Tonton Macoutes
Rotten Tomatoes just appeared in my in-box with a review and trailer about the new Superman movie. I think I’ll take this one in.
Previous posts in the past week: July 4, 6 and 8, 2025.
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By my count, today, July 12, 2025, is 173 days since the inauguration of the President. 2025 is more than half over. Labor Day is about 50 days away and in my context, Labor Day more or less ends summer. Kids are back in school; most vacations are completed…. Reality replaces recreation. There is much to be done.
Thursday, July 17, will be another major national demonstration organized through Indivisible, a group I’ve decided to affiliate with. To find an event in your area, click here. [postnote July 13: New program announcement from Indivisible here], It’s not necessary for there to be an event in your town. Organize your own, or be in action by yourself, doing something about your particular passion, and then do something every day. Margaret Mead said it best many years ago: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
There are a great plenty of “ain’t it awful” actions (which will play out that way even for those who think they’re great ideas if applied to somebody else.).
This is our country. And resist the temptation to say to yourself, “I can’t do anything”. Read Margaret Mead again. There are endless issues, and there are 75,000,000 who apparently agreed with me to the extent of voting for the same candidate for President and Vice-President in November 2024.
I am not alone.
POSTNOTE:
The heading of this post, Tonton Macoutes, refers to a proposed column I’m submitting to the local Minnesota Star Tribune today. At minimum, I want you to see it, as submitted. If you wish, it follows:
“The recent show of force by ICE at Los Angeles MacArthur Park (Minnesota Star Tribune July 8) causes me to wonder: have we become what we despise? I think back to personal memories in the “good old days” of 2003 and 2006.
In spring, 2003, I met a man who was putting together a study group which would culminate with six days in Haiti in mid-December. I bit, and six of us spent the next few months learning about Haiti, arriving in Port-au-Prince on December 6, 2003.
Our six days were jam-packed with the reality of Port-au-Prince. Ours was a study group, so we visited places and talked with many citizens in a variety of settings. Our hosts were supporters of the Democracy movement in Haiti, supporters of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. We witnessed the positive outcomes of a fledgling democracy in this impoverished nation. There was justifiable pride.
But storm clouds were gathering. Less than three months later, President Aristide and his family unceremoniously left Haiti to the Central African Republic on a U.S, plane. France and Canada seemed co-operators with the U.S. A coup had been accomplished, in my opinion, by our democracy against another country learning and wishing to practice democracy.
In our one-week visit, we had no personal incidents, but we apparently had bad friends, at least in eyes of some. During our week, one person we met was assassinated near the National Palace a day or two after we met him . I think we heard the gunfire as we were driving past the area, completely unawares. At the time of the coup itself, several of the people who had graciously hosted us were either imprisoned or fled the country. Another died by poison, I learned a year or so later.
Haiti National Palace Dec, 2003 photo Dick Bernard
Early on I learned that my 63-year-old white face was not a benefit. We were listeners at a very informative meeting with perhaps two dozen Haitian men and women who recalled human rights incidents in their own lives in the days of the Duvaliers.
At the end of the session, we went around the circle to thank each person for sharing their stories with us. One man refused to shake my hand. All I can imagine is that I reminded him of somebody he’d encountered, and not in a positive way.
Three years later I returned to Haiti on another study trip, this one facilitated by a highly respected Haiti organization. This trip was to the interior of Haiti, once again rich in insights.
Enroute, in Miami, I was able to connect with the Catholic Priest who we had met on our first day in Haiti in 2003, who was imprisoned at the time of the coup. After the coup he seemed to have been exiled to Little Haiti in Miami where I met him in person, in public, seemingly free as a bird, like the Aristides: just a different kind of prison.
The Haiti I visited both years was an impoverished but welcoming place. This has changed. Why?
The MacArthur Park incident fits into this story.
Now, ICE is flush with newfound authority and cash from the just-passed federal budget. What happened in MacArthur Park is, in my opinion, a public threat to everyone everywhere in the United States in coming months.
The masked military in masks and very dark glasses remind me of what I learned about the infamous Tonton Macoutes who were the enforcers at the time of the Duvaliers in Haiti. They used their official status and anonymity to terrorize and subdue the population.
ICE is a great threat to democracy in the United States, and we all need to actively resist however and wherever and whenever we can. For absolute certainty the anonymity of law enforcement must end.
There are other threats too. This is our country. We citizens own the future, for good or ill. But we must participate in the solution.”
COMMENTS (more at end of post)
from Sharrie: Thank you for writing and submitting this column, Dick. I agree that ICE has morphed into a paramilitary. I agree on the incompatibility of such an order-keeping force — one whose masked members wear uniforms without identifying insignias, do not show badges, bear military-style weapons, drive military vehicles, and do not have warrants but abuse and detain people without regard to due process — with the rights which belong to people in a democracy. I’ll watch for your commentary and participate in the discussion which will certainly follow on the STrib’s comment boards. Democracy is imperiled wherever we tolerate autocratic behavior. Peace and solidarity,
from Claude: Thank you, Dick.. Some interesting history here. Enjoy the rest of summer no matter what the world and Trump throws at us!
from Donna: shared with persmssion:
Indivisible is a great organization. United we stand a chance. Divided we are toast. But what Indivisible doesn’t do (yet) is acknowledge or work on the vital need to unite humanity in abiding by the fundamental principles within the Declaration of Independence (250th Birth day coming up on the next 4th of July in 2026) that are based on “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”). Until we do that our U.S. Constatation is a suicide document based on the illusion/delusion of independence. TRUTH!!! Oct. 29, 2021, “Everything is connected, everything is interdependent, so everything is vulnerable…. And that’s why this has to be a more than whole of government, a more than whole of nation [effort]. It really has to be a global effort….” Jen Easterly, Director of CISA (Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency – our nation’s newest federal agency established in 2018) https://www.c-span.org/video/?515706-1/protecting-critical-infrastructure The word ‘everything’ is an autological word – defining itself. We usually forget that our environment is our fundamental vital life support infrastructure! With everything vulnerable humanity must unite.
“There will be no Homeland Security until we realize that the entire planet is our homeland. Every sentient being in the world must feel secure.” – John Perkins
For more information on how to support this global directive without money…Project250@earthlink.net
I so appreciate hearing from all who contribute and certainly you, Dick. As we live with this last less-than-a-year that seems like forever, I am reminded of what some said when the Democrats lost the Presidential election: that Democrats had focused too much on the “fringes,” and that we needed to focus on the working class. My response was that Democrats focus on justice, and, when we see injustice, we address it—and that includes the working class as well. What were “fringe” issues have become issues for all of us, certainly working class. Now we have much of our working class, immigrants, living in fear of going out of their homes, being “raided” at their work places, etc. while we are lied to by “representatives” who have moved way beyond “spin” to counterattacks to the truth and lies. Injustice—and those who want power over others—start at the “fringes” and gain more and more power. So, let’s keep addressing injustice “on the fringes” as well as in the main—wherever it is active, snuff it out. And be proud of being a party of people who are doing so.