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Friend,
“Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.”
— Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Letter from Birmingham Jail, 1963
In recent days, Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, while senior officials have made known that military preparations are underway involving Alaska’s 11th Airborne Division. Almost 9 months ago I wrote an article on the Insurrection Act and some initial ideas about what to do about it.
As of this writing, there are no deployment orders. One could speculate that this is a threat — meant to pressure Gov. Walz to not activate the National Guard or to make members of Congress think twice about voting against funding for ICE, DHS or Border Patrol.
But the risk of Trump doing this is real. Our first emotional response may be overwhelm or paralysis — and that is the point. State violence aims to beat the population into submission. Take a breath. Find someone else and say the words together: We’re not giving up.
There are clear dangers for people in the streets: a politicized military, increased weaponry and another uniformed force with little training in crowd control and even less in Constitutional rights.
There are also dangers for the military itself. In conversations with veterans and service members, there is widespread outrage that the military’s professionalism could be tied to immigration enforcement marked by lawlessness, masks and increasingly sadistic, paramilitary operations.
It’s also possible that their deployment would not mean much changes in Minnesota. The violence is already best described as a war zone. The man who shot Renee Good was a military veteran — a gunner in Iraq. Minnesotans already face heavily militarized forces, and it’s conceivable that adding better-trained, more professional troops could actually curb some of the abuses — even as the addition of 1,500 more bodies could dramatically expand the scale of operation.
Either way, the threat only comes because Minnesotans have held firm. The threat is a tacit acknowledgement of the strength of everyone who has taken action. For folks in Minnesota, keep that going and join the Jan. 23 economic blackout: no school, no work, no shopping.
The uncertainty of the future may lead us to fear — but let it not lead to inaction. Reach out to people in the 11th Airborne to encourage them to maliciously noncomply. Ask your friends in the military to reach out. Keep steadfast in Minnesota and folks outside should support however they can. Join corporate campaigns targeting ICE enablers. And take the time to pressure your politicians to vote against funding.
You can read my earlier article about "What do if the Insurrection Act" is invoked, which has some background knowledge, history and ideas about how to respond to the Insurrection Act — so we can be courageous together.
We're not giving up.
Warmly,
Choose Democracy
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