NEO-NAZI NEAR YOU: SEPTEMBER, 2017
Berkeley, Houston, Michigan, Tennessee and More
The highlights of the article:
- photo reports and summaries from five events that involved neo-Nazi groups in the U.S. during September 22–27, 2017 period:
- fliers calling for ethnic cleansing were found on college campuses and community centers in Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Michigan.
- neo-Nazis attacked a community center in Texas.
- nationalists and white supremacists roamed Berkeley for five days and stormed a bookstore; and more.
- an investigation of the individuals and groups behind these events;
- links to their financial and ideological supporters.
Seeing the connections that are not immediately obvious is a key to understanding the rise of the ultra-right movement worldwide. Learning the history and potential of this social phenomenon provides a platform for action and resistance from the place of knowledge.
1. PENNSYLVANIA, MULTIPLE COLLEGE CAMPUSES
September 22–23. A hate group Identity Evropa tweeted photos of fliers posted at Elizabethtown College and Millersville University. Its Twitter account shows the distribution of alt-right literature at over 100 college campuses as part of its #projectsiege campaign. Since spring of 2016, the group posted signs in at least two or three dozen cities, using the slogan #fashthecity.
According to SPLC, Identity Evropa, founded in Oakdale, California, consists of people of “European, non-Semitic” origin and focuses on recruiting college-age, white students, “targeting disaffected young men by branding itself as a fraternity and social club.”
Nathan Damigo, the founder of Identity Evropa, is a convicted felon, who helped to lead Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville. He learned about white supremacy and Nazi ideas in prison while serving five years for a gun robbery ($43) of a cab driver whom he had mistaken to be an Iraqi.
At Penn State, five hundred people signed a petition for a campus ban on Identity Evropa. In his statement, Penn State President noted that the situation “is happening, not only here, but across the nation… Increasingly, hate groups seek to take advantage of the free speech protections that are afforded by colleges and universities…”
🇷🇺 IDENTITY EVROPA — RUSSIA🇷🇺
In the past, Damigo led the Nationalist Youth Front, the youth branch of the White nationalist American Freedom Party that is listed as a part of the World Conservative Movement, formed in St. Petersburg, Russia at the International Russian Conservative Forum in 2015.
2. HOUSTON, TEXAS
September 24, 2017. A group of about thirty neo-Nazis in white polo shirts, khaki pants and white bandannas covering their faces assembled in front of the community center where a class on how to resist fascism took place at the Houston Anarchist Book Fair. Holding a banner “For Race and Nation; Blood and Soil,” they gave Nazi salutes, lit flares and tried to enter the building, as reported by Houston Press.
The phrase “Blood and Soil” is “a 19th-century German nationalist term, used as a Nazi slogan in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s and since then ‘transported to neo-Nazi groups and other white supremacists around the world,’” according to the New York Times.
Patriot Front, the group behind the attack, shares a rambling document called a “manifesto” on its website. “An African may have lived, worked, and even been classed as a citizen in America for centuries, yet he is not American. He is, as he likely prefers to be labelled, an African in America. The same rule applies to others,” claims “manifesto,” notably with a British accent. Other remarkable quotes: “Democracy has failed in this once great nation, now the time for a new Caesar to revive the American spirit has dawned” and “American Fascism is a hard reset on the nation we see today, and a return to the traditions and virtues of our forefathers.”
As seen in a video, a white supremacist Robert Ray, aka Azzmador, led the attack, chanting: “This is our country! Blood and Soil! Blood and Soil! This will remain our country!” The door was locked and after twenty minutes of shouting insults the group left, saying into the loudspeaker “Auf wiedersehen!” and chanting, “Fuck you, faggots!” and “You won’t fight Nazis, you have no testicles!” As they drove away, they were making white supremacy signs (see below for description.)
The same group was present at Charlottesville, at Unite the Right Rally in August 2017. In the video from the rally, Ray screamed, “Are you happy living in a country controlled by a semitic tribe?” “Are you happy that you are still a white man feeling guilty about the fake myth bullshit story called Holocaust?” “Did Hitler do anything wrong?” — “No!” and then proclaiming “the first principle of the ‘alt-right’”: “Gas the kikes!”
Ray is a frequent contributor of a webzine Daily Stormer and in his videos invites the audience to join the neo-Nazi movement by visiting the site.
🇷🇺BLOOD AND SOIL — RUSSIA🇷🇺🇷🇺
On May 13, 2017, in Charlottesville, several dozen torch-wielding white supremacists gathered in Lee Park, chanting “Blood and soil,” “You will not replace us,” and “Russia is our friend.” Richard Spencer, Nathan Damigo, Jason Kessler, and most of the organizers of the Unite the Right Rally were present.
THE DAILY STORMER WEBSITE
The Daily Stormer (a reference to “Der Stürmer,” the Nazi tabloid), a webzine formerly known as Total Fascism, was launched in 2013 by Andrew Anglin, who boldly embraced a Nazi ideology on the Daily Stormer and spread his message through short, news-related posts riddled with racial epithets.
Dailystormer.com was getting more than 10 million page views until it was shut down by GoDaddy and Google after remarks about the activist murdered in Charlottesville. It then briefly reappeared on a Russian domain and now is reported to be hosted in Iceland. Anglin has been in hiding for about five months.
👌🏻 THE DAILY STORMER — TRUMP 👌🏻
Anglin on Trump: “our Glorious Leader has ascended to God Emperor. Make no mistake about it: we did this.” “Bannon is our man in the White House,” commented one of the Daily Stormer’s contributor.
🇷🇺THE DAILY STORMER — RUSSIA🇷🇺
According to Business Insider, “Anglin has long espoused views sympathetic to the Kremlin, including support for pro-Russia Ukrainian separatists. The site’s chief technology officer, Andrew Auernheimer — a blackhat hacker known as “weev” — currently lives in Ukraine and has called on its pro-western, anti-Putin president, Petro Poroshenko, to step down.”
Auernheimer, another former convict with fraud and hacking offenses charges, released from federal prison in 2014, has reportedly communicated with Republican operative Peter Smith, who, according to Politico, attempted “to obtain 33,000 emails deleted by Hillary Clinton — an effort now at the center of intrigue swirling around the Donald Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.” Smith also “reached out to ‘Guccifer 2.0’ — an alias the U.S. intelligence community has linked to Russian state hackers.” Smith has committed suicide in May 2017.
3. GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN
September 27, 2017. Fliers with white supremacy slogans and addresses of three neo-Nazi and white supremacists websites: DailyStormer.com (see above), Alt-Right.com and TheRightStuff.biz appeared at the downtown YMCA.
ALTRIGHT WEBSITE
Altright.com is run by a neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, the president of National Policy Institute, known and open supporter of Trump and Putin.
👌🏻 RICHARD SPENCER — TRUMP👌🏻
According to Mother Jones, Spencer had a close relationship with Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to Trump, during their studies at Duke University. Miller is a fierce advocate of “ethno-nationalism,” the racist belief that Europe and America must protect their (white) culture and civilization from outsiders who do not share their “Judeo-Christian values,” writes Salon. “It’s funny no one’s picked up on the Stephen Miller connection,” Spencer said. “I knew him very well when I was at Duke. But I am kind of glad no one’s talked about this because I don’t want to harm Trump.”
🇷🇺RICHARD SPENCER — RUSSIA🇷🇺
AltRight.com accepted contributor pieces from Alexander Dugin — a Russian neo-fascist philosopher, ultranationalist and former adviser to Sergei Naryshkin, a key member of Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party. Dugin has received a nickname “Putin’s brain” and is the man behind the geopolitical theory of Russia as a “civilization model.” He has ties to virtually every American white supremacist leader.” Spencer contributed articles to Dugin’s website.
- Spencer’s wife, the Russian-born Nina Kouprianova (aka Byzantina), is a self-proclaimed “Kremlin troll leader” and a translator of Alexander Dugin.
THE RIGHT STUFF WEBSITE
The Right Stuff is a white nationalist blog founded by Mike Peinovich, aka Mike Enoch, that hosts several podcasts, including The Daily Shoah. The blog is best known for popularizing the use of “echoes”, an antisemitic marker which uses triple parentheses around names used to identify Jews and people of the Jewish faith on social media.
4. KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE
SEPTEMBER 26. Kitty Stryker, a popular blogger, writer for Buzzfeed, Vice, Wear Your Voice, Ravishly, the Frisky, the Guardian, antifascist activist, queer sex educator, and a Struggalo Circus Ringmistress, found fliers of Traditional Worker Party plastered over one of her performance posters in Knoxville, Tennessee.
The group’s website reads: “Our Party is made up of members of the traditional faiths of the European people… The ethnic community is the definition of a true nation. Shared blood, history, and traditions are what make a people and bind us together as an extended family. We in the Traditionalist Worker Party fight for the interests of White Americans, a people who for decades have been abandoned by the System and actively attacked by globalists and traitorous politicians.”
🇷🇺TRADITIONAL WORKER PARTY & MATTHEW HEIMBACH — RUSSIA🇷🇺
- Traditionalist Worker Party stemmed from Traditionalist Youth Network in 2015, co-founded by Matthew Heimbach, an Orthodox Christian with strong ties to Russian ideologists and admiration for Trump and Putin.
- Heimbach is also a member of the World National Conservative Movement, a product of the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM), which describes its ideology as “Christian Orthodox imperial nationalism” and does not hide its ties to the Kremlin. According to Anton Shekhovtsov, a researcher of European far-right movements, the Russian Imperial Movement arose in part from the efforts of a Russian political party founded by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin and a close ally of Putin. The group’s stated goals are similar to those pursued by the Kremlin, including the neutralization of the EU and NATO.
- In 2015, Dugin hosted a lecture, via Skype, at the Traditionalist Worker Party.
ALLIANCE: PEINOVICH, SPENCER, HEIMBACH
Below are the alt-right leaders behind the three websites: Mike Peinovich, Richard Spencer and Matthew Heimbach. Peinovich and Heimbach are making a popular “white supremacy” gesture.
5. UC BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA*
24–27 September. Many known neo-Nazi and alt-right figures arrived to Bekreley, including Martin Sellner of Generation Identity from Austria; Brittany Pettibone, a contributor to Richard Spencer’s Altright website; James Allsup, another Unite the Right attendee, and many members of the Proud Boys, Gavin McInnis’ organization.
During the Berkeley Rally Against White Supremacy, a group of individuals openly displayed white power/alt-right gestures. Only one person in this group identified as a student when asked. During the Patriot Prayer rally next day another man was making prison gestures while taking photographs of protesters.
While the Anti-Defamation League considers “Okay” sign not to constitute a hate sign per se, it recognizes that “it has now become an oft-used prop to publicly signal support for white nationalist politics at rallies, protests, and brawls.”
GIONET AND FOREMAN
Antonio Foreman, a member of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia group (and bodyguard of Anthime “Tim” Gionet, aka “Baked Alaska,” an open neo-Nazi and one of the organizers of the Unite the Right Rally at Charlottesville where both actively participated) was present with this set of individuals making “white power” sign and taking pictures of students participating in the rally (known as “doxxing.”)
Foreman is a bodyguard of “Tim” Gionet, aka Baked Alaska, who is known for his anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi tweets. Gionet retweets videos of his friends saying that Hitler did nothing wrong, as well as images of people in gas chambers. Gionet has also twitted the “Fourteen Words,” a neo-Nazi mantra. “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” According to the New York Times, “the saying was created by David Lane, a white supremacist sentenced to 190 years in prison in connection with the 1984 murder of the Jewish radio host Alan Berg.”
Gionet used to be a tour manager for Milo Yiannopoulos, who made a brief appearance on UC Berkeley campus on September 24, 2017 after his “Free Speech” week was cancelled by the student’s group.
Update: On October 5, after this article was published, Buzzfeed published “Here’s How Breitbart And Milo Smuggled Nazi and White Nationalist Ideas Into The Mainstream,” a cache of documents revealing the truth about Steve Bannon’s alt-right “killing machine.” Below is the video of Yiannopoulos singing “America the Beautiful” while Richard Spencer and other alt-right are giving a Nazi salute.
👌🏻YIANNOPOULOS — TRUMP👌🏻
Robert Mercer and his family donated millions to Trump’s campaign and also supported Bannon, the Brietbart News and Yiannopoulos during the latter’s employment at the Breitbart News and afterward:
- The Mercers donated $10 millions to the Breitbart News since 2011.
- Steve Bannon, a former advisor to Mercer family, became the executive chairman of Breitbart News, made it the “platform for alt-right,” served as a senior advisor to Trump, and returned to Breitbart in August 2017
- Bannon hired Milo Yiannopoulos as a Breitbart News contributor, but the latter had to resign on February 21, 2017, after the scandal caused by his remarks approving pedophilia went viral.
- After the scandal a Mercer-owned company, Glittering Steel, LLC, that shares the address with Breitbart News, sponsored both Yiannopoulos’s book tour and “Toxic College Speaking Tour” in 2017 and helped with his visa arrangements.
- The Mercers supported the nomination of Jeff Sessions for Trump’s Attorney General.
- Sessions, in his speech on September 27, 2017, following the failure of Yiannopoulos’s “Free Speech Week” at UC Berkeley, attacked American colleges and universities for being “politically correct”and announced that the federal government would intervene in cases where it believed free speech was threatened.
Jared Taylor, a white nationalist, wrote that while “Trump was not a racially conscious white man…but men close to him — Steve Bannon, Jeff Sessions, Stephen Miller — may have a clearer understanding of race, and their influence can grow.” (from “Horsemen of the Trumpocalypse” by John Nichols.)
👌🏻 GIONET AND FOREMAN — TRUMP 👌🏻
During the election campaign, Trump signed Gionet’s arm tattoed “Make America Great Again” at a rally. Foreman received a personally signed gift from Trump after he got wounded during a confrontation with Armenian gang members in LA. (see the photo of him, displaying the white supremacy sign, below.)
👌🏻 RED ELEPHANTS AND VINCENT JAMES — TRUMP 👌🏻
Vincent James, of The Red Elephants an alt-right group close to the openly Neo-Nazi group DIY Division, was live-streaming from Berkeley on September 26, 2017.
In July 2017, James live-streamed from the Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes during Omar Navarro’s fundraiser.
Foreman was also present.
James made a reference to “ Fourteen words” mantra often tweeted by Gionet.
🇷🇺STONE — RUSSIA🇷🇺
At the Trump golf course, James also interviewed Roger Stone, Trump’s longtime advisor.
Stone has been Trump’s personal friend for over forty years and many consider him the gray cardinal behind Trump’s rise to power.
According to The Washington Times, during the election campaign, Stone “drew attention for seeming to have inside knowledge on the WikiLeaks document releases — releases that have been linked to Russian interests by the government. Stone also confirmed his communications with Guccifer 2.0. As the U.S. Intelligence Community’s report concludes with “high confidence,” the Russian intelligence operation used Guccifer 2.0 (a front for a Russian intelligence group) and Wikileaks to release the stolen materials in the US election, according to JustSecurity.
BOOKSTORE IN BERKELEY
September 25 — 26, 2017. Dozens of alt-right members, including Foreman and his group, showed up at Revolution bookstore trying to break in. According to Berkeleyside, “on Sunday, a few hours after Yiannopoulos’s brief and content-free appearance on Sproul Plaza, a group of about 40 to 50 people swarmed into the breezeway in front the store. They shouted “USA,” and when they couldn’t get into the store because staff locked the doors, they pounded on the windows…
“It was like a mob,” said Reiko Redmonde, the store manager, at a press conference Tuesday night. “It was like you see in the movies, like the KKK, but without the sheets.”
Smaller groups have come back to the store at least three other times on Sunday and Monday, she said. Sometimes they mass into the store and ask for specific titles, such as Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, Dangerous by Milo Yiannopoulos, or The Essential Mario Savio, a book of his writing and speeches.”
SPROUL PLAZA — PEOPLE’S PARK, BERKELEY
September 26 and 27, 2017. Joey Gibson of Patriot Prayer and Kyle Chapman, aka “Based Stickman,” rallied in Berkeley. Many of their supporters, mostly large males from out-of-town, wore bulletproof vests, Battle Dress Uniforms and other militarized outfits.
Gibson is known to host open white supremaicsts, racists and neo-Nazis like Gionet (aka Baked Alaska), Jeremy Christian (a man who committed a hate crime, killing two and injured one person after a Patriot Prayer Rally), Jacob von Ott (Identity Evropa) at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, and in downtown Portland. According to Buzzfeed, Gibson pays for sound systems, signs, permits, and transportation for right-wing rallies on the West Coast himself.
Chapman is another convicted felon who has spent close to a decade in prison and has an extensive criminal history in Texas and California (charges include robbery, grand theft, and the purchase and possession of a shotgun and SKS military caliber rifle from an illegal arms dealer).
As I witnessed personally and as also reported by Berkeleyside, “responding to another protester asking him to discuss “white genocide,” Chapman said, “There is absolutely a war on whites,” but he went on to say that was not what he was in Berkeley to talk about.” “White genocide is a white nationalist belief that white people, as a race, are endangered and face extinction as a result of nonwhite immigration and marriage between the races, a process being manipulated by Jews,” as described by the New York Times.
At some point, a man in a Trump hat and an American flag wrapped around him, turned to me and said, “What are you going to do to stop us?” Later, Gibson, Chapman and other alt-right members marched along Telegraph avenue, chanting “Whose streets? Our streets!” to the students.
🇷🇺PATRIOT PRAYER: RUSSIAN CONNECTION🇷🇺
According to Hamilton68, on August 26–27, 2017, Russian bots were pushing hashtags and themes connected with Patriot Prayer’s failed attempt to march in the Bay Area.
As usual, the event was covered by alt-right press and bloggers that are often featured on RT (formerly Russia Today) and Infowars, as well as mainstream press and independent journalists.
🇷🇺CHAPMAN (AKA BASED STICKMAN): RUSSIAN CONNECTION🇷🇺
Chapman was brought to “fame” by an article in ZeroHedge, an English-language financial blog known for presenting pro-Russian views. The photoshopped image from a 4chan’s board followed a violent clash between Trump supporters and counter-protesters in Berkeley on March 4, 2017. In the photo, Chapman hits an anti-fascist with a stick in an act of “lefty skull smashing.” ZeroHedge presented Chapman as a “new super hero of the right.”
Later, the image went viral and was used for creating a myth of an “Alt-Knight” fighting anti-fascists, with the use of fonts and visuals of Nazi Germany and Trump’s America. Chapman, sporting Richard Spencer’s groomed look, started to speak of the dangers of “white genocide” and the leading role of Russia and Slavic countries at conferences.
On August 5, 2017, Chapman participated in the event ‘Celebration of Western Culture,’ along with other alt-right speakers, and, notably, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a well-known Putin ally.
6. TAMPA, FLORIDA
SEPTEMBER 27, 2017. A leader of a small Florida-based neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen pleaded guilty to charges associated with keeping explosives in a garage. The bomb-making materials were discovered during a murder investigation involving another member of the group. Another member of the group is charged with two counts of first-degree, premeditated murder in the deaths of three other members of Atomwaffen. (Miami Herald)
Andrew Auerenheimer, aka Weev, (see above) endorsed the Atomwaffen on The Daily Stormer, “Atomwaffen are a bunch of good dudes. They’ve posted tons of fliers with absolutely killer graphics at tons of universities over the years. They generally have a lot of fun and party.”
*Some reporting by Simon Rogghe.
WHAT IS BEHIND THE RISE OF NEO-NAZI
In order to understand this phenomenon better, let’s sum up these individual cases and see the trends and motives behind them.
There are many aspects about alt-right that do not add up or lack logic. Many leaders of alt-right, like Peinovich, Cernovich, Chapman, Yiannoupolos, while being white supremacists, racists, anti-Semites, Islamophobes, and xenophobes, are married, related or date the people of color, Jews and Muslims. There are women for gender inequality and Latinos for Trump. Gay and transgender people express homophobic views. People of color make white supremacy signs in public and choose to affiliate with the white supremacits. A New York-based psychologist Katherine Zubritsky, Ph.D., explains that this is a common psychological condition and “the identification with aggressor, shame and denial of one’s own identity are often behind such obvious contradictions.” In fact, history knows African-American soldiers serving in the Confederate army, Jewish supporters of Mussolini and Russian serfs opposed to the abolition of serfdom.
As shown, many of the alt-right members and leaders are former convicts (Damigo, Chapman, Aurenheimer, and more), social outcasts, people poorly integrated into society, or young people experiencing problems adjusting to the adult life with its inevitability of denial and disappointment.
Patrik Hermansson, a researcher for Hope Not Hate, who spent over a year infiltrating alt-right and neo-Nazi groups, told The New York Times: “They are looking for simple binary answers to very complex questions about the state of the world and their own circumstances.”
The political forces behind the rise of ultra-right provide such answers in form of world-old “nation” and “race” package in order to exploit the emotional insecurity, identity issues and frustration of the underprivileged people, manipulate their feelings, recruit them and use them as tools in changing the political landscape of the nation and the world in their own interest.
Current US government officials and the Russian government and agencies back these individuals and groups in a long-term strategic effort to cultivate a loyal army of supporters. They pay a special attention to the youth hence their focus on college campuses.
Combat propaganda identifies the weakness of the enemy and targets it through repeated messages in order to confuse and disorient the enemy population. Using such sacred symbols of American identity as racial issues, the Civil War memorials and “free speech” debates, the propagandists trigger immediate and irrational responses that lead to acute national conflicts.
The propagandists and political technologists create their own language and narrative, mixing computer game lingo, prison nicknames and memes. “…in some cases far-right people and organizations cloak their true extremism and portray a more moderate image to the world to try to avoid criticism and gain new supporters,” notes Hermansson.
The alt-right puppets parrot the slogans and memes coined for them by Russian political technologists and Breitbart — “the platform for the alt-right,” according to Stephen Bannon — and echoed through the network of 4chan, 8chan, by Twitter bots and amplified by Google search engines and Facebook ads.
The mainstream media that often does not have resources to cover the events on site or research in-depth picks up the narrative provided by the fringe sources like ZeroHedge, InfoWars and the social media of the alt-right.
The public opinion is thus formed and the reality is redirected by cleverly fabricated “alternative facts.”
Bombarded with shocking news, exhausted and confused, an average citizen loses moral focus and accepts the impossible: the myth of a good patriot-fascist.
Trump, his government, and their backers are implementing their agenda to normalize white supremacy and stay in power. Sessions, Miller, and Bannon drive the racist and nationalist narrative into the mainstream. Billionaires like the Mercers and Regenery fund these efforts.
Bannon said that, like the alt-right movement, “Putin is standing up for traditional institutions, and he’s trying to do it in a form of nationalism.”
The role of Kremlin is dubious: it provides cyber support but it pursues its own goals to divide and weaken the US, NATO and the world democracy to dominate the world.
It is critical to understand that for the ruling classes the ideology is just a tool, not the goal. The ultimate goal of the rulers is to keep and expand the political and financial power.
ACTION
In an unprecedented letter, signed by a group of prominent evangelical Christians, the clergy addressed Trump, “The alt-right… attributes the uniqueness and achievements of America to the so-called superior capacities and virtues of Anglo-Europeans… The core of the movement is the protection of white identity. Richard Spencer, a prominent leader in the alt-right movement, desires to transform our country into an ethno-state that serves as a gathering point for all Europeans.
We request upon you to join with many other political and religious leaders to proclaim with one voice that the “alt-right” is racist, evil, and antithetical to a well-ordered, peaceful society.
We are praying, and call upon God’s people to humble themselves and pray that you would take the bold and moral step to denounce the alt-right.”
For some of us, praying is the answer. For others, it is resistance.
As It’s Going Down states, “People didn’t laugh the KKK out of existence. They fought back, they armed themselves, and they stood their ground. The question is, what will we do?”
Read more about Russian cyberwar and propaganda here, Russian government and oligarchs ties with Trump here, about Berkeley protest here. Recommended article on neo-Nazis and their Russian ties here.
*All facts and photos are in public domain and available through Google. Links to the original sources are included, with the exception of the neo-Nazi propaganda.
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