Us old-school lefties have been wondering for a quite some time, which is more annoying—the legions of "Anonymous [2]" hacktivists who think that faceless adventurism is the cutting-edge of revolution, or Ron Paul supporters who think that this ultra-reactionary Republican crank stands for progressive change? Well now, much to our amusement, they appear to be at each other's throats! And we have to give an editorial tip o' the hat to Anonymous for uncovering more dirt on Paul's ties to real live neo-Nazis. In their latest cyber-attack, they apparently hacked the website of some nimrods calling themselves American Third Position, or A3P—a Southern California-based outfit that is seeking to mainstream white supremacism by running candidates, in the style of David Duke back in the '90s. The hackers evidently splashed a bunch of the A3P crew's internal e-mails on the group's homepage—and, lo and behold, it turns out they are a well integrated into Paul's political machine! This account from the UK's International Business Times [3], Jan. 31:
Anonymous also claims that the organisation has links with Republican candidate Ron Paul. "We found a disturbingly high number of members who are also involved in campaigning for Ron Paul," the statement said, adding that Paul had regularly met with many party members and even engaged in conference calls with its board of directors.
Another target of the hack was the A3P webmaster, Jamie Kelso. According to the hacker collective, Kelso, a former Scientologist and organiser for Paul campaign events, is also the account owner of neo-Nazi forums and websites.
The hacktivists said they also hacked Kelso's credit card and made donations to anti-fascist organisations, such as the Anti-Defamation League.
"We call upon not only other anti-fascists but all those opposed to white supremacy to utilise this information and make hell for these white nationalist scumbags," the statement added. "It is essential, if we wish to live in a world free from oppression, to expose and confront racists at their jobs, their schools, at their homes and in the streets."
The Anonymous hacks are part of an ongoing campaign called Operation Blitzkrieg, which is aimed at attacking and exposing the websites of neo-Nazi organisations in Europe and the United States.
The ADL was a very impolitic choice, of course, which isn't going to win Anonymous too many friends on the left. We suggest next time they try Anti-Racist Action [4], or even the more mainstream Southern Poverty Law Center [5]. More from a Feb. 1 IBT [6] article which again sports the famous photo of Ron Paul schmoozing with Don Black of Stormfront [7]:
Members of the nationalist American Third Position Party (A3P), whose website was defaced by Anonymous, organised Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's meetings and campaigns, according emails hacked by the collective.
Chairman of the British National Party (BNP) Nick Griffin also took part in meetings with Paul and other representatives of A3P.
"According to these messages, Ron Paul has regularly met with many A3P members, even engaging in conference calls with their board of directors," read a statement from Anonymous.
It also claims that Paul received financial support from other white power groups, such as the online hate forum Stormfront, founded by Don Black, a white supremacist. There is even a photograph of Paul with Black, a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and a current member of the American Nazi Party. Paul allegedly refused to return donations from Black and Stormfront. Black told The New York Times that Paul's newsletter had inspired him to become a supporter.
In its statement, Anonymous said it put extra effort into hacking A3P webmaster Jamie Kelso, a key figure in organising Paul's meetings and conferences.
Kelso, a former Scientologist and account owner of other German Nazi forums, became an active supporter of Paul in 2007. He was reportedly attracted to Paul because he believed the Republican's followers would be receptive to his white supremacist views. He described Paul as "implicitly white" and started to actively organise Paul's events.
"Let's appreciate this big (Paul) audience that's overwhelmingly white," Kelso said in an interview with the Southern Poverty Law Center. "This is our audience, this is our public. These are our people. If we can't persuade these people of the rightness of our cause, then we're finished," he said.
Excerpts from the email hacked by Anonymous show Kelso's commitment to Paul's policies.
In 2009 he wrote to a supporter: "My own opinion is that the White revolution has already begun, and that the good White folks...that fills [sic] these Ron Paul crowds and marching armies ARE the start of the revolution."
Is this the "rev3VOLution" that Ron Paul's supporters are always talking about? Did Ron Paul actually meet with Nick Griffin, as implied above? The Paul connection to Griffin and his vile British National Party [8] is instructive. The BNP has lately been very aggressive with a campaign to steal the populist fire from British labor, linking demands for jobs to xenophobia [9]. Griffin is also, not too surprisingly, a Qaddafi-admirer [10]. Further elucidation is provided by the Southern Poverty Law Center's page on A3P [11] :
Rounding out the A3P's white nationalist team is Jamie Kelso, who has in the past worked for David Duke and served as a moderator for Stormfont, the first major hate site on the Web. The A3P website does not mention Kelso's official position, but he has described himself as the "executive assistant" to William Johnson. Kelso is a behind-the-scenes player at the A3P, but an influential one...
With this group of white nationalist leaders assembled, the party is now seeking active dues-paying members and recruiting voters to register as members of the party for the 2010 California elections. Johnson plans to target a number of different groups in order to assemble the party's base. He developed contacts with Republicans and libertarians who supported Ron Paul during the 2008 US presidential election, holding a $2,000-a-plate fundraiser for Paul's campaign in September 2007. In a July 1, 2010, Internet radio broadcast, Kelso said: "There’s a great overlap in Patriot activities and Patriot causes, and we have, we will have a big effect on this much larger movement, the Ron Paul Revolution, that has millions of people engaged…we'll be pulling them from the right." The A3P also has shown up at Tea Party rallies to try to fulfill this goal.
Maybe the Paul-suckers out there who fancy themselves "progressives" of some sort, and are attracted to the weasel for his facile anti-war and civil libertarian talk, will start to wake up now. Meanwhile, we are a bit confused as to what is actually going on with the A3P website. A Google search turns up American3rdposition.com [12], which redirects to MerlinMiller2012 [13], the (seemingly un-hacked) website of A3P's presidential candidate, white supremacist independent film-maker (gee, just what the world needs) Merlin Miller.
See our last posts on the Ron Paul pathology [14] and the politics of cyberspace [15].
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