Confirmation they should be scared of their own workers

Last October, it looked as if the San Francisco Bay Area was to be next target of Donald Trump's Rambo/ICE thugs.

And then we weren't. And the thugs were redirected to such unfortunate locations as Memphis and eventually Minnesota's Twin Cities.

Why did Trump/Miller/Noem back off then? San Francisco's mayor, Daniel Lurie, whose promise is to eradicate any vestiges of the historically weird and anti-corporate character of the City by the Bay, claimed to have talked Trump out of it. It may have helped that the federal forces had located on an isolated Coast Guard island where they might have been expected to shoot their way out when protesters inevitably blocked their way.

But I've always suspected that the tech barons who support both Lurie and Trump were the deciders. They don't mind beating up on poor Central American and East Asian migrants, but they didn't want their work force seeing the carnage. And some of their companies depend on immigrants. Lots of tech jobs have moved on from the Bay, partially because the pandemic encouraged remote work, but there are still legions of ambitious, not-yet billionaire techies who locate here for the promise of natural beauty, each other, and hope for start-up riches. 

And if the Bay were a fascist target, these might be confronted by the ugly violence of the state for themselves. They are part of labor; their work still matters to their bosses -- hence our (momentary?) reprieve. 

WIRED has confirmed stirrings among the lower and mid-level tech workers and the response of their oligarch employers. Notably, the rustlings of dissent are within the company what seems to be the fascist Dark Star -- Peter Thiel's Palantir.

After federal agents shot and killed Minneapolis nurse Alex Pretti on Saturday, Palantir workers pressed for answers from leadership on the company’s work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—and many questioned whether Palantir should be involved with the agency at all. Leadership defended its work as in part improving “ICE’s operational effectiveness.” 

Internal Slack messages reviewed by WIRED reveal growing frustration within Palantir over its relationship with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and in particular, ICE’s enforcement and investigations teams. In response, Palantir’s privacy and civil liberties team published an update to the company’s internal wiki detailing its work on federal immigration enforcement, arguing that the “technology is making a difference in mitigating risks while enabling targeted outcomes.” 

In a Saturday thread on Slack discussing Pretti’s killing, Palantir workers questioned both the ethics and the business logic of continuing the company’s work with ICE. 

“Our involvement with ice has been internally swept under the rug under Trump2 too much. We need an understanding of our involvement here,” one person wrote. 

“Can Palantir put any pressure on ICE at all?” wrote another. “I’ve read stories of folks rounded up who were seeking asylum with no order to leave the country, no criminal record, and consistently check in with authorities. Literally no reason to be rounded up. Surely we aren’t helping do that?” 

The discussion was held in a company-wide Slack channel dedicated to general world news coverage. ... 

... [A corporate] wiki acknowledges “increasing reporting around U.S. Citizens being swept up in enforcement action and held, as well as reports of racial profiling allegedly applied as pretense for the detention of some U.S. Citizens,” but argues that Palantir’s customers at ICE “remain committed to avoiding the unlawful/unnecessary targeting, apprehension, and detention of U.S. Citizens wherever and however possible.”

Yeah -- and where's the evidence for that? Dead civilians?

Here too, among tech workers, is where resistance will rise and must be welcomed by those of us with a more skeptical response to their world. Working techies are people too and they don't like ugly.

We're in this together, trying to save the aspirations of the country from the monsters currently in power.

Even the statues cry out

We can thank COVID for something: during the pandemic, San Franciscans enjoyed the eastern mile and a half of JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park closed to cars so as to encourage recreation in fresh air. And we loved it; the wide street became a playground for cyclists, skaters, runners and walkers. In November 2022, over the objections of museums in the area, the voters gave 63 percent support to keeping this section of JFK car-free. And so it remains.

And then Recreation and Parks made JFK Drive a venue for public art. There are dragons and sea monsters and also pianos and pingpong tables.

And among this art stand two human-size bronze critters, a female rabbit and a male hound, dressed in human business attire, going about their bourgeois lives, driving to work and cooking a meal. 

Someone has dressed them for this moment:

Even the statues cry out for justice ... 

We have something MAGA lacks

Ben Lorber is a writer and researcher at Political Research Associates, a long time observer of hate movements in this USofA. To do his work, he reads online right wing and MAGA chat groups. The resistance and resilience of people in the Twin Cities is giving these keyboard fascists fits. From Facebook:

Yesterday a far-right journalist tweeted out screenshots from a public, unvetted ICE Watch Signal group in Minneapolis. It’s gone viral on the online Right. While thousands took the streets, reactionary keyboard warriors stared wide-eyed and aghast at images from chats showing neighbors organizing street-level mutual aid networks and ICE monitoring shifts.

Over and over I see the same refrain - ‘the Right is nowhere near as organized as this.’ They insist folks are getting paid by China or that it’s all coordinated by the deep state. They’re clearly unable to comprehend, or unwilling to admit the organic strength of grassroots movement-building.

The Right is prone, of course, to strategically amplifying the imagined threat of conspiratorial, all-powerful enemies lurking around every corner. Stuff like this is catnip for a movement eager to catch a forbidden glimpse into the hidden heart of Leftist power, whether it’s from Q Drops, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or in this case a public, easily accessible Signal group.

But here they’re glimpsing something real, and it scares them. They can’t help but admit that their side could never pull this off. It reminds them that they don’t really have people power— the kind that makes neighbors show up for each other in the cold, again and again, over the long haul. And they never will, because their project is genuinely unpopular, and that makes it precarious and fragile.

So they cling as tight as they can to the levers of state and institutional power, and the massive funding streams that they do hold. But they can’t dream of the level of grassroots mobilization on display from just one public Signal chat in one city. It terrifies them- and it should.

It’s also hard to miss the note of envy. It reminds me that there’s always been a not-so-subtle thread of envy running through the history of conservatism. Whether it’s the French Revolution, 1917, the 1960s New Left or Minneapolis today, the Right is often jealous that the forces of human emancipation are more numerous and better organized than they are, and having more fun, with a more compelling vision of the future than they can ever dream of. 

... let us strive on to finish the work we are in ... A. Lincoln

Another murder in Minneapolis -- say a prayer and speak the truth

We gathered at the Embarcadero in San Francisco, memorializing Alex Pretti's murder in Minneapolis -- and finding comradeship with each other. The crowd was large, not so much militant as determined.

There was anger -- yes!

Apparently a good nurse, from the accounts of Pretti's life that are coming out. There were many in the San Francisco crowd who looked to be nurses themselves.

This crowd was determined ...

• • •

The Rev. Angela Denker pastors at an Evangelical Lutheran Church not far from the murder site in Minneapolis. She writes:

I write to you so sad - I feel like I cry every few hours - and also so, so mad. At the many who prepared the way for this gratuitous violence and hatred. At the Christians, Christian leaders, and politicians who stubbornly dig in their heels, who refuse to repent, who insist upon more and more bloodshed, sacrifices poured out to the gods of violence, war, and money.

Pray for Minneapolis, for Minnesota. For Alex’s loved ones. For the eyewitnesses. For the press who were teargassed and pepper sprayed. For the children who see it all and wonder, how they can ever possibly become adults in a world like this. For America. For our churches, embattled and exhausted. For neighborhood leaders who again host vigils and light candles. For brave observers. For the VA Hospital, where I served my chaplaincy internship, and where Alex worked in the ICU. For the woman whom Alex tried to help, who was being assaulted by ICE agents, who then turned their attention to Alex. For the ecosystem of lies and those who profit from them. For justice. For truth. For courage. For love.

Amen. 

Amen indeed on this third Sunday in the Christian season of Epiphany -- the season when we repeat stories of the Living God calling forth improbable followers from among the workers of his time and place to witness the Love he spoke.  

• • •

For a more secular reflection, here's the often lucid Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark:

What Can We Do?

For starters, be grateful to the people of Minneapolis. Bearing witness today in America requires physical courage. Every single person who steps out their front door in Minneapolis to observe, document, and protest the actions of our government is taking their lives in their hands.

These men and women are the kind of patriots you would have seen at Lexington and Concord. I am in awe of their valor. They started this resistance to protect their neighbors, but what is happening in Minneapolis now is bigger than that. They are standing against the might of the Trump regime not just for themselves, but for all of us.

 Second, don’t look away. Don’t forget what is happening. Don’t give in to despair or exhaustion.

Third, do not tolerate false equivalence from responsible quarters. Anyone in public life who cannot call things by their right names here should be shamed, swept aside, and ultimately ignored.

Fourth, understand that this moment requires new structures and new thinking. The resistance in Minneapolis is unlike anything we’ve seen in recent American history. The political opposition must think anew as well. And any part of the political opposition that continues to act as though these are still ordinary times should be swept aside, too. ...

Fifth, as we identify ways to give material support to the Minneapolis resistance, be ready to offer whatever you can.

... They want us confused. They want us too exhausted to fight back. You don’t have to go into the streets of Minnesota to fight back. You can simply state plainly that our government is lying to us. Say it somewhere. Online. To a friend or family member. But do not let their lies go unanswered by truth.

Solidarity amid horror

 

Yesterday evening northern Californians marched in downtown San Francisco in support of the besieged people of Minnesota. We're fortunate -- it was more hot than cold!

We know which side we are on.

This was a union crowd with participants from SEIU, organized teachers and nurses, even retirees.

And some who are just forming their union.

 

These folks know which side they are on and it ain't ICE.

 

It was also a civic activist crowd. I saw lots of old friends from Bay Resistance, Indivisible, Swing Left and more. 

 

Like the people of Minnesota, we won't give up our immigrant friends without an organized struggle. 

Friday cat blogging

I won't be the only one who misses the football season when it is finally over. Mio finds the little men below his perch intriguing.

Maybe he can swat them? Apparently not.

Actually, I won't miss football this year. Every team I was interested in was eliminated over the last weekend. The season is so long it breaks the best of them. Will I even watch the finale?

A fascist with a brain bleed

Aaron Rupar is an independent journalist, the pillar of the news site Public Notice. He also happens to live in Minneapolis. 

He writes that yesterday he had other plans for his newsletter, but, as so often is the case, our blubbering bully of a pseudo-president managed to command his attention for his antics. This brief commentary is worth reading in full but here are some summarizing tidbits. 

American embarrassment. Global pariah.

... Donald Trump sounded like a fascist dictator suffering from a brain bleed during his speech yesterday at Davos. It was a national embarrassment even by the lowly standards of modern American politics.

... Put it all together and what we have here is of an out of control wannabe autocrat who’s cognitively impaired, openly racist, and more eager than ever to use force against his perceived foes both at home and abroad. It’s complete madness that this guy has the nuke codes and yet, with the exception of people like [Canadian prime minister] Mark Carney, too few leaders are willing to grapple with it.

... At campaign rallies throughout his political career, Trump has regularly read “The Snake,” a poem about people being taken advantage of because of their credulity.

“‘Oh shut up, silly woman,’ said the reptile with a grin, ‘You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in,” it goes.

America knew — or should have known — that Trump was a snake before voters committed the world historical blunder of letting him into the White House for a second time. But that’s water under the bridge. Now we have to hope we’re able to survive the venom and endure the unending global humiliation.

... That Trump backed down hours after his Davos speech is a promising sign that financial markets and diplomatic pressure (not to mention the grassroots organizing that’s taking place in the occupied Twin Cities) can still provide something of a check on his desire to carve up the world between strongmen like himself, Putin, and President Xi. But make no mistake — one year in, he and his regime are getting worse.

That’s evident in the streets of Minneapolis, the oil fields of Venezuela, and yesterday on that stage in Davos, which will go down as the site of one of if not the most pathetic presidential speech in history — so far. 

• • •

A friend in the Twin Cities writes from within the occupation:

It’s really impossible to explain to people outside the Cities how dense and aggressive the ICE presence is, in comparison to the metro population. The scale of the violence.

There’s no denying that the cruelty is the point, and that how you feel about what’s happening depends utterly on how you respond to bullying and intimidation. The reason it’s not working here is because Minnesotans really REALLY fucking hate bullies. There is a cultural unity around that, and it may lay dormant most of the time but it sure as hell has been activated now.

We are resisting and obstructing, but it’s awful and scary and heartbreaking and infuriating, and they are targeting our most vulnerable people on purpose. Please make sure that everyone you know knows that.

I should add that I suspect the people of Maine are made of just as tough stuff as the Minnesotans. 

Here's what I know about how the rest of us can help occupied Minnesotans, though there are certainly many other ways. On mutual aid for the people of Minnesota 

There's no point in denying reality. And much harm.

With Donald Trump blustering about at Davos today, my thoughts return to the real international substance of our moment as described by Phillips P. O'Brien, historian and professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. The United States has changed sides in the long struggle for decency and democracy against exploitation and tyranny. We may not have been the pillar of righteousness we liked to think ourselves, but we were once not the declared enemies of humane flourishing for the peoples either.

Says O'Brien:  

The importance of the US changing sides stretches far beyond the Russo-Ukraine War. It is a challenge to the survival of liberal democracy and the rule of law itself around the world. It has left other democratic states leaderless and divided. It has emboldened Russia and China and it has made working with them far more attractive a prospect for others. It has upended the world order more than anything else since 1945, with the possible exception of the collapse of the USSR.

Of course not all is lost. Democratic forces have a chance to fight back. As I wrote in this Foreign Affairs piece published in September, the remaining democratic forces that do not want to go down the dark road that the US is now on, can act now to preserve themselves. They still have important reservoirs of strengths. However, before they can use this strength, they must acknowledge the reality of the new world. 

The US has changed sides, is not their friend and in many ways is out to subvert their futures as the US becomes an ally of authoritarians and dictators.

Acknowledging the reality of the new world is the only way to fight it. For this reason there really is only one story that defines 2025. The USA has changed sides. How the rest of the world reacts to that will define the future.  

Let the Europeans do better than we do. Greenland from the Greenlanders!

Marching on the MLK holiday

 

I found it notable that among the several thousand marchers in downtown San Francisco were so many children. Standing up of justice, for freedom, for the possibility of diverse community is too often a dangerous activity in Trump's dystopian America. But not this day. Today families could be together. Today parents could safely share with their children the values they hold.

 

Many marchers arrived from the Peninsula at the Caltrain station and made their way from up 3rd Street.

One of the larger labor contingents consisted of workers from the airport.

Young men finding their way in a tough world marched proudly.

  

This young woman was part of a Glide Church contingent. There were quite a few church groups and visible clergy. The short trek ended in Yerba Buena Gardens with music and festivities. I followed my usual course, attending either the march or the rally -- but not both, so this account stops here.

King's freedom struggle goes on

  

Some years ago, when I was walking all the streets of San Francisco, I encountered this window full of small nods to the life and teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Click to enlarge.) Some are familiar: at far left, a small photo of the pastor and leader exhorting attendees at the 1963 March on Washington; in the center, a head shot of King labeled "Dream." 

But others, all words from Dr. King harder to make out, are less familiar and more challenging: 

• Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.
• Life's most persistent and urgent question is "What are you doing for others?"
• The time is always right to do what is right.
• A riot is the language of the unheard. 

Dr. King was not a comforting prophet. Few prophets are.

Dr. King, his words but even more the freedom movement of which he was the public face, was a presence in my late childhood and early adulthood. I realized this year how few of us still remember Dr. King as a living figure in the landscape of our lives rather than an icon of some vague, possibly better, historical America. 

That time didn't seem so good as lived; after all, its leader was murdered as a consequence of his struggle for justice. As were a lot of other people killed working for a different America.

Looking back, King is enveloped in a warm haze. That's bullshit. To the powers that were, he was a dangerous rebellious terrorist. 

Yesterday, in honor of the MLK holiday, my little parish sang the freedom lyric "We shall overcome ..." Do we believe that? It was probably even harder to believe in that in King's day than it is today. 

As singers did in the heyday of that song, we adapted the lyrics to our own moment:

"We shall melt the ICE someday ... "

In honor of Dr. King, let's get to work. 

Not to be missed

This is what Donald Trump will find he's up against if he insists on invading Greenland. The land of rock and ice has its defenders. In addition to Denmark and NATO.

Thanks to Paul Krugman from whom I grabbed this.

On mutual aid for the people of Minnesota

If you, like me, cannot look away from accounts and videos of Donald Trump's assault on the people of Minneapolis/St Paul and beyond, there are several actions you can do:

1. You can let your federal officials -- senators and congresscritters, especially if you have Republican ones -- know that the behavior of the federal government, your government, is unacceptable and should end NOW. Yeah -- calling Congress is a drag, but many live in a Fox News media bubble and need to be jarred by their constituents.
2. If you have friends in Minnesota who have put out appeals for help for people and institutions they know, send money if you can. This is not a time for someone to be starting a full fledged non-profit. Under invasion, mutual aid between humans is the name of the game. 
3. If you don't have more personal connections, people I trust say Stand with Minnesota is the real thing. They offer options to get help directly to threatened immigrants and also to the lawyers who have to fight the good fight in the courts.

When the structures of a complex society break down, we are forced to recall that we are dependent on each other. 

Donald and the MAGAts want to return us to a 19th century society when government was solely a force of occasional repression and people were on their own to try to navigate a harsh and chaotic world. They think their imagined big white men will be fine and all the other scum will live under the thumb of the big men.

Such a world actually generated Mutual Aid as a deeply theorized response to the cruelty of the emerging capitalist society. DJT and Stephen Miller are trying to take us back to such a society. Are we going to let 'em?