What’s at stake here cannot be overstated. Day by day, Trump is working to turn our country into a police state.
Day by day, he must be stopped.
Snapshot: my elder daughter Natalie, who lives in Los Angeles, told us that she and her husband Chris joined the demonstrators last Sunday afternoon, when things were really heating up in the streets.
But what they saw was not what you’re seeing on TV. No burning vehicles. No rock throwing. No looting.
“It was awesome, it was great,” she reported. “People were helping each other out, handing out water and gas masks. The cops were immediately shooting tear gas. We didn’t get gassed but you could smell it.
“This whole thing started because ICE agents were kidnapping people off the streets,” she said. “They’re targeting graduations, grabbing families and kids. Teachers are patrolling outside of schools to try to keep ICE from going in.”
“It’s inspiring,” Natalie said of how Los Angelenos are coming together to fight Trump and his troops. “These are OUR streets. They can’t come in and scare us.”
She said the people of L.A. are showing the rest of the country how to resist. And indeed, that resistance is becoming a nationwide movement. Because ICE is everywhere.
Look for the small but important acts of kindness. Not vehicles on fire. A case in point: Natalie and Chris saw one of those Waymo (driverless) taxis drive right into the protest because it’s a computer car and didn’t know what was happening. It shut itself down in the middle of an angry crowd.
“People were spray painting ‘Fuck ICE’ on it and jumping on top of the car,” Natalie said. “And then people realized there was a passenger in the car who didn’t know how to get out. So the crowd helped her to get out of the car as a guy is smashing the windshield. She was just this tourist from Liverpool who’d never been to L.A. and was trying to do some sight-seeing.”
Natalie and Chris walked her to the train station and made sure she was OK.
Item: our government officials estimate it will cost about $134 million (of OUR money) to keep at least 2,000 members of the National Guard and 700 U.S. Marines in L.A. for an extended period.
Item: The L.A. Press Club says there were at least 24 documented cases of journalists being targeted by law enforcement while covering the protests from June 6-8. Multiple media workers reported being shot by police with less-than-lethal munitions.
Snapshot: Kevin Rosero Moreno was supposed to receive his degree at Maloney High School in Meriden, CT this week. But he couldn’t be there — a couple of days before the ceremony Kevin and his father were taken into custody by ICE agents during an immigration hearing in Hartford. Kevin was wrestled to the ground by the agents, who used a stun gun to subdue him. Both he and his father are being held at a detention center in Texas.
Kevin’s family issued this statement: “We feel sad because Kevin could not be at his graduation. Kevin was enamored with the idea of graduating. He was so looking forward to it. Our heart hurts a lot because we did not think this tragedy would happen. This day was so special to him, but ICE took him away. The only remnants of his hard work are his graduation clothes that remain in his room.”
Snapshot: In my hometown, New Haven, ICE agents wearing ski masks on Monday used four unmarked vehicles to box in a mother, arrest her and take her away in front of her weeping 13-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son.
“The pain you’re putting families through — I wish you would consider what you’re doing to our family,” the daughter said in a message to ICE during a protest rally Wednesday in downtown New Haven.
“I need my mother back home,” she said. “She’s a very special person in my life. She’s the mother who gave me life to this world, who helps me through thick and thin. She’s always working so hard to get what me and my brother want. I would understand if they were doing something illegal but my mom is one of the victims.”
Her mother works in a factory. At least, she used to.
“I’m only13,” her daughter said. “We just need our mom back. We need her here in America.”
Snapshot: CNN this week has broadcast a cellphone video showing federal agents chasing down frantic farm workers in California.
But Trump of course wants to celebrate himself and his illegal use of the military. Tomorrow, on his 79th birthday, he has ordered a massive show of weaponry in a Washington, D.C. parade. There will be 6,700 soldiers on the march; 28 tanks; 28 armored personnel carriers; 50 helicopters, etc.
The cost (OUR money): an estimated $25 million to $45 million. It’s ostensibly a birthday party for the U.S. Army’s 250th birthday. But it’s really all about Trump celebrating himself and his fascist policies.
We must speak out, especially tomorrow. There will be “No King” protests nationwide. In Connecticut at least 30 cities and towns will have such events. I’ll be on the New Haven Green with my wife, friends, neighbors and many others, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Find a protest near you and GO.
CNN last Saturday night broadcast the play “Good Night, and Good Luck” live from Broadway. It couldn’t have been more timely — a dramatization of how the fear monger and chronic liar Sen. Joseph McCarthy was finally brought down in public disgrace after brave Americans, including CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow, spoke out against him.
George Clooney, portraying Murrow, closed the production by facing the audience and asking us: “What are you going to do about it?”
What is your answer?
I have committed to being at an outdoor painting event, but am preparing a NO KINGS lawn sign. This will, of course, be the tipping point for the entire movement, and the modern gestapo will fold like a bad hand of bridge.
I question what the momentum is beyond people walking down Chapel with signs. That was cool, but now what?