Let’s put ICE and, indeed, war itself –the smugly violent certainty of militarism – into the largest perspective possible. I suggest this as the only way to maintain my sanity: to believe that we, that our children, actually have a future.

This is one planet. Every living being, every pulse of life, every molecule of existence, is intertwined. I’m not in any way suggesting I understand what this means. I simply see it as our starting point, as we acknowledge and embrace the Anthropocene: the current global era, basically as old as I am, in which natural and human forces are intertwined. The fate of one determines the fate of the other.

Friday, January 23, 1 – 2pm EST
Ohio Statehouse, 1 Capitol Sq, Columbus, OH 43215

ICE has been inflicting a reign of terror in our communities. They are showing us, in real time, what their power looks like: masked agents, raids in our neighborhoods, our families terrorized, and our allies and leaders targeted for standing with immigrant workers. This is not “enforcement.” It’s intimidation. It’s state violence designed to make people keep their heads down and accept the unacceptable.

Join SEIU District 1199 WV/KY/OH, Common Cause Ohio, Indivisible Central Ohio, Ohioans Against Extremism, Ohio Families Unite for Political Action and Change (OFUPAC), other allies and partners, and community members at the High Street side of the Ohio Statehouse at 1 PM to meet history where it stands. We can mourn publicly and organize relentlessly. We can resist authoritarianism without apology, and we can win.

Let’s make it clear to all that when ICE comes for one of us, they answer to all of us.

A colleague, an editor at a widely read outlet that centered Gaza throughout the two-year genocide, recently voiced his frustration that Gaza is no longer a main focus in the news.

He hardly needed to say it. It is evident that Gaza has already been pushed to the margins of coverage — not only by mainstream Western media, long known for its structural bias in Israel’s favor, but also by outlets often described, accurately or not, as ‘pro-Palestine.’

At first glance, this retreat may appear routine. Gaza during the height of the genocide demanded constant attention; Gaza after the genocide, less so.

But this assumption collapses under scrutiny, because the genocide in Gaza has not ended.