Neo-Nazi Leader Ran as Ron Paul Delegate in Tennessee Republican Primary

I've posted before about Ron Paul's neo-Nazi connections, specifically, that one of his Tennessee organizers was a neo-Nazi leader by the name of Will Williams (read here). I found it shocking that the Ron Paul campaign would allow a neo-Nazi to organize on their behalf using their medium of choice, internet Meetup groups. As shocking as that was, I was totally unprepared for what I just discovered.

Will Williams, who was a leader of the neo-Nazi National Alliance Party for two decades, someone with connections with racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the Church of the Creator, appeared on the Tennessee Republican primary ballot on Ron Paul's slate of delegates.

A list of Ron Paul's slate of delegates on the Tennessee Republican primary ballot, including Williams, is available here from the Tennessee Department of State. A sample ballot featuring Williams' name is available here from the Shelby County Clerk. In case you doubt that this is the same Will Williams, here's a list of the delegate slates from the Knoxville News Sentinel's website knoxnews.com listing Williams and his hometown, Mountain City, TN.

Will ("White Will") Williams started his career as a neo-Nazi in the "violent, paramilitary" White Patriot Party (read here and here). In the early 1980's, he switched to the National Alliance party, bringing a group of former White Patriot Party members with him. He served as an aide to William Pierce (read here and here and here), the founder of the National Alliance Party and author of the bible of American racists, The Turner Diaries. In the early 1990's, Williams served as the national membership coordinator of the National Alliance party, before becoming their southern coordinator and leader of their Tennessee operation.

That southern branch of the National Alliance devoted a great deal of energy to recruiting at Fort Bragg, going so far (according to their literature) as to purchase a billboard just outside the base to advertise their hotline number in 1995. In December of that year, a cell of neo-Nazi skinhead soldiers from Fort Bragg's 82nd Airborne committed a racially motivated murder against a black couple in Fayetteville, NC. According to reports, the murderers had read National Alliance propaganda prior to committing their crime (read here). Members of that neo-Nazi cell were profiled in an Esquire magazine article featuring soldiers posing on base with Nazi flags and paraphernalia (read more here and here at p. 13).

As I reported in my earlier post on Williams (read here), he specialized in recruiting new members. In 1993, he put his artistic skills to use, writing and distributing an eponymous comic book ("The Saga of White Will"), the "hero"of which violently assaults a Jewish teenager. In 1998, Williams organized what he advertised as a "European Culture Festival" in Cleveland, featuring Irish and Slavic folk music and dancers. Attendees found themselves at a "white power" rally with speeches by William Pierce, Tom Metzger, founder of White Aryan Resistance ("WAR") and other racist leaders (read here). In December 2000, Williams spoke to a younger racist audience at a concert of racist rock bands organized by the National Alliance and Erich Gliebe's Resistance Records in California. (read here and here) In March, 2001, Williams participated in a racist anti-immigration rally on the steps of the Hall County, Ga. courthouse, along with his friend and National Alliance Party associate, Chester Doles, listed variously as former Grand Dragon and Former Imperial Wizard of the KKK (read here and here and here) . In July, 2001, Williams participated in a violent rally at the German embassy in Washington, D.C. in support of German neo-Nazis (read here).

In July 2003, one year after William Pierce's death, Williams left the National Alliance which was in decline and hemorrhaging members. Since then, he has been active in the virtual racist community, participating in a variety of neo-Nazi websites. He put this internet experience to use as an organizer of Ron Paul Meetups in Tennessee. His activities on Ron Paul campaign message boards included proselytizing for extreme racism, and promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Prior to my first post on this subject, William's racist posting was allowed to continue for several months with hardly any opposition beyond occasional requests not to be too overt. After his identity and racist commentaries were revealed nationally, he was forced to post anonymously, although he continued to post as "A FORMER MEMBER" and list his hometown as a wink to those who knew him.

His "banning "from Ron Paul forums elicited a petition campaign to restore his rights to spew racist propaganda among the ronpaulian faithful (read here). When that effort failed, I thought that was the end of it. Then, last week, I discovered that Williams had donated to the Ron Paul campaign (read here). And, today, the jaw-dropper: the Ron Paul for President campaign placed one of the country's most notorious neo-Nazi's on the Tennessee Republican primary ballot.

Considering that, at the time of the Tennessee primary on February 5 , Williams' identity had been publicly known for several months, and considering that the Paul campaign was aware enough of Williams to ban him from their internet forums, Ron Paul owes us an explanation. How can he possibly justify disgracing the Republican party and the American people by placing a neo-Nazi on the ballot? If Ron Paul cannot provide a reasonable answer to this question, then he should do the honorable thing: he should end his presidential campaign and step down from his seat in Congress.

UPDATE: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS HAS PICKED UP THE STORY:
read here