S14, officially known as Storm Division, is a tristate (NJ, PA, NY) area neo nazi group that has been very active over the past few months. They have been busy doing pop-up propaganda demos, trying to recruit virtual and in-person members, mass stickering and putting up fascist graffiti in the region, specifically in the Philadelphia area and NJ. They have also been pushing a united front amongst the far right in the area and openly hold multiple different memberships within groups like NJEHA, Embrace Struggle Active Club, WLM, Atlantic Nationalist Club, and the Garden State Nationalists.
Their activity has been increasingly organized with some of their most recent actions making local media headlines. Despite their high level of organization and escalating actions, S14 and their members have gotten sloppy with their own security.
Due to lapses in S14’s security, antifascists have been able to identify their two leaders, “commandant Joachim Peiper” and his “wife”, as Mark A. Kauffman and Sara Sheaffer respectively.
Sheaffer and Kauffman in plain clothes on the left and in their “disguises” on the right during a neo-nazi demo.
Kauffman and Sheaffer are engaged to be married and are both originally from Massachusetts, having lived in different parts of the state. According to Kauffman, they bounced around a bit in MA and settled in Philadelphia several years ago. Antifascists were able to independently verify Kauffman’s account and confirmed that as of now he and Sheaffer live in North Philadelphia on East Wishart Street. Kauffman also supposedly owns property in the south, “on the Mason Dixon line”.
Sheaffer’s Facbook profile featuring a picture of her and Kauffman from several years ago. Both of them look notably different in 2023.
Kauffman’s Facebook profile, which has an updated picture of himself from a month ago.
Kauffman provides details about where he lived previously in MA and verifies he currently lives in Philly.
At the time of publishing Kauffman’s claim could not be independently verified.
Kauffman reportedly works in construction as a foreman at A Woman Owned Contractor, a “Hispanic owned” construction firm which does large scale commercial roofing and construction services. (More details on Kauffman’s employer and how to contact them will be listed at the end of the article).
Prior to moving to Philadelphia, Kauffman was in the US Army for several years and completed two combat tours in the Middle East. At that point he was already a nazi, as he stated in a public message on S14’s telegram channel.
Kauffman upon returning home from his second tour in the the Army.
Kauffman’s account of his time in the US military. Given Kauffman’s actions and beliefs one has to wonder what war crimes is he responsible for.
At the time of publishing it is unknown if Kauffman was convicted of any of the charges against him in this case.
There was no media follow up on how the case against Kauffman turned out and nothing was publicized. It’s not clear exactly when Kauffman and Sheaffer got clean and moved to Philadelphia, but it is suspected to be around the 2018/2019 time frame.
Kauffman’s white nationalist activities prior to 2022 are hazy, but it seems that Kauffman decided to publicly organize and establish ties with other fascists during 2022 on Gab. He was then connected with a fellow white nationalist, going by the alias Stephen Quest, who was recruiting members and leadership within a neo nazi organization called the National Socialist Youth Alliance (NSYA).
Kauffman’s Gab account, which was created in 2022, coinciding with the timeline of his efforts to publicly organize other fascists and white nationalists.
Kauffman officially launched S14 in March 2023, when he and others split from the NSYA. Upon starting this new nazi organization, Kauffman, with the help of Sheaffer, instituted new organizational security and logistical guidelines and started recruiting efforts both online and in-person. Kauffman made a serious effort to create a nazi safe space on telegram, shying away from infighting and trying to build camaraderie among members.
Kauffman and Sheaffer also have a special interest in recruiting minors.
He also increased the rate of in-person actions within his tristate area crew encouraging pop-up style protests during the day and night time propaganda dissemination actions.
Kauffman pictured during a recent midnight propaganda run where he and other S14 members covered Ridley Township in white nationalist leaflets.
In addition, Kauffman implemented different security guidelines for the public S14 Telegram chat like not discussing illegal activity, not giving out personal info or personal phone numbers to other group members, no infighting, and no glorification of white nationalists who have committed mass shootings. Kauffman has thus far strictly enforced his group’s code, often banning members for breaking these rules.
Ironically though, Kauffman does not hold himself to the same high standard. Kauffman’s first major mistake was providing a detailed background of his life in public Telegram chats which enabled antifascists to construct a profile on him. This included his time in the military, prior life in New England, veiled details about his day job, and the fact he currently lives in North Philly.
His second major mistake was providing information about the level of his fiance’s involvement and unintentionally revealing his fiance’s identity on the S14 public telegram channel.
Kauffman often refers to Sheaffer as his wife, though they are not legally married. Here Kauffman is discussing S14’s reading group.
Sheaffer does not have an individual discernible presence on Telegram. In a different situation this could give her plausible deniability over her level of involvement in S14 but Kauffman’s repeated reference to her on Telegram in combination with her heavy in-person involvement shows otherwise.
Kauffman’s most egregious error was revealing her legal name.
At the time, Kauffman likely didn’t think too much about mentioning his fiances legal name, because he was using it to try and recruit more women to his crew. Fascist and white nationalist groups are well known to have an absence of women for a variety of reasons, so leveraging female membership is something that would have been valuable to Kauffman and S14 as a whole.
Unfortunately for him, Kauffman’s revelation is the only reason that antifascists were able to find Sheaffer and confirm her identity. Kauffman took basic steps to erase information about himself on the internet, removing many links that could potentially expose him. This coupled with the fact that he and Sheaffer are not legally married added another layer of removal, functionally creating a situation where Sheaffer would be very difficult to identify without her legal name. Because antifascists had her first name they were eventually able to definitively identify and link Sheaffer to Kauffman and S14.
Kauffman and Sheaffer during one of S14’s stickering actions. Kauffman is pictured slapping up neo nazi stickers and Sheaffer is walking with her hair up in the background.
Sheaffer and Kauffman holding a new S14 flag at an action in Easton PA with S14, NJEHA, Embrace Struggle Active Club, and other fascists.
Other white supremacist activity in the area, the source of which has not been able to be identified until now, can also be ascribed to Sheaffer. A female member of Atlantic Nationalist Club has been trolling Philadelphia area antifascists on Telegram for a period of time throwing up racist stickers across the city.
The individual in the Atlantic Nationalist Club video is a white female wearing an engagement ring who quickly puts up a sticker on a utility poll. Given Sheaffer’s background info and the shooting style of the video, the likelihood of this being anyone but her is incredibly low.
S14 has prided themselves themselves on their anonymity, security culture, and ability to do things anonymously for months from behind the comfort of a mask. That time is now over. Kauffman and Sheaffer must be exposed for the nazis that they are.
Kauffman’s reported most recent employer, AWOC, can be reached at their main offices at 215-219-3579 or through email through their website. The following script and photos from the article can be used to contact AWOC about Kauffman.
“Hello I am a concerned Philadelphia resident and I am calling to inquire about the status of an AWOC employee. Mark Kauffman, an AWOC foreman, is a neo nazi and white supremacist. Kauffman regularly engages in bigoted and even illegal behavior directed towards minorities and marginalized people. I am happy to provide concrete evidence of his actions. If Kauffman is still employed at AWOC, it is not a safe environment for anyone. I request that action be taken immediately through terminating his employment. Thank you for your time.”
Recently, anonymous aboveground activists conducted research of east coast fur farms, with the purpose of determining operational status and the number of active fur farms in the eastern United States, primarily Pennsylvania and New York.
Of the 18 farms visited, only one farm was confirmed as an active mink farm, the Stahl mink farm in Sunbury PA (4130 SR 890). One fox farm was inconclusive, the Pacuchinski fox farm in upstate NY (2730 Lenox Road). All 16 others have shuttered. We found dilapidated and decayed sheds, and sheds that once confined mink were full of derelict machinery and various tools.
The number of operational U.S. mink farms is now under 100, down from over 400 in the 1990s and 274 just ten years ago. Estimates of active U.S. fox farms put the number between 25 and 50.
Last year, the Animal Liberation Front liberated over 15,000 mink from U.S. fur farms. In recent years, global pressure campaigns have seen nine designers go fur free. This is the grim state of the fur trade.
As the fur industry teeters on the brink of collapse, it’s up to all of us to do what it takes to ensure this industry never recuperates. Activist efforts and a diversity of tactics can destroy this industry that preys on native wildlife.
Look for the latest updates of closures and active fur farms at finalnail.com.
Benjamin F. Ryder, a neo-nazi and sex offender who harassed Wooden Shoe Books last week.
Last week, a neo-nazi entered the Wooden Shoe Books co-operative bookstore on South Street. He took a photo of a flyer hanging up there related to Paul Minton, the nazi groomer currently running “White Lives Matter PA” and “Embrace Struggle Active Club,” stole some Antifa stickers, and threatened a staff member. Another of Minton’s telegram pages,
“Pa Antifa Watch” posted pictures from the incident, claiming they received them from “someone unknown to us.”
“For absolutely no reason in particular, I’m just gonna mention we don’t know this guy.”
The nazi was driven from the area, but posted a short video of the incident on a closed chat of neo-nazis. In the video, the nazi’s face is visible and easily identifiable as Ben Ryder.
Still from the video of the incident at The Shoe. Ryder’s face is clearly visible.
Ryder is a neo-nazi with a history of exposing himself and masturbating in front of women and young girls in public. Ryder was sentenced to 4-12 months in 2015 for approaching several women completely nude in a McDonalds parking lot. He was sentenced to 1-2 years in prison in 2019 for another a similar crime.
As discussed in the twitter thread above, Ryder was one of the neo-nazis who picked a fight at a Trans Day of Vengeance demo at the Supreme Court. Ryder attempted to take out a knife during the fight, but was dropped and disarmed by protestors while DC police meandered over and eventually detained him.
Ryder is a registered sex offender, so he likely feels common cause with Minton and his crew, judging by their enthusiastic cross-promotion. Ryder was last known to be living in Glenside, PA on E. Pleasant Avenue. He may be working for Kevin Ryder, Inc., a trucking company (we presume to be run by a relative) in Ivyland, PA. Ben Ryder drives a black Jeep Grand Cherokee (PA KDK5085).
Ryder is clearly an unstable and dangerous person and those who encounter him should be mindful of that. Despite their attempts to market themselves as an elite vanguard of the “pro-white movement,” Active Club and their supporters continue to tend more towards disgusting and embarrassing cautionary tales.
Eternal war on the Hitler Youth Mickey D’s flasher division,
Mathew David Bair, neo-nazi associated with The First Capitol Proud Boys and Southern Sons Active Club. Resident of Spring Grove, PA.
Atlanta Antifascists recently released an extensive report-back from a months-long infiltration of the “Southern Sons Active Club,” a cell “of the larger ‘Active Club’ network founded by fascist organizer Robert Rundo and his close associates.” As usual, it is S-tier research and reporting by ATL and we recommend reading it, even if you do not live nearby or feel you have a full understanding of the groups involved.
Most members and posters on the SSAC telegram reside in Georgia and the Carolinas, but one user, who posts on telegram as “Kermit (Sapper Actual)” reps Southern Sons while being from and living in Pennsylvania.
In addition to involvement in the openly fascist “Active Club,” Kermit runs the “First Capitol (York, PA) Proud Boys” telegram channel and appears to be running the chapter. Neo-nazi infiltration is well-documented in the proud boys, and many chapters function as essentially front-groups for neo-nazi orgs, while the “civic nationalist” chapters provide deniability and protect them.Kermit is feuding with the Ohio proud boys for being insufficiently openly racist for him.
Your Opsec is not good, Mathew.
Thanks to information provided to us by Antifa researchers, and then verified, we are prepared to expose “Kermit (Sapper Actual)” as Mathew David Bair of 138 N. Water St, Spring Grove, PA.
Antifa became aware of Kermit’s real name due to a doxx by his “white brothers” at Runic Storm, who make it a habit of doxxing anyone who doesn’t pay for an order or has issues with payment processing.
Though Bair had ordered under the name “Matthew Howse”, he used an email of MathewBairHxC@gmail.com. Sure enough, some light research confirmed that the address Kermit ordered to belongs to a Mathew Bair, who has been in the news several times for his far-right activities, as well as a run-in with York cops that generated a few moments of local notoriety for him. Interestingly, one of Bair’s friends present that day was named “Matthew Howse,” so we presume Bair used his friend’s name as a “cover,” while using his real-named gmail address.
Bair is 33 years old. He was in the marines but court martialed and discharged for stealing night-vision goggles. “Kermit” actually bragged about his court martial and it’s availability online. He was involved in an altercation with York PD for alleged brutality caught on video. The lawsuit was quickly dropped.
Bair was present at the Capitol building on January 6, 2021 and charged with curfew violation. He has prior guilty pleas for selling weed and harassment.
Mathew Bair of FCPB present at the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Bair and his crew have been working along with the NJEHA and WLM nazis we’ve previously profiled on this site, participating in shared days of action and joint demonstrations together. Presumably, the groups are also training together as that is a large part of the “Active Club” model. Recently, Bair posted public support Embrace Struggle Active Club, which is associated with disgraced sexual predator Paul Minton, whom Bair has worked with for some time.
Mathew Bair promoting Embrace Struggle Active Club, affiliated with Paul Minton.
Mathew Bair (holding megaphone) rallying in Easton, PA alongside fellow neo-nazis, including Paul Minton.
Anyone with more info on Bair or FCPB is welcome to contact us. Bair may be identified by his FCPB’s tattoo on one of his legs.
Join us on Sunday, May 21st from 1-3 PM for our next reading discussion! As usual, we’ll be meeting in Clark Park near the chess tables. This month we’ll be reading excerpts from The Palliative Turn, volume one.
APT operates from the understanding that humanity has collectively entered this phase of anticipatory grief. As we face the end of civilization as we know it, each of us is patient and caretaker and soon-to-be bereaved at the same time.
Paul Minton, neo-nazi living and organizing in South Philly out of his home on S. 26th street. Affiliated with “White Lives Matter (WLM) PA”
Paul Minton
Paul “Paulie” Minton
Born
8/23/1976
Home Base
1542 S. 26th St., Philadelphia, PA
Published By
OPP HQ
Published On
9/4/2023
Recently, an alert was circulated among Anti-Fascist social media accounts related to an individual from Philadelphia identified as Paul Minton (Be sure to read the whole thread).
The alert informed people that Minton was running several neo-nazi telegram channels and doxxing Anti-Fascists. The post featured pictures of Minton wearing Philly Antifa t-shirts and claiming that Minton had “masqueraded” as Antifa for several years.
Sadly, the alert is correct. Minton not only dressed the part, but participated in Anti-Fascist blocs from coast to coast from 2016 – 2019 and was targeted by both the far right and law enforcement for his activities.
Paul Minton while he pretended to be an Anti-Fascist. Note that flag on the left. It will come up again.
Despite deep involvement in Antifa, Minton had, at some point, returned back to nazi politics. We say “back” because, as this article will map out, Minton had previously already been a neo-nazi skinhead as a young man and publicly broken with that movement in the mid-2000s. We even had an earlier Rogues’ Gallery entry on him in those days – that we now have to bring back and update.
A recent photo of Minton. He is wearing a t-shirt for the California neo-nazi band “Final War” as well as sporting a leg tattoo repping the neo-nazi “Rise Above Movement.”
After months of research and interviews, we are ready to finally tell the story of Paul Minton and his turn from nazi to Antifa and back to nazi (with lots of stops along the way). Those interviewed (names withheld to protect them) were eager to tell tale of a man they describe as a manipulator and narcissist whose predatory and dishonest behavior ultimately left him isolated until he, unbelievably, re-joined the nazi movement.
Strap in, dear reader, this tragic tale has some serious twists and turns.
It is relatively common, if you’re tuned in to these types of things, to hear stories of a young neo-nazi who leaves that movement and later denounces it. It is also not unheard of to encounter a far-right activists who may have dabbled in leftist politics before becoming committed fascists.
There is also a small fringe of “NazBol” red-brown types who will attempt to find common ground between Marxism (red) and National Socialism (brown). As well as eco-fascists who combine green anarchist or primitivist ideas with fascist ideology. What is almost unheard of, however, is hearing of someone “flipping” from one side to the other and then flipping back.
Generally speaking, adults do not oscillate in their opinions drastically around whether the Holocaust occurred and was bad, whether certain races are inherently predisposed towards different types of societies, or whether a cabal of Jewish people are secretly in control of the world’s economy. So naturally, they don’t find themselves switching between the far left and fascist politics. Most people engage and support one, or neither, side. “Fencewalking,” by unprincipled people is common, but that is usually limited to socializing with both sides, not engaging in activism and combat with both. Furthermore, most individuals who have betrayed a political movement and joined their sworn enemies would reasonably not expect to find acceptance should they attempt to return to their old movement.
Paul Minton is an exception. This article will attempt to trace his development from a young man who was recruited to neo-nazi skinhead culture, to hardcore punk “youth crews,” to Orthodox Christianity, to Islamism, to militant animal liberation, to Antifa and back to the same nazi skinhead politics he was viciously fighting (literally) not even 2 years earlier.
Paulie Minton was born August 23, 1976 (46 years old) and grew up in Gray’s Ferry. Minton currently resides at 1542 S. 26th Street and runs his neo-nazi outfit “White Lives Matter” (WLM) out of that home. In addition to Minton, his mother and her longtime boyfriend live in the home. Minton’s oldest child is also living there as of when this was published. There is one more individual living there (that we know of) whom we will discuss later in the article.
When in NYC, Minton betrayed his friend and snitched him out to the port authority police. Minton then testified against Pearce, receiving a sweetheart deal of 2 years probation for tampering with a corpse, a fact that (of course) enraged the victim’s mother. Pearce was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Minton would deny being a nazi when questioned about this and attempted to hang out in the Anti-Racist punk scene, leading local hardcore band Barricade to write a song “dedicated” to Minton entitled “Fence Walker.”
Once his probation ended, Minton dropped all pretense and proudly declared himself a nazi. In an e-mail he sent to One Peoples Project during that time, he wrote… “I have always (been) WP (white power). I was on parole for the past five years and was told if I had any contact with anything I will do my whole 5 years back time… But guess what it is all over now and time to smash you fucks one again…”
Minton, right with two of his Nazi friends. Rob Julason, center, is from Delaware and was last living in Aston, PA.
Paul Minton in the early 2000s Minton with fellow nazis
Minton’s hand tats circa 2004. Oh, there will be coverups.
He began antagonizing Anti-Fascists by doing things such as driving by punk shows at First Unitarian Church with his nazi buddies yelling “white power!” out of the car. Minton and co. threatened several shows during this period, usually demurring from actually showing up.
During 2005 Philly Pride, while Antifascists were countering an anti-gay group who were there, Minton, who at the time was repping KSS, arrived yelling homophobic slurs in a group of a dozen neo-nazi skinheads associated with a coalition of neo-nazi bonehead crews called Blood and Honour, including Joey Phy. who is currently associated with neo-fascist crews like the Rise Above Movement.
Paul Minton, rear behind Doug Sonier, in 2005 harassing Philly Pride.
Minton (center, profile) at Pride in 2005. He is wearing a shirt of NJ neo-nazi band “H8Machine.” Behind him with sunglasses is Clemie “Rick” Haught of Blood and Honour/Maryland Skinheads. Next to him, shirtless and obscured, is Joey Phy.
For reasons unknown, around late 2005 Minton left the white nationalist movement. He provided information and made a public disavowal of that movement to One Peoples Project. He got tattoos on his hands saying “Anti-Racist” with crossed out swastikas. He was briefly involved with co-opting hip- hop and graffiti culture as well as dabbling in Islam, Orthodox Christianity, and 2 different hardcore crews.
The first, PBHC (Philly Brotherhood of Hardcore) Minton left relatively quickly (though not after getting a tattoo on the side of his head for the group that he would then need to immediately remove). The second was Baxwar, or “BattleAxe Warriors, a fan/biker crew started by the Canadian rapper MildChild. Minton also began having children (he has 4 so far) with his (now ex) longtime partner.
The many faces of Paul Minton. The 44-year-old orthodox Muslim antifa nazi vegan hardcore kid backpacker.
Flash forward to around 2016, he was seen wearing a Philly Antifa shirt on social media. It’s not unheard of for someone who was involved in far right politics as a young person to later support the Anti-Fascist movement. Sure enough, he was seen posing in the shirt on social media not long after.
“How do you do, fellow Antifa?”
As the Trump candidacy kick-started the far right in this country, Minton began associating with the Antifa movement. He began working with much younger and inexperienced people who were unaware of his history. Someone did attempt to warn some of these individuals to be wary of Minton due to his past as a neo-nazi as well as being a snitch and an accessory to murder. Unfortunately, those warnings were not taken seriously. Minton is very adept at manipulating people and insulating himself from criticism, as will be discussed later in this article.
Starting with the opposition to the March for Trump in Philly in 2016, for roughly three years, Minton worked with several different crews in Philly and around the country. He traveled to demonstrations all over the U.S., including Unite the Right in 2017, often brawling with fascists. He was recorded fighting on the Antifa side in Cville and doxxed by neo-nazis, including “Jack Corbin,” Daniel McMahon.
Minton is actually the person who originally informed Antifa Philadelphia that the previous identification of Corbin was incorrect and pointed them to the old Pioneer Little Europe post identifying McMahon as Corbin. Minton had infiltrated Patriot Front online and learned from loose discussion among their ranks of the original misidentification. From there, Antifa needed only to confirm the information and then release it.
Minton was also very online and active in Anti-Fascist social media and research circles we are not involved in, so we don’t have much information on that. Minton often goes by the alias “Misk.”
An archived tweet from Minton’s old twitter account where he casually advocates burning his current “brothers” alive.
Eventually, as we’ve mentioned, Minton was alienated from the Anti-Fascist movement in Philly due to his own behaviors. The list of bad behaviors is long and would not surprise readers. He was untrustworthy, erratic and predatory. Most leftists and Antifa in Philly had stopped communicating with him entirely by 2020. Later, we were informed by members of his former crew that there were concerns about the nature of Minton’s interest in a teenage girl whom he had been inviting to anarchist and radical demos in Philly. Reportedly, not long after he was ostracized, his longtime partner and mother of his children left him and that young woman (more on her below) moved into the home.
Minton’s decision to return to neo-nazi politics can be traced to sometime in 2021. Former friends of Minton’s contacted us concerned about social media posts he was making.
Paul Minton expressing support for Kyle Rittenhouse.
Paul Minton parroting RAM and Active Front propaganda.
Prior to the postings, he had also been leaving long, incoherent voice messages to some other (former) friends about nobody wanting to work with him and having “good and evil raging inside” him. When questioned about the posts, Minton gave a very half-hearted excuse that he was “attempting to infiltrate”… with his real name and face. This was despite previous conversations where Minton claimed to be out of political activism and just focusing on his family.
What is known is that the WLM_USA_PENNSYLVANIA Telegram page that Minton set up and runs was originally set up as a honeypot, and Minton was still attempting to send information on local nazis to us. By that time, we could not reliably count on anything he was sending us so it was largely ignored. Minton is also believed to be running or involved in the “Embrace Struggle AC” and “PA Antifa Watch” telegram channels.
Not long after this, a new doxx account on twitter began targeting people perceived to be Antifa in Philly. Some of the information coming out of that account pointed to someone with inside, but out-dated, knowledge of the Antifascist scene in Philly. The timing of this account with Minton’s public statements strongly implicated him as involved. He was also sighted in the same area immediately prior to several WLM banner drops and stickering runs.
Eventually, Minton dropped all pretense and began posting social media pictures of himself wearing clothing and getting tattoos associated with neo-nazi and fascist groups.
Minton making that corny “white power” hand troll thing. Note the RAM tattoo is visible.
Someone has also started parking an SUV with a gigantic White Lives Matter logo on it in front of his house.
Minton’s Chevy Tahoe, parked outside his home with a WLM logo decal.
As we have explained, it is primarily personal anger that motivated Minton’s decision to flip back to being a nazi. Anger borne from being ostracized from our movement for his own behaviors, the most heinous of which was his grooming of a teenage girl whom he preyed on and then recruited to nazi politics.
Minton is a nazi because we are the things we do. But, to say he believes in anything is a partial truth at best. Minton is a cliche’ man-child who tries to find a family in political movements, burns his bridges through his dishonest and predatory behavior, and then rage-quits and retaliates by doxxing and harassing his former friends and comrades. As dangerous as Minton can be as an enemy, he is far more of a threat as a “friend.”
The very young woman reportedly living with Minton, whom he recruited to nazi politics, is named Daisy McGowan. Minton met her at local political protests and later was able to get a job at Morning Glory Diner, which is owned by McGowen’s grandmother. Minton has reportedly been lying about McGowan’s age, but an inquirer article from July 2018 states Daisy’s age as 13. She turned 18 just in January 2023.
Daisy McGowen (r) at the WLM nazi demo in Easton, PA.
McGowan in the rear of the formation with her phone out in Tom’s River
Minton and McGowan shopping in Walmart together.
We have also just recently learned from our sources that McGowan is pregnant and that Minton is the father, confirming all of our worst fears. Reportedly, Minton is planning to relocate with McGowan in the near future, as most of both of their families are disgusted by the relationship and too many people in Philly know his history and both of their real ages.
Minton worked at the Diner for a time, but was fired for stealing from other employees. Daisy has cut ties with her grandmother. McGowan was arrested at an anarchist noise demo at a jail in Philly. We don’t know Daisy, but earnestly encourage her to change her path while she can. No one has ever benefited from their relationships with Paul Minton. Everyone has suffered.
In addition to the demonstrations mentioned, Minton and co. have claimed responsibility for nazi stickers put up in Port Richmond, South Philly, Kensington, and Glenside. They also dropped a nazi banner on Route 309 in Ambler.
Despite representing himself as a hustler and grinder, Minton’s primary income has been social security disability since his corpse desecration trial in 2000. While we do not know what his diagnosis is, we have learned that the doctor that reapproves his status periodically specializes in “psychotic disorders.” According to interviewees, he spends his money largely on himself and has a taste for expensive clothing, travels frequently for political events and meetings, and (of course) spends tons of money on tattoo cover-ups from all of his various drifting around scenes and movements. He lends very little financial support to his four children, three of whom reside out-of-state.
Minton’s cover-up of his three arrows tattoo.
Due to his social security disability, Minton might be hiding other income streams. According to our sources, he has been working for Relay delivery services and at some point obtained ServSafe certification from the City of Philadelphia and may also be working or looking for work as a food safety manager.
And let’s be clear, we don’t share this information about Minton’s disability or his scamming to stigmatize others or because SS or tax scams upset us. Rather because, as an organizing neo-nazi, Minton is now championing an ideology that would describe someone like himself as a “parasite” and “asocial/mentally feeble” individual who would be lucky to simply be sterilized under national socialist doctrine. This mindset is absolutely abhorrent and wrong, but he is a complete fraud for viciously broadcasting this genocidal language about the same situations and behaviors of others while living, existing and supporting himself by similar means.
Furthermore, his actions as an abusive or absentee father who spends his money traveling to demonstrations or on endless tattoo cover-ups to hide his long history being a phony hypocrite, while his children struggle, is far from the rhetoric of the “rise above movement,” which claims to champion “the white family” and “traditional western values.”
This article is overdue. We first became aware of Minton “flipping” nearly 18 months ago. A quiet alert was circulated among those that had worked with or adjacent to him, and several other groups sounded the alarm on social media.
Minton (on left in tan cargo pants), and some nazis he conned, with the flag he captured from himself.
Unfortunately and remarkably, Minton has found allies willing to work with him, despite his past betrayals. He appears to be allied with Dan D’Ambly and Ron Sheehy’s “New Jersey European Heritage Association ” (NJEHA), appearing together in Tom’s River, and also stickering together.
WLM and NJEHA rallying in Easton, PA together on April 23, 2023.
WLM PA rallying in Morris Plains, NJ. Minton is masked on the far right.
Active Front has been repped locally for years by the same KSS boneheads Paulie betrayed and left behind almost 20 years ago, including longtime KSS boneheads AJ Olsen, Nunzio Pellegrino and the same Joey Phy who was with Paul Minton harassing the Philly Pride event in 2005.
AJ Olsen (c) and Nunzio Pellegrino (r) in a post promoted by Minton’s telegram pages.
Bryan Vanagaitis of Keystone United in a post promoted by Minton.
Minton regularly promotes their activities on his telegram pages, so we can assume they have some sort of relationship these days.
There is only one more group that Minton has had a long lasting and close relationship with, and that’s the state and federal government. We have recently learned that Paul Minton was regularly visited by the FBI in his home for years. These visits were for neo-nazi, radical Islam, animal liberation, Anti-Fascist and other postings and threats on the internet at different times in his life. During one visit, he was reportedly offered (and turned down) a job on a task force for extremism.
When the FBI visited him during his time posing as Antifa, Minton admittedly chatted with them and tried to weaponize them back at the fascists who had called them on him. He also has his history of snitching and testifying in court. While we are not making any conclusions, we do find it notable that this man with a history of side-switching and snitching, who had burned all his bridges in the Antifa movement, has now started a local affiliate of a hardcore international neo-nazi network and is filling it largely with young fascists he finds on the internet.
As the Antifa movement’s 15 minutes of infamy seems to be subsiding slightly, there will likely be a steady stream of “defectors” that come out of the woodwork for the next 10 years or so. With the huge influx of people coming into this movement during the Trump presidency, it is natural that some people will leave. Their level of involvement and reasons for leaving will vary. But in the case of Paul Minton, ideology was never important. Ideas, and people, are only important to Minton for how they make him feel. He wants to be close to danger, to feel like an “extremist” and to impersonate youth. In short, he’s a self-absorbed liar and manipulator.
Maybe he likes throwing up hands?
We think, in the context of the panic around “groomers” that the right is pushing, it is also worth noting that Minton was immediately called out and ostracized at the first sign he was preying on McGowan. That situation was not handled perfectly by those who had worked with Minton, but nobody tolerated it, even despite both of them claiming the relationship was not of that nature.
Meanwhile, he has now been bringing this young girl with him to various RAM and WLM events and meetings around the country, and nobody on their side seems to have any issue with a nearly 50-year old man and his newly 18 “girlfriend.” As many issues as the radical left, and our society as a whole, have with sexual violence and abuse, it is normalized on the far right in a way most of us would find unimaginable. One need only see some of the stories women have told after leaving that movement.
A still from a video of the local NJ/PA nazis in a park marching in New Brunswick, NJ (our home base) in the early morning hours of May 6, 2023 – when there were no one in what is normally a busy area of a town WLM described as “Antifa Infested” (you’re damn right). It is believed Paulie and Daisy participated in this outing and are possibly in this pic.
We hope that this story will serve as a warning to everyone in the Anti-Fascist movement. No matter how effective an organizer, spy, or street fighter, when someone is:
a) not trustworthy
b) seeking out attention/praise for Antifascism rather than treating it like a responsibility and self defense.
c) lacking fundamental understanding of the politics they espouse
d) a creep
it is only a matter of time before that person does serious harm.
If you’re not Antifa now, then you never fucking were.
Submission
Written during the riots, The George Floyd Uprising is a compendium of radical writing to come out of that long, hot summer. These incendiary dispatches—from those on the front lines of the struggle—examine the new horizons opened by the revolt, as well as the social, tactical, and strategic obstacles it confronted. This practical, inspiring collection offers a toolbox for all those actively seeking to expand and intensify revolts in the future, and it is essential reading for everyone interested in toppling the state, racism, and capitalism.
Join us May 7th at 3pm at the Quaker Meeting House in Harrisburg, PA for a discussion of the book with the editors!
When Ruthie Wilson Gilmore and I sat down for a conversation, we spoke about how the PIC not only exploits the labor of imprisoned folx (mainly via reproductive labor of the prison), but also extracts value from us. I came to this conclusion because I knew that our labor wasn’t the only or even major source of value the PIC was after. The PIC extracts our lives, our life time. Ruthie helped me to see each person as a territory that the PIC extracts value from via a time-space hole that imprisonment creates. Incarceration creates a mechanism through which money/capital can flow through a person and into the pockets of the PIC. This all sounds abstract. I know. But since coming to SCI Dallas, I clearly and concretely see how extraction, not exploitation, is the big game the PIC is using. And we need to get hip.
I am housed on a Veterans Service Unit (VSU). This is one of four blocks within the PA DOC prisons system that partners with the Veterans Services Administration (state and federal). Currently imprisoned people who have served in the military, no matter how they were discharged, are eligible for the services on these blocks. Most of these people don’t work. But they still provide value to the PA DOC/PIC. How? Programming.
The PA DOC receives state, federal and private funds for creating these types of programs and keeping them filled. Almost every prison in PA has a therapeutic community (TC) for drug/alcohol treatment. Money has been flowing to the PIC via imprisoned people in these programs for decades. But now, DOCs are getting hip and creating more programs (usually centering on mental health) in order to extract more value from imprisoned people. We don’t need to work to be of value to the PIC. Just being here and being “diagnosed” by their staff makes extraction possible and valuable.
PA has created an alphabet of solitary under the mental health programming name. Thousands of people are in these programs and capital/money is flowing through them and into the PIC. These funds could be and should be used to provide non-coercive, community based services. But the PIC is gobbling up more and more of them. Mental health, substance and alcohol treatment, reentry services, elder care programming is ramping up behind the walls. We don’t have to work. All we have to do is be imprisoned and we become of value.
Some of us are experiencing exploitation. We don’t program, but we work. Most imprisoned folx don’t work but those of us who do are being exploited. These places couldn’t run without us. But many more people are experiencing extraction. Remember, many programs are mandated for parole purposes. Working isn’t. Some of us experience both. And what is even more disturbing is that many of these new programs use the labor of imprisoned folx to succeed. On my block, there is a program almost everyday. Only once a week does a DOC employee run the groups! Every other group is run by a DOC trained imprisoned person. All sign ups and paperwork too! The staff don’t even have to show up!
Extraction is going to become the dominate game. With fewer jobs available (most of us didn’t work anyway) and less out of cell time since COVID, programming is the way to create value and keep imprisoned folx running. And what makes it more sickening is that many imprisoned people are fooled into thinking these programs are the way to success, happiness, peace and safety.
***
These observations help me to see extraction as the major mechanism of the PIC. While this is more easily seen and accepted outside the walls, exploitation has been the major topic behind the walls. Even though most people don’t work in here. And work is becoming less important. They are using fewer people to work. And they are giving us less hours. A shift in the kitchen used to be 6-8 hours. Now it’s 4-6 hours. It is a rare person who gets paid for an 8-hour shift.
People out there see how extractive the PIC is. Offender-funded punishments are common. Remember Ferguson? What do we think e-incarceration is all about? But people don’t realize extraction is happening in here too. And it is taking money, programs and services from our communities and sending them through imprisoned people and into the pockets of those vested in the PIC.
Besides capital, legitimacy is being bestowed upon the PIC. It continues to offer itself as the “solution” to social problems. State, federal and private funds are flowing into prisons. These death making spaces are passing themselves off as life enhancing. Besides state and federal money, I have witnessed nonprofits like LOOP get into the game, partnering with the DOCs in a number of states to provide programming, often dependent on imprisoned people’s labor.
We have to talk more about the role of extraction in all of this.
from It’s Going Down
[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire article follow the above link.]
A banner dropped in Eugene, OR this past February read “Against Cop City and Its World.” These words have come to echo throughout Atlanta and across Turtle Island, indicating that the struggle extends far beyond the construction of this particular police facility. But what exactly is “the world” of Cop City?
One interpretation has to do with the strategy of secondary and tertiary targeting. This past winter, night owls across the country have set their sights beyond the state officials behind the Cop City project, focusing instead on the contractors hired to build it and the banks and corporations funding it. This is a practical approach to stopping this specific project — sabotaging the offices of contractors like Atlas and Brasfield & Gorrie is intended to put pressure on them to drop their contract with Atlanta, which would make it harder for the city to move forward with its plans.
Many of the communiques accompanying the actions we’ve seen this season state this as their goal. A claim for an action against an Atlas office in Detroit included the warning, “Atlas, until you stop supporting Cop City, there will be no safe corner for you on Turtle Island.” A communique out of Indiana writes that all executives and property of Atlas should be considered legitimate targets “until Atlas publicly announces that it will no longer work on the project.”
Additional communiques from this winter’s solidarity actions with Atlanta — to our knowledge, only a handful of claimed actions took place that were not Atlanta-related — clarify their opposition not just to Cop City but to the world that needs it. In many cases, they do this by drawing connections in writing to additional struggles that the authors see as interconnected. In other cases, this projectuality that aims to destroy both Cop City and the world that makes it possible is embodied in the choice of target. Many of this winter’s actions expanded from the more “precise” choice of targets like Atlas offices and into the wider world of exploitation and domination, which, after all, would likely just find a replacement for Atlas elsewhere if the contract was dropped. This is not to minimize the significance of actions against contractors, but rather to consider some critical questions being raised and experimented with through action, a powerful and beautiful dynamic that we were happy to see growing this winter.
Night owls in the Ozarks sabotaged “four forest-killing machines,” writing that their action was taken in solidarity with “forests under siege everywhere” as well as with the Atlanta forest. This thought was echoed later by Portland anarchists, who similarly took up a solidarity action that burned a machine unrelated to the specific contractors of Cop City. Other actions, like ones in Durham and Oakland, were dedicated to Tortiguita, who was murdered in the Atlanta forest in January, as well as to Tyre Nichols and others recently executed by the police.
Anarchists in Denver remind us that that the violence of US-based private extraction companies extends beyond US colonial borders, acknowledging “the murder of three land defenders in Honduras since the beginning of the year.” In another communique, Brooklyn anarchists included shoutouts to “the struggles in Latin America, the Palestinian struggle and the struggles against exploitation the world over” alongside their solidarity with Atlanta.
But there are also ways in which these struggles, regions, and systems of oppression are materially and logistically interconnected. A handful of actions in solidarity with Stop Cop City have turned their focus to this aspect of Cop City’s world. In a communique about an action against Norfolk Southern, three weeks after the catastrophic derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, anarchists in Philly wrote that they chose this target not only because NS is itself a funder of Cop City, but because “large shipping companies like NS are the circulatory system of industrial colonialism.” The authors illustrate this by discussing how rail and other logistics provide the means through which industrial agriculturists move their soy and corn, loggers get lumber to and from mills, and Amazon gets shipping containers from ships to distribution centers. “Perhaps NS funds cop city because they understand both how crucial they are in building a dead world and exactly how vulnerable they are.”
There’s been a lot of talk of winning with regard to the fight in the forest, but in a world whose brutal domination and exploitation extends so much further than one police facility in one city, what exactly constitutes a victory? If Brasfield & Gorrie drop the contract, is it still a win if a new company then gets hired to do the same thing? If this police training facility is never built in Atlanta, but is built somewhere else instead, should we call that winning? What exactly are actions accomplishing if their perspective is confined to winning a campaign goal?
Any particular struggle against a specific manifestation of domination will have its ebbs and flows — triumphant moments, waves of repression, and responses to that repression. Moments of success and failure happen throughout a particular struggle, not merely at the end of it. Memories of past struggles can be used as a weapon, too, whether to avenge our fallen comrades or to send a kind of smoke signal that the will to rebel endures.
Projectuality is a word the insurrectionary anarchist tradition uses to describe the longterm and contextual dimensions of the projects that rebels take up, and how we make sure these projects take us to, and help us create, the places we want to go. This often includes fighting against a particular project the state is proposing, but is not confined to responding to the initiatives of those in power.
Our conception of victory and defeat must similarly extend beyond the immediate goal. For one thing, to say that nothing is truly a victory while capitalism is still intact is not just an ideological flourish, but quite literal. It is a commitment to continue fighting against all forms of domination and to resist recuperation at any cost. From resource extraction projects to new prison construction, in the rare cases in which we do succeed in stopping a particular thing from happening, the state and capital tend to simply shuffle things around until they get what they needed from that project through other means. When the state is just giving us the stick, it can be difficult to remember that the carrot is just as dangerous.
For examples of how to move through these peaks and valleys, we can look to those who have kept fighting long after a particular phase of the struggle has ended. In a recent communique in solidarity with Tortiguita, comrades resisting a nuclear waste storage project in Bure (France) wrote:
“We have taken the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the evacuation of the forest [in Bure] to show that we have neither forgotten nor forgiven what they did. And that they are mistaken if they think they have hunted us and defeated us forever.”
In torching an ANDRA transmission pylon near Bure, the writers aimed not specifically at the corporation (CIGEO) that drove the police to evict the forest occupation, but rather “deliberately place[d] our action in the context of a series of attacks carried out last year against measuring stations intended to collect geological, hydrological and meteorological data.” This choice of target comes from observing that “these structures are of paramount strategic importance in the current development phase of the project given that the data collected, for example for environmental impact studies, alone constitute a necessary basis in the creation authorization procedures. Thus, destroying them, putting them out of service, are and will inevitably be a thorn in the side of the ‘smooth running of the CIGEO project.’”
“And its world” is adopted from the slogan accompanying the struggle to halt the airport slated for development in Notre-des-Landes, France, this past decade. Proponents of the ZAD (“zone to defend”) saw the horizon of victory squashed there after a long, brutal, and dedicated fight. After the state announced that they were no longer planning to build the airport, the fixation among certain participants in the struggle on securing their hold on this particular piece of land led them to effectively recuperate their own struggle. The long and violently repressed fight against another airport in Atenco, Mexico State ended when the current progressive president AMLO was elected. He was able to claim the victory of cancelling the contentious project in the name of the popular struggle, carrying out mediatized “consultations” with the affected communities, and then proceeded to build the airport elsewhere. His government has proceeded to use the support garnered from this strategic concession to pave the way for further industrialization and militarization across the country.
Both of these struggles cost the state and the corporations behind the projects dearly, and both live on in the multitudes of actions that took place against the world that made the proposed airports possible. The claims of “victory” are attempts to rewrite these stories of struggle, and the heavy costs suffered by the rebels, as part of the necessary democratic process of checks and balances within the power structure. From unions to politicians to social movement leaders, opportunists everywhere seek to pacify our intransigent struggles with “winning strategies”.
Specific struggles are part of the fight against domination, but the whole cannot be reduced to the sum of its parts — this fight is also long, intergenerational, and cyclical. Out of the endless daily miseries of this world, choosing where to draw lines in the sand enables rebellious energy to coalesce and build on itself. The most significant struggles are ones that are approached not with an expectation of “winning,” but rather with an eye towards how to spread practices of lived anarchy and struggle, how to build capacity as individuals and networks, and what can be taken from this struggle into the next. The words “Cop City will never be built” evokes a powerful and transformative commitment to fight to the end, to refuse surrender. The fact that there is no end, that the fight against domination cannot be reduced to a single target, but is a tension that must be created and maintained, doesn’t make this specific fight any less important.
The only way to really do away with the world of Cop City is through profound revolutionary upheaval, an insurrectional process that goes so far that normalcy can’t return. The fight to defend the Atlanta forest has disrupted the social peace that those in power reimposed following the 2020 uprisings for Black lives and against the police. The combative struggle against Cop City lays the social groundwork for insurrection, spreads indomitable practices and ideas, and provides anarchists with the experiences of autonomous self-organization that will be needed to decisively intervene when widespread social revolt comes knocking.
Along these lines, the epic mass action on March 5th during the Week of Action in Atlanta was in itself a major milestone. That a combative crowd was able to force police out of their own outpost and then burn it down in front of them in broad daylight — unprecedented in the US as far as we know — potentially opens up vast new fields of action for those with the courage and ability to pursue them.
The publication Storm Warnings‘ 2018 essay “Without Victory, Nor Defeat” argues that the logic of victory and defeat comes from politics, i.e. activities that distribute power relations and status among individuals. Anarchy, the beautiful idea, abjures the realm of politics and proposes instead to live and fight in a state of tension towards freedom and the destruction of power relations. The only defeat is submission, resigning ourselves to the world of policing, Cop City or no; and as all those who put their freedom on the line showed us this winter, that seems unlikely to ever happen.
“Contrary to cats, we indeed only have one life, and we dare to say that it is during this life – the only one we have – what matters is to fight, to live that tension towards the destruction of authority. It’s by moving, moving on the path we have chosen, that we live up to ourselves, that we become what we are. It is the quality that bursts into our life, the quality of actions and ideas that go hand in hand. Victory or defeat have no place here, only persisting or abandoning, perseverance or resignation, passionate love and hate or obliteration to politics.”
A small group broke off from a vigil for Tortuguita and threw up barricades and graffiti before smashing a realty office. “Neither innocent nor guilty, neither terrorists nor protesters, simply anarchists!”
The railway mainline belonging to the Norfolk Southern company was sabotaged with copper wire, which trips the signal and potentially stops traffic until the wire is located. “With love for Tort, and infinite hostility for cops who killed them.”
Bleach was poured into the tank of a “monster of steel and rubber” by Tortuguita Revenge Gang.
Hit Us Up
If you come across existing articles from mainstream media you’d like to see included in our next action briefs, or have feedback on the column, we’d love to hear from you at nightowls[at]riseup [dot] net. Please do not send us your communiques or any actions you are personally taking responsibility for — send these instead to one of the counter-info projects that publish claims, some of which are listed here.
Distribution of Night Owls is decentralized—don’t forget to print the column, bring it to infoshops, drop it in newspaper boxes, or just pass it to your friends.
Join us for an editor-led discussion of the recently published book, The George Floyd Uprising.
Written during the riots, The George Floyd Uprising is a compendium of the most radical writing to come out of that long, hot summer. These incendiary dispatches—from those on the front lines of the struggle—examine the new horizons opened by the revolt, as well as the social, tactical, and strategic obstacles it confronted. This practical, inspiring collection offers a toolbox for all those actively seeking to expand and intensify revolts in the future, and it is essential reading for everyone interested in toppling the state, racism, and capitalism.
In the summer of 2020, America experienced one of the biggest uprisings in half a century. After George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police, angry crowds took to the street night after night, fighting the police, looting, and eventually burning down the Third Precinct. The revolt soon spread to cities large and small across the country, where rioters set police cars on fire, sacked luxury shopping districts, and forced the president into hiding in a bunker beneath the White House. Throughout the summer and into the fall, localized rebellions continued to erupt in Atlanta, Chicago, Kenosha, Louisville, Philadelphia, and elsewhere.
Written during the riots, The George Floyd Uprising is a compendium of the most radical writing to come out of that long, hot summer. These incendiary dispatches—from those on the front lines of the struggle—examine the new horizons opened by the revolt, as well as the social, tactical, and strategic obstacles it confronted. This practical, inspiring collection offers a toolbox for all those actively seeking to expand and intensify revolts in the future, and it is essential reading for everyone interested in toppling the state, racism, and capitalism.
About the Editors:
Vortex Group is an anonymous collective of writers who desire an end to this world and the beginning of a new one.
Sunday, March 19, 2023
4:00 PM 5:30 PM
Making Worlds Bookstore & Social Center210 South 45th StreetPhiladelphia, PA, 19104United States(map)
[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire article follow the above link.]
Announcing the release of Fash Pack 2023: A collection of over 1000 nazi unmaskings and other PDFs related to far-right/groypers/fascists over the past 8 years.
Looking for info on neo-Nazis or groups affiliated with specific regions?
Files have been labeled with names, groups, and locations for searchability.
Save individual files or the entirety of Fash Pack 2023 for your own personal archive. All work within PDFs is attributed to their respective source authors.
This work is far from complete, but we could use your help in gathering more for the collection. Check out our guide on how to submit items to the Fash Pack archive.
[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire article follow the above link.]
Diversity of tactics is a concept that has been used to break the hegemony of non-violence in social movements. The term can be understood as a shared principle that advocates respect and solidarity across different approaches with the aim of breaking down moralistic and ideological divisions. Tactics, however, are often confused with methods, leading to a dangerous misuse of the idea of diversity of tactics to advocate for tolerance of or collaboration with authoritarian, populist, or democratic initiatives.
Since Night Owls focuses on sabotage, which is a tactic, and direct action, which is a method, we want to dive into these ideas and how they might relate to anarchist struggle more broadly. Tactics can be understood as what you do and methods as how you do it. Tactics change according to the moment and the needs of the struggle, whereas methods are stable and well-defined, remaining consistent across contexts, though how methods are understood and developed will vary.
Smashing something or lighting something on fire does not necessarily contribute to the struggle against domination if it is carried out using authoritarian or reformist methods. Pushing forward confrontational tactics while failing to be critical of the methods employed can lead anarchists to enact a sort of “leftism with teeth:” when conflictual efforts are subsumed by dominant political forces and used to grease the wheels of the democratic process. Among other reasons, many anarchists focus on developing autonomous methods of struggle to avoid becoming foot soldiers of the left—diverting a liberatory project into voting with bricks.
On the other hand, reducing the anarchist project to militant tactics can create hierarchies where some tactics are valued above others, instead of understanding how different tactics work together in an ecosystem of actions and ideas. This can lead to the uncritical valorization of militancy for militancy’s sake, fertile ground for the creep of militarism into radical struggles, risking the transformation of a dynamic social conflict into a conflict between isolated militant actors and the state.
Central to anarchism is the method of direct action, which is self-organized by definition. Direct action and sabotage are often used interchangeably, but this is a mistake—many tactics, including sabotage but also those considered “peaceful” such as wheatpasting posters around your neighborhood, can be approached through the method of direct action. The word ‘direct’ here means without mediation; without any intermediary, representative, central committee, union, or other leaders—formal or informal—between you and action. It is a refusal of the logic of democracy; of engaging in dialogue with power, of waiting, of compromise. Tactics such as collaborating with political parties or mass media are incompatible with an anarchist understanding of diversity of tactics: they violate the principle of self-organization, instead reproducing alienation and centralization. By using reformist methods, these tactics foment divisions between actors and spectators, representatives and represented, snuffing out self-organization and the potential for social contagion. Reformist mentalities can often even find their way into action claims, as Let’s Talk About Attack aptly proposes to do away with:
It’s not about bringing a mean company to better intentions, of forcing it to change its bad habits via punitive measures, nor of pressuring an institution to change its mind. […] when we’re talking about, for example, companies that build prisons, high speed train lines, airports, let’s refuse all forms of communication (even the radical ones) with the enemy; let’s refuse all forms of reformism. Better still: we don’t want to spread the logic of reformism, we want to destroy it. The goal is, then, not to convince (by way of damage, material or monetary); the goal is to sabotage and attack the entirety of the project on all terrains. Attack – not to convince, but because we are convinced we don’t want this project. Attacking, not to punish, but to make life harder for the enemy. From the construction companies to the security coordinators and engineers; from the civilian participants to the banks who finance the project.
This column is especially interested in actions that inspire new conceptions of anarchists’ role and potential impact, in which tactics are innovated through creativity and experimentation. In a recent action against a police shooting range in Atlanta’s Weelaunee forest, some “chainsaw-wielding militants’” knocked out the power line feeding the range before going on to destroy the cameras. This action showed creativity both in its choice of target and the tactics used, in an intelligent and effective blow to the facility’s ability to operate. It demonstrates a shift in focus from the mere symbolic facades of power and reminds us that we are not just against Cop City, but the entire institution of policing.
Privileging tactical preferences over shared ethics, goals, and methods can be flimsy ground for collaboration. For example, people who use high-risk tactics but are motivated by a desire to impact public opinion can make unreliable and even dangerous co-conspirators. Many of those who snitched in the Green Scare “revered public opinion about an environmental movement rather than aiming to destroy anti-environmental forces.” More recently, two individuals confessed to having attacked pipelines in a statement to the media, demonstrating a similar desire to impact public opinion—one later became a cooperating witness, while the other, who stayed solid, regretted publishing her identity. People driven by such motivations are liable to change their minds as the tides of “public opinion” inevitably change. Understanding one’s goals and motivations for acting is indispensable, not only for deciding who to take risks with, but also for deciding what to target and how.
This does not mean that you have to be an anarchist to use direct action or to be trustworthy. We are less invested in more people calling themselves anarchists than in the spreading of practices of self-organization and conflict with authority, which were around long before anarchism was named. Our understanding of anarchist methods can grow and deepen by learning from other self-organized struggles and individuals who sabotage domination.
In compiling this column’s list of actions across the so-called United States, we include actions that were claimed with a communique as well as those that were not, with the assumption that there are lessons to be learned from both. The advantages and disadvantages of writing communiques have often been the subject of heated debate among anarchists. Many actions speak for themselves and do not have to be claimed to be understood or to significantly disrupt systems of domination. On the other hand, actions that are not claimed may be harder to find on the internet and so feature less prominently in counter-information projects (including this one), though such websites are rarely engaged with by anyone who’s not themselves an anarchist. In putting together this column, we try to consider the challenge of communicating outside of the anarchist space—which depends on our newspapers, posters, zines, social centers, and physical places of encounter within the struggle.
The torching of three police cars in Pittsburgh this fall was not accompanied by a communique, but the burnt-out shells of the cruisers spoke for themselves and the message could not have been clearer: Fuck the police. We feel it’s important not to speculate about whether this or other actions were carried out by anarchists or not, since that has the potential to aid the police in their investigations. Whatever the motivations of the anonymous one(s) who burned the cars, this action can resonate with anyone who has their own reason to hate and take action against the police.
On the other hand, communiques can also have their own very important place, and all the better when that place is not just the Internet! Although we chose this medium for our column in the interest of reaching a wider audience, we also include a zine version and posters so as to take these ideas and actions off the screen, with its inherent alienation, and spread them through our real world encounters.
This season’s posters feature a communique from occupied Anishinabewaki and Odawa territory (northern Michigan) which claims the arson of heavy machinery at an Enbridge facility. The fight against pipelines and the extractive economy is not restricted to occupations against their construction and is not defeated after they go into the ground. The communique reminds us that the extractive economy, along with the devastation it causes, is all around us, and that it’s possible to fight back.
Earth- and animal-liberation focused struggles continued to take major risks to defend land and life over the course of the fall season. Decentralized supporters of the Defend the Atlanta Forest campaign carried out at least ten known direct actions altogether against Cop City, all of them daring and impressive. Meanwhile, we saw a return of Animal Liberation Front fur farm raids, which according to reports released 15,800 mink in total, destroyed vehicles and machinery at one farm, and ultimately forced the closure of Lion Farms, the largest mink exploiter in the U.S. and the target of one of the actions.
As the recent commentary “On Mink Liberation” notes, “Whilst [mink liberation actions] behave like any other animal liberation action—freeing animals from their place of abuse—they are understood easier as a sabotage action.” It’s heartwarming enough to see these individual lives freed from captivity and given a second chance, yet these actors also took care to aim at the mechanisms of the fur industry itself—an industry that’s entirely intertwined with and made possible by the domination of this territory by capitalism and colonization. The most recent mink raid’s communique makes this connection as well, ending: “free all prisoners and give the land back.”
Our last column centered on the significance of our settler colonial context, not only for forest defense and other ecological struggles, but also with regard to how we position ourselves in relation to land, life, and collective survival—with the ultimate objective of destroying the settler colony and returning its territory to the continent’s original inhabitants. This autumn saw a heartening expansion of anti-colonial solidarity actions, from Washington and Oregon to Michigan and Philadelphia. Some of these actions happened in response to solidarity calls, one took place on the colonial holiday Columbus Day, one on Thanksgiving, and another responded in part to the brutal consequences of climate collapse in the Global South. In discussing the need to take apart elements of colonial industry and infrastructure, the communiques attest to the ways in which destructive acts, when paired with anti-colonial methods, can help empower people to move towards self-organization and action, nurture non-hierarchical relationships, and cultivate “communities of collective resistance and joyful militancy.”
Distribution of Night Owls is decentralized—don’t forget to print the column, bring it to infoshops, drop it in newspaper boxes, or just pass it to your friends.
A colonizer statue was vandalized on Columbus day. “Fighting colonization is a way to nurture a less hierarchical relation with the land and those that live on it.”
On the Wet’suwet’en day of action, “a small group of Anti-colonial Anarchist settlers in Lenapehoking blockaded a chokepoint of a high frequency railway.”
In the early days of November, a Telegram channel called Aryan Compartmented Elements (ACE) became known to researchers through various channels. ACE’s name is a reference to Army Compartmented Elements, a nickname used by the 1st Special Operational Detachment in the US Army, better known as Delta Force.
ACE is adjacent, if not directly involved with, other groups in Terrorgram. These groups venerate neo-Nazi mass shooters and the group seems poised to join the ranks of their pantheon of “Saints“. Most of ACE’s content consists of them discussing doing reconnaissance and destroying people’s property. Multiple pictures posted show them stalking who they consider to be leftists and of them looking at targets in crosshairs. It seems clear that they intend to commit acts of mass violence.
Examples of common types of posts on ACE’s telegram.
Multiple of these targets include schools. We have determined that the schools pictured are the Universal Technical Institute in Exton, PA and Harrisburg Community College. If you are in touch with individuals attending either of these institutions, please contact them to let them know about these threats.
Picture threatening UTI Exton
Picture threatening Harrisburg community college
Researchers were able to find holes in ACE’s security almost immediately. In one of the “degenerate assets” photos, there was an attempt at redacting information, but they forgot to scrub one thing. We spotted it immediately:
It reads: Lower Saucon Township. That led researchers to begin looking closer into the Lehigh Valley and surrounding area of PA.
Through a random stroke of luck, we were able to spot one major misstep. We noted that there was a comment on an ACE post made by telegram user Leo Solaris OTMO, also known as Luke Kenna (more on him later.) On this comment there was one like. The user who made the like has the username, “Doc Grimson”. When expanding the profile of Doc Grimson, all his personal details were laid bare, which led us directly to Michael Brown.
The chat function has since been removed from Aryan Compartmented Elements (ACE) Telegram channel and all the comments deleted.
Michael “Doc Grimson” Brown is the owner of Black Market Tactical (BMT) and Black Market Strength and Conditioning (BMSC), companies which are registered to his home at 15 Fox Ridge Road in Glenmoore, PA. His companies provide various tactical trainings and sell his homemade knives and other tactical gear.
Michael “Doc” Brown
BMSC logo
On the BMT website, Brown lists his location as Exton, PA. Multiple photos posted to the ACE channel were specific to the Chester County, PA region and the larger Lehigh Valley. There have been many towns that Brown has been traced to in the area through simple Google searches. Using the ACE channel, Brown has even posted video of what appears to a school sporting event. We were able to geolocate the event to Downingtown, PA (Chester County) using the phone number on the scoreboard and the reflection in the puddle. This doesn’t seem like the kind of man who should be teaching anyone about opsec and covert reconnaissance training…
ACE has been consistent at posting field notes from their nighttime recon missions but will delete the information after a few days. The format and tone of writing is heavily influenced by military operations. According to the ‘about us’ section on Black Market Tactical:
Doc worked as an 911 EMTB and Paramedic in suburban Philadelphia for approx 10 years and also served as a warrant service officer for Montgomery County, PA.
Doc served as the Lead Medical SME and combat skills instructor for the USAF Air Advisor Academy at JB MDL in support of the GWOT for approx 6 years.
His experience in being an SME and instructor for the US Air Force gives clarity to the *tactically ascertained* style of his writing. At this time, we have not been able to confirm if he has served in the military or not. We were also not able to locate a CAGE code, something which is required for all military contractors, to verify that he has provided training. There is evidence on his website of him training soldiers, however.
A picture from Michael’s website showing him training soldiers.
Michael Brown offers high-cost training programs through BMT. During our investigation, we uncovered the best piece of evidence we could have hoped for. There is an image from his website for a ‘Protocol Immersion Course’ costing a mere $2,999 to spend 48 hours training with Brown (lol).
This listing has since been removed, but archives show that a photo used in that sale is the same as a photo posted to ACE telegram. While Michael Brown may have deleted the posts from ACE directly, they still live on in other chats, such as Church of Aryanity where both he and Luke Kenna frequently share ACE posts.
A photo posted on ACE shared by Michael in the Church of Aryanity telegram chat.
The same photo on the Black Market Tactical website
If any more proof was needed, we were able to identify this generic skull vector as a key asset that crosses all of his platforms. It’s on his merch, it’s on his website, it’s on his YouTube, it was on his Instagram, and it just so turns out it’s used in ACE as well.
BMSC logo
ACE post featuring the same skull as is in the BMSC logo
Luke Winchester-Kenna:
We first put out info on Luke Winchester-Kenna last year in the wake of a mass shooting perpetrated by one of his online acquaintances in Denver, CO. For more detailed background and information on Winchester-Kenna, we suggest reading our original article here. Luke has links to several previous articles we have written on Wolf Brigade Gym, Operation Werewolf, and Rural Nexion.
Luke and Doc holding a BMSC flag.
Kenna is very closely associated with Black Market Tactical and Michael Brown. Before our original article came out, he frequently posted tagging BSMC and BMT on his Instagram page. Posts made on Doc’s telegram also reference Tyr Tactical. Tyr is a tactical training business located inside of Luke’s wife’s racist new age crystal shop, Freya’s Forest in downtown Gloversville, NY. Much to the dismay of Luke, his hometown newspaper even wrote about he and his wife as being radical neo-Nazi extremists. Brown and Kenna recently held a “Warrior’s Lodge” that was located ‘somewhere in the Adirondacks’ near Saratoga, NY. Saratoga Springs is roughly 40 minutes from his home in Gloversville. It’s unknown how many men attended this, but there is evidence that there was at least 5.
Luke Kenna is present in many fascist Telegram chats using the name Leo Solaris OTMO. OTMO signifies the rank of Knight in the white nationalist Church of Aryanity. We were able to determine Leo was Kenna because of posts he made shilling for his company, Tyr Tactical.
The Church of Aryanity, a “religion” established by Aaron Chapman of Traditionalist Workers Party ( prior to the Night of the Wrong Wives) and Colton Williams. For those interested in learning more about the this organization, we encourage they check out this recent article from SoCal Research Club and Left Coast Right Watch that details the group’s ideology and history.
As recently as November 17 of this year, Kenna posted in the Church of Aryanity Telegram channel that he was “slowly and methodically building a temple on secure private land to serve as the auxiliary church of New England.” We think it’s safe to connect these dots and say that the “auxiliary church” is likely at the same location where the Warrior Lodge was held.
We aren’t sure how legit this is, but it seems to be in-line with the ideas of Militant Ruralism, about which have written extensively in previous posts. This is a neo-Nazi ideology that centers around building rural compounds to serve as bases of struggle in a coming race war. This ideology ties Kenna and Brown to a nationwide network of extremists operating compounds like Rural Nexion and Donnybrook Farms. Kenna was present in Rural Nexion’s telegram channel, and Brown proudly displays a sign made and sold by the group.
Rural Nexion sign in Brown’s garage
Alabama Arson:
On November 6, the Aryan Compartmented Elements (ACE) Telegram channel, the operators claimed to have been responsible for burning down the home of a school administrator who had added LGBTQ books to the library. They posted a somewhat redacted video of the arson.
ACE post detailing the arson
When looking for reports for an arson matching the description above, the only one we were able to find was the burning of a school superintendent’s house in Boaz, Alabama. While we cannot be certain that the claimed arson is the same one described, details from the redacted video seem to match up to publicly available photos of the burned out house.
Burned out house in Boaz, Alabama
It seems strange that a duo of Nazis from the Northeast would torch a house in Alabama. However, it appears the pair have a local connection. Ian Michael Elliott is a member of Patriot Front who was exposed by Atlanta Antifascists last year. He lives one county away from the arson in Harvest, Alabama. Ian is also a member of the Church of Aryanity and was present in the Church of Aryanity chat using the handle Varangian where ACE propaganda is frequently shared.
Ian Michael Elliott
The connections don’t stop there. In a Patriot Front training video obtained by Atlanta Antifascists, Ian can be seen training while wearing a Black Market Strength and Conditioning shirt. He can be seen posing in the photo below with Luke, Michael, and other Black Market Tactical associates during one of their training sessions. We are actively seeking IDs on the other men pictured in this photo.
Kenna, Doc, and Ian posing at a BMSC event. We are seeking IDs of the other men in this photo.
Uncensored version of the same photo posted by Kenna.
Ian wearing a BMSC shirt during Patriot Front training.
While it is possible the arson is not associated with Aryan Compartmented Elements (ACE) or Ian Michael Elliott, we feel that the amount of circumstantial evidence is too high not to mention here. Despite these individuals’ complete and total clownishness, they have the potential to put people in very real danger.
On OPWW:
All of the men discussed above have deep connections to Operation Werewolf. In 2020, we began circulating a a piece entitled The End of Operation Werewolf urging researchers to pay more attention to the group given the high potential for disaffected members to engage in acts of extreme violence. We published that piece in 2021, in the wake of the Denver shooting. We still think the sentiments expressed within it are important. Check it out here.
Conclusion:
The individuals mentioned in these articles are incredibly dangerous, and we want to bring maximum awareness of them and their behavior to the communities they threaten. If you know anyone in these communities, please send them this article.
We also want to pay specific attention to the concerning trend of violence against Queer people that these individuals are following. The victim of the arson was targeted for the same reasons that are vitriolically spewed by Tucker Carlson every night. We are finishing up this article the day after a mass shooter murdered 5 people at a Queer club in Colorado Springs. The connections between fringe lunatics like these and the mainstream far-right are evident. Wherever you are, work in solidarity with the LGBT community to defend it from people like this.
This work wouldn’t have been possible without help from good folks at White Rose Australia and other anonymous researchers. Please check out their work at thewhiterosesociety.writeas.com.
Anathema sat down with two people involved in defending the FDR meadows. Below are the complete transcriptions of the interviews with each of them.
First Interview
Anathema: Would you like to introduce yourself?
I am somebody who likes to hang out at the Meadows. I live close by. I have been involved in some land and anti-gentrification struggles in Philly for awhile and now I’m participating with different folks under different names organizing to try to stop the development at the meadows.
Anathema: Can you tell us a little bit about FDR park, the Meadows, and the development taking place there?
Yeah, I don’t know about the original history of this park. I know for long term residents of Philly, FDR park is called the Lakes because of the big bodies of water here. I think FDR park was built around these golf courses, and The Meadows was a golf course for a century. It was repeatedly flooded and decommissioned as a golf course in 2018. Although even when it was a golf course, you hear stories about people who have used this land to make a connection to nature. People have stories about foraging all kinds of stuff from South Philly communities. It’s kind of one of the last wild spaces in the South Philly area.
The development that’s taking place here, it’s titled “The Master Plan for FDR Park.” It is an ongoing city plan to raise the elevation of certain areas of the park and add 12 new sports fields. The plan is also connected to development plans with the Philadelphia Airport, which wants to expand and is destroying 40 acres of wetland. By law, it has to restore a comparable amount of wetland. So funds for the redevelopment of this park are funds from the airport to offset the wetland destruction there. They’re also going to “improve” 35 acres of wetlands here at FDR Park.
Anathema: What have the struggles against the development looked like so far? What’s happening?
I heard about it through these meetings happening in the Spring of 2022. They were organized mostly by this one person but under the banner of The People’s Plan for FDR Park. It brought a bunch of people to the park and made people more aware of the imminent development plans. I’m not a long term resident of Philly, I just started exploring the wild space here during the pandemic. So The People’s Plan for FDR Park were trying to let people know that the city had imminent plans to develop it. But the organization of The People’s Plan for FDR Park was more about convincing the city to change the Master Plan to actually include what people want for the park.
From there, a bunch of people were like, okay, The People’s Plan for FDR Park is not the avenue for struggling against this development. It wasn’t for everybody. It wasn’t decentralized. It was very centralized and hierarchical; not super supportive of people working autonomously. After that initial meeting, there were lots of splinters–people branching out and asking what we want to happen here. Do we want this to stay a meadow? Do we actually want the city’s ecological restoration plans to move through, but not the sports fields? There were a lot of conversations about how we are going to organize. One contingent that I was a part of was trying to map out the ecology here, to figure out what species of trees, bugs, animals have a home here. And to encourage more people to come down and hang out. It is a bit far south, and I know a lot of people who have never been to the Meadows. Wanting to encourage and grow other people’s connection to the space before development happened.
The dates for when the destruction was going to happen were pretty unclear. There were people from the parks saying it’ll happen in 2023, people saying it’ll happen in June 2022. There was a kind of waiting or complacency maybe, because we didn’t know when it would happen. There wasn’t a big offensive push. I think that equipment got staged in late August, and there was push back. People…serviced the machines that arrived *laughs.* I think there were a lot of people doing different things, discussing whether construction people had permits, or thinking of ways to put pressure on the construction company. People trying to put pressure on city officials in ways that had no real effect whatsoever.
At first, when the destruction happened in late August, there wasn’t a clear construction zone. Lots of people were just out and about amongst the destruction, kind of putting themselves at risk in hopes that the construction company would get some kind of retribution for endangering people. That didn’t have much effect. They put up more solid fencing pretty immediately. In the first week of destruction, people were messing with equipment, people may or may not have spiked some trees. That stopped the destruction for a week. The place was swarming with cops and the unusable machinery got replaced.
They did the destruction pretty quickly after that. I feel like they were destroying dozens of acres a day. After a few weeks in which there wasn’t much real material resistance, they had cleared like 70 acres. From what I hear, all they have funding for is this first phase of destruction. As far as I know, now that the first 70 acres are destroyed, there’s gonna be a pause. I’m not sure what the development schedule is, or what their priorities are…it seems with the FIFA bid for the World Cup, creating the soccer field is gonna be a priority. I don’t know if they’re going to do the wetland restoration first. I know that they’re going to move a 4 story soil mound pretty close to the entrance of the Meadows, which they’ll use to try to raise certain areas. As far as the schedule for what’s up next for the developers, I’m not sure.
Anathema: How have the city, the cops, the neighbors responded to the struggle for the Meadows?
The city doubled down on its greenwashing media blasts. The Inquirer and other news outlets are like “The protesters are out of control!” or “Why the city needs the development at FDR Park.” They’re just pushing a narrative that they’re trying to make the space better, of course. Gentrification. They’re trying to make the park welcoming to sports people.
A response from neighbors…I’ve definitely seen people who are used to using the land express heartbreak and dismay that they can’t access the space, that it’s being destroyed.
I think the city has a lot of talking points that seem to be pretty convincing for people, that sports fields are about equity for young people of color in the city. How this project for them is about creating more equity. People seem really confused about that. Trying to represent this wild space that people already use as needing to undergo some kind of city developed equity and inclusion transformation…people seem to be buying it. I haven’t heard any neighbors express excitement. I’ve heard some people be like, “Hopefully it’s worth it.”
What I have heard from neighbors is dismay or anger, and confusion.
The cops…I feel like the police presence was heavy for awhile, and was coming down to interrupt arts and youth programming just to intimidate people using the space. They definitely set up a lot of new fences, and there’s tons of signs saying “A wetland is coming to this space.” They city’s increasing its greenwashing efforts, the space has gotten new fences, there is a heavier police presence here. There was a 24 hour cop station here for awhile, but I don’t know if they’re still here.
Anathema: You kind of touched on this already, but a lot of the land in FDR has already been cleared. Has this changed how people are struggling and what are some of the next steps in light of this clear cutting, leveling, and bringing in dirt?
I think that once the destruction started and it was kind of clear that we were slow on having both an offensive and a defensive strategy. Once we weren’t able to hold ground anymore, a lot of people were like “Oh fuck, we lost.” I guess it’s real to feel disheartened. People have distanced themselves from this struggle.
There’s still around 100 acres of land that hasn’t been touched, that they plan to develop. There’s still a lot worth defending here. Trying to get ahead of what the developer’s plans are makes sense as a strategy. There could be a long lull until they get enough money to move forward. And continuing to make the project financially unviable for them will always benefit us in trying to stop them.
People are still doing programming to keep people connecting to the space and aware that the space hasn’t been destroyed; it’s still open, there’s a lot of life here. With winter coming, hopefully it’s a time to strategize.
Anathema: What would you say to anyone who wants to take part in defending the Meadows?
I would say there’s a lot of ways to do that. There are a lot of people invested in this project for whatever reason–annoying them and making their lives difficult is great. I think a lot of people would probably enjoy that. There’s still a lot of open space here to have parties, bring people out. I think A&P construction and the other subcontractors who stand to gain from this project…it definitely makes sense to try to make their lives more difficult.
If you’re looking for offensive or defensive entry points, there are many.
Anathema: Do you think there’s anything people outside of Philadelphia can do to contribute to this struggle?
I feel like having solidarity, especially in land defense struggles but I’m thinking in particular urban land defense struggles – like the Atlanta forest, or stopping big development projects. Continuing to boost each others’ struggles and bringing attention to them is bugging the people who stand to gain from them. Those people, those companies exist in different cities. It feels really good, fun, and exciting to be learning from each others’ strategies and boosting each other in those efforts.
Anathema: Totally. Is there anywhere people can follow these struggles and keep themselves informed about what’s going on around the Meadows?
Yeah, I think the news source I trust the most at the moment about it is the Save the Meadows. They have a website savethemeadows.com. The instagram account is @savethemeadows.
Anathema: What would you say are some strengths and weaknesses of the struggle to defend the Meadows?
Some strengths are that our opponents in this struggle–the city, parks and rec, the developers, the cops–are really stupid. The people involved in defending the Meadows are more creative and smarter.
There is a difference in resources, obviously. The city has machinery that can facilitate destruction really fast. The city’s monopoly on violence and destruction is an obstacle to work around. But I feel like there are a lot of artists, smart and brave people involved in the struggle. A disadvantage is that this plan created by the city precedes a lot of our knowledge. They had a big head start.
Hopefully we can outlast them. Their resources are going to run out and be dependent on other companies coming in to boost how they move forward with this project. If we can stay creative and continue to engage with this space, then that’ll be a strength.
Anathema: What are some of the biggest tensions involved in people defending the Meadows?
Politically, a lot of people involved are still invested in a centralized decision making around what happens here, whether that’s collaborating with the city or having a centralized organization. Of course you don’t have to participate in that, but a lot of organizers are still thinking in terms of how they can get other people to do things instead of doing the things that they want to do, or encouraging people to do the things they want to do. Maybe that’s an issue with how we imagine projects getting done, or how we imagine working together for a shared goal. There is a desire amongst some of the organizers to continue a top down model, and it’s a lot of work to continually challenge that.
Second Interview
Anathema: Would you like to introduce yourself?2.
I do a lot of autonomous work. That’s why I’m around.
Anathema: Can you tell us a little bit about FDR park, the Meadows, and the development taking place there?
I live in the suburbs and to be honest, I don’t know much about the history and background. From what I do understand, these meadows have been here for awhile and they have been enjoyed by residents and community members for years. It seems like the airport and the city want to develop the nature aspect of FDR Park, commonly referred to as the Meadows, to be somewhat turned into astroturf. To commodify the space in general. Also the airport wants to expand by basically digging into the wetlands and trying to cover that by making a new wetlands.
Anathema: What have the struggles against the development looked like so far? What’s happening?
So far, the things that have been happening that I’ve been witness to, have been bulldozing. So just clearing the area of natural trees and wildlife. Fencing it off from the general public who were once able to freely roam around it. The struggle has been trying to find the exact dates of when bulldozing will happen, and also people have done campaigns like phone zaps, and making banners and posters. There have been some events held around the Meadows such as foraging, tree-mappings to try and identify trees and other species within the Meadows to have a perspective on if there are some species that might be endangered.
Basically trying to find ways to halt the destruction. When that didn’t happen, the struggle has looked like more events in the park, more walkabouts, filming. Trying to spread as much awareness as possible. There has been some apparent sabotage of equipment, so you could also say some insurrectionary developments in there as well.
Anathema: How have the city, the cops, the neighbors responded to the struggle for the Meadows?
For the most part, the Friends of FDR Park have been going around telling people that they were going to make the Meadows into a different type of area, but that they were going to leave a certain amount for people to still use. Trying to talk about it being more nature. Ultimately it’s being discovered that that’s a lie and not what they were really going to do. The community really enjoys this area, so they have responded like “that’s really fucked up.” But there are still people who believe their master plan, if you will. Because of that, they are under a false assumption that the Meadows will be made into something different and better, so they’re all for the project.
The police response was very minimal at the beginning. As tactics escalated, they responded with a lot more surveillance. It went from a little surveillance, to 24 hour surveillance, to bringing in the FBI. They’ve also brought in the counter-terrorist chain. They’re really trying to snuff out any real sense of eco-justice of an insurrectionary nature.
There have been some neighbors that really wanted to have the project, because the city is going to talk about how it’s going to be better to have this happen, and FIFA is coming. They want FIFA and the World Cup to come through. Some people are not so happy with the resistance as well, just based on wanting things to be better for FDR as a whole, apparently.
Anathema: A lot of the land in FDR has already been cleared. Has this changed how people are struggling and what are some of the next steps in light of this clear cutting, leveling, and bringing in dirt?
People have definitely had to go and do things a little more under the radar or while knowing there are multiple FBI and security personnel that are constantly watching and trying to analyze where they’re going. There have been rumors of cameras being placed in the park every so often. That’s been a general concern which has deterred a lot of people from coming back into the park. A lot of equipment is now under heavy surveillance or is just off of the grid, so any type of sabotaging efforts have pretty much come to a standstill.
In light of the clear-cutting, the next steps have really just looked like more events in the park, trying to get awareness out there, collaborating with other projects such as the UC Townhomes struggle. Also trying to appeal to the city to stop future leveling efforts.
Anathema: What would you say to anyone who wants to take part in defending the Meadows?
Environmental defense of any kind is important. All ecosystems are important. All matters of wildlife are relatively equal to all of us, we’re not more than any animal that is out there. Ecological defense is very much needed. Any effort you want to give is very much appreciated. I understand people have different comfort levels and ideas, but if you were looking to start somewhere, definitely come out and take a walk around the area. Talk to the local people. Go on instagram. Come get involved, come through to an event.
Anathema: Do you think there’s anything people outside of Philadelphia can do to contribute to this struggle?
Some people outside of Philadelphia have done banner drops, calls for solidarity, sharing of information as best they can. Some people have also collaborated with the Meadows efforts, such as the Defend the Atlanta Forest people who have come through.
Anathema: Is there anywhere people can follow these struggles and keep themselves informed about what’s going on around the Meadows?
@savethemeadows
Anathema: What would you say are some strengths and weaknesses of the struggle to defend the Meadows?
The struggles for the Meadows really seem to be coming internally in the form of communication, even though there is an instagram and a website. For instance, there was communication of how much is being cleared, but not about how much all at one time. There was speculation of whether there were 100 acres left or less. I would say the struggle of communication is real.
There have definitely been internal struggles. Not everybody is on board with all the tactics that have been used or talked about through this entire movement. There are definitely people trying to control narratives, peace policing, and denouncement of tactics by certain organizers. A struggle is people not getting along or communicating.
The strengths are the diversity of tactics, when it’s celebrated and left to people’s own autonomy. For the people who might want to do, say, spicier tactics, they can leave the people who want to do paperwork or just spreading the word alone. The other side of that coin is when people who want to do spicier things are left alone. Or when they don’t ask a lot of questions about it.
Anathema: What are some of the biggest tensions involved in people defending the Meadows?
The biggest tension thus far is between organizers and people who are more of a free association, so to speak. People peace policing, people trying to fit a certain narrative or only wanting certain tactics. This has been really frustrating for a lot of people. Organizers have definitely talked a lot of shit on each other. The solidarity is not really there.
The tension has also been between some people who value security culture more and are trying to stay more anonymous, and some organizers who are being a little more public, use more public and unencrypted platforms such as discord, or a website where they want people to sign up with their fucking email addresses. To combat that I guess you could use a proton email or whatever, but people don’t always use that as much. Most of the time, people like to either use telegram or signal to try to communicate through more encrypted methods. Organizers in particular have been trying to push things out into a non-encrypted space and that of course leads to a lot of tension between loads of us who are trying to stay as secure as we possibly can.
And also organizers trying to throw shade, really belittling the work because it wasn’t approved by them. Really trying to go after this narrative of “the movement is 95% white and half of these people are not from the community, so their opinions don’t matter. The ways they choose to enter into the struggle don’t matter.” It’s a real fucking shame because it’s going to show there’s not solidarity amongst everybody, and I think it’s going to turn a lot of people off, if it hasn’t already.
