Update: Arizona neo-Nazi Kevin Brownfield has a new Twitch handle

Remember Kevin Brownfield, the neo-Nazi Iron March gamer from Arizona? Looks like he’s ditched his old “Iron Lion” and “ZeroSuitSnake” screen names, and has a new handle/persona on social media. He would now like to be known as “BoaraGaming.” How do we know it’s him? Because we can see his face on his twitch stream:

Yup, that’s him. He also has a new Facebook page, which links back to the twitch channel.

The logo on his Twitch channel matches the one on his new Twitter account.

He’s even got a shiny new BoaraGaming Reddit account, which he uses to shill his twitch channel. Unlike his previous Reddit contributions, which you can see documented here (CW), it looks like so far he’s managed to avoid any neo-Nazi references or tasteless jokes about mass shooting incidents on his new account.

His Twitter links to something called GameRebel(dot)net, which he says he’s a member of. Game Rebel doesn’t seem to be super picky about who qualifies for membership — “Anybody that chooses may dawn the `{`GR`}` tag to represent what we stand for” is their official position — but did they really mean to include overt racists, Islamophobes, anti-Semites, etc. in that statement? If their goal is to “lift up those around us and push them to succeed,” as it says on their homepage, they might want to reconsider that standard. Nazis are notoriously selective about who they want to see succeed, and who they’d rather see rounded up and killed.

Speaking of which, Kevin seems to have started a new blog, “The Life of An Everyman,” where he opines about things like George Floyd’s murder, and a potential war with Iran. Spoiler: he thinks the people protesting Floyd’s killing are just trying to retain their “monopoly on victim-hood”; they “believe that police brutality doesn’t also touch other communities”; and “it is obvious they do not care for anything other than themselves and want only blacks to be viewed as victims.” According to Kevin, “this isn’t a race issue,” and police are actually showing race-neutral “institutionalized bias” toward everyone.

And Iran? Well, He doesn’t want the US to go to war there, which is a reasonable position to take. However, when he mentions the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, he takes a little detour into Antisemitic Conspiracy Land, suggesting that the US killed Soleimani solely in the interest of “an ally of ours in the middle east.” And if you’re thinking that wording is oddly vague yet somehow also unequivocally specific, you’re right — and that’s not a coincidence. At the end of the paragraph, Kevin asserts, “To go further than to vaguely say that this war benefits only one country is now illegal in some places of the US so I’ll stop there.” He does not provide a citation for this claim.

Sad to say, it looks like Kevin has changed his username, but not his racist and anti-Semitic worldview. Maybe that’s what he’s talking about here?

Not sure what the odds were of him ever becoming famous in the first place, but at least we’ve finally found an issue where we can agree with Kevin: racists and anti-Semites should be infamous rather than famous. We’d also like to point out that if infamy becomes too much of a burden, you do have another option. Have you considered not being a nazi?

 

 

David Hansen, InfoSec Nazi

Warning: this post contains descriptions of hateful ideology. We do not use words like “fascist” or “nazi” lightly, and we have chosen to include this content because it is the clearest and most effective way to demonstrate David Hansen’s beliefs. Some links in this post also point to other websites with further information about these subjects. Please consider the nature of the linked content when you decide whether and when to follow those links.
– Utah Antifascists

Iron March was an international fascist web forum that was taken offline in 2017. The site supported multiple far-right extremist organizations, including the US-based Atomwaffen Division. In November 2019 the forum’s SQL database was published on the internet, and anti-fascist researchers began analyzing the leaked data in an effort to identify forum users. You can view and search the data here, thanks to an interface provided by The Jewish Worker. This post was researched and written in collaboration with @savantifa.

We have identified “xor,” Iron March user #14099, as David Hansen of Arizona. He is a self-professed fascist, an anti-Semite, and a big fan of eugenics. He is also an active member of the InfoSec community, having attended various hacker conferences and associated events in the past few years. He’s even listed as an individual sponsor for BSides 2017.

When xor introduced himself on Iron March in 2017, he didn’t pull any punches. He identified himself as a 36-year-old computer programmer from the American Southwest, gave the usual spiel about his political views, and then went straight for the fashy stuff:

“The one thing that eventually turned me into a fascist is the realization that as long as Jews, degenerates, and the weak ruled and controlled the aspirations of our people, we would not only not reach the stars, but we would regress back to animals.”

So that answers that question.

We were able to tie David Hansen to the “xor” identity through the email he used to register on Iron March, me@daxorid dot com. While the WHOIS data for the daxorid domain is private, Hansen used the online verification service keybase.io to cryptographically verify his various online identities and tie them together. His keybase profile tells us that he uses “daxorid” as a screen name at Twitter, Reddit, and GitHub.

Incidentally, his chosen domain name, “daxorid,” can be broken down in hacker-speak to “da xor id.” “Xor” is the abbreviation for the boolean operator “exclusive or”; the symbol for “xor” is ⊻, which looks like the letter V. Substituting the symbol ⊻ for the letters “xor” in the domain name gives us da⊻id, or David. Clever. It also helped us confirm his connection to those accounts.

We were also able to connect him to the Reddit username diolpah because he linked it to a (now defunct) Tumblr with photos of himself, stating “Right now I look like this.” Notice that “diolpah” is the word “haploid” in reverse; he also uses “haploid” at his Linkedin account, and used “diolpah” as an alt at HN after he claimed his haploid account was “silent-banned.

In addition to his brief stint at Iron March, Hansen used to be pretty open about his ideology on forums like Reddit, in spite of his own better judgement. In a Men of Reddit discussion on opinions that “many other people would find offensive,” he wondered, “do I risk this on an easily-doxed account?” Spoiler: the answer turned out to be “Yes.”

We chose to partially obscure a word in this screenshot; obviously the original post was unedited.

This list is quoted verbatim from his answers:

  • The fundamental concept of eugenics is not morally bad and in many cases would do the world enormous good.
  • Marriage is a horrible institution, particularly for men. Corollary: men who marry are stupid or irrationally acting against their best interests.
  • If labor is permitted to unionize, then businesses should be permitted to collude.
  • Democracy is one of the worst forms of government possible.

He’s also been somewhat incautious on forums like Hacker News. When one of the other users notes that the Allies’ opposition to Nazi Germany in WWII was not necessarily ideological, and that “In a way, we have Nazi military imperialism to thank for the fact that many horrible ideas are unacceptable today – otherwise there might never have been a backlash against them,” Hansen responds, “…yes, which is very unfortunate.” He then elaborates,

Without the moral baggage of WW2 and the unfortunate implementation history of eugenics programs in the 20th century, it may be easier for people to accept that encouraging the gradual improvement of the gene pool would actually be a positive thing for human civilization.

So in his estimation, the problem with the Holocaust is that it gave eugenics a bad name.

In addition to Jews and “degenerates,” he spends a lot of time hating on journalists,

doctors,

the InfoSec community,

and … stay-at-home Moms?

He also advocates violence against journalists. Maybe he’s indulging in hyperbole, or maybe he’s “just joking,” as so many neo-fascists claim when they’re called out on their hateful statements. But in light of his stated belief that “degenerates” and “the weak” are causing humanity to “regress,” his designation of journalists as “subhuman” is alarming.

He likes to hang out in subreddits related to rationalism, which he regards as “male-specific” spaces because “For some reason women tend to run screaming from the topic.” He also laments that “far too many women” use sex as “bait”, and further believes the Rebecca Watson incident demonstrates that “asking a girl out for a cup of coffee is perceived as an atempt[sic] to rape.This really makes us wonder about his Linkedin bio, where he lists his “specialties” as

“Spewing industry buzzwords, embezzling from corporate pension funds, staring at the wall for hours on end, stealing other people’s food from the refrigerator, inciting sexual harassment lawsuits, and fomenting office drama and worker unrest.”

(our emphasis).

But we all have to grow up sometime, and even the David Hansens of the world eventually realize that it’s prudent to save the Nazi apologia and casual sexism for private spaces like Iron March while maintaining plausible deniability in public. Or, to put it in his words, “Dogwhistling is often less dangerous in terms of karma annihilation than actually expressing the thought.”

In his case, this meant deleting – or attempting to delete – previous online expressions of his thoughts, and writing himself a Twitter bio like this:

Code. Futurism. Dad. Defsec. Husband. Pro-Helicopter. Equality is a false god. Usury is slavery. #btfsttg.

(That’s a lot to unpack; if you’re not familiar with these particular dogwhistles, click on the linked terms to see their origins and explanations.)  Apparently Hansen felt that even with the use of coded language, he was signaling a little too blatantly; he has since dialed it back to “Big Igloo Respecter. Equality is a false god. #btfsttg”, although as of publication of this article he is still using the nickname “Bronze Age Bugman.”

After the Iron March data was leaked, he also renamed his @daxorid Twitter account, and deleted a tweet where he expressed the thought that journalists should be hanged.

Hansen is also the co-founder and CTO of Southern California-based fashion retailer Wild Attire, which sells accessories like scarves, ties, sunglasses, etc. at their own online retail sites. We found no evidence that Hansen’s business partners agree with any of his opinions or his ideology; it’s possible they’re entirely unaware that he thinks this way. However, as long as David Hansen is associated with Wild Attire and its online outlets, folks may want to think twice before patronizing, or working for or with the company. Contact info:
info@wildattire.com
714.537.0334
7am-5pm PST

Additionally, there have been numerous reports in the past few years about incidents of sexual harassment, assault, hate speech, and disruptive behavior at InfoSec conferences. This has resulted in some productive public dialogue with conference organizers and attendees about how to make InfoSec events a less hostile environment for women, LGTBQ+ people, and those from under-represented backgrounds. Members of the InfoSec community may wish to consider whether welcoming an admitted fascist, anti-Semite, and bigot like David Hansen as an attendee and a sponsor at such events would work against the goal of making those events safer and more welcoming for all attendees.

 

Meet your local hate group.

Patriot Front members hold a torch march at University of Texas – Austin

Warning: this post contains descriptions of racist and anti-Semitic ideology that you may find offensive. We do not use words like “racist” lightly, and we have chosen to include this content because it is the clearest and most effective way to show what this group believes. Some links in the text of this post point to the group’s chat logs, which contain abundant offensive language and imagery. We have included these links so that you can verify their content for yourself. Please consider the nature of the content there when you decide whether and when to follow those links.
– Utah Antifascists

The hate group calling themselves “Patriot Front” (PF) has been active in Utah for at least two years. Recently they seem to be increasing their activity along the Wasatch Front, so we thought this would be a good time to give Utahns an introduction to the group’s agenda and strategies.

Propaganda from hate group “Patriot Front” was posted recently in a neighborhood in Provo.

The first thing to know about this group is that they are liars (and yes, we can prove it). They’d like you to think they’re just patriots who love their country and want to fight communism, or degeneracy, or some other threat that is more or less vaguely defined. The truth is that regardless of what they claim to oppose or support, they are not patriots. They are racist, they are anti-semitic, and they want to destroy the US system of government, not preserve or protect it. But don’t take our word for it – take theirs.

Only whites can be American.

Their manifesto, as it currently appears on their website, is full of dramatic language about national decline, decadence, tradition, struggle, greatness, etc. but oddly short on specifics about what exactly is causing the decline and how they plan to fix it. This is intentional. However, it’s important to understand that this is a revised version of the manifesto – and the original was a lot less subtle.

As an example, a section on citizenship currently reads, “Those of foreign birth may occupy civil status within the lands occupied by the state, and they may even be dutiful citizens, yet they may not be American.” But the original version said “An African, for example, may have lived, worked, and even been classed as a citizen in America for centuries, yet he is not American.” The group’s leader, Thomas Rousseau, removed all doubt about the intent of this section when he discussed it with his followers online. In the leaked chat logs of a private Discord channel, he refers to the passage about “Africans” and then adds,

“We clearly state in the manifesto that not only are we going to have a White nation, but only Whites can be American.”

This group is fundamentally racist. They know other people think racism is bad, so they changed the words on the website. It doesn’t change what they are. The group’s leader, Thomas Rousseau, clearly doesn’t see anything wrong with racism. In fact, if you think racism is wrong, he sees you as his enemy.

You can read the chat log where he said this, and lots of other racist things, here.

The only answer to the Jewish problem is no Jew at all.

The group actively promotes the conspiracy theory that Jews control the world’s governments and global financial systems for their own nefarious purposes. PF uses images like this one to suggest that greedy Jews are attacking America, and that communism is part of the Jewish conspiracy.

In their chats, they discuss how to convince people around them that the Jews are their enemy. A user named Dustin offers,

“if you know somebody who views life through the lens of religion, you have to attack from that angle.”

Another user replies, “Just quote some bible verses, get them thinking. ‘But [they] are of your father the devil…'”

Unsurprisingly, the group is also anti-Islamic.

The poster shown at right in the above image tells the viewer to reject the “false dichotomy” between Islam and Judaism. Hate groups love to talk about first-amendment rights when spreading their hateful ideology, and indeed, the first amendment to the Constitution guarantees them the right to say all kinds of disgusting and morally repugnant things if they really want to. But in this case they seem to have overlooked some other, equally important first-amendment rights.

Notice that they are advocating the removal of Islam and Judaism from the country: “both must go.” Since the first amendment declares, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” it’s difficult to imagine how Islam and Judaism could legally be “removed” from the country as long as the first amendment remains in place. This leads us to another principle this group is founded on, and which they intentionally obscure in their literature.

“It would be done by having Whites secede”

PF wants the US system of government to be overthrown and destroyed. This is not an exaggeration. In their private chats, their leader lays out his vision of how this will happen. We quote him here at length to make it clear what this group’s ultimate goal is, and how they believe it will be achieved. Rather than Civil War-style state-by-state secession, Rousseau says, “It would be done by having Whites secede, so to speak, from the state. Fully detach the nation from the State, and once that happens on a large enough scale, not all Whites have to do it, perhaps not even the majority, the State will not be powerful enough to stop them. Keep in mind that Whites are the only race (perhaps besides Asians) that are a net financial benefit. Once the cash cow of White America stops giving milk, the non-Whites, hungry for [welfare], would most likely destroy the State themselves. From then a period of reconquista would begin […]” He gives a few historical examples of “reconquista,” then continues,

“Whites invaded and controlled almost all of Africa in decades, and there’s nothing to say that we couldn’t control what was formerly known as the United States in a similar length of time. The movement would change hats from revolutionary, to one based in irredentism.”

The theme of “revolution” is prevalent in this group’s manifesto and in their propaganda. They proclaim “revolution is tradition,” and imply that they are advocating for a sort of spiritual revival that will “reclaim America” from modern, decadent influences. They call themselves “patriots” and like to use the phrase “America first” to describe their agenda. But they are not patriots in the sense that most Americans use the word. What they want is a violent revolution – literally an overturning of the current system of government. When they say “America first,” they do not mean the representative democracy that is the United States of America; they mean the whites-only American nation that they will “reconquer” from the non-whites that now inhabit the country.

Clockwise from top left, PF propaganda posted in Louisiana and Minnesota; banner displayed at the Utah state capitol.

There’s a lot more that could be said about their rhetoric, and the ways they hint at their true beliefs and intentions while maintaining plausible deniability in public. We have chosen not to engage with the messages in their recent propaganda, because part of their strategy is to post innocent-looking material in public spaces, then wait for someone to call it “racist.” This gives them publicity from local media outlets that would not normally publish or broadcast paid advertising for a hate group, let alone give it to them for free. It also allows them to portray themselves as victims of false accusations, and paint anyone who opposes them as bigoted, anti-free speech, or even racist – “you just hate us because we’re white!”

Don’t fall for it. This group is a hate group. They are racist. They are anti-semitic. They are not patriots. Their own words prove it, and no amount of red-white-and-blue candy-coating will change what they are or what they stand for.

In March 2019 in the Seattle area, PF distributed fliers advertising their website inside plastic bags with candy in them.

If you see their propaganda in your neighborhood, tear it down, or cover it up with something else. Utah should be a place of refuge from hate, not a place that advertises for it.

Iron March Neo-Nazi Kevin Brownfield (AZ)

Warning: this post contains language and images that are offensive. We do not use words like “Nazi” lightly, and we have chosen to include this content because it is the clearest and most effective way to demonstrate Kevin Brownfield’s beliefs. In some cases we have chosen to partially edit or obscure certain words or images. In all such cases, the content was originally posted by Brownfield or others without the edits.

– Utah Antifascists


Iron March was an international fascist web forum that was taken offline in 2017. The site supported multiple far-right extremist organizations, including the US-based Atomwaffen Division. In November 2019 the forum’s SQL database was published on the internet, and anti-fascist researchers began analyzing the leaked data in an effort to identify forum users. You can view and search the data here, thanks to an interface provided by The Jewish Worker.

We have identified “Iron Lion,” Iron March user #14627, as Kevin Michael Brownfield of Phoenix, Arizona. Kevin didn’t stay long at Iron March, but he did leave behind some personal information that was useful in identifying him. He gave us his location – Arizona; and he said he was “a writer currently working on a blog as well as writing for a local Christian magazine.” His IP addresses confirm that he was located in the Phoenix/Tempe area. In his introductory post, he also claimed to have “skills in doxxing,” which he used to identify anti-fascists through his (now-suspended) “twitter page.” You’d think his doxxing experience would have taught him why it’s not a good idea to use an email address with your real name in it to register for an account at a fascist forum. (Spoiler: it didn’t.)

The email address Iron Lion used to sign up for his Iron March account was kevinbrownfield at gmail. We did a Google search for “Kevin Brownfield” in Arizona, and found exactly one, located in Phoenix. And sure enough, the guy in Phoenix appears to be using the same Gmail address as the guy from Iron March.

Kevin Brownfield's BeenVerified account feating his email

So that was pretty easy. We also found his Linkedin account (Archive), which gave us the name of the blog he used to write for (Elite Cosplay) and the Christian magazine he used to write for (Autumn). It gave us a lot of other information as well, including the fact that he’s a student, and he has worked as a security guard for several private companies and a hotel chain. It didn’t tell us much about his opinions on ethnicity, religion, culture, politics, etc., but of course that’s what the Iron March account was for. Among the highlights:

I’m not so much a white supremacist as I am a white nationalist. I believe every country should have their own culture and the mixing of all cultures is wrong.”

When another Iron March user astutely points out that “white” is “not a nationality” Kevin cribs his (somewhat garbled) response from Wikipedia, explaining white nationalism as “the believe[sic] that white people are a race and seeks to develop and maintain a white national identity.” So he’s not a white supremacist; he just thinks that American national identity is inherently white, and that a “white nation” shouldn’t mix its culture with other cultures. Got it. Incidentally, we found a digital copy of Autumn magazine in which Kevin wrote an article about the history of Christmas. At the time that issue was published, this was Autumn’s masthead:

Autumn Magazine's masthead, featuring four black writers

It seems likely that Kevin omitted to tell his colleagues at the magazine about his white nationalist ideology.

Not all of Kevin’s views require convoluted explanations. In his Iron March introduction, for example, he tells us,

I’m very anti-Muslim.

So that’s pretty clear. How anti-Muslim is he? “After posting on Facebook about Islam my mother messaged me telling me that people don’t want to talk to her about me etc. My sister, who is redpilled on most other sh**, refuses to even talk about Islam to me.”

Also clear: his opinion on antifascists, and his opinion on communists. Unclear: whether he knows the two terms are not synonymous. “I’m also very anti-antifa, and would love to see communists lined up and shot.”

He has a bit more trouble explaining his opinion on Jews. To be fair, he’s hampered by the fact that he’s unable to distinguish between Jews, Zionism, and Jewish Israelis. When asked for his thoughts on Jews, he replies, “On Jews, I don’t like Israel. I believe Christians are the chosen people spoken of in the Bible, not the Zionists in Israel who are liars and thieves.” Another user protests, “That’s very vague. What don’t you like about Israel, and what do you think of Jews who aren’t Zionist Israelis?” The question puzzles Kevin, who starts his answer with “I thought I gave my reasoning for not liking Israel.” He then elaborates, “They’ve stolen the Christian title of God’s chosen people and they abuse it to keep Christian countries like the United States bending over backwards for them. They’ve stolen our Uranium, they’ve killed our sailors, and they caused the degeneracy of the Wiemar republic.” Note to Kevin: the Weimar Republic ended in 1933. Jews existed prior to that time, but “Israel” did not, which gives it an iron-clad alibi for anything having to do with the Weimar Republic.

We learned from Kevin’s Linkedin profile that he’s a student at Arizona State University. A post from his Facebook account to an archaeology group tells us that he expects to graduate in 2020 with a degree in Anthropology, and hints that he’s hoping to get a job in field archaeology.

Since we don’t have any archaeologists on our research team, we’ll leave it to anthropologists to consider the ramifications of having a white nationalist working on indigenous archaeological sites.

We did take a look at ASU’s Student Code of Conduct, though. “Arizona State University is committed to providing an environment free of discrimination, harassment, or retaliation for the entire university community.” Prohibited conduct includes “engaging in discriminatory activities, including harassment and retaliation.” The school’s Student Safety page further defines “threatening behavior” to include “words, actions, or behaviors that by the nature of such words, actions, or behaviors causes another person to be concerned for their safety and/or security; such words, actions, or behaviors may not include explicit threats.”

ASU also provides “Social Media Training & Guidelines” for students: “Part of your educational experience is to seek to understand people different than yourself and to have respect and empathy for them as fellow human beings. This need for respect and empathy extends to the way we communicate, especially on social media.”

Kevin communicates a lot on social media. His Medium account displays his full name, making it easy to find, but the URL for the account also gives us another one of his screen names: Zerosuitsnake.

Kevin Michael Brownfield's Medium account with url suffix "Zerosuitsnake" highlighted with an arrow

This in turn led us to his Twitter handle, @ZSSGaming. He used the ZSSGaming handle on Reddit as well, where he had a bad habit of posting straight-up neo-Nazi stuff like this:

A to-go cup of coffee with the number 1488 labelled on it. The 88 is highlighted.

Note that we’re not using the word “Nazi” metaphorically here: the number 88 is used among white supremacists to represent the letters HH, meaning “Heil Hitler.” The number 14 represents the “fourteen words” written by white supremacist David Lane and taken as a motto by neo-Nazis. If you’re unfamiliar with the fourteen-word slogan, it’s the same fourteen words Kevin typed when he posted the above photo to r/dankmemes three years ago (red box in image).

We also learn from his Reddit posts that he finds mass shootings funny

A meme posted by Kevin featuring a photo of dead bodies at the Istanbul Reina Club, with the text "Mannequin Challenge at the Instanbul's Reina Club" on top

This is a reference to the 2017 Istanbul Nightclub shooting that killed 39 and injured 79. We’ve obscured part of the above image of the victims lying on the floor in their own blood; Kevin posted it to Reddit without any redaction.

and he thinks girls are dumb.

Kevin has made an effort to hide some of his online activity by deleting his Reddit account – where he was, of course, a user at r/the_Donald – and deleting at least one thread on an Arizona survivalist board.

A screenshot of a cached Google search result of a post on Survivalist Forum asking "may I get this thread deleted?"

What could he have said on a survivalist forum that he wouldn’t want anyone else to see? The thread got deleted, so I guess we’ll never know. One of the replies to the delete request might offer a clue, though.

Although if Kevin is worried about people thinking he’s a fascist, it’s maybe not a good idea to like the “Oswald’s Super Fashion Club” page on Facebook. That really could lead people to believe he has fascist inclinations, especially after he was so disdainful of people on Iron March who “claim to be fascist while not knowing who Oswald Mosley is.

All of this is made even more disturbing by the fact that Kevin Brownfield works in the security field. He has previously worked as an armed security officer, and says he is currently employed as a “site supervisor” for Noble Knights Security of Phoenix, Arizona. Kevin Brownfield’s statements on Iron March and on his various social media accounts should disqualify him from employment as a security officer, where he is a direct threat to people he encounters while doing his job.

We also have some documents Kevin wrote back in his doxxing days on Twitter, wherein he says it’s a good idea to publish research on someone’s family members if the “target” is “extra stubborn.” Unlike Kevin, we don’t publish research on innocent family members. However, we don’t expect he’ll have any objection to our publishing this information about him. After all, as he said in the same document, “If there is a release on you, you deserve it.” Thanks for your understanding, Kevin.

A screenshot of a dox post with the identifying details blurred out.

A redacted dox of a socialist Reddit user and their entire family, published by Kevin under the name LionSecNull.

2020/01/13 Update: Looks like Kevin has deleted his @zssgaming Twitter account and his Linkedin profile, and he appears to have deleted his Facebook alts as well. Also he’s super annoyed that the comrades at Colorado Springs told everybody about the nazi stuff he said on the internet. We heard he complained about their “attempt to slander [him] as a scumbag nazi.”

In our comrades’ defense, there are a few problems with that statement. For starters, “slander” refers to spoken, not written communications, but let’s go ahead and assume he meant “libel.” The thing is, truth is an absolute defense against libel, so that’s still not going to work. The biggest problem, though, is that Kevin’s the one who posted all the evidence in the first place. If he didn’t want to be characterized as a nazi, then it probably wasn’t a very good idea to post nazi stuff (content warning) on Reddit. Sorry about your choices.

Kevin’s employer, Noble Knights Security, can be contacted at: info@nobleknightssecurity.com and 602-339-6274.

The Prescott Valley Chamber of Commerce, of which Noble Knights Security is a member, can be contacted at: gloria@pvchamber.org and 928- 772-8857.

If you’re so inclined, you can send email to the Arizona State University Dean of Students at this email address and let them know about Kevin’s social media activities: deanofstudents@asu.edu.

Sean Wulfe McCann: American Guard’s VSC’s Largest Probate

This article is republished with permission from Corvallis Against Fascism.

Warning: this post contains language and images that are offensive. We do not use words like “hateful” or “anti-Semitic” lightly, and we have chosen to include this content because it is the clearest and most effective way to demonstrate Sean McCann’s beliefs. In some cases we have chosen to partially edit or obscure certain words or images. In all such cases, the content was originally posted by McCann or others without the edits.

– Utah Antifascists


The American Guard (AG) is a group of hardcore white supremacists. The organization was started in Indiana by Brien James, a former Klansman and one of the founders of a violent bonehead (neo-nazi skinhead) gang, the Vinlanders Social Club.  The American Guard has deep ties to other White Nationalist gangs like the Hammerskins, the Traditionalist Workers Party, and the Aryan Nations. Unlike many of these other overtly racist groups, American Guard also associate with alt-lite organizations like Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys. This makes them particularly dangerous, as they are able to bring their extreme views and violence into spaces that typically cater to regular conservatives, who they attempt to further radicalize.

American Guard has engaged in physical violence at rallies across the country. They are incredibly dangerous, and their members and associates should be treated with extreme caution.

Sean McCann is the president of American Guard’s Utah chapter. He lives in Sandy, Utah, with his wife and two young sons. McCann is also friends with Joshua Long, American Guard’s national Vice President. The two men and their families spend a lot of time together and visit each other frequently.

In addition to AG, McCann is a member of the Asatru Folk Assembly, a neo-Völkisch pagan organization that is also classified as a hate group. Asatrú is a religion that combines elements of several Scandinavian and Germanic pagan traditions. It is not an inherently racist belief system.The Asatru Folk Assembly, however, is explicitly racist, and restricts its membership to “Aryans” and “Ethnic Europeans.” Many other Asatrúers have officially dissociated themselves from AFA because of their “long and well-documented history of discrimination.”

Like many pagan nazis, Sean McCann has an affinity for the Sonnenrad or Black Sun, an ancient European symbol that has a long history of use by white nationalists. It was appropriated by the Nazis during WWII, and is sometimes combined with or used as a substitute for the swastika.

Sean McCann really enjoys anti-Semitic Facebook content. In the conversation below, a user named Don Hansard remarks that the man in the photo “might replace my lampshade” – a reference to an allegation that Nazis had used the skin of concentration camp victims to make lampshades. (The allegations are disputed, but persist in the popular imagination.) McCann replies, “LOOOOOOL.” Hansard then cautions McCann against expressing views that might conflict with American Guard’s sanitized public image.

In addition to commenting on anti-Semitic memes, McCann frequently posts Nazi propaganda and generally hateful content of his own on Facebook. In the image below on the left, he is promoting revisionist history propaganda about WWII. The image on the right is LDS Church President Russell M. Nelson, and is captioned “Be kind to LGBTQ.” McCann posted it to Facebook with the comment, “F***ing cucks!” indicating his opinion that this attitude is weak or unmanly.

Sean is married to Rebecca McCann. She is a new-age “lightworker” and realtor. She generally does not express far-right views online. However, she does wear a Mjölnir pendant, which suggests she may share her husband’s hateful religious views. The Mjölnir, or Thor’s hammer, is a symbol used by many neo-pagans. It is not an explicitly racist or fascist symbol, but it is used by many pagan white supremacists, and as such may be an indicator of Rebecca McCann’s beliefs.

When he isn’t busy being a Nazi or working for Nationwide Energy Utah/Nationwide solar,

Sean McCann trains as a powerlifter/strongman at Ironground Gym. It bears repeating that McCann and the rest of American Guard are dangerous, and should be treated with extreme caution.

Republished with permission from Corvallis Against Fascism. Thank you to Colorado Springs Antifascists, Eugene Antifa, and Long Beach Antifa for their work tracking and documenting the American Guard.

Update: Corvallis Antifascists alerted us that McCann has shifted his allegiance to the Vinlanders Social Club.

Recent photos of McCann show him in Vinlanders colors. At left, he wears a “Firm 22” patch; a Vinlanders probate patch has replaced his American Guard patch. At right, McCann’s shirt declares his support for VSC.

 

Brien James confirmed via Twitter that McCann has resigned from the American Guard.

 

Valerie & Chris Moody: American Guard’s (White) Power Couple

This article is republished with permission from Corvallis Against Fascism.

Valerie and Chris Moody are members of the Utah Chapter of American Guard. On August 17th of 2019, they traveled to Portland, Oregon to participate in Joe Biggs’ ill-fated “End Domestic Terrorism” rally. They traveled in an armored bus, and members brought weapons, including firearms. It is safe to assume that the group went to Portland with the express intention of engaging Oregonians in physical violence. One California member, Mark Quon, attacked an antifascist with a hammer before being disarmed and smacked with it himself.

The Moodys and Quon with the American Guard contingent in Portland, Oregon

The American Guard is a group of hardcore white supremacists. The organization was started in Indiana by Brien James, a former Klansman and one of the founders of a violent bonehead (neo-Nazi skinhead) gang, the Vinlanders Social Club.  The American Guard has deep ties to other White Nationalist gangs like the Hammerskins, the Traditionalist Workers Party, and the Aryan Nations. Unlike many of these other overtly racist groups, American Guard also associate with alt-lite organizations like Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys. This makes them particularly dangerous, as they are able to bring their extreme views and violence into spaces that typically cater to regular conservatives, who they attempt to further radicalize.

The American Guard has engaged in physical violence at rallies across the country. They are incredibly dangerous, and their members and associates should be treated with extreme caution.

Valerie Moody serves as the National Spokesperson for American Guard, and Chris Moody is the Vice President of the Utah Chapter. As the National Spokesperson, Valerie authors the organization’s press releases, and the group’s website directs press inquiries to her.

Valerie and Chris also have ties to Salt Lake’s metal scene. Chris is the drummer for (awful) dad metal band Fear Through Flame. The band is believed to be inactive currently. Valerie Moody also helped to found Salt Lake MetalFest, a long-running music festival.

Please send any tips regarding the Moodys and their whereabouts to Utah161 at riseup.net.

Chris Moody (left) with other members of Utah American Guard

Valerie Moody

Republished with permission from Corvallis Against Fascism. Thank you to Colorado Springs Antifascists, Eugene Antifa, and Long Beach Antifa for their work tracking and documenting the American Guard.

American Guard

The American Guard (AG) is a hate group with multiple chapters in the Intermountain West. We are providing this summary of the group’s history and beliefs as background for future articles highlighting American Guard members who live and work in our communities.

American Guard began in Indiana, as a chapter of Soldiers of Odin (SoO). SoO is an anti-immigrant Finnish vigilante group that has spread to other countries. The Indiana chapter of SoO USA was led by William Brien James, who had previously founded the Vinlanders Social Club (VSC), a violent neo-Nazi skinhead gang responsible for multiple murders and other violent crimes.

Brien James with the Vinlanders

In 2016 Brien James and two of his associates, Joshua Long and Ryan Ramsey, rebranded the Indiana SoO chapter as the “American Guard,” and started building it into a national organization under James’s leadership.

Ryan Ramsey (left) and Joshua Long (right)

American Guard’s platform and beliefs, as outlined on their website, are mostly unobjectionable. Few Americans would argue against the general idea that “the search of any person or their property without a warrant is unconstitutional,” for example, or that “freedom of speech means all constitutionally legal speech and thought should be equally protected.” But the devil, as always, is in the details, and American Guard professes other beliefs that are more troubling. Included in their list of beliefs is the statement, “We respect freedom of association. We consider any action taken to forcibly segregate, integrate, or restrict the movement and free association of citizens to be unconstitutional and tyrannical.” This appears to be a direct repudiation of the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which declared state laws establishing racial segregation of public schools to be unconstitutional.

Their stated respect for the US Constitution, and their belief that “discipline and the law were created within societies to secure freedom, not to hinder it,” would seem to indicate that the American Guard are a law-abiding bunch. However, they also believe that “our federal government is operating in direct defiance of […] the 10th amendment, and has been for over a century.”

Screen capture from American Guard’s website

It’s unclear whether they feel obligated to follow federal laws that have been enacted in the past hundred years, but they do make it clear that violations of the group’s stated constitutional principles “amount to treason by our elected officials and law enforcement.” Constitutional penalties for treason include death, or imprisonment and a fine of not less than $10,000.

Brien James freely admits that he – and many other members of American Guard – have been involved with racist groups in the past, but he claims AG is a different kind of organization. “Several of us are former white nationalists. We are not ashamed of the choices we have made in life. We learn from them and move forward.” As for what attracts so many former neo-Nazis to join his group, James says, “They see American constitutional nationalism as a more practical and productive alternative than the ethnic nationalism they were previously engaged in.”

These statements imply that the members of American Guard no longer hold white nationalist views, but they also echo a statement to the contrary penned by Brien James in 2007, while still a member of VSC. He wrote, “After careful review of the events and circumstances, we have determined that our best course of action as Vinlanders is to separate ourselves from the racist movement … we do not see anything positive being accomplished, for our nation or our people, by participating in the white racialist movement as it stands.” He concedes, “The basic premise that ALL white people are superior and decent is flawed. They are not. … By the same token all non-whites are not savage beasts that have to be treated with disrespect in order to maintain ones ‘white power’ credentials.” He then asks rhetorically, “What does this mean? Does it mean our beliefs are wrong?” before answering, “For the most part it does not have to.”

American Guard’s stated purpose is “voluntary community protection, activism, and service based around the ideals of American Constitutional Nationalism and the preservation of western culture.” They claim to encourage “Americans of any race, class or faith to participate with us in these beliefs,” and are quick to point out that not all members of the group are white.

American Guard does accept people of color as members

If the founders and members of American Guard have indeed left behind the racism and violence they participated in previously, that is good news. But old habits die hard sometimes.

The American Guard has a history of association and cross-membership with the Proud Boys, an extremist group known for its misogynistic and anti-Muslim ideology, and its propensity for violence. AG also participated in the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, marching alongside the white nationalists who chanted, “Jews will not replace us” and “Hitler did nothing wrong.”

In December of 2019, Brien James tweeted his agreement with the statement, “It’s about time the term racist is classified as an anti-white slur.”

American Guard’s logo features a pair of meat cleavers crossed over a red, white, and blue shield.

The cleavers are a reference to “Bill the Butcher,” a character from the movie Gangs of New York, who was loosely based on real-life Bowery Boys gang leader William Poole. The character is anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, and an explicit racist. American Guard uses images of the character, who was portrayed in the movie by Daniel Day-Lewis, in their promotional and recruiting materials. In this image he is used as a substitute for Uncle Sam in a parody of the classic US Military recruiting poster.

As much as Brien James and his fellow gang members would like us to believe they’ve changed their ways, we’re just not willing to take their assertions at face value.

 

MORE INFORMATION

The following links have more information about American Guard. Utah Antifascists are not affiliated with these sites, and are not responsible for their content. Please be aware that some of the sites that are linked may have racist language and content, or other content that is offensive or otherwise NSFW.

Article on Brien James, detailing his past involvement with racist groups; includes the full text of the statement he wrote about VSC leaving the white racialist movement

RTV6 Indianapolis report on AG

American Guard “What We Believe” theamericanguard (dot) org/what-we-believe/

American Guard “Platform” https://theamericanguard (dot) org/platform/

ADL report on AG’s ties to white supremacist groups

Information on AG’s connections to the nativist “Know Nothing” movement

Scholarly article on the classical symbols appropriated by AG

Daniel Suarez article on Gangs of New York, including excerpt of dialogue demonstrating Bill the Butcher’s racism

RTV6 Indianapolis report on AG at Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville