TAKE THE SKINHEADS BOWLING, Continued...

TAKE THE SKINHEADS BOWLING

            Which brings us back to the attack on the Navy Recruiting Center at 117 W. Lake Street, and the events leading up to a media shitstorm over the breaking of a single plate glass window.

            On March 16, 1988, U.S. paratroopers landed in Honduras. Code-named “Operation Golden Pheasant,” it was the last major offensive in the eight-year Contra War.

            For years, U.S.-funded Contra rebels had been terrorizing Nicaraguan peasants. While President Reagan hailed the rebels as “the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers” who “deserve our respect and support,”(63) American news reporters and human rights organizations issued report-after-report, detailing a consistent pattern of abuses, including gang rapes, torture, kidnappings, political assassinations, and attacks on hospitals and health care workers.(64) According to the New York Times, one 50-year-old farmer had had his eyes gouged out with a spoon, ''then they bayoneted him through the neck.”(65) In 1987, these same “freedom fighters” murdered an American citizen named Benjamin Linder; Linder had been working on a rural electrification project.(66)

            When Congress voted to suspend direct military aid to the rebels, Vice President George Bush met with Honduran President Jose Azcona Hoyo, who agreed to “secretly move guns to the Nicaraguan Contras.”(67) In 1993, Federal prosecutors obtained a copy of a secret memo sent by Vice President Bush to President Hoyo:

President Reagan and I hope we can work very quietly and discreetly with you. It can be done with deniability.(68)

            In March of 1988, after enduring years of cross-border attacks, the Nicaraguan army chased the Contra insurgents back to their training camps in neighboring Honduras, where 1,500 Nicaraguan soldiers backed by Soviet-built MI-17 helicopters(69) were determined to put an end to America’s proxy-army once and for all. But the White House was not about to let a tiny Latin American nation stand up to the United States.

On the night of March 16, 1988, President Reagan ordered an “emergency-deployment” of 3,150 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division and the 7th Infantry Division, part of “a measured response” to the so-called “invasion” of Honduras.(70) With U.S. soldiers massing near the Nicaraguan border, and Honduran jet fighters launching air strikes in Nicaraguan territory,(71) war with Managua seemed imminent.

            In the Twin Cities, the reaction was swift. The next day Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) and Pledge of Resistance called for an emergency demonstration at the corner of Lake and Hennepin. Similar protests were taking place all over the country, with major demonstrations in Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Kansas City (MO). 

Polly Mann is a founding member of Women Against Military Madness.

Polly Mann:

We’ve always supported those demonstrations. We objected to U.S. policy in Central America… The United States has been on the wrong side of almost every issue that I can think of.

 

            Opposition to the wars in Central America ran deep. The Peace Movement had reached a level of popular support that was threatening to seriously undermine the President’s entire Latin American strategy. Over 60,000 people had signed a "Pledge of Resistance,” vowing to engage in massive civil disobedience in the event of a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua.(72) With many church people engaging in nonviolent resistance, the public outcry over U.S. foreign policy was beginning to have an effect. In February of 1987, Minnesota Governor Rudy Perpich sued the Defense Department to prevent the Minnesota National Guard from being deployed in Central America.(73)

            Despite this broad-based coalition—which was threatening to turn into a real mass movement—a tiny minority within the protest movement had decided that the “the middle class / pacifist mafia”(74) could all “fuck off.” The very fact that Reagan was still in office—in spite the Iran-Contra scandal—and sending U.S. troops down to Latin American demanded a more radical response.

            On the night of March 17, 1988, hundreds of young people gathered at the intersection of Lake and Hennepin. As the crowd swelled to nearly 600 people, rush hour traffic came to a standstill. For two hours, the protesters controlled the intersection, climbing up lampposts and standing on the roof of a city bus.(75) News crews went into overdrive when several of the protestors torched an American flag (still a Federal offense). The flag-burning made national headlines,(76) as did photos of a 19-year-old skinhead raising his arm in a parody of a Nazi salute.

It was a legitimate thing to do because the flag doesn’t represent a lot of people in this country, just the rich people who exploit people in other parts of the world.(77)

- Dan Mills, the Minneapolis Baldies

           In the midst of the chaos, the Revolutionary Anarchist Bowling League stepped forward. Using the crowd to shield its movements, a group of militants and street kids erected barricades, destroying newspaper boxes and setting fires in the street. Declaring that agents of the U.S. government “did not deserve pacifism,”(78) RABL deliberately provoked the police, whose angry response fell disproportionately on the heads of much more peaceful protesters. Reporters were quick to note that many of the militants sported shaved heads or brilliantly colored hair.

Groups of youth pulled bus benches and dumpsters into the street for barricades. Spray-painted slogans were everywhere, and rocks and bottles were gathered, the cops chased off… After a couple hours, the police returned in force, with helmets, sticks, dogs, tear gas, and a van.(79)

- Kieran Frazier Knutson, RABL

            As more than three-dozen officers descended on Lake and Hennepin,(80) members of WAMM formed a line in the street,(81) attempting to separate unarmed protesters from vengeful cops. These women (mostly older women) kept the riot police at bay long enough to allow the militants to escape.

            The following night, the anti-war coalition returned to Lake and Hennepin. This time, 800 people showed up, and the mood was even angrier than before. Once again, the Revolutionary Anarchist Bowling League had come prepared for battle, arriving with towels and first aid kits in anticipation of clashes with police, their faces covered bandito-style.

Tiring of the sit-down demonstration that was taking place at Lake and Hennepin, RABL led a breakaway group 13 blocks east down Lake Street to the offices of the Armed Forces Recruiting Center. “A yellow subcompact car led the procession,” according to the Star-Tribune, “towing a man in a wheelchair who held onto its bumper.”

            Arriving at the Recruiting Center (which was closed), the protesters smashed the windows, pelting the front of the building with rocks and eggs, followed by illegal fireworks and a bowling ball. A scuffle broke out as a burning flag was tossed in the doorway. One woman—another demonstrator—reportedly shouted: “Stop it, you idiot! Don’t throw things! We want peace!”(82)

            Having attacked the recruiting station (according to ex-members of RABL, this was planned in advance), RABL led the cops back to Lake and Hennepin. There, several people burned marijuana in the street (“We’re demonstrating drug abuse,”).(83)

            Among the protesters was a 22-year-old Naval Reservist named William C. Cary. Cary was sentenced to 90 days in jail for burning an American flag.(84)

Whitney Clark:

We were very active during the US invasion of Honduras –the huge protests in Minneapolis. We took over the street in Uptown. Of course, everyone remembers the famous political theater where an anarchist—and I won't say who it was—threw a bowling ball through the window of the Navy Recruiting Center in Uptown…

            The aftermath of those protests shook the Twin Cities Peace and Justice community to the core, opening up a split from which it has never fully recovered. Seven protest leaders—including Marv Davidov from the Honeywell Project—wrote an open letter to RABL, saying:

Your testosterone-fit at the recruitment office on Lake St. has not furthered the cause of uniting people against war. You are also endangering the lives of other people by the response you provoke.(85)

Gordon Edgar:

I’m certainly not going to shed any tears for a window at the Army Recruiting Center.

            The riots had humiliated the Minneapolis Police Department. In the macho cop culture, this was tantamount to being caught with their pants down. “The phone calls were overwhelming,” said Deputy Police Chief John Laux, “calling us pantywaist, and everything else.”(86) The MPD was out for revenge.

            At a Monday night demonstration in front of the Federal courthouse, police came armed with helmets, police dogs, and three-foot riot batons. Forty-six people were arrested, and dozens were beaten and hurt. According to the Star-Tribune: 

If precedent had prevailed, Police Chief Tony Bouza might have served the recalcitrant with coffee and donuts as he ordered them arrested for blocking traffic or refusing to disperse…

Instead, the police switched suddenly from low key to high dissonance. Their helmeted double-column of plastic-visored, riot-stick armed, attack-dog supported, Mace-assisted crowd controllers… shoved people down the street with prods, kicks, and sometimes curses, right after a warning that many never heard nor had time to heed.(87)

         Several reporters were injured, including a photographer from the Minnesota Daily (who was bitten by a police dog) and a cameraman from a local TV station (whose camera was smashed by the police).(88) As the action shifted to the front of City Hall, Leonard Sanford, a member of the National Lawyers Guild, fell down the steps; Sanford maintains that he was pushed down the stairs by Deputy Police Chief Bob Lutz. While acknowledging Sanford’s injuries, Lutz denied that Sanford was “propelled by an officer.”(89)

            Disgusted by the violence, WAMM pulled-out of the anti-war coalition. "We can't be dinking around with breaking windows with bowling balls."(90)

            RABL insisted that its actions were justified, since years of nonviolent protests had failed to stop the war.

Whitney Clark:

That caused a lot of consternation among the Left. There was a lot of infighting. It forced the various forces who were arrayed against the war in Central America to line up on one side or another, either the militant property-damaging side, or the pacifist side.

We revolutionary anarchists were very pleased that we were able to draw that much attention. We were attacked by prominent peace activists in the opinion pages of the newspapers and denounced in the meetings.

Polly Mann:

We had a big battle over that… The battle was whether we would even be in coalition with groups who had not agreed that they would be peaceful in every aspect.

Part of the issue was that those people threw a bowling ball, and then they ran. And the people in our group believe that you have to be disciplined. If you throw a bowling ball, and the police are going to use violence against others, then you’d better stand there when the police come, and say: “I did it.” You see? –it was a matter of principal.

That’s pretty much what the WAMM members said: that this is irresponsible. And that when you do damage to property, this sets up the environment to do damage to people. I don’t know that I totally agree with that. But I think, to some extent, it’s true.

I do see a difference between damaging property and damaging people.

Whitney Clark:

We felt absolutely unmoved by that. We felt like we’d done the right thing.

I remember being pissed at Noam Chomsky when he came to town to give a lecture. Someone asked him: “Is it right to do damage to property?” And Chomsky said that he didn’t think it was a good idea (“…not that damage to property in any compares to the kind of human carnage that’s wrought upon people all around the world on behalf of the people of the United States...”). He thought that it detracted from our message. At the time, I was very offended by that. I'm more sympathetic now.

While I think there is a role for a vanguard, in your very brief moment in the spotlight, I wonder if you have time to be distracting from your essential message.

Andrew Honigman, Matt Quinn, and Dave Addington were high school students at the time of the demonstrations.

Andrew Honigman:

I thought it was kind of stupid. It made all of the legitimate protesters look bad… So I was kind of mad about it. Mad and embarrassed.

Matt Quinn:

I felt like: “Big Deal.” I remember thinking: “That’s not too big a deal if a bowling ball goes through a window. You know? So what! Some kids threw a bowling ball through the window -I think you guys will be O.K. You’re the most powerful military nation in the world. You can handle a bowling ball through the window on Lake Street.”

Dave Addington:

I’m kind of with Andy on that one. I was like: “This is the only thing these people are going to remember about this whole situation.”

 It’s the same thing that plagues any kind of social movement. You can blame the media, you can blame the worst of the viewing audience… but it’s like people trying to be a football star. They wanna be a football star and they can’t play football, so they’re gonna throw a bowling ball.

Andrew Honigman:

The whole thing got blown way out of proportion. I remember there were a lot of people who thought that they had struck a really decisive blow against the government.

             The protests continued for another week-and-a-half, ending quietly with a candlelight vigil at the St. Paul Cathedral.(91)

            On March 29, 1988, the U.S. troops were withdrawn from Honduras, and the Contras sued for peace. Under the terms of the ceasefire, the Contras “promised neither to solicit nor receive new stocks of American military aid.”(92) Operation Golden Pheasant had lasted less than two weeks.

We felt somewhat vindicated when we later found a quote in the NY Times, by a Reagan administration official that one of the reasons they had backed off on sending US troops into Honduras was because of the damage to recruiting centers.(93)

- Dave Polaschek, former RABL member

          On April 9th, the U.S. Consulate in the Honduran capitol, Tegucigalpa, was burned down by an angry mob.(94)

© 2006, by Erik Farseth

Page - 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |