ICE

The ICY Water of Egotistical Calculation, vs. a Revolution for Human Freedom

Let me propose an analogy. The United States, as we have known it, was a proud democracy, self-assured, sailing forth proudly (a little too proudly, and a little too self-assured) into the seas of history. But like the Titanic, the United States hubristic self-image had neglected to take into consideration that ever-present cold heart of capitalism: ICE. Now we’ve hit the ICEberg - and make no mistake, the high-ranking officials in this Republican Administration, Republican Congress, and Republican members of the Supreme Court, are but the literal tip of the ICEberg. They are sharp-edged, and are inflicting the immediate damage. But the fact is, they couldn’t have gotten away with most of what they are doing if the beating heart of American compassion had not already been cryogenically frozen. And like the cryogenics industry at large, there is currently no known way to thaw out a frozen heart and have it beat again.

The MAGA reaction to the election of Pope Leo XIV demonstrates this. As Charlotte Clymer suggested in her piece “These People are Never Happy,” the election of Leo “should have been a once-in-a-lifetime miracle for the Republican Party and American conservatives,” but instead the MAGAsphere savaged the new Pope because of his evident life-long compassion and empathy. He deviated from Trumpian orthodoxy in a few places, so he becomes just another “WOKE MARXIST POPE,” to quote Laura Loomer.

There is a direct line between the dismissal of African nations as “shithole countries” and this sweeping condemnation of Pope Leo XIV’s work in Peru (which, speaking as an anti-colonialist and a bona fide Marxist, is not unproblematic, albeit for different reasons). The MAGA world is ruthless in its combination of disdain and ridicule. They are not merely “owning” the libs - they are trying to crush all who are “not them," all who are different in appearance and/or different in perspective from themselves, under their jackbooted goose-stepping. They detest poor people of color (whether at home or abroad), they detest the very idea of compassion towards those less fortunate.

Many people have opined that this is contradictory with Christianity, but I’d say it depends on which Christianity you are talking about - pre-Constantinian, or post-Constantinian? Post-Constantinian Christianity has been all too eager to embrace triumphalism, crushing the marginalized and indigenous, and been more focused on the self-aggrandizement of one’s own salvation, than about making the world a more loving place. Not all contemporary Christians have behaved this way, but enough have that for me, as a Religious Studies professional, I have to warn against saying that the MAGAists are being hypocritical. They are simply following the selfish, power-mad wing of their religion.

It is so appropriate that they are calling their police force “ICE.” Dammit, if I had written that into a script for the authoritarian police force, it would have been dismissed as “too obvious.” And now the ICE raids are picking up. And they are not going to hang-outs of young men with gang affiliations or suspected criminal activities. No. They are heading for mothers, for mayors, for students. It is grotesque and, if one has a thawed heart, heart-wrenching.

The scene in Worcester, Massachusetts this week is a case in point. First, the “authority” and brute force that ICE deployed is intended to silence all dissent. When someone asked about the warrant they were using to detain the young mother, the ICE agents responded that they didn’t need to show anything to the people. WE THE PEOPLE ARE THE GOVERNMENT - but ICE treats us with the MAGA-brand contempt that we’ve come to expect in their every gesture. The agents found an “unruly” crowd attempting to thwart their cruelty. Note that word - unruly. It means “disorderly and disruptive and not amenable to discipline or control.” Let me suggest that we need to be unruly in the sense of being disruptive, and we have to remain inimical to their discipline and control. But we may need to quickly train ourselves and each other to be disorderly in ways that reflect our own discipline, much as we’ve seen in the past, in movements like Abolition and Civil Rights.

But never forget that ICE seeks to ICE us all out of our democracy, to proceed in their cruelty without disruption, and we cannot let them get away with that. We must disrupt them, for they are disrupting our humanity by kidnapping our neighbors and communities.

The mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, was trying to do exactly what I think all people with privilege and status need to be doing: he used his privilege to visit an ICE facility. They arrested him.

Let me be clear about this. The struggle is moving into a new phase, a phase that is more confrontational. It is also the fact that the Republican Administration is suffering defeats on numerous fronts (economic, legal, international, with some cabinet picks, etc.), and so is a wounded animal. The Republican Administration likes to deflect attention from their failings by upping their cruelty in some other theater of their takeover of America. And so they will likely try to “flood the zone” in order to circumvent court actions, by simply having so many ICE incidents in so many places that the local jurisdictions (be they civil or judicial) can’t keep up. But we need to confront them every time we can. And so, the thing about which I wanted to be clear, is that some of us who do this will, like Ras Baraka, get arrested. Or get hurt AND get arrested. It is going to happen - and the ICE agents are the ones who are carrying the heavy equipment (arms and handcuffs and uniforms and official designated powers by the state, the state being the only authorized agent of violence), and the ICE agents have a positively panting and drooling desire to use their raw power. Given this structural imbalance, we in the resistance need to have a talk that extends beyond the surface level of “violence/non-violence” and extrapolates to actual lived situations and the emotions they produce.

For instance, as I am watching the Worcester video, and see the woman who is arrested for “interfering” with the ICE operation, I see her actions as totally noble and intuitively comprehensible. But no one was prepared to join her (and I don’t blame them), to make the work of ICE in subduing the “unruly” that much harder. Would that have increased the chances of actual injury to participants? Yes, exponentially. And knowing that, and considering it in our conversations, makes concerted action at these flashpoint moments more likely.

For instance, consider the chilling effect of war hollers throughout human history. When a group of people make a loud dramatic sound all at once, its impact is visceral. A crowd, by simply shouting something together, can make it harder for ICE to coordinate their movements, can throw them off their sense of invulnerability, and it is something we can literally do legally to their faces. I recommend eating a few Nacho Doritos ahead of time. Adds to the effect of screaming at close range. However, to enact strategies like this, we need to be talking about them ahead of time. One coordinated example shared on social and mass media, could go a long way to spreading it.

It is suspicious to me that so many of these raids are happening in Massachusetts. During the similar struggle over the Fugitive Slave Law, because the Feds knew that Massachusetts was largely anti-slavery, they targeted cases there. It was the 19th century version of “owning the libs.” Why this matters is that a) the forces of repression are testing us, to see how serious, if at all, our resistance to their takeover is, and b) if we will be fooled/cowed by the law-and-order line, and c) if we, collectively, understand this, we can use these incidents to strengthen our own resolve and sense of shared sister/brotherhood within the movement, as the Abolitionists did then.

Consider the Jerry Rescue in Syracuse in 1851. The great Abolitionist and long-time pacifist Samuel J. May, participated in the physical struggle this time, and here is how he described it:

“In a speech by Rev. Samuel J. May to the Convention of Citizens, of Onondaga County delivered just two weeks after the Jerry Rescue, May captured the sentiment of the crowd in stirring terms:

But when the people saw a man dragged through the streets, chained and held down in a cart by four or six others who were upon him; treated as if he were the worst of felons; and learnt that it was only because he had assumed to be what God made him to be, a man, and not a slave—when this came to be known throughout the streets, there was a mighty throbbing of the public heart; an all but unanimous up rising against the outrage. There was no concert of action except that to which a common humanity impelled the people. Indignation flashed from every eye. Abhorrence of the Fugitive Slave Bill poured in burning words from every tongue. The very stones cried out.

In a postscript to this account, May added these comments:

It was pretty generally known throughout the country, that there is prevalent in this city and county, a strong anti-slavery sentiment, and, more especially, a deep abhorrance [sic] of the Fugitive Slave Law. As if on purpose to set this public feeling at defiance, and challenge us to make it manifest, Mr. Webster declared to an assembly of our citizens last June, that that execrable law should be enforced here; ay, in the midst of the next Anti-Slavery Convention, that should be held in this city. Such a threat was not adapted to allay the rising of an opposite determination. We are not all here quite so craven, and slavish as to bow at once submissively to such a brow-beating as he attempted to give us. His words rankled in the bosoms of a great many. This too was well known

Let’s update this. I’ve here adapted May’s description of Jerry, and recast it into 2025 Worcester, and here’s what I get:

she was handcuffed and held down by four or six ICE agents who were upon her; treated as if she were the worst of felons; and learnt that it was only because she had assumed to be what God made her to be, a citizen of the world, and not an illegal non-citizen.

Samuel J. May is one of my most important personal heroes.

There is much we can learn from the Abolitionists - and I speak not only as a scholar of the Abolitionists, but as a philosophic revolutionary person in the here-and-now. So it is perhaps best to end this piece with a quote from William Lloyd Garrison that was provoked by something Samuel J. May said. It was after May first heard Garrison speak, and while he found it inspiring, he was also worried about Garrison’s tone. This is May’s account of their conversation:

“‘O',’ cried I, ‘my friend, do try to moderate your indignation, and keep more cool; why, you are all on fire.’

Garrison stopped, laid his hand upon my shoulder with a kind but emphatic pressure, that I have felt ever since, and said slowly, with deep emotion,

‘Brother May, I have a need to be all on fire, for I have mountains of ice around me to melt.’” (May, Some Recollections of Our Anti-Slavery Conflict, p. 36-37)

We have a LITERAL MOUNTAIN of ICE to MELT! Let’s get to it, and win the day for compassion, empathy, diversity, equity, inclusion, and staying conscious with our conscience WOKE!