The depth of active resistance in Minneapolis

This afternoon I braved the cold (temperature warmed up to 10F!) to go to the Detroit Film Theater to see The Glassworker. Director Usman Riaz set up Mano Animation Studio in Karachi, Pakistan. He learned how to do it from Studio Ghibli and elsewhere. The Ghibli influence is there (many of the images are quite beautiful) but this is a Pakistan story. At the start of the film are a few live action minutes in which Riaz talks about establishing the studio. All the images are to be hand drawn, though they’re drawn onto a computer screen instead of paper. He assembled quite a team and expressed thanks for help from those outside the studio. That story is about Vincent Oliver, trained as a glass artist since he was a boy. The son’s talent soon passes the father’s. While still a schoolboy he meets Alliz. She’s new to town, daughter of Colonel Amano. She’s as gifted on the violin as Vincent is in glass. Amano is in town to prepare for war. Soon many of the older boys are wearing military tunics. But Vincent’s father Tomas is a pacifist. Vincent hears people describe him as the son of the coward. That puts a strain on the growing friendship between Vincent and Alliz. Then Amano threatens Tomas to get him to work for the war effort. The story goes from there. I very much enjoyed the story and recommend it (I see it is available for streaming). However, some of the scenes are intense, so this animation is not for little kids (a young child in the audience wailed at a sad scene). I began to wonder who this film is for. Pakistan? America? The mouths don’t quite match the words, but that is typical in a dubbed movie (and IMDb lists the vocal cast as for the “English Version”), though all the names appear to be Pakistani (and they spoke with American accents). The source of the wondering is because the sign on Tomas’ shop says, “Oliver Glass” in English and a letter Vincent reads appears to be in English (and Vincent’s name doesn’t sound like a Pakistani name). Are those original or did the Studio create alternate scenes for originals in Urdu (I had to look that up)? Or do enough people in Pakistan know English through its colonial history? In today’s pundit roundup for Daily Kos Greg Dworkin included a tweet from Ana Marie Cox on the ICE invasion of Minneapolis. I then looked at the original.

I know people keep saying this but it’s hard to communicate the depth of active resistance here. Like, I’m on random cafes and people are checking in for observation shifts. Signs everywhere. Folks in visibility vests on the corners. It’s wild. Absolutely wild. And that’s just on the surface! I’m also discovering the spread of second and third tier support no one is seeing. I have never ever seen anything like this. I have seen communities organize around natural disasters in a somewhat similar way but obv that wasn’t 80% SECRET.

One of the many comments to Cox, this one by Otto Simm.

These local invasions are meant in part to train Nazi feds for larger offensives, but they’re training the opposition, too. Lessons and tactics are being shared and as a result every fascist invasion seeking to incite violence will fail earlier and with fewer casualties.

Another reply to Cox led me to this thread by Sinister Minnesotan, Quantum Hamologist. Here’s the start and end:

I need to write a long-form piece about how dang *Minnesotan* the resistance to ICE is here. You have a metro population that quietly got itself organized in a completely decentralized way, and everyone just got down to work. And it's clearly sending the feds into a tailspin. So what makes it "Minnesotan"? The "quietly" and "decentralized" bits are a big part of it; everyone who's out there did so because they independently decided something needed doing. Taking responsibility and not sitting around jawing about it is A Thing here. And sure, sometimes it sucks. ... At some point in the past, I pointed out that the number of Minnesotans out in the freezing cold for something that was neither ice fishing nor sports was *remarkable*. I really can't explain how, on one level, what's happening is entirely abnormal; but on another, it's just 100% Minnesota.

Dworkin quoted the New York Times

The action on Friday, which unfolded in subzero temperatures, was the most widespread and organized demonstration since federal agents arrived in Minneapolis more than six weeks ago. It was aimed at pressuring the federal government to pull thousands of its agents from the streets. Businesses, many of them locally owned, closed their doors to halt economic activity, saying that losing a day’s revenue was worth the cost to be part of the effort to end the immigration enforcement. “There’s a time to stand up for things, and this is it,” said Alison Kirwin, the owner of Al’s Breakfast, a Minneapolis restaurant that closed on Friday. “If it takes away from a day of our income, that is worthwhile.”

The Washington Post on the nasty guy and Greenland:

The brazen ultimatum — give up Greenland or face tariffs — elicited a level of unity that largely had eluded the leaders of the 27-nation E.U. in the year since Trump’s second inauguration.

Joyce Vance in her Civil Discourse on Substack:

ICE seems to be arguing that if they think a non-citizen for whom there is a final order of deportation is in a house, they can blow right past the Fourth Amendment, take the doors off the house if they aren’t admitted voluntarily, and go right in. But the Fourth Amendment doesn’t change just because ICE says so. The Supreme Court has made it clear that a search warrant must be signed by a “judicial officer” or a “magistrate.” Their signature on the warrant says that they have reviewed the evidence that the agents believe constitutes probable cause to justify a search, and they agree that it is sufficient to breach the wall otherwise established by the Fourth Amendment and allow law enforcement into a private home (or car, or private areas of a business, etc.). The idea is that a detached, neutral judge—not someone involved in investigating a case or “on the same side” as law enforcement—should evaluate the evidence before a search warrant or an arrest warrant is issued.

Down in the comments Pierre Polyester of Canada posted a meme of the nasty guy’s 10 biggest lies during his speech at Davos (which implies there were a lot more than ten lies). I will list only a couple:

Lie: US paid 100% of NATO Truth: US pays ~16% of NATO budget Lie: US gave Greenland back [as part of the 1951 treaty] Truth: Denmark always owned Greenland.

On Thursday Lisa Needham of Kos wrote about a memo from ICE that overrides the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure. Since ICE officials know busting down doors without a warrant is illegal, the memo has been passed along secretly. It’s based partly on executive orders from the nasty guy (which are not law or part of the Constitution) and some of it is derived from recent rulings from the Supreme Court – the Kavanaugh Stops that allow for racial profiling. In Monday’s pundit roundup, both in the body and a ways down in the comments, are several memes and tweets of the nasty guy chasing after various prizes. I’m sure most of them were AI generated. A tweet by David Frum:

ICE should return to being a police force. No masks. No combat gear. No armored vehicles. They should audit employers suspected of employing illegal labor - and enforce deportation orders - with badges, warrants, and professional manners. "Demilitarize ICE" not "Abolish ICE."