Everyday Erinyes #51

It's another week when I have many items which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as "unceasing," "grudging," and "vengeful destruction."

Let me start with an article that does NOT call for erinyes action, but instead gives helpful advice for survival under the new regime, written by Masha Gessen, who, having lived most of her 49 years in one autocracy or another, should know.  I want to start with it because last week I pointed out the difficulty I anticipate of continuing to be able to feel outrage instead of becoming numb when outrages become too common.  Masha points out in her rule 4 the necessity of maintaining outrage:

[I]n the face of the impulse to normalize, it is essential to maintain one’s capacity for shock. This will lead people to call you unreasonable and hysterical, and to accuse you of overreacting. It is no fun to be the only hysterical person in the room. Prepare yourself.

I highly recommend clicking through to the whole article, bookmarking it, printing it out, whatever you need to do to keep remembering – because remembering will become harder and harder.  I am serious about this.  You. Will. Need. It.  But I will continue to report outrages here, and I will continue to focus on unreported and underreported outrages and hope to provide a stimulus to keep our outrage alive – and the Furies occupied.

With that in mind, I am sharing this story though it is "ancient history" because it is just recently coming to light.  The Reader's Digest version is that Mark Ober, the Hillsborough County (Florida) State Attorney, spent ten months prosecuting a 57-year-old disabled mother for shoplifting $29 worth of flea medicine, in order not to upset WalMart, despite the fact that WalMart's own security tape shows every detail of an elaborate frame set up by the security guard who arrested her.  Yes, you read that right.  The case went all the way to a jury trial, where the defendant was acquitted in less than sixty seconds, which is one silver lining here (there is a civil suit in the works.) 

The other silver lining is that Ober lost his bid for re-election.  This is the same Mark Ober who refused to prosecute the rapist of a girl who was fifteen when he made her his sex slave because "she went with him voluntarily."  Though he's now out of office, I think he is worth going after, as is the security guard, Arismendy Rosario, who appears to have had no discernible reason for framing his victim.  Tisiphone, it sounds like it's up your street.

I suspect everyone here is watching the standoff over the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the atrocities being perpetrated there by law enforcement, not only North Dakota law enforcement, but tourist law enforcement from multiple states.  What happened to Tara Houska on Veterans Day is only one outrage among many, but she is educated (an attorney) and articulate, and was interviewed by Amy Goodman for Democracy Now:

Yeah, I was arrested for criminal trespass as I was, you know, leaving a peaceful demonstration and getting into my car on a public road. They arrested us and zip-tied us on the side of the road for two hours. We were then thrown into jail … and put in a dog kennel … for over six hours, while they didn’t even actually charge us with crimes. After that, I was strip-searched and then thrown into jail and, finally, late, late that evening, was charged with a crime.

Wouldn't you think that, with all the law enforcement from all the states that is there, they could have found actual handcuffs instead if having to use zip ties, and maybe even put their detainees into a squad car rather than a dog kennel?  Oh, wait, they probably are arresting so many people they ran out.  Silly me.  Do click though and find out more about who Tara is, and how confident the pipeline company is that President Trump will push their pipeline through.  Alecto, good luck with putting an end to the unending.  I'm afraid you'll need it.   (One piece of good news, though – yesterday Bank DNB announced it is pulling its money out.  Of course this not a solution, but it's a step.)

Speaking of Veterans Day, this also happened:

U.S. Army veteran Ernest Walker started recording video when a manager at a Chili’s restaurant in Cedar Hill, Texas, questioned his military service and took away his food.

Like some other establishments around the country, Chili’s offered free meals to veterans and active military service members on Veterans Day. Walker wrote on his Facebook page that he was eating at Chili’s with his service dog, Barack, when an elderly customer wearing a Trump shirt came up to him. “He said he was in Germany, and that they did not let Blacks serve over there,” Walker wrote.

Soon after, Walker said the restaurant’s manager approached him and said that a fellow customer said Walker was “not a real soldier because [he] had [his] hat on indoors.” He asked to see identification, and continued to question Walker. Eventually, he took his food away, even though Walker showed him his military ID and discharge paperwork.

This is a petty little thing, but, as a veteran myself, it eats at me.  Maybe more than it does at Mr Walker, who said "I believe if it wasn't for the temperature of America right now, I believe that man would have never reacted that way, because I think he's probably a good person.”  Well, I don't.  I don't think he's probably a good person at all.  I think he needs some re-educating, and I think Megaera is just the Fury to do it.  And the Chili's manager too.

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 at http://www.care2.com/news/member/101612212/4022028