THE STORM
Today was the day of the storm, the day I was supposed to return from San Miguel. For some reason the storm pretty much curled around Western North Carolina. There was a thin film of ice and no cars on the road but not enough ice to bring down the power lines or to shut us in darkness on the coldest night of the year.
Today the reports came in about what really happened to Alex Pretti and the lies that the administration immediately told to paint him as an assassin who had attacked ICE agents with a pistol in his hand.
It turned out that he was an ICU nurse at a VA hospital and a gentle soul who wanted to do good and felt called to watch and video ICE agents in order to protect people. He was helping a woman who had been pushed to the ground to get up when he was assaulted by ICE agents. He never brandished a gun and was shot after agents had pinned him to the ground.
His parents were furious over the way that the administration had smeared him and lied about him.
I also began to learn, after being in Mexico and paying scant attention, about the way the resistance was being organized in Minneapolis and how citizens were protecting and helping their neighbors. They followed agents, sounding their horns and blowing on whistles and videoing all of the agents violent actions. Often these observers are sprayed with chemicals and even handcuffed and imprisoned for a few hours and then released. I was proud of the way that citizens were standing up to Trump and his vindictive terrorizing of Minneapolis, including the Somalis who lived there, all because it was a Democratic city.
I realized that in Germany there was never this city wide resistance to Gestapo destruction of Jews and was awed by the resistance by ordinary people to ICE.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 