Speaker 1: Ah, it could happen. Here is a podcast that you're
Speaker 1: listening to, and you know, mostly we talk about problems
Speaker 1: that you should be aware of. Sometimes we talk about solutions,
Speaker 1: and today we're kind of going to talk about a solution.
Speaker 1: Today is one of our famed Good News episodes. So everybody,
Speaker 1: everybody celebrate and also give your name for the folks
Speaker 1: at home. Yea, I'm James, Yay, I'm Gare, Yeah, I'm Chris. Wonderful.
Speaker 1: That was perfect. That was that was completely natural, just
Speaker 1: just like we practiced. UM. So the thing that the
Speaker 1: thing that is noteworthy and the thing that we're celebrating
Speaker 1: and also explained today is that this summer we were
Speaker 1: recording this what like a day into September, two days
Speaker 1: into September UM, so we are we are Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: September first. So we have officially gotten through the summer
Speaker 1: um without a right wing rally in Portland that degenerates
Speaker 1: into a gigantic brawl. This is the first year that
Speaker 1: has happened since two thousands seventeen. So, starting in two
Speaker 1: thousand seventeen, Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys and other
Speaker 1: affiliated groups would vary regularly and they would do it
Speaker 1: throughout the year, but particularly during the summers, UM hold
Speaker 1: protests and marches, and these all had different themes. They
Speaker 1: were the Second Amendment rallies, rally against Marxism rally and
Speaker 1: support of the fucking cops, the hymn to rally, all
Speaker 1: sorts of stupid, stupid fucking names. Um. But the main problem,
Speaker 1: the main purpose of them all was so that there
Speaker 1: would be gigantic fistfights between you know, proud boys and
Speaker 1: Patriot Prayer brawlers and anti fascists. That was the reason
Speaker 1: to hold these events, and they got increasingly gnarly and
Speaker 1: increasingly violent, until everything culminated in the summer of and
Speaker 1: this massive Trump caravan through the city with like thousands
Speaker 1: of trucks, people shooting paintballs and spraying mace and throwing
Speaker 1: shipped off the back of trucks. And then a Patriot
Speaker 1: Prayer member named Aaron Danielson got his ass shot to
Speaker 1: death by an anti fascist during a somewhat unclear altercation
Speaker 1: outside of a parking garage. What I can say is
Speaker 1: that everyone involved was heavily armed. Um. And yeah, after
Speaker 1: that there were some more very ugly fights, but UM
Speaker 1: an increasing like thing that happened was that there would
Speaker 1: be gunfire at these protests and the next year, UM,
Speaker 1: at an anniversary fucking fistfight thing, a right wing demonstrator
Speaker 1: fired into a crowd of anti fascists in downtown for Portland,
Speaker 1: who returned fire and drove him off. He was arrested. Um,
Speaker 1: a bunch of There was a big stupid fight at
Speaker 1: a kmart in another part of town the same day,
Speaker 1: debandoned kmart parking lot that held a massive brawl and
Speaker 1: several of them got. Several of the proud boy types
Speaker 1: got the old nasty charges from that one. After the police,
Speaker 1: as they generally did, chose not to take any kind
Speaker 1: of action. Um, and then you know, things kind of
Speaker 1: peat it out, um and nothing. There have not been
Speaker 1: any right wing rallies since. There was one mass shooting
Speaker 1: attack on a weekly racial justice protest in Portland earlier
Speaker 1: this year, UM, where a fascist fired into a crowd
Speaker 1: of women who were doing corking duty. Um. He killed
Speaker 1: one woman, UM, and he wounded four other people and UM, yeah,
Speaker 1: he was taken down, shot twice in the hip by
Speaker 1: a protester who was armed security for that march. And
Speaker 1: after that there hasn't really been anything. And this is
Speaker 1: the interesting one of the things that's there's a number
Speaker 1: of things that are interesting here, but one of them
Speaker 1: is that this has occurred while Proud Boy chapters are
Speaker 1: recording record recruitment. There's more new chapters of the Proud
Speaker 1: Boys than there were prior to January six. And there
Speaker 1: have been at least two hundreds something right wing gatherings
Speaker 1: around the country with like Proud Boys and other affiliated
Speaker 1: groups in attendance since January six, um so nationwide, the
Speaker 1: kind of rallies that Portland's been saying since got more common,
Speaker 1: and they didn't happen at all in Portland this year,
Speaker 1: and that's what we're here to talk about today. I
Speaker 1: think there's a couple of things that are have contributed
Speaker 1: to the current state of affairs um which I think
Speaker 1: broadly can be described as the right is kind of
Speaker 1: scared to do big events in Portland. There have been
Speaker 1: a couple of like sputtering attempts. They drove through town
Speaker 1: on their way to Washington real quickly as part of
Speaker 1: this caravan once, but they didn't go through downtown again.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like one guy did fire it people on
Speaker 1: a bridge with a handgun, which the police did nothing about.
Speaker 1: But they're not willing to like hang around. And I
Speaker 1: think there's a few reasons why they've been scared off.
Speaker 1: Number One, they keep getting shot um. That has happened
Speaker 1: several times now. UM. Number Two, the physical resistance to
Speaker 1: them has been gnarlier as of the fights. UM, people
Speaker 1: have gotten smarter about how they do some aspects of
Speaker 1: the fighting, involving like a lot of property, like spraying
Speaker 1: paint on people's fancy body armor and ship, which is expensive.
Speaker 1: And then after five years of ignoring it, um, the
Speaker 1: state has actually started charging right wing brawlers with felonies,
Speaker 1: which has scared I think a lot of them off. Um.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so that's that's kind of where we are now.
Speaker 1: And I think one of the things people should be
Speaker 1: paying attention to is what Portland's had to do and
Speaker 1: and both how long it took, but also like what
Speaker 1: kind of things were involved to actually get to this point,
Speaker 1: because other folks are going to need to be willing
Speaker 1: to do some of the ship people had to do
Speaker 1: in Portland for years, which includes like fucking strapping on
Speaker 1: gear and going out to confront these people in the street. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think Um, it's really interesting, right because I just
Speaker 1: I know you've written a piece about this for New Lines. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that'll be up by the time this this runs cool
Speaker 1: and yeah I just read it if it was pretty good. Um.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of when we talk about anti fascism historically,
Speaker 1: right We we sort talked about the high points a lot,
Speaker 1: and the one that at least I see most people
Speaker 1: going back to is the Battle of Cable Street in London,
Speaker 1: in which people will probably I know you've had it
Speaker 1: in Bastards episodes before, yes, And it's it's very similar thing, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's a broad inter sexual coalition of people who
Speaker 1: are like, we will not let you do this ship
Speaker 1: in our space, and we will physically fucking stop you,
Speaker 1: and if the police try and protect you, we will
Speaker 1: stop them doing that as well. There's incidents between most
Speaker 1: of these fascists and anti fascists like throughout the thirties
Speaker 1: and a lot later in British history, but it's a
Speaker 1: very similar kind of playbook, I guess right. It's like
Speaker 1: physical force opposition to fascist gatherings and not letting them
Speaker 1: feel safe in your space. Yeah, not letting them feel
Speaker 1: safe and not letting them go unopposed, because I mean,
Speaker 1: one of the things that was kind of repeatedly a
Speaker 1: factor in Portland is that when the anti fascists outnumbered
Speaker 1: the right from the start, and significantly there was a
Speaker 1: lot less violets on on the days when that happened. Um,
Speaker 1: And so it wasn't always a matter of people needing
Speaker 1: to show up to literally fight. There are times when
Speaker 1: like a show of force can work, and I think
Speaker 1: a good example of that in recent times in Texas
Speaker 1: in the DFW area obviously is a hot point for
Speaker 1: different right wing groups, including the Proud Boys harassing LGBT
Speaker 1: events stuff like drag Queen Story Hours and that sort
Speaker 1: of thing, and members of the elm Fork John Brown
Speaker 1: Gun Club who we've had on the show and and
Speaker 1: other affiliated groups have been showing up armed in an armor,
Speaker 1: most recently to protect like a drag brunch um that
Speaker 1: was being counter protest. And you can see like photos
Speaker 1: of like there's a Proud Boy with a bat with
Speaker 1: fucking barbed wire wrapped around it, and there there and
Speaker 1: in this like, you don't show up with the bat
Speaker 1: wrapped in barbed wire unless you're hoping you're gonna get
Speaker 1: to bash somebody's fucking head in, and that guy wound
Speaker 1: up standing off at the sideline all day long because
Speaker 1: a bunch of people were there with rifles. I think
Speaker 1: that guy may not legally be allowed to possess firearms. Yes,
Speaker 1: I also suspect that guy has a felony record. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because he also had a nightstick and like several other
Speaker 1: like more ninja like meamed here weapons. It was yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah to me, and look if if I'm going to
Speaker 1: be totally fair meme to your weapons. No, no side
Speaker 1: in this fight. Because for a long time in Portland
Speaker 1: there was an individual who would bring a pair of
Speaker 1: samurai sorts to everyone and we're we are talking gas
Speaker 1: station grade samurai. Yeah, they have the oil slick effect.
Speaker 1: They must have. They must have. No, he never drew
Speaker 1: his blades because of course then he would have had
Speaker 1: they would have had to taste blood. That's the rule. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the legal ramification that. Ye. Also, it's impossible to
Speaker 1: take the swords out when you have them mounted on
Speaker 1: your back. It's literally possible to take this sort the
Speaker 1: tactical backscrip. It's an offensive position. But no, I think
Speaker 1: it's worth talking about the types of other cities where
Speaker 1: there have been a sizeable amount of far right protests
Speaker 1: this summer, especially targeted at queer people. Um, and how
Speaker 1: Portland is one of the cities where that did not happen.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've seen a lot of stuff in Dallas,
Speaker 1: and the people have been doing a pretty good job
Speaker 1: and both denying the right ground to game, but also
Speaker 1: denying them any of their like fight footage that they
Speaker 1: love to gather. They've they've done a really good job
Speaker 1: at balancing that aspect, which is very, very challenging. It's
Speaker 1: very challenging and it takes a lot of discipline. And obviously,
Speaker 1: when we think kind of tactically about what guns mean
Speaker 1: in a situation like this, they're tools that have up.
Speaker 1: The downside of guns is that if things go wrong
Speaker 1: and everybody is strapped, the potential is for things to
Speaker 1: go very fucking wrong. Indeed, Um, the upside is that
Speaker 1: when you have a line of people with rifles, the
Speaker 1: dudes with knives and batons and ship are I hell,
Speaker 1: have a lot less likely to want to start a
Speaker 1: fucking fight because it's the the consequences are immediately obvious.
Speaker 1: You could look at it as kind of like the
Speaker 1: protest equivalent of mutually assured destruction of sort of the
Speaker 1: old Internet, like of of how the US of the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union managed nuclear tensions. Um. But it it. It
Speaker 1: has been very effective in Dallas for that reason, and
Speaker 1: I think it's I think the fact that protests became
Speaker 1: increasingly armed in Portland and also that there are by
Speaker 1: my account at least three cases of fascists uh being
Speaker 1: run off or injured or killed by protesters with firearms.
Speaker 1: That is part of why they didn't want to do
Speaker 1: that ship so much anymore. Mm hmm. I think that
Speaker 1: part's important too, because, like I I think there was
Speaker 1: a real danger after written House that right wing protesters
Speaker 1: We're gonna see this and just be like, no, we
Speaker 1: can just shoot these people, right, because you know, you
Speaker 1: have a situation where suddenly becomes very clear that the
Speaker 1: state is not going to prosecute people if like right
Speaker 1: wing protesters for shooting people. But you know, okay, if
Speaker 1: if the if the determince is not to say, if
Speaker 1: the insurance is if you get her to get into
Speaker 1: a gunfight, you're gonna lose and get shot like that,
Speaker 1: that I think has been extremely effective in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways. Yeah, early sort of hadn't. I think it's
Speaker 1: probably worth noting as well that like where it's been effective,
Speaker 1: it's been effective because it's been organized and like I
Speaker 1: don't want to use the word discipline because maybe discipline
Speaker 1: imply the authority that that doesn't exist, but like there's
Speaker 1: been some kind of collective restraint in agreement on rules
Speaker 1: of engagement and stuff, which because I've also seen folks
Speaker 1: try to do this unilaternally, that does not sucking end well,
Speaker 1: Like if you're if you're the one person open carrying
Speaker 1: expecting the state where that's not legal, like you're just
Speaker 1: the one person going to prison. Yeah, and obviously open
Speaker 1: carry protests only work in states where that can be
Speaker 1: done legally. Yeah, doing that in Texas is different than
Speaker 1: doing that in California. Yeah, that's what I'm here to
Speaker 1: tell you. But yeah, I think it's a it's a
Speaker 1: force multiplier, right, Like these guys have I think, especially
Speaker 1: people on the right, have absorbed so much like this
Speaker 1: sort of like varo types of male as delineated by
Speaker 1: the Greek alphabet bollocks, and they've convinced themselves that they
Speaker 1: are alpha's and they can win a fight. Now James,
Speaker 1: I've seen more Sigmas than Alpha's prote So many sigmas.
Speaker 1: I've seen a few epsilons. Man, I don't know that's
Speaker 1: the type of male. I met a real Sigma at
Speaker 1: an anti mask protest in who brought his a r
Speaker 1: in a sixty round drum and brag that he had
Speaker 1: five hundred rounds loaded into magazines as he as he
Speaker 1: protested masks in front of the state capital. And it
Speaker 1: was like the people he was protesting were specifically like
Speaker 1: about a dozen nurses who were standing around, let's say,
Speaker 1: it was like you got do you need those five
Speaker 1: hundred bullets? For those unarmed nurses were signs telling it
Speaker 1: a mask he's ready for when the ship hits the
Speaker 1: fan romic. I'm guessing, Oh, I I don't believe I
Speaker 1: saw a MED kid. I used to try to make
Speaker 1: a note of it. I will say the right. In
Speaker 1: the last year, I've noticed more MED hits and pictures
Speaker 1: that I've seen so good good, I guess, yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 1: like if you are a person who's not like physically
Speaker 1: enormous or like, like I said, these guys have convinced
Speaker 1: themselves that like they somehow like top tier brawlers, even
Speaker 1: though seeing the Patriot Front videos they're very funny, like
Speaker 1: it's like a force equalizer. I guess right. It allows
Speaker 1: people to sort of enter that space without having to
Speaker 1: be five massive dudes. I don't want to focus too
Speaker 1: much on specifically firearms because I think that's less important
Speaker 1: than and not that the primarialisson of Portland, which is
Speaker 1: what is necessary to stop these people from showing up,
Speaker 1: is consistent shows of force. And I think one thing
Speaker 1: that I just kind of always found intellectually interesting is
Speaker 1: that you know, when you when you read about like
Speaker 1: military strategy, right um, for every like guy who's actually
Speaker 1: kicking indoors getting into firefights in the field, you have
Speaker 1: you know, nine or ten people behind him who were
Speaker 1: responsible for logistics. Right Um. That's the only way a
Speaker 1: modern military works. When you don't have a logistics train
Speaker 1: set up like that, things go like they did for
Speaker 1: Russia start of the invasion of where you have like
Speaker 1: hundreds of tanks without fuel and ship. Um. When in
Speaker 1: Portland protests, an average for a large protest, I would
Speaker 1: say the average was around a thousand people. Now that's
Speaker 1: a large protest. Often they were smaller. But when you
Speaker 1: would get these big hyped for a couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: the Proud Boys are coming to town. You'd easily get
Speaker 1: a thousand or two thousand people counter protesting, and you know,
Speaker 1: it would be probably ten or fiftcent who were who
Speaker 1: were showing up specifically ready to kind of throw down,
Speaker 1: um and ready to throw down and also with some
Speaker 1: experience doing it, and a much larger number who were
Speaker 1: Some of them were there as medics. Some of them
Speaker 1: were handing out water or other beverages, they were handing
Speaker 1: out food. Uh. There were people who were there just
Speaker 1: to yell and chant with signs to like be you know,
Speaker 1: moral support. There were people there doing transport blocking roads. Um.
Speaker 1: People they're doing you know, um intel and stuff, filming things. UM.
Speaker 1: People who were there, uh you know, doing stuff like
Speaker 1: um covering up live streamers cameras with with bubble rap sheets.
Speaker 1: Or we used to have a band full of people
Speaker 1: who dressed as bananas who would kind of kind of
Speaker 1: try to distract and drown out the far right. There
Speaker 1: was one beautiful individual I saw a couple of times
Speaker 1: who was in black block except for they wore a
Speaker 1: kilt and they carried a pair of bagpipes. And when
Speaker 1: like you would get a couple of fascists approaching a
Speaker 1: protester and like trying to get into an argument, he
Speaker 1: would walk right up and he would just start playing
Speaker 1: the bagpipes so that they couldn't an offensive. M Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was beautiful, um, but kind of more important than
Speaker 1: the specific you do need and I don't want to
Speaker 1: like distracted this. You always need a cor of people
Speaker 1: who are willing and ready to get into a fucking
Speaker 1: fight when you're doing this kind of activism. But the
Speaker 1: biggest thing is that people show up consistently. Um. And
Speaker 1: one of the things Portland had a number of different
Speaker 1: organizations like pop Mob, Popular and more Mobilization that kind
Speaker 1: of existed to organize less radical um or at least
Speaker 1: kind of and not not necessarily less radical. Sometimes people
Speaker 1: who were just like because of whatever in their life,
Speaker 1: were much less interested in the actual getting into a
Speaker 1: fight thing, but understood that the more people show up,
Speaker 1: the safer it is, and succeeded in ensuring that there
Speaker 1: was like a larger body of people at all of
Speaker 1: these events, and that along with more rat groups like
Speaker 1: Rose City Antifa, who kind of particularly earlier in the fights,
Speaker 1: was a big street presence as well as did a
Speaker 1: lot of research, and then other kind of newer um
Speaker 1: and often kind of smaller anti fascist collectives that would
Speaker 1: organize people to straight up fight. It was it was
Speaker 1: this mix of all of that that allowed it to
Speaker 1: be that whenever they showed up, there was always a
Speaker 1: group confronting them, and it was nearly always larger UM.
Speaker 1: And it got to the point at the height of
Speaker 1: you know, there was this right wing protest before time hand,
Speaker 1: nobody quite knew how bad it was going to be. Garrison.
Speaker 1: You and I got there right as things were starting,
Speaker 1: and it was the anti fascists were outnumbered kind of
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the day, and things got really
Speaker 1: violent very quickly. Within an hour or two though, about
Speaker 1: somewhere around a thousand people had showed up on the
Speaker 1: anti fascist side and we're organized and fighting. It was
Speaker 1: a very impressive response time. Yeah, and I think it
Speaker 1: is it's the actual it's the I mean, people used
Speaker 1: the word like the term to diversity of tactics often
Speaker 1: just to kind of defend actions that are more radical um.
Speaker 1: And there's the there's the other side of diversity of tactics,
Speaker 1: which is pulling in all of the background support that
Speaker 1: creates this the sustainability for more radical actions like showing
Speaker 1: up and actually being a frontliner to get into fist
Speaker 1: fights with proud Boys. Then there's all of the other
Speaker 1: stuff like whether that's like medics, other support teams, people
Speaker 1: playing doing like queer dance parties to push fascists out
Speaker 1: of areas. All those types of things not only make
Speaker 1: the environment more sustainable, so people can show up over
Speaker 1: a larger period of time because they don't get so
Speaker 1: burnt out because all they're doing is fist fighting. Um,
Speaker 1: So I think those actions are another our thing. That's
Speaker 1: it's it's worth not just ignoring those and not just
Speaker 1: discrediting those, because once you have that type of presence
Speaker 1: and people know that you're gonna that, those are the
Speaker 1: types of environments that you're able to create when you're
Speaker 1: outnumbered by fascists and you need to call and need
Speaker 1: to need to put out a call for support if
Speaker 1: you if you have this kind of reputation, that can
Speaker 1: that can help get a lot of people out very
Speaker 1: quickly and help with the that actually is like popular mobilization.
Speaker 1: That right, that that's what that's what that's what that
Speaker 1: actually means. So that's how you can get the anti
Speaker 1: fascist side to out number the fat side like we
Speaker 1: saw in um, despite that not being the case. When
Speaker 1: when when when it started? Yeah? And I think because
Speaker 1: the main thing that ended that fight was the was
Speaker 1: the anti fascist side just moving as a massive, massive
Speaker 1: block and just pushing the fascists out of the area.
Speaker 1: Like there's as soon as the fascist line broke and
Speaker 1: you have like hundreds and hundreds of hundreds of people
Speaker 1: in Portland streets directing the flow of movement, you can't
Speaker 1: you can't stop that the force. The force is too great. Um.
Speaker 1: And that requires there to be a large amount of people,
Speaker 1: including people who are not gonna get into a fist
Speaker 1: fight with someone three times their size. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: another thing, um that that maybe it's important is that
Speaker 1: like and it's kind of at the core of anti fascism, right,
Speaker 1: It's it's it's possible for people who have done just
Speaker 1: different tactics but different opinions like to create this broad
Speaker 1: based alliance and not get cross with each other and
Speaker 1: not agreeing on everything. And yeah, or at least um,
Speaker 1: stop fighting with each other long enough to drive the
Speaker 1: fascists out because Portland's By the way, another thing we
Speaker 1: should acknowledge the Portland anti fascist community, it can be
Speaker 1: quite messy. Um. There are a lot of different factions
Speaker 1: and disagreements, and there have been a lot of arguments
Speaker 1: up to the present day. But you know, as a
Speaker 1: general rule, when the right showed up, people mobilized and
Speaker 1: and threw down against them. You know, despite the fact
Speaker 1: that it was a mix of folks who were libs
Speaker 1: and folks who were radicals and folks who were you know,
Speaker 1: um something in between. Um it was And again I
Speaker 1: don't this was never a particularly clean process, and it
Speaker 1: didn't have to be. You know, you could point out
Speaker 1: and and if we had longer, we could point out
Speaker 1: all number of different like flaws and shortcomings and like
Speaker 1: things that were done that we're wrong or unfair to somebody.
Speaker 1: But what was kind of more important than any of
Speaker 1: the ways in which the movement was flawed was at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, that it persisted, that it
Speaker 1: kept bringing people out, and that it kept resisting, and
Speaker 1: that the right seems to have kind of blinked before
Speaker 1: the left did here, Like that's what what matters more
Speaker 1: than anything about Portland's people felt comfortable enough to continue
Speaker 1: to come out and it felt worthwhile enough. But for
Speaker 1: the anti specifically for the anti fascist protests, they were
Speaker 1: able to create those environments that people that that families
Speaker 1: were felt totally comfortable coming out to UM and people
Speaker 1: felt that it actually was worthwhile, like there was it
Speaker 1: was it was worth it to take an afternoon out
Speaker 1: of your day to show up and say no and
Speaker 1: yeah and if you're able to physically display no, you can't,
Speaker 1: you can't come here. Yeah, And that was um. You know,
Speaker 1: obviously when we talked about the difference between doing that
Speaker 1: against the police as opposed to the right, you know,
Speaker 1: the police have more in their current form a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty have They've had a hundred and fifty years
Speaker 1: or so to dig in, you know, Um, it's a
Speaker 1: harder target. But yeah, I think the fact that um,
Speaker 1: I think the fact that one of the strengths of
Speaker 1: the movement in Portland was that, as a general rule,
Speaker 1: a lot of people who had a pretty diverse set
Speaker 1: of beliefs all felt this is a thing I can
Speaker 1: do and should do. This is worthwhile and important. These
Speaker 1: people need to be opposed in the streets and that's
Speaker 1: worth some time out of my very limited fucking free
Speaker 1: time to go do um and that that is kind
Speaker 1: of I think the primary lesson if you want to
Speaker 1: know what other cities should take from Portland's, it's the
Speaker 1: importance of developing a community like that, a community information
Speaker 1: network like that, but also just like a community where
Speaker 1: people can all kind of where where people feel like, yes,
Speaker 1: it is actually it is worthwhile for me to show
Speaker 1: up and participate in this, right Like. That's the hard
Speaker 1: thing is getting across. When there's, um, you know, a
Speaker 1: book reading at a library, the proud boys are going
Speaker 1: to show up in protest. It's it's getting getting the
Speaker 1: message out to people in the area and getting a
Speaker 1: couple of hundred folks to show up, Because if you
Speaker 1: can get two hundred people to show up to something
Speaker 1: like that, there's never gonna be that many fucking proud
Speaker 1: boys at the event. It's gonna be thirty or forty
Speaker 1: of them, or less, maybe a dozen. And if you're
Speaker 1: a fucking library and twenty proud boys show up to
Speaker 1: like cause a problem, and you've got like a dozen
Speaker 1: kids inside of getting read of book or some shit
Speaker 1: or it's a brunch, and yeah, thirty Proud Boys show up,
Speaker 1: you have a huge problem. People would get really hurt.
Speaker 1: They could get fucked up heading to their cars, they
Speaker 1: can get harassed. It's scary. If that number of Proud
Speaker 1: Boys shows up and a hundred a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: people show up to counter them. Um, then suddenly number one,
Speaker 1: all of the people who are being threatened by the
Speaker 1: fascists get this feeling that like, oh my god, I'm
Speaker 1: actually supported by the community, that like people are willing
Speaker 1: to come out and defend me and defend people like me.
Speaker 1: And number two, the Proud Boys get to feel it
Speaker 1: like fuck even even here, we're even in Dallas right
Speaker 1: where we we might be out numbered. You know, I
Speaker 1: think because a few other cities where protests have continued
Speaker 1: and where they haven't, they haven't in Portland, I think
Speaker 1: yet we've we've seen a decent amount of activity this
Speaker 1: year in Salem, um a lot of blood and and
Speaker 1: there have been far right protests in Salem ever since
Speaker 1: seen as well. Yes. And the other place that because
Speaker 1: because I just because I just did a deep dive
Speaker 1: into this is there's been a lot of people from
Speaker 1: the Portland area, from Vancouver um planning to go up
Speaker 1: to port Towns in Washington, and it's been interesting talking
Speaker 1: with the people up there about this is the first
Speaker 1: time they've really seen a large influx of people. Well,
Speaker 1: and it's it's people who don't it's and the proud
Speaker 1: boys who are not comfortable showing up to Portland anymore,
Speaker 1: but instead they're going to drive three hours to go
Speaker 1: to this small town of ten thousand people. Um. And
Speaker 1: then watching people in this in this local area figure
Speaker 1: out how they're going to respond to this has been
Speaker 1: super intriguing. There's been a whole bunch of people. There's
Speaker 1: been affinity groups in the area setting up medic trainings
Speaker 1: for for queer people who live in the town. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's been meetings between bipoc groups and like more like
Speaker 1: gun based queer groups about how they can mutually support
Speaker 1: each other as the far right descends on their city. UM.
Speaker 1: And in some cases, you know, there was people in
Speaker 1: certain groups who at at previous protests that's happened the
Speaker 1: past month, they did not feel comfortable going out to
Speaker 1: the front lines of this type of thing, but they
Speaker 1: were able to work with other organizers to set up
Speaker 1: kind of UH like support, kind of like UH support
Speaker 1: like areas and even kind of kind of like they
Speaker 1: described it as like a picnic that's like a quarter
Speaker 1: mile away, and it creates like a buffer zone in
Speaker 1: between people who want to go to the front lines
Speaker 1: and this whole background of people that's supporting you and
Speaker 1: it's going to help you out if you need anything. Um. So,
Speaker 1: all the various ways that you can, you can incorporate
Speaker 1: a diversity of strategies and different type of groups into
Speaker 1: countering something that's moving to your city. Now. Um, just
Speaker 1: an interesting note based on how much I've I've heard
Speaker 1: people talk about you know, proud boys coming up from
Speaker 1: Portland and and and Vancouver just ending up feeling they
Speaker 1: have to drive three hours to other cities to get
Speaker 1: you know there, whatever whatever they want to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the ideal thing is that they walk away not even
Speaker 1: beat up as much as demoralized and feeling like it
Speaker 1: was a waste of time and money. Ideally, they in
Speaker 1: their gear, get covered and fucking paint or something. Um,
Speaker 1: and they lost six hours of time on a fucking Saturday.
Speaker 1: And if that kind of happens repeat eatedly, maybe they'll stop,
Speaker 1: you know which is which is again, the goal is
Speaker 1: for them to uh, feel like it's not worth coming out,
Speaker 1: you know, like that's what that like people. It's often
Speaker 1: said like, you know, make racists afraid again is a
Speaker 1: statement you heard a lot, particularly after But it's a
Speaker 1: little more complicated than that. It's not purely about fear.
Speaker 1: It's also it's hopeless. You want to make them hopeless,
Speaker 1: you want to feel make them to feel like there's
Speaker 1: no fucking point in showing up. And that's the most
Speaker 1: valuable thing, is a victory condition. That's that's above everything else,
Speaker 1: is making them feel like there is no hope for
Speaker 1: their movement. I think that the most recent as as
Speaker 1: a time of recording, there was there was this protest
Speaker 1: on the Um that was a mix of like turfs
Speaker 1: and then a mix of far right people. There's this
Speaker 1: guy from Vancouver called the Common Sense Conservative who runs
Speaker 1: a little like video blog thing um that he was
Speaker 1: organizing some people to go up and don't it's it's
Speaker 1: it's there was like yea, it's like thirty people, lots
Speaker 1: of them from out of state who have traveled up
Speaker 1: as a part of this like turf anti trans side,
Speaker 1: and there was like three hundred to four hundred people
Speaker 1: from the local area who showed up and we're like, no,
Speaker 1: you're not going to do this of And ever since
Speaker 1: then there's been a lot of infighting between the Turfs
Speaker 1: and the kind of more far right people because it sucks.
Speaker 1: It's it sucks that you have three hundred people from
Speaker 1: the actual city that show up and go no and
Speaker 1: try to like physically remove you from this space. And
Speaker 1: I think you can sort of see mirrors of this
Speaker 1: and like the way left, just like protest work right
Speaker 1: where it's like it's it's a lot easier to hold
Speaker 1: together coalitions when you're winning, and the moment you start losing,
Speaker 1: the moment things start going wrong, like all of the
Speaker 1: infighting comes back and you know the entire movement will
Speaker 1: just tosittegrate And this this works the same way on
Speaker 1: the right. If you can, if you can actually beat
Speaker 1: them consistently a few times, and you can start like
Speaker 1: holding on long enough for their their internal group dynamics
Speaker 1: to unravel like this this is a way to beat them. Yeah, yep, Um,
Speaker 1: Well that's about all I had to say. Not a
Speaker 1: complicated topic anything else, all right, Well, Well, as uh yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: go uh go go yellow at a fucking Nazi. Um
Speaker 1: go go damage a fascists body armor by spraying them
Speaker 1: with paint from a great distance. You know, go go Uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Do something else. Uh bide