Submission
Proud Boys are coming to West Philly on Saturday, September 19th, to hold a rally in “the belly of the beast.” A far-right neo-fascist organization, the Proud Boys are racist, anti-trans, anti-immigrant, explicitly colonialist, anti-Muslim, misogynist, and generally authoritarian, using street violence across the U.S. to impose their politics on the rest of us.
We intend to drive them out of our neighborhood.
We keep us safe.
Saturday 9/19
12PM
Clark Park
from Philly ABC
Join us for our monthly letter-writing to political prisoners that we hold on the 4th Monday each month. To observe social distancing, we will hold this event online once again on the secure video platform, Jitsi. We will post the link on social media the day of, or message us beforehand for the link.
In honor of the International Day of Solidarity with Anti-Fascist Prisoners, this month we’re writing letters to Gage Halupowski, an anti-fascist political prisoner serving an insane six year prison sentence stemming from a counter protest to a far right rally in Portland, OR on June 29th, 2019.
From the Antifa Sacramento prisoner list:
If you’re looking for different ways to engage with Gage when sitting down to write that first letter, here are a few things to keep in mind – not only is he an anti fascist but he also is a radical environmentalist and an anarchist. So, discussing history, politics or the ideologies of those movements as well could be a good place to start. He is also a fan of the fantasy novel series, The Wheel of Time and looks forward to reading all 12 books in the series while he’s in, so if you’ve read those or would like to he’d love to discuss them with you.
If you are unable to join us, please send Gage a letter anyways:
Gage Halupowski #21894460
Snake River Correctional Institution
777 Stanton Blvd.
Ontario, OR 97914-83305
from Philly Justice
Panic over “Antifa” and “anarchist agitators” has reached a fever pitch in this country, thanks to Donald Trump and his state media parrots at Fox News, Breitbart, The Daily Caller, and other far right and white nationalist outlets. This scapegoating has been discussed and debunked at length in other outlets.
It was this hysteria that was used to justify the mob of (almost entirely) white men who “patrolled” the Fishtown neighborhood of Philly on June 1st, 2020. According the the organizers of the mob, and the ones giving interviews, they were there to prevent looting and rioting where they lived. The truth of how this mob was formed, which we discuss at length below, is far different.
However one needs only look at the video and photos recorded from that evening to see that the group was not any sort of defense-minded community patrol, but a pack of bigots looking for easy targets to intimidate and assault to feel powerful after seeing 2 days of furious protests and riots aimed both at the cops they call family and friends, but also the white supremacist power structure that remains in place in this country and all the ways it harms Black people.
The members of the mob were unable to contain themselves. They identified people who were supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement and attacked them viciously.
Two medical professionals, who happened to witness the attack, stopped their car to help one of the people Goodwin and co. assaulted. While one of them rendered aid, Richard Goodwin returned to smash the window of the medic’s car.
Goodwin changed his shirt between attacks, but the shoes, shorts, hair, build and tattoos all match. It was also confirmed by eyewitnesses that Goodwin broke the window.
The other medic was in the back seat of the car when the window was smashed and was showered in broken glass.
Despite their being several cops nearby enough to hear the breaking window, and the yelling exchanged between Goodwin and the medics, Goodwin mysteriously escaped being detained or arrested. Even more strangely, despite being identified over the next few days on social media and alternative media like Idavox, Richard Goodwin was still not arrested. As of this writing, Goodwin has finally been named in the Inquirer, but still has not been arrested or charged.
This is likely because Richard Goodwin has a brother, Joe Goodwin, who is a longtime cop in the 26th precinct, which is the precinct that enabled Richard Goodwin and his cohorts to harass and assault people on the night of June 1st. Despite having been identified in multiple outlets, Richard Goodwin has not been arrested or charged for this attack. Even more suspiciously, Joey Goodwin was in uniform and working in Fishtown that evening.
Even more unsettling, as covered in BillyPenn, this mob was not simply an organic event in response to the rioting. It was, in fact, PHILADELPHIA POLICE OFFICERS from the 26th prescinct who had gone door to door to claim that “Antifa were coming to loot.”
For those keeping score, here are the facts of the events of June 1st:
The PPD behavior in Fishtown, the several days of even more disgusting attacks by violent racist reactionaries at Marconi Plaza in South Philly, including the Proud Boys, and the police violence against Black Lives Matter protesters in this city have made it clear that the PPD is not a neutral party simply enforcing the laws of the land. It is on us to defend ourselves and see the PPD as another adversary in the fight for Freedom, Justice and Equality.
Since, as of this writing, he has not been arrested and is still at large and a danger to others, people should be aware that Richard Goodwin lives at 2981 Aramingo Ave. He works in the building trades, possibly as a roofer.
People should be also aware that Richie Goodwin has a previous manslaughter conviction.
Mayor Kenny and Commissioner Outlaw are probably aware of vast corruption in the PPD, and the 26th and 1st precincts involvement in the racist mobs in Fishtown and Marconi Plaza. In that case, they are running a smokescreen and dragging their feet in holding the cops accountable. The other option is that they have lost control of the PPD, and the PPD has decided they are no longer going to prevent violence against those that want to curb their power and influence in this city. Not only that, but the PPD are going to encourage and condone those attacks, and defend those that perpetuate them from being held accountable. Either way, we will be working to identify EVERY person who has participated in these mobs and further exposing how the PPD was a their partner in terrorizing parts of this city.
More Philly Justice to come.
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.]
Antifascist researchers using the pseudonym Firestorm on Fash we able to track the racist social media posts from Constable Pete Dardas of the Berk County Sheriff’s Department. His Facebook posts are littered with meme’s about “Black on Black crime” and “refusals to apologize for being white.” He regularly posts racially insensitive content in response to the recent wave of removals of confederate and other racist monuments.
As you might expect, he posts plenty of anti-ANTIFA propaganda as well as sexist content. He also posts a ton of sexually charged content, which makes us wonder if the memes are indicators of his behavior in real life, or more importantly, on his shift.
Finally, he posted a diatribe in response to the George Floyd Uprising where he includes some thoughts on the Philadelphia Police Commissioner. He includes his belief that protesters who block highways deserve to be run over, his desire to shoot and kill protesters, his belief that blue lives matter over Black lives and that BLM should be labeled a terrorist organization.
Dardas uses his social media to make veiled threats toward minority groups and activists and given his position of power at the Berks County Sheriff’s Department, it’s clear that his is an absolute danger to the community. After this dox dropped, an understandably outraged community contacted the Berks County Sheriff’s Department calling for Constable Dardas’ removal and as of July 8th, the Dardas had officially resigned.
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.]
Posses of white vigilantes have been springing up across the United States in response to recent anti-police protests. While some of these groups are explicitly connected to existing far-Right organizations, just as many appear to be composed of reactionary white vigilantes previously unaffiliated with any particular far-Right groups.
In Philadelphia, a posse of men armed with baseball bats and rifles was seen patrolling the streets and posing for photos with local police officers. Though one of them was wearing a Three Percenter sweatshirt, it is unclear if they were all militia-associated.
Also in Philadelphia, a group of three paramilitary snipers were photographed on top of a Gamestop. Philadelphia Proud Boy Zach Rehl, who organized the November 2018 “We the People” rally alongside several militia groups, appeared to take credit for them, saying “We had some guys up on a roof” on a National File appearance. Meanwhile, Rehl, along with fellow Proud Boys Sonny Sullivan and Aaron Kitchell, posted photographs of themselves in the Philadelphia Proud Boys Telegram channel dropping off refreshments for the police.
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 links.]
Antifascist researcher We Will Be Ruthless have identified Norristown, Pennsylvania resident and Right Wing Death Squad member Joshua Knarr. RWDS became a far-right meme in 2018, and in response to the popularity of the meme, a Facebook group was created. According to the dox, Knarr has been involved with the RWDS Facebook group since January 2020 and posts frequently.
In his posts, Knarr refers to Black people as “farm equipment”, makes jokes about Jewish people and the Holocaust, reminisces about fascism and supports “rapewaffen”, a neo-Nazi accelerationist tactic that has been promoted by neo-Nazi groups like Atomwaffen as a way to send (accelerate, if you will) civilization into a race war.
His posts also include anti-Asian sentiment, Nazi nostalgia, and general racism and even mocks the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, who died at the hands of three white men. Knarr also participates in discussion around the indoctrination or “red-pilling” of younger people through Minecraft servers. He also occasionally posts memes that originate in eco-fascist and accelerationist terrorist circles.
Joshua Knarr is currently employed at Envestnet, a wealth management firm. You are encouraged to contact them via their twitter account, as well as reaching out to Envestnet CEO Bill Crager and President Stuart DePina. You can also reach out via email to the media relations team: media@envestnet.com.
from Instagram
Today the cops and the racists waged war. A very unrowdy, chill march had a deluge of teargas leveled at them by the hands of state and city police agents from both the ground and helicopter as they tried to disperse. If you don’t know your history, in 1985 the Philadelphia Police Department dropped a bomb via helicopter on a residential block of West Philadelphia then shot people trying to flee the ensuing fire, murdering 11 MOVE members and burning down 61 homes. Helicopters and weapons targeting us here, that’s a trauma that hits HARD.
To make things more terrifying today, bands of white people were encouraged by the PPD to arm themselves and patrol the streets, beating the hell out of a number of folks with baseball bats, and then congratulated by the police. We did our best to support who we could, and will continue, but the horror of today was beyond words… #georgefloyd #blacklivesmatter
from Instagram
Another day of Philadelphia Uprising. People are still standing off across Philadelphia. In west philly police tear gassed the surrounding neighborhood of 42nd and market so we made this guide about tear gas. Send this to all your west philly friends. Love and Rage. .
from Twitter
From Ida Vox
The anti-fascist group, along with independent political actors blocked, diverted and diminished the caravan away from the City Hall roundabout.
Philadelphia, PA– Anti-quarantine and pro-Trump activists sought a successful anti-quarantine car caravan protest around City Hall Friday. But the demonstration ended with a whimper as opposing protesters caused problems for them.
In addition, the Philadelphia chapter of the neo-fascist Proud Boys, who announced a three hour joint protest time for a rally outside City Hall’s Dilworth Plaza that was supposed to start at noon, ended up not showing up at all.
The car caravan moved en mass from the south at Broad and Oregon Streets, towards City Hall. At the intersection of Chestnut and Broad Street, they were stopped by activists who went into the street and blocked them for up to 15 minutes. The car caravan was able to proceed when police arrived and cleared the roadway.
The caravan made a few spins around City Hall but it was again disrupted once again on the west side of City Hall where Market Street intersects with 15th Street when a line of roughly a half-dozen cars that were a part of a counter-action organized by Refuse Fascism intercepted the caravan at the stop light and blocked the intersection. After paralyzing the caravan, they got out their cars to chant and “banner drop.” One side of the banner said “Trump-Pence Must Go” and the other side said “REOPEN = DEATH.”
After another 15 minutes or so the Refuse Fascism contingent left this major intersection, and left the anti-quarantine caravan seriously irritated. One caravan supporter reportedly threatened to slash the tires of the counter-demonstrators’ cars. No damage was observed however.
Soon after, police re-“routed” traffic away from City Hall, taking it off JFK Boulevard and moving it on to North Broad Street, and, Arch Street for a three block detour. This severed the caravan’s mass as it was fractured into small groups. Further aiding in this were counter-demonstrator elements within the caravan who instigated further interference. After approximately 80 minutes of a 180 minute-planned demonstration, large swaths of the car caravan were seen driving away from City Hall, heading in the direction of South Philadelphia.
The rally was organized by ReOpen Philadelphia, which was started by Victor Della Barba and his mother Jody, both longtime right wing activists in the city, Jody working as a secretary for Former Mayor Frank Rizzo, who was known for his racially polarizing efforts against the Black community. In addition to their Facebook page, there is another called ReOpen Philly, of which Proud Boy Zach Rehl is an administrator. The Philadelphia Proud Boys announced on their Telegram page that they were holding their rally at City Hall “to protest the unethical actions of tyrannical government arresting people for not closing their businesses!” At noon, there was no activity on Dilworth Plaza where they were supposed to hold their rally. At the time of this posting, the Proud Boys have not explained their absence.
Tensions flared on the ReOpen Philadelphia page over ReOpen Philly’s activities, prompting some there to disavow any association with the Proud Boy-related page. In 2018, Facebook banned the Proud Boys and any pages related to the group from its platform, but some like Sports, Beer and Politics, also maintained by Rehl, still remain, and they still create new ones such as ReOpen Philly.
This was one of the first times there was a counter to the ReOpen rallies that have been taking place across the country in the wake of the pandemic shutdown. “We stood up for science over willful ignorance, humanity first, not ‘America first;’ and chanted ‘Humanity, not Me-Me-Me.’” Refuse Fascism Philly posted to their Facebook page. “We are facing the immediate prospect of hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths from this regime’s handling of the pandemic alone, and they are using this to advance their fascist, genocidal agenda. It’s time to get organized to drive them from power.”
Pennsylvania has seen over 50,000 cases of Covid-19 and almost 3,500 deaths. Gov. Tom Wolf has said the shut down could extend into July.
UPDATE: 5/11/2020: This article was updated to note Jody Della Barba’s history with former Philadelphia mayor Frank Rizzo.
from Twitter
From It’s Going Down
[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire articles follow the above links.]
Twitter researcher Thirteen Roses documented the presence of Philadelphia Proud Boys and Three Percenters in several Pennsylvania Facebook groups associated with the [anti-quarantine] protests, including a Philadelphia Police Department Officer related to Zach Rehl, a leader in the Philadelphia Proud Boys.
The Facebook pages for the Pennsylvanians Against Excessive Quarantine, Minnesotans Against Excessive Quarantine, and Ohioans Against Excessive Quarantine also appear to be run by the Dorr brothers, who have a history of direct mail fundraising for conservative causes – gun rights, the pro-life movement, etc. – and then funneling the money back to direct mail services owned by the brothers. The brothers also appear to own a series of domain names for “ReOpen” protests in seven different states.
In the past week, the far-Right has taken to a new tactic – public demonstrations against public health guidelines. As detailed above, the protests have often taken the form of blocking hospitals, which the far-Right believes is either responsible for new restrictions on gatherings, or else engaged in a massive conspiracy to restrict Constitutional freedoms.
While the classic Points of Unity long held by antifascist groups such as Anti-Racist Action demand that we confront the far-Right wherever they organize, we can’t ethically demand that our comrades gather to confront these rallies in-person. Any mass antifascist gathering would mean infection.
In the United States, the death rate of known cases hovers around 4.3%, but those numbers may be higher or lower, depending on access to medical care. Statistically, any mass gathering in sufficient numbers would mean that someone would die. Fascism has always been a death cult, and the public gatherings make that evident. The organizers of these protests – some true believers, some grifters – are more than happy to throw their followers on the corpse-fire of their quest for power.
But we can still disrupt their organizing. The protests center around social media pages, usually on Facebook. This week, we can disrupt far-Right organizing by mass reporting the Facebook pages spreading COVID-19 misinformation and putting our communities at risk by organizing live events.
Below is a list of the most active COVID-19 protest groups on Facebook, listed in alphabetical order by name of state. Find your state and report the groups active there, then share this list with friends and ask them to do the same. Though Facebook has yet to offer an official tool to report COVID-19 misinformation, the company’s VP of Integrity issued a blog post on Thursday, claiming that the company is tracking the potentially dangerous posts.
from It’s Going Down
[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire articles follow the above link.]
Antifascist researchers exposed the real name of “GlockDoctor1488,” the host of the Alt-Right Armory podcast, who has disrupted a number of leftist and liberal events in Pennsylvania over the past year.
Joseph Berger, age 31, of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, attended a protest of Drag Queen Story Hour at the Exeter Community Library in Reading, Pennsylvania, in February 2019, where he shouted obscenities at the families who had brought their children for the event, accusing them of being pedophiles.
In April 2019, he attended a show by Horna, a neo-Nazi black metal band.
In August 2019, Berger attended a Philadelphia Public Library talk by former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, where he screamed “Fuck you, you anti-white piece of shit! You will not replace us!” before fleeing the building.
Berger also hosts Alt-Right Armory, a podcast on Spreaker, where he disseminates antisemitic conspiracy theories and teaches the far-Right about guns.
Berger worked as a security guard at a water park in northeast Pennsylvania, but is currently laid off.
This is a password protected entry.
from It’s Going Down
[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire articles follow the above links.]
Fred Arena, a member of Vanguard America and a co-planner of Unite the Right 2, was sentenced to six months for lying to the FBI about his membership in the group in order to obtain a security clearance.
In January 2019, Arena applied for a security clearance as part of his job as a security contractor at the Philadelphia Naval Yard. According to a Department of Justice press release, Arena was “required to disclose whether he had ever been a member of an organization that used (or advocated the use of) force or violence to prevent others from exercising their constitutional rights. He falsely answered that he had not.”
In June 2018, Arena was doxxed as a member of the neo-Nazi organization when antifascist infiltrators leaked the event’s planning chats to Unicorn Riot. In the chats, Arena repeatedly discussed his capacity for violence, his links to and in a public Facebook post, endorsed a statement from Andrew Anglin associate “Ludovici Alibi,” saying that “The only answer to Antifa is Atomwaffen,” (a neo-Nazi group linked to five murders in the US) adding “Absolutely agreed! And a few other crazy fucks like myself!! HAIL VICTORY!”
In private chats with an antifascist infiltrator posing as a neo-Nazi, Arena claimed that he and other Vanguard America members were planning on hiding weapons in the Charlottesville park, should the permits be granted, and said he was organizing a group of Vanguard American, Hammerskins, and Atomwaffen members to attend.
“At a minimum I would have a shield, a really good stun gun. A medium-sized padlock tight on the end of a handkerchief makes it a very good weapon,” Arena told an antifascist infiltrator whom he believed to be a fellow member of the Unite the Right 2 security team via Facebook, where he used the pseudonym “McCormick Foley.” After Arena’s bail hearing in October 2019, journalist Nick Martin posted prosecution exhibits to Twitter.
A motion for pretrial detention notes that Arena had a history of threatening witnesses, including one Charlottesville resident whom he believed to be a federal informant. “During their investigation, agents also learned that Arena made online and verbal threats against two women with whom he had failed relationships…. In both cases he threatened to sever intimate parts of the women’s bodies and store the parts in a jar,” prosecutors argued in a motion for pretrial detention.
Though Arena faced up to 20 years in prison, he was sentenced to only six months, with two years supervised release.
Though This Week in Fascism does not endorse imprisonment (or the criminal justice system as a whole), as a collaborator of this author noted, this is disappointing because the length of prison sentences is often a shorthand for the importance with which society views a given issue.
Though some will celebrate Arena’s sentence as a victory of the state, it is anything but. It was antifascists, not federal investigators, who exposed Arena’s affiliations.
Even though Arena was interviewed by the FBI in August 2018 after he was doxxed by antifascist activists as a member of Vanguard America, he was allowed to keep his job at the Philadelphia Naval Yard for fourteen more months, and for 10 months after applying for a security clearance.
This is the failure of the State, and the degree to which it does not treat seriously the threat of fascism and white nationalism. The need for antifascists is greater than ever. We keep us safe!
Submission
Claimed with love,
from It’s Going Down & Twitter
[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire articles follow the above links.]
Antifascists exposed the deeply racist and Philadelphia neo-Nazi, Jackson B. Bradley, as part of the New Jersey European Heritage Association. The group is known for a series of small, pathetic stunts around the Northeastern area. More info here.
DOB: 2/21/1998
(215) 687-7400
https://www.facebook.com/jackson.bradley.587 … https://www.facebook.com/EmperorAchillesAureliu … https://www.bitchute.com/channel/gaiusmariustitus117/ …
127 Elfreths Aly, Philadelphia, PA
