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Apr 23, 19

This Week in Fascism #6: Let’s Get Roger Stone Kicked Out of a Strip Club

Welcome, fellow anti-fascists! This is the sixth installment of This Week in Fascism, your source for all the latest and greatest happenings in the world of fascism. This week, we’ve got an explainer on fascist vigilantes at the border, more doxxes of Identity Evropa and Atomwaffen Division members, two cops fired for being white nationalists, and how you can help get Roger Stone kicked out of a strip club.

Explainer: Why are fascist vigilantes rounding up migrants at gunpoint?

Last week, antifascist researchers surfaced a Facebook Live video in which the United Constitutional Patriots border militia filmed themselves detaining a large group of Guatemalan asylum seekers on the Mexico/New Mexico border near El Paso.

https://twitter.com/leftkist/status/1118662484640976896

Another clip showed that the militia members were carrying semi-automatic rifles and helping US Customs and Border Patrol agents to take the asylum seekers into custody.

https://twitter.com/rockyhorrorrr/status/1118889156212609024

The videos went viral on social media and in the news, and on Friday the governor and ACLU each made statements, as did both US senators from New Mexico and the CBP.

On Saturday the FBI arrested 69-year-old Larry Mitchell Hopkins, the militia’s leader, who was charged with being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition.  The remaining UCP militia took the rest of the weekend off.

After Hopkins’ arraignment Monday, court documents revealed that Hopkins and UCP were at one point planning to assassinate those who they believe to be the “Big Three” antifa bosses: George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama.

Border militias are nothing new.  In the US, they first started in the 1970s as a KKK project, and have never strayed too far from their roots.

Although US border militias look essentially the same as they have for decades, we can look to Europe in recent years to see the blueprint for our current state of affairs.

Southeastern and central European countries have produced their share of border militias, notably after larger numbers of Syrian and other asylum seekers started making their way into Europe via the Western Balkan Route in 2015.

European right-wing media spun the migration as an invasion by Islamic radicals and an attack on Western Culture.  Especially after the attack on the Bataclan nightclub in Paris, a significant percentage of the population bought into the narrative.  Populist governments demonized the asylum seekers, international NGOs like the UNHCR failed miserably to protect or advocate for their charges, lawmakers shirked international refugee law, and volunteers on both extremes of the asylum debate took it upon themselves to either help or hinder asylum seekers, respectively.

In Hungary, the mayor of the tiny village of Ásotthalom, on Serbia’s northern border, made himself internet famous for this video warning migrants away from his village.  It was released just as a double-fence was completed along Hungary’s entire southern border, with the full length patrolled by the Hungarian police and army.  The fence is now electrified also btw.

The overland route through Turkey into Bulgaria saw many reported incidents of violence by citizen militias like the Bulgarian Military Veterans Union.  This April 2016 video from Bulgaria looks eerily like the one filmed this week by UCP in New Mexico:

In Greece, the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn has been responsible for a large number of attacks against asylum seekers.

In Slovenia, the Stajerska Guard is a militia sworn to protect the homeland against all migrants real or imagined.

Pred prisego Štajerske varde.

由 Andrej Šiško 发布于 2018年9月3日周一

In western Europe, groups like Pegida and Soldiers of Odin exist specifically to threaten immigrants in general, and Muslim immigrants in particular. More recently,  a chapter of Russia’s Night Wolves biker gang has been uncovered in Slovakia, and Czechia has the National Home Guard.

Crypto-fascists Generation Identity have performed several border protection stunts, most famously their Defend Europe mission in which they bought a very sketchy ship, sailed it across the Mediterranean from Sicily to Libyan waters to disrupt inflatable boats full of asylum seekers trying to get to Europe and safety.  They didn’t find any, got stranded, and had to request rescue from an NGO that aids asylum seekers.  The trip was a tremendous failure, but marked the start of an EU-backed deal between Italy and Libya, to return all rescued asylum seekers to Libyan detention centers run by Libyan militias.

But let’s get back to the US.  On Friday night, “reporter” Antonio Aguero of MAGA propaganda outfit Border Network News filmed himself working with CBP and apprehending a mother and child attempting to enter the US to claim asylum.

https://twitter.com/leftkist/status/1119759631763402752

Another Facebook Live video of Antonio Aguero from Saturday night indicates that there’s more going on here than meets the eye.

https://twitter.com/leftkist/status/1120049482266058752

 

https://twitter.com/leftkist/status/1120475709787525121

Also on Monday, probably the smartest and stablest genius ever tweeted out the same xenophobic propaganda that UCP is all hopped up on. This is where we’re at folks.

Doxxes

Monday, April 15, 2019

Atlanta Antifascists identified Ethan Jones, a Senior at Woodland High School in Cartersville, Georgia, as a propagandist and recruiter for the neo-Confederate hate group League of the South. Using the online handle “RichardEwellofGeorgia,” Jones was a prolific contributor to the neo-Confederate Identity Dixie website, and wrote over 100 articles for an antisemitic, anti-feminist blog called Southern Revivalism. In addition to extensively documenting his online history, Atlanta Antifascists mailed 200 flyers to Jones’ neighbors letting them know about his hate group associations.

Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Northern California Anti-Racist Action (NoCARA) identified Chris N., a member of the white nationalist group Identity Evropa (recently rebranded as the American Identity Movement), as Christopher Thompson, a student at California State University Stanislaus.

Unusually, rather than attempt to verify the evidence and investigate a white nationalist on campus, the CSU student paper, The Signal, chose to attack NoCARA and even the provenance of the Identity Evropa Discord leaks themselves. Signal editor Emily Hake wrote, “the Nocara site’s information is not news, nor is it true journalism. The blog (and this is a blog post, not a news article) draws conclusions from information on the chat site Discord.”

NoCARA researchers identified Thompson based on the fact that “Chris N.” identified himself as a student at CSU Stanislaus, one of only four men elected to the school’s student government, and one of only three men involved with the school’s Student Government Leadership Council. “Chris N.” also claimed to be a violinist, a Finance major, and a participant in a Harvard summer program when he was 16, all of which matches Thompson’s biography.

Additionally, NoCARA researchers were able to match the class schedule posted by “Chris N.” to Thompson’s actual class schedule.

Fun fact – NoCARA’s research is generally regarded as so strong that, in a very strange compliment, the Southern Poverty Law Center saw fit to plagiarize NoCARA’s article on the white supremacist Rise Above Movement in the fall of 2018 and the FBI even quoted it in a report, of which NoCARA responded to by pointing out that the State repression is never something to cheer.

Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Eugene Antifa identified Bethesda, Maryland, Boeing employee Ignacio Gomez as a member of Identity Evropa. If you wish to call Boeing to inform them of Gomez’s white nationalist ties, their Ethics Hotline can be reached at 1-888-970-7171.

Friday, April 19, 2019

@WANaziWatch exposed Pekin Community High School Social Studies teacher Kevin Pummill as a member of Identity Evropa. The Pekin, Illinois teacher told the Identity Evropa chat that he “was redpilling some students, boys, on immigration yesterday” and that “I had my students look up farm attacks in South Africa.” (“Farm attacks” is a dogwhistle often used by proponents of the “white genocide” conspiracy theory, including the Christchurch shooter who recently murdered 50 people at two New Zealand mosques.)

As a result of the article, Pummill has been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation into his activities.

Journalist Nate Thayer exposed Cody William Moreash, a 32-year-old resident of Tempe, Arizona, as a leader of neo-Nazi group the Atomwaffen Division. The group has been linked to a string of murders and attacks in recent years, including the 2018 murder of teenager Blaze Bernstein and foiled plot to sabotage a nuclear reactor in Florida.

While serving as an Atomwaffen leader, Moreash claimed to be a US Army veteran, having served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. However, investigation by Thayer showed that Moreash only ever briefly enlisted in the National Guard, from which he was removed after one month.

When Thayer contacted Moreash (via Moreash’s personal email) for comment prior to publication of the article, he received a legal threat from Unite the Right speaker and Holocaust denier Augustus Invictus claiming that “[t]he person you contacted in not the head of the AtomWaffen…. and publication of the statements you have made in your email will expose you to liability for defamation.”

Piece of advice for Cody– if you’re going to claim that you’re not a Nazi, maybe don’t have a famous Nazi respond to those accusations?

Saturday, April 20, 2019

Journalists at Autonomous Student Media– Austin identified Clayton Leonard, a Senior at the University of Texas at Austin, as a member of Identity Evropa. In the Identity Evropa chats, Leonard indicated that he plans on attending law school in the fall, and Autonomous Student Media is looking for tips on which school that might be. If you have any information on Clayton’s future plans, contact Autonomous Student Media via Facebook, Twitter, or at austinautonomedia [@] autistici [dot] org.

Deplatforms

https://twitter.com/leftkist/status/1119651372985544706

Following a social media campaign from anti-fascists to draw attention to the United Constitutional Patriots, a vigilante group patrolling the southern US border and illegally detaining migrants, both PayPal and GoFundMe have deplatformed the group. “They killed us,” Mark Cheney, Commander of the UCP told Buzzfeed.

Following a query from Right Wing Watch, Democratic Presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s campaign has dismissed Shawn McCaffrey, a far-right YouTuber and Identity Evropa associate, from their volunteer staff.

Military officials are investigating the white nationalist ties of Air Force Master Sergeant Cory Reeves following his dox from Colorado Springs Anti-Fascists earlier this month.

Two Virginia police officers were fired after being doxxed as white nationalists by AntifaSevenHills and @TheQueerCrimer. The researchers documented Robert Stamm’s white nationalist tattoos and flags via his social media, as well as his involvement with the Asatru Folk Assembly, whose white nationalist ties were covered in last week’s Explainer.

The other officer fired was Daniel L. Morley, a School Resource Officer at LC Bird High School in Chesterfield, Virginia, and Pledge Coordinator of Identity Evropa. Morley, whose post history on the white nationalist message board Stormfront dates back to 2006, was especially distressing as LC Bird High School student body is 61% people of color.

Call to Action

View this post on Instagram

More to come, but for now please be calling in. Know sex workers that work at these clubs? Venmo them, cashapp them, pay them. Keep supporting them even when their management is under fire for platforming fascism. #rva #deplatformfascism

A post shared by TheQueerCrimer (@thequeercrimer) on

The Paper Moon, a strip club in Richmond, Virginia, will be hosting Trump advisor Roger Stone next month. Stone has a long history of associating with hate groups like the Proud Boys and bringing them into the GOP mainstream. Call the Paper Moon at 804-353-4386, or tweet them at @PaperMoonRVA to ask them not to host this fascist in their club.

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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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