Black Bloc clashes with fascists and Trump supporters in Berkeley, California

Having been at this event, from about a half hour before the antifa picnic began at 10:00 a.m. until around 2:45 p.m. when the Northern California local core of the white nationalists drifted back to Provo Park from downtown to celebrate their victory, I have to say the above account is misleading to the point of being largely incorrect. For most of the day the two camps were kept separate in Provo Park, with a 3' high plastic-netting fence stretched around its entire periphery. There were three guarded entry points, where the pigs searched everyone's bags and removed any contraband, which included weapons and literally any object that could be used a weapon. Additionally, the same plastic netting was stretched in two rows across the middle of the park, with about 5' in between, to separate the two factions and to allow the pigs to quickly move in between to keep the two camps divided. For most of that time, where there was fist-to-fist engagement, it was largely a draw.

But around 1;45 p.m., the white nationalists charged at antifa from the corner of Milvia, and chased them up Center Street one block to Berkeley Square, at the center of downtown. Along the way, every antifa protestor the fascists caught was beaten to a pulp. It was merciless. I haven't slept well since then and I feel queasy just writing that. It was a bitter defeat. My post of the Anti-Trump demonstrations in the US - write a report if you're attending gives the wrong impression, not acknowledging how badly our forces were defeated (I'll re-edit it soon).

I'm also going to correct the above post, point-by-point, in the name of accuracy and leaving an honest historical appraisal.

The Esquire article entitled "The Violent Clashes In Berkeley Weren't 'Pro-Trump' Versus 'Anti-Trump'," points out that any Trump supporters present were incidental, as this was really a provocation by white nationalists who traveled from across the U.S. -- and even Canada -- to make a statement by holding it in the liberal bastion of Berkeley. The other side, the one I was there in solidarity with, called a counter-demo to oppose their attempt to invade our turf.

These statements simply aren't true.

The pigs searched everyone entering the fenced off periphery of the park (which I clandestinely avoided by stepping over it in an out-of-the-way spot), as well as entering both camps to confiscate any contraband, which included all flagpole staffs and any kind of sticks. No one was denied entrance to either side of the rally (there was no "main area," only two divided sections).

By around noon, when both camps had exited the park to brawl, the pigs remained at the park. When the antifa were routed and chased to downtown, there wasn't a single cop present. This was picked up on by the local weekly rag, the East Bay Express, which wrote in their article "Berkeley Police Basically MIA At Saturday's Violent Pro-Trump Vs. AntiFa Brawl":

Neither myself, nor anyone who I talked with who was there saw any "nazi swastikas." The white nationalists were extremely careful to not have symbols with any semblance of their true bigoted ideology nor which could be construed as nazi, racist or in any way fascist. The only thing even remotely "anti-semitic" was a sign that read "Da Goyim Know" next to an image of a cross.

Below is the only symbol that could be construed as pro-Nazi (right?):

This banner, as well most of the others brought by antifa, ended up captured by the white nationalists, who paraded them around in their victory celebration after they returned to Provo Park, where they posed for photos in front of them.

I was there to witness this, and it was pretty demoralizing.

Here's a photo I took of them returning to the park, with a sign saying "Pro-USA, Proud, Strong & Unafraid in Berkeley."

Some objects used, in an infantile version of "barricades," were piles of garbage strewn on the street (in photo below). Sorry comrades, but this is extremely fucking stupid! (and it's rare that some moron doesn't try this at most militant demos I've been to).

In the Paris Commune of 1871 the barricades were well overhead and were intended to stop the charge of the armed forces and were a response to the military tactics and technological weaponry at that time in the 19th century. Trash cans toppled and garbage spilled is simply litter.

Both sides this past Saturday fought with whatever weapons were smuggled into the park or improvised. Another entirely stupid maneuver by antifa was to roll a dumpster into the street. This served no purpose at all, and was simply appropriated by the fascists.

Antifa made use of M-80 explosives (actually more like heavy duty fireworks) and lots of mace. I personally didn't see the white nationalists use either. They had sticks and shields, but inflicted most of the damage on antifa with fists and kicks.

To summarize, with numbers being equal, antifa were simply no match for the fighting ability of the various fascist groups. Many of the latter had military and police experience, some of whom did multiple tours of duty with the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan. They had better street fighting tactics and stuck together better and were simply more violent. After they routed antifa and chased the black bloc up Center Street, they held the heart of Berkeley and stayed as long as they wanted to. The sidewalk in some places was covered in blood -- and this was spilled, often bravely (but not always), by the comrades defending Berkeley from these white nationalists and their allies.

Here's the most demoralizing account of their ultimate victory:

And here's how it looked on video:

Our side got our asses kicked and for me, who didn't physically get hurt, this defeat still brings great pain. I lived in Berkeley for 15 years and it's where I first got radicalized, so it's a sentimentally important place for me and many of my comrades still live there. I would strongly urge Demián Revart and Ruptura Colectiva to edit their piece in order to make it more accurate. Only in honest appraisals and self-critique can we theorize ways to avoid getting run off the streets of our own cities by white nationalists and fascists.

Thanks for your post Hieronymous. I've been watching videos of what happened over the long weekend we've just had in the UK and it's been depressing. Particularly the video of the charge where the alt-right ran anti-fascists out of the park which you've posted above.

One thing which has interested me is how wide the anti-fascist mobilisation was. Was it just a local or regional mobilisation with people coming from California? Given people were travelling from across North America for the alt-right side it seems like a mistake that wasn't matched by anti-fascists.

I was also a bit surprised to see anti-fascists circling the park with the dumpster. There didn't seem to be much point and in all the videos I've seen it looks like anti-fascists could have charged the alt-right as they seemed to significantly outnumber them. Would that be a fair assessment?

I honestly don't know. I heard at least a few came down from Portland, Oregon, but it seemed to be a mostly local mobilization. There were other competing events: just up the street at the University of California campus, the usual lame coalition of Trotskyite dinosaurs were having a conference called "The Struggle To Defend Public Education, Privatization, Union Democracy & Education Workers" that drew away a few hundred from the sectarian left and those naive enough to fall under their influence (with their boilerplate "transitional demands" and wooden appeals to denounce the "sell-out" union leadership, ad nauseam); across the Bay in San Francisco, thousands of liberals and anti-Trump activismists took part in a Tax Day March, where the main demand was for Trump to release his tax returns. Local community-based radio stations cautioned against "anarchist violence" and discouraged protestors from coming to Berkeley to oppose the fascists.

At the beginning, the park seemed to be pretty evenly divided between fascists and anti-fascist forces. By the time the fighting moved out of the park into Center Street, right before antifa were chased downtown, the pro-fascists had superior numbers.

My comrades and I missed the frontal assault of the fascist charge up Center Street to downtown as we were disarming the alt-right Arthurian knight role players on Milvia Street, so we didn't directly witness the brutality of the attack. But this account confirms what we heard: Berkeley: A Medic’s Report.

Thanks for writing these up, even though they don't make for very cheerful reading. What the medic said about groups of four and five isolating individual anti-fa is something that was in the video. They didn't go to extremes in the video but that's the kind of situation where people get seriously injure dor killed. It's also the kind of defeat that stops people from coming back and emboldens the fascists (which is the whole point of no-platform in the firs tplace)

Thanks Hieronymous for this first hand account. I think anyone using an objective lens can clearly see how much of a political defeat this was.However, I am less demoralized by the loss than the utter denial and victim-hood that our side has taken up. Now is a time for reflection on are larger strategy for combating the rising trend of fascism, and not just in terms of better street tactics, but also in terms of building popular participation with in the class.

I really think this should be an article so that it can be circulated elsewhere....that is if you were so inclined.

Feels bad, man.

That's disappointing as I'm fairly sure if the militant anti-fascist movement in North America had taken this as seriously as the alt-right did then the numbers would've been a lot more favourable.

This reminds me of a string of protests we had in the UK in the coastal town of Dover. As the alt-right have been mobilising in Berkeley purely because the Milo talk was cancelled there after a black bloc rioted on the university campus, then subsequent protests have seen clashes between the alt-right and anti-fascists and this has encouraged more of them to mobilise.

In 2014 the UK far-right started holding protests in Dover because it's where ferries from Calais arrive and is therefore one of the places where illegal migrants enter the country. These were pretty badly attended by the far-right but saw an upsurge after a successful attack on anti-fascists football supporters by the far-right in Thamesmead, south east London.

That was the first time I can remember of the far-right thinking they had a victory against militant anti-fascists and it significantly emboldened the far-right. In many ways I think that attack can be compared to the latest Battle of Berkeley, anti-fascists knew it was coming, knew the far-right were mobilising on a regional basis, yet only mobilised on a local basis in response and didn't win.

The result of the increase in confidence on the right meant the next protest in Dover, a month after the Thamesmead attack, was attended by around 200 fascists (up from 30 or so at the preceding protest). Around 150 anti-fascists took the fascist RV point and were then attacked by the fascists. While it wasn't a clear cut victory for the far-right, they thought it was and posts online by naive anti-fascists helped them think it was.

You can read our article on that protest here.

Now with what they felt were two victories under their belt, the far-right announced they would be returning to Dover for the fourth time in two years. This time anti-fascists recognised how large the mobilisation was likely to be (13 different fascist groups mobilised for the September 2015 Dover protest, I think it was 15 different groups for the January 2016 protest). So anti-fascists mobilised nationally, people from all over the UK turned up. Even comrades in France tried to come over to join the anti-fascist mobilisation. Had it not been for an incident at a service station meaning over 200 anti-fascists and 50 fascists didn't make it to Dover, anti-fascists would have significantly outnumbered the 300 or so fascists who aimed to attend.

So because the anti-fascists had experienced what they thought was a huge victory at Thamesmead, a string of far-right protests which had been seeing 30-60 attendees, saw their numbers rocket, to 200 (many of whom who turned up to fight with the left), then to 300, with lots of them preparing to commit acts of violence against the left.

The only reason this upsurge in fascist street violence was stopped is because the UK far-right are so fucking stupid most of the fascists engaged in violence weren't masked up and the British police have got fairly advanced methods for identifying people who are masked up. Something like 30+ fascists were given lengthy jail sentences as a result of the last big Dover protest.

Basically, the key lesson is identify how widely the far-right are mobilising for a protest and then make sure it's matched by militant anti-fascists. If alt-right types were flying in from Canada then Canadian antifa should have been flying in as well. I know it's expensive but the cost of not matching far-right mobilisations is an upsurge in fascist street violence. How that upsurge will manifest itself in the US now isn't clear to me from over here, but one will happen (if you're not seeing one already).

Seems like anti-fascist action could be encouraging fascists. Instead of a dozen of them marching down a street being sneered at by bystanders hundreds now turn up at the prospect of beating up some commies.

my guess is after some a to b marches with nobody to punch theyll lose interest for mobziling pretty quickly

I think there's an element of that, but if the far-right don't have people on the left to punch they'll go on to find different targets. Usually members of the minorities they hate.

Such as this occasion when an EDL protest attacked a fast food restaurant:

That's the kind of tactical call anti-fascists need to make, is an anti-fascist presence going to boost far-right numbers? Can a fascist march be allowed to happen without any opposition? I can think of some far-right protests outside a university just outside London which happened towards the end of last year. Students and anti-fascist mobilised to oppose the first two, the presence of opposition seemed to validate the fascist protest. Anti-fascists didn't both opposing the third and the far-right cancelled it just before it happened.

Think it's important to focus on the fact that the pro-Trump rally was bait, a "bait and switch" as it's called in business. And it worked. Yes, it's a defeat, but one determined by the limits of black bloc and "antifascism."

Engaging in direct face-to-face combat is not like breaking shop windows and overturning garbage cans, or throwing rocks at cops. Combat requires training, tactics, discipline, and the application of a critical mass, if not overwhelming amount, of force. Nazis understand that. They operate in units and target those who are weaker.

Did anyone from antifa or the black bloc look into the "pedigree" of the organizers of the rally? Did anyone have any "connections" or "intelligence" that this was purely a pseudo rally to lure them into a trap? Did anyone think it was even important to check out that possibility before marching bravely into the trap?

It appears that nobody did any of those things.

Trump has incredibly low support numbers. Nobody shows up at "pro-Trump" rallies unless the official Republican Party mobilizes its supporters, and shills, to attend. If it's not an "official" event, sponsored by the Republicans, nobody's going to be there except nazis. The "pro-Trump" rally is not like a Klan rally, by itself, enough to galvanize a community into opposition.

To defeat nazis, you need combat organization, and more than that, you need combat class organization.

This is serious business. Lives are going to be lost. Those are the terms we accept. Wasting lives is not.

Black bloc is not that organization. Neither is "antifa."

Wasn't it more of a pretext for violent clashes with anti-fascists than a 'bait and switch'. Surely anti-fascists were aware of this given they turned up with mace and M-80s?

That's what "bait and switch" is-- a pretext. pro-Trump as the bait, the pretext; fascist phalanx as the switch. Nobody showed up to support Trump. That was not the purpose of the "rally."

As for the antifascists having m-80s and mace-- again, the issue isn't what the antifascists thought was going to happen or not happen; it's the fact that they were lured into a trap where there was literally no presence of mass support to offset the greater number of fascists.

Contrast that to Auburn University last night, where, after Spencer's speech, the students chased the fascists off campus.

This is probably semantics but it wasn't billed as a pro-Trump rally. It was a 'free speech' rally, specifically because the Milo Yiannopoulos talk was cancelled, then another alt-right rally in March was confronted by militant anti-fascists (giving rise to the 'Based Stickman meme'). From watching the below video put out by Canadian alt-right internet personality Lauren Southern, it was pretty clear in advance that the alt-right were looking for a fight.

But yeah, a small number of militant anti-fascists with poor organisation and inadequate training is going to struggle going up against a better prepared and better organised opposition. I really don't understand why I keep seeing footage of anti-fascists and the alt-right mingling together before small fights kick off. I don't think I've ever seen that situation arise in the UK unless anti-fascists have deliberately tried engineer it as a way to disperse the fascists on arrival.

I think your guess is entirely conjecture with little evidence.

If fascists want to fight commies, they'll be able to find some. If folks don't show up to oppose fascist rallies, then fascists will start showing up in large numbers to disrupt leftist events.

We've already observed small crews starting to show up at lefty events in the U.S. looking to start trouble and offer themselves as an auxiliary to the police.

If they can't find commies to punch, anyone will do: immigrants, LGBT, religious minorities, ethnic minorities, kids with bad haircuts, etc...

Soapy's just replaying the "ignore them and they'll just go away" or "ignore them and don't give them the publicity they crave." Those aren't really issues. They're not going to go away, and they will find ways to obtain publicity.

The issue is when, where, and how to engage; how to avoid walking into a trap and getting seriously stomped.

If small groups of nazis come to our demonstrations, we know how to handle that.

But they won't always do that, and not at all of our type of demonstrations-- they didn't fuck with the Panthers; they didn't fuck with Malcolm X. Hell, the tried to fuck with civil rights workers in Louisiana, until the Deacons for Defense and Justice got organized, then they backed the fuck up.

The point being there is more than just the practicality of disrupting a nazi demonstration; the issue is organization, maneuver, and overwhelming numbers-- mass mobilization. When outnumbered and/or outgunned, you retreat; you avoid the conflict. Most difficult part of combat is an orderly disengagement when the enemy has superior force.

Ignoring them until they go away is the stupid shit schools tell kids to do about bullies; and it never works on the schoolyard. Why in Fucking shit would it work on Nazis?

word

Off-topic/ad hominem posts and responses unpublished. Please stick to the points being argued, everyone.

During last Saturday's battle, I ran into a younger radical who I hadn't seen a few years. We began talking about other struggles in and around the park (for an excellent history of the city itself, see the excellent documentary Berkeley in the Sixties). I reminded him that since Berkeley High School is on the southern edge of Provo Park, it's often been a rallying point of demonstrations of students -- since they merely need to walk across the street. I reminded this comrade that during the Rodney King Uprising, Berkeley High students had walked out en masse, converged a dozen blocks away at Sproul Plaza on the University of California campus, before about 8,000 of us ended up back at City Hall which sits at the east end of the park. My account of that euphoric episode is here.

There's a backstory to how Provo Park got its name; its official name is Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park. Until the mid-1960s, it was called Constitution Park, but like the anti-capitalist hippie anarchists in nearby San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury District (well documented in Emmett Grogan's Ringolevio), in 1966 a group of Berkeley counter-cultural anarchists called themselves Provos, borrowing the name from Dutch anarchists for whom it was short for "provocateur," and started organizing free concerts and serving free food in the renamed Provo Park. And also like the Diggers, Provos opened their own Free Store on nearby San Pablo Avenue. They also bought an old bus and offered free rides around Berkeley, as well as a regular shuttle between Berkeley and the Haight.

But most recently, starting in 2007, local activismists started a protest vigil in front of a Marine Corps recruiting office a block and a half away at Berkeley Square. By 2008, the Berkeley City Council had adopted several resolutions opposed to the recruiting center and U.S. war-mongering, setting off a right-wing media backlash against the unpatriotic city for not supporting the troops. This set off a series of pro-military demonstrations, most organized by Sacramento-based Move America Forward and fanned by nationwide far-right radio and TV, that throughout the spring and into the summer of 2008 drew right-wing out-of-town protestors to Berkeley, and often involved confrontations at Provo Park that included Berkeley High students opposed to war and military recruiting. I personally made it to few of these demos, but I do remember in the summer of 2008 Berkeley High students bravely standing up to right-wing pro-war bikers who came to protest and at times got their comeuppance from the militant local youth.

So I see this past Saturday's event as another episode in the right-wing attacks on the liberals, radicals and youth of Berkeley.

Seems like Artesian's statements about playing soldier is logical extension of this sort of thing, antifas seem to be reviving the insurrectionist ethos of the 2000s.

Pretty amusing watching how dogmatic people are in this issue

I'm working on a write-up about Auburn, Alabama, but for people who are wondering, this video is a great place to start (and much better than anything I've seen from any leftists so far):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CHfMcnWQB4

Well, I think a fairly big difference between contemporary anti-fascism and 2000s insurrectionism is that the former isn't (for the most part) claiming itself to create radical social change; it's a defensive response to an increasingly confident far-right street movement.

Moreover, without wanting to derail, not a big fan of word 'dogmatic' as in lefty circles it usually means 'someone who still disagrees with me after I've expressed my opinion' (which, ironically, is highly dogmatic in itself). I'll just point out to Soapy that Jim already replied to his comment about 'ignore and they'll fade away' with an example of when a lack of left-wing opposition just led to them attacking a POC-run fast food shop. Don't think Soapy replied to this before restating his position, which, in my opinion, is closer to any definition of 'dogmatic' than anything anyone else has expressed (but then I would say that, as me and Soapy disagree! ).

not sure what's more absurd, the dogmatic nature of the discussions on the issue or the fact that we all just agreed the best thing to do is go into the woods to do military training against fascists

this is really the hill we are going to die on (literally if Artesian has anything to say about it) as political actors?

Edit: to respond to JIm's point, as Jim said fascists often attend these gathering simply BECAUSE antifas will be there. There's no reason to think we are stifling them, in fact this episode really seems like we are encouraging a real street movement to be born, giving them a purpose to showing up at rallies other than being humiliated by the low turnouts and jeering bystanders.

Militarization is stupid and I find the reckless talk of creating armed wings coming from some random internet people alarming and dangerous.

BUT it is absolutely true that the United States is seeing a resurgence of far right groups that seek to gain more ground and benefit from the online based alt-right movement. All fheir attempts to establish themselves should be disrupted and smashed through a counter narrative, organizing as a multiracial class and....physical confrontation if needed. The "ignore them and they'll go away" thing is just a delusion. That's not how politics happen. There is literally no historical evidence that growing far right movements go away if they are ignored. Anyone who claims this is what should be done needs to provide historical evidence to back up the viability of their "do nothing" plan.

Totally agree, although seems a bit off topic to attack people advocating doing nothing as I don't think anyone was advocating that

Saying that the largest far right mobilization in recent years should have been met with an empty field, rather than hundreds of anti-fascists, seems to me to be advocating doing nothing. "Ignore them and they'll go away", or variations of this, seems to me to be advocating do nothing. Criticising antifascist physical confrontation, saying that it should not be done, but then proposing no alternative, is essentially saying do nothing.

Well I think it's a difficult question of alternatives. I can think of some ways to consider it, maybe will expound at some point, Think it's useful to criticize this "it's a war" attitude that is prevalent amongst radical left

edit: tbf I was arguing it is worth considering if these actions may be doing more harm than good. Also amusing that we have to frame it in the context of the "do something" activism speak

No doubt it's a difficult question. I think most seasoned antifascists have wrestled with it. So everyone should stop punching fascists until you personally think of a better strategy to fight them? I'm not trying to be a dick but your attitude towards this question I've come across a lot recently and find it really objectionable.

feel like we're rehashing the arguments over insurrectionism in the the early 2000s.

In short, antifas don't have to stop doing anything, they don't have to listen my mild objections! All I said is that we have to really consider if this is the best way to approach this issue. The problem is that this topic is treated so dogmatically that when anyone raises the slightest objection immediately they are accused of a whole host of things.

If we want to get into a whole Soapy post of What Is to Be Done that nobody will read then maybe I can write something on the blog if I have some time sometime soon.