Our country has not been this divided since, possibly, the slavery issue, and forget Watergate for fully bothering your conscience. And today, maybe, for seeing even moreso seething tensions, resulting at times in death. When you look at all the stories coming forward.
And my metropolitan area continues to be ground zero with, I gotta say, the conservatives squatting another lemon and Bruce Springsteen penning an anti-ICE song just for our pleasure, and its performance here. So as The Boss has said, there will be such protests written, by scribes like me, “when the times call for it.” Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine is joining the gig on guitar, protesting the force used by police like in his earlier critically acclaimed work, for the Pretti/Good of all of us. Ironically, one called “Killin’ in the name of …” God?!?
Hey, putting a gun in a young and untrained, hyped-up ICE agent’s hands is about as good an idea as asking the Hell Angels to do security at a Rolling Stones concert. (Yes their management asked them to do that way back in the day, and the result was a near riot.)
Today, ICE dominates the political and cultural (rougher than Rockies terrain) landscape. Like never been seen since the glacier ages. Lots of crags.
They are ripping the likes of journalist Don Lemon apart, by charging him with “obstructing” people trying to leave a St. Paul church, by stopping them and subjecting them to facts about the immigration crisis — and it is that, not a conflict — after their pastor was accused of being an ICE director.
Would you get a load of that latest sermon? (What there’s been one since?) Hell and brimstone? St. Peter would say forget it man, and press that trap door with a chute beneath, and no clouds as a buffer for where you will land. No purgatory. The constraining doctrine of this church does not allow for that.
OK, I was not there, but I know how the most overtly rigid churches and conservatives are, and they see things in absolutes. I also know professionally and personally how bad some cops are in writing accurate reports. Something like “obstructing” at a church is as vague as “dragging” behind a vehicle, which is likely why a first proposed criminal complaint against Lemon was dropped much more quickly then courts usually move, as have been all charges, to the time this was written. How many inches do you have to lean toward an individual to “obstruct” them? Just how long are you allowed to linger there until being like a pastor saying, nice to see you again, and hope I’ll have the pleasure again soon, and get a last donation before you’re deported. Sorry, I couldn’t resist, and yes I lean liberal, unlike the Bible-fearing-in-a-literal-interpretation-way church where the incident took place. They claim to follow Jesus, scrupulously, but the backing rhetoric is very vague. And to be members, people are required to sign-off to following a set of rules that resemble canon law.
“So squeeze my lemon, until the juice runs down my leg,” sarcastically sayeth Led Zeppelin. But this is serious folks.
Also, a Q and A
Next question, again getting around to money: What happens to assets and property held by people seized and deported by ICE. Are these merely just taken by the US government? Are they allowed to gather their belongings before they are cordoned away? And what happens to them then? Will they ever see the daylight again in the future, for even a court hearing? Or do these people just disappear? I don’t see much written court mention of actual convictions and sentencings and such.
And even if they are documented and carrying a green card, how do they scrounge by if they become disabled? Die on the street? We know how Trump views those with legs less able than his own privileged wobbly ones.
I watched a locally-shot doorbell video of a seemingly normal everyday American (note that word) family scrambling to quickly get inside with their six-month-old as ICE agents closed in. They did so slowly, they weren’t even very good at it. These guys and gals basically look like they could use some fitness training. They are often, I’ll say it, obese, at least along the lines of many a general! We today live in an age where overt ICE thugs, though many times if-not-for-a-big-vested-suit overweight enough that this’ll be the only way they could emulate the ancient SS, still holding sway with their intimidation and fear, is being led by a president grasping to hold onto sanity and gone mad with power, as everyone stands, or cowers, afraid to challenge him. You think Putin is out of control? At least he is savvy. But he’s losing it too. Seems to be a lot of that going around.
But hey I gotta say, the first man still has it, as far as getting certain things done. That’s what a frequent power dose of aspirin, and a little golf will do yah. And Trump, through going do-se-do back and forth, does show a knack for the art of the deal. But you must ask, does he ever (give it a) rest? (Like ICE, Trump’s always on the case, it seems, never rusts.) Except of course, during cabinet meetings. Get in a quick power nap. Noem is boring though brutal.
Unlike those ICE agents, who are rumbling and tumbling not only through back bar kitchens, but the neighborhoods at night. I ask like Neil Young, does peeping ICE ever sleep? No, those new Hispanic hires, since there are a lot of them — so drawing plenty of criticism — are too busy turning on their own. And maybe turning them in.
Have you seen just what these new ICE agents make? Much more than as a fry cook. Almost makes you adhere to why they become cold as ICE, having sold their soul for a hefty and quick paycheck and also pension. Oh you conservatives who finagle over every penny, who do you think is paying for all their salaries? Think about the cause, and impact, and implications, of all of the above.
The targeted population themselves constitutes what, the population of Minnesconsin, with maybe Iowa thrown in, spread out over all 50 states. ICE is running roughshod all over the (urban and at times beyond) countryside to gather up this relatively few people.
Don’t be mean to Trump and ICE, you say. OK, a point to be made. Nobody likes to be spit on, as alleged, although except for spreading disease through a visor, a little water never hurt anyone.
However, if there ever were to be two groups, or people, who could be defined as despicable, these are they. And they are real, Snidely Whiplash was just a cartoon character.
This has been written, at great length, what (little) an ICE agent has to endure …
Hey, a snowball is thrown at you. When you’re in riot gear? Hey, I’ve been hit by one many times, even an icy kind. Didn’t really hurt, shrugged it off and went on my way. Maybe in a light fall jacket even, not full parka.
A nice little ol’ snowball fight used to be how we, unfortunately just mostly as kids, had fun. This makes me think of Minnesota National Guard members, and how they’d hand out hot sandwiches and coffee or hot chocolate — the latter are likely to be warmer than the former — to protesters. Hand half of yours to an ICE agent, as a sign of good will? Or, should we, would we, or could we, invite ICE officers to a good-natured snowball fight? Just to pass the time. After all, at the core, they are people too. (Check out the music video Christmas Truce by soft-metal band Sabaton, for a history and true-story Xmas lesson that’s inspiring, if you take it through to the end. Of how the Nazis — the older not current kind — took a challenge and broke bread with the Allied lines a stone or grenade’s throw away, and called a truce on Christmas Eve and even played soccer together, before going at it again once Xmas passed. I’m not sure what they did the day of …)
So an answer. And it’s from The Boss: Just don’t shoot anyone, for any reason other than what a civilian would normally have. Use nominal alternative means.
And what are such means?
His music. The new song, the gritty in a lighter than it could have been way, Streets of Minneapolis, speaks for itself, as does the look of anger and frustration on Springsteen’s face. I will point out a few things in the video’s footage. The street scenes show a lot of people, mostly ICE agents, pushing and shoving, but no one being, say, hit by a billy club. One ICE agent even points at a specific area before tossing his chemical irritant, subject to interpretation and maybe he’s singling someout out for abuse, but it almost looks like he’s giving people a last chance to clear out. However, another vignette, or two, shows an agent not only tackling someone, but using the force of his body to drive them into the ground.
So Fox …
But hey, this is their answer to everything, the GOP and especially MAGA that is: It’s fake news. Is everything fake news? And music? And quicksand? You look at all the different new outlets out there, and except for FOX News, (which is a very incredulous credenza of non-credibility), and maybe one other one a source of mine found, and they mostly agree that Trump is the biggest political embarrassment in, probably, the history of the country! Can all the news be wrong? Especially pertinent since the monied MAGA moguls have bought out all the outlets. Like to be that editor? The only worse job is being Trump’s press secretary.
Maybe instead use your writing skills in this way.
Another song lyric, as maybe it’s time to turn the tables:
If Chris Cornell were alive today
No telling what he’d say
Or write as a song lyric
Lord knows, I’d wanna hear it
As Miller and Noem’s subjective lies
Should be subjected to the booted cries.
Hmm … Maybe that’s more like from Frampton Comes Alive. Do you feel like we do?
That’s true.