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News about Friday’s march / rally / general strike in Minneapolis is coming at me from every direction. Temperature right now is -18F / -28C and this thing is still going to be massive. People here are ready to punch a hole through the fabric of the space-time continuum if they have to. Going to be bed. Tomorrow’s going to be a hell of a day.

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in reply to Paul Cantrell

Good luck. We're all counting on you.

youtube.com/watch?v=0RMoH55T-o…

in reply to Paul Cantrell

Be strong. Stay safe. Stay *warm*! Warm enough to melt the fucking ice. ✊🏼
in reply to Paul Cantrell

Sending you all love and support. I'd send what strength I have, but I think you've got that in spades!

Still, my heart is with Minneapolis!

in reply to Paul Cantrell

Solidarity from the UK and...stay woke, yeah? Keep your wits about you, careful who you share information with, etc. 🙏🏼✊🏼
in reply to Paul Cantrell

Good luck to you. Don't let the bastards get you down. We all deserve so so much better in this world and in the US than this shit government— truly a better world is possible and it starts with us.
in reply to Paul Cantrell

any hashtags I should follow to keep up with this? My hopes are with you.
in reply to aria

@ariarhythmic

It’s kind of hashtag free for all? ICEout, MinneapolisProtests, and just Minneapolis are ones I’ve used

@aria
in reply to Paul Cantrell

Hoping for everyone's safety and keeping you all in my thoughts 🙏
in reply to Paul Cantrell

It’s going to be hard for the press to get their arms around everything going on. Honestly, it’s hard to get my head around it here on the ground: people are marching downtown, people are protesting at the airport, people are holding neighborhood protests, people are holding block parties out in the bitter cold…. It’s hard to even know where to be!

Good news is it will get up to -10°F / -23°C this afternoon.

This entry was edited (22 hours ago)
in reply to Paul Cantrell

We are going downtown to march.
The march was shortened to about six blocks, ending at Target Stadium, with an indoor rally (requiring a free ticket).

The ticket website claims they are sold out. (20,000 seats)

I smell a rat.

#MinneapolisProtests

in reply to NNN

We didn't get into Target Center; people who were inside said the lower level was full, even before the march started.

So maybe it was legit 20k people got tickets.

This entry was edited (16 hours ago)
in reply to NNN

@NNN
Oh, that stadium was legit going to fill. I didn’t stay for the rally, but it was very obvious from the crowd.
@NNN
in reply to Paul Cantrell

Before we went, I didn't think there could possibly enough protesters (at -12F) to fill a 20k seat arena.

Turns-out, the indoor rally should have been at USBank Stadium (Vikings) instead

in reply to Paul Cantrell

I think, in general, that's what the coverage about Minnesota is missing about community - the collective action, the mutual aid, etc. These are distributed, bottom up, and emergent. There's not the singular heroic figure to interview, no canonical organization directing it according to a roadmap. It moves and feels different because it is fundamentally different than how most western narratives portray change happening.
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Paul Cantrell reshared this.

in reply to Matthew Reinbold

@matthew this is one of my preferred sources to send people right now. Compilation of stories people wrote in. Long but so important and helpful thing to send to folks who are not in MN. racketmn.com/voices-of-the-occ…
in reply to Paul Cantrell

OK, this is wild

Throngs of people arriving in every direction, signs, cars honking, wave after wave of protesters

…at the NEIGHBORHOOD TRAIN STOP. I’m not even downtown yet.

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in reply to Paul Cantrell

(I did manage to get on the train. First one full. Then the supplemental bus was full. But next train had enough room! It is Tokyo-level packed.)
in reply to Paul Cantrell

This is hilarious: STILL not downtown, and the reason is that the passengers are weighing down the train so much that the doors get caught on the platform and can’t close. We accidentally shut down the LRT system!
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in reply to Paul Cantrell

Careful. KFAN's Paul Allen said that these are all paid protesters. Make sure you get your participation check before the gate closes. 🙃
in reply to Paul Cantrell

Well, that was… large!

Not really sure how large. I couldn’t see the other end of it. If you’re looking at video online, you probably have a better sense of the size than I do from being there in person. But damn, that was a lot of people. Probably because the temperature got up to a balmy -8°F.

#Minneapolis #MinneapolisProtests #ICEout

Patrick Hadfield reshared this.

in reply to Paul Cantrell

I’d easily believe 20k–30k, but…I’m pulling numbers out of thin air there. Curious to see some good aerial video once I’ve warmed up a bit.

The tone was notable. Still plenty of witty signs: “Stay salty, melt ICE,” Noem’s head on Cruella de Ville’s body, that sort of thing. But lots of people just had “Fuck ICE.” Nobody was really laughing.

One sign said “ICE will melt in hell.” That kind of captures the mood.

#MInneapolis #MinneapolisProtests #ICEout

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in reply to Paul Cantrell

I texted my nephew who lives there how much I love the people there. And he told me he was actually out there for a little while. I’m such a proud Aunt!
in reply to Paul Cantrell

hearing about 50k. I was there and it took until about 245 to start marching from my location near 4th and Portland.

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in reply to Paul Cantrell

watching this from New England & this thread made me cry. This is not the time line we should be living through, but the community response gives me hope. It's not quite as cold here in Central MA, but we're still doing stand outs & rallies. It's not going to fix what's broken, yet solidarity & community is the way forward.
in reply to Paul Cantrell

My inability to get a handle on the size of the crowd from inside the crowd is a metaphor for today writ large. In addition to the big downtown protest, there were multiple protests at the airport, clergy arrested for blocking the airport access road, at least two impromptu neighborhood protests I’m aware of near my house. There were food drives. There were street parties. Many businesses that were “closed” kept their doors open and offered free coffee, pancakes, warming spaces. Nobody really knows everything that happened.

#GeneralStrike #MInneapolis

in reply to Paul Cantrell

And in the middle of all of that, people were still out there watching for ICE, driving all over in the cold, trying to observe them and film them, trying to save just one person from being kidnapped, then another, then another.

If these fascists thought they were going to win by breaking us, they thought wrong. This fight may be on our doorstep for a long time yet, but I do now see anybody looking to fold.

Minneapolis and St. Paul will endure. ICE will melt in hell.

This entry was edited (16 hours ago)
in reply to Paul Cantrell

This gives me so much hope. #Minneapolis and #SaintPaul are setting the example for everyone who will need to know how it needs to be done.

#TwinCities #ICEOUT #FuckICE #ICEOUTOfMinnesota

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in reply to Paul Cantrell

You all are heroes. We are watching, learning from your example and taking notes.
in reply to Paul Cantrell

we really showed up and showed out today. Today was the first time I’ve heard the “I believe that we will win” chant and actually believed it. For every person down town there were at least as many at other protests or working rapid response teams. I fucking love the twin cities.
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in reply to Paul Cantrell

People have the power, we just have to use it. We are the 99.99%!
in reply to Paul Cantrell

I thought the tone was angrier than No Kings and the protests at the state capitol. This was beyond protesting mass federal layoffs, or disbanding branches of gov't.
in reply to Madeleine Morris

@Remittancegirl Well, often we'd be reliant on organisers to provide estimates of numbers, but they can be as biased towards generous estimates as the media is towards downplaying the scale!

For example the last major pro-Palestine match in London: press reported "thousands" of protesters, and featured no aerial footage. Fortunately, someone took a drone and it's clear there were at least 500,000, while organisers claim 650,000.

So yeah, it's good to have a drone operator on side!

in reply to Paul Cantrell

By my rough guess, 200 people fit in a crowded light rail car, so ~600 in a 3-car train. When the trains started running again at the end of the march, we caught the third one out, all packed. So that's ~1800 just in the first three Green Line trains out, which was only a tiny fraction of the crowd. I would easily believe 50,000, and I'd guess likely quite a bit more.
in reply to Paul Cantrell

we were (I think) near the front of the march. From where we were it was impossible to tell how may people were behind us. We popped into the library and went up to the skyway over 3rd and upon looking back down 3rd to the east, all of us broke into tears. Thousands upon thousands. We stood there watching from the skyway for 45 minutes and we still could not see the end.

Amazing.

I’ve not yet seen any estimates on numbers.

in reply to Paul Cantrell

I took a car for a change to one of these. Highway exits bumper to bumper for 2 miles.

Paul Cantrell reshared this.

in reply to Paul Cantrell

I cannot stop laughing at how fantastic this is.

And I can't help but think about the Richard Scarry story where they packed the plane too full, so enjoy the illustration. This is how I am picturing the train right now.

in reply to Paul Cantrell

I’m staying in the neighborhood today but am glad to have at least one person broadcasting direct experience. I’m otherwise getting very little coverage of the general strike and protest.
in reply to Jesse T. Alford

@anEXPer Same, here in Texas we’re getting none of today’s news, everything here is about the encroaching winter storm...which to be fair, some number of us do die every time we get a winter storm, so...
in reply to Paul Cantrell

This is so awesome to hear! Gives me a little more hope than I've been having lately. Hopefully this will set an example for other cities and the rest of the country.
in reply to Paul Cantrell

at these temperatures, being wet starts to be dangerous. People should stay away from water cannons. I guess the oppressor is not sensible to water as they are already ICE.