And I think it’s a good thing for them to realize that they’re not going to instantly win a civil war if they try to launch one just because they have control of federal security forces. There’s an element of deterrence to strategic nonviolence.

It’s silly for them to think the only way to develop insurgency tactics is to have studied insurgent movements, but also Minnesota is doing a damn good and coordinated job of this. I don’t think we should be dismissive of the level of organization and tactics here.

types of replies to this post:
1. Lmao it’s so funny that they think these normal people are an insurgency. They’re just people who know how to organize potlucks
Or
2. Of course insurgency tactics will evolve when you have a community that is living under oppressive occupation!

110% agree. The “empathy is a sin” doctrine is dangerous and dare i say heretical and too many people have been taking a live and let live attitude to it even while it lays waste to our society

Thanks!

Do you have any reading recommendations on this?

signs left at alex pretti’s memorial in minneapolis: “i love you so much / i’ll miss you forever” photo with a friend, “i would have done the same. RIP alex,” a stethoscope and “we’ll take it from here, alex” and a tshirt for the minnesota nurses association

This is a very good sign

Yeah I agree. I think in their desperate last gasps some of them would try to do maximum damage tho. I am still desperately hoping for a muscular but nonviolent transfer of power

But then what happens after is definitely not victory. It might be, at best, a swift removal of Trump and his loyalists and at worst a protracted civil war.

Most people in the military probably would have a red line against massacring US civilians but he could definitely get some psycho to operate heinous killing machines if nobody stops him

Any republican governor who isn’t just using the position as a stepping stone to a senate or presidential campaign should see that the federal government will take away their power as well, and they will respond accordingly if they’re quick on the uptake

This shit needs to be condemned as heretical and very loudly in every christian denomination that has any sort of structure and ability to discipline their clergy. This just cannot be squared with “love thy neighbor as thyself”.

That somebody who probably helped many people to feel comfortable and cared for as they passed away from this life had such a cruel and violent end to his life is just heartbreaking.

I wept yesterday remembering the kindness of the ICU nurses who took care of my mom before she died and thinking about just how many people’s lives were probably touched in that way by Alex Petti and who are now heartsick.

The island of Vieques in Puerto Rico went without a hospital for eight years after Hurricane Maria and the US took their sweet time approving any funding for it. People died in the meantime. news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/fail...

This makes me feel like I’m watching PBS (laudatory)

i feel for all the radical centrists out there now confronting the fact that their ideology was the one built in a bubble and formed by groupthink. with enough exposure to facts and logic they will, some day god willing, catch up to the left

ICE killing #AlexPretti should remind you of police killing #PhilandoCastille. Both men had concealed weapon permits, did not draw their guns, & were killed in Minn. These homicides are the price of unaccountable policing. These deaths are variations on the same fatal theme.

If you read this, thanks. It helped me sort out my feelings to write this out.

I guess it doesn’t surprise me that he was brave in that violent situation. It takes a lot of bravery to face death and loss and that difficult combination of knowing that your actions are necessary and impactful but also that the outcome is ultimately out of your control despite your best efforts.

They don’t need hope or a plausible likelihood that the patient will survive to show that quality of care. They do it because it’s the work and it’s the right thing to do, always. With the ICU being the end of the road for so many it’s a brave thing for them to face day after day.

It’s really a sacred thing that ICU nurses do. Without regard to predicted outcomes and whether someone will live or die they show care and gentleness and respect for the dignity of the patient. My mom’s nurses did medical procedures but also brushed her hair, applied lotion, encouraged us to sleep

i’m a mess right now as all the tributes to Alex Pretti bring back the experience of being w my mom in the ICU in a state of the most terrifying dependence, always on the edge between death and life.

the children are protesting from inside the camps. i hope they know that we hear them.

Alex Pretti "used to tell people off when they made sexist comments to female physicians. He bought me coffee when I had a really bad day as an intern...I laughed alongside him daily. He made a point to teach medical residents without judgement, but with a smile on his face and a joke."

The largest socialist organization in the US (which, notably, does have a council-level presence in the Twin Cities) really ought to return to the kinds of discussions it was earnestly having during Trump's 1st term: constitutional overhaul. How can we be the parliamentary agitators for new law?

This is actually obscene

As most people do.

And most of us have relatively recent ancestors who immigrated, sometimes in contexts of similarly overwrought moral panics about immigration and assimilation that of course turned out to be bunk as generation after generation simply became normal-ass americans who mostly do normal and nice things.