald Ford delivered on August 9, 1974:

"My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule."

 

POLL: What's the Best Way to Remove an Orange Stain from the White House?

After yesterday's MAGAt invasion of the U.S. Capitol, it's hard to imagine you-know-who squatting in the White House for two more weeks. Who do you think should remove him. Congress? The Vice President and Cabinet? Father Time?

POLL:
If you could choose your preferred method to remove the orange stain from the @WhiteHouse, would you want Congress to #ImpeachAndRemove, Pence & Friends to use the #25thAmendment, or simply wait two weeks for President Biden's inauguration?

— True Blue Liberal (@TrueBlueLiberal) January 7, 2021

Some of my favorite signs from Saturday's Climate March in D.C.

Continuing a tradition that began here at trueblueliberal.org after the January 21st Women's March, here are a few of my favorite signs from the April 29th People's Climate March in D.C., for those of you who were in a different place in the long line of march ... or who avoided the 92°F temperatures and stayed at home ... or were marching in another city.

Waiting for the March to Begin.

One of many "There is no Planet B" signs.

Parachutes waiting to be deployed.

"Make Siberia Hot Again" (his Russian-accented pro-Trump spiel was  even
better than his sign and his uniform).

"Resist Hell & High Water"

"It's The Planet, Stupid!" and "There Is No Climate Change On This Flat Earth"

"Justice is what love looks like in public. -- Cornell West"

"Homeless. Thanks Trump."

"can't wait under 3 years & 265 days"
and
"Don't Trump On Me"

"Won't Somebody Please Think Of The Children? Stop Global Warming!"

"91° April 'Sad'!"

"Greenhouse gasbag"

"Sick & tired of greedy assholes destroying my home"

"Who Knew? (Everyone but you, Idiot!)"

"Enough Hot Air From Washington. Climate Change Is Real!"

Globe hats.

"Paid Protesters" as far as the eye could see up and down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Lorax giving the finger and "I can't take this heat -- or another 100 days of this asshole!"

Trumpty Dumpty[?], a JFK quote, and "Ivanka Lives Here Too"

"Mother Earth Says: Keep Your Hands Off My Body!"

"I can't believe I'm protesting for reality!"

Puppets of Trump and a corporate lobbyist passing by the National Archives building.

"He Has A Small Mind Too!"

"Welcome to Mar-A-Lagone!" (with Trump's D.C. Hotel tower in the background)

Giant inflatable cow promoting veganism as it passes Trump's D.C. Hotel.

"THIS IS OUR OM"

"Animal Agriculture Must End For Our Kids' Sake"

Birds taking flight at the corner of 14th and Pennsylvania.

"Lancaster Against Pipelines" and their quilt.

"Don't Worry
Jared Took
Earth Science
He's Got This"

Stilt walker turning from 15th St NW back onto Pennsylvania Avenue.

"The Only Toxic Waste We Should Be Dumping is Donald Trump"

Looking on the positive side of climate change, "At Least Mar-A-Lago Will Be Underwater!"

Red flags in front of the White House.

"Stop destroying our planet, it's where I keep all my stuff!"
and
"Keep the Earth Clean, it's not Uranus."

This guy.

Puppet and flags.

"people thinking the earth was flat never made it less round"
and
"3% of scientists say this march isn't happening"

Trees marching past the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

I was obviously only able to see a small percentage of the signs and marchers on Saturday; I hope some of the many other people with cameras are posting photos and videos too.

American Spring, or, We Can Do This Every Weekend!

Is your calendar also filling up with plans for the American Spring demonstrations and marchs in Washington, D.C. and around the nation in April? If not, here are links to some of the major events happening every Saturday starting on April 15th.

• 4/15 Tax Day Marches.
• 4/22 March for Science.
• 4/29 People's Climate March.
• 5/6 The Immigrants' March.

When I was in high school, I put up posters and handed out flyers for the upcoming Student Mobilization Committee/National Peace Action Coalition protests against the Vietnam War. I no longer have permission from any administrators to use Scotch tape on the walls of their school hallways, but I do have this blog and a Twitter account to keep spreading the word of new protests in the Age of Trump.  I hope to see many of you doing the same. And I hope to see many of you out in the streets.

March For Science date has been set for April 22

So now we have a dilemma, or at least some of us do. I have already RSVP'd to travel 325 miles to the People's Climate March in D.C. on April 29; yesterday the organizers of the March for Science finally announced that their march date would be one Saturday earlier on April 22, which is a date with a ton of symbolic importance and historic significance, being Earth Day.

I'm not going to be the only one trying to choose between the two (I might be tempted to do the drive on both weekends if I weren't already committed to being in D.C. on May 6th as well). I just put up this quick 24-hour poll on Twitter to get some sense of where other people were leaning:

If you can only travel to D.C. for one, will it be the @ScienceMarchDC on Saturday 4/22 or the @Peoples_Climate March on Saturday 4/29?

— True Blue Liberal (@TrueBlueLiberal) February 2, 2017

Of course, if you live in or near Washington, D.C., you have no excuse not to be at both marches.

The People's Climate March is Saturday, April 29 in Washington D.C.

1970s Ecology Flag, Public Domain,

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2111203

Ignore my earlier posts from Tuesday and Wednesday of this week pushing for a massive Earth Day demonstration on April 22. The Sierra Club and other environmental organizations were way ahead of me, planning a People's Climate March for D.C. on the following weekend, April 29. When I asked, my local chapter of the Sierra Club responded that one reason they didn't choose Earth Day was because they knew of many other local environmental events scheduled for April 22 every year, events that they did not want to distract from or compete with. Also, April 29th is the day before Donald Trump's 100th day in office, a traditionally significant milestone in any president's first term.

So, please bookmark the People's Climate Movement homepage for updates. If Donald Trump hasn't cooked up his Reichstag Fire to suspend civil liberties before then, April 29th in D.C. should be at least as big as the Women's March. See you there.

~~~~~~~~
UPDATE 1/31/2017:
Here's a link to the Sierra Club's RSVP page: https://sierraclub.tfaforms.net/157

Earth Day or Tax Day? The TrueBlueLiberal Poll of the Week.

As a follow-up to yesterday's post about the potential for attracting millions to Washington, D.C. (and to cities around the nation and the world) on Earth Day, April 22, 2017, I posted the following poll on Twitter a few minutes ago. It will be up for a week.

Which of these Saturdays holds more potential for a record-setting turnout against Donald Trump in D.C.? https://t.co/ZLC97qsWBG #EarthDay

— True Blue Liberal (@TrueBlueLiberal) January 25, 2017

If you have strong feelings about your choice, I'd love to hear them in the comments below (or in a response to the poll on Twitter).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
UPDATE 1/28/17:
THERE WILL BE A PEOPLE'S CLIMATE MARCH IN D.C. ON APRIL 29TH. BE THERE!

Someone Is Desperately Begging for Inauguration Crowds! Sad!

Yesterday afternoon I checked Facebook and found that Donald Trump was personally inviting me to his inauguration on Friday. It seems that the Trump campaign picked me because I fell into that exclusive group of people who are 1) Over 27 and 2) Living in New York.

I feel so special! The president-elect has PERSONALLY invited me to his big shindig on Friday! pic.twitter.com/5DYOZoICuM

— True Blue Liberal (@TrueBlueLiberal) January 17, 2017

I had to send the PEOTUS my regrets; I will be working on Friday, but I will be in D.C. on Saturday for the Women's March (I'll try to take and post a couple of panorama photos here).

At noon today, with just two days to Trump Day, I opened this blog and found that the organizers are still looking to fill empty seats and spaces on the National Mall just 48 hours from now, with this banner ad offering readers of TrueBlueLiberal.org free inaugural tickets. Doesn't he know that if any of my readers click on his banner, this liberal blogger may actually earn a whole penny from Google (OK, maybe one-tenth of a penny, but still, does he want to support the artisanal left-wing media machine at all?)?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
UPDATE January 19, 2017 at 8:56am:
With the inauguration happening tomorrow, the banner ad offering a "Free Inaugural Ticket" was still at the top of my blog again this morning. He's starting to sound desperate.

Bill Kristol Is Not a Reliable Theater Critic Either

I had the pleasure of seeing a new production of Molière's Tartuffe at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in D.C. last Saturday night. While standing in the lobby with my wine during intermission, I was surprised to see a badly-dressed man wearing William Kristol's familiar permanent frown walk past. A couple of days later, something made me search for "Bill Kristol Tartuffe" on Google and I was led to his tweet about the show.

Just fled at intermission from ghastly production of Tartuffe @ShakespeareinDC. Perhaps worst single production of any play I've ever seen.

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) June 7, 2015

The Saturday performance was a preview that received a standing ovation from those of us who stayed until the end, but it hadn't been reviewed yet. When the play officially opened on Tuesday, it received unanimous rave reviews in all the places I could find: The Washington Post, DC Theatre Scene, Broadway World, and DC Metro Theater Arts, but, then again, all of these reviewers seem to have watched the end of the play rather than storming out like an offended French noble watching the first version in 1664 (before the royally-mandated happy ending in the 1669 version).

Of course, Bill Kristol has been known to make extremely hasty and seriously erroneous judgments before. Here he is on C-Span in 2003 mansplaining to Daniel Ellsberg how George Bush's decade-long war in Iraq would be nothing at all like Vietnam.

"This is going to be a two-month war, not a year war..."  --Bill Kristol, 28 March 2003

Occupy DC -- April-May 1971

Amazing what you can find on the internet.  This video is from the first national peace march I went to on April 24, 1971. I was fifteen -- I went on a bus from Philadelphia organized by the Student Mobilization Committee with a 16-year-old girl I really liked (more than she liked me) and her very cool parents, leaving Philly very early in the morning and coming back that night.
I vividly remember Peter, Paul, & Mary taking the stage that day (I didn't know from my vantage point that they had been joined by the less cool John Denver) and singing Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind" and Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance". They brought a connection to a famous earlier march in 1963 that made a very strong impression on this young peacenik.

This mass march on the weekend was only part of a much bigger couple of weeks in late April and early May that bore more than a passing resemblance to the current Occupy movement. In the days before the mass march, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War  conducted their "limited incursion into the country of Congress" that included camping, demonstrations, throwing medals back over the walls around the Capitol, and Lt. John Kerry's famous testimony in front of the Winter Soldier Investigations -- "How do you ask a man to be the last to die for a mistake?" -- that announced this young veteran as a political figure on the national stage.
The days after the mass march saw planned acts of civil disobedience around the Capitol by the Mayday Tribe that led to the arrest of over 13,000 people between May 1 and May 4 (one year after four were killed by the National Guard at Kent State). These events deserve a larger space in our collective memory.  The public reaction against the mass arrests is one of the many events in the late sixties and early seventies that helped turn the mass of the American people against the war in Vietnam.  I wanted to be one of those Mayday demonstrators blocking avenues, running from tear gas, and being penned up with my fellow radicals behind fences around RFK Stadium. I guess I understand now why my parents didn't let a high school sophomore take that extra step.  I'm glad they let me take the bus for the one-day demonstration. It was one of the highlights of my life.
Thanks for sharing this moment of nostalgia with me.