Who Calls for 'Shooting Officers'?

www.rightturns.com ^ | April 3, 2003 | Stephen Schwartz

[Stephen Schwartz]

WE HAVE A WINNER (OR LOSER, AS THE CASE MAY BE)

By Stephen Schwartz

The entire country, if not the world, has now seen the infamous image from San Francisco of two anarchists carrying a banner reading "We Support Our Troops When They SHOOT Their Officers."

My first reaction to this item of despicable propaganda was, let me say, a bit offhand. That's San Francisco, I thought: it has become a strange kind of museum of the passé left, of ideologies and other political curiosities from generations past revived for the amusement of the parasitical post-yuppies that presently infest the city. For generations, it was the most prominent outpost of classical Stalinism in the Western Hemisphere. Now it is a colony of anarchists redux, who imagine themselves inhabiting Barcelona a century ago, without, unfortunately, the trade union movement that gave the Catalan city its great significance in the history of the left.

Then I looked more closely, and I recognized the smirking individual on the left, with the prominent nose, bald pate, and two fists grasping a pole for the banner. Unlike the militant on the right, this one did not don a ski-mask. Which makes sense, because the person I recognized has always reveled in public provocations. But to be sure, I have a second witness, who knows the individual in question as well or better than I do.

The man openly carrying this treasonous banner in San Francisco is named Kevin Keating. He is 43 years old and has no profession aside from vagrancy. He also calls himself Keith Sorel and Nestor Makhno. The latter was a real person: a leader of anarchist guerrillas in the Ukraine during the Russian civil war of 1917-21. As a pseudonym, "Keith Sorel" seemed an attempt to mix the suburban and the subversive, rather like "Tiffany Bakunin" or "Heather Kropotkin." Georges Sorel was also a real person, the author of a book titled Reflections on Violence that inspired fascists as well as anarchists. But reinventing himself as Sorel was insufficiently "bad-assed" for Keating, who, as "Makhno," launched something called the Mission Yuppie Eradication Project in San Francisco in the 1990s.

This one-man cell engaged in such courageous activities as slitting people's tires and breaking windshields on SUVs, as a protest against gentrification. In 1999, the San Francisco Police Department caught up with Keating and he was arrested while posting flyers with the ultra-revolutionary demand that people attack four restaurants of which he disapproved.

He was charged with terrorist threats and malicious mischief, but the case was dropped by San Francisco's ultraleftist district attorney, Terence Hallinan. Police described the contents of his apartment as including a "mountaineering ax" of the kind used to murder Trotsky, along with Keating's fiction manuscripts.

I have known Keating for 20 years, since his first emergence as a leftist loudmouth in the Bay Area. He was always more concerned with publicity than with politics, and he always had multiple ambitions. When I first encountered him he said he wanted to make an "anarchist biker film." Later, he offered some gay folk of my acquaintance nude pictures of himself.

He has other reasons to be notorious, and I must confess to a certain lack of objectivity here. Readers of various websites should recognize the monicker "Keith Sorel." Under this pseudonym the brave Keating penned a grotesque personal attack on me that has been widely recycled by neo-Nazis, the Russian Communazi periodical Pravda, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), i.e. the Saudi religious militia operating in the U.S. to promote Wahhabism, and none other than Dennis "Justin" Raimondo of antiwar.com fame, another San Francisco fan of flamboyant identity reconfiguration.

A digression: Dennis Raimondo has made a great deal of noise about the fact that I was once known as "Sandalio," a name I took as an illegal activist in Spain, to avoid the attentions of that country's secret police, and that as a Sufi I have an Islamic name which I do not use before the U.S. public. I have also adopted pen-names, which is a right all authors have. But unlike the "Sorel"/"Justin" axis I have almost never used aliases in publishing my main works, over the past 20 years. Doubtless Raimondo appears as "Dennis" on his driver's license, so as to keep himself out of certain kinds of trouble.

The same text by Keating has been posted and reposted numerous times on such sites as freerepublic.com and littlegreenapples.com, with the aim of presenting me as a chameleon and opportunist who broke with the left out of personal ambition and whose views on Islam are therefore suspect. Raimondo and the website weenies further seek to impeach me for becoming a Sufi.

But I have consistently exposed the links between the Saudi-Wahhabis and those like Asan Akbar, formerly Mark Fidel Kools, who fulfilled Keating's wet dream by shooting his officers (see www.weeklystandard.com). And it should not be overlooked that the Nazis and neofascists like Raimondo, who support Milosevic, murderer of the Balkan Muslims I always defended, are directly assisted by CAIR. This alliance is not unique; Hussein Ibish of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee has also pimped for Serbian fascism.

To return to Keating/Sorel: he has never been subtle, intellectual, or principled. I have published nine books of political history, including major works on anti-Stalinist trade unions in the Pacific region, the Spanish civil war, the fall of the Sandinistas, and the radical tradition in California. I would certainly have welcomed serious criticism of these works by leftists. But Keating/Sorel's method, like that of his admirer Raimondo, is something different. In his screed, he concentrated on personal defamation of me and my family, alleging all sorts of nonexistent crimes and misdemeanors.

After his misadventures with the forces of order in San Francisco, the indomitable anarchist decided to go for an extended holiday in Greece. He knew so little about the country he gave an interview in which he indicated his belief that newspapers there are printed with the Latin alphabet, and the hope that he would be able to read his own name across the world.

This trip was easy for him to make because the selfless revolutionary enjoys a trust fund income from his dead parents, one of whom, according to him, was a CIA officer.

In September 2000, he returned from his Greek idyll in fine yuppie style, notwithstanding his profession of hatred for all things petit-bourgeois. He came back to San Francisco in a first-class airliner seat, in which he became drunk and rowdy because, as he put it, the wine on the Air France flight, of which he had consumed five glasses, "wasn't even a good red." He had been strapped into his seat, and police at the San Francisco airport busted him for public intoxication, noting that he "couldn't care for himself." The tough anarchist had wet his pants when the police grabbed him.

Keating blubbered, "I've never done anything to harm anybody or put anybody in a bad situation."

As a former revolutionary activist and historian of the extreme left, let me say there is little that is more contemptible than a radical who cries when he gets busted, especially when he acts in the name of a movement that included rebels like Emma Goldman. My other witness, who remains an anarchist but who is much more sensible and serious about these matters, called the "SHOOT your officers" incident "Keating's pathetic cry for help - he's yelling, 'Look at me, mommy!'"

But Keating is a liar, because he did plenty to harm people and put them in bad situations. Now he has sought to put our troops in the ultimate bad situation. As shown in the photo of his banner, the anarchist on the right had the wit to cover his miserable face with a ski mask. But Keating is different. He is a publicity addict. He couldn't stand the notion of doing such things without reaping the rewards.

Let's hope this termite gets the reward he deserves. Oh, and for those who might accuse me of "snitching:" it isn't snitching when you name a person who appears in public with his face uncovered. It's helping someone learn to take responsibility for his actions, as I have taken responsibility for mine. Dennis Raimondo, CAIR, and Co., and the valiant patriots who take refuge behind screen-names when they spread poison on websites, please take note.

[Stephen Schwartz]

Offered as a public service by Stephen Schwartz.

[Cyber Liberty]

Welcome to FR, Stephen Schwartz.

[RobFromGa]

bump for truth.

[MeekOneGOP]

Welcome to FreeRepublic.com !

Here is a link to the SF-IMC site where these FAR LEFT LIBERALS posted an actual pic (below) of one of their Support Saddam/Terrorists events recently and changed the image when I posted/linked it to an FR thread. The pic at the top of that link (of 2 Allied Soldiers TORTURING someone) was what they changed it to . . .

These folks at San Francisco Indy-Media are terrorist supporters . . .

Oh, the lurkers on FR from SF-IMC CANNOT change that picture (above) now since it is hosted by FR friendly sources ! Take that, FOOLS !! . . .

[wideawake]

Thank you, Stephen. Good information to know.

[Movemout]

Good job, buddy! There is nothing like living in the belly of the whale to understand the cause of the indigestion.

[skeeter]

Leftists. You almost feel sorry for 'em.

Almost.

[stands2reason]

bttt

[Peacerose]

Interesting!

[Liberals are Evil Socialists!]

The Demonrats are now failed politically-driven socialist traitors going coup-coup.

[Spirited]

bump

[Hugin]

As a former revolutionary activist and historian of the extreme left,

Turned from the dark side, eh? Plenty of fellow former lefties here on FR. Welcome aboard.

[Slings and Arrows]

Thanks for posting, and welcome again to FR. Love your work!

[jonalvy44]

well written...thx

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

two anarchists carrying a banner

They aren't even real anarchists. The moment they show up at any scheduled event, they lose that title.

[Sloth]

This sign never existed. I know, because Janeane Garofalo said so, and she's well-known film actress.

[TopQuark]

Interesting background from a unique source.

Welcome to FR, Stephen.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Don't know you or your work. However, anyone who gets blasted by Dennis is more than likely in the right.

[Cachelot]

as "Makhno," launched something called the Mission Yuppie Eradication Project in San Francisco in the 1990s.

That is very interesting. I wonder if he ever used to be known as "AntiYuppie"?

[Brett66]

BTTT.