Humpday comeuppance thread: The leopards feast

Oh, my friends, I've had a few epiphanies over the past couple of days. And one of them is that I will enjoy it when awful people suffer the consequences of their actions.

Part I: We were never "special". We were just useful.

The graphic below is a screenshot from this article in the Economist:

You'll remember I wrote this piece a month ago, where I related this anecdote:

Back in the day, when I was a freshman at UCLA, I was looking for student groups to join. And I saw there was a Cuban students union. So, I went to a meeting.

I should have known better, because I already knew that my people's obsession with the Lost Cause was something to which I did not cotton. But, I thought, "Surely, these kids who have grown up in the United States are not wedded to it!"

The pre-eminent Latin student group on campus, as on many campuses, was the Mexican group Mecha. They had reached out to all other Latin groups on campus to form a common front.

At the one meeting of the Cuban group I attended, its president said that it would not be allying with Mecha, due to "political differences". In other words, "they're liberals, and we're not."

I grew up being told that we Cubans were "special". That weren't like Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, or, *gasp*, Mexicans. That we were exiles, not immigrants. That we had been expelled from or fled a vile dictatorship; we didn't come here for economic reasons, but for FREEDOM!

I cannot adequately convey how much this was a theme in my community. Every New Year's Eve, the viejos would say "Next year in Havana!", redolent of a Jewish Passover in which the diners would say "Next year in Jerusalem!" The politics of anti-Castroism had a religious fervor. (And yes, this was another thing we claimed, to make us the "good" Latins: "We're the Jews of the Caribbean!")

We were arrogant, flaunting the fact that as long as our refugees got one foot on dry land, we were allowed in, given all the benefits of a migrant who had done it "the right way", and funneled on a fast-track to the American Dream. 

We were insufferable.

I don't know what it was about my family, but we were different. My parents had never had a desire to immigrate. They mourned what they had left behind in Cuba. And they weren't taken in by the blandishments of the Republican Party, just like they hadn't been taken in by the revolutionary slogans of the Fidelistas. We were taught to respect this new country, and my mother and brothers all became citizens. But we weren't blind to this country's problems. Not one of us has ever voted Republican. 

Well, pendejos. It turns out that what I always knew in my bones was right: we were useful idiots for a right-wing machine, nothing more. As nativism swallowed up the GOP, it was only a matter of time before we lost our special status. And I for one am glad we have. Now we have a choice: go down in flames alone and despised, or go cap in hand and join in solidarity with those whom we used to mock. Oh, don't get me wrong: it will be a bitter pill to swallow for most of my fellow-Cubans, the ones who reveled in their power compared to other Latins. And we will deserve all the bitterness sent our way. But in humiliation one can find the seed of wisdom. In this realization that we've been nothing but marks for racists, we might find redemption. Some, like Enrique Tarrio, are too far gone. He will remain an Afro-Cuban who thinks himself white. But I hope that eyes are opened and ears are made to hear. The days of being white-adjacent were always a chimera; now they're a dead letter.

Part II: Why is the leopard eating my face?

Then we come to this specimen:

If I had a dollar for every time over the past seven months that a Trump voter whined "this isn't what I voted for," I'd be singing a song from Fiddler on the Roof. 

What exactly did you think you were voting for, Rhonda? Did you think that the regime would target just "those people" and leave you unscathed? Of course you did. That was exactly what you thought. But that's not the way things work, my girl. In law, there's no way to single out the Coloreds and Teh Gayz and the other "undesirables" without a fully-functioning dictatorship—which, contrary to the braying of the despondent, we're not even close to having. And, Rhonda, the people Trump serves have no use for the likes of you, for the "takers". Your white skin didn't confer any protection from their grand plans. You, utilizing all these public services, were not immune to their destruction. Because it's the idea of a public good itself that animates the authors of Project 2025 to heights of spasmodic rage. In their eyes, you're just as useless as the melanated folks who use those services. You're no better than them. You're failures and blots on the golden white race. You really should have listened to Lyndon Baines Johnson. 

So, you're angry. But you're still stupid. Because you end your tirade with "they are ALL alike." No, Rhonda, they aren't. A President Kamala Harris wouldn't have done any of this. You'd still have all those programs on which you and your family and friends depend. And if she had won, you'd be inveighing against her just as much as you did against Joe Biden, and Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton. You're still so lost in the fog of your unreason that you can't see that the people who were trying to help you did so because in this country everyone should matter. But you still think only some people should matter. And that is why I have no pity for you, no concern for your pain. Those people for whom you care, who depend on government assistance, will suffer and possibly die because of your selfishness, your racism, your idiocy, your inability to feel empathy or to reason. And you will never get it, not even when you're living out on the street, on your final breath. Because hatred is all you have. And because of that you will have wasted this precious gift of life. I can think of few things sadder than that.

Part III: Your gun won't protect you

And then we come to this final specimen.

A Southern California border agent charged with assaulting a Long Beach police officer outside a restaurant and resisting arrest last month died just two days after his most recent court appearance.

According to the coroner’s office in Riverside County, east of Los Angeles, Isaiah Anthony Hodgson died Friday. The manner of death is still under investigation.

<snip>

He faced seven charges, including three counts of resisting arrest, one count of battery with injury to a police officer, one count of carrying a concealed firearm in public, one count of carrying a concealed firearm and one count of carrying a loaded firearm.

And how did this series of events begin? Of course, with the threat of violence to a woman.

The charges stem from an incident on July 7 when Hodgson was off-duty and alleged to have been unruly at a popular boardwalk destination filled with restaurants and shops.

He was accused of entering a women’s restroom at a restaurant and approaching a woman who saw his gun and firearm magazine. Witnesses told police he left the restaurant soon after the woman told the restaurant’s manager there was a drunk man with a gun inside the women’s bathroom.

After I read this story, I had the most satisfying meal of chili ever. I don't care about his family. I don't care about his friends. They were accomplices to an awful human being who had been inflicting pain on his community for months. His death is to be celebrated, not mourned. Do not expect me to speak well of the dead. He did nothing to deserve such a nicety.

And, of course, the fact that from the picture he appears to be Black is indicative of what we're fighting. This regime is attracting all sorts of broken men from all ethnic groups. Men who think that if they shuck and jive for The Man they'll be all right. During the Shoah there was a term for such people: kapos. Anyone not white and male working for an organization like ICE in these times is nothing but a kapo who thinks they will be able to survive one day longer than the poor saps they hunt down. They won't, of course. And the pendulum will swing back. When it does, their howls of innocence and "I was only following orders" will not spare them from prison.

Coda

It's been a rough week. It's been a rough year. It's easy to give up. But don't. I know they're going to lose. They do, too. Thus the shock and awe. They have a finite window. Justice is coming. It will take a year, two years, four years. But it will come. It won't come if we throw in the towel, or prepare to go off-grid. That's not where the battle is. We must be made of stern stuff. It's the only way we will achieve the final victory.