by Jasmine Taylor | Oct 23, 2023 | Militia and Hate Groups
Yesterday a group of NeoNazis demonstrated outside of the Chabad Jewish Center in Missoula. As usual, they carried signs with racist messages, preaching White supremacy and hatred towards refugees. Their clear intent was to intimidate and threaten the Jewish community in Missoula.
There are multiple NeoNazi organizations in the northwestern United States, and this particular demonstration brought in some out of town guests. (I use the term “guest” loosely. These assholes were certainly not invited, nor are they welcome in our state.) The small group of incels were soon outnumbered by counter protestors whose video documentation was quickly shared on Twitter. [We’re not gonna call it X. Fuck Elon Musk. But I digress.]
Citizens were quick to identify one Nazi who lives in Washington. Larkin McIntyre, a White man of below-average intelligence and terrible fashion sense, was seemingly arrested. Although booking information is not yet available, those in attendance note that the Nazis moved their protest from the Jewish Center to the courthouse. Larkin allegedly had a weapon, which, spoiler alert, is not allowed on courthouse property. Photos of Larkin’s arrest are included below.
Why, you ask? Because now that Larkin has visited Montana, we want to be sure that his employer knows what he’s been up to. Larkin works for the Shoreline School District. Although Larkin certainly has a right to free speech and protest, typically breaking the law is not a protected activity. Further, it is of grave concern to allow a White supremacist contact with students. Larkin potentially poses a safety risk to any student that falls within his wide umbrella of hate, to include: Jewish people, LGBTQ+ people, refugees, and all Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. Basically, if you aren’t a straight, White guy who hates his neighbors, Larkin and his cohorts are a danger to your safety.
We’ve emailed the Shoreline School District to inquire how they’re assuring student safety while employing a known Neo-Nazi, and if there are any rules which prohibit staff from engaging in unlawful activity. Read our email below, and maybe consider sending one of your own to express your concerns.
The email reads:
“To: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Good evening,
The attached photos have been circulated widely on social media. They appear to show an employee of your school district, Larkin McIntyre, being arrested. McIntyre was participating in a Neo-Nazi rally in Missoula, Montana. Arrest information is not yet available, but counter protestors have reported that after harassing people at the Chabad Jewish Center of Missoula, Larkin and the NeoNazi group moved their demonstration to the courthouse. Some attendees claim that Larkin was seen with a weapon, which is illegal on courthouse property, and potentially prompted his arrest.
Our blog, which covers local happenings in Montana, is running a story about this Neo Nazi activity. As such, we have a few questions.
Firstly, what protections are in place for students and co-workers that interact with McIntyre?
Although employees certainly retain their right to free speech and protest, does the school district have any policies which preclude staff from engaging in unlawful behavior?
Are school district employees and parents aware of the potential safety risk McIntyre poses to any BIPOC, LGBTQ+ Jewish, or non-White students and staff?
Please note that we are not asking for any protected employee information regarding McIntyre. We have already received information (attached) showing the employment relationship between himself and the Shoreline School District. Rather we are asking what steps the district is taking to assure the safety of those affected by NeoNazi ideology, and what policies and procedures would apply to a situation in which a school district employee is arrested.
We are happy to answer any questions you may have as to this request. If there is a more appropriate party to provide this information to, we would request to be provided that contact information as well.
Thank you for your time.
What The Funk 406 Blog Team”
UPDATE 10/24/23
We received the following response from the Shoreline School District
“Hi Jasmine,
Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention. We take allegations of discrimination seriously, including thoroughly investigating the allegations and taking appropriate steps to ensure that the District is safe and welcoming for students, staff, and community members. While the District has a general policy of not commenting on particular personnel matters, the District is responding and taking appropriate action.
Thank you,”
Response received by WTF406 from the Shoreline School District.
WTF406 sent this email to Shoreline School District.
In this photo shared across Twitter, it appears McIntyre is being handcuffed and detained by Missoula PD.
McIntyre was quickly identified by citizens who shared his photo across social media.
by Jasmine Taylor | Aug 24, 2023 | Militia and Hate Groups
Mere days after celebrating beautiful new murals in downtown Great Falls, residents and business owners awoke to find a very different addition to the scenery. Over the weekend, White Lives Matter plastered an estimated 200 stickers throughout town. Stop signs, traffic lights, and even art installments were vandalized with racist propaganda.
What is White Lives Matter?
White Lives Matter (WLM) is a neo-nazi organization of insecure, unsuccessful white men who hate anyone different than them. In typical nazi style, you’ll hear them denying the Holocaust, advocating for the eradication of Jewish and LGBTQ+ people, and claiming their skin color makes them superior to all other races. In reality, you’ll find these are mostly men who have prior domestic violence charges that have never gotten around to accomplishing anything positive in their lives. Instead, they spend their Saturday nights covering their faces and riding around on bicycles, defacing public property in an attempt to recruit other desperate losers.
We at WTF, along with many friends in the community, have spent the week locating and removing these stickers. However, White Lives Matter activity has only increased in the past few years, and it’s very likely that you, dear reader, will come across this sad propaganda as well. So today we bring you:
The WHAT THE FUNK Guide to Removing Nazi Propaganda
Step 1: Gather your supplies.
You’ll need: A Paint Scraper, Gloves, Goof Off Graffiti (available at Aces Hardware), A Step Stool, and a Trash Bag
Step 2: Grab a friend and go for a walk!
Nazis tend to post their stickers on locations like art installments, utility boxes, and the backs of street signs. Take a stroll through the neighborhood. Turn it into a game. Whoever finds the most propaganda gets a prize. Remember, it’s safest to do this during the day, and with a friend if possible. Nazis typically only come out at night- probably because they knew they’ll get their asses kicked otherwise.
Step 3: Document and Remove
When you find a sticker, note the location. Take a picture or throw the cross streets into your notes app. Then, spray that sad bullshit with the Goof Off Graffiti. Wait a few seconds, then presto-chango, you and that scraper just restored a Stop sign to its former non-racist glory. Here’s where your trash bag comes in. After you scrape off the sticker, throw it away. We don’t want to litter while fighting white supremacy. If you choose to post pictures of the stickers, be sure to obscure the QR code and the contact information for their message boards. They use these stickers to recruit new members. We don’t want to give them any more reach by sharing that info.
Step 4: Report that shit
The State of Montana chooses not to track these kinds of incidents. (Crazy, right?) But there is an organization that does! The Montana Human Rights Network has a report form. The link to that form is at the bottom of this article. While you’re there, check out their rapid response guide for great info on how we fight assholes like White Lives Matter.
And that’s it! You’ve cleaned up your neighborhood and you’ve helped stop the spread of nazi ideology. Congratulations- you’re antifa now!
https://mhrn.org/reportingform/
https://www.mhrn.org/publications/fact%20sheets%20and%20adivsories/HateIncidentRapid-ResponseGuide.pdf
by Ken Toole | Jun 28, 2024 | Uncategorized
This image depicts an African American man joining Confederate troops marching off to war.
Almost immediately after the Civil War, the losers began a propaganda campaign to reframe and rehabilitate white supremacy. This movement, which is now referred to as the “Lost Cause,” carries on today. They claim the Civil War was not about slavery. It was a matter of “States Rights” and industrialization in northern states versus a romanticized agrarian South. Understanding the power of symbols in the public square, advocates of the Lost Cause moved to place monuments to the Confederacy in cities and towns across the country and to name public facilities like schools, parks, streets and highways after leaders of the Confederacy. All of this to support and promote the institutional racism of Jim Crow and marginalization of African Americans in society.
Most people assume these monuments were placed shortly after the Civil War, but that is not the case. The monument pictured above was placed in The National Cemetery at Arlington in 1914, almost 50 years after the war ended. According to the American Historical Association, monuments put in place during this time “were intended, in part, to obscure the terrorism required to overthrow Reconstruction, and to intimidate African Americans politically and isolate them from the mainstream of public life.” The Confederate monument which was in Women’s Park in Helena was commissioned in 1914 by the Daughters of the Confederacy. It was replaced in 2017.
In the 1950s and 1960s, there was another surge in the placement of Confederate monuments across the country in response to the civil rights movement. For example, after passage of the Civil Rights Act and The Voting Rights Act in the 1960s, 27 monuments dedicated to Confederate soldiers who had fought against “the federal enemy” were installed in Texas. Of course the Confederate battle flags we see all over Montana (most often next to Trump flags) are part and parcel of the same Lost Cause strategy to defend and protect white supremacy.
In recent years there has been a strong national movement to remove these commemorations to the Confederacy and white supremacy. The efforts to remove these symbols and change place names has become a flashpoint for controversy and, in some cases, violence, in many communities. Since 2017 and the murder of George Floyd, along with the Charleston church shooting and the Unite the Right Rally, 160 monuments across the country have been removed or torn down.
That brings us to Ryan Zinke and Matt Rosendale and their vote to reinstall this monument. The proposal failed in Congress, but the vote was a slap in the face to the African American community and advocates for equality as they were preparing to celebrate the Juneteenth holiday less than a week away. Unfortunately dog whistles and race baiting have become the order of the day among Republican politicians. And the rhetoric provided by advocates of Lost Cause propagandists that assume the mantle of historical accuracy and patriotic sentiment leaves people confused about the inherent bigotry of their phony facts and rewriting of American history. Zinke and Rosendale are finely tuned to the negative power of race baiting in the political process. Even though Rosendale is leaving public office, it should come as no surprise that he would join Ryan Zinke in jumping on this issue in an election year.
In Germany people don’t put up monuments to Adolph Hitler and the Nazi regime. Is it only in America that we celebrate white supremacist losers?
by Helena Lovick | Jun 17, 2024 | LGBTQ+ Issues
Great Falls, MONT
Mayor Proclaims He Won’t Proclaim Support for LGBTQ+ Community….
Early in June, the Great Falls Mayor Cory Reeves posted a statement on Facebook that he wouldn’t be issuing a proclamation for LGBTQ+ Month. And we’re still seeing the fallout on our town from the mayor’s clueless-at-best position.
Mayor Reeves’s Facebook proclamation that he’s not making a proclamation
Sure, I agree with the mayor that people should be “treated with equal respect and dignity without government interference in personal matters”. BUT ARE THEY?
Of course we know they are not. We all know that the LGBTQ+ community is marginalized, discriminated against, and faces continued stigma for just being who they are.
And Hate Speech Follows
Why didn’t Cory just stay silent and not issue a proclamation? Instead, he made it worse by openly refusing to make a proclamation of support. That clearly sends the message that our city government DOESN’T support the LGBTQ+ community. And like clockwork, bigots come crawling out of the woodwork. Affirming organizations, including our blog, are getting hate messages because we openly support actual “equality for all individuals” by speaking in support of the LGBTQ+ Community. The neo-nazi “wHitE LiVes MatTeR” crowd was emboldened to put up their racist and homophobic stickers in our town the night of June 15th. More than 60 anti-LGBTQ+ stickers and and dozens of racist white lives matter stickers were found throughout the downtown area. Below are some images of the hate-speech, lie-filled stickers.
Loser neo-nazi unsurprisingly spreads lies and hate speech stickers in Great Falls, Montana
Of course the neo-nazi who put up the stickers is still too big of coward to do it publicly. And yeah, Great Falls is NOT filled with bigots (nice strawman argument Rick Tryon, we never said it was). It is likely one or two fucking pieces of shit putting up those stickers. But that doesn’t stop the harm it causes.
Let this inspire those of us who don’t support hate
One person can have a huge impact. Love is Love! Put up a “Hate has NO home here” sign at your home, wear a rainbow. Be a visible ally. We can use more love in this world.
And Cory, if you’re reading this, you were wrong. You can own your mistake and issue a proclamation now. It won’t undo the harm you unleashed but it will be better than just letting the hate continue to froth up. Our community deserves better.
by Guest Writer | Feb 28, 2024 | Guest Articles
A Tale of Cats, Cows and Anti-Vaxxers
or
How the John Birch Society Bit Ravalli County and Gave It Rabies
By: Bill Lacroix
First published: https://billlacroix.blogspot.com/
I don’t call my cat “Fatso” lightly. It’s not who she is, it’s where she likes to sit and when, which is on my lap when I’m using my laptop. Her body blobs onto my keyboard and, when I try to write, my minimal hand movements harsh her mellow, which prods her to give the back of my hand a nip of annoyance. That’s endearing, but, not too long ago, one of her love bites broke the skin and became infected, which recalled a ‘70s pop song that should have been killed at birth (“Cat Scratch Fever”) which, in turn, triggered a temporary bout of irrational cognitive dissonance (anger mixed with conspiracy theories), the sort of thing that short-circuits your brain and sends you to an emergency room for drugs because you never know WHO or WHAT is out to get you in Ravalli County. It could be your cat. Or Ted Nugent.
To point: Ravalli County has had a problem with science, for a while. During the Covid-19 pandemic, our local cops couldn’t possibly enforce humane safety protocols to keep other peoples’ grandparents from dying because of other peoples’ conspiracy theories. Alas—and as a direct result—more people died of Covid than in traffic accidents. Paradoxically, these same cops could and did enforce speed limits throughout the pandemic, including ticketing me for going 29 MPH in a 25 MPH zone. Paradoxically-squared: local paranoia over Nazi-nurses torturing transplanted retirees with freedom-smothering N-95 masks birthed the local “Breathe-Free Montana” group, a John Birch-flavored extremist outfit whose adherents recently succeeded in orchestrating a coup against the already-entrenched, already-hard-right-but-apparently-not-hard-right-enough Republican Central Committee that has had a stranglehold on our local politics since that black guy became president.
So there I sat in a Ravalli County examining room which, in a reality-based county, would be a “safe space,” but, remember, we’re talking Ravalli County. The nice nurse left to “get the doctor” and, less than two minutes later, a Hamilton Police officer barged in unannounced, in “full metal jacket,” demanding that I either surrender my cat to be quarantined for 10 days in kitty jail or that I sign an affidavit that I will do it myself and that, if my cat escaped during that time and caused damage to other peoples’ property, I would be liable. As an example, he cited the possibility that my cat could bite a cow and give the whole herd rabies.
His logic, of course, was impeccable but, as my hand throbbed in my lap, I also thought that maybe I had contracted rabies or some other hallucinatory microbe. I had to get rid of this guy so I could get drugs and, thankfully, cognitive dissonance is usually a passing thing, and so I told him that I would be glad to produce a record of her recent rabies shot. Never mind, he countered. I must either surrender Fatso or sign, which I did. The catch: the affidavit stipulated that, after her 10-day quarantine, I would bring her in to the station to prove she wasn’t a rabid John Bircher yet, which was beauty-cubed, since I thought a conversation with local law enforcement about cows being more important to them than people would be priceless. I have no intention of taking Fatso in for her parole hearing and, to date, we are still on the lam, awaiting a wonderful conversation. BTW: Anyone know a good lawyer who doesn’t have rabies yet?
