THE AWFUL PRICE OF FREEDOM

We Minneapolitans—and residents of several other American cities Donald Trump has targeted with his vindictiveness—confront a question that just might reflect the challenge of our post-World-War-II lifetimes: What might I do if I find myself face to face with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) goon squad abusing a neighbor or friend?

As a man who came of age at the height of the Vietnam War, I had to face a decision that tested my character: Do I get drafted? Enlist? Resist? Maybe find another way to serve? (I ended up enlisting and serving for six years in the U.S. Army Reserves.) And, informing that decision, another question: How would I act facing the enemy, and, God forbid, asked to make the ultimate sacrifice? 

PHOTO: Saline County Library

Once my years of draft eligibility passed, I never dreamed I’d have to confront those same life-and-death, mettle-testing questions again. But here we are. 

This time the threat, the enemy, is not some crazed pack of Viet Cong; it is my own government, whose barbarity defies not just our cherished Constitution, but simple decency. And it’s not happening 8,500 miles away; it’s right here in Minneapolis.

       Just pulling out my iPhone and tapping that red 
       circle could put me in the crosshairs of some dude 
       with the training of a night watchman and an urge 
       to kick some ass.

So, let’s say I’m at work—in an office building where some 80 percent of my fellow tenants are Somali-American. It seems quite possible that some of them, even those with legal status, will be targeted by ICE. If that happens, what will I do to stand up for the rights of my neighbors—most of them my fellow citizens—against some agents’ brutality?

PHOTO: Dave Decker - ZumaPress

The violence of federal agents toward even those simply bearing witness to their lawlessness is chilling. Just pulling out my iPhone and tapping that red circle could put me in the crosshairs of some dude with the training of a night watchman and an urge to kick some ass. I’m afraid, in the heat of the moment, incensed by the stark inhumanity of these bullies, I might do more than pull out my phone. 

Should I stop and weigh my options? Consider the prospect of injury, imprisonment…or worse? Calculate my odds of making the slightest difference? Or should I just go ahead and do what I’d hope someone might do for me if I were under attack by masked thugs? Exactly what Alex Pretti was doing. And died for.

Reasonable questions. Ones we Americans, sadly, must all be asking ourselves during this unprecedented attack on our Democracy. How sad, especially for one who’s been around the block a few times. Instead of growing old in peace in the country where I’ve worked and served for six decades, I must once again, right here in my home town, weigh the awful cost of freedom.

STAND BY – The War Between Trump’s Enablers and Moral Rebels

There’s an interesting and timely article in the current Amherst College alumni magazine. Psychology professor Catherine Sanderson explains the science of bystander inaction—why otherwise nice people fail to act when they witness something that, in other, clearer-headed circumstances, they might not allow.

Of course, the author cites last May’s police killing of George Floyd as an example. But it strikes me how this bystander-inaction science might also apply on a broader, societal level, accounting for the political debacle that's played out over the past four years.

Specifically, how millions of Americans have stood by and not lifted a finger as the leader they chose, and who represents them, allows thousands and thousands of their countrymen to die of COVID-19 while he's Twitter-twiddled his little thumbs. Not to mention as he's systematically trashed our democratic institutions and norms of civility.

 

 

The hands are those of a great nation, drowning while Trumpublicans turn away.

             Are there enough of them to
             bring down the massive, gaudy
             dam that’s been holding back
             America’s incredible potential
             for the past four years?

MORAL REBELS
Sanderson calls those who do step forward and act to thwart cruelty “moral rebels.” These, her study suggests, tend to be people with a more accurate sense of what others around them are thinking. And who, in many cases, grew up free of heavy-handed, authoritarian parental control.

So, who have the moral rebels been who've broken from the lock-step Trumpublican ranks to act with integrity and courage? Certainly not the likes of the McConnells, the Grahams, the Barrs, who are ultimately going down with the ship. And not those who've scrambled like rats to abandon ship at the last minute.

Nor those, like John Bolton or Michael Cohen, who've only shown up when they no longer had anything to lose.

No, the moral rebels were those folks, like Mitt Romney, John McCain or Christine Whitman, who did have something to lose and acted with decency anyway. We’ve witnessed, over the past year or so, more and more of these genuine American heroes, standing up to defend our time-honored values against an angry, vengeful bully.

There are many other pre-Trump Republicans who have consistently spoken out: Colin Powell, John Kasich, hundreds of former Justice Department officials, the former Republican strategists behind the Lincoln Project and many more.

We’ve witnessed more and more of these genuine American heroes, standing up to defend our time-honored values against a tyrant. An angry, vengeful bully who, literally since birth, has had nothing on his feeble little mind but feeding his insatiable ego.

LEAKS IN THE DAMN DAM
I wonder, on this, Election Day 2020: Have there been, among political leaders and the ranks of erstwhile Trump supporters, enough moral rebels who, like pinprick leaks in the massive, gaudy dam that’s been holding back America’s incredible potential for the past four years, have grown and joined and brought that dam down? We shall see…