I'm not counter protesting again

I'll be loud enough for both of us

I thank them for coming.

That way, if the sh*t hits the fan, I know they have my back.

You gotta do what you gotta do.....but please don't let the Nazis win.

We have to stomp them, hard, before they get any stronger.

But I also knew I didn't belong. I'm a 30 something white female (I look about 25).

They seemed ready to cause havoc and get arrested. In this case I was trying to stay under the radar of the cops (I don't have a permit to be a vendor at protests) and not get their attention. Meanwhile they're setting off smoke bombs.

I agree with their cause, but not their tactics. I'm not willing to get arrested in the name of democracy.

For me, getting arrested (even in the name of Democracy) would end my career. I am not willing to risk it.

that it makes one wonder what your intent is?

(I joined in 2008 then took a hiatus and forgot my old password, so I registered with a new name).

I've been to every major protest this year except for the People's Climate March (I had to attend a funeral that day). Resistance Calendar was one of my go to websites but it seems to have died down.

I'm a campaign staffer. If I got arrested at a protest my career is over.

who are just spoiling for a fight?

I have been to 8 marches so far and there were many alt right "Proud Boys" there at the last one on July 2. They came a long distance to incite violence and the cops just stood there. Then the chief of police was called and they actually did something finally.

We must continue resisting peacefully or else they get stronger and empowered. They think they own the flag. The resisters wore and waved our flags and peace signs and smiled...fuck them and their reptilian souls.

"Screw that. I'm never leaving."

I'm having the same reaction to this. I'm going to make a point of going to counter protests.

I got scared at the NYC pre-iraq invasion at the u.n. It was great until they broke through the barricade and started across directly at us. I went the other way. When the police on horseback loose control, I'm outta there.

You have to be realistic about what you can handle. I don't feel like I must get hurt or arrested to make my point. I make a great sign, smile, soak it in, and decide when to call it a day.

And I'm looking forward to the next one.

who wore a mask at such an event.

is being painted with a broad brush with the most extreme among your group.

I'd avoid them as well. All it does is bring publicity, which is what the whackos want in the first place.

Whenever those assholes show up, I move to a different part of the protest. I hate the fascists too, but if these clowns can't do it without making the rest of us look bad, then I don't want their dumb asses around.

We had most of a decade off duty. We're training the next generation as fast as we can, but bloc wasn't as necessary, so there's been knowledge loss, and those of us who got a decade or more of experience in the 80s and 90s are now at an age where it's much harder to bloc.

We all got complacent. We got good at getting victories through legislation and lobbying and activism by means other than direct action. We hoped we wouldn't need to teach another generation.

I learned from Panthers, hard core Quakers, and the first gen of ACT UP. Many of whom are in their late 60s and 70s now. It's a skill set, and it takes practice. Don't write direct action and bloc off just because you've never had to use it. Most of us aren't assholes; we're putting ourselves on the front line so other people don't have to be there.

But I'm too old now to risk injury. I hope those younger than myself will take up the task of saving this country from this new ever encroaching evil.

I protested Nixon back in the 60s, and W all over the map in the oughts.

If the current POTUS-approved community of hate doesn't spur more of our youth to quit texting long enough to make a public statement of protest, I'm not sure what I can possibly do.

That said these are the things we need to stand up against the most IMHO.

So far one of these has not come to a town near me hopefully they never do but if they do I will be there. I have always been somewhat mystified by people that want to join the military but in this case i would join up.

Strategic, intelligent voting brings about change, period.

So much winning!!

That result has happened over and over. I never waste time protesting. If you love to protest go ahead and knock yourself out, you will never see me at one.

If they want to peacefully protest, I'm fine, but this Ninja bit is too much.

There are three reasons I moved my protest away from bloc tactics: I'm now over 40, and I don't heal as well as I used to. I have a professional license that can go poof with any arrest (not a conviction) and I'm more use to all resistance if I have my profession, money and street/academic cred.

Here's why I did bloc: Anonymity. Being in uniform means I was less vulnerable as a woman, as an LGBTQ activist, and as a person in opposition to vulture capitalism. (And I had a lot of privilege on my side - white, I present more or less straight, I blend in in conservative circles. Bloc tactics matter a lot for POC, people who can't code switch, and people with other vulnerabilities.) Being masked prevented employers, agitators, and local cops from targeting me based on press coverage. Being a front-line defender meant I was protecting far more vulnerable people -- young ones, people on probation, the elderly, and the medically fragile -- from people who will happily do harm to the least able to defend themselves. I'm Quaker. I don't start fights. But it is well within peace ethics to defend those who are being targeted, and it's absolutely within peace ethics for a volunteer group to meet a professional or pro-am force with resistance. Bloc doesn't have gas grenades or flash bangs. (We'll roll or kick them back to the people who lost them. But that's just being polite and returning carelessly dropped property. ) When we have shields, they're scavenged junk made of plywood or pickle buckets, not professional armor paid for with taxes or the disposable income of the weekend warrior. Bloc doesn't carry weapons because we know there's a better than even chance we're getting arrested, and having a weapon means a prosecutor is far more likely to charge with a felony.

Here's the practicalities of bloc tactics: you want bloc in a uniform because 1) it's harder to identify any specific member later; 2) you want to present visual unity; 3) the uniform itself protects the person in it by covering most of the skin, keeping the hair confined so it can't be pulled, protecting eyes, nose, mouth and ears from chemical or physical assault; and 4) it makes it easier for us to coordinate ourselves. We choose black because almost everyone has long sleeves and long pants in some shade of black so it's cheap and readily available. (I've also Rainbow Bloc'ed and Pink Bloc'ed. Rainbow Bloc is fun, because we get to spend a weekend doing tie dye, too. It just depends on the group.)

Bloc tactical groups have had most of a decade when we were mostly off duty, so there's been some knowledge lost. (As in, I'm not seeing this current generation doing secret signals the way we used to. My groups used a specific arm band color for each action that we distributed via phone tree the evening before. That way we knew that anyone who showed up in black without the color was likely an agitator, and that person got surrounded and moved out of the herd. For example. As I totter out to my porch to wave my cane and tell the kids to get off my lawn.) But Bloc is also dealing with a much nastier threat now than the one I dealt with as a WTO and HIV/AIDS bloc'er. There are more guns, more people willing to use them, the cops are more willing to fire first, and there's a massive narrative that we're the problem.

Bloc tactical groups are mostly young, so yes, they're more aggressive. They're often fairly male, so young and dumb and high on their own testosterone. But they're present as a first line. They go in knowing they need to be up front, taking heat. And they're re-learning fast. Trust me, they're okay with you, as non-bloc, being somewhere other than on the front line. They'd prefer it, because when concentrating on keeping the other side from breaking skulls, they don't want someone who doesn't know the basics in their ranks.

But not being on the front line isn't the same as not going. What the opposition wants is for people like you to just stop showing up. They want you afraid and cowering in your house. They want everyone to shut up and go away, and for the only protesters to be people who can be called criminals.

It's okay to be scared. It's okay to step away for an event and get a handle on your fear. But antifa is not your enemy -- we're allies and accomplices.

Ask me anything!

Thank you for your service!

Do people get hit by the bloc front line?

You did say ask you anything.

My groups' tactics were based on the Roman concepts of phalanx and tortuga: we held shields (when we used them) in three rows to make an immovable human wall (That's the tortuga, from tortoise) or we stood shoulder to shoulder 4-5 deep. Our training was to never, ever, ever hit first, because that's what triggers cops into behaving badly. I will admit that our cops were far better trained and far less batshit than the ones on the streets now. Blocs do get jostled.

Resistance doesn't mean throwing punches -- it means getting away, using basic self-defense techniques, like slipping out of a sleeve (this is why Bloc wears multiple layers) or using a captor's own weight against them when dodging or passing. If you define holding up a plywood shield or a flattened pickle bucket as hitting, then I really can't help you. That's like saying an abuse victim's face is bruising their abuser's knuckles. If someone's swinging at me, I'm allowed to duck, block and dodge.

We also held lines of escape to prevent kettling (and that got worse as the years went on) because kettles are easily deadly. (Seriously, GoT's Battle of the Bastards is a perfect example of a kettle.) That's what we were trying to always prevent. The worst possible outcome for any protest is getting surrounded and compressed. People WILL panic and for good reason. That any cop shop ever thinks this is a good tactic shows how little respect they have for human beings. But it must be remembered that what I was facing was state-sponsored (police), while what today's blocs are facing are criminal gangs. A cop is more likely to have at least a little jobsworth in themselves -- a Nazi? Not so much.

Now, I grew up in the western US, and our Panther/ACT UP/Quaker senseis were Greenie-ish. (They called what they taught passive-aggressive resistance, as opposed to purely passive resistance.) I know that East Coast groups used different tactics, so I assume my East Coast contemporaries are passing down their knowledge.

I had to think about it for a while, but I do consider it a form of violence, much like carrying any weapon for self defense. I prefer the idea of active non violent resistance without physical contact, like the Women's March.

I have to agree to disagree. It's like a bike helmet. 90% of the reason I wear one is not because I think I'm going to skid out, it's because there's a good chance someone in a car is going to hit me, and mass plus acceleration equals brain pulp. It's protecting myself, not being aggressive against someone. Or again, we're back to abusive relationship: sheltering behind a textbook (have done it) or on the far side of a door (also) is technically allowing a violent person to smash their hands into a heavy, solid object, but it's their choice to throw the punch.

A shield is not a weapon. A shield is the very opposite of a weapon. They're purely defensive. The other person always has the option of Not Doing The Hitting. A shield does not stop a person from hitting. It doesn't subvert their agency. It just prevents them from doing as much damage as they want to do. (Holding a shield still hurts.) I have a right to not take whatever damage someone wants to deal out. But if you're going to say shields aren't okay in your perfect expression of demonstration, then are you also going to say kidney protection, knee pads, elbow pads and throat protection are out? Because Bloc uses those, too -- usually repurposed from skating. Bloc doesn't start the violence, but they're the ones taking the pain, and most don't have really good insurance that will cover failing kidneys or broken hyoid bones from a beatdown or a strangling. And those do happen. They happened today. Or what about goggles? Or respirators? Those are also defenses.

It would be nice if Nazis were rational creatures. They're not. I really, really hoped that my generation would be the last generation to have to use anything other than purely demonstrative action. For about 10 years, I thought maybe we'd turned that corner. Apparently not.

The Women's Marches were lucky, and they were non-violent because they were first. Please recall that the Edmond Pettus Bridge (Bloody Sunday) was not the first civil rights march. And Kent State was not the first anti-war march, nor was the Khilafat movement without British violence. Those in authority (or those who want to present themselves as in authority, as with Nazis) will usually let the first events go by, hoping those silly noisies will get it out of their system. When we don't, they get aggressive, because they want to exert control and force their world views on others. I didn't write the authoritarian playbook, but this is how it works. Wish it wasn't, but wishing doesn't make it so.

But I have an Etsy store for the selling (shameless plug-- link's in my sig).

I have better success in Times Square (where the last NYC protest I went to ended) than online though. 55 pages of pussyhats on Etsy and I was the only one in NYC.

I will go to a left leaning protest again. I just won't counter-protest at a right leaning one. I'd rather stay away from Deplorables and Nazis.

I cannot imagine that anyone that is not out there everyday would have the license. Without the license, it could easily cost more in fines than you could make.


"The Department of Consumer Affairs licenses street vendors.

You must have a General Street Vendor License to sell or lease goods or services in a public space. This license is mainly for veterans. The number of licenses given to non-veterans is very limited.

You must have a General Street Vendor Distributor License to transport goods to a public space in order to sell them to a general street vendor.

A license is not required to sell newspapers, books, and similar items, but related rules and regulations still apply."

It just happened to be where the March for Science finished and as I was packing up (I sell out of a reusable shopping bag) I sold to a few tourists. I believe it started at 56th st or in that vicinity. I've also sold 3 hats on NJ transit trains (coming home).

There's another vendor at the NYC protests that sells buttons (there's a few button vendors, but she's the only woman and we talked at all the marches) and she told me that the waiting list for a permit was over 2000 people long. She sold anyway (I've bought a few from her).

(I'm originally from the NYC suburbs--- close enough to NYC to know that Times Square is a tourist trap).

Leads to long lines.

This is hot dogs, not hats, but the point is the same.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2009/08/the_halfmilliondollar_wiener.html