From the NY Times:The evidence was elusive: late last month, a professional Web site suddenly appeared, showing the party’s swastikalike logo set against a dark Manhattan skyline and calling on the city’s Greek diaspora to donate food and clothing to a charity drive to benefit struggling poor people in Greece. There were pictures on the site: one was of a group of men with their backs turned to the camera, wearing black T-shirts reading, in Greek, “Golden Dawn New York.”
Although the site went down within days of its emergence — targeted, it was reported, by Anonymous, the hackers’ group — it provoked sufficient outrage that local politicians, doing what they do, rallied at a news conference to condemn the right-wing party, and a grass-roots protest movement sprang up in an effort to oppose it.
The problem was — and, indeed, still is — that almost nothing is known about the party’s actual presence in the neighborhood. Does Golden Dawn really have an office in Astoria, the center of the city’s Greek community? That is not clear. What are its goals? Also unclear. Is its membership significant or minimal? No one knows for sure.
...a phone call in search of some specifics to Peter F. Vallone Jr., the local city councilman, produced an e-mail from a spokesman saying that Assemblywoman Aravella Simotas, who represents Astoria, knew more about the group. While trying to be helpful, Ms. Simotas said, “I only know a little — and it’s all secondhand.”
What if they do? You can't legislate against free speech. The pols in this town, and everywhere, for that matter, LOVE to play on people's fears. We have Latin gangs, neo-Nazi skinheads, Black Panthers, Al Qaeda, the City Council, etc. in this town. So what is the big deal about adding fascist Greeks to the mix?
