Maxwell Hare and John Kinsman, two Proud Boys sentenced to 4 years

Every revolutionary will tell you that prisons and jails and police are not in the service of the people. These things are warehouses for the nationally oppressed and tools of population removal from the inner cities. In essence, tools for the continued destruction of our people. The police are our enemies in uniform and they have documented, verified, well researched ties to our enemies out of uniform, such as Neo-Nazi cliques and Proud Boys. So when those who have declared themselves our enemies end up in them by their own stupidity, arrogance or a combination of both, there is no cause for celebration.

Maxwell Hare and John Kinsman are two Proud Boys fascists recently sentenced to 4 years in prison for their role in a violent brawl with anti-fascist demonstrators in 2018. This took place after a speech by the PBs’ intellectual leader, Gavin McInnes, who co-founded Vice Magazine. Security camera footage showed the defendants charging the protesters and punching them, contradicting their narrative of self-defense. The sentencing judge classified the PBs as a “bunch of street thugs” and drew parallels between the modern day and the situation in Weimar Germany which eventually led to the seizure of power by the Hitlerite fascists. What was lost on this judge is that America is already a fascist country, the robe he wears is a symbol of fascism and the fasces insignia decorates countless courthouses across this country. American courts routinely sentence Black people to decades in prison for victimless crimes. American prisons are not built to house fascists and those who commit crimes against Black people because this country was not set up to benefit Black people. If it was, we would not need to strain ourselves petitioning fascist courts and congresses to be treated as human beings.

Hare and Kinsman are anomalies. Every day we see crimes committed against our people not just by the police, but by random settlers. Legalized murders, fraud, assaults, thefts, denial of clean air, soil and water, harassment by code violations, medical neglect, and so on. None of the perpetrators or instigators of these incidents are currently resident in prison. None of them. This country, its institutions, and the broad masses of its settler population do not care one whit about what happens to Black people. If we were to all vanish, they would not shed any tears. It is on us to ensure that we not only do not vanish, but actually destroy this system that has forced us to suffer indignities large and small every waking moment of our lives.

Furthermore, violence has a class content. Reactionary violence is not fought with reactionary state violence and incarceration, it is fought with revolutionary violence led by a Communist Party. We cannot use the fascist State to destroy itself and its helpers. Reactionaries like the Proud Boys do not have any conflict of interest with the existence of the United States, so to expect the United States to handle them objectively is a dangerous fool’s errand. They criminalize our revolutionary violence while aiding and abetting the fascist cliques in and out of uniform that make our lives a living hell. Always remember which class this State serves. Remember that it was this same State that infiltrated the Klan and watched as they planned murders of civil rights activists, yet did not intervene. Remember what this State did to our historical vanguard, the Black Panther Party. Remember what this State is doing to Mumia Abu-Jamal. Don’t fall for sugar coated bullets.