What I don't understand is how Democrats can be debating over how much money they should provide to ICE in order to enable them to continue its predations. Our cities are being used as practice arenas for how to control forcefully large populations. The socalled "Big Beautiful Bill" provides enormous funding for ICE. ICE is a weapon against the American people. It serves as Trump's SS, a tool for establishing a dictatorship as now becomes crystal clear. It is also crystal clear that it must be defunded, disbanded, its members dismissed or brought to justice. What could be clearer? What Democrat of sound mind would vote for its funding under any circumstances? They would be funding their own demise. Compromise with an alligator is not possible. Compromise is singing on the way to the gas chamber.
Chuck Schumer is worthless. Maybe he's a closet MAGA. I don't know. But he keeps up the
"compromise". He says "NO", then changes his tune. Democrats need someone in the Senate to say "NO" and mean it. Don't even allow the word "compromise" to enter the conversation. "NO" is not a long word, one syllable. These toddlers in the Senate and House need to learn what "NO" means. Schumer needs a vote of NO CONFIDENCE by the Senate and be removed as Minority Leader.
To me he seems feeble minded. Age has crept up on him. He has gone back and forth to work in his small little world for so long it is his routine. He is not capable of doing his job anymore and has needed to step aside for some time now. But he won’t because it is all he knows.
When you get to the point as a Democrat where you are capitulating to the most lethal Republican Party ever you are DONE.
AND WHERE ARE THE democrats who need to be forming a cohesive plan to make him do that? His term is not up until 2029 for God’s sake!!!! Danger. Warning.
Schumer is weak and malleable. That means we have more problems in the Senate than Schumer's leadership. Those just below Schumer must accept responsibility for the lack of ferocity that is needed. There is no longer a Republican Party and the Democratic Party has failed us badly. The only strength shown in defending our democracy has been in the judiciary, except the Supreme Court, of course. A sad picture!
I disagree, to a minor degree. Schumer is not weak nor malleable and neither is Fetterman.. Schumer's number one priority is to provide full support for the Likud Government of Israel and its objectives in Gaza. He frames any criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu's policies and objectives (or Trumps) in Gaza as anti-semitism. He is also keen on maintaining his connection to AIPAC funding.
Schumer probably has staff who have informed him of his standing among a major portion of the electorate comprised of progressive democrats and independents. When he gave the ultimatum to address ICE transgressions, but in two weeks time he used the "F" word as a type of cover.
The Alligator Alcatraz hats, shirts, and mugs, which are apparently big sellers in Florida, are one of the reasons for my hatred of red states. Keep electing the Ron DeSantis’s of this country. We already know you for what you are.
Dog part at the beginning of this truly caught me.
Americans spend more on their dogs than most countries spend on healthcare. Dog spas, dog birthday parties, dogs in restaurants, $200 grooming appointments. I have two dogs, I love them. But there’s something profoundly broken when a society invests more emotional energy in pets than in each other.
It’s displacement. Americans can’t fix their collapsing systems, can’t help their neighbors facing medical bankruptcy, can’t stop ICE killing people in the streets. So they pour everything into an relationship they can control. The dog always loves you back. The dog doesn’t challenge you. The dog won’t get deported or go bankrupt or get shot by police.
Living in Switzerland showed me the difference. Dogs exist, but they’re not emotional substitutes for human connection. You don’t see them in every restaurant, every store, dressed in outfits. People actually talk to each other. Build communities. Take care of neighbors.
American dog culture is a symptom of social collapse.
When you can’t trust institutions, can’t rely on healthcare, can’t depend on community, you retreat into the one relationship that’s simple and guaranteed. The dog industrial complex isn’t about loving animals, it’s about escaping the horror of watching your society disintegrate while feeling powerless to stop it.
The $100 billion pet industry exists because human connection is too painful, too risky, too broken. That’s not a culture that loves dogs. It’s a culture that’s given up on people.
Let me add this in addition and I think it maps well with what Steve Schmidt said about what he noticed of course a more extreme version of it from Poland many decades ago.
The Portland Story:
Two years ago in Portland, we went to a high-end Mexican restaurant—-organic, homemade tortillas, celebrity chef. Beautiful space overlooking a park. We sat outside.
In that park: tents. Homeless encampment. One man, maybe 60 feet away, pants down, crouching by a tree, relieving his bowels in public. Right there, maybe 20 feet from him, a well-dressed young couple in workout gear, walking their small dog, bending down with a plastic bag to carefully pick up the dog’s waste.
Inside the restaurant, people eating, laughing, chatting. Nobody acknowledged what was happening outside. We froze. Looked at each other. Said: is this real?
A homeless human defecating in public while affluent people meticulously collect their dog’s waste. Both scenes happening simultaneously. Both invisible to the diners. If I’d had my camera, it would belong alongside Andreas Gursky (His work documents systems and their absurdities at panoramic scale) in a museum decades from now as documentation of collapse in real time.
We wrote letters to Portland’s city council. To our city council. Talked to locals. Asked: how is this happening? How are people not seeing it? The answer became clear: they’re seeing it. They’re choosing not to process it. Because processing it means confronting total system failure. Easier to focus on the dog.
The couple with the dog weren’t villains. They were doing what the culture taught them: take care of your immediate responsibility, ignore everything you can’t fix. That’s the survival strategy when society fractures. Dog waste carefully managed. Human dignity abandoned. Both normalized. Nobody looking up from their meal.
That’s America.
That image is the perfect snapshot of where we are, we could never get it out of our head.
There are those, like us, who take care of the dogs who are abused by humans. The most pitiful was Sylvie, who wore a chain around her neck in a junkyard for 9 years, and was covered with tumors and had very bad heartworm. We took her in after she was rescued and operated on to remove the tumors. She suffered from pneumothorax from the heartworm, which eventually led to her demise, but at least she had a few good weeks on a comfy bed in a warm home, and enjoyed, probably for the first time in her life, the love and affection she desperately needed.
Dogs have been shot by LEO in this country, Johan.
Our sweet pit-bull Kimmy was rescued from the streets of Memphis, TN, and she lives her best life in NY, where she can bound through the snow and chase squirrels. She repays us for the care we give her with a loyalty and love unmatched.
Yes, of course. Those of us who’ve worked in shelters notice this completely. Rescue work is necessary and compassionate.
The point is broader—-macro, cultural. It’s about the economic incentive structure combined with the psychological piece of having an animal in a collapsing society.
Americans spend $100 billion annually on pets while 37% can’t cover a $400 emergency. That’s not about loving animals, it’s about the pet industry capitalizing on social breakdown. When human community is too risky, too expensive, too painful, the emotional energy has to go somewhere. Pets become the outlet.
The industry engineered this. Dog spas, premium foods, insurance, birthday parties…none of that existed 30 years ago at this scale. It emerged as healthcare, community, and social trust collapsed. The displacement got monetized.
Your rescue work is the compassionate response to cruelty. The industry I’m describing is the profitable response to atomization. Different things entirely. One is care, the other is extraction from people who’ve lost access to human connection.
The macro pattern is: when societies fracture, people retreat into relationships they can control.
Pet industry revenue tracks inverse to social trust metrics. This is true in disparate societies across the globe.
That’s not coincidence, it’s cause and effect.
I worked five years as a volunteer at a cat shelter. I saw my share of abuses. Thankfully it was a small number, but it was there, for sure. As much as I support the good people in Minnesota fighting the good fight, I have a big problem with the assholes who think Lindsey Graham or Marsha Blackburn are good people.
The Europeans have suffered the experience of two World Wars and while we most assuredly suffered losses that were inconceivable, we didn’t witness the destruction of our cities, and have to experience their rebuilding which took decades. The Europeans are very aware of the costs of those wars and don’t want to see a repeat. MAGA or maggots as I think of them, haven’t a clue about any of that, which is why they are happy with what ICE is doing in our cities. ICE is the American Gestapo-SS, and they are attracting the same kind of people who worked so enthusiastically for Hitler. The named killers of Alex Pretti, Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Guiterrez are both Hispanic in their roots, and you would think might have known better, but alas they seemed to enjoy murdering that innocent soul. When someone is on their hands and knees and you shoot them in the back from behind, they in no way pose any threat, much less a life threatening one. That is what happened and they shot him 10 times. 🤬🤬🤬
“Representative” is the entire point you’re missing.
$100 billion pet industry while 37% can’t cover $400 emergency isn’t about hating dogs. It’s about a society so fractured that the only safe emotional investment is a relationship that can’t bankrupt you, deport you, or demand healthcare you can’t afford.
Portland park: homeless man defecating publicly, couple collecting dog waste, diners ignoring both. That’s not random, it’s the structure. Manage the controllable micro-task while system collapse becomes wallpaper.
Dog culture isn’t the problem, I agree with you.
It’s the *symptom.
It represents displacement at scale. When human community is too expensive, too risky, too broken, the energy flows to what’s safe. Industry monetized the fracture.
I’m analyzing why an entire economy emerged around pets-as-emotional-substitutes while neighbors live in tents. Different things.
Americans spend billions on porn and movies. Consumers spent around $578 billion on new vehicles in 2023. It's interesting that you are fixated on the pet industry.
Pet industry is different. It’s emotional displacement at industrial scale.
Americans don’t send cars to daycare. They don’t throw birthday parties for their SUVs. They don’t build entire identities around vehicle ownership as substitute for human connection. Cars are transportation. Pets have become the primary relationship for millions because human community is too expensive, too risky, too broken.
$100 billion isn’t the issue. The structure is. When society fractures to the point where the safest emotional investment is a relationship guaranteed to love you back, one that can’t lose health insurance, get deported, or demand rent you can’t afford, that’s not consumer choice. That’s systemic breakdown being monetized.
Portland park story if you read it above:
homeless man defecating, couple collecting dog waste, diners ignoring both.
That’s the image.
The industry didn’t create the fracture, it capitalized on it.
Dog spas and premium insurance didn’t exist at this scale 30 years ago. They emerged as healthcare, housing, and community collapsed.
I’m just analyzing what it represents. The fixation isn’t on pets, it’s on what happens when an entire society retreats into relationships they can control because human ones have become unaffordable.
Different things.
Is this normal compared to other developed societies?
Cognitive dissonance, sir. And those responding. Psychotic breaks, separating one behavioral sentiment/action from another across a QF gap so wide Schrodinger's Cat is surely dead this time. Multiple personality disorders/multiple personalities/split personalities. Names and more names. You dog lovers are correct, any lover of any non-human animal is correct. To 'love' another is the sign of unconditionality. No opt outs. But dualism, now rampant and contagious amongst humans, allows for any human to imagine/think/say/do/justify/deny alternatives. The continuous, non-refundable Get Out of Jail Free Card. Petrii was shot 10 times in the back while laying on his belly. Assassination. Assuaged by petting a dog or cat, or playing with a child. The yearning for innocence after performing murder.
Dualism is the mind fuck of humans. We can imaginatively separate the life of any other we feel indifferent toward and fear/abuse/kill, from the life of a non-human animal we need in order to discover some sense of our own shrunken self-worth. I feel I said it well enough before, but I honor your question.
I hate the Red states also. I never used to "hate" anyone or anything as much as I hate these people and administration. I don't even know them. They could be just like the dog guy at the beginning, just a regular guy, then "WHAM".
We are at the beginning of an American horror. Steve, well summed and well said. Your writings will be studied for decades to attempt to understand how this unfolded the way it did. I’m grateful there’s a record.
I am appauled by the fact DHS just purchased a warehouse in Schuylkill County for $112M. Pennsylvania - the state’s motto was “You have a friend in Pennsylvania” WTF is going on here- REALLY- You should be ashamed of yourselves!
First, thanks Steve for such a powerful statement of what is in front of us. It’s eloquence is surpassed only by its horror.
But mainly, with operations against fair elections in November now fully underway, your warning is actually a battle cry as the real battle has now begun. They’ve been stockpiling weapons for decades, attracting no-information goons, practicing no-constitution operations, and lately employing the ultimate surveillance technologies on citizens. Its clear they know they have to fight to the death. Like the Japanese knew in WWII.
POLPOT and the Khmer Rouge regime (and government) comes to mind as well, and seems to have similar approaches and atrocities including genocide. Our U.S. Congress is derelict, that's where I will focus for now.
I went to pay respects back in 2012 or 13ish. The Tuol Sleng prison that had been a school hit me hard. The giant tank of skulls collected from the pits made me cry. I have pictures that feel like Steve's from the Holocaust buildings. So humbling.
The hatred against recent immigrants to this country is baffling to me. My ancestors came to this country from Scandinavia, Germany and Italy. They settled in the Midwest. I can only guess as to the reasons why they came, other than they thought that they could make a better life in "The Land of Oppurtunity". Their lives were not easy, they may have faced discrimination. They worked hard and for the most part succeeded. It's depressing to witness white Americans vilify immigrants based on the color of their skins and to see the Supreme Court give it legal cover.
My wife's uncle hit Omaha Beach H hour + 2. Out of his 12 man squad, only 5 made it onto the beach alive. He was in the Big Red One from Sicily, all through France, and was wounded and captured in Aachen just inside Germany. His account of the POW hospital he spent the last 8 months of the war in was harrowing. My own father was a Marine at Guadalcanal who just never talked much about it.
Both of these men were deeply patriotic. I'm pretty sure neither would put up with this $hit. Now, as Steve often points out, we are at the end of the long lives of people who personally experienced that war. We are quickly losing that collective consciousness of what that madness was all about. Now I fear we will once again have to experience the lessons they learned first hand.
It requires both and sadly, 'Merica is happy to oblige. The evil revealed in the Epstein drops is beyond belief, is getting no MSM coverage whatsoever, and clearly illustrates the depths of depravity in the oligarchs and tRumpists. A minority of us are tuned in and horrified. A plurality have no clue anything is amiss.
Here's what I sent to my Senator. I hope it's not shouting into a void, but I gotta do it even if it is: Senator,
Do we have a Bill of Rights to live by, to count on, or just old words? What of the First, the Second, the Fourth, the Eighth, the Tenth?
All of these have been demonstrably violated by us, we the people, in the form of the United States government, specifically the Executive branch and more specifically ICE.
In the negotiations ahead, I am asking you to align with whomever (mostly Democrats, but fully Americans) is asking for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to be fully observed -- in practice, on the ground -- by all agents of the United States, especially ICE agents.
The $75 billion you have given them is ludicrous, a disaster, a fascist fever dream that you have financed. You didn't see this coming? Well, you can't claim ignorance now.
Stop it. It goes no further. Professional and transparent enforcement of our laws, enforcement that respects our rights, is the only way that money should be spent (and you should claw back a huge chunk of it, by the way). It shouldn't be spent on warehouse prisons, on AK47s in the hands of untrained cosplayers, on camouflage on the streets of American cities, on atrocities reminiscent of authoritarian countries, even Nazi Germany.
Please, rally round the flag, all you Republicans. Begin the end of this madness now, right now. It is not defensible. Read the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights into the record if you don't believe me.
How many will drive by these warehouses acting like they don’t know what is going on, just like the citizens of Nazi Germany? Let’s hope we do a hell of allot better than they did, and better yet stop this madness in its tracks and abolish ICE completely when the Dems regain control. For now cut all the funding we can.
History certainly reveals. We've constructed eighty years of a rules based order and liberty prevailed but that glowing ember of fascism is still present. It would be naive to think it couldn't happen in our country but here we are. Will we ever learn?
There's the Speedway Slammer being prepared North of Indianapolis. At the same time Indiana State congress JUST paST a law allowing firing squads and nitrous oxide gassing. No lie. SLAMMER + FIRING SQUAD + GASSING LAWS
I can think of quite a few Republican lawmakers aka "traitors to the Constitution" that deserve to be against the wall of that "firing squad". That's what it will take to turn this country around. You can start with Trump, everyone in the White House and the entire
Personally Im not for killing anyone, but strip them of all their ill gotten gains/wealth and property and lock them up for life with no TV-or electronics, ever.
Very chilling, the man with the "Alligator Alcatraz" hat.
I've ended 3, 40 year friendships over the past few weeks because these friends gave unacceptable answers to the question, "how do you feel about the killings of Rene Good and Alex Pretti?"
Basically, they all answered with a form of, "I don't care", or "they should not have interfered with federal officers."
"I don't care" really bothers me. (The 2nd answer is simply a MAGA talking point they're repeating by rote.)
We're witnessing the murder of compassion, objectivity, and decency. These things I will not and cannot abide.
What I don't understand is how Democrats can be debating over how much money they should provide to ICE in order to enable them to continue its predations. Our cities are being used as practice arenas for how to control forcefully large populations. The socalled "Big Beautiful Bill" provides enormous funding for ICE. ICE is a weapon against the American people. It serves as Trump's SS, a tool for establishing a dictatorship as now becomes crystal clear. It is also crystal clear that it must be defunded, disbanded, its members dismissed or brought to justice. What could be clearer? What Democrat of sound mind would vote for its funding under any circumstances? They would be funding their own demise. Compromise with an alligator is not possible. Compromise is singing on the way to the gas chamber.
Yes and all this approval of funds is OUR tax dollars, it's infuriating.
Chuck Schumer is worthless. Maybe he's a closet MAGA. I don't know. But he keeps up the
"compromise". He says "NO", then changes his tune. Democrats need someone in the Senate to say "NO" and mean it. Don't even allow the word "compromise" to enter the conversation. "NO" is not a long word, one syllable. These toddlers in the Senate and House need to learn what "NO" means. Schumer needs a vote of NO CONFIDENCE by the Senate and be removed as Minority Leader.
To me he seems feeble minded. Age has crept up on him. He has gone back and forth to work in his small little world for so long it is his routine. He is not capable of doing his job anymore and has needed to step aside for some time now. But he won’t because it is all he knows.
When you get to the point as a Democrat where you are capitulating to the most lethal Republican Party ever you are DONE.
AND WHERE ARE THE democrats who need to be forming a cohesive plan to make him do that? His term is not up until 2029 for God’s sake!!!! Danger. Warning.
Schumer is weak and malleable. That means we have more problems in the Senate than Schumer's leadership. Those just below Schumer must accept responsibility for the lack of ferocity that is needed. There is no longer a Republican Party and the Democratic Party has failed us badly. The only strength shown in defending our democracy has been in the judiciary, except the Supreme Court, of course. A sad picture!
I disagree, to a minor degree. Schumer is not weak nor malleable and neither is Fetterman.. Schumer's number one priority is to provide full support for the Likud Government of Israel and its objectives in Gaza. He frames any criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu's policies and objectives (or Trumps) in Gaza as anti-semitism. He is also keen on maintaining his connection to AIPAC funding.
Schumer probably has staff who have informed him of his standing among a major portion of the electorate comprised of progressive democrats and independents. When he gave the ultimatum to address ICE transgressions, but in two weeks time he used the "F" word as a type of cover.
I agree completely Martin
Schumer IS running interference for MAGA. that's why D wanted to negotiate with Schumer directly
It surely seems so
How many of these people are actually Republicans who cloaked themselves in Democrats' clothing, just to get elected?
The Alligator Alcatraz hats, shirts, and mugs, which are apparently big sellers in Florida, are one of the reasons for my hatred of red states. Keep electing the Ron DeSantis’s of this country. We already know you for what you are.
Dog part at the beginning of this truly caught me.
Americans spend more on their dogs than most countries spend on healthcare. Dog spas, dog birthday parties, dogs in restaurants, $200 grooming appointments. I have two dogs, I love them. But there’s something profoundly broken when a society invests more emotional energy in pets than in each other.
It’s displacement. Americans can’t fix their collapsing systems, can’t help their neighbors facing medical bankruptcy, can’t stop ICE killing people in the streets. So they pour everything into an relationship they can control. The dog always loves you back. The dog doesn’t challenge you. The dog won’t get deported or go bankrupt or get shot by police.
Living in Switzerland showed me the difference. Dogs exist, but they’re not emotional substitutes for human connection. You don’t see them in every restaurant, every store, dressed in outfits. People actually talk to each other. Build communities. Take care of neighbors.
American dog culture is a symptom of social collapse.
When you can’t trust institutions, can’t rely on healthcare, can’t depend on community, you retreat into the one relationship that’s simple and guaranteed. The dog industrial complex isn’t about loving animals, it’s about escaping the horror of watching your society disintegrate while feeling powerless to stop it.
The $100 billion pet industry exists because human connection is too painful, too risky, too broken. That’s not a culture that loves dogs. It’s a culture that’s given up on people.
—Johan
Behavioral scientist
Let me add this in addition and I think it maps well with what Steve Schmidt said about what he noticed of course a more extreme version of it from Poland many decades ago.
The Portland Story:
Two years ago in Portland, we went to a high-end Mexican restaurant—-organic, homemade tortillas, celebrity chef. Beautiful space overlooking a park. We sat outside.
In that park: tents. Homeless encampment. One man, maybe 60 feet away, pants down, crouching by a tree, relieving his bowels in public. Right there, maybe 20 feet from him, a well-dressed young couple in workout gear, walking their small dog, bending down with a plastic bag to carefully pick up the dog’s waste.
Inside the restaurant, people eating, laughing, chatting. Nobody acknowledged what was happening outside. We froze. Looked at each other. Said: is this real?
A homeless human defecating in public while affluent people meticulously collect their dog’s waste. Both scenes happening simultaneously. Both invisible to the diners. If I’d had my camera, it would belong alongside Andreas Gursky (His work documents systems and their absurdities at panoramic scale) in a museum decades from now as documentation of collapse in real time.
We wrote letters to Portland’s city council. To our city council. Talked to locals. Asked: how is this happening? How are people not seeing it? The answer became clear: they’re seeing it. They’re choosing not to process it. Because processing it means confronting total system failure. Easier to focus on the dog.
The couple with the dog weren’t villains. They were doing what the culture taught them: take care of your immediate responsibility, ignore everything you can’t fix. That’s the survival strategy when society fractures. Dog waste carefully managed. Human dignity abandoned. Both normalized. Nobody looking up from their meal.
That’s America.
That image is the perfect snapshot of where we are, we could never get it out of our head.
I agree with you only so far, Johan.
There are those, like us, who take care of the dogs who are abused by humans. The most pitiful was Sylvie, who wore a chain around her neck in a junkyard for 9 years, and was covered with tumors and had very bad heartworm. We took her in after she was rescued and operated on to remove the tumors. She suffered from pneumothorax from the heartworm, which eventually led to her demise, but at least she had a few good weeks on a comfy bed in a warm home, and enjoyed, probably for the first time in her life, the love and affection she desperately needed.
Dogs have been shot by LEO in this country, Johan.
Dogs have been used in fighting rings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Newz_Kennels)
Dogs have been used (and still are) in medical experiments and drug trials. (https://www.humaneworld.org/en/issue/dogs-used-research-and-testing-faq)
Our sweet pit-bull Kimmy was rescued from the streets of Memphis, TN, and she lives her best life in NY, where she can bound through the snow and chase squirrels. She repays us for the care we give her with a loyalty and love unmatched.
Yes, of course. Those of us who’ve worked in shelters notice this completely. Rescue work is necessary and compassionate.
The point is broader—-macro, cultural. It’s about the economic incentive structure combined with the psychological piece of having an animal in a collapsing society.
Americans spend $100 billion annually on pets while 37% can’t cover a $400 emergency. That’s not about loving animals, it’s about the pet industry capitalizing on social breakdown. When human community is too risky, too expensive, too painful, the emotional energy has to go somewhere. Pets become the outlet.
The industry engineered this. Dog spas, premium foods, insurance, birthday parties…none of that existed 30 years ago at this scale. It emerged as healthcare, community, and social trust collapsed. The displacement got monetized.
Your rescue work is the compassionate response to cruelty. The industry I’m describing is the profitable response to atomization. Different things entirely. One is care, the other is extraction from people who’ve lost access to human connection.
The macro pattern is: when societies fracture, people retreat into relationships they can control.
Pet industry revenue tracks inverse to social trust metrics. This is true in disparate societies across the globe.
That’s not coincidence, it’s cause and effect.
I worked five years as a volunteer at a cat shelter. I saw my share of abuses. Thankfully it was a small number, but it was there, for sure. As much as I support the good people in Minnesota fighting the good fight, I have a big problem with the assholes who think Lindsey Graham or Marsha Blackburn are good people.
“A society is defined not only by what it creates, but by what it refuses to destroy.”
― John Sawhill
We have lost our way IMO.
Excellent analysis. And yes...Europeans ARE healthier than Americans both mentally, emotionally & physically.
The Europeans have suffered the experience of two World Wars and while we most assuredly suffered losses that were inconceivable, we didn’t witness the destruction of our cities, and have to experience their rebuilding which took decades. The Europeans are very aware of the costs of those wars and don’t want to see a repeat. MAGA or maggots as I think of them, haven’t a clue about any of that, which is why they are happy with what ICE is doing in our cities. ICE is the American Gestapo-SS, and they are attracting the same kind of people who worked so enthusiastically for Hitler. The named killers of Alex Pretti, Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Guiterrez are both Hispanic in their roots, and you would think might have known better, but alas they seemed to enjoy murdering that innocent soul. When someone is on their hands and knees and you shoot them in the back from behind, they in no way pose any threat, much less a life threatening one. That is what happened and they shot him 10 times. 🤬🤬🤬
Of all the things wrong in America, "American dog culture" is not it.
“Representative” is the entire point you’re missing.
$100 billion pet industry while 37% can’t cover $400 emergency isn’t about hating dogs. It’s about a society so fractured that the only safe emotional investment is a relationship that can’t bankrupt you, deport you, or demand healthcare you can’t afford.
Portland park: homeless man defecating publicly, couple collecting dog waste, diners ignoring both. That’s not random, it’s the structure. Manage the controllable micro-task while system collapse becomes wallpaper.
Dog culture isn’t the problem, I agree with you.
It’s the *symptom.
It represents displacement at scale. When human community is too expensive, too risky, too broken, the energy flows to what’s safe. Industry monetized the fracture.
I’m analyzing why an entire economy emerged around pets-as-emotional-substitutes while neighbors live in tents. Different things.
Americans spend billions on porn and movies. Consumers spent around $578 billion on new vehicles in 2023. It's interesting that you are fixated on the pet industry.
You’re proving my point.
Porn, movies, cars; all consumption categories.
Pet industry is different. It’s emotional displacement at industrial scale.
Americans don’t send cars to daycare. They don’t throw birthday parties for their SUVs. They don’t build entire identities around vehicle ownership as substitute for human connection. Cars are transportation. Pets have become the primary relationship for millions because human community is too expensive, too risky, too broken.
$100 billion isn’t the issue. The structure is. When society fractures to the point where the safest emotional investment is a relationship guaranteed to love you back, one that can’t lose health insurance, get deported, or demand rent you can’t afford, that’s not consumer choice. That’s systemic breakdown being monetized.
Portland park story if you read it above:
homeless man defecating, couple collecting dog waste, diners ignoring both.
That’s the image.
The industry didn’t create the fracture, it capitalized on it.
Dog spas and premium insurance didn’t exist at this scale 30 years ago. They emerged as healthcare, housing, and community collapsed.
I’m just analyzing what it represents. The fixation isn’t on pets, it’s on what happens when an entire society retreats into relationships they can control because human ones have become unaffordable.
Different things.
Is this normal compared to other developed societies?
I think that your analysis is out there, to be honest. To each his/her own.
Cognitive dissonance, sir. And those responding. Psychotic breaks, separating one behavioral sentiment/action from another across a QF gap so wide Schrodinger's Cat is surely dead this time. Multiple personality disorders/multiple personalities/split personalities. Names and more names. You dog lovers are correct, any lover of any non-human animal is correct. To 'love' another is the sign of unconditionality. No opt outs. But dualism, now rampant and contagious amongst humans, allows for any human to imagine/think/say/do/justify/deny alternatives. The continuous, non-refundable Get Out of Jail Free Card. Petrii was shot 10 times in the back while laying on his belly. Assassination. Assuaged by petting a dog or cat, or playing with a child. The yearning for innocence after performing murder.
Explain more.
What are you trying to say?
Dualism is the mind fuck of humans. We can imaginatively separate the life of any other we feel indifferent toward and fear/abuse/kill, from the life of a non-human animal we need in order to discover some sense of our own shrunken self-worth. I feel I said it well enough before, but I honor your question.
Read my addition reply to this and I think you will connect with it too.
Thank you, I definitely get what you’re saying, agree.
I hate the Red states also. I never used to "hate" anyone or anything as much as I hate these people and administration. I don't even know them. They could be just like the dog guy at the beginning, just a regular guy, then "WHAM".
I avoid Florida like the plague.
We are at the beginning of an American horror. Steve, well summed and well said. Your writings will be studied for decades to attempt to understand how this unfolded the way it did. I’m grateful there’s a record.
I pray that The Warning will be heeded before this prediction comes true.
I am appauled by the fact DHS just purchased a warehouse in Schuylkill County for $112M. Pennsylvania - the state’s motto was “You have a friend in Pennsylvania” WTF is going on here- REALLY- You should be ashamed of yourselves!
Correction they paid $120M!!!
First, thanks Steve for such a powerful statement of what is in front of us. It’s eloquence is surpassed only by its horror.
But mainly, with operations against fair elections in November now fully underway, your warning is actually a battle cry as the real battle has now begun. They’ve been stockpiling weapons for decades, attracting no-information goons, practicing no-constitution operations, and lately employing the ultimate surveillance technologies on citizens. Its clear they know they have to fight to the death. Like the Japanese knew in WWII.
It’s time to think and act like the Ukrainians.
POLPOT and the Khmer Rouge regime (and government) comes to mind as well, and seems to have similar approaches and atrocities including genocide. Our U.S. Congress is derelict, that's where I will focus for now.
Yes. Just six weeks ago my wife & I visited the Killing Fields Memorial in Phnom Penh. It was gruesome, unforgettable.
I wish Trump's MAGAts would see it. Except the novel types of cruelty described might give them ideas.
I went to pay respects back in 2012 or 13ish. The Tuol Sleng prison that had been a school hit me hard. The giant tank of skulls collected from the pits made me cry. I have pictures that feel like Steve's from the Holocaust buildings. So humbling.
MAGAts won't understand it until it is directed toward them.
Unfortunately, that is exactly what will be needed to wake them from the Trump induced coma they are in.
The hatred against recent immigrants to this country is baffling to me. My ancestors came to this country from Scandinavia, Germany and Italy. They settled in the Midwest. I can only guess as to the reasons why they came, other than they thought that they could make a better life in "The Land of Oppurtunity". Their lives were not easy, they may have faced discrimination. They worked hard and for the most part succeeded. It's depressing to witness white Americans vilify immigrants based on the color of their skins and to see the Supreme Court give it legal cover.
My father used to say that the US wasn't perfect, but it was better than any place else.
I'm glad he's not here to see this travesty of a government. He was in the second wave of D Day on Omaha beach. He'd be broken hearted now.
I honor his service, may he rest in peace.
My wife's uncle hit Omaha Beach H hour + 2. Out of his 12 man squad, only 5 made it onto the beach alive. He was in the Big Red One from Sicily, all through France, and was wounded and captured in Aachen just inside Germany. His account of the POW hospital he spent the last 8 months of the war in was harrowing. My own father was a Marine at Guadalcanal who just never talked much about it.
Both of these men were deeply patriotic. I'm pretty sure neither would put up with this $hit. Now, as Steve often points out, we are at the end of the long lives of people who personally experienced that war. We are quickly losing that collective consciousness of what that madness was all about. Now I fear we will once again have to experience the lessons they learned first hand.
I agree, it's small and selfish.
Is it hate or do people just not care?
It requires both and sadly, 'Merica is happy to oblige. The evil revealed in the Epstein drops is beyond belief, is getting no MSM coverage whatsoever, and clearly illustrates the depths of depravity in the oligarchs and tRumpists. A minority of us are tuned in and horrified. A plurality have no clue anything is amiss.
Thank you for your thoughtful post.
Here's what I sent to my Senator. I hope it's not shouting into a void, but I gotta do it even if it is: Senator,
Do we have a Bill of Rights to live by, to count on, or just old words? What of the First, the Second, the Fourth, the Eighth, the Tenth?
All of these have been demonstrably violated by us, we the people, in the form of the United States government, specifically the Executive branch and more specifically ICE.
In the negotiations ahead, I am asking you to align with whomever (mostly Democrats, but fully Americans) is asking for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to be fully observed -- in practice, on the ground -- by all agents of the United States, especially ICE agents.
The $75 billion you have given them is ludicrous, a disaster, a fascist fever dream that you have financed. You didn't see this coming? Well, you can't claim ignorance now.
Stop it. It goes no further. Professional and transparent enforcement of our laws, enforcement that respects our rights, is the only way that money should be spent (and you should claw back a huge chunk of it, by the way). It shouldn't be spent on warehouse prisons, on AK47s in the hands of untrained cosplayers, on camouflage on the streets of American cities, on atrocities reminiscent of authoritarian countries, even Nazi Germany.
Please, rally round the flag, all you Republicans. Begin the end of this madness now, right now. It is not defensible. Read the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights into the record if you don't believe me.
Sincerely,
If I were a teacher, I would read this essay out loud to my students. In fact, it should be read out loud everywhere, to everyone. Out loud.
Wonderful idea!
How many will drive by these warehouses acting like they don’t know what is going on, just like the citizens of Nazi Germany? Let’s hope we do a hell of allot better than they did, and better yet stop this madness in its tracks and abolish ICE completely when the Dems regain control. For now cut all the funding we can.
I wonder how he rationalizes Noem shooting her dog.
Were you able to ask this Florida man, WHY he would wear a hat that celebrates cruelty?
Here in NW Iowa asking that question might get you shot.
Same down here in southern Louisiana....I keep a low profile.
History certainly reveals. We've constructed eighty years of a rules based order and liberty prevailed but that glowing ember of fascism is still present. It would be naive to think it couldn't happen in our country but here we are. Will we ever learn?
There's the Speedway Slammer being prepared North of Indianapolis. At the same time Indiana State congress JUST paST a law allowing firing squads and nitrous oxide gassing. No lie. SLAMMER + FIRING SQUAD + GASSING LAWS
I can think of quite a few Republican lawmakers aka "traitors to the Constitution" that deserve to be against the wall of that "firing squad". That's what it will take to turn this country around. You can start with Trump, everyone in the White House and the entire
Cabinet.
Personally Im not for killing anyone, but strip them of all their ill gotten gains/wealth and property and lock them up for life with no TV-or electronics, ever.
Very chilling, the man with the "Alligator Alcatraz" hat.
I've ended 3, 40 year friendships over the past few weeks because these friends gave unacceptable answers to the question, "how do you feel about the killings of Rene Good and Alex Pretti?"
Basically, they all answered with a form of, "I don't care", or "they should not have interfered with federal officers."
"I don't care" really bothers me. (The 2nd answer is simply a MAGA talking point they're repeating by rote.)
We're witnessing the murder of compassion, objectivity, and decency. These things I will not and cannot abide.