The ICE Men Smasheth

Hitler’s Brownshirts Proudly Marching

 

 Immigration and Customs Enforcement – better known as I.C.E, -- has become Donald Trump’s version of Hitler’s Brownshirts.

True, they’ve upgraded the costume from the sewage-brown Boy Scout garb of Hitler’s yobboes. The modern ICE gorilla sports a variety of ensembles, from fashion-forward flak jackets to form-fitting tee-shirts made to spec by such profiteers as VF Imagewear or FEDS Apparel.

 Otherwise their main function is the same: to terrorize a certain population. In the case of the Brownshirts, as everyone knows, it was Jews. In the case of ICE, it’s immigrants  or anyone who looks like they might be an immigrant (ie. brown-skinned and unable to afford a very nice car).

 ICE has even adopted a fave technique of the Brownshirts: smashing glass. You might recall Nazi Germany’s infamous Kristallnacht – the “Night of the Broken Glass,” in which the Brownshirts led a frenzy of window-smashing against Jewish-owned businesses, homes, and synagogues across the country.

 

Latter-Day Brownshirts

 

ICE may never match the Brownshirts in total square-footage of windows destroyed. (Reliable data is hard to find.)

But they may already have surpassed their Nazi heroes in car windows pulverized. ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative news group, has identified “nearly 50” separate cases of ICE car-window-bashing since Trump last took office. By comparison, using the same investigation methods, the ProPublicans were able to find just eight such incidents in the previous ten years.

One videoed case involved a Guatemalan couple in Massachusets, whose lawyer advised them NOT to open the car door or window until he, the lawyer, arrived. But the agents could not wait. In the video, the ICE goon who wields the adze seems to enjoy the work, his dedication even translating to excellent technique: The weight shifts from back foot to front, the head stays back, the hips rotate, and the adze-head accelerates through the window pane.

All the better to terrorize the cars’ inhabitants, who have included pregnant women, sobbing toddlers, and, in one case, “a 12-year-old with severe disabilities.”

 

Photo by ProPublica

 

There is one thing ICE could improve on, however. The adzes in the videos appear to have wooden handles. Look for future ICE adzes to sport high-grade aluminum or graphite handles, which are lighter in weight. They can afford it.

Speaking of affording it, ICE needs more staff and they will pay. They recently announced a “major Recruitment Drive offering $50K Signing Bonuses and Student Loan Forgiveness.”

 This partially answers a question I have often asked myself. How does ICE find people sadistic enough to carry out their terrorism? Financial incentive is probably a good place to start. But I wonder if they also screen for latent racism and sociopathy.

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Why I Can’t Stop Bitching About Gaza

 

Israel sunk to a new level of depravity yesterday. Its agents killed some 91 Palestinians who were trying to get some food at an aid station.

I am not totally sure why this particular topic keeps grabbing my attention. Certainly, there are plenty of other outrages worthy of bitching about. I think my own preoccupation with this particular topic comes down to two major reasons:

1)   The U.S.-sponsored starvation-genocide against children, elderly, women, and other innocent Palestinians is one of the most indefensible crimes against humanity since World War II. It is getting more cruel and more obscene every day. It is still not being given anywhere near the attention it deserves.

2)   My own tax dollars (and yours) are being used to finance this action. Thoreau, in “Civil Disobedience,” makes a very relevant observation:

It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous, wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support.

As a taxpayer, I am being forced against my will to give this genocide my support in a very practical way. I deeply resent this.

Very recently another of my favorite writers, Caitlin Johnstone, offered an essay titled “Gaza Isn’t Starving, it’s Being Starved.” I think it’s worth quoting at some length:

“So what’s the plan here? Do we just sit and watch Israel starve Gaza to death with the support of our own governments?

And then what? We just go along with our lives, knowing that that happened? That this is what we are as a society? That our civilization is comfortable allowing something like that to happen? And that our rulers could do the same thing to another inconvenient population at any time?

We’re just meant to be cool with that? And go on living like it’s normal?

I’m genuinely curious. How exactly is everyone planning to go about living their lives after that point? How does that work, exactly?

I’m asking because I don’t know. I mean, I know what my own government and its allies should do, but I don’t know what we as ordinary members of the public are supposed to do.”

One thing we can do is at least go on the record in opposition. I guess that’s what I am trying to do, even if I have a tiny audience. And I am grateful for Caitlin Johnstone and many others who have offered me an example.

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