Northwoods Socialist Collective

On September 19 about 30 labor unionists and concerned community members gathered at the Duluth Labor Temple to hear Cal Robinet.   Cal is a union electrician and one of the Minnesota 15.  If you haven’t heard of them, they are a group of activists and union members in the Twin Cities who were arrested and charged with felonies alleging that they were engaged in conspiracy and obstructing ICE officers. As Cal pointed out in his presentation though, the real reason for these bogus charges is that the Federal government was looking to make an example of activists who were involved in the epic mobilizations of around half a million people against “Operation Metro Surge”, which was ICE’s attempt to abduct and intimidate immigrant workers throughout Minnesota. The MN 15 were arrested this past June.   They were grabbed in a series of absurd over the top scenarios which saw the activists dragged from their homes in the middle of the night with dozens of heavily armed Feds, ...

On August 13 of this year, the federal Department of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI)  filed a report  detailing an investigation in Minneapolis dated four days after the murder of Alex Pretti. But this document wasn’t an investigation into the murders by federal agents into the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. It was about “violent opportunists” in Minneapolis that had “exploited… protests as cover to attempt breaches of federal properties and have perpetrated multiple assaults against federal officers tasked with protecting these facilities.”  The operation, dubbed “Operation Puppet Master,” gathered information on groups and individuals who were never accused of crimes, a line they crossed to intentionally repress political expression and free speech.  Additional  documents  filed in the District Court in Minnesota detail that HSI went far beyond the investigation of individuals pursuing violent tactics against the federal government. Inv...

Homeland Security investigators secretly recorded conversations, infiltrated Signal chats and obtained financial records for labor unions and progressive groups as part of a wide-ranging surveillance effort during Operation Metro Surge, according to court documents filed Thursday morning.  The documents , first reported by The New York Times, were filed by a defense attorney in the federal case against 15 Minnesotans accused of conspiracy to impede or injure a federal agent. The feds’ surveillance programs, dubbed “Operation Puppet Master” and “Operation Whipple Shield,” go far beyond the 15 people indicted.  Homeland Security agents used administrative subpoenas — subpoenas issued by the federal agency rather than a judge — to obtain financial records from organizations including the labor unions Service Employees International Union and Communications Workers of America; Voices for Racial Justice, a longstanding racial justice training organization; and Sun...

In recent decades, while country music has been homogenized and made safe for suburbanite consumption, Dolly Parton stood out. In a genre that’s rife with phony tough guys and bro country fantasies about “girls,” trucks, and beer, Dolly’s contribution to country is unparalleled. One of my first thoughts when I heard she was gone from this world was a lyric from the Ray Wylie Hubbard song, Conversation with the Devil , “What you won’t find up in Heaven are Christian Coalition right-wing conservatives, country program directors, and Nashville record executives.” Dolly Parton died of cancer on Aug. 25. She was preceded in death by her husband of 59 years, Carl Dean, in March 2025. Dolly started writing songs in high school with her uncle and mentor, Bill Owens, himself a country music songwriter and performer. When Dolly was 10 years old, Owens arranged her first live radio performance on the “Cas Walker Farm and Home Hour” in Knoxville, Tenn. Shortly after her graduation, Dolly and...

 The City of Duluth has announced that it will not be renewing its contract with Flock when it expires on September 7.  Flock is a private corporation that installs surveillance cameras in communities and then sells the data.  The Duluth Police Department had been using its Flock contract for reading license plates. The announcement comes on the heals of a growing public backlash against increased government surveillance, and the abuse of this technology (for example, there have numerous documented instances of police around the country stalking their exes with these cameras).  Citizens have turned out at city council meetings, and some even took matters into their own hands and destroyed six of Flock's nine cameras in Duluth.  Similar waves of camera destruction have taken place in Winona MN and Milwaukee WI recently. Back in July, after a similar community outpouring of opposition, the Minneapolis City Council opted not to sign a contract with the Israeli comp...

A broad coalition of civil society groups responded with a call to unity in the face of reports that the Trump administration’s Department of Justice may have investigated without reason and engaged in surveillance of community and labor groups who helped organize tens of thousands of Minnesotans to peacefully defend their neighbors and constitutional rights during the lawless, chaotic ICE and CBP operation that terrorized countless Minnesotans. These organizations were engaged in the broad, peaceful civic response that brought hundreds of thousands of us together to protect our neighbors and our constitutional rights. Amid the continued weaponization of the Justice Department, we still have zero accountability for the ICE and CBP agents who terrorized countless Minnesotans and murdered Renee Good and Alex Pretti in broad daylight. Even then, they tried to lie about what happened despite video evidence. Today, groups representing Minnesotans across parties and places, rac...