Defend the Homeland, Get A Brown Shirt!

Still insanely claiming they're arresting "the worst of the worst" gardeners, roofers, abuelas and taco-makers - and eager to spend their shiny new billions on more rag-tag thugs to meet their quotas - ICE Barbie et al have launched a new recruitment campaign asserting, "Your country is calling you (to) defend the homeland," a phrase surely inadvertently carrying a crisp whiff of blood-and-soil Nazism. Ditto - right? - an Uncle Sam raging of an America "invaded by criminals and predators - we need YOU to get them out."

Of course the urgent call for 10,000 more racist goons with anger issues and zero oversight to boost our flourishing new "sado-populism" comes alongside all the regime's other, once-unimaginable "weird shit": The celebration of deadly coal: "She is the moment," say wut?; Florida's half-mast tribute to "shitheel" Hulk Hogan, "Donald Trump with muscles and a mustache"; the once-reputable Smithsonian lamely bowing to North-Korea-style pressure to remove evidence of former guy's impeachments; Press Barbie squawking it's "well past time" he get "the Noble Peace Prize"; and his new "Marie-Antoinette-on-steroids" move to turn the White House into a "tacky golf motel" cum brothel with a $200 million vulgar golden ballroom even though we can't afford veterans' health care, to feed hungry kids, to save HIV patients etc because, duh, "For me not thee, Part 1 million."

Amidst these atrocities - and facing a random, frenzied, Goebbels mandate to make 3,000 arrests a day and “save America” - ICE continues to hunt down defenseless, largely innocent brown people who came to this country to do all the lousy, low-wage jobs here that native-born Americans don't want to do. The passage of Trump's big ghastly bill has ominously ramped up that effort, with ICE's budget swelling from $8 billion to $28 billion and over $4 billion allocated to hire up to 10,000 more thugs. ICE, meanwhile, somehow still clings to the fantastical, self-serving claim their "brave" officers are targeting "the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens"; in a recent post, they boasted they just arrested five bad guys, failing to mention the other, vicious, 2,995 dry-wallers, house-painters, farmworkers, dishwashers, landscapers and child-care workers they daily save us from.

On Planet Earth, injustices abound. The over 200, mostly innocent Venezuelans flamboyantly, illegally disappeared to an El Salvadoran gulag - then quietly returned to their country - say they endured months of torture and abuse. Across the country and mostly notably in California during this "Summer of ICE," roving bands of masked goons in tactical gear continue to hunt down immigrants at work sites, markets, courtrooms with escalating violence and an unacknowledged "shattering of norms." Men and women beaten up, grabbed in the street, torn from crying kids, dragged from their cars after thugs blithely opt to "smash their fucking windows." People hauled away by anonymous fascists to parts unknown, forced to leave behind their cars, keys, phones, pets, lawnmowers still running, their lives precipitously imploded in minutes.

It's everywhere - residents of Rochester NY saw 17 cars of hooligans arrive at a popular neighborhood Asian market to drag off a handful of scared workers, residents in Maine's small tourist town of Wells are protesting their police becoming the only ones in Maine cooperating with ICE - as is its economic impact, which experts unequivocally declare disastrous. Fewer bodies, less production, empty assembly lines, less revenue, crops rotting, great swathes of the work force at construction sites, factories, restaurants, nursing homes have suddenly vanished. In Omaha, Nebraska, a once-thriving meat-packing plant lost most of its work force; its production dropped 70%. And no, Medicaid recipients or the "proverbial 29-year-old living in his mother's basement" doesn't want the meat-packing jobs, thanks. So much winning.

Now, with head thug Tom Homan vowing to "flood the zone" with $4 billion more and 10,000 new slots, just think of the wins. Citing its "mission to protect America from cross-border crime and illegal immigration that threaten national security and public safety," its new recruitment campaign seeks to "attract the next generation of law enforcement professionals to find, arrest, and remove criminal illegal aliens" at "a defining moment in our nation’s history." Arguing "your skills, your experience, and your courage have never been more essential," DHS offers multiple tantalizing incentives to sweeten the fascistic pot: Up to a $50K signing bonus, a 25% Pay LEAP for Special Agents, Enhanced Retirement Benefits and even student-loan forgiveness, though Trump trashed Biden's efforts to forgive student loan debts as a “vile” publicity stunt and swiftly ended those “anti-American" efforts.

ICE says it is looking for "law enforcement personnel who aspire to the highest standards of performance, professionalism and leadership." Its gigs include "Deportation Officer. For the enforcers. For the brave. For those who fight to keep America safe." "Criminal Investigator. For the protectors. For the analytical. For those who seek the truth." And "General Attorney. For the closers. For the resolute. For those who represent the USA." Its materials and posters have a nice totalitarian tinge, from Uncle Sam intoning, "America has been invaded by criminals and predators. We need YOU to get them out," and the imperative, "Your
Country needs you. Join the fight to deport criminal illegal aliens from the U.S." Most striking is their creepy baseline command and accompanying rhetoric, reminiscent of 1930s Berlin: "Defend The Homeland. Join ICE today."

The dark history of the term "homeland" precedes by years, even centuries, George Bush's Department of Homeland Security, and even the newly introduced, distinctly Germanic "homeland" - no longer "fatherland" - that Hitler fervently vowed to defend at 1934's famous Nuremberg rally. Hitler's Nazi Germany was a messy concoction of "blood and soil" loyalty, a racial identity that tied the German people to their land, mixed with the "semi-tribal passion" of 1920s Zionists for Israel as a Jewish homeland, mixed with ancient, occult, German paganism and spirituality that glorified Aryans' supposed racial superiority and their origins in mythical earlier civilizations. After World War ll, the notion of a lofty "homeland" for an invented "German race" "all but disappeared from German vernacular...People were ashamed to use a word that stood for such terrible things."

Now, in Trump's America, it's back. "Your country is calling you to serve at ICE," said an unrepentant ICE Barbie in a statement. "Together, we must defend the homeland." Along with Trump and Uncle Sam, a dolled-up Noem appears on campaign posters reportedly heading to college campuses and job fairs to rally racist, unemployed goons with a cruel streak. Weirdly, then she took off for Argentina, many miles from the homeland she's allegedly paid to secure, to do some yee-haw cowgirl cosplay, post videos of herself riding horses - "No hour of life is wasted that is spent in the saddle" - praise President Milei for his border security and promise to consider easing visa rules for his citizens. Observers were miffed to be funding a vacation for "MAGA Cult Barbie Dog Killer" - with ewww her illicit boyfriend Corey Lewandowski yet - but figured she has "ancestors of the 3rd Reich living there."

Still, the coming expansion of ICE is universally expected to be "a colossal shitshow." Local law enforcement are pissed ICE's offer to pay triple what they make will empty out and wreak havoc on local police departments. ICE's minimal requirements - B.A. "OR Combination of Education and Experience" ("Majored in gooning with a minor in glass-smashing"), driver's license, drug and fitness test, firearm proficiency - means ranks already packed with thugs, dregs, criminals, Proud Boys, white supremacists, insurrectionists, bullies drunk on power and former cops too racist or violent to keep a job will lower criteria to stuff innocent people into unmarked white vans to, "Help Wanted: Heartless Villains For Destruction of Democracy, Criminal Record Required." As to student loan forgiveness: "Most ICE inbreds didn't finish high school - these are the people who stole other kids' lunches."

Thanks to the ravages of DOGE and a tumbling economy, ICE added a special webpage for former government workers, calling on them to "RETURN TO MISSION (among) the courageous men and women of ICE." To date, the site shows openings in 21 locations, from California to D.C; maybe, muses one hopeful patriot, "The labor pool of vicious, obese racists is only so large." Others decry "$50K in blood money to sell your soul" or warn of a "short-term grift with Abu Ghraib-style bullshit" after which Repubs will "throw you under the bus when the reckoning comes (at) the next Nuremberg Trials." Some consider sabotage - "We'll call ourselves 'NICE' - but figure they'd be outed "the first day you have to put your knee on a pregnant woman's neck." Besides, "You cannot dismantle the master's house using the master's tools." The most common question: "Are the brownshirts and armbands free?"