We’re hearing a lot about the Insurrection Act these days. The idea of the president invoking it against citizens of the United States is pretty scary, so I checked a bit into its history.
It was created in 1792 and called the Militia Acts of 1792 and was partly prompted by the Whiskey Rebellion and the Burr Conspiracy. It’s been invoked a fair number of times in U.S. history: President Grant invoked it to counter white supremacist violence during Reconstruction, Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson during the civil rights movement in the 1950s and ’60s, President Johnson in 1968 following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and President H.W. Bush in 1992 during the riots in Los Angeles following the Rodney King verdict.
In each of these instances the act was invoked against violence resulting from local protest of specific events. Now we’re hearing that we may be facing the imposition of the act again. But this time the situation is different. In fact it’s in reverse.
Rather than the government putting down insurrections created by the citizens, the government itself is creating the insurrections. It’s doing this through illegal acts of violence against lawful residents of the United States.
Sending unidentified, masked ICE agents to arrest legal residents with no criminal records and without warrants seems to me an act of insurrection. The government is revolting against the established laws of its own country. Why? I fear it’s part of the president’s plan to make his way, through martial law, to fascist dictatorship. If he can’t make U.S. citizens respond sufficiently to his actions to justify calling for the military, then he will push them to violence through increasingly aggressive acts in the name of Making America Great Again.
If U.S. citizens don’t respond to his actions sufficiently to call for the military, push them to violence through increasingly aggressive acts in the name of Making America Great Again. Despite the fact that the LA protest and subsequent disturbance occurred only in a very small part of the city — mostly the downtown area — the president called in the California National Guard and 700 Marines, although neither the governor nor the mayor had called for assistance.
Now, both the Guard and the Marines are stationed in LA for 60 days, or at the discretion of the secretary of defense. The administration has gotten its foot firmly in the door for future actions. We are in an extremely precarious situation. The president wants to create the perception among his supporters of a country out of control. That way, he hopes, they will be on board with what he calls necessary actions and believe he is maintaining the U.S. Constitution and democracy. Actually he is maneuvering in the very opposite direction.
We must unite against such tactics, but how can we reach across the terrible divide between us to create an alliance between those who are angry because they have been excluded from opportunity and prosperity and those who are frightened at the possibility of losing the freedom of democracy to the fascism of dictatorship? Both of us want opportunity and prosperity — for everyone — and neither wants to lose the freedom to pursue our dreams. We must see we are in the same boat. All of us want freedom and equal opportunity. There is enough in the U.S. for everyone, but it is undeniable that things have become lopsided. There is huge wealth in the country, but it is not equally divided among Americans.
It is also true that we have a frightening national debt. There is undoubtedly waste and bloat in government departments and agencies. It’s true we must reduce the debt and get rid of the waste and bloat, but not on the backs of working Americans. We can’t permit health services like Medicaid that so many Americans rely on to be cut in order to reduce the debt, while at the same time lowering taxes for the wealthy. With increased taxes on the superrich, we can fund Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. The government says the wealth is necessary for investment to create growth in business and industry, but have we seen this? I don’t think so.
What I think, what I’m afraid of, is that the direction in which the president and his supporters are moving is not intended to move the wealth of this country in ways that will benefit us working people. I fear their direction will only further consolidate wealth in the hands of those who already have it. We the people will not find more jobs and greater opportunities because investment in manufacturing and business will not increase. Wealth will continue where it is now, and the gulf between the wealthy and the rest of us will persist and increase.
I fear the inflammatory rhetoric of the administration and the actions it has authorized ICE and other departments to take are strategies intended to allow the president and his allies to strengthen their positions of wealth and the power that comes with it. They are are creating incendiary situations in the hope that we will push back against the cruel arrests without cause or warrants so they can implement their own insurrection, against the American people and their constitution and democracy.
Kathy Gregg lives in Amherst.