Mass anti-ICE protest vs. extremely dangerous alternative

Update, update, update:
Since the publication of this article, ICE has murdered another protester. Watch video here. That is the answer of the Trump/Miller/Vance administration to yesterday’s mass protest. The response should be a nation-wide protest during work hours at which the unions are the center and call out their own members. We should not forget the example set by protesters against Trump’s 2017 Muslim ban. There, protesters massed peacefully inside major airports, thereby shutting down air transport.

In this article, we will discuss the following:

• Friday’s protest was a good start, but only a start towards developing a mass working class movement.
• The union leadership still remains largely passive.
• Some social media show support for a Black Panther style armed confrontation with ICE. That would be a disaster.
• Armed self defense was used successfully during the militant labor strikes of the 1930s and in the Civil Rights movement, but that was different.
• Historically, armed violence by small groups has been a distraction at best, as was seen in South Africa in the 1980s and Iran in 1979.
• A mass working class movement is needed.

“Thousands of protesters shut down parts of Minneapolis-St. Paul on Friday as hundreds of businesses closed their doors, and workers and students stayed home to demand an end to the sweeping immigration crackdown that has roiled the Twin Cities for weeks.” So reported the NY Times on the day after what was called a general strike in Minneapolis. Indeed, the turnout was impressive – tens of thousands – especially considering the sub freezing temperature. It was a good start, but only a start if we expect the Trump/Miller/Vance presidency to back down.

As Oaklandsocialist has pointed out many times, the key sticking point is the passivity of the union leadership. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, gave a rousing speech and for the first time a labor web site – that of her union – featured news and commentary on Trump’s authoritarianism on their web site. However, in the absence of a follow-up,  the danger of “military” adventures, or even worse, still exists.

Two photos
Two photos are making the rounds on social media. They are of a group which is trying to reconstitute the Black Panther Party. the group is marching through the streets or rallying with rifles in hand. The message is that they are going to or are actually in Minneapolis to “protect” the protesters there.

Some think this photo is in Minneapolis. It is not. In fact it is not anywhere in Minnesota, since that state prohibits open carry of long guns. Open carry of hand guns is legal for those with a state permit, which few black people could obtain. In fact, those who advocate this approach must support an end to all gun control laws, including prohibition of gun ownership to felons, since such laws disproportionately disarm black people. However, legal open carry is only a secondary point.

Those who sympathize with this approach should think through the likely scenario: An armed group marches through the streets to confront ICE in any city. Whether open carry is legal or not, ICE confronts and tries to stop them. ICE is immediately joined by the local and nearby police forces. They stand there with guns facing each other. A tense standoff develops in which all other protesters scatter. In fact, most demonstrators would have already left the moment the armed protesters arrive. Then, at some point, a shot is fired – maybe from a sniper on a roof somewhere. Guns blaze. In the end, every single one of these armed protesters, and those surrounding them are either wounded or killed. The mayor or governor declares a state of emergency and all public gatherings are banned, including peaceful protests.Within a matter of hours Trump declares martial law and anywhere he sends ICE he will send in the National Guard to “protect” them. In fact, he might do so nationally. ICE will then be free to rampage anywhere they like without any public observers or protesters. ICE is then free to rampage throughout any city in the country with nobody tracking them.

There is an alternative, but before we deal with that let’s make clear that this is not an argument against self defense, even armed self defense. For example, the armed group the

Deacons for Defense and Justice  (which was led by black workers/military veterans) prevented a lot of racist attacks in Louisiana during the days of the Civil rights movement. Robert F. Williams did the same in North Carolina by going around armed with a pistol. (See his 1962 book Negroes with Guns.) Many of the successful strikes of the 1930s succeeded in part because they defended themselves against scabs and union busters. That includes the Minneapolis Teamsters trike of 1934, and even the auto workers sit down strike of 1937 included hand-to-hand battles with the cops to prevent them from breaking into the occupied factories. Today, if a meeting or march were to be attacked by far right thugs, self defense is necessary, including armed self defense in certain situations. But the idea of openly confronting the armed power of the state in this time and in this situation is entirely different. It is at best a no win situation and more to the point a diversion away from what is really needed, which we deal with below.

South Africa
Such an armed confrontation is not that different from terrorist actions like fire bombing a government facility, guerrilla war, and assaults on individual government officials. Consider the case of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. At that time, the black South African working class was leading the world. In that country, the South African Communist Party (SACP) was seen as the real revolutionary wing of the movement and of the African National Congress (ANC). The SACP played on that role to establish “guerrilla training camps” outside of South Africa. The SACP recruited the most revolutionary-minded of the black South African youth to go to those training camps and then brought them back into South Africa to conduct acts of individual terrorism such as the bombing of a police station or the assassination of some particularly hated police officer. That removed the revolutionary-minded youth from the movement of the powerful South African black working class, which was forming new, independent unions and going on strike as well as getting directly involved with the struggles in the communities. An excellent view of what was happening in the working class is this video, which documents the founding conference of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu). The video is well worth watching in and of itself. It shows not only the conference itself but also the power of the black South African working class in general. It also shows the connection that many black workers made between the hated apartheid system and capitalism itself, and how that connection was playing out through the workers struggles.

The video shows that this was what really put fear into the capitalists’ heart. Around 30 minutes into the video, they show one such white capitalist saying that capitalism must be “opened up more dynamically…. [We must] rid the system of the image that the capitalist system only has a white face, because if that perception was to persist, then I, myself, do not believe that the private enterprise system will last in South Africa.”
Iran
A similar dynamic was played out earlier in Chile in 1973 and in Iran in 1979. We discuss all of this in our article on Why Marxism opposes individual terrorism. 

Nor is it any accident that in the case of Iran, the armed group – the MEK – has since turned to collaborating with US imperialism while the South African Communist Party has become a force of repression of the black working class in that country (see article below).

ICE: Labor movement missing in action
Today, the tendency to turn towards armed confrontation with ICE is born largely out of frustration. Millions see that Trump/Vance/Miller are impervious to protests. They don’t care how many people oppose ICE’s fascistic tactics. Miller expressed the attitude perfectly: Physical “force, power and strength” are all that matter. So, some turn to confronting armed force with armed force. The problem is that the armed force of the government is incomparably greater than the armed force of some civilian groups, no matter how large they may be. Just as it was in South Africa, it is a shame to waste the freedom and also possibly lives of the most revolutionary-minded of the youth in an armed confrontation that the government will not only inevitably win; Trump will use it to institute far, far greater repression. Support for such actions tends to be due to the fact that it’s so hard to see what force can really defeat the MAGA agenda. That force is the united power of the working class, which has the power to shut down the U.S. economy.

It’s so hard to see that due to the criminal passivity of the union leadership. Even in their weakened state, the unions have the power to shut down the ports, the railroads, the airlines, and most intercity mass transit – in other words, to shut down the U.S. economy. That is what would send not only ICE but the entire MAGA movement running. But the union leadership has devoted the last 80 years to suppressing all the best traditions of the U.S. working class. Those traditions include mass defiance of the government’s courts and armed forces, mass solidarity, and a struggle for political independence (a working class party) and socialism. Now, more than ever, what’s needed is for working class oriented revolutionary minded youth of all ethnicities, genders, etc. to join together and go into the work force, including but not only the unions, explain the seriousness of what we face, and start to organize for a return of those traditions, not only in ideas but in practical action. The turn to “the gun” and action of tiny groups of individuals completely contradicts this approach. 

Remember the words of the great Fred Hampton, who advocated “international proletarian revolution” as the antidote to racism and repression.

For more on the situation in Minneapolis, see Minneapolis: ICE fascists rampage – and we don’t use the term “fascists” lightly

Also see Why Marxism opposes individual terrorism for more on the struggles in Chile, Iran and South Africa.

On South Africa see “The Movement was Decapitated”. In this interview Trevor Ngwane draws the political conclusions of what happened in South Africa over the last 30 years 

For the full hour and 45 minute interview with Trevor Ngwane, see: Full interview/discussion with Trevor Ngwane 

For further reading, especially on Fred Hampton, see: “Intersectionality, class reductionism” and revolutionary socialism

For more on the situation in Minneapolis, see Minneapolis: ICE fascists rampage – and we don’t use the term “fascists” lightly