Submission
On the weekend of June 29 through July 2nd, some folx had organized to do what would turn out to be more of a block party then a protest. The weeks ahead saw numerous virtual zoom meetings between members of various organizations which included ‘Act Up’ and ‘Young Communist League,’ and almost seemingly endless group chat conversations on signal. The event discussed was because folx had gotten wind that a right wing neofascist christian group called “Moms 4 Liberty were coming to town at the end of the month. Amongst those conversations there seemed to have been talks of a “diversity of tactics” with the basic goal to run these fuckers out of Philly.
The next coming weeks saw a few actions at various locations. We should also mention that separate from all the orgs bullshit, local and non-local anarchists and anti-fascists also began to plot various actions for the last couple of weeks before the event.
Fast forward to the last meeting before the mums got here. Basically, more talks of a variety of tactics. The vibes that left that conversation was one of an acceptance of more autonomous actions. The event itself had been scheduled for every day and every time slot. Actually, kinda fucking crazy how scheduled shit was. It’s almost as though they were really afraid that any unscheduled time slot would like, deter their plans to ultimately just fucking yell at people. We remember at one point, folks had discussed not “peace policing” anyone. Would you believe that there basically wasn’t a day that some MC on a microphone didn’t peace police in a way?
Basically, the whole weekend went like this from what we saw: Big crowds gathered in the middle of 12th and Filbert street for roughly 12 hours to put on various events, but mostly set up a place for folx to just dance and “make noise” next to the Marriott where the mums for liberty (also referred to jokingly as the “mums 4 hate”) were staying and hosting their big event.
Round the evening of the first rally, anarchists and antifascists took to the streets to spread art and agit-prop throughout old towne. The rally goers and the art march briefly met, with art marchers ultimately turning down an alleyway and going their own way. Seems both groups had different ideas. There were no clashes for either side.
However, the same could not be said about the so called “peaceful protestors.” Since the first night, interactions with the police happened more than once. Protesters were detained practically at each event. They seemed to also be released hours later so, we can at least all be happy about that. Unfortunately, some interactions left scars. A comrade had alerted us to one time that a brave soul dared to throw a easily breakable object into the crowd of people supporting the mums for liberty. The next thing, and we couldn’t believe we heard it, that brave soul was essentially brought attention by the mc on the mic saying “Get your boi!” (exact words may differ) and then chased off… Oh, in case it wasn’t understood, by the people supposedly protesting the mums for liberty… Not the cops. And before that, being confronted by what people call “march marshals.” Fucked up right? We’ll say again that this is what we heard so, check up about it if ya feel (stories and recollections may vary). The other “clashes” if you even wanna fucking call it that, just us but like, clashes usually mean that both individuals involved equally try to inflict harm, but we digress… There was also another brave soul that ran to wave goodbye to the mums in their own special way and they tackled by security. They suffered injuries and had to be taken to hospital. For such a “peaceful” event, sure was some fuckery that went down. We guess we could also mention “struggles” for space.
Which, ultimately, were won by the cops. The cops were granted EVERY SINGLE FUCKING METER they wanted. The protesters lost, you know what, fuck it, GAVE space away at both locations. Once at the local “revolutionary” museum, and again outside the hotel. It seemed that these communists and other socialist types couldn’t defend or hold the space like their precious daddies back in the day. (Shocker.) To be fair to all involved, they were basically, well wait no, not basically, DEFINITELY fucking kettled the whole time. It just seemed like the whole event was just meant to be a place where there wasn’t much room to move.
Ultimately, not a fun time if you wanted to actually accomplish scaring those bigots away. They laughed at everyone multiple days. That one pragur u dude even came out to see the spectacle. Comrades, we have got to start taking shit in our own hands if we wanna accomplish shit. Ours enemies get stronger and chose violence at every single turn, we can BARELY keep comrades from getting caught up. The protesters liberal agenda is going to more people killed. It’s not funny, and dancing round instead of showing these fuckers what is actually up, is just a bad look and not doing us any favours. Bleh… fuck it. We need to show people that there is a different way. A more autonomous way, a more direct way. You know that direct actions yields more results rather than waiting for some authority or these phantom “masses” they fucking go on about. Yeah, we need numbers, but we can attract those numbers when people see we’re fucking serious. We’re a force to be reckoned with when we all find our self determination. The orgs have become so big in this fucking city. These orgs will organize our way into the system. It’s just the fucking truth from what we’re seeing. It’s called a ‘DIVERSITY OF TACTICS’ not Only ‘organization of tactics’ 🙄
And like, definitely fuck the mums for liberty and all these conservative and transphobic cunts, but part of that is showing them why their wrong in a more conflictual way.
