A presentation on Race Traitor politics is being held this Monday at the Rusty Spoke Bicycle Co-Op in downtown Phoenix. During our active era as PCWC, we wrote with some frequency on Race Traitor politics (with my partner P.I. writing on the subject years back on his old blog, here and here) as we, and many others in Arizona, were exposed to these ideas by the late Joel Olson. Joel's projects against white supremacy introduced many valley anarchists in the late 90s and early 00s to Race Traitor politics, through his distribution of the Race Traitor journal and his own writings in the New Abolitionist paper. In more recent years, Joel was primarily recognized for his role in the national cadre organization Bring the Ruckus (BTR), and locally for his involvement in two groups created by BTR members Phoenix Copwatch and Repeal Coalition. Despite a number of disagreements over anarchist organization, the Left, and the role of liberatory projects in social struggles, we in PCWC still shared the position with Joel that white supremacy is the primary contradiction in American society. We were glad to have hosted a couple of events featuring him over the last couple of years, and we were looking forward to his planned book on fanaticism and political zealotry, which I hear may be released in the near future.
This Monday is October 22nd, national day against police brutality. To mark the struggle against the state and its violence, a Phoenix anarchist friend will present an analysis on Race Traitor politics, drawing inspiration from Joel Olson's writings on race and whiteness, and what significance these ideas have for anarchist projects in Phoenix. Some info on the event is below, along with one of Joel's final writings before he passed in March of this year, an introductory essay on white supremacy he contributed to the Institute for Anarchist Studies' Lexicon Pamphlet series.
Race Traitor Politics October 22nd 7pm
"Treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity." This workshop will give
an explanation of "Race Traitor Politics," aka "New Abolitionism." Many
of us in AZ have been influenced by recently-deceased Joel Olson (1967-2012), a founder of Phoenix Copwatch, who wrote and
lectured on this approach, but still remains unknown to many. "Race
Traitor politics" sees "race" (specifically the creation of "whiteness")
as a political construct that acts to divide the working class, and
white supremacy as a system continues this, rather than simply a set of
prejudices and privileges. What is the value of this approach, and what
are the criticisms? What does this look like in practice?
This event is in recognition of 10/22 as National Day Against Police Brutality.
Rusty Spoke, 1023 Grand Ave, Phoenix
The building is on the S/W side of Grand (which is a diagonal street).
Entrance is through the back alley which is accessible at Taylor/10th
Ave/Grand or Fillmore/11th Ave/Grand.
Rusty Spoke is about 0.3 miles
from 7th Ave. and Fillmore where Route 8 stops. Or 0.8 miles from the
Van Buren/1st Ave. light rail stop.
White Supremacy by Joel Olson
Biologically speaking,there’s no such thing as race. As hard as they’ve tried, scientists have never been able to come up with an adequate definition of it. Yet the social and political effects of race are very real. Race is like a dollar bill—a human creation rather than a fact of nature that has value only because people say it does. And like money, people give race “value” because it serves a function in society. That function in the United States is to suppress class conflict.
In the United States, the system of race (what we now call “white supremacy”) emerged in the late 1600s to preserve the land and power of the wealthy. Rich planters in Virginia feared what might happen if indigenous tribes, slaves, and indentured servants united and overthrew them. Through a series of laws, they granted the English poor certain rights and privileges denied to all persons of African and Native American descent: the right to be excluded from enslavement, move about freely without a pass, acquire property, bear arms, enjoy free speech and assembly, change jobs, and vote. For their part, they respected the property of the rich, helped seize indigenous lands, and enforced slavery. In accepting this arrangement, the English poor (now called “whites”) went against their class interests to serve their “racial” ones, and thereby reinforced the power of the rich.
This cross-class alliance between the ruling class and a section of the working class is the genesis of white supremacy in the United States. It continues to this day. In this system, members of the cross-class alliance get defined as white, while those excluded from it are relegated to a “not-white” status. By accepting preferential treatment in an economic system that exploits their labor, too, working-class members of the white group or “race” have historically tied their interests to those of the elite rather than the rest of the working class. This devil’s bargain has undermined freedom and democracy ever since.
As this white alliance grew to include other ethnicities, the result was a curious form of democracy: the white democracy. In the white democracy, all whites were considered equal (even as the poor were subordinated to the rich and women were subordinated to men). At the same time, every single white person was considered superior to every single person of color. It was a system in which whites had an interest in and expectation of favored treatment, in a society that claimed to be democratic. It was democracy for white folks, but tyranny for everyone else.
In the white democracy, whites praised freedom, equality, democracy, hard work, and equal opportunity, while simultaneously insisting on higher wages, preferential access to the best jobs, informal unemployment insurance (first hired, last fired), full enjoyment of civil rights, and the right to send their kids to the best schools, live in the nicest neighborhoods, and receive decent treatment by the police. Even white women, who were otherwise denied full citizenship, enjoyed the benefits of white democracy, such as the right to legal representation, favored access to certain occupations (teaching, nursing, and clerical work), easier access to better housing (including indoor plumbing, heat, electricity, and time-saving household appliances), and/or the all-important guarantee that their children would never be enslaved.
In exchange for these “public and psychological wages,” as W.E.B. Du Bois called them, whites agreed to enforce slavery, segregation, genocide, reservation, and other forms of racial oppression. The result was that working-class whites and people of color were oppressed because the working class was divided. The tragic irony is that many poor whites often did not get to make use of these advantages, yet despite this, they defended them bitterly.
The white democracy continues to exist, even after the end of slavery and legal segregation. Take any social indicator—graduation rates, homeownership rates, median family wealth, prison incarceration rates, life expectancy rates, infant mortality rates, cancer rates, unemployment rates, or median family debt—and you’ll find the same thing: in each category, whites are significantly better off than any other racial group. As a group, whites enjoy more wealth, less debt, more education, less imprisonment, more health care, less illness, more safety, less crime, better treatment by the police, and less police brutality than any other group. Some whisper that this is because whites have a better work ethic. But U.S. history tells us that the white democracy, born over four hundred years ago, lives on.
The white race, then, does not describe people from Europe. It is a social system that works to maintain capitalist rule and prevent full democracy through a system of (relatively minor) privileges for whites along with the subordination of those who are defined as not white. The cross-class alliance thus represents one of the most significant obstacles to creating a truly democratic society in the United States.
This is not to say that white supremacy is the “worst” form of oppression. All oppression is equally morally wrong. Nor is it to imply that if white supremacy disappears, then all other forms of oppression will magically melt away. It is simply to say that one of the most significant obstacles to organizing freedom movements throughout U.S. history has been the white democracy, and that it remains a major obstacle today.
In a global economy (and a global recession), corporate elites no longer want to pay white workers the privileges they have historically enjoyed. Instead, they want to pay everyone the same low wages and have them work under the same terrible conditions.
Generally speaking, whites have responded to this attempt to treat them like regular workers in two ways. One is through “multiculturalism.” This approach, popular in universities and large corporations, seeks to recognize the equality of all cultural identities. This would be fine, except multiculturalism regards white as one culture among others. In this way, it hides how it functions as an unjust form of power. Multiculturalism therefore fails to attack the white democracy. It leaves it standing.
The other response is color-blindness, or the belief that we should “get beyond” race. But this approach also perpetuates the white democracy, because by pretending that race doesn’t exist socially just because it doesn’t exist biologically, one ends up pretending that white advantage doesn’t exist either. Once again, this reproduces white democracy rather than abolishes it.
There are right- and left-wing versions of color-blindness. On the Right, many whites sincerely insist they aren’t racist but nonetheless support every measure they can to perpetuate their white advantages, including slashing welfare, strengthening the prison system, undermining indigenous sovereignty, defending the “war on drugs,” and opposing “illegal immigration.” On the Left, many whites assert that race is a “divisive” issue and that we should instead focus on problems that “everyone” shares. This argument sounds inclusive, but it really maintains the white democracy because it lets whites decide which issues are everyone’s and which ones are “too narrow.” It is another way for whites to expect and insist on favored treatment.
Multiculturalism and color-blindness (on the Right or Left) are no solution to white supremacy. The only real option is for whites to reject the white democracy and side with the rest of humanity. Fighting prisons, redlining, anti-immigrant laws, police brutality, attacks on welfare (which are usually thinly disguised attacks on African Americans), and any other form of racial discrimination are valuable ways to undermine the cross-class alliance. So are struggles to defend indigenous sovereignty, affirmative action, embattled ethnic studies programs in high schools and colleges, and the right for people of color to caucus in organizations or movements. All of these struggles—which people of color engage in daily, but whites only occasionally do, if at all—seek to undermine whites’ interest in and expectation of favored treatment. They point out the way toward a new society.
We can see this in U.S. history, when fights to abolish the cross-class alliance have opened up radical possibilities for all people. Feminism in the 1840s and the movement for the eight-hour day in the 1860s came out of abolitionism. Radical Reconstruction (1868–76) very nearly built socialism in the South as it sought to give political and economic power to the freedmen and women. The civil rights struggle in the 1960s not only overthrew legal segregation, it also kicked off the women’s rights, free speech, student, queer, peace, Chicano, Puerto Rican, and American Indian movements. When the pillars of the white democracy tremble, everything is possible. An attack on white supremacy raises the level of struggle against oppression in general.
Even today, the white democracy stands at the path to a free society like a troll at the bridge. The task is to chase the troll away, not to pretend it doesn’t exist or invite it to the multicultural table. Of course, this doesn’t mean that people currently defined as white would have no role or influence in such a society. It only means that they would participate as individuals equal to everyone else, not as a favored group. Political movements in the United States must make the fight against any expression of white democracy an essential part of their strategies. The expansion of freedom for people of color
has always expanded freedom for whites as well. Abolishing white interests is not “divisive,” “narrow,” or “reverse racism.” It’s the key to a free society.
Consider taking some time to send a letter/postcard to Branson Brockman, who is serving 30 days in the county's Tent City for allegedly assaulting a Phoenix police officer at the First Friday anti-ALEC demo, the final day of action during the the annual ALEC meeting held in Phoenixlast December. Branson was charged with walloping a cop with a skateboard after the cop grabbed ahold of some other person dragging a barricade into the street. The cop who attacked the unpermitted street march was one of the usual bike cops patrolling the monthly First Friday in downtown, the thirty officers who swarmed the area in the seconds after the lone officer attacked the march were laying in wait. Directed by the legendary asshole Phoenix cop Mark Schweikert, the dozens of officers flooded that stretch of Roosevelt, with the first cops out of their cars deploying liberal amounts of pepper spray.
As people scattered from the pepper spray, the Phoenix police deployed snatch squads of officers across the arts district, eventually arresting Branson and charging him with assault on an officer. Branson is due to be released by the 6th of October, in the meantime his friends, comrades, and bandmates are putting the word out to send some love his way. All the relavent info is below, along with the original call out from his friends.
ACAB/FTP!
Here's the info on how to write my homie/bass
player of my band, and all around badass motherfucker Branson who is
doing 30 days in Tent City for "Assaulting An Officer" with a skateboard
at some Phx anti-ALEC demo.
Little destroyer scurried away
after the scuffle with them wrangling the shirt off of his back, and
when he was caught in some bourgeois art gallery, they threw him in the
car and
THEN pepper sprayed him.
Send him some appreciation and shit. Anything helps.
Send METERED (means postage paid, NO STAMPS) POSTCARDS ONLY in BLUE OR
BLACK INK ONLY. You can also order him books off of Amazon, and you
should. Tent City Branson Brockman P901194 2939 W. Durango st Phoenix AZ 85009 (Then, on the Then on the bottom right corner, write:) 41 house 19 pod N cell 1 bed 3
A campaign of political repression is under way against anarchist and indigenous projects in Arizona, spearheaded by the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center and the Tempe Police Department Homeland Defense Unit. The Tempe police department’s anti-terror division preemptively
shut down the Protect the Peaks solidarity benefit show that was planned for Friday night, using the threat of a fire code violation to ensure that the venue would have to cancel the event. The Homeland Defense Unit acted on an alert they received from Arizona's main counter terrorism information gathering hub, also known as a fusion center, that a benefit show to raise money for the struggle to save the San Francisco Peaks was scheduled to take place in Tempe on Friday night.
The benefit show organizers had contacted a DIY venue/space run out of a warehouse in west Tempe, a well regarded space that has hosted a number of shows over the last
year, often receiving coverage in the Phoenix New Times and other
media. It is a labor of love for the person who runs it, who has a
full time job in addition to hosting the occasional show at the venue. The Protect the Peaks benefit show would have been the first political show to have been hosted at the space, it also put the venue on the radar of Arizona's counter terrorism fusion center.
On Thursday, September 6th the venue operator received an unannounced visit at his workplace from
an officer assigned to the city’s Homeland Defense Unit.The officer, Detective Derek Pittam, threatened to have the venue shut down for fire code violations if the
Protect the Peaks show wasn’t canceled immediately.Detective
Pittam informed the person that he was aware that the venue
regularly held shows and made it clear that under no circumstances would this benefit show be held at the venue. The venue's future is now up in the air due
to the threats of the Homeland Defense Unit, even though Detective
Pittam admitted to the venue operator that he was aware that there had
never been one call to police or reports of any illegal activity at that
location.
Detective Derek Pittam of the Tempe Police Homeland Defense Unit
At least one officer working in the Homeland Defense Unit spent last week locating the DIY venue, identifying the operator of the venue, finding his cell phone number, and where he works his full time job so that he could be harassed by Detective Pittam. They had also decided that their anti-terror unit was going to manufacture a fire code violation as pretext to shut down the show, unless the Homeland Defense unit is regularly enforcing code violations in Tempe.
I've learned that during the workplace visit, Pittam specifically identified support for the "Save the Peaks" as a concern for the authorities. Throughout his visit Detective Pittam made it clear, the issue is with the benefit show not the venue, however the venue would face the consequences for allowing a radical, anarchist, and indigenous themed event.
I've also learned that the venue operator was again contacted on his cell phone Friday night by a Tempe police commander who wanted the venue's permission as the primary property manager to arrest individuals (who may not even know the show was canceled) for trespass on site. The venue operator declined, and was then asked by the commander for the landlord's phone number, which he also declined to provide to the Tempe Police. A friend who drove by the venue Friday evening observed one marked police vehicle on the property where the venue was located, and another vehicle parked near by.
In the short time since word got around about the show being canceled, many people involved with various projects are shocked and outraged over this show of state repression. I was able to chat with Alex Soto, a Tohono O'odham MC from the hip hop group Shining Soul, one of the acts that was scheduled to perform on Friday. In addition to his music, Alex has organized against border militarization on his traditional land, the Tohono O'odham nation, a land divided by the US/Mexico border wall and militarized by the border patrol.
He had this to say about the cancelling of the show:
"The show itself is an example of the solidarity between indigenous people, the Diné and O'odham, and anarchist people who are supportive,
it also means that the authorities are afraid of us acting in collaboration, collectively. They’re
afraid of all of us coming together, it’s not new, it’s happened before at past demonstrations where we’re targeted, we’re marked for oppression, mainly
just by being ourselves and being there.
It doesn't matter to them whether it's an action or protest, or in this case with our
talents and our musical gifts to bring people together, the
state doesn’t respect that. This act of repression by the police further motivates myself and everyone
else involved to push forward and to have another benefit or show, because we
know this will be effective, and all we’re doing now is picking up mics and
guitars.
In addition, I’d like to express that as a Tohono O'odham person, I have solidarity with other indigenous people in this area, in this case it’s Diné people and the other 12 tribes that hold the San Francisco Peaks as a sacred site. This act by Tempe police, and all the entities involved is an attack on who I am and who we are
as indigenous people, it verifies to me that we’re doing our role, in this case by
standing in solidarity with the peaks, or when we oppose the loop 202 freeway
or oppose the border and militarization because this is what solidarity and
healthy communities look like. When we stand together, fight alongside each other, or in this case sing together to defend who we are and what we hold
sacred, then fuck the Tempe PD, fuck Phoenix PD,
fuck DPS, and any entity that tries to stop this energy that’s building
here in Arizona."
When the authorities act to intimidate or threaten dissident voices and movements, it causes a chilling effect,
in this case the Tempe police were willing to let a fire inspector poke
around in the venue until any little violation could be found that would shut the show down. We also know that they wanted to arrest anyone who came to the property expecting to see a show. This is a direct attack on the ability of
people to freely gather, communicate, and organize without the potential of arrest or physical injury by police, in addition to the potential for serious financial problems for the venue operator.
We in PCWC first began running into JT during the early parts of the immigration movement, around 2005, before there was a formal PCWC, really. As many probably know, JT had a rather chaotic political career, but in those days he was allied with State Senator Russell Pearce and local car dealer Rusty Childress. Even then political violence had already begun to rear its ugly head in the anti-immigrant scene. It might be valuable to review some of what had happened in Arizona in the several years preceding JT's final bloody rampage, and it certainly would be worthwhile to consider the ways that anarchists in Phoenix and Arizona organized against him, his politics and his political allies (and enemies) over the last half decade or more. While liberals advocated for his free speech, anarchists opposed him every step of the way. The analysis in this piece reflects our experiences as direct participants and organizers.
RACIST VIOLENCE IN ARIZONA, 2005-2009
JT Ready himself made headlines in March of 2006 when he followed a group of Latino men riding in a truck into a cul-de-sac and opened fire on a passerby, Efrain Martinez, who JT claimed had shot at him. In an indication of what was to be many years of apparent Mesa police protection, the cops took JT at his word and arrested Martinez. After surviving JT's attempt to kill him, Efrain Martinez languished in detention for 42 days before being deported to Mexico for giving a false name to police. Funny thing: a week after being deported, Martinez was back in the country. We taunted JT at his next rally with "We are all Efrain Martinez" signs, among other things.
A recent investigation by the local New Times magazine has revealed that the Mesa police weren't terribly interested in watching white racist militants, even when they were classified as gang members or opening fire on passersby, fueling long-time speculation that JT was at least an informant for one or more police or Federal agencies. Of course, that wouldn't be unusual in the far right scene.
Taunting JT at one of the USA rallies
Before that, in April 2005, Patrick Haab, a white Iraq War vet, held seven Mexican migrants at gunpoint at a rest stop outside Phoenix. Claiming they were in the country illegally, Haab blocked off their vehicle with his own and detained them until the sheriffs showed up, upon which -- and much to his surprise -- he was promptly arrested. Arizona at the time was in the grips of the Minuteman invasion of the border region and the case set off a public outcry in his defense.
Interestingly, it was the notoriously racist Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio who defended Haab's arrest and rejected his "unlawful" detention of the migrants. In what sounds like an ironic statement now, Arpaio told the Arizona Republic, "Even law enforcement has to have probable cause before taking people out of their cars and telling them to lie on the ground... He threatened to kill them. He did not have the right to do what he did. How did he know they were illegal aliens?" However, Haab received an outpouring of support, including offers of bail money, places to stay and other aid. Remarking on the outpouring, he said, "I really appreciate it. It makes me feel better about this country." He said that he believed the men he detained mistook him for a Border Patrol agent. Several days later Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas dropped all charges against Haab, giving a green light to white reactionaries that such actions would not meet resistance from local government, essentially putting a state sanction on them.
While Haab was a lone wolf, operating on his own to enforce the color line in Arizona, other militia members in Arizona besides JT have shown themselves equally prone to violence. In 2009, for example, Shawna Forde (an extremist, even by Minuteman standards, who reportedly even demanded that members swear off Mexican food) and two men who had split from the Minutemen Civil Defense Corp to form their own splinter group, the Minutemen American Defense or M.A.D., staged a home invasion on the home of the Flores-Gonzalez family in Arivaca, a town near the Mexican border. Sporting military uniforms and claiming to be Border Patrol, they demanded entry to the home in order to check for fugitives.
Raul "Junior" Flores and Brisenia Flores, killed
by the Minuteman American Defense
Once inside, they opened fire when their credentials were questioned, killing two and wounding one. Gina Flores, despite being shot twice in the face, managed to call the police and to return fire, wounding one of the attackers, who all fled. The militia had hoped to steal drugs and cash from the house in order to fund further vigilante activities at the border, and initially the DES itself expressed suspicion of the Flores-Gonzalez family, even though no drugs were found. It turned out all the victims were natural born citizens. Gina Gonzalez filed a lawsuit against the FBI alleging that they were warned in advance of the attack by an informant, who passed on a detailed map of the proposed target and did nothing.
Given the national dialog about what's wrong with Arizona, I want to point out a general trend not just of violence, but of
people from out of state bringing racist violence to Arizona. JT
himself was not born in Arizona, and only moved here after he was kicked
out of the Marines. Indeed, he claimed that he used to do vigilante
patrols in California while stationed there. Shawna Forde also came from out of state, the Northwest. Likewise, Patrick Haab had only just
arrived in Arizona when he assumed the role of self-appointed Border
enforcer at that rest stop. Of Arizona's top three main anti-immigrant politicians, former State Senate President Russell Pearce, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, only Pearce was born and grew up in the Copper State.
In the years leading up to the racist backlash against migration, the population of Arizona surged, essentially doubling between 1986 and 2006,
when the anti-immigrant direct action movement began to pop off.
Perhaps surprisingly, a large part of that population explosion came not
from Mexico, but from other states, notably including California, which had
already experienced an anti-immigrant reaction. Census reports put the Golden State as the largest contributor
but with pretty much every state contributing large numbers. A lot of
the blame that gets laid at Arizona's doorstep should at least get shared with the white flight colonists from California and the
blue-haired snow birds from the rest of the country who set down roots in their old age and consistently return Joe and
his ilk to office. It's no coincidence that Joe's strongest base of
support lies in Sun City and Sun City West, planned retirement
communities in northwest of the Valley, where out of state license plates are at
least as common as those of Arizona.
I think this is telling. It's not that Arizona was ever a paragon
of racial harmony, but for a long time Arizonans took a relatively open
border for granted, and the regular coming and going of migrant workers
and indigenous peoples was not considered terribly controversial.
Indeed, the O'odham in Southern Arizona until recently crossed back and forth without need identification or a formal border patrol checkpoint. The disgusting irony of white newcomers forcing original inhabitants to register themselves in order to practice their traditions of free movement deserves far more attention than it gets. Likewise the easy access to Mexican beaches and under 21 drinking defined life for many people in the hot Arizona summers and college spring breaks. Indeed, despite semi-regular pogroms, like Operation Wetback,
which served to discipline and terrorize migrant populations, in
general the Arizona economy and way of life depended on the free movement back and forth
of people.
Another important point: the height of the
anti-immigrant movement came in boom times, before the economic crisis.
Further, Arizona continues to rank among the top retirement destinations in the country. When the white reaction began, housing values were still skyrocketing, the credit cards were still passing out easy money and unemployment was low. So, for white people, especially those who bring their racism with them
from other states and are unfamiliar with the routines of life in
Arizona, white supremacy is their natural class analysis. It is their default setting. It isn't
their fall back position in bad times, it is their first resort all the
time.
Thus, by the time JT Ready began to make independent moves on the scene in a
major way, the stage was already set for anti-immigrant political opportunists
and militants of all stripes, with an ample population now composed of
relatively recent xenophobic transplants from other states primed to
listen. The Minutemen set up their lawn chair encampments on the
border, and in a case of history repeating, cradled their AR-15s in their aging hands and peered south into the
desert with their bifocals and binoculars on the search for brown-skinned folks heading north. However, despite his present association with the racist militia movement, Minuteman Civil Defense Corp leaders eventually turned JT away for being too extreme. This is Arizona, after all.
JT READY, POLITICS AND THE ANARCHISTS
During this period of time, JT was also working in conjunction with other right wing politicians and organizers on a variety of anti-immigrant initiatives, including an earlier version of a SB1070-style law that would have applied in Maricopa County. In those days, JT was busy organizing and intervening with various far right groups, from the infamous Minutemen movement and its spin-offs to a series of protests organized in front of the Mexican Consulate by Rusty Childress' group, United For A Sovereign America, which aimed at bolstering support for various anti-immigrant initiatives.
Confronting a United for a Sovereign America demonstration.
One time, we got a tip off from a journalist at one of the Spanish language stations that JT and his crew were planning to get some footage of the flag being raised at the consulate and of the morning queues for the various services that the consulate provided to Mexicans. Lines at the consulate were routine, as they provided many services for Mexicans in the city. We dragged our asses out of bed early and beat them there. We approached the folks waiting in line for the consulate to open and told them about what was happening and they moved the line to a part of the property where they couldn't be seen. Then when the Nativist film crew arrived with JT in tow, sweating and awkwardly stuffed into a cheap suit, there was a minor scuffle over the filming of the flag-raising, with people blocking off their cameras. This kind of thing was common back then, and we would run into him at immigration rallies and regularly disrupt his events. Whenever we'd show up in our masks and march right into the middle of their protest, all hell would break loose, driving them off message and into a fit of cursing and angry demands that we remove our masks. As a result, the media reported these protests as contentious and controversial. It worked every time.
Disrupting JT Ready's press conference
Around the same time, JT was hanging out with other movers and shakers in Arizona right wing politics, including Pearce, the man who ordained him as an elder into the powerful Mormon Church and who JT described as his mentor. JT would claim that during that time the two shared Mexican jokes on Pearce's porch. In late 2006 it came out that JT, who was then running for city council, had been issued a Bad Conduct Discharge on his unscheduled exit from the Army. When it came out, he had been slated to lead the local Veteran's Day parade in Mesa as Master of Ceremonies, which caused some political problems, leading the veterans group that organized it to dump him. Not long after that, the New Times outed JT Ready as a Nazi when his profile was discovered on the racist dating site New Saxon.
Heading to disrupt one USA's protests at the Mexican Consulate
For a while after that, we didn't have many encounters with him, we'd see him at the massive pro-immigrant demonstrations among the anti-immigrant crowd, protected by a line of riot cops, and occasionally dodging a rock or bottle thrown their way. The immigration struggle had moved into the political sphere, with one racist ballot proposition after another passing with super-majorities each election and the border militias fracturing amidst financial scandal, personalities conflict, territoriality, and demands by some for more militant actions. JT Ready, for example, called for mining the border. In the search that followed his death, police reported finding grenades in the house. This ought to give pause to anyone who remembers that the 2011 #Antisec hack of Arizona law enforcement revealed that explosives had been found near a migrant route and that rogue marines patrolled the region. As with tips to the FBI and Mesa PD before this, these warnings, too, were essentially ignored by local, state and national cops.
State Senator, later Senate President, Russell Pearce
endorses JT Ready for Mesa City Council
Around that same time the Tea Party was born, providing an inland sea for all sorts of racists to swim in. Meanwhile, we in PCWC moved forward in two main directions: trying to come up with innovative strategies as an active minority to fracture the base of the anti-immigrant movement and towards working with Native comrades around border militarization and the preservation of traditional travel rights on the Tohono O'odham reservation. In addition, we sought to highlight the continuity between extreme elements in the movement and the mainstream politicos in the Tea Party and Republican ruling class in Arizona. From this combination our demand for free movement and freedom from dislocation was born, which we would deploy later both within the pro-migrant left, as well as against its opposition in the right wing movement generally and specifically against JT Ready when he joined the NSM and marched on the capitol.
JT READY, THE NSM AND THE ANARCHISTS
At some point JT Ready joined the NSM. It's not clear when exactly, but once he was outed as a white supremacist he seemed to jump headlong into the public role. In 2007 he participated in an NSM rally in Omaha. For the most part, JT's strategy seemed to be two-fold. On one hand he was very active in creating media spectacle and confrontational situations with his small group of white comrades. These involved varying levels of provocation, from his appearances counter-protesting fully armed and decked out military garb at pro-migrant events and Occupy Phoenix, to his two marches with the NSM in Phoenix.
On the other hand, JT formed his own border vigilante organization, which did routine "patrols" in the desert looking for migrants to turn over to the border patrol. JT always claimed that his militia was not a racist endeavor and that all were welcome, but its membership included many NSM cadre. However, it must be said that dupes and patriots are not confined to just the white population, unfortunately. PCWC, being a city-based group, engaged JT on that terrain, but with the objective of forcing him and the NSM to abandon their public activities.
JT's smiling face, out of uniform, but flanked by NSM boneheads.
Challenging the NSM and JT's Nazi road show
The most spectacular clashes between anarchists and JT Ready and the NSM happened in the streets during their two attempted marches through downtown. But these were hardly the only ones. A few months before the first Inglorious Basterds Bloc, anarchists disrupted the book tour of notorious racist David Irving, which had been organized in secret (or so they thought) and which JT Ready and other NSM members attended. Anarchists got the tip off about the tour and then stormed the secret location, disrupting the place, slashing at least one Nazi's tires and jamming the phones at the diner where it took place with threats of boycott and publicity, etc.
Not long after that, word arrived that the NSM would attempt a march in Phoenix to the state capitol. At the time we were heavily involved in intervening in the right wing libertarian movement around their fight against speed cameras and, to a lesser extent, internal Border Patrol checkpoints in Southern Arizona. There was a vigorous direct action and political movement against both at the time, with attacks on cameras coming with frequent regularity, and with white libertarians engaging in civil disobedience at border checkpoints. We were trying to get the libertarian right in this state to reconcile its internal contradictions one way or the other. At the time they were engaging in a lot of hypocritical support for border controls and attacks on migrants while also opposing things like FEMA camps, REAL ID and freeway cameras. We sensed potential.
Many of the libertarians in state government were voting on both sides of those issues, taking progressive positions against REAL ID at the same time they were endorsing attacks on migrants and defending programs like e-Verify. Our objective when it came to those interventions was to help push as many people as we could in that movement off the fence and to choose one side or the other -- to reconcile their contradictory assertions on movement, which we saw as hinging on their defense of the exclusionary politics and privileges of whiteness. This contradiction, it seemed to us, could only be worked out one of two ways: either support free movement for all, or defend white supremacy. There was no middle ground.
JT's NSM boneheads gave us a chance to try to push those right wing libertarians that we have been engaging with into action around the issue of movement, migration and white supremacy. We wanted to split the right wing along what we saw as a very obvious fracture, and in keeping with our fanatical politics, we then sought to deploy this friends/enemies dynamic in order to mobilize people. As we said to the libertarians at the time,"You see yourselves as protesting this country's turn towards fascism. We sympathize with this argument and are ourselves no fans of the Obama administration. However, we want to point out that unlike some of your past protests, the NSM rally offers you the perfect opportunity to make known your opposition to fascism in an unambiguous way."
So, we tailored our imagery and message to this. We chose the Inglourious Basterds Bloc name for a few reasons. Aside from the obvious connection to Nazis and ready to use imagery, it also referenced a really important feature about the movie which we found really entertaining: the idea of an alternate ending -- one we could create that could deviate from the approved narrative. That is, Hitler died in that movie how everyone wished he had in real life, gunned down by the resistance, rather than by his own hand via cowardly cyanide capsule in a Berlin bunker. We chose "Doing it like Grandpa in France of '44" as the slogan and immediately set about addressing ourselves to the libertarian right wing, as well as the white working class generally.
Also important, we carried firearms openly against the NSM, not just for self-defense, or so that the NSM would know we were armed, but also informed by the memory of having seen pacifist anti-war liberals denounce armed anti-war libertarians at protests during the early days of that movement in Arizona. We wanted to differentiate ourselves from the liberals in the eyes of both groups. We knew the significance that would have. And the right wing libertarians responded. Quite a lot of them came out to the action.
Meanwhile, liberal leaders denounced it, something that wasn't new, and would continue over the course of the year at various other actions. In fact, one of the strengths of both NSM actions, but the second one in particular, was that it subverted the dominant message from the mainstream migrant movement leadership. Namely the focus on Sheriff Joe as the epitome of all evil, while giving the Phoenix PD a pass (even organizing with them around marches and security). This despite the fact that the PPD was actually more active in deportations than the Maricopa County Sheriffs Department and that one of the two police unions that represents Phoenix cops took an actively anti-immigrant position, including supporting SB1070. When the PPD stands on the same skirmish lines with Nazis, shields lined up together, gives marching orders to the fascists and even consoles poor JT Ready at the end of his failed march, it's difficult to maintain the necessary liberal political illusion that one police force is preferential to another. This wasn't just some classic anti-fascist common front bullshit. We used the NSM as a tool to deploy attacks against the liberals as well as the right.
That confrontation with the NSM was exciting and invigoration, and I think it was broadly interpreted a success.
It got us mobilized and excited, and built the energy and comradeship
needed in Phoenix for our next big action in January. Interestingly,
the week after the public embarrassment of the November 7th rally at the
capitol, JT Ready showed up at a Tea Party anti-immigration rally
at the same location, accompanied by another NSM member. The
organizers did all they could to separate themselves from the NSM, who
were waving a confederate flag. But when JT unfurled a tapestry
featuring his hero Adolph Hitler, violence broke out, with one right winger physically
attacking JT and without any sense of irony denouncing him and his racism. The movement had begun to split along three fronts,
just as we had hoped. Later, this split would be finalized by an uprising from the Chamber of Commerce
who, with the help of the libertarians in the
legislature and on talk radio, blocked the passage of a whole swath of anti-immigrant legislation
that was following on the heels of SB1070. The anti-immigrant backlash was not defeated, but had received a major blow.
Interestingly, after the IB1, we and other anarchists followed up on those interventions with articles and actions that kept pressure on those groups, culminating with the Diné, O'odham, anarchist/anti-authoritarian bloc
at the anti-Arpaio rally January 16th, 2010, which we hoped at the time would point
towards a new kind of solidarity organized around a different
conversation about movement and borders in Arizona.
Diné, O'odham, anarchist/anti-authoritarian bloc
The NSM continued its organizing, focusing increasingly on its militia work in Arizona, but vowed to return the next year, intent on taking the streets. In November of 2010 they made good on that threat, registering for a permit for a Saturday afternoon march to the Federal courthouse. The permit expired at three and we hoped to keep them from their goal until it did. For a second time, then, the forces that had built the DO@ Bloc came together in the streets, determined to stop the fash and to show a united resistance to Nazis. Once again, JT Ready, now claiming to have left the NSM, showed up in support, marching with them. And we called for a sequel of our successful bloc from the previous year.
The results of that day have been well-documented. Once scouts found the march, the bloc and other militants deployed themselves in the street between the Nazis (who were surrounded by police) and their objecting, setting up barricades. Police held the Nazis back for over an hour, as the clock ticked on their permit, as rocks, smoke bombs and various other projectiles rained down on them, infuriating the brownshirts, who demanded to be allowed to march. The permit expired, but the cops extended it in solidarity, and used force to try to clear the street. A clash and then a running battle followed, with liberal amounts of pepper spray deployed by the police, eventually forcing the opposition back far enough to sneak the NSM into a side gate and then into the safety of the fenced off (and empty) "free speech zone".
Some stuck around and mocked them, but for the most part at this point they rattled off to no one, having set up in the far corner of the plaza and flanked on two sides by giant glass walls that made their chants mostly unintelligible. The whole strategy of the NSM was to play the victim card, hoping to insight white sympathy and to get that trumpeted out through the mainstream media. The NSM knows full well that the press, worshiping its so-called "objectivity", facilitates the opening of space for white supremacists to speak (witness the repeated mislabeling of the NSM as a "white civil rights organization"). The Nazis count on this debate about free speech and the spectacle of resistance to combine in their favor. But that was entirely subverted that day, and their message was completely lost in the media. Once again, liberals who had either opposed directly action against the fascists in the streets, or who had misunderstood the question of anti-fascism as one of free speech rather than self-defense, were left looking useless and reactionary. After the defeat, the NSM vowed to march again, but they never did.
Interestingly enough, a year later, when Occupy Phoenix was happening, and paranoid liberals were in full freakout mode about anarchists and black blocs ruining their non-violent occupation of a public square downtown, we would learn that Phoenix PD were afraid to raid the camp, citing over and over the likelihood that anarchists would riot as the reason. The irony of a bunch of nonviolent peaceniks being protected from police violence in their occupation by the violence of the very group they feared most, was delightful to say the least.
JT Ready's Provocations
JT was known for his solo and small group provocations as well. Not only did he like to play with contradictions and messaging, he also liked to try to intervene within the larger right wing milieu in order to create a sense of continuity between his own white supremacist politics and that of the anti-immigrant right in general. The case already mentioned above in which he appeared at a Tea Party protest was one such time, but even more frequently JT would show up heavily armed, sporting his black NSM outfit or camo militia getup. JT showed up to various politicians' events, even endorsing them, as he did with Joe Arpaio and, famously, with candidate for Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery. When JT and his NSM cronies crashed one of Montgomery's press conferences, asserting their support for "Arpaio's candidate for County Attorney", the candidate vehemently denied any association, politically or otherwise. However Sheriff Joe himself never ran away from them. On several occasions it seemed to be one of JT's primary objectives to associate himself and his NSM with the infamously anti-immigrant Sheriff Joe.
One of JT's NSM cronies, Thomas Coletto, aka "Vito Lombardi",
poses with Joe at a Nativist counter-protest.
Perhaps JT's most famous intervention of this sort, though, happened on the first day of Occupy Phoenix, before the mass arrests and the original failed occupation of Margaret T. Hance Park. By this time JT had been organizing his border militia for a year or so and from our perspective, it seemed to be his main project now. A couple hours into the day, we got reports that heavily armed men, probably fascists, had shown up. We ran over to check it out and found JT, with his big head characteristically squeezed into that tiny little helmet, standing on the edge of the park along with a small coterie of other militia members. Though JT (and various pea-brained right wingers on the interwebs) asserted that he and his goon squad had shown up to assure the safety of the event, it was clear that he was engaged in another one of his provocations, looking for a little media attention for his crew and his cause.
Anarchists, having dealt with JT by this time for the better part of a decade, realized immediately what was going on, and began calling him out to the curious crowd surrounding him. Several families, of the type who almost assuredly would later demand strict adherence to principles of nonviolence in the coming occupation, were captivated by the "cool soldier guys" and happily posed their children with them. It was the same kind of privileged analysis of violence that later led to the fights in Occupy Phoenix over police and "the 99%". As we reminded onlookers and photo-takers that these camo-kooks were Nazis, it caused all sorts of contradictions within the emerging occupy movement to emerge.
Some, predictably, asserted that free speech and the respect thereof ought to define the moment. Others, on hearing the NSM were National Socialists, hemmed and hawed, pontificating about their affinity for socialism. But most tellingly, many liberals got upset at the commotion and started calling out anarchists and anti-fascists for being violent -- that is, yelling. Which is to say, pointing out the presence of armed right wing reactionaries at the protest. This hearkened back to earlier days when anarchists were denounced by liberals when we tried to isolate and drive out National Alliance chumps from an early anti-war rally.
This was our last interaction with JT Ready. By the time he offed himself a few months later, he had quit the NSM, at least publicly, and he no longer engaged in politics in the city, moving instead and once again towards the border with his militia. Though JT proclaimed his group to be open to people of all races and denied it was a front group for the NSM, in October of 2011 PCWC received correspondence from a former member, purged immediately following the Occupy Phoenix photo stunt, that asserted otherwise. "As for the US Border Guard, JT's group the core group of about 3 to 5 that actually go out on patrols are either current or former NSM (sic)," the purged member claimed. The person went on to describe the non-core members as a range of "Patriots, White Nationalists... and just regular pissed off Americans. (sic)" Classic front group.
In the end, JT's dreams of mobilizing masses of people behind his personality and his white supremacist politics failed. He was denied the streets as a vehicle for mass mobilization and very few would follow him out to the desert either. As the former USBG member pointed out, JT was not easy to get along with in person: "JT kicked me out of the USBG on saturday after the rally because I would not bend to his commands... I am my own person, I have my own voice, JT speeks for JT not for me. (sic)" JT couldn't even manage his own small crew.
WAS JT READY A FANATIC?
Joel Olson succinctly defined fanaticism in the political sphere as, "the unconventional, extraordinary political mobilization of the refusal to compromise." In addition, there are several criteria. As summed up in an AK Press interview, fanaticism "1) refuses to compromise on basic principles; 2) divides the world into friends and enemies; 3) puts pressure on the moderate middle; 4) tries to build a constituency; 5) engages in legal and illegal direct action; and 6) seeks to build a new cultural hegemony or common sense."
JT and the NSM, all in costume.
Right off the bat, when we look at JT's career, we see not an attempt to refuse to compromise, but in fact a desire to glom onto broader movements. He was not at war with the middle, nor did he seek to build a new hegemony. As the super-majorities that backed one anti-immigrant measure after another at the polls show, by the time he got active such politics dominated the middle in Arizona. He never attacked the reactionary mainstream current that dominated politics here. JT Ready was like a pathetic, "Me, too!" at the end of every rally, march or protest. JT sought to attract people to him and his various organizations not by forcing the general racist anti-immigrant current to choose one side or another, but by showing them that there was little to no difference between the politics of the middle and the politics of the NSM. "May as well join the NSM," he seemed to be saying. He wanted a re-branding, not a shift in taste.
While JT and his various projects did engage in some direct action, they never built a constituency. Indeed, when the pressure was on the mainstream racist movement in Arizona, they opted to distance themselves from him. The most he was every able to get out in the street at one time was a few dozen, and that with all of the NSM's resources backing him, touring the country in their unreliable American cars. Indeed, even within his own militia, essentially an NSM front, he couldn't mobilize more than a handful, and had to keep the group open to all political persuasions on the reactionary right.
AND JUST LIKE THAT... HE'S GONE!
We still don't know what finally set JT off that day. Some on the reactionary extreme claim JT didn't commit the murders at all, and that he was a the target of a cartel hit instead, a response to the alleged effectiveness of his anti-migrant, anti-narco patrols. But he's gone now... just a bloody mess and then no longer a player in Arizona politics. JT's militia claims it will continue patrols, but there is no reason to believe anyone can fill JT's goosestepping boots. In the aftermath of the massacre, the Arizona legislature failed to approve a measure designed to legalize and institutionalize the many militias that patrol the border in search of migrants. This incorporation alleged to sanitize them by screening them for militants and racists, as if such a task were possible. It's just as likely that they would have just been folded into state power directly. Militia leaders claim this defeat has only invigorated them. Will the current cleft between state and reactionary direct action persist, or is it only temporary? Is this JT Ready's legacy? The recent electoral defeat of former JT chum Senate President Pearce through recall and the rise of more "moderate" right wing voice of capital leaves the question open for now.
Would state legitimation have disempowered the militia movement, or would it have further invigorated it? Time will tell whether they will wither on the vine without mainstream support. Of course, such a breach may be temporary, and we know that the anti-immigrant backlash started in good economic times and there are now far less people able to push back should a resurgence take place. Meanwhile, the forces of reaction, legal or otherwise, continue to build paramilitary experience out in the desert, even if they have been for now opted out of the cities. Times now are much worse, and with political alienation on the rise and capitalism's continued failure to deliver for large portions of the population, it's anyone's guess whether the various right wing capitalist forces of moderation will prevail over demand from below for a state defense of whiteness and privilege.
In the final days of his life, JT posted his usual racist, anti-Semitic, paranoid ravings to various message boards and the facebook page for his campaign for sheriff. He denounced his usual enemies list, including the anarchists. “Have [the anarchists] not yet figured out that they are... just tools in the same globalist tyranny toolbox?” he asked. JT, at the end, still did not understand the anarchists. But we understood him. Even though it had been several months since the anarchists and JT Ready had clashed, he couldn't forget us.
For the better part of a decade, the anarchists had been his only consistent organized opposition. While liberals and moderates couldn't figure out how to respond to him, trapped by their own tepid and defeatist politics, the anarchists were always on his tail, out-organizing him and out-thinking him, determined to win. The only time the liberals engaged in the question was when they actively attacked anarchists, as when they assisted the police attack on the DO@ Bloc. Interestingly, that day one of the objectives of the bloc was to confront the NSM and other white reactionaries, who had announced they planned to march to confront the procession. We didn't buy this nonsense that ignoring fascists, especially in the political climate that is Arizona today, causes them to fade away. Nazis do not disappear when you don't look at them. Challenging them in the streets is not enough -- creative resistance must be in line with particular political circumstances -- but direct action is a necessary component. And, when one knows one's enemy, like we knew JT, it is possible to beat him. JT Ready: loser.
Below we have published an interesting email that came our way concerning tomorrow's expropriation of the unused and now vacant and bulldozed land where the Gentle Strength Co-op once stood. A few things are worth noting.
First, the cops are trying to divide the community. They use classic red-baiting and anarchist fear-mongering tactics to attempt to convince locals and business owners to support a police assault on people who think that fallow land should not remain so merely because some Canadian land speculator wants to keep some property unused. They don't say it, but it is likely that they continue to be threatened by the level of support that local anarchists have developed in Tempe, perhaps most visibly displayed during 2010's anti-SB1070 organizing, neighborhood assemblies, march and protests. Hundreds came out then, unafraid of the fact that anarchists were organizing. Second, we can boil down the cops' argument to this: "we don't want to look bad attacking people who want to use unused land (after all, we are the defenders of property first and foremost), so we want to make sure that only people who will look bad on camera -- anarchists -- are present for the police attack". You know what, cops? There's an easy way to avoid looking bad attacking people trying to use empty corporate land for community purposes: don't attack them. I know that's hard for cops to do, being that they are a violent bunch of thugs. But, who are the defenders of community? The "anarchists" who want to create a commons or the cops who attack the community in defense of corporate property?
A few other interesting points: this property is controlled and left unused by the same company that owns Zuccotti Park. Also, cops have been visiting local businesses to get them to oppose the occupation. Another is that Tempe PD bike cops, which Officer Pittam used to be part of, got training from the Eugene PD after the first Tempe May Day protest, which they deployed the following year in brutal fashion, as is their general tendency. This was facilitated by the nationalization of local policing that has generally prevailed under the post-9/11 regime. And the TPD has tried this scare-mongering before. Note that Pittam himself is now a part of the "Homeland Defense Unit". What "homeland"? Unused corporate property homeland? What they want is for us to leave that property empty until some out of town land-speculating company can finally make a profit.
For the total expropriation of the capitalist class. Also, Pittam needs an editor.
Hello,
Derek Pittam with the Tempe Police Department asked that I share the following
information with you as your neighborhoods are closest in proximity to the
area. Please contact Derek at Derek_pittam@tempe.gov or I with any questions.
Thanks,
Shauna
I write this to you because as you know my career has led me to have a close
relationship with the residents and businesses in and about the downtown Tempe area.
In fact, several years ago, the Maple Ash community honored me with a
“Friend of Community” award. Community members have always known that I
am aggressively proactive on issues of crime prevention. This is no
different, and I am very concerned that the planners of this event have not
disclosed important information in their quest to gain the support of local
residents and businesses.
I know the flyer (above) looks and sounds harmless right? Well
anarchists looked like this (photo below) the last time they planned an event
surrounding “May Day” in downtown Tempe.
Now I know that some may see the photo and then look at the flyer above to
find no correlation. One might think that law enforcement is even taking a
“cheap shot” because after all this event will be garden building…right?…it’s
green…it’s local…it’s hip…it’s taking a vacant brown field and making it
beautiful…why would the police be concerned? Well despite the nice flyers
and excellent planning to get local residents and businesses to show support
and even commit to participation, the planners of this event forgot to do
something… or maybe they did not forget.
At the time of writing this email, no planner for this event has contacted a
private property owner or management group of vacant land within the downtown
Tempe area to ask permission to conduct such an event. No planner
of this event has contacted the appropriate city staff to inquire about proper
permitting or permissions needed to do this event. That’s a problem and
that is why I now have concern as it relates to community members and
businesses who would like to participate.
Basically, this activity is known is “guerilla gardening” and is not new. It
has picked up steam with the Occupy movement and is usually done by seizing and
occupying “privately owned” property.
Upon public safety learning that no property owner/management company within
the downtown Tempe community has approved of this planned activity,
subsequently many downtown property responsible persons have signed “Authority
to Arrest” letters. This allows police to arrest for trespassing without
the property’s responsible person having to be present. As a part of our
duty to protect the rights and privileges of *all persons*, the Tempe Police
Department is prepared to enforce certain laws against those who believe their
own personal liberties supersede the liberties of others.
Why do I think the anarchist organizers are planning to knowingly engage in
criminal activity? Well despite pointing
out the above obvious issue, there are other indicators. On
4/23/12, Modern Times Magazine reported the location for this event in an
online article.
Ironically, police had already been working with the local property management
for this specific location outlined in the above article several weeks prior.
The property management confirmed that this planned activity received
no permissions from the owners to take place on this property. In response,
property management subsequently posted “no trespassing” signs on the
property after the signing an “Authority to Arrest” letter. Not long
after, this post appeared of the event’s Facebook page:
In response to your no trespassing signs, we say “if it’s vacant, take
it!"*
The signs on this lot, as of today, have been knocked down and destroyed by
unknown persons.
Not to be overtly accusatory toward the planners of this event as responsible
for this criminal damage, but it is coincidental and only raises my concerns
that anarchist planners for this event could be anticipating conflict.
After all, staging events that force the police to take enforcement
action police is how anarchists hope to erode community support for local
police departments. Anarchists want to
place police in a position so they can say in a clever sound bite, “See we told
you so… the cops are here to protect the interests of the wealthy!”
In actuality, police would provide the exact same enforcement
action to assist any person exercising lawful standing regardless of their of
socio-economic status. These are well known anarchist tactics that I am all too
familiar with.
In conclusion, researching other “guerilla gardening” actions planned by anarchists
in other cities, the goal is to engage in civil disobedience (as seen in Santa
Cruz, CA in December of 2011) . In other words, due to the liability
concerns of property owners surrounding these “un-insured” actions, the
property owners do not have the chance to be supportive of such an event
without certain guarantees from the organizers, therefore with property owner
participation exclusion from the event planning, conflict is evitable with
police and/or property holder.
Where this tactic meets the goals of the anarchist, it may not be in the best
interests of the local law abiding citizen who thought they were merely
showing up for a community building event where a garden or park was being
built.
Again, I send this to you Shauna for informational purposes to forward to anyone
within the community that you feel may be affected by this planned event.
This way, public safety has expressed its concern with the community
and therefore allows each community member or business to make a decision based
on “free agency” as to whether they will participate or support such an event.
Derek Pittam #14555
Detective
Homeland Defense Unit
Tempe Police Department
We'd like to pass along information from the Arizona Antifa Defense about the case of Dane Rossman, a Tucson resident facing charges from the anti-nazi demonstration in Phoenix back in 2010. With the wounds from the passing of anti-immigrant bill SB 1070 still fresh, 300 people took to the streets back in November of 2010 to drive the white supremacists and fascists from the National Socialist Movement from the streets of Phoenix.
Fierce clashes played out that day, as anarchists and anti-fascists fought both cop and nazi, as the police used liberal amounts of pepper spray attempting to clear the streets. Only two people were arrested that day by Phoenix police, we believe the police were desperate to walk away from the fight with an arrest or two given the intensity of the conflict. The cops had been hindered in making more arrests since two of their undercover officers were chased out of the anti-NSM meeting place, and three other undercover cops were identified as the demonstration wound down.
Dane was one of the people snatched and arrested that day, he was subsequently charged with 5 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon/dangerous instrument and 1 count of rioting. His defense team gives a good run down of the events since that day:
Within a month of the action and arrest, Dane went to an arraignment only to find that his charges had been “scratched.” This meant that while the charges were not being actively pursued, they could be brought back up at any time within 7 years, with or without notifying Dane. And so it simmered for the next year or so.
On Sunday, November 20th, 2011, Phoenix police pulled over a car full of out of town folks for allegedly running a stop sign. The officer immediately informed one passenger, Dane Rossman, that he recognized Dane from actions against the NSM.
After loudly mentioning “anarchists” over police radio, several more squad cars arrived, along with at least one undercover officer. Dane was immediately arrested on a warrant for charges brought back by a County Grand Jury in September 2011. No attempt to notify Dane that the charges were back seems to have been made. Word could be heard over police radios that “there’s a guy working on things” that would “really appreciate 8x10s of everyone in the car.” All passengers were subsequently searched, photographed, and asked if they identify as anarchists.
Dane was released after posting $7,500 bail and now faces six counts of aggravated assault and one felony riot.
Dane is currently facing multiple felony charges that could result in a prison sentence of up to 20 years, his supporters are busy raising funds for legal defense, their goal is to raise $8,000 for private legal counsel. His defense committee has raised 1/4 of the total funds needed, and that's where you come in. We all know money is tight these days, and there's no shortage of comrades who are locked up or facing time and need our support, which is why we are asking for you to find those few extra dollars and send them down to Tucson. Anarchists in Arizona are still very active in opposing the growth of the far-right by staying in struggle with immigrant and indigenous communities under attack by the state and racist vigilante groups. Here, the fight against colonialism isn't left to the history books, it's a daily battle.
Donations can be made through the supporters' WePay account and through paypal (donate using the ramshackleglory@gmail.com email as the recipient). The Arizona Antifa Defense can be reached through email at AZAntifa@gmail.com.
PHOENIX CLASS WAR COUNCIL is a fanatical, revolutionary anarchist group pressing the attack against capitalism, the state and all systems of hierarchy and oppression. We fight for a self-determined, projectual life for ourselves and all humanity. We oppose those who hinder working class self-organization. We are libertarian and libertine. We support movements but we don't wait for them. We are in the thick of it.
Get in touch. Get our stuff.
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