Re: <nettime> nettime-l Digest, Vol 31, Issue 13

[Nat Gravenor via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

On the brink? This sounds like Germany circa 1934.

Am Mo., 26. Jan. 2026 um 22:17 Uhr schrieb <
nettime-l-request@lists.nettime.org>:

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> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Francine Prose: America feels like a country on the brink of
>       an authoritarian takeover (TG) (Patrice Riemens)
>    2. Re: Francine Prose: America feels like a country on the brink
>       of an authoritarian takeover (TG) (GM - tedbyfield)
>    3. Re: Francine Prose: America feels like a country on the brink
>       of an authoritarian takeover (TG) (Brian Holmes)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2026 13:56:15 +0000 (UTC)
> From: Patrice Riemens <patrice@puscii.nl>
> To: "<nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
>         collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets"
>         <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>
> Subject: <nettime> Francine Prose: America feels like a country on the
>         brink of an authoritarian takeover (TG)
> Message-ID: <315211796.242135.1769435775543.JavaMail.zimbra@puscii.nl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
>
>
> Original to:
>
> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/25/america-feels-like-a-country-on-the-brink-of-an-authoritarian-takeover
>
>
> America feels like a country on the brink of an authoritarian takeover
> Francine Prose
>
> This is the news we should be paying attention to. At least for the
> moment, everything else is a distraction
>
> Mon 26 Jan 2026
>
> When we talk about our inability to pay attention, to concentrate, we
> often mean and blame our phones. It?s easy, it?s meant to be easy. One
> flick of our index finger transports us from disaster to disaster, from
> crisis to crisis, from maddening lie to maddening lie. Each new
> unauthorized attack and threatened invasion grabs the headlines, until
> something else takes its place, and meanwhile the government?s attempts to
> terrorize and silence the people of our country continue.
>
> So let me break it down. There is one story: our country is on the brink
> of an authoritarian takeover. In Minneapolis an innocent poet and an ER
> nurse at a VA hospital were both killed in cold blood by federal agents. It
> is happening now. Toddlers are being sent to detention centers; videos of
> their gyms for kids recall the youth choruses that the Nazis so proudly
> showed off at the Terez?n concentration camp. Intimidation and violence are
> being weaponized against the citizens of Minneapolis, some of whom are
> afraid to leave their houses for fear of being beaten, arrested and
> shackled, regardless of whether they are US citizens or asylum seekers or
> people from another country peacefully living and working here for decades.
>
> That is the news we should be paying attention to. At least for the
> moment, everything else is a distraction. I?m glad to have been informed
> about the heavy snow outside my window today and the local weather-travel
> advisory, but frankly, it?s snowed here before ? so why is it leading the
> news?
>
> Donald Trump?s inability to tell Greenland from Iceland during his speech
> at Davos is embarrassing, awful, sort of funny ? but it?s hardly the first
> time he?s made a mortifying mistake. I too want the Epstein files released,
> I want to know who is guilty, I want justice and respect for the survivors.
> But unless those revelations bring down the perpetrators, it?s not ? for
> the moment ? the story.
>
> The story is what?s happening in Minneapolis. And even that requires
> focus. Already the killing of Alex Pretti has partly diverted our attention
> from the killing of Renee Good.
>
> The story ? masked agents, arrests, violence, kidnappings, deportations
> without due process ? is happening all over the country, but in smaller
> increments, without as much pushback, and so far without the death of two
> innocent, middle-class, white bystanders. The story is about how decent and
> unselfish Renee Good and Alex Pretti were and about the falsehoods being
> told about them.
>
> The story is not letting ourselves be distracted from the real and present
> threat to our democracy. That threat is the story which our print,
> electronic and social media should be bannering at the top of every feed
> and every front page, every day. To consistently run that below the weather
> report is, quite frankly, to betray the struggles of the people of
> Minneapolis.
>
> The story is what we do now to support our fellow Americans in the midwest
> and to keep the violence and repression from spreading even further into
> our own streets and backyards. The story is avoiding the future that
> Stephen Miller and his minions are planning for us.
>
> The story is how we do it: not long after the 2017 inauguration of Donald
> Trump, I wrote, in these pages, about our need to stage a national strike.
> I know now that I underestimated the difficulties ? the amount of
> organization required, the need to strategize, the necessity to support and
> provide for people who will lose their livelihoods if they walk off the
> job. But many people are already scared to go to work or send their kids to
> school.
>
> Such a shutdown would be an enormous undertaking, to say the least. But
> it?s been done. Gandhi and Martin Luther King achieved at least some of
> their goals without resorting to violence. The people of Minneapolis have
> stopped business as usual in the city. That energy can ? and needs - to
> spread. Not to be alarmist, but unless we stay focused, it may soon be too
> late.
>
> This morning I went off ? I apologize! ? on a college classmate who sent
> an email link to a video of birds that others might want to watch as
> ?relief from the weather and the news?. I wasn?t saying we should stop
> enjoying the birds. I?m thrilled that so many robins elected to stick
> around this winter. I even like watching the crows and turkey vultures pick
> the roadkill clean.
>
> But I don?t really want ?a relief? from the loss of Renee Good and Alex
> Pretti or from the resistance beginning in Minneapolis. To crudely
> paraphrase Ecclesiastes, there is a time for everything. And this may not
> be the time to distract ourselves with the latest scandal or diplomatic
> blunder or with amusing images of the creatures who don?t much care if the
> humans beneath the snow-covered rooftops are living under a cruel and
> authoritarian regime.
>
> Francine Prose is a former president of PEN American Center and a member
> of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of
> Arts and Sciences
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2026 12:27:03 -0500
> From: GM - tedbyfield <tedbyfield@gmail.com>
> To: nettime-l@lists.nettime.org
> Subject: Re: <nettime> Francine Prose: America feels like a country on
>         the brink of an authoritarian takeover (TG)
> Message-ID: <CB8C1806-CA61-4719-88FC-FECFCE282074@gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
>
> Just a few minutes ago I wrote:
>
> ?? The same fools who enabled this catastrophe with their
> interminable arendtsplaining and pedantic denialism expect us to attend
> to their interminable babbling about how wrong they were. They should
> step aside and give their bully pulpits to people who were right when it
> mattered. ??
>
> These *postmature antifascists*, as I like to call them, are a dime a
> dozen and best ignored. Francine Prose is a reasonably distinguished
> person, deeply intelligent and clearly of good faith ? she plays on
> our team, so to speak. But anyone who?d write *now* that the US
> ?feels like a country on the brink of an authoritarian takeover?
> should be read with some skepticism, because the US is far past that
> brink.
>
> We?ve watched the prestigious institutions of one sector after another
> ? national governments abroad and government entities at home,
> national and even transnational corporations, mighty universities, major
> media outlets, pillars of civil society, and on and on ? quailing
> before Trump & Co. It?s perfectly understandable why they?d do so,
> and even a *rational choice*; I?m not one of those left-identified
> bombasts who naively believes the president of Harvard should risk the
> entire university?s existence for the fleeting glory of ?speaking
> truth to power.? But even so, to spend the last year watching this
> happen and *then* argue the US is ?on the brink?? WTF criteria would
> the country need for even the most prudent person to say we?ve gone
> over the brink?!
>
> Prose?s own words are ?our country *is* on the brink,? but The
> Guardian?s editors changed that to ?feels like? for their headline
> because out of journalistic caution. But that subtle shift, from fact to
> subjective impression, is in keeping with Prose?s own piece. It spends
> more time on the space cynical sysadmins used call PEBKAC, for Problem
> Exists Between Keyboard and Chair. If you read her essay, most of it?s
> concerned with phones screens, snow, media, robins, etc ? novelistic
> detail that puts us in the shoes, and chair, of a Serious Person.
>
> My comment above about pedantic denialists was prompted by a piece by
> Jonathan Rauch in The Atlantic ? ?Yes, It?s Fascism,? with the
> subhead ?Until recently, I thought it a term best avoided. But now,
> the resemblances are too many and too strong to deny.? He too spends
> much of his time maundering on about his subjective process, then he
> conjures up one of those ?best practice?-style lists cribbed from a
> melange of Authorities on Authoritarianism ? Snyder, Eco, Paxton, etc
> ? of criteria needed for anointing something Officially Fascist. He
> introduces the list with a choice bit of rhetoric that doffs its hat to
> some sort of ?methodology? but ultimately affirms his own capricious
> authority: ?Fascism is not a territory with clearly marked boundaries
> but a constellation of characteristics. When you view the stars
> together, the constellation plainly appears.? A decade too late, but
> who?s counting?
>
> Well, I am, actually. Not so much the exact number of years have passes
> since I argued that Trump would need be forcibly removed from the White
> House (ten), but more the qualitative sense of time that permeates
> people?s thinking and enables their passivity. When you say we?re
> *on the brink?, you?re saying it hasn?t ?really? happened yet,
> which justifies passivity. Arguing it isn?t ?really? fascism
> achieves the same effect by slightly different means, by focusing on
> discernment. Saying of something evil that ?this is what _______ looks
> like? ? fascism, authoritarianism, whatever, it doesn?t matter
> because it?s all just content for a mad lib ? does it as well, but
> with a semiotic twist: it may or may not not actually *be* _____, but it
> ?looks like? it. And, of course, protestation like ?this isn?t
> who we are? and ?we?re better than this? do the same, but in
> still other ways. The list of these rhetorical sleights of hand could go
> on and on.
>
> I have to make clear that the people saying these things should be
> assumed to be acting in good faith, caring for the public interest, and
> all those other warm-fuzzy things. I don?t mean to speak poorly of
> them as individuals. But as a *class* they?re pretty problematic,
> because the sum total of their efforts is to postpone the venerable
> question *what is to be done?* And in much the same way that they are,
> by their own admission, postmature antifascists, we should assume that,
> given the chance, they?d be among the first to prematurely declare
> victory over the fascists ? because that?s when liberals would have
> to ask the much rougher question what is to be done *with these
> fascists?*
>
> Cheers,
> Ted
>
>
> On 26 Jan 2026, at 8:56, Patrice Riemens via nettime-l wrote:
>
> > Original to:
> >
> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/25/america-feels-like-a-country-on-the-brink-of-an-authoritarian-takeover
> >
> >
> > America feels like a country on the brink of an authoritarian takeover
> > Francine Prose
> >
> > This is the news we should be paying attention to. At least for the
> > moment, everything else is a distraction
> >
> > Mon 26 Jan 2026
> >
> > When we talk about our inability to pay attention, to concentrate, we
> > often mean and blame our phones. It?s easy, it?s meant to be easy.
> > One flick of our index finger transports us from disaster to disaster,
> > from crisis to crisis, from maddening lie to maddening lie. Each new
> > unauthorized attack and threatened invasion grabs the headlines, until
> > something else takes its place, and meanwhile the government?s
> > attempts to terrorize and silence the people of our country continue.
> >
> > So let me break it down. There is one story: our country is on the
> > brink of an authoritarian takeover. In Minneapolis an innocent poet
> > and an ER nurse at a VA hospital were both killed in cold blood by
> > federal agents. It is happening now. Toddlers are being sent to
> > detention centers; videos of their gyms for kids recall the youth
> > choruses that the Nazis so proudly showed off at the Terez?n
> > concentration camp. Intimidation and violence are being weaponized
> > against the citizens of Minneapolis, some of whom are afraid to leave
> > their houses for fear of being beaten, arrested and shackled,
> > regardless of whether they are US citizens or asylum seekers or people
> > from another country peacefully living and working here for decades.
> >
> > That is the news we should be paying attention to. At least for the
> > moment, everything else is a distraction. I?m glad to have been
> > informed about the heavy snow outside my window today and the local
> > weather-travel advisory, but frankly, it?s snowed here before ? so
> > why is it leading the news?
> >
> > Donald Trump?s inability to tell Greenland from Iceland during his
> > speech at Davos is embarrassing, awful, sort of funny ? but it?s
> > hardly the first time he?s made a mortifying mistake. I too want the
> > Epstein files released, I want to know who is guilty, I want justice
> > and respect for the survivors. But unless those revelations bring down
> > the perpetrators, it?s not ? for the moment ? the story.
> >
> > The story is what?s happening in Minneapolis. And even that requires
> > focus. Already the killing of Alex Pretti has partly diverted our
> > attention from the killing of Renee Good.
> >
> > The story ? masked agents, arrests, violence, kidnappings,
> > deportations without due process ? is happening all over the
> > country, but in smaller increments, without as much pushback, and so
> > far without the death of two innocent, middle-class, white bystanders.
> > The story is about how decent and unselfish Renee Good and Alex Pretti
> > were and about the falsehoods being told about them.
> >
> > The story is not letting ourselves be distracted from the real and
> > present threat to our democracy. That threat is the story which our
> > print, electronic and social media should be bannering at the top of
> > every feed and every front page, every day. To consistently run that
> > below the weather report is, quite frankly, to betray the struggles of
> > the people of Minneapolis.
> >
> > The story is what we do now to support our fellow Americans in the
> > midwest and to keep the violence and repression from spreading even
> > further into our own streets and backyards. The story is avoiding the
> > future that Stephen Miller and his minions are planning for us.
> >
> > The story is how we do it: not long after the 2017 inauguration of
> > Donald Trump, I wrote, in these pages, about our need to stage a
> > national strike. I know now that I underestimated the difficulties ?
> > the amount of organization required, the need to strategize, the
> > necessity to support and provide for people who will lose their
> > livelihoods if they walk off the job. But many people are already
> > scared to go to work or send their kids to school.
> >
> > Such a shutdown would be an enormous undertaking, to say the least.
> > But it?s been done. Gandhi and Martin Luther King achieved at least
> > some of their goals without resorting to violence. The people of
> > Minneapolis have stopped business as usual in the city. That energy
> > can ? and needs - to spread. Not to be alarmist, but unless we stay
> > focused, it may soon be too late.
> >
> > This morning I went off ? I apologize! ? on a college classmate
> > who sent an email link to a video of birds that others might want to
> > watch as ?relief from the weather and the news?. I wasn?t saying
> > we should stop enjoying the birds. I?m thrilled that so many robins
> > elected to stick around this winter. I even like watching the crows
> > and turkey vultures pick the roadkill clean.
> >
> > But I don?t really want ?a relief? from the loss of Renee Good
> > and Alex Pretti or from the resistance beginning in Minneapolis. To
> > crudely paraphrase Ecclesiastes, there is a time for everything. And
> > this may not be the time to distract ourselves with the latest scandal
> > or diplomatic blunder or with amusing images of the creatures who
> > don?t much care if the humans beneath the snow-covered rooftops are
> > living under a cruel and authoritarian regime.
> >
> > Francine Prose is a former president of PEN American Center and a
> > member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American
> > Academy of Arts and Sciences
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
> > # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
> > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
> > # more info: https://www.nettime.org
> > # contact: nettime-l-owner@lists.nettime.org
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2026 15:16:21 -0600
> From: Brian Holmes <bhcontinentaldrift@gmail.com>
> To: "<nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
>         collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets"
>         <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>
> Subject: Re: <nettime> Francine Prose: America feels like a country on
>         the brink of an authoritarian takeover (TG)
> Message-ID:
>         <
> CANuiTgykCX1Uotu6Z-UO68oS8F3PcL2Fe8G4jcQ3OZ+ksVydpw@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> The question, What is to be done *with these fascists* is definitely a good
> one. It follows the question, How can Trump be removed? that Ted posed
> about a year ago, asserting that *he will have to be removed*, which is
> true beyond doubt. I have thought about that question a lot in the
> intervening year.
>
> Then there is also the question, What is to be done with ourselves, with
> each one of us? Which may not be the least of the problems.
>
> The liberals, no doubt Francine Prose among them, had to wait until white
> middle-class people were gunned down to start getting serious about the
> fascist takeover. So that was their limit. One could complain that Gaza
> should have taught them that, that George Floyd's murder should have taught
> them that, that Afghanistan or Vietnam or whatever grotesque American
> imperialist war should have taught them that long ago. It's true, but since
> we have to get on with the business of removing Trump from power, all these
> complaints are not to be forgotten, but instead to be relativized. The
> liberals are part of an evolving political spectrum, like the leftist
> intellectuals and the anarchists, who *will have to admit that they
> actually live in this country* (dixit Ted again).
>
> On the basis of actions at the grassroots, mostly led by Latinos but picked
> up increasingly widely, the Democrats have finally started to step up, as
> individual representatives and to some degree as a party. For them too, the
> country is "suddenly" on the brink of authoritarianism. Why did it take so
> long? Small "d" democratic politics does not only happen in the voting
> booth. It happens when molecular forces at the grassroots, and in the
> institutions, and in the professions, all start relaying distinct demands
> with a common sense of urgency. At moments of crisis these demands pierce
> the usual capture of political representatives by interest groups. The
> process is finally starting in the US. But it's a long way from removing
> Trump from power (although probably a lot closer to removing ICE from
> Minnesota).
>
> What to do with the fascists is a harder question. There are a lot of
> fascists now. My sense is that liberal denial of real problems allowed all
> this to get much worse than it had to. I think that as Americans, most of
> us participate in some way in that denial. Just like Europeans
> participated, for convenience, in the processes that made the US into the
> global hegemon. We evaded our responsibilities, in exchange for careers,
> money, entertainment, or just the cheap and ever-available pleasures of
> cynicism and nihilism.
>
> Broken institutions are terrifying - because violence leaps into the
> institutional void. But there are reasons why those institutions broke.
> Their collapse can also represent a possibility, the possibility for
> reconstruction (an urgent need that follows every civil war). There's a
> steep learning curve ahead for anyone who wants to participate in removal
> and rebuilding. First, because you have to get over denialism and take the
> problems of *this country* seriously. Second, because you have to find a
> way to deal with 40% of the Republican base, who *still* think Trump is
> doing a great job.
>
> More effort, citizens and non-citizens, if you don't want to live under a
> dictatorship.
>
> Brian
>
> On Mon, Jan 26, 2026 at 11:27?AM GM - tedbyfield via nettime-l <
> nettime-l@lists.nettime.org> wrote:
>
> > Just a few minutes ago I wrote:
> >
> > ?? The same fools who enabled this catastrophe with their
> > interminable arendtsplaining and pedantic denialism expect us to attend
> > to their interminable babbling about how wrong they were. They should
> > step aside and give their bully pulpits to people who were right when it
> > mattered. ??
> >
> > These *postmature antifascists*, as I like to call them, are a dime a
> > dozen and best ignored. Francine Prose is a reasonably distinguished
> > person, deeply intelligent and clearly of good faith ? she plays on
> > our team, so to speak. But anyone who?d write *now* that the US
> > ?feels like a country on the brink of an authoritarian takeover?
> > should be read with some skepticism, because the US is far past that
> > brink.
> >
> > We?ve watched the prestigious institutions of one sector after another
> > ? national governments abroad and government entities at home,
> > national and even transnational corporations, mighty universities, major
> > media outlets, pillars of civil society, and on and on ? quailing
> > before Trump & Co. It?s perfectly understandable why they?d do so,
> > and even a *rational choice*; I?m not one of those left-identified
> > bombasts who naively believes the president of Harvard should risk the
> > entire university?s existence for the fleeting glory of ?speaking
> > truth to power.? But even so, to spend the last year watching this
> > happen and *then* argue the US is ?on the brink?? WTF criteria would
> > the country need for even the most prudent person to say we?ve gone
> > over the brink?!
> >
> > Prose?s own words are ?our country *is* on the brink,? but The
> > Guardian?s editors changed that to ?feels like? for their headline
> > because out of journalistic caution. But that subtle shift, from fact to
> > subjective impression, is in keeping with Prose?s own piece. It spends
> > more time on the space cynical sysadmins used call PEBKAC, for Problem
> > Exists Between Keyboard and Chair. If you read her essay, most of it?s
> > concerned with phones screens, snow, media, robins, etc ? novelistic
> > detail that puts us in the shoes, and chair, of a Serious Person.
> >
> > My comment above about pedantic denialists was prompted by a piece by
> > Jonathan Rauch in The Atlantic ? ?Yes, It?s Fascism,? with the
> > subhead ?Until recently, I thought it a term best avoided. But now,
> > the resemblances are too many and too strong to deny.? He too spends
> > much of his time maundering on about his subjective process, then he
> > conjures up one of those ?best practice?-style lists cribbed from a
> > melange of Authorities on Authoritarianism ? Snyder, Eco, Paxton, etc
> > ? of criteria needed for anointing something Officially Fascist. He
> > introduces the list with a choice bit of rhetoric that doffs its hat to
> > some sort of ?methodology? but ultimately affirms his own capricious
> > authority: ?Fascism is not a territory with clearly marked boundaries
> > but a constellation of characteristics. When you view the stars
> > together, the constellation plainly appears.? A decade too late, but
> > who?s counting?
> >
> > Well, I am, actually. Not so much the exact number of years have passes
> > since I argued that Trump would need be forcibly removed from the White
> > House (ten), but more the qualitative sense of time that permeates
> > people?s thinking and enables their passivity. When you say we?re
> > *on the brink?, you?re saying it hasn?t ?really? happened yet,
> > which justifies passivity. Arguing it isn?t ?really? fascism
> > achieves the same effect by slightly different means, by focusing on
> > discernment. Saying of something evil that ?this is what _______ looks
> > like? ? fascism, authoritarianism, whatever, it doesn?t matter
> > because it?s all just content for a mad lib ? does it as well, but
> > with a semiotic twist: it may or may not not actually *be* _____, but it
> > ?looks like? it. And, of course, protestation like ?this isn?t
> > who we are? and ?we?re better than this? do the same, but in
> > still other ways. The list of these rhetorical sleights of hand could go
> > on and on.
> >
> > I have to make clear that the people saying these things should be
> > assumed to be acting in good faith, caring for the public interest, and
> > all those other warm-fuzzy things. I don?t mean to speak poorly of
> > them as individuals. But as a *class* they?re pretty problematic,
> > because the sum total of their efforts is to postpone the venerable
> > question *what is to be done?* And in much the same way that they are,
> > by their own admission, postmature antifascists, we should assume that,
> > given the chance, they?d be among the first to prematurely declare
> > victory over the fascists ? because that?s when liberals would have
> > to ask the much rougher question what is to be done *with these
> > fascists?*
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Ted
> >
> >
> > On 26 Jan 2026, at 8:56, Patrice Riemens via nettime-l wrote:
> >
> > > Original to:
> > >
> >
> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/25/america-feels-like-a-country-on-the-brink-of-an-authoritarian-takeover
> > >
> > >
> > > America feels like a country on the brink of an authoritarian takeover
> > > Francine Prose
> > >
> > > This is the news we should be paying attention to. At least for the
> > > moment, everything else is a distraction
> > >
> > > Mon 26 Jan 2026
> > >
> > > When we talk about our inability to pay attention, to concentrate, we
> > > often mean and blame our phones. It?s easy, it?s meant to be easy.
> > > One flick of our index finger transports us from disaster to disaster,
> > > from crisis to crisis, from maddening lie to maddening lie. Each new
> > > unauthorized attack and threatened invasion grabs the headlines, until
> > > something else takes its place, and meanwhile the government?s
> > > attempts to terrorize and silence the people of our country continue.
> > >
> > > So let me break it down. There is one story: our country is on the
> > > brink of an authoritarian takeover. In Minneapolis an innocent poet
> > > and an ER nurse at a VA hospital were both killed in cold blood by
> > > federal agents. It is happening now. Toddlers are being sent to
> > > detention centers; videos of their gyms for kids recall the youth
> > > choruses that the Nazis so proudly showed off at the Terez?n
> > > concentration camp. Intimidation and violence are being weaponized
> > > against the citizens of Minneapolis, some of whom are afraid to leave
> > > their houses for fear of being beaten, arrested and shackled,
> > > regardless of whether they are US citizens or asylum seekers or people
> > > from another country peacefully living and working here for decades.
> > >
> > > That is the news we should be paying attention to. At least for the
> > > moment, everything else is a distraction. I?m glad to have been
> > > informed about the heavy snow outside my window today and the local
> > > weather-travel advisory, but frankly, it?s snowed here before ? so
> > > why is it leading the news?
> > >
> > > Donald Trump?s inability to tell Greenland from Iceland during his
> > > speech at Davos is embarrassing, awful, sort of funny ? but it?s
> > > hardly the first time he?s made a mortifying mistake. I too want the
> > > Epstein files released, I want to know who is guilty, I want justice
> > > and respect for the survivors. But unless those revelations bring down
> > > the perpetrators, it?s not ? for the moment ? the story.
> > >
> > > The story is what?s happening in Minneapolis. And even that requires
> > > focus. Already the killing of Alex Pretti has partly diverted our
> > > attention from the killing of Renee Good.
> > >
> > > The story ? masked agents, arrests, violence, kidnappings,
> > > deportations without due process ? is happening all over the
> > > country, but in smaller increments, without as much pushback, and so
> > > far without the death of two innocent, middle-class, white bystanders.
> > > The story is about how decent and unselfish Renee Good and Alex Pretti
> > > were and about the falsehoods being told about them.
> > >
> > > The story is not letting ourselves be distracted from the real and
> > > present threat to our democracy. That threat is the story which our
> > > print, electronic and social media should be bannering at the top of
> > > every feed and every front page, every day. To consistently run that
> > > below the weather report is, quite frankly, to betray the struggles of
> > > the people of Minneapolis.
> > >
> > > The story is what we do now to support our fellow Americans in the
> > > midwest and to keep the violence and repression from spreading even
> > > further into our own streets and backyards. The story is avoiding the
> > > future that Stephen Miller and his minions are planning for us.
> > >
> > > The story is how we do it: not long after the 2017 inauguration of
> > > Donald Trump, I wrote, in these pages, about our need to stage a
> > > national strike. I know now that I underestimated the difficulties ?
> > > the amount of organization required, the need to strategize, the
> > > necessity to support and provide for people who will lose their
> > > livelihoods if they walk off the job. But many people are already
> > > scared to go to work or send their kids to school.
> > >
> > > Such a shutdown would be an enormous undertaking, to say the least.
> > > But it?s been done. Gandhi and Martin Luther King achieved at least
> > > some of their goals without resorting to violence. The people of
> > > Minneapolis have stopped business as usual in the city. That energy
> > > can ? and needs - to spread. Not to be alarmist, but unless we stay
> > > focused, it may soon be too late.
> > >
> > > This morning I went off ? I apologize! ? on a college classmate
> > > who sent an email link to a video of birds that others might want to
> > > watch as ?relief from the weather and the news?. I wasn?t saying
> > > we should stop enjoying the birds. I?m thrilled that so many robins
> > > elected to stick around this winter. I even like watching the crows
> > > and turkey vultures pick the roadkill clean.
> > >
> > > But I don?t really want ?a relief? from the loss of Renee Good
> > > and Alex Pretti or from the resistance beginning in Minneapolis. To
> > > crudely paraphrase Ecclesiastes, there is a time for everything. And
> > > this may not be the time to distract ourselves with the latest scandal
> > > or diplomatic blunder or with amusing images of the creatures who
> > > don?t much care if the humans beneath the snow-covered rooftops are
> > > living under a cruel and authoritarian regime.
> > >
> > > Francine Prose is a former president of PEN American Center and a
> > > member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American
> > > Academy of Arts and Sciences
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
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> > # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
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> >
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Subject: Digest Footer
>
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> ------------------------------
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> End of nettime-l Digest, Vol 31, Issue 13
> *****************************************
>
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