Biker Gangs are embarrasing to white men too!

Investigators finally caught a break when a tipster e-mailed the MPD identifying him as a member of the Hells Angels biker gang who "wanted to sow discord and racial unrest by breaking out the windows and writing what he did on the double red doors," she wrote.

A subsequent investigation revealed the man was also an associate of the Aryan Cowboy Brotherhood, a small white supremacist prison and street gang based primarily in Minnesota and Kentucky. "They're another group that's basically a farm system, a minor league for the Hells Angels," he said, adding the Angels occasionally recruit members from some of these offshoot clubs.

Leaked intelligence briefings show that federal authorities were monitoring the movements and online activity of white nationalists and other extremist groups that descended on the city during the riots. The president of the Hells Angels summoned 75 members of the Aryan Cowboy Brotherhood to the help protect them and their club's headquarters in north Minneapolis, according to an intelligence memo, which surfaced in June as part of a massive trove of leaked law enforcement documents dubbed "Blue Leaks." A club member later posted a warning to protesters on Facebook saying that while the Angels agreed with the anti-law enforcement message, any protests that reached the clubhouse or "any of our neighborhoods" would be "met with a very unfriendly welcome party."

The story begins Oct. 16, 1965, in Berkeley as a Vietnam Day Committee protest march approached the Oakland-Berkeley border. Sixteen Hells Angels broke through a police line and attacked the anti-war demonstrators. Soon, about 250 police officers were trying to break up the brawl. Six Angels were arrested, and one police officer suffered a broken leg. It was bedlam. Members of the Hells Angels were quoted as yelling “America first”, “Go back to Russia, you fucking Communists!” and “America for Americans” as they surged through the police lines.

The FBI, meanwhile, with Hoover's approval and in collusion with Reagan, was using its well-practiced collection of COINTELPRO (an acronym for "counterintelligence program") dirty tricks - many of them illegal, all of them unethical - against the student movement. The bureau was aware, for example, that members of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang were planning to disrupt the massive Vietnam War protest in Oakland on Oct. 16, 1965. Bay Area FBI agents not only failed to warn the protest's organizers, but they also spent the day unlawfully jamming the organizers' walkie-talkies, so when the Oakland police obligingly opened their cordon and allowed the Angels to attack the demonstrators, protest leaders had no way of communicating with one another. The favorable response from FBI headquarters in Washington was, "You should be alert for future opportunities to initiate similar counterintelligence action."

Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, who would publish a book on the Angels in 1967, watched the melee unfold that day. He noted that the antiwar crowd was fascinated by the bikers’ “aggressive, antisocial stance” and had hoped they might be allies in the struggle. Instead, “When push came to shove, the Hells Angels lined up solidly with the cops, the Pentagon, and the John Birch Society.”

Ginsberg and anti-war activist Jerry Rubin were at the meeting representing the committee, while the main speaker for the bikers was a Hells Angel Sacramento chapter leader named Louis. There to support him were members of the Gypsy Jokers and Night Riders clubs, who used the names Scotty, Indian and Hutch.

Ginsberg got things started by ringing a tiny Buddhist bell and chanting, “To protect everybody from evil.” He then addressed the bikers, “We have fears the Angels will attack us on our march, and we wonder: Why?”

Louis was quoted as saying: “We have no plans to do anything against the law. I got my guts shot at in Okinawa and Korea. ... They used to call me Crazy Jim. If Uncle Sam wants me again, I’m ready to go. ... I’ve got a lot of respect for Uncle Sam, and for my mother, my brothers, and my two little kids. ... If I ever catch my little kids marching, I’ll break their heads in.”

Five Hells Angels led by Oakland chapter President Ralph “Sonny” Barger held a news conference the day before the planned march, announcing they would stay away in the interest of public safety. “Any physical encounter would only produce sympathy for this mob of traitors,” Barger said.

realnews network wrote:CONWAY: Yes. And I always maintained that if there’s some sort of automatic Democratic fascism–and I don’t know whether that’s–it’s a right terminology, but basically what I’m saying is that the whole promise-keepers ideas, the whole right-wing white supremacy kind of movement, it’s–Hells Angels, whatever, it’s almost like a self-imposed fascist attitude. It’s us against the world. It’s us–if you’re not with us, then you are opposed to us. You know, you have to wear the flag, you have to stand up, the whole nine yards. And if you’re not doing that, then we’re going to isolate you, ostracize you. You know. And it’s almost like the McCarthy era dressed up.

JAY: Yeah, this idea of white supremacism is very much–you know, the roots of it–and we did a series recently with Gerald Horne–you know, is to get the white working class on the side of the white elites and say, we’re all together, ’cause we’re all white, and the problem are, you know, at the time, you know, African slaves, and now it’s black workers. The ability or the attempt to create the Panthers as this kind of continuation of the black threat, you talk about that.