Washington DC—A grassroots group of activists staged another powerful light show on Tuesday night at the Department of Justice (DoJ) in Washington DC after rush hour had already ended. The slide show was laid over a giant banner of President Trump across from the FBI building. Police were parked outside the FBI but did not stop the projection activists — projectivists — from carrying out their contemptuous display.
The slides framed the giant banner of Trump’s image which hangs from the recessed facade of the DoJ which appears similar to the ‘Big Brother’ caricature in the book 1984.. The slide show ran for about an hour over the banner which appeared to measure 15 feet wide and 30 feet long. The distance from the projector to the banner stretched the limits of the light projection luminance—set about 400 feet from the facade.
As in past varieties of projection actions this month, the projectivists did not announce their action. Many passersby stopped to watch and photograph the slides—essentially a collection of statements about Trump’s scorched earth policies upending global order, reading: No Dictator, No Wars, No Graft, No Police State, No Vendettas, No Ego Monuments…
A statement released to DCMG from the group read,
“In his vainglory, Trump has tried to honor himself ad in finitum or ad nauseum. This banner is also his boast of owning the DOJ. If it is true that this was Bondi’s attempt to adulate him, we know no other president would accept this blatant admission of complicity with a department tasked with being impartial in the execution of justice. This is no different than the huge portraits of authoritarian leaders on building in China, Russia, North Korea, etc. This video highlights things he is already guilty of, that the DOJ should prosecute him of if they were doing their job!”
There is a second banner hanging from the DoJ building on its Connecticut Avenue corner. The DoJ takes up one full square city block. Other banners of Trump hang from the Departments of Labor and Education.
The activists projecting lights are in their own way, messaging warnings to the citizens of a crumbling republic and a dictatorship rises from its dust. It is imperative that its citizens continue to organize and take effective actions against the self described dictator and his enablers. The signs are all there that the US is following in the wake of authoritarianism regime of bygone eras.
No Wars
The US-Iran War which the US and Israel began in the early hours on February 28, has been condemned by UN Secretary General António Guterres. “The use of force by the United States & Israel against Iran, and the subsequent retaliation by Iran across the region, undermine international peace & security,” he wrote in a statement.
The war strategy seems to have no ‘plan B.’ The war has quickly become a quagmire for the US with conflicting exit plans depending on who from Trump’s cabinet is answering reporter’s questions. This alone demonstrates a policy gone terribly wrong with little forethought to the consequences of the attack. The initial justification for the war was neither a coherent plan adequately explained to Americans nor debated and approved by Congress as required in the Constitution. Most Americans disapprove of the war, according to a March 4 G. Elliott Morris poll, an average of reliable polls. Only 38% of Americans supported the war at its beginning, while 49% disapproved of it, an historical low compared to the start of all other wars, where polling data was available. The US-Iran War is extremely unpopular and it is only 12 days in.
The president said that Iran was planning to strike the US so the US and Israel struck first. It was a circular argument to justify the attack on a nation which it had been negotiating with up to the last minute before it began its sneak-attack. This followed a deployment of 10,000s of service members to the Middle East to pressure Iran into accepting its demands. It was self evident the plan was to attack Iran all along.
The war has had economic consequences. It is costing 2 billion every day it is fought. Oil and gas prices are soaring to prices not seen in years. The price of gas went up even though the fuel sources were extracted, shipped, refined, and distributed months before their prices were arbitrarily raised. The economic victims are anyone who depends on transportation which is everyone. The benefactors of this war are the oil companies, its stockholders, and the military aerospace companies.
A school was bombed with Trump blaming Iran for attacking its own school children. The BBC exposed this as a clear lie with published footage of a US Tomahawk cruise missile hitting the school. If that wasn’t bad enough a ‘double tap’ missile struck the school less than an hour later, killing first responders and families at the destroyed school.
Iran struck back and promised not to surrender. The damage from Iran against 14 other countries most certainly would not have occurred if the US had committed to completing negotiations. Now the Straight of Hormuz is indefinitely closed as Iran struck Tankers on Wednesday, March 11, choking of the world supply of 20% of oil, fertilizer, and chemicals which transit the narrow straight.
Iran is not the first country Trump has attacked and will not be the last. Venezula, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen have all suffered attacks from the US since Trump’s second term began. There’s also the US military hardware support of Israel to decimate Gaza, a territory recognized as a country by 150 of the 193 members of the UN. Trump has promised to send US military forces to attack Cuba as well. He has threatened to take over Greenland but the European Union reacted swiftly and in unison and those plans have not followed through.
Does the American public even know how many wars or military operations its government is waging?
The answer to that from a search assist is eight. Eight separate military operations across six wars.
1 through 3:
- War on Terror: Includes operations in Somalia, Syria, and Yemen.
- War on Cartels: Specifically, Operation Southern Spear in Venezuela
- Iran War: Ongoing military actions related to Iran
4 through 6:
- Russo-Ukrainian War: U.S. involvement in support of Ukraine
- Gaza War: U.S. involvement in the ongoing conflict
- Israel-Hezbollah Conflict: U.S. support and involvement in this conflict
But there is another operation search assist does not count. That’s an actual attack on its own soil against itself. The roundup across cities by the Department of Homeland Security of 100,000s of migrants, immigrants legally on US soil seeking citizenship, their disappearance into concentration camps, their deportations without due process, and the arrests and detention of US citizens who get in the way. Several US citizens have been killed in this war on immigrants and immigrants rights. This is another unnecessary war that should be counted among US military operations.
No Lies
It can’t be overstated how important it is for a democratic nation to trust its top leader’s statements. Democratic institutions rely on truth to function. But the unreliability of information coming from the Trump White House is immeasurably destructive to the institutions affected.
Once trust is lost it is not easily restored. This president has been given extremely wide girth in the corporate media to speak whatever he wants during press conferences. And when media personalities question him about topics he doesn’t want to discuss, such as Epsteingate or Ukraine, he personally attacks press correspondents, calling them names to humiliate them or he attacks their news services.
He has lied about many issues, painting them with a broad brush to characterize them as he sees politically expedient. He lies bout the tariffs and who is actually paying the costs of tariffs. It is Americans, not foreign countries as he conveniently claims. He has changed his rationale for the war on Iran, and about the damage and impact of it on the world economy. He claimed his vanity ballroom project would not disturb any part of the White House but soon thereafter demolished the East Wing. His lies about immigrants being criminals, rapists, and drug gangs was the basis for rounding up and disappearing 100,000s into concentration camps around the country.
No Dictators, No Kings
From the very first day of his presidency, he promised to be a dictator but only for one day. There has never been a dictator who assumed power that willingly gave it up.
And to protect himself, he transformed the purpose of the DoJ from an investigative agency with its able prosecutors into a personal protectorate for himself, just as a dictator would do with a secret police force. Under Attorney General Pat Bondi, the DoJ has fired or forced to resign many of its seasoned attorneys and replaced them with lackeys promoting the protection of one man and his enablers.
The most consequential investigation of the century so far, Epsteingate, has been cynically relegated to a contest of cat and mouse between the Attorney General, the person with the passwords to the unreacted and unreleased files, and Congressional Oversight attempts to release them and hold accountable the people hidden under black blocks covering text.
No Kings March Part III
On March 28, organizations across to county plan a mass march against Trump’s policies. Most cities will hold marches and these provide citizens an opportunity to connect with others and respond to the challenges they are facing.
