Eugene weekly., October 19, 2017, Page 13, Image 13

Recruitment & Tactics
M, with Neighborhood Anarchist Collective, wants to
push back against fascist creep — the slow rise of groups
that aren’t blatantly fascist but have those tendencies. He
says, “Fascist creep is something that affects a community
slowly. It is oftentimes characterized by groups that don’t
outwardly identify as fascist but have many fascistic
tendencies, and it’s meant to sort of normalize fascism in
the community.”
But M says fighting against fascist creep is more than
punching Nazis in the streets. “One aspect of antifascism
that is not talked about as much,” he says, “is community
support and community enrichment.”
M points to support for diversity in our communities,
education and counter-recruitment of white communities
as options to prevent the spread of fascism.
Counter-recruiting is something Lee of Springfield
Roughnecks is intimately familiar with. Springfield
Roughnecks is a “grassroots community defense project
that focuses on community building while combatting
racism and hate,” Lee says.
Lee, a retired chief petty officer with the Coast Guard,
started the chapter over the summer. He prefers to keep his
last name private until he gets doxed because of his close
proximity to white supremacists when he’s recruiting.
Lee says that Springfield Roughnecks recruits at country
music concerts and bars where they’re likely to find fellow
white working class members of the community. White
supremacist organizations recruit from the same pool.
“I genuinely believe and I have to believe that most
working class white people are decent people,” Lee says.
He says it’s his job, as a white person, to push back against
that and educate his fellow whites.
“We are working class and poor,” Lee says. “Our core
principle is that we stand against white supremacy and
discrimination. And we believe in freedom and liberty for
everybody. All of us working class people whether we’re
black or white or Muslim or Christian.”
White supremacists recruit by saying they’re in favor of
“white pride,” Lee says, not by leading with hatred. “They
target people whose lives are hard, who are struggling
to get by, who work two or three jobs.” He adds, “They
say ‘No you should take pride in your heritage. It’s these
people that are responsible for it. It’s the immigrants; it’s
the fault of immigrants coming and taking your jobs.’”
LCDN’s Natalie Adonis, who prefers they/them
pronouns and is using a fake name to avoid identification,
says, “I think a big thing that fascists exploit to recruit
is alienation, especially among men, almost exceedingly
white. And then after they’ve exploited that to recruit
them they use the additional alienation from the rest of the
community to isolate people and pick people off.”
Springfield Roughnecks, on the other hand, tells their
potential recruits that it’s the politicians and corporations
that are taking their jobs, not immigrants. Lee says fascism
is defined by corporate control of the government.
“The problem is not black people. It’s not Latinos
coming and taking our jobs. Our problem is corrupt
politicians who have sold us out to the corporations and the
super wealthy elites in the world. Eight people in the world
have the same wealth as half the people on the planet.”
So Springfield Roughnecks works to stop fascist creep
by recruiting those who may become fascist to their anti-
racist organization. LCDN fights fascism by tearing down
recruitment materials and threatening propaganda, but they
also “bring communities together,” Adonis says.
“The community needs to be strong together,” they
say, “because it’s much harder to use a divide and conquer
method to forward fascism if you can’t divide and conquer
the people you’re trying [target].”
Powell-Córdova of LCDN says, “If you want to get
involved with a group that does this work, there’s a ton of
groups that do this work in Eugene.” She says anyone can
make time for this if she can.
Katherine with the Friendly Anarchism podcast says,
“Anarchists and antifascists do a lot of food stability work,
like neighborhood food systems and local food systems so
that we are self-sufficient and self-reliant.”
She also advocates for shaming people for their fascist
beliefs. “We want this not to be socially acceptable,” she says.
While Katherine is willing to take a few punches to
protect peaceful protesters, “the way we keep people out of
those situations is by having a lot of community support.”
“I feel like the more exposure people have to
antifascism, the support grows really quickly. Which is
important, because it keeps everyone safer.” ■
The City of Eugene is proposing a new rest stop for community
members experiencing homelessness at 34th Ave. and Hilyard
St. in southeast Eugene. City Council public forum on Monday,
October 23, at 7 p.m. in Harris Hall, 125 E. 8th Ave.
Learn more about the program rules and participants and
view a video at: www.eugene-or.gov/reststops
131 E. 5th Ave. • 687-2805
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