‘Commentary’ Archives
Something I Said: What Good Safeguarding Income by Risking Life to Only Afford a Good Funeral?
By DWIGHT HOBBES Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz extended the corona stay-at-home order through May 18th. While not nearly long enough, it was a welcome reprieve from the threat of people being let loose on the street to keep spreading this catastrophic contagion. This is no thanks to hundreds who demonstrated in mid-April outside Walz”™s home as the Liberate Minnesota Movement, demanding he lift the order. The rationale: it”™s costing the economy. Yes, businesses have faltered, even closed and people are laid off, fired. Hence, you had indignant folk hollering slogans like “We can sue! We can revolt over this tyrant. He is supposed to be working for us” and organizer Michelle Even telling Fox News, “We want our rights restored.” Twin Cities”™ activist, Michelle Gross, took a different take, telling “the alley” newspaper, “Forcing communities and businesses to reopen prematurely harms workers. We are seeing [...]
An Open Letter to Governor Walz and Local Decision-Makers
””from a front-line public health nurse, 5.18.2020 I am reaching out to connect about the resource distribution and conditions for people experiencing unsheltered homelessness in MN, and the resonance to a dire time in state”™s history. Summer 1862: displaced Indigenous people, of the recently established State of MN, were waiting on over-due annuity from the U.S. gov”™t. Exposed to a series of epidemic diseases, hungry, vacated from land and homes, they asked officials for more credit for food and supplies from locally-controlled stores in order to survive the months to come. Dakiota Internment Camp at Fort Snelling, MN 1862. Photo: Between Fences (video still) ©Mona Smith, 2012 One local response was, “Let them eat grass, or their own dung.”2020: displaced Indigenous people, of the still-occupied Dakota land, continue to wait on the overdue annuity from the US gov”™t. 2020: Indigenous descendants are 17 times more [...]
