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May 20, 19

This Week in Fascism #10: Fash of a Feather

Welcome, fellow anti-fascists! This week, we’ve got an explainer covering the international networks of the Identitarian movement; new doxxes of the neo-nazi group Patriot Front, the white nationalist Asatru Folk Assembly, and the Hitlerite Legio Christi. Plus, Carl “Sargon of Akkad” getting milkshaked FOUR TIMES, and how you can help anarchist and journalist Elizabeth King get her Twitter account back.

Cover image: Martin Sellner and Troy Worden, the former leader of UC Berkeley College Republicans who was voted out of group for being too Alt-Right.

Explainer: The International Networks of the Identitarian Movement

This week’s Explainer comes from This Week in Fascism’s European correspondent, @ThatWeltschmerz.

This week’s revelation that Austrian identitarian leader Martin Sellner not only received a large donation from Christchurch, New Zealad, mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant but that they had a very friendly email exchange; each invited the another for a beer if they should ever be in the same city at the same time, highlights just how globally networked the white nationalist movement is.

In North America, Sellner was previously best known as a leader of “Defend Europe,” a project that raised money and bought a ship in 2017 to interfere with NGOs rescuing migrants stranded in the Mediterranean. (Read: Sellner & co. would rather let certain people drown than share even a continent with them).

The ship’s “mission” was marred by a series of mishaps and embarrassments, but it did help raise the profile of Europe’s Generation Identity (GI) movement, which started in France in 2013 and has since opened chapters in several other European countries.

Passengers onboard included GI movement members from Austria, France, and Italy as well as US-and Canada-based far-Right YouTube personalities Brittany Pettibone (now Sellner’s fiancée) and Lauren Southern. Southern then embarked on a world tour that brought her into contact with Suidlanders spokesman Simon Roche in South Africa, Russian demagogue Aleksandr Dugin, and Australian far-Right activists.

Currently, Sellner is banned from the US, however, the GOP in Kootenai County, Idaho, has passed a resolution asking that he be let into the country to marry Pettibone, which would result in him have US citizenship. As the local news reported:

The Kootenai County GOP posted two videos on YouTube. One video shows Pettibone speaking at a party meeting, and the other shows party members discussing her situation. The committee passed a resolution asserting U.S. authorities revoked Sellner’s travel privileges “for political reasons” and “interfered with the wedding plans of these two young people.”

“Martin has been to the U.S. four times with no issue and never caused any kind of disturbance, so it really was politically motivated,” Pettibone told the party, adding that she and Sellner now plan to get married in Austria in July.

A staffer from U.S. Rep. Russ Fulcher’s Coeur d’Alene office, Tim Kastning, also attended the meeting.

At one point, Kastning stood up and said: “I just wanted to let the committee know that I have reached out to (Pettibone) and given her my card, and Congressman Fulcher’s office will be doing what we can to give whatever help and assistance that we can.”

But if white nationalist activists are globally networked, movement intellectuals are at least as well connected. Budapest-based publisher Arktos Media claims it has “published more than 150 titles in fourteen languages and circulated them globally” and has disseminated work by French New Right authors as well as “Russian geopolitical thinker Alexander Dugin” and Italian “traditionalist” fascist Julius Evola. German publisher Verlag Antaios, which published Sellner’s book about his (mis)adventures at sea, distributes Arktos books and publishes translations of similar titles.

And since we’re back on Sellner, his organization, Identitäre Bewegung Österreich (Identitarian Movement of Austria, or IBÖ), doesn’t seem to have learned much from the scandal around his connection with Tarrant. Tarrant’s manifesto took its title from a book by French nationalist Renaud Camus called The Great Replacement and repeated the “white genocide” conspiracy theory that is the hallmark of white nationalism. (For example, Southern’s documentary about white South African farmers is completely steeped in it).

So IBÖ did what any reasonable organization would do when proven to be closely linked to a mass killer: this Saturday, they doubled down by sponsoring a lecture on “the Great Replacement” by none other than Martin Lichtmesz, the European New Right ideologue who translated Camus’ book into German for Antaios.

The good news is that white nationalists don’t have a lot of ideas to fall back on. The bad news is that they are no less dangerous for it.

Doxxes

Monday, May 13, 2019

Toynbee ‘R’ Us identified Ian T. Brust, Glasford, Illinois, as Fash Dragon, a former member of the neo-Nazi Traditionalist Worker Party. Glasford is currently a Forestry student at Southern Illinois University, in Carbondale, Illinois. You can tweet to them at @SIUC, or drop a comment on their Facebook or Instagram pages.

Wednesday, May 15, 2019

It’s Going Down revealed that self-proclaimed “online extremism researcher” Eoin Lenihan is actually far-Right troll ProgDad. Lenihan is known for feuding with rapper Talib Kweli in the summer of 2018, and impersonating a progressive to troll leftists on Twitter, for which he was banned as both @ProgDad and @RipProgDadTV.

In violation of Twitter’s policies, he is currently avoiding that ban under the handle @EoinLenihan. On May 16, 2019, in his role as an “online extremism researcher,” Lenihan was interviewed by Al Jazeera as part of a now-deleted roundtable on the “Christchurch call,” an initiative seeking to curb violence provoked by online extremism.

Recently, Lenihan released a long Twitter thread accusing mainstream journalists, including Jason Wilson, Nate Thayer, and the Huffington Post’s Chris Mathias, of secretly being anti-fascist activists.

On May 17, 2019, far-Right commentator Tim Pool released a video about Lenihan’s conspiracy theory. As of this writing, that video has received over 100,000 views. “They’re essentially activists themselves,” Pool said. “And they hide behind the label of ‘journalist’ to make it seem like their activism is some kind of legitimate news service.”

Harassment of individual journalists has increased in recent weeks, with Laura Loomer releasing Daily Beast correspondent Will Sommer’s personal phone number in her Telegram channel, and on Friday, the Proud Boys released the cell number of Right Wing Watch’s Jared Holt in response to a tweet noting that they were currently evading their payment processor ban. The Proud Boys also claimed credit for the recent Twitter ban of freelance reporter Elizabeth King.

AnoymousComrade identified Patriot Front member halfdanthegrey as Hayden Grey Turner of Florida. This marks the third Patriot Front member exposed in the last three weeks.

Thursday, May 16, 2019

Longtime troll and Patriot Prayer associate Jean D’Plorable was identified as LaDon Jean Deatherage, of Vancouver, Washington by Twitter account @ayeleeyan.

Friday, May 17, 2019

Atlanta Antifascists released two new stories, both dealing with employees of Chatham Emergency Services.

Jasper Collins is a firefighter in Chatham County, Georgia, and a supporter of the Hitlerite Legio Christi. He refers to himself as a “Legionniare” – a supporter of the Iron Guard, a Romanian fascist organization whose hatched symbol was recently found at the site of the Highlander Center arson in Tennessee.

Matthew “Bodi” Mayo – and yes, that is his real name – is an EMT in Georgia, as well as a religious leader in the racist heathen group the Asatru Folk Assembly, and a member of the online group the White Nationalist Alliance.

Both men are employed by Chatham Emergency Services, a county that is nearly 50% non-white. Hours after the articles went online, the two men were placed on leave pending the outcome of a discrimination investigation.

Saturday, May 18, 2019

Halifax Against Hate debuted a list of the members of the Northern Guard, an anti-immigrant hate group. Like the American Guard, the Northern Guard is an offshoot of anti-immigrant hate group the Soldiers of Odin.

Deplatforms

Far-Right commentator Roosh V. reports that he received a seven-day Twitter suspension. As the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Michael Edison Hayden notes, this is the same penalty Islamophobe and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer received just prior to being banned for life by the service.

Roosh V. began his media career as a “pickup artist,” writing travel guides about having sex in foreign countries, before moving on to general Men’s Rights Activism, which, like many others, became his gateway to the alt-right. In a February 2015 blog post, he recommended that “on private property, any and all rape that happens should be completely legal.” By 2016, he expressed support for white nationalist Richard Spencer, and by 2018, appeared on white nationalist YouTube channel Red Ice TV.

Actions

Four antifascist protesters were arrested at the American Renaissance conference at Montgomery Bell State Park, Tennessee.

Within hours, an online fundraising appeal matched all bail needs, and the protesters were freed. Solidarity!

YouTuber and Ukip candidate Carl Benjamin had milkshakes thrown at him no fewer than four times this week, as had Nigel Farange. Benjamin began his career into political commentary under the YouTube moniker Sargon of Akkad, where he first came to prominence issuing anti-feminist monologues during GamerGate.

Call to Action

Background:

Anarchist and journalist Elizabeth King has been banned from Twitter for “hateful conduct” after tweeting “what the fuck is wrong with you you cunt” at alt-right troll Eoin Lenihan.

In the past week, in the guise of an “online extremism researcher,” Lenihan has made it a point to target journalists, spreading an infographic of Twitter follows and claiming that mainstream journalists are secretly antifascist activists. This is meant to undermine the credibility of the journalists’ work, and endangers them by turning them into targets for the far-Right rather than observers.

Additionally, as a freelance reporter, King relies on social media to draw attention to her work, and network with editors and publishes to secure ongoing gigs. Incivility to fascists is not the same as “hateful conduct.” King had every right to challenge Lenihan, who attacked the credibility of her profession and undermined her safety as a journalist covering the far-Right.

Action:

Tweet @jack, @vijaya, and @TwitterSupport, asking them to restore King’s account, @ekingc.

Sample tweet:

Hey, @jack, @vijaya, and @TwitterSupport! Please restore @ekingc’s account immediately. Deplatforming a journalist isn’t a good look, especially when you won’t solve the Nazi problem here.

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A weekly roundup of the latest and greatest happenings in the anti-fascist world. Each column features a roundup of news, actions, doxxes and current calls to action.

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