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| Musee d'Orsay |
The Trump administration is "actively looking at suspending habeas corpus," according to Stephen Miller.
The most important thing to understand is, if an immigrant can be snatched off the street without legal process, so can you. Because the same protection being stripped from him is also being stripped from you. Because nobody can be certain who is being bundled into that van by the masked federal police force. Because there will no longer be law to answer to. Immigrants — illegal, legal, that's just a fig leaf, for now — are the start, the test, the toe tipped into the waters of unchecked fascism. If we can't stop it now, we won't be able to stop it later.
That's all I have to say. Enjoy the day.
The most important thing to understand is, if an immigrant can be snatched off the street without legal process, so can you. Because the same protection being stripped from him is also being stripped from you. Because nobody can be certain who is being bundled into that van by the masked federal police force. Because there will no longer be law to answer to. Immigrants — illegal, legal, that's just a fig leaf, for now — are the start, the test, the toe tipped into the waters of unchecked fascism. If we can't stop it now, we won't be able to stop it later.
That's all I have to say. Enjoy the day.
We are not only screwed, but screwed, blewed, and tattooed.
ReplyDeleteI’m sick at heart for our country.
ReplyDeleteLove the "Enjoy the day" closer ...
ReplyDeleteNot easy anymore. Every day that he's still in control is another bad day.
DeleteWhy did the founders include this power for the president to suspend the writ of habeas corpus?
ReplyDeleteI've been doing some reading about it and it seems like sometimes it's necessary. But it seems like there should always be habeas corpus always. But the Constitution does say he can suspend it
Because they didn't. The Constitution says it can be suspended in times of rebellion, which this isn't, and tradition holds that the power lies in Congress. Nice try.
DeleteThe Clause does not specify which branch of government has the authority to suspend the privilege of the writ, but most agree that only Congress can do it. President Abraham Lincoln provoked controversy by suspending the privilege of his own accord during the Civil War, but Congress largely extinguished challenges to his authority by enacting a statute permitting suspension
DeleteAren’t most of us immigrants anyway? My family immigrated from Germany in the 1850’s. I might be a citizen because I was born here but bottom line I’m still an immigrant and can picked up off the street. at any time and shipped back to Germany. Or maybe sent to prison in El Salvador.
ReplyDeleteMy grandmothers were born in Russia. My grandfathers came from Lithuania and what is now Poland. Plus, I'm Jewish. Maybe the Orange Order will finish what the Nazis started. My maternal grandmother's whole family went up the chimney around 1941-42. Hence the comment about being tattooed.
DeleteThe numbers on the arms are not a photograph in a museum for me, or an image on a screen. . I've seen a few living examples of them, up close and personal. Can it happen here? Damn betcha it can. Abso-fucking-lutely.
Trump is taking his cues from several authoritarian playbooks, one of which is the recent and ongoing plan of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador - you know, Bukele, who was at the 2024 CPAC crowing about his success and has dubbed himself the world's coolest dictator and has been in close contact with our current regime about prison space for our deportees.
ReplyDeleteI was in the capital San Salvador for the Feb 2024 presidential election as an election observer - something that, at least up to 2024, was requested and welcomed for 30 years by those wishing to ensure the 1993 peace accords and move toward democracy in El Salvador would be firmly established and followed. We observers witnessed first-hand how Bukele manipulated the election - the law said he couldn't run for a second consecutive term, so he blew right past that law - and now controls the system - from the high courts to the military to local representation (or diminishment of) to the media to the citizens' daily lives.
Centro de Intercambio y Solidaridad (CIS), the organization that has been managing this election observation - and many other human rights programs in the country - produces a report on the elections each cycle. In the CIS Mid Year newsletter last summer is the election report that begins: "The 2024 elections were an exercise in centralizing absolute power, as promised in the New Ideas campaign [Bukele's campaign theme] to not let in one voice of opposition. Laws were changed overnight reducing the number of legislative deputies from 84 to 60 and changing the assignment of seats to favor the largest party and to keep out smaller parties. The control of the elections by the Supreme Elections Tribunal (TSE) was usurped by the official party ..."
It goes on, and further down in the newsletter, human rights violations are recapped. Bukele instituted a "regime of exception" in 2022 - similar to martial law and what would be suspension of habeas corpus here in the US - to get rid of gangs in El Salvador, yes. But it contnues years later and allows for the arrest and incarceration of anyone, and most of those prisoners - innocents and gang members alike - have no legal recourse. They are in the prisons that Trump has sent US resident Kilmar Ábrego García. (CIS newsletter - download for the whole thing: https://www.cis-elsalvador.org/blog/cis-mind-year-letter-june-2024)
Interestingly, CIS has produced no updates since last summer. I'm curious, so will try to find out if their voice has been silenced. And, here we are. The manipulation and control-grabbing are underway in our country, too.
Fabulous sculpture. Important message too, thank you.
ReplyDeleteMiller is a disgusting schande, because he's Jew who seems to worship the policies of Heinrich Himmler. Many people have used AI to put him in a Nazi uniform, which is appropriate for him!
ReplyDeleteTypical human response. It can’t happen to me because(insert reason here) only to those “others” who deserve it. Despite centuries of history saying the opposite here we go again. Stupid ass humans…..
ReplyDeleteYes. "First they came for..." It's not just a poem, people.
DeleteOne thing I learned several years ago from someone peripherally involved in peace discussions is that our relations with various Central and South American countries is that their elite is heavily populated by the monied class educated in large part in the United States, who control police and military personnel trained by American military and police. They have immediate credibility to Americans impressed with their ability to speak English and their familiarity with our customs and mannerisms, whereas the peons and civil rights protesters, some of whom may in fact be terrorists and/gangsters, but all of whom suffer under the whims of authoritarian governments, appear crude and unworthy despite their suffering, despite their pain, despite their despair.
ReplyDeletejohn
This is the way the USA ends, not with a bang but a whimper.
ReplyDelete