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Title: Fighting Terrorism Begins at Home Author: CrimethInc. Date: March 18, 2004 Language: en Topics: anti-terrorism, direct action, anti-fascism, reportback Source: Retrieved on 7th November 2020 from https://crimethinc.com/2004/03/18/fighting-terrorism-begins-at-home
Our story begins at the polar opposite of liberation and
self-determination: an utterly apolitical, consumerist macho hardcore
show. A former bandmate of mine was on tour with a popular band in the
genre, and I went to see them at the rock club where they were opening
for another band that had a music video on MTV. There were four fights
during their set alone.
With the exception of the few minutes I got to watch my friend making
music, I would have felt pretty silly being there—except that, as usual,
I had a secret plan. Earlier that day, I had learned that the National
Socialist Movement and the Ku Klux Klan were to hold a “white unity”
rally at the state capital in a couple weeks—and I was interested in
whether anyone else felt like this was a bad thing. I made an
announcement about it before their band played, and afterwards collected
a list of contacts from everyone who was interested in knowing more.
Among these were, shockingly enough, a group of marines and a local
part-time police officer; I’d finally happened upon an issue that could
bring people together from as disparate walks of life as these right
wing jar-heads and a grizzled, willfully unemployed revolutionary
anarchist like myself.
I also met some old friends there, people I hadn’t seen in a long time.
Though they had little experience with political activism, they were
angry that fascists were going to be welcomed into their city, and
wanted to do something about it. Perfect. We made plans to meet, and
passed the word along to everyone we trusted.
Out of this chance interaction, a planning group formed, which held a
series of covert meetings in the days leading up to the fascist rally.
For those who care, our group included people of a variety of ethnic
groups, genders, sexual orientations, and body types; also, just as
importantly, it consisted of a range of participants from longtime
militant activists to people who didn’t consider themselves political at
all. One of my greatest frustrations with political activism as it is
sometimes practiced is that in the process of purporting to protect
against alienating people, activists alienate everyone who isn’t
similarly obsessed with radical protocol and procedure. This was not the
case in our group: our discussions were informal, we had no membership
list, no one needed any prior knowledge of activist culture to feel
welcome.
We decided we were going to do our best to prevent the rally from
happening at all, or, failing that, to make it as trying as possible for
the fascists and the city that was hosting them. But why, you ask—don’t
the fascists have the right to free speech, just like everybody else?
And doesn’t confronting them just make their position look more
attractive? Before we proceed with the account, let’s go over these
questions.
First of all, for an anarchist like me, the question of “the right to
free speech” is a moot point. Talk of “rights” only makes sense if you
accept the existence of an all-powerful state which grants them and can
take them away. If you don’t believe in recognizing the authority of a
governing power that holds all our “rights” hostage, but instead believe
that social life has to be cooperatively determined by those in the
thick of it, the question is not whether someone has the “right” to do
something, but whether or not what they’re doing is a good, socially
responsible thing. The government might grant a corporation the “right”
to destroy a forest or evict people from their homes, but that wouldn’t
make it right for us to stand idly by while they did so. The idea that
any government can dole out rights impartially is a fallacy, anyway; as
those in power inevitably use that power to represent their own
interests, we might as well use whatever power we have to represent
ours. Besides, the moment the Nazis and the Klan have the chance,
they’ll be thrilled to prevent people like you and me from exercising
any so-called rights at all. Protecting their right to organize towards
depriving others of rights, on the grounds that it’s necessary to
maintain the system of rights, is naive at best, if not outright
duplicitous.
As for the “just ignore them and they’ll go away” school of thought,
that didn’t work in Italy, Germany, or Spain a few generations back, and
it hasn’t worked lately in Europe either, where a powerful new fascist
movement has been gaining a foothold. These fascist groups, once allowed
to recruit members and get active, quickly begin targeting immigrants,
radicals, and others with violence; the only solution that has worked is
for activists to block their attempts to organize from the very
beginning. In fact, scarcely two and a half decades earlier, a similar
rally held by the same organizations in a city only an hour away from
this one had ended in the murders of anti-fascist protesters, for which
the police never found anyone guilty even though it was obvious who had
committed them. Our reluctance to let this rally go unchallenged did not
proceed from idle concerns.
Aside from the fascists themselves, we also had a bone to pick with the
city. If they had not offered police protection, the fascists surely
would not have dared show up to preach their hate and violence, for fear
of a taste of their own medicine. As it turned out, the city must have
spent tens of thousands of dollars—at the least—to make this rally
possible. I know from plenty of experience at demonstrations that cities
usually only spend that kind of money to prevent free speech. Having had
some of my own attempts to exercise my “right to free speech” end in
tear gas and rubber bullet attacks (which are not cheap!), I found it
particularly insulting that the government saw fit to allocate so much
tax-payer money to enable the fascists to recruit right on their front
lawn. Couldn’t that money have been better spent on education programs
or social security, if it had to be spent at all?
What could be in it for them? Could it be that the conservatives in
power were glad to offer the public the spectacle of these extreme
groups, in comparison with whom they would appear moderate? Regardless,
we decided it would be our job to make sure they had to work to earn
every dollar they spent on security, and to cost them more than they’d
bargained for if possible. This would discourage them from providing
protection for future fascist rallies: if they knew the price tag would
be even steeper than it had been this time, they might just tell the
Klan and Nazis they’d have to go it alone, which would be fair enough.
It would also highlight the willingness of the city to go to such great
lengths to protect the fascists, which itself deserved public scrutiny.
And in the course of our own efforts, we hoped to open a space for
others to protest the rally as well, in whatever ways they saw fit.
When you engage in confrontational action, there’s always the
possibility you will step on a few toes in the process. There’s a
certain kind of activist organizer who gets really offended if everyone
doesn’t follow the guidelines his group has unilaterally set; in
addition to that, though I’m not one to believe in the myth that the
masses are so “moderate” that any kind of militant action alienates
them, it can in fact happen that people are intimidated by a masked
group whose goals and tactics aren’t clear to them. We discussed the
fact that we would be running this risk, and decided that in this case
it was worth it: our first priority was not to convert people to our
perspective, but to stop the fascists from getting a foothold for
theirs. If we did make a bad impression on any other protesters, that
wasn’t going to turn them into fascists; and if everyone associated
fascists with chaos and trouble, so much the better. I can imagine the
Nazi “Commander” in city hall trying to get a permit next time, and the
functionary explaining: “No, last time y’all came here you brought your
friends the anarchists, and it was a big mess.”
Finally, apart from discouraging the fascists and unmasking the city’s
allegiances, this was a great opportunity for us proponents of direct
action to put our experience at the service of other rightfully angry
people, and get to know each other better in the bargain. As it turned
out, by the time the event was over we’d made a lot more new friends
than the Klan or the N.S.M. had.
Publicly, we took advantage of a few more social events to announce that
counter-rally actions of some kind would take place, and used the lists
thus gathered to send out reminders; we also wheatpasted fliers and
posted notices on the internet to the same effect. Privately, we worked
on strategy and structure. Those of us whose friends had been involved
in some of the better-known anti-fascist actions of the preceding years
contacted them and asked for pointers. Some of us explored the area and
made annotated maps, which were distributed at meetings. We gathered
what materials we could, and brainstormed about what approaches to take.
We did our best to spread word of our plans to everyone who might want
to participate, adding specifics according to the degree to which we
felt we could trust them, so as to prevent information from falling into
the wrong hands.
Shortly thereafter, we learned that a permitted protest had also been
scheduled. Some of us had mixed feelings about this. It meant, on the
one hand, that there would be a safe zone for protesters who didn’t want
to risk police repression; on the other hand, in our experience in this
city, whenever a permitted protest occurred it was some distance from
the event being protested, surrounded by a thick line of police and
metal fencing, and proved to be a disempowering experience for all who
participated in it. As all areas except the permitted zone would be
locked down by police, it was likely that the permitted protest would
absorb all who showed up and the tone of the day would thus be set by
the few who had organized it—which would mean all the energy we had put
into our organizing was absorbed by their project, an outcome that would
disappoint those who had accepted our invitation to the event in hopes
of effectively contesting the fascist rally. To top it all off,
organizers of permitted protests sometimes take offense to any other
form of protest organized to take place alongside, so we had to be
careful not to create dissension just by virtue of acting on our own
initiative.
We concluded that we had to find a point at which to confront the
fascists that was far from the permitted protest, both for civility’s
sake and to make sure no one was at risk who did not choose to be.
Fortunately, our research had revealed that they would be using a
parking lot on the opposite side of the rally site from the permitted
zone. Those of us who were prepared for potentially dangerous physical
confrontation planned to form a group that would advance on the parking
lot. There were residential neighborhoods nearby, which we hoped would
be far enough outside the zone of police surveillance that we could
gather there and approach with the element of surprise. Once in mêlée
with the police and perhaps the fascists, this group would stick tightly
together, and do everything possible to thwart arrests. As the police
had no knowledge of our plans, we didn’t expect they would be prepared
to make mass arrests, so we figured our primary problem was to stop them
from picking off individuals. If we were beset by serious police
attacks, we would retreat into the residential neighborhood, maintaining
our coherence on the way, and then disperse there where the greatest
number of us would be able to escape. If all else failed, we decided we
would break up into our affinity groups and act individually to cause
disruptions. If we could create an unstable enough situation by any of
these means, we expected the rally would be delayed or canceled.
A strategy alone is never enough. As things never go as expected, it is
critical to have a structure that can remain useful when circumstances
change. We divided into affinity groups, and buddied up inside of those;
also, several individuals who were hoping to be noncombatants formed a
communications team. Each of them was equipped with a cell phone or
two-way radio, and chose an area to patrol or a task to fulfill—taking
down license plate numbers from the fascists’ cars, for example, or
keeping abreast of areas free of police surveillance to which people
could retreat if need be. They arranged an internal network so that
information could be circulated as swiftly as possible and passed on to
one of two contacts in the action-oriented group. During the event, they
not only monitored the movements of fascists and police, but also
distributed information to all of us when we were spread out.
The night before the rally, some brave souls went out with spray-paint,
dressed as civilians. This was a role that could be played by those of
us who felt more comfortable acting alone than in the chaos of a big
demonstration, and an important one. By morning, the political district
of the city, especially the aforementioned parking lot and the actual
site of the rally, was covered thickly in anti-fascist graffiti. No
matter that the city, clearly hell-bent on their chosen project of being
welcoming hosts to the fascists, went to the surprising trouble of
sandblasting all the graffiti off by the time the rally was to begin;
they were our primary target readership, and now they have one more
serious expense to factor into their budget next time they consider
welcoming fascists.
Just before dawn, others went to a hiding place that had been scouted
earlier and stashed our secret weapons: several 4’ by 8’ plywood banners
painted with anti-fascist slogans. These had hand-holds cut into them
(though after one of us had his hand smashed by a police baton while
holding one up, we decided back handles would have been better), and
could be tied together at the ends to form a massive, jointed, mobile
barricade. Carrying these around our group would make it difficult for
police to snatch or beat us, or for that matter easily identify us or
gauge our numbers. They were also festive, and made our goals clear. In
the future, we’ll probably use plexiglass instead of plywood, since one
of them finally snapped in half after too much pressure from police on
one side and protesters on the other—but we’ll get to that story
shortly.
We held a final meeting the morning of the big day, to fill in those who
hadn’t been present at earlier ones and make some last minute decisions.
We picked a convergence point out in the residential neighborhood, and a
time we hoped would be just long enough before the fascists would cross
from the parking lot to the rally site that we could stop them, but not
so far in advance that the police could force us to disperse first, or
that too few potential participants in our action would have arrived
(since, unfortunately, those promoting the permitted event had announced
the protest as starting at the same time as the rally, which would be
too late to interfere with it). Until that moment, we would be scattered
into couples and tiny groups, in hopes of avoiding premature police
attention. Our scouts would inform those of us with communications
equipment if anything unexpected developed—say, the fascists were
heading to the rally site earlier than expected, or there was already a
police presence at the site of our planned convergence—and these
spokespeople would pass word around to others, so we could react
quickly.
We arrived a couple hours before the rally was to begin to find the
entire area swarming with police in and out of uniform, massive metal
fencing surrounding the rally site, surveillance cameras set up, snipers
on the rooftops, mobile command centers down the block, several officers
on horseback and more in riot gear, and even a helicopter overhead. It
was intimidating, and there was little sign of other protesters. Our
scouts reported that fascists had already arrived, and were fraternizing
with police officers in a couple areas; however, there didn’t seem to be
much chance of catching them alone, so we stuck with plan A.
We were all dressed as nondescript civilians, but carried bandannas and
sweatshirts with which to render ourselves anonymous. Walking around the
vicinity, we met people we recognized from other demonstrations and
shows, and passed on to those we trusted the time and location of our
convergence point—and maps, for those who had come from out of town.
When the time came, we all made our way to the designated area, doing
our best to appear to be nothing more than small groups moving randomly,
and hoping not to hear the familiar thunder of helicopters overhead.
The moment was upon us—we pulled up our masks, grabbed the banners, and
tied them together as we formed our bloc and made swiftly for the
parking lot. There were perhaps forty of us, and we were going to take
on at least one hundred fifty police, not to mention the thirty-odd
fascists that had occasioned all this trouble. One of us had a great
bass drum, with which to maintain morale—morale is critical in such
situations, it makes all the difference in what a group feels capable of
doing. Others had emergency whistles, which make a loud noise while
leaving the hands free (though you should be careful not to damage your
hearing with them, if playing for a long time). Later in the day, the
drums turned out to be extremely useful for centering our group when it
was spread out, and directing motion en masse. More drums and drummers
might have been even more effective at these purposes, and at least
would have saved our drummer the welts sustained from having to play
constantly.
In a couple minutes we were across the street from the parking lot,
jogging with our banners around us. At this instant, remarkably, we had
the element of surprise on our side: neither the police nor the fascists
were expecting us, we were throwing them into an unexpected situation
and thus off-balance; the initiative was ours. For the rest of the day,
we were not able to recapture this advantage; much of what we
accomplished proceeded from the moment when we had it. Arguably, the
mistake we made at this juncture was not to cross the street to the
parking lot before the police reached us. In discussions after the
action, it came out that those who had thought to shout out that it was
time to move across the street held back for fear that there might be
undercover police among us who would identify them as leaders. In
retrospect, we probably had enough coherence as a group that we could
have prevented police from snatching supposed leaders; but the real
solution to such a problem is to have the feeling of entitlement to make
recommendations more evenly distributed among participants. This
happened as the day wore on and all of us developed more confidence;
unfortunately, police preparations increased at the same pace our morale
did. Strike all at once and go for it while you have the chance, that’s
the moral of the story.
Be that as it may, in the next instant a line of police charged forward
and met us in the middle of the street as we headed for the parking lot.
A struggle followed, with them pushing on the banners from one side, and
us from the other. A couple of us were struck or dragged by the hair at
this point; it’s worth pointing out, though this is no surprise, that
the police were in fact the ones who initiated violence that day. All
those they tried to grab for arrests were pulled back by friends. Partly
owing to the general lack of experience in our numbers, at this point we
had not yet developed a strong sense of what we could accomplish, so
many were not as ready to push the limits as they would be later after
they’d gotten accustomed to the situation. Consequently, we were pushed
back across the street; but we held our ground there, seizing the corner
of the intersection between the parking lot and the rally site and
holding it in the face of further police pressure.
A standoff ensued. We stood on the corner, banners up on the outside,
with a line of police in front of us and more police massing behind
them. The fascists in the parking lot were hiding behind a dumpster,
totally out of view and out of range of projectiles. Over the next few
minutes, our numbers swiftly swelled, as protesters from a variety of
perspectives and walks of life came to join us. In fact, in taking this
corner, we had opened up a vast space around the rally site for those
protesters who didn’t want to remain in the permitted zone, and scores
rapidly filled it. This was definitely one of our accomplishments for
the day, that we made it possible for protesters to move around the area
at will, exercising their freedom of speech beyond the restrictions of
the police cordon.
We had failed to actually meet the fascists in conflict, but now, having
demonstrated our readiness for confrontation, we were between them and
their rally site, and it was clear to everyone that there would be
trouble if they came within range. They remained hidden behind their
dumpster, with the police around them for protection, and other police
conferred on how to handle the situation, while still others reinforced
the line facing us. This went on for perhaps fifteen minutes, until it
was time for their rally to begin. It continued for another fifteen
minutes, and then another, and then another, until we had succeeded in
delaying their rally by a full forty five minutes—no small achievement,
under the circumstances! By this time, our group was dispersed within
the much larger group of protesters that had gathered at the corner,
most clearly understanding that they were delaying the rally by amassing
there. Many were shouting furiously at the police for being willing to
defend such opponents of liberty. The atmosphere was heated, to say the
least.
It’s worth interrupting here to emphasize what a different feeling it is
to act for yourself with your companions in a situation like this than
it is simply to follow the dictates of the police or some other
authority. As frightening as it was to struggle physically with armed
police officers, it was even more exhilarating to feel that we were
acting according to our consciences rather than out of fear or
conformity. That sensation, the feeling that your life really is your
own and anything is possible, that you experience when you come to see
the world around you as something negotiable and engage with it
deliberately, is one I wish everyone could taste.
In acting as a small, self-starting group, we had opened up the option
of militant resistance to many others, who joined in enthusiastically;
but the downside to this was that our group lost coherence within the
larger mass. Our banners and banner holders had been separated from one
another in the chaos, and we never again that day formed a tight
nucleus. A city bus protected by police finally showed up to collect the
cowering fascists, and drove off in the opposite direction with them
inside. We received reports from our scouts that it was headed to the
opposite side of the rally site, on the far side of the permitted zone
from where we were; we tried to move down towards it, but moving in any
even minimally organized manner through the assembled masses around the
narrow perimeter of the rally site proved impossible. We didn’t want to
move through the permitted zone itself, anyway, so as not to draw heat
to those seeking safety there or interfere with their chosen form of
protest. This was the point at which individual actions by scattered
groups could have taken place to heighten the atmosphere of uncertainty;
whether any did is unknown, but certainly not enough did. Best case
scenario, we would have had others ready to intercept the bus, but we
had not prepared enough for that.
Surrounded by police, with us still hundreds of feet away, the fascists
were able to leave the bus without being assaulted by anything more than
the jeers of bystanders. Realizing that we had at last failed to prevent
them from reaching the site, we changed our strategy: at this point our
only hope of stopping the rally was to create chaos that seemed
uncontrollable, so we attempted a full frontal offensive. The police
barring our path had been replaced by now with officers in full body
armor, and officers with tear gas rifles and on horseback stood behind
them. The great metal fence was between us and them; it was composed of
massively heavy sections, almost inextricably linked together.
Amazingly, we were able to get one of the sections free, and pushed
forward with it and a couple of our own barricades against the lines of
police that immediately rushed to meet us. This confrontation was much
more pitched than the earlier one had been; the police rained blows upon
us, and we struck back, lifting the visors of their helmets to even the
odds where necessary. One particularly aggressive officer lost his head
in the fray and found himself surrounded by us—his colleagues had to
snatch him over the fence to safety. It was real pandemonium at times,
when police and protesters were mixed up and the lines between them
became unclear; I believe at one point I even saw a demonstrator make
use of a stage diving technique to get into the action! Once again,
those the police attempted to nab for arrests were freed, but we failed
to make much headway against their lines. In the end, we lifted the
section of metal fencing over our heads and passed it to the back of the
crowd, where it was dropped into a pit at the foot of the building
behind us so it would not block further advances on our part. This
simple disposal of a large segment of the police barricade was
gratifying, at least, but it was clear we weren’t prepared to break
through their lines frontally.
The fascist rally was in full swing, now, with the two dozen of them who
had made it out of the parking lot holding their swastika flags and
making their speeches, most of which were drowned out by audience noise.
The police had prohibited even the few fascist sympathizers who had
showed up from passing through their lines, perhaps as a result of our
activities; it was only fascist would-be leaders, their children, and
the cameras of the mainstream media on the site. Lacking other ideas as
to how to interrupt the event, some who had brought smoke bombs
attempted to deploy one. The plywood banners that were still in our
possession proved useful here; by holding them at waist height, up in
the air, some were able to obscure the vision of the police ahead of us
(though perhaps not of the rooftop snipers with binoculars) while others
attempted to light and throw the smoke bomb. Under the circumstances
this was imprudent at best, though, since at that point there were many
around us who were not prepared for this level of risk. Some of us, not
sure how we felt about what was going on, took it upon ourselves to form
a buffer between the ones with the smoke bomb and everyone else. The
inexperienced individual who attempted to hurl the smoke bomb once it
was lit failed to get it past the banners, and it was something of a
debacle, though no one was hurt (or scared, with the possible exception
of said individual). Moral of the story: as my friend’s high school band
teacher always told him, practice at home!
Others among us took advantage of the sympathetic crowd cover to paint
the buildings behind us with small slogans and artwork critical of
fascism. Conversations took place, as well: people asked why we were
wearing masks, and were generally understanding when we explained it was
to avoid being profiled by the police—and, for that matter, the
fascists, who were running surveillance of demonstrators for their own
purposes.
Perhaps the only decidedly negative receptions any of us experienced
came from two of the organizers of the permitted rally. One of them, a
white man associated with the flagship state university, had come up to
us when we were engaged in our standoff between the parking lot and the
rally site, suggesting that we cease our militant activity and join the
silent, passive protest in the permitted zone; he persisted in
insisting, providing no tactical rationale for why we should give up the
gains we had made at that point, until one hotheaded young person
finally asked if he was a police officer. The other, somewhat less
absurdly, asked the demonstrator with the big drum to stop playing it in
the proximity of the permitted zone, on the grounds that it was drowning
out their silent protest; for a time, the drummer was silent, out of
respect for her request. Some tempers did flare in the midst of the
fray, it’s true, and it is possible that others exchanged harsh words at
some point during the day. It’s very important that those of us who
practice direct action demonstrate the utmost in civility and
sensitivity in the process of doing so, so there will never be any
question about what part of our hearts such actions proceed from, or
whether direct action activists are generally welcoming and responsible
people.
Well, back to the action. At this point, certain that we were not going
to succeed in actually shutting down the rally, many of us made our way
back up the perimeter towards the parking lot, to enact plan B: go after
their cars. At the corner we had occupied before, we were met once again
with a line of police, and there was another skirmish, this time
involving mounted police as well. There were some blows and angry words
exchanged between police officers and protesters—the latter now
including a broad diversity of individuals, not just the organized
demographic that had initiated direct action at the beginning of the
event. Yet again, those the police grabbed were pulled free, but our
progress was blocked. All the same, some individuals, moving stealthily
outside the mass, subsequently managed to circumvent the police line and
infiltrate the parking lot. The tires of a vehicle belonging to a
fascist skinhead were slashed, and some scuffling and chasing ensued.
The individuals involved managed to get away, but the rest of us on the
corner could have done better to support them by making another charge
at the police line around this time to create a distraction.
It was shortly afterwards that the day’s five arrests took place; all
five of them were the result of individuals walking around apart from
the masked bloc while still wearing their masks. This made them obvious
targets for police. Clearly, we should have gone over that lesson more
thoroughly beforehand: wear your mask with the others in masks who can
protect you, change your appearance radically when you leave their
company. One individual’s collarbone was broken in the process of the
arrest, thanks to a policeman’s overzealous tackling. All those arrested
were bailed out of jail by that night; an experienced civil rights
lawyer volunteered to take their cases gratis, and is currently in the
process of getting them through the legal system with a minimum of
hassles and repercussions.
Realizing that our morale was waning, our numbers dwindling, and the
most dangerous period of the day approaching—when the permitted
protesters would disperse, leaving only us and the police—we decided
against attempting to assail the fascists as they were returned to the
parking lot. It was time to quit while we were as ahead as we were going
to get, before any more arrests could be made. Those of us in masks and
sweatshirts melted into the larger crowd, swiftly changing our clothing
outside the view of the police, and then made our way in ones and twos
out of the area as protesters from the permitted protest did the same.
We suffered no more arrests in this process; we had successfully delayed
the state-subsidized fascist rally, decorated the walls of the state
political district with politics of our own, fought over a hundred fifty
thoroughly equipped riot police, and lived to tell the tale.
Most mainstream media coverage of the event was deceitful, to say the
least. They drastically underestimated the number of protesters,
misrepresented the atmosphere by describing people as practically being
amenable to the fascist presence, and made little to no mention of the
way we delayed the rally or the violence with which the police
responded. The fact that the mainstream cameras and reporters were the
only ones allowed inside the police lines with the fascists was as
telling as the spectacle many of us witnessed of the police chief and
the fascist top dog smiling and laughing and chatting together behind
the police lines.
Underground and independent media coverage was much more thorough and
honest. Predictably, there was a post on a website from the white guy
from the university mentioned above, arguing that although he understood
the value of diversity of tactics, this demonstration had not been the
appropriate time for direct action. Such a statement is disingenuous;
accepting diversity of tactics means recognizing and respecting that
others are going to make their own decisions about tactics and act
accordingly, not granting that diverse approaches are acceptable “when I
say so”! He argued, essentially, that the most proper role of any
counter-rally demonstration was to involve the greatest possible number
of people, especially those most seriously affected by fascist
organizing—presumably assuming that non-confrontational tactics are
always the most popular, and that people of color are the ones chiefly
at risk from fascist organizing (when, in fact, people of anarchist and
queer orientations, not to mention Jewish heritage, all of whom were
present in our number along with people of color, are also significantly
at risk from fascist activity). I would argue to the contrary that there
were at least one hundred people at the protest that day, if not more,
who went explicitly to confront the fascists and their protectors, and
who wouldn’t have been there otherwise—that is to say, the best way to
involve the greatest number of people is for the broadest possible array
of approaches to be applied without interfering with one another. For
the most part, we took great care to keep well away from the area
reserved for the permitted rally, and did a decent job of not hindering
their chosen approach. With the exception of this individual, and a
clown (yes, literally, a clown) the mainstream media found to say that
it was unfair that our noise was drowning out the fascists’ articulation
of their ideas, few others expressed disapproval of the way our actions
interacted with those of other protesters.
After the smoke cleared, we met again to discuss what had worked and
what could have worked better. Spirits were generally high. We had
demonstrated the power of a few individuals to come up with an idea,
deploy it in the face of incredible odds, and influence the course of
events. Acting on our own initiative, exploring our potential in
practice, we had taken on the assembled powers of the Ku Klux Klan, the
National Socialist Movement, and the state government, and scored some
significant victories. Our initial plan for converging and setting the
tone for the day’s had worked, and had we had a little more experience,
numbers, or morale, we might well have shut the event down entirely.
Beyond this, we had all gotten to know one another much better, and
learned a lot about the amazing things we could do together.
Most of the necessary constructive criticism has been covered above, but
one point remains to be made. It’s important that individuals
participating in direct actions not go any farther than they feel
confident and comfortable doing; if you get hurt or arrested or
otherwise in trouble while participating in a level of engagement for
which you are not emotionally prepared, the effects can be debilitating.
Far better that you get started slowly and conservatively, building a
sustainable involvement with direct action projects that can continue
over a lifetime, than rush into an action with wild abandon, have a bad
experience, and swear off further participation in such actions. All but
one of us had a really empowering, fulfilling time preparing for and
engaging in this protest, and the one who came away from it with a sour
taste did so in part because he had not prepared himself for the
possible consequences of the lengths to which he took his resistance
that day. Let’s fight, let’s run risks and push limits, but let’s do so
consciously and carefully, as part of a long-term process, so the
experiences we gain in so doing will not go to waste!