Lawlessness is a self-perpetuating, ever-expanding habit.
–Dorothy Thompson, The Courage to Be Happy (1957)
Let me preface today’s blogpost by saying that I am sorry for being compelled to write this but, though I knew it could, I never truly thought such a thing would happen here.
I didn’t know much about Dorothy Thompson before a few weeks ago. She was a journalist/ radio broadcaster who died in 1961 at the age of 67. She was, to put it plainly, an asskicker and a truth-teller. She interviewed Adolf Hitler in 1931 before he came to power for the magazine Cosmopolitan and soon after wrote a book, I Saw Hitler. Published just before Hitler became German Chancellor in 1933, she warned of the grave dangers presented if he were to ever take power.
The book infuriated Hitler. As a result, she was the first American journalist expelled from Germany in 1934. Arriving in Berlin she was greeted in her hotel within hours by Gestapo agents who gave her 24 hours to leave the country. A crowd of journalists gathered at the train station the next day as she left, presenting her with bunches of American Beauty roses as a symbol of their solidarity.
She became a celebrity, on equal footing with Eleanor Roosevelt in as being the most influential woman in America according to Time Magazine in 1939, as well as a symbol for journalism’s role in fighting fascism.
She spent the 30’s on a crusade to warn the world and particularly the USA of the threat that Naziism and Fascism posed to all countries. She famously disrupted the infamous 1939 German American Bund at Madison Square Garden, heckling and laughing at the speakers until finally being escorted from the building. Her efforts against totalitarianism were tireless.
And of course, many brushed it off as hyperbole. It might be no coincidence that she was married to Sinclair Lewis from 1927 until 1942, a period in which he wrote the prescient and dystopian novel It Can’t Happen Here which outlined just how an American candidate who fomented fear and division while making empty promises of instant prosperity is elected president. He then immediately takes complete control of the government and sets up a totalitarian regime.
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
I came across the quote at the top from Dorothy Thompson a few weeks ago and its truth screamed at me. Looking her up made wish we had a journalist like Dorothy Thompson right now who had the guts and the brains to speak truth to the naked lawlessness we are experiencing.
If you’re not paying attention, it’s high time to get your head in the game because as Thompson said, lawlessness is self-perpetuating and ever-expanding. In short, it’s going to get much worse if something doesn’t bring an end to it soon.
As an example, the idea that due process can be thrown out the window for any reason should terrify everyone. Without due process, anyone can be whisked off the streets and dispatched to a distant or even foreign detention center (you can read that as slave labor or concentration camp) without any chance to seek legal counsel or defend oneself against the charges–if there are even charges.
Without due process, they could basically disappear anyone at any time for little to no reason and with no determined length of sentence. You are just gone. You cease to legally exist. And there is no telling when and if you might return.
And you better believe that this has been part of their plan for some time. In fact, at yesterday’s meeting with the El Salvadoran president, Trump told him that El Salvador needed to build about five more even larger prison camps as Trump was planning on starting to send native US citizens there. He used the term home-grown.
Don’t try to shrug this off and say these people being whisked away to camps here and El Salvador probably did something to deserve this kind of treatment because without due process there is no way of knowing that. Due process provides the evidence, charges, and adjudication that have been the backbone of our legal system for as long as we have existed as a country.
It feels like we are about 8 seconds from being fully into fascism here as this administration totally ignores Supreme Court orders and openly makes plans to disappear all sorts of people. Disappearing people has long been one of the go-to moves for totalitarian regimes. Think of the several thousand people disappeared in Chile under Pinochet in the early 70’s. %o years later Chile is still dealing with the repercussions from that time. Or think about Argentina in the late 70’s/ early 80’s when it is estimated that around 30 thousand people, mainly political opponents or activists who spoke out against the dictatorship that was put in place by a military junta that overthrew Juan Peron, were seized and never heard from again.
The numbers that are being thrown around here would dwarf those from Argentina.
The idea that they could sweep anyone off the street and imprison them indefinitely without charges should concern you deeply. You might think it doesn’t affect your life but it portends an even darker future where this corrupt and lawless government may very well affect every aspect of your life. Now is the time to stop this madness. The window for action is closing fast and there may not be an opportunity in the future. And depending on how the Supreme Court responds to their orders being tossed aside, that window might already be closed.
You might be shaking your head and saying that I should calm down, that this is all hyperbole. That such a thing couldn’t happen here. Dorothy Thompson heard that all the time and look what happened then when people ignored the repeated warnings from her and others.
It can happen here and will if we don’t act now. The crisis is now at hand and there is no avoiding it.
Here’s a song off the 1983 album Voice of America from Little Steven. The song is titled Los Desparecidos (The Disappeared) and is about those who were surreptitiously taken away in Argentina at the time. I urge you to pay attention to the lyrics here and be aware that it might well apply here now.
It can and will happen here unless we stop it now. As I stated at the beginning: though I knew it could, I never truly thought such a thing would happen here…
For more on Dorothy Thompson there is a fine article online from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Redtree Times 