Refuse Fascism and “We Can’t Wait Until 2020” organized this emergency “No War on Iran!” protest on June 22nd. The protest began at the ABC TV station in the Chicago Loop and marched up and down State St. chanting, “War on Iran? Hell No! Trump Pence Must GO!” and “Humanity First, Not America First.”
About 25 people joined the protest with short notice including some people only recently met. Hassan El-Tayyab from Chicago Area Peace Action spoke about the context and danger of US threats against Iran. A Palestinian rights activist took the mic exposing the US role in the Middle East. Batman and Robin were there in full costume with signs saying, “Gadzooks, Robin, with Fascists Threatening the Country, We Can’t Just Stay in the Batcave! PROTEST!” and “I’m With You, Batman. Get Into the Streets Until the Threat is Knocked Out!! KPOW!”
The response on the street underlined the great need to sound the alarm. 24 hours after Trump announced that a military strike had been in the air then postponed, sympathetic people often were already breathing a sigh of relief, crisis over. At the ABC station, Refuse Fascism exposed the US history of provocations and phony incidents used to justify wars, like the Gulf of Tonkin incident and the (now) infamous WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) scare used to justify launching murderous invasions of Vietnam and Iraq. Like today, the media played a critical role in brainwashing the public to swallow the government’s lies and support or accept the bloodshed.
On the street Refuse Fascism also sounded the alarm around Trump’s announced ICE Raids which had been set to begin that weekend. We called out the regime’s stunning hypocrisy around illegitimately “crossing borders” and how both the war moves against Iran 12,000 miles away and the raids and migrant concentration camps inside the US are part of Trump/Pence regime’s white supremacist, America 1st crusade that must be stopped.