FTP-STL

“I mean, I’m not I’m not the enemy of people that really care about the Black lives, but I’m apparently the enemy of the terrorists and the Marxists that are running this organization…first of all, why are they protesting on Portland Place. The mayor doesn’t live there? And when they kick in the gate, when the first thing they do is destroy private property and they storm in angry and shouting and threatening. This isn’t a protest. It’s a revolution. It’s just an attempt to inflict terror. It’s the definition of terrorism is to use force and violence, terrorize a population. And that’s what happened to me last night.” – Reactionary (and registered Democrat) Mark McCloskey, Interview with KSDK

The revolutionary masses of Saint Louis brought their anger to the City’s richest neighborhoods yesterday evening. Portland Place is a gated community, a stretch of Gilded Age mansions near Forest Park, within walking distance of some of the poorest communities in the City. The well known Delmar Divide is represented by Portland Place and similar gated communities in the Central West End district. The purpose of the demonstration was to demand the resignation of reactionary mayor Lyda Krewson, not just for the doxing of progressive activists who submitted criticisms to her office last week, but also for her continued crimes against the city’s unhoused population and general ruling class lackey behavior. Saint Louis is run by a crooked crew of bought-out aldermen, reactionary, bootlicking preachers, and a rising “political class” of “activists” who seek simply to participate in the government administration and feed from the trough.

The event of the night that has attracted most national and international attention was when personal injury attorneys Mark McClosky and his wife, Patricia, residents of a 20,000 square foot mansion at the corner of Portland Place and Kingshighway, came outside with a semi-automatic rifle and a pistol, pointing them at demonstrators. After the incident, McCloskey, in an interview and a press release released by the PR firm which he hired, espoused typical rightist rhetoric and false concern for the Black lives taken in street violence North of Delmar, while obscuring the fact that he was preparing to enact reactionary violence on demonstrators for simply walking through his “private property” on stolen Osage land. The McCloskeys are already receiving the wrath of the people in a variety of ways, and are perfect representatives of a dying class of bourgeoisie. This is not the defining event, even though it is that which most are discussing at this moment. The people, at the end of the day, occupied the Mayor’s property.

The demonstration continued through Portland Place, with militants knocking over trash cans and liberal peace police trailing pathetically behind, picking them up and, like good little lapdogs, stupidly returning the refuse of the ruling class to its container. Red flags and a banner proclaiming that it is right to rebel were brought and led the march for most of its duration. When liberal demostrations occur, it is the place of the revolutionary organization to be at the front, leading it and raising the militancy and political level.

Upon reaching Krewson’s house, the barricades which were hastily put up by the enemy police the night before in were toppled and militants immediately took the front porch, holding it as a rallying point and propaganda demonstration of the inevitable triumph of the proletariat over the ruling class and its representatives. While Police Chief John Hayden was present to defend his mayor (who was not at home), he could not reclaim the street and was completely unable to interfere with the protest in any way.

There was another march on Delmar later – militants ensured leadership of this action as well and offered red flags as identifiable rallying points and leadership. The demonstration returned to Krewson’s house, where RESIGN and other slogans had been painted on the street directly in front of her property.

Overall, FTP-STL’s assessment of the action is that it was militant, raised the political consciousness of the people through an armed standoff with reactionaries, and offered hope to communists throughout the country by bringing the red flag of revolution directly to the residence of the ruling class administrator in chief.

FTP-STL will continue to uphold revolutionary Communism at demonstrations and continue local mass work to spread the revolutionary Maoist line in all spheres of St. Louis.

IT IS RIGHT TO REBEL!