https://www.startribune.com/ice-raids-minnesota/601546426 (live updates)
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Alex Jeffrey Pretti, 37.
No criminal history. A lawful gun owner with a valid conceal carry permit.
I haven’t commented on any of the content of this story until now.
Pay very close attention the the ‘agent’ wearing the grey coat, with his back to the camera before he turns around and walks towards it holding a gun.
He goes in hands empty, retrieves the gun from the suspects waistband, at the small of his back, and leaves before the first shot is fired.
Every shot was fired, by federal agents, at an unarmed individual. Plain murder.
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multiple angles synced up together (this ones being updated as new angles come in)
That will only give them ammunition and the right optics to become even more oppressive. But there are concrete steps we can take to combat the regime with our last non-violent pathways (the titles below expand if you click them).
Learn First Aid! ⛑️
The future us likely to be violent, and It extremely important to have the skills to be able to keep yourself and others alive if they get hurt. You can never have too many medics.
Tacticool Girlfriend provides a great introduction to building a personal first aid kit, called an IFAK, which can deal with things like bullet wounds and other serious bleeding wounds. I also want to emphasize her recommendation of only buying medical gear from reputable sources (not Amazon!), such as North American Rescue to avoid fakes that could cost you your life.
But you’ll need to learn how to use that equipment, too. The best resource for that is to take a local Stop The Bleed class, which are pretty widely available in most places. They may cost a small fee, but can also sometimes be free. Alternatively, if you cannot access a local class, this video by PrepMedic will give you a solid understanding of how to use Tourniquets and Gauze for wound packing.
Injuries are less harmful if they are tended to early. Learning first aid can help conserve resources when healthcare becomes unaffordable. Having several medics in case of harm by police is an extremely powerful morale booster during a protest that may become a police riot. When you become comfortable with the basics of first aid, riot medicine is the next suggested step.
Establish or join local Mutual Aid networks ✊
If you haven’t already, get to know your neighbors. Mutual aid is a willingness to support and grow your community. This can include informal networks through friends, tenant/renter organizations, solidarity groups, and industrial unions.
These are groups using direct action to solve each other’s problems. Building strong communities makes it difficult for fascism to take root. The actions of the government are going to hit every community hard, and the ones who build trust in each other and work together are most likely to survive. We’ve been building a list of resources in [email protected] to help you on your way. Also check out this handy guide to find existing groups in your area.
This isn’t only for your own community protection. Your ability to organize today will change the political landscape tomorrow. When revolution occurs, the social organizations that show the greatest resilience through the regime are the ones typically calling the shots when the dust settles. When it comes to elections, get out the vote drives are useless if most of the voters are fascists. At some point, you have to do grassroots political education if you don’t want fascist candidates winning elections. Mutual aid networks are excellent forums not only for teaching each other good political ideas, but demonstrating them in practice.
Join a Union and Prepare for an even longer General Strike! 💪
The most effective non-violent action we can take is preparing and organizing for a General Strike.
The country would be brought to its knees if suddenly deprived of profit and labor. That tactic was extremely effective in Chile in 2019, and had they not fallen for the trick of liberal reform, they would’ve had a successful revolution on their hands with virtually no bloodshed.
If you aren’t in a union (or even if you are, it’s worth dual-carding), consider joining the IWW to unionize your workplace (bonus: you’ll get higher wages, better benefits, and more time off if you succeed!) to strengthen a general strike if we manage to enact one, as most unions have a strike fund that can supplement your income during a general strike to make it more financially bearable (you should also save as much money as you can reasonably do, so it can also be used to keep yourself afloat during a strike).
And for our international friends, you should join one as well, as fascism is gaining momentum globally. If your country isn’t listed below, just contact the IWW directly in the link above, and they’ll help you set up a new local branch.
Adopt Security Culture and Digital Camouflage 🛡️
Sometimes benign seeming efforts can turn into unexpected personal data collecting traps. Like an obscure website for exchanging contact info with other students turning into a global ad-tech surveillance network (Facebook), or innocent seeming online personality tests being use to harvest character profiles. Even Etsy, Reddit, Tinder, and Duolingo are feeding information to US Government Agencies like ICE.
Security culture is commonly used to describe the general awareness of such potential traps and how it can affect groups or entire communities. This goes beyond mere individual privacy efforts, as without joint efforts these often fail to work.
Especially in activist circles, security culture is paramount. For opsec reasons not everyone in the group might be aware of what clandestine efforts others are involved in, but with a general security culture many potential data leaks can be avoided.
Movements are made by the volume of their participants, and the easier and less dangerous it is to participate, the more people will get involved. As more people get involved, individual involvement becomes even less dangerous, creating a virtuous cycle.
We’ll start it off with some General Advice:
For a full guide on what encrypted communications platforms to use, and how to stay off the radar, read the Digital Camouflage section within the Monthly Meta post here (you’ll need to scroll down. I’d add it here, but it won’t fit in this comment).
I’d also highly recommend anyone reading this to read Full Spectrum Resistance if you can for further info.
I really wish you’d post that as a separate post in a Lemmy community where a lot of people would find it in
You have my full permission to copy and repost this anywhere you think it would get the most eyeballs, I would be most grateful if you did, actually!
Do you have the full code for that post?
If you’re using lemmy from the standard browser UI, you can click the little paper with folded edge icon at the bottom of a comment or post to expose the raw markdown version of the text.
Can I credit you?
Sure, if you’d like, though my comment is an amalgamation of my own writing and the writings of my co-admins, @[email protected] and @[email protected], which we assembled for our instance’s Monthly Meta posts.
Where should I post your post from?
It’s probably that I’m quite tired, but I’m not sure what you’re asking?