Finding our footing on the balance beam of private life and government power.

At home and on the street.

At my kitchen table, the light shadow on the green vase catches my eye at the same time a wave of fear overwhelms me. Like the G clef and the F clef, these feelings of pleasure and fear are held together the way two notes are played together. At this moment, these notes are discordant. The pitch hurts. At my kitchen table, safe and secure, I am scared.

The reports of ICE enforcements, disappearances, and ICE pretenders—ICE refuses to identify themselves, or whether actions on the street are ICE employees or ICE impersonators hit us daily. Who is who? State terrorism is here. That is one proof that the government’s calculated intent is to silence us and cause us to cower.

I keep Timothy Snyder’s lesson from his book, On Tyranny. Twenty Lessons From The Twentieth Century in mind.

𝟭𝟴. 𝗕𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗺 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀.

Yesterday, on Juneteenth, the day dedicated to celebrate the end of slavery, a well-respected, deeply appreciated community member was disappeared by ICE.

“He was in chains at his feet,” Alondra Sotelo-Garcia said about seeing her father arrested. Photograph: Courtesy of the family

“It’s not just one arrest or one assault. It’s a campaign,” says Yale University historian Joanne Freeman.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) now runs the world’s largest exclusion and deportation policing apparatus. It is a robust police-to-deportation pipeline. And it’s not new. It was not invented for our time now.

The Immigrant Defense Project (IDP) was founded over 20 years ago to combat an emerging human rights crisis: the targeting of immigrants for mass imprisonment and deportation. “Calls to #AbolishICE have shed light on the harms of this system,” states IDP. “[It is] a system that creates so much human pain, erodes fundamental fairness and human rights, and threatens the safety of millions.” IDP provides toolkits on their site’s Resources page.

For us who are opposed to ICE illegal activities, it’s a race against the clock to put a brake on their repugnant behavior. We have 14 days to save ourselves from President Donald Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill.”

Count the days: 14 days to stop a massive amount of money going to ICE means that each of us must do what we can.

HCR says in her YouTube short, “They want it signed by July 4, because it has significant money to beef up border protection, and immigration customs, and enforcement policies… right now ICE has spent so much money that it is virtually out of money. Which by itself is illegal.”

As we stay informed, non-bureaucratic, dynamic, and open, we resist despotic power. We protect the indivisibility and the inalienability of justice and liberty for all.

Between protest rallies, form a plan with your Adjacent Seven. What will your group say to your congressional representative?

Write postcards.

Make your 5 Calls.

Source: SDKaos and Scott Shapiro

Post your two photos of the balance beam you’re walking on in the CHAT.

Why? For the sake of each of us, together in community, to know the details that strengthen the bonds of friendship.

So let’s go for it. I post. You post. Let’s keep a record, like a diary. This will help to keep us solid.

Put your photos in the chat!

WE ARE ALL DREAMERS, LA Times. Billboard, N∩IX

My story, your stories. Leave a record for family members and future generations about what we experienced and what we did.

Walking this balance beam takes practice. But we love practice! And we’ve got one another, and that is what makes this time bearable, doable, and, maybe, a bit of fun. Walk the dog. Sing a song.