 |
| The now-infamous image of the ICE agent slipping and falling on an icy Minneapolis street has become a symbol of how winter-tough Minnesotans are enduring the battle against ICE oppression much better than the federal forces in town to take away all the immigrants |
The citizens of frigid Minnesota have discovered they have one key ally in their struggle against the excesses of these often out of control federal agents. Winter. Including the regular slippery, not Gestapo ice, as in frozen water.
Minneapolis has so far had the kind of winter we've had here in Vermont. Lots of freeze/thaw cycles and bouts of freezing rain to make everything even more interesting underfoot.
Judging from the videos of ICE agents slipping and falling on the ice, much to the delight of their many critics, I think the boots issued to ICE agents weren't exactly made for a Minnesota winter.
Very much like Vermonters, Minnesotans know instinctively how to deal with winter. How to dress for it, how to embrace the cold. As The Other 98% wrote on Facebook:
"Beyond the spectacle of agents in tactical gear skidding on black ice, this moment reveals something deeper about the confrontation: A clash between a highly militarized federal apparatus and a community rooted in lived experience.
Many protestors have come equipped with insulated gear, boots with traction spikes and the kind of winter sense from years of Minnesota cold rather than federal training manuals. That difference - lived winter resilience versus bureaucratic enforcement - is playing out in real time on city streets."
Demonstrators are also using winter as a tactical tool against ICE, and against at least one right wind agitator who came to Minneapolis, and quickly fled.
A constant hot spot in the Minneapolis unrest is the Whipple Federal Building, where ICE agents are headquartered. The weather turned much colder in the past few days in Minnesota. Protestors dumped water on the pavement near the building to form ice that could hinder, or at least annoy ICE agents.
ICE ended up arresting four people, who they called "agitators" for "refusing to disperse." It appears ICE was irritated that they (allegedly) "threw objects, shouted profanities and endangered the public by pouring water on the roads to create icy, hazardous conditions."
Judging from those ICE falling on ice videos I mentioned, the water on road idea just might be effective.
On Saturday, Jake Lang, a right-wing nut and pardoned January 6 rioter, tried to lead an anti-immigration demonstration in Minneapolis, but hundreds of Minnesotans did not want to put up with his garbage.
So, they chased Lang out of town, throwing punches at him, which I'm a little concerned about, and spraying him with water from squirt guns, which I'm not even a little concerned about. Temperatures hovered near 10 degrees at the time, and Lang did not appear dressed for the weather.
Although video showed a little blood coming out of the back of Lang's head, he reportedly was not seriously injured. But I bet he was damn cold.
Meanwhile, Trump is toying with the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy 1,500 federal troops to Minnesota.
Critics, and there are a lot of 'em, say doing that would just escalate the uproar over ICE raids, at least some of which look legally dubious. It also appears ICE agents' interactions with protestors aren't always kosher, either.
In any event, the Pentagon is ordering about 1,500 active duty soldiers to get ready for what might end up as a deployment to Minnesota. The soldiers are with the Army's Alaska-based 11th Airborne Division, which specializes in cold-weather operations.
It looks like the Trump administration is beginning to notice the difficulty of dealing with a northern winter.
Minnesota weather is now frigid and getting colder. Temperatures are only in the single digits with snow falling today. It'll be below zero tonight. An even stronger Arctic blast is due in Minnesota by next weekend.
People out in the streets are rooting for the Arctic blast. The New York Times quoted Chris Foreman, a military veteran who has joined the protestors near the Whipple Federal Building: "I want it to get cold.....People know that a lot of these ICE guys are from the South. They're coming into a different environment and they're not used to it."
Frigid weather tends to slow things down. I hope that the Arctic cold will bring the temperature down figuratively as well as literally.
No comments:
Post a Comment