Anti-nazi, pro-liberation mobilization in Los Angeles April 17

The "National Socialist Movement" (NSM), a neo-nazi formation with a base in Riverside CA and units around the US, has issued a call for a national gathering of their organization in Los Angeles. It features a rally on Saturday, April 17 at noon on the lawn of L.A. City Hall, for which they have already applied for and received a permit. They will be bringing a substantial number of uniformed nazi thugs and boneheads from around the US as part of their so-called "Reclaim the Southwest Campaign." They pose a clear and serious threat of racist and sexist violence, which always follows open nazi organizing. Two years ago, when a similar nazi group rallied in L.A. to commemorate the death of a founder of the racist Silent Brotherhood Aryan underground, several of their members were involved in a racist shooting incident on their way into town from the Inland Empire.

Open Nazis are not the main enemy in a struggle against colonialism, capitalism and imperialism, but they are a significant element, particularly in a period of ongoing economic crisis and political instability within the belly of the beast. The National Socialist Movement and similar open fascist forces are seeking greater political legitimacy, as well as influence within larger white nationalist and reactionary social and political forces, such as the anti-immigrant movement, the "tea-baggers," and the re-emerging militia movement.

The NSM and similar nazi forces base themselves on two key elements: they present themselves as a paramilitary type operation prepared to use violence (and in fact are violence-prone, promoting racist, anti-immigrant, anti-gay and anti-communist thuggery and bullying). And they claim to be anti-capitalist revolutionaries (as did Hitler). Liberal opposition, which tends to portray them as "extremists," and only to defend "multi-racial democracy and tolerance" within the existing system, essentially concedes these strong points to the nazis. Liberal anti-fascism also relies on the police to "maintain peace," conceding the power of the state, which always protects the nazis in the name of "free speech." It is essential to expose the cowardly nature of the Nazis, as well as the reactionary, pro-imperial nature of their politics, by manifesting an opposition based on pro-liberation, anti-colonial and anti-imperialist politics, supporting the right to self-determination and self-defense, and independent direct action. But it's not simply a question of what tactics to use against Nazis.

Too often, even militant anti-racists, socialists and anarchists opposed to the Nazis have operated without regard to questions of self-determination and international solidarity, functioning independently of the leadership of anti-colonial liberation forces. It is essential, here in Los Angeles, that opposition to the nazis be based on support for indigenous and Mexicano sovereignty, African liberation, migrant rights and de-colonization for Asian and other oppressed people. The provocation by the NSM provides an important opportunity to bring home the point that such counter-action and initiatives must be based on such principles and on anti-colonial leadership.

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