IWW General Defense Committee (GDC)

By Anti-Fascist News - It's Going Down, December 17, 2017

So where did the Alt Right come from?

The Alt Right really comes from a few converging political movements, both inside and outside the U.S.  The real beginnings of this goes back to France in the 1960s when a number of far-right intellectuals laid the groundwork to “rebrand” fascist ideas using the language of the left.  The European New Right, led by figures like Alain de Benoist and Guillume Faye, used the language of the New Left, appropriated the arguments of post-colonialist and national liberation movements, and attempted to engage in a type of “cultural struggle” as proposed by Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci.  Their ideas really were to pick up where the German Conservative Revolutionary movement and Radical Traditionalist thinkers like Julius Evola left off and argue for a going after the culture with nationalist values.  If they change the way that Europeans think about the world, and think about themselves, maybe this can allow a radical shift in politics down the line.

They argued that they were “anti-colonialist” and that white European nations had been “colonized” by forced of “globalist” capitalism and modernity.  Their argument was then for “Ethnopluralism,” a sort of “nationalism for all peoples,” that could then fight the destructive elements of modern multiculturalism, internationalism, and capitalism.  This approach avoided racial slurs, violent white nationalist politics, and the baggage of fascist political parties, and really laid a heavy intellectual groundwork for a new generation of fascists who wanted to appear as academics rather than Klansman.

The next is really paleoconservatism, a sort of far-right American conservatism that defined itself in opposition to the hawkish foreign policy of the neoconservatives that were coming into power inside the GOP in the 1980s.  They saw themselves as a part of the “Old Right,” which was likely a fantasy rather than a reality, which was isolationist, traditional, and America First.  The paleocons were aggressively conservative on social issues, especially in reaction to queer rights and the AIDs crisis of the 1980s, and were reactionary on racial issues.  Pat Buchanan was the best known of these figures, though he was moderate by their standards.

By the collective - Rising Tide Michiana, December 8, 2017

“South Bend, Indiana”—Studying for their final exams, University of Notre Dame students in the library on Friday morning looked up and saw a banner unfurled from the second-floor balcony. The banner proclaimed,

This is Potawatomi land! F*ck the KKKolumbus murals!

The message comes as students have been organizing against murals displayed by the entrance of the university’s main administrative building. According to a pamphlet issued by Notre Dame, the nineteenth-century murals “create a heroic impression” of Christopher Columbus, despite the conqueror’s record of mass enslavement and murder. Moreover the paintings portray indigenous people in ways that Native American students say are stereotypical and insulting.

Students are collecting signatures for a petition titled “Dear Father Jenkins, The Murals Must Go.” Signed by more than 600 people, the petition argues, “The Native persons are depicted as stereotypes, their destruction is gilded over, and their slavery is celebrated. The murals commemorate and laud the beginning of the centuries-long systematic removal of Native American persons and culture from the United States.”

By Dragonfly Climate Collective and Connecticut membership of the Industrial Workers of the World - July 18, 2017

On July 8th 2017, suburbanite white supremacists chose the New Haven Green as a point of convergence in order to not only make a show of force, but to use it as a springboard for greater coordination, recruitment and organizing. They chose their site explicitly because it has for decades been a point of anti-racist struggle and popular power, where working class families and organizations from every race, nationality and every rung on the social ladder come to gather for cultural enrichment, political action, or simply as their only option. The Proud Boys, Identity Evropa, the American Guard and assorted racists and misogynists find New Haven’s communities threatening to their genocidal worldview, and on July 8th they were proven right. We release this statement in solidarity with all anti-fascists, and condemn in the strongest terms anyone who seeks to have any of us attacked or imprisoned by the police. We call on all labor, environmental and community organizations to do the same, and to mobilize in solidarity with those arrested on the Green. Several arrestees will be at New Haven Superior Court on Wednesday July 19th at 10:00am, including prominent anti-brutality activist Barbara Fair, who was a victim of racist targeting by the New Haven Police.  

For months beforehand the amateurish efforts of the local alt-right were monitored by militant anti-fascist organizers. Contrary to some recycled talking points, the work of more moderate activists were simply not “hijacked.” It is unlikely that there would have been any response at all if not for the diligence of people like the New Haven Anti-Fascists group, who are committed to preventing a repeat of the rise of groups like the White Wolves here in quiet, liberal Connecticut. Some have been fooled by the fascists’ propaganda and believe these people are simply a conservative debate club that can be moved with compelling arguments. We believe that our most powerful weapon is not violence, but for us to be better, more effective organizers than those who would drag our society back into the dark ages. And because of that belief, anti-fascists pursued a strategy of community mobilization, unifying the broadest possible number of people to defend the Green.  

But let’s be clear about this as well: when they try to occupy space on the Green, we state unequivocally that sending fascists packing is an act of community self-defense. Fascism means gangs of white men attacking anti-racist demonstrators like in Portland, OR or Berkeley, CA. It means open anti-immigrant collusion between police and Nazis like in Maricopa County, AZ. It means the mass murder of liberal youth activists in Norway. It means the White Wolves attacking an LGBTQ meeting at the Stratford Library. Some of these monsters openly admire Hitler, while others re-brand their ideology with xenophobia and “western chauvinism” as they stockpile massive arsenals and tokenize their one gay or Hispanic associate. While they may not call themselves Nazis or fascists (though some do), we understand “white nationalism,” far-right “patriot militias,” “Men’s Rights Activists,” and Islamophobic fundamentalist Christians to meet all the hallmarks that have defined violent paramilitary fascism for decades, and treat it as such (click here for a longer discussion of terminology). These individuals already operate with impunity across most of Connecticut, among rural rich kids playing with “redneck” identity, and suburbanite worshippers of racist police departments. And frankly, they have gone largely unchallenged by Democrat-dominated activist coalitions that refuse to hold their neighbors and coworkers accountable for their bigotry, instead offering nothing but empty moralizing and the bankrupt slogan, “Love Trumps Hate.”  

On July 8th, committed community activists went out of their way to deny the rising alt-right the opportunity to become emboldened, better organized and more capable of terrorizing our communities, when in actuality we all have other political commitments that demand our attention. We welcome the opportunity to engage in debate about how best to undermine fascism and turn its targeted constituencies against it, and wish to see greater collaboration across the region on this and a multitude of other issues in these frightening times.  

¡NO PASARAN!

By Erik Davis - Twin Cities General Defense Committee (Local 14) of the IWW, July 17, 2016

To the Sacred Stone Camp,

Greetings. Our group is a collection of working class militants that fight for the abolition of the wage system, private property, and capitalism. The Twin Cities General Defense Committee (GDC) Local 14 of the Industrial Workers of the World formed initially as an avenue of legal defense for workers who were facing legal persecution in the 1920’s for their labor organizing, but has now transformed to encompass community organizing and community self-defense. The GDC is committed to pushing, advancing, and participating in struggles that fall under defense of the broader working class. This includes liberation struggles for colonized peoples, and defense of the land and water which we all depend on for life.

We are a union comprised of and run by workers themselves: democratically and horizontally. There are no bosses in our union, unlike the big business unions which have supported the pipeline and the extraction industry bosses. While we know that the bosses and business unions use the poverty and desperation for living wages and security to recruit to and promote the extraction industry, we aim to help break the harmful alliance between unions and the energy bosses and build active working class solidarity with Native people and all those fighting to defend the earth from capitalist exploitation and destruction.

If the Bakken pipeline is built, it will inevitably break, and this break will contaminate the drinking water of millions of people while pushing our ecosystem to the brink of destruction. All of those who put their time, energy, and bodies on the line to stop this pipeline are doing crucial and vital work in defending both life and land from the ruling class. Through these words and our contributions to the Sacred Stone Camp in money, materials, and labor, we hope that our commitment to both your fight for sovereignty and the health of the land and water that all life depends on is made clear.

In Solidarity and Struggle,
Twin Cities General Defense Committee (Local 14)

By the members - The Twin Cities GDC, Local 14, August 16, 2016

We prepared this short piece after several comrades were badjacketed in public and with pictures on social media at the 4th Precinct Shutdown. We believe those individual cases have been dealt with, and don’t wish to cause unnecessary division by complaining, or publicly calling any group or individual out. Instead, this is intended to provoke reflection, and conversation, amongst all of us, as to how to deal with the suspicions we may have of people we don’t know in our growing movements, without creating the sorts of divisions among ourselves that does the work of the State and the police for them. We intend to act in solidarity with those who know how to act in solidarity.

We ask that all organizations and groups working for a better world in which we have killed White Supremacy, Capitalism, and all other forms of oppression, consider that (1) none of us represent the mandate of all the people, (2) that we may have instead genuine and important strategic and tactical differences between ourselves about the best ways to accomplish that world, (3) that we will not win by pretending these differences do not exist, or dictating against difference, but instead by engaging on these differences in the most democratic and least hierarchical ways possible.

Therefore, we ask that groups and individuals read this document against the practice ofbadjacketing, discuss it, and consider publicly endorsing here that we will refrain from the practices of badjacketing. This is not a call to be lax about security; indeed, many of us have been very involved in the provision of security at the Fourth Precinct. Instead, it is a call to be democratic and accountable about our security practices.