Days after a 70-year-old Air Force veteran was among five people charged while protesting outside a suburban U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility, fellow veterans and others gathered at the same spot to speak out against ICE’s increased presence in the Chicago region.

Nearly two dozen people attended the event sponsored by the veteran and military organization Common Defense, of which the veteran, Dana Briggs, was a member. Briggs, of Rockford, was protesting on Saturday outside the two-story ICE building in Broadview when he was accused of making contact with a border protection agent’s arm while trying to hand his cellphone to another protester, allegedly “causing pain” to the agent’s wrist.

Briggs is facing a felony count of assaulting a federal officer. Earlier this week, he was ordered released on an appearance bond.

Archived at https://archive.is/c9uCb

  • TheRealKuni@piefed.socialEnglish
    153·
    1 day ago

    Good thing Christian leaders have now figured out that empathy is bad.

    For what it’s worth, the people saying empathy is bad are not a majority of Christian leaders, or even a significant number. As always, the loudest and most absurd voices are heard most.

    Unfortunately, Christianity has been so thoroughly undermined by the political right that many Christians don’t know shit about their own religion, so they’re more likely to fall for those loud and absurd voices.

    • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
      6·
      22 hours ago

      No, they absolutely aren’t the minority. The election results and polling data speak clearly. Over and over and over, American Christians elect these evil people as their leaders.

      • TheRealKuni@piefed.socialEnglish
        11·
        17 hours ago

        Evangelicals are “useful idiots.” They’ve been conditioned to believe anyone pro-choice can’t be trusted, and their media bubbles prevent them from hearing the worst that “their side” does. They’ve been trained to distrust mainstream media, and therefore they believe, truly, that the things right wing media tells them are accurate. That Antifa are terrorizing the country, that trans people are a danger to their children, that immigrants are criminals, etc. And because the building blocks have been placed carefully, even some of the more rational among them end up trapped in circular thinking preventing them from getting out.

        As the saying goes, “There but for the grace of God go I.” I’m lucky to have gotten out of that bubble when I did.

        The right identified an easily manipulated segment of the population and has spent decades preparing them for this.

        But just as I tell Evangelicals: most people, everywhere, are people like everyone else. They just want to live their lives. Most people are not evil, they’re just people. When they elect evil leaders, it’s not (for most of them) because they’re evil. It’s because they’re ignorant and disinformed.