Dear Neighbors,
Not 200 miles away from us, masked scary men are landing on and around homes from helicopters, taking children from their beds and abducting American citizens in the middle of the night. This is illegal and unAmerican, and I feel compelled to say so, and to look for support for that sentiment locally.
It will come here. Our farms and agribusinesses hire immigrants, and in some cases could not operate without immigrant labor. Our documented immigrant neighbors have to be nervous; when ICE fails to discriminate between citizens and non-citizens, we cannot trust them to distinguish between documented immigrants and undocumented ones. Brown people in general are at risk. So, what will we do when our neighbors are caught up? Or when ICE tries to enter our schools and businesses?
Maybe we’re too comfortable to take on these questions.
Maybe too many of us are content to think, “this too shall pass,” and stay on the couch. (It won’t pass.) Maybe if the Declaration of Independence were to be written today, it would be more heroic to pledge “our lives, our leisure, and our sacred honor,” to the cause. Those who would remain comfortably silent can no longer claim the title of “patriotic American.”
Donald Trump and Elon Musk intend to break our government entirely. Ending food inspection in the name of deregulation weakens our nation’s health. Even more, undermining the public faith in vaccines has weakened our country’s health for a generation to come. Treating our military leaders like spoiled children does not make our military better; it makes our military cynical. Taking away our “soft power” tools of economic aid to other nations does not make our nation stronger. Trying to illegally extort crassly partisan behavior from the President of Ukraine, does not make our nation stronger. Showing regard for the President of Russia, an indicted war criminal, does not make us stronger.
We can’t let troops roam American cities. We can’t have masked men abducting citizens off the street and deporting them without due process. We can’t have a Department of Justice taking orders from the president about who should be arrested and charged. We have been, and must remain, a nation of law. We can’t have a president selling access and policy on the crypto market. We can’t have a tax policy that favors the richest dozen Americans at the expense of the millions of working poor. When the members of our government fail in their oath and duty to protect the Constitution, citizens must step up. In the democracy we are born into, this is our duty as citizens.
There is a National Day of Protest planned for October 18. Please join a rally near you! Bring your own sign, or borrow one there. What we’re going through is not normal, and our lawmakers need to take extraordinary measures to counteract this extraordinary threat. We are demonstrating in support of the Constitution, the agreement that has guided how we live together for the past 250 years. Is it a lack of moral courage holding you back, or the comfort of the couch?
