Just a couple weeks after an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis, we have another incident where Border Patrol and/or ICE agents shot and killed a Veterans Affairs ICU nurse named Alex Pretti yesterday.
He was at a protest in Minneapolis where others can be heard blowing whistles and denouncing federal agents, but he appeared to be a peaceful observer. If he weren't a peaceful observer, footage would have been released clearly showing him as an agitator, but nothing has been released. Instead, we see a man filming, helping other victims of fed violence stand up again, and then being attacked.
Once again, the government declared him a murderous terrorist intent upon inflicting death after they killed him.
Once again, and even more so than for Good, cell phone footage from other bystanders disproves the official claims.
Once again, partisan sycophants ignore evidence and eagerly lick boots.
"He was carrying a gun!"
Yes, in a holster, with proper Minnesota permits and everything. He didn't even draw, much less attack the feds like the government asserted. Besides, one does not surrender the second amendment to exercise the first.
"He could have just stayed home!"
Same for his killers. He still had every right to witness public protests, record what happened, and yes, carry a weapon while doing so. People have a right to protest the government, observe protesters, record the event, and not get attacked as a "consequence."
"He was resisting!"
Resisting what? He was helping a woman stand up after federal agents committed assault and battery against bystanders. They then pepper sprayed him and her. Why? I saw no video evidence for any probable cause to justify detention or arrest. Further, setting aside questions of jurisdiction, I heard no statements from his assailants that he was being placed under arrest, although audio is admittedly dodgy in the footage I have seen.
"He fucked around and found out!"
What was he doing to "fuck around," pray tell? How does being shot in the back after being dogpiled by government thugs find out anything? He was holding a cell phone. When he stood in the street, it looked like he was directing traffic through the area instead of impeding it. He had the audacity to help a woman who had been pushed to the ground by the feds and ask her if she was OK. And then he was pepper sprayed, tackled, and executed.
It's been 250 years this July since the founding fathers approved the Declaration of Independence in the Continental Congress. It's been almost 251 years since the first shots of the American Revolution were fired at Lexington and Concord. I fear American Revolution 2: Electric Boogaloo is around the corner. And I don't know which is worse, the present creeping escalation of bipartisan tyranny, or overthrowing it so a new faction can take over instead. It's the old idiomatic question of "the devil you know."
The US is divided almost evenly between two major political parties. Both proclaim themselves defenders of underdogs and enemies of oppression. Both justify their own plunder and tyranny when in power, while denouncing the other party building on their own precedents when their candidates are in the minority. The "slippery slope" may be a logical fallacy, but the ratchet effect of politics is very real. The only spot of hope is that society is not the State, and community resilience has held things together despite the escalating tension.
We survived the cold war, the Clinton police state escalation, the Bush war on terror, the Obama war on terror escalation, the 2007/2008 market crash, the first term of Trump, COVID, civil unrest following the police murder of George Floyd, Biden's dementia, and now Trump's unhinged second term foreign and domestic policies. Those are just the highlights from the past few decades, mind you. But something must inevitably snap. When it does, the collateral damage could be catastrophic.
As I have frequently said, in a real emergency, you are your own first responder. Keep your ear to the ground, so to speak. Build your local community and connect with your neighbors. Have food and supplies on hand to withstand the infrastructure disruptions of civil unrest. Have an evacuation plan. Build an emergency kit and know how to use what you put in it. I hope society can withstand chaos, but collapse is possible. Social unrest, fiscal instability, and foreign war all loom as potential black swan events. Stay safe out there as much as you can, and don't be a sucker for police state propaganda. There is no law so trivial that government goons won't kill you to enforce it, and no overreach so egregious that bootlickers won't blame the victim for police abuse.
Image credit: public domain VA photo via Wikipedia
And it's everywhere. I sometimes wonder why my little city in the midst of drug wars in Ecuador is not affected yet. 15min from here, there just was another sicario murder. It's just a matter of time until they're here. The government is not able nor willing to stop it. Again, too many ties between government and criminals are coming to light. It's easier to make money in crime, to fight the crime the state needs money, so they make it harder to make money the legal way. Downward it goes.
Community is the answer for me, too. To build and improve it in a world of individualism. Create new roots so maybe one day, something might be different.
People like to talk as if individualism is inherently antisocial. I say respect for the individual is the only basis for a strong society. Everything governments and terrorists (am I repeating myself?) do is based on collective dehumanization. Even the self-professed benevolent dictator social Democrat types see only aggregates.
It might not be the right word. Maybe it's more egoism? I do see more and more people act for their own individual gain with less and less consideration for the other. They place the individual above all else. In that scenario, government doesn't make sense anymore as it's supposed to work for the masses, to consider. But it has turned into a serving individuals. I can't think of any government currently that is not like that.
Full disclosure: I am an anarchist. I reject the core assumptions of representation and delegated authority. The sales pitch of government of, by, and for the people rings as hollow as A.I. slop ads.
Individualism as a philosophy is based on the golden rule and the non-aggression principle, but critics always conflate that with naked selfishness as they try to justify political plunder and grabs for power.
Thomas Sowell is no anarchist, but he commented that it is strange to see wanting to keep what you build and earn as "selfish" while demanding government impose your will on others and take their property is not.
Ayn Rand said there is no smaller minority than the individual. I'm not her disciple, but she was right, regardless how you frame her arguments for "selfishness as a virtue." Democracy masquerades as altruism while imposing the majority vote upon everyone else. That's tyranny, not liberty.
Well I guess I did not use the term correctly, as a good friend had also told me 😅 Wittgenstein would like to have a word with me about that...
In the classics of Anarchy that I read there's always some degree of representation and delegated authority. Nothing like there is now, which you correctly describe as a masquerade. But always some degree of organization, depending on skill and expertise, which others trust in doing the right thing for the common good.
Since you quote Sowell, where would you place Anarchism - in the constraint or the unconstrained vision? I'm having my problems with that question, so it would be nice to have the opinion of someone who apparently studied anarchism a lot more than I did.
There are anarchists in both camps, and little agreement on how society is likely to organize in the absence of modern nation-states with their territorial monopolies in violence. I suggest the Anarchist's Handbook by Michael Malice as a solid primer with ideas for various thinkers.
I see some precedent in the end of state religions and established churches. You can elong to any congregation you want, and any religion you want, or no religion at all,and we mostlyanage to get along. We now take separation of church and state for granted. I think literally every other government service could be similarly divorced and decentralized.
We have historical examples for highways, mutual aid societies, militias, and more serving the needs of the general public. Bogeyman stories like private fire departments letting the uninsured burn down turn out to be myth. Justifications for government regulation usually turn out to be corporate cronyism to quell comoetition disguised as a public service.
I red "Anarchie!" by Horst Stowasser in college and was quite fascinated by the ideas, leading me to read a few others, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Goldman and such. I'm not good at retaining quotes in my memory, usually just the idea or what I make of it. Over the years, even though I still try to implement some of the ideals in my life and the business I run, I've grown frustrated with the world about it.
It seems like a great utopia, something to maintain as an ideal, that will never be more. As I see values being replaced by egoism, the chances of Anarchism to work grow slimmer. Hence my question about the constraint and unconstrained vision and where anarchism fits. I'm not sure if there's a way to get people into the right space to live without a government again, to be capable of sustaining anarchism. So many people have been made dependent, and the ongoing pampering (I know, paraphrasing Thatcher! But I hope it's okay given Sowell and Rand...) is just making them more dependent on the state.
Meaning, I've kind of given up on it. Just trying to sneak it in wherever I can, building my community, in the way that I lead my little bakery, the way I raise my child.
Do you see a way towards a more anarchistic society?
I know we have a different opinion about Renee.
But this, I agree with you on. Its crazy he had to get shot and then in the back while being on the ground is outrageous.
Thats straight up murder.
Does the immediate false accusation and apparent coverup with mass social media propaganda here cause you to reconsider how you saw Renee Good's death?
Not really :/
Mainly because I don't pay attention to what Trump or Trumps team says on Social media about these deaths.
I dont care about how they try and spin it.
I watch as many videos as I can about it from different angles and form an opinion about it.
He wasn’t at a protest. Had just come out of a restaurant. In none of the footage is there more than a few dozen people, no signs.
Actual protests here now draw tens of thousands. This was just some people in the neighborhood when DHS agents showed up.
My son lives about seven blocks from where Pretti was murdered, sees agents everywhere.
In the videos I have seen, I can hear the whistles, so I assumed he was at least in the proximity of protests despite being on an uncrowded side street. This just shows even more that he wasn't in the midst of things stirring up trouble like people accuse.
Whistles are everywhere. Businesses have been giving them out free. People blow them upon seeing ICE to warn their neighbors.
Apparently ICE and Border Patrol don't like the constant harassment. But like a certain spammer here, they see themselves as victims and don't accept accountability for their own choices or actions.