No Justice, No Super Bowl
There is no question — the United States has been taken over by a neo-Confederate, white nationalist that has begun completely dismantling the federal government and cleansing the nation of its minority populations.
The Trump led GOP has already succeeded in taking steps to repeal the Affordable Care Act, ban Muslims, dismantle the Department of Justice and shut out the media. He has all but castrated the authority of the EPA, the FDA and the State Department. He has placed a gag order on all federal agencies, placed the former executive of a white supremacist publication at the head of National Security and is planning to lift sanctions on Russia. He wants to make the people pay for a racist wall between the United States and Mexico, increase law enforcement and pass additional Jim Crow laws to kill, deport and arrest minorities, and has all but taken the first steps towards World War III.
And the Democrats have done nothing to stop him.
They allowed him to occupy the White House although there was overwhelming evidence that the GOP colluded with Russia and engaged in large scale voter purging and suppression in order to tip the scales of the election to favor Trump. They refused to press charges then, and they refused to press charges when he stood in clear violation of the Emoluments Clause on the day he took the oath of office. They refused to block his political appointees, his executive orders, his deconstruction of the federal government and have yet to collectively call for impeachment.
Worse, many of the democrats have confirmed ALL of Trumps nominations. All of them. Meanwhile, legal residents and children have been detained at local airports as a result of Trump’s unconstitutional Muslim Ban. And we have not yet entered the third week of his abuse of power.
There is no mercy to be found in the GOP. And there is no hope to be found in the Democratic party.
Democratic legislators have tweeted, joined protests and made announcements in the press condemning the actions of Trump and his administration, but they have not used even the least of their legislative power to stop the Trump Administration and the GOP. In doing nothing, they have become Trump’s accomplices.
The flagrant criminality of the Trump Administration and the absolute refusal of the Democrats to put up any legislatively fight whatsoever has put millions of lives in direct danger. It is unacceptable for the GOP to dismantle the United States as we know it. It is just as unacceptable that the Democrats are allowing it.
Our demands are clear: Impeach Trump. File charges against him and any public or private individual or organizations involved in his criminal activities. Restore the integrity of the Presidential Election.
Anything less is unacceptable. And until these demands are met, everything needs to be done to disrupt the social, economic and political functioning of Trump’s Confederate America. The left must send a clear message to the politicians in power and the world that there will be no more business as usual until the Trump Administration and the people that conspired with him are out of the White House and into prison cells.
The disruption of business as usual includes shutting down the Super Bowl.
It can be expected that anti-Trump protests will be launched at this event. With an expected 110 million plus viewers, audiences across the world should expect that some statement will be made about Trump. It is expected that both protesters and Lady Gaga will use the Super Bowl as an opportunity to communicate a message of solidarity against Trump and his actions.
Media centric protests and messaging are not enough. As the Strategic Institute for Intersectional Policy (SIIP) explains:
“Protests were developed as a form of political action that used human bodies as resources for acts of political resistance, reform and revolution. Currently, the main goal of protesting is to draw media attention to a particular cause or political stance. This goal eliminates the power of mass assembly as a tool for direct political action . . . Protest organizers and participants must stop using protests as attempts to grab media attention and start using mass assembly to disrupt the political and social processes that enforce and legitimize Trump’s authority.”
This means moving past the use of protest for media attention, and continuing down the path of effective mass assembly as seen by protesters in Philadelphia at the GOP Retreat and the protesters at airports across the United States in response to the Muslim Ban.
In order to accomplish this, rather than protesting as a means of media attention, bodies of assembly must be placed in areas that will effectively shut the Super Bowl down. There are many ways to do it.
All transportation routes and methods to the game should be blocked off well before the game starts. All trains, busses, freeways, main streets, and routes leading to the stadium can and should be blocked off. Access to the stadium should not be available by any means. These blockades should begin near the stadium, but access can be blocked to people coming from outside the city as well. It should be noted that while Houston is considered progressive territory, it is surrounded by red counties. Allies from Austin and other blue areas should mobilize to assist efforts in Houston.
Blockades can also be set up at the hotels where players and those attending the event are staying. The majority of them are on Main St. Early blockades can be used in attempts to prevent players, attendees, media providers and service providers from reaching the stadium. If these blockades are penetrated, those set up to prevent access to the stadium itself can provide secondary reinforcement.
Mass assembly, block parties, street tailgates, large pieces of art, stalled cars, slow walks, sit ins, flash mobs . . . all of these tactics can be used to creatively ensure access to freeway entrances and exits, train routes, bus routes, main roads to the stadium, routes from major hotels to the stadium and all other available routes to the Super Bowl are completely inaccessible. The message should be anti-Trump, but the spirit should be unapologetically rooted in love for the people of the United States of America — especially those targeted by Trump and the GOP’s hate.
The act of sacrificing a national sporting event will be difficult for some to swallow; however, a national celebration of a sporting event sends a message to the world that we are invested in normalizing Trump’s America. It means that we can prioritize leisure when the country is on the brink of collapse. It means that we have given up.
And nothing can be further from the truth.
The real patriots are not playing in a football game on Sunday. The real patriots are shutting down airports, protecting the millions of people in direct threat under Trump’s criminal regime, and working to overthrow the criminal network that has taken over both Congress and the White House. The real patriots are fighting in the streets and the courtrooms. The real patriots are doing whatever they can to protect their families and communities from the alt-white. The real patriots won’t be in the stadium, they will be outside — shutting the Super Bowl down.
