The EarthFirst! Journal is the granddaddy of econews.
IF you want news from the front lines of water defense and old growth forests, this is your resource.
Today's story exposes the insides of a portion of the scene in Portland.
by Sasha / Earth First! Newswire
“No one surrounds themselves with Runes, totenkopfs and neofolk and REALLY likes the jews. They just pretend they do because they are cowards.”
– James Porrazzo, former leader of the American Front
Jews being rounded up on Kristallnacht to be sent to concentration camps
At first, I didn’t think that I was going to the protest against the controversial neo-folk band Death in June, but the stars seemed to align.
Having just finished reading that 3,500 page tome of Jewish scripture, the Babylonian Talmud, I felt like I had some extra time on my hands and needed to celebrate.
I had received Rose City Antifa‘s call to protest a few days earlier, and felt compelled through their hard work to support their efforts (see original call out here).
As it happened, the protest took place the day before the anniversary of Kristallnacht, which was the event that heralded the beginning of the Holocaust through the destruction of Jewish homes, synagogues, and businesses, and the sending of 30,000 Jews to concentration camps.
The following day was Armistice Day (Veterans Day), celebrating the end of World War I.
It seemed like a good day to fight fascism, and Death in June is famous for their openly fascist approach.
Some who join me in coming from an ecological background might wonder, why would you protest Death in June, a subcultural neo-folk band that doesn’t really make any ecological claims?Why act against a musical act unless their music sucks?
Why not protest somebody more mainstream who is using fascist propaganda, like Nicki Minaj?
Then again, why fight people who are literally hipster-fascists, instead of fighting hipsters who are perpetrating gentrification and forwarding state capitalism (which seems, with its prison industry complex, to be almost indistinguishable from fascism).
To be honest, I’ve never listened to Death in June, though I generally dislike what I know about the cultish aspects of neo-folk. It’s not that big of a deal, and I don’t intend to give the band more attention than they’re worth (not a lot).
What I’m most worried about, in fact, is the mass politics of the ecology movement becoming fascistic, and DIJ’s politics provide one among many models through which the infiltration of fascist ideas becomes possible.
After researching the band, my concerns mounted, and after a discussion with the band’s promoter, I felt further validated.
The promoter assured me that the music is supposed to make me uncomfortable.
As someone who lost family to the Holocaust and whose grandfather helped liberate a concentration camp, I felt more enraged than uncomfortable with the perspective provided by DIJ and their attachment to “leftist” Nazi ideology.
On the other side of my family, my father was shuttled out of Birmingham to the countryside by his mother and aunt at the age of four as the Nazi bombs fell.
Uncomfortable is not the appropriate word for two generations of historic trauma, but I didn’t want to over-react (and I still don’t). The promoter apologized, but promptly reiterated her stance about intentionally making descendants of Holocaust victims and their families feel uncomfortable.