On 7th of January 2005 German police burned Oury Jalloh alive behind closed doors, lied about it, and to this day got away with it.

21 years later, on 7th of January 2026, American ICE agents killed Renee Good in front of multiple cameras, immediately lied about it, and made the whole world repeat that lie, despite us seeing the execution of a U.S. citizen in front of our eyes.

The final nail in the coffin, the final straw of humiliation, is not even having the decency to make up a good lie. Suddenly the nicest women on earth can become a violent killer trying to run people over, and the actual violent masked killer present turns into this heroic figure simply trying to protect people.

She was at the wrong time in the wrong place, not even part of any protest. Suddenly, people like her become 'activists' (e.g. “activist judges”) even though they are teachers, journalists, public workers, or just at the wrong time in the wrong place.

You're not a violent “activist” because you are one, you become one when it's needed to justify the government killing you.

Make a group of people synonymous with crime, suddenly their subjugation becomes justice. Even if she was an activist or an immigrant, even if she didn't act right in that moment, even if she was one of the protestors, nothing justifies her killing. The fact the U.S. government already created the public basis to disregard anyone's death or opinion if they are “antifa”, “immigrants”, “transgender”, “woke”, or simply an “activist” (whatever that means) is clearly wrong, especially because they can extend these labels and apply them to you, so your death no longer matters in the public eye.

The famous “First They Came” Niemöller poem is sometimes incorrectly reduced to say “first they came for the socialists” instead of “first they came for the communists”, which I strongly disagree with, as the usage of the word communist was a specific decision, as that term describes a group that people instinctively didn't care about at the time.

Take a group and make it so people instinctively won't care about them, such as immigrants, “activists”, communists, muslims (“terrorists”, “jihadists”, “islamists”). Then, begin expanding that definition.

To fascist Laura Loomer you're a communist if you have pronouns in your bio, and she doesn't care about dead communists. After all, they're criminals, inherently they must be and hence any action against them is justified. Make a group of people synonymous with crime and then their subjugation can be framed as justice.

Renée Good had kids and never even participated in any protest. But she's a communist and deserved to die, right? After all, who cares for dead communists?

Remember, not so long ago the same people told us we need to mourn Charlie Kirk, and anyone mocking his death, or even just pointing out the fact that his death was the result of the world he created, was subsequently fired from their job.

Folx, it makes sense to show the insanity of how few and short hurdles one has to go through to become an ICE agent, I understand why we're pointing out that Renée Good was a U.S. citizen, or innocent, or not protesting anything, but this is just a gentle reminder that these things don't matter.

These facts may be an entry point to showcase a broader argument, but must never be the criticism itself. If ICE had year long training, they'd still be cops, and would do just as much oppression, with maybe less visible or noticed violence.

The truth of the matter is that, as much as Trump is the death of the euphemism, ICE is the revelation of the violence that was always underlying the American empire.

They aren't un-American and what is happening isn't new. People who believe that are just taken outside of a comfort zone they believed to have been a right, when in reality it was a privilege.

ICE isn't like Gestapo, because it were the Germans whom were inspired and amazed by American segregation, not the other way around.

ICE is more like Slave Patrol.

We shouldn't compare something fascist to Germany, when fascist authoritarianism and racism is as American as it can be.

It always fascinates me how the moderate mind has to use foreign events to describe and condemn the very western things happening. When censorship, disinformation, and authoritarianism is on the rise in the United States of America, they cannot be put into historical context with a plethora of domestic examples to choose from, these forms of oppression must be compared to the currently constructed enemy figures, and hence, while appearing on the surface as criticism of the status quo, it's inadvertently reinforced.

“I Never Thought the Middle East Would Come to Minneapolis” is a New York Times article from the 25th of January 2026, discussing something so uniquely, historically American, yet portrayed through the lense of it actually being similar to the imperial enemy. I've recently discussed why ICE should rather be compared to the American „Slave Patrol” than the Gestapo. While I see the purpose of utilizing the declining, but still somewhat held belief in the general populace of the United States of America that Nazis were and maybe are bad, in order to rally people against a fascist movement with too many similarities to it, I'd argue that it's necessary to use people's rightful anger about current day events to educate about our history and our violence. That violence isn't new or foreign, many of our PoC, queer, or feminine peers have experienced it for their whole life.

It didn't just become an issue recently, you just began recognizing that violence recently, the lies became so obvious recently that our propagandization became impossible to deny, and and you've just recently stopped listening to the media perpetrating these lies anyway. Our world, our countries, they didn't change, you did. That's good, but you need to go further than that and unlearn the entire basis on which the western world relies.

Of course there's way more legitimacy to comparing a western fascist force inspired by American segregation, the Nazis and their secret police the Gestapo, to a different western fascist force and their secret police, MAGA and ICE, than to use a comparison from the global south which is simply the result of our imperialist policies. Additionally, many people asked about the necessity and accused me of pedantry after my statements, and again, I can see that argument given we're speaking of two western powers, but generally this is very important. I once said that:

A liberal is someone who opposes every war except the current war and supports all civil rights movements except the one that is going on right now.

— Erik Uden, 29th of November 2023.

I'd update this sentiment by arguing that a liberal is someone who can oppose today's war and support today's civil rights movements, but only by continuing to use the framing, the methods, and still adhering to the morality of our oppressor. That in itself turns my original statement true once again, as none of that can ever be opposition to war nor support for the right cause.

Dancing ICE away, peacefully protesting outside of the internment centers, arguing for better training of ICE officers. When ICE throws someone into an unmarked van, never to hear from them again, liberals will yell “mark the van!” In doing so liberals and their conservative parliamentary arm, which in the United States of America is the Democratic party, serve as a legitimization of the status quo by smothering true opposition. Instead of unlearning all of our propaganda, instead of beginning to question our economic power structures, our so-called rules based world order, our so-called representative democracy, the liberal project reaffirms the entire path that lead up to our violent reality today, and offers miniscule, surface level impractical opposition. A not too uncomfortable option for change, instead of a revolution, that's what a liberal offers.