Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell is taking on a neo Nazi group accused of
engaging in violent, threatening, and intimidating conduct. The Nationalist Socialist The Nationalist
Social Club or n SC one three one, allegedly disrupted LGBTQ plus events,
targeted immigrant shelters, and even fancied themselves as Thespians during a Drag Queen Story
Hour while violently disrupting the events. The lawsuit seeks to hold them accountable,
proving that while you may hide your face and wear our uniform, you cannot
always hide your wallet. The reality often can be stranger than fiction. It
can be far less entertaining. As the legal curtain rises, Massachusetts is determined
to make sure this neo Nazi saga doesn't get rave reviews. This story is
from UPI dot com by Don Jacobson on eight December twenty twenty three. I
have more to say as usual here from the panel, and so Kelly,
let's go over to you. Yeah, it's about time that law enforcement is
starting to look at this wider array of alleged crimes as some of these neo
Nazi groups. I think a lot of us knew for a long, long
time that these weren't isolated incidents, but they were a plan campaign of terrorism,
even though we don't maybe see the planning above board. And I hope
you actually open to see even more lawsuits like this holding new organations too.
Yeah, yeah, they're actually holding some of these people accountable. Finally.
Yeah, you're right. It is about ducking time. You know, every
time I see these guys, you see them wearing the mask, and I
know I've heard other people say it, but it always gets me when I
see them, you know, and it always makes me wonder. I'm sure
it makes you guys wonder too. And at least of the original Nazis assholes
enough as they were, they were at least brave enough to show their faces.
But not these cowardly neo Nazis. And and why is it right?
Because because they know that what they're doing is breaking the law. They know
it, and they're trying to make it so that it's going to be harder
and harder to find them. So I'm looking at this whole lawsuit. There's
a really really good thing. I'm really enjoying the fact that it's happening.
It appears that the rest of America is pretty much just fed up with their
baby crying and well, at least the people in Massachusetts are anyway, right,
and we can only hope that this attitude spreads further and further across the
country throughout the next coming months and stuff. I'd love to see more of
it, Scott, what you got to say, I mean, I wholeheartedly
agree with you on that. I am happy to see that. You know,
people are getting sick of this kind of stuff and are starting to either
act or demand action. I think they know that there's one thing worth noting
here, and that the group is proudly proclaiming that they are neo Nazis.
You know, they're out there wearing the costumes, they're doing the little dance
move, they're chanting their slogans and what. But if we want to talk
about the good old days, what happened to the good old days where Nazi
was like a bad thing? You know that, you know, when they
had to hide That in itself is a troubling trend. I think. According
to a twenty nineteen Pew Research study, most Americans sixty five percent, including
majorities across racial and ethnic groups, say it's become more common for people to
express racist or racially insensitive views in recent years, A smaller but substantial share
forty five percent, say that it's become more acceptable. So we're seeing not
only are these groups becoming more bold in their displaying, you know, their
messed up beliefs, but it's becoming more socially acceptable. We were just talking
about how people are standing up, and I think what we're seeing there is
some kind of division happening here. You know, we have people on one
side of the issue that are saying that are saying, wait a minute,
these are you know, Nazis, This is a bad thing. But on
the other side of the there's a growing contingent of people that are sympathetic to
this kind of thing. And you know, not only is it becoming more
socially acceptable to be a Nazi again and again it amazes me that I would
even say something like that, but there's also but those groups that are becoming
more and more visible are also becoming bolder and more active in the things that
they do. For example, this is a Government Accountability Office study. They
released a report saying the number of FBI domestic terrorism investigations has more than doubled
since twenty twenty and this report was released in twenty twenty one. Over the
course of that one year, the number of investigations has doubled, and the
number of open FBI investigations specifically has more than quadrupled since twenty thirteen. And
so we're seeing this drastic increase. And you know, it's what we see
here is increased social acceptability of hatred, increased willingness to act on that hatred,
and of course increase usage of growing technology to spread that hatred. And
so you know, this is a very dangerous cocktail that we're mixing up here,
and I think we have to I think I think, like like you
were saying, Kelly, there is room for optimism there as as we see
action being taken. But I think we also have to be more cautious.
You know, the old You know, a drowning man is dangerous to be
around. And because they get more aggressive in their ability in their efforts to
stay afloat. And so as these as these groups get more and more marginalized
by the population as a whole, they're getting bolder and more outgoing in their
own little niche. And so you know, we have to we have to
be careful, Aaron, what are your thoughts on that, you know,
I don't have any I have no ever bill find any kind of studies or
resources show the source of why this is all happening. The one where the
you said that, really, I really onto was emboldened. But I think
deep down these groups are just emboldened by somebody, somebody who is leading this
country, who said the things that people were thinking. He was saying out
loud, the things that people were he was saying the silent parts right right
right, And so that really kind of emboldened people to start sharing what they
actually believe out loud. And I think also social media can somebody's become an
echo chamber where you're just surrounded by people that believe the same things as you
do, and so that you kind of maybe think, you know, you
little louder in what you're saying because you're surrounded people that believe the same things.
I think what this group was doing to these these events is pretty atrocious.
You know, they're out there, they purport to be protecting people from
uh, pedophiles, what the who they call pedophiles? But it really just
drag queens out telling stories. Uh they think that these people are a danger
to families, when in reality, the real danger to families are these guys
themselves. You know, they're showing to these events in full on masks,
you can't see their faces. They're armed, they're violent, and then some
of they get in, they get into the actual event and they're calling people
names, they're aggressively approaching parents with kids present. Uh, those can be
pretty traumatic events for kids. Uh. You know, I'll take a story
hour by whoever's telling the story over somebody coming in, who's armed, who's
violent, who's yelling, who's trying to cause a scene, because because that
kind of odes, that causes way, way, way more damage to people
and to kids into families than story hour, no matter who is telling the
story. Jonathan, what do you think? Oh, you're on mute,
Jonathan. I did be a bit of a deep dive on uh on this.
My first thing I did was I went to the actual filing of the
the you know, the actual suit filing, and I went down and there
were just hundreds, it seemed like, of events, including the physical assault
of two people who organize one of the drag story hours at the door and
one was thrown on the ground and kicked repeatedly, and nobody was arrested for
that because they couldn't determine who did it, though they suspect they need,
of course, in our criminal justice system, you need to have better than
just well he might have been. So that was one thing, But there
were a couple of other things. If that happened in Fall River, Massachusetts,
and then they went up to Taunton, and they actually shut one down
because they canceled the event when they found out that there were twenty members of
this organization showing up. Another time, there was a group of them that
came down and started, but there was a police presence at that one,
so they just stood outside the front door of it and congregated there. In
the meantime, counter protesters showed up and they started giving Nazi salutes to the
protesters and screaming epithets and that sort of thing, and they finally they started
leaving, and then a few of them broke off and engaged the other pro
the counter protesters, and a fight broke out and the police had to break
it up. I believe three people were arrested in that one. So they
are trying, but again they're cowards. They're hiding behind masks. This kind
of thing is just to me is just absolutely un American as hell. And
that's probably not a really good way to say that, but oh, I
think that's an excellent way to say it. Well, yeah, but you
know, I don't believe in hell, but you know, okay, but
I think this is something that we all have have have to deal with the
normalization of this kind of activity at all. It really requires the intervention of
law enforcement. It requires the intervention of the citizens in the area just basically
screaming at these people and telling them to go away, because they actually I
think they actually believe that people will join them rather than chastise them, because
they are getting, you know, positive feedback, like you said, from
the internet and that sort of thing. They call one of these groups the
bully Squad. Now that if that doesn't tell you what they're intending to do
when they show up at these things, I don't know what would. So,
you know, their whole thing about these LGBTQ plus people promote harmful and
degenerate lifestyles such as homosexually, transsexuality and drag culture. In quotes, what
is drag culture? Well, I don't know. Maybe RuPaul could talk a
little bit about that, but I'm just and the slurs they used, we
don't need to know how that really gets under my skin. I mean the
fact there are Nazis openly parading around with Nazi regalia and Nazi flags in my
country. After I lost two uncles and I had another uncle who suffered PTSD
his whole life because of that particular war, I am like not a happy
camp when it comes to these people. So I'm going to just go ahead
and pass this, Kelly, because before I get a little bit willing to
go into some of my diatribes, Kelly, Well, I'm at a loss
because guy, when he brought up all the statistics wiped out the second half
of my notes. But Ninja, Yeah, I was writing some things down
real quick as I was listening to everybody, and Aaron brought up a really
good point about the Internet being an echo chamber and that emboldening them. And
I think it's not just that about the Internet, but it's also that anonymity
and the lack of ramifications to being openly the way they are now. You
know, they can go out on the internet say a bunch of shitty stuff
and then nobody nothing happens to them, and I think that emboldens them a
lot too, emboldens them a lot too. Toy boat, toy boat,
toy boat. So I I don't want to blame the Internet for it.
I don't think we should censor the Internet or anything like that. I'm just
looking at maybe these are some of the causes of the problem. How do
you solve that? I have no freaking clue. You know, I really
really don't like I say. I'm totally against censoring of the Internet, So
that's not an option to me. And John, you said that this is
anti American, and I'm going to disagree with you. I mean, you
go back to the know nothing's in the eighteen fifties, this kind of ideals,
Yeah, this is this is American as all hell. It might be
against the ideals on which America was founded, but it is not an entire
ameragean in any way because our society, American society keeps coming up with a
bunch of degenerate eye groups like this, and we have throughout our entire history.
So that's about all I could come up with on my new notes.
So, Scott, what do you got for us. Well, I actually
have another you're you're talking about you and Aaron. We're both talking about the
increased use of the technology and the internet. Here I did find a little
bit. This is from twenty eighteen report from an organization called START, which
is the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. They found that far right
extremists were forty three percent likely to use social media as a primary or secondary
tool in their radicalization project process, compared to only thirty seven percent for far
left groups and thirty six percent for single issue groups. And so not only
is social media and so forth enabling these groups to become more effective in turning
people to their causes and whatnot, but it's a little bit lopsided. You
know, the far right is taking a little bit more advantage of this new
technology than everyone else, and so it's troubling. We talk about it's easy
to talk about well, I suppose it's easy to talk about the negatives.
I was going to say, it's easy to talk about the positives of the
Internet and the positives of advanced technology. But this is an example of one
of those negatives. You know, I suppose in some way that could be
part and parcel of having, you know, a free society with free speech
and so on. But you know, there is there has to be a
line there. There has to be a line between free speech and a harmful
speech. And so it's interesting that we are that we're now kind of bumping
up against against that. One last little, quick little tidbit here. In
an August twenty twenty three profile of the group that I found from Boston Globe,
they interviewed a former special agent with the FBI named Mike Jerman, and
he said, this, our country's legal infrastructure historically doesn't see white supremacy as
a national security threat. The groups that are prosecuted in far more lenient fashion
than what we typically see in gang or international terrorism prosecutions. And so it's
a little bit lopsided in the use of technology. It's a little bit lopsided
than the use of law enforcement. And you know, being on the radar
there and so hopefully we're we see things change. I don't know. I
suppose time will tell, and you know, the best thing that we can
do is kind of keep bringing it up and keep talking about it in forums
like this. I don't know, Aaron, you got any well, I
really like what you said about freedom of speech. And there's a difference between
you know, I will definite people's rights to to to speak with their mind
speak what they believe, just as long as that speech doesn't become violent,
doesn't encourage violence, does it encouraged name there's no name call, there's you
can get your point across and be kind, uh and be you know,
respectful other people. If you don't, if you think that, you know,
uh, drag Queen Story Hour is a bad thing. I'm sure you
can get out there with signs that and get your point across without throwing up
with guns, without showing up masked, without showing up and kicking people and
breaking ribs and things like that. So I would think you would think,
and you know, you're not setting the bar very high there. Just don't
hurt people, you know, just don't just don't touch that right. That's
that's where I draw the line. Speak your mind, speak what you want
to speak, all offend that right even if I disagree with you, but
don't don't engender, don't encourage violence, don't encourage hate. But and then
one of the these people are way more activated on the right than other groups
are and because they're out there and they're they're fighting their fight, and there
needs to be people from the other side fighting the fight against them, and
we just don't see that happening as much. And it's really easy for apathy
to get a hold of us and and just kind of let problems like this
go by when when they need to be actively fought against. I think we're
starting to see more and more activism going is come snapping back at them.
It's not happening as fast as I would like to see it happen, but
I think it's happening. And you were saying, you know that you'd like
to see people at least be kind. You know, I don't care if
they're kind. I just want them to be civil. Yeah, that's all
I care about. As long as they can just be civil and sit down
and have a conversation. It's a better word. One of the problems you
were talking about, the prosecutions and stuff not really favoring them. I remember
under Obama and when the Justice Department did the study and came out with the
statement that white supremacy was the biggest terrorism problem in the United States at that
point in how the far right was far right organizations were, and the GOP
was up in arms over it, like they were being directly accused of being
terrorists, which would never happened, you know, but here was one of
our one of our two major political parties that was actually setting a smokescreen for
it to happen, you base, Yeah, so, and I guess with
that, Uh, if you'd like to keep this conversation going, you know,
check out some of the ACA social groups on the Facebook groups and on discord