Yves here. The US has already gone into brownshirt terrain, with Congresscritters being roughed up and even arrested for excising their statutory right to visit ICE detainees and even merely attempt to query DHS chief Kristi Noem in person. One colleague in NYC who was an organizer of the protests there described long form how people no one recognized were trying to whip up the crowd to get violent and throw objects at the police. The organizers, mainly successfully, called on the protestors to stay peaceful. So we’ll see how the planned “No King” protests against Trump’s pretenses of royalty go in terms of numbers who participate and whether they can resist provocateurs.
Keep in mind that Trump is itching to invoke the Insurrection Act, so a big but peaceful show of numbers is required. But this Administration has gone so rogue that they may deem very large gatherings opposing Trump to be tantamount to an insurrection.
By Camillo “Mac” Bica, Ph.D., an author, activist, and Professor of Philosophy at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Mac is former Marine Corps Officer, Vietnam Veteran, long time activist for peace and social justice and coordinator of Veterans For Peace Long Island. Contact him via https://www.camillobica.com. Originally published at Common Dreams
After implementing significant budget cuts across various federal programs, including eliminating some 83,000 jobs at the Department of Veterans Affairs, 20,000 of which were filled by veterans, President Donald J. Trump plans to spend an estimated $45-96 million for a parade on June 14 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States Army, and concurrently his 79th birthday. With a massive display of America’s military might, this event, according to the parade’s official website,“is designed not only to showcase the Army’s modern capabilities but also to inspire a new generation to embrace the spirit of service, resilience, and leadership that defines the United States.”
Trump has yearned to immerse himself in such a display of military extravagance no matter the expense and inconvenience to the public ($16 million additional in damage to Washington’s streets, the closure of two major airports, etc.) since witnessing France’s impressive Bastille Day celebrations during his first term. Much to his dismay, however, his plans were abandoned after pushback over cost and logistics from D.C. officials and opposition from then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Not unexpectedly, the current Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, never one to thwart Trump’s wishes and illusions of grandeur, enthusiastically supports the parade.
Interestingly, for whatever the reason, in hyping the parade, Trump fails to acknowledge, nor does he have similar plans to showcase, the modern capabilities and the “spirit of service, resilience, and leadership” of America’s other military branches that also celebrate their 250th Anniversary later in the year, the Navy in October and the Marine Corps in November. One may speculate that this omission may have something to do with their anniversaries not coinciding with Trump’s birthday.
Despite the optics of this parade falling on Trump’s birthday,event organizers insist that there is no connection between the two events. However, one must consider this claim in tandem with other measures that have characterized Trump’s reign of terror in the White House. His flurry of presidential orders is clearly intended to reinvent the presidency by vastly expanding his authority, powers, and the deference accorded to the Office he holds. Basically, he is attempting to reinvent the presidency as something that resembles a dictatorship rather than the democracy it has traditionally been in American history. And what better to accomplish this than a parade to celebrate the military and the weapons of war, an event befitting other megalomaniacal world leaders and dictators like Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin, Joseph Stalin, and Adolf Hitler.
Further, given the myriad incidents of flagrant animosity and disrespect Trump has exhibited toward the military in the past, i.e., his disparaging the parents of Humayun Khan, an army captain killed during the Iraq War; his characterizing soldiers who died defending this Country as losers and suckers; his refusing to visit, while in France, the graves of American service members killed during World War I because it was raining; his not wanting to be seen with wounded veterans because “it doesn’t look good for me;” his mocking of the late Arizona Sen. John McCain for being shot down and captured during the Vietnam War; his calling the military officials with whom he had worked “some of the dumbest people I’ve ever met in my life,” etc., one can understand why many veterans (and nonveterans alike) are skeptical of the organizers claim that this parade is intended to honor soldiers and veterans and celebrate America’s Army.
Many of us who served in the military, who shed our blood and sanity for this country, certainly remember. War never goes away and is with us for the remainder of our lives. But we who know the truth about war do not celebrate its horror and tragedy. Those of us who can, labor to live with it. Tragically, as indicated by the 18 veterans who commit suicide each day, many could not.
Many march to remember, others to forget.
But for those who truly know war
and suffer its consequences,
no ceremony or parade is necessary
as the memories,
the images of war,
and the faces of our comrades wasted in battle
visit us each night in our dreams.
Nor do the ceremonies and parades
help us to put to rest
the turmoil of a life interrupted
and devastated by war,
or to forget the killing and the dying.
Such ceremonies and parades accomplish nothing,
save to allow those who make war easily
or distance themselves from its insanity and horror
to feign support and appreciation
and to relieve their collective guilt
for immoral war and crimes against humanity.
Nor do ceremonies and parades
honor, educate, inform, or lessen the burden of loss.
Rather they celebrate and perpetuate
the myth of honor and glory,
and “The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.”
I shall march no more—Camillo Mac Bica
This isn’t just a parade, therefore, it is a flagrant exploitation of the military for personal and political gain, something we, who fought in America’s unnecessary and immoral wars, know so well. It is an authoritarian display of power, and another means for Trump to celebrate himself and to expand his authority. It is a waste of money that could better be used to restore much needed funds for healthcare, housing, pensions, and giving our troops and their families the best care possible. Therefore, we must not remain silent. We must act, raise our voices in outrage, defy the ambitions of those who would be king, speak the truth about war, and not allow others, especially pretenders and posers, to misrepresent and mythologize that which they know nothing about.
stopped reading after the enumeration of “megalomaniacal world leaders and dictators”
why even post something like this?!? smh
This is a manifestation of the cognitive bias called halo effect, of needing to see things as all good or all bad. If you expect perfection, you’l have to wait for the afterlife, charitably assuming you don’t wind up in Purgatory or worse or reincarnate.
I disagree. The point where an article compares Putin to Hitler is the point at which I too stop reading. Time is very precious, and there is no point wasting it. Whereas an article by Yves Smith will always be read in its entirety.
I felt the same when I saw Putin’s name. I think it is called carelessness with categories or dim bulb syndrome and, if this is now the standard of philosophy taught in the US, no wonder the country elects bums, stiffs and deadbeats like Clinton, the Shrub, Obama, Biden and Trump and it’s heading for a four front war (I tend to include the Arctic because of it’s increasing importance to Russia and China as a trade route).
Frankly, I am surprised Eve has reposted a piece of junk written by ignorant and butthurt US army vet and pseudo science phd cretin who compares nazi parades with the great patriotic war commemorations in Russia. As for North Korea, the N Koreans still remember how the many of you who “shed your blood and sanity for your country”, on their land, killing their people in the name of US supremacy. It is their message to you: “don’t fuck with us”.
Project much? You look to be the one “butthurt” over Yves not giving a trigger warning over some of the post’s content. Maybe she’s busy because a big war has started?
And maybe this vet has some PTSD over military displays generally?
Would that Trump end up on a rope bridge with Congress on one side and MAGA on the other. But if we are to be honest, it is not the first time that you have had military parades in DC-
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-military-parade-history-rare-last-military-parade/
But the problem here is intent. As the US Army, Navy & Marine Corps all have their birthday this year, he could have designated a day for this parade for all three services. Instead, I think that he went with the one that coincided with his birthday because his vanity won out. More to the point, this is part of his idea to rewrite history to say that American won WW2 (there will be a lot of WW2 gear on parade) and that America’s military is the greatest in the history of this world and nations should line up to buy their equipment now – financing available. Of course you have to wonder if this is just Trump being jealous how Macron gets the military parades for Bastille day but there is nothing like that for him – but which he intends to fix. Imperial presidents though have been a problem since the US was formed. Because of his haughty demeanor during George Washington’s Inauguration, some people quipped that perhaps America had exchanged George III for George I.
The Dems were perfectly happy with some of Biden’s authoritarian moves and as for the above, grouping Trump with a “dictator” like Putin, some of us say “if only!”
Our dilemma is that both sides are evil, greater or lesser. But at this point Trump definitely has earned the title of greater. Even the Dems and Biden weren’t stupid enough to start a war with Iran. Trump liked to call our ex gov Nikki Haley “birdbrain” but we might as well have had Haley as president since all of Trump’s moves are the ones that she advocated. True, Haley also liked to go on about dictator Putin and so far Trump hasn’t. But give him time.
A pundit elsewhere has written that it’s a good thing Trump is so incompetent because otherwise he might really become dictator. He’s losing the country and his own supporters, not gaining.
But the Dems and Biden were stupid enough to start a war with Russia. How well did that work out?
Oh I agree. But when it comes to blowback onto American voters Israel is the champ. Think 9/11, Arab oil boycott, Marines in Beirut, Iraq invasion, Afganistan tar baby. When Israel came into being Truman went against State Department advisors who said we need the Arabs on our side for the oil. The UK wanted a client to protect Suez and their access to India but that was not a US problem. FDR also advocated for a Jewish state at the Bitter Lake event but took no for an answer.
That’s all water under the bridge and the state of Israel does exist and will continue to do so if they ever make peace with the Middle East instead of trying to conquer it. Hubris precedes Nemesis.
As the Earth is the only planet not named for a god, and as Trump sees himself, at least as a demigod, I would expect at some point between now and 2029, that he insist the name be changed to planet Trump; enough with Romans and Greeks, it’s about time we had a planet named after an American god.
Does anyone know how the military participants of the big parade were “chosen”? Were they volunteers or drafted (ordered) to duty?
It looks like they pulled troops from units that participated in the various conflicts. I see that our 25th Inf Div is to represent Vietnam, but haven’t seen anything about specific units. They have been holding various ceremonies all week on their base (Schofield Barracks).
Putin megalomaniacal? How, exactly? Putin strikes me as capable, careful, conservative, a thinker who values history, accuracy, and detail, and not someone at the mercy of delusions of greatness.
Maybe he should have also added every French President since 1880 if military parades is his measuring stick-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastille_Day_military_parade
You left out the most important attribute; Putin is a staunch Russian patriot. Americans don’t normally view foreigners this way; that Putin might be willing to serve and die for his country is not part of the equation.
It is Trooping the Colour in the UK today to celebrate King Charles III official birthday.
Black armbands are being worn as a nod to the recent Indian jet crash. Pretty bizarre when you think about it. There were 172,000 road deaths in India in 2023 – so more die per day on their roads than in this 1 plane crash which also had no military based cause, so surely we should be constantly wearing black armbands?
Allegedly Labour and Reform are in bidding war with the armband supplier for red ones with an insignia on….. /sarc
Even more bizarre if you consider all the Indian deaths caused by the British.
Again – when Finkelstein in February was musing about “fascism”/”no fascism” – he also mentioned the Supreme Court and suggested one would see what its limits of tolerance towards POTUS are. As a sign post of how far the system at large is willing to go.
I agree with that under the impression that that court by the US establishment at least in public is regarded a saint institution nobody can get by or touch (interestingly Taibbi/Kirn too as far as I followed them).
So the judges are the ones possibly drawing red lines. Or not drawing them. As institutional power goes.
As above is concerned – it is beyond me how a “Professor of Philosophy” can seriously produce lest publish such phrases:
“And what better to accomplish this than a parade to celebrate the military and the weapons of war, an event befitting other megalomaniacal world leaders and dictators like Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin, Joseph Stalin, and Adolf Hitler.”
Except Germany, Italy, Spain I believe there are not too many big countries with big militaries not doing military parades. French Rafales racing across the Champs Élysées?
But even without a serious reflection upon facts, whether one has a cause or not in his/her writings, to spread bullshit sentences like this isn´t any help.
One can include a lot of US presidents on that list, too.
There were military parades in the aftermath of the Civil War (I almost wonder if the unrepentent former Confederates said something similar to this professor with regards the army parade at Grant’s inaugurations.) There were many military parades after World War II: on Fourth of July, as part of presidential inaugurations, etc. It’s easy to find pictures of such parades on Google as long as you add “-Trump” in the search box. Let’s face it: people love military parades fwiw. Milking ludicrous implications that aren’t really there from all manner of stuff just erodes credibility of those who are doing that…but those who believe themselves to be the self-evidently righteous never seem to learn this. (TBF, even George Orwell fell to this–2+2 = 4 and all that…)
While I do think Trump is taking things to far, I do have to wonder why in all the hand wringing over his actions, nobody ever mentions Obama assassinating US citizens, including a teenager, on his say so alone? Is that not about the pinnacle of authoritarianism? Obama joked about it all and barely anyone made a peep. Congress barely batted an eyelash, and certainly didn’t try to impeach him.
Do the people who write these types of articles ever stop to consider why Trump might get the impression everything he’s doing is OK? Or ask themselves why they didn’t protest so vehemently when Obama and many other presidents overstepped the limits?
Although I also think Obama should have faced more protest for his drone strikes, deportations, torture at Guantanamo, etc., it is simply wrong to claim that “no one ever mentions Obama assassinating US citizens” (everyone from Glenn Greenwald to Amy Goodman to Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, Medea Benjamin and many others criticized him for it at the time, and yes they were marginalized but some said so on mainstream television and radio). And while I agree that the author’s comparison with authoritarian dictators is overblown, let’s also not pretend it’s strange that a lot of people are disturbed by a president who threatens to annex Canada and Greenland and renames the Gulf of Mexico, pardoned January 6th insurrectionists, whose ICE is blatantly violating due process, snatching people up for writing op-eds critical of Israel, letting the world’s richest man slash cancer research and gut agencies regulating his companies while profiteering from federal contracts, etc. It is also hardly surprising that many people are annoyed by Trump wanting to do this on his birthday, and by his megalomaniacal narcissism in general.
You may have heard those criticisms at the time, and so did I. But most others did not, because as you noted, they were marginalized. Unless you were a news junkie who listened to non-corporate sources, you probably never heard of it. I recently brought it up with a group of very liberal, well educated professor types and got blank stares.
And I really feel that trying to turn a riot into an insurrection (I’ve been waiting for years now for someone to explain by what mechanism unarmed people delaying a procedural vote would transfer the presidency to Trump) has not helped at all. Like I said about past presidents’ overreach giving the current one ideas, if that January riot was an insurrection, then arguably so is what was happening in LA recently, which then justifies Trump’s actions to crack down (yes, justified using a rather novel interpretation of the laws, but then novel interpretations were routinely used against Trump). But they are not justified.
Many people also warned after the Patriot Act that the US’ practices in its foreign policy would eventually be turned against the American people. Slowly and across multiple administrations, it has been. Trump is a danger to be sure, but he is not an unprecedented one. He’s a continuation of the creeping authoritarian rot that’s been going on for a long time.
>>>I recently brought it up with a group of very liberal, well educated professor types and got blank stares.
Thank you for this comment. I recently brought this up to a former federal judge who promptly asked me where I got my information. I told her that I have many sources for information, and her response was that “it sounds like a conspiracy theory.” When I mentioned the details of the case, she at least had the grace to say I was right.
We agree on many of the continuities, but it’s utterly ludicrous to compare a Trump-incited mob storming and defacing the nation’s Capitol, forcing Congress to evacuate to disrupt an electoral certification, with what happened in L.A.
I marched in military parades on 5th Avenue in New York City in the early 1960s. I think they were on Armed Forces Day. What stands out in my mind is the effect of hot sun on a steel helmet. I just wanted it to end. My guess would be that the soldiers marching today will want the same.
It’s “his” birthday? It is the birthday of 1/365th of the human race. Happens every day. Nothing special. I have reached an age that the only remarkable thing about my birthday is that I am here to note it. He really should get over himself. Now that is a vain hope.