An Open Letter

Dear Lamb and Lynx,

I finally got a chance to see the Channel 4 documentary Nazi Pop Twins by James Quinn. (Hat Tip: Susy Buchanan/SPLC)

All I can do is wish you hope and give you encouragement to stay strong. If the film managed to present even a modicum of reality and your feelings are honestly presented, I can only hope you have a better future than you have had a past.

Listen and learn from your grandmother, she seems to understand the problems that have come from following an ideology full of hate.

I know you will encounter people who will deride you for what you have done in the past and perhaps things you will do in the near future, (to be honest I was one of them), but the problem isn’t you, it’s your mother, it’s your grandfather, it’s the circle of people who have chosen a very sad, distorted reality to follow. I think both of you know that.

Maybe you’ll come across this one day while Googleing your names. I hope it comes at a time when you need encouragement from an annonymous voice. I think I understand the pressures you’re under and want you to know that there are people pulling for you.

Good luck. Again. I wish you strength.

I’ll be leaving you alone for now on.

Just a Little Blue (Updated)

As part of my continuing documentation of the girl teen band – hate group. Prussian Blue, I found out they were the subject of a new documentary, Nazi Pop Twins.

Apparently, the British television network Channel 4 aired the documentary about Lamb and Lynx last night. I figured this out because once again my Prussian Blue posts got a national boost following by the amazing number of visitors from England (Hi guys!).

This one was even less flattering than the documentary by Louis Theroux, Louis and the Nazis.

You can read the original press release here and from there view clips of the show. They are worth the couple of minutes. Apparently Lamb and Lynx are starting to grow up and ask – um – unfortunate questions.

A critique of the show was posted the next day on the Telegraph web site,

My heart sank slightly during the opening minutes of Nazi Pop Twins (Channel 4), a documentary about the American “white pride” pop duo Prussian Blue. Was it to be another trip stateside to seek out a weirdo or two and add to the oxygen of publicity, to use Margaret Thatcher’s term, they probably didn’t deserve? At 14, twin sisters Lamb and Lynx Gaede have generated hundreds of column inches with Prussian Blue’s white nationalistic music. Since their singing voices are rubbish, it’s the neo-Nazi connection that’s got them noticed and the less said about that the better, unless it’s to grind it firmly into the ground. Thankfully, film-maker James Quinn didn’t disappoint on that score.

Behind every teenage performing phenomenon there’s a pushy parent and here it took the form of “white nationalist” April Gaede, the twins’ mother and manager, who described Prussian Blue T-shirts featuring an image of Hitler as “funny”, and actively promoted a telephone/pen-pal relationship between her daughters and a sick-minded white supremacist serving a 19-year term in a maximum security jail. She and the girls lived on a ranch in California with her equally vile father Bill, whose sweeping denunciations of black Americans and Mexicans were so revolting as to not be repeatable here. He branded his cattle with swastikas and wondered whether people in Britain wished that Germany had won the Second World War. It was not a surprise that he loved guns; to call him difficult to like would be an understatement. “This goddam Nazi shit has ruined my life,” said his wife Diane. “I don’t have a single friend because he’s so hateful.”

It’s a credit to Quinn that he managed to retain the family’s co-operation with filming for as long as he did. His mission was to show how April was using her malleable twin daughters as a mouthpiece for her own extremist views, and to an extent he succeeded. As Holocaust deniers they sounded uncertain about the story they’d been fed by their elders, and they admitted privately that the “politics” surrounding their music had been draining. Because “a lot of people think we’re a bunch of psychos”, they felt, understandably, like taking a break. April is taking no chances with her three-year-old daughter – named Dresden – whose ABC lessons start with A is for Aryan.

Even more interesting is the fact that April’s mother apparently goes on a major tear, hammering Bill Gaede for his White Supremacist ways. A clip can be seen on the Channel 4 page above. The quotes are amazing,

It’s all because of this God Damned Nazi shit. That It’s just fuckin’ ruined my life. I’m gonna let it all hang out boy. […] Even though we’ve lived here 30 years, I don’t have a single friend. You know why? I don’t have a single friend because he’s so hateful.

The girls themselves seem less “brainwashed” if questioned alone.

John Quinn: So what is the family’s image, what would you say the Prussian Blue’s image is?

Lamb or Lynx, I don’t know which is which): I think that most people think we’re a bunch of pschycos to tell you the truth.

JQ: Do you ever think of winding it down with the band?

L: [nods]

JQ: Really?

LoL: Yeah, we just kind of want to take a break for a little while. You know, I’ll aways be doing this for the rest of our lives; I’ll always play my guitar, I’ll aways write songs. I just.. We’re not going to be doing this our whole lives. We’re not gonna… We have other dreams and other goals than this.

If you are lucky enough to live in England, you can watch the whole thing online. (If you do, leave a comment and let me know what you think.)

While researching this, I also found out that Lamb and Lynx were the inspiration for an off, off Broadway musical last year. James Quinn, the producer of the documentary also spent time filming the production.White Noise. It was featured on Good Morning America and got a write up in Playbill

White Noise is billed as “A Cautionary Musical,” and is described by the authors this way: “Confirming the old adage that it’s better to be a star than wear one, an adorable pair of sisters, Blanche and Eva, lead the teen band White Noise, mixing irresistible harmonies with white power rhetoric and taking the nation by storm. Their message of racial purity resonates with young people across America and the rise of White Noise coincides with a rise in the white supremacist movement which threatens to engulf the country, as Blanche and Eva prove themselves to be masters of the most terrifying and unstoppable form of Fascism in today’s culture: Top Forty pop.”

I don’t think any of this will stop Prussian Blue from coming to Europe this summer and I am still trying to find out whether they have any venues planned for Germany, I will keep you up to date if I find anything out.

Please leave a comment if you saw the documentary. I’d really like to hear some opinions.

Update:

I found a blog completely decribing the show. It does seem like April, the mother, is losing her grip in the children. (No  wonder, she lost her grip on reality years ago.) But the writer of the blog entry makes another very telling point,

What scared me, ultimately, was not the radical anti-Prussian Blue response, which is positive, but the way it manifested itself, which is just as scary as the fascist claptrap these reluctant, confused girls are now regretting peddling on behalf of their damaged mother. A young, white man says “they ought to have their asses kicked; someone should kill them” without a trace of irony. The anti-hate campaigning that follows them across America is hardly surprising, but it’s none too cleverly handled. Directing violence at those who encourage hate in a tit-for-tat attempt at revenge is pretty bloody stupid. April Gaede clearly loves nothing more than being a martyr, claiming that every death threat and protest is a “gold medal” because she’s obviously “doing something right”. We need to fight hatred and intimidation with education and contempt, not with death threats and martyrdom.

What a depressing world. *sigh*

Hate Takes a Road Trip

Remember our little White Supremacist darlings, Lamb and Lynx Gaede aka Prussian Blue? They are back and – um – rockin’ same as ever.

I noticed yesterday, looking at my logs, that my first Prussian Blue post, Girls Just Wanna Sing Hate Songs, got yet got another major hit yesterday. This time from Sweden and that lead me to wonder why so many people in Scandinavia were suddenly interested in Lamb, Lynx and their mother April.

First, perhaps a little background, for those just tuning in.

Lamb and Lynx Gaede, angelic teenagers have been part of the Far Right band Prussian Blue (a holocaust denial reference) for several years. Prussian Blue’s rise to fame (or perhaps infamy) was perhaps started by Louis Theroux, when he featured the family as one part of his documentary Louis and the Nazis, (available on YouTube: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3). This show, especially part 3, gives you an idea of where these darling little angels are coming from; little things – like Celtic Dancing in a swastika. *sigh*

They then moved to national news coverage in America managing stories in venues like ABC’s Nightline and Newsweek. They also have been covered in places like the Guardian who described them with,

The best-known act on the far-right label Resistance Records is Prussian Blue: 13- year-old twins Lamb and Lynx Gaede from Bakersfield, California. Looking like butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths, they have been performing songs about Rudolf Hess et al to appreciative crowds of white neo-Nazis since they were nine.

We’re proud of being white,’ Lynx has said. ‘We want our people to stay white … we don’t want to just be, you know, a big muddle.’

Having been nursed in racist doctrine from the teat, can the burden of blame lie fully with them? Their mother, April, taught them the alphabet this way: ‘A is for Aryan, B is blood …’ and so on. Grandfather Gaede brands his cattle with swastikas.

After the racial muddle got too much for the family in that paradigm of muddledom, Bakersfield California, April and her daughters moved to Kalispell Montana hoping to find a little White love. It didn’t quite work out that way.

As I pointed out at the time, while April had expected a little anonymity, her neighbors were more than concerned about a White Supremacist girl band moving into the neighborhood. According to news stories at the time, the concerns might have been justified.

I recently looked into the current events for Prussian Blue, found out that they have a blog and a few more things, quoting *cough* myself in a response to a comment on my Dead Supremacist Walking post,

Gee. Speaking of teenage girls being molested, I wonder how Lynx and Lamb are doing?

Father lost custody battle with mother last year: check

Promoter Kevin Alfred Strom jailed for pedophilia: check

But they were too old for him? uncheck

And now? Gee! A European tour this summer! Hate takes a road trip! (And for anyone reading, I officially, explicitly distance myself from everything said there!)

And where will Prussian Blue be going? Sweden! (Hi guys!) According to April (and no I won’t link directly to StormFront but here’s a Google for it), Prussian Blue will be giving a concert in Sweden in July. Oh joy. Maybe they will get to meet the Madonna of the Far Right, Saga.

Sorry Sweden. But I guess hate does occasionally does get to take a road trip.

You just seem to be the first stop. My condolences.

Terrorism, it’s only a problem …

…if ‘mericans are targeted.

Apparently the MSM (WP, NYT, LAT, …) and the blogosphere just about freaked out yesterday when, as Wonkette so aptly put it, the Feds Nixed Dix Six.

Bloggers like Ed Morrissey at Captains Quarters and The Moderate Voice’s Shaun Mullen are wondering if this is just another repeat of the famous Miami mixup.

But that is only a small part of the story. These were foreigners, Albanians and ‘muslims’ (abet with no direct connection to al Quaeda) and are thus big news.

The real story is that this only makes national news if the ‘terrorists’ are *gasp* foreign and the targets American. If they’d have been just a couple of good ol’ boys from Alabama out to kill Mexicans … no big deal. Right?

From the Huntsville Times

Five members of a self-styled militia were denied bail Tuesday after a federal agent testified they planned a machine gun attack on Mexicans, but a judge approved bail for a sixth man.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Armstrong said at a hearing in Birmingham federal court he could not grant bail to the five because of the agent’s testimony and the amount of weapons – including about 200 homemade hand grenades – that were seized in raids Friday in DeKalb County.

“I’m going to be worried if I let these individuals go at this time,” he said.
[…]
During the raids last week, agents recovered 130 homemade hand grenades, a grenade launcher, about 70 hand grenades rigged to be fired from a rifle, a machine gun, a short-barrel shotgun and 2,500 rounds of ammunition, authorities said.

Go back and re-read that last paragraph: 130 homemade hand grenades, a grenade laucher, a machine gun? And the guys planning to hit Fort Dix make the front pages. The arrests in DeKalb County. happened May 2nd.

Um – Folks, can we please take a reality break.

Where were the press releases, the front page headlines, the bloggers terrified of homegrown American militias? Where was Tony Snow Dana Perino pointing out that ATF&E had stopped a terrorist plot?

Was Fort Dix a real plot? Time will tell. Was Birmingham a real plot? Sure looks like it.

Should MSM be ashamed that they are pushing the Fort Dix plot? Look, I have a question for you. Why is America only worried about foreigners, muslims?

There seem to be real terrorist attacks planned and stopped, but no one notices. Just as long as the ‘terrorists’ are Americans.

Isn’t that the real shame?

(Hat Tip: Dave Neiwert/Orcinus)

Dead Supremacist Walking

The phrase used to proceed a death-row inmate on his final journey, “Dead Man Walking” takes on a rather macabre meaning in the case of James Ford Seale. According to the Herald Sun, Seale pleaded not guilty yesterday to the 1964 killings of Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore.

A former Ku Klux Klan member pleaded not guilty today to charges in the 1964 murders of two black teenagers in Mississippi, in a case that highlights violence used by white supremacists during the civil rights era.

Marshals escorted James Seale, 71, to and from federal court in Jackson for an initial hearing on kidnapping and conspiracy charges.

A three-count indictment says Mr Seale trained a shotgun on the teenagers while his companions beat them. Then they attached heavy weights to the pair and threw them alive into the Mississippi River.

Although Mr Seale doesn’t face the death penalty, his case does somehow remind one of the Day of the Dead. You see reports of Mr. Seale’s premature demise were somehow slightly overstated.

The story starts at the height of the civil rights movement. Two black, 19 year old teenagers were hitchhiking in rural Mississippi in May 1964; unfortunately the wrong Volkswagen stopped. According to the June 2000 story in the Clarion-Ledger, the teens were then taken into the forest; beaten or in Klan jargon “whipped”; driven to the Mississippi; tied to an old Jeep engine block and drowned. The only reason for not shooting them first was because shooting would have gotten the boat bloody. Nice.

In rural Mississippi in 1964, this probably wouldn’t have caused much of a ruckus, it was par for the course. But one month later, 3 civil rights activists, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, disappeared. These weren’t poor black Mississippians, 2 were activists from New York and that was news, national news. The FBI got involved and the story of the search for Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner became the stuff movies are made of.

But during the search for the three men, a the lower half of a body was found in the Mississippi river. A more through search was made and a second body was found. Dee and Moore had been found.

Based on information from a Klan informant, James Ford Seale and Charles Marcus Edwards were arrested and interrogated by the FBI. The Clarion-Ledger story then goes on to quote the rather Kafkaesque questioning,

According to FBI documents, authorities confronted Seale and told him they knew he and others took Dee and Moore “to some remote place and beat them to death. You then transported and disposed of their bodies by dropping them in the Mississippi River. You didn’t even give them a decent burial. We know you did it. You know you did. The Lord above knows you did it.”

“Yes,” Seale is quoted as replying, “but I’m not going to admit it. You are going to have to prove it.”

When authorities arrested Edwards, he “admitted that he and James Seale picked up Dee and another Negro in vicinity of Meadville, Miss., and took them to an undisclosed wooded area where they were ‘whipped,’ ” a Nov. 6, 1964, FBI document says. “States victims were alive when he departed the wooded area.”

The FBI didn’t have jurisdiction to prosecute the case and turned it over to the local District Attorney Lenox Foreman. Foreman promised to bring the evidence to a grand jury, but despite repeated failures to communicate attempts by the FBI to jump-start the case, Forman never did and the case dropped into obscurity.

It was 35 years later that reporters from the Clarion-Ledger, while going through over 1000 pages of documents found a bullethole loophole missed in the original proceedings. It became likely that the two teenagers had been on federal property when the beating took place. This moved the case from the local to the federal prosecutors office. They chose to follow up.

There was only one problem. At least according to James Ford Seale, Jr. The story as related by the Associated Press in 2005 could only take place in rural Mississippi or perhaps Hollywood.

In 2000, a Jackson newspaper, The Clarion-Ledger, uncovered documents indicating that the beatings might have occurred in the Homochitto National Forest. Claiming jurisdiction, the Justice Department reopened the case.

Not long after, Mr. Seale “died.”

The Los Angeles Times published an article on the case in June 2002, which said Mr. Seale had died the previous year.

In 2003, The Clarion-Ledger ran a series on unsolved cases from the civil rights era. An item on the Dee-Moore case included comments Mr. Seale had made “before his death.”

While filming a documentary on the 1964 killings, the brother of one of the victims, Thomas Moore, discovered that Seale Sr was still alive and – um – kicking . Probably still hating as well. The case has finally come to trial and yesterday Seale Sr entered a plea of not guilty. Now he will be tried by a jury. The AP has also published an excellent summary of the story.

In other current white supremacist news, it seems Kevin Alfred Strom, the founder of National Vanguard and one of the leading “intellectuals” in the neo-Nazi movement, has been arrested and charged with child pornography and witness tampering. Strom’s former and current wife seem to be publicly agreeing to the charges. But not all the rats are abandoning ship. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center,

One other woman spoke up, too. April Gaede, a long-time National Alliance activist who quit that group to help Strom form National Vanguard, told the VNN web forum that Strom had called her in March 2006, four months before he took his mysterious leave of absence. Strom “told me that [Elisha] had found some porn on his computer and that it was of adult females but that she freaked out and called him a pervert,” Gaede wrote. “Then he told me that she had threatened to ‘get even’ with him and that he was afraid that she would plant something on his computer.”

Unmentioned by Gaede was the role Strom has played recently as promoter at concert after concert of Prussian Blue — the folk-singing, neo-Nazi duet comprised of Gaede’s two daughters, pretty blonde twins who recently turned 15.

(Hat Tip and obsequious grovel to Trees/AnomalousData for that.)

One can only hope that these people are finally either dying out, being prosecuted or simply self destructing.

Maybe it’s a case of Dead Supremacist Walking.