Peaceful Protests and Clocking Richard Spencer

[lydy]

Let's start with a basic that is often forgotten: peaceful protests are a tactic, not a virtue. They have been, in several very notable cases, an effective method to change deep injustice. Non-violence is a tactic used by numerous but out-gunned people against an opponent who can feel shame. Non-violence has a lot of really good follow-ons. It tends not to escalate out of control, it tends to have very little in the way of collateral damage (unless, of course, you are counting the protesters, which you probably should), and it's easy to explain. It's damn hard to do. It is a tactic which supports its goal.

It is a terrible mistake to judge a movement only by its tactics. I have had more than one argument with someone who insisted I had to support the abortion clinic sit-ins because I honor the lunch counter sit-ins from the Sixties, for instance. That I should honor the Promise Keepers because they had a large, peaceful march and I approved of large, peaceful marches to protest George W. That because I believe in freedom of speech, I should approve of hatred being spewed onto the airwaves by Rush Limbaugh. And this is what I have to say about that: fuck that noise. If the ends do not justify the means, then surely the means do not justify the ends. Also, seriously, there's no particularly useful bright line between means and ends, so stop being a sophomoric idiot and think.

It is also impossible to ignore the fact that policing priorities in this country are property, particularly corporate property, first and foremost. Compare the response time and manpower assigned to a silent alarm from an empty jewelry store compared to a call from someone with an on-going home invasion. Please notice that the cops thought defense for murdering Michael Brown in Ferguson was that he might have shoplifted some tobacco products. It is instructive that they thought that this was a reasonable defense. Even if you try to look away, you can't fail to know that the police in this country care a whole hell of a lot more for property than they do for people.

Why, then, is it a surprise that people pushed beyond all reason, strike at the only thing that the police and society apparently care about? (Also, the sound of smashing glass is pretty rad.) If you have reached the point where peaceful protests have not worked, and I think it is possible to argue that we have, then breaking a few windows and trashing a few cars does not seem unreasonable. At least it will be heard. Over the last fifty years, the "establishment" (I don't have a better term right to hand) has developed some very effective ways of dealing with non-violent protests. I don't think that the use of peaceful protest has entirely run its course, but I think that we may need other things as well.

Here is where I say I really, really don't know. I don't know what happens next. I don't know what we need to do. I am scared by violence. I hate entropy, and I despise breaking things. I think that the breaking of things can escalate to the breaking of people. But I also think that we are too quick to equate property damage with actual violence against people, and we need to cut that shit out. That's how we get shoplifting being a capital offense. Breaking stuff is scary and dangerous. It is not the same thing as hitting people. Please notice how often the cops use property damage as an excuse to hurt people. Not just arrest them, but pepper spray them, shoot rubber bullets at them, beat them with sticks, and taser them. These are not morally equivalent actions, and we must begin to understand that.

The massive, peaceful, creative protests yesterday are inspiring, and definitely suggest that peaceful protests have not run their course. They still have power. They still matter. But, dear ones, we're in for the long haul, here. And it is possible that not every protester will choose that path. What I'd like to ask is that you consider the possibility that they are right to choose other methods.

I also want to talk about people's reaction to the Clocking of Richard Spencer. A lot of my friends love watching it, but feel a little guilty about it. Here are some things to consider before you get your guilt on. First, no one has ever said, "Gosh, I wish we'd given the Nazis the benefit of the doubt. They might have turned things around." Universally, what people say is, "We should have fought back sooner and harder." So there's that.

I think it is also important to notice the way in which the media has failed us. Look the media always makes choices about what positions are too far out there to report on. I mean, they don't do the "both sides" nonsense with the flat-earthers every time they talk about space exploration. More noticeably, when was the last time that they quoted a Trotskyist when covering a labor dispute? You may not know it, but the United States is blessed with a great many smart, educated, articulate Trotskyists. The reason you don't know this is because the mainstream media thinks they are too far out to talk to or about. So we know they do this. We can see it. So why did Richard Fucking Spencer and his trough of evil, vile shit become something that they report upon. Not just once, but multiple times. And in ways that make it seem like it is a set of beliefs that we should consider, the same way we might consider whether or not Obamacare makes long-term financial sense for the United States.

At the point that Spencer was clocked, he was being asked about his Pepe lapel pin by a reporter. That is to say, he was being given yet another platform from which to promulgate his sly, slick, racist evil shit. And the fact that he got clocked means that instead of talking about that vileness, we're talking about whether or not somebody should have hit him. Which is a much better conversation. It's a damn shame that the Fourth Estate can't be trusted with a damn microphone. Thank god for the Nazi punchers.

Comments

[redbird]

We also need to remember that non-violent protest isn't just peaceful demonstrations on the Common or the Washington Mall or marching down Fifth Avenue (New York City's standard march route, but more pointed when it takes Gay Pride past St. Patrick's Cathedral or, yesterday, Trump Tower).

Civil disobedience is also a form of peaceful protest, and we call it "disobedience" for a reason. The Montgomery bus boycott was peaceful civil disobedience. Refusing to pay war taxes was peaceful civil disobedience. All the sit-ins that don't just show a protest movement's numbers, but disrupt business in one way or another, are peaceful civil disobedience.

[Violence scares me too, and I don't think I'd be very good at punching Nazis. But that's a statement about tactics, not ethics.]

[livejournal.livejournal.com]

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[skzbrust.livejournal.com]

Well said. Especially about non-violence being a tactic, not a principle. And, yes, in the long run, we are not going to solve this problem by individual protesters punching individual Nazis. But that's one hell of a lot closer to the right direction than those who say we should be having "reasonable discussions" with the sons-of-bitches.

[skzbrust.livejournal.com]

Also, I'd like, with your permission, to copy and paste this post to Facebook.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Please do. 

[skzbrust.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Done.

[skzbrust.livejournal.com]

Something like 10 shares on Facebook.

Good post.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Let me know if there are any interesting replies.

[skzbrust.livejournal.com]

It's a mix of agreement and Will.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Oh, god, please don't tell me what Will is saying. (Is he defending Richard Spencer? No, no, don't tell me.)

[skzbrust.livejournal.com]

He isn't, and I won't.

[(Anonymous)]

my understanding is that he was being asked for a documentary. he hired a person to ask him about it.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

News reports I've seen say that he was speaking to ABC news.

[guppiecat]

Since you're not on Facebook, you perhaps have not seen "On the Propriety of Punching Nazis - a FAQ".

I, myself, would not have punched the Nazi. As others have said, punching the Nazi was wrong ... but it was right that the Nazi got punched.

Personally, I do not applaud the punching of the Nazi.

But I fucking *love* the discussion that it has generated all over the net.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Ok, that was fucking great. Thanks.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that the reason the Mainstream Media covered the clocking of Richard Spencer so extensively was because they enjoyed it just as much as you did but didn't feel that punching him themselves met their own standards of journalistic integrity. For the record, I agree with them on both counts. I imagine that it was also covered by the alt-right as an entirely different story in which poor Mr. Spencer is a martyr to political correctness. Which is part of the reason that punching him was not an effective way to change minds and hearts.

Unfortunately, the same is true of violent and/or destructive protests. It may feel good at the time, but I believe it is counterproductive to practically any cause that I would be likely to support. Violence and destruction CAN change minds and hearts in the direction of fear and anger, but that is much more likely to be useful to totalitarians than to freedom lovers.

[naomikritzer]

The purpose of punching Nazis is not to change minds and hearts but to instill fear. Nazis who fear being public Nazis will find it more difficult to hold meetings, speak publicly, unite with other Nazis to accomplish common goals, etc., all of which is a good thing because THESE ARE NAZIS.

People have pointed out that when Nazis go underground, you don't know who the Nazis are, and this is true, but it also makes it much more difficult for them to accomplish anything. By way of comparison, I think most LGBT people over the age of 40 or so remember an era when far more LGBT people were in the closet, and thinking about how much easier it would be to get things done if more people came out. They were totally right! And when LGBT people come out, that's great. But Nazis have been coming out in droves, trying to make their repugnant beliefs socially acceptable beliefs to hold, and that is not great. If the upshot of Spencer getting punched is that Nazis think, "I wish I could come out, but people might target me for violence," that is a win for anyone who is not a Nazi.

Mind you, it's still illegal to punch Nazis, and if I were on this guy's jury (and they were able to prove his identity), I'd find him guilty of assault. I am not in favor of changing the laws to declare an open season on Nazis. But I'm totally in support of vigilante Nazi-punching actions, especially if you think you can run away afterwards and not get caught.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

I get your point, but stand by my last sentence. IMHO, responding to repugnant speech with violence moves the whole social framework in a direction that is friendly to fascism and totalitarianism.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Politics is not neat, but at its base, it is always about power, and not about hearts and minds. Massive, peaceful protests have many uses, but they always contain a soft threat: see how many people will become ungovernable if you push us too far. It's nice when people love us. But those in power also need to fear us. It's useful to create space for discussion and accommodation, but it's necessary for them to believe that there will consequences if they ignore us.

If we are never willing to resort to violence, then those in power never need to work with us. They can always ask for one more conversation, one more concession, one more peace offering. Me, I'd start with property damage, instead of damaging people...with the exception of Nazis. Nazis want to put me in an oven. (Slightly queer poly girl, you bet they want to exterminate me.)

I believe in our institutions, but they have failed us. I believe that they can be reformed, but I do not believe that the tactics we have used so far have resulted in meaningful reform. (Thinking the last 35 years, since the election of Reagan.) And so I am willing to look at other options, other modes of protest.

And right now, before it becomes necessary, is the time to have the conversation about when violence is the proper choice. Rather than be forced into it, too late, disorganized, and desperate, let's have that conversation now. If now is not the right time to punch Nazis, when is? If now is not the right time to set fire to trash cans in the streets, at what point do the conditions warrant it? If now is not the right time to shut down freeways and force mass-arrests, what provocation should we wait for? Nobody wants that the to be the place we end up, but if we do end up there, we need to be prepared.

So, what's your bright line? At what point do you think that the equivalent of punching Nazis is appropriate?

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

See, here's the thing. I think the single most terrifying thing about the Trump candidacy was the way he used his rallies to condition his followers to the idea that it was appropriate to use violence against dissenters. It was okay because they were "Unamerican" or "members of the lying media." Although he didn't specifically tell them to start hitting people at his rallies that they judged to be Unamerican, he shrugged it off or gave back-handed props to the folks who did it.

Once you normalize the idea of punching out people who say "Unamerican" things it is not going to be limited to Nazis. Especially when the leader of the American people is strangely tolerant of Nazis but enjoys whipping up mob hysteria against foreigners and others he perceives as personal enemies. Embracing violence to get your point across just plays into the hands of totalitarians always waiting in the wings.

When is violence appropriate? I would think it appropriate to take violent action to stop a lynching.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

And I am terrified at normalizing conversations about whether Jews are actually people, and considering the subtle distinction between actually making plans to exterminate entire classes of people versus a discussion of the morality of actually exterminating entire classes of people. Any conversation that allows genocide as a possible option is dangerously corrosive, far more so than the occasional scrum in the street.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I haven't been able to find an article on it that is remotely well-written (there's a terrible but informational one on Yahoo News), but it's been fascinating to watch the efforts of Richard Spencer's hometown, Whitefish, Montana, to disassociate themselves from him and his views and keep their (tiny but extant) Jewish community safe. They're doing a really great job-- Spencer has threatened multiple times to hold a neo-Nazi rally there, and it has not happened, because it has been so obvious to the Nazis that they might get beaten up and that spectators would not agree with them. This has involved things like people with pro-diversity signs standing on every major streetcorner all day in below-zero weather on the dates Spencer said there'd be a rally, even though Spencer didn't have permits and there was no sign of said rally, just in case some Nazis might turn up. It's indisputably clear what the town thinks if you just drive down the main street.

And I do think that part of why that's working is that the townspeople aren't instigating violence, but are prepared for it, and prepared for it as pre-emptive self-defence and not only if attacked. None of them will say it outright to the press, of course, but it's pretty clear that if Nazis turned up for a rally, somebody would at least try to punch them. Spencer's immediate reaction to this was to say that his rally was going to open-carry rifles, at which point he was promptly denied a permit and it was made clear that if they turned up armed there would be arrests, because that would be considered an active threat. Then they no-showed.

So yeah, at this point I am pretty much pro punching Nazis, and letting the Nazis know that people are very willing to punch them. It does, demonstrably, help.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

That's really interesting info on Whitefish. Thank you.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

This is very interesting information, but I apparently interpret it a little differently than you do. I was totally with you through "And I do think that part of why that's working is that the townspeople aren't instigating violence, but are prepared for it," but the last part is dismaying. I think you're saying that once it was clear that marchers would be attacked, the Nazis IMMEDIATELY MADE PLANS TO SHOW UP WITH RIFLES.

Thank God the local authorities took that as a reason to deny them a permit and threaten them with arrest. What if they hadn't done that? What if the mayor or whoever controls the police in that town was a huge supporter of right to bear arms and declared that they had a perfect right to show up with rifles, because Nazis are bad but gun control advocates are worse?

I was touched by the idea of all those local townspeople silently protesting for hours on cold street corners to protect their Jewish minority. Not so touched by the possibility that the whole thing was just an armed and vigilant police force away from the OK Corral. I think this is a great argument for fierce but non-violent protest, while reserving the right to physically protect the innocent from carnage.

[skzbrust.livejournal.com]

This link may be relevant.

https://libcom.org/blog/how-teamsters-quelled-fascist-thugs-07052012

[lydy.livejournal.com]

I've also seen several discussions by people involved in the Punk Rock scene in the 90s, who say that the only way to deal with the Nazis is don't let them in, Don't let them come to your shows, drink in your bars, mosh in your pits. If the best way to prevent it is to punch them, you should punch them. Because if you let one in, the you have six, and then you have ten, and then you have people getting hurt and shows being shut down and bars becoming toxic social environments. The only thing that works is no Nazis, and a willingness to back that up with fists and feet.

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

(Beating the crap out of Nazis at the first opportunity isn't "protest". It's self defense.)
I haven't troubled to do the slow motion, but that whole bit may have been staged. He wasn't actually punched, just sort of elbowed.
And of course, there's Dead Kennedys.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure of the point of picking these nits. However, "punching Nazis" is kind of a thing. There's a long comic book tradition of same. So when Spencer got clocked, "punching" was used in its more generic sense. Hitting his face with an elbow or forearm suggests that whoever clocked him knows what they're doing. Much less likely to damage yourself that way. When punching with your hands, it's better to choose soft targets, like the kidneys, rather than bony targets like skulls.

If it was staged by Spencer, it sure didn't have the effect intended. So I'm good either way.