Violence flared in East Haven, as New Haven activists marching to protest alleged police racism tangled with out-of-state “white nationalists.”
The clash happened during an event organized Saturday by New Haven immigrant advocacy organization Unidad Latina En Acción. More than 100 people marched through the streets of East Haven on Saturday, protesting alleged racial profiling on the part of East Haven police. They met groups of counter-protesters along the way, including a visiting band of white supremacists.
...over at Stormfront there is debate over the actual importance or effectiveness of James Von Brunn's attack today.
There seem to be two threads, one now locked for security purposes and one still open. The nazi mods locked one because users may have made comments that heralded Von Brunn for his action while the open one had mostly posters taking a critical view of his attack.
The posts ranged from 1) the quasi critical,
"Utterly ridiculous, pointless...As I've been saying, a nationalist movement will only proceed once it becomes an INTELLECTUAL movement."
and another Stormfront poster (less critical)
"I just finished reading Mr. Von Brunn's book. From the beginning it captured me. It is full of startling fact and insights. The historical references to infamous events in world history and the real story behind the scenes were riveting. I recommend it to anyone who has the courage to rise above the MSM’s obviously false version of events.
I deplore the fact that an innocent man who was just performing his job as a security guard has been killed. His family and loved ones have my sympathy and prayer’s
The reason’s for Mr. Von Brunn’s actions are perhaps only known to him. The passion with which he writes and his history of activism leads me to wonder if this was intended to be a suicide. Mr. Brunn is very aware that the time left to save the White Race and America as he knew it is very short. Recent events and his advancing age may have been factors in his decision to go out with a bang."
2) adressing the futility of the action and seeing the attack as a set back for the White fascist movement:
"Senseless, violent actions such as what we witnessed today at the Holocaust Museum only sets back the White Nationalist movement."
3) to even wondering if Von Brunn was just now a wacko in his old age:
"I dont know what he was thinking today. What makes an old man get up in the morning and say, 'I am going to go and find the most public/sympathetic target I can find and launch the most IN-effectual attack EVER on it! Then I will cause as much issue as I can for everyone in the cause, and live through it, so that I can be held up for months or years afterward as a example of the 'smart lone-wolf'
I for one would like to thank his dumbass personally for all his help to us. So "Thank you Mr. Dumbass...!"
Does anyone know if he had Altzheimers? Possibly simple dementia?"
The Stormfront posts show that the fascists understand that by and large the current period is not conducive to armed attacks, and little benefit will come to them if there ranks carry out spectacular acts of terror - although ther are plenty among there ranks who thinka nd act otherwise, or do so in less visible ways. If one can stomach the crap on Stormfront we can see that plenty of the fascists are thinking strategically about movement building.
The liberal press is turning the two recent attacks/murders - Dr. Tiller and now at the Holocaust Museum and the murder of guard Stephen T. Johns - into a hysteria. Liberal commentators are presing for domestic terror policy to be enacted against the Right. While the attacks show the ongoing reality of fascist and racialist terror, an expanded and official policy to investigate and develop counter insurgency methods against the Right will be used against other "dissident" groups and any sector that refuses the authority of the State. This is the dilemma that civil libertarian groups raise and which has often led them to defend the legal "right" to unpopular speech.
It is these terror attacks that the State will use to strengthen its hand, or at the least the State will attempt to push forward legislation - or covert operations - to monitor and destablize threats. The Bush administration did this with DHS, the Patriot Act, FISA, etc, we will have to watch to see how the Democrats act.
What is important for anti-fascists is that these attacks, coupled with the continuing capitalist crisis, the growing right-wing backlash against the Obama administration, and the disarray of the Republican party, the importance is that we are seeing more clearly the possibilities of a renewed reactionary movement that may currently be tied to electoralism but demonstrating the potential for elements within it to become semi-autonomous with a break from the legal confines of the Systems politico-socio framework.
Solidarity from the antifascist webblog, threewayfight: an insurgent blog against fascism and the State.
We wish your conference well and look forward to hearing of your organizing - now and for the future.
We are facing an increasingly uncertain future: the global capitalist crisis and a deepening recession; continuing War and Occupation; militarization of the State via the Patriot Act in the name of a “War on Terror”; mass raids and deportations of working peoples carried out by ICE; and an election that in many ways is unprecedented but in the end offers only differing visions of maintaining a capitalist System.
The total sum of these situations open up both risks and opportunities for those opposed to the current Order. But the potentials for mass opposition movements are neither limited to nor guaranteed to be movements relating to or emanating from “our side”. We must be conscious of and prepared for the emergence of popular and reactionary movements taking shape and offering their visions of “community” and survival in the face of a desperate time.
Whether Conservatives who feel the System is beyond their control and influence to far-Right religious fundamentalists to anti-immigrant forces to outright fascist groups in the style of the NA and their ilk, there are real possibilities that we could see these groups reemerge and strengthen as society becomes more polarized.
The antifascist movement - as represented by movements like ARA - have been on the front lines of developing the needed analysis and the means of fighting back and building a recognized and independent political alternative. It has not been easy. We have faced repression and even murder. We have seen splits within our ranks over strategy. And at times we have fallen short of the mark we set. But the efforts and example of our work has added to the vast experiences of people in motion and struggle. It is our ability to access the lessons from these experiences that will determine our future viability as radical and pro-liberation antifascist movements.
German police on Saturday cancelled an anti-Islam congress organised by a far-right group on safety grounds in Cologne after the venue was blocked by opponents. 'Pro-Cologne' had called the rally to oppose a decision by local authorities in Cologne to allow the construction of a mosque with a high dome and minarets. It invited nationalist groups from around Europe to join the "Stop Islam" rally to fight what it called the "Islamisation and immigration invasion" of Germany and Europe.
But only 50 supporters of the anti-immigrant group Pro Cologne managed to reach a city square as it was being blocked by anti-fascists. A police spokesman said the leftists were no longer attacking in small groups but in large formations.
A signal box on the edge of town was set on fire in the early morning by persons unknown, forcing the closure of a main line for several hours and the diversion of 12 national express trains. Taxi drivers, bartenders, bus companies and hotels denied the far right their service
more links:
1) COLOGNE, Germany (AFP) - - German police said tens of thousands of Cologne residents took to the streets Saturday in protest at an "anti-Islamisation" conference of European far-right leaders.
Carrying banners saying: "We are Cologne -- Get rid of the Nazis!," protesters gathered outside the city's cathedral to demonstrate against the congress organised by the local far-right group Pro-Koeln (For Cologne).
The first day of a three-day right-wing "anti-Islamification congress" in Cologne against a supposed "immigrant invasion" in Europe was marked by minor scuffles with counter-demonstrators.
"By the end of the year, 600 others had signed up, and several thousand more had applied for membership, founder Vona said. Although members are fond of marching in formation and pledging to provide "physical and spiritual self-defense," Vona insists that they are not armed.
In Vona's view, Hungary never made the full transition from communism; he wants to get rid of Gyurcsany's Socialist government and return the country to an older time, with emphasis on pure Hungarian identity and Christian values.
"Christian identity and Hungarian identity are one," Vona, who turns 30 this year, said in an interview at his office in Budapest. He also heads a small right-wing political party, Jobbik, which has run unsuccessfully for parliament but does have representatives in municipal governments.
The right has been able to capitalize on discontent with the government after a scandal in which the prime minister admitting lying to the public about the economy, and violent protests in 2006 on the 50th anniversary of Hungary's unsuccessful attempt to break away from Soviet domination"
BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungarian police fired tear gas and clashed with more than a thousand anti-government protesters who attacked riot police with petrol bombs and cobblestones in Budapest on Saturday.
Protesters from the far-right gathered around a downtown monument to the Soviet Red Army, attacked police who guarded the memorial and chanted anti-government and anti-Semitic slogans.
Far-right protests have become frequent since 2006, when Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany admitted in a leaked speech that he lied about the state of the economy to win re-election. His remarks were followed by Hungary's worst violence in decades.
On Saturday, police pushed hundreds of protesters, some of whom wore swastikas, through downtown streets, continuously firing tear gas.
The clashes came just hours after several liberal groups, including the Democratic Charta, founded in part by the Socialist prime minister, and a Roma organization gathered in Budapest to protest against far right organizations which they said were becoming increasingly powerful and menacing.
Gyurcsany, one of Hungary's most disliked politicians, has struggled to amass popular support after his government enacted hefty tax and price hikes in 2006 to reduce the biggest budget deficit in the 27-nation European Union.
Budapest, September 20 (MTI) - Simultaneously with demonstrations by the anti-violence Democratic Charter and another by Roma organisations, some 500 supporters of the radical right Jobbik party and other extreme right organisations gathered in Budapest's Heroes' Square on Saturday afternoon.
Jobbik head Gabor Vona addressed the protesters and said that "Hungary belongs to the Hungarians" and voiced hope that at the next elections his non-parliamentary party would garner a much larger share of the votes than the five percent required to get seats in the national assembly.
The demonstrators, many of whom were waving the national colours or the red-white stripes associated with the far right, are scheduled to march down Andrassy Boulevard and proceed toward central Budapest's Szabadsag Square near Parliament.
Participants of the rally have put up placards on the iron railing with which the police cordoned off a part of Heroes' Square for the demonstration, with slogans saying "Gyurcsany out" and "Dissolve parliament" or "Traitors, thieves", MTI's on-site correspondent reported.
Several hundred riot police are also reported to be deployed in nearby streets.
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Below are some older videos from the demonstrations and riots of 2006. The Far-Right and fascists have been active if not spearheading many of the anti-government protests in Budapest. The government of former Stalinist turned "social democrat" Ferenc Gyurcsány has come under increasing pressure from Right and nationalist groups. The main issue used to mobilize popular opposition to the governemnt wsa the leaked audiop recordings in which Gyurcsány states, "we lied throughout the last year-and-a-half, two years. It was totally clear that what we are saying is not true. You cannot quote any significant government measure we can be proud of ".
Increasing opposition to the government corresponded to the 50th anniversary of Hungarian Revolution of 1956 in which the populace revolted against Soviet domination. The Hungarian Revolution was a mass, popular revolt that manifested itself in varying forms of revolt and attempts to create working class organizations of self-management and defense. Eventually, the Soviets ruthlessly crushed the Revolution - after calls by the Hungarian revolutionaries for international defense went ignored - and executed or imprisoned thousands.
In recent years the radical anti-authoritarian and libertarian impulses of the Revolution have been replaced by interpreting the Revolution as a purely "Nationalist" event. It's on this that the Far-Right and fascists have been able to position themselves as the true inheritors of the Hungarian rebels of '56.
The videos here is to give an idea of the mood within Budapest. I'm not always sure the political perspective that the videos are coming from, though the first one is put to the music of the California Leftwing and anarchist band, Ignite. The second song on the video is a re-done version of Bleeding, with lyrics changed to reflect the situation in Hungary.
In another video you see the crowd take control of a tank. Frightening, but simultaneously funny, the protesters drive the tank into their own ranks nearly running their own people over. In such a situation we couldn't imagine driving a tank is easy, but the main point is that the protesters are meaning some serious "direct action" against the cops as it was reported to have been used later to drive into the police.
threewayfight is being revamped. nothing big or spectacular but trying to make it a little more usable.
over the last few years we have attempted with this site to add to, if not at times initiate, conversations around the character and content of the revolutionary struggle - and in particular the radical antifascist movements - and the opposition "our sides" face.
the site is not always consistent in its posts, but we hope to continue this small project as we see the ongoing and essential need for a liberatory - and libertarian - politic that can engage, question, and contribute to new understandings around movement building, capitalism/anti-capitalisms, and underlying assumptions of what constitutes "anti-imperialism".
Fighting Talk: News and Reporting on antifascist organizing
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