Stop the Bay Area National Anarchists!

occasionally peaking in at their blog, it is interesting to note that this winter, they (or Yeoman) had announced that he was burned out and the group was disbanding to move on to other things. I guess not. I wish he'd find a better hobby.

If you read his statement it ends with: "On the future of my tribe. On the future of my race. I took a deep breath and replied. I'm not quitting. Not now. Not ever."

I think they have changed tactics and have given up on maintaining a public website in favor of utilizing online social networks to organize. Here are some links to blog posts (by a blog that Andrew Yeoman is associated with) describing the events: http://is.gd/bRq9v http://is.gd/bRuGa (WARNING: this is a website maintained by third positionists)

video from which the screen caps were taken
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=7417829

warning: written by known anti-immigrant, anti-queer writer Lauren Smiley
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2010/05/post-immigration_march_scuffle.php

Hey - there's Andrej Grubacic.

"...make sure they are not allowed to spread their hate..."

Does this imply that violence ought to be used in preventing these people from spreading their ideas? i didn't witness the alleged assault the media is reporting, so it's pointless to debate the details of the case itself. What i'm interested in is the position people take within this community; specifically whether people believe it appropriate to use violence to suppress a particular political message.

Don't get me wrong--i have zero sympathy for BANA's message itself. i am, and always have been, fervently anti-racist, and anti-fascist. My problem is with self-described anarchists' and progressives' apparent comfort with the idea of actively suppressing opposing viewpoints--particularly when this suppression is with violence.

Informed debate in an open marketplace of ideas is essential in any society, any community that describes itself as freedom-loving. Not only is the freedom of ideas an inalienable human right, but the presence of dissent, of counter-argument, is necessary to the strengthening of one's own ideas. It keeps us honest, giving us the impetus to constantly examine and re-examine our beliefs. A community in which there exists no dissent marches in ideological lockstep, forcing its members to conform their ideas to those of the community as a whole, to believe things without knowing why. Isn't this precisely why we call ourselves anarchists, why we call ourselves progressives in the first place--because we reject the notion of blind adherence to the status-quo? Isn't ideological conformity at the root of fascism itself?

There is a threshold crossed when one decides to actively suppress the expression of others. At best, it makes us look like weak-minded thugs, and at worst, it's a slippery slope. The Left is not immune to ideologically-driven atrocities. We all know about Stalin, about Pol Pot, don't we? i realise that's a long way from beating up a nazi, but where does it end?

Besides, in my experience, fools usually expose themselves as fools. There was a demonstration in LA a few weeks ago by a white-supremacist group who demanded that "all non-whites be removed from the American southwest." Although people did attack them physically, it's a bit bewildering why they even bothered to expend the effort--they [the white supremacists] already made the point themselves that they aren't worth listening to.

Oh yes, of course, we should debate with fascists and now that I think about it if we had only debated (preferably on the internet) with Hitler, Pol Pot, Mussolini and other such rot they would of never gotten to power. So that is the solution to these fascists bastards...debate, debate, debate and then after they build enough strength debate some more and then after they have killed and persecuted enough innocent people then maybe we might possibly kinda have some sort of somewhat small moral justification to fight them, maybe. If we had only debated enough over the last 150 years the revolution would be over by now. HA!!!!! Like Che when he out debated Batista's blog

Hello!!! Anyone home? These are Nazi fascist scum it doesnt matter if they have changed the term "race" to "tribe" or the words "national socialism" to "national anarchism"....they are not anarchists, they are not logical, they are just bigots with a new facade.

Where do you get off accusing Lauren Smiley of being anti-immigrant or anti-queer?

Violating civil rights, assault, belligerence, bigotry, racism, hatred, .. these are all hallmarks of nazi's and why the world will not tolerate them, no?

If so, why are these crimes being perpetuated by everyone but the alleged nazis?

To call someone a nazi, is to behave like one.

You are guilty of what you accuse, that is you anti-folk.

You should stop calling it anti-racism and say it like it is, you are anti-humanity.

These 2 white supremacists were NOT a part of the Minutemen protest supporting federal and Arizona state immigration law. We asked them to leave and they refused. We asked them to turn their t shirts inside out and they did. We asked them not to speak if they were to say anthing racist so they finally shut up. Of course when they left for BART, they did not leave with the minutemen because they are not a part of us.

The TEA Party was also not a part of this minutemen rally although some are lying and saying they are. The TEA Party is boycotting SF so why would they come to SF?

well for one thing she's continually written pretty sensational pieces about the trans community ... so much so that it is been circulated among gender variant folks to NEVER speak with her if approached at public events.

a particularly egregious one focused on transgender immigrants / asylum seekers in the tenderloin ("border crossers"). here's some of the blowback on that:

http://www.sfbayguardian.com/2008/12/03/sensational-trans-bashing-sf-weekly
http://www.gayshamesf.org/images/ridicula0209.pdf
http://immigrationequality.org/blog/?p=598
http://queertoday.ning.com/profiles/blogs/open-letter-to-lauren-smiley

In that case, i'm glad we're not having this conversation in person, as i'm not sure whether you'd drill me in the face if you don't like what i have to say.

My point is: respond to rhetoric with more intelligent rhetoric. Violence has its place--but that place is in defence of violence directed at you. BANA, to my knowledge, hasn't resorted to violence. Assaulting someone just for what they say only loses you the high ground in the situation.

To compare BANA with Hitler or Pol Pot is giving two people far, far too much undeserved credit. Also, according to their own statements, BANA doesn't advocate genocide or even the racial superiority of one group or another. i don't agree with their theories of tribalism and 'racial autonomy' (i.e. 'sticking with your own kind'), but to violently assault them without violent provocation (especially as they were leaving) is thuggish and immature.

WOAH, what a surprise, turns out he's a Nationalist too.
Your rhetoric is fooling not a single person.

Here is his facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/AlphaVinlander?ref=search&sid=100000383284853.3251639865..1

There is some confusion, and maybe some ignorance, but Tea Party members are not anarchists (or even closely related). Anarchists are for chaos- zero government- and absolutely anti-capitalism (this alone would be the major divider of anarchists and the Tea Party).

The media seems to have a really hard time getting it, but it's really simple. The Tea Party is about small government and more freedom- and a free market system.

Bad things can happen when governments get BIG (Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Mussolini, etc). Hitler, for example would have never been able to do the things he did had the National Socialists (big government) been in control. The same goes for Stalinist Russia, and Mao in China.

Communism and the National Socialists have one major thing in common- BIG CONTROLLING GOVERNMENTS.
It doesn't matter if someone takes control of a big government from the far left (Stalin) or the far right (Hitler)- the end result is death, control, and the absence of individual freedom. Very simple, but so many miss it...

To an extent, i stand corrected. i remember reading "Border Crossers," and while i found the subject itself interesting, i was surprised and rather irritated by Smiley's apparent ignorance of the trans community. i'd forgotten that it was Smiley's article.

However, ignorance differs from agenda. It doesn't seem to me that Smiley is anti-trans, anti-queer, or anti-immigrant; rather she misunderstands the people she's writing about. Obviously, this is profoundly unfortunate, but not irredeemable. Rather than admonishing people not to talk to Smiley, it would be better advice to inform people of her research shortcomings, and that in conversations with her, to inform her of aspects of the trans community where her understanding is lacking. Simply shutting out people like Smiley, whose writing reaches a sizable audience, seems counter-productive to the greater good.

Who benefits when the working class is deceived into believing such overt racists as Andrew Yeoman somehow represent anarchism? Not anarchists, that's for sure. These crypto-Nazis are confusing and alienating the very people anarchism most needs to appeal to, in order to achieve it's goals. Already it is difficult enough for the average member of the working class to believe that the only "real" anarchists are pierced, tattooed, vegans on bicycles. After all, that's what a lot of the Bay Area's self-proclaimed anarchists are actually telling (and showing them). For workers to then accept in addition, that "real" anarchists are also racists, doesn't require all that great a leap of imagination. When people preach racism and also call themselves "anarchists," a lot of workers have no reason not to believe them. It doesn't make all that much less sense to the ill informed public than does a lot of the incoherent and self contradictory proclamations they hear from other people who call themselves anarchists. So why shouldn't they believe it?

It is imperative that the anarchist movement clear up this confusion by any means necessary. By propaganda of the deed, as well as of the word, we must draw a distinct line between ourselves and these racist scum, in the minds of the working class. Otherwise, the bulk of the working class, having grown beyond racism themselves, will condemn and reject anything and anybody they believe to be anarchists. As long as BANA preaches racism in the name of anarchism, it is difficult at best for ordinary, anti-racists not to take our inaction as racist approval.

We need to demonstrate conclusively that just because somebody calls themselves an anarchist, doesn't mean they are anarchists. To actually *be* an anarchist, one must *behave* like an anarchist. That means opposing racism by any means necessary. The best, quickest, and most sure way to do this would be to stomp these assholes in public. Show our fellow workers which side we're really on. The second best choice of action would be to corner Yoeman and his crew somewhere private, where we wont be interrupted, and make them an offer they can't refuse, either they stop calling themselves "anarchists," or they wind up like Grigoriev did when he foolishly assumed that by simply claiming that he was now an anarchist, too, that he could preach anti-Semitism from the stage at a mass meeting and not suffer any consequences. The Makhnovists learned how to deal with racists claiming to be anarchists. So we don't need to reinvent the wheel here. We need only to learn from our history.

>BANA, to my knowledge, hasn't resorted to violence"


Neither had Hitler, when his crew was this small. Later, when it was big enough to go on the offensive, it was too late. There was a time when the entire Nazi party, all seven of them, could have been taken out in a single street fight. Instead, the very people who could have stopped them in their tracks, didn't act until it was too late. Fifty million people died. What's better, that seven die or fifty million?

So let me get this straight, according to some people here, anarchists have the right to detain and assault people for exercising free speech?

now, apparently, this suspension of liberty to some comes because, like, in the future, this small unpopular handfull of people might hasten some kind of genocide. I think that rational people only advocate the suspension of civil liberties when their is an actual threat, not some pre-emtive decades from now assertion on your part.

you would make a neocon blush with your eagerness to deny people rights for the promise of security. I mean, even Saddam Hussein was many, many times over more potentially dangerous than these people, and my guess is that you didn'y buy W's argument for pre-emption.

I mean, its really such an emergency that basic human rights have to be suspended?

No excuses, no compromises. Nazi's will never have the right to freely promote holocaust ideology. I am a self described anarchist, and i believe White supremacist agenda's are not "free speech." It's problematic because people should think or believe whatever the fuck they want. Practicing ideologies such as the sort that BANA represents is dangerous. It's intentions are to promote a new order of structure based on fundamentalist beliefs that the white "race" is superior.

RACISM is not free speech!

The Owning class, the electing class, our Owners, Rulers, have too effectively stolen our language, forcing even greater difficulty onto our struggles. Anarchy is the result of achieving justice. It is not crazed chaotic unorganized madness. As socialism and communism have been made into worse words than general , war, battleship, President, anarchy too has been redefined by our Rulers.
It's picked up by these people who want to participate - bad and wrong and totally disinformed as they are.
OUR skinheads and anarchists are solidly grounded in theory, which is really socialist communist however much they don't like to call it that - you don't get to anarchy, us all running society for our benefit without employing socialist communist structures to build the forms necessary to serve us all - ...our skinheads and-or anarchists are solidly grounded in real liberation theory, working to build that liberation.
Like school is a place to beat us into submission, with a few perqs to make it tolerated, our language is perverted by the people in charge to keep us off track and disunited.
Our battles are many and diverse.

I am a nationalist? ..by so you mean I am a family man, a man of my two sons? My parents? ..Your are very correct.

My people in fact, have no nation in the classic term of land-stewardship, we are a dispossessed landless ethnicity.

Displaced by totalitarian imperialists such as your heartless-type, you, your kind with a million good-guy merit badges that you keep pinning upon yourself every time your charity smashes the balance of ethnic people and nature.

However, place not your antiquated politics upon my brow. There is no room for your obsolete nature amidst my efforts and accomplishments.

I am community. You are only good intentions.

Nature does not require your kind nor your hatred, be off with you, leave reality to those who live.

fascists have copied anarchist symbology before - it happened in spain where anarchism was hegemonic among spanish workers. fascists always steal from the left to appeal to the masses.

the falange was a joke and so are the bay area teabag falangists

fascist scum

expose them for what they are