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More on Minnesota & the Spiral of Violence Playing Out There By Matthew Fox 1/19/2025 |
In Saturday’s DM, I shared stories of my links to Minnesota. Another is this. One January I was invited to conduct a weekend retreat at a center outside the twin cities. It was 75 degrees below zero with windchill, and participants drove up in cars, plugged them into outdoor outlets so their engines would not crack, AND—most notably—no one talked about the weather all weekend! |
I was shocked and left thinking these Minnesotans are not to be trifled with. Beneath their ready smiles is a lot of strength, a midwest work ethic, and a minimum of self-pity. Also in Saturday’s DM, I made mention of Dom Helder Camera’s iconic work, Spiral of Violence. He names a three-fold
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A snow sculpture team from Minneapolis, MN, 1912. Photo by Helen Diekoff. Wikimedia Commons. |
spiral to violence: First comes injustice—the first violence. Then comes the response of protesting injustice. Third comes the crackdown on the protesters in the name of law and order by the regime. This violence number three invariably becomes the most severe of all. One can
see this spiral of violence playing out in Iran today, and also in Minnesota. There, ICE shot an innocent mother of a six-year-old in the face. The last words Ms. Good heard in her life came from her murderer, calling her a “f***ing bi***.” |
A podium bearing the slogan “one of ours, all of yours” certainly seems to call for an escalation of violence, even if its alleged connection to past Nazis has been debunked. Video by Sons of Liberty. | Still more ICE goons are pouring into Minnesota, ordered by our government and paid for by our tax dollars. Last count, there were over 3,000 ICE goons in Minneapolis amidst fewer than 800 police officers. Let the whole country beware that this can come to your city and state |
too—especially if they are blue and not red. Camera’s analysis fifty years ago of how violence escalates under autocratic rule still applies to today’s scenes, whether in Iran or in MAGA America. There will be more because ICE is filthy rich—the Republican congress has voted them $70
billion to hire more goons, build more detention centers, buy more weapons and vehicles to carry on this war against American citizens and aspiring citizens.* They are integral to the 2025 project whose goal is to throw out American democracy and replace it with an oligarchy. |
The pretext for all this violence is immigration and immigrants. Since first running for president in 2015, Trump has pronounced about the evil of immigrants—even though two of his three wives have all been immigrants and, like all Americans except |
Chicago man wearing a t-shirt that appeals to our better angels. Photo by Nicholas Swatz on Pexels. |
indigenous ones, all of us derive from immigrants. Trump offered citizenship to white South Africans this past year, but not black ones. Clearly, he is in favor of white immigrants and not apparently those of other races. Racism is baked into MAGA’s rhetoric and violence toward immigrants though it does not stop there. Ms. Good was white after all, and trying to support all her neighbors and fellow parents in her children’s school. Even Joe Rogan, the MAGA manosphere broadcaster who
convinced many young men to vote for Trump in 2024, is speaking out on the “horrific” deportations and “gestapo” tactics* currently going on. Lack of due process is “beginning to crack” MAGA’s unified front favoring Trump’s immigration policies, reports the New York Times.** |
Maria Corina Machado of Venezuela “pays tribute” in the Oval Office with a non-transferable award. Note the stiff smile that does not reach her eyes. Is she doing this under duress, or is she out-conning him somehow? Photo by Daniel Torok for the White House. Wikimedia Commons. | There is a connection between the still unreleased Epstein files and immigration, insofar as a large number of Epstein victims involve vast sums of dollars trafficked from abroad. Pedophilia and immigration seem to be mixing. Is MAGA now a protector of pedophiles, as a worker at a Detroit factory accused Donald Trump of being this week? DOJ has not even released 2% of the files that the law demanded be completed a
month ago. How many distractions are being served up to |
prevent more coverage of the Epstein files? Is invading Venezuela one of them? Trump now calls himself “president of Venezuela,”—I hope he is a better president for that country than he is for ours. Good luck to the Venezuelans. Threats to invade Greenland, Columbia, Iran and more serve to distract from the
Epstein files. But the question persists: Where are they? Why are victims being ignored still again? A Blessed Martin Luther King, Jr. Day to All. May his courage and love of justice inspire us in these times. |
*
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, “ICE Is About to Get More Money That It Can Spend,” MSN, July 3, 2025. ** Julianna Bragg, “Rogan Blasts Trump’s Gestapo,” Axios, January 14, 2026. Banner image: Minnesotans pour into the streets for nighttime protests against ICE occupation, January 9, 2026. Photo by Fibonacci Blue. Wikimedia Commons. |
Queries for Contemplation Do you see the three levels to a “spiral of violence” as Camera names them
playing out in America today? How can we best interfere with any of them? |
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