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Aug 19, 19

This Week in Fascism #23: Don’t Let the Bridge Hit You on the Way Out

Welcome, fellow antifascists! This week, we’ve got all the latest news from Saturday’s Proud Boys march in Portland, plus your usual slate of doxxes and deplatforms. And as a special bonus, how you can help put a stop to an upcoming fascist conference in New Jersey!

Without further ado, let’s begin!

After Weeks of Violent Death Threats, Proud Boys Leave Portland After 30 Minute Rally

On Saturday, neo-fascist and pro-Trump street gang the Proud Boys, joined by their affiliates, the Three Percenter militia, and the American Guard, which was founded by a neo-Nazi bonehad, held a cynically-titled, 30-minute “End Domestic Terrorism” rally at Portland’s downtown waterfront.  A coalition of over one thousand everyday antifascists counter-protested their rally.

The week prior saw half a dozen arrests for the attack on Cider Riot on May 1st, including of Patriot Prayer’s Joey Gibson. The mayor and police made issued sternly-worded warnings, and city officials and “community leaders” engaged in a performative display of attacking “both sides” (with a few exceptions) at a press rally in Pioneer Square. As a safety precaution, the city announced that one or more bridges would be closed to all traffic on Saturday. The arrests, along with press generated over Biggs continued threats of violence produced a chilling effect, causing the Oath Keepers to pull out at the last minute.

When Saturday came, a small group including Gibson and associates gathered at the downtown waterfront, while around 200 Proud Boys and American Guard met on the east side of the river. While American Guard guarded the vehicles, police allowed the Proud Boys to march across the closed Morrison Bridge to meet Gibson’s crew. Biggs attempted to complete a speech where he almost called people “faggots” (replacing it with “retards”), and then led the group in a prayer circle, which was followed by chants of “U-S-A” and “four more years” (and “eight more years”) for 20 minutes. After this pathetic showing, the Proud Boys were asked by the police to extricate themselves back over the closed Hawthorne bridge to where American Guard neo-Nazis greeted them with hugs and cheers.

Joey Gibson, fresh out of jail, then insisted on marching back downtown where he was eventually commanded by police to get in the car and leave. Portland antifascists then turned their attention to the city’s police, occupying streets and intersections to demonstrate their anger at the city’s and cops’ special accommodation of their uninvited, unwanted guests.

During the day, local fascist propagandist Andy Ngo managed to spin up at least three new hoaxes about interactions between visiting fascists and local antifascists, all of which were quickly an easily debunked but which have taken on a life of their own within the fascist right’s propaganda ecosystem.

Thirteen were arrested over the course of the day, and no major injuries were reported besides those administered by the police. Joe Biggs described the event simply as “a troll” in one interview, and in others claimed victory because of Trump’s tweet. Proud Boys also claimed victory over how much their rally cost the city, and promised to return monthly until the mayor “does something” about antifa. We’ll see you next month.

Doxxes

Thursday, August 15, 2019: Hammerskin Doxxes Himself

Lyndsea K. Sullivan, of Glens Falls, New York, outed himself as the Sergeant-in-Arms of local Hammerskin Nation chapter in a threatening message Facebook message on Thursday.

The Hammerskin Nation are a violent neo-Nazi skinhead group that originated in Texas in 1988. Long known as the elite frontline troops of the far-right skinhead movement, they have been linked to countless assaults and at least one incident of mass murder, when Hammerskin Wade Michael Page murdered six people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. The group also refers to itself by the alphanumeric code “38,” for “Crossed Hammers,” their logo.

Sullivan is the owner of Sullivan’s Creative Landscaping in Glens Falls, New York. The Yelp page for the business features fourteen reviews, all of them noting Sullivan’s neo-Nazi affiliations.

#IdentifyEvropa

Chicago Antifa released a new article on Steven Scheele, of Dekalb, Illinois, a member of white nationalist group Identity Evropa, which recently rebranded as the American Identity Movement after being infiltrated and exposed by antifascists.

In the leaked chats, Scheele went by the name Gaius Mucius Scaevola and discussed learning how to weld, practicing survivalist skills, and flyering at Northern Illinois University.

He referred to these flyers as “siege packets,” a reference to neo-Nazi James Mason’s Siege, a collection of writings that inspired the Atomwaffen Division, a group responsible for multiple murders, including the thwarted sabotage of a nuclear facility in Florida. On Friday, Connor Climo, an Atomwaffen member in Las Vegas, Nevada, was arrested for the possession of bomb-making materials, with which he planned to target members of the Jewish and LGBTQIA communities.

Scheele is also a member of the libertarian Young Americans for Liberty, a college group that began as an arm of former Congressman Ron Paul’s 2008 Presidential campaign.

Friday, August 16, 2019: Nazis Found to be Organizing Pro-Trump Rally

Chester Doles, a Ku Klux Klan member in Dahlonega, Georgia, is organizing a pro-Trump in the city on September 14, 2019.

Doles is a longtime white supremacist. In 1992, he bragged to the Baltimore Sun about being a “fourth-generation” Klan member while he was facing trial for assaulting a Black man, and in 2016, organized alongside Crew 38, the group for supporters of the Hammerskin Nation.

If readers have more information about Doles or the rally, please reach out to Atlanta Antifascists.

Saturday, August 16, 2019: Attacker of Anti-Racist Protester IDed

Eugene Antifa identified Igor Ponomarev, of Vancouver, Washington, as the man who stomped an anti-racist protester on the ground on October 13, 2018.

Ponomarev works for his brother’s construction company, Vitan Construction, in Portland, Oregon.

Proud Boy Doxxes Fellow Proud Boy

Florida Proud Boy Chris White, known for posting a selfie featuring him wearing an American flag shorts-and-shirt combo while his nipple was bleeding and sending unsolicited dick pics to members of the Proud Boys Girls, identified an attendee at the August 17th Proud Boys event in Portland as “joe Oakes from MI.”

Thanks for the tip, Chris White!

Fake Antifa Account Exposed

Philadelphia researcher Gwen Snyder exposed a fake antifascist account created for the purposes of disseminating information about the August 17th event in Portland.

The since-suspended account, @ANTIFA_Portland, displayed images of armed people in sickle-and-hammer masks and threatened conservatives in an attempt to advance a narrative about far-Right violence.

Snyder posted screenshots of a far-Right Telegram chat entitled “Dr. Honkler’s Clowns,” where a user with the handle “IE” displayed screenshots of analytics from the fake antifascist account.

Sunday, August 18, 2019: Gab User “TZyklon” Identified

Antifascist researcher 161partisan identified Gab user “TZyklon” as Christina Jo Tanguy, of Redmond, Oregon.

Tanguy is a prolific user of both Gab and Russian social network Vkontakte who was identified following an open-source intelligence investigation of pictures posted of her home, dog, and herself, when she entered the 2019 Miss Hitler beauty pageant.

Actions

Proud Boy Catfished, Gives Up Portland Accommodations

https://twitter.com/QrankTeeth/status/1162441536937844737

Ahead of the August 17th Proud Boys event in Portland, antifascists catfished Proud Boy Zack Staggs, who told his new online love that he would be staying at Embassy Suites by Hilton Portland Airport hotel.

Staggs responded by tweeting, “I walked all around Portland for 2 days and y’all didn’t stop me, just beaten up your own portlanders,” admitting to assault in a tweet that was quickly archived by antifascist researchers.

Deplatforms

Joey Gibson Deplatformed, Briefly Restored

Patriot Prayer’s Joey Gibson, after being arrested for charges stemming from started a new fundraiser on GoGetFunding, one of the few crowdfunding sites still willing to deal with violent far-right groups.

Following a pressure campaign asking payment processors WePay, Plaid, and Chase to deplatform the fundraiser, from activists, Gibson’s “Donate” link was deactivated for several hours before being restored by GoGetFunding.

In a violation of PayPal’s Terms of Service, Gibson is using the PayPal of his girlfriend, Carmen Estele Doyle, as his new payment processor.

As of this writing, antifascists have reached out to PayPal to let the company know about the Terms of Service breach.

Canadian Hate Group Leader “Mutually” Terminated from Job

The city of Hamilton, Ontario, has announced that it has “mutually agreed” to part ways with hate group leader and former Hamilton Network Analyst Marc Lemire.

Lemire has been involved with the white supremacist movement since the 1990s, beginning with the neo-Nazi Heritage Front. Lemire used his tech skills to operate several far-right hate websites, including those for the Heritage Front and the innocuously named Citizens for Foreign Aid Reform.

Joe Biggs Banned from Facebook

Proud Boy Joe Biggs, organizer of the August 17th event in Portland, was banned from Facebook following a string of threats against antifascist organizers. Biggs was previously banned from Twitter, after first being unverified, after a similar string of threats.

Straight Pride Parade Organizer Dumped by NORML

Samson Racioppi, an organizer of the upcoming Boston Straight Pride Parade and longtime associate of far-right group Resist Marxism, was forced to resign from marijuana-advocacy group NORML last week, following a pressure campaign from activists.

The Straight Pride Parade is being organized Super Happy Fun America, a rebrand of Resist Marxism, a far-right group in New England. In May 2018, leaked chats exposed Resist Marxism as a hotbed of antisemitic activity and links to neo-Nazi groups, including Patriot Front.

The group’s rebrand follows a string of organizing violent events in the northeast. In October 2018, Resist Marxism sponsored a rally in Providence, RI, where State Police allowed members of the Proud Boys to cross a police line to attack antifascist and left-wing protesters. In January 2019, Resist Marxism, including Straight Pride Parade organizer Mark Sahady, showed up at the Boston Women’s March to attack attendees, which was recorded by leftist videographer Mike Gamms. And in May 2019, leaked chats exposed Resist Marxism’s “Security” team for a since-cancelled Providence event trading pictures of protesters they planned to assault at the event, and the weapons they planned to carry at the rally.

Call to Action

Help Shut Down a Neo-Fascist Event in New Jersey

Background: On August 31, the Broadway Theatre in Pitman, NJ, will play host to variety of speakers from the far-right, including Carl Benjamin, aka Sargon of Akkad, who helped fuel the anti-feminist harassment of GamerGate.

Other speakers include Mark Meechan, aka Count Dankula, who was found guilty of violating anti-hate legislation in the UK; Aydin Paladin, a Holocaust denier; and Andy Ngo, a Quillette editor who recently pushed a conspiracy theory about journalists that inspired an Atomwaffen-affiliated kill list and has made a career off of promoting literal fake news about the antifascist movement.

Action: Call the Broadway Theatre at (856) 384-8381 and ask them not to let fascists use their space to organize. Be polite and offer to explain the context of the event.

Sample Script: Hello, I’m calling on behalf of No Hate NJ to ask you to cancel the upcoming MINDS New Jersey event that will be held at your theater on August 31. The speakers include Carl Benjamin, who helped inspire a campaign of harassment and terror against feminists during GamerGate; Mark Meechan, who was convicted of a hate crime in the UK; Aydin Paladin, a Holocaust denier; and Andy Ngo, a conspiracy theorist who recently inspired a neo-Nazi kill list with his lies. Thank you so much for your time.

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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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