“See, the difference between us and them is that I don’t think they’re listening to our views.  I would talk to them but they don’t want to hear what we have to say.”  The man in the III%er shirt seemed reasonable enough, I suppose.  Behind him, another man, this one a barrel-chested late-50s gammon with a white mustache and a stentorian voice, and a large-frame 9mm semiautomatic pistol on his belt, was using a megaphone to chant, “Commies aren’t human!” toward the demonstrators on the other side.  He continued, “There’s never been an attack on a liberal group by any three-percent group, anywhere in the country.”

Behind him, the orange Public Works dump trucks were parked in a wedge across the street, just as they were arrayed behind the demonstrators at the other end of the street, preventing a Charlottesville-style vehicular assault scenario.  Security was incredibly tight.  Seventh Street was blocked by the dump trucks just north of Broadway, and just south of Muhammad Ali Boulevard.  Steel barriers crossed Seventh on either side of Chestnut Street, delineating a zone between Broadway and Chestnut for the Occupy ICE demonstrators, and one between Chestnut and Muhammad Ali for the, well, the opposition. Each zone had one entrance, manned by hordes of LMPD officers – to their credit, they denied entrance to any person wearing or carrying overtly racist or hate-speech apparel or signs.

As I was entering the right-wing zone, I encountered a group of four who were denied entry, two men wearing leather vests with Iron Cross patches, one carrying a huge Confederate flag with a “Don’t Tread On Me” snake superimposed, a teenage boy who kept his head down, and a woman wearing a White Pride t-shirt.  I asked permission to take a photo, and the men were eager.  The boy kept his head down, and the woman quickly jumped out of the frame.  I quickly made peace, telling her that I wanted to give her the choice to opt out, then took the photo.

Security was, as I said, very tight.  There were snipers atop several buildings – DHS troops around the parapets of the Mazzoli Building, the Federal Courthouse, and of course on the roof of the ICE Headquarters.  A squad of roving bicycle officers circled the perimeter in intervals, in addition to a pair of officers on four-wheel ATVs, and five mounted officers in the buffer zone.  The buffer zone was flooded with police – officers on foot, and the mounted patrol.  Every intersection surrounding the protest zone was blocked with police cars – the two-block protest zone required four city blocks to be barricaded, and the bubble was completed with four hovering police helicopters.

There was another young man there.  His head wasn’t down at all.  He seemed very angry about something – an anger that didn’t seem proportionate with his age and appearance.  He was wearing a MAGA hat and carrying another megaphone, this one with a detachable microphone, and he wasn’t satisfied with simply speaking through it – he held it with one hand, extended as far as possible over the barrier toward the other side, and screamed into the microphone held in his other hand.  His vitriol was remarkable.  He shouted things like “If you had jobs you wouldn’t be camped out on the sidewalk.  Do you even pay taxes?  Is that tent more comfortable than your mom’s basement?”  Occasionally he would attempt to incite a chant of “SEND IN ICE!”  Teamwork is not a strong suit of the right wing.  Truth is that I felt bad for him, and I said a silent prayer of thanks for my parents.

It wasn’t until a half-hour into the rally that I realized that all the police were facing the Occupy demonstrators, their backs to the men who brought their guns to the rally, the men who had made the threats.  The helicopters were hovering over them, too.

I suppose the nature of violence is different depending on your point of view – alliances are defined by what you’re defending.  Life is just fine for the white guys with guns, and the police are paid to defend the status quo.  This is never more obvious than when all the guns are pointed at you.

Sometimes when I’m photographing events such as this, I like to say random things to participants in order to gauge their responses.  On the other side, I was in front of hundreds of demonstrators, pressed against the barricade, in a corner with ‘legitimate media’ – I’ve discovered that some of the power of the camera is literal, and people will let you pass when they see professional-grade gear.  A laminate is nice, but in general a camera is enough.

At any rate, I found myself caught between a tiny lady television reporter (as they tend to be) and a young man in mirrored sunglasses, a short beard, and a black t-shirt depicting a raised fist, with the caption, “ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE.”  He seemed to be an excellent subject for my response experiment, so I said to him, “Those guys over there are so far behind.  They think jobs are being taken by immigration, but they don’t care a bit about how people will eat when most jobs are automated.  I mean, I don’t want to be that guy who’s all ‘Seize the means of production,’ but somebody needs a plan.”

I wasn’t quite prepared for how well he took the bait.  “I don’t mind being that guy.  Not at all.  From the many to the few has got to stop before they have it all and we have nothing left.”  Behind him, the crowd was singing “Far too long.. it’s gone on far too long..”  Chants were easy to start, ranging from “Immigrants are welcome here…” to what should have been an amusing “Chinga la migra!”  The assembled police did not find this amusing, particularly the DHS agents on the roofs of the nearby Federal buildings.  Even less amusing to the police was the chant that began when the crowd realized they were facing away from the gun-toting side, appearing for all the world to be guarding the guys with the guns from the horde of hippies and advocates of nonviolence.  “Who are you protecting?” they asked, in rotation with the other chants of the day.

There was another young man on this side who attracted my attention.  He was holding a bundle of smoldering sage, and a fan of what appeared to be hawk feathers, and he was walking around offering a sage purification to anyone who wished to be purified.  I watched for a few minutes as the younger and more spiritual approached, and he used the feathers to waft the smoke over them, wishing them peace and absolution for whatever their troubles may be.

I ran into my friend the street medic, and got a welcoming hug.  Things were going well, she said, not even a heat injury or a hungry/woozy kid.  They were well-prepared for either, with medical supplies, food and drink, and trained assistance for those who may not have experience in street demonstrations. While we were chatting – nothing of substance, a young man in a ballcap, sunglasses and a blue shirt slid in behind me.  Her friend across the street made a hand signal, to which my friend responded with the sign that means “No, I’m okay, I know him.”  The girl across the street shook her head as if to say, “No, the other one.”  A quick camera swivel told me that the fellow in the blue shirt was someone I had seen on the other side of the buffer zone.  I grabbed a photo of him, just in case, and left my friends to handle the situation themselves.  They’re experienced in spotting and avoiding enemy surveillance.

All of these sorts of events end up with everybody standing around looking at each other.  One side doesn’t even pretend to want a conflict, and the other really doesn’t want a fight, no matter how much they preen and posture and pose with their weapons.  I decided to head for the exit.  On the way out, I spoke with a street photographer friend, who shook his head and laughed, “Man, I’m not sure there’s anything to see here.  They didn’t bring enough people to even be heard over this bunch.  I’ve had two energy drinks this morning for nothing.”  He loped off, looking for a story.

As usual, the story was in the middle.  Who were they protecting?