My first experience of the military being used to police a city was while I was part of a delegation from the Illinois Conference of the United Church of Christ to the indigenous Mayan people in Chiapas, Mexico. I saw uniformed soldiers holding automatic rifles standing on the street corners. I felt uneasy, tried to be invisible and looked for a route to avoid them.
As a naïve American, I thought, in my home country I will never have to encounter armed military patrolling the streets. Nor will I ever need to worry about military checkpoints like the ones here in Chiapas. I could never have imagined a president of the United States declaring the country is “reawakening the warrior spirit” while sending military troops into our cities to fight an “invasion from within,” that will straighten out the unsafe places.
Yet, today it seems the U.S. is following the lead of Mexico’s treatment of the indigenous Mayans in Mexico and taking advice from the Israeli military’s treatment of Palestinians in Gaza, as well as modeling the ways of kings and autocrats in dictatorial countries. The parallels are obvious. President Trump told the assembly of military leaders we have cities that are, “very unsafe places, and we’re going to straighten them out one by one,” Trump said. “That’s a war, too. It’s a war from within.”
The military was meant to be directed at foreign enemies, not the “enemy from within,” as Trump said on Tuesday. Our country is becoming acquainted with this fear today, seeing ICE, Homeland Security, Border Patrol and the military in combat gear patrolling the streets in some cities. The last thing we want is to normalize tyrannical, autocratic government enforced by the military.
Citizens, we cannot just let that day come. Now is the time for peaceful resistance. We must badger our elected officials to stop the country’s momentum toward a military backed regime that threatens our free thinking, free speech, freedom of movement, the diversity of our population, equity for all people and a climate of inclusion. We must have conversations with our police to recover their understanding of their call to duty within the civil society. Urge them to protect the freedom of all civilians and abandon the ways and means of military force.
And most important, we must talk with members our national guard, encourage them to evaluate their mission and to reject armed enforcement of the will of the White House upon civil society. Let us talk to military personnel when we meet them on the street. Encourage them to talk about why they enlisted.
Let us talk to them when we meet them at peaceful demonstrations, like at the “No Kings Day” on Oct.18. Let us assure them that we will support them if they refuse to follow
unlawful orders, including refusing to turn against citizens. Let us ask how they feel
about the cause of the demonstrators. Invite them to join the movement to resist
the policy of deploying the military to police U.S. citizens.
This is a precarious time. It’s so easy to be complacent. Yet, the government is already using the military to enforce its dictatorial priorities in some cities. ICE, Border Patrol and military personnel are already coming for the refugees and immigrants. The White House is coming for universities and students who do not accept the government’s priorities. The White House has censured two late-night television hosts who speak truth to power. How soon will it be before they come for us? What penalties will we face for being who we are? Will we be judged by a military tribunal? To where might we be exiled?
These scenarios are on the horizon of our near future. With our complacency we can watch the sun set on the country and succumb to the darkness. Or, with our resistance, we can turn around and look to the rising sun, shining on a new reality of just peace for all gender identities, for citizen and immigrant, for conservative and liberal, for people with minimal formal education and people with advanced degrees, for people with dark skin and light skin, for you and me, for all God’s people. That would be the dawning of citizenry worth welcoming.
John Buttrick writes from his Vermont Folk Rocker in his Concord home, Minds
Crossing. He can be reached at johndbuttrick@gmail.com