#Vats #punk #SanFracisco #neoNazis #ACAB #history

"I have personally observed neo-Nazis function as plausibly deniable, irregular auxiliaries of local law enforcement, specifically the SFPD. Here’s the story of one such encounter. Extrapolate what you will.

In 1984 the Squatters Federation attempted to stage a building take-over at a former brewery called The Vats, from which a great many young artists and musicians, mostly punks, had recently been evicted. We had an elaborate plan, but it was foiled because our OpSec was not up to MilSpec. The SFPD knew our plan in advance, and moved to counter it at a critical moment.

Undoubtedly we had been infiltrated. The old COINTELPRO era analysis still stands. If there are a dozen radicals at a meeting, it's best to assume at least one is a cop, and two more will roll over on you as soon as they get busted and squeezed. For a more in depth study of infiltration, search DuckDuckGo for 'Quicksilver Indymedia'. It's a long, dense thread, but a lot of it reads like a thriller. Potential film scripts just jump off the page at you. It's all stuff you'd be a much better activist if you knew about. You'd last longer, too. Unfortunately, the Vats action preceded its publication by over a decade.

Clueless and vulnerable, we had planned our action anyhow, foolishly trusting in our OpSec prowess, which we had vastly overrated. It's a common error. The Greeks had a word for it: hubris. On the day of the action, I was at my post, concealed in a spotter’s nest on a second story fire escape on the side of the building. A select group of trouble makers had already infiltrated the building and made a number of modifications. This is what the military calls 'preparing the terrain.'

My post on the fire escape was as easy to construct as a hunting blind. It was built on the same principles, with locally scavenged materials arranged so as to blend in with the background. The fire escape looked like it was randomly heaped up with trashed cardboard boxes, a not uncommon sight at the time. Actually it was carefully constructed camouflage. I was out of sight of the demo but in contact with the handful of other people who had preemptively occupied the building. I could also see anybody entering the parking lot from Mariposa Street. Except for a couple secret bolt holes, we had sealed ourselves in behind locked steel doors, all but one. At a predetermined time, it was to be thrown open and the crowd was to rush in, the door was to be first bolted, then welded shut, securing the building, and forcing a confrontation. That was the plan, anyhow.

We had stashed food and water inside. We could have
held out in there for days, but that probably would never have happened because the cops would almost certainly have cut their way in with acetylene. This would actually have made for even better optics than a prolonged siege. At this point in history, the internet wasn't available outside of the military and academia, so we were dependent on mainstream news to get our message out. It was fairly difficult to pull off. It often involved audacious, sometimes elaborate, media stunts. At The Vats, we were a little too elaborate for our own good. Our plan relied on exact timing, precise execution, lengthy planning and above all, airtight OpSec. We should have been able to pull it off, but no. KISS? What's that? We didn't know. Hubris? Didn't that die out with the Greeks? Not so much, it turns out.
Had we succeeded, the elaborate media stunt we had concocted would have been covered by the local news, and maybe even the networks. The viewers would have been shown the absurdity of TPTB using naked force to create, not just another vacant building in a city with a surplus of vacant buildings (as it was at the time), but also to create more homeless people in a city that already had homeless people galore. It was to be political theater, a morality play of sorts, in a time where social media as we now it didn’t exist and corporate news media controlled what information reached the masses. The only way to get them to tell any of the truth at all was to employ the psycho-social jui-jitsu of absurdist, political street theater. This is psy-war.

Used correctly, psy-war is our most potent weapon. The key words to remember here are 'used correctly.' Used correctly, psy-war gets the goods. Used incorrectly, it can be worse than doing nothing.

We had live bands and a generator set up on an adjacent lot. The lot was owned by a railroad company. The railroad company either didn’t know or didn’t care that we were there. The cops had no legal right to disperse us from there unless there was trouble or the owner complained. Neither happened. We’d been throwing this party once a week for nearly two months. Word got around. It grew to the point where we finally had enough people to rush the building through the one unsealed door, lock ourselves in and pull off the occupation.

We had positioned the spotters in a number of locations to prevent ourselves being surprised from behind. I was one of them. My role for the day was to watch our back. So I did, and what a show I saw. As H-hour, M-minute approached, a couple dozen skinheads coagulated right under my concealed position on the fire escape and began milling around. They couldn't be seen by the partiers, and I couldn't be seen by them. I wasn’t spotted. They were. OK, one point for our side. Or so I thought.

I passed the info along, held my position, and awaited further developments. I rather imagined that some anarchist punks would detach from the party, circle around to the side of the building and see off the skins by whatever means necessary. Before that could happen, two SFPD patrol cars rolled up and summoned a couple specific skins over to talk. I couldn’t tell who they were because skinheads looked an awful lot alike, especially from above. But I could hear. I saw and heard them taking orders from the cops to go around the other side of the building and start trouble.

They did, but I did not witness or participate in it, as I had exfiltrated the area, with guerrilla style stealth, posthaste and forthwith. This was in compliance with our mutually agreed upon rules of engagement, especially the part about not engaging with the cops unless and until we had secured the building. We had never planned to fight the cops there. We planned to stall them long enough for the news crews to arrive, then negotiate an eloquent surrender polemic that would be played on the evening news. It would have been an elegant plan had we'd been able to pull it off. We weren't. That's OK. If we're not failing more often than we succeed, we're not trying enough new things. As long as we keep making new mistakes, each stumble drives us forward.

The trouble the skins caused was out of view from my position, but I could hear the commotion. That was enough to get me off my ass. Other squatters saw it. Word got around quickly. it was immediately obvious that we had to abort the mission and withdraw in an orderly fashion as previously stipulated in plan B. That part we actually did pull off. Always have a backup plan, every time, no exception. Just a suggestion.

I alerted the other occupiers and we made our escapes and scattered. I went out the other side of the building. My bike was parked a few blocks away. A few people allegedly went through a tunnel and emerged on the other side of the street. I didn't see this happen and never saw the tunnel personally. We had tried to protect against spies by compartmentalizing our escape routes. This part of our OpSec at least actually worked. None of the escapees were ambushed, not even me.

When the trouble broke out, the cops had a legal excuse to pour in and 'break it up.' They let the skins go, drove off the punks and stole all the beer. Or so I heard. Like I said, I didn't see it happen. I was busy hightailing it to a preselected rendezvous point. At the time it was happening, I realized immediately that the skins were functioning as the plausibly deniable, irregular auxiliaries of the local police. It was obvious and self evident, not rocket science. It didn’t occur to me till years later to even contemplate how much higher up their chain of command actually went. This was an inexcusable mistake on my part. I thought these chuds were mere wannabees. They weren't. They'd already advanced to the rank of puppet.

Of all people, I should have known better because so much of my personal life has been shaped by a COINTELPRO frame-up in 1967.

(. . .)

It took me eight years and the Church Committee Hearings to learn that what had happened to me in NYC had a federal etiology, called COINTELPRO. At that point, I started to study this, and related phenomena, in earnest. I learned, among other things, that COINTELPRO made use of plausibly deniable, irregular auxiliaries. For example when the first Panthers were shot it was not by the cops. A decade later, when I witnessed an obvious COINTELPRO redux scenario play out before my eyes at the Vats, I really should have sussed it immediately for what it was. I didn’t. Once again I attributed the fascist/police collaboration to America's ubiquitous local police corruption. Wrong again.

But I did learn this: Never assume that any fascist formation, even a petty, racist street gang, doesn’t have friends on the force. It’s not called the Blue Klux Klan for nothing. This bears repeating, lest we forget again and have to once again reinvent the wheel." -- excerpt from my (as yet) unpublished book *Punching Nazis*

#neoNazis #skinheads

"One batch of skins called themselves American Front. They were, IIRC, either the third or fourth gang of neo-Nazi thugs to plague Haight Street, depending on whether the Bash Boys/SF Skins split counts as one gang or two. The SF Skins tagged some wet cement outside Bound Together shortly after the store moved to Haight Street, so they probably think they were first. Opinions vary. We didn’t care. A fascist is a fascist is a fascist. Besides, before they grew their hair out and started dressing preppy, they really did look an awful lot alike. They presented as virtual clones. They were easy to spot, but it was hard to distinguish one from the other. They acted alike, too. And they milled around. That made it even harder. It did sharpen our facial recognition skills, though. This has later proven valuable. There's always a silver lining.

The American Front was led (in a manner of speaking) by the infamous 'Nazi Bob' Heick. He later went on to 'lead the youth wing of the White Aryan Resistance, when (so the story goes) Metzger’s 'differently special' son proved incapable of the job. But first, Heick left the Haight with his tail between his legs, after a couple dozen people watched a skinny, middle aged, hippie with granny glasses and a pony tail down to his waist, humiliate him in front of multiple witnesses.

'Nazi Bob' and his wingman had been staggering down Haight Street drunk. They did this often. As they passed Bound Together, they impulsively decided to break our window with their fists. This is a really stupid move on anybody's part. Fists!?! Oh, please. Can't anybody tell life from the movies anymore? They’d been using bricks for a while, and had broken our window many times. It had been an expensive, ongoing nuisance, but never shut us down. Bricks work on windows. Fists don’t. If you want to break a window, you’re much better off using a brick than your fist. It’ll save you a trip to the ER and you won't need any stitches. Life is always better when you don't need stitches. Just a suggestion.

I'm not saying you should break windows. I'm not saying you should not break windows. That's between you and the window. Before you make that decision, though, it's good to know what actually happens to someone whose fist (or whatever) goes through a window. It isn’t pretty at all. Don’t do it. You’ll be sorry later. That's a promise. It won't be like the movies. There is always blood and sometimes it spurts. That's never good. At all times, avoid having your blood spurt. In the age of AIDS, anybody's blood spurting in any direction had become problematic.

Then there's the matter of the glass itself. In the movies, that’s no more real glass than it is real blood. It's an illusion that doesn't work at all in real life. In all cases, not just ones like this, it is vitally imperative that each and every one of us is totally clear on the difference between life and the movies. Or the news. Or the rumor mill. Many such illusions festoon the Spectacle. None should be taken at face value, especially this one. This one can get you seriously hurt. Or worse. Do not put your hand through real glass, ever. Ever. No matter what. I cannot stress it too strongly. This applies also to heads. It's extremely dangerous even when done right, and it can easily go wrong. Above all, do not allow your own personal head to be put through a window by somebody else. It’s very bad luck and makes a dreadful mess. Just don't do it.

The other guy’s head is a different matter. But that’s your call and not mine, or for that matter, his either. Just be careful of your hands should you decide to do it. I am not recommending that you do it. Really, I’m not. That would be incitement, which is a crime. Besides, it's barely worth the risks involved. There are much safer, easier and far less complicated ways to get your point across than a mess of bloody glass. Common sense tells us that putting somebody's head through a glass window is a fairly simple thing. It is not. Serious complications may well arise. Common sense also tells us the earth is flat. So fuck common sense. Better we use reason, science and the accumulated wisdom of the Ancestors. When all three agree, then make decisions. In the meantime, wait, watch and listen, and the truth will seek you out. Sometimes it will even sneak up behind you and smack you in the head. This is always a sub-optimal outcome. Choosing a tactic that may generate a sub-optimal outcome if executed incorrectly, is not to be undertaken impulsively.

Unlike some of our enemies, anti-fascists do not act impulsively. Actions have consequences, so we think things all the way through before we act. Well, most of the time, anyway. There are reasons forthis. For example, if in the course of a broken glass event you wound up needing stitches, and went to a local ER, questions would certainly be asked, especially if a head needing stitches happened to have showed up a bit earlier. And if some guy had shown up at the morgue with his throat cut (which is always a risk when a head goes through glass), the questions would be even more pointed. I'm not making a moral judgement here. I'm just making an objective observation. Head through glass? It sounds easy-peasy, but in real life it's quite problematic, and not just for the head in question.

Nazi Bob didn’t even get that far. It would have been poetic justice if just once it had been his own head, and not one of his bricks, that went through Bound Together’s window. But windows cost money, there were witnesses, and the rap for thump therapy is pretty light weight compared to accidentally cutting a throat. That could easily be construed as manslaughter, if not worse.

So Nazi Bob didn’t get his head put through a window that night. Sorry, but that's the truth of the matter. I doubt he was sober enough to appreciate how lucky he’d been. In his drunken haze, he had even failed to notice that there was a meeting going on inside. It hadn’t occurred to him that there might be a reason the lights were on after business hours. They're not called boneheads for nothing. Some things they just have to learn the hard way.

At the first sound of Nazi Bob pounding on glass, everyone at the meeting piled out onto the sidewalk and pursued him up Haight Street with great vigor and alacrity. He got as far as the corner. He was alone. His erstwhile kammerad had run off in the other direction, abandoning Bob to his fate. That’s the kind of men these fascists are. They're cowards. That’s why they run in packs. 'Meine Ehre heißt Treue' myass. These are no master race. These are losers, looking for something else to lose at. They just lack the suss to figure it out on their own. They need to be shown.

Fortunately, it’s not all that difficult, especially when they're alone and surrounded. Bullies hate it when it's them that's surrounded. But there he was. It would have been neither necessary, sporting, nor honorable to rat pack a drunk, even a Nazi, especially in public. It would have shown very poor form. Rat packing is the Nazi way. Anarchists are not Nazis. Anarchists are civilized, honorable people. On occasion, we are even chivalrous, especially when there are witnesses. At least we were back then. Practical circumstance had yet to fully enlighten us to the realpolitik at work in the anti-fascist project. Chivalry has no place in reaplolitik. Besides, there were those pesky witnesses. So a single volunteer stepped up and took care of business. Let’s call him 'Donny'.

Donny had gone to Canada to avoid serving in the Viet Nam war. He was far from alone. Hundreds of thousands of men evaded the draft by fleeing the country or by failing to register. Years later, President Jimmy Carter granted them unconditional pardons. So Donny came home, went back to school and became a librarian. He’s a soft-spoken, mild-mannered guy. To this day, I’ve never heard him raise his voice.

(cont.)

#neoNazis #skinheads

"The fascist skinhead 'Nazi Bob' Heick had been shamed off Haight Street after being humiliated in a physical confrontation by a skinny, middle aged, hippie wearing granny glasses and a pony tail down to his waist. Heick had broken the window of Bound Together Anarchist Collective Bookstore for the last time. But alas, we hadn't heard the last of him or of his organization, the American Front.

The white power movement was at an inflection point. The mostly rural, socially conservative, Country and Western fans that made up the KKK/Nazi/Christian Identity base was aging and faced declining membership. Young urban/suburban skinhead racists shared the white power movement's racism, but practiced a much different culture. The good old boys line danced to C&W. The skinheads moshed to hardcore punk. They both liked to drink beer before, during, and after. They both thought highly of their own complexion. They both liked to fight. It was a perfect match. Bringing these two groups together drove a bunch of neo-Nazi praxis at the time. That it was multi-cultural praxis presented a degree of irony that was apparently lost on both of them. Nuance isn't their strong suit." -- excerpt from my (at yet) unpublished book *Aryan Woodstock*