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Right now, as I write this – March 18, Mountain Daylight Time, 10:00 PM – if you (or I, or anyone) are physically in the United States, you can be seized and taken prisoner without any charges being put against you – much less proven – and be put on a plane and sent to a foreign prison; and the people who do seize you and who spirit you away don't even have to release your name or any information about you. In fact they don't even have to know your name or have any information. Nor do they have to answer to anyone other than the people who ordered them to do it.
Of course, in doing this they are defying the constitution and breaking the law. But they are doing this. Right now. They did it several days ago.
Now, the government people can say that the only people being rounded up are immigrants and gang members. And you can say to yourself that, if you yourself are not an immigrant or gang member, this puts you in the clear. But it doesn't. If charges don't have to be brought and legal procedures don't have to be followed – and information doesn't have to be released! – anyone can be rounded up. You can be picked up:
In reality, when I say "anyone" could be snatched and taken prisoner without the rest of us knowing, that wouldn't be true if you were, say, Marco Rubio or Taylor Swift. So, show of hands, how many people reading this are Marco Rubio or Taylor Swift?
The Rolling Stones "We Love You"
The rest of this post is about writing.
I don't spend much time on politics and haven't been much of an activist, so don't know how useful it is to write this post as I have, with specific scenarios ("because someone owes you money and has a friend in government"). I imagine – maybe incorrectly – that if more people were writing like this, rather than relying on abstractions like "rule of law" or "constitutional crisis" – or calling people "fascist" or "Nazi" (those are abstractions too) – but actually give examples of what is at risk, then people who are not yet alarmed would hear us better. --Not that one shouldn't point out that there's a constitutional crisis, and what this means; and not that the rule of law isn't under threat. Saying "Nazi" and "fascism" seems to me to be acting out our feelings of powerlessness, reaching for extreme words to counteract our trouble at achieving anything actually effective – not that they can't represent my own fears of what's potentially coming down the line.
People who write bland newspaper prose have been at this awhile, maybe have some experience of what actually gets across, ways of taking their truth to people who won't listen to mine.
Btw, a lot of my own best writing isn't "clear" and definite, instead is convoluted, full of digressions and deliberate contradictions and uncertainties, hesitations and qualifications, parentheticals and allusions, and if all goes well some of my political writing will be like that too, since a lot of politics isn't clear (for instance, I'm torn and confused about whether Senator Schumer was right in letting the continuing resolution go up for a vote – what the consequences will be, what they would've been if he hadn't let the vote go through – and if you're certain one way or another on that issue and have no sense of what counterarguments there might be, you're not altogether to be trusted, at least not right now by me (btw I'm leaning towards thinking Schumer did the best that one could do, but also to be honest I've not made my way to writers who've genuinely tried to meet his points and counter them (because, honestly, I haven't looked that hard, there are so many other things to think about)) (and btw I'm not certain what a good, sane, functional immigration policy should be, just that we've had 100 years to come up with one and we haven't, my belief (not certainty) being that that's because too many people profit from the issue not being resolved, none of which is any immigrant's fault, it's America's). Anyway, this is how I like to write, but sometimes bullet points are useful.
Of course, in doing this they are defying the constitution and breaking the law. But they are doing this. Right now. They did it several days ago.
Now, the government people can say that the only people being rounded up are immigrants and gang members. And you can say to yourself that, if you yourself are not an immigrant or gang member, this puts you in the clear. But it doesn't. If charges don't have to be brought and legal procedures don't have to be followed – and information doesn't have to be released! – anyone can be rounded up. You can be picked up:
- for being in the wrong place
- for having the same name as someone else
- for supporting immigrant rights
- for having supported a Democratic political candidate
- because someone owes you money and has a friend in government
- because you're dating someone who someone else fancies
In reality, when I say "anyone" could be snatched and taken prisoner without the rest of us knowing, that wouldn't be true if you were, say, Marco Rubio or Taylor Swift. So, show of hands, how many people reading this are Marco Rubio or Taylor Swift?
The Rolling Stones "We Love You"
The rest of this post is about writing.
I don't spend much time on politics and haven't been much of an activist, so don't know how useful it is to write this post as I have, with specific scenarios ("because someone owes you money and has a friend in government"). I imagine – maybe incorrectly – that if more people were writing like this, rather than relying on abstractions like "rule of law" or "constitutional crisis" – or calling people "fascist" or "Nazi" (those are abstractions too) – but actually give examples of what is at risk, then people who are not yet alarmed would hear us better. --Not that one shouldn't point out that there's a constitutional crisis, and what this means; and not that the rule of law isn't under threat. Saying "Nazi" and "fascism" seems to me to be acting out our feelings of powerlessness, reaching for extreme words to counteract our trouble at achieving anything actually effective – not that they can't represent my own fears of what's potentially coming down the line.
People who write bland newspaper prose have been at this awhile, maybe have some experience of what actually gets across, ways of taking their truth to people who won't listen to mine.
Btw, a lot of my own best writing isn't "clear" and definite, instead is convoluted, full of digressions and deliberate contradictions and uncertainties, hesitations and qualifications, parentheticals and allusions, and if all goes well some of my political writing will be like that too, since a lot of politics isn't clear (for instance, I'm torn and confused about whether Senator Schumer was right in letting the continuing resolution go up for a vote – what the consequences will be, what they would've been if he hadn't let the vote go through – and if you're certain one way or another on that issue and have no sense of what counterarguments there might be, you're not altogether to be trusted, at least not right now by me (btw I'm leaning towards thinking Schumer did the best that one could do, but also to be honest I've not made my way to writers who've genuinely tried to meet his points and counter them (because, honestly, I haven't looked that hard, there are so many other things to think about)) (and btw I'm not certain what a good, sane, functional immigration policy should be, just that we've had 100 years to come up with one and we haven't, my belief (not certainty) being that that's because too many people profit from the issue not being resolved, none of which is any immigrant's fault, it's America's). Anyway, this is how I like to write, but sometimes bullet points are useful.
- Because people pay attention to bullet points
- Because I pondered using "whom" rather than "who" in the Edmond Dantès sentence
- Because Trump prevails unless people who, unlike me, are not liberal-left nonetheless also come to oppose him
CROSSPOST: HTTPS://KOGANBOT.LIVEJOURNAL.COM/394355.HTML
CROSSPOST: https://koganbot.substack.com/p/and-the-trump-people-are-continuing
