According to the group's web site, Southeast Minnesota NSM leader Sam Johnson is organizing another rally:
On Nov. 7th the NSM Mn. Unit will be holding an "AMERICA FIRST" rally at the George Washington statue on Main st. in Austin Mn.
If you would like to attend and want more info on the event please contact us [redacted] Thanks. STFC Sam Johnson
The NSM looks to be adopting an "America First" slogan as it tries to use the issue of immigration reform to recruit new members. A nationally backed rally is planned for Phoenix on the same day. (A local writer ponders the question: Neo-Nazi NSM Scum at the Arizona Capitol: Should Sane People Give Them the Time of Day.?
unlike earlier rallies in Austin, the Minnesota rally has not been listed in the calendar section of the Austin Post Bulletin.
Adopting the slogan "America First" appears to go along with the strategy Newsweek called Rebranding Hate in the Age of Obama. The NSM, for instance, had a fashion make-over:
At least one group has become more fashion-conscious. The National Socialist Movement—a descendent of the American Nazi Party—tweaked its uniform last year, switching from Nazi brown shirts to a more Italian Fascist look. "The uniforms we wore before were even more out there, more extreme," says "commander" Jeff Schoep, who, like the Knights' Robb, hails from Detroit. "Last April we adopted the black [uniforms]; it's part of our modernization project. We don't want to look like throwbacks to 1935. But we are not trying to trick people; there are enough white groups now trying to soft-pedal people into joining."
At one recent meeting in Springfield, Mo., a dozen NSM members wore black from chin to steel-toed boot. Some sported swastikas and tattoos and wore bomber jackets with cloth patches: NO HABLA ESPAÑOL, A––HOLE and a Jewish star being dumped in the trash. Their local leader, Cynthia Keene, has a half-shaved head and multiple piercings. She started the meeting with a 14-word pledge to secure the future of the white race. There was discussion of the "Holohoax" and the warrior nature of Aryans.
USAToday noted the fashion tactics in White supremacists target middle America:
The white-power movement is changing its marketing strategy to broaden its appeal.
The USA's largest neo-Nazi group is ditching its trademark brown Nazi uniform with swastika armband for a more muted look in black fatigues. . . .
. . .Jeff Schoep, head of the National Socialist Movement, says the government classifies his group as a domestic group of interest, not domestic terrorists. The FBI would not comment.
Interest in the group "has really spiked up," says Schoep, who would not say by how much.
"Historically, when times get tough in our nation, that's how movements like ours gain a foothold," he says. "When the economy suffers, people are looking for answers. … We are the answer for white people.
"And now this immigrant thing in the past couple of years has been the biggest boon to us," Schoep says. "The immigration issue is the biggest problem we're facing because it's changing the face of our country. We see stuff in English and Spanish. … They are turning our country into a Third World ghetto."
The National Socialist Movement is the largest neo-Nazi group in the USA, according to the SPLC and the Anti-Defamation League, which works to fight bigotry.
Schoep, a former Minnesotan, now directs the NSM from the Detroit area. In 2004, Star Tribune writer Jon Tevlin profiled Schoep in Nazi group leader leads life of contradictions in Minnesota... Like Sam Johnson, Schoep has a troubled past:
While Schoep says he promotes clean living and responsibility, he has a string of misdemeanors, including for fifth-degree assault, which was dropped; driving violations, and a charge of placing obscene materials on cars, also dropped. The most serious charge, a 1998 felony arrest in Sherburne County, was for aiding and abetting a burglary. Schoep pleaded guilty and was given probation.
At the time he was listed as unemployed and living with his girlfriend and her four children. He was commander of the NSM then. According to court documents, Schoep was with the mother of his daughter when she stole $4,000 worth of computer equipment from a home. Four children, one of them Schoep's, were in the back seat of the car.
Though Schoep's daughter said her father had gone into the house with her mother, he denied it. He asked the judge to lower his crime to a misdemeanor.
Concluding Schoep's hearing, District Judge Sharon Hall admonished him for accusing minorities of the very behaviors he was engaged in.
"I know that [your] organization does not condone lying under oath," Hall said. "It does not condone fathering children around the countryside and taking no financial responsibility for them. And it does not condone the commission of crimes. I also know that your organization believes that there are various minority groups in this country that do that on a regular basis."
His viewpoint
Schoep dismisses his crimes as "in the past" and says they are not evidence of hypocrisy. "NSM is not a democracy or anything like that, so whatever problems I've had in the past doesn't have any reflection on what I'm doing now. We stress legality and we're against people breaking the law." Schoep added: "I am taking care of my children."
The Santa Fe Reporter published a SPLC report in March claimed that:
Apart from its usual literature dispersals, book burnings, swastika lightings and its annual “Hated and Proud” hate-rock festival, the NSM in 2008 targeted Latino immigrants with sizable “illegal invasion” protests in Washington, DC and Omaha, Neb. Subjected for years to ridicule by the movement for their brown-shirt uniforms, NSM national and state chapter leaders also voted at the group’s National Congress last April to switch to “more militant looking” black BDUs (Battle Dress Uniforms). Even with the makeover, the NSM lost 30 chapters last year (it later added 26, for a net loss of six chapters) after leader Jeff Schoep abandoned his family and relocated NSM headquarters from Minneapolis to Detroit in January 2008, reportedly to move in with a new girlfriend of dubious Aryan purity.
According to court records filed on November 2, Schoep's ex-wife has filed a motion for modification of child support (case number 19-F4-99-002954). All other criminal, traffic, and civil cases involving Schoep are closed.
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