Militarization & Resistance

Rally Sept. 28_2025

You’ve probably heard that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is calling hundreds of U.S. generals and admirals to Quantico, Virginia this Tuesday. Many of them are flying in from American military bases all over the world at great taxpayer expense and leaving posts with important strategic missions for this meeting.

What’s the purpose? The New York Times puts it this way: “Mr. Hegseth and other top administration officials have not disclosed a rationale for the meeting, not even to the officers who have been summoned from all over the world. The secrecy has caused anxiety among the military’s top ranks at a time when Mr. Hegseth has fired several senior generals and admirals, many of them people of color and women.” 


The Times also quotes a retired lieutenant general who compared the gathering to a “‘surprise assembly’ in 1935 at which German generals were ‘required to swear a personal oath’ to the Nazis and Adolf Hitler.” Will the Quantico gathering be a test of loyalty? A pep rally by a second-rate Fox news host? Yet another campaign rally? What could go wrong?

So far, Hegseth has deployed the military largely against his own country. He’s sent troops to the southern border to reinforce immigration control; he’s sent Marines and the Guard to occupy Washington DC and Los Angeles, and is about to send troops to Memphis and maybe Chicago, as well as breaking international law to blow up boats off the Venezuelan coast that the Administration claims, without evidence, were bound for the US carrying drugs. 

The ramped-up militarization is extending to the Pacific northwest: Trump is declaring war on Portland, saying he’s “authorizing full force, if necessary,” to handle what he asserts are “domestic terrorists.” (To be clear, “full force” means lethal force.)

Just yesterday, a new Trump directive targeted “anti-capitalism,” “anti-Christian,” and “anti-American” opinion as indicators of extremist violence, and the president has authorized an army of 4,000 counterterrorism officers to prevent crimes that haven’t happened. This idea should be chillingly familiar to those who know the Tom Cruise movie Minority Report: a sci-fi horror film about pre-crime police is coming true before our eyes, and we are in it. Trump is targeting us. And he’s just itching for protesters to take the bait and do something violent, as the “domestic terrorists” we are, to then justify cracking down on every American who didn’t vote for him, so he can arrest us like he has arrested Latinos and prosecutors, so he can tighten the bolts on dictatorship and hold us all in fear. 
 

But!!! We’re not going to take the bait, and we will continue to make our voices heard loud and clear. As the sleeping giant of the American public awakens, there have already been successes in ways big and small.

So let’s consider how to keep organizing and resisting.

One immediate issue is the looming government shutdown. Unless Congress somehow passes the budget resolution on Tuesday, the government will shut down. Under a similar deadline in March, enough Democrats in Congress voted to keep the government open. Now that Democrats are showing a bit more spine, Trump is threatening to use a shutdown to fire thousands more government employees. But many are right to point out that the government has in effect been shut down for months. Those workers would be fired anyway, in a continuation of the massive demolition job already started by DOGE, so there’s little to lose by endorsing a shutdown.

Since March, the Administration has evolved into a machine of oppression. Project 2025 created a state that censors speech and exacts retribution, illegally detains and deports hundreds of thousands, and endorses the judiciary as a willing servant of the president’s corrupt demands. Congress sits by as Trump’s cruel policies, all guardrails removed, rob our economic security and endanger our health and ignore climate change. We say SHUT DOWN a government that’s harming, not serving, the majority of its people.

Corporations, including media companies, have been caving to Trump and choosing greed over the public good. But this week we’ve seen see that the people have the power to change the behavior of these companies. Public outcry, and mass unsubscribing from Disney-owned media, led to a $4 billion loss and Disney’s “change of heart.” Keep up the pressure on corporate America to be on the right side of history.


Another possible strategy the public can mobilize, mentioned recently by thinkers such as Wajahat Ali, is eventually to stage a general strike – shutting it all down. The fascist machine cannot operate without the people. But to prepare for such a general strike, we must enhance infrastructure, build ways to support families, create networks of resources. The sleeping giant—we the people-- is just now awakening, and the spirit of protest hasn’t yet penetrated deeply enough to support nationwide tactics.   However, you are here and fully conscious. Your next step is to read up on general strikes and on what it takes to make them effective. Share with family and friends: education is a precious and mighty tool. (Which is of course why they are gutting schools, censoring the news, and controlling media and communications.)

It’s starting to look like desperation time for the Trump administration. One sign of that desperation is the absurd legal persecutions of James Comey, Adam Schiff, Letitia James, Lisa Cook, and Fani Willis, and making a martyr of Charlie Kirk as an excuse to crack down on Jimmy Kimmel and others. There will be more such attacks from here on out. The machine is leaking, weakening—and getting more dangerous. 


Where can we do the best damage to it? How can we pull more people into action? How can we raise awareness of the use of the military against its own people, the collapse of foreign diplomacy, and the egregious grift of Trump and his family? Our charge is to educate the public to see Trump’s various directives as all part of one authoritarian impulse. We must not flag in our commitment, but only become more energized, sign petitions, participate in peaceful-but-loud demonstrations, take part in the groundswell of outrage. We must be maximally visible.   With all the corruption and nonstop bullying, it’s tempting to get disheartened. But we have to focus on the positive vision of what we want instead of focusing on the destruction. 

The great news is that America is waking up. Young people, farmers, seniors, veterans, and even folks in conservative media are beginning to understand that this is a lawless and dangerous regime. We need to coalesce around NO KINGS in October 18.  An estimated five million people turned out for the last NO KINGS event. Let us ramp up the sequel, increase the turnout to ten million. We need everyone. Recruit your family and friends! 

Waj Ali advises us that to energize the general public there must be a convincing story. A good story requires a hero and a goal. Who’s the hero? The American people. What’s the goal? affordability, infrastructure, health, secure and fair elections. The villain of the story is the broligarchy, which is sucking up our wealth and health and freedoms and imposing racist division. This is not a very complicated message, but the Democratic party has been wimping around, remaining in thrall to corporate pressures; that is why New York’s Zohran Mamdani, who resists them, is so wildly popular. Seattle mayoral candidate Katie Wilson is doing the same thing and widening her lead over the incumbent mayor. On the national level as well as the local, there needs to be moral leadership and clear vision. Finding and taking this leadership is up to US, the PEOPLE. 


You might throw up your hands and say what can I do? I’m nobody. - But that’s the wrong question! What can all us nobodies do together, in this moment? All of us have power. Each of us can do one more thing than we’re doing now. Do one more thing than you’re doing now. Here are things to do:
   

1. - Attend the rally October 18 and help make it massive. Poulsbo’s rally on Saturday October 18 is at 2:30 pm, right here in Waterfront Park. Bring someone new, bring a bunch of people, bring signs that tell the world why you’re there. 
   

2. - Sign petitions. For example, sign the one to get FCC chief and Trump toady Brendan Carr to resign (you’ll find that petition on 50501’s website). Other trusted websites where you can sign on to all sorts of petitions, national and local, are at Change.org, Mobilize.us, and MoveOn.org. 
   

3.  - Use the power of your pocketbook. Boycotting is easy, and the power of the collective was shown to work when we stuck it to Disney. It will work again.   

4. - Run for local office, council, school board. Now in October it’s too late to put your hat into a local ring, but for this year, be sure to VOTE for the candidates that best represent you this month. Get educated and please don’t waste your vote. Then for the longer haul, really think about running for office.   Important: be sure to TURN YOUR BALLOT IN 10 DAYS AHEAD OF THE ELECTION OR PUT IT DIRECTLY INTO A BALLOT DROP BOX. The U.S. post office can no longer guarantee postmarking a ballot on the day you mail it, even three days before you mail it. Just get it in early.
   

5. - Show up with your body. Organize a group to stand on overpasses or an intersection with a banner. The visibility of resistance shows others that we’re not bowing down. That’s the value of Poulsbo’s weekly protests too. Courage is contagious.
  

6.  Speak up and get informed. Talk to your family, talk to your neighbors. You can be an educator, the person to persuade others that no one is going to save our nation but us. Get others involved. 
       

Folks, this is going to be a long haul, but we have the numbers. Oil is leaking from the fascist machine, and sooner or later the machine will stop running. This week we’ve seen an inflection point. Trump’s repressive moves are not the moves of a strong regime, they’re moves of desperation. Remember that. Do one more thing than you’re doing now, spread the word, and keep showing up!