LEON | Indiegogo

This past December I highlighted a piece about Nicky Crane. For those of us in the US Nicky is a bit obscure, in the 80s Nicky was a far-right Neo-Nazi with a very dangerous secret. At the time of his death in 1993 from AIDS his "secret" was out.

In a July 27, 1992 Channel 4 documentary, Nicky Crane admitted to what had only been hinted at and ignored:

He told the interviewer how he'd known he was gay back in his early BM days. He described how his worship of Hitler had given way to unease about the far right's homophobia.

He had started to feel like a hypocrite because the Nazi movement was so anti-gay, he said. "So I just, like, couldn't stay in it." Crane said he was "ashamed" of his political past and insisted he had changed.

"The views I've got now is, I believe in individualism and I don't care if anyone's black, Jewish or anything," he added. "I either like or dislike a person as an individual, not what their colour is or anything."

The revelation attracted considerable press attention. The Sun ran a story with the headline "NAZI NICK IS A PANZI". Below it described the "Weird secret he kept from gay-bashers".

Crane reiterated that he had abandoned Nazi ideology. "It is all in the past," he told the paper. "I've made a dramatic change in my life."

So why I am returning to Nicky Crane's story?

It has come to my attention that there is a film in the works based largely on Crane's life and the culture or sub-culture he was involved in for most of his short life. It is an important story even for those of us living in the US as we have seen the re-emergence of Neo-Nazi like thought and in some cases calls-for-action masked behind cries of religious liberty.

LEON | Indiegogo

BBC News - Nicky Crane: The secret double life of a gay neo-Nazi

An interesting look at the Skinhead movement in the UK during the 80s and 90s focusing on some of its history and the rise of Nicky Crane and ending with decision to leave the movement. Crane eventually died from AIDS in 1993.

He was the British extreme right's most feared streetfighter. But almost right up to his death 20 years ago, Nicky Crane led a precarious dual existence - until it fell dramatically apart.

The skinhead gang marched in military formation down the High Street clutching iron bars, knives, staves, pickaxe handles and clubs.

There were at least 100 of them. They had spent two days planning their attack. The date was 28 March 1980.

Soon they reached their target - a queue of mostly black filmgoers outside the Odeon cinema in Woolwich, south-east London.

Then the skinheads charged.

Most of them belonged to an extreme far-right group called the British Movement (BM).

This particular "unit" had already acquired a reputation for brutal racist violence thanks to its charismatic young local organiser. Many victims had learned to fear the sight of his 6ft 2in frame, which was adorned with Nazi tattoos. His name was Nicky Crane.

But as he led the ambush, Crane was concealing a secret from his enemies and his fascist comrades alike. Crane knew he was gay, but hadn't acted on it. Not yet.
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Twelve years later, the same Nicky Crane sat in his Soho bedsit. His room looked out across London's gay village - the bars and nightclubs where he worked as a doorman, where he drank and danced.

Crane flicked through a scrapbook filled with photos and news clippings from his far-right past.

For years he had managed to keep the two worlds entirely separate. But now he wasn't going to pretend any more.

BBC News - Nicky Crane: The secret double life of a gay neo-Nazi

Sandy Rios: Riots And Starvation Coming To America | Right Wing Watch

In identifying "goodness" and "superiority" with "us," there was a tendency to identify "evil" with "them." This process involves scapegoating and dehumanization. It was then an easy step to blame all societal problems on "them," and presuppose a conspiracy of these evildoers which had emasculated and humiliated the idealized core group of the nation. To solve society's problems one need only unmask the conspirators and eliminate them. 

Chip Barlet, 1992

So which is it Sandy, are "we" Nazis (as Fischer says) or Fascists? Might want to look in the mirror before answering. And yes there is a difference although slight.

Fascists particularly loathed the social theories of the French Revolution and its slogan: "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity."

• Liberty from oppressive government intervention in the daily lives of its citizens, from illicit searches and seizures, from enforced religious values, from intimidation and arrest for dissenters; and liberty to cast a vote in a system in which the ; majority ruled but the minority retained certain inalienable rights.
• Equality in the sense of civic equality, egalitarianism, the notion that while people differ, they all should stand equal in the eyes of the law.
• Fraternity in the sense of the brotherhood of mankind. That all women and men, the old and the young, the infirm and the healthy, the rich and the poor, share a spark of humanity that must be cherished on a level above that of the law, and that binds us all together in a manner that continuously re-affirms and celebrates life.

This is what fascism as an ideology was reacting against--and its support came primarily from desperate people anxious and angry over their perception that their social and economic position was sinking and frustrated with the constant risk of chaos, uncertainty and inefficiency implicit in a modern democracy based on these principles. Fascism is the antithesis of democracy. We fought a war against it not half a century ago; millions perished as victims of fascism and champions of liberty.

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“If we don’t do something, I think we’re going to see — and this is radical — I think we’re going to see riots in the street, we’re going to see starvation, we’re going to see things we have never seen before, we’re going to see a complete breakdown in terms of law enforcement, it’s going to be a nightmare,” she said. “This will be what you are handing to your children if you don’t speak up now. I’m not sure we can pull it back, but are you going to say in retrospect that you did nothing?”

Later in the show, Rios spoke to Kelly Shackelford of the Liberty Institute about the supposed death of religious freedom in America, linking it with the news out of the Supreme Court.

Rios said “leaders the [gay rights] movement” are “fascists when it comes to this issue” who “will not stop until people who object are brought to their knees,” an assessment that Shackelford agreed with, and in turn denounced gay rights advocates for using “unconscionable” tactics and pushing “the ultimate intolerance.”

Sandy Rios: Riots And Starvation Coming To America | Right Wing Watch

Cliven Bundy, John Birch Society, And Koch Industries

Cliven Bundy, John Birch Society, And Koch Industries (via http://crooksandliars.com)

The John Birch Society is promising more uprisings like the one staged by Cliven Bundy and associated militias last weekend. They use typical paranoid rhetoric about sovereignty, the federal government, and E. Wayne Hage's decades-long court battle…

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