"Aren't you jumping the gun?" I asked Sunday, as neighbor Lee Goodman took off his raincoat to reveal a striped concentration camp uniform, with the inverted blue triangle, representing immigrants. I invited him to have a seat in the living room.
He said he was going downtown Monday to protest the ICE arrests in Chicago, and wanted me to know, I suppose, in case he disappeared into Donald Trump's growing security apparatus. He asked for my phone number and I gave it to him. I considered going along, to observe, but had other work to do Monday and, besides, dramatic symbolic acts are not my strong suit. I prefer spinning reasoned argument to dash uselessly against the reinforced armor of unreason. I don't know which is more futile; I suppose it boils down to personal preference.
I asked where he had gotten the uniform — what with Party City out of business and all. That's me, always curious about practical matters. Those new red MAGA hats with the Death's Head insignia, who thought of that?
He said he was going downtown Monday to protest the ICE arrests in Chicago, and wanted me to know, I suppose, in case he disappeared into Donald Trump's growing security apparatus. He asked for my phone number and I gave it to him. I considered going along, to observe, but had other work to do Monday and, besides, dramatic symbolic acts are not my strong suit. I prefer spinning reasoned argument to dash uselessly against the reinforced armor of unreason. I don't know which is more futile; I suppose it boils down to personal preference.
I asked where he had gotten the uniform — what with Party City out of business and all. That's me, always curious about practical matters. Those new red MAGA hats with the Death's Head insignia, who thought of that?
Lee said he had made it himself, using a painter's outfit dyed grey, then masked out with tape and painted with black fabric paint. That's Lee, the guy who put up a sign tallying the COVID dead in 2020 at the corner of Shermer and Walters, prompting that to become a focal point for several pro-Trump rallies. He's the spoon that stirs the pot. I've admired his commitment to social action, even as I question its efficacy. As I question my own.
We talked about whether the Holocaust had so faded from public memory that younger people might not even know what it represented.
"They might see it and think, 'Beetlejuice,'" I suggested.
Bingo.
"I was surprised by how little reaction my uniform got throughout the day," Lee later wrote, on his Facebook page report about how his trip downtown played out. "I was even more surprised that among the several people who did react, only one recognized the uniform. Everyone else thought I was dressed up as the movie character Beetlejuice. Only after I corrected them did their expressions change from amused to somber."
Lee went to the Daley Center, City Hall, the County Building. He didn't get far trying to visit ICE headquarters and his senator's office.
"Things didn't go as I expected," he wrote.
They seldom do.
I'm torn. Part of me resented Lee for going straight to the Holocaust. Shouldn't we save that for when thousands of arrested immigrants are languishing in camps on the outskirts of town? Isn't the present moment alarming enough without exaggeration? I both admire Lee for doing something and look askance at what he's actually doing and a little at why he's doing it. Who does this help?
"If I didn't do anything, it would eat me up," he said, and I nodded. I sometimes view protest as an elaborate washing of the hands — an orchestrated cry onto deaf ears done more for the benefit of the criers who can now tell themselves they've done something.
The concentration camp imagery is powerful. The paper won't even let me call whatever facilities they're building to corral immigrants — and no doubt, eventually, citizens — "concentration camps." Too judgy. I think we settled on "detainment camps." As if that mattered.
Maybe that's the danger — thinking none of this matters, that resistance is futile. Resistance didn't topple the Nazis — America did. We saved Europe. But now, who will save us? Lee Goodman is on the case, and God bless him. But it's going to take more than that.
frightening
ReplyDeleteThank you, Lee Goodman!
ReplyDeleteThey've got us where they want us, exhausted and in shock. Resistance just seems to embolden them. Given the level of their idiocy, we might be best to wait for them to self destruct, I fear the collateral damage is going to be horrific.
ReplyDeleteAs an American, I think we must be accurate & while we supplied them with staggeringly huge amounts of food, trucks & some weapons, the was the Soviet Union's Red Army that had the worst of it & then they ground the Wehrmacht into the shit they were. Eisenhower deliberately held back the Allied Armies from taking Berlin because he knew the Nazi dead enders were going to fight until they died & wouldn't easily surrender. He let the Red Army take the worst of it in those final few months of 1945 to save American, British & Canadian lives.
ReplyDeleteapropos to nothing said the mumbling man
DeleteYeah, I did consider whether to let this deformation of history pass — I'm sure the Americans encircled in the Battle of the Bulge didn't feel they were holding back. But Clark Street has been on a roll of self-indictment, and I figured I should let him keep shoveling.
DeleteRussian historian Andrei Soyustov said that there were at least two reasons for this decision. First, according to preliminary agreements, including the accords made in Yalta, Berlin was located in the zone of Soviet military operations. The demarcation line between the USSR and the other Allied forces was the Elbe River. "Rushing into Berlin for the sake of status could have resulted in a USSR decision not to fight against Japan," explains the historian.
DeleteIn addition, Stalin did not believe the Western Allies would hand over territory occupied by them in the postwar Soviet zone, which eventually became East Germany. So he moved rapidly to meet the Western Allies as far west as possible. But the overriding objective was to capture Berlin.
The second reason for not storming the city was that the Allies had suffered excessively high casualties as the end of the war approached. In the period between the Normandy landing and April 1945, the Allies "were able to avoid storming large cities," Soyustov notes.
Soviet casualties in the Battle of Berlin, which lasted for more than two weeks, were indeed very high. Archival research lists 350,000 dead, wounded, and missing.. About the same number of German soldiers were killed or wounded. Almost a half-million German soldiers were captured by the Soviets. In addition to the military casualties, about 125,000 civilians died in Berlin.
The Soviets were the Nazi’s allies for the first 19 months of the war. They both invaded Poland. The USSR rebuilt the Nazi military out of sight of western eyes in violation of the treaty of Versailles. Don’t give them credit without blame. They made their bed and had to sleep in it.
Delete350,000 Soviet soldiers dead in that one final battle, total American dead in all of WWII was about 405,500.
DeleteI'm glad Ike let them take the worst of it!
Not to speak for Mr S., but I think his point was that no cavalry is coming to our aid, to save us from the hateful morons in charge and their duped followers.
DeleteAmericans liberated Buchenwald and Dachau in April 1945, but Japanese Americans were not released from the last internment camp until March 1946. Soviets liberated Auschwitz and Treblinka in '44-'45, but Gulag camps only started to diminish when Stalin died in 1953.
Foreign heroes don't ride in to save a nation from itself. We're in for a long tough stretch until we ourselves somehow find a way to return to sanity.
Read it again, Sam..."350,000 dead, wounded, and missing."...only about a third of that number were actually KIA. At Stalingrad, possibly as many as 1.5 million were killed on both sides, of which about two-thirds of the dead were Soviets. So for the Russians, Stalingrad was ten times worse.
DeleteResistance didn't toppled the Nazis because there wasn't much of it.
DeleteHeartbreaking. Mr. Goodman is a hero. “To be on the side of the victim is to be on the side of life, which is what morality in practice comes down to.” Terence Des Pres
ReplyDeleteThe feeling of powerlessness is the worst part. I vacillate between "just grind it out and survive" and "we have to do something to fight back". But do what? It's like being caught in a forest fire and going to a protest is like peeing on it. It'll raise a little stink, but unlikely to make any difference. But then, why should the oppressors be comfortable? Silence is tacit approval and compliance. Best I can do is occasionally get into arguments with strangers online, shame the cruel and the ignorant, helps get the frustration out at least. It's vital to have voices like yours, with more skill and reach, to at least enter into the record that not all of us were fine with this.
ReplyDeleteI think eventually, after much devastating damage, the fire will burn out. Economy will tank and people will come to their senses and allow competent people with morals to take the wheel.
Been fighting with strangers online for years. Toxic as it is, it's also cathartic and therapeutic. Not to mention as addictive as hell...it's the adrenalin rush, I suppose. Produced by anger and hatred. I strongly believe that if there were no online arena, we'd be fighting in the streets by now. Which may easily happen anyway. It's just a shot away.
DeleteThe economy tanking, and people wising up, after too much pain and suffering, might be the most optimistic scenario. And maybe the least destructive and damaging. We've been waiting for the wising-up for years now. But it may well become lot worse before the sheeple wake up, far worse than anyone can imagine. A depression, another plague, civil unrest on a scale unlike anything we have seen since the first Civil War. Maybe all of them.
Purges, pogroms, pestilence, poverty...the Untied Snakes--slithering out and devouring us. And those are only the domestic reptiles. Russia? China? They are rubbing their hands together, and patiently waiting....for what? To pick up the pieces...oh, yeah...
Week two and it’s already a horror show most of us didn’t fully imagine. And many who voted for the monster at the helm thought it was all just talk. He wouldn’t really do that. I fear it will end up worse than any of us could imagine.
ReplyDeleteI think people have to do what they can where they can. I put up a sign that said, in big black letters, SHAME, on my front lawn after the election and got in trouble with the homeowners association and had to take it down because one of my Trumpy “neighbors” took a photo of it and complained, anonymously of course. Coward. It was up for several days, so mission accomplished, for now. I had to do something besides cry.
wow! are we liberals really this week and ineffectual? god forgive if this gets violent like grizz has predicted for years. I was at the range this weekend got that repeating rifle I had my eye on, pushed a couple hundred rounds through various guns stocked up on some more and put new tires on the truck and changed the oil.
Deletegood for you, you put up a sign that'll show the bastards
Still have a couple of signs in our front yard...a rainbow-colored protest sign and another showing support for Ukraine. They've been there for a couple of years now, and both of them are tattered and frayed. Just like we are now...pushing 80, with a minimal capacity to fight back. We're not kids of 70 anymore.
DeleteThe passage of so much time...an entire decade...has rendered us powerless. Frankly and bluntly speaking...what the fuck can a couple of old geezers really do? The anger and fury have been replaced by resignation and hopelessness. Now it's just day-to-day existence. Every day that we wake up is a gift...but hearing that he hasn't died yet makes it another bad day.
Even the sudden demise of 45-47 is no solution. His song would be over, but the malady would linger on. Home-grown fascism...a disease without a cure. Accompanied by the onstage appearance of something even worse...the Jethro V. Dance Troupe. On their toes--while the rest of us are on our knees.
steve, i"m with you. this soon-to-be 79 year old viet nam veteran bought a few firearms right after the orange scumbag's 1st election-saw the direction we were headed in back then. i give substantial sums to political and related organizations he and his stooges despise.. not sure yet how his ilk are keeping score, but approaching my door with ill intent will not end well.
DeleteBest you can realistically hope for is to take a few with you before they ventilate you on your front porch, when the poop finally hits the propeller. Have no illusions about a more favorable outcome for myself, either. We are the rebels once again, now that Joe is history. But this is one Jew who will not go quietly. Just want to be on my feet.
DeleteI was in Israel and went to the Holocaust Museum there during the family separation scandal. I knew the stories, but when they were talking about Jews being scapegoated and families separated, I definitely thought about those families in America who had been trying to make a decent life. It’s not the same but it sure came to mind anyway.
ReplyDeleteApparently never forget means 80 years.
ReplyDeleteNot everyone has forgotten so many of the people who witnessed or endured this catastrophe are gone now.
DeleteMy friend and colleague spent the day with his aunt nearing a hundred still pretty sharp a survivor in many ways.
First the camps then 80 years of wondering if it could happen again.
Now the second Trump administration.
Life is not easy
Franco, given the medias response to Heir Musk's salute. 80 years is generous.
DeleteGiven not a single republican in public offices said a word about the heil, suggests 80 years is generous.
Given the actions taken by the current administration, rounding up people with the help of locals, 80 years is generous.
I don't doubt there are many who have not forgotten, I certainly haven't, but they are the minority. And too many people are quite.
Your friend is a brave man.
ReplyDeleteThose of us who didn't vote for Trump have to find ways to stay sane while we support one another and also do whatever work we can to save our country.
ReplyDeleteAudrey. I think the only way things change is that we need to make two things happen. first, capitalism needs to grind to a halt. nothing changes unless the capitalists and oligarchy lose money.
DeleteAnd secondly we need to solve the propaganda issue we face.
I agree. We each live within some field of duty where there’s something to be done, and we can attend to it.
DeleteLee’s still at it ? Thanks for letting me know that Northbrook still harbors futile efforts.
ReplyDeleteAlways appreciate the insights and perspectives you share with us, Neil, and all of the replies. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the “Think globally, act locally,” concept. In that vein, I offer for your consideration to recognize where and how each of us can make a positive contribution in creating a democracy that includes everyone, which it never has. I have no influence in the political world other than voting, but with my extensive corporate leadership, psychology, and Human Resources background, I am committed to creating a community of people who believe in work as a possibility for all of us working together to unleash our potential making a difference while making a living. I can’t change what is but I can work to create what’s next. And if people experience a sense of confidence, competence, and efficacy at work, maybe they will be able to be more compassionate, caring, and inclusive in their treatment of one another outside of work so they can vote for a values-driven leader vs. a fear-inducing, narcissistic, greedy, attention obsessed reality show entertainer who wants to demolish the system vs. reform it.
ReplyDelete"But now, who will save us?"
ReplyDeleteI've been wondering about this ever since the election. We've had allusions to the orange felon's cultists being like Nazis for years now. Long before Elon offered his recent salute, whatever that was.
Along with references to Sinclair Lewis' novel "It Can't Happen Here." But we've moved from his losing by 3 million votes to Hillary in 2016, and to Biden by 7 million votes in 2020, to his actually winning the popular vote in 2024, having gained 3 million votes in 4 years after trying to overthrow the government, never acknowledging his defeat in the 2020 election, and becoming a convicted criminal.
It seems inconceivable after all he's said and done, but it's happened and, worse than that, he's now filling the administration with his toadies and is being abetted by those in the other 2 branches of federal government.
Ever since he, unbelievably to many at the time, won the nomination in 2016, I've wondered "when will this fever break?" Is there nothing that will indicate to his followers what a charlatan he is? Right now, it doesn't appear that there is. Perhaps, as some commenters have suggested, things will get bad enough with the economy or a new pandemic that some will abandon him. But not the millions of original cult members.
Pondering the comparison with the supposedly good German burghers who either became or supported Nazis in the '30s and '40s (and the fanatical folks in Japan and Italy, as well), who then managed to see the error of their ways and allow their countries to be reconstituted as democracies, it's clear that the transformation was brought about only because those nations were brutally defeated in war. The U. S. and the "free world" united to end the reign of terror. (With a huge role played by the Soviet Union, of course.) But nobody out there on the world stage is going to be wreaking such a transformation here. (Though Russia and China have been pleased to foment the race backward that we've been undergoing of late.)
Alas, I have no uplifting conclusion to this pointless comment. "Who will save us?" presumes that we can be saved, a fact not in evidence at this point.
If only we had some some sort of opposition party that could have taken the warnings about emergent fascism seriously, and recognized the existential threat that Trump represented. The kind of party that had bountiful resources, had the mainstream media gunning for them, was able to garner the ringing endorsement of every a-list celebrity under the sun and was capable of raising a billion dollars in sixty days. They could even have an idealistic name that really got the point across, like, oh, I don't know, "Democratic" maybe?
DeleteTough guy Trump one, Colombia zero. We know what to expect. Do we dare hope that the Trump presidency fails completely? Even were it possible to wish that four years of misery would teach the entire country a lesson, we know in our heart of hearts that no amount of misery will serve to teach the Trumpists anything. We have to hope that Trump doesn't destroy the United States, that he has a measure of success, God forgive me for saying so.
ReplyDeletejohn
Your mastery of words never ceases to amaze and entertain...." I prefer spinning reasoned argument to dash uselessly against the reinforced armor of unreason. "
ReplyDeleteLove it!