Resistance Records

Last updated

Resistance Records was a Canadian record label owned by Resistance LLC which was closely connected to the organization National Alliance. [1] [2] It produced and sold music by neo-Nazi and white separatist musicians, primarily through its website. Advertising itself as "The Soundtrack for White Revolution", Resistance LLC also published a magazine called Resistance, [3] with Erich Gliebe becoming the editor in 1999. The label is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. [4] As of 2011, the label was headquartered in Lufkin, Texas, US. [1] [2]

Contents

History

The label was founded in Windsor, Ontario in December 1993 by white supremacist George Burdi. [5] [6] George Burdi went by the name "George Eric Hawthorne" at that time. In January 1994, this music label was also incorporated in Detroit, Michigan. [5] [6] With the launch of a new music label came the new magazine Resistance. The magazine boasted a circulation of over 13,000 in 1995. [7] This magazine is still published and distributed by the National Alliance. [8] Among the acts signed to Resistance was Burdi's own RAHOWA (short for "Racial Holy War"), which disbanded after Burdi renounced neo-Nazism.

Burdi was involved in a white supremacist street march in May 1993, during which he kicked a female anti-racist protester in the face. [9] Burdi was charged for assault causing bodily harm in 1995, and given a 12-month sentence. [9] He was arrested after losing appeals and served time for the assault in 1997. [10] Burdi's Canadian business partners, Jason Snow and Joe Talic, had taken control and ownership of Resistance in 1996. American manager Mark Wilson was later replaced by Eric Davidson, former editor of the North American edition of the UK network Blood & Honour, who had relocated from California to Michigan in January 1997.

In April 1997, Resistance Records was temporarily put out of business by a tax dispute and a prosecution for distributing materials that promoted hatred in Canada. [11] The inventory was in the United States at that time, at a rented house in Milford, Michigan where the operations were run. The Federal Marshals, under the direction of the Internal Revenue Service, seized the company records and the entire inventory. Eventually a small fine was paid for failure to properly pay state sales tax, and the business records and inventory was returned. [11] The label never again operated in Canada because of violations of Canadian hate speech laws. After his 1997 sentence, George Burdi renounced racism and formed an ethnically diverse band, Novacosm.

In 1998, Resistance Records was sold by its Canadian owners to Willis Carto and was incorporated in Washington, D.C., with Carto's agent Todd Blodgett in charge of operations. Eric Davidson gave notice after the sale and would later relocate to Minnesota to help found Panzerfaust Records. [5] For a brief time, Resistance Records operated from California. Blodgett and William Luther Pierce, head of the National Alliance had bought partial ownership. In 1999, Carto and Blodgett later sold their shares of the company to Pierce. [5] Pierce fired Blodgett and moved the entire operation to his 400-acre (1.6 km2) property in Hillsboro, West Virginia. Also in 1999, Resistance Records bought Swedish white power label Nordland Records, doubling its roster. [12] In 2000, it was made into an LLC in West Virginia.

Subsidiaries

Resistance Records owns several smaller labels, most notably black metal labels Cymophane Records (also known as Cymophane Productions) and Unholy Records. [13] It is a front for Cymophane Records, which was purchased by the National Alliance, mainly to gain the rights to distribute Burzum albums in the United States. The label has also released albums by Nocturnal Fear and Nachtmystium, which are not National Socialist black metal (NSBM) bands. [13] The label is managed by Ymir G. Winter, who plays guitar in Grom, a New York-based NSBM band. [13]

At one time, Resistance Records operated a web-based radio station, Resistance Radio, which streamed white power music across the Internet 24 hours a day.[ citation needed ]

Merchandise

Resistance Records maintained an online store that sold over 1,000 CDs, as well as clothes, flags and two computer games they developed, Ethnic Cleansing and White Law , which were only available for purchase from their website.

In Ethnic Cleansing, the player can choose to play as either a Nazi skinhead or a Klansman who runs through a ghetto killing Africans and mestizos, before descending into a subway system to murder Jews. [14] Eventually the player reaches a "Jewish Control Center", where Ariel Sharon, the former prime minister of Israel, is directing plans for Jewish world domination. [14] The player must kill Sharon to win the game. The game has several music tracks to choose from, and there is a small video loop of William Luther Pierce's speech displayed in the game. The game was largely ignored by the gaming community and the specialized press.

In the sequel, White Law, the player is an ex-police officer, dismissed because of his political views. The player runs through several buildings, killing people such as police officers, a child pornographer and journalists. The player must kill the police chief to win the game.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Luther Pierce</span> American neo-Nazi (1933–2002)

William Luther Pierce III was an American neo-Nazi, white supremacist, and far-right political activist. For more than 30 years, he was one of the highest-profile individuals of the white nationalist movement. A physicist by profession, he was author of the novels The Turner Diaries and Hunter under the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald. The former has inspired multiple hate crimes and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Pierce founded the white nationalist National Alliance, an organization he led for almost 30 years.

National Socialist black metal, also known as NSBM, Aryan black metal, and Neo-Nazi black metal, is a political movement and subgenre within the black metal music scene that promotes neo-Nazism, Fascism, and white supremacist ideologies. NSBM artists typically combine neo-Nazi imagery and ideology with ethnic European paganism, Satanism, or Nazi occultism, or a combination thereof, and vehemently oppose Christianity, Islam and Judaism from a racialist viewpoint. NSBM is not seen as a distinct genre, but as a völkisch movement within black metal. According to Mattias Gardell, NSBM musicians see this ideology as "a logical extension of the political and spiritual dissidence inherent in black metal".

<i>The Turner Diaries</i> 1978 novel by William Luther Pierce

The Turner Diaries is a 1978 novel by William Luther Pierce, published under the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald. It depicts a violent revolution in the United States which leads to the overthrow of the federal government, a nuclear war, and, ultimately, a race war which leads to the systematic extermination of non-whites. All groups opposed by the novel's protagonist, Earl Turner—including Jews, non-whites, "liberal actors", and politicians—are exterminated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Alliance (United States)</span> White supremacist political organization in the USA

The National Alliance is a white supremacist and neo-Nazi political organization founded by William Luther Pierce in 1974 and based in Hillsboro, West Virginia. Membership in 2002 was estimated at 2,500 with an annual income of $1 million. Membership declined after Pierce's death in 2002, and after a split in its ranks in 2005, became largely defunct.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">White Aryan Resistance</span> Neo-Nazi organization led by Tom Metzger

White Aryan Resistance (WAR) is a white supremacist and neo-Nazi organization in the United States which was founded and formerly led by former Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon Tom Metzger. It is based in Warsaw, Indiana, and it is also incorporated as a business. In 1993, the group expanded into Canada in what they dubbed operation Maple leaf.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erich Gliebe</span> American boxer and neo-Nazi

Erich Josef Gliebe is an American former boxer, Neo-Nazi and former chairman of the National Alliance. In his youth, he was a professional boxer who had the ring name of "The Aryan Barbarian".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Willis Carto</span> American far right political activist

Willis Allison Carto was an American far-right political activist. He described himself as a Jeffersonian and a populist, but was primarily known for his promotion of antisemitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial.

The American Free Press is a weekly newspaper published in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heritage Front</span>

The Heritage Front was a Canadian neo-Nazi white supremacist organization founded in 1989 and disbanded around 2005.

George Burdi, also known as George Eric Hawthorne, is a Canadian musician, publisher, traditionalist, mysticist, and a white power musician who became known for his role in white nationalist organizations. He led the Canadian branch of the World Church of the Creator, which formed an alliance with the now-defunct white nationalist organization Heritage Front. In addition, Burdi performed with the white power band RaHoWa.

Peste Noire Black metal band

Peste Noire are a French black metal band from La Chaise-Dieu, France. The band was formed by "La sale Famine de Valfunde", also known simply as "Famine", in 2000. Their music uses standard black metal elements mixed with traditional Gallic instrumentation, and influences from genres like punk and electronic music. The band is sometimes referred to as P.N. or K.P.N.

<i>Ethnic Cleansing</i> (video game) 2002 video game

Ethnic Cleansing is a first-person shooter video game for Microsoft Windows computers, created by the American white supremacist and hate organization National Alliance on January 21, 2002. As part of a "race war", the player controls a neo-Nazi skinhead or a Klansman and is tasked with killing stereotypical African-American, Mexican, and Jewish enemies, ending with then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Creativity (religion)</span> Religion classified as a neo-Nazi hate group

Creativity, historically known as The (World) Church of the Creator, is an atheistic ("nontheistic") white supremacist religious movement which espouses white separatism, antitheism, antisemitism, scientific racism, homophobia, and religious and philosophical naturalism. Creativity calls itself a "white racialist" religion and it has been classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League. It was founded in Lighthouse Point, Florida, United States, by Ben Klassen as the "Church of the Creator" in 1973, and now, it has a presence in several states of the US as well as Australia, Eastern Europe and the UK.

Neo-Nazism is the post World War II ideology that promotes white supremacy and specifically antisemitism. In Canada, neo-Nazism has existed as a branch of the far-right and has been a source of considerable controversy for over 50 years.

White power music is music that promotes white nationalism. It encompasses various music styles, including rock, country, experimental music and folk. Ethnomusicologist Benjamin R. Teitelbaum argues that white power music "can be defined by lyrics that demonize variously conceived non-whites and advocate racial pride and solidarity. Most often, however, insiders conceptualized white power music as the combination of those themes with pounding rhythms and a charging punk or metal-based accompaniment." Genres include Nazi punk, Rock Against Communism, National Socialist black metal, and fashwave.

Todd Blodgett is an American conservative Republican political writer, who served as a member of the White House staff of President Ronald Reagan and on the Bush/Quayle election committee. Following the 1988 presidential election, Blodgett, who was a protege of the late Lee Atwater, then served on the staff of the Republican National Committee, where he worked until 1991. He was a one-time co-owner and operator of Resistance Records, the world's largest neo-Nazi music label. As has been reported by the Associated Press, The London Independent, Fox News, newspapers published by Lee Enterprises, Inc., Washington Post and in other media, Blodgett worked as a full-time, paid informant for the FBI. In this capacity, he was assigned to infiltrate/surveil neo-Nazis, KKK members, fascist Skinheads, professional anti-Semites, and Holocaust deniers in the United States, Europe, Canada, and the Caribbean.

Thomas Linton Metzger was an American white supremacist, neo-Nazi skinhead leader and Klansman. He founded White Aryan Resistance (WAR), a neo-nazi organization, in 1983. He was a Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s. Metzger voiced strong opposition to immigration to the United States, and was an advocate of the Third Position. He was incarcerated in Los Angeles County, California, and Toronto, Ontario, and was the subject of several lawsuits and government inquiries. He, his son, and WAR were fined $12 million as a result of the murder of Mulugeta Seraw, 28, an Ethiopian student, by skinheads in Portland, Oregon, affiliated with WAR.

References

  1. 1 2 "Beyond A Dead Man's Deeds: The National Alliance After William Pierce" (PDF). Newcomm.org. Chicago: CNC: Center for New Community. 2002. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 11, 2011. Retrieved March 8, 2011.
  2. 1 2 "Resistance: Activism". Resistance.com. Archived from the original on March 18, 2011. Retrieved March 18, 2011.
  3. ↑ "Resistance Magazine". Resistance.com. Archived from the original on July 18, 2011. Retrieved March 18, 2011.
  4. ↑ "Hate Map: West Virginia". Splcenter.org. Southern Poverty Law Center. 2011. Retrieved March 18, 2011.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Deafening Hate Archived June 20, 2010, at the Wayback Machine . Anti-Defamation League. Accessed May 12, 2007.
  6. 1 2 Walker, Shaun (March 6, 2006). "The Growth of White Power Music". Natall.com. National Alliance. Archived from the original on May 15, 2011. Retrieved May 12, 2007.
  7. ↑ Hate Groups Use Tools of the Electronic Trade. New York Times , March 13, 1995. Accessed May 15, 2007.
  8. ↑ Record Company Takes Extremist Message to the Masses Archived October 29, 2007, at the Wayback Machine . DMNews, May 8, 2000. Accessed May 12, 2007.
  9. 1 2 "Burdi Sentenced to One Year in Jail." The Canadian Jewish News , May 18, 1995.
  10. ↑ White Supremacist Record Company in Oakland (Michigan) Raided in Tax-Fraud Probe Archived March 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine . The Detroit News , April 11, 1997. Mirror at Shofar FTP Archives. Accessed May 15, 2007.
  11. 1 2 Resisting Arrest Archived February 27, 2009, at the Wayback Machine . Southern Poverty Law Center, Winter 1998. Accessed May 12, 2007.
  12. ↑ All You Need Is Hate. Time Magazine , 2001. Accessed May 12, 2007.
  13. 1 2 3 Bennett, J. "NSBM Special Report". Decibel Magazine . Archived from the original on August 11, 2007. Retrieved September 9, 2007.
  14. 1 2 Games Elevate Hate to Next Level. Wired.com , February 20, 2002. Accessed May 12, 2007.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.