The Activists
The first activists I spoke with who had descended from the Capitol were 2 women who referred to themselves as Praying Grandmas. They celebrated.
Above on the terrace: Philip Anderson is a conservative activist who had his 2 front teeth knocked out by the Berkeley Antifa led bloc before a rally he organized October 17th in San Francisco. Hate crime charges were filed in that case against the black bloc assailant.
At the Capitol, Philip emerged from the pepper spray & tear gas saying he was almost crushed in the crowd.
The Citizen Journalist
Conservative live streamer @VillainReport emerges from the stampede at the Central entryway of the Capitol West. He was sure the woman next to him, Rosanne Boyland, had died after falling to the ground amidst the violent melee.
Note: LiveStreamer Villain Report passed away under unknown circumstances in Alaska on New Years of 2021.
The Extremist
The night after the Capitol riot I interviewed a right wing black bloc clad, self proclaimed extremist who espoused National Socialist views lauding Weimar Germany- and was eager to admit to his participation in the Capitol siege. He said of the preparation that those like him were going to "use their tactics, in a Sun Tzu fashion, that work- and employ them for our use."
He was referring to the black bloc tactics of leftist insurrectionist collectives that make up what is commonly called as Antifa.
The man also referred to Sun Tzu, the author of the ancient Chinese tome The Art of War. The self identifying extremist says he reviewed hundreds of hours of tape of 'Antifa' aligned black bloc tactics to agitate at the January 6th riot.
Credit: Social media
The Outlier
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW on FB
My response to inquiries about “Jayden X,” the alleged infiltrator and agitator of the Capitol riot:
Hi Jeremy, have you ever encountered Jonathan Sullivan aka Jayden X?
If so what were your thoughts and experiences?
Possibly Anarchist. He’s social justice Antifa aligned, but many groups disavow him. Anybody from the left, on the front line & letting their emotions run, I would classify more Anarchist than ‘Antifa.’ There were Antifa photographers there but at back of crowd to gather incriminating footage for keyboard warriors to promote.
There is a veritable Activist Twitter —> Web tabloid —> TV media pipeline of skewed info.
I experienced this first hand with the twitter theft of my livestream from 1/6/21 which was then used to forward terrorism narratives, though the group I filmed was improvised and mostly incompetent.
As for Insurrectionists who are anti-government, they can be left, right or neither.
I quote what one Insurrectionary Anarchist told me online after the Minneapolis precinct burned:
“We don’t care who’s fucking shit up, as long as they’re fucking shit up.”
The right wing seem following Trump was similarly undiscerning about who backed the cause on January 6th, as long as they were backing the cause.
Appropriating the Anarchist Playbook?
On September 17th Occupy Wall Street Anarchist organizers, AdBusters, attempted on twitter to organize a siege of the White House (LEFT). It was later billed as “peaceful” and it failed to materialize with online Twitter engagement.
In a podcast with Darryl of Antifa, it was noted that the effort lacked engagement from the younger generation. Would it be Occupy 2.0 ?
It fizzled with few people showing up.
Months later, the Stop the Steal / Q Anon / Trump MAGA momentum to what Trump himself billed as a protest that “will be wild,” took on a life of its own.
On January 6th, the Right moved on the Capitol with some, including Antifa adversaries the Proud Boys, using anarcho black bloc tactics, which have origins in West Berlin in 1982 & Seattle 1999 on the activist Left.
Was January 6th an insurrection ? There were those that were insurrecting in the Capitol rotunda, to be sure. Yet, the crowd was estimated at a near 60-100k people, covering an area of several football fields.
January 6th was several things: a riot, a protest and an insurrection. And it was seeded culturally by Donald Trump.
Graphic: Adbusters’ attempted campaign for a White House siege in 2020