Ordinarily I'd start this by saying "this is a call-in, not a call-out" but NOPE. I'm fucking angry and if you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen. Because I'm fucking appalled.

The most common response I'm seeing on social media to literal FUCKING CONCENTRATION CAMPS is to AVOID BUYING HANES UNDERWEAR MADE IN EL SALVADOR?

Respectfully, ARE YOU ALL OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MINDS?

First off, as I'll keep saying until I'm out of breath, boycotts of consumer brands are almost never effective.

Second, even if purely for the sake of argument they were effective, what you're proposing is boycotting AMERICAN BRANDS that own factories in El Salvador. How does that make ANY sense? If Salvadorian industry was nationalized, that would be one thing, that would actually target the government. But even if this action was effective, the ONLY thing that you would be accomplishing is putting poor Salvadorans who work for US multinationals out of work, people whose livelihoods have already been decimated over the course of decades in large part due to the actions of YOUR COUNTRY. You want them to suffer even more now so that you can feel like you're doing something about fascism? Fuck that.

BOYCOTTING HANES WON'T DO JACK SHIT.

And I will absolutely die on this hill.

I am writing this from my house, built in a post-war neighborhood in a French city which endured four years of Nazi occupation, where a significant number of the streets are named after Resistance fighters who paid the ultimate price for doing the ONLY thing that historically has been shown to stop fascism: they PUT THEIR BODIES ON THE LINE. And they didn't have a historical example to follow. They simply used common sense, they did whatever they could possibly think of to slow down the fascist machine, knowing full well what would happen if they were caught.

And unlike them, you do have a historical example of how to throw a wrench into the gears of fascism. And unlike in Vichy France, things are not yet at the point in the US where cutting a phone line or blocking a train track will result in summary execution without trial. But if nothing is done now, that not yet may become a thing of the past.

And this is where I'm going to use the fact that I personally don't have to (at least again, not yet) fear being disappeared by the US government in order to say something that I would be too afraid to publicly say if I was currently writing this on US soil:

The only way to stop this is to STOP this. Through various forms of resistance, mostly physical, by any means necessary. By putting your skills to work and your bodies on the line (to the extent of your ability, obviously) to throw as many wrenches into the fascist machine as possible. Phone lines aren't really a thing anymore. But there are plenty of modern-day equivalents.

Whether that's targeting the ICE vans that kidnap people or targeting the prisons where they're held or physically linking together and putting yourself in front of the airplanes that the prisoners are loaded onto. Whether it's finding the names and addresses of the drivers of those vans or the guards of those prisons or the pilots of those planes and showing up on their doorsteps and making it clear that they will know no peace until they stop what they're doing. Whether it's hacking into and destroying the information systems that make this all possible in the first place. Whether it's simply donating money to or cooking meals for or watching the kids of those who can take these risks and do these things.

Shouting at gears does not stop them. Throwing a wrench into them does.

And to be clear - I know that you're panicked and terrified and that being such a state has a significant effect on one's critical thinking skills. And I know how desperate you are to do ANYTHING that might help.

But refusing to buy underwear made in Salvadoran factories isn't it, folks. Please, for the love of the gods, that so isn't it.

Again, I apologize for my anger. But I utterly lack the ability to be polite and patient right now. And if you think that my anger is unwarranted, you're deeply in denial as to how bad this all is.