Thursday, December 2, 2021

In Contempt #11: 2021 Comes to a Close

Welcome!

It’s December! In this month’s column, we’ve got lots of updates on political prisoners, George Floyd uprising defendants, and prison rebels. As we get closer to the new year, remember there is a call for noise demos outside of jails, detention facilities, and prisons and also take time to write to prisoners and keep them in your thoughts.

With that spirit in mind, let’s dive in!

News

Anarchist prisoner Dan Baker has been moved to Memphis, and has released a public update about his situation. You can order books for him from a lengthy Amazon wishlist here, as he was only allowed to keep 5 books when he was transferred. FDC Tallahassee blocked a lot of Dan’s mail on arbitrary grounds such as insisting that letters could only be written single-sided, it remains to be seen whether Memphis will continue applying these restrictive policies.

You can write to Dan at:

Daniel Alan Baker #25765-509
FCI Memphis
P.O. Box 34550
Memphis, TN 38184

The family of recently-released Black liberation prisoner Russell Maroon Shoatz are raising money to cover his extensive medical costs and for his family to be able to continue visiting him in the hospice.

A judge has ruled partially in favor of a motion from the Civil Liberties Defense Center, asking that a coerced statement from anarchist prisoner Eric King should be suppressed, meaning that it will not be eligible as evidence in his upcoming trial. Responding to the ruling, Eric’s attorney Lauren Regan stated:

“Overall, we are pleased with this ruling. It has given our client the opportunity to stand up for his basic rights in the spirit of human dignity, and has clearly established the collusion and corruption within the BOP to frame a political prisoner for an officer’s misconduct and abuse. Mr. King has consistently stated that he acted in self-defense after Lt. Wilcox assaulted him. Some of the BOP staff have lied, forged, and “lost” documents pertinent to this case. It is time for the U.S. Attorney’s office to dismiss this criminal case against Eric King.”

In news from political prisoner support projects, the Certain Days 2022 calendar has now been released, and the Pushing Down the Walls 2021 event raised over $3000 for prisoner support efforts. Fundraiser merch connected to the event is still available from the Orange County ABC store. The Anarchist Black Cross Federation have a year-end report and financial appeal here.

A previous installment of In Contempt mentioned that Ruby Montoya, a defendant in the Dakota Access Pipeline case, was pursuing a defense strategy that attempted to shift responsibility for her actions onto her co-defendant, her previous lawyer and other activists within the movement. As highlighted by Tucson Anti-Repression Committee, a recent article in the Economist has now confirmed that Montoya has been actively co-operating with the FBI since 2020.

Uprising Defendants

Teen Vogue recently published a story on the ongoing use of felony charges against defendants from the George Floyd uprising. Supporters of Philadelphia defendant Lore Elisabeth Blumenthal have now created a new flyer to raise awareness of her case.

Keith “Comrade Malik” Washington

The San Francisco Bay View has published documents showing that long-time prison organizer Keith “Malik” Washington has a history of acting as a state informant. In a letter to the Harris County District Attorney from January 2011, Washington wrote:

“At one time, in the realm of intelligence gathering, I was viewed as a “rock star.” I was respected by many. Now I am a nobody. I give the authorities info and they pay no attention. I’m not fighting for recognition; I am more interested in gaining back my credibility… I’d like to be re-activated as a source for OIG. [FBI] Agent Lyons took good care of me when I worked for him in the past… My main goal is to earn parole. However, I also would like to rebuild my relationship with the law enforcement community in Houston.”

The Final Straw Radio, which has worked with Malik along with many other prisoners, commented:

“Malik was then incarcerated in Texas and became involved in organizing with the New Afrikan Black Panther Party and participated in the 2016 nationwide prison strikes, gaining notoriety. Malik came to play a prominent role in the prison movement and was in 2020 released to a halfway house in San Francisco after a surprising parole from Texas and brief stint in Federal prison. Malik helped to run the SF Bay View upon release but has since left. I think a lot of facts on this still need clarification, but some things just don’t add up with Malik’s situation.”

General Prison News

At Wabash Valley Correctional Facility in Indiana, Kwame Shakur and Scott Snyder have launched a hunger strike. Kwame has been held in solitary confinement since 2016, and his demands are to restore in-person visitation for all prisoners, along with the restoration of hygiene and commissary, and that all prisoners be given access to outdoor recreation. Scott Snyder has requested proper hygiene, cold showers and visitation to be reinstated.

In California, Kijana Tashiri Askari, Chairperson of the WL Nolen Mentorship Program, is launching a new Strategic Release for Elders Campaign. For more information about the campaign and how you can help, you can contact Kijana directly at:

Bro. Kijana Tashiri Askari,
(s/n Marcus Harrison),
CDCR# H-5077, Cell:#108,
(S.V.S.P.) Salinas Valley State Prison,
P.O. BOX 1050,
SOLEDAD CA. 93960-1050

To contact outside organizers who work with Kijana and the WL Nolen Mentorship Program, you can try contacting Central Texas ABC at twitchon@gmail.com or True Leap Press at trueleappress@protonmail.com.

Recent episodes of Kite Line Radio include a two–part series on the campaign to close Rosie’s, a women’s jail on Riker’s Island, another two–parter on the prison phone industry, and a rebroadcast of a historic interview with Attica rebel Frank “Big Black” Smith.

International News

ABC Belarus continue to publish their regular monthly repression updates. Major developments are that anarchist Sergey Romanov has been sentenced to one year in jail, while anarchist blogger Mikola Dziadok has been given five years. A new statement from Mikola has just been translated:

“In general, the verdict did not cause me much emotion. I remembered that when I was tried the first time in 2011 and the second time in 2015, I was very nervous. That wasn’t the case now… I am trying to get into a mindset and train myself to look at it on a completely different level. Then you realize that your sentence is just an episode of a colossal historical process. I try not to separate my fate from that of my country and the anarchist movement. And when you think about it like that, everything is seen in a completely different light. Any sentence doesn’t seem so daunting anymore.”

The Final Straw has recently broadcast a new interview on the Russian political landscape and the situation of anarchist prisoners there. When discussing the “Network” case, it’s worth mentioning that the Dresden Anarchist Black Cross published a critical article on the “Network” case last year, discussing aspects of the situation that are not widely known among non-Russian audiences.

In Greece, a court has just thrown out the attempt to frame two anarchists for the killing of a drug dealer in Athens. For more background on the case, you can watch the new documentary “As Ordered,” in Greek but with English subtitles, about the history that led up to the case and the Greek state’s attempt to use the drug trade to damage autonomous movements.

Elsewhere in Greece, Vangelis Stathopoulos, sentenced to 19 years after a wrongful conviction, has now had an appeal scheduled for February 2022.

The International Antifascist Defense Fund has updates from recent antifascist trials in Europe. In Lyons, France, a case against seven antifascists ended with three acquitted on all charges, two being given a small fine after being convicted on minor charges, and two more being given one-month suspended sentences for refusal to cooperate with the police. In Stuttgart, Germany, two antifascists have just been given harsh sentences averaging at five years each.

Former US political prisoner Barrett Brown has now been convicted for causing distress to police officers by helping to hold a “Kill Cops” banner at a demonstration in London. As an article in Freedom News explores, the prosecution was partly driven by outrage from left and liberal social media commentators, who, echoing the attempts to blame the George Floyd uprising on undercover officers and CIA agents selling fireworks, denounced Brown as an undercover agent for using a slogan they disapproved of, while happily amplifying messaging coming from right-wing troll Andy Ngo.

As the Freedom writer concludes:

“Look after your mates, learn about the history of the movement, the tactics of the enemy, view situations critically, use small affinity groups, and if someone goes to federal prison for four years for revealing the tactics that government contracted security firms use against activists, don’t cop-jacket them and call on Priti Patel to deport them because Andy Ngô told you to.”

Another former political prisoner, Jock Palfreeman, has recently done a speaking tour of the UK. You can listen to him discussing his experiences, including the twelve years he spent in the Bulgarian prison system after intervening to prevent a racist attack, in the interviews he recorded with 12 Rules for What and Football Lads and Lasses Against Fascism.

Uprising Defendants

Everyone should support the defendants facing charges related to their alleged participation in the George Floyd uprising – this list of our imprisoned comrades needs to be getting shorter, not longer. See Uprising Support for more info. The status of pre-trial defendants changes frequently, but to the best of our knowledge they currently include:

Isaiah Willoughby 49960-086
FDC SeaTac Federal Detention Center
PO Box 13900
Seattle, WA 98198

Desmond David-Pitts 49970-086 (may be due to be released shortly)
FCI Sheridan
PO Box 5000
Sheridan, OR 97378

Kelly Jackson 50288-086
FCI Sheridan Federal Correctional Institution
P.O. BOX 5000
Sheridan, OR 97378

Tyre Means 49981-086
USP Beaumont
PO BOX 26030
Beaumont, TX 77720

Montez Lee
Sherburne County Jail
13880 Business Center Dr. NW
Suite 200
Elk River, MN 55330-1692

Matthew White #21434-041
USP McCreary
P.O. Box 3000
Pine Knot, KY 42635

José Felan
Sherburne County Jail
13880 Business Center Dr.
NW Suite 200 Elk River, MN 55330-1692

Matthew Rupert
Sherburne County Jail
13880 Business Center Dr. NW
Suite 200 Elk River, MN 55330-1692

David Elmakayes 77782-066
FDC Philadelphia
PO BOX 562
Philadelphia, PA 19105

You can donate to David’s legal funds here.

Lore-Elisabeth Blumenthal 70002-066
FDC Philadelphia
PO BOX 562
Philadelphia, PA 19105

Andrew Augustyniak-Duncan 176417
Allegheny County Jail
950 2nd Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15219

Christopher West 161218
Allegheny County Jail
950 Second Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15219

You can also buy fundraiser clothing for Christopher “Brother Hush” West here.

Lavier Pounds 194234
Allegheny County Jail
950 2nd Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15219

Alvin Joseph 99529156 (POSTCARDS ONLY)
Gwinnett Co Jail
2900 University Parkway
Lawrenceville, GA 30043

Develcho Waller 73223019
Robert A. Deyton Detention Facility
PO BOX 730
Lovejoy, GA 30250

Judah Bailey 73219019
Robert A. Deyton Detention Facility
PO BOX 730
Lovejoy, GA 30250

Ellie Brett 14822509
Robert A. Deyton Detention Facility
PO BOX 730
Lovejoy, GA 30250

John Wade 14762509
Robert A. Deyton Detention Facility
PO BOX 730
Lovejoy, GA 30250

Joseph Jett 1910905 (POSTCARDS ONLY)
Clayton County Jail
9157 Tara Boulevard
Jonesboro, GA 30250

Shamar Betts
Champaign County Jail
204 E. Main St.
Urbana IL 61801

Andrew Carlisle 1902379
C/O Securus Digital Media Center- Fulton County Jail
PO Box 989
Lebanon, MO

Dashun Martin 73222019
Metropolitan Detention Center
PO BOX 1500
Los Angeles, CA 90053

Andrew Garcia-Smith 02324-509
FCI Williamsburg
PO Box 340
Salters, SC 29590

Upcoming Birthdays

Kevin “Rashid” Johnson

Rashid has been an outspoken revolutionary prisoner for years and is highly active with the New Afrikan Black Panther Party and the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, facing harsh repression for his organizing and position as one of the public faces of the prison strike movement.

Virginia uses Jpay, so you can send him a message by going to jpay.com, clicking “inmate search,” then selecting “State: Virginia, Inmate ID: 1007485.”

Birthday: December 3

Address:

Kevin Johnson 1007485
Nottaway Correctional Centre
2892 Schutt Road
Burkeville, VA
23922

Fred “Muhammad” Burton

Fred Burton is one of the Philly 5, a group of men accused of an alleged attack on a police station that left one officer killed. He was sentenced to a life term for murder. Burton has maintained his innocence since his arrest. His preferred name is Muhammad, but envelopes should be addressed to Fred Burton.

Pennsylvania uses Connect Network/GTL, so you can contact him online by going to connectnetwork.com, selecting “Add a facility,” choosing “State: Pennsylvania, Facility: Pennsylvania Department of Corrections,” going into the “messaging” service, and then adding him as a contact by searching his name or “AF3896.”

Birthday: December 15

Address:

Smart Communications/PA DOC
Fred Burton
AF3896
SCI Somerset
Post Office Box 33028
St Petersburg, Florida
33733

Alejandro Rodriguez-Ortiz

A former Vaughn 17 defendant. While the state has now dropped its attempts to criminalize Alejandro in relation to the uprising, all Vaughn-related prisoners continue to be targets for retaliation. Years later, these prisoners are still being abused for staying in solidarity with one another against the state.

Pennsylvania uses Connect Network/GTL, so you can contact him online by going to connectnetwork.com, selecting “Add a facility,” choosing “State: Pennsylvania, Facility: Pennsylvania Department of Corrections,” going into the “messaging” service, and then adding him as a contact by searching his name or “NW2883.”

Birthday: December 17

Address:

Smart Communications/PADOC
Alejandro Rodriguez-Ortiz, NW2883
SCI Coal Township
PO Box 33028
St Petersburg, FL 33733

Julio A. Zuniga

Julio “Comrade Z” Zuniga is an anarchist prisoner, writer, artist, and IWW/IWOC member held in Texas. You can see some of his work at his instagram page, and check Mongoose Distro for some of his writings.

Birthday: December 23

Address:

Note: Texas prisons have now banned all greeting cards and postcards. As Texas uses Jpay, you can send him a message by going to jpay.com, clicking “inmate search,” then selecting “State: Texas, Inmate ID: 1961551.” Or to send him a letter on standard white paper that complies with Texas restrictions, write to:

Julio A. Zuniga #1961551
Memorial Unit
59 Darrington Road
Rosharon, Texas 77583

Casey Brezik

Anarchist prisoner serving time in Missouri.

Missouri uses Jpay, so you can send him a message by going to jpay.com, clicking “inmate search,” then selecting “State: Missouri, Inmate ID: 1154765.”

Birthday: December 30

Address:

Casey Brezik #1154765
Jefferson City Correctional Center
8200 No More Victims Road
Jefferson City, Missouri
65101

Noah “Comrade Kado” Coffin

Anarchist prisoner and artist being held in long-term solitary confinement in Texas, and regular contributor to the Fire Ant zine. Noah now has an instagram page you can check out here, and his writings are published by Mongoose Distro.

Birthday: December 30

Address:

Note: Texas prisons have now banned all greeting cards and postcards. As Texas uses Jpay, you can send him a message by going to jpay.com, clicking “inmate search,” then selecting “State: Texas, Inmate ID: 1795167.” Or to send him a letter on standard white paper that complies with Texas restrictions, write to:

Noah Coffin #1795167
Ellis Unit
1697 FM 980
Huntsville, TX 77343

You can also write to the Fire Ant Collective, who’ve set up a fund to support him, at:

Noah Coffin Fund
c/o Fire Ant
PO Box 164
Harmony, ME 04942

Jonathan Rodriguez

A former Vaughn 17 defendant. While the state has now dropped its attempts to criminalize Jonathan in relation to the uprising, all Vaughn-related prisoners continue to be targets for retaliation. More than three years later, these prisoners are still being abused for staying in solidarity with one another against the state.

Pennsylvania uses Connect Network/GTL, so you can contact him online by going to connectnetwork.com, selecting “Add a facility,” choosing “State: Pennsylvania, Facility: Pennsylvania Department of Corrections,” going into the “messaging” service, and then adding him as a contact by searching his name or “NU0434.”

Birthday: December 31

Address:

Smart Communications / PA DOC
Jonathan Rodriguez – NU0434
SCI Phoenix
PO Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL, 33733


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Wednesday, December 1, 2021

New video by Unicorn Riot on YouTube - go check it out ;-)


Watch on YouTube here: Car Attack After First Day of Kim Potter Trial [Extended]
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The US Manufactures Weapons And Consent: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Listen to a reading of this article:

❖

The only manufacturing jobs left in the US are military weapons and consent.

❖

Gotta keep dropping bombs because they gotta keep making bombs. Gotta keep making bombs because they made the entire economy dependent on bomb-making. This is the only type of system that could possibly work.

❖

The goal of internet censorship is to suppress and marginalize unauthorized ideas so much that the internet actually becomes a net negative for ordinary people, because the only ones who will be able to rapidly share ideas of consequence will be the propagandists and their acolytes.

❖

Because people who object to US-led imperialist aggressions against their governments are routinely purged from social media, those of us who do not live in nations that are being targeted by those aggressions have a special duty to forcefully speak out against US imperialism.

❖

“Come to our Summit for Democracy,” said the nation whose elections are completely fake and whose intelligence agencies have interfered in scores of foreign elections and which openly works to topple democratically elected governments around the world all the time.

I mean, come on:

❖

Capitalism is such a garbage system that news media will shriek all day about “crime” like it’s this mysterious alien phenomenon being inflicted upon society from the outside instead of a very obvious symptom of economic injustices with very obvious and widely known solutions.

 

❖

I was fully expecting Biden to be absolute shit but I will still admit to being disappointed that he just flat-out lied about ending the war in Yemen. Yes I know it serves me right for getting my hopes up. But it is still horrific that this atrocity continues.

 

❖

“You’re Australian, don’t write about America.”

You’re a literal empire. Everyone gets to talk about you. Shut the fuck up.

When people would tell me to shut up about the US because I’m not American I used to point out that my co-writer/husband Tim is American, but I quickly realized that’s giving way to much credence to the idea that non-Americans can’t criticize a planet-dominating unipolar empire.

❖

Covid is interesting in that it has a propaganda campaign that everyone’s aware of and encouraged to participate in. So you’ll see things like when Jimmy Dore got slammed earlier this year for talking about his adverse vaccine reaction, not because it was false, but because it hurt the propaganda effort.

There’s no basis whatsoever for the belief that Dore lied about having adverse reactions, but he got raked over the coals anyway. You see things like that all the time: people forcefully discouraged from talking about raw facts because it might hurt the vaccine effort or whatever.

You are free to believe this propaganda campaign is a good thing, or that it’s a necessary evil, but what you can’t do is deny that it’s a propaganda campaign. There’s a concerted effort to manage perception, and the rank-and-file public is actively participating in that effort.

None of this is to deny that there’s misinformation about Covid and vaccines etc; there’s an incredible amount of stupid bullshit and sloppy thinking out there. But there’s also a fair bit of real information that people simply cannot discuss outside certain echo chambers without being stomped down.

This is a fairly new development, where the public is encouraged not just to share a certain message but to aggressively shut down anything which doesn’t perfectly align with it regardless of whether or not it is based in fact. Narrative managers are watching this one closely.

 

❖

The increasing likelihood of nuclear war between the US power alliance and Russia and/or China is the most important issue in the world. It’s self-evidently priority number one, because there will be no politics, protests, Covid vaccines, racial issues, healthcare etc if we are all dead.

There is no other issue that could instantly turn all the other issues into a non-issue tomorrow. Opposing the way the US and its allies are rapidly ramping up hostilities against Russia and China simultaneously and shutting down any possibility of detente must be our foremost priority.

I just keep seeing a day not far in the future were a nuke gets discharged amid the chaos and confusion of escalating cold war tensions between nuclear-armed nations and all we’ll be thinking about as the world ends is all the stupid nonsense we’d been arguing about previously.

❖

The advent of nuclear weapons didn’t prevent a third world war, it just postponed it. It is not a coincidence that the two most powerful nations the US has been unable to absorb into its field of control are nuclear-armed ones. But now a final confrontation is on the horizon.

After the second world war the US became the top imperialist aggressor, and since it couldn’t take out Russia and China it set about absorbing weaker nations into its imperial folds. Now only a few nations remain unabsorbed, and the drums of war against Russia and China are beating ever louder. There was a tiny four-year window after Hiroshima before Stalin got the bomb, and China followed five years later. By doing so they were able to postpone a direct confrontation with the US empire for the rest of the century, but they’ve been marked for absorption ever since.

And now the campaign to shore up total global control is approaching its final stage.

❖

Things are fucked, the people who are making them fucked will keep doing so until stopped by the public, and the public is being psychologically manipulated away from stopping them by propaganda. That’s our whole struggle right now, and it’s happening on many different fronts.

__________________________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. 

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Featured image via Wikimedia Commons.



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Watch on YouTube here: Kim Potter Trial - Day 2 Pt. 2 - Jury Selection, Update from Supreme Court Hearing on Abortion
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This Week in Fascism #123: Proud Boys, Patriots and White Nationalists See Rittenhouse Verdict as Signal From State for More Murder

cover:@GraffitiRadical

Welcome fellow antifascists!

So much to cover! The Rittenhouse verdict reminds us that the courts uphold what we already know: that the State is deputizing the far-Right to act an an auxiliary force against social movements from below. The verdict has also stroked the murderous imaginations of the far-Right – who dream of the State calling upon them to kill in its name.

This week we also look at recent action reports, Tucker Carlson’s new fascist fever dream made possible by white nationalist buddies, a former neo-Nazi skinhead in the DOJ, drama in Qanon land, and much more.

There’s so much to go over, so let’s dive right in!

Action Report

In Baltimore, a small protest assembled to counter former Breitbart troll Milo Yiannopoulos, who continues to try and rehabilitate himself as an anti-LGBTQ crusader who supports “conversation therapy.” In California, Jon Minadeo, the leader of the neo-Nazi group, the Goyim Defense League, stated in a video that he is trying to move out of his parents house after it was vandalized. In the rural town of Grants Pass in the Pacific Northwest, students organized a walk-out to protest the re-hiring of two anti-trans staff members.

An antifascist in the Portland area who was facing heavy charges for disarming a member of the American Guard armed with a hammer at an antifascist rally in the summer of 2019 has had their charges dropped. Also, the city of Portland is set to pay $125,000 to a protester who was shot in the back of the head with a live munition after police opened fire against antifascist demonstrators in the summer of 2018.

News

California Town Declares Itself “Constitutional Republic” in face of COVID-19 Mandates

A town in Northern California with a population of about 20K people has voted to declare itself a “Constitutional Republic,” in opposition to COVID-19 vaccine mandates. In an interview with Fox News, Vice Mayor Scott Thompson stated, “Every time you lose your freedom…usually it takes bloodshed to get it back.”

Far-Right and White Nationalists Praise Rittenhouse Verdict and Weaponize Deadly Tragedy in Waukesha

Neo-Nazis, white nationalists, Boogaloo boys, and the Patriot movement are feeling emboldened by the recent court decision to not charge Kyle Rittenhouse in the murder of several Black Lives Matter protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin last year. Speaking in an interview in Salon, far-Right researcher David Neiwart wrote:

This desire for a civil war and other political violence is not just coming from the open white nationalists and neo-Nazis and racists. It is also coming from what I would call the “Patriot” right. These are the Trumpians — the people who believe that the 2020 election was stolen, the people who believe COVID is a Chinese hoax.

This isn’t an unusual conversation in these circles. Unfortunately, not enough people are paying attention to what is happening among these people. They are all polishing their guns and getting ready.

The Rittenhouse verdict is going to be a big green light and beacon for the right-wing extremists, and especially the Patriot right. It’s just a big signal: You can do this and get away with it. You can gun down leftists at these protests.

The local level is where they are very active right now. The radical right, particularly the neofascist elements such as the Proud Boys and Three Percenters, the street-brawling thugs and militiamen who show up in body armor and with weapons, are doing exactly what Kyle Rittenhouse did, but on a larger scale.

These groups, for the most part, do not live in the cities where protests are taking place. They travel to these cities and organize acts of thuggery against the residents who live there. There is a perfect storm here in America where the corporate news media does not do accurate reporting on these events and instead engages in both-sides-ism.

Far-Right conspiracy websites like The Gateway Pundit have predictably used the Rittenhouse trial to push baseless lies. Meanwhile, neo-Nazi groups like Patriot Front have openly embraced Kyle Rittenhouse as a symbol; putting him on stickers and banners. Others on the far-Right saw their own murderous fantasies play out through Rittenhouse’s actions. According to Newsweek:

Brien James, a co-founder of the hardcore racist skinhead gang [the Vindlanders, and current Proud Boy leader], celebrated the verdict with his hundreds of subscribers. James added in the caption: “No f**** given. I’d kill every one of you communists and eat a cheeseburger while I prepare your body for disposal. No remorse. No quarter. That’s what’s coming for you.”

Other Proud Boys also took the verdict as a green light for more murder. As NPR reported:

In one Telegram channel for the far-right Proud Boys, some noted they had taken the day off work to await the verdict. “There’s still a chance for this country,” wrote one. In another channel, a member stated that political violence must continue. “The left wont stop until their bodied get stacked up like cord wood,” he wrote.

Racist and fascist groups are also rushing to weaponize the recent tragedy in Waukesha, after Darrell Brooks Jr., who is Black, was arrested after driving through a holiday parade and tragically killing six people and horrifically injuring dozens more. Far-Right online grifters like Tim Pool and Andy Ngo attempted to paint this as a “political” act, pointing to social media content shared by Brooks about George Floyd and other major news stories from major outlets like TMZ as proof that Brooks was a Black Lives Matter militant and carried out the attack to specifically target “white people.”

According to the Daily Beast:

For now, there are no indications of any additional motive for driving his SUV through the parade, or any reasons to label it domestic terrorism, Waukesha police chief Daniel Thompson said in a press conference Monday afternoon. “We are confident that he acted alone,” Thompson added.

But a quick glance on social media would find an entirely different narrative playing out. Scores of accounts, some with hundreds of thousands of followers, are either insinuating or stating outright Brooks was in some way a member of Black Lives Matter, or had been inspired by the civil rights group. Others suggested without evidence this was the first shot in a looming race war, or that Brooks’s alleged crimes were somehow an act of retribution days after Kyle Rittenhouse was declared not guilty.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a QAnon-friendly and vaccine-hesitant member of Congress, tweeted, “we must ask if [BLM] incited the mass murder.”

None of those posts, or others floating around online and purportedly shared by Brooks, display anything resembling participation in the Black Lives Matter movement.

Ngo also included another suggestion that bears little resemblance to reality. “He also has a post about how to get away with running people over on the street,” he tweeted. This is, at best, inflammatory and misleading. Yes, in 2016, Brooks shared a post from an ex-Minneapolis sargeant who’d encouraged citizens to run over BLM protesters, saying they could get off scot-free by calling 911 and claiming BLM had a “propensity towards violence.” Anyone with a cursory knowledge of the story would easily realize Brooks was condemning the cop. Ngo left all of that information out. Instead, in another tweet in the thread, he stripped away the context to quote Brooks saying: “Run them over. Keep traffic flowing & don’t slow down for any of these idiots.”

While Ngo’s tweets have made the rounds online, no reputable outlets have seen fit to cite them to date. One “reactionary social media performer” with his own large following did, though. Tim Pool, a hugely popular YouTuber with a bent for whitewashing the far-right, put out a video Monday morning. His main source was Ngo’s tweets. In it, Pool made sure to couch his statements about Brooks, saying nothing had been confirmed regarding any connection to BLM. People should wait when commenting on a breaking news story, especially one involving crime, Pool advised, as it often takes time to sort fact from fiction. And any implication Brooks was motivated by politics should be rejected, he said, not long before flatly asserting that Brooks has “ties to Black Lives Matter.” Part of the title of the video states the “Person Of Interest Detained Is BLM Supoorter.” [sic}

In an attempt to jump on the band wagon given traction by the various MAGA grifters, the National Justice Party, a group of neo-Nazis who we discussed in the last column, held a demonstration in Waukesha in an effort to capitalize off of this narrative.

Truthout Reports More Active Members of Law Enforcement Found in Oath Keeper Leaks

In our last installment of This Week in Fascism, we linked to an article expanding on recent information leaked from the far-Right militia, the Oath Keepers. Truthout is now reporting that individuals from the Chicago Police Department, the New York Police Department, and the Los Angeles Sheriff Department are all included in the group’s membership. Additionally, at least 200 of the nearly 40,000 person roster included current and former law enforcement. From the report:

One of the group’s primary stated goals is to build militias in the U.S. by stockpiling military equipment and holding paramilitary trainings. The group’s members trained for months in the lead up to the armed attempted coup on January 6, according to documents from the Department of Justice. Earlier this year, a leader of the group said that active police officers help the group with paramilitary training.

Moreover, ProPublica reported:

ProPublica identified Clampitt and 47 more state and local government officials on the list, all Republicans: 10 sitting state lawmakers; two former state representatives; one current state assembly candidate; a state legislative aide; a city council assistant; county commissioners in Indiana, Arizona and North Carolina; two town aldermen; sheriffs or constables in Montana, Texas and Kentucky; state investigators in Texas and Louisiana; and a New Jersey town’s public works director.

ProPublica’s analysis also found more than 400 people who signed up for membership or newsletters using government, military or political campaign email addresses, including candidates for Congress and sheriff, a retired assistant school superintendent in Alabama, and an award-winning elementary school teacher in California.

The continued participation of law enforcement and government officials in far-Right groups tired directly to reactionary violence, shows once again the degree in which the State is giving the far-Right a pass and using it as a useful tool against autonomous social struggles and movements for liberation.

MAGA Infighting Erupts as Qanon Supporter General Flynn Walks Back on Movement

In a leaked recorded call between former Trump national security advisor General Flynn and Trump’s pro-Qanon lawyer, Lin Wood, Flynn remarked about Qanon:

I think it’s a disinformation campaign that the CIA created. That’s what I believe. Now, I don’t know that for a fact, but that’s what I think it is. I think it’s a disinformation campaign.

Even more concerning, according to the Daily Beast:

In the call, Flynn promises to send Wood an article about QAnon’s failure to come true. Based on text messages from Flynn that Wood also published on his Telegram account, the article Flynn referenced on the call was a Nov. 2 article by white supremacist radio host Hal Turner that endorsed the idea of mass violence.

In the blog post that Flynn apparently cited, Turner ridicules QAnon believers who traveled to Dallas believing the John F. Kennedy Jr. would appear. Turner wrote that Trump supporters would repeatedly look like fools “until something like a mass slaughter happens,” writing that the JFK Jr. debacle was caused because people were “too cowardly to stand up, pick up guns, and go kill the people” Turner falsely claimed stole the election.

These comments come after years of Flynn cozying up to pro-Qanon figures, echoing Qanon slogans, and speaking at Qanon linked events and conferences. According to Rolling Stone:

Flynn’s disbelief, however, has not stopped him from profiting off of the Q conspiracy. In 2016 shortly after Trump’s election, Flynn said that “army of digital soldiers” got Trump into office. Flynn trademarked the phrase “digital soldiers,” which later became a rallying cry for the Q movement. Even as recently as this summer, he spoke at a conference attended by QAnon believers — the “For God & and Country Patriot Roundup” — where he appeared to endorse the violent overthrow of the U.S. government. In 2017, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Flynn’s support for Qanon goes back years. As the Intercept wrote:

Most media outlets treated Flynn’s videotaped oath last summer, in which he uttered a well-known QAnon slogan, as a sort of coming-out story about a onetime Trump insider who had gone off the rails. The video has since become the subject of a lawsuit by members of Flynn’s family who claim that “left-wing media outlets began to spread false narratives” about the Flynn family’s connections to QAnon. An Intercept investigation has found that Flynn’s ties to the QAnon phenomenon stretch back much further than the July 4 weekend last year when the video first appeared, however, to the days immediately following Trump’s 2016 election victory.

That November, nearly a year before the first cryptic clue from QAnon’s organizers – known as a “Q drop” — appeared on the online message board 4chan, Flynn told a roomful of Trump supporters that the president-elect had been borne into office by an “army of digital soldiers.” The phrase “digital soldiers,” which Flynn later trademarked, has become a central QAnon rallying cry and a key indicator of the movement’s growing turn toward violent extremism and insurrection.

Lin Wood has been burning bridges with others within MAGA world in recent weeks. As Rolling Stone noted:

Wood, who has been feuding recently with fellow Trump allies, released the recording of the nearly 24-minute call with Flynn on his Telegram channel. Wood has been in a downward spiral ever since Kyle Rittenhouse, the far-right darling recently acquitted of homicide for killing people at a racial justice protest, said that Wood had “taken advantage” of him and left him in jail unnecessarily when he briefly represented him. On Friday night, he released a recording of a phone call between himself and another Trump ally, former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne. In the call, Wood claimed that Stop the Steal — the organization formed to help Trump overturn the 2020 election — “is a Deep State organization to raise money for purposes other than to FIX 2020.”

If this infighting, or recent events like JFK Jr. not showing up in Texas on the account of being dead for a long time makes any dent in the movement – remains to be seen.

Undercover Veteran Says Three Percenter Leaders Asked Him to Kill Antifascists and Black Liberation Activists

Veteran Kristofer Goldsmith claims to have infiltrated the far-Right militia movement, the Three Percenters, and during the initiation process, was asked by leadership if he would be willing to kill antifascists and Black Liberation activists. According go Raw Story:

“During the screening, using basically my real profile as an Iraq veteran as background, they’re asking me questions about my weapon system, my secondary, meaning my handgun, how I was prepared to use it. What I would do in different tactical scenarios. They specifically asked, and I made recordings because these people are idiots, they were explicitly asking would you kill someone from Antifa or Black Lives Matter. This wasn’t an anomaly.”

The fact that killing their political opponents represents the baseline for joining such groups shows the degree in which mass political violence lies at the core of the far-Right.

Proud Boys Invade School Boards and Hold Marches in New York, LA, and Beyond

The Daily Beast reports that the Cape Fear chapter of the pro-Trump, neo-fascist group, the Proud Boys, showed up to pressure members of the New Hanover Health and Human Services Board, to overturn their mask mandate on Friday, November 12th. In an act of complete intimidation, Proud Boys showed up wearing masks and uniforms, “vowing to ramp up pressure on authorities” while the board voted 8-4 to end the mandate. Instead of voting on an extension, the measure was rolled back for North Carolina’s most populous county. One member of the group insisted that masks are “child abuse,” and then instigated the crowd to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Earlier in the week, the Proud Boys showed up to a school board meeting having a similar vote. When asked about their presence:

“If our presence escalates that pressure and makes it to the point where we become a distraction to conducting business and they just change the mask mandate so we go away, that’s a win.”

School board members that night opted to delay a decision ahead of the health board’s Friday meeting.

Those who oppose the rollbacks are deeply concerned about how a surge in COVID cases might continue to put undo pressure on healthcare workers, lead to more deaths, and endanger community members.

While news of the Proud Boys’ latest act of intimidation went viral and even got a mention on Saturday Night Live, in other cities the group took part in ongoing anti-vaccine rallies and marches and in Long Island, a group of about 20 Proud Boys took to the streets.

As David Neiwart wrote:

The Proud Boys continued to deploy their post-Jan. 6 strategy—that is, focusing their organizing around local right-wing protests and attaching their neofascist presence by providing “security”—this week by showing up to anti-vaccination marches in New York City and Los Angeles. They also turned up at a local school board meeting in a suburban Illinois village to intimidate officials over LGBTQ-friendly books in their school library.

As the Proud Boys attempt to hold the MAGA coalition together and ready it for another J6 grab at power, the need for broad organizing against them and the creation of mass anti-racist and antifascist coalitions is greater than ever.

Member Of Neo-Nazi Terror Group, The Base, Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison for Conspiring to Kill Antifascist Couple

Michael Helterbrand, member of neo-Nazi accelerationist terror group The Base, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and gang charges in a plot to kill a Bartow County couple and was subsequently sentenced to 20 years in prison followed by a 20 year probation. Helterbrand and his co-defendants Jacob Kaderli and Luke Lane, plotted to kill the couple after they were labeled online as antifascist activists. All three members of the Base have been held without bail at a Floyd County jail for two years.

Rome News Tribune reports:

Since then, Helterbrand has racked up numerous other charges concerning weapons, damage to property, a fight and sexual assault at the jail.

Helterbrand, alongside six other people identified by jail officials as Ghostface Gangsters, were charged in the stabbing, sexual assault and burning of another Floyd County Jail inmate on Dec. 18, 2020.

Helterbrand’s violence behind bars and apparent affiliation with white prison gangs will likely lead to extended sentences.

Infowars Director With Connections to Epik and America First Purchased Domain Named After Christchurch Shooter

SPLC’s Hatewatch released an article indicating that Infowars Information Technology Director Michael Zimmerman purchased the web-domain tarrantmanifest./com within hours of the Christchurch massacre. Information obtained from the leaked Epik data shows that Zimmerman, who was working as an executive for Alex Jones at the time, purchased the Epik domain just hours after Brenton Tarrant livestreamed himself walking into the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand and murdering 51 Muslim congregants on March 14th, 2019.

According to Hatewatch:

Zimmermann departed his director-level position at Infowars in March, according to his Linkedin account, but he appears to still work with Jones. Zimmermann signed an affidavit on Sept. 13, as part of the Sandy Hook defamation lawsuit against Jones and Infowars’ parent company Free Speech Systems LLC, claiming that he had continued to work as a consultant for the company.

Zimmerman has connections to a trifecta of far-Right media including Alex Jones’ Infowars, Rob Monster’s web-hosting company Epik, and white nationalist Nick Fuentes’ web series America First:

A small network of technical personnel backs Zimmermann in his work, and together, they bridge three platforms of critical importance to the fringe and pro-Trump far right: Infowars; Epik, a web-hosting company popular among the extreme right; and Nick Fuentes’ “America First” show, a nightly livestream featuring commentary from the 23-year-old attendee of the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally. Zimmermann himself appears to straddle these three groups. His account on the messaging service Keybase suggests that he serves as part of Nick Fuentes’ America First development team. He also joined Epik, the company from which he bought the domain, as the director of enterprise systems sometime in March 2021, according to his LinkedIn account and a bio he used on Twitter.

Jones, Monster, and Fuentes have all referenced Zimmerman but the connections between the companies don’t end with him, Hatewatch reports:

Hatewatch found 12 different people working together in a technical capacity across America First, Infowars, Epik and a livestreaming platform called Vieo.com, recently purchased by Epik. Over a span of 25 months starting in 2019, these individuals cumulatively registered approximately 212 different domains with Epik and organized eight different limited liability companies (LLCs). Zimmermann registered most of the domains and LLCs and appears to have the longest-standing ties to this tech network supporting these far right media companies.

Check out the article for the full story and details on their far-Right network.

Tucker Carlson Uses White Nationalist Film Maker For J6 “Documentary”

Darren Beattie SOURCE: YouTube

Tucker Carlson has a new “documentary” out about the attempted pro-Trump coup on January 6th, which paints it as both a possible false flag and as an opportunity by the State to roundup “Patriots” in a new war on terror that uses fighting “white supremacists” as cover.

As the HuffPost wrote:

“Patriot Purge” is deeply conversant with far-right mythologies about Jan. 6 and broader fantasies about supposed persecution of far-right groups by the federal government. That’s not surprising, considering who worked on the series: Carlson co-wrote “Patriot Purge” with a man who previously produced white nationalist movies, and the series counts two white nationalists among its protagonists.

Carlson’s narration is shot through with coded terminology: In the first episode, he describes the arrest of Jan. 6 rioters as the precursor to a “purge” of “legacy Americans.”

Darren Beattie is the first person interviewed in “Patriot Purge,” warning the viewer that “the domestic war on terror is here. It’s coming after half the country.”

Beattie made headlines in 2018 after he was forced out of the Trump White House when CNN revealed he’d spoken at a white supremacist conference. Since then, Beattie has openly allied himself with white supremacists — most notably Nick Fuentes — frequently promoting them online. He once tweeted, “If white people are targeted as a group, they must learn to defend themselves as a group.”

After being fired from the White House for attending a white nationalist conference, Beattie was hired by Matt Gaetz, who funneled thousands in public funds to him. As Politico reported in 2020:

Gaetz, a close ally of President Donald Trump from the Florida Panhandle, improperly sent tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to a limited liability company linked to a speech-writing consultant who was ousted from the Trump administration, in direct conflict with House rules.

Huffpost goes on to write:

The co-writer for the docuseries is a man named Scooter Downey, who directed movies for white nationalists before joining Fox Nation as a writer. As reported by The Daily Beast, Downey directed a documentary called “Crossfire” starring Lauren Southern, the Canadian alt-right activist best known for teaming up with European neo-fascists on a cruel mission to stop boats from rescuing refugees stranded in the Mediterranean.

Downey has also directed a live-action movie called “Rebel’s Run” based on a comic book written by Theodore Robert Beale, aka Vox Day, an alt-right artist who once wrote that “Western civilization” rests on “white tribalism, white separatism, and especially white Christian masculine rule.”

Carlson has a long history of working with and employing white nationalists on his show and at the Daily Caller. See a deep dive, here.

DOJ Official Discovered To Have Ties With Neo-Nazi Terrorists

 

Daily Kos reports that Brian P. Haughton, a neo-Nazi skinhead who played in White Power bands throughout the 90’s is currently holding a federal counter-terrorism position with the Department of Justice (DOJ). This revelation has come to light following the release of a Helen Christophi’s deep dive on Haughton published by Progressive Magazine.

Christophi writes:

Neo-Nazis still talk about Brian P. Haughton. He played drums in Arresting Officers, one of the biggest neo-Nazi punk bands of the late 1980s and early 1990s. They churned out dozens of violent skinhead anthems before Haughton became a Philadelphia police officer in 1995.

Now Haughton works in domestic counter-terrorism for the U.S. Department of Justice. He has access to sensitive intelligence used by more than 1,000 federal agencies and police departments in all fifty states to stop attacks by white supremacists—the deadliest domestic terrorist movement in the United States, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security.

Daily Kos writes:

Among the people that Haughton associated with then were members of the Aryan Republican Army, a neo-Nazi terrorist band responsible for robbing a series of 22 banks in the Midwest between 1994 and 1996. Some of its members were connected to Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, and witnesses placed them in close proximity to McVeigh in April 1995, just before McVeigh’s truck bomb destroyed the Murrah Federal Building and killed 168 people.

This is yet another example of people with far-Right ties and beliefs holding law enforcement jobs with access to highly sensitive information and the ability to target specific communities, groups, and movements. With white supremacist violence being one of single biggest threat to folks living in the so-called United States, it’s alarming to think about how someone who’s Nazi song lyrics can be found with a simple google search could pass the screening in order to hold his current position. His band was called “Arresting Officer” and, Christophi states:

The band’s name alluded to the racist belief that arresting officers have the best job on the force: They’re the ones who get to kick the crap out of Black people.

For more information and background on Haughton, head over to Daily Kos and click here to visit the full report.

Doxxes

Hardy Lloyd, White Supremacist Murderer from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club (EFJBGC) has released the identity of white nationalist Hardy Lloyd of Pittburgh, Pennsylvania. Lloyd, who served time in prison for killing his girlfriend “just to watch her die” and he served additional time for white supremacist organizing and calling for attacks on Jewish people. Since his release, he founded a white nationalist website and regularly posts blogs and organized mail campaigns to eleven US cities. Recent blog posts indicate that he is still committed to antisemitic white nationalism. Please consider following these instructions and reporting Hardy’s website for violating Tucow’s terms of service.

Allison Richard Jack Peirce IV, Head of Security for Unite the Right of Indianapolis, Indiana

Anonymous Comrades Collective have identified a key Unite the Right rally organizer and former Identity Evropa member going by the name of Allison Richard Jack Peirce IV aka “Ajax.” Photos and leaked Discord chats indicate Peirce’s involvement in planning and security for UtR. The city of Charlottesville commissioned a report on the rally and in that report, they named “Jack Pierce” as the head of security for Richard Spencer and indicated that he coordinated closely with the Charlottesville Police Department. Click the link to the blog for all the details.

Luke M. Brandon, Christian Identity Neo-Nazi from Libby, Montana

Redoubt AFA brings us the info on Christian Identity neo-Nazi Luke M. Brandon from Libby, Montana. Brandon uses his various social media accounts on a handful of platforms to espouse white nationalist, misogynist, and antisemitic views to anyone who will listen. Our comrades in the so-called Redoubt produced screenshots of Brandon talking about his violent beliefs and were able to track and locate his recent whereabouts. Check out the blog for more information.

Robert Sunday, Proud Boy of Orangevale, California

Antifa Sacramento has come through with the identity of Orangevale, California Proud Boy Robert Alexander Sunday. Sunday, who is a former Marine, was documented as having participated in November 21st, 2020 Stop the Steal rally in Sacramento where a group of Proud Boys, including Sunday, marched to Cesar Chavez Park. The park is a home to many unhoused residents and before the march, the Proud Boys indicated they had planned to attack the folks there who would be unprepared to defend themselves. Sunday was among the most violent of the group and his violence that day was captured on camera. Head over to the blog for the full details.

Travis Howard, White Supremacist State Trooper of Abingdon, Virginia

Ruthless We have identified another member of the private Facebook group “It’s okay to be white,” as Abingdon, VA State Trooper Travis Howard. The group is a cesspool of neo-Nazi imagery, antisemitism and white supremacist content. Though Howard’s membership in the group seems to be passive at this point, he hasn’t yet posted in the group, he has liked violent and problematic content posted by others.

Scott Nussbaum, Proud Boy of College Station, Texas

Ruthless brings us a second Proud Boy dox of Scott Nussbaum from College Station, Texas. Nussbaum spends his free time on Telegram espousing calls for violence against trans people and others. The Harris County Proud Boys Telegram group that Nussbaum is a member of is a cesspool of neo-Nazi content including calls for murder.

Support Our Prisoners

  • Support those arrested during the ongoing rebellion! Check the In Contempt column on It’s Going Down for a list of prisoners.
  • Support Gage Halupowski! Currently serving a six year sentence. There is currently an outbreak at his prison, so please step up and support! More info here.
  • Support Dan Baker! Currently facing federal charges for posts online in response to armed far-Right rally at the capitol building in Florida. More info here.
  • Support Eric King! Anarchist and antifascist prisoner who has been targeted by the State and neo-Nazi inmates for being ‘ANTIFA.’ More info here. Donate here.
  • Support J.W. and TC! Antifascists arrested in San Diego following rally against far-Right and white supremacists. Donate here and here.
  • Support Scottie! Facing charges steaming from altercation with far-Right Trump supporters in LA. More info here.

by This Week in Fascism via It's Going Down
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Tuesday, November 30, 2021

New video by Unicorn Riot on YouTube - go check it out ;-)


Watch on YouTube here: Kim Potter Trial - Day 1 - Jury selection, protest & downtown car attack
Via Christian Gasper
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