Chip Dipper and I'm Concerned
The pups and I have been getting in lots of miles walking in our neighborhood and beyond. For now, we're averaging about 4 miles (6.4 km) a day, with 2 miles in the morning and 2 in the evening. Once the cooler weather sets in, we'll walk less. It's good therapy for my knee's rehab.
Like many others here and abroad, I'm saddened by what I'm witnessing happening to our country. We're being ruled by people who, at their core, are white supremacists. They've formed the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement by co-opting, to a large degree, the Christian church and have launched a Christian nationalist agenda using the Evangelical Church as its springboard. What's disturbing about it is the unholy alliance between the church and the tech-world billionaire class, who will fund their movement to a degree that may be hard to counter.
What is the most unnerving part of all of this is the understanding that the MAGA movement is absolutely sure that their god is on their side, so there is no need to do any amount of self-reflection to see if maybe they're not seeing a larger picture, one with at least a measure of kindness.
I know this is going to sound harsh to some of you, but I don't know how else to say any of this.
Daily, we're witnessing neighborhoods being terrorized by roaming bands of masked ICE agents in full riot gear, snatching people off the streets, out of their cars, and out of their homes in front of family and friends, with no regard given to the dignity of the people they're stealing away. ICE agents are staking out courtrooms and snatching people as they show up for immigration hearings. Their current focus is on people of Hispanic origin, but they show little hesitation in arresting anyone who looks at them wrongly.
A minister on a street in Chicago last week had his arms outstretched in prayer, facing three ICE officers on the rooftop above with weapons pointed at the protesters below. They shot him in the head with some sort of non-lethal round, sending him to his knees in pain. What in the actual fuck is happening? Are your churches talking about this and condemning it? If not, find one that is. There is no Jesus in the ideology of what is driving these people, although they mention Jesus a lot. And smile.
I look at the masked ICE agents and I see mostly angry white men hopped up on hard-right propaganda, looking at those undesireables and seeing them, not as people in need of apprehension, but as the enemy.
If you can, please try to imagine yourself in the shoes of those being targeted, having only ever known this country as home and English as your language, being deported to a place you've never been to and where you don’t speak the language and have no one to help you. It's genuinely frightening to spend a little time contemplating that scenario, but we owe it to ourselves to do just that—because it's happening.
And to be sure: this is Fascism. Please know that.
I watched an interview with Tim Miller from The Bulwark, where he interviews a man named George Retes, who was wrongly arrested and held for days without contact with his family or an attorney. George is a US citizen who served in the US military. And yet they dragged him out of his car as he was on his way to work and hauled him away. They abused him and disrespected him in a most un-American way. It's a little long, but give it a few minutes if you can. Here's the link.
At the root of all this is Trump's desire to create a conflict so significant that he must assume total control. That's been clear for a while. So far, cooler heads have prevailed among those being targeted and those protesting. But there may come a point when someone reacts violently, triggering panic or an incident, giving Trump what he's been after: an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act. It's bound to happen.
I don't know where we go from here, but it won't be good. I'm generally an optimist, but not now. I'm not in any way defeated, but I am greatly concerned. Our democracy hangs in the balance. If you're not seeing that, I would love to chat with you.
There is a march this Saturday called the No Kings rally. Tammy and I will likely be riding the light rail to the Capitol in St. Paul. Please consider attending a rally near you. They need to see that you care and that you will raise your voice in opposition to what they're doing. This is a critical point in our nation's history. You want to be able to look back and say that you got involved. Somehow.
This is a good piece from Heather Cox Richardson today about the origins of Columbus Day.
That's all I've got.
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