Some folks discouraged the antifascists in Austin from
protesting black metal band Marduk on February 13th, 2017. This was due
to an assortment of concerns. Thankfully, not everyone in Austin
listened. While some classify the band as edgy, “WWII obsessed,” or just
“problematic,” we think that sincere or not their infatuation with the
specific role of Germany in WWII appeals to a specific type of
fan—Holocaust deniers, white supremacist bikers, Trump fans, Milo
Yiannopoulos wannabees, and other neo-Nazi trash. The fact that anyone
would make an argument for Marduk based on the fact that there is more
sincere Nazi black metal out there demonstrates just how widespread
casual racism is in metal, leading even progressive punks, “anarchists,”
and so on to offer apologies for this trash. It’s not
“problematic”—it’s reactionary, it’s racist, and it is not fucking
welcome in our city.
Another group of people who failed miserably in assessing the event
and confronting it was the local chapter of Black Lives Matter, whom we
have written about before critically on other subjects (i.e., their
members’ anti-choice activity, their collaborating with the police, and
other general reactionary bullshit). Here was one moment when they could
perhaps have redeemed themselves. They set up an event page against the
Marduk show, which got good circulation online, and they promised to
show these white losers that they are not welcome in the hood. When it
came down to it, at the last minute, BLM-Austin backed down, canceled
their event page, and instead they went to a school board meeting! It
turns out that tailing bureaucrats at a routine meeting was preferable
to them. For us, BLM-Austin just further demonstrated their uselessness.
Nonetheless, the show would go on and it would be confronted.
Due
to the music fans in the movement who discouraged people from attending
the antifascist action, the cowards in BLM, and our very late notice,
our numbers were small. Our side had seen a weekend of major activity
with the confrontations with police that took place in East Cesar Chavez
and in Rundberg as well as around-the-clock prisoner support. Worn thin
and on little sleep, we were not deterred. If Marduk loves WWII history
so much, we hoped to see them greeted with a historically accurate
reenactment—one where Nazis got beaten by communists!
A little fewer than twenty antifascists showed up, armed with sticks
to rally outside the venue. Music fans were warned that for months
neo-Nazis had been attempting to organize in this part of south East
Austin where the venue was located. They were ask to not patronize the
place or support the show. But due to the low standards common in the
metal scene, very few were deterred. One comrade who is a highly active
revolutionary organizer and a crucial part of our local movement was
assaulted by a vehicle while protesting. The car hit our courageous
comrade and threw them up onto the hood. This “WWII fan” in the driver
seat tried then to kill our comrade by speeding away towards traffic.
Our comrade rolled off the moving vehicle and was shaken but not
deterred. They refused to leave the action and continued to resist and
oppose fascism. While others did give chase, the fascist driver was able
to escape unscathed. Antifascists will remain on the lookout for this
driver and next time he will not be so lucky. We are fighters for our
people and our class: you can hit us with cars, threaten us with
violence, and even attack us, but we do not back down and we do not
relent. Like the communists who have come before us we will fight
fascists to the last person, and our comrade embodied this spirit by
courageously refusing to leave the action!
Marduk clearly had become a rallying point for the very neo-Nazis who
we have been vigorously organizing against. Our supporters on the
ground identified several fascist and crypto-fascist individuals, one of
whom was wearing a Trump T-shirt and doing a Nazi salute while being
protected by bouncers. Some local community members would pass by and
join in shouting aggressively at the fascists in the crowd and making it
clear that Nazis, their sympathizers, and these “WWII fans” were not
fucking welcome in the 41! (The 41 is a local name for the area.) We
kept our eyes on the crowd, picking out the actual neo-Nazis and
committed fascists, distinct from the general misguided and unscrupulous
metalheads (the latter should be criticized for their unacceptable
pardoning and normalization of fascist messages and for fraternizing
with fascists but not targeted with specific violence like the former
must be).
Not long into the action, according to a supporter on the ground, the antifascists spotted one of their targets, Connor Halsell,
a local fascist organizer and individual whom Austin antifascists have
been monitoring for months. If you walk around the area of East
Riverside, East Pleasant Valley, and other parts of the 41, you see
hundreds of posters with Connor’s face across them reading “Warning:
Neo-Nazi” and containing all of his personal information, including his
home address in Austin at 1300 Crossing Place as well
as his parents’ home address in San Antonio. These posters have caused a
stir in the area, serving as a community big character poster much like
the ones that played a major role in the Cultural Revolution in China.
The posters have been very popular here, earning some mass interest in
antifascism. Local youths have promised to remember his face and give
him a greeting he won’t soon forget should their paths cross. Everyone
old and young alike has been disgusted to find out that an active
fascist organizer is hiding out in our community, which is majority
Mexican but hosts many Chicano, black and Asian people as well. We all
agree that such scum are not welcome in our hood.
detail of flyer outing Neo-Nazi Connor Halsell
Speaking of hoods, Connor, due in part to his bad fashion sense and
recent rise in visibility, wore a large black hood as he approached the
venue with three other fascists, making identification difficult. He was
however identified by wearing an anticommunist patch with a hammer and
sickle crossed out and other patches, including more open white power
symbols. Antifascists wasted no time upholding the slogan postered
around town, which reads “Assault fascists on sight.” Connor got Richard
Spencered in the face with a run punch (a small greeting for a Nazi—we
prefer they never get back up). Connor being the weak coward that he is
made sure to bring his own bodyguard, who stupidly flashed a handgun but
smartly failed to use it. Truth is our comrades on the ground were
never unprepared for this to happen and he would have hit the ground
before he pulled the trigger. When neo-Nazis draw guns aimed at
antifascists in Austin, they will be shot down like their predecessors
have been elsewhere in the past. We reaffirm the commitment made back in
November that we will not tolerate another Greensboro Massacre or
another Klan stabbing like in Sacramento. We especially will not
tolerate a comrade being shot like the comrade who was shot in Seattle
recently, and in that comrade’s name antifascists were more than ready
to make the body count go up on the fascist side should we have to
defend ourselves with deadly force, which is well, fine, and legal in
the state of Texas. While the armed goon with poor hygiene had to wait
outside with his little handgun, the actual prey scurried like a rat
inside to join his coward counterparts hiding behind club security.
The
whole venue of Grizzly Hall is a cesspool of ill repute and bad
elements. It is a gentrifying force in our neighborhood, bringing in
white hipsters and racist metal fans. While we have nothing against
metalheads, especially our local youth who are opposed to racism, we as a
community should not have to tolerate the existence of a place like
Grizzly Hall, which materially supports and protects fascists, giving
them not only a platform but a “safe space.” Grizzly Hall should be
treated as the cancer that it is and community members should waste no
time getting rid of it however they see fit. For us these times
necessitate better defenses against fascism. Antifascism must become the
most day-to-day activity and not reserved for reacting to fascist
activity.
For us antifascism comes in the form of the simultaneous construction
of the communist party and its people’s army as well as a united front.
This is the only type of party that stands a chance against the
organized hordes of reaction. This party will make a grave for fascism
in this country. We encourage structure and organization, discipline,
and a chain of command in the context of antifascist struggles. While we
will work with any comrade who is committed to fighting fascism whether
they are anarchists or communists, we insist that there is a need for a
militarized antifascist movement that has honed its technical ability
to fight as well as its ideological and political lines. As many
longtime fighters and new recruits alike begin more and more to cast
aside all illusions, we march steadily towards an antifa of a new type!
Do not give the enemy an inch and do not let fascists feel safe
anywhere.
Antifascism serves the people!
Assault fascists on sight!
—Red Guards Austin
Due
to the music fans in the movement who discouraged people from attending
the antifascist action, the cowards in BLM, and our very late notice,
our numbers were small. Our side had seen a weekend of major activity
with the confrontations with police that took place in East Cesar Chavez
and in Rundberg as well as around-the-clock prisoner support. Worn thin
and on little sleep, we were not deterred. If Marduk loves WWII history
so much, we hoped to see them greeted with a historically accurate
reenactment—one where Nazis got beaten by communists!
A little fewer than twenty antifascists showed up, armed with sticks
to rally outside the venue. Music fans were warned that for months
neo-Nazis had been attempting to organize in this part of south East
Austin where the venue was located. They were ask to not patronize the
place or support the show. But due to the low standards common in the
metal scene, very few were deterred. One comrade who is a highly active
revolutionary organizer and a crucial part of our local movement was
assaulted by a vehicle while protesting. The car hit our courageous
comrade and threw them up onto the hood. This “WWII fan” in the driver
seat tried then to kill our comrade by speeding away towards traffic.
Our comrade rolled off the moving vehicle and was shaken but not
deterred. They refused to leave the action and continued to resist and
oppose fascism. While others did give chase, the fascist driver was able
to escape unscathed. Antifascists will remain on the lookout for this
driver and next time he will not be so lucky. We are fighters for our
people and our class: you can hit us with cars, threaten us with
violence, and even attack us, but we do not back down and we do not
relent. Like the communists who have come before us we will fight
fascists to the last person, and our comrade embodied this spirit by
courageously refusing to leave the action!
on, according to a supporter on the ground, the antifascists spotted one of their targets, Connor Halsell,
a local fascist organizer and individual whom Austin antifascists have
been monitoring for months. If you walk around the area of East
Riverside, East Pleasant Valley, and other parts of the 41, you see
hundreds of posters with Connor’s face across them reading “Warning:
Neo-Nazi” and containing all of his personal information, including his
home address in Austin at 1300 Crossing Place as well
as his parents’ home address in San Antonio. These posters have caused a
stir in the area, serving as a community big character poster much like
the ones that played a major role in the Cultural Revolution in China.
The posters have been very popular here, earning some mass interest in
antifascism. Local youths have promised to remember his face and give
him a greeting he won’t soon forget should their paths cross. Everyone
old and young alike has been disgusted to find out that an active
fascist organizer is hiding out in our community, which is majority
Mexican but hosts many Chicano, black and Asian people as well. We all
agree that such scum are not welcome in our hood.
The
whole venue of Grizzly Hall is a cesspool of ill repute and bad
elements. It is a gentrifying force in our neighborhood, bringing in
white hipsters and racist metal fans. While we have nothing against
metalheads, especially our local youth who are opposed to racism, we as a
community should not have to tolerate the existence of a place like
Grizzly Hall, which materially supports and protects fascists, giving
them not only a platform but a “safe space.” Grizzly Hall should be
treated as the cancer that it is and community members should waste no
time getting rid of it however they see fit. For us these times
necessitate better defenses against fascism. Antifascism must become the
most day-to-day activity and not reserved for reacting to fascist
activity.
For us antifascism comes in the form of the simultaneous construction
of the communist party and its people’s army as well as a united front.
This is the only type of party that stands a chance against the
organized hordes of reaction. This party will make a grave for fascism
in this country. We encourage structure and organization, discipline,
and a chain of command in the context of antifascist struggles. While we
will work with any comrade who is committed to fighting fascism whether
they are anarchists or communists, we insist that there is a need for a
militarized antifascist movement that has honed its technical ability
to fight as well as its ideological and political lines. As many
longtime fighters and new recruits alike begin more and more to cast
aside all illusions, we march steadily towards an antifa of a new type!
Do not give the enemy an inch and do not let fascists feel safe
anywhere.
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