Free Blood and Politics by Leonard Zeskind Page B

physically imposing Kaldenberg was particularly attuned to marginal subcultures. He worried that veteran white nationalists would not recognize new opportunities in unexpected places. He lamented what he regarded as a lost chance for the Aryan cause, when the early punk movement in Southern California, he claimed, had been dominated by “Nazis.” Punk clubs, Kaldenberg wrote, had been a “great recruiting ground for the young White Racists.” But the opportunity was missed because “Jews dominate the music industry and now they control the punk scene.” The emergence of skinheads, Kaldenberg argued, was “a present given to us from the English [
sic
] National Front.” It was a subculture “sweeping the nation and . . . is our greatest in road into Aryan Youth.” 30 He proposed providing white power bands with places to play and other support.
    Metzger took the hint. In 1983, six years before Aryan Nations held its Pulaski event, Metzger promoted British skinhead music. 31 He sponsored skinheads on his community access cable television program and defended the young racists on national news programs. His tabloid became a forum for skins, publishing their letters and articles, advertising their organizations, and promoting their events. Odinist graphics and skin-style cartoons dominated the tabloid’s design. The middle-aged former Klansman who had once won a congressional primary election disappeared under a blanket of white power rock music and Viking tattoos. “Ancient barbaric qualities are just what our effete, overcivilized and self-abasing society needs,” his
WAR
tabloid cheered. 32
    In 1988, Metzger sponsored the first “Aryan Fest” with homegrown American bands in northeastern Oklahoma. More than a hundred skinheads from Minnesota to Texas turned up for a day of music and speeches. It was the first in a string of outdoor “Reich ’n Roll” concerts.Stealing a page from the 1960s, Metzger even advertised one California gathering as an “Aryan Woodstock.” 33
    Tabloids of cartoons, daylong rock fests, and computer bulletin boards may have helped bring skins under Metzger’s wing, but taken altogether, these elements still could not change a small subculture into the most visible national symbol of white youth rebellion. Mainstream television talk shows did that. From the well-regarded
The Oprah Winfrey Show
to a dozen other lesser lights, white power skinheads took advantage of the electronic soapbox provided them. Their TV hosts were unprepared for the skins’ willingness to flout the rules of television etiquette, and the shows usually turned into verbal race riots.
    Finally, on November 4, 1988, skinhead TV turned violent on
The Geraldo Rivera Show
. Rivera opened his program with the proclamation that “sunlight was the best disinfectant” for hatred. On the television stage he arrayed Tom Metzger’s son John and two skinheads against a rabbi and a black man. When a melee ensued, chairs were thrown and Wyatt Kaldenberg charged from the audience and broke Rivera’s nose.
    The fight was replayed on the nightly news, and the following morning daily newspapers across the country printed pictures and long stories. One of the syndicated comics ran a strip on Rivera’s nose. Overnight, for millions of young white people, defiance of convention and authority became visually intertwined with white power skinheads. It was as if Geraldo Rivera had paid for and distributed forty million copies of an
Aryan Youth Movement
tabloid. 34 Contrary to Rivera’s initial claims, nothing was disinfected.
    The Metzgers went home and claimed victory. “Thousands of inquiries and millions of viewers now recognize a White separatist movement exists,” they crowed. 35
    Even William Pierce sent word of his approval. “I just saw someone who looks a lot like your son John punch out Roy Innis on the Geraldo Show on the NBC Evening News,” Pierce wrote in a letter to the elder Metzger. “Tom Brokaw identified