Last week I joined a local rally in solidarity with the general strike in Minnesota that protested the ICE occupation, an occupation that had resulted in numerous kidnappings of law-abiding immigrants, many with green cards and other legal status, and the murder of Renee Nicole Good. The regime’s occupation army responded by executing another protestor, Alex Pretti, on the street the following morning.
As a result, pro-democracy dissidents have called another general strike for today, one that encompasses the entire country. I have joined this general strike. If you’re trying to reach me today, I will get back to you tomorrow or Monday. The general strike means no work, no shopping, and no school.
Besides updating my blog to address the general strike, I am contacting my elected officials to cut the funding for ICE and to demand the resignations of officials directing their brutal occupations around the country. These officials include not only Greg Bovino (who has not been fired as some believe but merely demoted and reassigned to a post in California) but also DHS director Kristi Noem and Bonino’s replacement Tom Homan, who is accused as well of taking $50,000 bribes delivered in takeout food bags but will never face consequences under this regime. Once again, Wilholt’s Law: “There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
I am also contacting corporations with which I’ve done business in the past and which have shown too much willingness to collaborate with the regime. For instance, Amazon is laying off 16,000 employees in the midst of a brutal job market; the the company needs their wages and salaries to compensate for the $80 million it has spent on the Melania documentary that will be lucky to reach a tenth of that amount in rental fees and ticket sales. Target (and many other companies) is backpedaling on diversity initiatives to the point of discriminating against women and people of color in favor of less qualified white males. I’ve seen that pattern recently in my own dealings with some large corporations and miss the care and competence I’d previously enjoyed with their more diverse workforce. In both nature and human communities, diversity is strength.
One of my New Year’s resolutions for 2025 was not obeying in advance. After a year, that advice from scholar of fascism Timothy Snyder, comes down to not obeying at all. When an authoritarian regime begins to consolidate power, it’s easy to slip into accommodation, to justify each new restriction as needed for national security or reducing crime or getting rid of the too-extreme positions of the opposition (like diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, or allowing trans people to live their lives). In an earlier post, I reviewed a republished book, Kathrine Kressman Taylor’s 1930s novella Address Unknown, about co-owners of an art gallery, one who stays in San Francisco and the other who returns to his native Germany on the eve of Hitler’s ascension to power. The one who returns, Martin, goes from laughing at Hitler’s ridiculous positions to justifying all of them, one by one, until he turns into a committed Nazi who turns Jews over to their executioners.
Despotic regimes push people into becoming rah-rah supporters. Many of them are true believers from the beginning, while others, like Martin in Address Unknown, become convinced due to the nonstop propaganda. But there are others who know what they’re doing is wrong and false, repeating what they know are lies and going along with policies that offend their moral beliefs, because they fear the consequences. This is what dissident playwright and activist Václav Havel called “living within a lie.” In his essay, “The Power of the Powerless,” he cites an example:
The manager of a fruit-and-vegetable shop places in his window, among the onions and carrots, the slogan: “Workers of the world, unite!” Why does he do it? What is he trying to communicate to the world? Is he genuinely enthusiastic about the idea of unity among the workers of the world? Is his enthusiasm so great that he feels an irrepressible impulse to acquaint the public with his ideals? Has he really given more than a moment’s thought to how such a unification might occur and what it would mean?
I think it can safely be assumed that the overwhelming majority of shopkeepers never think about the slogans they put in their windows, nor do they use them to express their real opinions. That poster was delivered to our greengrocer from the enterprise headquarters along with the onions and carrots. He put them all into the window simply because it has been done that way for years, because everyone does it, and because that is the way it has to be. If he were to refuse, there could be trouble. He could be reproached for not having the proper decoration in his window; someone might even accuse him of disloyalty. He does it because these things must be done if one is to get along in life. It is one of the thousands of details that guarantee him a relatively tranquil life “in harmony with society,” as they say.
Havel wrote these words in Czechoslovakia in 1978, one year after he and other intellectuals behind the Iron Curtain signed the Charter 77 document calling for human rights and freedom of speech in their country. He dedicated his essay to co-signer Jan Patočka, a prominent philosopher who died days after being arrested and tortured by the regime. Havel himself went to prison for his words and barely survived his ordeal.
I applaud the courage of the people of Minnesota and everyone else who has raised their voices against this assault on our democracy in this 250th anniversary year of our revolution against a king. May this 250th year be the one in which we bring down another would-be king.
Save the date: The next nationwide No Kings! rally will take place on Saturday, March 28.
