{"id":39296,"date":"2026-03-30T11:17:43","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T09:17:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=39296"},"modified":"2026-03-30T13:29:53","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T11:29:53","slug":"no-kings-rally-what-difference-does-it-make","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=39296","title":{"rendered":"No Kings Rally: What Difference Does It Make?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION .<\/p>\n

An analysis received by email at CPNN from Pace e Bene<\/p>\n

Today [March 28] millions of us will pour into the streets to respond with nonviolent action to the nation\u2019s deepening emergency. From coast to coast, we\u2019ll join hands with our neighbors to confront the conflagration of hate, fear and violence that threatens to keep burning out of control, with its blaze currently spreading across the Middle East and throughout the United States.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rather than fighting fire with fire, we\u2019ll be a national bucket brigade bringing the waters of compassion and determination and nonviolence to contribute to dousing the flames. Stopping this destruction emanating from the White House will take many steps, but this nationwide mobilization will play an important role in generating and accelerating the people-power needed for durable change.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, though, we might wonder, \u201cWhat difference does this action make?\u201d<\/p>\n

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Some of the people who converged on Washington, DC for The Mobilization in November of 1969 to protest the Vietnam War wondered this, too. As the second of two large demonstrations that autumn comprising what the anti-war movement called The Moratorium, some 500,000 people marched past the White House \u2013 yet\u00a0 the war continued.\u00a0 On the surface it didn\u2019t seem to make one bit of difference.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What the protesters didn\u2019t know was that President Nixon watched the march from his office and, when the last protester got on the last bus to go home, he turned to his aide and said he couldn\u2019t do what he had threatened to do\u2013use nuclear weapons on North Vietnam.\u00a0 “Why?\u201d his aide asked.\u00a0 \u201cThe American people just told me,\u201d the president answered.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Question related to this article:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
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Where in the world can we find good leadership today?<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

(article continued from left column)<\/p>\n

As Ken Butigan explains in Waging Nonviolence<\/a>: <\/p>\n

\u201cHistorian and journalist Garrett M. Graff has recounted <\/a> the intricate details of how the Nixon administration signaled how it was preparing to wreak nuclear destruction on the North. It gave its adversary a deadline of Nov. 1, 1969. \u2026 On Oct. 26, bombers armed with nuclear weapons were launched and ordered to orbit over Alaska. \u201cFor three days, nuclear-armed B-52s tested the Soviet defenses, dancing around the edges of the country with their deadly arsenals in a display more provocative than perhaps any since the Cuban Missile Crisis\u2026And then the whole thing stopped \u2014 as seemingly abruptly as it had started,\u201d Graff writes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What Graff does not report is why this threat was lifted. As anti-Vietnam War organizer and author Robert Levering has noted<\/a>, Nixon\u2019s Nov. 1 ultimatum fell between the two major antiwar demonstrations. “When Nixon learned from CIA infiltrators that the Moratorium was ‘shaping up to be the most widely-supported public action in American history,’ he saw trouble ahead,” Levering explained. “As Nixon later wrote, he saw that ‘the only chance for my ultimatum to succeed was to convince the Communists that I could depend on solid support at home if they decided to call my bluff.\u2019”<\/p>\n

That support did not materialize. With more than two million taking part in the Moratorium, and over half-million flooding the nation\u2019s capital a month later for the Mobilization, “the size and breadth of both the October and November protests surpassed the organizers\u2019 most grandiose expectations,\u201d Levering continued. The evidence suggests that the president jettisoned his threat to use nuclear weapons because of this immense outpouring of nonviolent dissent.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know what the impacts of today\u2019s nationwide mobilization will be.\u00a0 We know that concerted nonviolent action five decades ago apparently prevented an incalculably horrific escalation of an already gruesome war.\u00a0 We also know that most of the protesters at the time did not realize that they had made this possible, since most of this story did not come out until 15 years later.<\/p>\n

We take nonviolent action because it is necessary.\u00a0 But we also know that, thanks to the growing study of movements\u2014like the one that was built during the Vietnam war\u2014we have more power, and more impacts, than we think.\u00a0 May this be the case today.<\/p>\n

Onward!<\/p>\n

Stacie, Rivera, Layal, Shaina, Rosie, Mili, Erin, Ken, and the entire Pace e Bene community<\/p>\n

– – – – – –<\/p>\n

If you wish to make a comment on this article, you may write to coordinator@cpnn-world.org with the title “Comment on (name of article)” and we will put your comment on line. Because of the flood of spam, we have discontinued the direct application of comments.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION . An analysis received by email at CPNN from Pace e Bene Today [March 28] millions of us will pour into the streets to respond with nonviolent action to the nation\u2019s deepening emergency. From coast to coast, we\u2019ll join hands with our neighbors to confront the conflagration of hate, fear and … Continue reading No Kings Rally: What Difference Does It Make?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,91],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-39296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-information","category-north-america","tag-north-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39296"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39301,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39296\/revisions\/39301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}