Hicks showing up to repel antifa isn’t a joke. “In the face of urban insurrection, increasing numbers of irregular troops muster in the provinces” is a familiar pattern. Unless either

1. They are suppressed by main force, which would either result in the start of the long-planned shooting war or the suppressing troops defecting to them, or
   
2. Existing governments convincingly crack down on antifascism, in the face of impending elections
   

I strongly expect they will attempt to seize control locally, purge their territories of what they take to be antifa, and begin to raise armies to retake the cities.

Everyone involved in leftist activism, known as leftists, media workers, nonprofit workers, visible minorities, as well as anyone who doesn’t want to be around for this, in the Northwest outside of the I-5 corridor from Seattle to Eugene should have supplies and plans to relocate to it, by multiple routes. Alternately, if you are east of Idaho, consider taking refuge with the Mormon Church.

Eastern Washington, rural Oregon, and Northern Idaho have well-developed alternative government structures already. Even in places where “oh those guys, but they don’t run things around here”, the people who “do” have strong professional networks, those guys have guns and training and can press that advantage. Spokane, Kalispell, Whitefish, Sandpoint, even at extremes Missoula and Bend may not be secure.

Plan ahead. This is important. Reblog freely.

Now, what would the competent way be for the regime to deal with this?

• String things out, let them develop without agitating, let all the strands separate out and independently end up at different places - the Atlanta black activists, the Portland white anarchists, the NYC bluechekists, the Midwestern moms that want to end gosh-darn racism. The people who want to abolish America, abolish the police, structurally reform the police, soften them up a bit.
  
• Encourage them to come to their own demands, without a single coordinating force. Make sure they notice these are different.
• Encourage cooptable “organic” leadership in NGO-leftist type crowds
• Draw less radical elements’ attention to the unpalatability of the ultras, legitimating their suppression.
• Shave support down further with concessions compatible with regime stability.
• Keep in mind security forces, antagonists, and neutrals will all be increasingly shaved down by a plague.
• When unsatisfied crowds are whittled down enough, engage in provocation to illustrate that their desires alienate more moderate elements, justifying their suppression.
• You can island-hop and leave issues as problems for local Democratic administrations, wedging their elite liberal and street left branches. If pockets of Seattle are autonomous zones, well, that’s a problem for the city government with a Socialist on it. Lewis-McChord can protect Boeing.
  
• If insurgents claim some information channels, keep others open. Twitter might constrict, but Facebook knows it’s the conservative social media network and can shift operations to their largest market of India if under labor threat. (No one remembers tumblr still exists.) The NYT can go Pravda, but in Pittsburgh they’re purging their journalists in response. Deadspin already purged.

Now, this barely accounts for the plague, not at all for the election, it requires a coordination among local governments greater than during the Occupy movement but also with a federal government headed by Donald Trump.

kontextmaschine:

kontextmaschine:

• French Revolution - deposes national government, several waves of terror, co-opted by messianic figure who suppresses unrest with anti-personnel artillery into crusading empire, remakes much of advanced world, ultimately defeated, the heirs of the pre-uprising elites restore the old regime but it’s never the same
• June Rebellion of 1832 (the Les Mis one) - heartwarming unity, suppressed by military force
  
• 1848 Revolutions - suppressed by military force one by one, some advances in bourgeois nationalism, extensive systems of secret police and political crime established to suppress future repeats
• Paris Commune - formed under foreign siege, not applicable
• Russian Revolution of 1905 - after initial attempts at suppression catalyze more unrest, Tsar makes concessions to liberals, managing to split them from radicals. Remnants suppressed with military force but return in 1917.
• Russian Revolution of 1917 - after defeating war-weakened central government and resisting expeditionary forces from foreign states, eventually forms Leninist government
  
• Spartacist Uprising - radicals transition to armed insurrection with partial buy-in from more moderate leftists. Undermanned government suppresses them by loosing private rightist veterans’ militias
• post-war Italy - country held together in very loose federalism with drastic variation in local political climate from hard-right to hard-left, socialists, communists, anarchists, and fascists all maintain organizations, power bases, autonomist zones, and parties. National electoral system is rigged to maintain function as a client state of foreign power anyway. System lubricated by occasional political and state terrorism, extensive corruption, and organized crime.
  

• July Rebellion of 1830 - attempts by king to suppress bourgeois coalition of urban workers and non-noble propertyholders, through force and law, yield further unrest, which escalates to armed mob violence. Regime forces yield, king is deposed, bourgeois government and rights established. With 1832 and 1848, inspires total redesign of city in mid-1800s to render less capturable by mobs.
• May 68 (Paris, 1968) - initial effort at suppression fails, country experiences two-months largely peaceful suspension of regular order, government makes concessions, regular order resumes, event largely understood in cultural terms
  
• Long Hot Summer 1967/MLK Assassination Riots 1968 - unrest aligns along racial lines. Suppressed by military force. Concessions granted in Civil Rights Act of 1968 and others. Whites increasingly leave inner city to blacks, becomes chronic “urban crisis”. Nixon elected, offers mix of concessions and repression while snuffing out resource streams into inner cities. Nixon deposed in parliamentary maneuvering. Intermittent political violence while crime rises. By 1980s black organized crime has established substantial hegemony. Reagan undercuts enforcement mechanisms of civil rights law while continuing blockade on urban funding. In 1992 Clinton elected, government suppresses organized crime with police force, resumes urban funding streams through allied neoliberal “New Democrat” local machines. Cities recover, whites return.
  

• [anon submitted] 1911 (Xinhai) Revolution: Crumbling government falls quickly, mad scramble for power leads to several decades of ineffective military despotism and subversion by “sympathetic” foreign powers, 20+ years of constant warfare, invasion by a nearby state while internal strife leaves the nation unable to defend itself, Communist dictatorship.
• 1973 Athens Polytechnic - suppressed by military force. As the regime moves to reorient itself in response, coup ultimately leads to war with Turkey and the fall of the junta. The successor regime recognizes universities as autonomous of state power. In the form of “Exarcheia”, Athens Polytechnic shelters much of Greece’s anarchist capacity.
• 1989 Tiananmen Square - suppressed by military force. Extensive systems of secret police and political crime reinforced to suppress future repeats, including damnatio memoriae.