_White supremacists David Pedersen and Holly Grigsby recently made headlines in the Pacific Northwest as suspected perpetrators of a killing spree across Washington, Oregon, and California. Pedersen is easily recognizable by the SWP (Supreme White Power) tattoo across his throat, as seen in his mugshots and court photos. Grigsby and Pedersen have been extradited from Northern California back to Washington state, where the murder spree began.

Though entering not guilty pleas at their October 19 arraignment, the couple has confessed to 4 murders total, including the murder of a 19 year old man, Cody Myers, who they believed to be Jewish, and Reginald Alan Clark, a 54 year old black man from Eureka, CA.  

During her confession, Holly Grigsby told Washington State prosecutors that she and Pedersen were on their way to Sacramento to “kill more Jews” when they were arrested for the murders on October 5 in Yuba City.

In 2001, David Pedersen was convicted of threatening the life of Edward Lodge, the federal judge who presided over the trial of Randy Weaver, a white nationalist who shot and killed a U.S. marshal during the infamous standoff at Ruby Ridge in 1992. The Ruby Ridge standoff remains a hot issue for white supremacists.

A condition of Pedersen’s supervised release from prison earlier this year was that he “not associate with current or past members of the Aryan Death Squad or any other criminal group.”
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Graffiti at Irvington School -- photo Ross William Hamilton/The Oregonian
The Oregonian reports that the Irvington School in northeast Portland has been tagged with racist graffiti. On the morning of Saturday, January 8, a resident near the school discovered spray-painted messages which according to the newspaper “included swastikas, racial slurs and the words ‘white power.’” If you have any information surrounding this incident or other instances of racist propaganda and intimidation, please contact our organization. We will be monitoring this situation.
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Overview

Despite the concern of anti-fascists and anti-racists, the Austrian far-Right post-industrial project Allerseelen proceeded on a West Coast tour from December 15 – 22. Four of the six Allerseelen dates were in support of the popular Portland “dark metal” group Agalloch. These four shows took place in Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. In response to this Agalloch / Allerseelen tour—and two earlier Allerseelen shows without Agalloch in Portland and Salem—Rose City Antifascists issued a statement documenting the politics and associations of Gerhard Petak and his Allerseelen project. Significant controversy followed. We aim here to address some of the responses to our activity; to clarify our position in cases where the content and intent of our writing has been misrepresented or misperceived; and finally to stress why we believe antifascism is important, why counterculture matters, and why fascist countercultural efforts should be opposed.
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On the night of Saturday, December 11, militant anti-racists distributed over a hundred “Wanted” posters in Oregon City and downtown Milwaukie. The posters, which were stapled and pasted in both locations, ask for community members to provide information on individuals associated with Volksfront International. Read the Rose City Antifa release about this action here.

The following day, December 12, Rose City Antifa released another appeal for information, leaking 120 photos of Volksfront members and their gatherings to the activist website Portland Indymedia, and again asking for information on those pictured. See the albums here.
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This December, the Austrian far-Right “post-industrial” and martial music project Allerseelen is set to give a series of performances on the US West Coast. Allerseelen is the project of Gerhard Petak (AKA Kadmon and Gerhard Hallstatt) who also incorporates other performers into the act when playing live. Several of the Allerseelen shows are scheduled to take place in larger venues supporting the prominent Portland, Oregon “dark metal” group Agalloch, who will be touring to promote their new album. The hitching of Allerseelen onto the tour of a larger heavy metal act will provide new outlets for Petak’s extreme-Right messages. Agalloch, the group which Allerseelen will support, is at present crossing over from underground cult status to something nearer the mainstream, the group’s latest album even being promoted with a write-up and “exclusive first listen” on National Public Radio’s music webpage. It is troubling that the accompanying act Agalloch chose to expose its growing audiences to, has a long history of far-Right involvement and propaganda, and is an attempt to make aspects of fascist discourse acceptable. (Allerseelen will first play two separate headlining shows before joining the Agalloch tour.) Agalloch’s decision to further link itself to Petak / Allerseelen by appearing on a new compilation CD released by Petak’s label, is likewise of concern to anti-fascists and is of similar poor judgment.

Linked below you will find an article describing Gerhard Petak's far-right political views and associations—while Petak has had contact with some people who could be fairly described as Nazis or neo-Nazis, Petak has also criticized the Third Reich in print, and we do not describe him personally as a Nazi. We place Petak’s viewpoints and advocacy on the terrain of neo-fascism and the far-Right, especially that of the European New Right. Some other ideological influences will be discussed in passing. If at times Petak’s viewpoints appear as a jumble of varied and even opposing influences, it is worth noting that fascism has always been a syncretic ideological movement—one that attempts to fuse differing elements into a single whole. Indeed, this syncretic nature has given rise to one of fascism’s primary qualities, that of simultaneously being “A and not A” and often harboring diametrically opposed impulses, such as attempting mass political mobilization while also vocalizing contempt for mass society. These contradictions unfortunately do not render fascism or fascist politics harmless.

The dates of Allerseelen’s tour are:

Waldteufel + Allerseelen:
15 Dec 2010 Portland
16 Dec 2010 Salem (+ HELL, Barghest)

Agalloch + Allerseelen:
17 Dec 2010 Portland OR Berbati's Pan (+ Aerial Ruin)
18 Dec 2010 Seattle WA Neumo’s (+ Alda + Waldteufel)
21 Dec 2010 Los Angeles CA Ultra Violet Social Club (+ Winterthrall)
22 Dec 2010 San Francisco CA Great American Music Hall (+ Dispirit)

We invite Agalloch to clarify its position towards the far-Right and fascism, and to indicate what precisely it meant by promoting Allerseelen to its audience. We furthermore invite Nanotear Booking Agency—Agalloch’s agent and responsible for the Agalloch / Allerseelen shows—to make clear why it has adopted a fascist-friendly policy of giving a platform to far-Right ideologues such as Allerseelen.
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On the same day as Portland Police Chief Mike Reese and Mayor Sam Adams announced that Officer Ron Frashour would be dismissed from the Portland Police for shooting and killing an unarmed Black man this January, news also broke of minor discipline against Portland Police Captain Mark Kruger. As Maxine Bernstein of The Oregonian reported this Tuesday, November 16, Police Chief Mike Reese placed Kruger on 80 hours unpaid leave, required him to take a “Tools for Tolerance” training, and tied him to an unspecified “mentorship arrangement” lasting from between half a year to two years. This internal discipline is related to Kruger’s placing of a memorial to five WWII German soldiers in Rocky Butte Park approximately a decade ago. Rose City Antifascists recently released a statement about Kruger, the accusations of Nazi sympathy that have been swirling around him since 2003, and the complicity of the City Attorney’s Office and previous Police Chiefs in covering for Kruger.   

In our statement on Mark Kruger published November 13—before news of Kruger’s discipline was released to the public—we argued: “While we are interested in seeing how this situation develops, we are not holding our breath for Kruger to face meaningful consequences for his actions.” While we do not consider that Kruger’s brief unpaid leave is substantial discipline for his Nazi hero-worship, institutional forces did move quicker than we expected, in fact before we even published our analysis. Furthermore, we suggested that the Portland Police Association (PPA) would leap to Kruger’s defense. While it is possible that there will be words from the PPA on this issue, Kruger has in fact waived his right to arbitration regarding the imposed discipline, probably because it is little more than a slap on the wrist. The PPA has instead focused its outrage on the dismissal of Ron Frashour and the discipline of three other police regarding the killing of Aaron Campbell earlier this year: “Today we can say that the rank and file of the Portland Police Bureau have lost faith in their leaders.” Inasmuch as our analysis differed from the actual turn of events, this seems due to an underestimation of the current crisis of policing in Portland, which has proved deep enough to lead to some surprises. (This crisis is not just within the corridors in power, but is also a factor of pressure brought on the City—highly visible and politically embarrassing responses from Black community organizations plus allies following the Campbell killing, efforts such as the Fire Frashour campaign, and even street disturbances such as the near-riot that followed the Police killing of Jack Dale Collins in March, as well as subsequent anarchist sabotage.) Given that Kruger was neither demoted nor fired, our analysis was nevertheless not too far from the mark.

On November 16, Mark Kruger also issued a public letter of apology, stating yet again that his interest was purely “in military history,” that he has no “admiration for Nazism,” and that his actions were subject to “misperception”—all claims that significantly stretch the bounds of believability. The November 12 memorandum confirming Kruger’s discipline—also made public on Tuesday—provides further information about the German soldiers memorialized by Kruger. As well the already-known names of Waffen SS member Michael Wittman, and Wehrmacht leader Harald von Hirschfeld (involved in a massacre of thousands of prisoners) the names of the three other German soldiers on Kruger’s plaques are now also public information. These names are Erich Bärenfänger, a Wehrmacht officer who took part in the Battle of Berlin and who was briefly Hitler’s deputy; Wolfgang Luth, who destroyed dozens of vessels as a U-Boat commander; and Walter Nowotny, at one time the Luftwaffe’s greatest killer. Kruger’s apology letter absurdly claims that he did not know that Hirschfeld was involved in war crimes, because there were not “the internet’s research tools of today” a decade ago. Within this letter, Kruger does not discuss Wittman’s membership in the SS. Now that Bärenfänger’s name has been released, we know that another of those memorialized by Kruger was part of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) machinery. Bärenfänger joined the SA (“Sturmabteilung” or “Stormtroopers” in English, popularly referred to as the “brownshirts”) in 1933. The SA was at one point the primary paramilitary force of the Nazi Party, although it was eclipsed in this role by the SS following the “Night of the Long Knives” of 1934. Bärenfänger was therefore another ideologically committed Nazi honored by Kruger.

Materials from the Police internal investigation on Mark Kruger’s activity have not been released to the public.
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Mark Kruger
“I would not have promoted Mark to captain if I felt at any time the allegations were true. I supported him then and I support him now.” —Rosie Sizer, Portland Police Chief June 2006–May 2010, email of October 14, 2009

In news reported by The Oregonian early last month, Portland’s Police Review board has criticized a cop in unusually strong language, stating that Captain Mark Kruger brought “discredit and disgrace upon the Bureau and the City” by erecting plaques to his Third Reich military heroes in a city park a decade ago. The statement followed an Internal Affairs investigation, which was itself prompted by a complaint to Independent Police Review Division (IPRD) as well as by demands from City Commissioner Dan Saltzman.

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Portland neo-Nazi Daniel Lee Jones—a onetime activist in Bill White’s American National Socialist Workers Party—was sentenced this week to a year and a half in federal prison for mailing a noose to the president of the Lima, Ohio chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Last year, we wrote about Daniel Lee Jones’ role in organizing a September 2009 Nazi gathering near Vancouver, Washington. A story from The Oregonian about Jones’ sentencing is here.
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Mary Starrett has lost her bid for the Yamhill County Commissioner post in the November 2 runoff election, with incumbent Mary Stern winning 52% to Starrett’s 48%. In our statement about Starrett dated October 25th, we highlighted both Starrett and the Constitution Party’s links to white nationalists, anti-Semites and anti-choice fundamentalists. (As the Commissioner race was supposedly non-partisan, Starrett did not officially run as a Constitution Party candidate, but her history is clear.) Starrett also explicitly linked herself to the Tea Party movement during the election, with campaign signs even incorporating a tea cup image.

On a national level, the Imagine2050 blog notes that the Constitution Party had 146 candidates on ballots for federal and state offices in the November elections, and argues that the Party could have “substantial influence in three way political races.” Also, dozens of Tea-Party backed candidates have been elected to office in the November elections, with 32% of Tea Party-backed candidates winning their seat.
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