Our Voices: On the Praireland “Chill”

Peter Bergel

Salem Regional Indivisible, Indivisible One Million Rising, The PeaceWorker (Founder/Editor) / Salem

As with much else the Trump administration is doing, these sentences are clearly intended to have a chilling effect on use of our First Amendment rights. Our answer has been – and must remain – do not back off. In fact, double down. That is the only way to face down autocracy.

That said, caution, group action and openness are our best bets for staying as safe as possible.

Caution means thinking through our actions, including asking ourselves:

1. How are the authorities likely to respond?
2. Am I prepared to remain nonviolent when/if they do? Nonviolence tends to be safer than violence, is accessible to more ordinary people and makes a better impression on those watching.
3. Can I find a way to accomplish my action’s goals without triggering unnecessarily excessive force from the opposition? (This means being crystal clear about what I am trying to accomplish).
4. Am I prepared to accept negative consequences for what I choose to do?

Group action means working with as many others as possible. There is often safety in numbers because it is harder to crack down on a large group than on one or a few individuals.

Openness is often controversial in activist circles, but my experience tells me that the authorities usually know what we are planning to do whether or not we are public about it, so secrecy often does nothing other than hamper our own efforts. If the secrecy does happen to be successful and we take the authorities by surprise, they are more likely to respond with excessive force driven by anger, chagrin or embarrassment. If our tactics require secrecy to be feasible, maybe we should consider seeking alternate tactics that still accomplish our goal.

Bobby Sample

Dunes City Indivisible, COIN Comms Team / Florence

That’s an interesting point you make against secrecy as a matter of safety. My assumption is likewise that openness will minimize suspicion in the short term and cause less trouble in the long run. Certain parties will persist in characterizing antifascists as terrorists, toward the same goals as calling us less patriotic than the fascists. We might as well appear in the open to keep sensible people from falling for the lies.

When it comes to making noise against ICE, the openness position may be born of privilege. I’m not likely to be kidnapped off the street by federal agents, even while nowhere near a rally, based on my skin color. While the Praireland case at least ostensibly followed due process (to deal with actual vandalism and rioting), many ICE abductees enjoy far less legal protection in their experience. So as a rule, I can’t judge activists who at least attempt some level of secrecy for self protection.

If I try to break our question of safety down to the simplest guidelines, I wonder whether crowd size and mix are the likeliest risk indicators. I keep thinking of when the feds attacked a large crowd of protesters in Portland in January, with our own COIN leaders in attendance. The claimed reason for this was because some of the crowd got too close to an ICE facility. So crowd members who had nothing to do with however unruly some of them appeared — and maybe never saw what started the commotion — ran choking on tear gas, including children and the elderly.

We can’t know everyone personally nor answer for everyone else’s behavior, but some knowledge of the groups who are expected to converge on large protests, what has been communicated to all involved when invited to the rally, and some advance knowledge of local police involvement (as with our local No Kings protests), might help to a degree.

Terrie Martin

Oregon District 2 Indivisible, COIN Leadership Team / Medford

I am always incredibly disappointed when anyone brings a gun to what should be a peaceful protest. It is just an opportunity for things to go wrong. That said, it WAS texas, where everyone carries…

I’d like to say that, considering the “Antifa” label and Trump’s illegal executive order designating Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization, we should be able to rely on the Supreme Court to make this right in the end. but, judging from the past week of proclamations, that is not an assumption we should make.

We had a similar — but much more minor — case involving ORD2 Indivisible a few years back. A group of our followers decided to “chalk” messages on the sidewalk outside what was then Congressman Greg Walden’s office. Cameras caught them and one person was identified and charged with damaging public property. (The handyman who tried to clean up the spray chalk used a chemical instead of water, making it stick to the concrete. He insisted it was spray paint, intended to be permanent. It was not.) The building is owned by attorneys, so we lost the case and had to pay a fine as well as reimbursements to the attorneys for the handyman’s effort. It was a small thing, but it did “chill” some of our people as we were characterized as radicals who intended to harm public property. It is not against the law to chalk a public sidewalk. But they turned it into something uglier, just as they have in Texas. It certainly gives us pause every time someone suggests those type of actions.

Peter Bergel

Salem Regional Indivisible, Indivisible One Million Rising, The PeaceWorker (Founder/Editor) / Salem

There are some excellent arguments that can be made in support of secrecy as a requirement for resistance success. The Underground Railroad – one of the most effective resistance actions ever mounted in the US – depended on such secrecy that even today historians do not know the details of how it was operated. The many efforts carried out to protect Jews threatened by the Nazis all depended on secrecy. As you point out, Bobby, there are current examples that also depend on secrecy to be effective.

Nevertheless, I believe our default position should be that openness is stronger and safer than secrecy, if what we are trying to do can be done without secrecy. It is not a question of judging people who take a different position. I try to avoid doing that in most situations. It is a strategic question and needs to be considered as such. And as I said, I am fully aware that my view on this topic is quite controversial within the movement.

Justin Ludwig

Florence Indivisible, City Club of Florence, Florence Young Professionals, Florence ORganizes / Florence

Every day, people around the world participate in nonviolent protests for myriad causes. It requires discipline and restraint, especially in the face of authoritarians who may not respect the right to free speech, or are eager to find justification for mass arrests and violence.

That discipline doesn’t always come easily, especially when emotions are running high and real lives are at stake. This is why it’s so important to fully commit to a nonviolent practice and not bring weapons of any kind to these events.

The best defense against preventing cases like Prairieland in the future is transparency. This is how strategic nonviolent action moves the needle. By showing the public the reality of what’s happening. The goal is to reach undecided or uninterested people and bring them aboard to the cause. Let them understand that protesters are real, ordinary people just like you or me.

Wearing black clothes or masks may prevent identification, but it doesn’t help the overall image of the movement. It actually feeds into harmful narratives that protesters are dangerous or affiliated with terrorists. This is one reason why protesters in Oregon adopted the frog and other colorful (or silly!) imagery during actions last year.

It’s true that transparency may help authoritarians make arrests in the short term, but over time the wider public will see clearly the truth of the matter. Stomping out free speech is a bad look in America, and it doesn’t bring people to your side. Eventually, the truth wins.