RE: https://mastodon.social/@tusk81/116003273137871107
“What you read in The Diary of Anne Frank is happening here. Parents have been taken by ICE in front of their elementary-aged kids who were then left alone. ICE left the kids and didn’t help get them to another adult. Thank goodness for compassionate neighbors who took the kids in.”
Folks in Minneapolis are setting up 'block party' style traffic blockades in order to prevent ICE from brutalizing and murdering people.
Check out their account on BlueSky (does not require log-in). Look here: https://bsky.app/profile/minneapolis-spring.bsky.social
"Twin Cities rapid responders have set up a "filter blockade" at 34th and Cedar and are calling for volunteers and donations. This is a new tactic developing over the last week: community is allowed to pass, but ICE agents are stopped/slowed before they can terrorize our neighbors.
These blockades are a beautiful experiment in improvised community defense. They are easy to start with just a couple friends, and whatever you have lying around.
Let's make the Twin Cities impassible to ICE and all supporting forces."
My 81 year old mother texted me today to ask if I had any yarn in my stash I'm not planning to use anytime soon. This was a little unusual because she mostly sews and quilts, she hasn't knitted regularly in years. I asked her what she needed yarn for and she said "I found a great pattern for an #IceOut hat and I'm going to start making them to give out at church."
The republic survives, for now.
“From 2005 to 2024, nearly 5,000 CBP and Border Patrol officers were arrested, according to the journalist Garrett Graff … ’The crime rate of CBP agents and offices was higher PER CAPITA than the crime rate of undocumented immigrants in the United States,’ Graff writes. Statistically speaking, ‘worst of the worst’ seems to describe CBP and the Border Patrol as law-enforcement agencies better than it does the people they’re rounding up.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/02/masks-ice-immigration/685834/
Molly Gaines: Public schools, private religion: What happens when half the class leaves for Bible study?
"Secular Education Association (SEA) was formed by parents who started comparing notes when these programs appeared in their districts. SEA’s co-founder, Zachary Parrish, discovered that his second-grader was being placed in an uninstructed study hall while classmates left for LifeWise…"
#secularism #publicschools #education #religion #BibleStudy #AmericansUnited
https://www.au.org/the-latest/church-and-state/articles/public-schools-private-religion-what-happens-when-half-the-class-leaves-for-bible-study/
Right-wing outrage didn’t stop at Renee Good’s death — they TARGETED her 6-year-old son’s school, bombarded it with threats & forced Southside Family Charter to switch to online learning because it teaches empathy and justice. That’s beyond politics — it’s an attack on children.
https://sahanjournal.com/education/minneapolis-southside-family-charter-school-threats/ #press
The Trump admin is buying warehouses & turning them into mass immigration jails — the biggest detention expansion in U.S. history.
$172M already spent.
23 sites planned. One facility: 8,500 people.
Built near homes and schools to sustain 3,000 arrests a day.
Warehouses turned into cages.
Call it what it is: concentration camps in plain sight.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-01-29/us-spends-hundreds-of-millions-on-warehouses-for-ice-detention-centers #press
22 miles round trip on my e-bike to ride the sunny Alex Pretti (and all killed by ICE this winter) bike ride, which joined with the union march around the ICE facility in Portland. I was just ahead of the first gassing, but it was an afternoon in which ICE firing from their building on a day time family march shattered more than glass (windows across the street) — it also shattered the illusion that there is a right way to protest. ICE gassed even the kiddos on a sunny Saturday afternoon
Measles outbreak in the same DHS death camp where Liam Ramos was being held.
Colossal media failure lured voters into falling for "GOP"-backed Trump lies & facilitated the implementation of insurrectionary "Project 2025", just like it did for about the same plot in the 1st Trump conspiracy against the people's United States authority!
"...
And the press, faced with this asymmetry, reached for the “both sides” playbook. They couldn’t say Trump was lying because that would be taking a side. They couldn’t say the document ["Project 2025"] was effectively his agenda, because he denied it. So they settled on a framing that treated the whole thing as a he-said-she-said dispute, with truth somewhere in the murky middle.
..."
Strongly recommended reading:
https://newrepublic.com/article/205913/media-malpractice-trumpism-project-2025
Hansen’s disease (leprosy) is treatable today in large part because of the work of Alice Ball, a 23-year-old chemist whose breakthrough turned a toxic folk remedy into the world’s first effective treatment.
Her science saved lives — but her legacy was nearly erased.
https://theconversation.com/a-young-black-scientist-discovered-a-pivotal-leprosy-treatment-in-the-1920s-but-an-older-colleague-took-the-credit-224922
#BlackHistoryMonth
Chicago Teachers Union honors freedom fighters in State of the Union address
Chicago, IL – Leaders and rank-and-file members of the Chicago Teachers Union were joined by community supporters on Tuesday January 27, as they celebrated recent and historical victories won by CTU and the movement to defend public education. They also recognized the need to build ongoing struggles against ICE, racist policing and for fully funded public services.
[...]
Incredible turnout at the East Mountain #indivisible demonstration Sunday in Tijeras, #newmexico. These people turn out every week, week after week after week at #route66 and 14S to remind everyone that #uspol is NOT normal. We make connections with other our neighbors. We talk about all of the other things we’d rather be doing with our weekends. We knit. We talk about next steps. Crowds are growing. We start at 10:30. Join us! #nokings
"The correct response to Dachau was not better training for the guards."
We have an IMPORTANT WINDOW HERE.
Things are getting bad enough that ordinarily complacent people are getting nervous. More people are starting to notice the signs and recognize concentration camps for what they are. This is not a drill.
We still have ENOUGH freedom and internet capability that we can reasonably look up and find information about how this works, and what other people have done about it before. The botslop hasn't eaten it yet. Our access is still there-- although the system is probably ALREADY trying to keep track of who's searching it up and who's reading what books/websites, they aren't fully stopping us from reaching the information. (Yet.)
There are TWO things that could happen next:
1-- Full Fash: Elections get canceled, the hammer comes down, things get really ugly really fast.
2-- Diet Fash: Republicans pratfall on their faces, some grinning limousine neoliberal Democrats swoop in smiling, they promise things will get back to "normal", and things simmer back down to the miserable grind where we watch our healthcare and wages shrivel while the sky gets angrier.
EITHER WAY, the concentration camps will keep getting built bigger, and our access to information will continue to get worse. Option 2 doesn't mean it's over-- it means they're going to catch their breath and try again.
We're not gonna get through to the other side of this until most of us get upset enough to get used to the idea of showing up the way Minneapolis has been doing lately. That's the level of involvement needed, the energy. The system is going to watch our reactions and be trying to get ready to counter it better next time, trying to figure out how to drain our energy and make it harder to muster or maintain it.
The Obama/Harris/Newsom types are NOT going to put the brakes on that power. They'd be in no more hurry to close Dachau than Guantanimo. Get it? And don't give me that, "aww but they're trying so hard" shit. No. See Minneapolis? That's what resistance looks like. It's not strongly worded letters, grandstanding, or handwringing excuses. The Democratic Party leadership aren't just cowards, but traitors actively collaborating with the nightmare.
Look at what the people in Minneapolis are doing. Figure how to carry that feeling of being FED UP close at hand and ready to deploy. Learn as much as you can while the information window is still open. The main lesson of history, as I see it, is: people should freak out and stand up for what's right harder, sooner, and more often.
@inthehands https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/115991953783115796
Let's do this.
Empathy is a core thread running through award-winning documentary 𝙐𝙣𝘽𝙧𝙤𝙠𝙚𝙣, from the quiet bravery of the Germans who sheltered the Weber children during World War II, to the emotional labor of family members unearthing painful memories. The 𝙐𝙣𝘽𝙧𝙤𝙠𝙚𝙣 Learning Guide provides a classroom-ready lesson to nurture and practice this important skill.
This lesson features a zine-making activity that students love!
Students learn how to move beyond sympathy into active, informed compassion. This lesson provides tools to cultivate empathy by examining perspective-taking, emotional awareness, and deep listening. Students also learn how using historical context, storytelling, and compassionate inquiry can fuel empathy as a driver of civic engagement and ethical decision-making.
For grades 6-12, higher ed & adult education.
2/3
#Education #Homeschooling
#HolocaustEducation #Histodons #History #Empathy #Zines #SocialEmotionalLearning #SocialSkills
So there's my winter mossy potholder. I have some similar weight yarn in dark red and purple, so I might make another, I like the stitch.
@maggiejk important actions to take- thank you!
On Wednesday 2/4 the NH Health and Human Services committee is hearing:
9:00 AM
HB1811
repealing statutory immunization requirements for children.
PLEASE HELP OPPOSE
BUT PLEASE SUPPORT THIS ONE:
2:00 PM
HB1316
restricting the collection and disclosure of autism-related data by state agencies.
Voice your opposition and support here:
https://gc.nh.gov/house/committees/remotetestimony/
Choose: Wednesday 2/4
HHS and Elderly Affairs committee
Then oppose 9:00 1811
and support 2:00 1316
THANK YOU!!
#NH #vaccinessavelives #autism #neurodivergent
#HB1811 #HB1316 #DataPrivacy
