The Air Is Spicy

Hungry people don't stay hungry for long
They get hope from fire and smoke as the weak grow strong
- Rage Against The Machine (New Millennium Homes 1999)

Your cheek twitches, your right legs starts to wobble, you feel the adrenaline dump kick in. The bulls in blue are marching upon you and yours, you know they train day in day out for violence, they have strength, material, training, and will.. You have a just cause and solidarity. What do you do?

Most protest marches are little more than a a cathartic release for the liberal left. Placards, chants, the odd speech, that was until they came up to the target, usually if it's a square or park, you'll be softly kettled and allowed to expend the energy.

America is experiencing a rampant escalation in fascism. Masked militant gangs sent by the state are brutality detaining people, not some obscure number or event far away on the border territory. These kidnappings are on your street, it's your neighbour, your work mate, your girlfriends mum, your fella's auntie, the lad you say 'aight to on the bus. Fascism is here and it's tearing your community to shreds.

ICE has kidnapped over 100 neighbours in 72 hours, supported by the alphabet mafia, DHS, FBI, DEA, LAPD, the raids took place at seven or more locations, Home Depot stores, a doughnut shop, clothing warehouse... could be anyone's workplace.

The call went out and people gathered, in their thousands to march on the MDC in Downtown.

The crowd here is a mixture of organisers, activists, but more importantly neighbours, locals, and family. The collective of thousands has marched on a critical piece of oppressive infrastructure with shared purpose. The first badges you roll into are BOP and DHS (probably), a defensive posture to keep you back, stop you storming the Bastile, they ebb and flow, darting out for snatch and grabs, pulling back to the shield line.

Then the LAPD arrive, form a line and start indiscriminately firing into the crowd as the march down up you, they turn the air spicy, and march through the fog to smash batons into your community. OBEY. They train day in day out for violence, they have strength, material, training, and will.. You have a just cause and solidarity. What do you do?

LA decided to resist.

The battle at the MDC ran deep into the night, the following day saw large gathering in Paramount and elsewhere, A Waymo, automatic taxi was torched in the middle of an intersection and became a feature point for celebration. On Sunday, the civil bodies had got their shit together and called for a demo on City Hall, where the journos descended. Elsewhere radicals and Mexican communities took a freeway (Lenin wannabe Hasan felt this was a good place for his stream), The parasites descend in.

The state too had now got time to organise and by now detachments of the LAS,CHP, HSI,2000 or more National Guard and at least 700 Marines are all deployed. A silencing fist. Governor Newsom, Mayor Bass and Prez Trump are all a bickering over whose got the authority for this or that. On the streets all the badges are essentially the same, sure we could parse method and manner but they are all the boot of oppression.

Worth noting that the LAPD has continued with it's long established policy horrific police brutality, attacking people on the ground, indiscriminately firing into crowds, purposefully attacking people with munitions at close range, riding horses over people, all of that horrific shit. They've also made a predominant display of attacking journalists. There are several piece of footage of clearly intentional targetting of journalists, which of course the medias respond to in the most meek tones. Neo-liberalism never one to question the fascists who prop them up.

Some folks are compiling a list tho as the “California Press Rights Tracking Doc (Consolidated)”.

An Anarchist Response
There is a branch of Anarchism that chafes at the site of a flag, displace solidarity with the oppressed engaged in an active insurrectionary moment, an uprising and resistance with mewling about “popular uprisings”. They did the same in Belarus, Hong Kong, and Palestine. They'll use nuance and exacting language to hollow out solidarity. On the opposite of this we have the riot porn enjoyers, political purpose and meaningful drivers come a distant second to a sick photo of a burning car and some moderately attractive person looking all militant.

For me, I think the only people who matter are those on the streets and those they stand for and they have took to militant defence with targetted purpose. The will come from across the political and ethnic spectrum, politically conscious and otherwise, together with a solid call to "Set Them Free" and "Chinga La Migra"

I'm not sure we should even call these moments “riots”, the word implies something erratic and chaotic, I don't see a riot, I see resistance. These arn't rioters, these are resistance fighters. The violence and destruction specifically aimed at the infrastructure of the state with passing aggression at the capitalist systems which oppress us. Waymo autotaxis, the odd bank frontage, fuck 'em. This isn't an explosion of widespread discontent (which would be entirely just) but moments of liberation.

So obviously the powerful and their sycophantic throng are screaming about “paid protestors” and “outsiders”, sharing conspiracies alongside footage of mutual aid collectives sharing water and masks, or keenly documenting the bricks home depo obviously put on either side of the barrier infront of their loading dock, obviously to stop any truck theft or mass looting should things go that way, both now converted to vague “whose funding this”.

No one is funding this.
People are coming together and standing up against the rise of fascism.
You're either with them or against them, neutrality and silence only serve the aggressor.

I firmly believe that the Anarchists role here, as a minority element of political conscience and militancy is to run supportive logistics and defensive screens depending on capacity and affinity inclination. Disperse informations and if on site, take ad hoc roles to educate others on best practice, teaching via example and osmosis.

If you are elsewhere, you should be coordinating with others to spread the fight across the entire country. Every ICE raid leading to a immediate response from local organisers. Build community networks, start talking to each other. You do not want to start organising your community 30 minutes after a raid. Lay the ground work.

Are you a street medic? Get supplies together.
Got a stack of foam shields in the shed, get them ready to move.

One of the most beautiful things for me as a distant observer, is the lack of party banners and flag waving. As much as so many anarchists are "fire enjoyers" for me I love to see community action and it is overwhelmingly clear even to a passing observor that the foundation of this moment is in the community. Ad hoc demonstrations, response to ICE deployments and staging areas. We anarchists need to help normalise this and help folk empower themselves.

I've seen speeches calling for folk to join organisations and despite being in some, and recognising their utility, in truth this mass movement stuff will be used to subdue your revolutionary and insurrectionary energies. You're better to form Signal groups with the folk you meet on the streets and set up a neighbourhood party to meet those you didn't. Talk to each other about building small affinities and autonomies (what ever the contextual meaningful vernacular you use) not for any broad political stratergy but the direct tactical necessity of coming together in defense when you need too - you are going to need too. This comes first, broader organising to shift the political tempreture to one more egalitarian comes second.

Some specific advice:
The two most important pieces of advice for anyone involved in these actions are hydrate and stay mobile.

Presuming you're on that, remember one big demonstration is piss easy to contain and control. It could have hundreds of thousands in it, but as long as it stays together it is weak. Spread out and create a thousand points of disruption. Every large liberal demo should be skirted with dozens of smaller protests, a hundred flash points, unless you are very specifically trying to hold specific ground, be like water.

If you're holding specific ground, build barricades, the lines of bricks, Cheval de frise, static mobility obstacles by any terminology are great. They provide a clear periphery for your companions to rally behind and slow the roll of any attackers. Unless you are particularly industrious and go full Paris Commune or 94 Rigaer Straße, you should expect your barricades to slow the down but not hold them back.

Avoid bridges. Bridges are kettles with half the job done for them. If you see the bulls coming, get the fuck off the bridge. Why the liberal protestors of the UK insist on perennial “Block the Bridge” protests is beyond me. I for one do not enjoy being boxed in until the energy fades, you need a piss and you're just after some scran. No, stay the fuck off bridges. Notably holding one side of them and letting the cops pin themselves in is great, especially if you have folk on the other side too.

As much as possible build affinity and ad hoc comradely relationships. Buddy up with someone and stick together, find another few, and form a brick, you are now a tactical unit which can act autonomously or as part of the wider Bloc. Communicate with others and normalise active messages sharing. Unless you have a specific specialist skill or interest, be fluid with your “role”. Identify what is needed and take it up.

No one doing a run for water? Get on it. The defensive line need more bodies? Jump to it. No one handling the tear gas? Step up.

The camera is a cop. News professionals, “citizen journos”, streamers, and fellow members of the resistance, trying to de-arrest with one hand with their mobile in the other. These are massive liabilities. As are cybertrucks, Waymos, and street furniture.

We need to have a conscious culture of passive and active resistance to the camera. It is your enemy. Sure we share footage because it is there, but in truth the only cameras at demos should be, at a push, Legal Observers, affiliated, known, trained. Folk who are onside and there to collect evidence not a great profile picture or tomorrows front page. Even here best practice is rarely followed with “blocking” of the day where medias are uploaded to a safe point and erased on the local device periodically, screened that night and faces covered, for anything public or put into legal defence evidence files as appropriate.

There ARE use cases where having an “anarcho news crew” might be appropriate but they should be heavily flagged, telegraph their actions, been keen to consent and aiming themselves externally.

Photographers, social documentarians, artsy types and journos should at best only find a welcome after the heat has passed.

This very much needs to be a set paradigm amongst us all whether you are political or not. This doesn't need to be adversarial, just a “no cameras eh” usually gives folk a good reminder and normalises it. Usually only the right leaning streamer types get insistant about their rights to film. Well fuck their “rights”, those end when they put threat to the safety of you and yours. Move from off camera, push them out of the demo, make everyone else aware of who they are. Some folk smash, some spray paint, some steal, some stand infront of with a flag, it's not for me to tell you the method, act to your own conscience but each and every one of these drips is a threat to everyone around you.

I could rant all day, but I'll shut up here. As I type no doubt out there, fighting the good fight, across the US there are huge anti-Trump demonstrations, and around the world vast solidarity demonstrations with the people of Palestine and the Flotilla. It's beautiful to see. Get out there if you can.

Peter Ó Máille

Useful Reading/Resources:
Some links that could do with mass sharing and reading at times like this. Below it, a collection of footage/photographs from the cameras that shouldn't be there.

Know Your Rights materials (Password:Chingalamigra)
https://cryptpad.fr/drive/#/2/drive/view/58FTmZDoeHTnMukucB8+X-x9BPexNcS32queTsnMEH4/p/
De-Arrest Primer
https://www.sproutdistro.com/catalog/zines/direct-action/de-arrest-primer
The Black Flag Catalyst Revolt Guide
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/bfc-revolt-guide
Eight Things You Can Do to Stop ICE
https://crimethinc.com/2025/02/11/eight-things-you-can-do-to-stop-ice
What to Do if You’re Exposed to Tear Gas
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/what-to-do-if-you-re-exposed-to-tear-gas
Trauma Medical Gear guide
https://iaffaiorg.wordpress.com/2020/08/31/skills-for-revolutionary-survival-1-trauma-medical-gear/
A Demonstrator’s Guide to Understanding Riot Munitions
https://crimethinc.com/2021/01/04/a-demonstrators-guide-to-understanding-riot-munitions-and-how-to-defend-against-them

Support for the coming wave of court prescriptions:
Immigrant Defenders Law Center
https://give.immdef.org/give/545119/#!/donation/checkout
LA Jail Support / Bail Fund
https://account.venmo.com/u/jailsupportla
Unión del Barrio
https://uniondelbarrio.org/main/support-our-work-my-making-a-donation

Archive of photos and videos.
These are pulled across social media and in pretty much every case we're unsure of original author, if you'd like credit, please get in contact with us. We are only sharing medias which has already had a wide dispersal and as such have already become a security liability. If they are incorrectly sectioned, please let us know.

Curiously some video formats arn't uploading, So some missing vids, looking into it.

Friday – Ad hoc resistance to raids and a march of thousand on the MDC

Saturday – Demonstration in the Paramount district and ad hoc resistance against staging posts.

Sunday – A demonstration at City Hall and a Downtown highway takeover.