Source: Attack victims white supremacists

[mucifer]

Source: UPI

TINLEY PARK, Ill., May 20 (UPI) -- A group attacked at a Tinley Park, Ill., restaurant was made up of white supremacists, a law enforcement source told the Chicago Sun-Times Sunday.

Tinley Park Mayor Ed Zabrocki said police do not know if attackers were connected to the NATO Summit demonstration in downtown Chicago.

"The guys we have in the lockup are still not talking, at least not this morning," Zabrocki told the newspaper.

The owner of the Ashford House restaurant in Tinley Park said 18 young men stormed into the dining room and attacked patrons with hammers and batons.



Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2012/05/20/Source-Attack-victims-white-supremacists/UPI-41351337539478/#ixzz1vSSkShkS

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2012/05/20/Source-Attack-victims-white-supremacists/UPI-41351337539478/?spt=hs&or=tn

[Posteritatis]

1. And the first comment on the UPI article's one of them. Nice. (nt)

[Ian David]

2. It must have been someone who hates Illinois Nazis.

[lunasun]

5. I thought of that too!! last week I watched the movie with my younger daughter(her 1st view)

Still great -so many in the movie have passed on now..............but there is still a lot of hate for Illinois Nazis
it seems...........

[msanthrope]

10. Beat me to it!! nt

[Ian David]

3. Is there a source other than The Moonie Times? n/t

[lunasun]

4. Yes Chicago Sun Times OK?(large city paper)

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/12658014-418/source-group-beaten-at-tinley-park-restaurant-were-white-supremacists.html

[DallasNE]

7. White Gang Violence

This other group sounds like they could be simple anarchists. My guess is that they know one another because they knew where to find them -- perhaps even with some overlap in membership. This will be an interesting story to follow and could represent new challenges for law enforcement -- also showing that they have been focusing on the wrong groups.

[Ian David]

9. Kewl. Thanks. n/t

[RufusTFirefly]

6. I sure hope the more reflective among us understand the meme that's being generated here.

Protestors as assailants
White supremacists as victims
And a pseudo-syllogistic link that's as brazen and diabolical as the one that connected Saddam Hussein to 9/11.

[Ian David]

11. That's why I asked for a non-Moonie source. n/t

[RufusTFirefly]

15. Indeed. And I appreciated your healthy skepticism.

But alas, even if the substance of the story is true, the emphasis and innuendo are what's dangerous.

Back in 1999, my local paper ran a reasonably balanced AP story explaining how anti-globalization protestors had peacefully (peacefully!) brought a halt to the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference but then chose to accompany that article with a sensational picture of a thug dressed in black, kicking in a plate glass downtown window.

Thanks to the photo, people who merely perused the front page or read the AP article uncritically drew the inevitable conclusion. Inevitable and totally wrong.

To this day, many Americans, perhaps even the majority, have a tragically warped view of what happened in Seattle 13 years ago.

[daaron]

19. It's a narrative I could live with.

White supremacist victims? I'm so sure the world's heart will start bleeding for them. Not.

[RufusTFirefly]

23. Sorry, but I don't support violence against anyone.

And that means anyone.

[daaron]

25. Nice. I've known many pacifists.

I'm just not one.

[24601]

36. It's not what their race or views are - it's the idea that anyone is fair game to be attacked

on account of their race or views that is abhorrent.

[ZombieHorde]

8. Sounds scary to me.

I would not want to be the victim of mob violence.

[msanthrope]

12. Thus, you have joined the mob/horde? nt

[ZombieHorde]

13. Zombies don't count. They're just too cute. nt

[Hassin Bin Sober]

27. Not to mention the patrons who only came for the all you can eat salad bar.

[secondvariety]

14. Bizarre.

Is it me or is society finally circling the crapper for the final time?

[frylock]

16. nah, it'll be back for a victory lap

[David__77]

17. This was a strike by Anti-Racist Action.

I used to belong to ARA back in high school. It was premised on the concept of "no free speech" for fascism and racism, and mobilizing people for confrontation. In my area, people were killed by the fascists - this is serious business.

I will not speak to the merits or demerits of the ARA strategy, but I will say that the political result is to narrow the political space in which the fascist/racist movements can openly operate.

[David__77]

18. Here is a link to details regarding the fascist meeting and the strike against it...

http://www.southsideara.blogspot.com/2012/05/5th-annual-white-nationalist-economic.html

The "White Nationalist"/Tea Partiers over at Stormfront are all fretting about this incident.

From the anti-racist blog:

On Saturday, May 19th a group of 30 anti-fascists descended upon Ashford House restaurant in the Chicago suburb of Tinley Park where the 5th annual White Nationalist Economic Summit and Illinois White Nationalist Meet-and-Greet was taking place. The White Nationalists were targeted inside the restaurant and physically attacked, causing several injuries and completely shutting down their meeting. The anti-fascist group was privy to anonymous inside information. This fascist event had been in secret planning for six months. The attendees have attempted to cover up the true intent of the event with mainstream media reports initially reporting the white nationalist conference as a wedding party and then as an Irish heritage meeting. The event was advertised on www.stormfront.org, an established white nationalist fascist internet forum.

Anti-fascists oppose any organizing by racists and fascist in their communities. Fascist and white nationalist organizing has resulted in a number of horrifying incidents, from the recent J.T. Ready shootings in Arizona to the Benjamin Nathaniel Smith shooting in the West Rogers Park neighborhood in Chicago, as just two examples.

These anti-fascists are committed to shutting down and attacking any racist, nationalist, or fascist organizers or individuals that they encounter.

[daaron]

20. Absolutely fascinating.

Truly a very interesting organization. Thanks for the link.

[daaron]

22. Pretty pictures.

CCC's 'Thomas Stuart'

[Posteritatis]

21. Blog's been removed. (nt)

[David__77]

24. I just saw that. It's in my cache. I think I know why they removed it...

Probably because they posted the photos, home addresses, and phone numbers of three of the Stormfront posters that were in attendance of the meeting. One of these looked like it would have been difficult for him to even stand to his obesity. The ARA post showed images of some of his post-incident posts "from the hospital":

[Posteritatis]

26. Hopefully someone caught those so they can send them some tiny, tiny violins. (nt)

[Archae]

28. Good to hear about your mature response to the racists.

Yeah, two wrongs ALWAYS make it right...

[David__77]

29. I am not advocating such strikes.

But at the same time, I have no sympathy for the fascists' woes.

As I stated, I was once part of Anti-Racist Action. I think it is a fine organization that's on the right side in the fight. Here, the fascists murdered (once), beat, and terrorized, until they were themselves terrorized into moving on to greener pastures.

[socialist_n_TN]

31. Well we KNOW that the fascists won't hesitate to engage.........

in violence, ESPECIALLY when they think they can get away with it without any blowback. IOW, a typical coward's mentality. These bullies need to be metaphorically punched in the nose.

I'm just glad there's a group that doesn't mind giving them a dose of their own medicine. The communists and other left in Germany didn't stand up to Nazi thugs and we see what happened. I don't want that to happen here.

[RZM]

32. I'm always very skeptical of the motivations of people like that

First off, even if you believe them to be genuine (I'll come back to that in a second), these people are still violently attacking others for exercising their rights to free speech and free assembly. So that's wrong to begin with. I've got no love for neo-Nazi loons, but I respect their right to be neo-Nazi loons. Peaceful protests against them and harsh criticism should be encouraged. But violence should be condemned.

Second, I have my suspicions that politics is often incidental to people who are willing to take a hammer to an unarmed person because of who they are. Some may genuinely believe in the ideology behind their actions, but I strongly suspect many others are simply thugs looking for an excuse to commit acts of violence. I'd bet the farm that some of the people involved in this incident have histories of violent behavior not related to any specific ideological cause. That's probably true of many violent groups, including neo-Nazis themselves. This same phenomenon is often pointed out in discussions of the violence in Kansas between pro and anti slavery forces in the run up to the Civil War. Many participants on both sides were more interested in finding an excuse to rob and kill than they were in the slavery question.

[David__77]

33. Possibly, but not in my experience.

As a "leftist," I found myself in a radicalized group including many who culturally on the right, if that makes sense. In this context, we upheld "free speech" for the vast majority, but not for those consciously organizing for racist terror. Rather, we saw this as properly a law enforcesment issue (as it is in many states around the world), but since the state here doesn't recognize that, we took it upon ourselves to assert "popular" power where the state would not.

There were a bunch of ex-racists who'd been won over to a militantly anti-racist, progressive position. They relished fighting, yes. But not just fighting anyone - for them, fighting was as much about love of what you protect as about hate of what you seek to destroy.

[RZM]

34. The 'ex-racists' you mention are kind of what I'm talking about

If you go from being in a violent racist gang to a violent anti-racist gang, was it ever really about race? Because the tie that binds seems to be the violence.

Another thing about violence is that it's frequently framed as 'protection.' If you look at violence directed by the state in the 20th century, defense is a common theme (they don't call it the department of defense for nothing).

In the Soviet Union in the 1930s, the Great Terror was framed as defensive (the capitalists are coming to get us, so we have to root out their spies here).

Hitler's invasion of the USSR and the Holocaust were both framed as defensive (they're coming to get us, so we have to strike first and strike hard).

Korea and Vietnam were both about protecting non-Communist states. The war on terror and the war in Iraq were about defending America and 'fighting them over there.' And so on and so forth.

Justifying the use of violence by couching it as a defensive measure is a far more common argument because it's a lot easier to do than justifying naked aggression or violence for the sake of itself.

Of course sometimes that really is the case. But everybody tends to think it's the case when they are the ones being violent. And they can't all be right.

[starroute]

30. Is that what this is about, then

I've seen references to them or the term "antifa" showing up in occasional news stories, but I've never known much about them. They seem to be tied in with both Anonymous and anarchist groups, though.

http://www.vancouverobserver.com/life/technology/2012/01/31/anonymous-neo-nazis-and-ron-paul

Anonymous hacks neo-Nazi sites
Posted: Jan 31st, 2012

Hacker group Anonymous has taken action once again this week, this time in a widespread campaign against American neo-Nazi websites.

"Operation Blitzkrieg", as the attack was ironically dubbed, targeted specifically the sites of the American Third Position, an active political party espousing a doctrine that closely resembles fascist ideology and white nationalism. The site of Merlin Miller, the party's nominee for the 2012 presidential election was also attacked.


http://nycantifa.wordpress.com/author/nycautonomousantifa/

NYC ANTIFA is an autonomous blog that is trying through different media (news, videos and information in general) help to build, defend, educate and create an effective cultural resistance against fascism.


http://rosecityantifa.org/

ROSE CITY ANTIFA opposing fascist organizing through education, direct action, and the development of viable social and cultural alternatives.

RCA is the Portland, Oregon chapter of the Anti-Racist Action Network, since 2007.

[littlewolf]

35. and so now stormfront will of course

get their pound of flesh ...

[daaron]

37. Heheh. Have you seen photos of the Stormfront?

It's no wonder they got their asses handed to 'em.

[littlewolf]

38. I had some SF folks that I guarded in prison

do not believe everything you see
in the pictures... some of these folks
are ready ...

[daaron]

39. Oh I'm sure some of them are.

Fortunately for us, they are so profoundly stupid. Being big, muscled, mean and armed don't mean squat if the leader of your rebel platoon is a total moron.