Category: Protests and Crackdowns

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Ethics in Government, media-general, Mindset, Peace and War, People Helping People, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Today should have been the joyous 250th anniversary of the world’s first modern-state democracy. (Yes, I know, the structure borrowed heavily from the  Haudenosaunee Confederacy.) Instead, it feels all-too-much like a family gathering at the bedside of someone on life support, someone who may not make it too much longer.

Democracy has taken such a beating in the year and a half since an open fascist, racist, sexist, anti-planet, convicted criminal, self-dealing monster—the greediest and cruelest president in history, a man who has used his office not for good but for personal enrichment and war against his perceived enemies that this anniversary feels like a deathbed watch. He so embodies all the reasons the Colonies left the paternalistic mix of oppression and protection provided by King George that Andy Borowitz wrote this updated Declaration of Independence. Here are the first three of his long list of grivances:

  • He has engaged in corrupt schemes to profit from his office, plunder the Treasury, and steal from the taxpayers.
  • He has desecrated the People’s House and the nation’s capital.
  • He has perverted the Department of Justice to take revenge on his perceived enemies.

But the patient—our democracy—while bleeding profusely and crying out in pain, is not dead. We are in charge of the miracle cure, and it’s called nonviolent resistance.

And this powerful and honorable tradition, which has brought down many governments and reformed many others, goes back thousands of years. The earliest documentation I know of is from Exodus 1:1-19, which tells the story of how the midwives Shifra and Puah disobeyed Pharaoh’s command to kill the Hebrew male babies, telling him that the women gave birth so fast, they couldn’t get there in time. Which is why, today, I chose to wear a t-shirt that proclaims, “Resisting Tyrants Since Pharaoh,” even though the protest march I planned to wear it to was canceled due to an extreme heat advisory.

In recent days, we’ve seen the impact of nonviolent resistance. We’ve seen the impact of mass protests like No Kings in the slow and grudging willingness to resist at least a few of T’s irrational and unconstitutional demands from both the Supreme Court and the Republican majorities in Congress—both of whom could have easily reined in T’s authoritarianism and attacks on democracy just by holding to the settled body of law, as they were more willing to do during his first term. It’s too little and too late, but it’s a sign that the voices of ordinary citizens are being heard even when those in power claim to ignore them.

We’ve also seen the impact of courageous individual actions taken at great personal risk, such as USAF Major Jason Watson, who has 23 honors and decorations in his long military career and was arrested on July 1, in uniform, for holding a sign saying “Impeach Convict Remove” on the steps of the US Capitol. His action could not only cost him his job (three years before retirement). He could also serve considerable prison time and forfeit his retirement pay. Fully aware of the consequences, he carried out the action anyway, in the long tradition of people like Daniel Ellsberg (who leaked the Pentagon Papers, vastly strengthening the peace movement during the Vietnam war) and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Also this week, we’ve had prosecutor Jack Smith finally talking about the cases against T that would have almost certainly resulted in another round of convictions had they been allowed to go to trial. Smith says openly and directly that he “will not be intimidated.” But if the treatment of James Comey, Leticia James, Mark Kelly, and others is any clue, it’s a pretty safe bet that he will be harassed in some powerful way by government stooges who act as if the First Amendment only applies to Trumpistas. The first link is to the video, the second, to a written summary.

These brave actions are perhaps even more important than the mass demonstrations—because they show raw courage and a willingness to sacrifice everything for what’s right. Many have died for these principles, both here in the US and elsewhere. To name four prominent non-US examples: Alexei Navalny in Russia, Salvador Allende in Chile,  Steve Biko in South Africa, Gandhi in India.

This is even more remarkable considering the level of repression this government has engaged in, including:

Yet, we persist. Millions of people in the US have participated in at least one No Kings march or at least one mass organizing call by a broad coalition of progressive groups (among them Public Citizen, MoveOn, Movement Voter Project, 50501, and several others) spearheaded by the Working Families Party. Voting turnouts are high, and many “safe Republican”seats have been switched. Numerous administration policies have been overturned or cancelled under public pressure, though not without doing substantial damage first. Activists from many groups have trained other activists in peaceful protest, nonviolent civil disobedience, finding levers to encourage noncooperation among the officials carrying out these brutal policies, and so much more.

And we have not only inspiration, such as the photos of protests around the country Robert Hubbell publishes daily in his Today’s Edition newsletter (usually a mix of sidewalk and park protests alongside “bridge brigades”displaying banners and signs from highway overpasses.

We also have road maps, such as…

  • An amazing list of 346 nonviolent tactics, the first 198 compiled by Gene Sharp in the pre-Internet, pre-Covid era, and another 148 compiled by Michael Beer of Nonviolence International. Personal note: I’ve been a fan of this list for years and have cited it several times. Two weeks ago, I got to meet Michael, chat with him as we hiked our neighborhood mountain, and have dinner with several others as we hosted a gathering for a mutual friend who was in from California. He told me he could have expanded the list again with many more tactics, but he wasn’t able to keep up with them.
  • The work of Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, especially Why Civil Resistance Works (Columbia University Press, 2011). This scholarly study compares the success of violent versus nonviolent struggles and provides evidence to explain why nonviolent ones have both a higher success record and, usually, more lasting effects. The above link takes you to the book’s page on Bookshop.org, where your purchase supports the independent bookstore of your choice, instead of the billionaire who continues to be one of T’s most prominent enablers in the second term. I believe in using our economic power to help accomplish our goals, so I avoid shopping at the world’s largest online store, just as I do most of my searching and much of my web browsing on Ecosia.org, a nonprofit which plants a tree for every search (and I think another tree for every tab opened on its browser).
  •  Chronicles of the current struggle, the history of resistance, and of people you may not have heard of but whose contributions matter. A few among dozens: Waging Nonviolence, Choose Democracy, Black Lives Matter, Rebecca Solnit, Heather Delaney Reese, Heather Cox Richardson, Jessica Craven, especially her Sunday Extra Extra good news roundup, the aforementioned Robert Hubbell (link is above), Black History Stories, A Mighty Girl (feminist history), Josh Helfgott (LGBT and political news), Moments from the Past (Black and general history)…
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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Diversity, Ethics in Government, People Helping People, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Social and Economic Justice, Uncategorized Tagged with , ,

I sent a shortened version that fit in their contact forms with a copy to my own delegation, but here’s the entire letter. If it inspires you to write your own letter, Jeffries has a separate contact form for non-constituents.

 

Dear Leader Schumer and Leader Jeffries:

Please encourage your caucuses to terminate ICE funding and abolish the agency. The US managed without ICE until 2003. Democrats should be demanding to abolish it entirely—and there is wide public support for this: G. Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers, a data-driven Substack, says it could be as high as 70%. It is the only course that can be morally and politically justified right now.

As a strong Democrat, former member of my local Democratic Committee, advisor to several successful local candidates since the 1980s, business owner since 1981, and immigration justice activist since 2019, may I humbly suggest that THIS is the moment to take a strong stand. ICE has broken so many laws about due process, use of deadly force, profiling, overstepping its legal requirement NOT to do local police work, and much more. It must be held accountable NOW.

  • Public sentiment following Renee Good’s murder is strongly against this rogue agency.
  • The memo just leaked that ICE unilaterally tells agents they don’t need a judicial warrant to break down the door of someone’s home will add to the people’s fury.
  • Even before the murder, millions of people have watched ICE’s brutal violence unleashed against ordinary people with no criminal record on video, and thousands have seen it live on the ground. Just as nightly news coverage of the horror shifted public support away from the Vietnam war, revulsion against ICE has shifted the territory on immigration.
  • We’ve all been affected by this barbarism. Homeowners have lost their landscaping crews, restaurant patrons can’t get decent service because so many cooks and servers have either been taken or are too afraid to come in, businesses are shutting down because they can’t get workers. It would be difficult to find a US resident who is more than two degrees of separation from one of those abducted.
  • US citizens and members of registered Native tribes who have more of a claim on our land than we do have been taken, as have immigrants here legally. Often, they’ve told their captors they have proof, but the agents are far more interested in making quota and having the chance to behave viciously than they are about justice or fairness or legality. And refuse to look at the documents. Sometimes it has taken weeks for the system to release. To name just two among many high-visibility cases, Kilmar Abrego Garcia and Mahmoud Khalil were detained for MONTHS. In Abrego Garcia’s case, the government quickly acknowledged that his arrest, detention, and deportation to a hellhole prison in a country the government was expressly prohibited from returning him to was a mistake. Khalil was here legally until the government unilaterally revoked it with no notice and no appeal process AS THEY WERE ARRESTING HIM. He was obviously punished for his publicly stated and First Amendment-protected political opinions.

THIS IS THE TIME FOR DEMOCRATS TO BE BOLD. In the early days of Trump 2, I kept hearing, “where are the Democrats? Why aren’t they shutting this atrocity down?” ICE is out of control and has ignored its mandated obligations around due process in favor of unchecked violence against the people. “Taco Trump” backs down whenever he faces a real challenge. We’ve seen that many times and saw that again in today’s news of his capitulation on retaliatory tariffs against the eight countries that came to Greenland’s defense. We Dems need to step up and loudly and consistently say to the American people (and vote accordingly):

  • The administration is stealing your healthcare money to fund an illegal and morally reprehensible—and totally unnecessary war—against the immigrants and descendants of immigrants and Native people as well as those who have flooded the streets to protect the first group’s rights who make this country great.
  • Biden, Obama, and Clinton controlled illegal entry without resorting to this disgusting violence and intimidation.
  • It’s becoming more and more clear that Trump sees ICE as his private army that he can use to attack opponents and suppress dissent. We’ve even seen elected officials and faith leaders handcuffed and/or detained, even in cases where they attempted to exercise their right of oversight at ICE and CBP facilities.

These talking points are what is resonating. We’re hearing them from a few individual members of Congress, but from the leadership, we’ve heard far too much about trying to get along and pass some lame bill that barely impacts ICE or Trump. Don’t make the mistake of 2016 when our candidate tried to defend the status quo while the people were crying so loudly for change that they elected a racist, clueless monster because HE was calling for change while she was calling for more of the same.

The working class of the US is in pain right now. We need to tie those economic struggles to Trump’s policies on deportation and a bunch of other things. We need to be loud, strong, and consistent. We need to be making these points in the news media every day—including on Fox. And we can start by supporting the people’s demand to abolish ICE once and for all.

Sincerely,

Shel Horowitz

 

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By Posted on Posted in Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Ethics in Government, Ethics: General, language, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

 From today’s NY Times email newsletter, “The Morning”:

President Trump does not seem interested in de-escalating anything in Minneapolis. This week, he said that one justification for the shooting of Renee Good might have been that she had been “disrespectful” to officers. Being disrespectful is a form of speech, though — one protected by the Constitution.

With Trump, it’s always a clue that if he accuses someone of bad behavior, he is doing/has done it himself. This is on the same day that news broke about Trump giving the finger and two F-bombs to a Ford employee who called him out as a “pedophile protector”—which the Times mentioned in that same newsletter. The link above is to The Guardian, because the Times uses paywalls.

But Trump showing the emotional maturity of a two-year-old yesterday is just the latest in a lifetime flinging insults at individuals, groups, and whole countries. This is what he said about racism in 1989  (followed by the response decades later by a Black commentator whose offer to Trump to tour Baltimore after Trump disparaged that city was declined). 1989 was also the year he ran a full-page ad in all four of NYC’s daily newspapers calling for the death penalty for five Black youths falsely convicted of rape and later exonerated.

And ever since he rode that golden escalator to announce his candidacy in 2015, it’s been a nonstop barrage. He mocked a reporter’s physical disability. He called Africa, Haaiti, and El Salvador “shithole countries” and called for increased immigration from Norway (a White-predominant country) in 2018 and—just a month ago, on December 9, 2025—not only admitted the comment (which he’d denied at the time) but bragged about it and added Somalia to the list. For years, his racism led him to deny that Obama was born in the US. If that lie were true, Obama would have been ineligible to serve as President. He repeatedly attacks and insults his opponents—Biden and Harris, of course—but even former loyalists that he drove away, including then-Vice President Mike Pence and one of his biggest loyalists in Congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene. And his history of insulting and objectifying women—individuals as well as women as a class—is just as bad as his racism and ableism.

Worst of all, the vile xenophobic anti-immigrant rhetoric of his first campaign and term has not just increased. It has morphed into something truly evil: a war against immigrants that empowers a poorly trained, poorly vetted goon squad army of ICE and CBP agents to rain terror down on immigrant neighborhoods, whose residents are snatched from cars, homes, workplaces, and even their immigration court hearings—with zero due process and extreme violence—and sent to far-away gulags in the US and in countries where these victims have no connection. The conservative Cato Institute lists a multipronged attack on immigrants and citizens, from revoking legal status of people who came here legally to multiple attacks on the Constitution and due process. This is unlike anything in US history. It’s even more extreme than the detention of Japanese immigrants and descendants during World War II—for which the US has apologized and made reparations. Many US citizens have been caught in these sweeps and illegally detained. And much of what ICE is doing is a wildly illegal expansion of the powers they are chartered with. They are not supposed to take a police role other than in matters of illegal immigration (as I document in the Appendix, below). And they are not supposed to shoot people. Yet, Time Magazine reports today that  “Immigration agents have fired at or into civilian vehicles in at least 13 instances since July.” That would include the two people shot since the murder of Renee Nicole Good last week, in Portland, Oregon. At least four of those were fatal. Add to that the 32 people who died in ICE custody in the past year.

Trump’s hypocrisy takes many other forms, too. Examples:

  1. He’s praising protesters in the streets of Tehran even as he decries them in any state that voted for Kamala Harris.
  2. Killing more than 100 Venezuelan sailors (95 as of November when this article was written), then invading the country and kidnapping its (admittedly thuggish) leader on the pretext of interdicting drugs, but pardoning the biggest drug dealer of them all, former President Hernandez of Honduras. Of course, we all know and he hasn’t tried to hide that it’s really about the oil.
  3. Claiming to be a law-and-order president but inciting the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol and then pardoning even those rioters who physically attacked police officers.

Please let your Representative and two Senators in the US Congress know that you find this unacceptable and you want them to withhold funding from ICE until it starts obeying all relevant laws on search and seizure, delineation of responsibility, due process, and use of force. If they balk at that, defund the agency at least until Minnesota is allowed to fully participate in the investigation of Good’s murder—and then keep pressing for more accountability. And please share this post widely.

 

Appendix: Perplexity.AI Report on what ICE is and is Not Allowed to Do

I asked Perplexity, the AI engine I tend to use for serious research and factchecking, “In what situations is US Immigration and Customs Enforcement allowed or not allowed to act as local police do?” Because both AI and traditional search engines may or may not return the same results for the same search, and because AI results are not written by a human and therefore not subject to copyright, I’m copying the entire answer. Drawing on ten different sources including the BBC, the Massachusetts state government website, and the ACLU, it is quite illuminating:

 is a federal civil immigration agency, not a general police force, so it can enforce federal immigration and certain federal criminal laws but cannot simply “act like” local police enforcing state or local law. Its actions are further limited by the U.S. Constitution, federal statutes, and by how much local police choose or are allowed (under state law) to cooperate.?

What ICE is allowed to do

  • Enforce federal immigration law. ICE can stop, detain, and arrest people it has probable cause to believe are removable (deportable) from the U.S., and can place them in immigration detention and initiate deportation cases.?

  • Enforce certain federal crimes. ICE can investigate and bring cases involving immigration-related crimes like human trafficking, document fraud, and smuggling under federal criminal statutes.?

  • Make public?space arrests with probable cause. In public places, ICE may arrest someone if agents have probable cause the person is removable and likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained; they may also execute valid arrest warrants in public.?

  • Enter homes with judicial warrants or consent. ICE may enter a private home only with the occupant’s voluntary consent or a judicial warrant signed by a judge; an internal ICE “administrative” warrant alone does not authorize entry into a private residence.?

  • Conduct raids and surveillance within legal limits. ICE can conduct operations at homes, workplaces, and in communities and can use data collection and digital surveillance tools, subject to constitutional limits on searches and seizures.?

  • Request help from local law enforcement. ICE can ask local agencies to notify them when someone is being released or to hold a person briefly through “detainers,” and can enter formal agreements (287(g)) that deputize some local officers to perform limited immigration functions.?

What ICE is not allowed to do

  • Cannot enforce state or local non?immigration laws. ICE does not have authority to enforce purely state or local offenses (like routine traffic violations or most state criminal laws) unless a separate federal authority applies.?

  • Cannot enter homes using only an ICE form. An ICE administrative warrant (Form I?200/I?205) does not let agents force their way into a private home; without consent or a judicial warrant, they must stay outside or in common/public areas.?

  • Cannot force local police to act as immigration officers. Local agencies cannot be compelled to carry out civil immigration enforcement; they decide whether to cooperate, and many jurisdictions legally limit that cooperation.?

  • Cannot use detainers as binding orders. ICE detainers are requests, not mandatory orders; local agencies may violate state law or the Constitution if they hold someone past their release time without proper legal authority.?

  • Must comply with the Constitution. ICE arrests, searches, and detention are constrained by the Fourth Amendment and due process requirements, just like other law enforcement; unconstitutional stops, searches, or holds can lead to liability.?

How ICE differs from local police

  • Scope of authority. Local police are generalists enforcing broad state and local criminal laws within a limited geographic area, while ICE has a narrow subject?matter focus (immigration and related federal crimes) but nationwide reach.?

  • Civil versus criminal. Much of what ICE does is civil (removal/deportation) rather than criminal prosecution, so ICE can detain someone for immigration violations even when no crime is charged, which is different from typical local policing.?

  • Limits on cooperating with ICE. Many cities and states have “sanctuary” or similar policies that allow cooperation on serious criminal matters but forbid or restrict participation in routine civil immigration enforcement.?

When ICE and local police can overlap

  • Joint operations on crime. Local police may work with ICE when investigating federal crimes (for example, human trafficking or gang cases) where immigration issues also arise.?

  • 287(g) agreements. Under 287(g) “jail?enforcement” agreements, certain local jail officers are trained and authorized to perform specific immigration tasks (like issuing charging documents or detainers) under ICE supervision, but they still must follow constitutional and state?law limits.?

  • Information sharing and notifications. Where allowed by state and local law, police may share booking information or give ICE notice of a person’s release, even if they cannot legally hold the person longer just because ICE asked.?

Situations where ICE is more restricted than local police

  • Protected or sensitive areas (policy?based). For years, ICE policies limited enforcement in places like schools, hospitals, and churches, though recent DHS actions have rescinded some of those “sensitive location” protections; policy can be more restrictive than what the Constitution alone requires.?

  • Entering private spaces. Local police with state?court warrants for state crimes may enter a home to arrest a suspect; ICE, by contrast, often relies on administrative warrants that do not permit entering a home without consent, so ICE’s ability to mimic a home arrest by local police is more limited.?

If you want, a follow?up can focus specifically on how these rules work in Massachusetts and what they mean for day?to?day interactions with ICE.

 
 
 
 

 

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Ethics in Government, media-general, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Social and Economic Justice, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , ,

If you cringe when protestors describe the federal government as fascist, consider what happened today in Minneapolis, where a US citizen mom of a six-year-old was gunned down in cold blood by an ICE agent after she tried to escape when an agent ordered her (using the other f-word, according to some accounts) to get out of her car.

AP has about a dozen (somewhat repetitive) news stories about this. If you can stomach it, the BBC has the actual murder starting with an agent attempting to yank her car door open and continuing as she backs the car away and then is shot point-blank by a different agent.

Judging by this quote in the AP reports by Kristi Noem, “He’s been in situations like this before, and he certainly has been out there and followed his training today,” the feds know exactly who this terrorist murderer is. I hope Minnesota and/or Minneapolis law enforcement brings him to justice immediately.

I am APPALLED at everything the feds did in this totally avoidable and unacceptable assassination and the vile cover-up lies that they’ve been telling ever since—but I AM grateful for the mass public and local/state government outrage and their demand the ICE get the F out of the state. This is at least the fifth killing by immigration agents since T’s inauguration last year.

What has this great country of ours become?Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Business Ethics, Democracy, Diversity, Ethics in Government, language, Media Ethics, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Marie Antoinette, the arrogant, out-of-touch 18th-century Queen of France, reportedly responded when hearing that French citizens were starving and demanding bread, “Let them eat cake.” (That’s what I’d been told my entire life—but I found out while looking for a source to cite that the quote is an urban legend.)

Even though she probably didn’t say it, “Let them eat cake” remains THE metaphor for out-of-touch, clueless autocrats.

One such is our would-be king, who can find unlimited money to unleash his goon squads on the defenseless (including at least 170 US citizens as of 6 weeks ago), prosecute his political enemies without cause, put on an expensive but pathetic military parade, literally carve his name into public buildings and propose putting his image on National Parks passes, chase after every little thing his minions see as promoting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (and what’s wrong with those goals anyway?) to the point of changing from a vision-disability-friendly font to a hard-to-read one on government documents, scrub websites and even museum exhibits of mentions of heroes of color or who are female while eliminating free National Parks admission on Black-related holidays MLK Day and Juneteenth, tear down a big chunk of the People’s House (the East Wing of the White House) without permits, build a useless and expensive ballroom, also without permits, spend a fortune to rename the Department of Defense as the Department of War and to change such things as military bases and national parks back to their former White Supremacist names.

And let’s not forget his proposed $20 billion bailout of his ally in Argentina. Or the biggest boondoggle, $2 trillion in tax cuts for super-wealthy corporations, who, not coincidentally, have funded/are funding his campaign, inauguration, and ballroom. Other corporations and institutions—law firms, universities, and media companies, especially—paid large amounts that sure look like bribes after being harangued by the administration for not sufficiently condemning their own DEI initiatives and other specious grounds.

Many of them could have easily won in court, but—gee, what a surprise—paid these huge settlements while they had business before the federal government: universities trying to get back far larger sums in federal grants, media companies facing mergers, and big law firms so scared of this president that they donated millions of dollars in pro bono services to his pet causes (even though they then lost business to other firms who stood fast). Shame on all these capitulators who chose short-term gains over long-term reputation, throwing away their integrity to try to pacify a bully who will only come back for more!

Yesterday, this vain and ostentatious man proposed a US replica of the Parisian Arc de Triomphe near Arlington Cemetery, identifying it as “the number one priority” of his domestic policy chief, Vince Haley. Let them eat cake!

Yet, there’s no money to keep ACA premiums from doubling or worse, none for SNAP, none for USAID (likely killing up to three million people each year around the world, according to Oxfam)—nothing for the programs that help real people who aren’t wealthy in the US or around the world.

After wrecking the economy with his tariffs, his decimation of the workforce through his immigration policies, and his misdirected economic priorities, he dismisses affordability as a “Democratic hoax.” He tells the suffering public to buy fewer toys for their kids. This from a man who has never known a day of hunger or been unable to afford something in his life. A man born to privilege, but not to love. An openly corrupt man who has used the presidency for personal and family gain (and to help his obscenely wealthy corporate benefactors, billionaires, and convicted criminal friends) in ways we have never before seen or even dreamed of in the US.

But he is losing his luster, even among his base. Middle-class and working-class people, from farmers to plumbers, are hurt and upset by the economic mess. People who believe in human decency are appalled by the clear violations of due process, the violent attacks on non-criminal immigrants and those who stand up for them, the snatching up of immigrants who followed all the regulations and were taken at court hearings to get asylum, and the unilateral cancelation of many citizenship finalizations—in short, the climate of fear and intimidation.

Seven million people came out in public to protest these abuses on the most recent No Kings Day. Each of those probably represents many others who couldn’t get time off work, who worry that they would be picked up by ICE, who have physical limitations that made a public demonstration a poor choice, etc.

According to researchers Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, if 3.5 percent of a country’s population withdraws consent from the government and nonviolently refuseds to cooperate, the government tends to fall. As of this summer, the US population stood at 347,275,807. 3.5 percent of that is 12,154,653. If each No Kings participant represents just ONE additional supporter who didn’t show up, that’s 14 million—well above the 3.5 percent threshold. So we have the power to stop the slide to authoritarianism, to reclaim our government from the thugs and crooks, and to build something far better than we had before.

What will be your first step on this road to victory? Who will you work with to carry it out?Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Democracy, Diversity, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Ethics in Government, Ethics-International, language, Mindset, Peace and War, Politics, poverty, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I admire your constant calls for peace, Donald. I just wish I could believe them. You see, there’s this little problem: saying you want peace isn’t enough. You have to actually BE a peacemaker. And you haven’t been one.

You’ve claimed to end eight wars. Independent fact checking shows that you did in fact have a role in bringing several of those countries to the table, and I commend you for that. However, your grand, sweeping claims that peace wouldn’t have happened without your aggressive diplomacy are highly exaggerated. And several of the peace agreements aren’t exactly working out. For example, the United Nations reports that 339 Palestinians were killed by Israel in the six weeks following the ceasefire. We’ll give you a B-.

You renamed the US Institute of Peace after yourself.  You spent months telling Oslo you deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. Yes, it’s true that some recipients didn’t deserve it either: Barack Obama was new in office and hadn’t done anything significant toward peace at that point. Henry Kissinger was a war criminal responsible for much harm during the Vietnam War, the Chilean Pinochet dictatorship that followed the US-aided coup, and many other foreign policy debacles. But still, if you have to nominate yourself for the peace price and name an institution that is supposed to be independent after yourself, it doesn’t scream “qualified.” It actually says “laughably insecure and demanding.” Grade: D-.

Then there’s Ukraine. You’ve been so inconsistent that nobody knows where you stand. You berate the Ukrainian president in person on national TV. Next, you tell Putin to negotiate. Then you bring forward a proposal so lopsidedly Russia-centric that even Mitch McConnell dismissed the plan and said Putin had made a fool of you. One key principle of peacemaking: It has to include all the sides and let all of them at least claim some small victory, which this plan utterly fails to do. Grade: F.

How about relations with our near neighbors? You’ve killed at least 87 people in 22 separate attacks on vessels in the Caribbean, claiming that they were smuggling drugs. You’ve provided no evidence that this is true (and your long record as a massive serial liar doesn’t boost our confidence). And even if it were true, the proper procedure is to interdict and seize the boat, arrest the crew, and hold the cargo as evidence—not to blow it out of the water without warning. Both Colombia and Venezuela have accused you of extrajudicial murder. At least two of those were killed while clinging to the wreckage after you destroyed their boat, in clear violation of international law.  And it’s hard to believe that you really care about keeping drugs out of this country when you just granted a full pardon to the former president of Honduras, who had just started serving more than 40 years for a huge cocaine smuggling operation. There’s widespread speculation that this is really about setting your sights on Venezuela’s oil, and that you’re willing to start a war against them. Grade: F.

And then there’s your “peacemaking” right here in the  good old United States of America.

  • You send armed, masked goons to snatch honest, hard-working non-criminal immigrants away from jobs, loved ones, and decent places to live,  without a shred of due process. Sometimes, your goons snatch up people who have citizenship or permanent residence. Other times, you target people who are going through all the proper steps of being able to stay legally. This creates terror, not peace. It serves no useful function, disrupts families and the economy, and makes the whole country unsafe. Grade: F.
  • You rip the safety net apart, causing economic dislocation of the kind that encourages crime, making our streets less safe and less peaceful.
  • Your energy policies, pushing the most destructive, resource-intensive, and economically unworkable energy options, will lead to resource conflicts, which will lead to more wars. Grade: F.
  • Finally, your public language is the opposite of a peacemaker’s. You issue all sorts of smears against people of color, non-Christians, people with disabilities, even those who happen to belong to a different political party, as well as people you have specifically named and declared they are your enemies. You are an attack dog with a remarkably thin skin who insults others but has zero tolerance for dissent. To paraphrase Three Dog Night, “That ain’t the way to make peace, please.” Grade: F.

So if you want to be seen as a peacemaker, you have to become one. That’s going to take major restructuring of your whole way of being president. Are you up to the challenge? I’d love to see you succeed at embracing peace and would cheer you on publicly if you’re sincere. I’m not optimistic that you’re up to it—but I’d love to be proven wrong.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Diversity, Innovation, Mindset, Peace and War, People Helping People, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In response to my Facebook repost of AOC’s suggestion that instead of ICE thugs, we send 5000 caseworkers to the border to help people immigrate the right way, a friend asked, “Do you really feel “calling out” the GOP will make any difference?”

This is how I answered (embedded links were not part of my answer):

There is something to be said for the throw-it-on-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks school of activism. We never know what will be effectual. Did Randy Kehler know when he went to prison for draft resistance that he would directly inspire Daniel Ellsberg to copy and release the Pentagon Papers?

Did Claudette Colvin know in March 1955 when she was arrested for refusing to move to the back of the bus that only a few month later, Rosa Parks (a trained activist, BTW—her action was NOT random) would repeat Colvin’s action and become the face of a powerful and successful national civil rights movement?

Did whoever said something that opened the mind of a Nazi skinhead know that this particular tormentor (Christian Picciolini) would do a 360 and become a voice of outreach between the Islamic community and the racist right? [NOTE: That incident is not in the BBC link above but was mentioned by Picciolini in a talk he gave to Critical Connections, a human rights group in my area.]

Did the speaker (whose name I don’t know) at my first peace demonstration, at NYU Uptown (now Bronx Community College) on October 15, 1969, have any clue that one sentence of his speech would reach 12-year-old me and turn me into an activist for the past 56 years?

Did I know when I marched at Seabrook in 1977 and spent an incarcerated week as a “guest” of the state of New Hampshire that we were creating a national and international safe energy movement that kept us out of the nuclear fission fiasco for the next 40 years? (We have to do it again, now—that technology is far more about creating new problems than solving the existing ones. I wrote my first book on why nuclear fission makes no sense and updated it after Fukushima. We don’t need it and it’s quite harmful.)

Did the midwives of Exodus, Shifra and Pu’ah, know they were inventing nonviolent civil disobedience and that we would be using it to outsmart dictators more than 3000 years later?

I am an activist because my soul would not let me rest if I weren’t. I’ve been lucky enough to do a few things that worked, including starting the movement that saved a local mountain. But even when it’s defeat after defeat, I keep at it, knowing that if I change one mind or move one person to take action that day, my work has been worthwhile—and if I didn’t, I still made the effort.

Here are a few more examples:

What small step can YOU take that might turn into something much bigger—and where will you get the support to carry it out?Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Activism, censorship, Ethics: General, General Commentary, language, Mindset, People Helping People, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

I’m still on Facebook—but I took it off my phone. I also removed Proton and Signal, as well as fingerprint logon from both my phone and computer. Any guesses about why?

Here’s the sad and scary reason: I can no longer trust my government.

The Constitution is supposed to protect US residents against unreasonable searches and seizures. It’s right there in the Fourth Amendment. But the current government is violating that every day. US citizens are being dragged out of cars, homes and workplaces. Immigrants who followed all the rules and have the right to be here are being torn from their families. And of course, those who are here without papers—the vast majority of whom have done nothing wrong and who in many cases have been productive and contributing members of our community for decades are being thrown into gulags under extremely cruel conditions.

All of this is immoral—but it’s happening. This man calls himself a Christian, but his actions show either total unfamiliarity or total nonalignment with the words of Christ. Christ was about welcoming the stranger, helping the needy, breaking down barriers across cultures. Just think about the Good Samaritan parable, embracing the goodness of a member of a despised ethnic group or the—“he who is without sin” invitation that bought an adulteress the ability to continue living.

I’m someone who has always had a low need for privacy and a high transparency level. I strongly suspected in the 1970s when my housemate worked for an anarchist newspaper and I was doing safe energy organizing that our phone was tapped. We were low on the totem pole, so they didn’t waste a good quality tap on us. Our phone made all sorts of noises that our friends’ phones didn’t. I had two responses: One was to be sure I didn’t discuss anything confidential over the phone, including who might be planning what activities. This was easy, because I wasn’t part of a terrorist cell and wasn’t doing anything that would be a problem if the government knew about it. But still, I was careful not to mention people’s names over the phone.

My second response was to tell them I knew:  Every once in a while, I’d say something like “Hey, government agents, you must be bored. Go get a pencil. I’m going to give you my recipe for three-minute chocolate mousse.” (The secret is to use ricotta cheese instead of eggs, by the way).

But times are different now. Instead of governing, our government is trying to crush dissent. And they have tools like AI-powered social media scraping that they haven’t had before. I have been a frequent public critic of Trump and Netanyahu, and an occasional public critic of some of Trump’s other friends, like Bolsonaro and Putin. While unlikely, it’s not beyond possibility that I’ve been put on some kind of extra-screening list, and that the government might try to get into my devices even without the judicial warrant they’re supposed to obtain. Low probability, but certainly not impossible.

And just as I didn’t name names over the phone fifty years ago, I no longer tag my comrades in Facebook or show recognizable faces when I’m writing about protests unless I’ve gotten permission.

I deeply resent that all this precaution feels necessary now. We are supposed to be a democracy. Yet, it was exactly this kind of outspoken public speech that led to several high-profile arrests of Muslim foreign students in the first few weeks of the Trump II administration—including Rumeysa Ozturk in my own state of Massachusetts. Yes, I was born here. Yes, I am White. But the thing about fascism is it starts with the most marginalized and spreads to the mainstream population. And even if it wasn’t spreading, it is not okay to yank people off the street and throw them in a hell-hole for exercising their First Amendment rights. Among other things, my phone-cleaning is an act of solidarity.

Meanwhile, the president of the United States has overseen the murder of at least 69 Venezuelan and Colombian civilians for no viable cause, in multiple attacks (as of November 7). He claims they are drug runners, but evidence points to most of them being fishermen. And even if they are running drugs, you deal with that by stopping and searching the ship and seizing it if it’s true, then making arrests and turning to the courts. Not by blowing them off the face of the Earth.

He has called for execution by hanging of six courageous US military veterans in Congress who made a video reminding soldiers that they are not under obligation to follow illegal orders (such as deploying against US civilians)—and in fact are obligated NOT to follow those orders, because the allegiance they swore is to the constitution, not to any thin-skinned power-mad multiple-felon would-be dictator.

He has pressured numerous companies to make settlements that have been labeled extortion or profiteering, illegally using the presidency for personal and family and corporate financial gain, in direct disregard of the Constitution.

And oh yes, he has used the Justice Department to go after his political enemies, rather than actual criminals, wasting millions of our tax dollars for personal vendettas.

At the moment, I’m halfway through a flight from Asia to New York. If they want to look at my social media, they will have to look a little harder, because my phone and computer will be off and I will not turn them on for an agent who doesn’t have proper authorization.

I recognize that this only makes things inconvenient for them. They could easily use their own device to check my social media. They could somewhat less easily impound my devices. I also recognize that the odds are highest that they will ask me where I went and what I purchased—then simply say, as usual, “welcome back,” and wave me through.

Hopefully, by the time you read this, I will have cleared immigration control without incident and be settling down to celebrate Thanksgiving with family. But if they do try to poke into my business, I will at least slow the machinery of oppression down a bit.

POSTSCRIPT: Compared with an hour-long wait in Saigon, the passport control line at JFK Airport was only ten minutes long, we were waved through without any questions, and I’ve reinstalled FB on my phone until the next time I leave the country.Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Activism, censorship, Corporate Social Responsibility, Democracy, Diversity, Ethics in Government, language, Media Ethics, media-general, Mindset, People Helping People, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , ,

Are you as appalled as I am about the blatant suppression of dissenting voices in mainstream media lately? They’re even going after the court jesters—first Colbert, now Kimmel, and there will be others.

But we can express our displeasure. Here’s the letter I wrote to Disney, parent company of ABC (if you want to write your own letter, the address is responsibility@twdc.com).

Subject: Your removal of Kimmel was completely unjustified

Body:
I read the transcript of what Jimmy Kimmel said. I didn’t see any glorying in violence or in Kirk’s murder. What I read was the notation that “MAGA people” were “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.” (Source: USA Today: https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/entertainment/tv/2025/09/17/jimmy-kimmel-show-photos/86209850007/)

The only part of that statement that is even an opinion is the word “desperately.” The rest is a statement of facts. See, for instance, Donald Trump calling it “radical left political violence” (https://time.com/7316299/charlie-kirk-shot-death-donald-trump-speech-transcript-political-violence/). In that same speech, Trump noted several instances of political violence against right-wingers—but he didn’t criticize the murder of MN lawmaker Melissa Hortman or numerous other attacks on liberals and progressives in that speech—see https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/09/11/donald-trump-charlie-kirk-melissa-hortman/86089962007/: “Hortman was not mentioned in Trump’s Sept. 10 address touching on several recent instances of political violence, including his own survived assassination attempt and the shooting Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana in 2017. He did not mention other attacks on Democrats including an arson attack at Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s house, a kidnapping plot against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and an assault on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband in their home.”)

See also this article that cites SEVEN right-wing pundits blaming Democrats or the radical left for Kirk’s death: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/09/11/donald-trump-charlie-kirk-melissa-hortman/86089962007/

In short, Kimmel was forced out not for hate speech, but for reporting on a double standard that exists and is easily verifiable. Shame on you!

My wife and I were getting tired of Netflix and were planning to try Hulu. Guess what: you will not get a subscription from us. Nor will you be getting any admission fees at Disney properties. We will make other choices and do business with companies that do not try to suppress dissenters just to curry favor with a would-be dictator.

I have written four books on business ethics as a success principle. Your lack of ethics in this matter will not endear you to the millions of Americans who care about the business practices of companies they deal with.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Arts & Entertainment, censorship, Democracy, Ethics in Government, language, Media Ethics, media-general, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology Tagged with , , , , ,

The best comment on the firing of Jimmy Kimmel (under heavy pressure from the current administration) comes from Jon Stewart. Broadcasting from a room decked out in full Trumpian gold, Stewart takes on the role of a TV host who literally has a censor (offstage) looking over his shoulder and whispering “corrections” in real time that Stewart immediately incorporates. This monologue is both hilarious and extremely scary.

In case you don’t get the reference, “Fuhrer” is the German word for “Leader.” Stewart, I’m sure, is quite deliberately referencing the media censorship strategies of Hitler and other dictators.

Give this one your full attention. Visuals are a big part of the joke—and you’ll miss a lot if you multitask. https://www.mediaite.com/media/tv/shut-the-fck-up-jon-stewart-hushes-audience-during-government-approved-administration-compliant-monologue

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