(New York) Less than a week after the death of Renée Good in Minneapolis, the United States Department of Homeland Security published a promotional video on social networks quoting the Beatitudes, this part of the Sermon on the Mount reported in the Gospel according to Matthew.
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“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God! » Written in Gothic letters, the verse appears on the screen while images show border police agents taking over buildings, breaking down doors and arresting people with blurred faces1.
It was not the first time that a message with a biblical flavor was broadcast on the social networks of the department responsible for the controversial deployment of thousands of federal agents in Minneapolis. Aboard a Border Patrol helicopter, the narrator of a video released last July repeats the words of the prophet Isaiah: “I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will walk for us?’ I replied: “Here I am, send me.” »
But the idea of associating the Jesus of the Beatitudes with the work of the border police, whose agents killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse on Saturday, is perhaps the height of the inversion of values in which the Trump administration and its supporters are engaging in these troubled days.
What about the Second Amendment?
“Here is the shooter’s weapon, loaded (with two additional full magazines), and ready for use,” wrote Donald Trump in a message published on Truth Social on Saturday, supporting a photo of a weapon. “What’s this story?” »
Considering that Alex Pretti was not, in fact, a “shooter,” the answer should have been obvious to any good Republican, including the President: This American citizen was exercising his right to bear arms under the Second Amendment of the Constitution and as a license holder.
What’s more, he does not appear to have brandished his weapon in front of the federal agents. One of them even took it away from him before the first of the shots that killed him rang out.
It is not difficult to imagine the scandalized reaction of defenders of the Second Amendment if Kamala Harris had made Donald Trump’s comments after the death of an American citizen shot in the same circumstances as Alex Pretti.
Kristi Noem, current Secretary of Homeland Security, might have echoed the speech she gave in 2013 in support of the Second Amendment.
“It exists to resist oppression,” said the woman who today heads a police force compared to the Gestapo by her critics.
The reversal of responsibilities
Kristi Noem is the symbol of another inversion, that of projecting one’s responsibilities onto others.
This is how the Secretary of Homeland Security described Alex Pretti as a domestic terrorist who intended to “massacre” federal agents. Other senior officials in the Trump administration, including Stephen Miller, architect of the ongoing immigration crackdown in the United States, have echoed this accusation.
However, the videos of the death of Alex Pretti contradict the story of Kristi Noem and her acolytes, just as those of the death of Renée Good had undermined their version.
The images speak for themselves, but the testimony of the woman who made the clearest video of Saturday’s tragedy is just as chilling2.
“The officers tackled (Alex Pretti) to the ground. I didn’t see him touch any of them; he didn’t even face them. He didn’t seem to be resisting, he was just trying to help the woman up. I didn’t see him with a weapon. They threw him to the ground. Four or five officers held him on the ground and began shooting at him. They shot him several times. I don’t understand why they shot him. He was just helping,” she said in an affidavit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) as part of a lawsuit filed Saturday evening against Kristi Noem and other officials in her department.
“I have read the statement from the Department of Homeland Security regarding the events, and it is false,” the witness added.
“Obey or die”
Kristi Noem and her department’s repeated lies about the actions of ICE or the Border Patrol bring to mind this famous passage from 1984George Orwell’s dystopian novel about totalitarianism: “The Party told you to reject the testimony of your eyes and ears. This was his final and most essential command. »
Before Alex Pretti’s death, many Americans were already resisting this command. According to a survey The New York Times/Siena College released last week, 61% of voters thought ICE’s methods went too far, compared to 11% who thought they did not go far enough and 26% who thought they were appropriate.
Among ICE’s supporters are Americans who not long ago protested the tyranny of the federal government. Some of them then brandished the Gadsden flag, a standard popular with libertarians on which appears a rattlesnake coiled on itself and the motto “Don’t tread on me”.
Today, many of these same Americans seem to believe that Jesus would say to anti-ICE protesters from his mountaintop: “Obey or die. »
1. Watch the Department of Homeland Security video
2. Read the testimony of the woman who filmed the clearest video of Alex Pretti’s death (in English)
