Keeping Track is a Super Power

Chaos is a strategy.

It worked for my teenage kids. Everything everywhere all at once. Except back then, we’d say, “There’s always something.” Or “There’s no rest for the wicked.”

So, here we are in Milwaukee. It’s pouring rain. This morning’s news told us that the head of the local Islamic Society was detained by ten ICE agents at his home. He is a legal U.S. resident; his wife and children are U.S. citizens. He has been in this country thirty years, runs a business, and is the elected leader of the Islamic Society. He has also been very vocal in his criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza. Community leaders, elected officials and those involved in immigration advocacy feel that this man’s detention is the result of the exercise of his right to free speech. Right now, he is in an ICE detention facility in another state. A cadre of lawyers is gearing up; a community leaders’ press conference is scheduled for 4:00 p.m.

I’m going to have to make a new sign for Saturday.

The signs are stacking up in my trunk. Are we protesting about No Kings or Protect Social Security or No Cuts to NPR or Remember Renee Good and Alex Pretti or Voting Rights or No War or Abortion Rights or ICE OUT or Release the Epstein Files or Hands Off the Universities or Free Liam or Protect Birthright Citizenship or Save Ukraine or Release the Islamic Society Leader?

It truly is everything everywhere all at once. And its intended or unintended consequence is to make our markers run out of ink and us run out of gas. And make us so used to the craziness and injustice that we barely notice it anymore. Oh yeah, another dude got picked up for no apparent reason and disappeared into the black hole that seems to be the ICE detention system. Oh well.

I’ve learned so much from this past year. How it happens. That’s the biggest thing.

Keeping track of all this and not losing our minds – that’s our super power. Hang on.

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Photo by Soheb Zaidi on Unsplash