By  Karen Zraick

Sgt. Robert A. Stamm of the Virginia Division of Capitol Police was fired this week after an investigation into a report. Credit Credit Virginia Capital Police

by Jo Rozycki for RVA Mag

August 8, 2018

Receiving a call from a caller ID-less number was the first sign I was dealing with a group that really wishes to keep its anonymity. The second sign was when my contact told me Eric wasn’t his real name.

This was my phone call with Antifa Seven Hills.

For those who are unaware of the group, Antifa Seven Hills is one of the many anti-fascist organizations across the country that organizes to quash fascism, racism, and other evils within their communities, and hopefully worldwide.

“The lead up to the 2016 election really thrust the discussion of fascism into the public forum,” Eric told me in a recent interview. But arguably, the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally was perhaps the greatest inciting moment in the nation’s eyes. With tiki torches, baseball bats, and Confederate flags, members of different groups like the Proud Boys, Identity Evropa, and other white nationalist groups came from around the country to Lee Park in downtown Charlottesville.

Several anti-fascist groups gathered in counterprotest alongside Charlottesville residents, religious leaders, and regular folks who were generally opposed to white nationalists and fascism.

Since Charlottesville, Antifa Seven Hills has continued on its central mission. But according to Eric, the way the event was represented by certain media groups was not entirely accurate. “Despite Heather’s death last year, the story that doesn’t get told often is that anti-fascists denied a platform and forced the Nazis to retreat that day.” Their experience has led them to eschew mainstream media, focusing on promoting their events through social media and private channels.

Eric said Antifa has had success, pointing to the dissolution of fascist and white supremacist groups following Charlottesville. “Richard Spencer has been disgraced and doesn’t want to attend big rallies anymore, Traditionalist Worker Party as an organization has totally collapsed, Identity Evropa is trying to whitewash their image through faux community service, hardly anyone trusts Jason Kessler anymore.” Just that morning, Kessler withdrew his request to celebrate the one-year anniversary of his Unite the Right rally, where James Alex Fields, Jr., killed Heyer and injured dozens of people.

The last year has seen a string of protests and clashes with fascist groups, most notably in Portland and Berkeley. Antifa has remained vigilant and active since Charlottesville Eric said, through local activism and outreach over their platforms. “On July 4, several of us went to the Byrd Park firework celebrations to hand out sparklers and flyers in memory of two Las Vegas Anti-Racist Action members, Dan Shersty and Lin “Spit” Newborn who were killed by members of the Independent Nazi Skins on that day in 1998.” Reception was positive and curious, and “not only were people excited and grateful for the free fireworks, but genuinely interested and sympathetic to our commemoration.”

To keep members and the general public up-to-date on the alt-right and other groups, Antifa Seven Hills works diligently on identifying fascists, both locally and nationally, which involves hours of research and investigation. Eric said local communities, not just Antifa, were a part of their work. “Antifascism itself can be a really specific form of organizing, but we like to view it more broadly and try to work from an intersectional perspective,” he said.

According to Eric, fascists attempt to deconstruct or block access to many forms of liberation or rights to certain things, including “Racial justice, environmentalism, reproductive rights, and so on.” He added, “These are all connected. Fascists and the state often try to demean and discredit efforts for liberation by any name, Antifa, communists, feminists, liberals or the left,” using a tone of voice that implied scare quotes around the last phrase. But, he said, movements such as #AbolishICE or the response to Charlottesville prove that holding to the common ethics, “such as collective solidarity and mutual aid,” results in a win for anti-fascists and the community as a whole.

Remaining connected with other anti-fascist groups across the country is imperative to their mission. As a part of the Torch Network, Antifa Seven Hills is one of many organizations across the country that he said “appeals to a new generation of anti-fascists.” Born out of the Anti-Racist Action Network, the new network rose in response to growing racist sentiments from the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Each year, a branch of the organization hosts the Torch Network Conference. Antifa Seven Hills will have that honor this year over Labor Day weekend. This was when my conversation with Eric started turning secretive. “I can’t tell you very much about it,” he said. For safety and secrecy, Eric gave me the general details about the conference: a two-day event that includes a private, member-only day and a semi-public portion that includes workshops, speakers, and a social environment for anti-fascists and the like to connect. He said, “We’re inviting anti-fascists and radicals from across the continent to share experiences, refine strategies, and critically analyze ongoing liberation struggles we are engaged with.” Although he could not reveal which local organizations were going to be involved, Eric informed me that groups promoting liberation, anti-racism, and other just causes would be involved and welcomed.

With August in full swing, it is nearly the one year anniversary of the Charlottesville riots. Eric mentioned #AllOutAugust, a national movement of liberation, including prison abolition and more. Following in the steps of Black August, symbolizing the many instances of black liberation from the Haitian revolution to the Watts Uprising, #AllOutAugust calls into attention the atrocities committed within the modern American prison system.

Eric’s description of #AllOutAugust and his perspective on modern fascists paints a fresh picture of anti-fascists that brings to mind ’60s organizer Saul Alinsky; intersectional organizers working toward liberation through vigilance and direct action. The intersectionality that comes with modern liberation gives agency to groups like Antifa Seven Hills to combat racism, fascism, and bigotry that comes with limiting access to spaces, resources, and success.

To keep up-to-date with Antifa Seven Hills, you can find them on social media at @ash_antifa or @torchantifa. Questions regarding the Torch Network Conference or anything else Richmond-area related can be emailed to [email protected]

Nathan D. Larson, as outlined in the article and title itself, is a self-confessed pedophile and white supremacist running for office in the so-called Commonwealth of Virginia. This person presents a clear and present danger, physically, emotionally, and psychologically, to communities he inhabits and all beings in his presence.

Antifascists of the Seven Hills call on all people of good conscience to limit, obstruct, and prevent this poor excuse of a human attaining any further power, “legitimate” or otherwise.

It is our understanding that he lives with his parents at 9270 Prospect Ave – Catlett, VA 20119-2039

Email: [email protected] (possibly also a protonmail with same handle)

Fascists to Ashes, Dust to Dust

In what can only be described as one of the most disturbing political interviews ever, The Huffington Post recently spoke with a congressional candidate for Virginia’s 10th District who confessed to being a pedophile. When asked about being a pedophile and writing about pedophilia, he readily admitted, “It’s a mix of both. When people go over the top there’s a grain of truth to what they say.”

Nathan Larson, a 37-year-old accountant from Charlottesville, is apparently running to replace incumbent Republican Barbara Comstock, whose district includes, Clarke, Frederick, Loudoun, Manassas, Winchester, and parts of Fairfax, and Prince William County.

Running as an independent, Larson’s campaign platform is apparently that of a “quasi-neoreactionary libertarian”. Among the litany of bat-shit issues he is running on, is “benevolent white supremacy”, patriarchy, “putting an end to U.S. involvement in foreign wars arising from our country’s alliance with Israel”, (a blatant anti-semitic dog-whistle), and freedom from age restrictions – an endorsement of sexual relations with minors.

According to the Huffington Post, Larson has participated in multiple websites and messaging boards for pedophiles and talked extensively about child rape and other forms of gratuitous sexual assault. One such post made under the pseudonym “Lysander”, which identifies him as the administrator, not only directly referenced relations with his daughter, but also said, “Once sex with kids is legalized, I imagine the competition to get in their pants will be fierce.”

In the interview, Larson thankfully acknowledged that he does not have custody of his daughter, relinquishing custody rights in 2015, right before his ex-wife committed suicide. He has also made posts on the now defunct website called Incelocalypse, titled, “Here’s how to psyche yourself up to feel entitled to rape”. The post, reflective of the misogyny and potential violence surrounding incel culture and sub-culture, provides advice for men who believe they should remain celibate due to how they perceive their own physical appearance. “Why not establish a claim to rape any and all girls,” the post finished by saying, “If it weren’t a disproportionate reward for taking risk…then no one would bother to take risks, and humanity would stagnate.”

The potential for violence surrounding incel culture and sub-culture came about recently after Alex Minassian drove a van into a crowd of people in Toronto killing 10 and wounding 15. On his Facebook page before the incident, he left a message on his feed that said, “The incel rebellion has begun!”.

Larson’s campaign platform “manifesto” is also littered with anti-Semitic language including praise for Adolph Hitler and saying things like, “Jews will cite the Holocaust as an example of the dangers of white supremacist movements. But Jewish supremacists have also brought about the deaths of Gentiles for millennia…it is in the best interests of all races that whites defeat the Jews in the fight for supremacy in America.” This is followed by a call for “benevolent white supremacy” saying, “Like every other human being, I am indeed racist…What makes whites (or at least, the more highly-evolved whites) different from other races is our cultural creativeness.”

Larson’s pedophilia is woven together with an ideology that fuses a hatred of feminism with a need for upholding the patriarchy by doing away with age restrictions which govern things like the age in which someone can consent to marry. He states that women who marry “the man to whom she gives her virginity is more likely to have a successful marriage than a woman who has had other sexual relationships prior to marriage.” He goes on to state that the average marriageable age should be 17.5 years old. More reprehensibly, he claims pedophilia and “adult-child” sex is only prohibited because of the “Overton window” – a political theory which states that the public will only entertain a certain kind of discourse publically – based on a scale of extremes – and how the issues fit within this scale.

This is not the first time Larson has run for office, in 2008, he ran for the House of Delegates. According to Ballotpedia, his campaign website claimed his platform was running on the single issue of legalizing “Dignitas-style assisted suicide clinics in Virginia.”

In 2008, Larson was also arrested for sending a letter to the Secret Service saying he was going to kill then President Obama, landing him in prison for 14 months. In 2016, then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe restored civil rights to thousands of felons throughout the Commonwealth, including Larson, allowing him to run for Congress.

Grim.