I don’t know about you, but I believe our second American Civil War already started. It’s a so-called soft, and to date, generally a bloodless war — only about 150 years since the truly bloody first American Civil War of 1861-1865 ended.
To win his second term, Donald Trump promised to end of the Ukraine War on Day One, to lower grocery and gas prices right away, to stop inflation and to carry out retribution. Now, the picture is more clear, more cruel, more likely than not that we are racing towards a complete destruction of the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution.
Opposition political parties, the free press and vocal community leaders have not been rounded up under mass arrest — yet. It may be around the corner. I’m hoping not. But already, highly qualified and capable women and minority top military leaders were the first to go. The retribution will keep ratcheting up.
Today I don’t want to expound on predictions about the downward spiral and probable end of the Great American experiment in democracy, one that has lasted almost 250 years as the global standard. I see that we have almost completely lost the checks and balances of our form of government. It is barely limping toward its semi- quincentennial birthday unless that trajectory is stopped and reversed by a people power –People United Revolt (again, hopefully peaceful and bloodless) to restore an open and fair democracy once again by all, of all and for all.
Today I prefer to focus on the little guys like me and on my reaction to a news article I read recently. It was about ICE offering new recruits –projected to be about 80,000 strong — a $50,000 signing bonus and possible six-figure salary plus a college loan forgiveness package. These are things not offered to other Americans who do the most important work in our society for our collective safety and prosperity like first responders, nurses, teachers, caretakers of our sick and elderly, and many others. These professions can expect salary cuts, layoffs and zero federal support as they toil daily for the common weal of our nation.
In 1989 I was a 33-year-old mid-grade U.S. Naval Reserve Intelligence Officer serving my obligatory “weekend warrior” two-weeks of active duty annual tour in Argentina’s major naval base in Puerto Belgrano. One morning, as I rushed out of the officer’s club front door where I was billeted, I almost brushed elbows with an Argentine naval officer who the U.S. Embassy driver waiting for me outside identified as the “Blond Angel of Death.”
Who?
Alfredo Astiz is not a household name in the United States, but in Argentina he is the famed, handsome, blond Navy Special Forces officer who led heroically and gloriously the capture of the South Georgia Island from the British setting the stage for the Falklands/Malvinas War of 1982.
Today his story is on the internet. Astiz, now 74, has been languishing in jail for extra-judicial crimes he and his comrades-in-arms committed in their blind fervor to “save Argentina,” then under military rule. It would take almost 35 years of Argentine national anguish and debate — and international judicial wrangling –to finally bring Astiz and his cohorts to justice for their illegal and criminal acts committed under the guise of “saving our country.”
The parallels today could not be clearer from across the United States of America. There are daily reports on audio and video recordings and victims’/witnesses’ statements about the extra-judicial abuses by unidentified, combat-ready armed, masked personnel who claim to have some vague legal authority from even more questionable government or para-governmental agencies. It will happen one day — maybe not next year, not in five, 10, 20 or 30 years — but it will happen that these horrific stories of human rights abuses and deliberate violations of current laws will be pieced together. They will unmask who the perpetrators are and what they did, what laws they violated in their blind belief in leaders who will not be there to support them for their careless, illegal and inhumane actions during this current, amorphous mission to “keep America safe.”
Like Alfredo Astiz, they will be left to fend for themselves. Like Argentina then, the United States now is struggling with itself. Like Argentina in 1976, we may even lose our democracy, but it will be back — like Argentina did, fighting valiantly, for 35 years under great pain, to restore its democracy.
If they are 22, 32 or 42 now, the potential new ICE recruits will be only 57, 67 or 77 in 2060. Want an unprecedented, irresistible $50,000 signing bonus, potential six-figure salary, loan forgiveness plan just to fight America’s very open, clumsy, notorious, not-so-secret Dirty War?
I would resist. And just say no.
Sylvester L. Salcedo lives in Orange.