Keegstra's Death: Relic of the Past Responds

That James Keegstra did not die on June 12 when the news became public, but in fact died 10 days earlier, is telling. The name Keegstra was still mentioned occasionally by the likes of Fromm when he rambled on about Sec. 319 and about free speech in an abstract way, but the man himself had been largely forgotten, drifting into obscurity soon after his final sentencing hearing in 1996. Even his contemporaries appear to have forgotten about him and it seems that few even attempted to remain in touch with the man they, at the time, lionized and rallied around.

Of his contemporaries, many like John Ross Taylor, Doug Christie, Wolfgang Droege, and Martin Wiche have died. Others like John Beattie, Don Andrews, and Ernst Zundel have yet to acknowledge Keegstra's passing, in part because they have shied away from their more colorful past (Like Beattie, who is running for Deputy Reeve in Minden, Ontario) or couldn't be bothered to care.

Such is the nature of the White Nationalist movement.

But at least one of those infamous old relics from the past has decided to make a rare appearance. Terry Long, like Keegstra, disappeared not long after of the Canadian branch of the Aryan Nations' he lead collapsed. Last we heard he was living in Ontario, but he does periodically pop up from time to time. He ran for office under the Doug Christie-led Western Canadian Concept Party. We know that it was Long whom Todd Conroy (former BC Volksfront leader) had been visiting when he got into a near fatal motorcycle accident. And we know that he still keeps up on the state of the movement, as we copies of emails sent by Long to some of the more contemporary members of the movement dating to the 2000s. So while he might not be active anymore, he certainly hasn't changed his views. And when Keegstra died Long (eventually) decided to break his silence as well.

Actually, Western historians generally agreed that the number of Jews who died in Auschwitz numbered between 800,000 and 1.35 million since at least 1961 and the Soviet numbers had been long discarded, but why should we expect revisionists like Long to be accurate?

Paul Fromm also got around to posting a eulogy of sorts, but we aren't sure that yet another one of Paulie's  self-promoting missives is really all that necessary here.

While Keegstra's obscurity is telling, it is also fitting. And so is the fact that his remaining contemporaries will eventually follow him, some likely sooner than others. Ernst Zundel is 75, Long has to be at least in his 70s,  and Don Andrews is around 72. John Beattie, someone who sounds to be in the early stages of dementia, is in his early 70s (UPDATE: Beattie is 72) and Paul Fromm in his mid 60s. Another 10, 15 years....

There will come a point when these men too will shuffle off their mortal coil and their names forgotten. We find this fact to be a comforting one.

McCorkell's Corpse Finds Ally in Paulie

Back from vacationing in the Argentinian Pampas. Suffice it to say the gaucho life is not for this writer, though the wine in the Medanos region is really first rate.

We would like to present a scenario for our readers. Imagine if you will that a Canadian academic who had collected ancient Greek artifacts and coins has died. Now, imagine that same academic willed his collection, valued at perhaps $1,000,000 to a group involved in terrorism.... let's say Al-Shabaab. You know that conservative bloggers and website operators would demand that the Canadian government prevent Al-Shabaab from getting their hands on that collection.

And those right wing bloggers and website operators would be 100% right. Hell, we here at ARC would agree with the demands.

But we don't have a scenario in which the Al-Shabaab terrorist organization is heir to a million dollar inheritance. Instead, we have an American-based neonazi organization, the National Alliance, that could be the recipient of this financial windfall unless something is done to prevent it.

UPDATE: Yeah, a few of our readers caught that we frequently used the Northern Alliance name instead of the National Alliance. No excuse. We just dun f'd up.

We had been aware of Robert McCorkell and his will for some time and had been trying to dig up more information when the story broke in the msm. Some of our friends have been doing a very good job of covering the story while we were away so it might be best to provide those links:

• Canadian Gold Coins, Other Assets Going to U.S. Neo-Nazi Group
•  Your Daily Nazi: U.S. Nazis Inherit Canuck Gold?
•  Your Daily Nazi: Will McCorkell's Coins Become Nazi Loot?
•  Your Daily Nazi: McCorkell Collection Update

While the National Alliance is no longer considered to be the most powerful and best organized neonazi group in the United States, it does have long history of being connected to violence. Founder William Pierce's The Turner Diaries alone has been linked to a number of terrorist attacks, murders, and attempted murders in the United States. Below is a partial list of some of those incidents:

Continuing our Documentation Project (And An Examination of Marc Lemire: Part XII)

Hey, trivia question for our readers.

What do these guys....

1. Nick Griffin 2. Dennis Mahon 3.Richard Girnt Butler, Aryan Nations founder
4. Eugène Terre'Blanche, founder of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement
5. Ewald Althans (no longer a part of the neo-Nazi movement)
6. Bernard Klatt 7. Tom Metzger of W.A.R. 8. Wolfgang Droege
and Marc Lemire, the first and second leaders of the Heritage Front
9. Chris Newhook, violent member of the Heritage Front currently in
prison as as a dangerous offender 10. Siegfried Verbeke, Holocaust
revisionist 11. National Alliance founder William Pierce 12. Terry Long,
leader of the Aryan Nations in Alberta

.... have in common with this guy?

Terry Long Comes Out Of Seclusion; Supports Topham

Arthur Topham had an arraignment hearing Tuesday where he pleaded not guilty. He is enjoined from contacting Richard Warman and Harry Abrams but otherwise has no restrictions on his use of the Internet. For now at least. A few interesting points that critics of sec. 13 (human rights code) might consider:

1. A sec. 319 (criminal code) charge appears to compel the respondent to attend quite a few hearings, likely more than anything resulting from a sec. 13 complaint.

2. Failure to appear at one of these hearings may very well result in an arrest warrant, unlike a sec. 13 complaint.

Sec. 13 doesn't look so bad after all, eh?  We suppose this is yet another case where one should be careful what one wishes for.

Paulie has been dutifully updating everyone about the status of Topham, including re-posting Topham's most recent update on Radical Press. We won't include that part since it's really just echoing what he always writes, however Paulie does include a "forward" which really is a blast from the past:

Extremists Baiting Extremists Who Further Bait Extremists

We didn't write about the folks with Canadian Hindu Advocacy (all two or three of them) or their plan to harass Muslim worshippers outside a Toronto mosque by parading dogs in front of it (because for some reason the myth that Muslims hate and/or are afraid of dogs has managed to really take hold in the minds of the anti-Muslim fringes) for two reasons. First and foremost Ron Banerjee is a publicity whore who is pretty much irrelevant except that he is promoted by the Canadian JDL and Michael Coren on Sun News and we didn't want to contribute, even in a small way, to his efforts at self-promotion. Second, we sort of knew it would end up as a complete failure anyways. But if you would like to read about this almost surreal piece of performance art, our friend BCL has done a very good job since the ill-fated decision by Banerjee to call for the protest (here, here, and here).

But even before Banerjee's mosque dog walk action, he had already come up with another way to antagonize the Muslim community.

Rodney King Dead at 47

Twenty-one years ago I was in high school when the video of Rodney King being beaten by members of the LAPD made international news.

I had already been following news stories about racist groups in Canada and the United States. The Heritage Front had started making headlines and was fast becoming the most influential hate groups Canada had experienced since the Saskatchewan Klan of the 1920s. In Saskatchewan, Carney Nerland of the Aryan Nations had just killed a First Nations trapper, Leo LaChance (he would later be convicted of manslaughter). In the United States, Years before that, neo-Nazis affiliated with Ton Metzger's White Aryan Resistance had murdered Ethiopian immigrant Mulugeta Seraw; W.A.R was subsequently bankrupted as a result of a lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 1990 because Metzger's influence was proven to be a key factor in the murder.

However, it wasn't until the beating of Rodney King made headlines that I came to understand that systemic racism was pervasive in institutions that were supposed to be color blind.

Rodney King wasn't a saint. He himself admitted that he struggled with demons and in one of his last interviews he stated that he would always struggle with sobriety. In other words, he was as human as any one of us. But the assault he endured on March 3, 1991 did serve to make very public a reality that primarily Black men had been systematically targeted because of their ethnicity.

We here at ARC hope that Rodney King finds the peace that he struggled to find in life.

Okay, We'll Bite

Alright. You're fishing for a response, here ya go.

Don't worry. All will make sense soon enough.

More of the msn, including "The National Post",  have now commented on the most recent Terry Tremaine decision. And so have our friends and benefactors at Free Dominion.

The reason for this decision, in the minds of the members and promoted by the proprietors of Free Dominion, is starting to become a tired, old refrain:

Paul Fromm's Support For a Cause Makes His Friendship With Kevin Strom a Bit Awkward

Paul Fromm and Kevin Strom with other notables in the, "White
Nationalist" Movement. Would hate to be Nick Griffin. Who
Knows what Strom had been doing with that hand
earlier in the day?

Paul Fromm has known and worked with Kevin Strom, formerly of the National Alliance before he abandoned the racist group to form his own, the National Vanguard, for many years. For example, in 2004 both of them signed on to David Duke's New Orleans Protocol which attempted to mend the rifts that existed between, "White Nationalist" groups and aimed create a climate in which the various groups could work together for the common cause (how's that working out for you fellas, by the way?).

So it shouldn't come as a surprise that when Strom joined Facebook, one of the first he added as a friend was Paulie:

Edgar Steele Charged In Murder For Hire Case

Generally speaking, we focus primarily on racists in Canada. On occasion though we note links to racists who reside outside of the country when there is a connection to the people we cover here.

Today, Edgar Steele was arrested based on allegations of murder for hire:

North Idaho attorney charged in murder-for-hire plot
Prosecutors say Edgar J. Steele, long tied to hate groups, agreed to pay money to see his wife and her mother dead.

BY KATHLEEN KRELLER AND CYNTHIA SEWELL - kkreller@idahostatesman.com cmsewell@idahostatesman.com

Copyright: © 2010 Idaho Statesman (Published: 06/12/10)

Edgar J. Steele, 64, was charged Friday - the same day the women were to be killed in a car crash meant to look like an accident, according to a probable-cause affidavit.

A confidential witness occasionally employed by Steele met with the FBI Wednesday and told agents Steele would pay him to murder the women.

The witness said Steele had discussed a list of people he wanted dead, including his wife and her mother, six months earlier. The witness agreed to the plot and accepted travel money, court documents say.

According to the affidavit, the witness was supposed to kill the women Friday because Steele had an alibi for that day. So agents concealed a device on the informant and recorded Steele planning the murders, the document said.

"The United States magistrate had found probable cause for the offense," said Traci Whelan, an assistant U.S. attorney for Idaho. "As for the timing of the arrest, it was prudent, given he had apparently set a deadline for it."

Steele is well known from his work for hate groups such as the Aryan Nations and other high-profile clients, including the McGuckin family, who held off police during a 2001 Idaho standoff. He's also known for vocal anti-semitic and racist rants on the Internet.

The witness told the FBI Steele paid $500 in cash for travel expenses and promised as much as $25,000 if the murders were completed on Friday. According to the affidavit, Steele promised the witness another $100,000 if an insurance policy paid out after his wife's murder.

"Edgar Steele told (the witness) that he has no second thoughts and he wants the plan carried out," the affidavit said. "This statement was made multiple times during the meet."

According to the affidavit, Steele said he would deny knowing the witness if he were caught, but he would compensate the witness's family if Steele was never implicated.

The motive for the alleged plot is unclear. Whelan said she believes the couple is still married and has not separated. Steele's wife was visiting or helping out with a health care issue at her mother's house in Oregon this week, Whelan said.

Calls to the Oregon house were not immediately returned on Friday.

Whelan said the complaint is just a charging document and is not proof of guilt. Steele will likely appear at a preliminary hearing on Monday, and the case must go before a grand jury, she said. Steele was arrested Friday at his Sagle home.

"Neither the FBI or U.S. Attorney's Office would proceed in a case where we didn't feel there was proof to charge," Whelan said.

Steele is in custody on federal felony charges, she said, but she declined to reveal where he is being held.

According to his website, Steele is an author and trial lawyer who graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law and has a law practice that is "noteworthy for cases that test the limits of constitutional law on behalf of politically incorrect clients." The website also says Steele recently considered a run for Idaho governor.

He unsuccessfully defended the Aryan Nations and its founder, Richard Butler, in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit brought against them in 2000. Steele penned the book "Defensive Racism: An Unapologetic Examination of Racial Differences."

Last year, in response to the shooting of a security guard at the national Holocaust Memorial Museum by neo-Nazi James von Brunn, Steele said, "Why did von Brunn choose to unload at the National Holocaust Museum? Because it is an edifice to one of the most stupendous lies of modern times, paid for and maintained with taxpayer dollars, that's why."

Kathleen Kreller: 377-6418

Steele is one member of the "Nazis in suits" crowd. You know, the people who dress in a professional manner and couch their racism "science" and "history", or at least an interpretation of said science and history. They also try to avoid racial epithets, at least in public. However, under the surface, they're just the same as the other boneheads.

Paulie is quite familiar with Steele, having participated in various speaking engagements down south. Paulie also recommends Steele's books to young boneheads:

James W. von Brunn Links to Canadian Boneheads

Although we hadn't yet commented on the incident before now, we have been following the situation regarding the attack on the Holocaust Museum by James W. von Brunn, an 88 year old known for decades as a virulent antisemite and racist who once was imprisoned for trying to kidnap members of the Federal Reserve back in 1981 and served a 6 year sentence.

A few of our readers asked us to write an article on any connection that von Brunn had to Canadian racists. On that we would invite our readers to take a look at BigCityLib's discussion of the subject, though we would add our own belated input as well. Below is an excerpt from an ADL profile on von Brunn:

To Von Brunn, the Holocaust was another Jewish sleight-of-hand; he was an avid Holocaust denier with connections to a variety of denier groups and individuals. Holocaust denier Jack Wikoff identified Von Brunn in 1995 as one of four "dedicated activists" who helped air the Holocaust denial videos of Canadian Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel on public access television. In return, Zundel interviewed von Brunn on his radio show, identifying him as an "American artist and businessman."

At the time that this interview occurred, Zundel's webmaster was Marc Lemire. Also, while Zundel was being held in detention in Canada awaiting deportation, von Brunn signed his name to a petition demanding that Zundel be released:

Dear Sir:

RELEASE Ernst Zundel, a great man, and with him RELEASE FREEDOM of THOUGHT.

James von Brunn USA

Well, at least he referred to Coderre as sir.

Not long after the attack that left one man, security guard Stephen Tyrone Jones, dead, the Aryan Guard forum announced the news of the attack. Bill Noble immediately justified the murder, as well as the 1981 attempted kidnapping:

Not to be outdone, other members of the Aryan Guard's forum chimed in to praise von Brunn for his attack on the Holocaust Memorial:

The Rise and Fall of a Racist Gang: Long, Nerland and Sims

We thought we'd direct our readers to this video from an old CBC story covering a racist skinhead/Aryan Nations rally in Provost, Alberta in the early 1990s. In this video is Carney Nerland, the Saskatchewan Aryan Nations leader who not long after the "First Annual Alberta Aryan Fest" took place shot and killed a First Nations trapper named Leo LeChance in Prince Albert. The organizer of the Provost rally, Terry Long, ran into his own legal problems when he was implicated in the brutal attack against Keith Rutherford in Edmonton. The attackers, young skinheads, were influenced by Terry Long.

The parallels between the Aryan Nations of the late 1980s and early 90s in Alberta and the Aryan Guard are compelling. Both groups had roughly 25 core members. Both groups became brazen enough to engage in public protests and/or rallies. The difference is that the Aryan Nations eventually collapsed as a result of the criminal activities of the membership. The Aryan Guard, thus far, is still going, however it hasn't been around as long as the Aryan Nations that was created by Long.

Any bets on how long it will be before the Aryan Guard also implodes?

Sources

The Skinhead International: Canada (from the Nizkor Project)

The CBC Digital Archives Website.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Last updated: Jan. 24, 2005.

Aryan Nations in Saskatchewan? Not so fast.

At one time the Aryan Nations had a more high profile presence in Canada. The Canadian branch of the Idaho-based hate group was led by Terry Long. After staging a rally in Provost, Alberta (AryanFest) in 1990, the movement in Canada fell apart due to some high profile criminal incidents. In Saskatchewan, the Klan member and who was leader of the province's Aryan Guard group was named Carney Nerland. Nerland was arrested and convicted in the death of Leo LaChance, a Native trapper who was shot by Nerland in January 1991. That same year Long was implicated in an attack against Keith Rutherford by skinheads that left Rutherford blind in one eye.

After leaving prison Nerland disappeared and hasn't been heard of in the media. Long moved from Alberta to BC, was divorced by his wife, and except for his relationship with Todd Conroy, former leader of Volksfront Canada, has also remained silent since the mid 1990s. There were some half-hearted efforts to start up the Aryan Nations in Central Canada in 2003 (Andrew Talbot and Joe Subic were the only two active members at the time) but all have appeared to have been for naught.

Then, we came across this:


So, what's the story?

Jody Issel of Regina, Saskatchewan looks as if he's trying to restart the Aryan Nation's in Saskatchewan based upon the poorly constructed website he set up. Unfortunately, he's run into a few problems. First, there doesn't look like there's more than a handful of people associated with his little gang. That's minor compared to the other issue. It seems that none of the groups in the United States who claim to be the true Aryan Nations (as the hate group splintered after losing it's Idaho compound in a law suit and the death of Richard Butler) know who this group is.

Not that we care, but if you're going to claim to be an official branch of the Aryan Nations, shouldn't you let the head office know about you? There are reports that the various factions in the United States aren't pleased that their name is being used without their permission. Also, we're interested to know how long this hate site will be hosted by GeoCities which has a policy of not allowing hate sites to use their system.