Deaf Gahan assures the community there is no swastika sticker problem, then putters off to attend another ribbon-cutting. In the wake of Gahan's usual hypocrisy, let's take a closer look.

Yesterday was the day after.

HRC says: See a swastika sticker? Don't destroy the evidence -- call the police.

An NA Confidential reader commented.

I hope this is just a step one and not all that they plan on doing.

It's helpful to recall that American Vanguard white supremacist recruitment posters were appearing in New Albany all the way back in February of 2017.

In a disgusting sign of the times, white supremacists have landed in New Albany.

There is no known record of Jeff Gahan commenting publicly about this. Then, as the Courier-Journal notes ...

In August 2018, authorities reported multiple cases of swastika-related vandalism on a New Albany-Floyd County school bus and in front of the Azalea Hills retirement community. Police did not investigate the incidents as a hate crime.

More recently the social media discussion of swastika stickers dates to around late October of 2018.

In a late phone call, Mayor Gahan addresses our swastika sticker problem.

Gahan remained silent throughout. Now it's different, and suddenly Our Shining Eminence needs to be seen as a leader.

That's because it's an election year: "Mayor urges Indiana hate-crimes bill after swastikas, stickers appear." Seems that Gahan has spent the past 24 months building up a full head of steam to boldly and heroically ... contradict the testimony of citizens attending the Human Rights Commission meeting two nights ago?

The New Albany Human Rights Commission addressed the issue Tuesday evening after reportedly "hundreds" of hate speech stickers were seen throughout the city over the last couple of months.

Mayor Jeff Gahan said police have seen much fewer than "hundreds."

"To date, two incidences have been reported to police dealing with approximately 8 stickers and those matters were investigated immediately," Gahan said.

Of course, there's the recent non-history of the Human Rights Commission itself. Gahan beams with a play-actor's pride at his creation, leaving out the important part where he kneecapped it into oblivion several years back rather than allow the first sign of autonomy to challenge the tumescence of his own widening personality cult.

In January of 2017, we reported this: "CM Phipps, we're mystified as to why the New Albany Human Rights Commission is moribund."

During the appointments phase of this evening's city council meeting, President Pat McLaughlin (4th District) asked Greg Phipps (3rd District) about the council appointments status of the Human Rights Commission.

According to the ordinance, council and mayor each appoint members to the HRC, and then the four pick the fifth.

Phipps waved him off, briefly indicating that the HRC seems dead, with no meetings for the past 18 months and no apparent interest. McLaughlin was more than happy to move to the next commission, and that's all we know. It isn't much.

In 2018, with the municipal election season looming and Republicans taking the initiative on the HRC's re-enablement, it was time to start pretending again.

In the final analysis, the overarching point has nothing to do with any of the HRC appointees, save for (Warren) Nash's inexcusable presence, because Gahan's and (Adam) Dickey's objectives with their mismanagement of the HRC has not been to represent the community’s diversity.

It has been to assure their continued control of a “human rights” product in pre-packaged, controllable form.

Welcome to Jeff and Adam's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test -- hypocrisy-flavored, please.

Progressives, pay heed. The HRC's comeback needn't have occurred, because it shouldn't have neglected, and once it became necessary, your own party's leadership has politicized it again; if Dickey and Gahan don't get what they want from the HRC, they'll smother it a second time.

What you permit, you promote. What you allow, you encourage. What you condone, you own.

Don't let Dickey and Gahan speak for you. They may be "Democratic" in the sense of a two-party duopoly, but they're by no means "democratic" in any meaningful way.

In closing, this observation from a Facebook friend.

NAPD (Chief Bailey) is full of it, because many concerned people in New Albany tried reporting these stickers every time, and they told us to stop calling them! They weren't concerned about it until it made them look bad for not having already acted once the story was finally picked up by the local mainstream media.

Alt media has been talking about this issue for 6+ months. No one cared! The human rights commission didn't even get involved until late 2018, when the stickering had been near-CONSTANT for months at that point. At least they finally did something, but they also got a nice pat on the back for solving BUPKIS.

This isn't over. This hasn't changed. Why did that feel like the last we hear of it? This city's officials can do better. The local media can do better.

The people of this town deserve better than this.

Is this enough for you? I mean... honestly.

Is it?

Let's be realistic. Gahan, Dickey, Bailey, Nash -- they're not going to stop pretending. They're incapable of viewing this issue apart from their own "big fish, little pond" political considerations, and we need to stop pretending they'll even try.

It's top-down control for them -- always has been and will continue to be -- and grassroots activists opposed to these tangible manifestations of white supremacy have little choice; they must push back simultaneously against the swastika bearers and the public officials who seek primarily to neutralize testimony differing with their Disney-fried civic facades.

Tell us YOUR experiences. This space always is available to those wishing to speak about whatever our pillars are reluctant to hear.

HRC says: See a swastika sticker? Don't destroy the evidence -- call the police.

Nürnberg, 1945.

The New Albany Human Rights Commission's Jennifer Ortiz shared the following at her Facebook page following the HRC meeting earlier this evening.

New Albany Residents:

Today, the Human Rights Commission held a public forum to discuss the recent string of Nazi Stickers in our town. Based on discussions at this meeting, the Chief of Police and the HRC ask that anyone who sees Nazi stickers around town please take the following steps:

1. Do not remove the stickers as the Chief stated we need to preserve evidence. These stickers are considered vandalism.

2. Contact NAPD at 812-944-6411 (not 911) and report the incident and location to law enforcement. The police will document the incident and remove the stickers.

3. If you are unable or unwilling to contact police, please take photos and email them to the New Albany Human Rights Commission at humanrights@cityofnewalbany.com. Please note the date of the incident and the location.

4. You may also email Chief Bailey directly at cbailey@napdin.net

Feel free to share this post widely.

I didn't attend and cannot elaborate, but this seems sensible.

New Albany's HRC and the Southern Poverty Law Center on countering the Alt-Right, extremism and white supremacy.

New Albany's HRC and the Southern Poverty Law Center on countering the Alt-Right, extremism and white supremacy.

It's a "movement" of sorts -- each
morning after breakfast.

It's good to see a Human Rights Commission in New Albany being pro-active about anything; the first iteration of the revised HRC a few years back was gracelessly knee-capped by Jeff Gahan and Shane Gibson, and the suppression was abetted by Greg Phipps for reasons as yet unknown.

Public forum to address recent swastika stickers in New Albany, by Brooke McAfee (Where Tom May Keeps Roaming and Roaming)

NEW ALBANY — On multiple occasions in past months, residents noticed the appearance of swastika stickers in downtown New Albany and other areas of the city. Although she didn't see the stickers herself, resident Jennifer Ortiz said she stopped running with headphones because she no longer felt safe as a person of color.

"I don't know who this person is. I don't know if they actually believe those ideologies, whether they are trying to scare us or whether they're just trying to make a scene," she said. "I don't know what their intent is. I know I've changed my behavior. I can assume that various people from various groups might have changed their behavior, and they might not feel comfortable in this town anymore."

The New Albany Human Rights Commission is presenting a special forum at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in the third floor conference room of the City-County Building to allow residents to voice their concerns regarding the pro-Nazi stickers, which were first noticed in downtown New Albany in September.

Very soon Ortiz likely will learn the follicle-deep "depth" of Gahan's and Gibson's commitment to human rights. They'll tolerate the HRC's advocacy during an election year in order to demonstrate to self-styled "progressives" that something's being done, when we all know nothing will come of it, because the mayor himself cannot acknowledge swastikas, drug addiction or homeless people without contradicting the laughable aura of infallibility he's cloaked himself in (see "New Clothes, Emperor's for more information).

Meanwhile the experienced and sensible Southern Poverty Law Center has a pamphlet expressly designed for the college and university experience, but it's not difficult to see how the advice applies to everyday life in the city.

Substitute "citizen" for "student", "City Hall" for "college leadership", and so on. I don't know the exact answer when it comes to dealing with white supremacists, but there are numerous starting points therein (following is a condensed version).

---

The Alt-Right and Extremism on Campus

An old and familiar poison is being spread on college campuses these days: the idea that America should be a country for white people.

Under the banner of the Alternative Right – or “alt-right” – extremist speakers are touring colleges and universities across the country to recruit students to their brand of bigotry, often igniting protests and making national headlines. Their appearances have inspired a fierce debate over free speech and the direction of the country.

Behind the provocative, youthful and sometimes entertaining facade of the alt-right is a scrum of white nationalists and white supremacists – mostly young men – who hate diversity and scorn democratic ideals.

They claim that “white identity” is under attack by multicultural forces using “political correctness” and “social justice” to undermine white people and “their” civilization. Characterized by heavy use of social media and memes, they eschew establishment conservatism and promote the goal of a white ethnostate, or homeland.

As student activists, you can counter this movement.

In this brochure, the Southern Poverty Law Center examines the alt-right, profiles its key figures and exposes its underlying ideologies. We also recommend ways to deconstruct and counter its propaganda, mount peaceful protests, and create alternative events and forums when alt-right speakers are invited or come to your campus.

---

WHAT TO SAY, WHAT TO DO

When an alt-right personality is scheduled to speak on campus, the most effective course of action is to deprive the speaker of the thing he or she wants most – a spectacle. Alt-right personalities know their cause is helped by news footage of large jeering crowds, heated confrontations and outright violence at their events. It allows them to play the victim and gives them a larger platform for their racist message.

Denying an alt-right speaker of such a spectacle is the worst insult they can endure.

While there’s nothing wrong with peaceful student protests against a hateful ideology, it’s best to draw attention to hope instead. Hold an alternative event – away from the alt-right event – to highlight your campus’ commitment to inclusion and our nation’s democratic values.

What’s more, take action to inoculate the campus against such extremism before these speakers appear on campus. The following steps can help prevent your college or university from being exploited by the alt-right.

THE TIME TO DEAL WITH THE ALT-RIGHT IS BEFORE IT ARRIVES ON CAMPUS.

RESEARCH THE ALT-RIGHT’S HISTORY AND VIEWS.

MEET WITH CAMPUS GROUPS TARGETED BY THE ALT-RIGHT. ENLIST THEIR SUPPORT.

APPROACH THE HOST GROUP INVITING AN ALT-RIGHT SPEAKER TO CAMPUS.

CULTIVATE A COMMUNITY OPPOSED TO BIGOTRY.

ASK THAT THE COLLEGE LEADERSHIP DENOUNCE THE APPEARANCE.

MAKE A YOUTUBE VIDEO – OR TWO – ABOUT THE ALT-RIGHT.

IF THE ALT-RIGHT APPEARS ON CAMPUS, ORGANIZE A JOYFUL PROTEST AWAY FROM ITS EVENT.

ABOVE ALL, AVOID CONFRONTATION WITH THE ALT-RIGHT SPEAKER AND SUPPORTERS. The alt-right thrives on hostility, and hate feeds on crowds. Video footage of an altercation will only provide cover for the speaker, who can claim to be a victim. As hard as it may be to resist yelling at alt-right speakers, do not confront them. Do not debate them. Do not resort to violence, in speech or deed. As this publication makes clear, there are many other ways to challenge the beliefs of this movement.

The Bughouse: "Coming to terms with Ezra Pound’s politics."

Every now and then, Ezra Pound (1885-1972) bobs to the blog's surface, as in these three posts from 2016 and 2017.

"Ezra Pound: The Solitary Volcano," a biography by John Tytell.

Shane's Excellent New Words: Autodidacticism ... and a biography of the poet Ezra Pound.

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Effluvium or effluent? Ezra's tree needs to know.

In one of them I wrote: "It is fascinating to contemplate a time when an artist could proclaim that poetry would change the world, and be taken seriously."

According to Evan Kindley at The Nation, such a time hasn't yet passed, and Pound continues to have an influence on the nation's discourse, although this fact owes to Pound's fascist politics more than his poetry -- and at any rate, these factors were intertwined from the very start.

The Insanity Defense

Coming to terms with Ezra Pound’s politics.

In December 1945, Ezra Pound was committed to St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, DC. He was then 60 years old, internationally famous, and under indictment for treason against the United States. In an infamous series of broadcasts made on Italian radio between 1941 and 1943, Pound had declared his support for Mussolini’s regime and his contempt for the Allied forces. He parroted fascist talking points but also added a layer of byzantine anti-Semitic conspiracy theory all his own. “You let in the Jew and the Jew rotted your empire, and you yourselves out-Jewed the Jew,” he admonished the British on March 15, 1942. In other broadcasts, Pound spoke of “Jew slime,” warned of the white race “going toward total extinction,” suggested hanging President Roosevelt (“if you can do it by due legal process”), praised Hitler’s Mein Kampf, and urged his listeners to familiarize themselves with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Pound had arrived at this vicious ideological position gradually. His early work, while always concerned with the relations between art and society, had rarely been political per se. Over the years, though, his long poem The Cantos, started in 1915, had drifted from a preoccupation with mythological subjects to an investigation of economics and governance, influenced by heterodox economists like C.H. Douglas and Silvio Gesell. By the time the Second World War began, Pound had come to blame the practice of usury, propagated by a secret network of nefarious Jewish bankers, for all the evils afflicting the world ...

Required reading for local Democrats: "How (Not) to Challenge Racist Violence."

"If we truly want to challenge racism, oppression, and inequality, we should turn our attention away from the few hundred marchers in Charlottesville and towards the real sources and enforcers of our unjust global order. They are not hard to find."
-- from Common Dreams

Aviva Chomsky's essay (below) in the aftermath of Charlottesville sudenly becomes even more relevant in terms of escalated American military action in Afghanistan.

First, a local perspective.

DUNCAN: Hatred speaks loudest when we are silent, by Susan Duncan (That Hanson Show)

 ... But what cannot be seen is the hatred that dwells within. Racism has festered like an open sore, infection spreading like bacteria in the blood stream of America.

We have allowed that to happen by our denial, by our lack of attention, by our silence.

There were signs. Looks … words … deeds that proclaimed quietly, “I’m better than you.”

---

There isn’t enough sand along the Ohio River in which for us to bury our heads.

We cannot sit in the comfort of our living rooms and extol the shame of it all. Let loose the ties that bind you from action.

Hate is learned. Teach love.

I'm reprinting Chomsky's piece in full: "Her most recent book is Undocumented: How Immigration Became Illegal (Beacon Press, 2014). She is professor of history and coordinator of Latin American studies at Salem State University in Massachusetts."

The source: "Common Dreams has been providing breaking news & views for the progressive community since 1997. We are independent, non-profit, advertising-free and 100% reader supported."

---

How (Not) to Challenge Racist Violence, by Aviva Chomsky (Common Dreams)

"Protesters are eager to expend extraordinary energy denouncing small-scale racist actors. But what about the large-scale racist actors?"

As white nationalism and the so-called “alt-Right” have gained prominence in the Trump era, a bipartisan reaction has coalesced to challenge these ideologies. But much of this bipartisan coalition focuses on individual, extreme, and hate-filled mobilizations and rhetoric, rather than the deeper, politer, and apparently more politically acceptable violence that imbues United States foreign and domestic policy in the 21st century.

Everyone from mainstream Republicans to a spectrum of Democrats to corporate executives to “antifa” leftists seems eager and proud to loudly denounce or even physically confront neo-Nazis and white nationalists. But the extremists on the streets of Charlottesville, or making Nazi salutes at the Reichstag, are engaging in only symbolic and individual politics.

Even the murder of a counter-protester was an individual act—one of over 40 murders a day in the United States, the great majority by firearms. (Double that number are killed every day by automobiles in what we call “accidents”—but which obviously have a cause also.) Protesters are eager to expend extraordinary energy denouncing these small-scale racist actors, or celebrating vigilante-style responses. But what about the large-scale racist actors? There has been no comparable mobilization, in fact little mobilization at all, against what Martin Luther King called “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today”—the United States government, which dropped 72 bombs per day in 2016, primarily in Iraq and Syria, but also in Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan, making every single day 9/11 in those countries.

Historically, people and organizations struggling to change U.S. society and policy have used direct action, boycotts, and street protests as strategies to pressure powerholders to change their laws, institutions, policies, or actions. The United Farm Workers called on consumers to boycott grapes in order to pressure specific growers to negotiate with their union. Antiwar protesters marched on Washington or targeted their Congressional representatives. They also took direct action: registering voters, pouring blood on draft records or nuclear weapons, sitting in front of trains carrying weapons to Central America.

All of these kinds of tactics remain valid options today. But there has been a puzzling shift away from actual goals and towards using these tactics merely to express one’s moral righteousness or “allyship.” I remember my first “take back the night” march in Berkeley, in the 1970s. As men and women marched through the campus holding candles, I wondered whether they thought that would-be rapists would undergo a change of heart when they saw that large sectors of the public disapproved of rape?

Over the years I have come to see more and more of what Adolph Reed calls “posing as politics.” Rather than organizing for change, individuals seek to enact a statement about their own righteousness. They may boycott certain products, refuse to eat certain foods, or they may show up to marches or rallies whose only purpose is to demonstrate the moral superiority of the participants. White people may loudly claim that they recognize their privilege or declare themselves allies of people of color or other marginalized groups. People may declare their communities “no place for hate.” Or they may show up at counter-marches to “stand up” to white nationalists or neo-Nazis. All of these types of “activism” emphasize self-improvement or self-expression rather than seeking concrete change in society or policy. They are deeply, and deliberately, apolitical in the sense that they do not seek to address issues of power, resources, decisionmaking, or how to bring about change.

Oddly, these activists who have claimed the mantle of racial justice seem committed to an individualized, apolitical view of race. The diversity industry has become big business, sought out by universities and companies seeking the cachet of inclusivity. Campus diversity offices channel student protest into alliance with the administration and encourage students to think small. While adept in the terminology of power, diversity, inclusion, marginalization, injustice, and equity, they studiously avoid topics like colonialism, capitalism, exploitation, liberation, revolution, invasion, or other actual analyses of domestic or global affairs. Lumping race together in an ever-growing list of marginalized identities allows the history and realities of race to be absorbed into a billiard ball theory of diversity, in which different dehistoricized identities roll around a flat surface, occasionally colliding.

Let us be very clear. The white nationalists who marched in Charlottesville, hate-filled and repugnant as their goals may be, are not the ones responsible for the U.S. wars on Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. They are not responsible for turning our public school system over to private corporations. They are not responsible for our separate and unequal health care system that consigns people of color to ill health and early death. They are not the ones foreclosing and evicting people of color from their homes. They are not the authors of neoliberal capitalism with its devastating effects on the poor around the planet. They are not the ones militarizing the borders to enforce global apartheid. They are not behind the extraction and burning of fossil fuels that is destroying the planet, with the poor and people of color the first to lose their homes and livelihoods. If we truly want to challenge racism, oppression, and inequality, we should turn our attention away from the few hundred marchers in Charlottesville and towards the real sources and enforcers of our unjust global order. They are not hard to find.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

The proper word for the alt-right is puke, not punk.

“I think people ought to know that we’re anti-fascist, we’re anti-violence, we’re anti-racist and we’re pro-creative. We’re against ignorance.”
-- Joe Strummer

Of course the alt-right steals ideas. That's what you do when you have none of your own.

5 Punk Rockers Explain Why the Alt-Right’s ‘Punk Movement’ is Garbage, by Michael Tedder (Playboy)

First, the alt-right stole Pepe the frog from cartoonist Matt Furie. Then, they stole enjoying milk from the calcium-deficient. Now, they’re trying to steal punk. Members of the alt-right have of late made the argument that “conservatism is the new punk” and that gadflies like Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos are the modern day truth-telling equivalents of the Sex Pistols and the Clash, pushing back against social justice warriors and political correctness culture. In their eyes, their old, retrograde ideas—which inevitably manifest as fear and outrage at attempts to curb white male privilege—have suddenly become avant-garde because of…safe spaces or something.

As if.

Since it’s impossible to physically punch this loathsome idea in the face, Playboy reached out to some of our favorite young punks and some members of the old guard to talk about what punk really means. Many of our contributors pointed out that even though as a cultural movement it has always had its flaws and problems with representations, punk is still a place where people threatened by the right’s crusade can find strength, safety and community.

One specific pull:

I think that this is exactly why it is nonsense when the alt-right strings together vapid words to try and incite a playground fight with those of us who put blood, sweat and tears into creating an expression that is the antithesis of everything that these alt-right meatheads represent. They are simply a distraction to the women, femmes, queers and people of color filling the columns of Spin, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, the New York Times and numerous other publications that report on culture. I don’t see actual alt-right bands headlining Coachella, I see Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar—two of the most punk in terms of crystallizing dissent about the status quo —artists taking the stage. Real punk is and will always be a total threat to the alt-right and their culture, which is based on white supremacy. Otherwise it isn’t real punk. The alt-right’s tactics are FAKE PUNK. The alt-white (I mean right) want us to sip tea, but we are drinking fresh water from a firehose.