The S29 March on DC meets with little opposition.

By Daryle Lamont Jenkins

WASHINGTON, D.C., Sept. 29-Until the events of September 11, there were scheduled demonstrations against the WTO at their Fall conference. After the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, the WTO decided that it would be a good idea to postpone the conference for a later date to be determined. However, in the midst of the attacks came a call for unity, which would be great if the right-wing was not running the campaign for it. The bombings hit most, if not all, of us in an big way. Many of us have lost loved ones or know someone who did. Most importantly, we were scared of what this meant for our future as a people and we huddled together in an effort to heal and to plan a course of action to be taken. That isn’t to say there were no questions about the course that was chosen. We still do not know for a fact that Osama bin Laden was responsible, let alone any Arab terrorists. Even more stressing was the fact that this unity was not including Muslims and people of Arabic decent. There has been assaults and murders of people who either were Muslim or Arabic, or looked like they were. There has been call after call for people not to resort to such racism, but it continues regardless. To that end, S29 became a rally to protest military action and the racism that has gone on.

This came with a bit of a twist, however. As noted above when the Right talks of unity, expect trouble. Unity to them means no deviation to what they are about. There will be no dissent, no questions asked, no blocking their path. There has been a period during all of this where their agitation went uncountered, and where once they would not be emboldened enough to actually stifle dissent, or anything they opposed, they now had the strength to do so. In the name of unity, they have been able to shut down Bill Maher, a number of columnists, and others who dared to question them. The curious thing is that in Maher’s case, right-wing columnists like Charles Kruthammer that echoed his sentiments about how the hijackers were not cowards are not so admonished.

When S29 was announced the right-wingers went on the Internet to make a call to counter us. Most prominent was the right wingers at Free Republic. This group (whom I will prefer to call Freak Republic from here on), is basically comprised of a number of well-known right wingers like radio talk-shit host Sean Hannity and author Barbara Olson, who wrote two books trashing President Clinton and Hillary Clinton. One of them will be released posthumously as Olson was on the plane that took out the Pentagon. Despite warnings on the website against postings of this nature, Freak Republic is known for the racist and anti-Semitic postings (especially anti-Semitic) of its members, and in the wake of September 11, was very much so the anti-Arabic/Muslim source. For example, one member named Republic of Texas (who may be a Dallas realtor named David Cowling) wrote that “Arabs and Persians need to die. Lot’s of ’em. Very soon. End of story”

In the days leading up to S29, Freak Republic has a few posts calling for its members to actually fight those that come out to question this government’s moves. “MSNBC interviewed a traitor named Larry Holmes who is the spokesperson for A.N.S.W.E.R. who has organized this ‘Pro-Osama bin Laden rally,’ posted one member known as MJY1288. “I almost shot my TV. I can only hope someone in D.C. beats the living tar out of this scumbag Holmes” MJY1288 said also that he was once arrested in 1980 for fighting with Iranian protesters in Lafeyette Park.

This was something we encountered on J20 when a masked person began to pepper spray the Black Bloc at the Navy Memorial, the site where the Black Bloc took down the flag and hoisted their own and an inverted US flag on Inauguration Day. So we took this to heart. With this and other sentiments being bandied about, it looked like there was going to be a real confrontation, and therefore some real necessity to prepare for it. It was also going to be a barometer. Right-wingers seldom do anything they can’t walk away from, and if there was a full on battle between us and the rightists, that would mean that we should not be looking at World War III in the Middle East, but Civil War II right here. It would have caused a ripple effect across the country and a lot of good people would get hurt. My intent was to 1) get to know the Freak Republic jokers and 2) be there in case they started something.

I pretty much came prepared with my video camera, a cell phone and something for defense. I was with a group that I broke away from but maintained contact with as I looked for the rightists. I found them amazingly enough at the Navy Memorial! Calling themselves “Bush thugs,” the gaggle of pseudo-patriots had a serious delusion of grandeur. They chose the Memorial because they wanted to defend the flag from the roving band of Anarchists who took it down before. During a little huddle, there was a communication from someone that they planned to come down and do something to the flags again. The discussion of their plan of action was a part of the video that made for a well-extended laugh attack among the Anarchists that watched it later. A older man wearing Confederate insignia (interesting how patriots can wear the colors of one of America’s enemies, isn’t it?) going by his Freak Republic nickname “Stand Watie” conducted the briefing.

“Our information from police sources is that a group of these thugs gonna come down and try to start something with the flags and what not,” Watie told his people, warning against getting into a fist fight with us as they stand and protect the flag, and noting that. “Our first priority is to protect our females and any kids that may be here.”
There were about fifty of them, all waiting for something to happen. One woman I knew from the Conservative Political Action Committee conference I attended in January, 2000. Some of them I remembered from other right wing events such as the pro-Bush rally on Inauguration Day. They had placards that used slogans like “No Justice, No Peace,” (which now justifies us using it, since they seem to be in agreement), and one particular sign that had a picture of the new album by the revolutionary rap group The Coup. In what had to be the most unfortunate coincidences, the group’s new album cover was to depict the band blowing up the World Trade Center. The sign featured that cover with a caption, “The Leftist’s Fantasy Came True According to “TBP,” The guy holding the sign the band and the label pulled the cover before releasing it. According to a press release by Ark75, the Coup’s record label, the artwork was never printed and was only seen as a web image. The band and label are also asking fans of the Coup not to distribute the image any further.

Some of the rightists also wore jackets and shirts that said “Tyranny Response Team,” which was a Denver-based group that was to have spun off Freak Republic. Apparently they fancy themselves some sort of minutemen against leftists, which considering how not too many of us on the Left even heard of the group, may not be all that effective. Ironically, one of them has the Freak Republic screen name Sauropod, a particularly apt name to be honest (a sauropod is a dinosaur). Some of them were among us as infiltrators, but unlike them, who hid behind their screen names for the most part, there was nothing to be concerned with there as everything we had was out in the open anyway. They could have come dressed in their Ku Klux Klan robes and get the same information they relayed to their crew at the Memorial!
Some of the “intelligence gathering” they was able to muster up was the fact that they were not going to be allowed to stand where they were. Turned out that International A.N.S.W.E.R. obtained a permit for the Navy Memorial, sending the rightists plans awry for a bit. “The Left believes in lawyers,” one said. “They have lawyers, that’s the problem.”

They found a way to circumvent the “problem” of the law they claimed to uphold. The one coordinating this event, a guy named Kristinn, said that if there is a gathering of less than 25 people they would be allowed to stay. The rest of them (the other half) would have to cross the street and take their counterdemonstration with them. As the 24 who were allowed to stay at the Memorial gathered around the flag, they decided to heckle some Howard University students who walked by. “A man and two women stopped to ‘dialogue’ with us,” Sauropod, said in his Freak Republic posting. “Her point of view was that we were standing there because we were ‘white.’ She used black supremacist and racist logic to fit us into her world view through a racist prism so that she could ‘polish her piety.’ At one point, (another Freak Republic poster) leadpenny was beginning to get a little hot under the collar and I told him (in a loud enough voice so she was sure to hear it) ‘Cool it, she is just trying to polish her piety.’ Leadpenny claimed not to have heard it. Must be due to his advanced age.”

A clarification here. The woman they refer to did not use “black supremacist and racist logic.” That was in Sauropod’s warped little mind. What she did do was point out that the American government has also been guilty of possibly even worse crimes than what was committed against us. “You’re saying that they’re terrorists because they attacked us,” she said. “We attack them everyday in their country.” The rightists could care less about the facts. When she noted how Palestinians are attacked in Israel, she was accused of being an anti-Semite. Later I spoke with the students. One of the girls said she has seen their type before, coming from, as she put it, the heart of racism, Mississippi. And lest someone from Freak Republic is reading this and disputing that they are racist, there was a display of it. Earlier, when an person looking to be of Arabic decent walked by, David, who was one of the protesters, asked him, “Does he look familiar?” referring to the picture of Osama bin Laden that he was holding. I was actually shocked that he pulled that stunt, but the Arabic-looking gentleman kept his cool. “Are you any better than him?” The man turned back to ask before leaving. “By this kind of behavior, you think you’re better than him?”

Then Kristinn again called a huddle, this time to alert the group that WTOP radio was reporting there were fights breaking out between hundreds of protestors and cops, causing the second top cop to be injured. What I also found out later was that according to one news source, four war-solidarity demonstrators waded into the Black Bloc crowd fists flying in an attempt to stop the flag burning, and were pounced on by approximately five hundred demonstrators, some of them waving Palestinian flags, and severely pummeled. A group of approximately forty police officers waded into the crowd with pepper spray and batons to save the “patriots” from serious injury. Four other “patriot” demonstrators were removed by police after isolated scuffles broke out across Freedom Plaza. One gentleman carrying a sign reading “Nuke them and there will be no war” was assaulted by individuals wearing rally security guard shirts, and escorted away by police.

Now that above information was not known in as much detail at that moment but it was enough to rattle the counterdemonstrators. “The Anarchists are here!” Stand Watie told the crowd. “There’s about 2500 of them. They are expecting trouble.” The Freak Republic plan was to “fall back as the march went by them so they will not get into any physical confrontation. Watie also told the men to “grab a lady and make sure they don’t get any of our women hurt. I dealt with these idiots when they came to Fort Benning (Georgia, home of the School of the Americas, or Assassins, as it has been come to be known) four years ago. They are not nice people!”

The irony of all of this “protect the women and children” feeling is that when it comes to getting your ass kicked by the Black Bloc, more often than not it is women and children doing it!

After a while one of them, a guy named Charles, who I referred to as Hippy for America because of the tie-dyed bandana he wore on his head, wanted to see the opposition up close. We walked over to where everyone was gathered, but considering he was carrying his Freak Republic placard, he thought it might not be a good idea to go across the street into the group itself. I broke away from him saying I needed something to eat and went a back way into the rally. There was a bit of debating going on in one area that I participated in with some flag wavers, and I got a gander at some of the things said and written on signs and chalked on the pavement. I thought it especially poignant that many of the speakers started their speeches with a moment of silence for the victims of the bombings. What I did not hear is any support for bin Laden. If he is responsible for this attack he will not find friends among anyone that came out today, not the Freak Republic, not the anti-war crew.

And while I am not too partial to the notion that we should not go over and kick his and the Taliban’s ass if they are responsible, I still thought it pretty cute to see this one little girl, maybe about four with no front teeth holding a sign that said “People can change, even if they are bad. Love your enemy.” I asked her if she had a message to people. “Don’t kill bad people,” she said, “because you won’t know if they did good things and if they will do good things and if you kill them they won’t have enough time to do good things for you.”

Love listening to the unjaded!

I had earlier asked that question to someone in the Freak Republic crew, a roly poly gentleman named Steve Rosenthal, who considered the anti-war protest to be a special affront. “I get the impression from them that everything our country does, no matter what it is, is wrong,” he said, “If they feel that way, they ought to find another country that suits them better.” He has that somewhat correct. Everything our country does is pretty much wrong. We have the wrong people in power. Unfortunately for him our leaders are so wrong that they continue to threaten the sovereignty of other nations, particularly nations that Rosenthal may suggest we go to. It doesn’t make sense to “get on a plane and go,” as he put it, when the United States has its hand on many of those places. If Osama bin Laden did this that is why we are mourning the loss of 7000+ people today, and expect to mourn more. However that sentiment begs the question if there is an American in that other country that we would choose to go to, would I be wrong in chasing him or her out of it? Answer: no.

The Anarchists that watched the video of Rosenthal’s suggestion had another question, however: “What about no countries?”

Happily for all of us, the rally and marches went on without further incident. The “hippy for America” now had a US flag bandana, given to him he said by one of the police on duty (seems like every time the Right has a demonstration, whether it is Buchanan’s people or Freak Republic or an anti-abortion protest where the cops are protecting a clinic, there will always be police officers breaking ranks to try and participate with these fucks). As we marched, we exchanged “pleasantries” with the Freak Republic folks standing on the sidelines protected by riot police and went on our way to a park near the Capitol.

As politics go everyone claimed victory. We cheered the fact that our voices were finally heard. They cheered the fact that they kept the Navy Memorial flag from coming down. That was not too hard to do incidentally. No one even gave the thought to taking it down. As one of my friends noted, “What for? We have our own flags!”

A piece of one of those flags is on my wall now to mark the occasion, burned at the park we stopped at, ending what I thought was going to be something totally different than what it became. I am glad too. I think, however, there is more coming. Basically S29 meant both the left and the right is back in the usual mode of shit-talking. In some areas it has escalated beyond that, and people have been hurt, but not on a wide scale. The longer there are no strikes, the less chance of that happening. I hope that when the smoke does in fact clear from the events of S11, the right-left stalemate will be broken in regards to the Middle East. That has been too long in coming, and even though the right has steered the course of conversation on this over the past few weeks, the left has recovered and are ready to engage in discussion, or if need be confrontation. The members of Freak Republic need to recognize this. This is not a game, we are not Bill Clinton, and we know what we are talking about. Stand Watie is correct: The Anarchists, among others, are here, and we are not going anywhere until this nonsense is resolved.