Alex Pretti Didn't Surrender To The Nazis. Neither Should You.
Keep fighting.
ICE agents executed another American citizen in Minneapolis on Saturday. While recording ICE activities with his phone and directing traffic, Alex Pretti, 37, tried to help a woman who ICE agents had assaulted. He was pepper-sprayed and a half-dozen masked cowards wrestled him to the ground. Then he was shot at point blank range in the back. After removing his gun, which he had a license to carry, an agent shot Pretti four times while he was subdued, and then another shot him six more times as he lay motionless on the pavement. I’d say he was whacked but even gangsters have more honor.
The Trump administration followed its standard protocol of slandering the deceased before his body was cold or his family was even notified. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, jackbooted thug Greg Bovino, and drooling lunatic Stephen Miller all claimed that Pretti, an ICU nurse at a veteran’s hospital, was a “domestic terrorist” who wanted to “massacre” law enforcement. Miller called him an “assassin.” Everything they said was a lie, of course, because they know they can’t defend this murder with the facts. Pretti was a licensed gun owner, but suddenly the Second Amendment no longer applies to citizens who are protesting the government. This is all the Nazi stuff that Fox News claimed would happen if Hillary Clinton were elected, but without men forcibly losing their penises.
Others will go into more detail about the latest ICE atrocity, but I’d like to focus more on our collective response to it. ICE’s occupation of Minneapolis, the murder of Renee Good, and the Trump regime’s overall campaign of global terror have caused many Americans who still have a soul to declare “this is not who we are.” These declarations apparently are annoying to people who confuse cynicism with wisdom.
Writer Mikki Kendall posted on social media last week, “I fear my tipping point into madness is ‘Thus is un-American’ posts in response to ICE terrorizing immigrants. I beg you to open Wikipedia (I would say a book but let’s start small) and read up on The Trail of Tears, Fugitive Slave Catchers, Japanese internment, Indian Boarding schools & Jim Crow.”
Kendall is operating from a moral binary: America is either all good or all bad. It’s obviously not all good, so it must be all bad. However, I believe life is more complicated and less nihilistic. America is an ideal. No, it has not always lived up to that ideal, but we shouldn’t discount those who have fought for the ideal. So, I don’t believe the Trail of Tears is any more American than the March on Selma or the Freedom Riders. The Montgomery Bus Boycott is also very American. So is Stonewall. As Langston Hughes wrote, “I, too, am America.”
I don’t define America exclusively by the actions of its worst actors. ICE Agent Jonathan Ross is not more American than Renee Good, nor is Stephen Miller more American than Alex Pretti. (He’s barely the same species.)
Journalist Lindsay Beyerstein posted a compelling counter argument to Kendall’s remarks.
“Why do the evil-doers get to decide what the fundamental American values are?” Beyerstein wrote. “Let’s define them ourselves.”
She added, “We’re in a war to define our country and we need to stand up and say we’re right and the ICE goons are wrong.”
Oh, I know the usual suspects will claim Beyerstein is just a naive white woman and so on. It’s a familiar refuge. However, her statement reminds me of a powerful moment in Captain America: The First Avenger, when Dr. Abraham Erksine (Stanley Tucci), inventor of the super soldier serum, tells Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), “So many people forget that the first country the Nazis invaded was their own.” (Watch below.)
The Nazis invaded and conquered Germany. Soon, there was no one left to say, “This is not Germany. This is not us.” Our allies — for as long as we still have them — are watching a similar invasion occur in the United States, and it’s probably not encouraging when very smart people insist that America is and always will be MAGA. That’s not even an invasion, so there’s no reason to fight back, just accept the horror. This greatly overstates Donald Trump’s power and influence. He won the popular vote by just 1.5 percent and the Electoral College by less than 300,000 votes. I’m not yet ready to wave the white flag.
Yes, America can seem like a fascism addict who keeps having relapses. After Joe Biden won the 2020 election, America was the celebrity fresh out of rehab who makes the talk show circuit and promises that those dark days are in the past. Then five years later, America is found naked in a ditch. It’s easy to give up hope, but the people protesting ICE in Minneapolis and defending their neighbors aren’t out there because it’s easy. Renee Good and Alex Pretti should inspire us, arouse our patriotism, not convince us that America belongs to people like Trump, Vance, Miller, and Noem. Let’s remember Pretti’s sadly prescient words when honoring a veteran who’d died from lung cancer: “Today we remember that freedom is not free, we have to work at it, nurture it, protect it, and even sacrifice for it.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the true moral speaker of the House, posted this relevant message on social media:
Cynics and defeatists share the same story as authoritarians do: that nothing is worth trying, the conclusion is foregone, hope is naïve, and attempts to resist are too small or futile.
Don’t listen to them. Do not give up. Try.
A better world is possible.
We will win. We must.
My wife kids me because I often quote the TV series Angel as if it’s classic philosophy, but there is a line from the series finale, “Not Fade Away,” that resonates with me. A villain asks Angel why he bothers fighting a battle he can’t possibly win — after all, evil is eternal, evil will always endure. Angel responds simply, “People who don’t care will never understand those who do.”
But it’s not just evil people who don’t understand this messag. It’s often the morally pious, who condemn all of humanity as degenerate and thus preemptively surrender to the Nazis.
Alex Pretti was an intensive care nurse at a Veterans Affairs hospital. According to his devastated family, Pretti cared deeply about people and was compelled to act when ICE invaded his city. He was a white man and not an immediate target, but he couldn’t look away. He took a stand for justice, and his last act before he was murdered was helping a woman in trouble. That, too, is America.
I'm thankful for Alex Pretti. He gave his life so others could live, and there's no greater love than that.
Note that we are going to have to work extra hard to protect the next victims (and we know there will be more) because Maladministration 2.0 has their captive, fully powered rightwing media human centipede. This is why the monsters there immediately smear their victims so that on every bit of reporting there are deluges of chuds below carrying forth their slander.
They're going to kill someone—just based out of statistics—who isn't an "angel" or whatever. So be prepared for that. Our best 'weapons' at this point are cameras and solidarity. All of the cameras. All the time. Keep resisting, keep recording.
I find all the “this has always been America, maybe you don’t know about the Trail of Tears” pedantry incredibly annoying. Congratulations, you know that we did evil shit in our history, you must have passed 6th grade social studies! Wait til you get to the chapter about internment camps in WW2. It’ll blow your mind, Will Hunting.
As you note, America can be defined either way. Define it by its greater ideals, or by its low points—if you go for the latter just because you think it makes you look worldly (I note, basically everyone you’re arguing with is aware of atrocities in American history!) you are agreeing with Trump when he says “you think we’re so innocent?”