The Mason Moment with John Oliver Mason, June 16, 2025

I speak on social and political issues, calling them as I see them. I speak today about the No Kings marches throughout the nation, and of trump's disaster of a parade.

The Mason Moment with John Oliver Mason

I speak about the demostrations in LA against ICE and trump's repressions.

The Mason Missile, May 28, 2025

Greetings, Americans! On Thursday, May 1, I served as a marshal for Philadelphia’s May Day rally and parade, and it was enormous—Bernie Sanders was the featured speaker. It was a great sign for each other: that we band together for our rights and a message to trump and his minions of our resistance—IF they’re paying attention. (https://6abc.com/post/bernie-sanders-may-day-rally-center-city-philadelphia-road-closures-due-demonstration/16296325/) It’s also great that May Day is losing its stigma as a “commie holiday,” and that May Day has its origins in the Labor struggles HERE in the United States. I urge you to study the REAL background of May Day, including the books I always recommend, Labor’s Untold Story, published by the UE. (https://www.ueunion.org/labors-untold-story) (https://www.britannica.com/topic/May-Day-international-observance) We must continue to organize, at our worksites, in our neighborhoods, locally, and nationally; that is how we fight the fascist regime of the tangerine tumor. We certainly have to band together to show our power—to our oppressors AND to each other, to show that we as individuals are not alone in this fight, that we can join others in the fight. trump has displayed his megalomania by his idea to annex Panama, Canada, and Greenland; in issuing his executive orders without regard to their legality or constitutionality; in unilaterally raising and lowering tariffs on imported goods on his whim; in, after ending traffic congestion fees in Manhattan, declared, in a mock Time magazine cover, “Long Live The King!” (https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1892295984928993698) (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-long-live-the-king-twitter-b2701329.html) ; in stating, in an interview for the Atlantic, “I run the country and the world” (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/06/trump-second-term-comeback/682573/) ; and in demanding a huge military parade for his birthday, down Pennsylvania Avenue, complete with tanks, aircraft, a parachute team, and reenactors wearing Army uniforms over the centuries. (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-military-parade-things-to-know_n_682f0374e4b05418243c6839) (https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/army-reenactors-flyovers-what-to-expect-at-president-trumps-military-parade-in-dc/3918515/) (I’m just scratching the surface.) The latter, the great big military parade, is merely a reflection of trump’s sense of inferiority: he has seen vast military parades in Russia and North Korea, as well as the Bastille Day parade in Paris in July. He seeks to compensate for his insecurity by trying to be one of those dictators he admires, like Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Xi Jinping. The date of the parade, June 14, will coincide with the 250th anniversary of the United States Army; in June 14, 1775, the Continental Congress passed a resolution calling for the recruiting of “six companies of expert riflemen,” to “be immediately raised in Pennsylvania, two in Maryland, and two in Virginia,” to support the rebel forces in Boston “to be there employed as light infantry, under the command of the chief Officer in that army.” One day later, the Continental Congress voted unanimously to appoint Virginia Delegate George Washington as the army’s Commander in Chief. ( https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/june-14/u-s-army-founded-1775) Plus recently, trump gave what was to be considered the commencement address at the US Military Academy, West Point, New York; instead of an inspiring speech about the US military’s role in the world, and their role in the military, trump, wearing a red MAGA cap during an apolitical event, feeds the graduating cadets a word salad about a real estate mogul he knows and his trophy wife, about how he rebuilt the military” and “saved it from men in women’s sports” and diversity programs, about how he was investigated more times than the legendary Chicago gangster Al Capone; and he didn’t following the tradition of Presidents shaking hands with the graduates. (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-branded-as-disgraceful-after-breaking-tradition-at-west-point-graduation/ar-AA1FwwdS) (https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-tells-west-point-grads-184041969.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall) (https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/24/donald-trump-west-point-speech-00368997) (https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-address-west-point-graduates-dei-crackdown/story?id=122116685) Alas how our valiant men and women in our armed forces have to become a chorus line and Broadway show for this disgusting orange blob that looks down on them as “suckers” and losers.” I remember that story from the Atlantic very well. That is how military people, and the working and low-income classes they come from, look like to trump. (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/trump-americans-who-died-at-war-are-losers-and-suckers/615997/) BUT—We the people, as long as we are organized and unified, and as long as we inspire each other and ourselves, will bring down this malignant tumor on two legs, along with his cadre of haters formulating the regime’s policies, and score a great defeat over fascism, just as our ancestors did in 1945. Stay safe, stay strong, and stay together! Slava Ukraini! Am Yisrael chai! Fuck Trump! America will be free! Bye!

The Mason Missile, April 22, 2025

Greetings, Americans! We have had a wonderful series of demonstrations throughout the nation, protesting the despotic-wannabe acts of Donald whatshisface. There were the April 5 “Hands Off!” demonstrations, meaning “hands off” Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans benefits, and other things low-income and working people need. All this is done, though trump’s buddy E-load, uh, Elon Musk, to cover for the tax breaks for billionaires, who can well afford to pay their fair share of taxes, relevant to their income, and they certainly won’t go around starving to death—unlike disabled veterans and retirees, who are just scraping by as it is. Another series of demonstrations are the “No Kings!” rallies throughout the country, on April 19, to protest trump’s attempts as dictatorship. I have no doubt April 19 was selected deliberately, since that would be 250th anniversary of the start of the American War of Independence (not Independence Day itself), when, on April 18, 1775, Paul Revere rode through the countryside after receiving the signal at the Old North Church in Boston that the British forces would attack the local villages and seize the colonists’ leaders, muskets and powder, local militia and a unit called the Minute Men assembled to fight the British force, with “the shot heard ‘round the world,” on April 19. (https://www.battlefields.org/learn/revolutionary-war/battles/lexington-and-concord) (https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/paul-revere?ms=googlepaid) (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45870/concord-hymn) On April 9, 1865, 160 years ago this month, General Robert E. Lee, of the Confederate States of America, surrendered his forces to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, officially ending the American Civil War, and ending a regime dedicated solely to maintaining the enslavement of African-descended people, so that a wealthy planter aristocracy can live in luxury and pretend it was European nobility. (https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/april-9/robert-e-lee-surrenders) That is a suitable fact, which I believe is relevant, since the disciples of trump are trying to reestablish something like the Confederacy in this era, to repress the advancement of workers, women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people. This drive from the trump gang—I won’t dignify it with the title “administration”—stems from the drive of a madman (like certain others in history) to destroy any checks on the President’s powers, who has grandiose visions of conquest (Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal), who seeks to emulate such despots as Putin, Xi, and Orban—and hitting the streets to stand up to him and his brood of vipers. There has been a danger of certain elements of our “civil society,” that non-governmental sector of institutions that are to put a check to state power, would submit to trump’s demands (such as removing all programs that look to him like the dreaded DEI-Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) from their texts and libraries. Harvard University has grown a spine and stood up to the regime’s demand that it monitor the student body and the courses the university teaches. The regime says it’s trying to weed out anything “anti-American,” however THEY interpret those terms. Bravo, Harvard! (https://www.harvard.edu/president/news/2025/the-promise-of-american-higher-education/) (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/harvard-stand-against-trump-rcna201322) Now, the “Big 10” universities have banded together to form a “mutual defense compact” to fight off any attacks from the regime, including Penn State and Rutgers. (I hope Temple gets in on this.) This shows that banding together in solidarity is how you fight fascism. (https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/campus/2025/04/18/big-ten-mutual-defense-compact-michigan-state-university-trump-administration/83158081007/) (https://thehill.com/homenews/education/5255943-big-10-universities-trump-rutgers-nebraska-michigan-state/) (https://senate.rutgers.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Resolution-to-Establish-a-Mutual-Defense-Compact-for-the-Universities-of-the-Big-Ten-Academic-Alliance-in-Defense-of-Academic-Freedom-Institutional-Integrity-and-the-Research.pdf) I’m always trying to get the news out about any activity standing up to trump and all he stands for, such as soaking working people and other low-income people of their money and labor, enriching the already obesely rich, perpetuating hatred against formerly disempowered people, and raising hatred against dark-skinned people. I’m trying to show that we’re not alone, other like-minded people are banding together and standing up to this regime. I urge you to take part in this work, in your home area, and make our voices heard. We CAN do it, Americans. Stay safe, stay strong, and stay together! Slava Ukraini! Am Yisrael Chai! Fuck trump AND musk! America will be free! Bye!

The Mason Moment, April 7, 2025

I speak about the Hands Off! rallies throughout the country on Saturday.

The Mason Missile, March 26, 2025

Greetings, Americans! Recently I had to go to the VA Medical Center in Philadelphia for some chest pains; it turned out I had a blocked artery. I was transferred to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) (https://www.pennmedicine.org/) and I received open heart surgery. I’m still in recovery mode, but I’m progressing beautifully with my healing; I thank the doctors, nurses, and other staff at the VA and HUP for saving my life. All of this could have cost me a fortune, but it was all covered by Medicare Plans A and B—programs that Donald whatshisface, partnering with E-load, uh, Elon Musk, are hell-bent to destroy, along with Social Security, Medicaid, and the VA. This is all in the name of “cutting the federal deficit. Oh, really? In every Republican administration going back to Reagan, after they howl about the deficit during the campaign, they INCREASE the deficit, and talk about it like it’s no big thing, if they talk about it at all. Dick Cheney, Vice-President for George W. Bush, even said as much, “Deficits don’t matter.” (https://www.chicagotribune.com/2004/01/12/oneill-says-cheney-told-him-deficits-dont-matter/) If the Republicans were serious, they wouldn’t have passed the massive tax cuts in 2017; and promises, as always, were, “People will have more household income, it’ll create jobs, and the cuts will pay for themselves.” How long have I heard this? Yet none of these tax cuts for billionaires and mega-corporations have brought back any laid-off workers, or put one brick on top of another. This can’t last forever; it’s only continuing the gap between workers and employers, and working people need to pay their bills and their mortgages, put gas in the car, and buy groceries. It MIGHT reach a point where workers can’t pay for their necessities, and there’s the danger, like NOW, the corporate handmaidens of the plutocracy would get their hands on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and veterans’ benefits, money from and for people who workers several decades, and desire a healthy, comfortable retirement. (https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/the-2017-trump-tax-law-was-skewed-to-the-rich-expensive-and-failed-to-deliver) These corporate oligarchs, like Musk and the others, aren’t any wiser or brilliant or far-seeing than the rest of us; they simply have a remarkable load of money for which to buy things, because they can. With Musk, it has been Tesla, SpaceX, and X (nee Twitter); for Jeff Bezos, it was Amazon, the Washington Post, Whole Foods, and MGM Studios. Other people developed these firms, and the technology that goes into them. Like SOOO many billionaires, Musk and Bezos got rich off the labor and brain-work of others. I always look forward to signs of resistance against the Trump-Musk regime, either in the courts, in town halls with people confronting their Congress-members, piling into the streets in demonstrations. That’s what we need more of—more in-your-face street heat, to make sure our voices are heard. I always wonder, “Is our message getting through, do our mis-leaders know how angry we are at how they’re attacking us, and we won’t take it? Are they so locked in their mental bunkers that they think we’ll just sit back and take it, that we don’t matter?” And I hear the term, “We’ll go down fighting,” as if we’ve lost beforehand. The stakes are too damn high to give up on resisting the Trump-Must-Project 2025 agenda of crushing the working class. It’s good for US as we hit the bricks, speak up for ourselves, and know that we’re not alone, that we’re not powerless, and we CAN affect some positive change. There are great videos out of massive demonstration and marches in Turkey, Serbia, Hungary, and Georgia (the former Soviet republic) of people calling for the end of their corrupt, autocratic regimes. Let them be an example for us, and let’s be an example to the world of a people dedicated to freedom and justice. Stay safe, stay strong, and stay together! Slava Ukraini! Am Yisrael Chai! Fuck Trump! Fuck Musk! America will be free! Bye!

The Mason Moment, March 24, 2025

I speak about the protests against Elon Musk and Tesla, and of the mass demonstrations against authoritarian regimes throughout the world.