Tag: Martin Niemoller

Report about “Alligator Alcatraz”

The United States of America used to be a nation of laws, or am I naïve?

I did not plan to blog today, but something came to my attention that I can’t let slide.

Amnesty International has issued a 48-page report. I thought it was going to be a report on the organization’s findings throughout the world but, no, it is a report on detention facilities in the State of Florida. 48 well-documented pages.

This is a photo of a hand-held sign that says, "Human Rights For Future - Amnesty International"
Photo by Christian Lue on Unsplash

The name of the report is “Torture and enforced disappearances in the Sunshine State: Human rights violations at “Alligator Alcatraz” and Krome in Florida AMR 51/0511/2025” and can be found at https://www.amnesty.nl/content/uploads/2025/12/AMR_51_0511_2025-Torture-and-enforced-disappearances-in-the-Sunshine-State-vf.pdf?….

Photo of an alligator showing his teeth
Photo by Gabriel Soto on Unsplash

The U.S. Detention Center dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” due to its location in the Everglades and the manner in which it was publicized by the Trump Administration and the early reports that came out of there, has completely fallen off the radars of news organizations. With Border Patrol and ICE activities in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte, New Orleans, and Minneapolis-St. Paul dominating the news cycles along with the Epstein Files and whether the United States is going to bomb Venezuela and force a regime change in that country… “Alligator Alcatraz” cannot compete for attention.

Thank goodness it hasn’t fallen off Amnesty International’s radar. The organization’s report this week paints a horrible picture of conditions at “Alligator Alcatraz.”

I know there are Americans who glibly turn a blind eye to any reports that put the Trump Administration in a bad light. They seem to think it’s acceptable for the U.S. to bomb boats in international waters and launch multiple attacks to kill any survivors. They also tend to agree with Trump that anyone who ends up in a detention center is sub-human and deserves horrible treatment. Many of these people also claim to be Christians. This baffles me, but that isn’t the purpose of today’s blog post.

(And why is Trump’s good buddy, Steve Witkoff, giving Putin advice on how to negotiate with Trump? But I digress.)

PHoto of fingers gripping a wire fence
Photo by Mitchel Lensink on Unsplash

I cannot easily summarize the report in this blog post, but here are a few highlights:

Lights are on around-the-clock;

Although the United Nations considers solitary confinement lasting more than 15 days to be torture, but at “Alligator Alcatraz,” some detainees have been in solitary confinement for more than 100 consecutive days;

Inadequate/ill-maintained plumbing results in toilets overflowing and flooding cells;

Detainees are allowed one five-minute shower per week;

Mold, insects, and rodents abound;

Food is often spoiled or maggot-infested;

Medical and mental health care are often withheld;

At least four detainees have died due to medical neglect;

Detainees are effectively dropped from the immigration court system because ICE and GEO Group refuse to report them to other government authorities;

Guards have used pepper spray in closed cells and then denied decontamination;

Sexual assault is occurring;

Detainees are punished if they complain about conditions;

Force-feeding has been used without proper medical oversight

There are 1,400 detainees being held there now at a facility built for 700;

ICE renewed GEO Group’s contract to operate the facility inspite of all the evidence that the company is not maintaining current standards of incarceration in the United States; and

The Department of Human Services Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties has not inspected “Alligator Alcatraz” since July 2025.

My thoughts

Call me a “bleeding heart liberal” if you wish, but I would ask you if this is now the acceptable penal standard in the United States of America? Do we aspire to be a “Third World” country?

Is anything on the above list making “America Great Again” or did I misunderstand Trump’s campaign promise?

If you are all right with our country treating detainees horribly, then you and I have fundamental differences in how we interpret the teachings of Jesus Christ as well as the letter and spirit of the United States Constitution.

The sobering lines of Martin Niemoller’s much-quoted “First they came” statement/poem come to mind.

A meme that reads, "First they came for the immigrants, but I wasn't an immigrant."

They haven’t come for me yet, but I feel compelled to speak up for the least of these among us and alleged atrocities committed by the United States Government or its private contractors such as GEO Group.

I love my country. That is why it hurts so much when we fall short of our potential and our history.

Janet

They’ve gone too far, Harriet Tubman!

NOTE: At 2 a.m., just three hours before this blog post was scheduled to be published, I learned that the Harriet Tubman/Underground Railroad webpage on the National Park Service website had been restored! Rather than cancel today’s blog post, I will go forward with it because the only thing that has changed is that for whatever reason that one webpage has been restored.

Nothing else has changed, though. The Trump Administration continues to recklessly… and intentionally… try to erase and destroy American history and democracy. Whether they justify it under the guise of getting rid of “waste and fraud” or eliminating “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” it is all part of this sham racist and misogynist Administration.

What has taken place regarding Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad since January 20, 2025, is a prime example of the incompetence and insidious hate held by members of the Trump Administration.

It offends me when I hear people say that all government employees are corrupt and incompetent. That is the mantra of the Trump Administration. Trump and the people in his inner circle despise federal employees. They are perfectly happy to collect government paychecks and benefits, but no one else working in the government deserves anything but ridicule. Think about that for a minute.

If you want to see corruption and incompetence, you need look no further than the Trump Administration. It is made up entirely of businessmen. Businessmen are never corrupt or incompetent, are they? But evidence to the contrary lies in the fact that almost on a daily basis since January 20 this Administration has made an announcement then had to retract it, has fired federal employees and then had to try to re-hire them, has erased information from a website and then had to restore it. Not to mention high level national security people conducting business on a less-than-secure app, first denying it, then halfway owning up to it, then proclaiming it was no big thing.

The Administration’s total disregard for truth, transparency, and the rule of law and never taking responsibility for mistakes is on display daily for all to see.

It astounds me how the businessmen who are running the federal government have a total lack of knowledge of what government’s purpose is. They only think in terms of profit and loss, but that’s not what government is about. Government is about serving the people, and that’s why Trump and the people in his Administration have it all wrong. Serving the people is a foreign term for them. They only think in terms of making money from the people, and running over anyone who gets in their way. What a pathetic way to see the world!

They delight in firing employees willy-nilly. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. They don’t consider what anyone’s job is. They don’t consider anyone’s expertise. They just conduct wholesale firings.

Hours or days later, when someone has the courage to point out to them that some of those employees helped planes land safely, or some of them were conducting research into cancer treatments or possible cures, or some of them risk their lives to fight wildfires… then a handful of them might be re-hired. That is, if they can locate them, because in the name of anti-waste, anti-fraud, anti-diversity, anti-equity, and anti-inclusion, they erased all the fired employees’ contact information.

I guess that’s the business mentality. After all, more than one person said to me before Trump ran for office the first time, “We need a businessman in the White House.” And that’s supposedly what we got.

What follows is my original blog post scheduled for April 8, 2025:

Until around 9:30 Sunday night, I planned not to blog again about politics until Thursday. That’s when I learned that sometime between January 21 and March 19, 2025, the National Park Service removed all references to Harriett Tubman from its “Underground Railroad” webpage.

Yes, THAT Harriet Tubman! The Harriet Tubman who was the most famous “conductor” on the Underground Railroad.

That’s the Harriet Tubman whose image appeared on a 13-cent first-class postage stamp in the United States in 1978. If you weren’t born until the 1990s, you probably can’t truly appreciate how difficult it was to get the United States to honor a non-white person on a postage stamp. She was the first woman of color (almost any color!) whose image was chosen for a US postage stamp. (Here’s a list of them, if you are interested in digging deeper into that aspect of American history: https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/african-american-stamp-subjects.htm.)

If you don’t know what the Underground Railroad was, please look it up somewhere while you still can. It was not an actual railroad, but it operated like one in many ways except in secret.

Apparently, the “Underground Railroad” webpage’s lead story until the Trump Administration decided to erase all history except that of white men!

Not only did they remove Harriet Tubman and her photograph, they removed references to “enslaved” people and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

Harriet Tubman, enslaved people, and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 have been replaced on the webpage with… and you aren’t going to believe this… or I guess you will if you are a person of color or a female… “Black/White Cooperation.”

The webpage used to (until a matter of weeks ago) open with FACTS about slavery, how slaves struggled to gain their freedom, how the Underground Railroad came about after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

Now, the page’s first two paragraphs emphasize “American ideals of liberty and freedom” and slavery isn’t mentioned.

There is a separate National Park Service webpage dedicated to Harriet Tubman. It has not been removed… yet.

The name “Harriet Tubman” is was synonymous with “Underground Railroad.” Her name will continue to be synonymous with the Underground Railroad until her name is wiped from the entire internet and all books about her or the Underground Railroad are destroyed… and after that, her name will still be whispered and kept alive through oral history.

The Trump Administration has also targeted the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Smithsonian American Art Museum for having exhibits and using language he doesn’t like… or someone has told him he shouldn’t like. After all, we all know what a limited vocabulary he has.

The Administration continues to threaten universities, libraries, museums under the guise of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), but if Trump and his minions were truthful they would just admit that they are racists, bigots, and mysogenists. We all know, though, the truth is not in them. They are small, fearful, hateful bullies.

I believe God is weeping. He gave us freewill, but it must grieve him to see what so many Americans have done with that freedom and responsibility.

In case you can’t see the forest for the trees…

Before you jump on me for making a mountain out of mole hill… for getting all bent out of shape over “just” the removal of Harriet Tubman, the Underground Railroad, and slavery from a US Government webpage, I’m worried about the big picture. Yes, I’m upset over those specific things being scrubbed from a government webpage, but I’m more concerned over what this portends.

I’m 72 years old and I NEVER thought the United States Government would erase our history. It has taken hundreds of years for indigenous peoples and Americans of African descent to get their stories – their history – in the history books. All that progress is under siege and threatened today.

Where do we go from here?

It falls on each of us to learn as much history as we can… while we still can… and commit it to memory so we can tell future generations the truth.

It falls on us to protest any way we can. It you are fortunate enough to be represented on any level of government by someone not affiliated with the Republican Party, call them, write them, encourage them, support them in their efforts to stop this madness.

If you are represented by Republican politicians, your have your work cut out for you. They have been advised not to hold town hall meetings. I know from experience that when you write them (letters or email) if you get a response it might not be on the topic you wrote them about.

The response you receive will quickly descend into a regurgitation of the usual Republican talking points singing the praises of Trump and how we all need to just be patient because great wealth is going to come to each of us and it is coming quickly.

On the other hand, we’re told it might take years for us to realize that prosperity because it took decades of our allies taking advantage of us to get us in the dire economic situation we were put in by the Democrats.

In other words, if we live long enough, this great American nightmare might end.

Make a sign and join a non-violent protest. Respond to hecklers with “Bless your heart!”

We must follow the example set by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and protest peacefully. Only the other side storms Capitol buildings and attacks police officers.

If need be, we can protest and wait patiently to vote in the mid-term election on November 3, 2026, when every one of the 435 seats in the US House of Representatives will be up for election and 33 US Senate seats will be up for election.

One thing I hope to live to hear

I hope to live long enough to hear a sane future US President speak the words that President Gerald Ford uttered to the nation after President Nixon was forced to leave the White House in shame: 

“My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule. But there is a higher Power, by whatever name we honor Him, who ordains not only righteousness but love, not only justice but mercy. As we bind up the internal wounds of Watergate, more painful and more poisonous than those of foreign wars, let us restore the golden rule to our political process, and let brotherly love purge our hearts of suspicion and of hate.” ~ newly-sworn in US President Gerald R. Ford, nationally televised from the East Room of the White House on August 9, 1974.

I heard President Ford say those words, and I desperately want to hear a future US President say them, substituting “the Trump Administration” for “Watergate.”

Until my next blog post, probably tomorrow

I hope you have a book or something to give you a few minutes respite from what’s happening.

Janet

“First they came for the…”

Every week I think I’ll write a shorter blog post, but every week there’s something in the news about which I’m compelled to comment. Every week I think I’ll get back to work on the novel I’m writing.

The original blog post I wrote for today came in at more than 3,000 words. No one wants to read a 3,000-word blog post, so I’ve divided it into three posts.

Tomorrow I will blog about a couple of US Supreme Court rulings made in 1898 and 2025 that I initially was going to blog about today.

Wednesday’s post will include a breakdown of the $524 million bill passed by the NC General Assembly and signed by Governor Josh Stein las week as well as highlights from the National Hurricane Center’s final report about Hurricane Helene.

And you know me… if something else happens before I post tomorrow and Wednesday, I’m liable to go off on another tangent. While we still have a modicum of free speech in America, I will take advantage of every opportunity to speak out about injustice and actions that run counter to the US Constitution.

A blog post update

Last week I reblogged Tangie T. Woods’ post from her “Mrs. T’s Corner” blog about Lt. Col. Charles Calvin Rogers’ information being taken down from the Department of Defense (DoD) website.

The DoD seemed to get confused about exactly what on its website qualified as the “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) that the Trump Administration wants eradicated from all federal government departments and resources.

Under the Trump Administration, the online record of the Medal of Honor that Lt. Col. Rogers received on May 14, 1970 was changed to read, “dei-medal-of-honor.” There is no such medal and there was no such thing as DEI in 1970.

Of course, the teenagers working for Elon Musk would not know that. They wouldn’t care that Lt. Col. Rogers served in the war in Vietnam. They probably could not find Vietnam on a map if their lives depended on it.

And, since Elon Musk is from South Africa, he probably doesn’t know anything about the war in Vietnam either.

The last I heard, Lt. Col. Rogers’ information has been corrected, but the bigger problem still exists as every single day something else is erased from history by the computer geeks working for Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency.

According to the Associated Press on Saturday, March 22, 2025: “The restoration process has been so hit or miss that even groups that the administration has said are protected, like the Tuskegee Airmen, the first Black military pilots who served in a segregated World War II unit, still have deleted pages that as of Saturday had not been restored.”

Would someone please explain to me what the online removal of the records of the Tuskegee Airmen and military Medal of Honor recipients has to do with “Efficiency” because I’m having trouble understanding it?  

Last week, Principal Chief Mitchell Hicks of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians issued a statement about how indigenous peoples on the North American continent have been marginalized by the government since European settlers arrived here.

Chief Hicks pointed out in his statement that even though the US Government tried to wipe out the Cherokee language, during World War I it was the Cherokee who developed a secret code based on their language for the US military to use. He said in his statement that the Cherokee people will make sure their military history is not erased.

Thank goodness the Cherokee people are doing this, because we cannot depend on the United States Government to preserve it.

We are not stupid. We all know exactly what is behind all these anti-DEI actions. White men have dominated politics and business in the US since the country’s formation, and many of them cannot accept the fact even in the 21st century that women and people whose skin is all shades of brown and black have brains.

Many of them claim to be Christians, but they reject the essence of the teachings of Jesus Christ. Their words and actions fly in the face of the teachings of Jesus Christ.

As a Presbyterian, I believe that in the eyes of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, all people – women and men – of every shade of skin hold equal value. It is offensive when someone claims to be a Christian but they endorse political leaders who demean women and disrespect people of color.

If some of those old white men in the White House, the US Congress, and the US Supreme Court are not getting that message at their churches, maybe they need to find another church.

If you think I’m being disrespectful to the US President and other old white men, my words don’t hold a candle to the disrespect they are showing me and my fellow citizens every day through their words, their actions, and their inactions.

DEI was about making sure everyone had an opportunity to get into the college they were academically-qualified to attend. It did not guarantee that they would pass the courses and graduate. It was about everyone having the opportunity to apply for a job. It did not guarantee them the job. It was about making sure everyone had a chance to sit at the proverbial table.

When I was a little girl in the 1950s, it wasn’t like that. In fact, when I was a teenager in the late 1960s, things were just beginning to change. I pray our country never goes back to the dark days of racial segregation and gender discrimination.

The Republican Party (i.e., Donald Trump, for he is the Republican Party now) has twisted the opportunities that DEI offered into something ominous, vile, and discriminatory. Through Project 2025 that his friends wrote, he is attempting to erase opportunity and history.

But some of us were entering the workforce in the 1970s and we know from personal experience how it was. It makes me sick to my stomach to know that my four great-nieces who are in their early twenties will not have the same opportunities their mothers had in the 1990s.

You see, the problem wasn’t solved when Lt. Col. Rogers’ military record was restored to a website. That was accomplished only after a public outcry. But the evil, hate, ignorance, small-mindedness, and fear (yes, fear!) that resulted in his record being mislabeled and removed is very much still with us.

If you think I’m reckless in my use of the word “evil,” according to Merriam-Webster, evil is defined as “morally reprehensible,” “arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct,” “causing harm,” and “something that brings sorrow, distress, or calamity.”

The Trump Administration and his Department of Government Efficiency is all about evil, hate, ignorance, small-mindedness, and fear (yes, fear!). They work from a place of evil. They set out to hurt everyone they hate, don’t understand, and fear. They fear that white people will soon be in the minority in the United States. They fear that since women are going to colleges and universities in greater number than men, that eventually more women will attain positions of leadership in government and business.

Elon Musk has been quoted as saying that the biggest weakness of “the West” is empathy. I beg to differ. I think empathy has been one of our strengths. We showed empathy through the work of the USAID. Through the Voice of America radio broadcasts we showed empathy toward people who were trapped in authoritarian governments.

Trump and Musk have ended USAID and stopped the Voice of America. Being from South Africa, though, Mr. Musk has little experience with empathy. The word “empathy” is not in Trump’s vocabulary.

That takes us to “ignorance.” The people who took down the photograph of the Enola Gay airplane took it down because it had the word “Gay” in it. Well, duh! “Gay” just happens to be a woman’s name.

If you don’t believe me, look it up. And if you don’t know what the Enola Gay was, by all means, look it up if you still can.

While we’re on the topic of Government Efficiency…

US Department of Agriculture has halted $500 million in deliveries to food banks nationwide that the Biden administration announced last year. Even The Washington Post has reported this. One more slam at farmers and people who need a little help putting food on the table.

And even though under 26 U.S. Code 7213 it is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison, a $5,000 fine, and mandatory termination of employment for a federal employee to give anyone access to a taxpayer’s tax return information, the US Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is working on an agreement with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to gain access to private tax records.

ICE claims to only be going after the tax records of undocumented immigrants, but this is a slippery slope.

If you aren’t careful, Mr. Trump, someone outside the IRS could someday gain access to your tax records! We all know how much you don’t want that to happen, even though every US President for decades before your first term made their tax records public. You promised to follow suit as soon as your 2015 tax audit was completed. We’re still waiting….

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read.

Hold your family close.

Remember the people of Ukraine.

And remember the people of western North Carolina where a half-dozen wildfires were still burning out-of-control yesterday afternoon. Three of them are in Polk County, which was hit hard by Hurricane Helene last September.

Look for my next blog post tomorrow!

Janet

Striving for a More Perfect USA

The idea of forming “a more perfect Union” dates back to the formative years of the United States of America. The words can be found in the preamble to the US Constitution:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

This introduction to the US Constitution sets the bar high. Sometimes we get it right. More often than not, we fall short.

The tragic events of last week tempt us to throw up our hands and give up on working toward “a more perfect Union,” but that’s not who we are. I believe most Americans will continue to strive for a more perfect nation.

In light of the hate crimes and acts of terrorism and political violence last week in the United States of America, I offer the following quote from The Soul of America:  The Battle for our Better Angels, by Jon Meacham:

A More Perfect USA
Quote from The Soul of America: The Battle for our Better Angels, by Jon Meacham

 

I also share the following famous words of Martin Niemoller:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade
Quote from Martin Niemoller

 

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read. I’m reading A Spark of Light, by Jodi Picoult.

If you’re a writer, I hope you have quality writing time.

Thank you for reading my blog. You could have spent the last few minutes doing something else, but you chose to read my blog. I appreciate it! I welcome your comments.

Let’s continue the conversation.

What is it going to take to stop the hate crimes and political violence in the United States of America? What can we do as individuals wherever we live to make the world a kinder place?

Perhaps we could start by living the 39th verse of the 22nd chapter of The Gospel of Matthew as it is translated in the Contemporary English Version of the Bible:

The second most important commandment is like this one. And it is, “Love others as much as you love yourself.”

Many of the people who read my blog are not Christians — and that is one of the unexpected joys this blog has given me — but I hope we can all strive to adopt the above words of Jesus in our everyday lives and work for peace in our families, neighborhoods, cities, and nations.

And we can’t wait until they come for us, because by then there will be no one left to speak up.

Janet