![](https://refusefascism.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/fascists-at-anarchist-bookfair-150x150.jpg)
On Sunday, September 24th, a group of about 30 nazis gathered outside a community center where the Houston Anarchist Book Fair was being held. Wearing white shirts, khaki pants and bandanas over their faces, they held a banner with the slogan, “For Race and Nation,” and demanded to be let in, lighting flares, shouting racist chants and challenging organizers to come out and fight. People inside the community center held the doors shut and refused to let them in.
This was all livestreamed on the Nazi website The Daily Stormer, which reported that the “communist faggots” cowered in fear instead of coming out for a confrontation. (For more on this attack see “White Supremacists Attack An Anarchist Book Fair In Houston,” Real Progressive Front 10/2/17).
On that same Sunday in a different part of the country, a mob of about 40 fascists threatened Revolution Books in Berkeley. Revolution Books is a revolutionary communist bookstore that has, among other missions, served as an informal organizing center for the protests against the so-called Free Speech Week, actually a Fascist Speech Week in which the campus of UC Berkeley was virtually under a police state so that fascists could come and spew their poison and terrorize students. The mob chanted and banged on the windows when the staff locked the door.
These USA-chanting MAGA fascists, many of whom had also been part of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville and had close ties with white supremacist Kyle Chapman, were hungry for a fight. They yelled misogynist and homophobic slurs and said, “[W]e know where you are and we’re coming to get you.” They returned four times in two days and again livestreamed their attacks, modeling for thousands of their supporters how to plan and carry out the kind of street thuggery that is needed to enforce and spread fascism into every corner of society. (See “Right-wingers Target Berkeley’s Revolution Books,” Berkeleyside, 9/27/17).
After Milo’s fascist “free speech” day, a mob of Brownshirts – er, Redhats – assaulted @RevolutionBksB. Visit the store Monday, show support pic.twitter.com/PzWG4qp1js
— Refuse Fascism (@RefuseFascism) September 25, 2017
These livestreamed attacks are designed to shut down opposition and spread fear. Recently in Austin, a coffee shop that allowed a Refuse Fascism group to meet there received threatening phone calls. Imagine all the places that could become targets for fascists, with the understanding that their ultimate goal is ethnic cleansing and genocide, a country that is for them only – white, male, Christian supremacists. These are the street enforcers of this movement and its values, and they do not operate in a vacuum. This is what has been unleashed and emboldened under the fascist Trump/Pence regime, and it won’t stop at political bookstores and book fairs.
It is important, inspiring, and very heartening that the attacks on the Anarchist Book Fair and Revolution Books in Berkeley were resisted successfully. In Berkeley, a city councilperson, an animal rights group, and the local business association were among those standing up to defend Revolution Books. Collective self-defense and resistance is necessary to check these fascists. But it is not enough. The real strength of their movement comes from their leaders in the White House. Without driving out the top fascists in power, Trump and Pence, the fascist takeover of society and government will accelerate.
There is a way, and plan to do that! Starting November 4th, with protests growing day after day and night after night until they are gone from power. We are at a crossroads. Which side will you stand on?
From the Call for Nov 4:
… ON NOVEMBER 4, 2017:
We will gather in the streets and public squares of cities and towns across this country, at first many thousands declaring that this whole regime is illegitimate and that we will not stop until our single demand is met: This Nightmare Must End: the Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!
Our protest must grow day after day and night after night—thousands becoming hundreds of thousands, and then millions—determined to act to put a stop to the grave danger that the Trump/Pence Regime poses to the world by demanding that this whole regime be removed from power…