Words for my bleeding country, better than anything I might have penned

Yesterday, January 27, Jake Tapper of CNN interviewed Chad Mizelle, who used to work for Attorney General Pam Bondi at the Justice Department, about the killing of Alex Pretti by ICE agents in Minneapolis. Here is an excerpt:

Mizelle: “Alex Pretti was not following the law, Jake.”

Tapper: “What law did he break?”

Mizelle: “He interfered with an ongoing law enforcement investigation. That is a felony."

Tapper: “By doing what? By filming it?”

Mizelle: “While [ICE agents] were waiting for backup and trying to clear out the street … there were individuals who were interfering with that. Resisting the lawful command of a law enforcement officer is a crime. And then whenever you resist arrest, that's an additional crime. And if you have a gun with you while you're committing an act of violence, in this case, potentially against a law enforcement officer, Jake, that's a crime. So, there's a series of that.”

To dispense with the obvious—multiple videos of the scene show that every word from Mizelle quoted above was a lie. (Pretti was legally carrying a firearm, a bad idea, but it was holstered before an ICE agent confiscated it before another agent shot him multiple times while he was helpless on the ground.) Even a craven peckerhead apologist like Mizelle knows he’s lying, as are Trump, Bondi, and Noem the Costumed Dog Slayer.

But what matters here is not the lying, which is a given from this loathsome administration. What matters is that today, on the streets of my country, “interfering with an ongoing law enforcement investigation” is a capital crime. ICE agents are authorized to kill you for defending a woman they've just knocked to the pavement for no reason. Or for simply witnessing and documenting their sanctioned thuggery.

This is now my country.

I have wrestled for months with what to say about our national situation. I was not confident that I had anything meaningful to add to the reams of commentary published every day. I still feel that way. But a man named Matt Moberg, who is chaplain for the Minnesota Timberwolves of the National Basketball Association, has written something I cannot improve. What I can do is reproduce it here in the hope what you will be as moved by his truth as I was:

If you’re a church posting prayers for peace and unity today while my city bleeds in the street, miss me with that softness you only wear when it costs you nothing.

Don’t dress avoidance up as holiness.

Don’t call silence “peacemaking.”

Don’t light a candle and think it substitutes for showing up.

Tonight an ICE agent took a photo of me next to my car, looked me in the eye, and told me, “We’ll be seeing you soon.”

Not a metaphor. Not hyperbole. A threat dressed up in a badge and a paycheck.

Peace isn’t what you ask for when the boot is already on someone’s neck. Peace is what the powerful ask for when they don’t want to be interrupted.

Unity isn’t neutral. Unity that refuses to name violence is just loyalty to the ones holding the weapons.

Stop using scripture like chloroform. Stop calling your fear “wisdom.” Stop pretending Jesus was crucified because he preached good vibes and personal growth.

You don’t get to quote scripture like a lullaby while injustice stays wide awake.

You don’t get to ask God to “heal the land” if you won’t even look at the wound.

There’s a kind of peace that only exists because it refuses to tell the truth.

That peace is a lie. And lies don’t grow anything worth saving.

The scriptures you love weren’t written to keep things calm. They were written to set things right. And sometimes the most faithful thing is stop praying around the pain and start standing inside it.

If that makes you uncomfortable, good.

Growth always is.

I have written for a living all of my adult life. I’ve learned how to do it pretty well. But I am awestruck by what this gentleman has done. This is truth. This is truth to power. I wish I’d written it, but I would not have come close to what Mr. Oberg has done.

This is clarity. This is courage. This is truth.

This is a signal that there is still hope for my embattled nation.