Wednesday 15 July 2015

The time S.A. Swaffington vomited over my inbox



I use my Google account almost exclusively for blogging, and rarely for social networking. Only occasionally do I check its emails. So, I was quite surprised when I hopped into my inbox and found that, back in May, I received a string of messages from someone called Lisa.

"Lisa", it quickly turned out, was actually S.A. Swaffington. I wrote about Swaffington, also known as Ryan West, back in April when I took a look at his novel The Rise of the Saxons. Published in 2008 through some kind of vanity press, this is a delightful book which glorifies the racially motivated murder of children in the name of Teutonic supremacy - although Ryan West/S.A. Swaffington insists that he's changed his ways since then.



An excerpt from The Rise of the Saxons.


The first message was from May 18:

Hi, Maggie 
I am the author of the Rise of the Saxons, a book I wrote when I was a kid living at home with my mum. I'm the first to admit that it was a terrible and offensive book and is now something which I'm deeply ashamed of. 
I could never have imagined that 7 years later someone would spend the time and effort to cyber-stalk me and even post my pictures on the web. when I wrote the book, I was an impressionable and angry young kid and had no desire to make a career out of writing, hence the poor spelling and offensive scenes. 
At the time I was angry at the oppression of the English identity and felt a need to express that. I did a poor job, I know. I am now all grown up with a young family and have long-since washed my hands with the book in question. As I've grown up, my views and opinions have also grown and changed. 
I find it shocking that I'm being made to be a racist and a Nazi by someone who has never met me and knows nothing about me. From the backlash I received from that book, several people pointed me in the right direction and educated me on my ancestors. I once believed that the early Anglo-Saxons were racist, cruel invaders, the same as how I portrayed them. I now know this was wrong. I've spent the last 7 years writing new books which show the early English settlers for who they were and not how I was led to believe they were by the mainstream media who are oppressing the English identity. 
The English identity is very important to many of the |English community, and I shall continue to promote our history and identity in a positive manner and continue to write new and exciting books, without any material that you or others like you could use to discredit me. I would hope that you would now be kind enough to remove the article, allow me and my family our privacy and stop stalking me. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. 
Kind regards, Ryan

Okay. First off, I'll address the claim that I posted Swaffington's pictures on the web. I used two photographs of him in my post: one is from his author profile on Goodreads, the other is part of a screencap of his Facebook page which I posted to demonstrate that he was (and, at the time of writing, still is) friends with Ron McVan, an American white nationalist with connections to the convicted terrorist David Lane.

In both cases, I was merely using images which Swaffington himself had made publicly available. As he is a published novelist, and consequently a public or semi-public figure, this is entirely fair game.

 A review of Mein Kampf which S.A. Swaffington posted in 2008 using his "Angelcynn" sockpuppet.


As for "cyber-stalking", this appears to be a reference to how I provided evidence that Swaffington had been using a sockpuppet account on Amazon, known variously as "Angelcynn", "Mr England" and "Free-Thinker", to promote his own work.

Was it "stalking" when Johann Hari's opponents demonstrated that he'd been using a sockpuppet to defend himself on Wikipedia? Was it "stalking" when R.J. Ellory got caught out using sockpuppets to hail his own books as "magnificent"?

Again, as a published novelist, Swaffington is at the very least a semi-public figure. He should accept that, if he uses a sockpuppet to promote his novels on Amazon, then there is a good chance that he will get caught.

Swaffington messaged me again on May 20:

I'm waiting for a response, Maggie. Strange that you're ignoring me, when you're so eager to put my pics on the internet.

On May 21 I updated my post with conclusive evidence that "Angelcynn" was a sockpuppet operated by Swaffington. Shortly afterwards, he changed the account's name to "I'm being cyber-stalked by Maggie Benn (She's an Anglophobic racist)"...



...and sent me another message:

Still stalking me????? But won't get in touch????? I've just changed my profile name. I think you'll like it, you racist, Anglophobic, stalking weirdo. Get a life! And where's all your condemning the Muslim peados who have abused thousands of English children?????????? Hmmmm, clearly you must support them, as do most left-wing liberals, right? You should be utterly ashamed of your self! You disgust me!!!! 
Clearly you don't think that's radical enough for your crappy page, but a book I wrote 7 years ago is worth your time and effort???? WTF???? You've convinced me that you must see me as some kind of threat to your anti-englisc liberal, pro-peado way of life. This just fuels me to continue writing and shove it in the face of you anglo-phobic loonies.

His final message came on the same day:

Gutless coward....

Okay, let's unpack this.

Yes, it's true that I haven't publicly written about the issue of Muslim grooming gangs in Rochdale, Oxford, Derby and elsewhere and the related coverups. But as far as I can tell, neither has Swaffington.

I've looked through his posts at the Anglo-Saxon Foundation and Amazon, and although I've seen him complain a lot about inaccurate media portrayals of pre-Norman England...




...I can't find a single post in which he mentions Muslim paedophiles.

Does that mean that he considers historical inaccuracies in the media to be worse than authorities covering up child abuse? No, of course it doesn't. And by the same token, the fact that I've blogged about his book rather than the Muslim paedophile gangs does not mean I believe him to be a graver issue.

The simple fact is that, as this is a small blog with little influence, it makes sense for me to focus on issues that are not being covered elsewhere, or at least ones which I can add my own research to. For example, when I blogged about the Charlie Hebdo murders (an event which received a lot of media coverage) I chose to focus on a British Islamist forum where certain members had endorsed the killings (something which I had never seen mentioned anywhere in the media). Similarly, although I haven't written about high-profile Islamic extremists such as Anjem Choudary, I have written about lesser-known specimens such as Abu Ibraheem Husnayn. This is also the reason I've written at length about the Englisc nationalist movement instead of more prominent racist groups, such as the BNP.

Swaffington's argument relies on the fallacy of relative privation, also known as appeal to higher problems or, less formally, the "not as bad as" argument. The central flaw is that, if I had written about the Muslim grooming gangs, then he'd be able to point to some other issue which I hadn't covered. No blogger is able to give coverage to every single issue in society; inevitably, some things will be left to other writers.

Coming across all of these messages at the same time was an amusing experience. I saw how they started with Swaffington trying to sound sober-minded and reasonable; so much so that, had I seen that post when it first arrived, I may actually have given him the benefit of the doubt and removed my post about him. And then I saw him swiftly collapse into incoherent rants about paedophile-supporting liberal anglophobes, thereby confirming that - yup - he's the same as all the other Anglo-Saxon Foundation looneys.



Swaffington is a popular fellow at the Anglo-Saxon Foundation - in fact, his name is amongst the forum's most-used tags.


Let's not forget that, as a member of the ASF, Swaffington will be used to seeing racism - actual racism, not the phony "anti-Englisc racism" which he attributes to me. He will also have seen his fellow members openly discuss the prospect of murdering political opponents:





This is exactly the kind of murderous hatred that he was stirring up with The Rise of the Saxons. So how can I possibly believe that he feels remorse about writing that novel when he continues to consort with these extremists?

If Swaffington really wants to atone for his past as a neo-Nazi propagandist, then a good start would be to publicly denounce the Nazi sympathisers in his beloved Englisc nationalist movement - such as Wulf Ingessunu, Wotans Krieger, Clive Calladine, Jim Morgan and Walter Greenway.

When he does that, I will consider the possibility that he is a changed man.

Friday 10 July 2015

White Wyrm Rising - who is Edmund Dee?


In my previous post I talked about the book White Wyrm Rising: A Journey into Modern English Nationalism, which was published by Anglo-Saxon Books via its imprint Athelney.

The book is credited to "Edmund Dee", but something about this seemed fishy. I have written at length about the nationalist circle which the writer belongs to, and yet I had never come across anyone named Edmund Dee until this book was published. What's more, the author shows a fascination for King Edmund - the overlap in names seemed a little too big of a coincidence to me. So, I concluded that "Edmund Dee" is most likely a pseudonym.

So who is the author of the book?

As I noted in my first post about Anglo-Saxon Books/Athelney, a Google search on the title "White Wyrm Rising" prior to the book's publication turned up two relevant hits. One was a posting by an Anglo-Saxon Foundation member named Edmundy:




And for those of you who haven't twigged yet: Edmundy. Edmund Dee. It doesn't exactly take a Holmes to realise that Edmundy might be plugging his own book here.



Darren Clarke, as pictured in the East Anglian Daily Times.


As I demonstrated here, "Edmundy" is actually Darren Clarke, secretary of the Ipswich English Community Group and one of the more memorable people to appear in Exposure's segment about the Steadfast Trust. If you require further proof that Darren Clarke is the true identity of Edmund Dee, then here are a few more connections...

In this excerpt from White Wyrm Rising, Edmund Dee expresses an interest in metal detection and shows familiarity with Father Bryan Houghton's 1970 book Edmund, King and Martyr:




Compare this with Darren "Edmundy" Clarke, who expresses an interest in metal detection...



...And shows familiarity with Father Bryan Houghton's 1970 book Edmund, King and Martyr:



Next, Edmund Dee recounts how, alongside four locals, he helped to deliver a survey questionnaire on behalf of the Leicester English Community Group:



This photo, uploaded by the LECG, would appear to show the deliverers in question... and the group includes Darren Clarke:




While discussing his involvement with the 2012 March for England event in Brighton, Edmund describes how he and his neo-Nazi pal Steed carried a banner advertising an "English community website" with a slogan saying that the government is the enemy of the English people:



Take a look at this video of the march. At about 8:15 in, we can see what is almost certainly the banner in question, held by three men. And the man on the right is clearly Darren Clarke:



As we can see, the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that Edmund Dee is Darren "Edmundy" Clarke.

In the interests of balance, I should mention that there is also a point in the book where Edmund Dee mentions "Edmundy" in the third person:



But then, if Clarke were writing the book under a pseudonym, he would obviously be trying to hide his identity. Isn't it quite possible, then, that he would refer to himself in the third person so as to throw people off?

If Edmund Dee is Darren Clarke, then we are left with one last question of identity...



The final question: who is Atrociter?

As noted, Edmundy/Clarke was one of two people who I found had posted about White Wyrm Rising prior to its publication; the other was a Stormfront member who calls himself Atrociter (FSTDT has an archive of this person's more remarkable postings):




We now have a pretty good idea of how Edmundy/Clarke came across the book while it was still unpublished, as he appears to have written it. But how did Atrociter come across White Wyrm Rising?

We could theorise that he learnt about the book from Edmundy's post, which was made four days previously. But if we compare the two posts we can see that Atrociter went into rather more detail about the book - almost as though he was privy to the writing process.

So is it possible that Atrociter, too, is Darren Clarke?

Let's look at the evidence. Atrociter says that he lives on the Suffolk border - a description which fits Sudbury resident Clarke:




Edmund Dee relates how he attended a demonstration at the Tower of London on 27 January 2014:



This demonstration was also attended by Atrociter:



This is particularly significant when we consider the small scale of the demo:


"Wodensson, Nes, Edmundy, 3 Sons and the other woken Englishmen", apparently. (Clarke/Edmundy can be seen on the left, holding a flagpole)


Atrociter likes to refer to non-white people as "orcs" - a habit that is common at the ASF but rare at Stormfront:





This habit is shared by Darren Clarke:




Meanwhile, Atrociter and Clarke/Edmundy have the same taste in bumper stickers:





Edmund is concerned about media portrayals of interracial marriage, particularly in advertising:


(And as an aside, Darren Clarke's Facebook likes include "White Girls Who Date White Guys"):



Meanwhile, Atrociter shows a similar concern about interracial relationships in adverts:



Edmundy refers to London as a "lost city":



And Atrociter uses the same turn of phrase to identify Peterborough:



Atrociter also shares Clarke's fondness for St. Edmund and has posted about him at Stormfront a number of times (And is that an Eadmund silver penny in his avatar? I'm reminded of Darren Clarke's interest in metal detection...)


This last post is particularly interesting. As well as plugging White Wyrm Rising again, Atrociter mentions Woden's Folk - which he refers to as "Wodensfolc".

I'm not sure why he used this unorthodox spelling, but out of curiosity, I did a search on it:


Out of six hits, four refer to some kind of video game, while one is the Atrociter post above. The remainder is an Anglo-Saxon Foundation posting which was made by...


...Darren "Edmundy" Clarke.

It's also worth mentioning that Atrociter is a fan of Englisc Gateway, the website which hosts the Anglo-Saxon Foundation:




As a final tidbit, look at this excerpt from Edmund Dee's account of the life of King Edmund:


Coincidence, or...?


Is Atrociter actually Darren Clarke? Let's recap:

  • Both knew about White Wyrm Rising and its contents before the book was published;
  • Both live on the Suffolk border;
  • Both are supporters of Englisc-Gateway;
  • Both attended a small-scale demonstration at the Tower of London on 27 January 2014;
  • Both own bumper stickers saying "What's so 'great' about Britain? I'm English!" and "St Edmund - True Patron Saint of England";
  • Both refer to Woden's Folk as "Wodensfolc", a spelling apparently used by no-one else on the Internet.

And that's on top of the overlapping traits that are common amongst Englisc nationalists - celebrating St Edmund's Day, referring to non-white people as "orcs", complaining about portrayals of interracial marriages in the media and so forth.

Anglo-Saxon Books purports to be a respectable publisher. If it has released a propaganda book written by a Stormfront member - and the evidence certainly indicates that it has - then that is a very serious thing indeed.

Wednesday 1 July 2015

Edmund Dee's White Wyrm Rising: White Wyrm or whitewash?


One of my first posts on this blog was about the nationalist publications put out by Athelney, an imprint of Anglo-Saxon Books.



Proof of the relationship between Anglo-Saxon Books and Athelney, from the Directory of Publishing 2014.


At the time I mentioned that Athelney had been keeping a low profile for a few years, but was preparing to publish a new book entitled White Wyrm Rising: A Journey into Modern English Nationalism.

The book in question was finally published this January. I was interested in covering it, but out of reluctance to give my money to Athelney, I waited until a second-hand copy of White Wyrm Rising turned up on Abebooks before buying it.

My copy arrived recently, and as it is a very slim volume, it didn't take long to finish. I can't say I was impressed.

Written by someone called Edmund Dee, the book touches upon a number of the groups I've covered on this blogIn each case, Edmund makes a concerted attempt to sweep the racism perpetrated by those outfits under the carpet. White Wyrm Rising is a thoroughly disingenuous attempt to whitewash Englisc nationalism.

Throughout the book, Edmund paints nationalist groups such as the Anglo-Saxon Foundation, the English Shieldwall, Woden's Folk and the Steadfast Trust (the book came out shortly before the Exposure documentary on that last group) as noble, right-minded organisations which hold no hatred for people of other ethnicities, only love for the culture and heritage of England. Any racism in the English nationalist movement, according to Edmund, can be blamed squarely on a small, misguided minority - which the author portrays as being essentially a different movement entirely.

In reality, the Anglo-Saxon Foundation is a forum where stuff like this is posted on a regular basis:










...But you'd never know this from reading Edmund's shamelessly sanitised version of events. How can Anglo-Saxon Books, which purports to be a respectable publisher of informative books on history, justify shilling for a racist forum this way?

Anyway, on to the book itself. I recognised quite a few of the people mentioned by Edmund, even though he tends to identify them by their screen names:




"Ingy and Ynngy" are Lee Ingram and Paul Young.

Since the book was published by Athelney, we shouldn't be too surprised to find it plugging another Athelney publication:




Linsell's "holy book", incidentally, makes the bizarre claim that the English are descended from Aesir and Vanir. Edmund doesn't seem to find this at all dubious.

Our first real glimpse of just how disingenuous this book is comes when Edmund talks about the English Folcmoot, an event organised by Paul Young in 2011:




I've written about Wulf Ingessunu before; his organisation Woden's Folk is a neo-Nazi cult which believes Hitler to have been an avatar of Woden.

As for the loving couple Harold and Shirley, "Harold" is actually Clive Calladine, known on the Internet under the pseudonyms Harold Godwinsson and Teutoburg Weald. This is evidenced by a posting from the English Shieldwall website which names the couple as Clive and Shirley...




...And by one of "Harold"'s postings at the Anglo-Saxon Foundation, where he describes the ceremony himself:




I've documented his views at length here. In summary, Calladine regards Anders Breivik as a "hero"; feels that England should have been on the side of the Nazis during World War II; supports apartheid; believes that "the Jew" is conspiring against the white race; argues that liberals and Asians are "enemies" who can be justifiably murdered; endorses the criminalisation of homosexuality and race-mixing; and says that members of minority groups should not have human rights (even though, as a Wodenist, he is himself a member of a minority group)

Edmund is certainly aware of Calladine's extremist views, as they both post at the same forum. And yet, the author portrays Calladine as a loveable sort whose only visible flaw is his tendency to get into amusing arguments with his wife.

Early in the same chapter, Edmund pours scorn on some Morris dancers who were concerned that the English Folcmoot would attract a racist element. But the presence of Wulf Ingessunu and Clive Calladine demonstrates that those Morris dancers were entirely correct.




Again, Edmund namechecks his bigoted comrades. Seaxan is the owner of the Anglo-Saxon Foundation; I discussed his views here. AelfredSeax appears to be a fascist sympathiser, judging by the fact that he has an Oswald Mosley quotation in his signature at the ASF:



Moving on...



Let's take a second to unpack this. First of all, Edmund is quite right to treat antifascist protests with a degree of skepticism. Groups such as Unite Against Fascism and the Socialist Workers Party have atrocious records when it comes to free speech, and campaign against certain kinds of extremists while aligning themselves with others - particularly of the Islamic variety. Jesus and Mo sum them up:



However, Edmund is giving a seriously skewed version of events when he claims that the March for England demonstration was opposed by antifascists simply because it celebrated St. George's Day. If that were the case, then other St. George's Day celebrations - such as that held regularly at Stone Cross - would also be targeted by antifascists.

The reason the event was attacked by antifascists was because of the nature of the group which organised it - namely, the accusation that it has far-right connections (its Facebook page has linked approvingly to Casuals United). You may question the legitimacy of these accusations, but the fact remains that they are the reason for the group coming under scrutiny, not its decision to celebrate St. George's Day.

Edmund smugly dismisses the anti-fascists as "thousands of Anglophobes" who felt hatred "for anyone who reminded them that there was a country called England, and for anyone who dared celebrate its existence." This is a flat-out caricature: again, where were these "thousands of Anglophobes" at every other St. George's Day event around the country? The Brighton march was targeted because of the group behind it, not because of the day it was held on.

In the same chapter, Edmund names some of the Anglo-Saxon Foundation members who accompanied him to the 2012 March for England event. First is Osgar:




I have to wonder if this is the same Osgar who fell out with his daughter when she started dating a black man (or "a spade", as Osgar delicately refers to his potential son-in-law):



After this come a few others:



Well, "Steven" is possibly the same Steven who seems to think that the 2013 Westgate shopping mall attack was a Jewish conspiracy. But the really remarkable person in this group is Steed.

Steed is another member of the neo-Nazi Woden's Folk. He used to run a blog called Eye of Woden, where he made a number of utterly remarkable claims - that Zionists worship a race of intelligent lifeforms from Mars, and that the creators of the cartoon series Family Guy were in on the Boston Marathon bombing, to pick just two. He has since closed this blog but he can still be spotted in the comments section of Aryan Myth and Metahistory, run by his fellow neo-Nazi Wotans Krieger.

So, Edmund is pulling the exact same stunt as with his account of the English Folcmoot: scoffing at anyone who suggested that there were racists at the event, and then providing evidence that - yes - there were racists at the event.

By now, you should have a clear idea of what Edmund Dee was up to when he wrote this book: he was trying to pass off a bunch of racist cranks as simply honest folk who want what's best for their country.

But just who is this Edmund Dee person? Given his fascination with King Edmund, it seems likely that his name is a pseudonym.

In my next post, I will dig a little deeper and try to find out exactly who it was who wrote White Wyrm Rising...