The Soul of the Oppressor

 

Democrats did a zoom meeting last night to discuss efforts to resist the signing of a contract between Rockingham County (where Hampton lives) and ICE for a new "detention center" in the county.

Kate Coyle, the only Democrat on the three person County Commission, outlined the arguments she had made to oppose this deal, but behind her recital was the reality that there are two Republicans on the Commission, Steven Goddu and Thomas Tombarello.

She had argued: 1/that such contracts usually require a link to a hospital for those taken into custody who are injured and that any medical misadventures might expose the County to medical liability suits into the millions; 2/ she pointed out there is doubt we could find non immigrant labor to serve as prison guards; 3/she argued that the exposure of the County for unspecified costs could undermine the promise of millions of dollars in revenue promised by the Trump administration for this contract.

Others chimed in with other arguments which were designed to appeal to the two Republicans having to do with costs and money, "Because Republicans are always thinking about money."

She appealed to all to show up to testify and protest at the hearing.

Finally, one man who had listened silently said, "You know, if we have not reached a tipping point with Alex Pretti's murder, I don't know if we ever will. If that event did not expose this murderous regime for what it is, what could? You argue over details of administration of the facility, you are niggling with murderers. 

If Steven Miller called and said, 'I need a few acres in your county for a detention center and, oh, by the way, it has to be able to accommodate a crematorium,' --would you then reply, 'Oh, but that might cause air pollution. We should think about that.' ? Are we listing every detail as a problem, when the big problem is never addressed?  

What if the neighbors at Mauthausen had argued that the smell coming from the concentration camp was a problem for tourism?'"

Lisa DeMio, the chair of the Rockingham Democratic Party replied, "We would never accept a crematorium." 

But she was not actually that concrete, unable to get the point of the analogy. She added, "What we are doing is trying to throw some sand in the gears."

Mad Dog understood, these well meaning citizens had been dealt a bad hand and they were trying to bluff and buy time. There was nothing they could do to prevent the inevitable. They were the violinists on the deck of the Titanic, playing music, holding on to what they could, but unable to do anything to prevent the disaster.

Kate Coyle was challenged on the idea of showing up with signs or to testify.  The same man replied,  "I showed up and testified last April and it was clear as day nothing we said had any effect on those two Republicans. Their minds are made up. Two angels blowing horns could descend from Heaven, but unless Donald Trump tells them to vote no, they will vote yes."

Mad Dog felt sorry for Kate. She seemed to involute before his eyes. 

As Tad Stoemer has pointed out, protests depend on a faith held by the protester that it is possible to change the mind of the oppressor, that the oppressor has a soul which can be saved if he can only be brought to enlightenment.  

Resistance simply says, "No."

Both Gandhi and Martin Luther King led their marches in the face of governments which represented some pretty awful things--in the case of Gandhi, it was British imperialism, colonialism based on the idea that backward brown people would never be capable of governing themselves, and besides, India "belonged" to the Queen.

For Martin Luther King, it was a government led by first John F. Kennedy and then Lyndon Johnson, and they had been put into office with Southern votes. It is hard to believe now, but in 1960, the South was solidly Democratic, because the Republican Party was the part of Lincoln. Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic candidate for President before Kennedy, chose as his running mate Estes Kefauver from Tennessee, an avowed segregationist. 

Kennedy had a soul and, like Kate Coyle, he found himself boxed in. If he backed MLK too closely, he'd be voted out and then who would MLK be left with?  

It wasn't until LBJ finally broke with his segregationist colleagues, like Richard Russell, and insisted on passing the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 which ended legal segregation in theaters, swimming pools and schools that the Dixiecrats, led by South Carolina's Strom Thurmond  Southerners, jumped from the Democratic to the Republican party.

It is obvious what would have happened had MLK or Gandhi been faced with dealing with Hitler. 

A movement based on protests depends on a faith that the oppressor has a soul to save, and will not murder you. That, of course, was sorely tested on the Pettis Bridge in Selma, where Southern police beat protesters with batons, and fractured skulls and came within inches of murder.

But there were enough people--LBJ, and some other Southerners who did have a soul, and so MLK was successful--until he was murdered by someone who had no soul.

So, how do you try to respond to the soulless oppressor?

Deitrick Bonhoeffer, a German cleric, joined a plot to kill Hitler. 

Vaclav Havel, the Czech patriot, advised people to simply "remove the sign from the window," by which he meant, stop embracing the lie.

Here in the US, we have the Big Lie and the little lies. Trump, Miller, Noem, Bovino, Vance all lied immediately about Alex Pretti: He was a domestic terrorist intent on massacring federal agents. 

And when all that was exposed with video so even a Republican, Rand Paul, had to say, "Those are lies you can see right in front of you," they backed off to Rick Scott's (R-Fl) fall back, "Well, you have the right to protest, but you can't interfere with police trying to do their duty." Which is to say, "Well, he had it coming for getting in the way of the police." But of course, as Rand Paul noted, Pretti was simply trying to come to the aid of a woman on the ground, something many of us would do instinctively. 

But Pretti and that woman protester did not understand the soulless nature of ICE and CBP. These are men recruited by slogans like, "America for Americans," and "We'll Have Our Home Again," and "Remove the Worst of the Worst" and "Protect Our Homes from Predatory Invaders." 

What would you expect from men like this?

They are worse than storm troopers, the brownshirts, who at least were not masked. They are murderous, soulless, unrestrainable, unteachable. They are the bottom of the barrel. Unemployable except as street thugs. They cannot learn the law, never mind enforce it. 

And they reflect their progenitors: the apple has not fallen far from the tree. They are what Trump and Miller would be if they could.

In their own minds, they are Seal Team 6, mowing down masses of Osama Bin Ladens. 

And you cannot appeal to a soul which is simply not there.