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."

Making territory uninhabitable

My Sunday night viewing was two episodes of Cosmos, hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson. The set of 13 episodes on 4 DVDs was a Christmas gift, probably in 2014 (when the series was released). Kind of my speed to get around to actually watching it almost eight years later. This is an update of the series Carl Sagan produced for television in 1980. Since one of the fleeting credits of this series was for Sagan and Ann Druyan, both authors of the original series, I wonder how much of it is Tyson speaking Sagan’s lines with better visuals. There was a moment that was definitely not Sagan – Tyson, as a youth, visited Sagan, which inspired Tyson’s career in science and explaining science. Yes, the visuals are stunning. A great deal of effort – and a long list of companies – went into creating them. I did see at least part of the original series and, from what I remember, some of the visuals were primitive, such as Sagan pushing pieces of paper around a table. So the visuals are a big improvement. The one exception is the sequences showing animated people. They’re definitely not state of the art, even for 2014 – if they could create such stunning visuals on computers they could generate better animation. In the two episodes I’ve watched, each about 45 minutes, I did learn a few things, though a lot I already knew. There was a mass extinction event at the end of the Permian era (the first of five, but he didn’t get into three of them, the fifth was the meteor that ended the dinosaurs). He explained how humans guided the evolution of wolves into dogs. This is a case where adorableness was a factor in which dogs were allowed to breed. He also explained the evolution of the eye. Yeah, these two episodes were enjoyable. However, I’ve got another 7:45 in viewing to go. In a Ukraine update Mark Sumner of Daily Kos quoted the story of the battle between Abimelech and Shechem from Judges 9:42-45 in the bible as an example of war combatants going as far as making territory uninhabitable. This biblical passage is about 3000 years old. The story of Anitta doing something similar to Hattusa is from 3700 years ago. Yeah, we’ve been doing this a long time. The modern equivalent of that is mines, things that go boom when pressure is put on them, such as stepping on or driving a tank over. “There are an estimated 80 million landmines from past wars still buried in battlefields around the world.” And there are hundreds of thousands now on either side of the front lines. And since a lot of the battlefield was fields and soon will be again farmers will have to deal with mines.

Why are some areas along the front line so incredibly stable? Mines. Why are most advances by either Ukraine or Russia so slow even when it seems like they have an opportunity to break into the enemy backfield and run for the end zone? Mines. Why are some villages not just “in dispute” but essentially unoccupied after they were fought over for weeks? Mines. They don’t get much talked about. They’re not at all “sexy” when compared to tanks, or drones, or missiles, or long range artillery. But mines are doing a lot to shape the battlefield in Ukraine. Because they are almost always there, and anyone who forgets this for too long, will get a reminder. Russia is salting the earth in Ukraine, and getting that land back is one helluva a dangerous job.

Removing mines from areas no longer under immediate threat will be full time employment for a large number of Ukrainians. Kos of Kos started with the military definition of culmination, the point at which a military force is no longer able to perform its operations, the time an attacking force can no longer continue its advance. Kos suspects Russia has reach that point. For example, in Donbas there has been no Russian advance in weeks and two months since the last significant victory. Kos reviewed each area of the war Kharkiv, Izyum, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson. In each one the story is Russia doing very little attacking and not advancing with Ukraine making gains in each region. This includes raising the Ukrainian flag over Visokopillya, which used to be a Russian stronghold and command center. Kos related the tale of Ozerne in the Luhansk region. Russia had spent a long time taking all the territory on one side of the Siversky Donetsk River. Ukraine sent a raiding party across the river and into Ozerne. They found the place empty. They visited the nearby villages of Brisivka and Yampil – also empty. The villages were unguarded. They took selfies and left. Kos cautions that we can’t quite call them liberated yet. If Ukraine can, they would have kept the incident quiet and launched a bigger operation. They still might. In the meantime this is a big propaganda win. David Neiwert of Kos discussed a report by Mackenzie Ryan of The Guardian. It says the Patriot Front, one of the far right gangs ready to do violence for their cause, is more like a pyramid scheme that is doing quite well at enriching its young leader at the expense of its recruits. Of course, its operations are quite authoritarian. Underlings must buy the propaganda literature, which has a premium price. Mid level leaders keep a lot of data on their underlings, such as eating habits and fitness. And – the scary part – they are required to participate in a certain number of “actions” – including public vandalism. But, hey, they get to own the libs. Aysha Qamar of Kos wrote about the flooding in Pakistan. It was a difficult article to write because she has Pakistani roots. Floods cover about a third of the country. The resulting lake is visible from space. In addition to the 1,100 dead (I’ve heard it is now over 1,300) and a half million in displacement camps, there are 4 million acres of destroyed crops, 800 thousand dead livestock, a million homes lost, and 2,200 miles of roads destroyed. Because of poor sanitation illness and malnutrition are rising. About 73,000 women will give birth in the next month and the women and their newborns are at risk. Damage is estimated to be $10 billion. It isn’t just the rain. Pakistan’s mountains have over 7,200 glaciers, more than any other country. This year the glacier melt season, stronger due to climate change, coincided with the early monsoons.

The most heartbreaking aspect of this situation is that while climate change impacts the entire world, Pakistan currently faces a crisis bigger than any other country despite having contributed very little to global carbon emissions.

Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Fair Vote discussing the recent election in Alaska, which Sarah Palin lost. A couple days ago I had written that since ranked choice voting was used in that election Republicans will try to say RCV was how the election was rigged, and voters consider it enough of a mystery that conspiracy theories can thrive. Fair Vote showed voters understand RCV just fine, they got ample instruction, they report it is simple, and nearly two thirds of them want to keep using it. Dworkin quoted Greg Sargent of the Washington Post who discussed Biden’s speech last week in which he called MAGA Republicans wanting to tear down Democracy. Republicans said Biden was angry, divisive, political, hateful, and depicted the Republican party as the enemy. What they are not saying, and they should be asked about, is that Biden was wrong. Dworkin also included a tweet by Jennifer Rubin:

Alas, the mainstream media cannot seem to process the notion that defense of democracy is not “partisan.” By adopting that frame (and rending garments over Biden’s defense of democracy), they implicitly make Biden’s point.

So many brave people become the targets of the lowest of the low

On Monday Kos of Daily Kos reported that it looks like the big Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Kherson region has begun. Ukraine has been talking about this since June. That talk was apparently not misdirection. Ukrainian forces are taking towns in villages in days that Russia struggled to take in weeks and months. Monday evening Kos posted an update. Is this really the start of the big counteroffensive or did Ukraine find a few holes in Russia’s line and exploit them? This is very much the fog of war. Even so there seems to be a shift from shelling strategic targets (supply depots and such) to shelling frontline positions. By Tuesday morning Mark Sumner of Kos reported that, yes, this looks like the big counteroffensive. It is forcing Russia to move troops from Donbas. It also means Russian plans for referendums to annex the territory they’ve been holding are less likely. These referendums are to show the citizens of the area want to be a part of Russia instead of Ukraine. And if they happen, they’ll definitely be rigged and phony. Belgorod is a Russian city only 25 miles from Ukraine. It has a military base important to supplying Russian forces in Ukraine. Of course, Ukraine artillery, with an aerial attack or two, has been blowing up things important to that base and doing so through the war. On Monday there was news that Ukraine was going to strike targets in Belgorod. This time the news prompted residents to swarm the train station for any way out. In a Wednesday post Kos wrote that the counteroffensive really is on. But as he and others guessed, the Ukraine army isn’t going straight to Kherson (where the liberation will be destructive). They seem to be heading to disrupt critical supply routes, including all the shells Russia would want to throw at Ukraine. That disruption is leaving a huge Russian contingent trapped with no way to get supplies. Since Ukraine started talking about this big counteroffensive Kos had written that Ukraine’s actions had all the markings of setting that trap. Others had come to the same conclusion and discussed it openly. I mentioned it as well. Kos wrote, “What's amazing is that Russia didn’t see the trap coming.” Allison Donahue of Michigan Advance reported that the proposal to put an amendment to state constitution to guarantee reproductive freedom went before the Board of State Canvassers. Last week the Bureau of Elections recommended the Canvassers certify because they have about 300K more petition signatures than needed. But the Canvassers didn’t certify – the vote was tied and along party lines. Republicans said many of the words on the proposal were spaced too close together so that a section looked like one run-on word. Republicans on the Board bought that reason. Democrats said the law does not allow that as a reason to not certify. So the issue will likely go to the state Supemes. Donahue also reported a second proposal with an amendment to the constitution also produced a deadlock along party lines in the Board of State Canvassers. This one guarantees voting rights to stop the Republican efforts to suppress the vote. Again the Bureau of Elections recommended certification – the campaign had turned in 200K more signatures than needed. I’m not sure of the reasons for the deadlock. Board vice-chair and Democrat Mary Ellen Gurewitz called the reasons “creative.” It will also go to the Supremes. They will have to act fast because the state part of the ballot must be set by September 9. April Siese of Kos reported on the huge floods happening in Pakistan. Over 1100 dead and 100,000 evacuated. The floods are happening because the monsoon season started a month early and the rain has been consistently heavy. Pakistan officials have been furious because their country has emitted a much lower level of greenhouse gases than China and the US, yet they are the ones hit with floods. Damage is estimated to be $10 billion. They demand help from the international community to update their infrastructure to be more resilient. Big polluters being required to pay for the damage and upgrades to smaller countries is likely to be the big topic of the COP27 climate conference to be held soon in Egypt. Sumner reported that flooding in Jackson, Mississippi has taken out the city’s water system. The water pressure has dropped and what water gets through isn’t safe to drink. The low pressure means not enough water to flush toilets or fight fires. Democratic Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba appealed to the state for help (he didn’t need to go far – Jackson is the capital). Republican Gov. Tate Reeves pushed the mayor aside and refused to say the system collapse is due to flooding, then seemed to not do much. So Lumumba appealed to federal officials, who are stepping in. Hopefully the water pressure will be back to normal in days, though the boil orders could be around for weeks. Sumner discussed how Jackson got into this mess. Starting in the 1980s the city experienced a great deal of white flight to the suburbs. Home values plummeted and tax revenues dropped. The city couldn’t afford to repair infrastructure. Attempts to raise property taxes to get enough money prompted more to flee. Attempts to raise income taxes prompted companies to flee. And the Republican majority state legislature isn’t about to make things easier for a black majority city, even if it is the city where they have to come to work. Sumner concluded:

Earlier this year, Reeves celebrated how Mississippi’s abortion legislation had been used as a pretext for overturning Roe v. Wade. Mississippi was, according to Reeves, “creating a culture of life.” As Laura Clawson wrote, Mississippi also has the highest firearm mortality rate, the highest homicide rate, the lowest life expectancy at birth, and the highest infant mortality of all 50 states. Reeves never did say that culture was in favor of life.

I didn’t look at Michigan COVID data while Brother was here last week. So it has been two weeks since I’ve had a look. I get the data here. The news is good – the peaks in new cases per day are trending down. Since a high at the start of August the peaks are 3195, 2940, 2658, 2396, and 2240. Alas, the peak is still above 2000 a day. In that same time the deaths per day has been 22 and below, pretty much where we have been since April. Joan McCarter of Kos reported that Republicans are telling their candidates to focus on defeating Democrats. But the nasty guy keeps stomping on those plans, intruding in the news with whatever his latest petty grievance is. So Democrats are able to run on threats to democracy. Kos reported that most midterms are a referendum on the president. That party usually loses seats because it is very difficult for a president to get much done in two years. But this year is different because the former guy won’t stay off the stage (see stomping above). Because of him Republican candidates are saying as little as possible about that former guy and abortion. Now that most primaries are behind us they are scrubbing their websites of mentions of either. Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois is one of two Republicans on the January 6 Committee (the other is Liz Cheney). As happened to Cheney he lost his primary in his attempt to return to Congress in January. But he won’t be quietly disappearing. He’s campaigning for others this fall. And if the Republican doesn’t declare he’s for democracy and voting rights Kinzinger will campaign for the Democrat. Leah McElrath tweeted:

I am being targeted by a Nazi with a history of homicide. He is wanted by police. He has targeted me by name with photos from my Twitter because of my support for transgender people. He says I’m a “child rapist.” This is where the rhetoric of @realchrisrufo and the GOP leads. I’m not going to tweet his identity or give him notoriety he seeks. But you need to understand how serious this moment is. It’s not just online. It’s not just political differences. This man is a murderer. He’s targeting me and others, and he’s inciting others to do so as well. ... The rhetoric developed by @realchrisrufo and used by the GOP and right-wing media constitutes stochastic terrorism.

Elad Nehorai tweeted support for McElrath:

Being a leftist activist on Twitter is fun because just about every week, you hear that one of your friends is being targeted by homicidal Nazis and has to go on private, take a break from the platform, go into hiding, and/or have a chat with the FBI. This has been especially true since the “groomer” moral panic. I’ve already written plenty about it, but either way it’s quite something to experience seeing so many brave and special people become the targets of the lowest of the low. Then have people tell us it isn’t happening.