Fascist activist buying much land in North Dakota town, seeks to turn into PLE

[tachosomoza]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_3804562.html

A white supremacist whose incendiary displays have gained him notoriety in the neo-Nazi movement is working to establish an all-white enclave in the small North Dakota town of Leith.
Paul Craig Cobb, who is wanted in Canada for hate speech, has been snatching up abandoned property in the threadbare town since April 2012, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported earlier this week. He's doing so with the intention of drawing other white supremacists to the town. Cobb has made the pitch to other likeminded extremists, and according to the SPLC, some have already taken up his offer.


Cobb's plan to create his very own "Cobbsville" in Leith has taken members of the tiny town of 19 by surprise.


“I didn’t have a clue who the guy was until he showed up. All I know is he bought that house sight unseen, $5,000 cash, and had no idea what it looked like, where it was, other than he knew the directions to get to Leith,” Leith Mayor Ryan Schock told the SPLC.


According to the Toronto Star, Cobb fled Canada in 2010 after being charged with "willful promotion of hatred — inciting hatred against an identifiable group." He'd previously built his profile in the U.S. with a series of inflammatory disruptions that he'd recorded for Vanguard News Network, a white nationalist website. In October 2005, Cobb appeared at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, where people were gathered to pay their respects to civil rights leader Rosa Parks, who was lying in state. Cobb reportedly confronted visitors, referring to Parks as a "shitskin communist" and declaring that he was there to "celebrate" her death.


After fleeing Canada, Cobb had been largely off the grid, posting only a few videos to his YouTube channel. He's moved quickly into Leith, however, purchasing 13 properties, the Bismarck Tribune reported. Those transactions caught the attention of the community. Leith's only mixed-race couple told the Tribune that the development was concerning, but that they had confidence Cobb's plans would collapse.
Grant County Sheriff Steve Bay is reportedly aware of Cobb's intentions. He pointed out that Cobb has kept a relatively low profile since moving in and hasn't broken any laws, but maintained that he is keeping a close eye on the situation.


Raw Story pointed out a post made by Cobb on a Vanguard News Network forum in which he laid out some simple ground rules for Cobbsville. Members of the community would be expected to fly “racialist banners” 24 hours a day, recruit "responsible radical hard core" white nationalists, and become residents of North Dakota so they could vote. Cobb also attempted to lure members with the potential of "music festivals."

Basically, his goal is to draw fascists to North Dakota, get them to register to vote, expand his turf, and wind up with his own, massive domain where he holds elected office. This has been attempted before by others of his ilk, but this is particularly heinous because he's gotten much, much further into the process than others have.

[Tolstoy]

Isnt North Dakota already pretty much an all white enclave?

Honestly, it is a pretty smart strategy and ive long theorized about what would happen if Marxists tried the same thing. Maybe a delegation of commies should move there and kick his ass!

[RedBen]

read the story a while ago, those "i'm gonna build a compound" ventures never seem to go well for white supremacists. personally, if they're all in one place, it'd be better for the rest of us. what minority would ever want to set foot in that shithole anyway?

[tachosomoza]

Isnt North Dakota already pretty much an all white enclave?

Honestly, it is a pretty smart strategy and ive long theorized about what would happen if Marxists tried the same thing. Maybe a delegation of commies should move there and kick his ass!

There's a mixed race couple in the community that he's trying to take over, and there's 5.4% native and 1.2% African American population in North Dakota as a whole. Even if it was 100% Euro descended, that's no reason to ignore this.

[Tolstoy]

There's a mixed race couple in the community that he's trying to take over, and there's 5.4% native and 1.2% African American population in North Dakota as a whole. Even if it was 100% Euro descended, that's no reason to ignore this.

Yeah, I forgot about the native community and eyah, no matter what a fascist attempting to assert any sort of authority needs to be crushed as fascism opresses all with its mindset. (I was just making a crack at North Dakota)

[Skyhilist]

LOL at how the fascist chose North Dakota, as if it's some tropical paradise that will draw everyone in. practically the entire state looks exactly the same and it's could as shit -- who would want to live there anyways (no offense to anyone here who does)? On the other hand it's an extremely reactionary state, which I guess would make it more appealing to fascists.

[#FF0000]

There's a mixed race couple in the community that he's trying to take over, and there's 5.4% native and 1.2% African American population in North Dakota as a whole. Even if it was 100% Euro descended, that's no reason to ignore this.

the fact that it will not pan out, on the other hand, is.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Honestly, it is a pretty smart strategy and ive long theorized about what would happen if Marxists tried the same thing. Maybe a delegation of commies should move there and kick his ass!

It's a shit idea. Idiots have always set up little enclaves here and there, or tried to. Cult compounds, secluded little landfills...

Socialism in one Neighbourhood, now? You can't have socialism just in some zones. It's either socialism or it isn't, everywhere. It cannot coexist with capitalism or any other global economic system.

[Skyhilist]

There's a text called "Small Communal Experiments and Why They Fail" with writings including Kropotkin's that does a good job of explaining why these things will never work. I've only read the summary tbh, but the argumentation seems pretty sound..

[Glitchcraft]

I don't think there's enough of an economy in North Dakota to sustain a lot of people.
But there are native reservations that may need defending if these Jerk wad ass holes get up the gumption to head over to the reservation and rape some poor girl or hang some native boys.

I believe the ND reservations are some of the poorest. No casino money, no jobs. I could be wrong but isn't that where AIM started?

[tachosomoza]

I don't think there's enough of an economy in North Dakota to sustain a lot of people.
But there are native reservations that may need defending if these Jerk wad ass holes get up the gumption to head over to the reservation and rape some poor girl or hang some native boys.

I believe the ND reservations are some of the poorest. No casino money, no jobs. I could be wrong but isn't that where AIM started?

There's a huge economy in North Dakota. Brakken oil has drawn people from all over the US for extremely high paying work.

[#FF0000]

There's a huge economy in North Dakota. Brakken oil has drawn people from all over the US for extremely high paying work.

I think he's talking about the reservations in North Dakota

[Glitchcraft]

No i didn’t know about the oil, I just hear from my family that lives in Fargo that it's pretty desolate

[Flying Purple People Eater]

I just searched up "Leith North Dakota" on google maps.

Thirty houses and a barnyard smack bang in the middle of nowhere. At least the shits are isolated.

EDIT:

Paul Craig Cobb, a neo-Nazi who lives in Leith, N.D., is quickly buying properties in the small town, which has a population of 19 people.

Another Article on the case:

http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/410012/

Leith residents want white supremacist out
LEITH, N.D. - Residents “want him out,” but a white supremacist says he plans to stay in this tiny North Dakota town where he bought up property with the vision of creating a white nationalist community. In an interview Friday, Craig Paul Cobb said he was fired from his road construction job but doesn’t plan to leave Leith, about 70 miles southwest of Bismarck.
By: TJ Jerke, Forum News Service, Forum News Service



Craig Paul Cobb image

LEITH, N.D. - Residents “want him out,” but a white supremacist says he plans to stay in this tiny North Dakota town where he bought up property with the vision of creating a white nationalist community.

In an interview Friday, Craig Paul Cobb said he was fired from his road construction job but doesn’t plan to leave Leith, about 70 miles southwest of Bismarck.

“I plan on staying and that (losing his job) freed me up to get more propaganda and bring more people to Leith,” he said. “I would love to see the White Nationalists flag flying in town.”

Leith Mayor Ryan Schock and many residents became aware of Cobb’s plans Aug. 15, after a reporter from the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights organization, came to town to look into Cobb’s alleged secret attempt to turn the town into a Pioneer Little Europe, an enclave of white supremacists. Cobb had bought a dozen properties since 2011 and was trying to subtly advertise them on the Internet and draw in like-minded people.

“Everybody has the right to live anywhere they want in the U.S., but when people come together to live together in a community, they should be working for the common good instead of the hate,” said Sherrill Harper, the wife of Bobby Harper, the only African-American in Leith. “If we are going to do something about it, then we will have to work together.”

Leith is in Grant County, with a population of 16, according to the 2010 U.S. census. The county had only 2,394 residents in 2010, with one African-American, three Asians and 27 American Indian or Alaska Natives.

Muriel Ulrich, the Grant County tax director, said Cobb bought four lots in September 2011, five lots in June 2012 and three more in October totaling $8,490. The town is remote, but close enough to North Dakota’s oilfields to provide access to good-paying jobs.

When Ulrich asked why he was buying the land, Cobb said he wanted to rename the town “Cobbsville.” Cobb says he believes there are differences between blacks and whites in America, including hormonal differences, and that a pretension exists that all races are the same.

He refutes that notion and says violent crime is directly related to the black population, referring to a high percentage of black Americans living on government assistance.

“Welfare dependency is breeding killers and violent subhumans,” Cobb said. “People need to love their race and their own people.”

Cobb, who said he grew up as a Christian, thinks a lot of Christians are scary.

“I don’t understand Christians. They have a need to be morally superior than the next guy,” he said. “They are very threatened by anything with racial cohesion.”

Evidence of Cobb’s plans can be found on a Vanguard News Network forum, an anti-Semitic, white supremacist website.

Cobb can be seen in photos standing in different locations around Leith and highlighting his plans for a white nationalist community that advocates a racial definition of national identity for white people -- though the location is not identified.

In one photo, he says once he becomes mayor, he wants to remove an old, rusty tractor that’s sitting across the road from his house and put a World War II German tank in its place as a memorial to a Nazi armored tank division.

“Had the Panzers won, we wouldn't be chock full to our ears with Hottentots, Aztecs and Chozenites,” he said on the forum.

In another photo, Cobb stands in tall grass he wants to turn into a park to memorialize Adolf Hitler. He writes about rewriting city ordinances to discriminate against minorities and leftist journalists.

“People are scared,” Schock said. “It’s a shock because we’ve never dealt with something like this in our community before. People want to get to the bottom of it and get some answers.”

He said what stirred up the most excitement in town was after they were notified about Cobb’s intentions, two men showed up days later claiming to be from Wisconsin trying to settle down in a small, quiet town.

The two men have made payments toward a dilapidated home on property owned by Cobb. Both claim not to align with Cobb’s beliefs and have nothing to do with any plans he might have.

Schock said it was cause for concern, as the two men and Cobb have been the only three people without family ties to the area to move into town in the last 10 to 15 years.

Grant County Sheriff Steve Bay said he periodically checks in with the county recorder’s office about new people moving into the area, and now, nobody will be able to buy land in Leith without him knowing.

“I’m not trying to stop anybody from doing it, I just want to know who is doing it,” he said.

And so far, Bay hasn’t had any interactions with Cobb.

“He’s been as legal as anybody around here,” he said.

Hasn’t broken the law

As they continue to piece together the news, Leith residents have one problem: They can’t do anything about Cobb’s purchases.

Cobb said Friday that nobody can interfere with someone’s housing, pointing out laws under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Schock said he has talked to three attorneys since the news broke, including the Grant County state’s attorney. All have said there isn’t anything they can do.

“As of now, he hasn’t broken any laws. All he has done is buy property so far,” Schock said. “Even the people he is selling it to haven’t done anything wrong, they’re not criminals.”

The North Dakota Department of Labor and Human Rights can’t do much either.

The department’s Human Rights Division is responsible for enforcing the North Dakota Human Rights Act and the North Dakota Housing Discrimination Act, both primarily focused on discrimination in the workplace and housing.

Commissioner Bonnie Storbakken said the only way officials would step into the issue is if Cobb was in the rental property business or sold multiple dwellings and discriminated against someone and a complaint was filed.

“It definitely caught our eye,” she said about the news. “But, much like everyone else, there is not a lot that can be done unless he fits within our jurisdiction of the statutes.”

Nettie Ketterling has owned and operated the Leith Bar the last 24 years just down the road from Cobb’s house.

She said the only time she interacted with Cobb was more than a year ago, when he first moved to town and came into the bar to briefly charge his cellphone.

She said he seemed like a nice guy.

“He wasn’t opinionated or anything that I could tell, he was just nice. I didn’t think anything of it,” she said. “Now I don’t know.”

Sherrill Harper, who has lived in Leith for seven years, hopes now that Cobb’s plan has been found out, nobody will move to Leith.

“I hope no one else will come up here and bring this hatred to our little town,” she said. “It’s not just a little town, it’s the whole area around here, everything will be affected with that.”

People are treating him differently now that they are aware of his beliefs. “I used to wave at people but now they have basically stopped,” Cobb said. “It’s rather childish.”

Foiled

Cobb’s plans for Leith were exposed after the Southern Poverty Law Center caught up with them.

Mark Potok, editor in chief of the Hatewatch blog and Intelligence Report, both published by the law center, said the center has been tracking Cobb for years.

He said it was the names of two well-known white supremacists, Tom Metzger, a grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and Alex Linder, that court records showed Cobb gave land to that drew a red flag.

Cobb said Friday he plans on giving a lot to Golden Dawn, a Greek neo-Nazi group, and would like to give a lot to David Duke, the most recognizable figure of the American radical right, according to the law center.

Once they realized what was going on, Potok sent a reporter to town to expose Cobb’s efforts and inform Schock and residents.

“This is a small community that certainly didn’t remotely expect an invasion of white supremacists and neo-Nazis,” Potok said. “Our purpose isn’t to needlessly raise alarms, but this is a remarkable thing. These people -- we are talking about some of the leading players on the extreme right in this country -- are apparently moving, or setting up property.”

Potok said Cobb’s plans are part of an ongoing attempt by many white supremacists to set up small enclaves around the country, predominantly in the heavily white areas of the northwest United States.

Potok pointed out Cobb’s advertisements that focused on the small town and close proximity to the Oil Patch, where people could find a steady source of income like Cobb had been able to do.

“Most don’t have two pennies to rub together, so the prospect of good-paying work is very attractive to them,” Potok said.

Potok said once attempts to create white supremacist enclaves are exposed, they usually don’t make it much further.

Arrested in Canada

As surprised as area residents were, Sheriff Bay said his office has known about Cobb’s past for a while after stumbling onto a warrant Canada issued for Cobb’s arrest, but nobody knew about his plans for the town.

Bay said if he finds out there’s a warrant out for anybody in the county, his office will usually follow up with it.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Cpl. Normandie Levas, a member of the British Columbia Hate Crime Team, said in a statement that Cobb was charged Dec. 31, 2010, in Vancouver for the willful promotion of hatred. Cobb fled to the Unites States prior to his first court appearance and a Canada-wide warrant was issued for Cobb’s arrest.

Cobb can’t be extradited back to Canada because there is no similar law for the offense in the U.S., he said.

Levas said Canadian authorities are in regular communication with U.S. law enforcement in regard to Cobb, who will be arrested if he ever enters Canada again.

Good to see the SPLC is up and at em.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Hmm. thought that they'd try to cement their influence in Kalispell instead.

I'm not sure that I'd even classify a community of 16-19 as a "town", honestly, lol

[tachosomoza]

Yeah, in Europe that's barely a hamlet.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Just noticed this from the article.

“Had the Panzers won, we wouldn't be chock full to our ears with Hottentots, Aztecs and Chozenites,” he said on the forum.

God this guy is the fucking epitome of complete white filth.

[tachosomoza]

Just noticed this from the article.



God this guy is the fucking epitome of complete white filth.

He doesn't even know anything about the groups he condemns. African Americans aren't descended from Khoisan people, we're descended from West Africans and Northwestern Europeans, usually from the British Isles, Hispanics are descended from Spanish people and Mayans/other native groups, and Jews aren't chosen by any higher power since there isn't any.

Fuck, understand someone if you're going to knock them.

[bcbm]

Fuck, understand someone if you're going to knock them.

pretty sure this would undermine the entire white supremacist project immeasurably

[Tolstoy]

I wonder if he gets food caught in that beard...

In all seriousness, this reminds me of a low rent version of those libertarian island projects, like the one Peter Thiels been financing. We should definitely keep our eyes on this guy (partially because he is pretty amusing), but I dont think his idea is going to get anywhere