{"id":243,"date":"2005-05-08T20:21:21","date_gmt":"2005-05-09T00:21:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/dbnews\/2005\/05\/08\/nazis-have-mothers-too\/"},"modified":"2005-05-08T20:21:21","modified_gmt":"2005-05-09T00:21:21","slug":"nazis-have-mothers-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/2005\/05\/08\/nazis-have-mothers-too\/","title":{"rendered":"Nazis Have Mothers, Too"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n
\n

<\/p>\n

In Boston, Mother’s Day had
\n dawned cold and wet as an iced mackerel upside the head, and by one in
\n the afternoon, nosing the White Whale through
\n the heart of downtown Boston, Milk St. and Federal, it had only gotten
\n worse. <\/p>\n

Temps were in the low 40’s, our fingers were numb, and we could see
\n our breath. Second Sunday in May, our ass. Where was global warming when
\n we need it? We left the car in a marginal space, and headed for the New
\n England Holocaust Memorial for the Mother’s Day, Jewish Remembrance
\n Day, Neo-Fascist and Anarchist Jamboree scheduled for Faneiul Hall.<\/p>\n

We had no idea of what to expect, but the juxtaposition of so many contrary
\n currents of contemporary culture had proved an irresistible lure. Several
\n blocks away we could already hear the chants of "Workers of the World
\n Unite."<\/p>\n

What we found, when we reached the small plaza in front of Faneiul Hall
\n and Quincy Market, was some kind of flea market of progressive ideologies.  There
\n were communists, socialists and libertarians.  There were anti-globalization
\n protesters, anti-fascist activists, anti-racist white guys and anti-war
\n organizations.  There
\n were protect the environment people, protect endangered species folks
\n and stop exporting jobs fanatics. A knot of swarthy, well-dressed gentlemen
\n were carrying signs advocating a "Free, secular, non-violent Middle East."<\/p>\n

A wane cadre of black-clad lurkers on the fringes couldn’t have been
\n more easily identified as the anarchists had they wearing scarlet A’s
\n on their heads.<\/p>\n

We heard three or four portable PA setups, all spouting sappy psuedo-revolutionary
\n rants and chants, like: "Nazi Scum – racist pigs – go back under the
\n rock you crawled out from under" "Money for Jobs Not War" "Kick the Ass
\n of the Ruling Class!" <\/p>\n

But there was no evidence of Nazis anywhere.  Not even an anti-gay
\n marriage sign.<\/p>\n

After casing the entire area, the Dowbrigade and his trusty sidekick\/aide\/son
\n retired to a nearby McDonalds to review the situation.<\/p>\n

"Do you think they chickened out?"<\/p>\n

"Just because they’re Nazis doesn’t mean they’re stupid.  They
\n probably sent a couple of scouts ahead, in disguise, or at least dressed
\n like normal people, to check out the crowd, see if it was safe."<\/p>\n

We glanced outside at the potpourri of radical crackpots and wannabe
\n tough guys, "I guess they decided it wasn’t."<\/p>\n

"If they don’t show up, they’re gonna look like pussies.  They’ll
\n show." My assistant seemed confident.<\/p>\n

We made another circuit around the Quincy Market, and in back of
\n the Hall discovered an unrelated protest against the production and
\n consumption of veal.  It reminded us we hadn’t been to the Sunset
\n Portuguese restaurant on Cambridge Street in way too long – incredible
\n veal marsala, and roast rabbit to die for. Maybe for our assistant’s
\n 21st birthday, next week.<\/p>\n

We had just about convinced him that they weren’t going to show. It
\n was cold, and the air smelled like it was going to snow. We wanted
\n to crawl back into bed, watch the baseball game on TV. We looked around
\n at the bizarre collection of radical rabble with nothing better to
\n do on Mother’s Day, and saw the pitiful remnants of the once-proud
\n American left.<\/p>\n

The anarchists were an especially sorry bunch. Skinny and stunted
\n and pale and withdrawn, we didn’t se a one who could have given our
\n grandmother a tussle in a dark alley.  In their black scarves
\n and ski masks they looked about as scary as teenaged Draculas on Halloween.
\n They carried signs with creative comments like "Smash Nazis" and "Death
\n to the Fascists."<\/p>\n

We were getting ready to blow on out of there when a cry went up from
\n the fringe of the crowd, up Congress towards downtown.<\/p>\n

"They’re coming! They’re coming!"<\/p>\n

In fact, a small gaggle of black clad Neo-Nazis had rounded the corner,
\n surrounded by a ring of police, and were approaching the Holocaust
\n Memorial. The crowd began to rush in that direction.<\/p>\n

There were only about 12-15 of the Fascists. Although dressed in black
\n like the Anarchists, it was easy to tell them apart – the Nazis were
\n big guys, thick and tall and athletic looking.They were enclosed in
\n a ring of about 20 cops.<\/p>\n

As more protesters and anarchists ran to meet the Nazi’s, more police
\n ran to that side of the crown to protect them.  By this point
\n Congress Street, the area around Faneiul Hall and half of Government
\n Center had been blocked off to traffic. <\/p>\n

"Hold the line," shouted the cops, as the crowd surged forward. The
\n street cops, augmented by black leather clad riot cops (common sartorial
\n theme here), formed a phalanx around the small group of skinheads and
\n began moving slowly down Congress.<\/p>\n

The anti-Nazi protesters, maybe a thousand in number, fell
\n back but began organized chants. We were standing next to a young perfumed
\n dandy gotten up in a retro Carnaby look, with a candy-striped DNK
\n jacket, silk scarf, curly hair cascading over matching earrings, who
\n recited
\n along,
\n under his breath in a hoarse venomous whisper, "Nazi scum, you can’t hide – We’re
\n charging you with Genocide" He was so excited we thought it wise to
\n put a couple of people between us and him.<\/p>\n

As this unlikely parade made its way down Congress it became obvious
\n that they would not make it all the way to the actual Holocaust Memorial.  The
\n stopped about halfway down the block, where a cement staircase came
\n down from the City Hall Plaza above.  There, the Nazi’s stopped
\n and sort of set up shop behind police barriers and lines of cops and
\n riot police.<\/p>\n

The crowd pressed as close as they could get, which was about 10 or
\n 15 feet away. The Nazis had signs of their own, which reflected a marginal,
\n if twisted, sense of humor: "There’s No Business like Shoah Business"
\n "Six Million Lies" "Free Ham Sandwiches" and the simple yet eloquent
\n "Nuke Israel"<\/p>\n

The crowd was going wild.  We could practically hear the spittle
\n coming out of the megaphones and PAs as the speakers were rendered
\n inarticulate by rage and indignation. The crowd was not all anarchists,
\n they were just in the front.  Behind them were all the longhaired,
\n hippie, jewish and leftist groups, as well as a nice leavening of clueless
\n tourists asking "What’s going on?" and several foreigners with borderline
\n panic on their faces.<\/p>\n

The anarchists were trying their best to get the crowd stirred up,
\n and expand their ire from the Nazis to include the cops.  They
\n were clearly trying to cause a  confrontation, but how could they
\n get the rest of the crowd on their side if it  came to a street
\n battle? How to equate the cops and the Nazis?<\/p>\n

Suddenly we heard a new chant that answered that question. "The cops,
\n the courts, the Nazis and the Clan, all are part of the Bosses’ plan!"
\n Somehow we didn’t think they were referring to Steinbrenner or Springsteen.<\/p>\n

It was at this point that things almost got out of hand. Someone threw
\n a full bottle of water, then something heavy in what looked like a
\n sock. One of the skinheads theatrically pretended to blow his nose and wipe his ass with
\n an Israeli flag. A Jewish-looking kid in a Yarmulke went ballistic
\n and threw himself at the police line separating the two groups. A waiting
\n cop smacked him in the head with his nightstick and the kid staggered to his knees and started
\n bleeding profusely.<\/p>\n

The cops reacted as if on cue and with lines of horses moved  the
\n crowd back so there was a 40 or 50 foot buffer zone between the 15
\n Nazis and the thousand angry protesters. The anarchists working the
\n loudspeakers got even more worked up, if possible. "The cops are stealing
\n our rights! They are just protecting the bosses! And not just that,
\n now they’re hitting us with sticks in the street! These fucking pigs
\n are the 4th Reich, and they’re protecting the 3rd Reich, they’re protecting
\n the fascists.” The voice on the megaphone rose to a screech.<\/p>\n

We haven’t seen so much posturing, gesturing and insipid rhetoric
\n since the last teacher’s strike in the Ecuadorian Andes! It was hard
\n to tell
\n who were the bigger drama queens, the Fascists or the anti-Fascists.
\n The cops looked as though they might be amused if they weren’t so pissed
\n off about standing up their mothers.<\/p>\n

We thought about the Nazis and their <\/i>mothers. Did they call them from
\n pay phones to explain why they had to be in Boston this drizzly day?
\n Did their mothers understand?<\/p>\n

After about 30 minutes of taunts and chants, there was movement among
\n the cops and, as we suspected, the skinheads were escorted up the stairs
\n into the plaza, which had been closed by police much earlier. In the nearly empty plaza they were hustled into a police van and driven to a nearby T station.<\/p>\n

We realized
\n the cops had the whole thing choreographed from the get go – the walk
\n down Congress, the half hour in the protected bay below the stairs,
\n the quick getaway into inaccessible space. It was like being at the
\n Circus, or the Zoo. They led the animals out, let the people spit at
\n them and hurl abuse, and then led them away.<\/p>\n

We left amused but mildly disturbed.  Is this what public political
\n discourse had devolved into, at least between presidential debates?
\n Was what we had seen political theater, or social satire, or a slick
\n display of public safety management in a techno-police state?<\/p>\n

Or something else altogether?<\/p>\n

Here is a link to some
\n of the photos we shot<\/a>, and below is a list
\n of the shots included (photos by Dowbrigade)<\/p>\n