Many have been touting a shift, a change, in popular sentiment, political response and even Chaos administration verbiage seemingly signaling a retreat, and have attributed this correctly to the stubborn and relentless bravery of Minneapolis residents (Rachel Maddow was among the most eloquent), in the wake of what is now regularly and openly being called the Alex Pretti murder by federal thugs. Spontaneous or quickly planned protests brought thousands into the streets across the US over the weekend, even in places where a furious winter storm and frigid temperatures were descending on 80% of the nation's population this week.
But national and local reporters note that as of Tuesday night, Minneapolis was not celebrating, but remaining vigilant. And there were over 300 sightings of ICE/Border Patrol actions there during the day, and another mother and her toddler caught up in violent attack. It's not over.
There seems to be more resistance to the lies and cruelty and cowardice, in the country and reflected in words by politicians, if not yet in actions. But we've seen these tactical pauses before in the inner sanctums of Chaos, lulling the perennially gullible and the legitimately exhausted. We are still, in the words of Senator Raphael Warnock, "witnessing the spiraling spiritual death of a nation, and it's the people who have to stand up and redeem the soul of our country."
Apart from the Chaos administration slightly shuffling the deck of their fascist overseers, there was one notable action taken. One of the top three Republican candidates for governor of Minnesota, Chris Madel, dropped out of the race because of the "unmitigated disaster" of the Chaos occupation. Not only did he conclude that no Republican could win a statewide office because of it, he expressed his moral qualms at rampant racial profiling and the climate of fear instilled by federal thugs.
He did more that drop out of the race. He seemed to signal that he's left the Republican party. "I cannot support the national Republicans' stated retribution on the citizens of our state. Nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so."
Meanwhile, news has begun to spread of something that happened a few days ago in the federal detention center in Dilley, Texas, where parents and their children caught in the Minnesota federal kidnappings are imprisoned. They include Liam Conejo-Ramos, the five year old boy with the floppy blue cap and Spiderman backpack grabbed and hustled away with his father, who is becoming a national icon for these degenerate policies and actions.
It seems that word of Friday's massive march in Minneapolis (latest estimate is 75,000 people marching in what was at that moment the coldest place in the world) had reached inside these walls, and on Saturday many inmates--particularly the children--staged their own demonstration, chanting "Let us go!" and "Let the children go!"
Though a few lawyers who happened to be there were quickly moved away, images of the protest in an open area were caught by an Associated Press drone. That's how Liam's mother reportedly caught her first sight of her boy.
Rachel Maddow referred to these immigration prisons as "black sites." That term emerged in the post-9/11 fury, and during the Iraq war, as America bowed to the "new normal" of distant prisons in faraway countries built and maintained (but not acknowledged) by the United States, where suspected terrorists and others were sent without trial to be tortured and held indefinitely. They went in and no information came out--they were "black sites," and in that sense the beginning of brutalization contrary to law and American ideals, a deep spiral towards the spiritual death of this nation.
We became used to no longer being ashamed of being torturers. Still, it was too shameful to have these black sites in our own country. No longer. They may not be water-boarding prisoners in Texas, but there's evidence that even there, in a prison for families, there is tainted food and water, and negligent medical care. There are reports of relentless inhumane treatment in other US black sites, of what easily qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment--and this is without trial and therefore without a verdict, or a sentence.
Liam and his father are in this prison despite being in the US legally. The family's petition for asylum is active in the judicial system.
One of the lawyers who was present on the day of the demonstration was there to meet with clients that included a family with five children imprisoned with them, a 9 year old, a 16 year old, an 18 year old girl, and twins who turned five years old in the prison. They've been there for eight months and counting.
The Dilley prison is a black site because there are no visitors, little if any oversight by media or even congressional representatives who are legally entitled to inspect at any time but have so far been denied entry. Like everything the Chaos administration does regarding their so-called immigration actions, there is no accountability because there is no information.
Children, including at least one two year old, can find themselves in the routine of their Minnesota lives, suddenly kidnapped by heavily armed men in masks and combat gear, and six hours later imprisoned in this Texas black site. These actions and these places shame this country, especially the powerful who remain silent and complicit, while some of them profit.
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