Rising Resistance to ICE in Minneapolis with IEN's Mark Tilsen

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Welcome to Breaking Green, a podcast by Global Justice Ecology Project.
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On Breaking Green, we will talk with activists and experts to examine the intertwined issues of social, ecological, and economic injustice.
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We will also explore some of the more outrageous proposals to address climate and environmental crises that are falsely being sold as green.
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I am your host, Steve Taylor.
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On this episode of Breaking Green, we will be talking with Mark K.
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Tilson.
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Mark is an Oglala Lakota poet from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
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He is the national pipeline organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network.
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Since moving to Minneapolis a few months ago, he has been volunteering in his neighborhood and helping his neighbors keep their community safe from ICE.
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On January 7th of this year, Indigenous Environmental Network released a statement condemning the senseless killing of a legal observer and other lawless acts by ICE.
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The statement condemns the murder of 37-year-old mother Renee Good on a residential street in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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It states masked officers in unmarked vehicles behaved as secret police using Gestapo-like tactics.
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The statement also mentions that over 2,000 federal agents, including ICE officers, have surged into the twin cities of Minneapolis and St.
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Paul.
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Residents on the ground described the surge of ICE officers as being tatamount to an occupation.
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Mark Tilson, welcome to Breaking Green.
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Thank you for having me.
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On the ground there, what are you seeing?
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What I'm seeing on the ground is uh a very much a collapsing of what we would call normal civic life.
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Um most of the ethnic restaurants are closed.
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I went out to dinner the other day for the first time since ICE has been here, and it was shocking.
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It was like living in apartheid.
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It was and the only people who were out were uh white staff holding down the restaurants, uh service staff workers, and white patrons.
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And they were still even then having to lock the doors after every customer coming in and out.
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And there's a bunch of businesses that have already folded under this constant pressure and attack.
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Um I think the I think the that particular toll is devastating.
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Um the schools, many of the schools are closed, and many of that is uh creating a situation where people of color do not feel safe going to school.
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So even the schools that have remained open are seeing most of their uh people of color students switching to online school and it's de facto creating this type of segregated reality that we're living through.
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Aaron Powell Would it be accurate to say, and I and I think I hear you saying this, that that people are being targeted because of the way they look and the way they speak, and not because there's a warrant from some court saying that you need to be removed.
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Am I accurate in my impressions there?
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I think that's highly accurate.
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Uh I think I think that is highly accurate.
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And I would also want to emphasize that, you know, Bovino's been in town for almost two weeks, going on three, and uh he said, you know, makes the claim that they're targeting uh criminals.
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And he mentioned three out of the 3,000 people that have been detained, he mentioned three by name, uh, and saying that he has stacks of others.
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And what we're seeing on the ground is these judicial warrants, and that's really key.
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Judicial warrants signed by a judge to stand before the court for committing a crime are so incredibly rare that when they execute a judicial warrant, they usually launch an entire 60-agent operation around one judicial warrant.
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There are reports that I have read uh uh stating that uh American naturalized citizens, American citizens, their their homes are being broken into without uh uh a judicial warrant uh being removed, that uh even even uh hearing reports of trophy photos being taken, and then after the fact, and and I'm referring to a gentleman, we saw pictures of him in in his underwear out in the cold, uh that even after the fact, they return him.
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And and this is after, you know, he's he states, he claims, that a gun was put to his daughter or daughter-in-law's head during this operation.
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But but uh, you know, it it was an error on their part, I guess they admit to.
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Or I I don't even know if they admit to that much.
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I think I think uh yeah, and I think it's also very um ICE has no actual jurisdiction over U.S.
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citizens.
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And these guys aren't even officers, and they can't enforce traffic laws.
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Like this is these ICE has been created has a goon squad of terror with the only the most minimum of rules guiding them.
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Yeah, I I I saw on video what appeared to me a federal officer just walking up to uh uh a car.
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They don't know whether it's a citizen or not at that point.
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And uh and and Renee Good is, was uh a citizen, but you know, grabbing at a door, what what what are they doing uh enforcing traffic laws here?
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Uh and and it led to what appears to me uh to amount from from where I'm looking.
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I I know there's multiple videos, I I know that ICE has its perspective, but to me it looked like a de facto execution of an American American citizen.
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Like the one of the unspoken things is they want to kill anybody who opposes them.
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So they created that situation so it inevitably would have happened.
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To me, uh what appeared if what appeared to be several shots into the side of a window as the car appeared to be passing.
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I I just don't see how that's defensible.
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Um and yeah, what was said, what was said by Bondi that it's domestic terrorism, that someone was run over, it just seemed to be i it obviously was untrue.
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So we we we heard these untruths, which were so clearly untrue when you watch the video.
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How can we believe anything?
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You you read all of these reports about people being taken into custody, and we're told they did this, they did that, but there's often time, uh most often there's a disconnect, or many times there's a disconnect between what they're saying and what people are seeing and what is eventually proven.
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I think what we're seeing uh coming out of Border Patrol, out of ICE, out of this administration, is uh if they have a passing familiarity with reality or the truth, it's an accident.
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It's they are not based in reality.
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Um, everything is simply a talking point.
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They're creating the mythology that Renee is not from here.
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She lived in Minneapolis.
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There's the mythology that she's was somehow like a militant radical, and it's like she was like a regular South Minneapolis mom.
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Renee was just a neighbor, she was a regular person, and I think that is the most real thing that's going on in the Twin Cities right now is like, who are these who are these radicals that are leading this resistance?
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It's like this resistance is unled because it's your neighbors.
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It's like it's it's librarians, it's school teachers, it's stay-at-home moms, um, it's door dashers.
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That's the one thing that that's part of their if there's a uniform, it's it's you know, the very obvious uh, you know, weapons and mask.
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Uh I mean it it seems like they're trying to to to uh cause fear, uh stimulate some sort of response.
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I mean, they're they're going into neighborhoods, schools with masks.
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What's going on with that?
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They they have units that are dedicated to targeting churches as people go in and out uh during times of worship, and they they choose mosques when they know they're gonna be there for the first prayer of the day.
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Um one of the things that I will say is uh they are terrified of their identities being known, they are terrified of being seen.
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Um they are terrified because they are operating in such a lawless way, they know there is some kind of reckoning coming for them one way or the other, somehow in the future.
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Otherwise, I don't think they'd be so afraid.
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I don't think you would see such the propensity to hide their identities.
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And even in that, like if you know, if we were to take a moment and look at the shooting of Renee and uh all of the officers on scene walked away from the person who shot Renee.
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None of them ran to check his physical health or mental health or even like the whole thing was something horrible just happened, and I don't want to be near it.
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They literally walked away from him.
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One of the reasons we wanted you on this show is is there are reports that Native Americans are being taken.
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And they are now able to take people uh because of the way they look, speak.
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Um, that's probable cause, it appears, to stop somebody.
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Um and and as a matter of fact, uh there are several members of Congress, uh there's several members of Congress who have been asked about that.
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And in a new Republic article, uh Congressman Nells uh said, well, you you you should carry your citizenship papers.
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Aaron Powell Yeah.
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I mean, it like this was a you know, when we used to call right wingers fascists, this is one of the jokes that people would say, you know, in irony, and you know, the right wingers would say, hey, it's not actually like that.
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It's not that bad.
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You don't need it's not Nazi Germany, you don't need to carry papers on you.
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You're exaggerating.
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And they would go on to say, like, only during times of voting, um, these checkpoints are not for to for that.
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It's not so bad.
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And it's literally that.
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Um, I know Lakota people have been abducted.
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I know of one Dakota person who is abducted and then brought back for processing.
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And we know of one uh person, he's anashinaabe, um, but he wasn't enrolled up at Red Lake, but he was a Red Laker.
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Uh, he was abducted, and then it was only released after um his family was able to get a lawyer to bring in his birth certificate.
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And one of the things is like when we're saying, like again, I I know it sounds like they're grabbing everybody, and but like if we if we're going to be really clear, they are grabbing people who have visas, they are grabbing people who have green cards, they are grabbing people who are in compliance with their immigration status and proceedings.
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So these people are in compliance and they're trying to go through the process, and they're being taken with extreme aggression and cruelty.
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Um and then, you know, Native Americans who have tribal identification reports say, try to show tribal identification, and they're told it's fake and taken in as well.
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Um there there was a time when this would seem like I, you know, I don't know.
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I I'm not a legal scholar, but like maybe a violation of the Fourth Amendment or or something like that.
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But but just un-American?
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And and I don't know.
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Well, uncivil.
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Let's just say uncivil, inhumane.
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This is on a Shinabe in Dakota territory here in Minnesota.
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And the place that they are taking people is the Federal Whipple Building, which is on federal land in the Fort Snell on Fort Snelling, which is very a sprawling area.
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And Fort Snelling was created at the confluence of two rivers to be a colonial output outpost to put down any indigenous resistance or insurrection.
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So the same tactics that have been used to target indigenous people for over a hundred years, they're literally using the exact same location.
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This has never been about immigration.
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Um right now, I'm not sure if you know the history of the Red Power Movement or the American Indian Movement, uh, but it's safe to say that Franklin Avenue was the birthplace of the American Indian movement.
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They started doing community patrols to monitor the police that were regularly beating, uh beating up, falsely arresting and disappearing indigenous people in Minneapolis.
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And the American Indian movement started by creating these aim patrols that are, you know, community that were looking out for the community.
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And essentially were they were the the police watch of their day.
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So every time that there was a cop coming down Franklin or Cedar, there would be two pickups full of Indians right behind them making sure that they behave.
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And um, yeah, uh some of my own uh tribal members, uh a handful of street dudes were allegedly captured and then put in the Whipple building.
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And uh the Oglala Sioux tribal government came out, uh has a fact-finding mission of saying, do you have our citizens?
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What are their names?
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And uh universally, ICE and DHS has denied ever detaining any Oglalas, which is not true.
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We've actually I know of one Oglala Lakota who was uh taken during a protest at the Whipple building and was processed for eight hours and then released.
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And so they are taking U.S.
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citizens and Lakota people who resist.
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So yeah, and the interesting thing about that is um one of our tribal councilmen, Garf Steele, he said, We didn't have a dog in this fight until you started taking our own people.
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And I think that's an interesting perspective, is uh they're coming for everybody.
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Like they're literally shooting blonde-haired, blue-eyed white women in the head.
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They're rounding up Indians who live under a bridge, they're going after doctors and lawyers, people who have been integrated into the community for decades.
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And uh the only difference that we can see is just not being white, or if even the white folks, uh anybody who resists is getting targeted.
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And one of the beautiful parts of this moment in this movement is it's decentralized, it is leaderless, and there are a handful of people who have stepped in up, have stepped up, has identical, identifiable voices of opposition.
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Um, but for the most part, it's like we could I could tell you the names, and you would have no idea like who they are.
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And the thing is, is because the vast majority of this movement that's literally looking out for their neighbors are just neighbors.
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And this is one of the things that kind of occurred to me is that there's a little bit of this like weaponized Karen Midwestern, I'd like to speak to the manager thing going on, but it's like whenever people see ice, they're like, time to talk to the rapid responders, like ice is here, go get him.
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Can't somebody do something about this?
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And then everybody's like, Yeah, we'll go do something about this, and everybody is watching out for ice, and and what I mean by everybody is if you look around the city, you will see people out there just observing and watching out for these raids.
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And what I really believe is when ice hit town, they thought we were going to turn on each other and start feeding our neighbors to their system.
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They believed that they were gonna create a network of spies that would lead them all, uh give them all of this targets that they wanted to abduct.
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And instead, they've had to employ several over like overlapping artificial intelligence gathering technologies, they've had to start monitoring everybody's open source uh social media.
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They've been utilize uh they've been utilizing technology.
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Um back during Standing Rock, we would call them stingrays, but these uh false cell phone tower repeaters.
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That can basically mimic a cell phone and then uh gather all of the metadata that's not encrypted, or excuse me, all of the metadata and all of the messages and content that's not encrypted and use that to start creating a profile.
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And so uh there's also people who operate off of like it's this it's this kind of weird principle where we know ice is watching us and we're kind of just going to operate out in the open.
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And it has been giving them the business, like there's every day they they get kicked out of hotels and they have to go to different places, and when those hotels are identified, people will show up and blare a music till two in the morning or riot co- or tell riot cops show up to force people to disperse.
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Like they cannot get a night's sleep around here.
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That's I think that's one of the things that's going on is ice can't actually operate here indefinitely.
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Um after every time they end up getting kind of like getting their butts kicked out in the street, they retreat back to the Whipple building, they re-evaluate their strategy, and then they try to go where the resistance isn't so stiff.
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They try to go where people are less organized, they try to go where people don't have the same kind of concentration, and also who don't have the same level of experience, or yeah, and to try to get easier targets.
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That's one of the things about bullies and cowards, is they they want the low-hanging fruit.
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What came to my mind as you were talking is you're talking about neighbors, and there seems to be an an openness to this uh resistance or this opposition to this snatching of people, this invasion of a community.
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There's community that's being created that's part of a better world.
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That's part of a world that we actually want to see and be part of.
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They're literally pushing community though to several breaking points.
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And we've we've got like it's we're we're we're we're somehow approaching situations that remind me of like when I was explaining the George Floyd uprising to people who aren't from Minnesota and didn't grow up here and haven't been a part of this community.
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It was like, no, no, no.
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What you're seeing is 30 years of rage.
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What you saw during the George Floyd uprising is like this is for Jamar Clark, this is for Philando Castile, like this is this is this has been a building point.
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And I think ICE has to recognize like there comes a limit of how far you can push people.
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And yeah.
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I I I would say as as a person uh originally from St.
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Louis, uh Ferguson, um the response to that wasn't just about Michael Brown.
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The response was built upon, you know, a whole history there.
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Um and uh that that's a very interesting observation.
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It's it's not one thing often that people are responding to.
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And and I just see a uh uh uh just a degree of cruelty, not just by the ICE agents in the field, but by what's being said.
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The current president of the United States calling Somalis garbage.
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I just I can't understand.
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It it just it's just it's just shocking to hear those words.
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And just the cruelty of being so aggressive for people who are following the law, going to their to their court hearings.
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Um, and then and then the people who don't have documentation, but they're they they they they speak in a way that that that might indicate that uh English may not be their first language.
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Yeah.
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Or even people with passing white privilege who are trying to document an abduction uh or ICE operation, they would call it.
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Why why can't we document that?
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Why can't we we make sure it's on the up and up?
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And I would say the the the the tendency, the tendency for the administration, ICE, and even representatives of the Department of Justice to say complete untruths about what happened really necessitates that people record this themselves.
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If Renee Good's murder wasn't recorded, we would we would have a completely different understanding or misunderstanding of what occurred there.
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Yeah, I think you're absolutely right.
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And it's like there, that's one of the fascinating things about the legal observer, like the people who are being a legal observer and the phones and the recording, they can't really lie anymore.
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And it's not just down to the police's body cam footage or whether or not they turned it on, or whether or not that footage was deleted or doctored, because there are so many people with phones and cameras who are recording constantly.
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The point is not about whether this is done legally.
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Again, this is uh basically a regime enacting a plan of terror to try to try to beat a community into submission, and the community is saying, no, we are still going to resist.
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We are going to keep resisting.
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And I think that is how you oppose authoritarianism.
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I think that's how you oppose fascism.
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I think that's how we, you know, try to build and imagine a better world by living it through this fight.
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And it's one of the things that I try to tell people is like, you know, I come from a Lokota warrior tradition.
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I've done some activist stuff, I've I've put myself in harm's way more than once.
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I've never been this afraid of being killed or arrested or beaten or taken and disappeared from my family.
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Not like this.
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This is something else.
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And I've had to go out and operate through the fear and with the fear.
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Before I kind of had this bravado and mythology about myself where I could like, you know, force myself into whatever the next thing was.
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And now I have to feel my torn ligaments, my older bones, the gray hairs popping in my head.
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I'm slower than I ever was.
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And yeah, we're we're we're doing this as incredibly imperfect people and very frightened people, and we're still doing it.
00:27:26.400 --> 00:27:26.640
Yeah.
00:27:27.119 --> 00:27:28.160
So you mentioned it.
00:27:28.319 --> 00:27:34.880
So you you you uh you were at the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, I believe.
00:27:35.279 --> 00:27:36.559
Yeah, I was.
00:27:36.880 --> 00:27:44.559
And uh I spent months on the ground there and uh kind of was just like I really wanted to be a strategist.
00:27:44.720 --> 00:27:51.519
I really wanted to be the guy who got like, you know, moved the little chess pieces together and like, all right, we got a good plan, guys.
00:27:51.599 --> 00:27:53.680
Good luck, everybody, and then go home.
00:27:53.920 --> 00:27:57.279
And uh that ended up kept up not happening.
00:27:57.599 --> 00:28:17.200
Um, I found myself in many roles, and sometimes I was a leader, and sometimes I was just a person who tried to have common sense and analyze a lot of data points that were coming at us constantly, and a lot of disinformation and misinformation.
00:28:17.759 --> 00:28:28.559
And after Standing Rock, we tried to tell the entire country what a militarized police force targeting its citizens looks like.
00:28:28.799 --> 00:28:36.079
And we told them they're gonna shoot you in the face, you're going to lose your eyes, they're gonna tear gas you and mace you.
00:28:36.400 --> 00:28:44.160
You're going to see military checkpoints, you're going to see people who are cops who move like an army.
00:28:45.599 --> 00:28:48.000
And all of that was in its infancy.
00:28:48.160 --> 00:29:04.720
And also the scraping of social media back then had to be, you had to have like some interns or their depressed nerds like literally scrolling, like trolling through Facebook posts, and now it's all just scraped by AI, and they get a report at the beginning and the end of the day.
00:29:05.119 --> 00:29:08.559
I wonder if we're going to be on that report uh for Breaking Green.
00:29:08.720 --> 00:29:10.799
Um I guarantee you you are.
00:29:11.519 --> 00:29:14.000
I was not at the Coda Access Pipeline.
00:29:14.079 --> 00:29:19.759
I I I like I said, I watched very closely the Ferguson.
00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:26.640
Uh I was actually um there at Ferguson uh different times.
00:29:26.880 --> 00:29:38.720
Um and what happened, I think, which really set it off initially, was a very militarized police response.
00:29:38.960 --> 00:29:40.240
It was just a community.
00:29:40.480 --> 00:29:42.319
It was just a community.
00:29:42.640 --> 00:29:48.559
Then what I perceived was immediately what appeared to be armored vehicles, assault weapons.
00:29:48.720 --> 00:29:55.680
It was like it was a it was a military maneuver into Ferguson in response.
00:29:55.920 --> 00:30:01.279
You know, a young man was shot, he was left to lay for a long time in the street.
00:30:01.519 --> 00:30:01.839
Yeah.
00:30:02.400 --> 00:30:16.960
Um his mother wanted to see him, and uh reports are was not allowed, but but he just laid in the street, and there's these big apartment complexes, or there were some apartment buildings, and people could look right down on it.
00:30:17.200 --> 00:30:24.160
Um there was upset, but the response was very militaristic.
00:30:24.400 --> 00:30:32.319
Um sniper rifles, um, and we all know the story of Ferguson, or if not, you can Google it.
00:30:32.559 --> 00:30:50.720
But uh the tear gas, um, you know, I I I I know of a student who was driving home from school unaware that this was happening in their community, just driving home, and all of a sudden their car is being hit by wooden bullets.
00:30:50.960 --> 00:30:52.720
Okay, just driving home.
00:30:53.440 --> 00:30:55.920
And just hit by wooden bullets.
00:30:56.160 --> 00:30:58.160
So much tear gas blown off.
00:30:58.319 --> 00:31:03.119
Kids used to to collect those, and but people they would collect the ordinance.
00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:07.599
It was just ramped up, and and you just see this more and more and more.
00:31:07.759 --> 00:31:08.480
Now ice.
00:31:09.119 --> 00:31:11.119
I I have not seen ice in action.
00:31:11.279 --> 00:31:13.680
I don't want to see ice in action.
00:31:13.920 --> 00:31:16.960
If I do, I'm gonna call you and I'm gonna stay with you, Mark.
00:31:17.839 --> 00:31:23.519
But but I mean, it's it's it it seems like it just keeps more and more and more.
00:31:23.599 --> 00:31:24.960
And this is a de facto army.
00:31:25.039 --> 00:31:33.519
We have passe commutatis laws where you're not supposed to deploy the military uh domestically.
00:31:34.240 --> 00:31:36.000
To me, ICE is a workaround.
00:31:36.160 --> 00:31:36.480
To me.
00:31:36.640 --> 00:31:40.960
I mean, there's a few people who are really, really liking what they're seeing.
00:31:41.200 --> 00:31:48.400
I mean, and I would say Stephen Miller, uh, you know, Donald Trump, Bondi, they they seem to really enjoy this.
00:31:48.720 --> 00:32:00.000
You know, the armed masked agents, the unmarked vehicles, people being taken, the the non-judicial warrants, people breaking in the breaking in the doors.
00:32:00.240 --> 00:32:03.599
Isn't this isn't this what we were always warned about?
00:32:03.839 --> 00:32:08.960
I mean, isn't isn't aren't we aren't we almost, if not there?
00:32:09.599 --> 00:32:10.880
I mean, are we there?
00:32:11.039 --> 00:32:13.519
Is is is are we there, Mark?
00:32:13.839 --> 00:32:14.559
Yes, we're there.
00:32:14.720 --> 00:32:16.799
Wherever you think there is, we are there.
00:32:16.960 --> 00:32:19.519
And can it get so much incredibly worse?
00:32:19.680 --> 00:32:20.880
Yes, it can.
00:32:21.920 --> 00:32:25.839
We like Minnesota de facto is already living under martial law.
00:32:26.880 --> 00:32:34.799
Like somebody like, well, it's not really martial law unless it comes from the Insurrection Act region of DC.
00:32:35.519 --> 00:32:38.880
Okay, we just got sparkling fascism then.
00:32:40.720 --> 00:32:58.799
And I think like Trump, like you know, the big great, big, big, the great big, beautiful bill, uh created ice has having as much resources as the eighth largest military in the world.
00:33:00.240 --> 00:33:08.240
And they've so far been able only to field a few thousand agents incredibly incompetently.
00:33:08.559 --> 00:33:14.880
We are lucky that authoritarianism is this stupid and this incompetent.
00:33:15.599 --> 00:33:33.680
But the people who have been disappeared and the people who have been killed and maimed and traumatized and scarred will all tell you because they are stupid, because they are incompetent, because they are inefficient, it does not mean they are not incredibly dangerous.
00:33:34.480 --> 00:33:37.759
Well, non-lethal munitions to the face.
00:33:38.160 --> 00:33:41.440
Uh I mean we saw it standing rug, those takeout eyes.
00:33:41.599 --> 00:33:45.279
You can be killed or blinded by quote unquote non-lethals.
00:33:46.160 --> 00:33:50.000
And it it it seems to be a thing they know, in my opinion.
00:33:50.240 --> 00:33:56.000
I mean, we saw we saw it done uh systematically in Chile during uh civil unrest there.
00:33:56.240 --> 00:33:59.119
There were many, many cases of blinding.
00:33:59.279 --> 00:34:10.559
Uh we we had a uh a team from Global Justice Ecology Project, which uh which produces the show uh doing photojournalism there, and that was a big thing.
00:34:10.880 --> 00:34:13.519
Non-lethals uh to take out eyes.
00:34:13.679 --> 00:34:34.559
Uh you say you saw that at Standing Rock, and and it it the reports, the reports you read about one young man having his eyes taken out, and and then uh uh reportedly uh ICE agents saying, You're gonna lose your eye, or you know, and pushing his face and into the blood.
00:34:34.639 --> 00:34:37.760
Uh these are reports that are disturbing.
00:34:38.559 --> 00:34:39.519
Very disturbing.
00:34:39.679 --> 00:34:49.760
And and it it's just it to my mind, um it it almost seems like a thing.
00:34:50.159 --> 00:34:51.920
Like a thing we should expect.
00:34:52.719 --> 00:35:14.719
Right now, the one of the escalations that we're seeing is agents drawing their firearms to enter buildings, and agents, uh ice agents who are drawing loaded firearms and sometimes long arms uh to deal with legal observers on quote unquote traffic stops.
00:35:15.360 --> 00:35:22.559
And some of them, the reports that I've been hearing is saying we already killed one of you and we're going to kill more.
00:35:23.679 --> 00:35:32.559
And this is coming from the anonymous masked agent who's telling legal observers, didn't you learn your lesson?
00:35:33.039 --> 00:35:34.239
It's it's truly chilling.
00:35:34.400 --> 00:35:36.000
I think it's meant to chill.
00:35:36.239 --> 00:35:36.559
Yeah.
00:35:36.719 --> 00:35:42.320
Um, and I and I think we're at a point in America where some people are going to choose to self-censor.
00:35:42.880 --> 00:35:44.320
Yeah, a little bit of a downplay.
00:35:44.639 --> 00:35:46.400
I actually have a different analysis.
00:35:46.559 --> 00:35:48.320
I think the opposite is happening.
00:35:48.400 --> 00:35:50.559
I think Minnesota is getting less afraid.
00:35:50.719 --> 00:35:53.599
I think Minneapolis is getting less afraid.
00:35:53.840 --> 00:35:56.719
I think I'm seeing people standing up more and more.
00:35:56.960 --> 00:36:02.800
I think that, like there after they killed Renee, there was 50,000 people out in the street.
00:36:03.039 --> 00:36:04.400
50,000.
00:36:04.719 --> 00:36:13.760
And before that, on one of the coldest days we had in just a march for solidarity on Lake Street, there was 10,000.
00:36:14.159 --> 00:36:19.920
And so people are actually increasing their level of bravery, increasing their level of support.
00:36:20.079 --> 00:36:32.159
Like people think that since Renee was killed, that somehow everyone's like like cloistering up, and we're like, well, I don't feel like going on, I don't feel like checking on my neighbors.
00:36:32.239 --> 00:36:34.559
I don't feel like blowing a whistle today.
00:36:34.639 --> 00:36:36.639
And the exact damn opposite has happened.
00:36:36.800 --> 00:36:39.599
There's a nightly protest at the Whipple building.
00:36:41.679 --> 00:36:48.800
That that's why you're on the show, Mark, uh to to uh set this uh this this host uh right.
00:36:49.039 --> 00:37:21.360
Um I'm really I'm really uh um it's it's very interesting to hear because what was done to Renee Good uh and what everyone saw, and then the statements that she was a domestic terrorist, uh these these patently untrue characterizations of what occurred and and uh then the statement that our agents have absolute uh immunity or something to that effect uh by the vice president, those um those are very chilling, chilling words.
00:37:21.599 --> 00:37:41.599
But what I'm hearing you say is that uh people in Minnesota, in Minneapolis, um have heart and uh are are taking are standing up, standing up against that and and at quite I mean there's personal risk here.
00:37:41.760 --> 00:37:42.800
There's personal risk.
00:37:43.199 --> 00:37:44.480
You you have to know it.
00:37:44.719 --> 00:37:46.239
There's personal risk here.
00:37:46.960 --> 00:37:58.239
You know, I didn't know Renee, but you know, I have I have friends and relatives who did, and she's she's she's part she's lived in the same neighborhood I did.
00:37:58.400 --> 00:38:00.400
She lives in the same neighborhood I do.
00:38:00.800 --> 00:38:07.360
And um there was so much horror at what happened, but the rage.
00:38:08.480 --> 00:38:29.360
Like more people started doing mutual aid, more people started patrolling their street or their neighborhood, more people started joining Ice Watch, or more training started happening, and more protests started jumping off, and the protests that existed were getting larger and larger and larger.
00:38:30.239 --> 00:38:41.840
And I would say that was actually a catalyst that let like lit a bonfire uh to this moment of resistance.
00:38:42.800 --> 00:38:47.119
And the exact opposite of what they thought was gonna happen happened.
00:38:48.000 --> 00:38:53.519
At this point, I'd like to ask you, as a poet, Mark, I know I know you wear a lot of hats.
00:38:53.840 --> 00:39:01.119
You do a lot of things, but I know you have written a poem, and I would appreciate, and you amongst many, you are a poet.
00:39:01.519 --> 00:39:06.480
Uh I would I would I would like you to uh read uh a selection for us, please.
00:39:07.199 --> 00:39:18.000
Uh yes, this poem was written um like a a few days ago, has my response to the 40 plus days of ice being in Minnesota.
00:39:18.639 --> 00:39:24.239
Um around the neighborhood, your coffee shops become supply drops.
00:39:24.480 --> 00:39:27.519
The corner store bodega, the front line.
00:39:27.760 --> 00:39:32.239
They grabbed so many, some never seen or heard again.
00:39:32.719 --> 00:39:39.360
On not so random street corners, blue-haired they them smoke cigarettes like slavs.
00:39:39.599 --> 00:39:44.880
Orange whistles around their necks, sharp, conspicuously alert.
00:39:45.119 --> 00:39:50.079
Some carry baseball bats, hockey, and climbing helmets ready.
00:39:50.400 --> 00:39:53.920
Well stocked madmen admire their firework caches.
00:39:54.320 --> 00:39:59.840
Hardware stores keep the good respirators with pink cartridges on the end caps.
00:40:00.480 --> 00:40:05.599
Aim patrol back on Franklin in Cedar, the old roads well worn.
00:40:05.840 --> 00:40:14.400
Black security guards with pistols on their hip clock in before sunrise prayers, praying no one has to kill or die today.
00:40:14.639 --> 00:40:18.559
Mexican dudes on job sites keep one eye out for ice.
00:40:18.719 --> 00:40:28.719
The unmarked vehicles, blacked-out tinted windows trawled by school bus stops, using kids has pait to grab the parents running to their children.
00:40:28.960 --> 00:40:31.679
Families mourn their dead and missing.
00:40:31.840 --> 00:40:34.639
Shops close, some too scared to open.
00:40:34.880 --> 00:40:40.000
White restaurants with white patrons stay open, but cannot pretend things are normal.
00:40:40.159 --> 00:40:43.519
We are under siege, some of us in hiding.
00:40:43.760 --> 00:40:49.519
The mornings fill with horns and whistles, it means we haven't stopped fighting for our neighbors.
00:40:49.679 --> 00:40:55.119
The nights fill with flash bangs and tear gas mean they haven't stopped trying to take them.
00:40:55.440 --> 00:40:57.599
Ice doesn't get to sleep here.
00:40:57.760 --> 00:41:00.239
The land and the people reject them.
00:41:00.480 --> 00:41:08.000
Everywhere a wire taught readiness for what comes next, and we carry on the good fight in Renee's name.
00:41:10.559 --> 00:41:11.920
Thank you, Mark.
00:41:13.519 --> 00:41:15.280
What is the title of that poem?
00:41:16.239 --> 00:41:18.000
Um Around the Neighborhood.
00:41:18.400 --> 00:41:19.760
Around the neighborhood.
00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:21.519
That's that's great.
00:41:21.840 --> 00:41:25.519
Mark, is there anything I didn't ask you that you would like to comment on?
00:41:28.480 --> 00:41:35.119
I think I would say the people of the Twin Cities are standing up and they are winning.
00:41:38.159 --> 00:41:41.920
Thank you so much for joining us on Breaking Green.
00:41:42.239 --> 00:41:42.800
Thank you.
00:41:42.960 --> 00:41:44.480
It's an honor to be here.
00:41:45.679 --> 00:41:51.199
You have been listening to Breaking Green, a Global Justice Ecology Project podcast.
00:41:51.440 --> 00:41:58.079
To learn more about Global Justice Ecology Project, visit Global JusticeEcology.org.
00:41:58.480 --> 00:42:03.199
Breaking Green is made possible by tax-deductible donations by people like you.
00:42:03.360 --> 00:42:10.800
Please help us lift up the voices of those working to protect forests, defend human rights, and expose false solutions.
00:42:11.039 --> 00:42:20.000
Simply text GIV GIDE2 1716 257 4187.
00:42:20.559 --> 00:42:26.239
That's 1716 257 4187.