By Anthony Shull

I was in Morristown, NJ this weekend for an anti-immigration rally and its concomitant counter-rally. The mayor of Morristown has been trying, thus far unsuccessfully, to deputize his police force as INS agents so that they can detain “illegal” immigrants.

The anti-immigration rally was supported and attended by a few white-supremacist groups such as Stormfront www.stormfront.org. I was attending under the auspices of New Brunswick Copwatch www.myspace.com/nbcw so I floated between the rally and counter-rally.

Here’s a quick summary of the events: http://www.dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070728/UPDATES01/70728 0350

Most attendees of both the rally and counter-rally were quiet, average people. They were community members who disagreed on the issue of immigration. If they had been the only participants the day would have been truly forgettable.

But, groups such as Antifa (Anti-fascists) and ARA (Anti-Racist Action) also participated in the counter-rally along with the Progressive Labor Party (crazy, but physically attractive Stalinists.) During the rally, the ARA attempted to goad the white-supremacists into violent confrontations. Of course, the Stormfront people are all pudgy dorks whose threats and militancy always fail to materialize; therefore, they contented themselves with yelling and “being held back” by their white brothers and sisters.

After the rally, however, a confrontation broke out as some ARA kids threw “something metal” (most likely a soda can or rock) at the truck of Eric K Williams, a smarmy Stormfronter. After Eric got out of his truck with a baseball bat he was attacked by various people. Three people were arrested, and both Eric and his wife were slightly injured. Both were able to walk around; Eric’s wife was taken to the hospital for a few stitches.

This is where the real story begins as the Stormfront website blew up almost immediately after it happened. In total, the discussion board for the site on the attack reached 47 pages in length in two days. Exaggerating, the attack was made into an event in which Eric and his wife were ambushed and severely beaten by anarchists, communists, Jews, and queers with metal pipes. According to SF, his truck was smashed up and “looted.” Eric failed to correct the exaggerations of other SFers and merely mentioned that he was sore and would post more information about the incident when he felt better (he never did post his version of the events most likely because he is afraid to directly lie about a pending case.) Of course, I have video not only of the guy and his wife walking around calmly after the attack, but of the truck in perfect condition. Also, on the SF site, Eric said that there were 8-12 attackers and that the police mistakenly let some of them go; although I have video of him directly telling the police that some of the people they had detained had nothing to do with the attack.

Taking it a step further, the SF people started trying to track down the “attackers” who had not been arrested. Hilariously, they blamed a black gentleman for orchestrating the whole affair with his cell-phone–relaying information to the attackers, etc. Furthermore, in trying to track down one of the women they had a picture of, they falsely identified her as a member of SDS and also posted a picture of one of her friends (both of these people were in Detroit at the time of the incident.) The final bit of the conspiracy fell into place as the media failed to print the full story because it is being controlled by Jews.

Last word is that the SFers are going to have security details anytime they travel in the future which they gave the adorable name Stormfront Security. They are also posturing about violently confronting the ARA, etc. “If they want a war…”

The point of this post is that Stormfront would have attended the rally and quietly gone back to their ridiculous discussion boards if they hadn’t been provoked by the Left. While they were definitely trying to use the rally to their own ends, Stormfront is too insipidly dull too act as a provocateur organization. They couldn’t muster more than 10-15 people to attend a rally…let alone organize one…or, I don’t know, organize a community.

While the community organizations that ACTUALLY organize people in Morristown were silently protesting without confrontation, two groups of self-interested reactionaries entered the community in order to use it as a space of confrontation. And, instead of working with the local groups in order to network and offer aid; as some groups such as New Brunswick Copwatch, Tent State University, and New Jersey Immigration Policy Network did; the Left organizations exploited the situation for their own ends as shamelessly as did the neo-Nazis.

Half-insane reactionary racists are not worth driving people from NYC in for. They are not worth bail money and criminal records. These white-supremacists would have been better dealt with if they were completely ignored. What would their internet rag have then said? “Stormfront attends rally of 200 people…is utterly ignored.”

I advocate violence, but with stipulations. The first stipulation is that it must be democratic. This means that the violence has to have the support of the community. An example here would be the storming of the Bastille by the French burghers in 1789. The coalition of bourgeoisie, petit-bourgeoisie, and proletarians successfully fought off an attempted counter-revolution spearheaded by the aristocracy and clergy. The violence has to leave your movement in a better position than it was in before. If it doesn’t accomplish this then it is a bad tactic. Period.

First, the ARA’s decision to use violence was not democratic. None of the community members asked the ARA to step in and defend their values with force. In fact, the ARA was approached by some groups and asked not to engage in violent posturing or actions. Furthermore, the violent tactics used by the ARA excited Stormfront and might help radicalize some of its members. The ideal end would be to demoralize the enemy; however, even non-escalation would have been preferred here as it would have prevented SFers from getting more involved. Finally, with three people arrested the ARA will have to spend a lot of time and money that could have been used for better purposes.

The ARA might consider their actions militant; however, the more militant position in this situation would have been to ignore Stormfront. It is more militant to ignore people you don’t like than to attack them if the end result will be more positive.

Lastly, groups like Stormfront are fringe reactionaries. They will never gain support from either the capitalists or the people. Their fantastical views are so far from reality that they do not resonate with anyone outside of a few hardcore members. Their theories and practices are out of line with the world as it actually exists and they will therefore remain insignificant. In many ways these groups exist only to provide members with a delusional explanations of the problems they confront in their lives. Stormfront provides confused, scared people with answers, a purpose, and a sense of individual importance.

The question then becomes how groups like ARA differ. Instead of organizing with communities they insist on defending them–out-of-town racists battling out-of-town anti-racists. They employ unsustainable tactics and have no rational strategies or goals. Are their members equally delusional?