Building A Movement: Protest Must Change

I wish I had written this letter a week ago, or earlier than that. One of my first thoughts–and a thought that has been bugging me for quite a while–is that our protests in the US are not a match for the times. We conduct too much of our protesting with the tacit approval of the state, and with that approval comes a very obvious decrease in efficacy–if, some of the time, there also comes an increase in safety (which I don't think is entirely true). With Trump's return to office, I expect most of that veneer of safety to disappear, which means there is no reason to request the approval of the state. So it's time–it's well past time–that we stop doing that.

There are several things wrong with how we conduct a typical protest these days. This isn't to say that every protest has to be the kind that I'm going to go on to describe, but I think that if we want our energy to matter–and we must want that–then we have to change how we behave. So today, before we all sink time into a march around several blocks endorsed by the establishment, let's discuss how we might adapt one of our most popular tactics.

The Point of Protest

I am by no means saying that your typical protest is outmoded and needs to be replaced. It is still a worthwhile act, and so many movements–successful movements at that–had their beginnings in protest. But I think that, for years now, we've been working with an expired tactic when our opponents have moved on (and, besides that, are learning how best to bust your head during them). And while there will still be room for more traditional protest, I think it behooves us as leftists to start changing our tactics in order to protect ourselves and make the best use of our energy.

There is a bit of difficulty in my proposed changes and the generally agreed upon point of a protest, which is to express dissatisfaction about a particular issue in an unignorable way. But I think there is room for our tactics to evolve in this regard, in no small part because protests have, largely, stopped fitting this definition already. Most protests, even the big ones, get a line in the newspaper and a meme of a truck pushing through a group of people holding hands to block a highway. That's not the goal, and it's not enough. It's time we acknowledge that.

Reasons and Ways to Improve

There are three main flaws in our current protest tactics as I see them:

1. We are not being safe enough.
2. We are not creating enough disruption to achieve our goals.
3. We are wasting effort.

To the first reason: Trump has ramped up his "the enemy within" rhetoric quite a lot since leaving office, and he's gotten a lot more Hitlerian and McCarthyesque about it. I would assume that it will take a while for him to ramp up persecution and arrest of leftists except that this is one of those things the dems already did, so. My conclusion in this regard is for us–and you, if you're going to be at all active anywhere, doing anything, is to get secure about your identity. This needs to become the case for you in general, but it is especially so at protests (since, one would assume, you are not so public an anarchist as I (and that is not a bad thing)).

For your safety and anonymity at a protest, you've got to leave your phone at home. Police can and will utilize the information gathered by cell towers to tie you to a location and attempt to pin something criminal on you. If your phone is confiscated, it's hard telling what they may try to glean from it. With a physical device in their hands, encryption doesn't mean anything, and your texts and emails are up for grabs. Ideally you are protesting with a group, and one of you can act as a communications hub and keep well away from the cops while the rest of you move about more freely.

Physical protection means covering up your obvious traits. Always, always mask up–post-COVID there is no reason for any of us to be showing our whole faces anywhere in public, but especially at a protest. Any identifying marks, like tattoos, get covered up–long sleeves, gloves, whatever. I don't mean you're necessarily using black bloc (for the new folks, this means donning all black clothing to provide anonymity in a group of others dressed likewise), but I'm not not saying that, either. Your clothes should be nondescript, with no visible tags or means of identifying the brand. You also shouldn't wear any clothing you normally wear, so that if the cops happened to crawl your social media feed they wouldn't find you wearing the same outfit.

You should be carrying a non-descript bag full of alternate clothing, in case you either get assaulted with chemical weapons or need to suddenly look like someone else. This bag should also contain at least a small first aid kit, saline, water, and a snack. Ideally, if you're okay to carry more, you want to add a respirator, goggles, ear plugs, and spare masks for friends.

The answers to reasons two and three are wrapped up together, which is a time-saver. For starters–and I've said this before–we should not be getting arrested on purpose anymore. No more sitting in the middle of the road or locking arms or simply waiting your turn for the zip-ties. Fuck that. If you are unidentified and grabbed by a cop–run. It's a different story if you have been ID'd. But if not, move. No longer allowing ourselves to simply be grabbed up by the cops prevents us from wasting money on bail–which is increasingly becoming a criminal endeavor itself–and keeps bodies on the streets, which keeps the cops busier than they would be walking you to the back file and throwing you in a van. If you are protesting to make a scene–which, what else are you doing?–then the longer you are out there, and the more of you are out there, running your asses off, the better you're doing.

We've talked about the tactics of Hong Kong protesters, and they are still very much inspirational to me. Tactics have been devised to use lasers to block cameras and disorient cops, to douse tear gas canisters or send them back. Protesters actively fled from the police and reformed their protests at secondary locations. They didn't submit to any authority in the course of their protest–which seems obvious but is a thing we regularly do. Be like them, which is to say, be like water. When met by an obstacle, flow around it. Disperse. Move. Don't stand still or march in a predictable line. Make the cops wonder what your next move is.

As with most things leftist, all kinds are welcome at a protest. Some folks are meant to be static, to hold up traffic with signs and be moved when the police tell them. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. However, this can no longer be how we all protest. We have got piss off the cops rather than be a welcome target. We've got to be unexpected. That means we've got to stop treating protests like a battle from the 1800s and more like modern day warfare. I can promise you, the cops aren't going to limit themselves to old-school tactics.

Occupation

The student movements against the genocide in Gaza taught us, if nothing else, that the best way to make a scene is to take something away from those in power. That comes from occupying space in a semi-permanent fashion. There is a great deal more risk with occupation, but the reward is commensurate. I'll say that, if you are in a position to take a building on a college campus for the movement, and you have the student body behind you? Do it–with the understanding that you are going to be arrested, and you are going to be kicked out of school. Anything short of that is pure luck. We can expect resistance like this to be oppressed ferociously with the return of Trump and the rightward lurch of the country. But we live in a time of genocide and fascism; if we don't stand up now, when will we?

Of course there are scenarios in which the occupiers escape, and there are scenarios (many of them! See the CHAZ in Seattle and other such autonomous zones) that take place outside of college campuses, but schools are ripe for this kind of work because the body and buildings are readily available. And of course I'm not saying this to try and get students to burn their futures (but think about it, we're all gonna be water miners for Jeff Bezos in twenty years). The examples of occupations on campuses, though, are many and relatively lengthy.

Going Forward

I really want to talk more about strategy, but also about specific coming threats. I wanted to get this letter out as quick as possible, though, because I don't want y'all to go out into the street and waste your energy. This is going to be a very long fight, and we need to pace ourselves. Spend this month or so learning, getting supplies while the economy isn't tanking, resting, and, above all else, organizing. Talk about what's happening with friends and family, with coworkers, with passersby. Link up with organizations in your community. You don't have to start by throwing yourself into a thresher– just going to a meeting and introducing yourself is enough. As always, we survive this together or we don't survive.