Tucson Writer Editor

Now we know.

Here’s my rant. It’s no different than the outrage billowing out of millions of other human mouths. It feels necessary today.

How do we allow an adorable five-year-old Latino boy, https://www.startribune.com/preschooler-and-three-other-students-detained-by-ice-school-district-leader-says/601568045 whose father was here legally, to be whisked off to a Texas detention center?

How does a poorly trained U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent shoot at least three times at a 37-year-old mother — who first smiled and said to him “I’m not mad at you, dude.”

His smoking gun in his hand when these disgusting words rang out of his mouth, “F**cking bitch!”

How did 70 million Americans vote for an evil wanna-be dictator in 2020?

Now we know.

“He would be better for the economy, for immigration, and other top issues,” voters said in 2024, yeah when a Black woman was running against him.

The racist, hateful dictator doesn’t like Somali-Americans, or any other people of color. Following in the footprints of his German immigrant father, Fred, who refused to rent to Blacks in New York City during the days of old. He who piled mountains of dollars on his repulsive son.

A New York friend whose husband worked at Goldman-Sachs once told me: Whenever the evil dictator called their office, the various financiers would hand the phone to someone else. No one wanted to deal with the then New York crook, liar, mafioso, pedophile.

Now we know.

Due to a swindle engaged in by some of those Minneapolis Black folk, the evil dictator and his minions, including the very sick grandson of Holocaust survivors, Stephen Miller, regarded it as worthy to throw Somalis out of the country. (I’ve been called one, but Miller IS a self-hating Jew!)

We’re the ones now living in a “shithole country.” But we and my ilk are still the lucky ones. We eat, we travel, we take courses, we hike in the Sonoran Desert, we read fascinating and entertaining books, and damn, we look at the Loft Cinema website to decide what movie to go see next.

There’s so much more privilege I harbor, and I’m not even a billionaire.

It all makes me sick. And I’m lucky. But I’m old. I’m glad my two grandchildren are experiencing the most amazing childhood. That’s what I tell their parents.

Can we make it out of this mire of disintegration for our children, our grandchildren, and all the good people on the front lines? Or will the future rubble of the White House East Wing remain, another negotiation gone bad between an honest working-person and the Voldemort slithering around inside our history place, built by African slaves.

What did Anne Frank say? “I still believe that most people are good.” A lovely thing to contemplate.

Or “will we giggle all the way to our ruin,” as a writer friend remarked last night in a reading for “Dollartorium,” his forthcoming post-capitalism satire.

So I keep writing. Although not two Congressional Republicans listen, disgusting cowards who could stop this disintegration of the United States of America in a day.

I’ve always considered civilization to be at a low level of evolution. Although neuroscience says our brains are wired for cooperation, that’s not the American way. I’m often told, “that’s not human nature.” I don’t want to believe that.

Gimme, gimme, gimme is too often the American way. Revenge. Greed. Mean-spiritedness. Isn’t that what the evil dictator has modeled?

For the most part, not what I’ve seen recently in Minneapolis, where Prince apparently said, “Minneapolis is where the revolution will begin.”

I’m proud of the city where I have lived for nearly five years. I know of people out there blowing whistles in the faces of ICE agents. I’ve heard of an 83-year-old friend who’s battling them with words on the streets.

It’s a scary thing to do. And who ever thought we would have to? I believe I’d take to the streets if I were back in Minneapolis for tomorrow’s STRIKE.

And today the bastard ICE agents landed in Portland, Maine (the state that will always feel like home). Apparently, they have 1,450 targets to haul off. Somali-Americans who live in Lewiston-Auburn, Maine. And they’re not swindlers.

Now we know.