Guest post by Ron Bassilian

Sometimes, like has you in strange parallel developments, where your fates continue to collide over the decades. Ian Kramer and I go way back, to our lefty days in the mid-90s. Rioter’s world was a magazine we put out back in the day.

We were into D&D too… Ian would usually play the berserker warrior, I’d play the wizard. Somehow, we kept those career paths as we grew older.

We dropped in and out of each other’s lives over the years. He moved up to Portland in the early 2000s, I stayed in Los Angeles. He last surfaced after the 2016 election, and we quickly discovered we were both redpilled – starting to see progressivism as one big lie.

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He started telling me about Antifa’s activity up in Portland, as he was one of their early targets.

Note the timestamp on the video.

Antifa’s violence shouldn’t be news to anybody. Videos abound of their violent anonymous tactics, their carrying of weapons, intimidation of civilian and law enforcement alike. What’s more subtle is municipalities’ blind eye to it. Ted Wheeler lets them run amok.

Journalist Andy Ngo has been covering them for the past few years, and has documented several cases where he was violently attacked. Police claim no leads and no culprits despite Antifa bragging on social media.

Ian and I hadn’t been in contact for a few months. I decided to text him late last August to see if he’s ok, only to get a response from his girlfriend. On May 1st, 2019, Ian Kramer and several others were involved in a skirmish with Antifa at Cider Riot in Portland – a known Antifa hangout. And on August 7th he was arrested for felonious assault with a weapon during said skirmish.

This video alone shows this was a scuffle environment – zero grounds for assault. The scuffle begins in earnest at 8:30. The strike in question is at 8:50.

Wanting to ensure due process, I decided to invest my time and reputation in learning about his case. Since then, I’ve become convinced his case is a bigger indictment of the city of Portland and the state of Oregon than anything Ian may have done.

Understand I’m 1000 miles away, and my only contact is with Ian’s girlfriend, and the occasional prison call I get to have with Ian – calls that Antifa can and does monitor to use against him. But this is my understanding of the timeline since then.

August 30th was his bail reduction hearing. He was not assigned a public defender until the day before the hearing. So they had no time to prepare a case. The alleged victim, Heather Clark, testified that she was knocked out, unprovoked, and feared for her life if Ian should be set free. Never mind that Ian was running free for over two months after the incident with no issues. Heather and her Cider Riot friends had three months to prepare a case against Ian, Ian’s public defender had a day.

The actual bail reduction hearing was an appropriate kangaroo court.

Over the following months Ian has been feeding me discovery reports – both hospital records and police reports. Both of these records show Heather did not lose consciousness. In fact the hospital records show she received no medical attention the day of the attack. Shewent into the hospital the next day, complaining of neck stiffness, and was discharged within an hour with no scans, and only a prescription for over the counter Tylenol and Advil. If she had hurt her neck, there was no sign the injuries happened at the event.

It also appears her Antifa associate was bear macing journalist Andy Ngo right at the time of the incident. We suspect this put Ian in a state of temporary blindness when he swung his baton. I also understand this is a classic Antifa maneuver – one person attacks while others bear mace any bystanders. I’m told testimony confirms these Antifa all know each other.

It also appears her Antifa associate was bear macing journalist Andy Ngo right at the time of the incident. We suspect this put Ian in a state of temporary blindness when he swung his baton. I also understand this is a classic Antifa maneuver – one person attacks while others bear mace any bystanders. I’m told testimony confirms these Antifa all know each other.

If these reports are consistent, at the very least it means Heather Clark perjured herself to deprive a man of his liberty.

This may seem an open and shut case, yes? Well this is where justice belongs to those who can afford it. Ian’s current public defender Jason Steen isn’t pursuing any of these avenues. He has told Ian this is a political case – the mayor is looking to make an example out of him. Therefore his only option is to plead guilty and pray for mercy. Meanwhile, mayor Wheeler is bringing out the big guns to prosecute this case – DA Rod Underhill. He intends to make a political example out of a man who can’t afford an attorney to properly defend himself.

Keep in mind Ian’s baton falls under Portland’s infamous Measure 11. Ostensibly drafted to counter Antifa violence, it so far has not been used on any of them. Ian’s the first case I’ve heard of. This is beyond ironic. If the law a government claims is to stop a violent gang is instead used against that gang’s enemies, people should be clear whose side the government is on.

Meanwhile, a lawyer who could put up a real defense would need a $10k downpayment. This is money a working class defendant like Ian does not have. He’s one of several defendants with no lawyers in this case. Ian and the other defendants are also unable to crowdfund any legal defense fund. Antifa claims they are associated with hate groups, and therefore crowdfunding sites are denying a platform to raise a legal defense fund.

The strategy of both Antifa and the city is to isolate the defendents and deny due process. Their argument is that Ian is a white nationalist, and therefore anybody who associates with Ian is also a white nationalist. I myself have come under attack on social media just for bringing public attention to this case. I suppose in that sense Ian and I are alike – we don’t deal kindly with threats.

Keep in mind, whatever Ian’s politics, ACLU used to defend the right of overt Nazis to march. There has been nothing overt about Ian’s alleged politics. My main understanding of him and others like him – Andy Ngo, Patriot Prayer, etc., is that they’re all disparate individuals who don’t like the paramilitary pall Antifa puts over the city of Portland. And they want to fight back, by disparate means.

This is an issue the country is increasingly getting behind.

What does it mean when mayor Wheeler lets Antifa run amok in his city while anyone who defends themselves gets railroaded into prison? It means we have a state which no longer follows blind justice. It is, instead, geared to hunt down political opponents- which rules by violence and terror, not impartial justice.

This is not limited to Portland. Portland police chief Danielle Outlaw has accepted a new position running the Philadelphia PD – and Antifa already got the license to terrorize residents there.

We can expect these paramilitary tactics to continue to spread through more cities in the union, unless we take a stand. We need to take a stand on these issues. Citizens have a right to freedom of assembly and due process, whatever their politics. While we do not yet have a formal legal defense fund, anyone who wishes to get involved in Ian’s case is welcome to contact me.

The material definition of fascism is rule by paramilitary terror, given license by government and powerful private parties. And if anyone is guilty here, it’s Portland Antifa – and anybody who associates with them or gives them cover.

Ron Bassilian can be reached at ronfor37.org/contact