Trump Has Used DHS To Revive the Ku Klux Klan, Giving Them Federal Badges!

If you’re old enough you remember when the Klan spread terror in this country and while the bulk was in southern states it could be found almost everywhere. I often say that while Hoover drove them into dormancy to a large degree they (and their beliefs) were a virus that would flourish again when conditions allowed. As I see it Trump planted the seeds, and lavished Miracle-Gro and brought them back in an even worse iteration. Instead of white robes with a cross emblem and pointy hats, the new uniform is that of a federal agent covered in tactical gear with a federal badge, and now wearing a mask!

This thought has been in my head since I saw news stories about ICE (and other) agents being not just authorized but encouraged to wear masks. Many did so before getting official permission if you think back on images you’ve seen. I’m not talking about gas masks, but self-professed ‘badasses” covering their faces with a bandana or scarf to hide their identity. Whether in uniform or in civilian clothes many have wanted to hide their faces. I call bullshit on the justification given by the Trump administration. But I say we are seeing a new, Trump created version of the KKK acting with full federal law enforcement authority. I’ll explain why I’m fully justified in invoking the Klan towards the end of this. I guess you can just scroll down but I hope you’ll indulge me a bit first.

As this article I pulled up from MassLive.com explains (other outlets have written about it too) the administration is justifying a break with federal rules and procedure to ‘protect its agents.’  I’m sure having friends, neighbors, fellow church members, even some of their own families questioning their actions against mostly regular people who’ve done little if anything wrong had nothing to do with it!  Given the people, most of whom are NOT the ‘hardened criminals” Trumpty, Noem and others claim but just ordinary folks trying to make a halfway decent life for themselves.  Yet goon squads whisk them away, separating and destroying lives and families in the process. I wouldn’t want to have to explain being part of that to my kids or others I know in my personal life either!

So, an EXCUSE was needed. This being the Trump administration making up bullshit lies comes as easily as breathing. That’s how this protecting the safety of our agents and their families came about:

But the facial disguises, according to Todd Lyons, acting ICE director, are for the agents’ safety.

“… people are out there taking photos of [ICE agents’] faces and posting them online with death threats to their family and themselves,” Lyons said at the press conference at the John Joseph Moakley courthouse, where officials announced nearly 1,500 people were detained by ICE across Massachusetts in May alone.

Lyons said two weeks ago, ICE agents were directly targeted during an operation in Los Angeles by bystanders “doxing” the agents’ children and family through social media accounts.

“So, I’m sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I’m not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line and family on the line, because people don’t like what immigration enforcement is,” Lyons said

I call bullshit. The only thing Lyons or other Trump Toadies are sorry about is their goons being embarrassed about having to explain to friends and loved ones what fascist assholes they are. I suspect many of them are in fact ashamed of what they do, which is why they started trying to hide their faces. And even what agency they worked for. ‘Plausible deniability’ if their kids, or their pastor or neighbors, knowing who they worked for asked them why instead of going through gang neighborhoods looking for actual violent criminals they were abducting pretty normal people. Ripping families apart. Like I said I’d be ashamed of myself for doing such things too.

THESE asshats however, even the ones who are truly ashamed aren’t enough so to leave their jobs and find other work.  I’m sure if they wanted to stay in LE plenty of local and state departments would snap them up. At least if they didn’t make a big fuss about why they resigned until AFTER they were secure in a new job and free to speak up.  But we now have circumstances where Trump wants PROTESTERS wearing a mask over their nose and mouth arrested for ‘hiding their identity’ but those abusing authority to be able to hide theirs. Even though they are required to identify themselves and who they work for.

I don’t doubt that yes, people do take photos and videos of these agents and post them online. It’s their right to do so and not only should they be free to exercise that right, they should be thanked for doing so. At the same time lots of the images are taken from regular security cameras on streets and in buildings! It’s collected at taxpayer expense and therefore part of the public record.  If it’s okay for the government to post images and/or video of people they arrest then by grab they should be subject to the same standard.

As for criminalizing people who pull up a bandana or scarf when LE ramps up to start doing things like deploying tear gas well DUH!  Having been a Marine I’ve had to go through gas mask certification annually which involves being escorted into a room filled with tear gas. Before given the command to “Don and Clear” gas masks they make damned sure everyone has to do two things. Keep their eyes opened and also take in a few breaths of the stuff! It ain’t pleasant. In addition, at Camp Pendleton troop handlers running training exercises frequently had tear gas grenades that could be used by opposing units instead of actual fragmentation grenades.

So yes, if I were still physically able to take part in a protest (say Saturday) I’d have a cool ‘neck wrap I got long ago and a bottle of water held back specifically to soak it with.  Not as good as a gas mask but better than nothing when the tear gas gets deployed. At the very least having some type of mask to pull over the mouth and nose to partially deal with the gas is common freaking sense.

I guess one could say it’s also common sense that DHS agents who don’t want people who like them but wouldn’t so much if they saw them ‘in action” wanting to use masks to hide their identity. The problem is that by law they are required to identify themselves when asked. Something I should add that under Trump more often than not they refuse to do. Now they don’t want them committing their atrocities seen by people they don’t want to s see them.

As for the “threats” if there were any then you can be sure those who made them would have been charged and hauled into court already. Unlike when Klan goobers called the homes of FBI agents in the south in the 1960s, often making threats to agent’s wives there’s much better technology to track threats. Even if a call was made from a pre-paid “burner” phone it takes some serious effort to hide the purchase. People usually are tracked down unless they are part of a sophisticated criminal enterprise.

As for my invoking the Klan, I am fully justified in doing so. It was formed to incite terror. While we think of it being directed towards newly freed slaves because that was the primary focus it was actually much broader. Anyone who wasn’t White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant wasn’t even a human being as far as they were concerned. I know this because my P.O.S. grandfather who was a Police Captain in Jonesboro Arkansas tried to indoctrinate me when I was in my formative years!

Yes, the Klan had LE in the ranks. They still could have gotten away with most of what they did right up through the 1960s including lynchings without it but it made things a lot easier.  I also want to point out that not only did they target Catholics and Jews in particular, but ‘foreigners” as they defined them. Or any white “race traitor” sympathetic to those the Klan deemed sub-human.  Sound like anyone we know these days?

Right now the focus is mostly on ‘brown’ people and those who want to protect their rights as human beings and often citizens even. But the hate and  the targeting have already gone beyond “illegal immigrants” or even brown people as you well know. In the old days Klan members that were LE tended not to make the fact they were Klan known outside of the ranks of the pointy hat wearers. NOW we have people with federal badges and the full weight of Trump in their modern versions of Klan regalia doing Klan type stuff.

They are making it increasingly clear that it’s not just “illegals” but any foreigners or those who are supportive of immigration in general they will come after.  Think about that. Then, and only then tell me me Trump hasn’t revived the Klan. His Klan papa, long since dead and buried is finally smiling at the P.O.S. son he raised with approval.

***From Ursula*** Zoomers, if you can help the Little Political Blog That Could keep trekking through cyberspace, we would appreciate it. My medical issues are still ongoing. I need to have a minor operation to remove a skin tumor. The hits just keep on coming, like a ’50s radio station. Thank you for all you do. Ursula

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