Far-right groups target Bay Area
‘March on Google’ just the beginning with protests set for S.F. and Berkeley
In the wake of deadly protest violence in Charlottesville, the liberal Bay Area will find itself at the epicenter of conservative demonstrations beginning this weekend.
Even though planning for two of the Bay Area protests apparently began before the clashes in Virginia, the death of a 32-year-old woman there and the images of protesters with torches reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan, is casting a glaring spotlight on far-right actions here.
Three hard-right actions are planned this month, starting at Google in Mountain View on Saturday, with another Aug. 26 in San Francisco and a third in Berkeley on Aug. 27.
This region, famous as a center of resistance to President Donald Trump and a haven of political correctness, makes an attractive target for the far right, said Texas Southern
University history professor Cary Wintz.
“You're taking your fight directly to Satan,” Wintz said.
On Tuesday, Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi called on the National Park Service to reconsider its decision to issue a permit allowing Patriot Prayer, an “alt-right” group, to hold a “Freedom Rally” at Crissy Field on Aug. 26, starting at 2 p.m.
“I am deeply alarmed by the hateful and dangerous nature of the event, its timing so soon after the horrors in Charlottesville, and the serious questions over whether the National Park Service is at all equipped to ensure public safety during a white supremacist rally,” Pelosi said in a statement that was echoed by San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee.
In April, a Patriot Prayer rally in Portland was attended by Jeremy Christian, who would later be arrested on charges of stabbing two people to death on a train after they interrupted his anti-Muslim rant.
The group, however, is promising a San Francisco event full of “freedom, spirituality, unity, peace, and patriotism,” according to its Facebook page. And its leader, Joey Gibson, in a speech Sunday after the Charlottesville mayhem, condemned white supremacists and neo-Nazis, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Patriot Prayer had, before the Charlottesville violence, received a tentative permit for the event, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
In Mountain View, the “March on Google” protest against the search giant's firing of engineer James Damore over a memo claiming a biological basis for the gender gap in tech was announced before the Virginia episode, but that violence has led to a counterprotest scheduled for the same time this Saturday, about three miles away from Google's headquarters.
“We saw over the weekend that a lot of people … are looking for ways to respond to what happened in Charlottesville, and the prospect of a right-wing extremist group coming to Mountain View to carry out a protest really upset a lot of people,” said organizer Lenny Siegel, the city's vice-mayor, adding that this counterprotest is not an official city event.
Mountain View's Civic Center Plaza was chosen for the 1 p.m. counterprotest because it's far enough away from the “March on Google” to prevent overlapping events and reduce the chance of confrontations, Siegel said.
The primary organizer of the “March on Google” is Jack Posobiec, a far-right luminary known for peddling conspiracy theories. But the protest, with similar actions planned at eight other Google offices nationwide, is not an alt-right event, Posobiec said.
“The March on Google condemns and disavows violence, hatred, and bigotry and all groups that espouse it such as White Nationalists, KKK, Antifa, and NeoNazis,” Posobiec said in a message on the website set up for the anti-Google protests.
“We will not use messages that are designed to incite anger, hate, or violence. This is an event for First Amendment supporters from across the country, from all backgrounds, ethnicity, and walks of life.”
Berkeley's far-right protest, called “No to Marxism in America,” is to take place Aug. 27 at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park at 1 p.m. Among the people behind the event is Nathan Damigo, a former Marine infantryman and one-time Silicon Valley resident who founded the Oakdale-based white-nationalist group Identity Evropa.
Damigo, who grew up and went to school in San Jose, made the news after being arrested in April during the so-called “Battle for Berkeley” protest, which he has said was a test run for Charlottesville's violent “Unite the Right'” rally over the weekend. He was also among those arrested in Charlottesville. His colleagues are reportedly bringing noted white supremacist Richard Spencer of the National Policy Institute to the Berkeley protest. Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin said in a blog post that the city has not approved the gathering and that it “is not welcome in Berkeley.”
For all the far-right protesters, the Bay Area will provide a stage from which to broadcast their message to the world, Wintz said.
“This is more creating situations that get them a lot of publicity in the news,” he said.