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Kristi Noem Refuses To Answer Whether ICE Disarmed Alex Pretti Before Fatally Shooting Him
(www.huffpost.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2026
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politics
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When are we going to learn that strongly worded letters and protests that turn us into a shooting gallery are not a winning strategy? How many good men and women need to get assassinated before we try something different, anything different?
Have you read any American history? This is a pattern.
I just don't understand why good people are so prone to think letting the bully repeatedly punch them in the face will work. Some people won't stop until they are stopped. Everyone knows this. There's a lot of forms that can take, but blowing fucking whistles clearly isn't it.
You're not wrong but you're also not volunteering to get yourself killed as well as likely hundreds if not thousands right off the bat.
Kent State was much smaller and you still ended up with iirc like 40 deaf or injured.
Open rebellion is a last resort because it's guaranteed to come with a body count.
I'm not as well versed on that event as I would like, but isn't that another example of a peaceful protest that turned into a shooting gallery?
Yes most of the turning points in American history have fairly high body counts.
Open rebellion is a terrible idea.
We have extensive data on how to fight the US. We just choose not to use the correct tactics.
Can you elaborate? Do you mean guerilla warfare?
Asymmetric is the way. Anything else is suicide.
A. I'm going to assume that's a joke.
B. You shouldn't say that in public, even saying such a thing is technically a crime.
Violence begets violence.
That’s a trite phase, but it’s no less true.
As soon as America meets violence with violence we’re cooked.
The line is crossed and now we wait for lawmakers to choose a side.
The rule of law OR Fascism
Support and encourage your representatives to stand up to Trump and impeach the childfucker.
Did you forget that they already declined to prosecute him?
I feel like a broken clock with this, but you realize the Supreme Court’s ruling that presidents are immune from prosecution for any acts taken in their capacity as president, which they specifically said would include assassinating political rivals, didn’t come during Trump’s second term right? It came during Biden’s term. The Supreme Court literally told him, “You could assassinate Trump and nothing would happen to you.” He refused to even pursue him for prosecution.
Democrats WILL NEVER SAVE YOU. They never have. They’re guilty of genocide, and you’re relying on an appeal to their humanity. Don’t doom yourself, organize with actual humans.
SCOTUS is owned; what law makers?
Wake up.
Are you volunteering to be the first martyr?
The first, second, third, and fourth martyr positions are already taken. This trolling is no longer effective.
Fine, next martyr, though you knew what I meant. In any case, magical thinking (you just have to want it hard enough) has never worked. If you have suggestions for what to actually do, bring it. Anything short of actions that'll get you killed never seem to be good enough for the complainers.
One thing that hasn't been tried is a general strike (and by strike I don't mean one day off, but a sustained, complete standstill of business without a set end date). That is like the only peaceful means potentially affecting the US oligarchs who finance fascism. And it doesn't have to be the entire US, for starters it would help if at least some states and/or large cities would take part.
Strikes in the US? I highly doubt it.
Most people depend on their jobs for healthcare and have been brainwashed for decades into thinking that if you don't have a job that's your fault, strikes are communism, etc, etc.
Planning for a general strike takes A LONG TIME. It's not something you can just "declare" - you may already know that, but I'll say it anyway for other people reading this. You need time for people to save money, to organize with neighbors, to figure out how they can afford to go without paying bills... The current, most legitimate plans for a general strike, with multiple major unions either behind it or considering it, is for 2028. And even then I don't really know if Americans are organized enough to pull it off, but hopefully we can get there.
We've had dozens of martyrs already, people are dying we don't even know about.
So many backyards and so many ICE agents still breathing...
Next martyr, then. You in?
Position's already taken, I'm afraid.
Criticism is easy. Why don't you suggest a better strategy so we can criticize it?
Naturally, the solution is to interrogate the critique rather than the problem. That approach has an impressive record of success.
The 3.5% rule.
Nonviolent resistance has a higher success rate when compared to violent resistance. But non violent resistance does not mean the resistance movement will be bloodless. Authoritarians will respond to both a violent and nonviolent movement with aggression.
Yeah, that "rule" is bullshit. It's cherry picked at best.
Edit: for those downvoting, even the wiki page says as much right at the top.
You're probably right, but i think the point is worth making - a surprisingly small number of people acting in concert can make topple an authoritarian regime.
The thing is, grumbling on Facebook isn't enough. If 5% of people could boycott oligarchs indefinitely, that might undermine Trump's support. That's actually quite hard to achieve though.
The problem with that rule is that it says you have to be perfectly peaceful and roll over. For example, though it's categorized as a non-violent movement, the civil rights movement in the US had a fairly large violent wing as well. Also, the non-violent wing was said to be violent by the media of the time.
Personally, I don't think non-violence alone can accomplish the goals. I think it's useful to show the regime how much support there is, and how much force is available if it's actually needed. The violent wing also needs to be there though causing actual damage that they can witness. They need to see what will happen if they don't listen. The non-violent group will begin increasingly supporting the violent group.
In order to cause real change, there needs to be a credible threat. They don't care if you politely ask for change. They care if they're in danger. That's all authoritarian regimes ever care about. Not the will of the people.
Ok but money is a credible threat.
Dr Jack Goldstone was talking about this on ologies podcast episode about revolutions.
The autocrat supports oligarchs, who use their influence to keep the autocrat in power.
For example, Musk, Bezos, Zucc, contributing many millions in campaign donations to support republicans.
My point is, if public sentiment turns against these oligarchs and is expressed through boycotts, they may withdraw their support for the autocrat. The problem of course is the amount of money Trump is funneling to them in the form of grants and tax cuts. It will be difficult to exceed that.
But not impossible. Boycott big companies is as good a start as any and beats doing nothing.
If the oligarchs start losing money Trump will be finished in a week.
That said, I dont think Americans have the commitment to sustain a boycott.
Europe is prepping to do it for us. They're rolling out EU-based payment processors and switching to Open Source and EU-based tech. Right now, they're too dependent on American companies, so they're divesting from that dependence.
Once they move away from US tech dependency, they can start sanctioning the US and hurting Trump's financial backers. 20 million bubbas with red hats won't matter when a few billionaires start losing money.
Many people, likely a majority, are not in a financial or practical position to participate in a boycott or general strike. That constraint is not accidental. Considerable effort goes into structuring economic life so that such actions are difficult to sustain, and additional effort goes into convincing people they are even more powerless than they actually are.
Even within this comment thread, some seem to overlook the range of options that exist between blowing whistles on one extreme and violent confrontation with the red hats on the other.
I don't really understand if I'm honest.
You don't need to have a general strike as in not going to work or whatever.
If you buy things from Amazon, stop doing that. If you visit facebook, stop doing that. If you use google or chatGPT, make better choices.
Apparently, as few as 5% of a population can cause a revolution.
You're not suggesting a general strike then, you're suggesting something more like a general boycott.
Correct. Boycott oligarchs. @sciaphobia@sh.itjust.works mentioned a general strike, not me.
There is that artificial homelessnes they implemented just so they can replace everyone in the case of a general strike.
But in truth most workers can't be substituted for overnight, and if we also started boycotting so nobody buys stuff anyways; it would work insantly.