On the night of August 3, the PSL’s Albuquerque office was violently vandalized and damaged yet again in another criminal attack. Our storefront (which is partially boarded up from a previous attack) and our backdoor and wall were defaced with paint, a back window smashed, and an attempt made to destroy our front door lock.
This marks the sixth time in one year—and the fifth time in little over one month—that the PSL offices in Albuquerque has been the target of an attack.
Clearly, there is an enduring campaign underway to intimidate our members and friends with the aim of shutting down our meaningful organizing work in Albuquerque.
- Early last year, the PSL was evicted from its previous office because of the non-stop harassment of our landlord at the hands of fascistic elements (the so-called “alt-right.”) They bombarded our office with threatening phone calls after the PSL played a leading role in a mass protest to “greet” President-elect Trump.
- June 23 the PSL’s regularly scheduled Friday forum was the target of an assault and pre-planned disruption by a group of individuals who hurled misogynist slurs and threats, banged on windows, and blared sirens. They had created a “Shut Down PSL” Facebook event shortly after we announced the forum topic to commemorate Juneteenth, which marks the end of U.S. chattel slavery.
- One day later, on Saturday June 24 several large plate glass windows in the office were smashed with rocks.
- A few days after that, some of the organizers of June 23 “Shut Down PSL” attack posted a video congratulating those who had smashed the PSL office windows and urged more such attacks, which notably then occurred. On July 1, the office was vandalized once again, this time with paint.
- On Sunday, July 30 we discovered neo-Nazi posters glued to our office storefront.
The PSL membership and leadership in Albuquerque is multinational, from all ethnic and gender backgrounds, queer and straight, of all ages. We have a well-known history of helping to build principled united fronts with other progressive and working-class forces.
As we wrote in a previous statement:
“These are all the proven tactics that the FBI’s COINTELPRO operation, in conjunction with local and state police, utilized to rip apart the movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
“Since the 1970s, every sophisticated activist organization has understood the real threat posed by state infiltration and division, and consciously steered clear of these tactics precisely because they invite state repression and pave the way towards self-destruction. The escalation to violent rhetoric, and the physical shutting down of events leads to a spiral of conflict and distrust which then attracts more unstable and potentially violent outcomes. Whether or not the disrupters work for the state, they are clearly doing the work of the state.”
All activists should reject the use of these tactics in the movement and allow the actions of individuals who use COINTELPRO-type methods to isolate themselves.
The Albuquerque branch is standing strong against these attacks and the PSL has received hundreds of messages of solidarity from around the country and the world, for which we are most appreciative.
We are determined to continue mobilizing and organizing against the Trump agenda and the reactionary policies of the elites of the political establishment and in defense of working class and poor communities. If the racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, anti-worker Trump regime has its way, hard-won rights, life-sustaining benefits and protections will be rolled back or destroyed altogether.
