birds on the wing

Image: The Portland Frog riding the Minnesota Loon carrying the progressive queer flag and the MN state flag shield, flying towards the resistance by Freddie Schwager.

Yesterday was very busy for me.

I got a text from MONARCA in the late morning that there were 20 heavily armed iCE agents attempting to gain access to the Dorothy Day facility in downtown Saint Paul. I hopped in my car and headed out, but, as seems to be typical of me, I arrived fifteen minutes too late. I talked with a witness and he told me that the staff locked the doors and demanded a warrant. ICE was forced to leave without abducting anyone. I was joking to a friend that they should send me out to every one of these calls because every one I have ever arrived at, it has either been a false alarm or, as in this case, the ICE agents left empty-handed. I am, apparently, some kind of anti-ICE luck charm. ;-)

So, even though, for me, it wasn't a confrontation, I was still really keyed up afterwards. So, I basically just went directly to my Food Communists and spent three hours packing up groceries for folks sheltering in place/in hiding. The nice thing about my Food Communists is that they are also a homeless/unhoused warming shelter and so they have free meals. I can't forget to eat if I'm at ZCC because someone will tell me to sit and eat at some point, which is good.

Then, at 6 pm yesterday, I signed up for a legal observer training with COPAL. I'll be honest with you all? I have only ever kind of been half-assed trained in this. I was signed up with MONARCA, but I missed the actual training session, and have been relying on notes taken by a friend. So, this seemed like a really good opportunity to get the whole deal. I'd also attended that national training via the ACLU the night before, and, given that my brain is a soupy seive right now, I figure the more times I hear how it's done, the better.

The Observer trainers were expecting 150 people so I walked over. Despite the temperatures, the church sponsoring this event is only five or six blocks away. The place was packed. They actually had Constitutional Observers outside on ICE watch because... I guess because we no longer trust those jackbooted thugs not to terrorize people just trying to learn how to protect their neighbors.

A couple of funny things about the training. First, Minnesotans are still entirely Minnesotan.

The person running the training tried to get us all to introduce ourselves to our seat mates by asking us to ask a stranger "why they were here." Literally the people I sat by in the pew, were like, "I don't even know where else I would be? I am literally worried about our actual neighbor," I was like, "I know. It's kind of a weird question because the answer is: fascism?? Also, why would we sit by and let our neighbors get kidnapped when fifty of us show up to help someone get out of a ditch?" So, that was both good and very awkward because it was clear that a couple of guys just wanted to shrug because Minnesotan men are like "eh? 'Cuz it's the right place to be??"

Second, the trainer kept trying to get us more engaged by having people "popcorn" (which I guess just means shout out as the spirit moves you??)  some of the slides and this was... so very Minnesotan. You could tell people hated being asked to do this, but we were all there because we were willing to get out of our comfort zones so people just FORCED themselves to speak up. It was kind of hilarious because the, like "OMG, FINE I WILL SPEAK WITHOUT RAISING MY HAND THIS IS SO PAINFUL I WILL DIE IF I ACCIDENTALLY TALK OVER SOMEONE" was palpable in the air?

But, it was a good meeting and I am now signed up on COPAL as well as MONARCA.

I woke up really sore from all the physical work at the Food Commies, so I have declared today a mental and phsyical rest from the revolution.

Have I read anything?  Just the training manual for the constitutional observers. It's been rough!