No Good

 Let us return for a moment to sanity.  In Minneapolis a woman in a car was shot at three times at very close range and killed by an ICE agent standing next to the car.  Federal officials claim the officer was in fear of his life because she was attempting to run him over, and so the killing was justified.

Since pretty much the invention of the automobile, there have been no circumstances in America in which this homicide would be justified.  The driver was unarmed, and both hands were visible.  The officer provided no warning that he was threatening lethal force.  There was no outstanding warrant for the driver.  If the driver was blocking law enforcement, then she could have been ordered to move her vehicle, which she was in the process of doing when she was shot.  And the federal vehicles were unmarked.

A different officer shouted to her to get out of the car.  Even if she heard him (though it was noisy, and it doesn't seem he had properly identified himself), the penalty for fleeing is not death.  There is no police force in the country which would claim that attempting to slowly drive away from masked armed agents justifies lethal force, or even the discharge of a gun.

The claim on behalf of the officer that Renee Good was attempting to run him over is not credible given the copious video evidence.  But even if she were (the federal press release language is "weaponize a car"), the car was barely moving (and the video evidence shows her wheels were turned away from the agent), and all an agent in fear of his life had to do was to take two steps away from the car.  Besides, how could anyone expect to stop a car that close to him by shooting the driver?  

As the driver told the agent, they now had her car license number.  Even if she had successfully fled the scene, they could have arrested her later.  I don't know what the penalty for failing to obey a federal officer's order to get out of a car, or of fleeing the scene, but I'm pretty sure it is not death.

But the officer fired three shots into the car, apparently hitting Renee Good in the face and killing her.  The officer (or another officer) was caught on his own phone saying afterwards, "Fucking bitch."

The normal procedure then would be for federal and state officials to open an investigation into the incident.  Officials would express regret at the loss of life, the public would be assured that the officer would be off the streets pending results of the investigation, and would call for calm.

Instead, the FBI has frozen state law enforcement out of the investigation. Instead, before any investigation had at best gone beyond the beginning of on-site evidence gathering, federal officials from the head of Homeland Security to the Vice-President of the United States asserted as known truth that the officer's gunfire was justified,  and moreover that Renee Good was a radical leftist and a "domestic terrorist." No evidence was offered for either charge.  Being a radical leftist is not against the law (even if it were true, which apparently it is not), let alone a capital offence.  It is a political position in a political democracy.

"Domestic terrorist" is the more potent charge, given what basic rights have been violated in the name of fighting terrorism.  But in more normal times such a charge is accompanied by lots of evidence, of criminal activity or at least intent to engage in a terrorist act.  It is a very serious charge, reduced this time to shameless inflammatory and prejudicial rhetoric.  

There is no overt suggestion that Renee Good might be a terrorist, or even an illegal immigrant fleeing capture (though again, that wouldn't justify lethal force).  She was a a native-born American, a white woman and a mother of three, who lived blocks away.  Her dog was in the back seat.

But even a known domestic terrorist, sitting in a car unarmed, may be subject to arrest.  Not to being executed on the spot.  Not even in the Soviet Union would state agents have committed such an act in broad daylight in a public place.

The public response to this shooting has so far been more than a thousand protest demonstrations across the country. Tens of thousands rallied in Minneapolis. Protesters have already spanned racial and ethnic lines.  Further incidences of federal agents threatening lethal violence, including against protesters, were reported. The Renee Good homicide has provoked anger, which makes for volatile public situations.  It has provoked fear.

The fear is that the masked secret police can kill anyone and federal officials will encourage it.  This is identifiable fascism, and the half dozen other names that apply.   But there is another fear, perhaps even more basic.

The shooter's video--which he shot with his phone held in one hand while he shot Renee Good dead with his gun in his other hand--demonstrates that he was not in danger, that she was not threatening him in any way. Other video evidence so far suggests that his actions were at best reckless and at worst deliberate.  Which would make this what some prominent people have called it: murder.

That video was essentially released by the Vice-President, because he and Chaos in Chief say that it proves their version of events is correct. In other times this video might have been suppressed or altered, or otherwise claimed to be deceptive or doctored, because it clearly does not show what they say it shows.  But now--as in so much else said by this government of Chaos--the evidence is not disproven, it is just misrepresented--and not subtly or at the margins, but completely.  Often the Chaos assertions are wildly opposite to the realities demonstrated in various ways, including pictures and video that everyone can see.

This has been their practice since at least the first Homeland Hitler inauguration, but most importantly concerning the events of and in response to January 6, 2021 at the US Capitol.  There are hours and hours of video of what happened there.  There are witnesses, depositions, and mountains of evidence that convinced scores of juries to convict participants.  And yet, Chaos and his minions assert that it never happened.  And they were doing so before the 2024 election, but apparently enough voters chose to ignore this.

Now it must be clear to everyone that in this administration, the truth is solely what they say it is.  This puts us not only in the realm of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, but of  his Animal Farm, and in particular of Kafka.  In a Kafkaesque country, there is no recourse to reality.  Reality is what those in power say it is, at any given moment.  Even when few believe anything this government says.

It is time then to look at the resistance to totalitarianism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, particularly in the 1960s and afterward.  It was led often by writers as well as political figures who insisted, at great personal cost, on rigorously telling the truth.  They told the truth about their own incarcerations, about how officials claimed they were mentally ill and subjected them to drug treatments and horrific conditions.  Some even catalogued the drugs used on them.  They were scrupulous and relentless.  And eventually they prevailed.

Our fascist government is not yet a year old.  It is not yet deeply entrenched.  Some countervailing institutions still exist, and Americans are used to living in something like a democracy. This incident must be thoroughly and objectively investigated. The truth about Renee Good must be asserted against the lies, over and over.  The truth about this regime must be relentlessly exposed. They may fight harder with their backs against the wall.  But if this battle for truth is not won, the world that is coming with AI will be worse.

Let us return to sanity.  Let us return to at least trying to enact the good.