Part XXVIII: Family Trees, Immigrants, and Tyrants
What goes around comes around, until it breaks
10 June 2025
I’m mad.
Yah – ok – I was mad before, but now I’m really, really mad.
For my UK friends, the context here is “mad” as in “angry” (not “mad” as in “insane”).
There’s an old joke:
Q: Where does Napoleon keep his armies?
A: In his sleevies.
In my imaginary world, that joke has always evoked images of a scowling Napoleon (in full battle regalia) sitting at a Risk board, pondering his next move while simultaneously reaching one hand up inside the sleeve on the other arm, pulling out hidden little soldiers…
That moment is upon us, my friends.
President Tiny Hands is sitting at his Risk board, cheating, as is his standard m.o., only his imagined opposition comprises the real live civilian occupants of the territories he wishes to conquer, and he’s using our own real live military – our friends, neighbors, kids, and other relatives as his troops.
Who is his imagined opposition? We are. All of us. Our president is at war with us. He’s happy to start by invading California because he holds personal animas against California – which is why he purposely sent ICE in to stir up trouble – but his goal is clearly all 50 of the Fractured States of America plus the numerous territories, and – eventually – Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal, and (this seems likely) wherever else he can grab with his grubby mitts without coming into direct conflict with those other guys he wants to be buddies with in those other big countries on the other side of the world. He’s using us to break ourselves so he can win at playing a tough guy.
(Illustration credit: MS Office 365 clip art)
Right. We know all of this, you say. What does this have to do with dancing on your own grave? Isn’t this substack supposed to be a memoir? Why don’t you stop worrying about politics and just tell your stories?
Right. OK. Why do I let politics creep into my stories? I’m not Inigo Montoya, but let me explain. No – there is too much. Let me sum up.
First, this is the story. I ended up in quarantine (the story I’m telling you here, in installments) precisely because it was the only way for me to stay safe and relatively healthy during a time when contagion was running unchecked. It has since gotten worse, and worse, and worse, and it doesn’t look like things will improve any time soon. So what started out as a documentary of a brief moment in time has shifted to more of a play-by-play of an interminable contest of wills between those with a winner-take-all objective and those with a let’s-take-care-of-everyone objective.
I literally can’t tell my story without including the ongoing back story. So, yeah, this is, in fact, a memoir, written in real time.
Here’s what the felon-in-chief and his flying monkeys are doing right this minute and how that is relevant to the memoir:
He’s creating battle scenarios where none need to exist, to indulge his own fantasies of power and conquest (and, of course, to advance his personal objectives of gathering vast wealth to himself by any means he can manufacture or co-opt).
He’s using real live people as expendable pawns in his game, including me and my very fragile corpus, and you/yours as well. I’m a people, you’re a people, and we are all indeed at risk here. This isn’t just happening to people who are on the fringes of polite society. It’s happening to all of us, but it is happening first and worst to those on the neglected edges.
I’m trying diligently to stay alive. I presume you are, also.
It is very hard to stay alive when all visible means of support become imperiled, are removed, or are aimed at you as a weapon.
I was raised in a community that was and continues to be heavily indoctrinated to believe in the “end times” – e.g., Armageddon, final battles between good and evil (LOTR-level conflict), the world must be destroyed before Jesus can come back – the usual. That belief isn’t unique to the community I came from, but it’s certainly a big part of the belief system I grew up within. That belief makes a convenient cudgel to get people to do your bidding when you want to start a war or two or three or six.
A lot of people, including a lot of Americans, including a lot of people we all know and try to love, believe the end times thing, and they also believe that their belief in it will protect them.
Those same believers also believe that there will be a lot of collateral damage that isn’t them, but might include you and me, and they’re kind of okay with that as long as it doesn’t include someone they want to protect.
Some people, apparently including a number of folks who have signed on to work with and influence the current regime, really really really believe that end times thing. Or maybe they just see it as a profitable opportunity. Whichever it is, they’re enabling, encouraging, and egging-on President Tiny Hands to do exactly what he’s doing.
Some (but not all) people who are aligned with the US military and/or various law enforcement agencies also believe the end times thing, whatever their reasons might be, so they are happy to participate when called upon to “enforce” the agenda coming from the White House.
The White House agenda for activating troops in California right now? To protect ICE. Think about that. In what scenario does ICE (and by extension Homeland Security), functioning as the armed, paid, private, unvetted, undocumented, masked and unidentifiable goon squad of the fascist administration of the US, need protection? They are terrorizing us from sea to shining sea but the holy American emperor says ICE needs help to defend itself from scary cooks, janitors, farm hands, and healthcare workers.
Where is ICE getting its funding? From us, y’all. Our tax dollars are being used to terrorize us.
Same thing goes for local law enforcement.
Where does the funding for all of these activities come from? Again, from us. Oh – wait – the troops who are protecting ICE don’t even have cots to sleep on or MREs. Nobody bothered to plan for that. Of course not. Because Fuhrer-wannabe thinks American troops are losers, remember? Why would he waste precious resources to feed and house them when they’re on duty at his command? Besides, it doesn’t matter to him how they die. Bullets, flame throwers, or starvation, dead is dead, and that funding is desperately needed to pay for the birthday parade this weekend.
By the way, if someone you love is in law enforcement or the military (any branch), how do you feel about your loved one being called to action against you? Because that’s what this is. How do you feel about your loved one being put in harm’s way in a conflict with the same people they’re supposed to be protecting?
How does your loved one feel about it? Please remind them that they took an oath to defend the constitution, that they are obligated – required – to refuse to obey illegal commands. They have recourse and options when that becomes an issue, and it’s an issue now.
Meanwhile, those of us who are not currently in the direct line of conflict are still at risk (there’s a reason for the name of that game), and we get to watch in horror as this clown show plays out.
Back to the parade thing for a moment: Has anybody else noticed that this test-case show-of-power in California is great theatrical lead-in for the full-blown show-of-power in DC this coming weekend?
The cost of all that muscle flexing isn’t just dollars, but it is a lot of dollars. It drains the coffers, and it also drains American morale, resolve, and commitment, as intended. And we are paying for the absolutely self-indulgent, unnecessary, ridiculous waste of resources. That’s our money. Our tax dollars at work. Fraud, waste, and abuse, on parade.
Oh – didja notice that the person who orders all those troops around doesn’t do any of the work himself? He goes golfing. Guess who pays for that? Yep – us.
What do we do about it? What can we do about it? We, the marginalized (for myriad reasons), including me (it’s my memoir, I get to talk about my perspective), can’t do much at all except make phone calls, send emails, and holler into cyberspace to try to get people to pay attention and take whatever action they are able to take. So here’s me, hollering.
Didja ever notice that the marginalized are the ones who become the first (but not the last) targets in these situations? Call us easy pickings, low hanging fruit, whatever.
Who is marginalized right now? As is so often the case, it’s people with easily-observed more abundant melanin. Why? Because the loathsome despot with his little armies hates people with better tans than he can conjure via makeup.
Side note: am I the only one who sees the irony of a president who cosplays a fake tan while trying to export people with actual skin color?
Anyway, he’s trying to get rid of your friends and neighbors, very often your relatives, maybe actually even you, and once all the people who are any color other than beige have been removed, he will come after anyone else who looks like an easy target, because that’s what bullies, despots, dictators, and tyrants do, and that’s what he is.
That list is probably long enough for now, so let’s move on. Let’s talk about how the tyrant-in-chief picks his targets, how any “strong man” picks his targets. This is where real-time meets memoir, so buckle up.
If you paid attention in school, you’ll know that throughout the history of this country (and in Europe and other places, too), the bosses have long used crowd control as a way of aggregating and maintaining power, and the way to do that is to pick on specific populations that are easy to identify, vilify, and remove/exterminate.
The targeted populations shift depending on time and location, but the strategy is well established. Chances are, if you dig into your own genealogy a bit, you’ll find people in your family tree who belong to one or more targeted/persecuted populations.
When I start shaking the branches of my own family tree, a whole bunch of immigrants, disabled people, and persons of varying skin pigments fall out. My ancestors have been moving around the planet for centuries, each generation looking for a safer, happier place to put down roots, only to be compelled to yoink themselves out of harm’s way a generation or two later because of shifting politics, religious oppression, war, famine, disease, or a combination of those.
(Photo from family archive; photographer unknown)
A lot of those ancestors ultimately ended up in the good old USA, and many of those showed up as Mormon pioneers – people who were steadily pushed across the country until they gave up, exodused-stage-left, and kept going until they got to previously uncolonized-by-Caucasians territory. Why were they driven out? Because their religious practices and political power were perceived as weird and creepy threats by their neighbors.
I’m not saying they weren’t weird and creepy. I’m saying the same scenarios play out the same way even though the people involved may look or act somewhat different over time. And – more irony – when the oppressed ones finally settle in and become part of the landscape, they tend to forget what it feels like to be hunted, and start hunting anyone who doesn’t look or act like them. For example, Utahns, many of whom are descendants of the Mormon people who were forced to flee west of the Rockies for their own safety, currently tend to politically lean hard in support of Tangerine Palpatine, seemingly unaware that he will happily hate them next should they ever stop supporting his quest for world domination. You want a prime example? You need look no further than Senator Mike Lee, although he has plenty of company. Make it make sense.
In the many decades since my Mormon ancestors parked themselves in Utah, the family tree has become even more interesting, more diverse, and much more colorful in both skin tone and personality traits. Turns out the kids don’t always carry on the hurtful traditions of their forebears, and that’s a good thing. That’s how we stop the hate and hunt cycle. It won’t stop until we make it stop.
I would love for it to stop for good and all, so my memoir can focus more on how I eventually might be able to leave my little makeshift anti-germ bunker and reconnect with my peeps face-to-face. I would love for American society to start caring for everyone instead of pretending those on the margins aren’t worthy of protection or support. I’d love for my friends and neighbors to feel safe talking with each other in person, maybe even in social gatherings that center on things like how to create a community garden or build an accessible dog park, rather than avoiding each other out of fear and loathing. I’d love for my own wildly disparate kin to feel comfortable in each other’s presence so we can catch up on years of missed contact. That would be so much nicer than avoiding each other because nobody feels safe interacting.
Can it happen? Can we make it stop? Yes. But we have to start where we are. Protect the vulnerable. Call out hate and bigotry. Stand up to tyranny, not just in the political arena but in your neighborhood, in your own home and family, as much as you are able. Distance yourself from those who intentionally hurt you so you can be a safe space for those in peril. Support those who are doing the hard work on the front lines. Be on the front lines yourself if you’re able. Teach your children, your parents, and your friends to be kind and curious, and show them what that means. Don’t be a bully. Listen, lean in, learn. March if you can march. Speak up. Plug your moral compass into your spine and let your own conscience guide you.
Why do this? Well, why not? Wouldn’t it be nicer to live in a community that’s warm, open, kind, loving, and safe?
Besides, you never know who your kids are going to bring home. You never know how the plot will twist. Be careful who you hate. They might turn out to be someone you love. Your kids are watching and listening, and they can smell injustice. Make your ancestors proud – break chains.
*
Thank you for joining me here. Knowing I have readers waiting for updates energizes and inspires me to keep writing. Your presence makes all the difference; it means I’m not alone and neither are you. Together we can build a conscious community of people committed to making the world a better place for everyone.
If this post resonates with you, please 💜 and restack. Sharing is caring, y’all.
I don’t put my posts behind a paywall because I want them accessible to as many readers as possible. Still, if you would like to help support my writing efforts, paid subscriptions truly do make a difference. I’m grateful for your vote of confidence – Thank you.
~
Please note: all writing and photography in this post is the original work of the author unless otherwise noted, and subject to applicable US Copyright restrictions and regulations. CJ’s Dancing On My Own Grave © 2025