Bearing Witness

 Brandon Friedman wrote an important thread about what we do now. Here it is in full:

"This is a German woman being marched past the bodies of Holocaust victims. After World War II, it was common refrain among German civilians: They just didn't know. For that reason, many were forced by Allied troops to bear witness. Like this. 

I bring this up because fascism is now here, in America. 

If you're thinking, "but it doesn't feel like fascism, nothing in my life seems amiss," then congratulations, you have discovered what fascism is like. 

For nearly everyone, life will go on, as it did for most Germans. Prices may be higher, but birthday parties, vacations, and jobs will continue. You won't notice much, as the peopel being disappeared and targeted will come largely from vulnerable demographics or those without connections. Like transgender people. Immigrants. Students. Minorities.

And while you may care, it will be easy for your friends and family to avoid the horrible headlines. At dinner, they'll talk about more pleasant topics. They'll pretend it's not happening. They'll even deny knowing about it, like Germans. 

For a while, at least. Until the sound of the guns gets close enough to feel. 

And then, after it's over, when the fascists have once again been steamrolled like the Nazis and their Confederate forebears, they'll get to march past the bodies. Just like the good Germans who were forced at gunpoint to acknowledge what had been done in their names after World War II.

But this doesn't have to happen. Force people in your life to pay attention, now, instead. Make them face it and end this quickly, before that first shot is ever fired. 

These are not normal times, and it's going to require more from everyone. It will be uncomfortable. But it's better than the alternative. 

Don't let anyone you know say they don't know."

This may have been in response to masked Ice agents taking a Tufts University student, Rumeysa Ozturk, right off the sidewalk in Somerville, Massachusetts on Tuesday (video here) and transporting her to some detainment facility in Louisiana, over 2,500 km away. The US appears to be using the same legal loophole they used to arrest Mahmoud Khalil: they're non-citizens. Ozturk is on a student visa, so apparently anyone in the US on a visa should be prepared to be captured at any minute! Ozturk's "crime" was co-writing a letter in the student newspaper that calls out how "inadequate and dismissive" the school has been around student calls for a ceasefire. 

"While an argument may be made that the University should not take political stances and should focus on research and intellectual exchange, the automatic rejection, dismissive nature and condescending tone in the University's statement have caused us to question whether the University is indeed taking a stand against its own declared commitments to free speech, assembly and democratic expression. ... The 'systemic changes' that the collective voice of the student body is calling for are for the University to end its complicity with Israel insofar as it is oppressing the Palestinian people and denying their right to self-determination -- a right that is guaranteed by international law. These strong lobbying tools are all the more urgent now given the order by the International Court of Justice confirming that the Palestinian people of Gaza's rights under the Genocide Convention are under a 'plausible' risk of being breached. 

This collective student voice is not without precedent. Today, the University may remember with pride its decision in February 1989 to divest from South Africa under apartheid and end its complicity with the then-racist regime. However, we must remember that the University divested up to 11 years after some of its peers." 

You'd think some of the best universities in the country would be early adopters of human rights issues, but Tufts appears to fit the "laggards" category. Maybe by 2036 they'll realize that there was, in fact, a genocide in Gaza, if there's anything left of it by then.  

And then Homeland Security head Kristie Noem thought it wise to shoot a video, wearing a $60,000 gold watch, in front of dozens of men who were taking from the states to be shaved and imprisoned and held in El Salvador, and at least some if not all of the men appear to be horribly and wrongly imprisoned. Like Frengel Reyes Mota, who was in the middle of negotiating his asylum case, or Neri Alvarado Borges who has a tattoo that says "family" another says "brothers, and a third is the rainbow-ribbon of the autism acceptance movement in honour of his younger brother. There are other articles that suggest that, for many, having tattoos is their only crime as if it prove a gang affiliation.   

Charlie Angus posted about Noem: 

"This is the face of evil. It is about making Americans used to images of abuse. Get set for the abuse and the crimes against the people to ramp up to more excess. This is the fascist playbook."

She's the one who Obama's adviser called "Jeffrey Dahmer with veneers" when she wrote about killing her 14 month old dog, Cricket, for her own inability to train the dog. There's a word that gets used for people who would kill a dog instead of rehousing them with a better trainer. Now she's in charge.

ETA: Some online are suggesting these men are "enemy combatants" being detained in a concentration camp, and the photo using them as props violates the Geneva Convention's prohibition of "exposure to public curiosity" of these captured.

I am covered in tattoos! I'm not worried for my own safety because I'm still Canadian (for as long as we can keep up the fight), and I'm a middle aged white woman. But my own safety isn't enough. Young men and women should not be carted away without a thorough criminal investigation. We're all innocent until proven guilty. Right!?!  We can't live with this level of atrocity right next door.  

Time for some Toni Morrison (at 21 min) to remind us not to become complacent to what's going on. She was shocked about white mothers who could spit on a child, who had given up themselves to be nasty, and referred to them as true victims of history. 

"I insist on being shocked. I am never going to become immune. I think that's a kind of failure to see so much of it that you died inside. I want to be surprised and shocked every time."