Transcribed from the 3 July 2026 episode of Live Like the World Is Dying and printed with permission. Edited for space and readability. Listen to the whole conversation:
Part of how we’re going to fight these charges in Minneapolis is by leaning on our relationships, leaning on what we’ve built and experienced together—that sense of collectivity, solidarity, and support, our broad collaborations. All that power we’ve built is going to be part of how we resist repression. We don’t want to slow that down, and we don’t want to undermine that. We want to keep going.
Live Like the World Is Dying (Miriam): Hello and welcome to Live Like the World Is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the End Times. I’m your host, Miriam, and today we’re going to be talking to folks who can tell us about what has gone down recently in Minnesota.
Would you like to introduce yourselves?
Garrett: Hey, my name is Garrett. I’m a non-attorney legal worker and anti-repression activist here in the Twin Cities.
Olive: Hey, I’m Olive, I’m an attorney legal worker based here in the Twin Cities, and I also make the Outlaw podcast.
Moira Meltzer-Cohen: I’m Moira Meltzer-Cohen, I’m an attorney, educator, and abolitionist. I represent mostly people who are arrested in the course of justice struggles, and I practice primarily in New York, where I also teach the world’s best law students at CUNY School of Law.
Miriam: That’s great. So nice to see you all.
But as usual on this apocalyptic podcast, we’re here to talk about something that fucking sucks. So, what fucking sucks, and why are we talking about it?
Olive: Well, Miriam, it’s funny you should ask! On June 16, fifteen people in Minnesota were formally charged with conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer. In this case, these fifteen people are accused of conspiring to organize people to illegally interfere with ICE activity. Two of the fifteen were also charged with interstate stalking, for allegedly following ICE vehicles. One of those two and another person are charged with assault on a federal officer, and one of those people is charged with destruction of government property, for allegedly kicking an ICE vehicle with their feet.
Miriam: Did they destroy an ICE vehicle by kicking it with their feet? If so, can they teach me their incredible kung-fu ways?
Olive: Not that I know of.
Miriam: Just curious about the amount of destruction possible in a foot-versus-vehicle fight.
Olive: It’s a really important question for this discussion. But my question to start, for Mo, Garrett, and Miriam: can we talk about why a conspiracy case like this is really significant in a movement context? Or, in any context, what do charges like this mean for defendants’ lives?
Mo: The thing that’s attractive to prosecutors about conspiracy charges is that to prove a conspiracy, you have to demonstrate that two or more people made an agreement to do something that would constitute an unlawful act, and that after making that agreement they took steps in an effort to carry out that agreement to do something illegal. What constitutes an “agreement?” And what constitutes the substantial steps that someone might take in the service of carrying out such an agreement?
This is a very broad category of behavior, and it captures a huge amount of conduct that otherwise we might think of as clearly First Amendment-protected conduct, like assembly or speech—expressive conduct. A conspiracy charge enables prosecutors to criminalize whole communities of people and to criminalize behaviors that are not only lawful behaviors but constitutionally-protected behaviors.
When I say “criminalize,” what I mean is to treat those communities or behaviors as though they are crimes, whether or not, on their own, they actually are. By saying this group of people made an agreement to do something illegal, prosecutors are able to capture a very large number of people who have not in fact carried out any criminal conduct. Of course this is significant in a movement context for the same reason it’s significant in any other community where we see the widespread use of conspiracy charges.
Notably, it would be irresponsible of us not to point out that we often see conspiracy charges in working-class communities of color. They are used to criminalize so-called “gang activity,” social activity and association (which is, of course, no less First Amendment-protected) in the context of working-class communties of color, where we see a long history of conspiracy charges being used to fragment, isolate, and devastate Black families in all kinds of environments, from the American South to urban centers.
We see these charges being brought in a movement context in ways that are quite disruptive to political work. We see these politically-motivated charges against communities that are organizing with each other, and that not only disrupts the work that’s already happening, but it functions to frighten other people away from doing that kind of work—and it exacts a real cost from not only those individuals who are charged but their families, their communities, and the work, while also obscuring the actual political message by making the message seem to be purely criminal.
Olive: Could we talk about the historical context for how conspiracy cases have been used as a tool to crush dissent? While it feels like it’s happening a lot right now (or in the past five years) in a way it wasn’t before, it also isn’t new.
Garrett: Part of the reason I’m here in this conversation, I think, is that not only do I do anti-repression work in the Twin Cities, but I started because I was charged in a conspiracy case over fifteen years ago, for my political organizing. That was how I got a crash course in how conspiracies work. One of the most notable recent-history conspiracy cases would also be 1968 Chicago 8 trial, that went after a lot of our political elders and people we look to for inspiration in the New Left, Black Panther Party, Yippies, etc. There’s a long history of that happening.
One thing that’s significant and interesting that I learned about conspiracy cases is that the “agreement” that is required to make the claim of a conspiracy can be proven by the state circumstantially. What that means outside of legalese is that they don’t have to show that you agreed to something directly. You don’t have to say, Oh yes, I agree, let’s go rob a bank! You can hang around people who are bank robbers, and you can be in the area when the bank robbery happens, and a jury could be allowed to infer that an agreement must have occurred.
A lot of these things are questions of fact that a jury is going to have to decide, which is especially frustrating in cases like this that are so absurd. Because it’s easy for a judge to get out of having to make a difficult ruling to dismiss a case by saying, Oh, that’s a question of fact. Whether or not an agreement took place is a question of fact. Whether or not a law was broken is a question of fact. Whether or not it raises to the standard that’s there is a question for the jury to decide!
This just drags these processes out, and also makes it really freaking scary, because when a jury hears this evidence—Are they going to like us? Are they going to want us to have freedom? Are they going to want us to have the freedom to talk about these controversial ideas? Or are they going to say, “These peoples’ ideas scare me, let’s figure out how to punish them!”?
The thing about conspiracy cases is: they’re scary, and also not a slam-dunk. And even though we look at this and say, This is the most ridiculous garbage I’ve ever read in my entire life, it doesn’t mean there’s zero chance of people getting convicted and going to prison. That is why it takes all of us organizing, helping support these defendants, and being bold in standing up to these cases. Because it can be really scary, and a lawyer would be irresponsible to say,”There’s no way you’re going to lose this case.”
This is also why we see a lot of plea agreements happen, because nobody wants to roll those dice.
Miriam: Recording right now in the wake of the Prairieland sentencing, it would be very foolish for anybody to assume that because charges are absurd, people will not face incredibly heavy consequences for those charges.
Mo: And I want clarify some of what you’re saying, Garrett. If you look through this indictment—the document where the government sets forth its claims about why it’s charging these individuals, what it’s charging them with, and what evidence they’re putting forth to support those charges—it’s ninety-four pages long, and almost everything that is set forth in this indictment, that is supposed to be a basis for believing that these fifteen individuals have engaged in illegal conduct…the claims that are being made are that they did things that are totally legal.
They had messages with each other. They spoke to each other. They went out to protests, they petitioned the government, they assembled together, they had meetings. There’s very little in this document that would seem to actually constitute a crime. So when you read through this document, it’s like, What are they saying is the crime? The crime is the agreement to do a crime. They are alleging these people who had these messages with each other were making an agreement to do a crime.
Garrett, when we were talking about this, you had a really good hypothetical scenario about what constitutes a conspiracy. I think it would be a good illustration, if you could share that.
Garrett: I was just thinking through: What is the absolute minimum conduct that I believe a prosecutor could say they have probable cause to charge as a conspiracy? Imagine I wrote a really eloquent and beautiful blog post about my desire to overthrow the US government, and I said in that blog post that I don’t think the powerful elites are going to give up their power without a fight, so I imagine there might be some violence in the overthrowing of the US government at some point in the struggle. My theory of change for how to overthrow the US government is to build people-power, get people together to solve their own problems and get strong together, figure out how to act together.
What I want to do is have more community events where people come together and learn and practice building that power, so I’m going to organize a series of potlucks where my neighbors are going to come together, and we’re going to talk about the issues we have going on together, and try to figure out ways to solve them—whether that’s potholes in the street, or garbage pickup, or antisocial behavior on the block.
And Olive reads my blog post and says, Garrett, you’re so smart! I want to come be a part of your potlucks too! I agree with what you’re saying, I want to be a part of this. So Olive makes a dish and brings it to the potluck.
Miriam: Can I come?
Garrett: You can definitely come! You’re all invited and all your listeners are invited. Now we have one big conspiracy: we just made an agreement to overthrow the US government via potluck, and we took a step in furtherance of that.
That’s how ridiculous it can be, and it frankly speaks to how ridiculous the law can be. So much of what happens in the legal system is built on custom, and inference, and people’s conservative desires towards the status quo. This is how we’ve always done it, this is what we figure this means.
Miriam: The anti-potluck agenda!
Garrett: Right. It’s hard to imagine something like that being charged; it’s hard to imagine a jury listening to that and thinking it isn’t ridiculous. But you pair that with some heightened political context where a prosecutor is trying to score a win, or make a bugaboo to go after, to make an “enemy of the people” so they can look like the big hero that saved the day—maybe they got some egg on their face because this potluck is successfully getting people together to fix potholes, and they didn’t get them fixed, so now they’re ashamed, I don’t know. For whatever reason, they decide it’s in their interest to make a charge, and that’s what they can do. Then it’s going to be up to a jury to decide, and that is freaking scary.
In the judicial districts in Minnesota, we all like to point to our friend the sandwich-thrower in DC, who was acquitted of assault for throwing a sandwich at an ICE officer. The legal-political context of DC is that the federal district for DC is mostly just the city of DC. A lot of other federal districts span a wide political range. So people in the Twin Cities proper (or if this were a county case) might be sympathetic—they maybe had direct experience with ICE in the neighborhood and saw what was happening; maybe they were on Signal chats about ICE activity—but when you start to get out into the broader district, there’s different ideas about it and different levels of exposure, which can be part of what makes it scary.
Part of our job is to try to remember what’s important to all of us across the political spectrum in this country, and I want to believe that this idea—well, I’m not a fool. But what I want to believe is that baseline liberty for all people is an important thing that we all want to fight for. I hope my cynicism about those ideas is proved wrong.
Olive: In this case, we didn’t have a potluck. We’re talking about alleged actions coming out of Operation Metro Surge here in the Twin Cities, the largest immigration enforcement operation in US history. Federal agents occupied the Twin Cities—that feels like the proper term for what was going on. Neighbors were being snatched off street corners; thousands and thousands of agents flooded in here and thousands of neighbors were kidnapped, detained, deported. And the resistance was massive and incredible.
So that’s the context this indictment is coming out of. The actual action that the conspiracy charge focuses on here is not a potluck; it’s largely about the planning and carrying out of two blockade actions at Whipple, the immigration detention center and ICE headquarters for the Midwest here in the Twin Cities, on January 23 and March 1—actions where streets were being blocked outside that building.
Miriam: It was not a potluck, and also it can be understood as community being community in the same way a potluck is.
Olive: Right. And on those days, there were lots of those things happening; in the streets down by Whipple, one of those things was people blockading the streets. Then there was participation in the coordination of commuting, or ICE-watching by car, general ICE-watch activities, after the ICE draw-down, when thousands of officers left the Twin Cities but hundreds to a thousand still remained, from March to June of 2026.
So taking both the hypothetical and then the actual allegations here, Mo, do you want to talk about the actual charge of conspiracy? What are the elements? What does the government need to prove here?
Mo: What they need to prove is that two or more persons, in any place that the United States has jurisdiction over, made an agreement to do a particular illegal thing. In this case the conspiracy is to impede or injure an officer, so the state needs to demonstrate that two or more persons made an agreement to prevent, by force, intimidation, or threat, any officer from discharging their duties, or to get officers to leave the place they are supposed to be in order to discharge their duties, or to injure them or damage their property as a result of them discharging their law enforcement duties.
I would like to point out that this charge requires that the impediment be to an officer who is engaged in the lawful discharge of their duties, and there is quite an argument to be made that the actions of ICE in Operation Metro Surge were far in excess of their lawful authority. But that’s just my opinion.
What Garrett was saying about how easy it is to charge conspiracy, in some respects, makes the law more frightening. Part of what I’m hoping to communicate today to your listeners is that the answer to any legal question, or the answer any time anyone asks “Is this legal or illegal?” is really Nobody knows. We can’t answer those questions in real time. Those are answers determined by a judge or jury down the road, after somebody’s already been criminally charged.
What we can say is we can’t anticipate the behavior of police and prosecutors; we can’t anticipate with perfect exactitude the decisions of courts. What that means is that courts and law enforcement have a ton of discretion to come after people whether or not they’re doing things that are “illegal.” We know policing in this country happens on the basis of the way the state perceives your identity or perceives your politics, more than it has to do with how the state is observing your behavior.
I know that sounds really scary, but my hope is that is, in some ways, a little more liberating, and that it helps you understand that the system we’re operating in isn’t a system where you can perfectly predict what’s lawful or unlawful. It’s worth trying to understand what’s lawful and unlawful, and it’s worth trying to behave within the bounds of what’s lawful if you don’t wish to be prosecuted, but understanding that sometimes you might be subject to state violence or state repression not because you “deserve it” but because you are perceived as a threat to state power is actually an important place to start from.
I would like all the people who believe they’re immune to state repression to have a better understanding that state repression isn’t something you only are susceptible to if you’re doing crimes—it’s something you’re susceptible to if you are objecting to the conduct of the powerful. That’s really important, because there’s been a lot of times when there’s been large groups of people who feel like they don’t need to show up in solidarity with people being subjected to state repression, because it would “never affect them.” But what we’re seeing with these prosecutions is: They came for Antifa in the morning, and they’re coming for the voter registration groups in the evening.
This is something that all of us need to be paying attention to, including and especially the people who believe themselves to be always operating within the bounds of the First Amendment. Because many, many communities have also factually been operating within the bounds of constitutionally-protected behavior and nevertheless have been subject to this kind of repression. And frankly, we have a lot of experience with it: we have a lot of experience showing courage and solidarity in the face of this kind of repression, and a lot of these other groups would do well to take lessons from us, to learn from us—and not only to show up for us, but to let us show up for them, because this kind of repression is coming down the pike toward these other groups that do absolutely garden-variety core-democracy work like registering voters.
Olive: Being here in the winter felt like it made the point you’re making so transparent. It just turned the risk analysis on its head, for everybody watching on their screens and for people here, to have Alex Pretti and Renée Good—Alex out with his phone taking video, what we would think is a lower-risk activity, Renée sitting in her car saying nice things to the ICE officer—both being murdered in daylight for those activities. It feels like it laid bare the way the things we think of as “lawful” and “lower risk” activies come with the highest risk of all.
This indictment is another interesting thing to talk about, because it feels like they’re criminalizing political affiliation. That’s a lot of what it focuses on: anarchism and antifascism. We’re seeing that in the movement indictments that have seen coming out around the country. If anyone wants to say other things about that, you’re welcome to, but also it’s a place where we could talk about what this indictment tells us about how the state’s strategy for policing dissent is shifting. Garrett and I have talked about this before on Outlaw, but this feels like even more information about how the state’s policing strategy is changing.
Mo: I became a lawyer so I could support people who are targeted for their political beliefs and people engaged in revolutionary action, and what I’ve seen consistently is that people who are targeted for their political beliefs are treated as though they have engaged in militant revolutionary action when in fact what they have done is engage in First Amendment-protected associations and conduct.
Miriam: One of the things that I think really frightened the federal government about Minneapolis was that the people and communities that were taking action were not people who they have traditionally criminalized. The government has forever criminalized the existence of people of various identities and demographics, and that has included people of color but also people they consider radical leftwing organizers. So when they saw people who they don’t consider inherently part of a criminalized group organizing in shockingly effective ways to oppose federal government actions, the main tool they have is to criminalize that identity and activity: being Minneapolis or Twin Cities community members who are organizing together the way that communities do.
As you said, they come for Antifa in the morning…and what they’re doing is expanding the category of people to whom they apply this criminalization of existence.
Garrett: I often do different repression resilience trainings for folks, and I’m realizing it would be helpful for me in this conversation to get really basic for a second and talk about some terms, and what we mean with the things we’re saying.
When I talk about repression, I make it clear that I’m keeping that distinct from oppression. Oppression is the coercion and systems of statecraft and social power dynamics that maintain the social order. Repression is the state and reactionary forces working to protect themselves from change. When we’re talking about repression, it necessitates the idea that some action is being taken to push for change. That’s not to say that one type of negative statecraft is more destructive or deserves more attention than the other. It does help us understand tactically how we want to resist those sorts of things, or strategically what options at our disposal are best to address them.
When I say “statecraft” I mean the actions of the governing and corporate elites trying to shape the society around us, and define our norms—whether that’s through bullying and negative reinforcement, or through positive reinforcement and what they make possible—to overall design our society and how it works and operates, and what is acceptable and not acceptable.
So if we understand that repression is all the means that the state uses to protect itself from change, we are able to look at this type of specific legal repression in a broader context: this is part of a bigger strategy, and they have multiple tools they are using. They have legal repression. They have violence, like many people experienced and we all saw, especially with the murders of Renée Good and Alex Pretti. They have surveillance and disruption, which is trying to stop us by either infiltrating or undermining networks of support. They have media or social media ways that they try to turn public opinion against changemakers. Frankly, I think that’s more what this indictment is about: trying to give them opportunities for repression through messaging.
Why is this important? Because of what Mo was saying: if you are standing up and trying to make change, the state is going to try to resist change, and they are going to use tools of repression, and that may include legal repression. They have decided already that you are the enemy, and they’re trying to maneuver the legal system to cause those negative consequences to you. This is a proactive thing. It’s not like the law exists in a static way; it is one of their levers of control.
Whether that means they’re applying old laws, like what they’re doing now, or—Mo and I worked together out at Standing Rock and they were trying to make new laws, to make it okay for pipeline employees to run protesters over with their cars. The law, both how it’s interpreted and what the letter of the law says, is a fluid thing that is used for both oppression and repression—and in this case, specifically legal repression.
Maybe that’s unnecessary hair-splitting for your listeners, but for me, getting into those details helps me think: who is going to experience repression? Anyone who the state perceives as a potential threat, or who they see targeting as a way for them to repress or oppress people more broadly. The state often goes after people on the fringes of movement as part of counterinsurgency strategies; I’m not sure they actually perceive those people as a threat, but by going after those people they’re able to set examples that chill dissent and repress our whole movements through the legal system.
All that is to say, if you are being effective with your action you’re going to face repression. The state doesn’t want to change.
Olive: What’s that about going up against the biggest bully on the block?
Garrett: As Garrett likes to say, you can’t expect to go up against the biggest bully on the block and not expect to get knocked down a couple times. You can’t expect to resist the most sophisticated apparatus for military and social control that the world has ever seen, and not think that you’re life might change, that something might happen that you don’t like.
Mo: This indictment is a really good illustration of the fact that there is not some “safe” way to protest; there is not some “right” way to protest. Does that mean you should throw caution to the wind? Does that mean you should stop protesting, stop resisting? No. What it means is, you have to take seriously the possibility that you will be targeted, and be prepared for it.
Olive: Cue Garrett on repression resilience!
Garrett: I just went on a great big rant about defining terms…
Miriam: Is it someone else’s turn to go on a great big rant? Mo, you’ve set us up to talk about being prepared. So how do people do that? What should people be thinking about as increasingly necessary actions become increasingly criminalized?
Mo: The first thing I would say is that the solution to state repression is not self-censorship, and it is not shrinking. It is courage, it is solidarity, and it is integrity. What I mean by integrity: you need to be circumspect about what you’re doing and saying. A lot of times, people get really riled and they say things over text or on the internet that are hyperbolic rhetoric intended to be an expression of how upset you are or how seriously you take something—that might be a joke or something you have no interest in following through on.
You can’t anticipate what is going to be used against you in court. You can’t anticipate what kinds of statements you’ve made that the secret service or a federal prosecutor are going to think is a sinister threat. What you can do is only say things you really mean. That isn’t to say that if you say you’re going to do something bad you better really mean it. It’s to say: why don’t you really do the hard work of engaging in thoughtful problem-solving, and make public proposals that are meaningful and helpful, and that you would stand by if they were read back to you in court?
It’s fun to be funny on the internet, and it’s fun to say spicy things in your Signal chats, but you have to remember that security is a set of processes and practices; security is not an encrypted app. Making this assumption that you can say whatever you want because you’re in an encrypted chat is not the wisest move. Moreover, saying something spicy, however funny it might be, is not necessarily useful. I want to encourage us not to be self-censoring, but to be maybe a little bit more sincere.
Miriam: What I’m hearing is, you hate jokes.
Mo: I am a humorless killjoy, famously.
I also want to encourage people, in all earnestness, to remember that speaking voluntarily to law enforcement is not required. In fact, your right not to speak to law enforcement or answer their questions is protected by the consititution, and speaking to law enforcement can be quite dangerous. There is never a compelling reason to do so before consulting with an attorney. If you do find yourself having an interaction with law enforcement where they’re asking you to voluntarily speak with them—they come knock on your door, they call you up and ask you to meet at a coffee shop, anything like that—or if you are in custody, please remember that your Fifth Amendment right to remain silent and your Sixth Amendment right to an attorney can be easily invoked by saying, if they’re approaching you at home: “Leave your name and number and a lawyer will call you.” If you’re in custody you can say: “I’m going to remain silent and I want to speak to a lawyer.”
That doesn’t mean they’re going to bring you a lawyer. It means they’re supposed to stop questioning you. The biggest number-one thing everyone can do to keep themselves and their communities safe is to remember that you don’t have to speak to law enforcement and that anything you say can and very much will be used against you. The safest thing to do is to say only: “I’m not going to answer any questions without my attorney. Leave me your name and number, my attorney will call you.”
If you do have an unwanted encounter with federal law enforcement, you can call the National Lawyers Guild anti-repression hotline at 212-679-2811 and leave a voice message (you cannot text this number) with your name and a phone number, and somebody will call you back, usually within the hour.
Olive: And they might sound a little bit like Mo.
Mo: Somebody will call you back within the hour, and—this is important—have a free, privileged, and hopefully secure conversation with you about your rights, risks, and responsibilities with respect to federal law enforcement.
Olive: I want to point back to the context of this indictment and why it seems ridiculous, with its focus on shared ideology of anarchism and on making anything that has a whiff of creating structure or organization seem criminal: pre-action planning, fundraising activity, having vetting structures in place or phones out of the room, hosting trainings or political education. It makes me think of the RICO indictment in Stop Cop City and how it feels like they just threw everything possible in there to scare people from doing anything.
When the point of this is fear, and we live in a world of rising authoritarianism and fascism, we have to think about how we make choices in our lives and build our lives with this reality in mind—the reality that as people who love each other we’re going to sometimes have to do things to take care of each other. How do we minimize our fear when we have to do that?
I’ve learned so much from hearing Garrett talk about repression resiliency; I know that came out of your own experience facing serious charges like this. I think it could be really useful, if you want to talk about that.
Garrett: Thanks, I appreciate it. To go off of what Mo said about not speaking with law enforcement, generally knowing your rights, speaking with integrity: I think of these as part of a set of tactics that we think about as minimizing exposure. Use encrypted apps whether you need to or not; that can be a part of your exposure-minimizing. It doesn’t solve any problems, but it’s a worthwhile best practice. Not talking to law enforcement and in general knowing your rights, understanding to some degree the laws that are being used in your area to target people wanting to make change, so that you can navigate those spaces…
Get ready for a hot take. I’m an anarchist, I’m an antifascist, but I’m not an illegalist (I know there’s going to be some anarchist illegalists out there listening to this who are going to be mad at me): choose the tactics that are going to achieve your goals with the least obvious exposure to repression. You can shield yourself from repression by not fighting the fight on their terms. I don’t think that’s à propos in this case; in fact this case is a good example of people who chose tactics that were widely being utilized; they were participating in a broad movement where conduct had been normalized (I don’t have any special insight or knowledge about these people or their activities; I’m going based on what is public).
The flipside of minimizing exposure, the shadow side of that, is to be really careful about de-organizing behaviors. We see some of this when people believe they’re dodging repression or they’re acting in a sketchy, secretive way. That actually limits our ability to connect with one another, which is, along with minimizing exposure, another part of repression resilience that is really important. That’s building power.
Part of how we’re going to fight these charges in Minneapolis, I believe, is by leaning on our relationships, leaning on what we’ve built and experienced together—that sense of collectivity, solidarity, and support, our broad collaborations. All the power we’ve built is going to be part of how we resist repression. We don’t want to slow that down, and we don’t want to undermine that. We want to keep going.
I want to tell a story I haven’t told before from my life. When I was facing charges, I went, over the winter, to visit family two states over for the holidays, and we were out getting lunch. Let me just add that facing charges is hard on your family. I’m sure the people who love all these defendants are really struggling right now with what to do and how to support them. I want to emphasize that as an important part of the story.
So I’m out with my family and my partner at the time, and a person we never met came up to us and said: “Hey, are you Garrett from the RNC 8?” I said yeah. And they said, “Wow, it’s so great to meet you! We’re having a square dance tonight over at this place, we’d love if you would come. It’s a potluck, come hang out with us, have some food, do some dancing, it’ll be great.”
Miriam: I don’t know what word I expected to follow “We’re having a…” But if you’d asked me to compile a list of options, “square dance” would not have made the top hundred.
Garrett: It’s a Midwest anarchist thing, you know?
I went to the square dance and potluck with my partner, and we had a great time. But what felt more meaningful was that they knew what was going on, they cared about what was going on, they respected me for who I was as a person and how I was handling myself, and that my parents and loved ones got to see that it wasn’t just the negative garbage that was being said in the media. I’m getting choked up talking about it. They got to see and share in the love and appreciation and respect that I was getting. That is power. That’s what power looks like.
I was going to try to save this until the end, but maybe I’ll say it now: my message to the prosecutors on this case is that your grandchildren are going to learn about this case and are going to learn about what happened, and they’re going to feel ashamed. They’re going to have to carry with them the weight of this shame in their family, and figure out how they’re going to have human interactions with the rest of our city, who were on the other side of this issue. That’s what it feels like to be on the wrong side of history, and that’s what you’ve got coming. I pity you. It’s realy sad. You are a bully, and a coward, and that’s the price you have to pay for it.
And to the defendants, what I want them to understand, and what I hope for the city of Minneapolis, is that none of these fifteen people are going to buy a beer or a cup of coffee for themselves for the next year, and that their children are going to be embarrassed because they aren’t going to be able to go out in public with their parents without people saying, “Oh my gosh! You’re one of the DAMN 15? Thank you so much for standing up! This whole city has your back, this whole city loves and appreciates you so much!”
Miriam: We’re going to have to wrap up this recording soon, because everyone’s crying now.
Garrett: We don’t just win against repression by winning cases. Regardless of what happens in this case, generations from now, people are going to be talking about you as the heroes you are. If things go bad for you, people are here, and they’re going to have your back and help you make the most of it.
A story I tell all the time is that I was a preschool teacher when I faced my charges, and I was worried I wasn’t going to be able to be a teacher if I was convicted, and all these parents of kids I watched said, “Hey Garrett, if this goes sideways, you can still watch our kids. We’ll figure out how to hire you to be our nanny, and it’ll work out.” Part of repression resilience is also revolutionary adaptability, and understanding that people have your back and you might have to change what your plans are, and you’re always adapting your strategy based on the strikes that your enemy is making, but that doesn’t mean you can’t live a great life. You’ve got to lean on the support and love that you’ve got.
That’s the message I hope we can sit with. I would call on everybody, especially in the Twin Cities, to embarrass the crap out of the children of these defendants because they can’t have their soccer game without people in the stands being like, “Oh my gosh! You’re one of the DAMN 15? Let me buy you a beer!” They can’t go anywhere without that happening. I want so bad for us all to show them so much love and care.
Miriam: The only thing more embarrassing for a kid than people thinking their parent is not cool is people thinking their parent is cool. It’s going to be brutal.
We’re all weeping, so we should probably wrap this up. Does anyone have anything else we need to get into that may or may not make us all cry? I think some of us might need to go curl up with a box of tissues.
Mo: I want to reiterate what Garrett said about not getting busted. As one of the not-very-many attorneys who take these cases, I am on my knees begging you: if there is a way for you to not get arrested…! I’m seconding that solidarity is a legally effective strategy.
I would leave everyone with that exhortation not to wind up in custody, and if you do, don’t talk to cops. And if you are having any unwanted interaction with federal law enforcement, feel free to give us a call at 212-679-2811. Leave a message with only your name and number and someone will call you back to have a free, privileged, and hopefully secure conversation with you about your rights, risks, and responsibilities.
Olive: It’s never a bad thing, when you’re in an unvetted meeting or putting things in writing in chats, to imagine them for a quick second being played back to you in court. Think about if you would like that, or stand by it. That’s helpful to be reminded of.
I also had a conversation with a neighbor yesterday who was talking about how learning about repression resilience in the fall, before everything happened, felt helpful. It’s really hard, in the heat of the moment, when life and death feels on your doorstep, to remember why any of this matters. So talk to your random neighbor about it! Talk to people who aren’t going to listen to an anarchist podcast about it. Bonus, you build relationships and community and have the love and support that we all cried hearing Garrett talking about, if things go bad.
Miriam: Know your neighbors. Worst case scenario, you’ll have somebody who will lend you some candles when all the power goes out. Best case scenario, you’ll have people who will eventually be charged with conspiracy alongside you. No, that’s a really good point. The federal government is terrified of communities, and they should be, and you should build some.
This is one of those situations where the right side of history is so obvious. You can really see it. Garrett, what you said was really lovely. You already burned this whole thing down, but do you have anything you want to plug?
Garrett: I just wanted to second what Olive said. Just to put a final point on part of it: if you do a threat model and plan around repression resilience in advance, if you’re thinking and talking about it with your crew now, it makes it so much easier when stuff starts to go sideways. Because you aren’t surprised, you have a plan, you know what you’re doing, you’re not hiding, you’re active in your plan. It’s much more empowering. I don’t know about any of the plans that anybody had from this group, but what we can see is some people already out challenging the narrative in a way that’s really powerful and I appreciate.
The other thing I’ll say is: obviously when stuff like this happens it’s most important to focus our love and support on the defendants and make sure they get everything they need. In the background, the National Lawyers Guild and a bunch of other local legal worker groups, like the [First Defense] Hotline, are always churning to make the conditions the best to be able to help people get through this stuff. While the most important thing right now is not to drop everything and support those groups, I hope if people have the means or the interest, or you’re listening to this a year from now and we’ve won, and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, that’s so cool,” consider making a part of where you give financial and political support the National Lawyers Guild—or if you live in an area that’s lucky enough to have a nonprofit legal services organization that is movement aligned, please consider helping pitch in so that people can support themselves with the basic necessities of life while they’re doing jail visits for their friends.
Miriam: Absolutely.
I just want to add: if you’re not part of your local ICE-watch, join your local ICE-watch. If you don’t have a local ICE-watch, find your nearest local ICE-watch and ask them how you can help start a local ICE-watch.
Featured image source: Taylor Dahlin
