On the 30th of December, the night before New Year’s Eve, Orlando’s Critical Mass bike ride took to the streets.

On the 29th of December, the final performance of “A Drag Queen Christmas” took place in Clearwater, Florida. Members of Cavalry Christian Worship Center (an extreme Christian Cult) and 3 or 4 Proud Boys were unable to overcome defenders much less attempt to shut down the show itself. Again the Governor’s interference and threats were unable to stop the show, again the show went on. Some attendees cheered counterprotesters on the way in and out.

The Dec 28 drag show in Orlando went on in spite of an explicit threat by Florida’s Christian Nationalist governor DeSantis to take legal action against the venue if anyone under 18 was seen inside. This threat was called. As the press hype grew, a protective pro-LGBTQ crowd grew in front of the venue. Two groups of Christian nationalists ineffectually protested the show. A firetruck and ambulance showed up halfway through, it turns out some opponent of the show had called in a bomb threat. The delay was short and the show went on! Proud Boys in uniform were nowhere to be seen, same as in Miami the previous night.

On the 26th of December, less than a dozen fascists including three Proud Boys and several far-right livestreamers showed up outside “A Drag Queen Christmas” at the Ft Lauderdale, FL performance. Fascist livestreamer Chris Nelson assaulted several people including an anti-Fascist camera operator but was unable to stop anyone. He later invaded the venue and started screaming. He was escorted out and issued a trespass warning but not arrested.

Only three Proud Boys showed up, an epic fail by the Vice City Proud Boys on their own turf in light rain.This is the same show that drew an armed standoff between shotgun-wielding fascists and the Johnn Brown Gun Club in San Antonio, TX on Dec 13.

Video-the Oct 28, 2020 siege and bombardment of MPD’s 4D precinct over the murder of Karon Hylton, for which two cops were just found GUILTY. 1 min 21 sec

Over the course of 2022, US politics steadily destabilized. The year began pretty much normally but tension was evident and soon began to escalate. Gender issues above all others have predominated as Christian Nationalists and Fascists seek to impose their will.

In April, protesters fed up with Joe Manchin’s efforts to force through the Mountain Valley Pipeline, promote other pipelines, and block all climate legislation took the fight to him. Having already protested at his DC moored houseboat without success, activists descended on the Grant Town Power Plant in W Virginia, the sole customer of Joe Manchin’s coal company.

At this time, the producer of this video moved out of what had been permanent housing in the DC area and began travelling, but returned to DC for a SCOTUS deployment in June and for Women’s March and IMF protests in October.

Also in April the Atlanta Forest Defense/Stop Cop City campaign began to intensify, with repeated police raids beginning in May ending in repeated failures. At the end of the month, Fascists at the annual pro-Confederate event at Stone Mountain, GA were unable to attack counterprotesters thanks to an armed anti-racist component.

The leak of the draft Dobbs SCOTUS decision to legalize state bans of/prosecutions for abortion set things off in May. The resulting confrontations can generally be divided into three stages: The draft decision leak triggered intense protests focussed on the Supreme Court and on the so-called “Justices.” The protests at the homes of antichoice “Justices” (shown on this video) became a national controversy. This all came to a head on June 24 with the release of the final Dobbs decision. Black blocs marched in DC and protests shook the nation. State governments began attacking women and doctors and underground abortion and pill networks moved to counter.

Within weeks, fascists, neo-Nazis and Christian Nationalists exploited the tension from Dobbs to unleash a campaign of violent hate against the LGBTQ community, just as many had warned at the Supreme Court. Fash and theocrat conventions such as Fl-based “Moms4Liberty” and Turning Point USA drew boisterious protests and swastika-waving Nazis showed up at the latter. As the summer went on, Florida and Texas passed legislation criminalizing medical treatment for transgender youth as protesters beseiged the decisionmakers behind this. Fears of genocide and “another Krystalnacht” swept the trans community in particular and much of the LGBTQ community more generally, and an LGBTQ migration out of so-called “red states” began.

Late in the Summer, Proud Boys and Christian nationalists began focussing first on “drag queen story hours” held in libraries for kids, them on any and all drag events. This quickly escalated, with repeated armed standoffs in Texas between armed fascists and John Brown Gun Club members defending drag events and their participants. This spread nationally, though without the guns in places without legal open carry. Some drag shows were cancelled due to the threat posed by Nazi terrorism, while others stood firm and fought back. The outcome of this battle has yet to be decided as of the end of December but the frequency of these attacks is increasing.

The outcome of the election was also inconclusive, with many of the worst MAGA candidates defeated but the GOP still taking the House of Misrepresentatives. The far-right dominated most but not all of the races in Florida and Christian nationalist governor DeSantis emerged stronger than ever, increasingly considered a likely contender for the White House in 2024. This election did little to dampen fears of civil war, given the likely outcome of a Trump or DeSantis election victory or a disputed election and the escalating violence and tension in the streets.

On Dec 3, presumed far-right terrorists shot out electrical substations in many places, in Moore County, NC destroying enough of them to plunge most of the county into a blackout. An anti-drag Twitter poster all but took credit for the Moore County attacks. Elsewhere in the US, pro and anti-trans protesters faced off in Ft Lauderdale FL, hard Nazis marched against a Lakeland drag show but could not shut it down, and a drag show in Ohio had to shut down after a massive formation of Proud Boys and other Nazis some armed with rifles invaded the neighborhood where it was to tale place.

Get ready for another very rough ride in 2023-see you in the streets!

On the 18th of December, Supreme Court “Justices” Roberts and Kavanaugh got yet another round of protests at their homes. While an unusual number of cops were sitting at the initial assembly point, they took no action against the protesters.

On the 18th of December, the Proud Boys (an extreme-right terrorist group)descended on the venue putting on a drag show in Jacksonville, FL. Defenders prepared for the worst and safely got people inside. Before the show could even begin, the Proud Boys quit the field, possibly to watch football or soccer. There was no sign of them at the Shell station where they had parked their cars.

Reports that they were awaiting reinforcements and would then attempt to storm the venue came to nothing. Instead, a few of them returned “out of uniform” and attempted to infiltrate the event in pairs. Not a single pair of them managed to get inside, and the event took place with zero disruption all the way to the end. When the Proud Boys left early, defenders moved into the space they had abandoned and took it over

The Proud Boys had a specific demand: that LGBTQ youth under age 18 be excluded and presumably that IDs be checked. This demand was defied and the Proud Boys held at bay. Over 18 only shows have also been harassed by them, and submitting to ANY demand would only bring new demands. The world learned Fascists operate this way from former UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s discredited attempt to appease Hitler. Fascists and Nazis cannot be appeased, only resisted whatever the cost and whatever it takes.

On the 15th of December, a substantial number of members of Central Florida’s LGBTQ community showed up in Lakeland to defend a drag bingo event from an expected attack by fascists. They were reinforced by an antifa contingent as well.After a string of ugly and often armed attacks on drag events and standoffs at defended drag events all over the US, the Nazis didn’t show up. The LGBTQ community wins this match hands down by a forfeit!

Less than two weeks earlier, “Natsoc Florida” overt Nazis had descended on an earlier drag event in Lakeland after being blocked by a faction fight from joining the Proud Boys and treasonous “Gays against Groomers” at an anti-transgender rally on the beach in Ft Lauderdale.

Update Dec 15: Bond DENIED to the five arrestees but treesits still holding out! Raids are another failure.

On the 13 and 14th of December, cops staged a major raid on the Atlanta Forest Defense/Stop Cop City treesits. Under a blizzard of pepperballs they only managed to arrest five people according to reports in the corporate press. They charged all five with bullshit, state-level “domestic terrorism” charges. In response the fight was carried to the Dekalb County Jail, where in response to a solidarity noise protest detainees smashed windows and lit signal fires outside the smashed windows. Fireworks, smoke flares, and lasers were deployed by protesters at the jail. There is NO place this fight cannot reach.

After the raids ended, many treesits were still holding out, with the cops having again abandoned the forest as they do after every raid regardless of the results

(from https://scenes.noblogs.org/post/2022/12/15/windows-smashed-at-a-noise-demo-outside-of-dekalb-county-jail/ )

Windows Smashed at a Noise Demo Outside of DeKalb County Jail

Posted on December 15, 2022

On Tuesday December 13th there was a raid in the forest where five were arrested after police brutalized them with tear gas and pepper balls.

Forest defenders swiftly called for a noise demonstration at the DeKalb County Jail in solidarity with the five people arrested during the raid. By 8pm protesters began to amass near the facility.

Sheriffs on foot lined the perimeter of the jail as a choir of twenty five voices, a dozen drums, 2 guitars, a cello, and various handheld noisemakers approached. Jail administrators peered down from office windows as protesters tossed smoked bombs in the road and chanted “1312, we are all here for you!” and “no forest, no peace”.

With our flashing lights, lasers, and binoculars we gazed up, scouring the prison walls for evidence of folks inside hearing our call. We were quickly greeted by prisoners waving, frantically scrubbing the dust from their windows, and straining to peer down at the raucous below. We saw a few dozen of them throughout the demonstration.

We heard sounds of the prisoners banging back to us from inside their cells. Fifteen minutes in, one rowdy prisoner was spotted lighting a fire outside their cell window, which appeared to have been smashed out for the occasion.

Peering through binoculars, one noise-maker noticed an arm waving a sheet out of a third story window that also was smashed. After quieting the band, protestors and the two unknown prisoners shouted back and forth. “I love y’all” yelled the prisoners, “We love you too”! And all in agreement, “fuck the police!” “1,2,3,” the prisoner led the forest defenders in a chant — “fuck! the police!”

“There’s nothing that evokes such a feeling of solidarity— all the people at the windows —even though we are strangers to one another, we felt united in our determination against crude imbalance of power and systematic injustice” – a forest defender

This is not the first time a noise demonstration at DeKalb County Jail got rowdy. We and those locked inside who smashed their windows are part of a multiyear tradition at DeKalb County Jail. In 2019 at one noise demo protesters went inside the jail, fought the police and at another soon after prisoners smashed over a dozen windows throwing down mold to the protesters revealing the horrific conditions they are trapped in.

The fight to Stop Cop City is a struggle not just for a world without a police training facility in the Weelaunee Forest but also for a world without prisons.

Submitted anonymously over email