The Weekly Sift

If the regime can repeatedly murder people in the streets with no consequences, there’s no turning back.
Fortunately, more and more people are beginning to realize that.

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When I started the Weekly Sift nearly 20 years ago, my intention was to take a step back from the news each week, so that I could try to think about it clearly and encourage others to do the same. Lately that’s been difficult, because every day or two presents some new outrage to react to. After the murder of Rene Good, the arrest and detention of 5-year-old Liam Ramos, homes routinely being invaded without judicial warrants, and countless images of peaceful protesters being pepper sprayed, tear gassed, dragged from their cars and beaten, Saturday brought the killing of Alex Pretti.

Because protesters now know that the best weapon against ICE’s violent attacks is a camera, we have video of the killing from multiple angles. None of them support the claims DHS is making to justify the Border Patrol agents’ actions.

They show a man named Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse who is filming ICE activity in Minneapolis, intervening when federal agents assault a woman. In response, the agents grab Pretti, force him to the ground, beat him, and ultimately shoot the defenseless man repeatedly. Pretti was pronounced dead on the scene.

Pretti was licensed to carry a gun, and may have been carrying one legally at the time. But he was holding a camera, not a gun, and none of the videos show him with a gun in his hand. Eye witnesses echo that account.

“I did not see him attack the agents or brandish a weapon of any kind,” the physician said, under penalty of perjury.

“The man did not approach the agents with a gun,” the woman testified. “He approached them with a camera.”

It’s hard to respond rationally to a gang of government thugs that now has murdered two people in the street about two weeks apart. Or to the government that not only allows them to commit these crimes with complete impunity, but which manufactures lies to justify them.

Nonetheless, here we are. Responding with violence, an eye for an eye, only plays into the regime’s hands. The American people and their elected representatives need to respond with resolve and determination, but not with violence. [1]

Fortunately, many people seem to be doing just that. This week has also seen a number of hopeful signs. In saying that, I know how naive I sound. People of good will have been looking for hopeful signs for 11 years now. [2] Again and again, we have heard events described as turning points, as moments when Trump had finally gone too far and would be swept away by public revulsion. Again and again, the moment passed. Maybe it will pass again.

If there is a difference this time, it’s that the consequences of rolling over and doing nothing are more obvious than they’ve ever been. If Trump’s goon squads can murder people in the streets, tell lies obviously contradicted by the video evidence, and then paint their victims as “domestic terrorists” or “assassins” who deserve what they got — then quite likely we have passed a tipping point. There may be no going back without violent revolution and civil war.

If you’re keeping track on the timeline of Nazi Germany, I would place us roughly at the Night of the Long Knives, in July of 1934. There are obvious differences. But before that night, Nazi violence could be easily explained away as unfortunate clashes between Hitler’s storm troopers and rival Communist gangs, with occasional collateral damage. But the killings that night were obviously murders. Going forward, everyone knew Hitler could murder, and Hitler knew he could murder and get away with it.

We’re not the only ones watching to see what happens in this moment. Trump is watching too.

Here are the signs I’m paying attention to. You could respond to any single one of them by saying: “We’ve seen this before and it came to nothing.” But this time they are all happening at once. [3]

The lockstep support Trump’s worst outrages have been receiving from Republicans in Congress is starting to crack. No elected Republican I’m aware of is openly denouncing what the regime is doing in Minnesota, calling ICE’s murders by their proper name, or pointing out that the violence in Minneapolis is almost entirely instigated by ICE rather than the protesters. But a number are publicly saying that there is something to explain here. They are calling for a real investigation rather than a cover-up, and seem open to the possibility that the answers will not be pleasant.

Some are challenging the wisdom of the regime’s immigration strategy. Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt observed that “Nobody likes the feds coming to their states.” Kentucky Rep. James Comer suggested that it’s unwise to launch an immigration crack-down without the state and local governments’ support. He believes that cities will be so much better after undocumented immigrants have been expelled that the voters in places like Minneapolis will be envious. (Try it and see, I say. I think it’s Comer who will be surprised.)

None of this is rebellion. But it’s also not reflexive repetition of regime propaganda. That’s a change.

The mainstream media has begun reporting the truth with much less hedging. The Washington Post editorial board begins its call for congressional action to rein Trump in with “The unjust killing of Alex Pretti …”. The injustice of the killing is treated as a fact we can all see, not a contention made by “Democrats” or “critics” or “activists”. The New York Times analyzed the regime’s response like this:

Even as videos emerged that contradicted the government’s account, the Trump administration was in a race to control the narrative around the killing of Mr. Pretti, a registered nurse with no criminal record who was pinned down when immigration agents opened fire and killed him. The rush to blame Mr. Pretti and exonerate the immigration agents — even while officials were still gathering the facts — deviates entirely from the way law enforcement investigations are normally carried out.

Videos taken by eye-witnesses don’t “appear” to contradict the government’s account, they do contradict it. The contradiction is not something Democrats “contend” or critics “charge”. The NYT is testifying in its own voice rather than striking a listen-to-both-sides pose. This is a change. They seem to be taking seriously the point made on social media by Katie Mack:

A reminder to the news media: “conflicting accounts” is what you say BEFORE the incontrovertible video evidence appears. After that, your job is to ask why one side is lying, not to repeat the lie and pretend no one knows the truth.

On the other side, Fox News is doubling down, headlining “The far-left network that helped put Alex Pretti in harm’s way, then made him a martyr”. Fox’s crack investigative reporters have discovered that the resistance in Minneapolis is organized, uses messaging apps to communicate, and keeps a database of ICE sightings — all things that resistance organizers will proudly tell you themselves. But Fox sees something sinister in this. Meanwhile, The Atlantic covers the same set of facts with an air of admiration rather than fear. No one is trying to hide how organized the resistance is. Training for ICE observers is widely advertised.

No doubt you will hear similar rhetoric from your MAGA contacts, and maybe you will be frustrated that nothing seems to break through their silo of Trump-think. But this kind of propaganda plays differently when the mainstream media is telling a clear opposing story rather than hemming and hawing, as it so often has before.

Democrats in the Senate look ready to take a stand. Counting on Chuck Schumer has been a risky strategy in the past, but he’s saying the right things now. In particular, he’s balking at passing funding for DHS without additional riders that control ICE’s abuses.

Senate Democrats will not allow the current DHS funding bill to move forward. … People should be safe from abuse by their own government. Senate Republicans must work with Democrats to advance the other five funding bills while we work to rewrite the DHS bill. This is the best course of action, and the American people are on our side.

It remains to be seen how principled and effective Senate Democrats can be, and whether the restrictions they put on ICE will be meaningful. At a minimum they can make Republicans defend ICE masking its agents, asking US citizens for their papers, breaking into homes without judicial warrants, and avoiding investigations when they kill someone. If a partial government shutdown results, I think Schumer is right that the American people will stand with Democrats as they try to bring a rogue agency under lawful control.

I think the House passing DHS funding last week was an incredibly negative moment for the Democratic Party. If all Democrats had voted with the handful of Republicans in opposition, the bill would not have passed. Results like these are demoralizing: What’s the point of voting for Democrats if they won’t take a stand when they have the chance?

Those Democrats who support DHS funding to avoid seeming like they are against “law enforcement” are boosting the regime’s propaganda. The whole point of blocking DHS funding is that ICE is not enforcing laws, it’s breaking laws.

The religious left has grabbed the momentum away from the religious right. I have a somewhat biased point of view here: The senior minister of my church (First Parish Unitarian Universalist in Bedford, Massachusetts) answered an interfaith call for clergy to come to Minneapolis for Friday’s protests and general strike. By Sunday, he was back to report on his experiences.

The Religion News Service reports that hundreds of ministers answered the call. Many of them participated in the organized activities that Fox News found so suspicious: ride-alongs with ICE observers, blowing whistles to tell the community about an ICE presence, packing food to deliver to non-White families that are afraid to leave their homes (independent of their legal status, since ICE doesn’t seem to care). Here’s one experience:

ICE agents surrounded one of the women from the minivan and instructed the pastors to get back. [Rev. Dan] Brockway [an American Baptist minister from upstate New York] standing behind the other faith leaders, began livestreaming the encounter to his church’s Facebook page.

Ultimately, the encounter was brief: The woman, who the pastors said appeared to be pregnant, had citizenship papers with her. She showed them to the officers — something activists have argued doesn’t always dissuade federal immigration agents, who have detained U.S. citizens on multiple occasions. But in less than two minutes, the agents left the scene.

The woman, the pastors said, was shaken. It was impossible to tell whether the presence of clergy had staved off a potential detention, but the pastors said the woman thanked them profusely before leaving.

The faith leaders — none of whom had previously encountered ICE — said they, too, were left unsettled.

“I’m becoming radicalized,” [Rev. James] Galasinski [a UU minister also from New York] said, his voice rising. “I’m seeing our nation become more and more fascist before my eyes — I saw it. I saw it. I mean, demanding papers? I never thought I would live in a country like this.”

When those ministers go home, their congregations will be radicalizing also.

The religious left is also turning up the heat in other ways, most notably by repeating the teachings of Jesus, which MAGA Christianity has completely turned its back on.

The resistance in Minneapolis is inspiring. This may in fact be the most encouraging development of all. It’s one thing to turn out large crowds of people for one-day demonstrations like No Kings. That’s happened before, all the way back to the Women’s March in 2017.

But what’s happening in Minneapolis is on another level entirely: It’s not just the mass rallies, impressive as they are. Ordinary people are getting together with their neighbors to plan activities and carry them out. They’re watching the streets for ICE raids, taking videos of arrests, watching schools so that non-White children don’t vanish without a trace, delivering food and medicine to families afraid to leave their homes, and in general looking after their at-risk neighbors.

The Atlantic reports:

But behind the violence in Minneapolis—captured in so many chilling photographs in recent weeks—is a different reality: a meticulous urban choreography of civic protest. You could see traces of it in the identical whistles the protesters used, in their chants, in their tactics, in the way they followed ICE agents but never actually blocked them from detaining people. Thousands of Minnesotans have been trained over the past year as legal observers and have taken part in lengthy role-playing exercises where they rehearse scenes exactly like the one I witnessed. They patrol neighborhoods day and night on foot and stay connected on encrypted apps such as Signal, in networks that were first formed after the 2020 killing of George Floyd.

Again and again, I heard people say they were not protesters but protectors—of their communities, of their values, of the Constitution. Vice President Vance has decried the protests as “engineered chaos” produced by far-left activists working in tandem with local authorities. But the reality on the ground is both stranger and more interesting.

Fox News reporters see a vast and threatening “Antifa” conspiracy here, while the Murdoch-owned New York Post looks for funding networks they can trace back to George Soros or some other Elder of Zion.

But the tactics and practices of ICE resistance have been developing all year, from Los Angeles to Portland to Chicago. Protesters are getting trained in the same way that Martin Luther King’s and Mahatma Gandhi’s movements trained people in non-violence. The discipline and forbearance they have shown in the face of outrageous provocation is remarkable.

What’s happening here is that ordinary American people are defending their neighborhoods and defending their neighbors. They are coming together in cells of folks who are learning to trust one another and work together.

The regime wants Americans to feel isolated and fearful, to sit in their social media silos and beg for Big Brother’s protection from Antifa or Venezuelan gangsters or whatever other bogeyman they are projecting this week. But the resistance movement is teaching people to trust one another and rely on one another. It is teaching people to love their neighbors and defend “the least of these” against bullying from those in power.

That’s been a radicalizing message for thousands of years, and it’s getting out again.

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[1] Though, as A. R. Moxon points out: If non-violence repeatedly fails, eventually violence comes. The discipline the people of Minneapolis have shown during this armed occupation is awe-inspiring. But no one’s patience is infinite.

[2] In 2015, Trump dismissed John McCain’s status as a war hero. “He’s not a war hero,” said Trump. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” Surely, we were told, that insult to our veterans was too much for voters to tolerate.

[3] The public response to January 6 was similar, with one difference: The focus then was whether Trump would leave office, and he did. After Biden’s inauguration, Trump seemed to be finished. Many wondered why they should beat a dead horse. Today, the horse is very much alive and threatens us all.

[4] The Renee Good shooting looks worse and worse the more we find out about it. An autopsy paid for by the family showed that Good suffered three wounds, only one of which was fatal. The fatal shot “struck her on the left side of her head near her temple then exited on the right side of her head”, suggesting that it came from the side.

Quite likely that’s Jonathan Ross’ third shot, the one through the driver’s open window. According to the NYT analysis of multiple video angles, that shot came after Good’s SUV had clearly missed Ross and was pulling away. In other words, he had absolutely no self-defense reason to take that shot. It was murder.

Now, my last two paragraphs are speculative, and responsible people should wait for a full forensic investigation before drawing that conclusion. But we seem unlikely to get that investigation anytime soon, because Trump’s corrupt FBI has concluded that there is nothing to investigate, and is blocking state and local police from examining the evidence.