It Isn't NICE...
When you Deal with Men of ICE, You Can't Deal in Ways So Nice
Liam Conejo Ramos, 5, abducted along with his father by ICE in Minneapolis on January 20, 2026 to a border facility near El Paso, Texas, ordered released by Judge Fred Biery of the Federal Court of the Western District of Texas on January 31 condemning the Department of Homeland Security’s “perfidious lust for unbridled power” and “the imposition of cruelty”
[Photo, courtesy Ali Daniels, Columbia Heights Public Schools]
“It isn’t nice to block the doorway. It isn’t nice to go to jail. There are nicer ways to do it, but the nice ways always fail. It isn’t nice. It isn’t nice. You told us once. You told us twice. (Well thank you buddy, for your advice!) But if that’s freedom’s price, we don’t mind, we don’t mind…”
“It Isn’t Nice” by Barbara Dane and Malvina Reynolds, 1965 (Judy Collins, Elektra Records)
“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”
Thomas Paine, “The American Crisis, Series 1.” Pamphlet and Broadside, November 1776
Brilliant. Thank you for the inspiration. ☮️🕊️✨💞
So we all come to these posts and voice our horror and anger. It’s good for our mental health ( and our families!) but what good is it?? What changes? We need to spend our time better pounding in the eyes and ears of the powerful by writing to them and calling THEM who have agency