CrimethInc podcast on Fascism and Anti-Fascism

From CrimethInc:

Recently murdered Greek anti-fascist rapper Killah P is just the latest casualty in a worldwide surge of fascist violence. In this episode, we analyze contemporary fascism and the resistance anarchists have mounted to it, including the history of Anti-Racist Action. Interviews with the One People’s Project and New York City Anarchist Black Cross discuss the extreme right in the US today, tactics for fighting fascists, and the Tinley Park case. We also clear up a listener’s question about “National Anarchism,” roll out more Contradictionary terms, and share a ton of news and upcoming events.

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Anti-nazi protest planned for Philadelphia, October 19th

From Philadelphia Residents Against Racism:

For the past 7 years, the city of Philadelphia has played host to a gathering of Neo-Nazis right under the noses of its residents.

This gathering, known as "The Leif Ericson Day Celebration" is organized, promoted, and attended exclusively by members of Neo-Nazi organizations.  In past years the gathering has drawn upwards of 50 hardcore racists and fascists to Philly and served as an recruiting and organizing tool for the main organization involved, the Keystone State Skinheads (KSS)....

KSS has announced their event for October 19th in Fairmount Park.  If past years are any indication, they will do a very short march in formation down lemon hill at Noon and attempt to lay a wreath and make speeches at the statue of Thorfin Karlson along Kelly drive.

We plan to mobilize a huge contingent of Anti-Racists, progressives, and all good people of Philly to the Thorfin Karlson statue. THIS WILL BE A PEACEFUL PROTEST.  Please bring any signs, banners, noise makers or drums in order for our contingent to block/drown out the hate-speech of the Nazis....

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The anti-nazi protest is also being promoted by One People's Project.

Anti-fascist prisoner to be released

From the NYC Anarchist Black Cross:

Alex Stuck of the Tinley Park 5 is due to be released from prison at the end of this month or by early November. So, Bloomington ABC [Anarchist Black Cross], NYC ABC, and Sacramento Prisoner Support have launched a campaign to start a release fund for Alex.

From j.mp/alexstuck:
"Alex...was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for attacking and stopping an organizing luncheon of white supremacists. The meeting of white nationalists and neo-Nazis took place in Tinley Park, Illinois in May 2012...."

Please remember that prisoner support doesn't end when a comrade is released. Through halfway houses, supervised release, parole, or probation, there is usually state supervision beyond the initial sentence. Also, prison is traumatic. And of course there is the stigma of being a former prisoner that effects nearly every aspect of one’s life. All of this adds up to the less obvious, but equally necessary, support needed when our loved ones come home. Donate to your ability and show an anti-fascist comrade how we welcome folks home....

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Greek fascism at a crossroads

About a week ago -- following the recent murder of antifascist musician Pavlos Fyssas -- Greek police arrested eighteen leading members of the neonazi Golden Dawn party, including party head Nikolaos Michaloliakos, on charges of participating in a criminal gang. A new law was passed cutting off government funding from parties whose parliamentary deputies are being prosecuted. The crackdown also targeted Golden Dawn's allies in the security services, as several high-ranking police officials either resigned or were fired or suspended.

Pavlos Fyssas, antifascist Rapper and left activist was killed by fascists in Piräus - Athens. 19.09.2013. This photo shows the Red Stuff Antifa store mural in Berlin Kreuzberg. Photo by Seven Resist.

Fyssas's murder followed years of physical attacks by Golden Dawn members and supporters against immigrants, refugees, leftists, LGBT people, and others -- attacks carried out largely with the state's acquiescence or active support. As I have discussed before, GD has enjoyed a close relationship with the police and has helped create political space for more "moderate" parties to implement their own anti-immigrant policies. A recently reported Financial Crime Unit investigation shows that GD has been funded largely by members of the ruling class, including several ship-owners (in Greece's most successful industry), other businessmen, and Orthodox bishops (major landowners). In return, despite its anti-establishment rhetoric and occasional support for militant workers, Golden Dawn has threatened and attacked labor unions, voted for government subsidies to big business, and, of course, helped deflect popular anger away from the capitalist system and onto dark-skinned immigrants.

So why a state crackdown against Golden Dawn now? Thrasybulus, writing on libcom.org, identifies several factors: massive popular protests at Fyssas's murder, a desire by New Democracy (the conservative party that leads Greece's coalition government) to curb a political rival, and concerns about a potential coup d'etat by GD's friends in the military (as proposed recently by a group of special forces reservists). One commenter suggested that pressure from the European Union and International Monetary Fund (which are pondering a third debt bailout for Greece) may also have been a factor.

Leftist observers disagree on how serious the government's moves are or how severely they will affect Golden Dawn. Jerome Roos of ROAR Magazine writes that "arresting its leaders will undoubtedly cripple Golden Dawn's hierarchical organization and may temporarily paralyze the party's official actions," but Christoph Dreier on the World Socialist Web Site argues that "The court's decision to release leading Golden Dawn officials makes clear that the government's aim was to curb, but not to end Golden Dawn's criminal activities." Both agree that the crackdown is much too limited to uproot the extensive network of Golden Dawn supporters in the state apparatus, including both the police and armed forces.

Even an effective crackdown may have negative consequences. Thrasybulus notes, "If the party is banned out right its anti-systematic standing will only increase with its leader urging supporters to fight on from behind bars. Freed from the pretence of being a respectable party GD hit squads may be given license to increase the violence." And Dreier warns, "the state will seize upon the precedent set by measures against Golden Dawn, including a possible ban on the party, to prepare stepped-up attacks on the democratic rights of the entire population, above all, the working class."

In any case, fascism in Greece extends beyond Golden Dawn alone. In recent weeks, English-language reports have emerged about another Greek neonazi organization, known as Black Lily, which claims to have "a whole platoon of volunteers" fighting in Syria for the Assad government. Brian Whelan on Vice.com reports that Black Lily is part of the European Solidarity Front for Syria (ESFS), an international network of far-right groups that has organized protests in support of the Assad regime. Claiming that "a massive part of the [Syrian] population is of Greek extraction," a Black Lily spokesperson praised the pro-Assad fighters of "heroic Hezbollah" while denouncing "the intoxicated addicts of the mercenary Salafists of Al-Qaeda" and "the expanding global dictatorship of the American-Zionist war machine."

Like other groups in the ESFS network, Black Lily embraces a third positionist version of fascism, emphasizing anti-capitalism and direct action. The Black Lily website features work by national-anarchist Troy Southgate and European New Right theorist Aleksandr Dugin, as well as photos of mystical and "left" fascist forefathers such as Julius Evola, Gregor Strasser, Corneliu Codreanu, and Francis Parker Yockey. The group has also expressed solidarity with the North Korean government and Venezuela's late president Hugo Chavez. These affinities set Black Lily apart from Golden Dawn, which upholds a more traditional brand of fascist politics. Black Lily condemns the crackdown against Michaloliakos and his followers but also criticizes Golden Dawn as a "right wing nationalist" effort to "invade [the] Nationalist/National Socialist movement to change the course and to impose its own views."

Related posts on Three Way Fight:
Golden Dawn's fascist ideology, 24 October 2012
Golden Dawn violence and police collaboration, 12 October 2012
White nationalists praise Golden Dawn, 8 October 2012

International animal rights gathering and the struggle against fascism

Les Panthères Enragées (the Rabid Panthers) is a Toulouse-based group. Their website says, "We fight for animal liberation in a comprehensive approach against all forms of exploitation and domination." They attended the International Animal Rights Gathering in Belgium in August 2013 and raised the issue of fascists within the movement. Here is an excerpt from their report:  

"The debate about anti-fascism exposed the particularly worrying situation in France on issues of animal rights' struggles which are gangrenous with the presence of racist, homophobic and fascist militants and groups. This situation may stem from different reasons, one of which being that the struggles on animal rights are not attracting anti-capitalist, anarchist or anti-fascist militants, which leaves room to the spreading of these sickening ideas without any powerful and united response. Another cause is that a vast majority of this struggle is made in the name of animal protection rather than animal liberation, which makes it into a single-issue campaign, devoid of any political project or intersectionality, which therefore accepts without any problem the presence, support, or funding from anyone, under the pretense that everything must be done and thought solely to protect animals."

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Syrian Anarchist Challenges the Rebel/Regime Binary View of Resistance

This interview with Nader Atassi, published on Truthout, has been getting some well-deserved attention. Atassi cites a number of voices in Syria concerned with self-determination between two unsatisfactory poles -- "not only anarchists, but Trotskyists, Marxists, leftists, and even some liberals." These passages stood out for me:  

"The mainstream coverage always tries to portray people as belonging to some kind of binary. But the Syrian revolution erupted as people demanding self-determination from the one party that was denying it to them: the regime of Bashar al Assad. As time passed, other actors came onto the scene who also denied Syrians their self-determination, even some who fought against the regime. But the position was never simply to be against the regime for the sake of being against the regime… The regime took self-determination away from the people, and any removal of the regime that results in replacing it with someone else who will dominate Syrians should not be seen as a success."

"There is consensus across the board, from US to Russia to Iran, that no matter what happens in Syria, regime institutions should remain intact. The same institutions that were built by the dictatorship. The same institutions that plundered Syria and provoked the popular discontent that started this uprising. The same institutions that are merely the remnants of French colonialism. Everyone in Syria knows that the US's preferred candidates for leadership roles in any future Syria are those Syrians who were part of the regime and then defected: Ba'athist bureaucrats turned neoliberal technocrats turned 'defectors.' These are the people the US would have rule Syria."

What do we mean by "fascism"?

[This post has been moved to a separate page on the Three Way Fight site.]

Anti-Racist Action benefit compilation CD now available

Reposted from Anti-Racist Action, July 28, 2013:

It's been a long wait but the Anti-Racist Action (ARA) compilation CDs have finally arrived and are ready to be sold. The funds from this CD go to the ARA warchest. 15% of the warchest goes directly to our long term prisoners such as the Tinley Park 5, and the rest is put aside to support antifascists who may be victims of state harassment in the future. The compilation CD features Wretched of the Earth, Konstrukt, Adelitas, Appalachian Terror unit, Divergent, Oi Polloi, Welkin Dusk, the Last Chance Boys, Brillen Baggage, We must Dismantle All This, A- Truth, DSI, Let the World Die, Macula, and Tom Morello.

To order this CD, send a total of $13 ($10 for CD + $3.00 postage and handling) in the form of well concealed cash, a check, or money order, payable to Anti-Racist Action PO Box 1055, Culver City 90232. If any record labels, distros, or antifa chapters are interested in selling these contact us at aracompilationdisc@gmail.com for bulk prices.