To the DC Dyke March organizers

As the journalist who broke the story of three Jewish women expelled from the Chicago Dyke March in 2017, people keep asking me for my thoughts on the #DCDykeMarch repeating history through the prohibition of Pride flags with the Magen David.

Organizer’s reasons were the usual set of talking points

If the past year has taught me anything it is that whatever Israel is accused of doing to the Palestinians, or indeed any government to any marginalized group, utterly vanishes in comparison to what is happening across the United States to millions of innocent people right now.

In fact, I’d say nothing even comes close.

Do you really want to confront oppression, address violations of human rights, let it be known that violent nationalism will not be tolerated and fight for the liberation of people? Try this on for size.

Innocent Americans of all racial, cultural, economic, religious and social backgrounds who are being stripped of every single one of their constitutional, civil and human rights. The number nationwide is in the millions but hardly exact because this is happening behind such a wall of secrecy, a proper count is impossible.

These people are reduced to nothing.

They can no longer vote, drive, work, marry, live where they choose, eat what they like or see who they want to see. They are forced from their homes, sometimes by the police. They forfeit every penny they ever saved or earn.

If they own a home, it is sold. Their personal property is robbed. If it has monetary value it is sold off, if it has emotional value it is thrown in the trash.

They no longer have an identity, a voice or a name. They are reduced to a case number in minutes by a judge. Although guilty of nothing, they have less rights than an imprisoned felon and it is a life sentence. They are drugged, tortured, neglected and starved. Because whether or not a Do Not Resuscitate order is executed is no longer their decision, they are routinely murdered. None of this is hyperbole. It’s all filed with the court. Depending on the rules regarding public access, you can go and take a look for yourselves.

You don’t believe me? I invite you to spend just a couple of hours at a motion day in any probate or family court you choose and just watch. Go as the subject of a hearing and it will be even clearer.

That’s what I did in Oakland County Michigan on June 27, 2018 and I will never forget it.

It was, in every sense of the word, horrifying. People were begging to be free, literally screaming out for some kind of understanding of what was happening to them.

It they protested too loudly, they were surrounded by a squad of Oakland County Sheriffs empowered by the judges to arrest them.

These judges and elder, estate and probate attorneys don’t give a damn about the rule of law, notions of liberty or humanity.

You are nothing to them. You are identified only as something they can consume and, in doing so, they are not bound by a single line of the constitution or any of its amendments.

They operate with completely autonomy and without any consequences because the legislative and judicial branches of state and federal governments have turned a blind eye.

Whoever you think you are as you march right now, whatever voice you think you have, I’m telling you if you hit the wrong age, or fall prey to a physical or mental illness or if pain drives you to alcohol or drugs, you are a target and you will be hunted.

If you are caught, your life as you knew it or ever hoped for it to become is over.

Do not expect any help from the #ACLU, the #AntiDefamationLeague, #MoveOn, #Alliancedefendingfreedom, the #LGBTQTaskforce or your #Republican or #Democrat representative. They don’t give a flying fuck about you. Believe me, I checked. You are part of a marginalized group of a marginalized group and, as such, you are not on their donor’s radar. Besides, their attorneys will not stand for them openly confronting other attorneys.

Do not expect rescue from the police or groups who fight the police. You are not a going concern in their eyes any more than you are in the eyes of the judges or the attorney who now rules over and feeds off every aspect of your existence.

There is a transgender woman named Tracey who is in the Caro Psychiatric Hospital in Michigan. Because her guardian refused to allow her to live as her gender, she self-mutilated and is presently in the lock down ward. No one is speaking for her because people have just accepted that she has a guardian and, therefore, whatever happens to her is justified.

My team and I examined 2,278 separate such guardianship cases at the Oakland County Probate Court filed against people ranging in age from 19–96 by agencies such as Adult Protective Services, the Senior Care Network, social workers and attorneys. Reasons included “bipolar”, “diabetes”, “lacks civilization”, “undefined mental illness”and “fell down in the parking lot of Costco.”

In 98.9 percent of these cases, guardianship was awarded to a “public administrator” — an elder, estate or probate attorney who has sufficiently “impressed” Michigan’s Attorney General.

The majority of hearings were over in under four minutes and, no matter what the protests of the victim or their families, everything they ever were or could be became the property of the state.

In 68.9 percent of cases, neither they nor their families were given any prior warning. It happened without their knowledge.

In 97 percent of cases, they were forced out of their homes by the public administrator within a month.

Their next destination was solely dependent upon their income and attitude.

Psych or lockdown wards were used with the greatest frequency. Those people who just had a small social security income at the time were moved from unlicensed group home to unlicensed group home where they were savagely tortured, deprived of food and neglected completely.

In 100 percent of cases, no matter what the victim’s income or savings at the time, they were left completely indigent and reliant on social services within no more than three years.

On paper, adult guardianship in Michigan is supposed to be a temporary measure. But, like I said, what might be written down in a statute is utterly meaningless because it is ignored by the judges.

Besides, with no job, car, income, no way to write a resume or produce your ID, there is no way in hell you can ever return to independent living.

This is the voice of one victim, named Annette, who wrote to a judge from the unlicensed group home in which she had been imprisoned for over a year.

“I don’t want to be punished and have my dignity and humanity taken away from me.I am young and would like a job and to be a viable asset in society.”

She remains imprisoned to this day. Her letter is on file at the Oakland County Probate Court.

So ban all the flags you want, but until you are prepared to address what is happening to Annette and millions of Americans just like her, just like you, until you confront what your own country is doing to your own people, then, as the Oakland County Probate Court routinely announces to anyone who challenges its abuses, you “have no standing” with which to protest the behavior of others.