antifa notes (february 12, 2011) : BANANAs & Dresden

BANANAs

As previously noted, on May Day in San Francisco last year there was an altercation involving members of the bizarro White supremacist groupuscule BANANA and a handful of antifascists. The bunch of BANANAs had joined a small counter-protest organised by the anti-immigrant group the Minutemen–not to be confused with the 1980s punk rawk group or the 1960s right-wing loons–in order to whinge in public about all-them-Mexicans-flooding-across-the-Arizona-border. As a result of the clash, the BANANAs’ Kameraden in the SFPD laid felony charges against two individuals, Dee and Kelsey. In June, the felony charges were dropped: “Judge Cynthia Ming-Mei Lee dropped charges against Donnell Allen for assault with a deadly weapon for using a ballista battering ram baselard broadsword battle axe ball-on-a-chain bardiche bill bayonet bisento bazooka battery (as in an Energizer) and robbing a backpack from BANANA leader Andrew White (aka Andrew Yeoman). Allen’s assault charge against White was reduced to a misdemeanor” (Felony Charges Reduced to Misdemeanors for Alleged Attackers of White Separatists, Lauren Smiley, SF Weekly, June 7, 2010).

Last week, the pair’s legal troubles ended. There was no trial. On Tuesday, Dee agreed to do 15 hours of community service (after which his case will be dismissed) and Kelsey agreed to plea no contest to a single violation of California Penal Code Section 415, commonly referred to as “disturbing the peace”. (Dee was facing one count and Kelsey four misdemeanor counts of “assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury” (245(a)(1)), each with a potential 1 year jail term.)

The BANANAs last came to prominence in September, when Yeoman/White popped a film critic hat onto his pointy little head and proceeded to briefly protest a local screening of Mexploitation flick Machete. Moar recently, a couple of BANANAs have expressed butthurt following the cancellation/’smashing’ of A Convocation of Bigots: the 2011 American Renaissance conference.

American Renaissance conference smashed again

The weekend of February 4th-6th 2011, the white nationalists of American Renaissance tried to resurrect their destroyed conference of 2010, this time trying Charlotte NC instead of their usual metro DC conference. NEFAC joined on to a coalition spearheaded by One People’s Project and the Southern Anti-Racism Network to make sure that the AmRen conference didn’t happen smoothly. And it didn’t. AmRen 2011 was cancelled. And in its place, Charlotte had a forum on combatting white supremacy…

Froot Loops

In an interview with Michael Orion Powell (Even In The Bay Area, Nationalism Takes Root, little green footballs, October 26, 2010), chief BANANA Yeoman/White credits Sydney businessman Welf Herfurth for introducing him to ‘national anarchism’. Herfurth himself has moved on from ‘national anarchism’ and returned to organising with the openly neo-Nazi ‘Volksfront Australia’, the Australian franchise of the neo-Nazi network formed by a small group of boneheads in an Oregon jail in 1994. Last month, the network’s leader, Randal Krager, was exposed by Rose City Antifa as ‘President of Neo-Nazi Organization Contracted to Work in the Middle East’. (Note that when Krager helped form the gang, he was doing time “for nearly beating to death an African American father of four—leaving him paralyzed—in a racially motivated attack”.)

Having abandoned ‘national anarchism’ for Volksfront, apart from Yeoman/White, Herfurth has left behind a mere handful of former followers. According to neo-Nazi blog Whitelaw Towers, one is Nicholas Cole, a student in Perth, WA. Otherwise, an odd couple in Tasmania also continue to be silly online, while Geelong-based Scott Harrison has become a self-proclaimed Reverend in a tinpot White supremacist kvlt. By throwing in his lot with ‘Creativity’ and Blood & Honour, Harrison has betrayed his former leader Herfurth, but the rivalry between Volksfront and B&H/SCHS in Australia, unlike elsewhere in the world, is fairly tepid, and clashes confined to leaking infos on one another to local anti-racists.

Dresden

This week in Dresden, Germany, antifascists will be attempting to block the annual march by neo-Nazis through the city. Last year, despite massive police reinforcements, the neo-Nazis had heap ’em big trouble trying to drag their sorry arses into town. The victory enabled troubadours to write a neat little toon to commemorate the fact that the boofheads lost another little battle. As for 2011…