Minneapolis doings

"As the strength of the resistance continues to grow, we may well face more violence and cruelty in response. That doesn’t mean we are failing. No, it means that Trump and his MAGA enablers understand they are losing, and they are desperate to consolidate power while they can. Like wounded animals, they are lashing out. It is vital that we contest every inch of ground, and do all that we can to take power away from them. We need to meet their violence, as people have been doing in spite of intense provocation, with strong, nonviolent actions—nonviolent because violence is their turf, and if we fight on that ground, we will be outgunned. But if we fight on moral grounds, if we refuse consent to their bullying and stand up clearly for the values of basic human decency, our movement will continue to grow. The bullies will lose all semblance of legitimacy, and in the end, we will gain the power we need to rebuild the world around true values of caring, compassion, of human rights and dignity, of liberty and justice for all. "

Starhawk, on Substack "Basic Decency - In the Wake of Yet Another Ice Assassination"

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I've posted about the murders. Renee Nicole Good, Alex Jeffrey Pretti.

There was a Union strike walk-out on Friday, Jan 23. But also clergy-people from all over the nation were called to support the people of Minneapolis.

Note, the bundled up people were dealing with -20 degree F weather. The yellow shawl with the heart is a Unitarian Universalist minister.

Police arrested 100 interfaith clergy at the Minneapolis -St Paul airport.

Here's  a video of clergy-members in Minneapolis singing a beautiful hymn as they knelt in protest in -20 degree weather on Friday.  I like the introduction which speaks to conservative Christians, who might indeed want to know what clergy-members were singing.

Over 40,000 of us marched yesterday in -20° - probably clergy and Unions and those who walked out of schools and jobs...Friday Jan. 23, 2026

Meanwhile in North Carolina, the Walk for Peace continues on its way to  Washington DC.

This is the message which has been passed along by the marchers. They do have talks usually at the lunch stop, and in the evenings. Yesterday (Jan 24) they were at the capitol of North Carolina and greeted by the governor. 

Today they are walking on ice and snow  for their next leg of the journey. This is leaving Raleigh, and they didn't publicize their route, so it's the first shot I've seen without the crowds to greet them.

While in Greenland people let their feelings toward tRump be known as well.

For Lauri Carleton

 Oh My Gooness!

John Pavlovitz has nailed it...see his blog "The Murder of Lauri Carleton and The Killing Words of Anti-LGBTQ Conservatives" (title is the link.)

He says:

"The 66-year old wife and mother of nine children was murdered outside her Southern California clothing store by a man who tore town her flag and shot her to death when she protested. As senseless and shocking as the assassination of Lauri Carleton is, it is not a surprise. It is the rotten, putrid fruit of MAGA America and all it stands for and aspires to.

Violence targeting the LGBTQ community and those who support them is not a random aberration, it is the logical progression."

As a friend and supporter of LGBTQ+ people, I can hardly believe this...but yet, it's makes a stupid kind of sense from congregations/crowds of radical Christians to another crazed man with an automatic weapon. It is sobering to me, friends!

I work to exhibit many displays supporting LGBTQ+ rights in our area, where we have a Pride March in Asheville. I am frightened by this.

Pavlovitz goes on to say:

"Lauri Carleton is the victim of two vicious hate crimes: of the person pulling the trigger and of those who made doing so for that person so easy.

There is no mystery here to be solved, no complex code to uncover, no hidden shooter motive we need to follow down endless rabbit trails to discern.
This is simple cause-and-affect.

It is the grotesque monster Republicans have made because they have lacked creative ideas or noble impulses or any desire to lead responsible for the common good.

By continually chasing the sensational, by relentlessly ratcheting up their rhetoric, by dragging their base to an ever-deepening bottom, and by using LGBTQ people as faceless, nameless political chips—they are nurturing the kind of wasteful violence that visited Lauri Carleton."

This sounds so much like the beginning events of Jan 6, 2021.

The last of his post follows:

"The dangerous words of the Conservative movement are getting people killed.

It’s time for allies of the LGBTQ community to explicitly speak words that love and bring life and declare what we will not abide here.

We often like to say hate has no home here

We need to move this from aspiration to incarnation.

To hell with this hatred."