Americans’ willingness to bully has always seemed to this second generation Italian-American to be part and parcel of Manifest Destiny, American Exceptionalism, America First, the KKK, The American Conservative Council, ALEC, the Heritage Foundation, MAGA movement, and now the Trump Administration bolstered by SCOTUS, Homeland Security, DOJ and FBI. Individuals within each organization are not necessarily racist, misogynist, Christian nationalists. There are men and women who love our country and only want to serve their nation. But, they are now being swallowed up as the separation of powers, using an immune to lawful control unitary executive pushed by Republican appointees to the Supreme Court, destroys their dedication to facts and the law as guiding principles. Even the military leadership is decimated by firings and forced retirements. Even retirees like Commander and Senator Mark Kelly, and Lt. Colonel and Senator Tammy Duckworth are under attack by the nation they most ably served. What will new recruits do? What pressure will they face as they are asked to obey unlawful orders, as they watch Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth execute such orders with full support of Vice-President J.D.Vance and congressional Republicans?
In the past, we overlooked weaknesses in our leaders so long as they served the common good, in recognition of their humanity and acknowledging human foibles. There were checks and balances on human ill will and human error. We joined one another, citizen and new immigrant alike, in creating a democratic republic with global vision. We envisioned a world at peace where children could learn what they needed to know to be successful; where business and commerce could thrive; where ownership of resources was put to the common good. We built railroads, a national highway system, flood control projects, an energy grid, the internet, and now artificial intelligence.
We have been far from perfect, or even rational, but we kept trying to make a “ More Perfect Union.” We faced down our demons of racism and sexism under pressure of freedom-seeking Americans like W.E.B. Dubois, Ida Wells, A. Phillip Randolph, Ralph Abernathy, Ruby Bridges, Julian Bond, Bayard Rustin, Jo Ann Robinson, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Congressman John Lewis…among thousands. Their struggle and ours continues.
It is no coincidence the four persons arrested for protesting at a white nationalist church pastored by an I.C.E. field officer in Minneapolis were African-American, including two journalists: Don Lemon and Georgia Fort. U.S. Asst. A.G. who oversees the civil rights division of the DOJ reposted a tweet referring to journalist Lemon as “ today’s clansmen.” An AI meme is circulating showing Don Lemon in chains as if he were a fugitive slave reclaimed by paid by bounty hunters. I.C.E. agents today are being paid bounties. Killing two white protesters, Rene Good and Alex Pretti while continuing to brutalize people of color stood out to white America. The arrest of Black journalists restored the racist narrative that people color are a always a threat to white America. Soon, the secret police paramilitary created by the Trump Administration will attack Haitians in Springfield, Ohio whose protected status will be allowed to expire under Republican-led House and Senate Leaders Johnson and Thune. Will white America see this for what it is? Will they connect the dots to understand the effort to divide and conquer all protesters- Black and white, and destroy the momentum which could sweep the fascists from office in coming elections? Seizure of Fulton County Georgia’s ballots has no legal benefit to the DOJ and FBI. But, if unopposed creates the narrative that seizing ballots is the usual course of election security. It is the exact opposite. It is dangerously erosive to election integrity.
In law, evidence must be held within the chain of command. Break the chain and the evidence is useless. It cannot be used easily, if at all. It will face “objection” if a party tries to in introduce it at trial to support a legal claim. Why? Because it is assumed it will be compromised. Ballots seized in a broken chain of command become a disinformation tool, a grand lie as they are altered and manipulated by those who seized them. We must object, not because we are in a court of law; but because we are in a court of public opinion. Our opinion counts as we protest. It counts even more when we vote.
I grew up in a neighborhood with bullies shouting and shoving at “dirty Catholic”, “dirty Italian” little girls. I went to a school where bullies painted Nazi insignia on the walls of the gym. I walked home form early dismissal when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated to smirks and chants from public school kids across the street “We finally killed that Catholic bastard.” I cannot remember a time when I have not been called a Commie-pinko leftist for teaching Black History and creating Black History programs. Like one out of four women I have even been sexually assaulted by bullies. Bullies cannot silence truth-seekers, journalists, educators, civil rights activists, people of color, women. They cannot be allowed to steal our votes, whenever they are cast. They cannot stop us. They have militarized the effort to stop us. They have arrested, disappeared, brutalized and killed. It will never be enough to break Americans and their insistence upon the freedoms guaranteed by a beloved Constitution and Bill of Rights. We stand together, stronger and more sure of our love for our country.
My thanks to my friends in Clintonville area of Columbus who helped me attend this moment of patriots’ challenge to the con men robbing the USA of its power, wealth, ideals and humanity. The lack of media coverage was appalling. The misrepresentation of attendance numbers cannot be challenged when media fails to provide images of the gatherings. A local station covered it AFTER it was over and crowds had dispersed. Another stated hundreds attended when it was actually thousands. We are here. We are resisting. We are going nowhere until the despotism and kidnapping of people and the Supreme Court, universities, news organizations, social media outlets, medical and public health Institutions… even our very language and the meaning of words and phrases has been brought to an end and freedom restored.
For years I crossed to the opposite side of the street, or changed my direction, or turned a corner whenever I saw a police officer. PTSD caused my muscles to contract then quiver. Sweat beaded on my brow. My heart rate accelerated. My calves and thighs contracted as I prepared to run for my life. This was not because I was a criminal; but, because I had been a student protester in the late 60s and early 70s. I had been attacked and threatened with tear gas, pepper spray, bully clubs and bullets.
I was inspired by Thoreau, Mahatma Gandhi, and the Reverend Martin Luther King,Jr. to seek justice through peaceful protest and political action, to embrace the protections in the Bill of Rights which granted my free speech and right of peaceable assembly, and to redress the Government for redress of grievances.
As a child, I watched TV police dogs attack and bite civil rights protesters peaceably assembled, watched those protesters beaten into submission with clubs and guns, watched them shot, watched busses burned, watched water hoses knock down men, women and children. I watched those asserting their rights jailed and injured while handcuffed in cells.
Brutality seemed a “southern thing”; but racism was everywhere around me, in my Ohio town, my Catholic school, my Italian-immigrant and Appalachian-white neighborhood. We immigrants, who faced our own discrimination were too ready to discriminate against Black people, lest we be seen as within their fold. We Catholics who saw swastikas painted on our gym walls, who faced our own discrimination were too ready to discriminate against Black people for the same reason. The common thought expressed whenever anything difficult happened was “At least I am free, white and 21.”
Too many missed the point that if one person is denied freedom we all are; an un-provoked attack on any person is an attack on all of us, justice denied one person means justice is denied all of us. We pretend that we are safe because we are “free, white and 21”.
The trick of oppressors is to recognize racists, misogynists, homophobes and the poor that they suffer because of those they are willing to hate, not because of those who wield the power of oppression to greedily retain their wealth and power. No minimum wage increases, destruction of workers’ unions, ignoring the need to build affordable housing, food insecurity, privatized mental and physical health care system. It all works to the advantage of the oppressors.
On campus, women in my co-ed dorm had a curfew and sign-out book to record where we went after 6pm, with whom and when we would return. Men had no such requirement. We were punished with student judicial charges if we did not follow “the book”. I wrote a Declaration of Independence for the women of Lincoln tower and with other women removed the books and threw them into bonfire. Today, we would have been arrested. It ended the sign-out system when requests to the women’s Dean of Students (yes, there was a Dean for Men and a Dean for women) refused to take action on our behalf.
I participated in hunger strikes and sit-down strikes for transparency of crimes on campus, especially crimes against women and Black students. Crimes were not considered public information back then. One hunger strike resulted in the installation of emergency blue-light cameras strung across campus. They are still in place. We also protested and had hunger strikes for a Black Studies department, Black faculty and curriculum. Racial awareness programs and efforts, affirmative recruitment of Black students and Black faculty.
Meanwhile, students formed their own racial crisis-intervention practices and programs. The Student Government Association joined with the leader of Afro-Am in the development of a petition to address the issues of racism and need for a Black Studies Department. The petition included 19 items, initially. The student Leaders were denied a meeting with The President of OSU, day after day. Finally, they set up a card table and chairs in front on the administration building, waiting for him to acknowledge their presence and meet with them. Student organizers from across campus dorms, clubs, and student organizations decided to support the effort and called for a student strike.
The day before the strike was to begin I called the Secretary of the Board of Trustees, asking them to step-in and meet with Afro-Am and SGA leaders, or demand the president do so. I explained the growing unrest and pending strike, which would disrupt the educational mission of the university, He understood and agreed to call each board member and see if he could attain a quorum wiling to meet the leaders. Late that day he called, saddened to report that the board refused to meet or discuss my request for their intervention.
The next day, the strike was called and the requests had become a list of demands. A microphone was set p on the Oval and anyone could speak about the need for a university response. One of the first speakers was Woody Hayes, our beloved and irascible football coach who understood the demands and applauded us for remaining peaceful. The National Guard was ordered to campus. Its commander took the microphone to ask us to remain peaceful and told us although his soldiers carried weapons, they had not been issued bullets.
The following day a different commander addressed us to report the first had been removed from command and the soldiers were now fully armed and weapons loaded. The siege was on.
The protest lasted most of Spring quarter. Any group with a grievance climbed on the backs of Black students to seek their own agenda; feminists, LGBQ, environmentalists etc. Then, Cambodia was bombed and OSU became part of nation-wide student anti-war movement.
During this time we were tear-gassed, chased by jeeps with machine guns mounted on the back, sprayed with pepper gas; and helicopters flew over us dropping a yellow gas which exfoliated the trees and shrubs, browned out the grass, and caused the spring bulbs to keel over and die. It was a metaphor for what they did to us. Thousands of students, even those frat boys along fraternity row who collaterally were gassed and their frat houses shot up as students were chased by police along side streets, joined in the strike. The faculty of the Philosophy department conducted training and held classes on peaceful resistance, helping us orchestrate lie-ins and die-ins. We learned about sacrifice of the few for the rights of the many, among other philosophical treatises. I often brought food and water to the guardsmen, raiding automated food machines in my dorm. We handed them flowers and made peace with them, understanding they had no desire to kill us, and had to follow orders. Police cruisers circling the Oval would stop suddenly, an officer or two jump out and begin clubbing students sitting there, handcuff, arrest them and toss them into the back of the cruiser. We gave our floor “activity money” to campus clergymen to bail-out those arrested every day. The Ohio legislature later created a law to seize those fees for university control only, to avoid our use of our funds in a manner they disagreed with.
One day stands out. Maintenance was taking down the flag in front of the administration building where our leaders still sat and waited for an appointment. The group waiting with them began singing “America The Beautiful” in a very sarcastic voice. Some threw marshmallows toward the guardsmen who formed a triple-line between us and the flag, even though no one moved toward the flag. An order was given. The first line went to ground. The second line crouched down. The third line rested their guns on the shoulders of the second line. I was in front facing three soldiers. Our group became silent. A second order was given and we heard and watch guns cocked and ready to fire. We knew the next order would be “fire”. I looked into the eyes of the soldiers and ask tears held in check in fearful eyes. I whispered, “it is Okay.” I have no idea how long we stood there, frozen guardsmen and frozen protesters. But eventually the order was given to stand-down. I brought food and water again that night, dodging armed jeeps and cutting across a party no car had access to.
We were never invited to meet and discuss our demands. Martial law was declared by the Ohio governor. Students were ordered to not gather in groups exceeding 4 persons, or could be arrested. Civil rights were suspended. The thousands of us who gathered daily simply divide up into groups of 4 sitting no closer than 10 feet apart. The bully-club attacks continued. The gassing continued. We stayed. Most of us slept overnight knowing if we left the field the Oval would be cut-off to us. We held the field for those arriving in the morning to swell our ranks.
Until Kent State. Black students at Jackson State had been shot and killed a few days before Kent State. They were overlooked because Black lives have seldom mattered in America. But, when Kent State students died campuses were shuttered and students sent home; allowed back to take finals before dismissing for the summer. Campuses were reinforced for crowd control. Rules and laws were changed to undermine student organizing. Legislative hearings were held on campus, and facts suppressed. I attended the hearings. I recalled E.R. doctors from University Hospital appearing to report the nearly 30 students were shot during the protests, some left paralyzed. This had never been reported upon. The legislators asked the doctors to turn over the medical files they had brought to support their testimony. the doctors refused because medical records should be private, and because we “fear the information contained within will be suppressed.”
We have been in this space before:
Civil rights demanded and ignored.
Peaceful association branded harmful, protesters branded violent criminals.
Marshal law invoked to eliminate due process and civil rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
Use of weapons of war against civilians.
I have been called a “commie, pinko, radical, n…. -lover, racist”, since my teenage years into my mid-70s. I am a peace-lover, people-lover, nature-lover activist. All activists who embrace our constitutional rights are considered radical. We are trouble-makers when we question injustice and seek redress. Name-calling is meaningless to activists. We care not care what you call us because that is not us. We do care that you use name-calling to justify your own inaction, your own fence-sitting, your own unwillingness to facedown bullies. We bring attention to your deepest fears, while you insist there is nothing to fear. But, I tell you, there is something to fear.
We all should be afraid. I cannot watch scary movies. I face fear daily, for real. I cannot involve my consciousness in fake fears to entertain myself. I cannot look away from real suffering. I cannot sit on the fence and watch. I must act. I ask you to act, peacefully and continuously, “Until justice runs down like water, and righteousness lie a mighty stream.” And, know this: when you stir yourself to action, you will be attacked.
Once you find the courage to act, the emotional fear subsides. The physical attacks are more difficult. Mostly, because we never seem to expect human beings to be so cruel to us, fellow human beings. We know we are not behaving wrongly. We know we are not hurting others. We know we are not asking for anything we do not need, nor deserve. Why would anyone hurt us? Well, I have no answer because it is not a rational thing. There is no rational answer that applies to all. What I can do is offer some useful tips.
Check to see if parade-marshals are present. Listen to them and follow their instructions.
Wear shoes that are secure on your feet and allow you to run, and run fast. Wear socks.
Wear long-sleeves and long pants.
Pay attention to your surroundings and the people around you.
Note any inconsistent behaviors, especially violent rhetoric.
Try to stay upwind of police, note wind direction to avoid gas.
Wear a mask to avoid breathing in gasses.
Apply vaseline to exposed skin to avoid burns from pepper spray/pepper gas.
Note exit routes in case of attack, or stampede. Be ready to exit.
Move away from disputes, not toward them.
Employ the maxim, “Run away to fight another day.”
If arrest/removal is attempted go limp, lie down and allow peaceful removal. You can argue in court later through your attorney.
Do not block sidewalks, nor ingress and egress into buildings on your route.
Do not interfere with others going about their business.
Have videographers present to film.
Use camera to record incidents. Do not willingly turn over phones/cameras (without a warrant). Leave before anyone grabs them, and preserve images.
Have emergency number and agreed upon pick-up point in case you need to call for assistance.
Let others know where you are going to be and call when you finish to let them know you are safe.
Look out for one another. Calm others when they start to get agitated. It happens to the best of us.
Register with groups and organizers. They will help if things go haywire.
Peace overcomes war. Love overcomes hate. Stay in that space. When you no longer can, leave.
Come back and join in the next march, protest, sit-in,/die-in…and if you cannot physically engage in this way, offer financial support, write Letters to the editor, call your local-state-county and federal officials and representatives. And for goodness sake, vote as if our lives and our sacred honor as Americans rely upon you.
annarino writes 
BORN IN THE USA, PART 3
Americans’ willingness to bully has always seemed to this second generation Italian-American to be part and parcel of Manifest Destiny, American Exceptionalism, America First, the KKK, The American Conservative Council, ALEC, the Heritage Foundation, MAGA movement, and now the Trump Administration bolstered by SCOTUS, Homeland Security, DOJ and FBI. Individuals within each organization are not necessarily racist, misogynist, Christian nationalists. There are men and women who love our country and only want to serve their nation. But, they are now being swallowed up as the separation of powers, using an immune to lawful control unitary executive pushed by Republican appointees to the Supreme Court, destroys their dedication to facts and the law as guiding principles. Even the military leadership is decimated by firings and forced retirements. Even retirees like Commander and Senator Mark Kelly, and Lt. Colonel and Senator Tammy Duckworth are under attack by the nation they most ably served. What will new recruits do? What pressure will they face as they are asked to obey unlawful orders, as they watch Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth execute such orders with full support of Vice-President J.D.Vance and congressional Republicans?
In the past, we overlooked weaknesses in our leaders so long as they served the common good, in recognition of their humanity and acknowledging human foibles. There were checks and balances on human ill will and human error. We joined one another, citizen and new immigrant alike, in creating a democratic republic with global vision. We envisioned a world at peace where children could learn what they needed to know to be successful; where business and commerce could thrive; where ownership of resources was put to the common good. We built railroads, a national highway system, flood control projects, an energy grid, the internet, and now artificial intelligence.
We have been far from perfect, or even rational, but we kept trying to make a “ More Perfect Union.” We faced down our demons of racism and sexism under pressure of freedom-seeking Americans like W.E.B. Dubois, Ida Wells, A. Phillip Randolph, Ralph Abernathy, Ruby Bridges, Julian Bond, Bayard Rustin, Jo Ann Robinson, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Congressman John Lewis…among thousands. Their struggle and ours continues.
It is no coincidence the four persons arrested for protesting at a white nationalist church pastored by an I.C.E. field officer in Minneapolis were African-American, including two journalists: Don Lemon and Georgia Fort. U.S. Asst. A.G. who oversees the civil rights division of the DOJ reposted a tweet referring to journalist Lemon as “ today’s clansmen.” An AI meme is circulating showing Don Lemon in chains as if he were a fugitive slave reclaimed by paid by bounty hunters. I.C.E. agents today are being paid bounties. Killing two white protesters, Rene Good and Alex Pretti while continuing to brutalize people of color stood out to white America. The arrest of Black journalists restored the racist narrative that people color are a always a threat to white America. Soon, the secret police paramilitary created by the Trump Administration will attack Haitians in Springfield, Ohio whose protected status will be allowed to expire under Republican-led House and Senate Leaders Johnson and Thune. Will white America see this for what it is? Will they connect the dots to understand the effort to divide and conquer all protesters- Black and white, and destroy the momentum which could sweep the fascists from office in coming elections? Seizure of Fulton County Georgia’s ballots has no legal benefit to the DOJ and FBI. But, if unopposed creates the narrative that seizing ballots is the usual course of election security. It is the exact opposite. It is dangerously erosive to election integrity.
In law, evidence must be held within the chain of command. Break the chain and the evidence is useless. It cannot be used easily, if at all. It will face “objection” if a party tries to in introduce it at trial to support a legal claim. Why? Because it is assumed it will be compromised. Ballots seized in a broken chain of command become a disinformation tool, a grand lie as they are altered and manipulated by those who seized them. We must object, not because we are in a court of law; but because we are in a court of public opinion. Our opinion counts as we protest. It counts even more when we vote.
I grew up in a neighborhood with bullies shouting and shoving at “dirty Catholic”, “dirty Italian” little girls. I went to a school where bullies painted Nazi insignia on the walls of the gym. I walked home form early dismissal when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated to smirks and chants from public school kids across the street “We finally killed that Catholic bastard.” I cannot remember a time when I have not been called a Commie-pinko leftist for teaching Black History and creating Black History programs. Like one out of four women I have even been sexually assaulted by bullies. Bullies cannot silence truth-seekers, journalists, educators, civil rights activists, people of color, women. They cannot be allowed to steal our votes, whenever they are cast. They cannot stop us. They have militarized the effort to stop us. They have arrested, disappeared, brutalized and killed. It will never be enough to break Americans and their insistence upon the freedoms guaranteed by a beloved Constitution and Bill of Rights. We stand together, stronger and more sure of our love for our country.
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