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Apr 13, 20

This Week in Fascism #54: Optics, Shucks

Welcome, fellow antifascists! This week, we’ve got the leader of an armed neo-Nazi group exposed as a 13-year-old boy, a facial recognition company infested with the far-Right, the Matthew Heimbach linked to Russian group labeled as “terrorists” by the US government, and doxxes of Feuerkrieg Division, The Base, and more!

Without further ado, let’s begin!

News

Katy Waldman, Wife of White Nationalist Stephen Miller, Involved in Infamous “14 Words” DHS Memo

Huffington Post reporter Jessica Schulberg revealed this week that the infamous 14 Words memo from the Department of Homeland Security was distributed by Stephen Miller’s wife (then fiancee) Katie Waldman.

The 2018 memo, which featured a 14-word headline– “We Must Secure the Border And Build the Wall to Make America Safe Again” – and featured a non-standard use of a statistic involving the number 88, struck many far-Right researchers as a dogwhistle.

White nationalists commonly use 14-word slogans in honor of David Lane’s mantra, “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children,” coined while he served a 190-year sentence for the assassination of Jewish journalist Alan Berg.

The number “88” is often referenced by neo-Nazis as alphanumeric code for “Heil Hitler,” since “H” is the eighth letter of the alphabet.

Waldman’s fiance, White House senior policy advisor Stephen Miller, was found in November to have distributed a number of articles from white nationalist outlets like VDARE from March 2015 to June 2016. A review from the Southern Poverty Law Center’s HateWatch found that more than 80% of these emails were about “race or immigration.”

New Video From Charlottesville 1.0 Rally After Party Shows Neo-Nazis Giving Hitler Salutes

A newly surfaced video shows white nationalists and neo-Nazis at a party following a rally in Charlottesville in May of 2017. In the video you can see Richard Spencer and Matthew Heimbach along with dozens of others throwing up Nazi salutes while screaming, “Sieg Hail!” This is the same incident that was talked about by former Identity Evropa member (now known as the American Identity Movement) “Samantha,” after she left the organization, only to receive threats of violence and assault.

Seen in the video is also Justin Wayne Peek, the former Director of Activism of Identity Evropa and now holding the same title under the banner of the American Identity Movement (AmIM). AmIM is now a leading force within the “Groyper” movement, a section of white nationalists who seek to push the MAGA movement towards the Alt-Right. It’s principle leaders are Nick Fuentes and Patrick Casey, the leader of AmIM. Both marched in the neo-Nazi ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville.

Facial Recognition Company Clearview AI Infested With Far-Right

A HuffPo investigation into the origins of facial recognition company Clearview AI found an alarming number of links to far-Right, fascist, and neo-Nazi figures.

According to summer 2019 promotional materials, “over 200 law enforcement agencies around the nation” are using Cleaview AI’s technology. Clearview also appears to internally monitor law enforcement’s use of their technology. As the HuffPo noted, “[a]fter a Times reporter had police officers run her photo through the app, the officers received calls from Clearview representatives asking if they were speaking to a journalist.”

Clearview co-founder and CEO Cam-Hoan Ton-That is an adherent of the “Dark Enlightenment,” a far-Right ideology advocating for racial separatism and a return to monarchy, referring to President Trump as the “God-Emperor.”

Prior to founding Clearview, Ton-That was a member of far-right propagandist Chuck Johnson’s WeSearchr Slack channel, along with many prominent Alt-Right figures. This included the Daily Stormer’s Andrew “Weev” Aurenheimer, Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich, mass shooting advocate and former GOP Congressional Primary candidate Paul Nehlen, and George Zimmerman, who killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black teenager in 2012.

Matthew Heimbach Linked to Russian Imperial Movement (RIM), Designated as Terrorist Group by US

For the first time, the United States government has designated a foreign white supremacist group, the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM), as a “terrorist” organization. RIM is made up of far-Right ultranationalist paramilitaries, who in 2017 provided weapons training to the perpetrators of a series of bomb plots against asylum seekers in Sweden. For years the US has labeled groups like ISIS as terrorists, but this is the first time a foreign white nationalist group has received such a label.

Far-Right researcher Megan Squire pointed out on Twitter that Matthew Heimbach, who claims to have recently left the far-Right, provided RIM with material support, hosting their representatives in the United States, and admitting to the Washington Free Beacon that he had “networked extensively” with the group while traveling in Europe.

As This Week in Fascism reported last week, Heimbach claims to have left his neo-Nazi past behind, and now works with purported anti-extremism group Light Upon Light. In recent months, Light Upon Light has also embraced former leader of the National Socialist Movement (NSM) Jeff Schoep, and his girlfriend, Acacia Dietz, although Dietz is listed in court documents as still running the NSM website. Schoep along with Heimbach, are also at the center of an ongoing trial stemming from the disastrous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. Jeff has even gone so far as to claim that he dropped his phone, which was wanted as evidence, into a toilet, and thus could not turn it over to the court. Heimbach is likewise not playing ball.

Moreover, Light Upon Light currently collaborates with an SPEC-designated anti-Muslim hate group, The Clarion Project. In 2011, mass shooter Anders Breivik cited the Clarion Project’s materials in the manifesto explaining his shootings. More recently, in 2017, when the Clarion Project claimed that the upstate New York Muslim community of Islamberg was secretly training terrorists, the Proud Boys responded by organizing a protest of the 40 Muslim families living there. The Light Upon Light podcast also recently featured an interview with far-Right grifter and conspiracy theorist, Andy Ngo, known for working closely with far-Right groups.

Oath Keepers Threaten Government, Trump on Twitter

The Oath Keepers, a far-Right militia group, issued a series of threatening tweets this week, writing that “Trump needs to catch a clue very soon, & reverse course, or he risks being at the helm when armed resistance starts not just against the idiotic state politicians, but also against the idiots in his own admin if they actually try the Orwellian crap they are taking about.”

“This is not going to end well, at all, for the wanna-be police state architects. They need to back off, now, before they reap the whirlwind. American patriots will not be chipped, tattooed, tracked, forced to take a vaccine, or forced to show ‘papers please,’” claimed the militia group.

While the Oath Keepers have always maintained an ostensibly far-Right “Constitutionalist” ideology, this is one of the few times they’ve criticized the Trump administration.

Milo Says Drag Queens Should be Shot

Aging far-Right grifter Milo Yiannopoulos encouraged his 18,000 Telegram followers to shoot drag queens this week.

“There is a proper context in which to see drag queens. Through a scope,” wrote the banned Twitter personality on Telegram, one of the communication platforms from which he has yet to be banned.

Though commonly thought of as an Alt-Light provocateur, Milo has called for violent action in the past. In May 2019, he wrote to his Telegram followers that, “It is getting close to the time when, per American founding documents, citizens will start forming into well-regulated militias… civil war is coming.”

Buzzfeed exposed Milo as having extensive ties to white nationalists and in 2017, sang America the Beautiful front of Richard Spencer and other neo-Nazis, who threw up Hitler salutes. In recent months, Milo has taken to promoting the white nationalist Groyper movement and neo-Nazi groups such as the American Identity Movement.

Doxxes

Leader of Feuerkrieg Division Discovered to be 13-Year-Old Estonian Boy

The head of the Feuerkrieg Division, an international neo-Nazi group that has seen multiple members arrested for bomb plots in several different countries over the past year, has been exposed as a 13-year-old Estonian boy.

Feuerkrieg (FKD) was founded in 2018, and the members quickly began to create an international network. 2019 saw a series of arrests in the group. In August, Conor Climo was apprehended for planning to bomb the Las Vegas offices of the Anti-Defamation League and a local gay nightclub. He pled guilty in February and faces up to 10 years in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for May 14, 2020.

In September, Army Private Jarrett William Smith, also a member of the group, was arrested for planning to bomb the offices of CNN, Presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, and attack the home of I Don’t Speak German podcaster Daniel Harper. Smith also served as the group’s liaison to Misanthropic Division, the international volunteers wing of the neo-Nazi militia turned Ukrainian National Guard branch, the Azov Battlalion.

In January 2020, the Kaitsepolitseiamet (the Estonian FBI, unfortunately truncated to KaPo) paid a visit to the 13-year-old mastermind, but did not arrest him, as Estonian law prohibits the arrest or prosecution of anyone under 14 years of age.

The boy had contact in a chat he established with someone using the pseudonym “Kert Valter,” a pseudonym often used by Ruuben Kaalep, a neo-Nazi member of the Estonian Parliament.

In March 2020, Unicorn Riot published FKD’s leaked chats, showing that the group had been infiltrated by antifascists since the summer of 2019.

Zephyr Garrison, New Hampshire Member of The Base, Feuerkrieg Division, Leader of Natural Order

Eugene Antifa identified 17-year-old Zephyr Garrison as a member of neo-Nazi groups Feuerkrieg Division and The Base, where he was known as “Det.Som.Engang.Var” a reference to an album by neo-Nazi Black Metal artist Varg Vikernes.

Garrison joined The Base in January, following the arrest of seven members. Three of those members were arrested in Georgia for planning the murder of a couple they believed to be antifascist activists. As reported by Atlanta Antifascists, they picked their targets from a list provided by League of the South Spokesman Brad Griffin.

Garrison was also a member of Iron Youth and Invictus Youth, two smaller accelerationist groups, as well as starting an international group called the League of Nationalists.

In a Telegram chat called “The Organization,” he detailed a plan to take over the town of Sandwich, New Hampshire, asking the other members to purchase a gun for him. On March 22, 2020, members of the group met in Sandwich to examine the town. On March 24, 2020, he announced that he was founding a new group, Natural Order, and shortly thereafter, that he would be joining with Iron Youth, with Natural Order controlling the members on the east coast and Iron Youth absorbing the rest of the country.

Neo-Nazi Biker and Handyman John M. Smith, Colorado Springs, Colorado

Colorado Springs Anti-Fascist’s doxxed local neo-Nazi handyman John Smith. Smith currently runs an unlicensed construction and contracting business “Hammers Inc. LLC.” out of Colorado Springs, Colorado. When he’s not posting cringe photos of his SS bolt tattoos and Guy Fieri blue flame button up shirts, John likes to shitpost neo-Nazi dogwhistles in the form of quotes referencing “Blood and Honour,” the 14 words, and 88. His business Instagram handle is Hammersllc1488.

Smith has even made posts advocating violence against women. On either side of the SS bolts on his collarbone are two white nationalist appropriated pagan symbols, indicating a gross obsession with perceived racial purity.

Chris Hood, Boston, Massachusetts, Former III%er, Proud Boy, Patriot Front and The Base; Current Leader of NSC-131

AntiFash Gordon exposed Boston, Massachusetts neo-Nazi Chris Hood, who began his career in far-Right organizing in 2015, as a teenage member of the Three Percenters, a far-Right militia. In 2017, Hood joined the Proud Boys, serving as an administrator for the Northeast USA Proud Boys Facebook group.

Hood began attending rallies held by local far-right groups Boston Free Speech and Resist Marxism, and was even quoted in an August 2017 Vox article, saying “This is Boston. We don’t support Nazis here.”

But just months later, Hood joined the neo-Nazi Patriot Front, attending a December 2017 protest of the Harvard Coop alongside members of Boston Free Speech, while wearing a Patriot Front mask. By February 2018, Patriot Front founder Thomas Rousseau was praising Hood’s work for the group in their Discord chats, saying, “Chris was a lone MA guy, and now he’s doing demo after demo on the cusp of a network. It happens. It works. It pays off.”

In May 2018, Hood was publicly exposed as a member of Patriot Front, in a Think Progress article detailing the far-right ties of Resist Marxism. In January 2019, Hood was fired from his job at Dick’s Sporting Goods following an antifascist call-in campaign. Weeks later, Hood was one of several Patriot Front members arrested for weapons possession while posting neo-Nazi flyers in a Latinx neighborhood in East Boston.

Despite being a Network Directing Officer in Patriot Front, Hood was kicked out of the group in the fall of 2019, allegedly for stealing flyer money to purchase cannabis. Hood immediately got in touch with AntiFash Gordon, offering “dozens of Patriot Front doxxes.”

Shortly after that, Hood joined The Base, a neo-Nazi accelerationist group, and subsequently started a new group called National Socialist Club, or NSC-131.

Justin Michael Vogt, Proud Boy in Gulfport, Florida

Antifa Garfield doxxed Proud Boy Justin Michael Vogt, of Gulfport, Florida.

Vogt is a third-degree member of the hate group.

Anti-Racist Canada Drills into Alberta Secessionists, Finds Well of White Nationalists

Anti-Racist Canada released an article detailing the far-Right associations of people featured in a Walrus photo essay on Alberta’s secession. Though the Walrus didn’t mention it, the group included climate-change deniers, anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists, and white nationalists.

Deplatforms

Antisemitic YouTube Channel Booted from Patreon

White supremacist YouTube channel Way of the World was banned from Patreon this week, after a two-month pressure campaign from Colorado Springs Anti-Fascists.

Support Our Prisoners

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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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