Last Monday, October 15, 2012, was the seventh anniversary of the anti-NSM riotsin Toledo, Ohio as well as the last day for replies to preauthorization motion responses in the cases against Melissa Hack, Ross Hack, and Leland Jones (arrested in connection with the July 1998 murder of anti-racists Daniel Shersty and Lin "Spit" Newborn). This month is important for us in Anti-Racist Action (ARA) because it reminds of us our past victories as well as those we've lost.
In February, the Hacks and Leland Jones were indicted in Las Vegas.
These three individuals comprise the second wave of arrests in
connection with these murders. Melissa Hack is the ex-girlfriend of John "Polar Bear" Butler,
tried and convicted in 2001 for his part in the murders, and the sister
of Ross Hack. These names are not new to us. We've been aware of the
Hack siblings involvement in the murder of our friends since 1998. So
has the LVPD.
ARA is calling for antifa to pack the
courtroom in support of Daniel Shersty and Lin "Spit" Newborn and their
families at the trial of Melissa Hack, Ross Hack, and Leland Jones on
November 1, 2013 in Las Vegas. Although we as a network do not seek
justice via the cops or the courts, our presence there is important not
only to let the Shersty and Newborn families know that their sons did
not die in vain, but to show that antifascists are still here and will
continue to be here fighting racism, fascism, and bigotry until we win.
The indictment of Melissa Hack, Ross Hack, and Leland Jones can be found here, and a portion of the complex case schedule can be found here.
On Wednesday, November 14, a series of Islamophobic ads appeared on CTA buses. These ads, paid for by Pamela Geller's anti-Islam group American Freedom Defense Initiative, are similar to those that have sparked controversy in several other major U.S. cities.
How should this situation be dealt with?
As anti-authoritarians, and as folks who, to put it lightly, disregard law in the struggle against oppression, we do not seek for these ads to be removed via any legalistic means. Does this mean we think racism should be tolerated? Hell no. We wouldn't be angered in the least if the CTA refused to run these ads, however, we wish to see a different approach to challenging this Islamophobic propaganda. We would like to see a situation in which people were outraged enough that they would take it upon themselves to deface racist advertisements and silence organized bigots.
The racists, by law, can say whatever they want… but they should not be surprised if the people who wish not to live in a racist world do something about it. Folks like those who shut down a gathering of white supremacists in Tinley Park, IL, earlier this year understand this, and should be praised for engaging with the racists directly and not appealing to the state to intervene in their affairs. Reliance on the state weakens the ability of autonomous social movements to bring about the changes necessary to overthrow the rotten systems of white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism that we live under.
We see any attack by the state against any political faction, even ones we disagree with, as an attack that can be and has been already used against us. We see the state as our enemy just as we do the racists. It's up to us, anti-authoritarians, anti-capitalists, and anti-fascists, to defeat all forms of opposition to a class, free society and an end to white supremacy and patriarchy.
Pamela G Geller 330 E 57th St, Apt 4 New York, NY 10022-2920
The controversial ads unveiled on the back of 10 CTA buses Wednesday read, “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.” They conclude with the words, “Support Copts. Defeat Jihad,” referring to friction between Muslims and Coptic Christians in Egypt. Within hours of the buses' first runs, messages appeared on Facebook and Twitter denouncing the campaign. Many said degrading a spiritual tenet of Islam -- one that refers to a Muslim's personal quest to become a better person -- amounts to hate speech. “This whole campaign insinuates Muslims are violent,” said Asaf Bar-Tura, programs director for the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, which protested the ads on social media Wednesday. “If it's within their legal powers, (CTA) should either not put it up because they incite hate and stereotypical thinking or put a label next to each sign saying `The CTA disagrees with this ad.’ ” So far, federal judges have sided with the advertisement's sponsor, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, which sued transit authorities in New York City and Washington, D.C., when they initially rejected the ads. Those judges ruled that public forums such as buses and trains can't bar advertising entitled to First Amendment protection. Pamela Geller, executive director of the initiative, said she believes the Jewish Council has good intentions, but denies that her ad qualifies as hate speech. "There’s nothing hateful about it," she said in an e-mail. "9/11 was hate. 3/11 in Madrid was hate. ... The Christmas underwear bomber was hate. ... Pushing back against such hate is not hate." "Perhaps this is the strangest thing of all: their utter lack of awareness, or denial, of the barrel pointed straight between their eyes," Geller said. "It is an odd combination of naivete, brainwashing and self-loathing that I will never comprehend." Although Geller posted on her blog "Atlas Shrugs" a letter from her lawyer threatening legal action against CTA if they didn’t place the ads, Brian Steele, a spokesman for the CTA, denied that the CTA was threatened with a lawsuit. But the precedents did deter the CTA from rejecting the ads, which are expected to run on different routes each day for the next four weeks. “While those courts agreed that the AFDI ads violate anti-disparagement or anti-demeaning standards similar to CTA's, that violation in and of itself did not remove AFDI's First Amendment protection to place the ads,” Steele said in a statement. “CTA understands that this ad may be offensive to our customers,” he added. “While the courts have ruled this ad is a form of protected speech under the First Amendment, we object to its divisive message.” The estimated ad revenue is about $4,500, a spokesman said. Meanwhile, Ahmed Rehab, the executive director of the Chicago chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations, said the group expects to launch its own nationwide ad campaign next week. As part of the campaign called “My Jihad,” individual Muslims define what the spiritual concept means for them. “I don't feel the urge to fight … I'd rather put out the alternative,” Rehab said. “People can decide what racism is.”
On November 11th, Elie Wiesel, a writer, professor, and Holocaust survivor, held a discussion on "the importance of learning and memory" at the Symphony Center in Chicago. Much like Elies speech at Malcolm X college a few years back, neo-nazis protested and handed out literature. This time there were only three white supremacists, and it was not Bill White's American National Socialist Workers Party (ANSWP), nor any offshoot. The nazis in attendance, judging by the symbols on their clothes, appeared to be involved in either the Creativity Alliance (CA) or the Creativity Movement (TCM); the latest of several incarnations of the racist group (and religion) originally known as Church of the Creator (COTC). The Creativity Movement rose from the ashes of the World Church of the Creator (WCOTC), led by Matt Hale and based out of Peoria, IL.
Antifascists in Illinois have had a long history of battle against WCOTC. An intense history involving home demos against their members (such as Justin J Frogge, now a convicted pedophile living at 441 Hartwell St. Elkhorn, WI 53121), individual confrontation, and disruption of their events that often ended in combat.
Since Matt Hale (WCOTC leader or "Pontifex Maximus") was sentenced to 40 years for soliciting an undercover FBI informant to kill federal judge Joan Lefkow, both the CA and TCM have not been looking good. Prominent members of TCM such as Brian Moudry (who is now facing arson charges for burning down an African American neighbors house), and Micahel Eisenhauer, have left the organization and TCM has spent an abundance of time arguing with, and shit talking, the CA. Just earlier this year, south side ARA got Tim Nelson of TCM kicked out of his apartment on the northwest side.
The man desperately trying to hold it all together for TCM, is James Logsdon (1233 Holiday RD Bloomington, IL 61704, 309-830-9485), the one time leader of the the WCOTC security force known as the White Berets, and current Pontifex Maximus. He was convicted of reckless homicide in 1998 in which he was sentenced to six years. He was later convicted and released in 2010 after doing three months for a DUI and driving with a suspended license. Logsdon often holds meet and greet barbecues at his house for any and all white nationalists in the mid west who want to network, but there has been no actual street presence from TCM in Illinois at all.
Regardless if those protesting this event were actually Creators or not, we are curious to know who they are. Their presence was unannounced prior to the event, and we have yet to see any written report backs. They came and went silently, likely attempting to stay off of our radar.
Taken from the Tribune:
Wiesel speaks to sanctity of learning, power of memory
Mark Caro
Elie Wiesel didn't need Holocaust deniers to lend immediacy to hisdiscussion about the importance of learning and memory, but there theywere anyway, three men standing outside the Symphony Center Sundaymorning holding an anti-Semitic banner and barking such nonsense as,"There never was a Holocaust."
"Hopefully he doesn't reproduce," one woman muttered about the group'sleader as she stepped inside.
The bile outside, of course, was no match for the eloquence, poignancyand good humor of the 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner. Wiesel'swritings, inspired by his experiences in Nazi death camps, earned himthe Chicago Tribune Literary Prize, which he received Sunday as partof the Chicago Humanities Festival. Wiesel was interviewed on stage byTribune critic Howard Reich, himself the son of Holocaust survivorsand writer of the book and documentary "Prisoner of Her Past" abouthis mother's struggle to come to terms with her ordeal.
Taken from HARM blog:
Jeffrey Stuart Burns (aka Thomas Stuart) from Wood River, IL would have you believe he’s a stand-up guy. He’s a devout Roman Catholic with nearly 2000 posts on forums.Catholic.com. He loves dogs, especially pits and shepherds. He works in private security. He listens to Christian music. He loves the outdoors. His favorite books are Sherlock Holmes, The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, and just near anything Ayn Rand ever wrote. He even smokes a pipe.
But there’s another side of Jeff. He’s the type of guy that dresses up like a Muslim for Halloween. He also is a forum moderator for world’s largest white supremacist website, Stormfront. He specializes in moderating conversations about white supremacy and religion. When it comes to keeping conversations about whether or not Jesus was Jewish civil and respectful, Jeff is your man. When you combine Jeff’s religious devotion with his perverse views about race you come up with an intense ideology:
“I personally blend my traditionalist Catholicism with some affinities for NS [national socialist] esotericism and, increasingly, some elements of Heathenry and Aryan Vedism. Hardly the first to do that: many before me of a mystical/philosophical bent have explored similarly. The thing is: if mystical [white nationalism] is part of the path one is drawn to–it should be a DISCIPLINED walk, and not just a verbal or mental assent. I’m probably no model of that: the first rule of discipline is to establish a stable routine. Mine gets tossed every which way by nature of my work. Anyhow: respect and honor for Adolf Hitler is indeed something I affirm. [emphasis added]”
Besides being a Hitler loving national socialist, Jeff is also a member of Council of Conservative Citizens and American Third Position (screenshot). Jeff’s true unfulfilled ambition within the white supremacist community was to join Volksfront, a violent skinhead crew (screenshot) but failed to meet their physical requirrements.
Here’s Jeff’s version of national socialism in his own words:
The incompetant [sic] steel-magnate, the inept butcher, the shop-keeper who simply could not keep shop–these would lose the business concerns which they could not operate properly anyhow. But they would yet have social safety-nets cushioning them from their fall and enabling them to return to productive economic activity in some other way. This is anathema to the underlying preconceptions of true socialisms, Marxian or otherwise, because all true socialisms start with the classical liberal idea that all humans are fundamentally equal, separated and differentiated only by unnatural class differences which can with time be eliminated. Start with the recognition that NS [national socialist] ideology does NOT believe in the fundamental eqality [sic] of humankind but rather that people are naturally different and will have organically-differentiated functions in an economy and you begin to grasp what separates NS [national socialism] from pure socialism.
The underlying vision of socialism is the abolition of government, the “whithering-away of the State”, the establishment of anarcho-syndicalist democratic systems where everything is held in common, everyone has an equal vote, and “government” is wholly synonymous with the People. A vision which Marxist-Leninism could never attain to despite systematic efforts to ‘scientifically’ attain such. SOCIALISM IS THE ATTEMPT TO ACHIEVE ABSOLUTE DEMOCRACY IN EVERY RESPECT. Fron [sic] that perspective a market-economy is loathsome and undesirable as the ultimate goal is economic cooperation and not competition. National Socialism is the opposite: it is a repudiation of equalitarianism and the self-conscious effort to attain to a society and an economy governed by elites, specifically by elites born and systematically proven to their role. From that perspective, a free competitve marketplace is desirable as the proving-ground of the economic elites. This is central to a proper understanding of modern political philosophy:
THE EXISTENCE OF A BUREACRACY IN A SOCIALIST STATE–indeed the existence of any sort of “exoskeleton” of government apart from the “people”–REPRESENTS A FAILURE OF SOCIALIST THEORY. On the other hand–THE PRESENCE OF A STRONG STATE CENTERED ON A LEADER AND GOVERNED BY ELITES WHO ARE THE CREAM OF AN ETHNICALLY-PURE ARYAN PEOPLE IS A NATIONAL SOCIALIST IDEAL. From this perspective a “democracy” is an inherent evil and democratic “ideals” are an evil to be purged from the Body Politic. A National Socialist state does not want democracy: it wants a nation of Overmen, a Master Race of people rendered hardened against the weaknesses of equalitarianism and democracy which Jewish ideology have insinuated into our minds to weaken and destroy us. The vision of National Socialism is in many ways the vision of the Dune trilogy [all emphasis added].
To give him credit, he’s one of the few nazis I’ve encountered that has a strong enough grasp on political theory that he is capable of discerning the difference between Marxist-Leninism and anarcho-syndacalism. It’s also somehow refreshing to hear a fascist admit openly that they have no sentimental attachments to notions of equality or democracy.
Truly the “Overman” of the master race he’s considered to be within the white supremacist community, Jeff has been attending leadership retreats sponsored by Stormfront. Though you might not have heard of Bob Whitaker, if you’ve followed news coverage of the Tinley Park Five you’ve probably heard parroting of what white supremacists are now referring to as the “Bob Whitaker Mantra”:
Again referencing Stornfront’s [sic] recent Leadership Seminar: those who coin or appropriate a term first own it. It is very difficult to successfully re-capture or redefine a word the Enemy camp siezed [sic] first. “National Socialism” was an attempt to recapture the word ‘socialist’ for the Right, and it has only succeeded in the minds of most ordinary Americans in confounding Nazis with Communists. By the same token, we cannot re-define ‘racist’ as a badge of honor nor successfully abridge it into ‘racialist’. Commies coined the word and they own it. What we can do is throw the epithet back on them: “racism is code word for anti-White; anti-racism is code for White genocide. Our people are the ones who truly believe in diversity: our enemies want to destroy diversity through racial integration”. THAT is the Bob Whitaker “mantra”, and how we use it.
Jeffrey Burns and his cohorts are fascists in a very real and classical sense of the word. They are obviously racist and they know it. They know that YOU don’t like racism so they figure they’ll just change the terminology. The tactic is neither new nor shocking. The only real surprise is just how willing the corporate media has been to perpetuate their blatant lies in print without the slightest bit of investigation or burden of proof. (///)
If you have any information about Jeffrey Burns, especially regarding his work in private security, please contact us.
Jeffrey Stuart BurnsAKA Thomas Stuart141 Conley aveWood River, IL 62095Date of Birth: 2/3/1960Wife: Lisa BurnsHe is a supervisor/manager in the "private contract security industry".Council of Conservative Citizens(CCC)American 3rd PositionSupporter status for National Socialist (nazi) Movement and Ku Klux Klan Knights Party
