Far right militia membership may be nakedly staffed with cops and protected by law, but leftist militias exist in the margins and in the shadows. This isn’t without good reason: American leftist organizations have been infiltrated and crushed by the State’s cruelest tactics for the last century and change. Even strictly defensive groups like the JBGC and HPNGC have no central leadership, not even sharing their real names with each other to protect against infiltration. If you aren’t a vetted member of a forward-facing mutual aid group, or folks in the community can’t vouch for you going back years, many leftist gun groups won’t answer an email.
(This isn’t to say you shouldn’t reach out, and there are plenty of leftist gun groups nationwide that do fantastic work every day, but don’t be surprised by some cloak and dagger during onboarding.)
The Socialist Rifle Association will tell you we are NOT a militia. Discussion of direct action of any kind in community forums is strictly prohibited and will get you tossed out of there, owing to the aforementioned COINTELPRO paranoia. During onboarding you’ll hear something along the lines of, “conduct yourself as though we’ve already been infiltrated because we probably have been.” The darkest part of that advice, to me, is that it’s perfectly reasoned.
It goes much deeper than just fending off undercover cops all the time. Suppressing communism is actually the beating heart of every standing law which imposes restrictions on “free speech;” American government has always been in private enterprise’s pocket, so it’s in our high courts’ interest to cripple labor organization and that’s the easiest way to do it. On the matter of why leftists are transparently targeted by these supposed “universal” restrictions while right wingers mysteriously get away with whatever—notably, the mind-boggling Brandenburg case where the Supreme Court suddenly overturned decades of anti-communist precedents to keep one Klansman out of prison—my friend Himani explained perfectly: “white supremacy is not a threat to government, but communism is.”
What I’m saying is that being a leftist is not safe; being an outspoken leftist is high-risk; and being a militant leftist is a death sentence. So unless I’m in the company of a very select few, which isn’t often, I keep everything to myself.
Obviously I don’t live in total secrecy; my ideology is certainly not a secret by any means. I’m outspoken about the things I believe in, for better or worse. I have very close friends who know my politics and places where I volunteer, and my nickname in one of my social groups is “Commie [my name]”. One of my good friends is in commercial property development and I often tell him that should we seize power, instead of summarily executing him I would allow him to surrender his assets to the state and serve a life sentence in the mines. We both know I’m not joking but we laugh anyway.
But in private, as our situation gets more dire, so too does the level of secrecy I have to keep. I plot, scheme, read, train, shoot, panic, hope, dream, keeping nearly all of it safely in my head for fear of protecting it. I spend days at a time not speaking my true thoughts aloud. It’s weight that I carry alone and I wish I didn’t have to.
These thoughts are poisonous. I’m constantly searching for the boundary between vigilance and paranoia. I get spooked by cars on the road and take convoluted routes home to throw tails. Sometimes I stand silently in my hallway listening to my upstairs neighbors’ conversations. I keep a big sheet of floor paper at my apartment door because it’s loud as fuck and I can hear someone walking on it (also great for muddy boots). OPSEC, VPNs, PGP, Tor, encrypted mobile comms, HAM radios, burner phones, serial numbers, aliases. I know it’s better to be safe than sorry, but this price seems steep.
Before I say this next bit, I want to make clear that I am blessed to be surrounded by close friends, leftists, and organizers. Many of the folks I know are heavily involved in direct action and I have so much respect and admiration for them. I’m privileged beyond measure to get to spend time learning from (and being inspired by) so many absolutely amazing people.
But when it comes to revolution…even among good friends, it isn’t something I can talk about, or even around, because frankly it isn’t safe. It’s like a bad word. The phones could be listening, someone might hear you, shh! And they’re right: alienating myself is one thing, but getting ratted on is another. We’re kept starving so we’ll turn on each other for scraps and however cynical it may feel to say, I think even my closest comrades would probably grass me under slight duress. I have a small circle of radicals whom I can talk freely around, but that’s it.
I’ve been pretty blunt about my opinions on nonviolence and spend most of my time here bashing white activism; but in this context, I’m actually hesitant to do so. I’d hate to make people think I’m shirking responsibility or letting these people’s nonsense police my own course of action, but it is a reality that affects me and something I have to be cautious of. So often in the past I’ve been conversing with a (white) close friend, a comrade, and at the very moment I advocated action everything changed. I’m suddenly regarded with suspicion; I’m reckless, I’m not thinking clearly, I’m this and that.
“Oh, you wanted to do something about this? I thought we were just complaining about it…I didn’t realize we were so far apart on this issue.”
This sticking point of (white) nonviolence is equal parts indoctrination, fear, and egomaniacal confusion. In a society built on genocide and poisoned by capitalism to the point of being stripped of any coherent morality, the only thing left to make (white) people feel like they’re a good person anymore is nonviolence. Millions of people on the margins are starving and dying every day while homes sit empty, barbaric colonial racism is baked into every layer of culture and politics, our railroads are laid over mass graves…“but I would never do that.”
In fact, as I write this very essay, a (white) leftist woman just left a very long and vaguely condescending comment on my last post, telling me that actually not all (white) leftists need the conviction to die for a cause because we need “dreamers” too (the dream, Christi, is your notion that the rest of us will fight our way out of this shit while you safely sit at home waiting for the spoils).
But I digress. I keep it to myself the vast majority of the time. Luigi may have brought this country together for the first time since 9/11, but the prison sentence he’ll receive will certainly discourage most from following him. People are just too scared to jump.
My wish to confide in someone, to find support, to know I have brothers in arms who would die for me, isn’t just confined to violent fantasies of working class revolution. As I make peace with my own death, my heart searches for closure too. I feel some sort of emotional equivalent to that sensation of coming up on shrooms, minus the puking, when colors pop and the trees start to shimmer. For the first time, I’m appreciating the world around me—savoring it, even. I stop my car on the side of the road to look at all kinds of shit now: the moon, the forest, red-shouldered hawks, even cars passing. I think of my family and friends more. Part of me knows I may not be long for this world and suddenly everything means a little more to me.
Revolution isn’t just sacrifice and bloody civil war; it’s love too. Revolutionaries have always been wont to throw themselves into passionate romance with one another in the heat of war. Tales of espionage are rife with chapters full of seduction and betrayal. Intimacy and sexuality are as much our truest expression of community as they are a cruel weapon of war. I feel a profound urge to express this part of myself too; not a desire for sex, but for connection. I imagine the relief I would feel if I could lay on my lover’s chest and pour out everything I’ve just written and more with no fear of alienation or betrayal or reprisal, or being stabbed to death in my sleep; if I could love with all of me, leaving nothing unsaid or held back; and in the morning, hold my lover’s face in my hands one last time and say it all again, then go off to fight and die.
Love is powerful and transcendent and inspires selfless action, which is why intimate connection with one another in all forms is brutally suppressed under fascism. Imagine if the love we feel for our (white) partners and children—the ferocity with which we would protect them—applied not just to our household, but to our neighborhoods. Would things have ever gotten this bad?
We are so far apart in the most frustrating ways. I’m not a usurper or an insurrectionist or a threat to society; I’m a guy who sees the writing on the wall and will do anything to intervene. I desperately want a militant community surrounding me. I don’t care if I lose my job or my freedom or even my life to be honest, as long as it’s for something. This shit shouldn’t be hard. If a quarter of this country went on a general strike, we’d solve most problems in about five days, but we can’t even say hi to our neighbors anymore. Half the country is trying to kill us all and the other half is smugly enabling them, and those of us in the margins are waiting to be assassinated.
So for the time being I walk a lonely path, whether real or of my own making. To any of you out there who feel like me, with the weight of the world sitting on you as you booby trap your front door, know that I am here, and there are bound to be many more of us just waiting for the push. As Che said, “it is not necessary to wait for all the necessary conditions for revolution; the insurrection will create them.”
Will end with a bar from my boy Johnny, and yes it’s a complete non sequitur:
“sorry for the late response, its just that we were never meant to live so fast”
In the past few months, I have never felt so alone. As I venture further into my life, I find my values shift to community, family and connection. Thank you for your essay. It's a somber message, but I'm overjoyed to see there's others out there.
This was stunning… wow. ❤️