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.

The Mason Moment, March 17, 2025

I speak about how the Senate Democratic leadership has been capitulating to trump, when we need more fightback.

The Mason Moment March 10, 2025

I speak about trump's tariff troubles with Canada and Mexico, and how they affect America's place in the world.

The John Mason Talk-Walk, February 21, 2025

The Mason Missile, January 26, 2025

Greetings, Americans! No, I did NOT watch the inauguration of whatshisface! I spent the day honoring the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., at a luncheon by the Philadelphia Martin Luther King Jr. Association For Nonviolence. I sat with other people involved in the Labor movement, another great vehicle for positive social change, as we come together to resist the trump agenda, which is pro-corporate, pro-billionaire, and anti-worker. How can we explain this? The fact that he cheated on his businesses, his taxes, his wives, and his golf; that he spired on a howling mob to ransack the Capitol to prevent the Electoral College count; that he FUCKED UP response to the murderous virus killing one and a half Americans; that he deferred to Putin in Helsinki, and refused to acknowledge Russian interference in the 2016 elections; who stole box loads of classified documents and put them in his glorified brothel; who sponsored a huge tax break for corporations and billionaires, which is the REAL driver of the deficit; who called neo-Nazis and white nationalists “good people” during the march in Charlottesville; who bragged that his celebrity status allows his no grab women by their lady parts; who constantly denied he lost the 2020 election fairly, and encouraged distrust in our elections system; who encouraged his followers to beat up his opponents; whose so-in-law and daughter used their White House connections to make an extra fortune from Chinese trademarks and the Saudi government—none of this prevented him from getting elected again to the most powerful office in the planet. Why, Americans, did this happen? I have no answers. We must look to the present, and realize his true agenda for this country, written down in Project 2025, the manifesto from the Heritage Foundation, outlining a reactionary dream list of all the advancements downtrodden people in this country have made to make “All men are created equal” apply to women, people of color, workers, low income people, and LGBTQ+ people—which they plan to destroy. In your “law and order” department, trump, who famously urged police officers (who later endorsed him) to rough-up suspects, has pardoned the maniacs involved in the January 6 riots, who tried to prevent the Electoral vote count certifying Joe Biden as President—you know, what trump calls a “day of love.” Many of those injured and killed were Capitol police officers. Now that these maniacs have been released—members of the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers (like their leader, Steward Rhodes), other white nationalist groups, and the guy with the “Camp Auschwitz” t-shirt—will reorganize and serve as an informal militia for trump, attacking those people trump tells them to hate. One example is Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon shaman,” the guy with the buffalo horns on his head, bragged he was out to “buy some motha f***in’ gun” after his release. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/aqnon-shaman-jacob-chansley-trump-pardon-b2683533.html) (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/stewart-rhodes-convicted-of-seditious-conspiracy-and-released-by-trump-visits-capitol-hill) (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-issues-sweeping-pardon-of-people-charged-with-crimes-in-jan-6-insurrection) These are trump’s monsters, and he’s releasing them on us. After settling in, trump has put out a flurry of executive orders, thinking he can nullify the Constitution on a whim, like all despots do. One such is the executive order to eliminate birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants, in violation of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which states, "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." this was passed at the end of the Civil War, guaranteeing citizenship for formerly enslaved people. This order would make the children of undocumented immigrants legal unpersons, with no rights to defend. trumps’ war on immigrants is on, and it’s hitting our communities; in Newark, ICE agents raided the Ocean City Depot, without a warrant, in a “routine operation,” including four women, and four men (One of whom was a citizen, and a veteran) who were employed at the depot. these were not criminals, but men trying to provide for their families. Moreover, the trump regime has given the green light to ICE to raid those facilities labeled “sensitive locations” where they previously would not raid, such as churches giving sanctuary to immigrants fleeing gang violence and political repression in their homelands. (They’re certainly NOT the criminal elements trump and company howl about.) (https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/ice-raid-sensitive-schools-churches-daycares/4084960/) (https://abc7ny.com/post/newark-ice-raids-mayor-ras-baraka-says-detainments-carried-city-producing-warrant/15831158/) (https://6abc.com/post/ice-raid-immigration-customs-enforcement-agents-detain-3-workers-ocean-seafood-depot-newark-new-jersey/15832377/) (https://www.fox29.com/news/ice-raid-in-newark-nj-raid-oceans-seafood-depot-new-jersey) (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/1/24/2298879/-Reign-of-terror-Trump-immigration-raid-blasted-for-targeting-veteran?pm_source=ICYMI&pm_campaign=ICYMI01242025) But take heart; a coalition of state attorneys-general filed a lawsuit in federal court to block the order; and a federal judge in Seattle, John Coughenour, issued a temporary block on its implementation. SO, is the HOPE for Constitutional law in this country? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-is-birthright-citizenship/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-birthright-citizenship-suit-states/?link_id=2&can_id=c6b214524e142a4cda41a3e4163755a6&source=email-gop-house-speaker-accidentally-gives-up-the-game-on-tv-3&email_referrer=email_2591282&email_subject=trump-smacked-with-massive-lawsuit-on-day-2 https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/federal-judge-temporarily-blocks-trumps-order-attempting-to-end-birthright-citizenship It’s only because of racism against non-white and non-European people that trump and his minions are raving about “criminal immigrants” and “secure the border” when talking about immigration; if the aforementioned immigrants were blond-haired, blue-eyed German, would trump scream so loudly? Of course not. Another area trump likes to brag about is how he would bring down, in a flash, the price of consumer goods, such as eggs. With the avian flu hitting many egg-laying chickens, the cost of a dozen eggs has risen, in some areas, to $7.00 a dozen, up from $2.25 a dozen—ever higher in some areas. I have NO confidence in trump doing anything constructive to deal with the avian flu. I remember how he DID NOT handle the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Other food items as beef, milk, and orange juice are expected to see similar spikes. (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/24/business/egg-shortage-prices.html) (https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/25/business/egg-prices-avian-flu-outbreak/index.html) I’m just scratching the surface of trump’s crimes on the American people so far. They just keep coming and coming. I would LOVE to hear news about resistance to trump’s stroke-of-a-pen assaults on our rights and on supposedly powerless former out groups. I would love to rea about news media that tell the REAL story about trump, and don’t worry about so-called “objectivity” or “both sides.” I would love to read about resistance to trump and all his mini-mes, in Congress, in the news, and in the streets. IF we don’t have such stories, if we DON’T make it impossible for trump to carry out his fascist-racist-plutocratic agenda, we’ll allow future generations to suffer poverty and repression for decades, and do we want THAT on our heads? American history is chock-full of stories of ongoing and fights for freedom, from the nation’s independence through the Labor struggles, the feminist fights, the Civil Rights movement, the LGBTQ+ movement, and struggles for the rights of Hispanic- and Native Americans, and we can’t allow trump’s terror to suppress those stories. Let’s tell those stories, and inspire ourselves to fight—and DEFEAT—Donald dumbfuck. We GOT this, Americans! Stay safe, stay strong, and stay together! Slava Ukraini! Am Yisrael chai! Fuck Trump! America will be free! Bye!

The Mason Moment, January 13, 2025

I speak about not dealing with trump's inauguration.

The Mason Moment, January 6, 2025

I speak about the history of the January 6 raid on the Capitol, and standing up to trump.