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Concerned Citizens Publish Year-Long Investigation Into Local “Freedom Movement”

A group of concerned citizens and independent researchers joined forces to report on the rise of hate on Vancouver Island and coastal British Columbia. After a year-long investigation from 2022 to 2023, the group has determined that the self-declared Vancouver Island “Freedom Movement” meets the criteria for a hate movement, as outlined by researchers and experts such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League.

Fearing for their safety, the group has chosen to publish anonymously. This report should serve as a warning sign to all elected leaders, community members, and people in positions of power: there is a movement brewing with insidious motives. This report merely touches on a small fraction of the hateful activities and organizing on Vancouver Island.

Hate must never be accepted in our communities. We must be willing to name it and counter it, otherwise we are doomed to repeat history.

Original Reddit Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/VancouverIsland/comments/144f34w/concerned_citizens_in_bc_publish_yearlong/


NOTES:

This was originally posted to Reddit, where the OPs Reddit account was suspended and the post was caught in spam blockers. It’s currently still removed, but you can view the hundreds of comments. The post was nearing 200,000 views before it was removed.

It has since been posted on Twitter by the alt-right. You can view that Tweet here: https://twitter.com/TomMarazzo/status/1668035073952690176

We need more people on the Left to post this and spread the word. People must know what is happening in the so-called “freedom movement” on Vancouver Island.

UPDATE:

After publishing the report, the Vancouver Island Freedom Movement has doubled down on their homophobia, anti-semitism, and racism. Posting explicitly racist material using the n-word, calling for Jewish people to be exterminated, and saying children of Gay parents are abused. 

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Zine Release: Creeker Volume 4

Creeker Vol 4 has been released!


In the summer of 2021 on Vancouver Island, thousands of people moved through a de-facto autonomous zone spanning multiple watersheds. An entire constellation of struggle burned bright, welcoming into its fold a new generation of land defenders. Creeker is a grassroots, anti-authoritarian zine series that aims to bring depth, variety, critique and continuity to the ongoing process of reflecting on the Ada’itsx/Fairy Creek blockades. It’s intended for creekers themselves, land defenders elsewhere, and the land defenders yet to come. 


The latest volume is the biggest yet, containing a timeline, maps, multiple firsthand accounts, reflective pieces, and critique. Printed versions are available at Camas Books in Victoria and Spartacus Books in Vancouver.

creekerzine.wordpress.com

creeker at protonmail dot com

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On Crow, Fascist Drifts, and People Who Are Not Comrades

The below text is reproduced from an Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info. It was originally published on May 12th, 2023 and is available at https://mtlcounterinfo.org/on-crow-fascist-drifts-and-people-who-are-not-comrades/

This article contains research taken from public sources, mostly from articles posted publicly by Crow himself. Our intention is not to dox Crow, but rather to provided a compilation, summary, and analysis of already easily available information. We are also not encouraging anyone to harass Crow, threaten him with violence, etc. We simply want to give other anarchists the information they need to keep him out of our organizing.

We should also flag here that this text quotes Crow (somewhat graphically) discussing sexual assault allegations. If that’s something you’d prefer not to read, we suggest skipping the section entitled “Crow on Women/Feminism.”

Crow/Anton Bueckert

In early April, CBC published a hit piece and an accompanying video about anarchists and their alleged participation in an attack on a CGL worksite in February 2022. In it, they quoted one Anton Bueckert (who many of us know as Crow—he uses both names on his blog), who had responded to a CBC journalist who had contacted him via email in February of this year. A lot of people have probably already heard some bad things about Crow—that he has treated people poorly, or not been good about security, and more recently, that he has made anti-vax conspiracy politics a central project.

Since the beginning of his Nevermore project, he has embraced anti-feminism, as as well as the conspiracy-laden, reactionary populism of the convoy movement. And, since January 2023, Crow has been more openly promoting antisemitic and anti-trans conspiracy theories on his personal blog. At the same time, the Nevermore project now lists as “contributors” a number of more prominent conspiracists with longstanding ties to red-brown/third-positionist platforms. We think these developments make it quite clear that Crow has made a definite break with any kind of meaningful anarchism, and with the liberatory principles that most of us understand as central to anarchy.

We are sharing this information because we see no space in our movements and communities for alliances with the far-right, or for the promotion of fascist/third-positionist ideas. We are using the term third-positionism somewhat broadly here to describe a phenomenon what in other contexts is also called querfrontism or red-brown alliances. That is, political ideologies that combine both ideas traditionally associated with far-left movements (e.g. anti-capitalism, anarchism, etc.) with ideas central to fascist or neo-fascist movements (e.g. antisemitism, reactionary populism, etc.)1 We think it is important that anarchists across North America understand the political trajectory that Crow seems to have taken, so that we are all able to make informed decisions about how to relate to him should he try to re-involve himself in anarchist stuff on this continent.

Some Background:

  • Crow used to be involved in anarchist scenes in Quebec and Ontario and has spent some time in BC. He has also been involved in anti-colonial and anarchist movements in the US.
  • When the COVID pandemic began, Crow started publishing Nevermore, a COVID conspiracy/anti-vax zine, and maintaining social media pages and a website associated with the publication.
  • A few years ago, some of us started paying attention to the increasing links between Crow’s Nevermore project, and European conspiracist publications/projects such as Winter Oak and The Stirrer. While in its early days Nevermore might have been slipping past some anarchists in Canada because the conspiracy theory and anti-vax content was somewhat less prominent, Winter Oak was already quite straightforwardly conspiracist, with its obsession with the Great Reset etc. Both began to merge their politics and to promote each other, along with public health misinformation such as lies about vaccines, and claims that ivermectin could cure COVID, etc.
  • Even when the main conspiracy theories promoted on Nevermore mostly revolved around COVID and “The Great Reset,” the project and its core contributors were still clearly flirting with some far-right ideas and figures. The project has long cited and promoted the work of people like James Corbett2 Jennifer Bilek,3 and Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò.4 It also hosts materials that make pretty explicit comparisons between the Holocaust and mRNA vaccines.5
  • Crow left Canada for Mexico in May 2021 but, on his trips back he has occasionally shown up in organizing contexts. On his blog, he mentions plans to return to Canada in May 2023. It is also possible that he could try to get more involved in anarchist scenes in the US again.
  • Following the publication of the CBC article last month, we found Crow’s personal blog and learned more about how his politics have developed. Crow himself connects his experience of “breaking taboos” by speaking out about “the COVID conspiracy” to his and other anarchists’ newfound willingness to confront other “taboos” including “trans ideology”, feminism, Marxism, and “Jewish banking”.

(For more on Crow’s intellectual hero, Paul Cudenec, and other contributors at Nevermore, please refer to the second addendum at the end of this article.)

Crow on Women/Feminism

Crow has developed very explicit men’s rights/anti-feminist politics. He has written multiple blog posts decrying feminism, saying that there’s no gender inequality in Canada in 2023. He happily predicts that soon the only feminists left will be “man-hating dykes who don’t want to compete with men for the sexual attention of bisexual women,” along with several other offensive stereotypes.

He’s got a whole lot of anger towards feminists and he isn’t at all afraid to show it. In his words: “You had a good thing going for yourselves, with your men so fucking wrapped around your finger that the pussywhipped faggots are apologizing for raising their voices while they’re clearing their shit out of the house that they worked decades paying for.”

Some of these opinions seem to be related to his story about leaving Montreal because of a rape accusation. We don’t know anything about the situation he’s referencing, but this is how he defends himself against that accusation: “The definition of rape is a penetrative assault, and I had never penetrated the crazy bitch who was lying about me for attention.”6

Crow on Trans Kids

Crow also hates trans kids. He believes and is publicly promoting the notion that Drag Queen Story Hours are queer people “forcing your ideology down the throats of children,” and that gender affirming health care is “mutilating the genitals of children and making them life-long dependents on pharmaceutical drugs that will undoubtedly cause all kinds of fucked-up side effects.” He claims to have no problem with trans adults—make of that what you will—but he seems to have fully signed on to the trans-people-are-groomers line.7

This is an unfortunate, if somewhat predictable, development. Nevermore has featured articles from The Stirrer (a UK TERF blog) since 2021, and Nevermore itself has referred its readers to Jennifer Bilek’s9 work on more than one occasion. In 2022, an article published on Nevermore claimed that“in an increasingly pornified culture, [Drag Queen Story Hour events] are leading to the sexualisation of children, removing innocence from their lives.”10 More recently, another article on the site claimed that drag “is a parody that plays on every regressive gender stereotype that’s put on women” and “reinforces gender stereotypes,” and then compared drag to blackface.11

Crow’s Antisemitism

Crow dedicates at least one whole post on his blog to promoting the conspiracy of Judeo-Bolshevism, the antisemitic theory that The Jews were behind the Russian Revolution and that communism is a Jewish conspiracy. In Crow’s words: “Marxism was a Rothschild-sponsored plot.12 This roundly disproven theory was not only central to Nazi propaganda in the lead-up to and during the Holocaust, but also spread throughout many parts of the West, both before and after WWII.

Crow’s antisemitic conspiracist thinking is not limited to buying into the theory of Judeo-Bolshevism. Unsurprisingly, he also thinks that woke ideology is silencing the “truth” that Jews control the economy. He writes: “Now, let me ask you this: If it could be proven beyond all reasonable doubt that some of the most powerful people in the world are Jewish bankers, would you really be that surprised? Or would it merely confirm something you’ve long suspected?”

He also compares Jewish religious beliefs with Nazi ideology: “Nazism was wholly incompatible with the original spirit of the Volkisch movement, because Nazism denies that Jews are part of the manifestation of the universal life force that the original Volkisch movement revered. But is not the Jewish belief that the Jews are God’s chosen people equally misguided?”13

Finally, given that Nevermore has already been engaging in some implicit Holocaust revisionism by suggesting that mRNA vaccines are essentially equivalent to the Holocaust, it probably shouldn’t surprise us that Crow himself seems to hold some questionable ideas about Jews and genocide. In his words:“given the fact that communists keep betraying and murdering us, why are [we] hiding the fact that Marx was, in all likelihood, an agent of the Rothschilds? This is a pretty big fucking deal, isnt it? Keep in mind that Im [sic] Mennonite. My ancestors fled Russia after the Bolshevik coup, and my [sic]. I am a survivor of genocide, and the people responsible for that genocide were Jewish bankers. And their descendents rule the world today, and were [sic] not supposed to talk about them because their co-religionists were also the victims of genocide.14

To summarize, Crow seems to think that: 1. Jewish bankers tried to exterminate his Mennonite ancestors. 2. These same Jewish bankers are still in power today. 3. The (supposedly Rothschild-funded) Soviets carried out a genocide equivalent to (if not greater than) the deliberate Nazi extermination of six million European Jews.15 4. Because of the Holocaust, people like Crow are silenced from talking about the power of the Jewish bankers who ostensibly rule the world.

In our opinion, this sounds an awful lot like the theory of “double genocide,” an idea that gained popularity in certain post-soviet European states (e.g. Lithuania) where there is often a vested interest in ignoring or obfuscating local collaboration in the extermination of Jews.16

Throughout this entire diatribe, Crow emphasizes over and over again that he does not hate Jewish people, and that he is definitely not an antisemite. Unfortunately though, it seems that the only things covered by his definition of antisemitism are statements such as “the Jewish nation is parasitic.” Given that our own understanding of antisemitism includes more than just overt hate speech, we’ll take his claims of not promoting antisemitism with a big grain of salt.17

Crow’s Exchanges with the CBC

Crow’s correspondence with the CBC journalist should also give anarchists pause about whether he should ever be privy to sensitive information. While the quote that the journalist used in the CBC article was surprisingly reasonable, the full content of what Crow sent to them over months of emailing back and forth is all over the map. He doesn’t seem to have shared any potentially damaging information like guesses on individuals who might have been involved, but he does vacillate between reasonable explanations of anarchist participation in anti-colonial struggle, tirades against woke ideology, personal threats against the journalists, and promotion of conspiracy theories.18 One particularly troubling aspect of this correspondence is that Crow seems to think that he holds all the cards in the exchange, is fully in charge, and is actually the one gaming the journalist. This kind of hubris can cause even “well-intentioned” anarchists to become unwitting collaborators with repression.

He has published his full exchanges with the journalist in a series of posts, which we encourage you to read for yourself: nevermoremedia.substack.com/p/the-cbc-wants-to-know-if-im-a-terrorist [archive] nevermoremedia.substack.com/p/the-cbc-is-accusing-anarchists-of [archive] nevermoremedia.substack.com/p/dear-cbc-yep-im-a-terrorist-boo [archive] nevermoremedia.substack.com/p/gord-downie-is-dead [archive]

Crow on Climate Change

As a final kicker, we’ll mention that Crow seems to be starting to believe that climate change is a hoax.19

Why Are We Writing This?

We’re sharing this information not because we want to spread mean-spirited gossip about someone for fun, and definitely not because we want to feed into Crow’s narrative that white men are being persecuted and pushed out of their communities by “wokeists.”

However, it is entirely conceivable that Crow will return to Canada (or go to the US) and try to get involved in anarchist organizing in some way again, and we want people to know what he’s been doing, saying, and thinking so they can assess whether or not they want him involved.

From our perspective, Crow has already drawn a clear line between himself and anarchists; he sees the vast majority of us and our communities as a “demented cult.20 We’ve watched his slow but accelerating slide into solidly third-positionist politics and we don’t think that he should be related to as a comrade.

Thankfully, as he’s been on the outs for a few years now, he doesn’t seem to have been able to do much damage to our movements yet. But anarchists should be aware of the risks of having him know anything about what we’re doing, and we all need to make sure his fucked up ideas can’t spread any further into our circles. Hopefully, seeing how this slide into third-positionism has happened for Crow will also better equip us to intervene earlier in the process for others.

First Addendum: Some thoughts on how schizophrenia relates to this story…

Something we learned in writing this piece is that Crow is, in his words: “a diagnosed schizophrenic.”21 While our intention is neither to pathologize Crow, nor to make excuses for his behaviour, we think it’s important to address this fact up front for a number of reasons.

Schizophrenia is an often misunderstood and heavily stigmatized condition. Unlike experiences such as depression, which are widely discussed and acknowledged in the anarchist scenes we’ve participated in, Schizophrenia is something that most anarchists have probably not experienced themselves or necessarily had many intimate, first-hand interactions with. That said, for some of the authors of this text, this topic happens to be a highly personal one; some of us have witnessed up close the impacts of schizophrenia on the lives (and deaths) of our loved ones. This is partly why we want to try to give this context the attention and nuance it deserves.

A tricky thing about schizophrenia is that its presentation shares many surface features with conspiracist beliefs. People with schizophrenia often experience paranoia, delusions of persecution, and see patterns that aren’t really there. In a world rife with conspiracy theories, it’s not surprising that for some people, these delusions are also informed by readily available cultural narratives. From the outside, all these things can be hard to tell apart.

There’s also a fair bit of literature that makes some clear distinctions between paranoid delusions and belief in popular conspiracy theories. Without getting into it too much here: experiencing clinical paranoia might make one more inclined to conspiracist beliefs and people who hold conspiracists beliefs might be statistically more likely to be experiencing clinical paranoia, but most conspiracists are not schizophrenic, and most schizophrenics are not conspiracy theorists. Many schizophrenics experience paranoid delusions but don’t also start hating feminists, Jews, and trans people, or courting the far-right.

We don’t have any special insight into how Crow experiences the world. We have a lot of empathy for people who live with schizophrenia, but we also don’t think that it makes sense to simply assume that this diagnosis is the root cause of Crow’s political trajectory. What feels most relevant to us (and why we still think its important to publish this text) is the very real impact these beliefs have on the world. People who are hurting, people whose paranoid beliefs might have some pretty understandable origins, can still end up doing quite real harm to the people around them.

In Crow’s case, we know him to be actively propagating some incredibly harmful ideas about women, about trans people, about Jews, and about his former anarchist comrades. He has been connecting with others who share similarly harmful beliefs and has built a growing media platform dedicated to promoting these ideas as widely as possible. At a certain point, the origin of these beliefs matters less than how they manifest themselves in the world.

Second Addendum: Paul Who?

Crow’s relationship with Paul Cudenec seems to have been essential to his increasingly reactionary drift. Crow describes Cudenec as “the mystic and philosopher increasingly recognized (albeit not by himself) as the world’s greatest living anarchist thinker.”

According to Crow:

“The truth is that were it not for Paul Cudenec, Nevermore would not exist, and I do not know what I would be doing with my life.

When I encountered his writing, everything changed for me. I knew what I had encountered. This was the antidote to the poison of post-modern nihilist bullshit which had infected the Left.”22

Because Crow clearly understands Cudenec’s influence as such a critical one, we have decided to give Cudenec and his ideas some extra attention for those who are curious…

Cudenec is a British anarchist who claims to have been active in anarchist movements in the UK since the late 90s. Apparently he has been living in France for the past several years. Along with a personal blog, he also maintains Winter Oak (which seems to be primarily a platform for publishing his own writing) and another website called “Organic Radicals.”

Paul Cudenec is deeply inspired by the work of René Guénon, an esoteric anti-modernist French philosopher, who founded the school of thought known as “Traditionalism” (which Guénon also called “perennialism”). Guénon “believed that certain ancient religions, including the Hindu Vedanta, Sufism, and medieval Catholicism, were repositories of common spiritual truths, revealed to mankind in the earliest age of the world, that were being wiped out by the rise of secular modernity in the West.”23

While Guénon himself was not necessarily a fascist, his philosophy went on to directly influence several notable fascist thinkers, and continues to inspire various currents of the European New Right. Most significant, perhaps, was Julius Evola, a proponent of esoteric, anti-modern fascism, who considered Guénon to be his “master.” Other acolytes included esoteric Nazi, Savitri Devi, and Aleksandr Dugin, the founder of “Eurasianism.”

Follwing Guénon, Cudenec has called his own philosophy “anarcho-perennialism.”24 It should be said here that Cudenec is, by his own declaration, certainly no fan of Evola. Rather, he seeks to rehabilitate ideas popular on the far-right (Guénonian Traditionalism, the German völkisch movement) by dismissing any suggestion that there might be some continuity between these philosophies and the more overtly fascistic schools of thought that they inspired.

Of course, we could probably argue forever about about whether examining such connections is at all helpful, or whether it is simply an exercise in guilt-by-association. Suffice to say that it would certainly be easier to take Cudenec’s disavowals of proximity to the far-right at face value if he were not also actively propagating far-right conspiracy theories about Jewish bankers and trans people. These disavowals are further undermined whenever Cudenec praises people like Mircea Eliade,25 Oswald Spengler,26 and Ernst Jünger.27

Cudenec is also a big fan of contemporary thinkers like Renaud Garcia, Jaques Luzi, and Alexis Escudero, who represent a faction of the “anti-industrial” French left that has become known for promoting the idea that trans people, reproductive healthcare, and the “gay lobby” are all tentacles of a global transhumanist plot.28 And let’s not forget Sylvia Guerini, an Italian TERF and conspiracist involved in the Resistenze al Nanomondo network, which has been criticized for its eager collaboration with fascists.29 Cudenec has been rubbing shoulder with these characters in real life too.30 In 2022, he travelled to Italy to attend the Three Days Against Techno-Sciences gathering, where he gave a talk called: “A developing evil: the malignant historical force behind the Great Reset.”31

While Winter Oak was embroiled in some minor conflict in 2018 for defending Assadists and promoting Syria conspiracies,32 conspiracism was not the majority content on the site until sometime in 2020, when Cudenec seems to have gone all-in on full-throttle conspiracy mongering. His writing now focuses almost entirely on The Great Reset, on The Rothschilds (who he believes are uniquely evil),33 on defending obscure historical antisemites like Hilaire Belloc,34 and on exposing how most other anarchists are actually funded by the ruling class, and have been sent to smear people like him who are resisting “the bio-technology industry’s transgender cult.”35

But wait, there’s (Never)more!

As mentioned, Winter Oak has been tightly integrated with Nevermore since pretty early on. Not only is Paul Cudenec Crow’s intellectual hero, and someone he considers a “true spiritual master,” but he was also one of the earliest contributors to Nevermore. But, while Cudenec seems to have kickstarted Crow’s interest in antisemitic Rothschild conspiracy theories, it’s clear that he’s looking at other sources as well. In a comment on one of his blog posts, he mentions one of these sources in particular: a book called None Dare Call it Conspiracy, which Crow says “blew his mind.” This is a 1971 pamphlet written by Gary Allen (an anti-communist John Birch Society affiliate), which argues that The Rothschilds are responsible for WWI, communism, Hitler, the Federal Reserve, and the Black Power movement.

Meanwhile, back at Nevermore, the project appears to have gained a number of additional contributors. We think it’s worth mentioning a few of them here, since they include James Corbett36 and an assortment of other conspiracists ranging in prominence:

Whitney Webb, for example, is a “journalist” for Mint Press who has just published a book arguing that Jeffrey Epstein was actually a Mossad honeypot sent to blackmail the American political class on behalf of the Jewish mafia.37 Others, like fringe Houston mayoral candidate Derrick Broze, might call themselves anarchists, but clearly mean something very different than we do by this word—something more along the lines of “I really hate the Federal Reserve and really like cryptocurrencies and meditation.”38

Another “anarchist” contributor is Nowick Gray, whose personal quarantine reading list39 features people like: David Icke, Tucker Carlson, Glenn Beck, Kevin Barret,40 plus plenty of content from the “Philosopher’s Stone” blog,41 and some crazy video about how UNDRIP/WEF is coming for your land because of #landback.

Gray and fellow Nevermore contributors Cory Morningstar, Whitney Webb and James Corbett also all write for the prominent red-brown platform, The Centre for Research on Globalization.42

And?

Our point in discussing Crow’s influences and collaborators is to demonstrate that Crow hasn’t simply adopted some wingnut ideas in isolation. Rather, he’s embedded in a transnational echo chamber of conspiracists who have been embracing increasingly reactionary, transphobic, and antisemitic ideas. The other point is that the “anarcho-perennialism” that Crow now champions is just a rebranding of Traditionalism, and is fully compatible with many of the underpinnings of European New Right philosophies. That Crow continues to peddle these ideas as “anarchist” and tries to involve himself in anarchist movements also suggests that his projects have the possibility to become dangerous points of fascist entryism into our scenes.

This isn’t about smearing all green anarchists, anti-industrialists, or people who are into alternative spirituality as proto-fascists. We know many comrades who are inspired by these tendencies but who remain steadfast in their ethical, anarchist, and anti-fascist commitments. Nor is it about some bullshit horseshoe theory of politics. Rather, we think it’s important to pay attention to the variety of trajectories that can lead anarchists to decide to make common cause with the far-right, whether that’s uncritical populism, transphobia masquerading as a critique of techno-industrialism, or the anti-imperialism of fools. That so many of these tendencies seem to converge in the conspiracist quagmire of far-right internet forums should tell us something about conspiracism’s cross-tendency appeal, and should highlight the need to develop better firewalls against red-brown alliances and more robust analyses of power.

Footnotes

1If you are interested in a deeper dive into the history of these ideas, this remains one of the best overviews of red-brown alliances that we are aware of: ravingsofaradicalvagabond.noblogs.org/post/2018/01/15/an-investigation-into-red-brown-alliances [archive]

2A long-time conspiracy theorist and early adopter of Soros conspiracies who believes that “Hitler was a Rothschild” and seems to see shadowy Jewish hands behind everything from WWI to 9/11.

3A particularly vitriolic TERF whose main contribution to the discourse seems to be promoting the idea that George Soros and a variety of other wealthy Jewish financiers are secretly behind “the trans agenda.”

For more on Bilek:

freedomnews.org.uk/2021/03/20/alert-transphobic-feminism-and-far-right-activism-rapidly-converging [archive]

xtramagazine.com/power/far-right-feminist-fascist-220810 [archive]

4A far-right, conspiracist, Catholic bishop who rages against the “globalists religion” of the “Davos Sanhedrin” and believes (among other things) that Bill Gates and George Soros are the true architects of “the ethnic substitution plan in Europe,” and that the current Pope is beholden to the “homosexual agenda of the New World Order.”

5 nevermore.media/2022/01/10/letter-to-a-holocaust-denier [archive]

6 nevermoremedia.substack.com/p/bitches-aint-shit-but-hoes-and-tricks [archive]

7 nevermoremedia.substack.com/p/dear-cbc-yep-im-a-terrorist-boo [archive]

8 Removed – see correction.

9 See footnote #3 for more information on Bilek.

10nevermore.media/2022/10/12/where-the-fk-do-we-go-from-here [archive]

11nevermore.media/2023/04/13/why-do-i-do-this-to-myself [archive]

12nevermoremedia.substack.com/p/toppling-the-taboos-of-technik/comment/12109277 [archive]

13nevermoremedia.substack.com/p/toppling-the-taboos-of-technik [archive]

14nevermoremedia.substack.com/p/toppling-the-taboos-of-technik/comment/ 12109277 [archive]

15Crow says: “At least as many Russians died as a direct result of de-Kulakization as Jews died in the Holocaust. Im going to go out on a limb and say that it was probably a lot more. In any case, Stalin killed more people than Hitler, and we havent even talked about the greatest mass murderer of all time, Mao, which was of course also a Marxist.”

16en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_genocide_theory

We should also note that we are definitely not trying to minimize the horrors wrought upon the world by Stalinism. This said, we do think that it’s important to put Crow’s rhetoric around genocide in context. The Mennonites certainly suffered from religious persecution in the USSR. However, unlike in the case of the Holodomor, or the deportations of the Chechens and Ingush, we are unaware of any scholarly literature that discusses this persecution as a genocide, least of all as one carried out by “Jewish bankers.”

In trying to inform ourselves about this topic, what we found instead was a far messier history of Mennonite participation in the Holocaust. As historian Ben Goossen puts it:

Mennonite experiences of and involvement in the Holocaust differed widely. We know that a handful of individuals actively participated as executioners and concentration camp guards. We also know that a substantial percentage of Europe’s Mennonites benefited from and often sympathized with aspects of Nazism. Around 120,000 people, or about one-fourth of the denomination worldwide, lived under Nazi rule at the height of Hitler’s expansionism. Generally categorized as members of the Aryan racial elite, Mennonites sometimes received goods taken from murdered Jews or moved into their vacant homes. Others leased slave labor for their farms and factories, or otherwise profited from genocide. […]

Arguably more impactful than Mennonites’ own actions, however, was the denomination’s enrollment in Nazi propaganda. In 1929, popular opinion had pressured German politicians to help approximately 4,000 of the Mennonite refugees in Moscow relocate to Germany. The event became a founding myth of the Third Reich.”

See:

anabaptisthistorians.org/2018/02/07/mennonites-and-the-holocaust-an-introduction [archive]

anabaptisthistorians.org/2018/06/14/five-myths-about-mennonites-and-the-holocaust [archive]

17If you *are* confused about how to think about antisemitism, Mathew N. Lyons offers a pretty good overview here: threewayfight.blogspot.com/2018/11/principal-enemy-demystifying-far-right.html [archive]

18Incidentally, this also highlights some more questions about the “journalistic integrity” of Rob Brown’s reporting, whose CBC story failed to mention that the source he was quoting not only seems to have a fairly tenuous grasp on reality, but was also actively threatening him. Not that as anarchists we should spend too much time getting worked up about the CBC…but still…

19nevermore.media/2022/04/01/the-inevitable-triumph-of-anarchy [archive]

20nevermoremedia.substack.com/p/why-do-anarchist-men-keep-dying-deaths [archive]

21nevermoremedia.substack.com/p/the-most-sexist-thing-imaginable [archive]

22winteroak.org.uk/2023/04/30/the-new-anarchy-truth-nature-beauty-and-withness [archive]

23vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/the-strange-origins-of-steve-bannons-nationalist-fantasia [archive]

24network23.org/paulcudenec/2012/01/02/rediscovering-anarcho-perennialism [archive]

25A Romanian religious historian, notable for his association with the Iron Guard and his later involvement with the French Nouvelle Droite.

See:

Weitzman, Mark. 2020. “‘One Knows the Tree by the Fruit That It Bears:’ Mircea Eliade’s Influence on Current Far-Right Ideology.” [archive]

datacide-magazine.com/metapolitical-strategies-of-the-nouvelle-droite [archive]

26A proto-fascist thinker of Germany’s “Conservative Revolution” whose ideas were profoundly influential on the Nazi party.

See Vagabond’s article for more information on Spengler and the Conservative Revolution: ravingsofaradicalvagabond.noblogs.org/post/2018/01/15/an-investigation-into-red-brown-alliances [archive]

27Another of the “Conservative Revolutionaries.” Jünger has a complicated and much contested legacy but has remained inspiring to many in the New Right.

28For more information on this tendency in France:

paris-luttes.info/retour-sur-le-passage-d-alexis-1978?lang=fr [archive]

lepoing.net/critique-radicale-du-collectif-pieces-et-main-doeuvre-a-propos-du-texte-ceci-nest-pas-une-femme-a-propos-des-tordus-queer2 [archive]

infokiosques.net/lire.php?id_article=1741 [archive]

29actforfree.noblogs.org/post/2021/07/21/en-it-about-the-reactionary-drift-of-some-comrades-in-italy [archive]

30paulcudenec.substack.com/p/the-voice-of-the-system [archive]

31winteroak.org.uk/2022/08/02/a-developing-evil-the-malignant-historical-force-behind-the-great-reset [archive]

32See: nothingiseverlost.wordpress.com/2018/06/20/in-defence-of-anarchism-and-antifascism-a-reply-to-the-winter-oak [archive]

nothingiseverlost.wordpress.com/2018/06/28/if-saying-its-a-bad-idea-to-work-with-fascists-makes-you-a-pro-war-neoliberal-then-who-was-phone-more-on-red-brown-alliances-smears-and-all-that [archive]

33He has written an entire book on the subject: Enemies of the People: The Rothschilds and their Corrupt Global Empire. This is also one of the books that Crow cites as being particularly formative in opening his eyes to the “truth” about The Rothschilds.

34paulcudenec.substack.com/p/lament-for-an-england-lost [archive]

35winteroak.org.uk/2022/12/02/resisting-techno-tyranny-a-dialogue [archive]

36See footnote #2 for more information on Corbett.

37goodreads.com/author/show/20001503.Whitney_Alyse_Webb [archive]

38theconsciousresistance.com/why-i-am-running-for-office [archive]

39alternativeculture.com/quarantine-reading-list [archive]

40A holocaust denier.

41This blog has some truly mind-boggling, neo-nazi level antisemitism on it.

42Again, see Vagabond’s excellent article for more information on Global Research.


15/05/2023 – Correction: In the original version of this text we wrote that the Stirrer was a blog run by Helen Steel. It has since come to our attention that this is not correct. We apologize for any confusion that this has caused.

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fash report back

Anti Facism Against the Alt-Lite in Vancouver

On February 21st, approximately a dozen anti-fascists dropped a banner on Vancouver’s Georgia st. Viaduct reading “No War but Class War. Grade A Grifter/Garbage Human. Go Back to Sleep, JP (Jordan Peterson)” in response to a speaking event by Peterson that evening. The banner was visible to downtown traffic via Main Street and was placed to be seen by many of the three thousand attendees commuting to listen to Peterson, who was hosted at the Queen Elizabeth theatre by the City of Vancouver.

In the weeks leading up to the event, activists distributed hundreds of pamphlets and posters across the city, contacted the union at Queen Elizabeth on behalf of concerned workers and tabled in several locations throughout the city spreading awareness.

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Treasure Hunt for Coastal Gaslink

Over the past few months, several sections of the coastal gaslink pipeline have been vandalized. Financially, the consequences of each act were minor: a few holes in the pipeline here, some corroded welding seams there, damaged concrete here. Our goal was to contribute to the small delays in a project that was already well over budget.

  1. We drilled holes less than a penny wide in a section of pipe that had not yet been lowered into the trench. We covered the holes with fiberglass film, which temporarily prevents leaks in the pipes, but only lasts a few months. We know that welded sections of coated pipe are assessed before being lowered into the trench. After the trench is backfilled, they are tested under pressure. The holes were sealed in the hope that they would pass the first pressure test, but will have to be excavated and repaired before the pipeline is completed. This occurred during the last week of October on section 8 of the pipeline, between Kilometers 610 and 613.
  2. Between 585 and 588 kilometers of the pipeline, we found a section of pipe that had been dug out, so we damaged the coating at the joints by chipping and sanding it off in less visible places. This coating is needed to protect the pipe from corrosion and rust. We did this in early November. We liked this approach because the damage is not visible, but can still have a significant long-term structural impact if corrosion and rust show up, so it will need to be fixed.
  3. We drilled very small holes and filled them this time with an epoxy putty, somewhere between Kilometers 605 and 608 of the pipeline route (that’s in section 8.) We did this in the second week of November. We weren’t sure if the sealant would withstand the pressure test, but decided it was worth a try since this sealant is easier to source and use than the fiberglass coating.
  4. At the end of November, we drilled and filled holes in the pipe string before it would be lowered into section 6 of the pipeline between Kilometers 486 and 489.
  5. In early December, we chipped and busted the welds on a section of pipe that had not yet been lowered into the trench between Kilometers 606 and 609.
  6. We damaged the protective coating on a section of pipe by chipping and grinding, and chipped a welded seam on several sections of pipe before they were backfilled between Kilometer 377 and 380 of section 5 of the pipeline. This work was performed in early January.
  7. Near Kilometer 27 of North Hirsch forestry road we damaged welds and coating on a pipe section in the middle of January.
  8. We poured hydrochloric acid on the concrete pipes we knew were meant for the tunnel under Wedzin Kwa and used a concrete drill inside the pipe to weaken them even further. The concrete pipes are designed to protect the pipe itself from the pressure of the surrounding soil. Given the heightened security and surveillance of concrete pipe storage, we can’t say when this happened.
  9. In early December, we grinded and chipped the coating on the welded seams of the pipe sections between Kilometers 598 to 601.
  10. In mid February, we scraped and chipped large portions of the pipe coating of the string between Kilometers 626 and 629.

Or is that in fact what happened? Only some of these activities have actually taken place. We waited to share this information all at once, complete with some additional false reports, so the only way to know where repairs are really needed is to excavate and re-examine all the above-mentioned pipes. Cracked concrete or rusted and patched pipes can lead to small leaks and large-scale spills, which is why every action, whether genuine or falsified, is being brought to the attention of the public long before the pipeline is operational.

While we would prefer to write only completely honest report backs, we also believe that we should be resourceful and use every means at our disposal to delay construction as best we can. We apologize to those involved in the struggle for not being able to give you an accurate picture of what we have really accomplished. CGL we wish you all the best in your treasure hunt.

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Vancouver Solidarity March/Vigil for Tortuguita and Atlanta Forest Defenders

On January 18th, Tortuguita (better known to the state as Manuel Teran) was shot and killed by a police for being part of the movement to defend the Atlanta forest and stop the construction of “Cop City.” (If you want to learn more about them and what happened, this article is a good place to start: https://bittersoutherner.com/feature/2023/little-turtles-war-cop-city-atlanta )

On Monday, January 23rd a crowd of masked people coalesced in Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh territory, taking over Cambie street near city hall. We walked up the road, singing, chanting, and holding signs to express our support for the Atlanta forest defenders and our rage at another life lost to police violence. At one point in the walk, an Indigenous man leaned out of his apartment window facing onto the street to drum along with our singing.

After blocking traffic for a 2 kilometer walk we arrived at Queen Elisabeth Park and dissappeared among the trees, where we shared words and silence in honour of Tortuguita.

Stay strong, forest defenders everywhere!

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fash

A Faustian deal – Luzifaust, Kafirun, Vastatum, Nordwind, Hostium and the business of fascism in Vancouver’s metal music scene 

The music scene has a long history of resistance to white nationalist predation and profiteering. Repackaging fascist bands and their social networks does not erase their history of genocidal violence nor the need to resist them. On January 17th Luzifaust and his band Vastatum return to the stage, this time at Bully’s Studios in New Westminster. On February 25th, Luzifaust’s other project Kafirun are set to play at the Hollywood Theatre in Vancouver, B.C., opening for Rotting Christ.

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Uncategorized

Play Soggy Games, Win Stupid Prizes: Movement Defense and the ENGO

This article was written by some anarcho ex-soggies and is reproduced from their submission to Creeker.

The History of Save Old Growth: by means of an update and epilogue

In the Creeker II article “Know Your ENGO Enemies”, it remained to be seen the trajectory of the organization Save Old Growth (SOG). For the sake of movement history, it shall be reiterated here.

In late 2021, Roger Hallam, newly exiled from Extinction Rebellion (XR) for his inability to work with others, began unofficially leading an international offshoot of XR: the A22 Network. While a distinct entity from XR, A22 receives funding from the same source—the Climate Emergency Fund (CEF).

Similar to XR London, XR Vancouver was split between those who wanted more arrestable actions and those who needed a chance to heal. The A22 Network, desirous of a Canadian chapter, wooed the most eager members of XR with an opportunity to be paid for more headline grabbing actions. Within the A22 Network, 10 other countries compete with one another for a limited money pool: mass numbers of sacrificial arrests are required for media attention, and mass numbers of arrest are required to be competitive for funding.

In its first two iterations from January to April, SOG convinced dozens of people to surrender to the state in a multitude of barely-disruptive highway actions. SOG’s actions were generally to block the Trans-Canada Highway by gluing hands to pavement, obtaining fifteen minutes of block time at great personal cost. By April, two of the five founders left because of the pushiest central organizer: Zain Haq (King Push). In the run up to the June Blockades, King Push fought the combined wisdom of the rest of SOG, who argued that there were insufficient humans and resources to sustain three blockades. The June blockades were a fiasco and King Push managed to push out two more central organizers. Thousands of hours of organizing went into marketing, recruiting, and planning the blockades. Originally conceived of as three highway occupations, solicitations went out to sustain camps of dozens of humans, bands were hired, cars for hardblocks purchased and modified, and hundreds of posters announcing the June blockades were wheatpasted throughout the cities. With little security culture practiced—King Push rolled his eyes at any mention of subterfuge—law enforcement was well aware of both the location and times of the blockades. Any criticism by volunteers was chastised as negativity: build it and they will come! At the Massey tunnel, fifteen minutes of block time was achieved before everyone on the action was arrested and the campers on the Tsawwassen beach chased off. A very hesitant protestor climbed a hastily constructed ladder structure near the Swartz Bay ferry terminal, and had that structure assaulted by a motorist. After breaking his pelvis and being arrested, the mood was too dour, and everyone left camp. At the Iron Worker’s Memorial Bridge, action participants arrived to find that three of the four cars parked near the blockade were already being towed away by police. A single car managed to careen onto the freeway in pursuit, but none of the passengers were able to lock in quickly enough. It was a humorous sight indeed to watch the musicians scattering around the sidewalks of the bridge as they rapidly realized there was not going to be a blockade, let alone a rock concert. Someone in active psychosis, who had attended only two meetings, was seen giving press interviews and had to hastily be squirreled away… unadulterated fiasco.

King Push would not apologize nor take any responsibility, and all the remaining organizers asked him to leave. At this time, new organizers emerged creating a more consent-oriented culture recognizing the need to properly vet candidates and proactively provide information of the consequences of arrest, as well as take better care of people in the court aftermath. But it was too late. As the court system requires months to grind their injustices, new media stories emerged from individuals about manipulation, push culture, and of people feeling abandoned. The remaining organizers could not deny full-throatedly the veracity of the stories coming out. They recognized the SOG brand was toxic and deserved the reprobation and scorn it was receiving. They realized that it was no longer recruiting and as the crown prosecutor was increasing the carceral outcome—SOG would only increase the penalty to any group fighting in the streets of Vancouver on this (or any other) issue, without moving the legislative needle. Most of the organizers came to realize that SOG was doing harm to the entire movement and decided to shut it down. They were unable to shut it down. So many people had swallowed Roger Hallam’s Kool-Aid on “nonviolent civil disobedience” so thirstily, that they were literally convinced that if this specific tactic—whether it was succeeding or not—was not being used, all resistance was at a stand still and the world was over. The A22 Network would not let this tactic disappear in Canada, and King Push had started a new campaign with identical tactics and the backing of Roger Hallam, and that’s where you get Stop Fracking Around.

Push Culture: An Arrest MLM

Sitting in a Save Old Growth actionplanning meeting, an organizer looks around at all the people who have been arrested too many times and their eyes furtively avoiding capture, awkwardly worried about their continued role in the organization. The organizer asks: Are you willing to be arrested? If no one is willing, we can’t have an action tomorrow. And if no one is willing, who can we call, spend all night frantically calling?

At a recruitment meeting, an organizer jokes about how they miss getting arrested, miss the feeling of handcuffs; it’s been too long. Are you willing to participate? Are you willing to risk arrest? If so, are you willing to glue?

Fresh meat needs to be informed a little bit about the consequences of arrest but not too much. We don’t want to scare them away. The prosecutor is increasing the sentences. We’re not sure what the sentences are if they get arrested now. We could tell them that we’re unsure or we can tell them old news… just some community service. We need an action tomorrow after all. We need arrests.

Months and months after the actions, lonely arrestees wish they had more support in court. Where are those organizers now? Meanwhile, King Push gets hailed by national media as a hero, facing deportation, but is never seen at any of the legal solidarity meetings. For King Push, these humans were resources, necessary collateral damage. He didn’t really care. At the recruitment meeting, he was so interested when you told him you’d consider arrest, but now, at the courthouse, where did he go? Students facing months-long curfews, fines they cannot afford, and King Push smiles and looks away. It’s for the greater good, he’ll say. Intermediary arrest-convincers now recognize the damage they’ve done, the friendships they’ve burned, resistance members they’ve pushed away. Organizers find out that King Push had threatened to end friendships for the sake of one more arrest… tomorrow’s arrest. Like the CEO looking at quarterly profit, King Push knows the attention economy and his funding depend on every other tomorrow. A trail of burnt-out resisters, broken promises, and too many arrests. The state’s eyes fully open to the once possible future insurrectionary fighters. So many resistors are now registered with criminal records with the state, probationary conditions, and all the fear and trepidation repression brings.

Arrests aren’t even enough for King Push: his mentor, Roger Hallam, requires remand. Protestors must be herded through symbolic arrests continuously until they are held on pre-trial detention. What happens to their apartment or their bills? That’s not King Push’s problem. More souls for the grinder.

When XR Montreal realized his serpentine tactics they told him where to go. When Save Old Growth realized his unscrupulous nature and amoral character, they told him they could no longer work together. Then he founded Stop Fracking Around, hoping to hitch his civil disobedient tactic to the Shut Down Canada movement and the Wet’suwet’en struggle. Getting paid to find all the revolutionary fighters in an area and get them arrested is what cops do!

Militants new to this movement, don’t listen to those who try to convince you to surrender happily to the state. Form affinity groups with people you trust, cause actual disruption with the goal of disruption, not the goal of arrest. The logic of Save Old Growth/Stop Fracking Around, a crooked ‘mean/ends’ analysis which seeks to treat those considering resistance solely as a means to leadership’s end, is not constrained to this organization. We see it, usually walking hand in hand with the NGO industrial complex, in so many spaces of resistance. It is the logic of XR and of Earth First!, and we’ve seen it practiced recently far beyond the streets of Vancouver (Stop Line 3, Fairy Creek, etc.) The crown of King Push is worn widely by many would-be kings. The cannon fodder of these movements cannot sustain the repression (dozens of trips to court, fines & legal fees, probation conditions, the trauma of arrest & detention), and are often pushed out of the movement and back into the system. Disruption and anonymity are sustainable, and anyone putting on uncomfortable pressure is not building sustainable movements. “How comfortable are we all with this” should be a paramount concern of action planning, as it is only “we” who keeps “us” safe.

Removing the fangs of a movement: the emergence of the professional messaging class

Just as the Stand.Earth types became the spokespeople at the end of Clayoquat Sound, so too did the Last.Stand types eventually become the curator of the memory of Fairy Creek. What was once a message of Land Back and radical resistance became a narrative of liberal reform and a social media awareness campaign. There is a certain creeping type who, with smiles and offers of assistance, sneaks its way in the door promising a professional media expertise: I know all the reporters and politicos. I can get your message out. I can be in charge of your social media.

This class claims to be professional and for a small stipend they’ll provide their assistance. Who knows how many campaigns they are working for simultaneously? How many banners of dead campaigns do they hold like so many crumbs in their talons? At first they assure they won’t lead, only advise. But their moderating presence is felt almost immediately: Oh, that sounds too militant. You should be courting good citizens in good standing. And no masks… masks make you look like an eco-terrorist.

This class has its own agenda. They are unwilling to risk arrest themselves, though they recognize that arrestees have a sincerity in the minds of the public. They use these arrestees as their mouthpiece: is it ok if I use your name to quote my lobbyist playscript? I need the names of my ‘honorable arrestees’. I need names to speak for.

Before you know it, they are asking if the radicals would be willing to work with the politicos. Maybe since you land defenders are trusted, you could work on an NDP campaign. And paid as this class is, by multiple nebulous ENGOs simultaneously, when everything is crested and the banner is being dropped, it is this professional messaging class who still holds the microphone, still asks for funding for curating a dead media abandoned by militant land defenders. Ada’itsx, Rainforest Flying Squad, Save Old Growth all controlled by those who are the non-militant spokespeople of ancient movements all sounding eerily like one another. These media experts continue to be paid, as they now control the donation boxes, while the radicals who fought in these movements materially struggle to keep fighting. And these experts, be they messaging professionals or unarrestable, careerist, parachuting photographers, position themselves as the reformist authors of movement epitaphs.

Stop Fracking Around will attempt to do this with Shut Down Canada if we let them. Shut Down Canada cannot and will never be liberal reformist. If King Push asks you to get arrested, tell him to frack the frack off.


The above article is copied from a PDF which was originally submitted to Creeker. You can download the original PDF below or from Creeker.

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fash

 Once A Threeper, Always a Threeper

While January 2021 was marked by Far Right events leading up to and including J6 in Washington, D.C., January 2022 gained international headlines with a Far Right truck convoy that landed in Ottawa, Canada.  Both capital city occupations had extensive media coverage of the various formations of Far Right and white nationalist individuals and organizations that converged for these events. In so-called Canada, the media highlighted the role of Pat King (United we Roll), Tyler Russell and others from Canada First (Groypers), and Diagalon—whose members had their arms cache seized at the Coutts, Alberta border blockade, one of several held in tandem to the Ottawa occupation (https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2022/08/26/diagolon-founder-jeremy-mackenzie-faces-assault-weapons-charges-in-saskatchewan.html). Subsequent government hearings raised concerns over a swastika flag seen among many other Far-right affiliated flags. One image, that of a truck in Ottawa bearing the telltale sign of a group banned by the Canadian state as a terrorist organization—and one that played a key role in J6—slipped by, barely noticed.  (https://pressprogress.ca/photo-shows-ontario-mpp-randy-hillier-with-flag-of-group-linked-to-armed-freedom-convoy-plot/). This group calls themselves the “Three Percenters”, or “Threepers” for short.

In June 2021, the Three Percenters were listed as a terrorist group by the Canadian government. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/06/25/canada-three-percenters-terrorist-entity/). They are a far-right paramilitary organization that operates nationally with standardized combat training in both Canada and the USA (https://www.vice.com/en/article/kzvyae/canadian-anti-islam-militia-changes-leadership-starts-new-training-program). Long before J6 and the truck convoys across Canada, the Three Percenters demonstrated their capacity for violence at protests in the USA. For instance, they were a sizable contingent at the deadly Charlottesville Unite the Right rally in 2017 (https://unicornriot.ninja/2018/far-right-nationalists-attack-democratic-socialist-gathering-in-kentucky/). Over the years, they have provided security to neo-nazi groups, harassed and assaulted Leftists, and have had a track record of plotting assassinations and bomb attacks (https://unicornriot.ninja/2021/leaked-iii-security-force-chats-show-fractured-militia-thirsty-for-violence/).

Kazimir Nowlin, leader of Canadian Three Percenters, wearing a black hat with a “Three Percenter” insignia.

Kazimir Nowlin is deeply invested in paramilitary organizing for the far-right. Prior to taking over the Three Percenter national leadership in 2018, he was the leader of the “Soldiers of Odin” in interior BC (https://www.vice.com/en/article/kzvyae/canadian-anti-islam-militia-changes-leadership-starts-new-training-program) In 2020, Nowlin was once again in the media spotlight when Erik Myggland, a BC based member of the Canadian Armed Forces, was exposed for membership in both the Soldiers of Odin and as a BC/Yukon lead of the Three Percenters. (https://www.therockymountaingoat.com/2020/09/canadian-armed-forces-to-expel-local-ranger/). Myggland claims he was sworn into the Solidiers of Odin by Nowlin. Given Nowlin’s status as national leader of the Three Percenters, it is likely that Myggland was also sworn into the Threepers by Nowlin.

Myggland (left) sworn into Soldiers of Odin and served under Nowlin (right) as BC/Yukon Three Percenters lead. (https://www.therockymountaingoat.com/2020/09/canadian-armed-forces-to-expel-local-ranger/)

The revelations prompted yet another inquiry by the military into white nationalist presence – it did not fair well (https://www.cbc.ca/news/ipolitics/erik-myggland-rangers-three-percent-soldiers-odin-1.6085006). In an easy sidestep maneuver to the 2021 “terrorist” designation,  the BC based national leader Kazimir Nowlin began repackaging the Three Percenters as “The Kindred” months prior. Weeks later, he and The Kindred were actively recruiting.

Nowlin’s Facebook post re-directing the “Freedom Convoy” to the US-Canada border.

Nowlin was involved with BC based truck convoys including one in February 2022 that attempted to go through Vancouver. Widespread resistance to the convoy forced organizers to re-direct subsequent convoys to the rural Surrey border crossing. This indicates that his sphere of influence and interest is beyond the rural areas of BC from which he is based. With the spotlight elsewhere, Nowlin ended 2022 making ready their paramilitary organizing into a private security outfit due to launch in January 2023. Nowlin has advertised his private security outfit as the “Canadian Sheepdogs Securities” along with his recruitment post about the Kindred. Replete with backwoods training in advanced firearms training, security training, personal protection, patrol, stationary, and first-aid, these far-right actors have advanced militant capacity and now a legal pretense for their boots on the ground.

Nowlin’s Facebook post for recruiting new members.

Nowlin stated on his public Facebook page that they are looking for contracts to expand their operations. This would provide a material and legal way to bring paramilitary groups to both rural and urban places. As the Far Right and white nationalists continue to press their bigoted agenda by way of confrontations at libraries, school boards and community centres, their frequency and militancy increase the risks for serious harms. Should the re-branded Three Percenters model prove successful as a para-militarized private security force, others may follow Nowlin’s lead in creating their own in Canada. Far-right paramilitary organizations outfitting themselves as private security is already a model in the United States (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/01/portland-far-right-rally-republicans-militia-security) .  Antifascists on the Canadian side of the border will need to think strategically while confronting fascist organizing in this new era and learn hard won counter organizing lessons.

Nowlin’s Facebook post advertising security services of “Canadian Sheepdogs Securities”.

Nowlin has been very clear identifying his enemies. In addition to the Muslim community which were the primary target of the Soldiers of Odin, he staunchly denounces antifascists and supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement. This is consistent with the Three Percenter’s ideology and actions in the US that target antifascists and  BLM protesters. Despite his re-branding, the worldview and politics are fundamentally the same.

Nowlin’s Facebook post identifying his enemies as antifascists and BLM


The media often mis-characterizes the Three Percenters and other Far Right armed militias as “anti-government”. At first glace, it’s easy to equate their plots to kidnap and execute US government officials as “anti-government”; however, it is a deeply misleading take that centrists and fascists use to conflate anarchism with fascism (https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/terrorist-list-three-percenters-1.6079984). Rather than being “anti-government”, they want to be the government, re-entrenching historic and contemporary inequalities and bigoted hierarchies. The paramilitary route is to train and become the armed branch of a supremacist government that they wish to prefigure into existence.

A Facebook photo of Nowlin and his associates with tactical gear at an undisclosed location.

One important factor to analyze from the surging proliferation of far-right groups is not only their propaganda to incite a “race war” but also the material steps taken to make it a reality. The disturbing strategic advantage of Nowlin’s group is the attempt to legitimatize themselves with the legal protections and economic benefits of a private security company while providing para-militarized support and intelligence gathering to far-right and white nationalist organizers. It would be wise to know the level of militancy that is being exercised and the material capacity of the far-right both on and off the field – January 2023 is here.

Nowlin’s associates with rifles and tactical gear.
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RESPONSIBILITY CLAIMED FOR ARSON OF C-IRG VEHICLES ON WET’SUWET’EN TERRITORY

In the early hours of Oct 26th several RCMP C-IRG vehicles were lit on fire in the Smithers Sunshine Inn parking lot.

As you read this, Coastal GasLink drills beneath the sacred headwaters of the Wedzin Kwa. The ground shakes in Wet’suwet’en territories. For every tremor of the earth as they drive their borehead and blast their explosives through riverbed and rock, right beneath schools of spawning salmon, tremors of pain and rage reverberate through the hearts of those who still have space to feel it.

Death surrounds us. Salmon die en masse as creeks run dry. Massive areas of once-flourishing rainforest burn. A billion snow crabs disappear and die in Alaska. Climate chaos runs rampant while mega projects churn the living world into a living nightmare. So many people pass out of this world too soon. Maybe it gets called suicide. Or overdose. Or stroke. Maybe it is a police bullet that rips through flesh and organs. All of this is the manifestation of the unbearable pain, suffering and violence brought on by colonialism and the state.

In “british columbia” it is the RCMP who defend and enforce this violence. And where extractive industries meet indigenous resistance the RCMP employ a specialized division called Community-Industry Response Group. It is C-IRG cops who volunteer to raid, surveil, harass, and brutalize land defenders on behalf of their corporate masters.

Early on October 26th four C-IRG vehicles in Smithers were set ablaze while C-IRG officers slept just meters away. The fires damaged or destroyed all four trucks and spread to several industry vehicles and an ambulance in the parking lot. The CGL and BC Hydro trucks burned are hardly regrettable. The damaged ambulance was unfortunate and unintended. No one was injured in this action because steps were taken to ensure no one would be. Vehicles were only lit where it was certain fire would not spread to structures or endanger life.

The violence enacted by industry and enforced by the police damns an entire planet to a fiery desertified future. Recognizing the fact that each of us has a stake in this struggle means recognizing the importance of acting with our own agency, autonomy, and urgency. We must all sharpen our pain into the determination necessary to act against those responsible for our suffering.

There are no words to be shared with government or industry that can change the core of their nature. These institutions are not people. They have no soul, no ethics, and no conscience. Their driving force is profit at any cost, and they cannot be negotiated or reasoned with.

Liberals and centrists want politics to be neat and tidy, within the bounds of respectability. The labeling of actions outside of these bounds as a ‘false flag’ operation severely limits our ability to broaden the scope of struggle and directly challenge the state’s violence. Successful movements utilize a broad set of tactics to achieve their goals. False flag accusations only serve to isolate those who choose to engage in more confrontational actions from broader support, which is dangerous and limiting. If there is a conspiracy here, it is the overt collusion between corporations and state forces to continue the legacy of genocidal violence on indigenous peoples and land.

Burning cop cars is easy. Taking the steps to prevent arrests is less so. Research methods that work; warriorup.noblogs.org is a good place to start. Use security oriented and open source tech tools on public WiFi for this, or better yet, go old-school and get books. Test your methods. Think carefully about how fire can spread to make sure you will not unintentionally burn down a building or cause injury. Know how to avoid leaving evidence. Think critically about the consequences of action as well as inaction. Trust your rebellious instincts and move with courage.

It has always been the time to fight. It still is.