Our venue for the June 14th “No Kings” protest was near a sprawling senior living development. I thought that was to our benefit. If things went south, there’d be no reason to worry about tear gas, since most everyone assembled would have come with their own oxygen supply.

  There were a lot of those. “No Faux-Kings” and “No Kings Just Queens” that help set the festive tone. But while we were cracking clever and wise with our signs, tanks and soldiers were parading in our country’s capital. We’re somewhere in the middle chapters of George Orwell’s 1984, it seems, the point where Big Brother ICE is watching, Fox News, as the Ministry of Truth, rewrites reality and the orchestrated “two minute hate” dominates the social and  cultural landscape.

  The BJ’s parking looked like they were giving away free Pizookies, but no, it meant the rally had attracted a parking lot full of peaceful protesters who shrewdly saw the connection between marching and munchies.

  The overall attitude of the sign waving throng was upbeat, so upbeat, that having grown up in New Orleans, I had to remind myself this was a protest against a wannabe fascist regime and not a Mardi Gras parade and to not expect beads or dubloons to be tossed from the hundreds of cars whizzing by and honking supportively. (I did imagine someone shouting out, “show us your quips!”)

  There were a lot of those. “No Faux-Kings” and “No Kings Just Queens” that help set the festive tone. But while we were cracking clever and wise with our signs, tanks and soldiers were parading in our country’s capital. We’re somewhere in the middle chapters of George Orwell’s 1984, it seems, the point where Big Brother ICE is watching, Fox News, as the Ministry of Truth, rewrites reality and the orchestrated “two minute hate” dominates the social and  cultural landscape.

  Need a couple of non-fiction reality checks? Greenland and Canada fulfilling a need for Lebensraum? Do any of the third-world deportation camps in El Salvador or South Sudan simply lack a more historically existential namesake like Auschwitz, Dachau or Treblinka? And can any virulent hatred such as what nazi propaganda manufactured against Jews match what National Socialist Republicans are fomenting against Democrats and liberals?

  History does repeat (Weimar). It also rhymes (those who do not remember the past…) and, most tragically at certain times, annihilates (coming soon to a bunker near you?). 

  And here we are again and here we go again. Iran, it would seem, is the new Poland, but this time there will be no Lend Lease, D-Day or The Bulge to write this latest history of the defeat of fascism. For as the great philosopher-king Pogo once put it: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

  I don’t know what it will take to defeat totalitarianism this time. But as we walked back to our cars I at least hoped there’d be room reserved for a Pizookie somewhere in the manifesto.