Screen shot from CBS 8 News Coverage.
What I have to say today is probably gonna make some people unhappy.
On Saturday, a group of regional nativists held a rally in Otay Mesa celebrating the prototypes for Trump’s wall. Rep. Duncan Hunter was the featured speaker. Eyewitness accounts agree the crowd size was 100 or less, as likely was the average IQ.
Another group thought it would be a good idea to get twenty people to yell stuff at the MAGA types. Now they’re upset because punches were thrown and the battalion of Sheriffs and other law enforcement types standing around didn’t come rushing to their aid.
Really?
The land at the end of Enrique Fermo drive where the wall prototypes exist is barren and dusty, kinda like what the rest of the county will probably look like after a few more years of fire and drought. There is no community surrounding the area.
Nobody other than those who came there with a purpose in mind–despicables, cops, a handful of media types, and counter-demonstrators saw or heard what happened.
The Sheriff’s Department issued a press release calling the incident a “disturbance,” saying deputies were on hand “so everyone could safely express their opinions.” The counter-demonstrators who were pummeled with the oversized American flag poles might disagree with that assessment.
What I saw–via several videos–was chaos, namely law enforcement types waiting for somebody to tell them what to do. It’s probable some superior officer accidentally/on purpose just happened to be looking the other way when the fisticuffs started.
One of the individuals involved with the counter-protesters wanted to submit an anonymous article to San Diego Free Press on what happened.
We don’t do anonymous articles anymore. Been there, tried it, got burned.
The thinking in sending the article to SDFP was I’d be sympathetic because of our experiences a few months back calling out a scheme to denigrate the murals at Chicano Park as revenge for the removal of Confederate monuments in the South.
Nope. It just made me angry. I also got tagged in social media posts, no doubt by folks wishing I’d share their outrage.
***
Let’s take a look at how the Chicano Park incident came down, as opposed to what happened Otay Mesa this past weekend.
Back in the late summer, not long after the mayhem caused by the alt-right in Charlottesville, SDFP editor Brent Beltran wrote a column recalling previous threats made against Chicano Park. He sought to illustrate the depth of community sentiment in support of the institution, should it be threatened in the future.
Unbeknownst to Beltran, there was something already in the works, via some local right-wing types believing they could cash in via a YouTube video or two. There’s $$$ to be made these days by producing content loaded up on fear or outrage, and the righties have tapped into it.
It all started with an interview with “local patriot activist” Jeff Schwilk on Carl Demaio’s radio talk show. The former Minuteman leader commiserated with the host about the indignity of removing a plaque from the Daughters of the Confederacy honoring Jefferson Davis from Horton Plaza, moving on to complain about “Nazi symbols**” and “Communists” in the murals at Chicano Park.
At Roger Ogden’s Patriot Fire, formerly known as Impeach Obama Now, the plea to contact city officials followed the admonition “Chicano Park is also a monument to the Aztecs, who performed mass human sacrifice and took part in ritualistic cannibalism.”
Some emails about their plans to visit the park were leaked. I wrote a story about it, and things almost got out of hand.
Word quickly spread that the righties were planning on holding a rally at Chicano Park. Some wanna-be ‘heros of the resistance’ took to their keyboards via social media to suggest the park be defended by any means necessary.
A [peaceful] counter-event [by people not of the community] was announced via Facebook. And then the community around the Park took over, shutting down the social media-spawned counter-event and creating an inclusive rally.
I updated the original article:
To be clear, there is no right-wing protest scheduled for Chicano Park on Sunday or any other time at this point. (The article doesn’t say there is; try reading it before declaring you’re willing to shed blood.)
What is happening is that a campaign is being organized by the fright right to make the murals a toxic issue, get funding cut, slander the history of Chicano/Latinx resistance.
Mr. Ogden and a small number of his fellow cockroaches WILL likely show up at the park, armed with cameras, hoping to get footage for a YouTube video they can shop to various reactionary media organizations.
There is currently a community solidarity event organized for Sunday, September 3 at Noon at the park. The original organizers have agreed to follow the guidance of the Chicano Park Steering Committee, to wit: NO ACTION WILL BE TAKEN without the express request of the CPSC. They, the brown berets, and others will handle any interaction needed.
September Chicano Park rally in progress. Photo by Doug Porter
The Chicano Park committee invited political, cultural, and religious leaders from throughout the city to speak about the history and significance of the park. People from the community provided security and took care of other logistics.
Eventually, the right wingers arrived for their “tour” of the park, standing across the street and taunting the crowd to announce their presence. They were escorted from the area by both police and activists.
***
The border wall event in Otay Mesa had zero support in any community. Those of us who’d visited the area concluded long ago, based on common sense, this location was a disaster waiting to happen for any group organizing an anti-wall protest.
TV coverage of the pro-border wall rally was likely enhanced because of the confrontations taking place, and the publicity tended to favor –in terms of messaging– the right-wing point of view.
Here’s a snip of the Union-Tribune’s coverage, which did slip in a quote, not from the righties:
The atmosphere, however, turned from peaceful to hostile when a small group of protesters marched down Enrico Fermi Place toward the rally site. The group of about 15 arrived around 20 minutes into the rally and chanted, “No ban. No wall. Amnesty for all” and “Racists, go home.”
Though sheriff’s deputies were already in place, lined up to separate protesters from the rally site, some rally-goers confronted the marchers, leading to several heated exchanges and at least one fight. Deputies broke up the scuffle within minutes. No one was arrested and sheriff’s officials said no injuries were reported.
The border wall is a “xenophobic act, reminiscent of Nazi Germany,” said Rafael Bautista, 33, of southeast San Diego. Bautista, who helped organize the protest but isn’t affiliated with a single group, said he migrated to the U.S. from Mexico at the age of 4 and has family on both sides of the border.
Counter-protesting a right-wing rally in this remote location makes even less sense–akin to poking a hornet’s nest with a stick–unless you have a strong martyr complex.
I’m not saying every demonstration needs to be held in ‘safe’ location. But if you’re going to take risks, planning is essential. The organizers of this Washout at the Wall admit they had no plan, other than proving to the world they were anti-racists.
What happened was a bunch of ‘we’re not racist’ types got more attention than they deserved. And some people got to type “f**k the police” on Facebook afterward.
Big whoop.
The most likely result from this event will be more appearances by the righties at future progressive demonstrations and events. I’ve watched some of their videos and read their social media posts from this weekend. They’re encouraged by what happened. They think they ‘won.’
Ugh.
While San Diego’s right-wing extremists need to be considered as a threat to the safety of the community in general and activists in particular, organizing ‘against’ them is a waste.
They number in total less than 200 people countywide, are mostly crippled from acting as a group by factionalism and are likely riddled with informants because they are low hanging fruit.
I speak from personal experience in dealing with the far right, having had my home shot up and then doing the legwork to prove to authorities that we weren’t doing it to ourselves to gain sympathy.
Please, leave the adventurism to video games and movies. There is plenty of real work to be done, no matter what your approach to activism.
Looking for some action? Check out the Weekly Progressive Calendar, published every Friday in this space, featuring Demonstrations, Rallies, Teach-ins, Meet Ups and other opportunities to get your activism on.
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Doug Porter
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Let local cameras roll and the local television types hope that these still-few freaks will spill their shit for public viewing. None of them are convincing, and Donald Trump can better be understood by an inert public if these nobodies raise themselves to tantrums.
Thank you Doug for getting the word out. We need your wisdom and SDFP to help us resist the current administration and the ilk that support it.
The racist right numbers far more than “200 people countrywide.” Perhaps that’s the count of the schmucks who are official members of overtly fascist organizations, but they’re not the ones actually building the wall or even dominating the push for a narrative that immigrants should be feared. The racist right controls the executive branch and every police agency in this country. It’s likely that the police have more active participants in these organizations than they do informants.
These people have something much more valuable than attention. They have power. If we do not organize against them, they will continue to exercise that power without opposition. We’ll continue to be imprisoned, and deported, and victimized. There is indeed “real work to be done.” Let’s do it. We can’t just hit “dislike” on racist videos. We have to be outside, in front of cameras, and with the kinds of numbers that we need to really make a statement, both to change people’s minds and to demonstrate solidarity with those targeted by racism.
The number of events in your Progressive Calendar prove that the good people of this city are hungry for action and want their voices to be heard. Last Friday you even expressed regret that “nobody on the left side of the aisle cared to organize a demonstration.” Well, let’s all of us get together and organize one. A big one, with everyone opposed to the wall, opposed to racism, united in support of immigrants and immigration. We can’t just wait for 2020 or even for 2018. DACA could be doomed in just a few months. They’re deporting people every single day.
Saturday’s counter-protest should have been bigger. There were several organizations who expressed their intentions to go. Not all of them showed up. But the lesson the left (and liberals, and even conservatives who know that Trump is lying about immigrants) should learn is not that we shouldn’t confront racism. It’s that we need to plan a response that takes into account the power that they currently hold and the brutality with which they wield it. It’s a response that needs to prove the potential of the working class and all of us who are opposed to racism. We have power, too. But we’re not exercising it yet.
The low information lackeys who organized the pro-border wall demonstration are a very small part of the much larger racist right. And my point was “Why worry about a freckle when you’ve got a broken leg?” The dudes and dudettes wearing MAGA hats are not the ones enabling the radical right vision of a theocracy/oligarchy/dictatorship.
This counter-demonstration was a waste of time (I didn’t say they didn’t have the right to do it) in a dangerous location that gives law enforcement and the Proud Boy types every advantage. The cause may have been righteous, but the organization and planning wasn’t, and that’s why people I know said ‘no thanks’ to the idea.
As I said in Friday’s column: “I won’t be going. I get enough stupid from watching the news these days.”
Duncan Hunter is one of those powerful enablers, however, and the police blocked access so as to make it look like he wasn’t the target of the counter-demonstration. (Meanwhile, it says something that he found this event so important to attend even while his district was on fire.)
To respond to your other comment below (“thanks for reading…even if you don’t agree with me”) – yes, thank you for providing this site and your calendar and everything else, even when I disagree with you. It’s an important and necessary source of San Diego news and views, and your work is appreciated.
Regardless of planning (or lack of it): this is another event where Sheriff’s Deputies have stood back, and were either unprepared, unconcerned or improperly trained to respond effectively to prevent and de-escalate violent behavior.
Saturday, the “lackeys” were able to use clubs to attack people- and the Deputies didn’t intervene until blood was shed.
What weapons will they bring next time?
Thank you- very true: What was lacking Saturday was organized opposition from the local groups who are working on progressive causes. We are stretched pretty thin these days…
It’s not too late: if you did not attend Saturday’s protest you can still act NOW by calling Bill Gore and asking why he is allowing protesters to be attacked at these demonstrations, and why the instigators of the attacks are allowed to use YouTube videos of their violence to request money and support for their cause. They claim every “like” provides them with more support.
Isn’t that a criminal enterprise? Shouldn’t they be considered a gang for their organized, profit-making ventures?
Call Sheriff Gore, and ask him to investigate these assailants.
Call his assistant, Kim Maddigan, at (858) 974-2240
The most disturbing thing about this violence is that, like the KKK March in Charlottesville and the Impeachment Rally at the County Admin Building: the law enforcement officials did not maintain safety.
At the July Impeachment event, Deputy Sheriffs allowed protesters to push, shove, and scream thru bullhorns into the ears of other attendees. This weekend, they allowed people to be violently attacked. This group has escalated their dangerous behavior over the last 5 months.
The people being attacked should have been protected by the Deputies. The ACLU of San Diego has a good primer on this (see: https://www.aclusandiego.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Know-Your-Rights-An-Activists-Guide.pdf)
It cites a Court ruling on the responsibility of police to maintain the peace: “See Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 536, 550-51 (1965) (quoting Watson v. Memphis, 373 U.S. 526, 535 (1963); Ovadal v. City of Madison, 416 F.3d 531, 537 (7th Cir. 2005) (“The police must permit the speech and control the crowd; there is no heckler’s veto”) (quoting Hedges v. Wauconda Cmty. Unit Sch. Dist. No. 118, 9 F.3d 1295, 1299 (7th Cir. 1993)).”
In addition- there are clear links between the men at the Impeachment Rally, as well as at Chicano Park, and now at this latest protest. At least two of the men were arrested over the summer for disorderly conduct and drug use, by the Berkeley Police Department during protests and demonstrations: Kristopher Wyrick was one, and his son was one of the young men fighting at the border.
So the question is: why is Sheriff Gore ignoring their consistently violent confrontational approach? Why was no one arrested for assault with a deadly weapon?
Saturday, several of the men who engaged in fighting were carrying flags on large sticks that violated local ordinances- and they used those sticks as weapons against others. In July, at the Impeachment Rally, the Deputies told them these sticks were illegal- so they went to this rally knowing they were violating the law.
San Diegans should not have to wait for a person to be killed or seriously injured in order for Gore to take these repeated incidents seriously, and realize this represents a pattern of dangerous, violent behavior carried out by small group of people. Several of them have been identified via photos, arrest mug shots and police records, local TV video, etc.
Those of us who testified at the CLERB hearing in August will return tomorrow- December 12- to update our complaints. We will provide additional evidence of this pattern of hate-motivated behavior. We will once again ask for CLERB to investigate why the Sheriff’s office is failing to provide Deputies with proper training, guidance, preparation and directions to maintain safety during protests.
Finally: review the findings of the investigation of events in Charlottesville last summer. Remember what happened when the violence got out of hand. It lead to injuries, mayhem and death. A few days ago, investigators determined it was not a lack of will on behalf of the officers that allowed these events to happen- it was a failure of command leadership.
We are seeing the same failure in the Sheriff’s Department here in San Diego. Let’s not wait for someone to be killed to call for an investigation.
Call Bill Gore, and ask him why he won’t direct his officers to maintain the peace at these protests. Call his assistant, Kim Maddigan, at (858)974-2240
From what I saw on the local news vids, both sides got some serious punches in so I have a hard time believing the counter protesters weren’t there with the intent to throw the gloves off. I agree that their presence was rather useless and stupid.
i think that the Community organization and the Chicano Park Steering Committee’s leadership during the Chicano Park incident made all the difference. They explicitly called for no violence on sacred grounds…
Similar organization and leadership was lacking at this protest, sure. The community wasn’t rallied with enough time, organizations were not pulled into the fold… and, unlike the CPSC, i’m not sure this leadership explicitly called for non-violence. We won’t need to engage in even defensive violence if we show up in strength, as was the case at Chicano Park.
I realize it may feel like a waste of time because of the outcome, but here is my take: we need to show up whenever these people gather. Not to antagonize or prove we “aren’t racists,” as you put it. We need to show up in great numbers so they understand that their fight is futile and should be abandoned. To show them that they are on the losing side of history.
From the looks of the video, the counter protesters were just as much there to throw the gloves down as MAGA types, so find it a bit confusing that they were expecting any kind of protection. Not that I get a sense of satisfaction when they clocked a wall supporter, but that had to have known it was a bad idea.
Notice how the cops protected the four nazis at the park? We are not upset that we didn’t get the same protection. But if a fight breaks out in front of a sheriff, I’m sure the sheriff is not going to wait and say “let them fight and see what happens”. No. Their job is to intervene. And if we would have waited for them to intervene, it would have been much worse. You talk about better planning and community support. But you fail to realize or acknowledge that this was last minute and that we are supposed to fight fascists, everywhere and at all times. I missed that article where you said that the Charlottesville protestors should have expected someone to die and others to be brutally beaten. But I digress. Your opinion piece mixed with some disingenuous facts and the gaslighting of the anonymous article writer seems to coddle the Nazis. Why didn’t you try to find out why people didn’t show up? Aside from being afraid, of course. Maybe it has something to do with leftists not being on the same page (fractioned left). Or the fact that we have been trying to organize against the wall but the groups that you would expect to be there are not and were not. The other puzzling piece of your article is circular, saying that nazis are emboldened to show up at more progressive events. Like they haven’t been. Like they haven’t been sucker punching people. The difference here was that we fought back. And we ended the fight. Not the sheriffs, who came in at the end to push us away. You failed to mention that half our group consisted of women, children, an elder man and a few non-violent peaceful at all times people. No quotes. No actual political analysis about the need to fight the alt right and no attempt at covering the story in an objective way. Maybe that’s not the way you write. But the liberalism seeps through the page. We are at war. And the liberals pretending that things will change by electing democrats are the same ones who would only want to resist under the ideal conditions. We showed up, marched and chanted “fuck Donald trump”. We were not there to prove that we are anti-racists. We were not there to be strong martyrs. We were there because it is a duty. Because we cannot allow this wall to be built because we cannot allow this society to continue its giant leaps towards overt fascism. If we were not there, the narrative would have been “border wall supporters rally unopposed”. Fuck that! Fuck Donald Trump! Fuck the border wall! Fuck nazis. Message to the nazi apologists and sympathizers, we will not only resist. We will fight. We will not wait to be taken to concentration camps. We will not wait for the kkk to grow and attack us at our homes. We are not liberals or reformists. We are revolutionaries.
You are right to criticize me for both the language and the tone I used in writing the story. I made the mistake I thought I was criticizing you for, namely letting my anger at the growing fascism around us dictate my actions in a non-productive manner. I take issue with some of the other characterizations of my writing, specifically that the idea of objectivity is anything more than a trick used by greedy media owners to make their content palatable for petty-bourgeois interests. You disagreed with me and that’s okay, but it has nothing to do with how I report. But…
As you may or may not know, I have a disability that limits my physical activity. Some days it’s okay, some days not. I think this impacts my writing in a not-good way because too much of my perspective is gained from sitting behind a keyboard. I will try to take that into account in the future.
Moving ahead, I will work with the people seeking to bring the goons responsible for the physical assaults to justice. I take what I’ve learned from this experience seriously.
Doug, how about retracting the statement since this was a learned experience for all of us.
Nothing ever really disappears from the internet, as FCC Chair Ajit Pai is learning after his cameo in a Proud Boys video.
Secondly, the SDFP policy on taking own articles is as follows:
a)The safety of the writer is in jeopardy;
b)The article was improperly vetted by the author (hoax) or sent with intent to deceive (malicious);
c) Under very specific legal direction.
So the comment and my future actions/articles will have to stand as the counterpoint. When those articles are published, a note will be added to the original article with a link.
Seems a lot like those who never supported real #RentControl claiming to have ‘always been supportive of Rent Control.’ Lots of people who were not there – talking about what they will do, or what they would have done. Wonder why the actual activist who were there – were not interviewed? Is it, perhaps, because they were not holding-up signs reading “Occupy Anti-Racist” ? Just a lot of people attempting to make political hay (while doing nothing themselves) after years of standing idly by as conditions of #InstitutionalizedRacism remain in place. Here is to efforts by Rafael Bautista – we hope he continues to be a true voice of the working class super-majority, and is not co-opted by the friends of powerful developers
Im wondering why you felt the need to write an article to go public attacking a group of people who are on YOUR side of this struggle. You’re saying they had no strategy and it was an embarrassment. Well your strategy of going public to belittle this group is worse and its an embarrassment than you would waste your time going after people who like I said are on your side. If you have something to say, how about reaching out to them directly? Although with your condescending tone I don’t know how well that would have gone either. So maybe the best strategy is too keep your opinions to yourself because you’re not being constructive in the bigger sense and right now we need unity, not to go after each other.
I agree with Cat with retraction.But I see you made an excuse for that. But better yet,there should have been a greater awareness and responsibility to think before writing such a piece. Whether you agreed or not about the organization of this protest, the very fact you publicly ridiculed the counter protesters was nothing more than what you spoke of… emboldening the right. When do You see the right hanging their dirty laundry of division and and disorganization out for the world to see? And when I speak of disorganization and division, I’m not speaking about the counter protestors, because when has anyone protesting needed “permission”.? Not highlighting or understanding the fact that they tried to mobilize a larger group that DID NOT show up is careless reporting. In simplistic terms, you threw the counter protestors under the bus. You didn’t focus on the real point at hand. You basically insulted without any further facts or investigation.
I personally know what’s going on with this whole incident and know someone involved. This is not just in defense, but frustration with the problematic implications your story can have as a whole. You don’t know the aftermath and you have no idea what’s going on right now as a result of this incident. The repercussions and the real affects happening from this incident on the protestors involved is real. This is not a game or fodder for a gaslighting article. These are people’s real lives we are talking about that went to protest. You should think about that.
Whether you think it was “embarrassing” or Not, a stand was made and they needed and need support and you have provided nothing of the sort but added fuel to the right’s fire with misinformation.
hey Angie and brujilda, how about you take it a little easy on Mr. Porter. after all, he apologized 3 DAYS earlier than your comments. it’s christmas… practice forgiveness.