I am haunted by the shots. Not by the chaos of the moment. By the decision to use lethal force.
I don’t raise these questions lightly. I raise them because I feel an obligation to do so.
I am appalled by what happened to Renée Good and Alex Pretti. Not because I know all the answers—but because the answers offered so far do not begin to match the gravity of what occurred.
I am outraged by the shots.
Not that shots were fired—anyone who understands law enforcement understands danger. Threats are real. Decisions are made in fractions of a second.
But these shots.
A shot to the head. Ten shots fired after a man had been disarmed.
These are not details. They are the story.
I want to know why:
• lethal force was chosen where restraint appears possible
• a vehicle was not disabled if it was the threat
• a disarmed man required ten rounds to stop him
• “self-defense” is offered as a conclusion instead of the beginning of a serious public accounting
• we lower our voices when bullets have already spoken
Let me be clear: I would be asking these same questions with or without ICE involvement. This is not about immigration policy. It is not about partisan loyalties. It is about the use of lethal force by the government—any arm of government—against citizens, and the obligation that power carries with it.
When a gun is fired by law enforcement, intent matters. When a head is struck, intent matters more. When shots continue after a suspect is disarmed, intent becomes unavoidable.
We are often told that officers do not “intend to kill,” only to stop a threat. But bullets are not suggestions. Aimed fire is not symbolic. The human body understands intent even when language tries to soften it.
I want to know why the federal government can irreversibly take a life without the checks that define a democracy.
Not to inflame.
Not to prosecute from my keyboard.
Not to pretend that complex situations have simple answers.
But because a democracy that cannot answer why—plainly, fully, without euphemism—cannot credibly claim justice.
Silence is not neutrality. Deflection is not due process. Repetition of official language is not accountability.
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
–Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968). More than a civil rights leader, Dr. King spent his life demanding justice for the marginalized and calling out moral silence wherever it lived. His words still hold us accountable.
We’ve had a lot of rain lately here in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, in the shadow of the Nation’s Capitol. And with it, a whole lot of fog—literal and metaphorical.
It’s put me in a reflective mood.
It started one morning when I was scrolling casually through the headlines. I sat up and took notice when I saw:
“Estimated Cost of Trump’s June 14 Parade? $40 Million.”
Not as bad as the $95 million that had been projected.
But still.
Forty. Million. Dollars.
For a parade.
Let’s be clear. My reflections aren’t a swipe at the military or the veterans who’ve served with honor. I respect them deeply. I always have.
What leaves me flummoxed—furious, frankly—is that we dropped forty million dollars on smoke and swagger.
● Not for healthcare. ● Not for housing. ● Not for education. ● Not for the aging. ● Not for the homeless. ● Not for the hungry. ● Not for climatejustice? ● Not for Diversity, Equity, andInclusion.
Not for [inhale, DearReader, and name one or two things that you would add to the chance to spend $40 million well and wisely for the benefit of humanity].
Not one penny went to any of those things.
Instead, we spent it on a parade. And not much of one at that.
Mind you, I’m not against a little razzle-dazzle. I’m not even against a lot of razzle dazzle. I love a marching band. And I’ve been known to twirl a dish towel like a drum major when I think no one’s looking. But this wasn’t Macy’s Thanksgiving. This was missile-forward, masculinity-on-wheels, smoke-and-flag showmanship—aimed at impressing whom, exactly?
And all I could think was:
Icould do a lot with that.
I started Googling some numbers. These aren’t fantasy figures that I’m about to share. They’re ballpark estimates based on real programs already out there doing the real work.
Education
I spent twenty-three years in the community-college classroom. I know what $40 million could do when it puts on a blazer of determination and joins hands at a table that includes all the diverse stakeholders waiting for their lives to be transformed:
● Two years of community college for around 15,000 students. That’s 15,000 young folks trading fear for futures.
● Salaries and benefits for 500 new public school teachers. The ones fighting ignorance and inequality every day.
● After-school programs for 100,000 children. Imagine safe spaces, hot meals, books, and someone who actually listens.
● $20,000 for every public school in Virginia. For libraries. For music. For classrooms without walls.
● 400 endowed scholarships that would change entire family trees. Can you imagine such a forest of hope?
Or, How’s This? Give It to Me.
That’s right. Just hand it over, every copper penny of that $40 million. I promise to use it wisely—and a little wickedly.
I’d found a rural writers’ residency here in the Shenandoah Valley—where ideas blossom, meals come with flaky sourdough biscuits, and the only uniform required is pajamas and nerve.
I’d start a learning center for older adults who want to tango with AI rather than fear it. There’d be cakes, cakes, and more cakes. And, yes, I’d teach the class. For free.
I’d fund free college courses for anyone over 70. I know firsthand that curiosity doesn’t age—and neither should opportunity.
I’d create a cozy grant for storytellers who need time, space, and soup. You bring the plot twist; I’ll bring the pot and the lentils. And the mic. And the computers with printers and some really good paper. Maybe even some vellum. Everyone has a story to tell. And everyone’s story deserves to be shared.
And yes—I’d upgrade my Wi-Fi. But I’d pay for that perk out of my own pocket. I can’t possibly imagine a future on a buffering screen like mine.
But Let’s Go Bigger. Let’s Go National. Let’s Get Serious.
What else could we buy with $40 million?
HEALTHCARE
● 13,000 diabetics could get insulin for a year.
● 8,000 people could have cataract surgeries to restore sight and dignity.
● 4,000 new therapy slots could be created for those in need of mental health care.
● Mobile clinics could motor in to rural Americans who don’t have a doctor, let alone a parade.
HOUSING
● 800 tiny homes for unhoused veterans.
● 6,500 rental assistance grants to prevent families from being evicted into the street.
● Thousands of critical home repairs for aging Americans clinging to the roof over their heads.
Or simply this: $40 million could give dignity back to the people living in tents and doorways.
People say we have a housing shortage. We don’t. We have a compassion shortage.
FOOD & NUTRITION
● Feed 60,000 families of four for a month.
● Provide 20 million school lunches.
● Stock rural food banks for a year.
CHILDCARE & EARLY LEARNING
● 1,500 toddlers in full-time childcare for a year.
● 4,000 Head Start slots—the kind that change lives before kindergarten.
INFRASTRUCTURE & JOBS
● 20 miles of roads resurfaced.
● 1,000 community clean-up and green jobs created at $40K/year.
● 1 million trees planted in urban neighborhoods, providing shade, oxygen, and hope.
ADDICTION & PUBLIC SAFETY
● 100,000 naloxone kits to reverse opioid overdoses.
● 500 addiction recovery beds funded for a full year.
And that’s just the start.
$40 million could fund addiction clinics, community gardens, clean drinking water, and elder care.
It could stock classrooms with books, shelters with blankets, neighborhoods with trees, and rural towns with Wi-Fi.
It could buy wheelchairs, job training, clean clothes, bus passes, internet hotspots, warm meals, and cool air in heatwaves.
Forty million dollars could meet people where they are—and remind them they matter.
Instead, $40 million gave us a parade of tanks.
And flyovers.
And swagger.
I suppose there’s a place for showmanship. But if you ask me—when you’ve got $40 million to spend and a nation full of potholes, potholes in minds and hearts and homes—it might be time to fund possibility instead of parades.
You know what else? I’ll bet that if you asked the uniformed troops who were supposedly being honored, they too would vote for funding a world of forever possibilities instead of one day with a parade.
Because the real power? It isn’t missiles or marching.
It’s in meals, and music, and morning classes.
It’s in someone whispering, “I believe in you,” with a scholarship check in hand.
It’s in turning the lights on in places that have lived too long in the dark.
But we didn’t choose any of that.
We chose a spectacle.
We chose to posture for the world—while the world watched a nation that can’t feed its children waste millions playing dress-up with its military.
It wasn’t patriotism.
It was performance.
History saw June 14, 2025, for what it was—a flag-wrapped, reality-show distraction from the real work of freedom.
“To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards...”
–Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919; American poet known for her uplifting and socially conscious writing. Her work championed justice, personal responsibility, and the power of speaking out.)
Whether everyone owns up to it or not, America is in the throes of a Constitutional, social, and moral crisis—unlike anything in our Nation’s history. It doesn’t take a genius to see what’s happening. We only need to look around.
It’s unfolding in real time, shaping and shaking the very foundation of our democracy. Since his second inauguration, Donald J. Trump has tested the limits of executive power, issuing sweeping orders that centralize authority, gut independent oversight, and sideline checks and balances. The rapid dismantling of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, the mass pardoning of January 6 rioters, and the rollback of environmental protections—all justified under the banner of “restoring order”—are not isolated actions. They are a pattern, a deliberate reshaping of the country to fit a singular vision.
Already many people—immigrants, federal workers, and LGBTQ+ individuals—feel the pain through deportations, firings, and the rollback of protections. Many other people—seniors, low-income families, and those reliant on federal programs—will feel the pain yet to come through health care cuts, the cancellation of USAID programs, the discontinuation of flu vaccine updates, and threats to Medicaid and Social Security. And now, in a shocking display of authoritarian bravado, Trump humiliated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office—publicly berating a wartime ally fighting for survival against Russian aggression. His attack was not just a personal insult; it was a signal to the world that American leadership, once defined by its commitments, is now dictated by impulsive cruelty.
Now is not the time for silence. Now is the time to speak up.
Now is not the time for complacency. Now is the time to act up.
Now is not the time to be broken by divisiveness. Now is the time to come together and walk together.
Why? This crisis threatens the very essence of who we are as Americans.
Why? This crisis is unparalleled in our Nation’s history.
Why? This crisis threatens our today, our tomorrow, and our future.
I am heavy-hearted, but I find hope in looking back on those who stood up when hope seemed lost. Time and again, ordinary people have overturned what once seemed inevitable. We can learn from those ordinary Americans who took extraordinary actions. We can be extraordinary, too.
History tells us time and time again that moments like these define not just leaders but entire movements. The moral high road isn’t a scenic detour—it’s often the hardest path, requiring both conviction and courage.
Taking a Stand Means Taking Action
When faced with injustices like the unprecedented ones we’re up against now, neutrality isn’t a shield—it’s a choice. And history has been shaped by those who refused to sit back and let injustice run its course. They took a stand. They acted. I’m thinking about:
● Thomas Paine – A political writer who stoked the flames of revolution with “Common Sense” and “The American Crisis.”
● Frederick Douglass – A former slave who demanded that America reckon with its hypocrisy, forcing the nation to see itself as it was.
● Henry David Thoreau – Who refused to pay a tax that supported slavery and war, writing “Civil Disobedience” to argue that individuals must resist unjust laws.
● Susan B. Anthony – Who cast an illegal vote in 1872, knowing she’d be arrested but refusing to accept a system that denied women their rights.
● Martin Luther King Jr – Who rejected patience and appeasement, writing Letter from Birmingham Jail as a rebuke to those who claimed to be allies but urged him to wait.
● Daniel Ellsberg – Who leaked the Pentagon Papers at great personal risk, exposing government deceit about Vietnam.
These people didn’t just take the moral high ground—they fought for it, walked it, and held their ground when it mattered most.
Silence Enables Tyranny: The Lesson of Nazi Germany
If history teaches us anything, it’s that silence enables oppression. In Nazi Germany, countless people looked the other way, convincing themselves that they had no choice, that someone else would act. Their silence helped pave the way for one of the greatest atrocities in human history.
German pastor Martin Niemöller, once complicit himself, later warned against the dangers of staying quiet:
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
“Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
“Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
“Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
People Are Taking a Stand
From city halls to concert halls, from boardrooms to town squares, Americans are refusing to be silent. People are taking a stand, and the movement taking shape in powerful ways.
Our crisis started when Trump and J. D. Vance were sworn into office on January 20. The next day, the movement started as people were brave enough and bold enough to stand up to the crisis that threatens our Nation and our Democracy.
At the inaugural prayer service at the Washington National Cathedral, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, took a stand and directly addressed the President, urging him to show compassion and mercy toward vulnerable communities. She implored, “In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy on the people in our country who are scared now.” Her courageous plea highlighted the fears of LGBTQ+ individuals, immigrants, and refugees, calling for leadership grounded in empathy and justice.
The next month at the February 21 Governors’ Conference, the president threatened to strip Maine of its federal funding if it refused to comply with his executive order, banning transgender women from competing in women’s sports. In a tense exchange, Maine’s Democratic Governor Janet Mills took a stand and did not waver. Her response to the president? A simple: “See you in court.”
This wasn’t just a sharp retort. It was a moment of moral clarity, an assertion that principles matter more than political pressure.
Two days later, on February 23, Jane Fonda received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the SAG ceremony in Los Angeles. In her speech, she urged her fellow actors to channel the courage of those who resisted McCarthyism, reminding them of past social movements like Apartheid, Civil Rights, and Stonewall.
“Have you ever watched a documentary and wondered if you’d have been brave enough to walk the bridge or face the hoses and batons?
“We don’t have to wonder anymore—we are in our documentary moment. … And even if they’re of a different political persuasion, we need to call upon our empathy and not judge, but listen from our hearts and welcome them into our tent, because we are going to need a big tent to resist successfully what’s coming at us.”
It’s not just celebrities and politicians taking action; ordinary citizens are making their voices heard, sometimes at great personal cost. We all witnessed the legislative town hall meeting in northern Idaho descend into chaos after three plainclothes security workers forcibly removed Teresa Borrenpohl, who was heckling the speakers.
Others are taking a stand, too, against actions that threaten our nation’s core values. Their courage serves as a beacon, reminding us of the power of collective action.
I’m thinking of the recent upheaval at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the resistance performers are showing as they take a stand. Issa Rae canceled her sold-out show, Renée Fleming stepped down as artistic advisor, Shonda Rhimes resigned as treasurer, and Ben Folds relinquished his role as artistic advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra. These actions underscore the artists’ commitment to preserving the integrity of our cultural institutions.
I’m thinking of Labor Organizations and grassroots movements that are also mobilizing to voice their dissent. The People’s Union USA, founded by John Schwarz, organized a national “economic blackout” on February 28, urging Americans to halt all consumer spending for 24 hours. The boycott was a warning shot—a demonstration that ordinary citizens can disrupt the economic status quo when corporations and policymakers ignore their voices. Early reports suggest widespread participation—major retailers and businesses have already reported noticeable dips in sales. And this is just the beginning. More boycotts are planned in the coming months, targeting corporations that fuel inequality, suppress wages, or remain complicit in policies that threaten democracy. This movement is a reminder that collective economic action has long been a tool for social change, from the Montgomery Bus Boycott to the anti-Apartheid divestments. If history is any guide, the pressure will only build.
I’m thinking of the citizens of Mad River Valley, Vermont who protested Vance’s ski trip just this past weekend. One poster said it all:
“Vermonters don’t bend the knee to wannabe KINGS.”
These contemporary examples of moral leadership echo history, where individuals refused to remain neutral in the face of injustice.
History doesn’t look kindly on those who stand on the sidelines. And we don’t get to tell ourselves we would have acted differently then, if we refuse to act now.
Every Act of Resistance Matters
For the first time in my life, I’m feeling powerless. I imagine that you are, too. At the same time, so did many of the people we now call heroes—before they took action.
● Thomas Paine was just a pamphleteer.
● Susan B. Anthony was just one woman with a ballot.
● Martin Luther King Jr. was just a preacher.
● Daniel Ellsberg was just a government analyst.
● Bishop Mariann Edgar Buddewas just a faith leader.
● Jane Fonda was just an actress.
● Governor Janet Millswas just a politician.
They weren’t waiting for permission to do the right thing. They just did it. And because they did it in the past, our country changed. And because people are standing up and acting now, our country can “course correct” again.
Will You Stand When It Counts?
Taking a stand doesn’t require grand gestures. It can be as simple as:
● Participating in economic boycotts as a way of doing something.
● Calling out injustice, rather than letting it slide.
● Supporting those fighting for equality, rather than assuming someone else will.
● Refusing to comply with policies that erode human rights.
● Voting for leaders who put principles above politics.
The moral high road isn’t for the comfortable. It’s for the brave—for those who refuse to look away, for those who understand that silence is complicity.
This is one of those moments. It’s a moment that history won’t forget.
What will you do? Will you take a stand? History is watching.
The Wired Researcher 