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Oct 18, 17
Filed under: Action, Anti-fascist, US
Charlottesville, VA – Over two months after the murder of Heather Heyer at the neo-nazi Unite The Right rally on August 12, the broader neo-fascist “alt-right” movement has generally become fractured, due to external pressures, de-platforming and infighting. Recent attempts to hold white supremacist rallies and events have repeatedly been cancelled or shut down. Most recently, the Nazi front group Anti-Communist Action (‘Anticom’ for short) announced it was holding a torch rally with Richard Spencer in Charlotte, NC on December 28th, only to announce days later that the event had been cancelled for “safety” reasons.
More recently Anticom was revealed to have been contacted by Spencer requesting assistance providing security at his appearance at the University of Florida on October 19:
‘Pence Bot’ sends automated direct messages from Anticom Discord administrators to other users in the chat.
As part of the alt-right communication leaks obtained during Unite The Right in Charlottesville, Unicorn Riot received logs taken from Anticom’s Discord chat server, with messages spanning from February 2nd to September 5th, 2017. Today’s release is the first part of series, and the initial data set includes Anticom chat logs from February 2 to March 27, 2017.
Anticom’s website (which was recently shut down) described themselves as “the right’s response to antifa” and that their “mission is to defend our communities from radical political violence by physically resisting leftist terrorists and rioters.”
The Anticom chat logs show a strong theme of a desire to injure and/or murder antifascists and leftists, generally justified under the pretext of “self-defense.”
The Anticom #general chat channel opened up on the night of February 2nd and within minutes the username ‘bungu’ suggested “I think a few cities should be selected to create groups to work with police and counter antifa” and the user ‘Anticom – Head Representative’ calling for “edginess…to gain attention.”
The self-proclaimed leader of Anticom goes by ‘Seth’, a young white male living in or near Charlotte, North Carolina. In most copies of the chat logs we obtained, he instead appears with the username ‘Haupstürmfuhrer Pepe’. (‘Haupstürmfuhrer’ was a title given to paramilitary commanders in Hitler’s SS.)
One of several selfies posted by Anticom organizer ‘Seth’ under the Discord usernames ‘Anticom – Head Representative’ and/or ‘Haupstürmfuhrer Pepe’
Among the first proposed symbols of the group was a backward rendition of the Anti-Fascist Action flag, colored yellow and black and emblazoned with the words “Anti-Communist Action”.
A helicopter is seen in the version of the flag is in reference to the ‘helicopter rides’ used to execute political dissidents, often after they were brutally tortured, by Chile’s US-backed military dictatorship that existed under General Augusto Pinochet from 1973 to 1990.
Two days later, on February 4th, the username ‘Junge’ suggested Anticom “get rid of the helicopter so there’s no needless controversy about Pinochet and all that”; however, Anticom has since continued to use Pinochet and “helicopter rides” meme in its graphics. Many messages throughout the months of Anticom chat logs contain tributes to Pinochet.
The discussion then turned to Anticom chat participants expressing hopes for an upcoming civil war; user name ‘Karling’ speculated that a “massacre” and “a genocide” would take place with “the military on our side”.
While the server was still in its first day of use, Anticom chat user “Odalist Refrain” posted about the need to “drive the desert invader out” and proceeded to recommend bombing “a major federal building”.
The night of February 2, the username ‘GoGo’ boasted in the Anticom chat about how they “got the local gay club fined and shut down for a couple weeks” by reporting them for alleged building code violations. As we reported last December, neo-nazis and other far-right elements orchestrated campaigns to get DIY and queer-friendly venues shut down in the wake of the Ghost Ship fire in Oakland.
The next day, February 3, Anticom chat user ‘webdevanon’ outlined a four-step plan to “hunt down antifags” which included watching an ISIS “kitchen video” about how “to make a bomb out of household ingredients”, and go to the next protest disguised as antifa “with backpack and black block” and “do it Boston bomber style.”
A recurring theme throughout all the conversations in the Anticom Discord server were talks of violently confronting antifascists and shutting down leftist and antifascist protests. Anticom chat users talked about their desires to “conduct citizens arrests during violent protests” and “beat down some commie scum,” with plans to eventually form “Minuteman type…riot response teams.”
Some in the chat went further and expressed explicit desires to commit murder, making statements such as “run them over” and “I want to kill lefties so bad.”
Anticom members were also keen to discuss holocaust denial as well as valorize attacks on Jews, Muslims and people of color, with many references to lynchings and gas chambers. Anticom’s Discord chats contained a substantial amount of hate speech – server logs we received show 1,107 messages containing the word ‘nigger’, 445 uses of the word ‘kike’ and 412 references to Hitler, sent over a span of seven months. The phrase “Hitler did nothing wrong” appears 21 times.
As the weeks and months went on after first convening in their Discord server, Anticom members and supporters began to form a more cohesive entity with a basis in real-life streetfights and large-scale event organizing.
Part Two of our Anticom Discord leak reporting will release the remainder of the Anticom #general chat logs, which includes conversations leading up to, during, and after Unite The Right in Charlottesville.
(Anticom did not respond to requests for comment for this article as of the time of this writing.)
Over the last two months a team of anonymous web developers generously donated their time to create this searchable platform for Discord chat servers with support from Unicorn Riot collective members. It is located at https://discordleaks.unicornriot.ninja. We are pleased to present the first version of this software – there are a few bugs but most of the content is indexed and accessible. We have made redactions to the chat logs to protect the personal information of people identified as targets for harassment; other than these minimal redactions these logs have not been altered.
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