Category: Age of War and Revolution Page 1 of 26

On October 31, 2025

This speech by Russian Secretary of State Glazyev is important, and underlines how the days of dollar hegemony are close to an end:

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“The easiest way to stop the arms race is by ceasing the use of NATO countries’ currencies,” he stated unequivocally. “Because to the extent that we use the dollar, euro, and pound, we finance their defense expenses.”

He provided a staggering figure: “The total volume of [Western] monetary issuance last year was five trillion dollars. Of this, two and a half trillion dollars is what the Eurasian states, among others, have taken on. If we stop using these currencies… we will practically halve the financial potential of the global hybrid war.”

“In the US, their satellites have completely destroyed international law… The World Trade Organization is not functioning, the norms of the global financial system are violated, and the generally accepted norms of business ethics are ignored,” he said, endorsing the Belarusian-led “Charter of Multipolarity and Diversity” as the ethical alternative.

He announced concrete steps to build this new system, revealing that work is “already underway to create a large social network that would unite hundreds of millions, maybe billions of citizens, who are ready to adhere to traditional norms, ethics, and follow their commitments.”

But it’s not just about money. For example the Power of Siberia pipeline means more than a hundred billion cubic meters of natural gas, which once went to Europe, will now go to China. Europe gets to buy much more expensive American natural gas. African countries are kicking France and the US out, ending their base leases, at an increasing rate, and from Japan I read:

Japan must stop importing liquefied natural gas from Russia. It means developing alternative energy sources, including the restarting of nuclear power plants.

Even as the G7 countries are stepping up sanctions against Russia, Japan finds itself in the position where it is now procuring just under 10% of its LNG from Russia.

However, there is a chance that Japan will not be treated as an exception. US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent has said that he is “expecting” Japan to cease energy imports from Russia.

Japan’s public and private sectors need to prepare to ensure that LNG availability is not disrupted.

Japan does roughly equal trade with the West, and with BRICS, with about a 2% edge to BRICS. This is a terrible position to be in, though I’d suggest that going with the rising powers rather than the falling ones is the way to go.

The problem is that America is forcing nations to choose. Playing both sides: trading with both, may not be possible going forward. There will be two payment systems, so simple financial sanctions won’t work, but other types of market controls like tariffs and import/export controls have come roaring back into use.

Trade that can be cut off or curtailed at any point, apparently arbitrarily, can’t be counted on. When one looks at America and China’s strategy, China’s is mostly “punch back”. They rarely initiate sanctions except in cases where a country chooses to side with Taiwan. America, on the other hand, is… erratic. One can’t make plans, because one never knows when the rules of trade may change.

This is another reason why I think joining BRICS and that trade bloc is the sensible move. The old “rules based order” as Glazyev has pointed out, no longer exists in practice: the rules change at a whim and aren’t fairly enforced. While this was always true to some extent (Canadians remember how the US just ignored rulings against it on softwood lumber) it has become so common that the rule is now “whatever the US wants, and who knows what that will be tomorrow?”

America is trying to force a clean split into two blocs. But the other bloc is richer, more trustworthy and arguably stronger. And if it isn’t stronger yet, it will be in a decade, guaranteed.

This also relates to America’s actions in South America, an attempt to try and keep the America’s “American”, which is bound to fail. But as the declining power America wants to use its military force while it still has local superiority and before China and Russia can sell or give local nations enough weapons to become effectively immune to US force.

This process is the culmination of one of the major themes of my writing for almost a quarter century. The US era of sole supremacy has now ended. It can no longer force China to do what it wants, and it can’t even keep the sea lanes open, as Yemen has proved.

The old era is dead. There will be a brief period of co-equality, then America and Europe will fade into has-beens. I thought at one point we might have a new real cold war. We will, but not for very long. America isn’t going to be as strong as the old USSR, it won’t be able to hold up its end, and its current policy is to bleed its vassals, especially Europe, white. That will make them virtually worthless as vassals and will most likely lead to a revolt sometime between ten and fifteen years from now, as the European standard of living collapses under de-industrialization and without its sub-vassals selling it under-priced resources.

Centuries of Western rule of the world are coming to an end, and the Middle Kingdom is resuming its accustomed role as the most important country in the world. It’s a fascinating change-over to live thru, if not much fun if one lives among the Golden billion, who are being demoted to the Bronze or perhaps Copper billion.

Are We A Week Away From An American Invasion of Venezuela?

On October 27, 2025

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In a week, about a quarter of the entire US Navy will be off Venezuela. Trump has made claims about Venezuela smuggling Fentanyl to America, but this is completely laughable and anyone with a room temperature IQ knows its a lie. (Though, who knows, Trump may believe it, not having a room temperature IQ.)

Anyway, Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves and Trump does love other people’s resources.

But I think the geopolitics are more important. The entire world outside of America’s direct vassals are throwing off the West’s shackles. Madagascar, for example, has said it is ending ALL ties to France. Yemen successfully defied America. America isn’t toothless yet. Syria and Lebanon attest to that, and Egypt and Turkey’s groveling acquiescence shows the America whip, though dulling, is still feared by some.

Still, Brazil told America to go take a hike when Trump tried to interfere in their legal system. Colombia’s President said he is willing to end all military cooperation with the US and that the only thing Colombia would miss is the helicopters. (Russia or China or even Iran can make this up, it isn’t advanced tech.)

What made America an Empire was the declaration of the Monroe Doctrine and the ability to enforce it. Every country in the Americas had to bow to the whip, except Canada and other British possessions. They fell under the whip after World War II. In Canada’s case the carrot was the auto-pact (you can manufacture some cars) and the whip was “and you will give up your aviation industry, because it is more advanced than ours and that is unacceptable.”

Oh there were rebellions and the Cubans even managed to make it stick, at great cost, but by and large if you didn’t do what America wanted a coup would happen, or your leader would wind up eating a bullet, and the wives of the opposition would be raped by dogs, as in Peru. People learned to fear the whip, and not to rebel too far. America was the monster next door, who’d kill you, torture your family and rape your women. They’d even kill priests and nuns. (No, you don’t get to pretend America isn’t responsible for its proxies.)

But the calculus is changing. Once half of Africa lived in fear of France’s regime change and “anti-terrorism”. Like the Americans, there was no evil they would not commit. And the Americans had their bases too, and everyone with sense feared the whip, especially after the USSR fell and there was no countervailing force.

But now there is. The dual alliance: China and Russia. In the old days the whip was supplemented with a simple fact of life. If you wanted any advanced technology, including cars, anti-biotics, electricity or planes, it had to come from the West.

But China can sell you all of that now. And Russia, well, their mercenaries can keep the peace. Yeah, they’re nasty, but they don’t turn on their host governments (or not so far.) And a nice Russian base is excellent inoculation against a case of American or French base. Meanwhile the Chinese have better fighters, better missiles and better drones. China or Russia can supply your military, and China will build you ports, hospitals, railroads, schools… whatever you want. When they lend you money, the interest rate is lower than anything the West offers and they don’t require IMF readjustments which destroy your economy and impoverish your people.

So all the US and the West have left is the whip. Thing is, the whip’s getting dull. America weapons are no longer the best. America can’t make its weapons with supplies from China, some of which, the rare earths, were just cut off. The US Navy is getting smaller. The Chinese navy is getting larger. The US can’t meet recruitment quotas.

America’s in terminal decline and everyone knows it. But like Britain in the 1930s, that doesn’t mean it isn’t still powerful and couldn’t fuck you up.

The smart people in Trump’s administration, I think, see that their military force is a wasting asset. The longer they wait to use it the less they have, and the more their enemies have. Russia and China could get enough gear and advisors to Venezuela to make attacking it a complete no go, in principle, and given time, they will. Same with almost every other reasonable sized country.

So if America wants to attack Venezuela it has to be soon.

Of course, even if it works, it’ll be a complete fiasco. A proxy government gets propped up, can’t suppress the opposition effectively in a huge country with jungles and mountains made by God for guerilla warfare and a peasantry and urban poor who are hostile and well organized. Either they lose (probably experiencing a colonel’s coup) or the Americans have to go in themselves. First it’ll be mercs, of course, but they won’t be enough. The oil won’t flow, because it’s easily interdicted and damaged by a competent insurgency, Venezuela will become even more of a basket case, and so on. Eventually the Americans will leave. Perhaps they’ll get a semi-stable puppet government running, but it won’t last, for the simple reason that as time goes by, siding with the US instead of China will be stupid. China and its junior partner Russia, just offer so much more.

Venezuela, the like the Gaza genocide and land grab, are among the last gasps of America empire. Empires die bloody. If we get away without a nuclear or world war, we’ll be doing well.

May America then break up into multiple states and never again be a unified nation capable of exerting its will upon the rest of the world.

Massive Cuts Incoming At NASA As America Just Gives Up

On October 24, 2025

What else is China doing?

So…

NASA’s civil servant workforce has varied in size over the years, peaking during the Apollo program. During the 1990s, the Clinton administration reduced the workforce by 25% over five years, a process that some claim laid the groundwork for the shuttle Columbia disaster. This budget proposes to slash NASA’s workforce by nearly 1/3 in a single year via involuntary layoffs, resulting in the agency’s smallest workforce since fiscal year 1960, before NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Johnson Space Center, and Stennis Space Center even existed.

In pretty pictures:

No. SpaceX doesn’t make up for this. China does both, massive public spending and multiple space launch companies.

Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP or SSP), the concept of gathering solar power in space using solar power satellites (SPS) to send it back to Earth, may sound like science fiction, but it is getting closer to reality.

China plans to build a 1km-wide solar array in the geostationary orbit about 36,000km above Earth.

At this distance from atmospheric interferences such as day-night cycles and changing weather, the array will constantly gather solar energy, anticipated to surpass terrestrial photovoltaic systems by more than tenfold in efficiency.

Once collected, this energy will be transformed into microwaves and transmitted to a ground-based collector station.

Colloquially known as a powersat, this was suggested by O’Neill back in the 70s. It could have been done with tech that within reach in about a decade, but, of course, America did no such thing. The space shuttle cost way too much to launch, funding had dried up to do things better and cheaper and space was no longer a priority.

China’s following O’Neill’s playbook, weirdly enough. They’re doing what the US decided not to do. To put it bluntly, if humanity has a future in space, it will be Chinese, not American. This isn’t primarily about colonization, though some people will live in space for a time, it is about putting manufacturing, refining and mining into space so we can re-wild the Earth, and avoid the resource trap.

It’s not a sure thing, by any means, but given that Earth is limited and space is much less limited, it’s the only way out of the limited resource trap. China either succeeds (and it’s them or no one, because there is a ticking clock) or we face inevitable civilization collapse. Once that occurs, having already mined all the easily accessible resources, there is unlikely to be a second chance at a future in space, or even a particularly high tech society.

Anyway, as usual, the future happens in China, and America has given up. AI is bullshit, even if it works, American capitalists want it so they can put a third of the workforce out of work. Meanwhile China builds civilian robots, automates entire factories and ports, has flying cars and drones galore and is actually working towards a real future in space.

We’re about 3 weeks into our annual fundraiser. Our goal is $12,500 (same as last year). So far we’ve raised $9,235 from 82 people out of a readership of about 10,000.

Has China Put America Into the pre-WWII “Japan Trap?”

On October 20, 2025

Most modern weapon systems require rare earths to manufacture, including expendables like missiles and drones. Rare earths are less mined than they are refined, and China controls over 90% of the refining capability. Rare earths are generally found in small amounts in other ores. For example, Gallium in Aluminum. To get Gallium, you have to refine mountains of aluminum. Gallium comes from Bauxite as part of the refining process.

Fifty grams of Gallium per metric ton of refined aluminum.

China produces 98% of it.

Now Canada used to produce a lot of Gallium, as a side benefit of processing a lot of aluminum. But Canadian aluminum wasn’t as cheap as Chinese Aluminum. And this is the problem, if you want to scale you need long term contracts not just for Gallium but the Aluminum. (Do you trust any contract underwritten by the US government? If so, many bridges are available for sale to you.)

Every rare earth has similar issues.

Now cast your mind back to pre-war Asia. Japan is kicking ass, especially against the Chinese. They’ve conquered Taiwan, Korea and South Manchuria. All of this requires lots of oil, and they buy that oil from America, primarily, which was the Saudi Arabia of the day. FDR (who hated the Japanese and was a Sinophile) cut off oil exports to Japan.

Japan had only so much in the way of oil reserves. It decided to use them to go to war, grabbing as much territory as possible, while they still existed. Some of their conquests: Burma, the Dutch East Indies, and Borneo, had oil.

The situation today isn’t identical. There’s no non-China rare earth production to seize. Everyone else is pretty much happy to sell to America, they just don’t have enough to matter.

We’re about 3 weeks into our annual fundraiser. Our goal is $12,500 (same as last year). So far we’ve raised $7,885 from 68 people out of a readership of about 10,000.

But what does matter is that if China’s rare earth ban continues, America loses the ability to make large volumes of advanced weapons. Every time I look into estimates of how long it will take to get rare earths production up and running the West, the optimistic numbers are at about ten years, with a median around twenty. China itself took about twenty years, in the 80s and 90s.

China is getting stronger over time. Everyone with sense admits that. Even before the rare-earth ban it was clear that the West is growing weaker. In ten years, let alone twenty, no one will be able to pretend America can win a war against China.

So the rare earths ban means that if the US wants war against China, it has to be soon. Within a year, I’d say.

Note that this isn’t just about China. The West supplies Ukraine and Israel, for example, with weapons which have tons (literally) of rare earths in them. The ability to keep doing this is being taken away.

Heck, forget arming proxies, the West won’t be able to produce enough missiles and drones and radar and so on for its own military needs, meaning its ability to project power and keep other nations cowed and in line will go way down.

(At this point many of you are thinking “and this is bad, how?”)

So this is fairly existential for America. Its ability to bully everyone is about to be reduced significantly for ten to twenty years, by which time all its enemies will be well supplied by the Chinese and Russians with weapons more advanced than American ones.

Use it or lose it. I suspect this may be part of the reasoning (by the few parts of American government capable of reasoning) around attacking Venezuela, for example.

But the reason that America officials are freaking out about the rare earth ban is it really does matter. That America and the West let themselves get into the position is insane, people (including me) were pointing out this vulnerability twenty years ago. But if there’s one thing the West can’t do any more it’s definitely think beyond three months or “but China’s rare earths are cheaper, so we can’t do anything!!!!!”

Assuming a war can be avoided, the best outcome here (but bad for most citizens of the West because there are a lot of civilian rare earth applications) is for China to just leave the restrictions on permanently.

Oh, and as a ray of sunshine. If the US can’t supply Israel with weapons and if Russia and China won’t, well… More on that later.

China’s finally flexing its muscles. It spent the last eight years, ever since Trump’s absolutely crazed and stupid Huawei sanctions, making sure it has all the trump cards and no significant vulnerabilities.

And it had done so. Goodbye (not) Pax Americana.

China Seizes The Master’s Weapon As It Makes Itself The New Hegemon

On October 17, 2025

I’d like to highlight something Matt Stoller (the anti-trust guy) recently wrote:

John Maynard Keynes

John Maynard Keynes believed that ideas, hospitality, travel, knowledge and science should move freely between nations. if a country could reasonably produce something physical it needed, it should. Trade should exist, but be kept to a minimum.

In May of 2020, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) declared its economic strategy, using the phrase “dual circulation.” Dual circulation meant fostering a domestic productive apparatus that is independent of foreign technology and finance, while making sure the rest of the world is dependent on Chinese control of key supply chains, whether it’s shipping, railroad construction, electric batteries, or solar panels. Chinese ‘grand economic strategy,’ in other words, is to operate as a giant monopoly on which the rest of the world must rely.

Matt says this isn’t about Trump, but notice it’s from 2020. It is about Trump: Trump in the first term, with his anti-Huawei sanctions. The Chinese realized they were vulnerable and the national effort became making sure they controlled all their own critical supply chains. Having seen how the US used financial sanctions and supplier boycotts, they regrettably decided to reverse the situation.

Now what one needs to understand is that after WWII American controlled most of the key supply chains outside of the Russian bloc. They had over 50% of the world’s industry. If you wanted something, you have to get it from them. Over time, this franchise expanded, first back to the Euros, as they re-built their industry, then to the Japanese, Taiwanese and South Koreans. All of these nations were firmly American vassals. Not allies, vassals with military bases in their countries.

The West, led by America and the USSR had all the advanced tech. In the 70s the USSR fell behind, they couldn’t manage the digital revolution happening, and then the USSR collapsed and the West, really America, ruled unchecked.

If you wanted any advanced tech: planes, cars, computers, weapons, etc… it had to come from America or one its vassals. The US effectively had “dual circulation”, especially since it also had full control of the international finance system and could lock anyone out at will.

This wasn’t theoretical, US sanctions on Iraq in the 90s under Billy Clinton killed at least hundreds of thousands of people. I once talked to an Iraqi oncological pediatrician from the 90s and her incandescent rage over all the children who died of cancer she couldn’t save because of American sanctions was so hot it blotted out the sun.

Once such sanctions had been rare (though there are cases back in the 50s.) The most notable is the multi-generation trade blockade of Cuba.

But from Clinton on use of these sanctions became routine, “Treasury’s Wars.” Millions died, many more were impoverished.

So, China has learned from the evil master. And it has decided that if there is such a weapon, it will have it and use it and no one else can have it.

Everyone who rages against this is correct. No country should have this power. Not America. Not China. No one.

We’re about 2 1/2 weeks into our annual fundraiser. Our goal is $12,500 (same as last year). So far we’ve raised $7,695 from 64 people out of a readership of about 10,000.

What should be the case is a trade regime where everyone makes most of what they need. Need medicine? Make it in your country. (Shut up about prices, if the supply chain is domestic then almost all that crap that MMTers go on about becomes true. Prices are irrelevant, it’s all in money you print.) To the largest degree possible, everyone makes what they need. Smaller countries will have a harder time, and trade-states like Singapore obviously can’t, but this is what a good world looks like.

This maximizes political autonomy, too. You can’t be blackmailed by other countries. Spread nukes around, and much military force goes off the table too. (And they are going to spread. The US has taught everyone that if you have nukes you’re safe, and if you don’t, you’re dinner.)

So. China is teaching the Western world the same lesson America taught China and Africa and Iraq, and Iran and Cuba. We: Europe, the Anglo countries, South Korean, Taiwan and Japan, were inside the bubble during the period when the US allowed its vassals decent lives. (Oh, they destroyed Japan’s tech and industrial lead, they gutted Britain after WWII, they forced Canada to destroy its world leading aviation industry), but overall, if you were on the inside of the “Golden billion” or, early, “the golden 500 million”, life was pretty damn good.

America used the whip, its vassals jumped to obey and everyone else was poor.

Then Americans got stupid and thought that China was like Japan, they could ship their industry there, makes lots of money and if necessary bring China to heel if it got out of hand.

Wrong. Morons. I and others warned about this for decades, how stupid it was, but no one in power listened. Probably a good thing, since it led to a billion people getting out of poverty, but it’s not going to be fun for those us living in the West.

So: the weapon is being wrested from the old hegemon’s palsied hands, and being wielded by the apprentice, the new master, the new hegemon.

Bow, insects, the new lord is here. And no, America isn’t going to get its hegemon status back, nor should anyone who isn’t American want it to.

The actual solution is Keynes solution. No one should have the weapon—the power—because every country should make, grow and dig as much of they need as possible, using trade only for what they genuinely can’t make or for luxuries they can do without in a pinch.

Opposition to the Trump Takeover of Chicago

By Nat Wilson Turner

On October 16, 2025

Update 10.17: Added some of Gov. Pritzker’s threats of legal reprisal against Stephen Miller and my commentary on it at the bottom.

Opposition to the Trump regime’s infusion of ICE agents into Democrat-helmed cities and states is manifesting in two separate forms, seemingly uncoordinated: street-level resistance and state and local governments (the latter sometimes includes law enforcement).

I wrote yesterday for Naked Capitalism regarding the Trump administration’s increasing takeover of the federal government (headed up by Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought) and expanding ICE and National Guard assaults on Blue State cities (headed up by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller).

I thought a round-up of various efforts in Illinois to oppose the Trump takeover would be a good sequel to that piece.

Keep in mind that these oppositions are separate efforts.

We’re about 2 1/2 weeks into our annual fundraiser. Our goal is $12,500 (same as last year). So far we’ve raised $7,045 from 63 people out of a readership of about 10,000.

The New Yorker summed up recent Second City confrontations efficiently:

The most dramatic operation to date occurred on September 30th, at an apartment building at 7500 South Shore Drive. Hundreds of federal agents from Customs and Border Protection, the F.B.I., and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives stormed the hundred-and-fifty-unit building and questioned most if not everyone inside, allegedly because some people staying there had connections to drug and weapons crimes and violations of immigration law. Many of the building’s inhabitants, including children, were restrained and marched outside. A video of the operation, produced by the Department of Homeland Security, showed agents lining people up and loading them into vehicles, with the whirring of Black Hawk helicopters and a soundtrack of dramatic music in the background. By dawn, thirty-seven immigrants had been arrested. Hours later, Trump addressed leaders of the armed forces, whom Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had summoned to Quantico from around the world. “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military,” Trump told them.

The Chicagoans resisting federal agents include immigrants and their communities: elected officials, immigration attorneys, faith leaders, teachers, and many others who’ve felt compelled to fight for their neighbors. Quincy Worthington, a pastor at Highland Park Presbyterian Church, has been going to demonstrations at an ICE facility in Broadview since the beginning of September. A fellow-pastor had said that he feared violence at the facility. Masked ICE agents wielded guns, and protesters hurled insults at them. The other pastor told Worthington that “police seem to respond well to clergy,” and asked Worthington if he would “mind going there and maybe being a police liaison, talking between law enforcement and protesters to make sure everything goes as smooth as it possibly can.” Worthington went with him, and now, he said, the protesters at Broadview feel like “another congregation to me.” The day I was there, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Unitarian Universalist, United Methodist, and United Church of Christ ministers huddled in a circle with protesters and shared communion. But the main way that Worthington uses his religious training, he told me, is “by being present, listening to people, comforting people, helping people if I can.”

In an October 4th memo to Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and D.H.S. Secretary Kristi Noem, Trump ordered the deployment of the Illinois National Guard, writing, “The situation in the State of Illinois, particularly in and around the city of Chicago, cannot continue.” Federal facilities, he said, “have come under coordinated assault by violent groups intent on obstructing Federal law enforcement activities. These groups have sought to impede the deportation and removal of criminal aliens through violent demonstrations, intimidation, and sabotage of Federal operations.” National Guard troops from Texas and Illinois began to assemble on October 7th at the Army Reserve Training Center in Elwood, about fifty miles southwest of Chicago. Some went to the Broadview ICE facility; according to a statement from the U.S. Northern Command, the troops were assigned to protect federal property and personnel in the Chicago area. Two days later, a district judge, in response to a suit by Illinois and Chicago, blocked the National Guard’s deployment. The D.O.J. immediately appealed the court order, but, at least for now, the National Guard cannot help ICE carry out Operation Midway Blitz. Seemingly prepared for more court losses, Trump has also talked about the possibility of invoking the 1807 Insurrection Act, which would allow him to deploy the military in American cities, and against Americans, if courts, mayors, and governors were “holding us up.”

Citizen Activism in Chicago

From WBEZ in Chicago:

Cristóbal Cavazos leads the People’s Patrol, one of many volunteer rapid-response networks countering a Trump administration deportation blitz in the Chicago area. The idea is to locate immigration enforcement activity, record it, document abuses and, right on the spot, voice community opposition.

Cavazos’ network focuses on Chicago’s western suburbs. It’s housed at the Casa DuPage Workers Center, a small nonprofit devoted to immigrant rights.

…

Cavazos says the People’s Patrol includes 180 people, all volunteers. The center holds trainings for the work every other Friday.

As the volunteers go about their daily lives, they all keep an eye out for immigration enforcement activity. Some make a point of driving past parking lots and businesses where the federal authorities typically gather before a day’s operations.

The ICE officers usually drive unmarked vehicles. But People’s Patrol volunteers sometimes manage to tail them. If the officers stop a motorist or try to take people from a house or workplace, the volunteers send an alert through a Facebook page and through text groups.

“We’ll send people to go check it out,” Cavazos says. “We want to go in and show the community ‘Hey, we got your back.’ We’re in the midst of a historic fight-back right now against ICE. We’re not going to leave any space to ICE. The People’s Patrol is there to fill these spaces of terror and fear with solidarity and strength.”

Chicago organizer Kelly Hayes has posted about her efforts:

I left my apartment on foot, in the clothes I had slept in, and made my way up Clark Street, watching for any signs of ICE. When I saw a suspicious vehicle, I relayed what I’d seen through neighborhood channels that coordinate ICE watch activity. When I reached the intersection of Clark and Lunt, where the abductions had occurred, other neighbors, including some old friends of mine, were already assembling and taking directions from local organizers who had been preparing for this moment for months.

While some parts of Chicago have been targeted relentlessly during the recent federal onslaught known as “Operation Midway Blitz,” Rogers Park had seen more scattered reports of ICE activity—until Thursday, when their presence was confirmed at the start of the day with immigration arrests, and continually reported throughout the morning and afternoon. Neighbors fanned out, searching streets and alleyways for any sign of ICE activity, following up on reports, and communicating what we found. Before long, there were dozens, and then hundreds of people in the streets, watching and responding.

“Clark Street was flooded with people,” Daniel*, an activist with Protect RP, told me. “We had over 200 people on the streets. That was power.” Daniel noted that many people left work early, or “dropped whatever they were doing” to join the effort.

Longtime ICE watchers wore bright orange whistles around their necks, which are used to signal the presence of ICE. Newcomers received whistles from volunteers distributing them in the streets, making the crowds of ICE watchers a clear presence. The corridor of businesses on Clark Street, where many immigrants shop and work, was clearly defended by this mass presence.

Block Club Chicago has more on their efforts:

Ravenswood Community Services gathered volunteers Monday evening to assemble 600 whistle kits to pass out to parents and students. Pilsen Arts & Community House has a tutorial how to publish and distribute itsone-page whistle zine, which is available along with other printable resources online, and has been handing out whistle kits to local businesses to distribute.

Belmont Cragin United distributed 5,000 whistles at a recent event and is looking to hand out more than 12,000 by the end of October, said organizer Alonso Zaragoza. The organization recently launched Whistlemania, where volunteers assemble and distribute whistle kits across multiple Northwest Side neighborhoods. Each packet includes information on recognizing federal agents and advice from the ACLU, as well as a whistle to alert others in emergencies or during ICE encounters.
…

A new “walking school bus” program aims to provide a sense of security for families as they go to and from school, Zaragoza said. Seven or eight volunteers will position themselves along school routes, mirroring Safe Passage routes established by Chicago Public Schools. Similar corner watches have launched in Irving Park and Albany Park on the Northwest Side, as well.

“It’s about having bodies out around the school, keeping an eye out and making sure everybody’s safe,” Zaragoza said. “So that the kids who haven’t been going to school in the last couple weeks feel comfortable enough to come back and finish their education.”

After early challenges, the community-led effort is gaining traction as educators and parents work together. “Now the pieces of organizing are starting to fall into place,” Zaragoza said. “Everybody’s clicking together.”

I’ll wrap this section with a public Facebook post from K Hurley Wales:

Yesterday started like many others. Craig made us coffee. My neighbor offered us some freshly baked scones. The girls ate their breakfast, excited for a three day weekend and their daddy’s birthday.

At 8:15 AM, we learned that an elderly man had been tackled by border control in a nearby alley.

At 8:30 AM, ICE detained two landscapers near Foster and Lincoln, a few blocks away. The entire neighborhood came out to help by recording and protesting, one of whom happened to be a WGN producer. She was violently abducted. ICE slammed into a neighbor’s parked car during their rapid getaway and kept right on driving.

At 9 AM, our school principal initiated our rapid response network and hundreds of parent, staff, and communities mobilized to patrol our school in support of our at-risk families and to allow our children to safely play and learn outdoors.

At 10 AM, ICE arrived fully armed near Ravenswood Elementary, a local public school where many of our friends go and teach. I spoke directly with my dear friend who teaches there immediately after it happened and, as you can imagine, she was terrified and traumatized.

At 10:15, ICE was reported outside a local daycare, where many of our neighborhood kiddos go. As the day unfolded, at least 8 of our neighbors were detained, and there were dozens of confirmed ICE sightings outside local schools and businesses. Craig and I spent a collective 10 hours patrolling our daughters’ school. Several schools went into lockdown, following the same protocol response we’d follow for an active shooter.

Chicago and Illinois Elected Officials and Police

The Washington Post claims that Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker “finds his place at the ramparts of the Trump resistance:”

Pritzker has positioned himself among the most visible and unflinching figures of the resistance. The mutual antagonism between him and Trump has escalated to a point rarely seen between a president and the governor of a large state.

A billionaire heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune, Pritzker will be on the Illinois ballot next year for a third term, but he is also assumed to have national aspirations. He brought his battle cry to the traditional first-in-the-nation presidential primary state of New Hampshire earlier this year.

“It’s time to fight everywhere and all at once,” Pritzker declared in a speech that brought Granite State Democrats to their feet. “Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption, but I am now. These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace.”

Pritzker’s rhetoric is aggressive, but the actual steps he’s taking to resist are small beer:

As a governor, Pritzker has little by way of formal power to stand in Trump’s way, but Illinois has joined a lawsuit by state attorneys general against the president’s executive order banning birthright citizenship and led one to block the administration’s freeze on federal grants, which the White House subsequently rescinded. He has also barred rioters pardoned by Trump for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol from holding state government jobs.
…

“One reason that so few people have been picked up is because we have done, I think, a terrific job in our state of educating people about what their rights are,” Pritzker added, including the fact that a detainer issued by ICE does not have the force of a warrant issued by a judge or give agents the power to demand entry into a home.

The city of Chicago has at least deployed its Police Department, per the NY Times, which has come into direct conflict with ICE, although it’s not clear that was intentional on their part:

Federal agents deployed tear gas on Chicago residents and more than a dozen police officers on Tuesday, the latest clash in the nation’s third-largest city as the Trump administration has carried out its immigration crackdown.

The clash began on Tuesday morning when federal agents were seen chasing a car through a working-class, heavily Latino neighborhood on the city’s far South Side, witnesses said. An S.U.V. driven by the federal agents collided with the car they were pursuing, the Chicago Police Department said, sending that car into another vehicle that was parked nearby.
…
As the agents left, they released tear gas, apparently without warning, sending people coughing and running for cover. Among those affected by the gas were 13 Chicago Police Department officers, the police department said, and at least one officer was seen rinsing his eyes out with water from a neighbor’s garden hose.

Chicago PD Pissing Off National Police Union

One sign that the local authorities are at the very least, not helping with Trump’s clampdown is the angry objections of the National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) via Fox News:

The nation’s largest police union condemned reports that Chicago officers were told not to help ICE agents surrounded by protesters, calling it “shocking” and a violation of law enforcement’s duty to protect fellow officers in danger.

Presidents of the National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) and Illinois State FOP expressed shock at reports that Chicago’s chief of patrol directed officers not to assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as they were surrounded by protesters on Saturday.

“Details are still emerging, but it appears that officers from the Chicago Police Department were ordered not to assist a group of ICE agents while they were physically threatened by what appeared to be an angry mob,” said National FOP President Patrick Yoes in a press release. “Let me be clear, both the National FOP and the Illinois FOP believe that when an officer calls for assistance, you answer, no matter what.”
…

They cited the Illinois Trust Act, which limits local police involvement in immigration enforcement, and said it is contributing to a breakdown between local and federal law enforcement, particularly in sanctuary cities like Chicago.

Their comments followed Fox News’ report revealing that Chicago police officers were ordered by their chief of patrol not to respond after Border Patrol agents called for help, saying they were boxed in and surrounded following a ramming incident outside the city, according to multiple federal and Chicago law enforcement sources.

Fox News reviewed the computer-aided dispatch message sent to Chicago police officers by their chief of patrol. It instructed officers not to respond to a Saturday morning ramming incident on the southwest side of the city in which an armed woman was shot and agents were boxed in and surrounded.

The Chicago Police Department issued a statement on Sunday disputing claims that officers failed to respond, saying they were on the scene to maintain public safety and document the incident.

“To clarify misinformation currently circulating, CPD officers did in fact respond to the shooting scene involving federal authorities on Saturday to maintain public safety and traffic control,” the department said.

According to Seymour Hersh, the Trump administration is reportedly using these actions in Chicago, Portland, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. as a setup for more ambitious moves:

The Trump administration is playing another long game, or trying to, in the streets of US cities under Democratic Party governance, using existing presidential emergency powers to send National Guard, Army troops and ICE agents to hunt down and arrest suspected undocumented immigrants and detain and deport them, without the due process demanded by the Constitution. What’s happening now may be a trial run for the use of those forces to interfere on the behalf of the president and the Republican Party in states where the Democratic Party has a chance to win crucial seats in next fall’s Congressional elections.

None of this is going in a good direction, and I must commend the discipline of Chicago activists who have been restrained and seemingly effective in their ad hoc resistance efforts. I’m more skeptical of the efficacy of the actions taken by their elected representatives and local law enforcement.

Update: Found this Common Dreams post by way of Naked Capitalism:

Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is warning top lieutenants of President Donald Trump’s violent and unlawful immigration enforcement policies that they will not always have the protection of presidential immunity and that lawmakers in the future will seek to hold them to account for their behavior, including unlawful orders given at the behest of the president.

With episodes of violent raids, unlawful search and seizures, and the mistreatment of immigrants, protesters, journalists, and everyday citizens, Pritzker, in a Thursday evening interview on MSNBC, specifically named White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, border czar Tom Homan, and Gregory Bovino, the Customs and Border Patrol commander operating in the Chicago area, as people whose actions will not be forgotten.

Pritzker said that all the people serving the president, “including all the way down to ICE agents, can be held accountable when there’s a change in administration that’s willing to hold them accountable when they break the law.”

Calling out Miller in particular, the governor charged that the xenophobic Trump advisor, who has been a leading champion and director of the harsh crackdown measures and federal deployments in Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Chicago, and elsewhere, has “clearly ordering people to break the law.”

Pritzker: “Stephen Miller is clearly ordering people to break the law. So he should know that yeah, it may be three years from now that he is held accountable, but I think it’s important for them to know that whatever they do now, it’s not like we’re going to forget.” pic.twitter.com/ExpdyijtnO

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 17, 2025

I gotta say this strikes me as foolish. Threatening the White House Deputy Chief of Staff with prosecution serves no one’s interest. If Pritzker gets elected, he should, by all means, prosecute Miller and any other Trump official who violated the law, but in his current position of impotence, it’s best to keep his mouth shut.

There’s every reason to believe that the misguided Russiagate lawfare and impeachment over Ukraine bullshit radicalized Trump and made him more determined to seize the full reins of the Federal government in his second term.

Miller, et al., are chomping at the bit to pre-emptively prosecute Democrats. Pritzker is bringing a knife to a gunfight, something any Chicagoan should know not to do.

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On October 15, 2025