ANTIFA COMES FOR THE BONEHEADS IN PHILLY!

The City of Brotherly Love made sure that this year they will let the boneheads know that they can’t keep treking out here every October and expect us to be okay with it. UPDATE: New photos have been added. (PHOTO: courtesy Isis Imagery)

One People’s Project

PHILADELPHIA, PA—It was expected that more numbers would turn out for this year’s white supremacist “Leif Ericson Day Celebration” on Boathouse Row, and that was exactly the case as more than 200 antifa – seven times the number that has ever participated in the opposition since the event began in 2007 – faced off with a mere 30 neo-Nazis coming from four states.

The event, sponsored by the Keystone State “Skinheads” (KSS), is normally held on the Columbus Day weekend, but for unknown reasons was moved up a week. A Facebook event page was created by the white supremacist American Freedom Party and boasted less than ten persons who said they would attend. It was also promoted by the white supremacist music distro Label 56, known best for selling records of the bands that featured neo-Nazi musician Wade Page, who in August 2012 shot and killed six people and wounded four others in a Sikh temple before killing himself in Oak Creek Wisconsin. IN addition to KSS, other groups such as the Vinlander Social Club (VSC), Aryan Terror Brigade (ATB) who earlier this year saw members go to prison for attacking three Egyptian men in 2011 and one member blinded by comrades during a 2012 assault, one of whom facing trial on Dec. 2, Blood and Honor (BNH), and Advanced White Society (AWS) as well as the Traditionalist Youth Network (TYN), were represented among the white supremacists that participated, coming from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana and other states.

When the neo-Nazis arrived, they were met by antifa who also came from various states as well as from Philadelphia who came together under the name Residents Against Racism (RAR). As has been the case in years past, they waited at the Thorfinn Karlsefni Statue along Kelly Drive where the neo-Nazis planned to march from nearby Fairmount Park and hold a ceremony in honor of Leif Ericson. When they did not come down at Noon as planned a contingent of Temple University students led a march into the park to peacefully confront them as they assembled to march.

After a brief shouting match, the neo-Nazis proceeded down Lemon Hill Drive to the statue which still had a number of antifa there standing their ground. Curiously, the antifa and neo-Nazi group found themselves going down the road comingling with them standing side by side to each other in many instances. This was also the case as the neo-Nazis attempted to hold their event at the statue with conversations and more shouting matches between members the two groups taking place at different moments. At one point a red flag and an anti-Nazi banner of a swastika crossed out by the red “no circle” – which was later blurred out in the Philadelphia Fox affiliate’s newscast – was placed on the statue. There were minor scuffles, but no arrests or injuries.


PHOTO: courtesy Isis Imagery

Antifa, which included Philadelphia Antifascists, DC Anti-Racist Action, the Philadelphia chapter of the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, Temple Chapter Students Against Sweatshops, Black Orchid Foods (who brought bags of popcorn for participants), the International Socialist Organization, Socialist Alternative, Up Against the Law Legal Collective, the Peoples Underground for Revolutionary Progress, the anarchist community and other groups, held up signs in opposition to the presence of the neo-Nazis and mockingly chanted “Who’s statue? Our statue!” indicating how the hatemongers were not able to hold their ceremony at the statue as they have been able to do in its first two years. In his remarks to the crowd, VSC founder Brien James spun that to suggest that the antifa failed to prevent them from holding their event at all, and will fail again next year.

James was one of several neo-Nazis from Indiana that participated in this year’s outing, making them the largest state contingent there, even surpassing Pennsylvania. Among them who joined James on the road and was actually riding in his SUV were the founders of the Traditionalist Youth Network, Matt Parrott and Towson University alum Matthew Heimbach, who founded unrecognized student groups there such as the Towson chapter of Youth for Western Civilization and White Student Unions. Both groups are nonexistent on campus today. Earlier this year at the American Renaissance conference in Tennessee, Heimbach told One People’s Project that he denied working with the more unsavory characters in white supremacist circles. “We don’t deal with skinheads,” he said.

Heidi McCarty, 22, or Willamsport, PA, who was in a picture from last year’s event published by One People’s Project and the Southern Poverty Law Center’s magazine Intelligence report wearing a white tank top that read, “Don’t Shoot Officer, I’m White”, wore the same shirt this year, but often kept her arms crossed in front of it, making it unable to be read. Unemployed after being fired from three jobs over the past year, she was joined by her boyfriend Patrick Rogers and their friends Elizabeth McGill and James Hastings, all also from Williamsport.

L-R Matt Parrott, Steve Smith, Matthew Heimbach

After James’ remarks, the neo-Nazis retreated back to Fairmount Park and to their cars as antifa followed close behind only dispersing once they had left for their rendezvous at another park with their colleagues who did not want to participate in the rally. Among them was KSS founding member and Republican Party Committeeman Steve Smith who has attended every Leif Ericson day event, but has now twice decided to avoid being seen at the statue for the rally.

The concern was greater this year due to an increase in activity and numbers from neo-Nazis in the area that were uniting under Blood and Honor, an international neo-Nazi network that was founded by the late Ian Stuart Donaldson, the lead singer of the UK white power band Skrewdriver and boasts close links with a international neo-Nazi terrorist organization called Combat 18. Having a largely diminished presence in recent years, neo-Nazis in the Northeast in particular saw larger number at various events such as white power concerts in Altoona, PA and Atlantic City, NJ as well as a neo-Nazi rally in April at the memorial for the 1940 Katyn Massacre in Jersey City, NJ. Like the Le
if Ericson event in Philadelphia, neo-Nazis have been observing that tragedy in Poland annually for several years, and it is expected to come out again in April 2014.

In addition to the activity among those that are referred to by antifa not as skinheads but as “boneheads”, an increase in opposition white supremacist rallies and conferences has been seen this month and will continue into next around the country. Besides the Leif Ericson event, there was the Oct. 5 rally by the Ku Klux Klan that was supposed to take place at the Gettysburg Battlefield, but due to the federal government shutdown resulted in four Klansmen holding a rally in a Gettysburg police parking lot. On Oct. 12 a conference in Murfreesboro, TN by the League of the South was met by protestors who opposed that groups racist angle to neo-Confederacy. On Oct. 26, the white supremacist National Policy Institute will hold its second conference at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, DC and organizers working to oppose that event were in Philadelphia to urge people to come out next weekend. Opposition is also mounting against the National Socialist Movement’s latest rally in Kansas City, MO, which will be held on Oct. 9

For more photos, click here.

Right-click to enlarge

	Vinlander Social Club (VSC) founder Brien James, and behind him is his masked girlfriend, Patrick D. Westfall of Lafyette, Indiana and Don Hansard.
	L-R: Matt Parrott, Don Palmer, Patrick Westfall (he was only one of two people who even wore that shirt; we’re hurt), unknown taking up the rear.
	Bob Gaus
	L-R: Mike Marcink, Heidi McCarty trying to hide the message on her tank top: “Don’t Shoot Officer, I’m White”, her friend Elizabeth McGill and some unknown behind her, McGill’s boyfriend James Hastings next to Heidi with Heidi’s boyfriend Patrick Rogers behind him, Brien James’ masked girlfriend with Patrick D. Westfall behind her, unknown from this picture, Brien James, unknown (for now; we have a name and will update once confirmed), Anthony James Olsen and Matthew Heimbach.
	L-R: DLJ, the unknown guy who some folks are trying to ID, Mike Marcink, unknown, Heidi McCarty
	L-R: Ron Sheehy of Linden, NJ, a union pipefitter who is better known as an internet troll named “Tremley”, Bryan Vanagatis, Nazi gloryhound Matthew Heimbach, Brien James’ masked girlfriend, Patrick D. Westfall, who caught an assault charge in April back in his hometown of Lafayette, Indiana, and Patricia Vanagatis. By the way, isn’t it nice how the Vinlanders have their own personal Bill White to play with now. Longtime OPP readers will understand who we are talking about and what we mean when we say that to date, Heimbach comes from the same state as Bill White, acts like Bill White, postures like Bill White, lies like Bill White, but does not piss off Vinlanders like Bill White…yet.
	L-R: Brien James’ masked girlfriend (by the way, the irony is not lost on us that in the 2009 video of this outing, the last time Vinlanders showed up, one of the KSShole supporters said, and we quote, “Only terrorists hide their faces!”), James, Heimbach behind him, Sheehy, and an unknown bonehead behind him.
	Only Sheehy (cut off on the left, Mike Marcink, James Hastings, and Heidi McCarty (still with her arms crossed over the tank top she said she was going to wear to piss us off) have been IDed in this photo.
	L-R: Mike Marcink, Patrick Rogers, Elizabeth McGill, Heidi McCarty unknown bonehead.
	Group of unknown boneheads near the van some of them came in. Black dude is a Fox 29 reporter.
	Don Hansard, Matt Parrott, that Brien James girlfriend again, Patrick D. Westfall, Brien James. (Photo courtesy Isis Imagery)
	Bill White, er, Matthew Heimbach on the megaphone.
	Oh look, it’s little Joey Phy, a KSShole who would have been to the 2009 outing if it wasn’t for his house arrest on assault charges where it was alleged he even bit the victim’s ear. Last we heard, he was working at a place called Metal Stock on Cottman Ave. in Philly.
	Anthony James (AJ) Olsen and Brien James, who tried to convince himself and everyone else that they beat antifa because they tried to stop them but couldn’t. They are quite a ways from the statue that they said they wanted…
	…but could not even get near.
	Ryan Wojtowicz wearing a shirt from a white power music distro that promoted the event but otherwise didn’t represent physically.
	The guy in the forefront we have seen a lot at various rallies over the years. The one with the crew cut is a new face.
	And we end with this photo of a Don Palmer of American Vikings and Shane Seilhammer of Blood and Honor – Altoona, PA preparing to leave us. That car is one of theirs.