Our Enemies in Yellow

We are on the brink of a rupture in the political and social order of the Unit-

ed States. Trump’s gamble is backfiring and opening up liberatory insurgent

and revolutionary horizons. But we are reaching clear limits. The attempts

to spread the rebellious spirit of LA to other places have largely fallen into

traps of symbolic and minimally disruptive actions. We need to take brave

steps forward in new and creative ways to act with the rebellious elements

that have emerged. At the same time, we must acknowledge that the pull

toward empty symbolism has not merely been for lack of alternatives. It has

been the explicit strategy of people and organizations who have positioned

themselves as an active barrier to escalation.

What follows is a report back from an action on June 9th in Dallas, Texas

where these dynamics were on full display. The people of DFW have the

desire, creativity, and courage to make history. The Party for Socialism and

Liberation (PSL) of DFW however showed that it has the desire, creativity,

and cowardice to prevent that from happening. But rather than complain-

ing or fixating on the counter-insurgent clown car that is PSL, our question

has to be: how do we let people cook?

People, those out on the streets and those sitting at home, are capable of

great things: shaping their own lives and history through creative and free

activity. Our role as self-conscious revolutionaries is to turn up the heat, we

can supply some ingredients, but we cannot be the chefs. Why? Because we

don’t want silly hats and this isn’t a freaking kitchen. We ourselves are just

another part of the crowd. If you have a bullhorn, an ugly vest, or a face

as-seen-on-TV, you are still just the part of the crowd that’s got a bullhorn,

a vest, or name recognition. Rather than spinning stories about our impor-

tance, we have to have deep faith in those strangers next to us, especially

when they don’t already know the old hymns and Malcolm X quotes. This

| A Reportback from Dallas

faith extends to those who have followed PSL’s lead out of a genuine desire

to help but have become uncomfortable by the position they’ve been put in.

PSL and many other organizations that call themselves “the left” are a prob-

lem. But we’re not afraid of problems. We’ve got lots of problems: the cops,

the bosses, our own bullshit. It’s tackling these problems, growing through

that process, that is the real work of revolution.

What happened

The action was called by PSL. It was their action. They called it in an effort

to borrow or steal the momentum of two powerful symbols. First was the

ordinary people in Los Angeles bravely leading the way against our increas-

ingly unhinged police-state. The second was the inspiring action in January

here in Dallas at the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, where the June 9th action

was also held

The chronological story of the event is pretty simple. People showed up.

The crowd grew to a respectable few hundred people. Early on some folks

lined the road facing a growing police presence, while others stayed in the

park listening to boring speeches. As folks got restless, momentum turned

to take the streets. This started a cycle where some elements of the crowd

pushed for more escalation and a militia of dweebs in yellow vests worked

to deescalate. The result of this peace-policing meant that some people were

left irresponsibly vulnerable to the cops, especially when our enemies in

blue saw an excuse to flex their muscle resulting in the rather cinematic

arrest of one person. Over the course of the whole evening the momentum

swapped back and forth between the forces of order (whether wearing yel-

low or blue) and the forces of disorder. In the end the cops said enough is

enough and cleared the entire park in a cloud of tear gas and pepper balls.

It was at once exciting and incredibly frustrating.

Some very significant episodes will be discussed below, but the glossing

over of the chronology here is meant to emphasize that in a certain sense

the entire action was determined by the a few overarching dynamics: the

cops were not interested in letting people “blow off steam” this time; the

organizers of the event, PSL in particular, wanted to keep that steam safely

evaporating so everything would go smoothly; and a host of elements in

the crowd pushed and scraped against these two forces of order. This is an

encapsulation of our entire historical moment, and so while the chronology

of that evening isn’t so important, the players and dynamics are.

https://haters.noblogs.org/post/2025/02/17/reportback-reflections-on-january-

26th-2025-in-dallas/

Our Enemies in Yellow | 7

The first player is the PSL and the array of formal organizations they roll

with. In DFW PSL is not tiny, there were probably two dozen folks at the

action wearing the group’s red logo’d shirts. With some overlap there were

about as many people wearing those yellow safety vests, appointing them-

selves special. Not everyone in a red shirt nor everyone in a vest was actually

a member of PSL since over the last few years of protesting PSL has become

a central player in a scene of folks who go to every public action. Other

groups like the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), Freedom Road So-

cialist Organization (FRSO), the Brown Berets, and a smattering of others,

while absolutely not a monolith, all constitute a scene full of relationships,

shared assumptions, and drama. As I said, the scene isn’t tiny, but it’s also

not big. In a metroplex of eight million they’re maybe a couple hundred

people, including the wallflowers. Outside of moments of popular upswing

(now and the early phases of the genocide in Gaza being recent examples)

the turn out of their actions is often uncomfortably close to the number of

organizations with their logo on the flier. Importantly, this orbit has been

an easy access point for people who want to put their body where their

mouth is. This means that at many actions yellow vests and other unhelpful

roles are populated by a cannon fodder of good hearted but inexperienced

folks, left to do the dirty work of social containment . The strategy at this

action on June 9th seemed to be leveraging this network to create a disci-

plined leadership that could make sure things went “well.” In their defi-

nition going “well” means nothing happens that makes anyone especially

upset, including the cops. The conservative logic here is simple: it was their

action and so they’re “responsible” for what happens, and of course they

wouldn’t want to be responsible for anyone feeling bad.

The other important player was of course the cops. The Dallas Police De-

partment was out in force. With a basically brand new police chief, I’m

sure the order was, “this will not be LA.” Apparently the plan for that was

flexing their muscles and being prepared for a much less compliant crowd

than in January (points to them for being right about that one). One of

the most interesting aspects of their presence is that they honestly seemed

a little dusty. Their riot shields were old and scratched. The paint on the

patty-wagons was faded. The crowd very nearly dearrested the lone arrestee.

And apparently some cop’s bodycam disappeared during a scuffle. It does

us no good to underestimate our enemies, and raggedy cops can be more

dangerous than polished ones, but it is very interesting to note that the

Dallas PD does not seem to be a finely tuned crowd suppression machine.

That’s not the biggest surprise since the ruling class in DFW has historically

relied on means of suppressing the population that work more on how peo-

ple think and feel than on pushing bodies around. In the end that means

people repress themselves very nicely on their own, without the cops ever

| A Reportback from Dallas

needing to resort to riot gear. After all, you don’t host the literal money

factory

†

next to a town known for mass unrest. The strategic implications

of this are complicated, but interesting.

The final player, the most important player, was the unruly. Crucially, this

was a wide and varied group. Certainly there were politicos who believed, as

I do, that things should be pushed toward escalation and confrontation. But

there were also lots of normal folks who couldn’t give two shits about PSL,

those who were there for some fun. At several moments the crowd would

get amped up by low-riders backfiring or spinning out, sending plumes of

white smoke into the air. Dirt bike crews did donuts and wheelies, graffiti

kids tagged anything in sight, and irreverent folks wandered into the street

well before PSL decided that was “the plan.” This section of people did not

come to their resistance to “order” by reading political theory, they came to

it by living in our decrepit society and this suffocating town. They are, like

any reasonable person, hungry for freedom, and they came to the protest

to get some.

It seems very likely that these will be the players going forward. None of

them will be static. The cops will learn and innovate, PSL will do whatever

(especially now that the federal right wing seems to be puffing them up as a

scapegoat), and of course people are going to be people. Our tasks as these

basic players shift and move will be figuring out how to move through it

and support further escalation and expansion of the struggle.

PSL’s bullshit

While the detailed blow-by-blow of the event is not crucial, it’s worth dig-

ging into some specific scenes of PSL’s behavior because overall it was so

egregious, so ludicrous, that it warrants this entire essay.

There are three specific scenes that deserve discussion. Starting first with

the least offensive is their use of bullhorns. Whatever your general take

on bullhorns, at this action PSL used them as an icon of their “leadership.”

They were a symbol of who was in charge, and who should be listened to.

In part this meant barking orders: “go this way,” “don’t go that way.” Infu-

riatingly these orders were usually echoes of whatever the cops were saying.

PSL bullhorn resounded, “do not engage the police,” “keep marching away

from the bridge,” and my personal favorite, “move back.” This would be the

peak if it weren’t for the hilarious fact that when they were not repeating

cop commands, they were chanting things in direct contradiction to what

they were actually doing. I’ll be getting months of laughs out of seeing these

fools chanting “shut it down!” while literally keeping people off the street,

†:

https://www.bep.gov/visitor-centers/fort-worth-tx-tour-and-visitor-center

Our Enemies in Yellow | 9

or one bullhorn crying “no justice, no peace,” at the same moment that

another scolded “remain peaceful!” Is it a crime to be this funny? No, it’s

mostly just embarrassing. But it also tells you where their heart is: puffing

themselves up about how cool and radical they are, while everyone else can

see the exact opposite.

The second scene is much more egregious. Later in the evening the crowd

had reassembled at the bridge and again taken the street, pushing the police

into a line of shields across all four lanes of traffic. People threw bottles over

the heads of the front line, making majestic arcs. People insulted the pigs.

The cops felt that thin blue line getting thinner. In this faceoff, the yellow

vested militia marched to position themselves between the demonstrators

and the riot shields. They linked arms, in a seemingly practiced formation

alternating facing in and out. While the bullhorns spewed “whose streets?

Our streets!” the human chain walked away from the police line and slowly

corralled people off the street. I am not kidding. I wish it was harder to be-

lieve. The cops said “clear the street,” and PSL physically cleared the street.

The third and most dramatic scene is the actions by PSL around the arrest

that the news has made such hay from. It occurred shortly after people took

the streets for the first time. The plan for PSL was clearly to politely march

away from the bridge and down the block. While there is some logic to this,

the bridge was the site of a notorious mass arrest in 2020, the specifics of

how they executed this plan really matter. Given that the images of militant

confrontation with law enforcement in LA were ringing in peoples’ minds,

many people were looking to get a little rowdy with the cops. This was not

a tiny minority, this was a decent chunk of the crowd. Not only did PSL

bullhorns explicitly tell people to stop engaging, they worked to move the

crowd away and left those who were turning up the heat isolated and vul-

nerable. This meant that when the cops grabbed someone they did it against

only a thin crowd. Concretely, even though there was a serious attempt to

de-arrest this person, there were neither enough people to succeed nor a

dense enough crowd to push the person into safety had they pulled them

free.

So how do we make sense of these actions by PSL? In a certain sense it’s not

that complicated. Whatever they intended or believed, they were working

to achieve the same goals as the cops. But it is worth analyzing at least a

little how they could have come to this lowly fate.

One place to start is the history of PSL. I don’t subscribe to some original

sin doctrine but knowing the traditions and legacies they come from feels

surprisingly familiar to their current behavior. The first place to start is in

1959 when the predecessor organization to PSL, called The Workers World

| A Reportback from Dallas

Party (WWP), split from the dominant American Trotskyist organization

at the time, the Socialist Workers Party. One of the main reasons for the

split was over the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. Tanks rolled in to

suppress a popular uprising, one that included workers councils and some

genuine social revolutionary moments (among many other things). WWP

was dismayed that their comrades criticized the Soviet Union, supposedly

the beacon of freedom in the world, for militarily suppressing a workers

movement. For the leaders of the WWP, the situation was simple: the So-

viet Union and its client regimes were “workers states,” maybe deformed,

but preventing a supposed workers state falling into the sphere of capitalist

imperialism was a higher good than any actual movement of workers. This

episode is why we call PSL and many others “tankies.” They were, and

seemingly still are, pro-tank.

The second place to start is the split from WWP that formed PSL. The

split occurred during the movement against the second Iraq War, and spe-

cifically in and around the ANSWER coalition, a large national anti-war

organization that WWP was central to forming. I honestly don’t care about

the detailed terms of conditions of the split because the political vision of

ANSWER, which eventually became closely aligned with PSL and served

as a powerful launching point, says plenty. ANSWER was one of the major

organizations that planned huge marches, literally the largest marches at

that time in US history. For the months leading up to US boots on the

ground, and then for years afterwards ANSWER pulled out numbers and

filled plazas across the country. And what did it accomplish? Absolutely

nothing. Don’t let them sugar coat it. The Bush regime was all too happy

to wave a middle finger at a million people on the streets of NYC and start

obliterating Iraqis and destabilizing an entire region of the planet. The an-

ti-Iraq war movement had some inspiring moments such as the shut down

of west coast ports, GI resistance, and militant blockades of military supply

movements. These stood in stark contrast to, and were often dismissed by,

the PSL and its self-inflating position at the head of polite parades. Techni-

cally PSL’s public statements about their split was largely around this failure

of the anti-War movement. And yet despite their rhetoric of being more

“revolutionary” than WWP, they proceeded to embrace the same passive and

ineffective approach. Today, when the current administration makes Bush

look like a liberal, we should be highly suspicious of a origin story like that.

In terms of their current practice, it’s useful to discuss why they might be

acting in the streets the way that they are. This is not to excuse them, but to

clarify our own positions in contrast to theirs.

The biggest catchphrase they use to explain their actions is “safety.” The

people in yellow vests are here for our “safety” and breaking from the plan

Our Enemies in Yellow | 11

makes “vulnerable” people “unsafe.” This is obviously patronizing, misses

the fact that we’re already unsafe, and also assumes we can make an om-

elet without breaking a few eggs. But taking their argument on face value,

it’s clear that they believe change happens through careful steps that mini-

mize the risk of mess. They want desperately to avoid “adventurism,” where

risks feel bad and might not pan out (i.e. are risks). Instead in their eyes

“the movement” should step into the street without a permit in solidarity

with burning fires like a deep morning stretch, preparing for a long day

of marching. This is the way we’ll have a “movement” filled with “normal”

people. But I think marching is fucking boring, and personally I want some

adventure. I think most people do too, and I don’t think “normal” people

even exist, only people who pretend to be normal because they’re scared of

their own power. That reticence on behalf of most people, however reason-

able, is one of the primary obstacles for a revolution, not because it prevents

people from doing what I want them to do, but because it prevents them

from doing what they want to do. Ultimately an ideological commitment

to “safety” and “responsibility” on behalf of “organizers” demonstrates an

ideological commitment against people’s agency, and against people finding

and building their own freedom.

A second major pillar of their enacted politics is the prioritization of some

kind of “strategy” that requires discipline and dedication to execute correct-

ly. Defenders of the yellow vests often appeal to how serious and committed

these flashy hall monitors are. They go to “everything” after all, they put in

the time, they’ve done the reading, and most importantly, they want to be

important. Their role as people who showed up to the action with a plan

means there was a plan. Who can disagree that groups of people should

make good plans and execute them well?

Well this simplistic mindset doesn’t really hold up when you think about

it. For one thing, that’s not really what PSL was doing here. The crowd was

not “a group with a plan,” PSL was a group of people in the crowd that had

a plan, one that was contingent on them controlling everyone else. They

did not have relationships or trust with most people there, instead they

were expecting people to follow in their usual passive deference to authority.

Moreover, I don’t think their plan was a good one. March around the block

chanting, when we’re clearly on the verge of a national wave of militancy?

No thank you.

The claim by PSL that people should “trust” their leadership because of

their “experience” misunderstands entirely how groups of people develop

politically. Of course we need people to learn lessons, think critically, and

hone skills. But that does not happen by passively following orders. It also

does not happen through one-by-one recruitment and training. A revolu-

| A Reportback from Dallas

tion is an activity undertaken by masses of people, millions of people. The

political development of millions of people does not and cannot happen by

everyone joining your club and sitting in your trainings. It can only happen

by the free, autonomous activity of those millions of people on their own.

This in turn is only possible because people are already in groups making

plans and executing them. Dirt bike crews, low riders, graffiti, kitchen-chair

barbers are already organized, even if many are informal and few are ex-

plicitly political. These structures of solidarity and resiliency showed their

embryonic insurgent potential on June 9th. DFW is no longer, if it ever

was, a land of polite bedroom communities. It’s a sprawling metroplex full

of people stretched thin and living by their wits. Even if people aren’t finan-

cially on the edge, the pervasive fear of death by gun violence or car accident

means there’s a little extra spice in the air these days. It’s starting from here,

through struggle, that millions of people will transform the world. This

is what it means to let people cook, not encouraging stupid risks and get-

ting people hurt, but letting people learn and grow, even if sometimes that

process looks a little stupid and people get hurt. If our “strategy” instead

assumes “our” role is to be to the ones learning lessons and we tell “the

people” what to do, then all our political work will never be much more

than a weird hobby.

The crux of this difference comes down to your core political prioritizations.

PSL and co believe good politics comes down to discipline and technique. I

believe good politics comes down to courage and creativity. These are obvi-

ously not mutually exclusive, but where you put the emphasis really matters.

All of these confusions feed off a subtle quality of how PSL and many others

relate to political work. These folks seem to be highly enamored with the

narratives, stories, and even fantasies about their role in history. This plays

out in big ways like the implicit belief that PSL might be or become The

Party, but also in small ways like how putting on a yellow vest tends to make

the wearer think they have some authority or special status. I don’t say this

dismissively, I’ve worn a vest in my time (how brave to confess, I know)

and it can have a very seductive quality. You feel a little important. But the

problem is that that feeling usually becomes a performance, and usually

has very little basis in reality. In a word, that feeling can easily turn you

into a clown. The ancient art of clowning after all is all about irony, and in

the end your performance of seriousness usually ends up making you very

silly. This also extends to the theatrical performances of militancy such as

carrying weapons or putting on elaborate tactical gear. When these are not

being used as tools to do a thing, but as costumes to perform a thing, they

not only hold you back from taking bold steps (you already feel bold with

your armor) they also hold others back. If someone is unsure if it’s a good

Our Enemies in Yellow | 13

idea to push the limit, when they see someone who is signaling their hard-

ness telling them to chill out they’ll probably listen. And so dressing up like

Antifa-Batman ends up making people into spectators waiting for you to do

the stunt you’re too scared to do. Importantly, this symbolic and theatrical

dynamic is exactly the same as the cops don-ing riot gear and imagining

they’re the star of the latest Marvel movie.

This same attachment to theater is also why actions have seemed fixated on

locations like the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge and City Hall. These places

are largely removed from people’s ordinary lives and the actual processes

of power. This essay so far has prioritized in-the-moment confrontations

and pushing boundaries in the midst of a demo, but this is not meant to

deny the importance of good, well executed plans that have a real material

impact. Even more significant however, will be connecting the spirit of re-

bellion to other aspects of people’s lives and other facets of social oppression.

If we allow the iconography of flags waving on the homepage of the Dallas

Morning News to determine our strategy, then political activity will remain

something “those people” do “over there,” just like actors on TV, and never

realize the potentials for social transformation.

What is to be done with PSL?

I clearly have no love for PSL, but this piece is meant to be cynical not

sectarian. The question in the section title does mean we need to priori-

tize beating PSL, but rather we need to acknowledge they’re on the scene

and expect them to continue their bullshit. Given that, I propose what I

call “The Grover Strategy:” with regards to PSL we should go over, under,

around and through. Yes, Grover like Sesame Street.

Over, in the sense of projectiles over the heads of the yellow vests, aimed

at the real enemy. But also over the sense of trusting that good politics

and good plans can help make the doofuses irrelevant. If we can support

masses of people to decide it’s time to escalate their rebellion, then no inter-

net-pilled dorks will be able to stop them.

Under, in the sense of undermine. By this I mean things like counter re-

cruitment, where we help politicos who are open to a different approach to

find their way to it. I also mean in the streets, where we can do things to

encourage creativity and bravery despite their efforts to prevent it.

Around, in the sense of doing something separate from PSL. If they’re going

to hold a big march that draws all the cops, we plan something else some-

where else. If they keep on the same staid boring program, we do things that

are adventurous and inspiring. Just because they make us incredibly mad,

does not mean we need to spend all our energy dealing with them.

| A Reportback from Dallas

Through is the most interesting. Through in the sense of using them, using

their obnoxious behavior, as itself a tool to achieve our goal. One example

of this is yelling at the yellow vests at an action. This is not polite and they

will get defensive and even more annoying, but the goal is not to make

them see the error in their ways. Instead the goal is to raise the temperature

of the crowd, helping others see that the self-appointed emperors have no

clothes. At this action, one person in the crowd turned to an agitator who

had been screaming at the human chain of PSL pacifiers and asked calmly,

“why are you so upset?” After hearing a calm reply about how they were

doing the same thing as the cops, the crowd members said, “oh, that makes

sense.” This type of anti-social shenanigans against PSL also helps spread

the news that we do not respect authority, we’re not looking for conde-

scending saviors, we’re looking for freedom.

Through applies particularly to those who have found themselves wearing

yellow, but are having doubts. Many at the action earnestly thought they

were helping and saw wearing a safety vest as a way to increase their con-

tribution. This desire is admirable, and we’ve all made mistakes. The im-

portant challenge for these people, as with all of us, is to grapple with the

complexities of our actions and have the humility to change course when

our conscience and reason says we should. The other side of this is that

those of you who have been nodding along with my snarky disses of PSL

must allow these people to grow and support them as they look for sharper

and more profound ways to advance the cause of freedom.

Another way through is reflection and discussion like this essay. It is crucial

to specify how we are not, and should not be like PSL. Our analysis, strat-

egies, and practices are made even sharper by critiquing them. For example

we can see more clearly what purpose organization might serve. Rather than

controlling a situation, rather than performing importance or seriousness,

organization is a tool to achieve ends. Those ends, for us, are to expand the

creative activity of people, and to help them find ways that their existing

forms of coordination can become the seeds of their liberation. In that light

discipline must be essentially self-discipline, and we should not confuse the

pseudo-activity of managing our groups with the real activity of struggle.

However, avoiding becoming PSL is honestly easier said than done. A lot of

their mistakes feel like common sense and are easy to rationalize. Avoiding

them requires more than avoiding democratic-centralism or terrible takes

on international relations. Instead it requires clarity around how we believe

history is made, what our role is in that process, and a consistent humility

that demands we face reality.

Our Enemies in Yellow | 15

A key to this is to consider how we believe things might transition from

conflict around this specific issue, i.e. ICE and Trump, to a more expan-

sive process of creating a liberated world. PSLs answer is simple: build a

revolutionary party, ideally PSL. But their behavior on the ground makes it

clear that this notion is no solution to how the oppressed, in our millions,

are supposed to take control of our own lives. Clearly we cannot support

more and more power being handed to yellow vests. Instead we have to see

how militant and creative confrontation within these flash points can break

people’s passivity. It can shatter the mirage of a world that just is how it is.

From within this break, even one that might seem small such as throwing

shit at the cops, a horizon opens up where people can act truly freely for

the first time. That opening up is precisely what PSL is trying to put limits

on, and instead we have to see it as the only way forward to the end of the

world as we know it. The end of this world, after all, means the beginning

of a new one.

– Ramon Byrne