COLUMBIA COUNTY – The chairman of the Columbia County Democrats is blasting an effort by unknown individuals who have been throwing sandwich bags filled with Nazi propaganda onto front lawns.
“There is no place for hate in our community,” said Sam Hodge, chairman of the Columbia County Democrats. “The white supremacists peddling this disgusting and vile hate speech do not represent our community. Anonymously throwing sandwich bags with hateful propaganda is cowardly. We won’t be intimidated. We must do everything we can to call out and stand up against this despicable effort to promote hate and peddle lies.”
The bags were found on Sunday, October 2 in Chatham. They were filled with a palm-sized poster and a couple dozen dried beans. The beans served to give weight to the bag so that it could be thrown onto a front yard from a passing car.
The poster was a collage of pictures of Adolf Hitler, a German WWII soldier, and an American three-star general along with a link to Europa: The Last Battle, a white-supremacist propaganda film. This video, a so-called documentary, was released in 2017 and consists of extreme Neo-Nazi propaganda and anti-Semitic hate speech. The poster also has links to the white supremacist group WLM_NEW_YORK, which has been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a neo-Nazi hate group. WLM is the racist meme for “White Lives Matter.”
WLM_NEW_YORK has been actively recruiting in Columbia County since last winter. They placed posters and stickers around the county to attract new members. In January, four members of the group held a “White Lives Matter” banner at the public square in the Village of Chatham. In February, they staged a larger rally at the village green in Woodstock. In May, the group displayed a “Stop White Replacement” banner off of two overpass bridges above the Berkshire Spur.
On the same day, a man killed 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo. Just before the massacre, the killer wrote a sprawling document that obsessively referenced the “Great Replacement” theory, a racist conspiracy narrative that falsely asserts there is an active, ongoing, and covert effort to replace white populations in current white-majority countries.
Hodge urged vigilance. “The hate group has become even more extreme by violating the places where we live with white supremacist and anti-Semitic messaging. We must remain vigilant and stand together as a community to condemn these acts for what they are: hate speech,” Hodge said. “I encourage anyone with information to contact local law enforcement. You can also file a Hate-Watch Report through the website HateWatchReport.com.”
