Before opening the email containing this post I left a Reddit thread on the question of whether Canadians would welcome some breakaway US states into their federation. Betteridge's Law remains intact, the idea was uniformly panned by Canadians. (I know, a thread topic is not a newspaper headline.) The objections of taking in any US state (other than Hawaii or the territory of Puerto Rico) were guns, private health care, American Exceptionalism, and just our sheer numbers.
As a person with mileage (age) I wholeheartedly agree with Max's friend. It was always coming to this. Coming from a cohort that was less than enthusiastic about dying to prevent the Domino Theory becoming reality sadly it was not shocking to see the weak hand waves over US foreign interference by military intervention. It was not shocking to see the evisceration of worker unions and the fulfillment of the Powell memo. The abandon of tuition-free state university education was part in parcel with our skin-in-the-game tug on those bootstraps culture.
So anger is justified. But too, life is a gift we should love and cherish. We can start by preserving space for life that is not human. For as long as I draw breath my support for acting in solidarity for justice and well-being will always exist.
I love what you say about anger and love, Max. It can be a delicate dance to learn with harsh consequences to missteps. So I want people to know about a training space called Rage Club because it is where I and others have and are learning still how to distinguish between the anger to evokes and perpetuates war and not use anger that way…while learning to use anger for regenerative acts. With more people learning this, I think that what would inevitably emerge is a new and regenerative culture. I see it happening already, including in you, Max. Thank you for all you do…and refuse to do.
I appreciate this, Max. It lands like a perfectly flat stone skipping across the water, leaving me with a smile that as long as there are folks who see what’s happening, we can still resist— and as the comment below reminds us, preserve space for the more than human world.
The framing of anger as sacred rather than destructive is important. That distinction between rage as addiction versus rage as protective response mirrors the diferrence between reacting from trauma and acting from clarity. Been thinking about how fear and anger can paradoxically coexist when people understand the stakes, and this peice really nails that tension.
Have been saying the same words to my activist colleagues. Border Patrol shot someone in southwestern AZ in Arivaca this morning and they are in critical condition. Too early to know the details yet.
Laser focused to be present (camp) next month for our sacred San Rafael Valley (@rally.forthevalley) where the border violence is only known by the non-humans that call it home and my fellow activists. Where are the animals supposed to go when the mountains are being dynamited and a deadly border wall blocks movement? Groundwater sucked dry for cement? Deadly concertina wire strung along the ground.
Grateful for all your support and sharing this story Max. And for not giving up or going quietly.
Thank you, Kate. Thank you for all you are doing for the sacred borderlands. What is being done there is an outrage, yet in our human-centric culture, it's often ignored. Keep up the good fight.
Yes, and I am host, weaver of context for the Visionary Activist Show, 30 years on Pacifica, you would be most welcome as guest ....on this sacred rage....dm me on facebook - if intrigued
Hi Caroline, thanks very much for the invitation! I'm not on Facebook, however. I think I just sent you an email via your website. If you don't see it, you can reach me here: https://www.maxwilbert.org/contact/
Black Wall Street, A white mob destroyed over 35 square blocks, killing 300 people in 1921?
The "Bonus Army" refers to roughly 43,000 demonstrators—including 17,000 WWI veterans, families, and affiliated groups—who marched on Washington, D.C., in 1932 to demand early payment of bonuses promised by the 1924 Adjusted Compensation Act. Facing severe Depression-era hardship, they camped on the Anacostia Flats before federal troops forcibly evicted them, burning their camps.
The U.S. govt hasn't flipped from killing people far away for you to killing you. All those people it was killing far away were never for you, and you should never have allowed it, as it was this same evil on a larger scale
32% of Mass Shooters Are Veterans. 0% of Media Outlets Will Say So.
Since 2001, the United States has been systematically destroying a region of the globe, bombing Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, and Syria, not to mention the Philippines. The United States has “special forces” operating in two-thirds of the world’s countries and non-special forces in three-quarters of them.
See also How Many Millions Have Been Killed in America’s Post-9/11 Wars? Part 3: Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen by Nicolas Davies From 2018, this article estimates 5 to 7 million people directly killed by U.S. wars since 2001 in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen.
+--+
Slippery slope, and no, a frog in cold water slowly warmed up does not stay in the pot when it gets hot. People do, however.
Lemmings?
Origin of the Myth: The 1958 Disney film White Wilderness staged the "suicide" scene in Alberta, Canada—a place where lemmings do not even live—by throwing them off a cliff.
Actual Behavior: Lemmings are small, migratory rodents that, when populations surge, disperse in large numbers. They may accidentally fall off cliffs or drown while attempting to cross large bodies of water.
The "Myth" Drivers: The idea has persisted because it provides a compelling, though false, metaphor for blindly following a group, and was reinforced by the falsified film footage.
+--+
So, guns + uniform + military equipment + cartel mentality + American meanness + misogyny + patriarchy + mob rule + ACAB. FBI, SS, CIA, DEA, ATF, Pigs, County Sheriff, Military Police, Border Patrol, ICE, you name the alphabet agency, and you will find that natural borne killer.
Look, I was a traditional newspaperman in Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, WA. I covered city/county, breaking news and the cop shops. Hands down, those pigs -- I'm a white guy -- all were closet Nazis or white nationalists or just basic racists and bigots.
+--+
Rage! Bill Ackman "gives" 10,000 dollars to murderer ICE John ROss, then says he tried giving $10,000 to Go Fun me to Ms Good, and then he gives $10,000 to Pretti.
These are the people who arm both sides of a conflict, and these are the buttoned down cunts of the world, more dangerous thatn thugs like ICE.
And, yep, I was in Guatemala and El Salvador in the 1980s. I ran into many special forces, ex (CIA?) and even those training dictators' thugs how to rape, kill, torture, fire bomb, kidnap, run guns and drugs.
On May 6, 1970, in response to Nixon’s order and the guard’s killing of protesters at Kent State, students, faculty and community members in Champaign-Urbana “poured out into the streets,” Case said. Those protesting the events went on to strike from classes and work.
“It was everywhere on campus, everywhere you look,” Case said.
A large crowd protests the expansion of the Vietnam War on the Main Quad in May 1970. (Courtesy of Robert Case)
At the time, Case was working as a staff photographer for The Daily Illini, The News-Gazette and Walrus, an extinct underground newspaper, he told the audience.
As Case continued to show photos he took of the protests, he reflected on his youth and the attitude he said young people espoused at the time.
“Somebody’s got to stand up to this,” Case said. “I was probably 19 or 20 at that point. Nothing bothered me — I was out there with the camera, and I was going to take these pictures, and I’m not going to let anybody phase me.”
He mentioned multiple University professors, including Stephen Cohen and Belden Fields, and a visiting professor from Yale University, Michael Parenti, who, alongside students, protested against the war and the University’s response.
Parenti later wrote in his 1996 book, “Dirty Truths,” that he was beaten by police and arrested during the protests and convicted on felony charges, including aggravated battery.
“(Parenti) told us what to do, but then he was out on the front lines with us,” Case said. “He wasn’t scared to do that … He was probably the most vocal and the most demonstrative during all of this tumult … He got beaten up for it, too, by the cops.”
Soon after the unrest began, Cohen, Fields and Parenti, along with 12 other political science faculty members, authored a letter criticizing the Vietnam War, the Kent State deaths and the Champaign Police Department’s April 1970 killing of Edgar Hoults, a Black man in Champaign. The authors called the Nixon administration a “criminal regime.”
The University of Illinois Board of Trustees called on the letter’s authors and signees to retract their statement, saying it was a violation of their professorial guidelines. Cohen and another signee, George Yu, wrote individual letters to the Board of Trustees in response. The other 13 signees wrote a collective response accusing the school of repressing their academic freedom.
Before opening the email containing this post I left a Reddit thread on the question of whether Canadians would welcome some breakaway US states into their federation. Betteridge's Law remains intact, the idea was uniformly panned by Canadians. (I know, a thread topic is not a newspaper headline.) The objections of taking in any US state (other than Hawaii or the territory of Puerto Rico) were guns, private health care, American Exceptionalism, and just our sheer numbers.
As a person with mileage (age) I wholeheartedly agree with Max's friend. It was always coming to this. Coming from a cohort that was less than enthusiastic about dying to prevent the Domino Theory becoming reality sadly it was not shocking to see the weak hand waves over US foreign interference by military intervention. It was not shocking to see the evisceration of worker unions and the fulfillment of the Powell memo. The abandon of tuition-free state university education was part in parcel with our skin-in-the-game tug on those bootstraps culture.
So anger is justified. But too, life is a gift we should love and cherish. We can start by preserving space for life that is not human. For as long as I draw breath my support for acting in solidarity for justice and well-being will always exist.
Thank you for reading, and for the comment.
Anger is a gift 🎁
Yes it is.
I love what you say about anger and love, Max. It can be a delicate dance to learn with harsh consequences to missteps. So I want people to know about a training space called Rage Club because it is where I and others have and are learning still how to distinguish between the anger to evokes and perpetuates war and not use anger that way…while learning to use anger for regenerative acts. With more people learning this, I think that what would inevitably emerge is a new and regenerative culture. I see it happening already, including in you, Max. Thank you for all you do…and refuse to do.
https://rageclub.org/
Love, Nicole
Thanks for reading, and for sharing this, Nicole! It looks interesting.
Thank you for this piece. I needed this perspective to better hold my own dance of love and anger.
You're most welcome, Rebecca.
I appreciate this, Max. It lands like a perfectly flat stone skipping across the water, leaving me with a smile that as long as there are folks who see what’s happening, we can still resist— and as the comment below reminds us, preserve space for the more than human world.
Absolutely, Leaf.
Most days you’ll find me raging against the machine.
Me too, Hapi.
Yep
The framing of anger as sacred rather than destructive is important. That distinction between rage as addiction versus rage as protective response mirrors the diferrence between reacting from trauma and acting from clarity. Been thinking about how fear and anger can paradoxically coexist when people understand the stakes, and this peice really nails that tension.
Absolutely. Well said, and thank you.
That photo, has to be one of the most powerful I’ve seen.
And well said, Max.
Yes, it is quite something. Thank you, Michael.
Max,
Have been saying the same words to my activist colleagues. Border Patrol shot someone in southwestern AZ in Arivaca this morning and they are in critical condition. Too early to know the details yet.
Laser focused to be present (camp) next month for our sacred San Rafael Valley (@rally.forthevalley) where the border violence is only known by the non-humans that call it home and my fellow activists. Where are the animals supposed to go when the mountains are being dynamited and a deadly border wall blocks movement? Groundwater sucked dry for cement? Deadly concertina wire strung along the ground.
Grateful for all your support and sharing this story Max. And for not giving up or going quietly.
Thank you, Kate. Thank you for all you are doing for the sacred borderlands. What is being done there is an outrage, yet in our human-centric culture, it's often ignored. Keep up the good fight.
Yes, and I am host, weaver of context for the Visionary Activist Show, 30 years on Pacifica, you would be most welcome as guest ....on this sacred rage....dm me on facebook - if intrigued
Hi Caroline, thanks very much for the invitation! I'm not on Facebook, however. I think I just sent you an email via your website. If you don't see it, you can reach me here: https://www.maxwilbert.org/contact/
Thank you, Max. 🙏🏼 Needed this.
You're most welcome 🙏🏼
Black Wall Street, A white mob destroyed over 35 square blocks, killing 300 people in 1921?
The "Bonus Army" refers to roughly 43,000 demonstrators—including 17,000 WWI veterans, families, and affiliated groups—who marched on Washington, D.C., in 1932 to demand early payment of bonuses promised by the 1924 Adjusted Compensation Act. Facing severe Depression-era hardship, they camped on the Anacostia Flats before federal troops forcibly evicted them, burning their camps.
The U.S. govt hasn't flipped from killing people far away for you to killing you. All those people it was killing far away were never for you, and you should never have allowed it, as it was this same evil on a larger scale
32% of Mass Shooters Are Veterans. 0% of Media Outlets Will Say So.
Since 2001, the United States has been systematically destroying a region of the globe, bombing Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, and Syria, not to mention the Philippines. The United States has “special forces” operating in two-thirds of the world’s countries and non-special forces in three-quarters of them.
See also How Many Millions Have Been Killed in America’s Post-9/11 Wars? Part 3: Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen by Nicolas Davies From 2018, this article estimates 5 to 7 million people directly killed by U.S. wars since 2001 in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen.
+--+
Slippery slope, and no, a frog in cold water slowly warmed up does not stay in the pot when it gets hot. People do, however.
Lemmings?
Origin of the Myth: The 1958 Disney film White Wilderness staged the "suicide" scene in Alberta, Canada—a place where lemmings do not even live—by throwing them off a cliff.
Actual Behavior: Lemmings are small, migratory rodents that, when populations surge, disperse in large numbers. They may accidentally fall off cliffs or drown while attempting to cross large bodies of water.
The "Myth" Drivers: The idea has persisted because it provides a compelling, though false, metaphor for blindly following a group, and was reinforced by the falsified film footage.
+--+
So, guns + uniform + military equipment + cartel mentality + American meanness + misogyny + patriarchy + mob rule + ACAB. FBI, SS, CIA, DEA, ATF, Pigs, County Sheriff, Military Police, Border Patrol, ICE, you name the alphabet agency, and you will find that natural borne killer.
Look, I was a traditional newspaperman in Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, WA. I covered city/county, breaking news and the cop shops. Hands down, those pigs -- I'm a white guy -- all were closet Nazis or white nationalists or just basic racists and bigots.
+--+
Rage! Bill Ackman "gives" 10,000 dollars to murderer ICE John ROss, then says he tried giving $10,000 to Go Fun me to Ms Good, and then he gives $10,000 to Pretti.
These are the people who arm both sides of a conflict, and these are the buttoned down cunts of the world, more dangerous thatn thugs like ICE.
And, yep, I was in Guatemala and El Salvador in the 1980s. I ran into many special forces, ex (CIA?) and even those training dictators' thugs how to rape, kill, torture, fire bomb, kidnap, run guns and drugs.
America, the MYTH.
https://paulokirk.substack.com/p/look-who-they-share-their-toilets
It was always coming to this?
Parenti?
https://dailyillini.com/news-stories/2025/09/28/ui-alum-protests-vietnam-war/
1970?
On May 6, 1970, in response to Nixon’s order and the guard’s killing of protesters at Kent State, students, faculty and community members in Champaign-Urbana “poured out into the streets,” Case said. Those protesting the events went on to strike from classes and work.
“It was everywhere on campus, everywhere you look,” Case said.
A large crowd protests the expansion of the Vietnam War on the Main Quad in May 1970. (Courtesy of Robert Case)
At the time, Case was working as a staff photographer for The Daily Illini, The News-Gazette and Walrus, an extinct underground newspaper, he told the audience.
As Case continued to show photos he took of the protests, he reflected on his youth and the attitude he said young people espoused at the time.
“Somebody’s got to stand up to this,” Case said. “I was probably 19 or 20 at that point. Nothing bothered me — I was out there with the camera, and I was going to take these pictures, and I’m not going to let anybody phase me.”
He mentioned multiple University professors, including Stephen Cohen and Belden Fields, and a visiting professor from Yale University, Michael Parenti, who, alongside students, protested against the war and the University’s response.
Parenti later wrote in his 1996 book, “Dirty Truths,” that he was beaten by police and arrested during the protests and convicted on felony charges, including aggravated battery.
“(Parenti) told us what to do, but then he was out on the front lines with us,” Case said. “He wasn’t scared to do that … He was probably the most vocal and the most demonstrative during all of this tumult … He got beaten up for it, too, by the cops.”
Soon after the unrest began, Cohen, Fields and Parenti, along with 12 other political science faculty members, authored a letter criticizing the Vietnam War, the Kent State deaths and the Champaign Police Department’s April 1970 killing of Edgar Hoults, a Black man in Champaign. The authors called the Nixon administration a “criminal regime.”
The University of Illinois Board of Trustees called on the letter’s authors and signees to retract their statement, saying it was a violation of their professorial guidelines. Cohen and another signee, George Yu, wrote individual letters to the Board of Trustees in response. The other 13 signees wrote a collective response accusing the school of repressing their academic freedom.