Editor's Note: obviously I've been away from this website for the past couple months and while most of that time was spent feeling mopey and angsty, the past couple weeks have been more "exciting" in the thoroughly ironic sense of the word.
First up - owing to a recent and permanent suspension from Twitter, I've now migrated my online presence to Mastodon and Facebook, while simultaneously opening up a new Discord Chat (the Pavlichenko Appreciation Society) which you can find here. There's no password so anyone is free to join but please be advised that reasonable human behavior is expected; no nazis and no cops, thanks.
Additionally I recently published a medium-length letter on my Patreon Blog that talks about why I haven't been writing the past couple of months and what I'm trying to do to rectify the situation; the condensed version is that I'm frustrated and a little burnt out, so I'm trying to work my way back with shorter posts that are decidedly not essays - like this one, and this one. Please be assured that as soon as I can get back to my normal style of writing, I most certainly will do so.
Which brings me to today's post; for the past couple of years I've tried and failed to get in the habit of writing the sort of quasi-regular "link dump" articles other blogs use to help maintain daily traffic. A big part of the problem has been that while I'm busy working on long-form essays, I don't always have time to collect links to all the good articles I've read recently and offer some brief thoughts on each of them. At the moment however, I'm struggling with the necessary focus and endurance required to perform my regular sort of compositions, so I figured I might as well try my hand at another links article feature.
I don't know how often, or for how long I'm going to publish this kind of post but for now I'd rather stay busy and keep sharing than sit around "waiting for the magic to happen" again. In light of the fact that this blog is called "Media Madness" you can rest assured that the links will be horrifying and make you want to invest in guillotine shares.
---
From an opening day Trump administration policy of mass deportations to the expansion of a preexisting concentration camp system on U.S. soil, I've spent a lot of time these past three years talking about why ICE is, and has always been the American Gestapo of our modern times. Although many have foolishly dismissed such concerning comparisons as hyperbolic, there now exists a growing body of evidence even in the pitifully myopic mainstream corporate media that indeed, something quite obviously fascist "this way comes." Let's take a quick look at some recent and extremely alarming headlines:
ICE Fails To Properly Redact Document, Reveals Location Of Future 'Urban Warfare' Training Facility - while much of the American corporate media has been ignoring this ongoing story, Newsweek (an otherwise terrible media company) has recently made it an important part of their surprisingly critical ICE coverage. For those who aren't interested in disabling their ad blocker, the long and short of it is that ICE is spending millions of dollars to construct "urban warfare" training facilities in Fort Benning, Georgia, modeled after real life locations in Arizona and the far-right's "black on black violence" bête noire, Chicago. Although Newsweek itself seems regrettably focused on the "gotcha" moment of ICE's failed redaction, local coverage in both Chicago and Arizona is a little more sober, if still largely inadequate. As Eoin Higgins over at Common Dreams notes however, the real question you should be asking is "what the hell does ICE need a "hyper-realistic" urban warfare training facility for?" As you'll see in our next few links, the answer appears unlikely to be "good things."
ICE Agents Shot An Immigrant Trying To Flee. Now The FBI Is Investigating - this is another story about militant ICE violence that is largely being ignored, or reported far too credulously and dishonestly framed by extremely police-friendly outlets in the mainstream media. Even the Buzzfeed article above wastes several paragraphs presenting a he said/she said tale of an ICE traffic stop gone wrong in which a suspect escapes by aiming his truck like a weapon at a brave law enforcement officer and is thereby wounded in self-defense; indeed, it's noted that ICE called in the FBI to investigate a possible assault - on, not by, the officer that shot a guy. The problem of course, as demonstrated by the embedded video in Buzzfeed's own article and this piece by David Boddiger over at Splinter, is that almost none of ICE's story appears to be true: "video shows that the truck was stopped at the time of the confrontation,
and the plainclothes ICE officers appear to approach it in two separate
vehicles. As the truck pulls away moments later, the officers do not
appear to be in danger of being struck, and one is seen raising his arm
as if to fire a weapon." As this article at Latino Rebels points out however, the fact that the ICE agent is clearly lying isn't even the most disturbing part of this story - the shooting victim was under no legal obligation to turn over the requested identification without a judicial warrant and being in the country "illegally" is typically either a federal misdemeanor or a civil offense; it sure as hell doesn't justify the use of deadly force!
ERO Letter to the American Public - this
of course brings us to a terrifying bit of fascist self-pitying doublespeak
released by ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations. While I won't bore you with lies about providing "safe, humane and appropriate conditions of confinement" or pedantic quibbles about the difference between "targeted arrests" and "raids" let's focus in on the important point, here:
Arguably the most disturbing part of this statement from a moral perspective is that much of it is true in the strictest sense of the word; however the staggering amount of information left out of this explainer makes it a clear lie by omission. It makes no mention of the probable cause required before an ICE officer can even ask to see your identification, or the fact that you are not legally compelled to provide it unless you actually aren't an American citizen. Indeed, this propaganda explainer makes no mention at all of the difference between the rights of an American citizen, a documented migrant and an undocumented migrant. Nor does ICE explain that they do in fact still require a judicial warrant to enter or search a home, business or a private space, like say, your box truck. The ERO letter then goes on to hide behind the civil nature of an immigration violation and seeks purposely conflate ICE officers with police (despite claiming powers far beyond the purview of any local police force) - all before strongly suggesting via the word "jeopardy" that they might kill you for interfering in what is once again a civil enforcement matter, not a violent and dangerous crime. This is objectively a fascist fantasy; after all even cracker pigs in the deep south aren't allowed to put a cap in your ass for jaywalking - at least in theory.
The overall effect here is clearly intended to imply that ICE is free to do whatever fascist police state crap it wants to do in the pursuit of "rounding up illegals" with no additional authority or oversight required and you're probably a pinko traitor if you don't agree with the department's extremely "liberal" interpretation of its own purview. This is especially true if you don't read the underlying text and just focus on the bold-type, objectively terrifying headline - as the ICE Twitter account so helpfully allowed you to do.
ICE Keeps Arresting Prominent Immigration Activists. They Think They’re Being Targeted - further cementing the disturbing and decidedly fascist direction US immigration enforcement agencies are taking is this August 24th story about the apparent open ICE targeting of immigration activists at Vice by Gaby Del Valle. Although apologists, reactionaries and bigots will seek to treat each incident as a random occurrence in isolation, any reasonable observer can look at both the number (twenty and counting) as well as the circumstances involved in each of these cases and see what appears to be a clear pattern of retaliation against migrant activists for the mere exercise of free speech and the right to protest. This conclusion is of course further supported by the rapidly growing body of evidence that the US government is actively spying on journalists, lawyers and immigration activists along the U.S.-Mexican border. Finally of course it should be noted that this is not the only time people tied to the Trump administration have been found using ICE to persecute political enemies; a very alarming picture of a truly functional American Gestapo is indeed beginning to emerge from the chaos.
---
After more than a decade of watching and multiple years of writing about ICE, it is in the aggregate results of the agency's actions, and not the media's consistent portrayal of "a few bad apples" that don't represent the whole, in which I find the true nature of the beast we now find ourselves facing in earnest.
These stories cannot be fully understood as isolated incidents but must be recognized in the context of a white nationalist immigration policy and a revanchist, objectively racist yearning for a return to dog-whistle "law and order" politics. They must be considered in relation to a country that is rapidly expanding its already repugnant concentration camp system - a country lead by a wholly fascist political party and its reality TV show bigot president; who are at once the architects of, and slaves to, a hard-line anti-immigration policy openly forged in xenophobia and hate.
Finally, these events must also be understood in the uncompromising light of history. There is a name by which society has previously identified a militant, secretive, racist and largely unaccountable police force trained to fight its own populace and bent on enforcing malevolently racist laws - we called them the Gestapo; even if it hurt their feelings.
- Nina Illingworth
You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog.
Updates available on Twitter, Mastodon and Facebook.
No comments:
Post a Comment