slackbastard

Mash up mash up et cetera. Jihad Sheilas! Aaaiiieee!

vents on John Rambo:

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Rambo 4

This movie is incredible. If you see one movie this year make sure it is ‘John Rambo’.

If you didn’t already know; Rambo is truly the baddest cunt ever. He is like 1,000 Nintendo power gloves combined. In the first five minutes he is on screen he catches a cobra with his bare hands and puts it in a sack; catches a fish with a bow and arrow; and smiths some bad ass knife (which will be used later in the movie for eating the fish, of course).

“We need to use your boat, Rambo”
“Are you bringing any guns?”
“Of course not”
“You aren’t going to change anything”

This was the moment when I knew I was in for a great movie experience and I stood up and cheered and flung my cock back over my shoulder…

Notes:

Despite being of draft age during the US / Viet Nam, having been born in 1946, Sly managed to avoid being drafted. According to one source:

After high school, Stallone coached women’s athletics at the American College of Switzerland, and became involved in drama, appearing in a school production of Arthur Miller’s Death of A Salesman. He returned to America and studied drama at the University of Miami, but dropped out to become a struggling actor in New York. Stallone appeared in an all-nude off-Broadway play called Score, and in 1970 he was paid $200 to appear in a cheap porno feature called The Party at Kitty and Stud’s. Years later, after Rocky made Stallone famous, The Party was re-released as The Italian Stallion, with an orgasm-faced Stallone on the video box. In 1971, he had a bit part as a thug in Woody Allen’s Bananas. In 1972 he auditioned for a small part in Coppola’s The Godfather, but did not get the role, so Stallone decided he might have better luck as a writer…

So, it appears that — judging by the comments left by a handful of upset punters — the Starlight Children’s Foundation eventually decided not to accept the funds generated by the benefit gig at The Birmingham Hotel on February 9. Or then again, maybe it will.

Who knows?

On the one hand, the material advertising the event (see above) — as well as a banner linking the site to the Starlight Foundation homepage — has disappeared from the Bulldog Spirit myspace page; on the other hand, it remains on that of The Beefeaters, and the Foundation itself has not, as far as I’m aware, made any kind of public statement regarding the event. Certainly, it was well-publicised that a gig raising funds for the Starlight Foundation was to take place, and there’s been no hint that it wasn’t properly authorised. The circumstances surrounding the gig are slightly unusual, however, as normally those seeking to raise funds for charitable institutions such as Starlight obtain authorisation for such activities; thus, either permission was not given, or it was later withdrawn. The unauthorised use of charitable logos to raise funds is unlawful under the Fundraising Appeals Act, and it’s difficult — in fact, virtually impossible — to believe that the Foundation would place itself in such a position merely in order to help rehabilitate the image of a pub that for the last ten years has hosted neo-Nazi events. Certainly, the disgusting pigs whom the proprietor has in the past allowed use of the venue to raise funds and to promote neo-Nazi ideology would much rather see children who in their opinion have the wrong skin colour either deported or, in the manner of their political ancestors, exterminated.

Which fact brings me to the point: what’s all the fuss about anyways? At the risk of being accused of wearing a black armband, perhaps an historical detour would be appropriate at this juncture. (Please note that sensitive young conservatives who happen to be fans of punk and ska music may like to exit the room at this point.)

Children were especially vulnerable in the era of the Holocaust. The Nazis advocated killing children of “unwanted” or “dangerous” groups in accordance with their ideological views, either as part of the “racial struggle” or as a measure of preventative security. The Germans and their collaborators killed children both for these ideological reasons and in retaliation for real or alleged partisan attacks.

The Germans and their collaborators killed as many as 1.5 million children, including over a million Jewish children and tens of thousands of Romani (Gypsy) children, German children with physical and mental disabilities living in institutions, Polish children, and children residing in the occupied Soviet Union. The chances for survival for Jewish and some non-Jewish adolescents (13-18 years old) were greater, as they could be deployed at forced labor.

The fate of Jewish and non-Jewish children can be categorized in the following way: 1) children killed when they arrived in killing centers; 2) children killed immediately after birth or in institutions; 3) children born in ghettos and camps who survived because prisoners hid them; 4) children, usually over age 12, who were used as laborers and as subjects of medical experiments; and 5) those children killed during reprisal operations or so-called anti-partisan operations.

In the ghettos, Jewish children died from starvation and exposure as well as lack of adequate clothing and shelter. The German authorities were indifferent to this mass death because they considered most of the younger ghetto children to be unproductive and hence “useless eaters.” Because children were generally too young to be deployed at forced labor, German authorities generally selected them, along with the elderly, ill, and disabled, for the first deportations to killing centers, or as the first victims led to mass graves to be shot.

Upon arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau and other killing centers, the camp authorities sent the majority of children directly to the gas chambers. SS and police forces in German-occupied Poland and the occupied Soviet Union shot thousands of children at the edge of mass graves. Sometimes the selection of children to fill the first transports to the killing centers or to provide the first victims of shooting operations resulted from the agonizing and controversial decisions of Jewish council (Judenrat) chairmen. The decision by the Judenrat in Lodz in September 1942 to deport children to the Chelmno killing center was an example of the tragic choices made by adults when faced with German demands. Janusz Korczak, director of an orphanage in the Warsaw ghetto, however, refused to abandon the children under his care when they were selected for deportation. He accompanied them on the transport to the Treblinka killing center and into the gas chambers, sharing their fate.

Non-Jewish children from certain targeted groups were not spared. Examples include Romani (Gypsy) children killed in Auschwitz concentration camp; 5,000 to 7,000 children killed as victims of the “euthanasia” program; children murdered in reprisals, including most of the children of Lidice; and children in villages in the occupied Soviet Union who were killed with their parents.

The German authorities also incarcerated a number of children in concentration camps and transit camps. SS physicians and medical researchers used a number of children, including twins, in concentration camps for medical experiments that often resulted in the deaths of the children. Concentration camp authorities deployed adolescents, particularly Jewish adolescents, at forced labor in the concentration camps, where many died because of conditions. The German authorities held other children under appalling conditions in transit camps, such as the case of Anne Frank and her sister in Bergen-Belsen, and non-Jewish orphaned children whose parents the German military and police units had killed in so-called anti-partisan operations. Some of these orphans were held temporarily in the Lublin/Majdanek concentration camp and other detention camps.

In their “search to retrieve ‘Aryan blood,’” SS race experts ordered hundreds of children in occupied Poland and the occupied Soviet Union to be kidnapped and transferred to the Reich to be adopted by racially suitable German families. Although the basis for these decisions was “race-scientific,” often blond hair, blue eyes, or fair skin was sufficient to merit the “opportunity” to be “Germanized.” On the other hand, female Poles and Soviet civilians who had been deported to Germany for forced labor and who had had sexual relations with a German man — often under duress — resulting in pregnancy were forced to have abortions or to bear their children under conditions that would ensure the infant’s death, if the “race experts” determined that the child would have insufficient German blood.

In spite of their acute vulnerability, many children discovered ways to survive. Children smuggled food and medicines into the ghettos, after smuggling personal possessions to trade for them out of the ghettos. Children in youth movements later participated in underground resistance activities. Many children escaped with parents or other relatives — and sometimes on their own — to family camps run by Jewish partisans.

Between 1938 and 1940, the Kindertransport (Children’s Transport) was the informal name of a rescue effort which brought thousands of refugee Jewish children (without their parents) to safety in Great Britain from Nazi Germany and German-occupied territories. Some non-Jews hid Jewish children and sometimes, as in the case of Anne Frank, hid other family members as well. In France, almost the entire Protestant population of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, as well as many Catholic priests, nuns, and lay Catholics, hid Jewish children in the town from 1942 to 1944. In Italy and Belgium, many children survived in hiding.

After the surrender of Nazi Germany, ending World War II, refugees and displaced persons searched throughout Europe for missing children. Thousands of orphaned children were in displaced persons camps. Many surviving Jewish children fled eastern Europe as part of the mass exodus (Brihah) to the western zones of occupied Germany, en route to the Yishuv (the Jewish settlement in Palestine). Through Youth Aliyah (Youth Immigration), thousands migrated to the Yishuv, and then to the state of Israel after its establishment in 1948.

The photo below is of some of the Nazi concentration camp guards at Auschwitz, one of several such photos unearthed only last year:

In which context, it may be worth recalling the reaction of a local teenage fascist (and self-proclaimed ‘national anarchist’) at the time of their discovery, as recorded (and since deleted) on the white supremacist website Stormfront:

Today, 05:35 AM
NoCrusties
Australian Nationalist

Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Australia
Posts: 460

Re: New photos of Nazis having fun in the sun

They are celebrating the girls graduation from Jewish strangulation school?

Haha, jokes, haha!

Regards
NoCrusties.

This is the reaction of a local Melbourne teenager to genocide; a teenager belonging to a Sydney-based political formation run by a German-born neo-Nazi militant named Welf Herfurth, a man on record as denying the Holocaust, and a man also present — alongside other luminaries from the local neo-Nazi and ’skinhead’ milieus — at the 2006 ISD memorial gig…

Of course, on the other hand, according to Jack of The Beefeaters, The Birmy — until recently the venue for both the ISD memorial gigs and numerous other gatherings and fund-raising initiatives by local neo-Nazis — is “the only venue in Melbourne that truly supports local bands, offer[s] free practice space and refuses to take any percentage of the door charge from gigs”. (By the same token, it should also be remembered that, by all accounts, Hitler was quite fond of Blondi, a German Shepherd — a breed renowned for their loyalty and obedience.) Common sense suggests that a boycott of The Birmy, and any attempt to promote it, is therefore equivalent to the activities of the Nazi regime itself. In fact, if one compares the activities of contemporary neo-Nazis such as the Hammerskins with the publication of material relaying to a boycott of a pub which has hosted their activities for the better part of a decade, the similarity between the two becomes even clearer.

Well, that’s apparently the argument of apologists for The Birmy anyway. The Hammerskins, on the other hand, aren’t noted for their sensitivity to criticism.

Doin’ It For The Kids : Hammerskins Style!

Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun

Named for the stirring use of hammers as fascist symbols in the film The Wall (1982), it remains unknown if the bright spark who thought of the name Hammerskins was a fan of Pink Floyd’s earlier, psychedelic rock; certainly, Bob Geldof’s role as “A troubled rock star [who] descends into madness in the midst of his physical and social isolation from everyone” appears to be reflected in his eventual belief that charity solves poverty. In any case, established in 1987, it wasn’t very long before the Hammerskins came to national prominence in their natural home, the United States, when, a year later, five members of the original ‘Confederate’ Hammerskins in Dallas — Christopher Greer, 23, John Jordan, 17, Michael Lawrence, 20, Sean Tarrant, 18 and Daniel Wood, 18 — “chased and attacked minorities who attempted to enter Robert E. Lee Park in downtown Dallas. The five were apparently inspired by a racist rally they attended in Tulsa that June where Tom Metzger, leader of White Aryan Resistance (WAR) spoke. When they were arrested, the defendants had baseball bats and broken pieces of concrete, which they apparently intended to use to recreate the Kristallnacht to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the attacks on Jewish stores and homes that took place on November 9, 1938 in Nazi Germany”. The five were sentenced for the crime in April, 1990.

Since that time, Hammerskins have engaged in many violent assaults, up to and including murder. Thus according to the ADL:

…The Confederate Hammerskins of Dallas were both the first Hammerskin group and the first to come to public attention… During [the] summer [of 1988] and into the fall, the Hammerskins vandalized a synagogue and a Jewish community center by shooting out windows, smashing doors and spray painting anti-Semitic slogans and swastikas. Michael Lawrence also committed violent crimes with skinheads Christopher Jones, Daniel Roush and Forrest Hyde in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the following year. The Tulsa group firebombed a minority-owned nightclub and assaulted its nonwhite patrons.

In June 1991, Arlington, Texas, was the site of further violence by Hammerskins. Three 16-year-old members of the Confederate Hammerskins murdered an African American, Donald Thomas, while he sat on the back of a truck with two white friends. Joshua Hendry claimed that after he, William Roberts and Christopher Brosky drank about two cases of beer, Roberts said that he wanted to “do a drive-by” and “shoot a black person.” According to Hendry, after he and Brosky agreed, Roberts readied a sawed-off shotgun. Hendry later testified that when the three passed Thomas, Brosky yelled “shoot him!” and Roberts pulled the trigger.

Also in 1991, Jimmy “Soda Pop” Miller, an Arizona Hammerskin, firebombed a residence he mistakenly thought was occupied by rival skinheads. Miller also defaced a synagogue. Though he was sentenced to more than five years for these crimes, he was released after serving only two years in prison. That same year, in Birmingham, Alabama, Hammerskin Louis Oddo and his colleague Adam Galleon murdered a 50-year-old black homeless man on Christmas Eve. Oddo and Galleon killed the man, Douglas Garrett, by hitting him with a baseball bat and kicking him with their heavy boots. Oddo and Galleon were subsequently convicted of murder.

Less than two years later, in the summer and fall of 1993, members of the New Dawn Hammerskins defaced two synagogues, harassed black patrons of a local bookstore and assaulted two black girls in Brockton and Randolph, Massachusetts. In July 1994, these Hammerskins were charged with conspiring to intimidate and interfere with the rights of black and Jewish citizens. The leader of the group, Brian Joseph Clayton, was also the only adult among the defendants. He pled guilty to the charges and received 46 months in prison.

The next major incident of Hammerskin-related violence took place on March 17, 1999, in an open field near Temecula, California. Six Western Hammerskins (Travis Miskam, Daniel Butler, Alan Yantis, Gregory McDaniel, Jesse Douglas and Jason McCully) allegedly attacked a 23-year-old African American, Randy Bowen. They apparently chose to attack him simply because he was black, approaching him without provocation at an unplanned youth gathering. Miskam reportedly hit Bowen over the head with a beer bottle, and when Bowen asked him why, Miskam allegedly replied, “We don’t like niggers here; I don’t like niggers.” According to legal documents, as Bowen tried to flee, the Hammerskins chased him, shouting “Die, nigger,” “Get that nigger,” “Kill that nigger,” and “We’re going to get you, nigger.” Between them, the Hammerskins carried a bottle, a screwdriver, a folding knife and a razor knife. They cut and stabbed Bowen on his head and back before he escaped to a stranger’s home. Witnesses indicated that after attacking Bowen, the Hammerskins started goose-stepping, giving Nazi salutes and singing German songs.

On August 16, 1999, a grand jury indicted the four adult Hammerskins involved in the attack (Miskam, Butler, Yantis and McDaniel) on charges of attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder with enhancements for gang affiliation and commission of a hate crime. In March 2001, as Miskam, Yantis and Douglas awaited trial, Butler, McDaniel and McCully pled guilty to assault with a deadly weapon and committing a hate crime. In addition, lawyers representing Bowen filed a civil suit that aims to force all six Hammerskins involved in the attack, their families, and the Hammerskin Nation to pay Bowen general and punitive damages. The suit alleges that the Hammerskins are a “street gang,” as defined by the California Penal Code, and describes the group as encouraging its members, including the defendants, “to commit acts of violence and intimidation against African-Americans to promote their white supremacist goals.”

Pride! Strength! Honour!

But the fun doesn’t stop there. No, the Hammerskins are a persistent bunch, and when they’re not organising gigs at The Birmy, or, like Douglas Schott and his band Blood Red Eagle (or Damian Ovchynik and his band Bail Up!) travelling interstate and overseas to perform at other Hammerskins’ gigs, they remain busy trying to kill kikes, niggers and race traitors.

Anarchy is a fag!

SEMINOLE COUNTY, FL — Three days before Hammerfest 2007 kicks off, three members of the Confederate Hammerskins (CHS) will be standing before a judge for their role in the botched home invasion of a local antifa on Sep. 1.

Coby Wayne Stonecypher, 35, of Christmas, [Florida], Gary Allen Armstrong, 28, of Casselbery, FL and Johnathan Wayne Singleton, 26, of Ocoee, FL will be at the Criminal Justice Center on Oct. 2 at 1:30PM in Sanford, FL before Judge Debra S. Nelson. The three have either posted bail or were released pending trial. They have all been ordered not to go near the house where they attempted to stage an early evening attack on a well-known antifascist activist that Stonecypher [has] had a grudge against for years. The three ended up getting soundly beaten by that antifa and two others, and they were arrested as they tried to flee.

CHS has a long history in the state of Florida and over the years have engaged in a number of violent acts in the state. They were reportedly responsible for shooting out the window of the Jacksonville, FL club ‘Thee Imperial’ to prevent them from having a anti-racist show on Dec. 16, and earlier this year, CHS members Tom Martin, 23, and John Rock, 35, were arrested by the FBI after an informant wore a wire to a meeting and agreed to help them rob a drug dealer in Casselberry, FL. They [?] have also [been] made… into virtual punching bags for antifa and underground music scenesters alike in the state. The most notable incident [occurred] when Forrest Fog[a]rty, the lead singer of the white power band Attack and current Army active duty who has done tours in Iraq, was beaten and cut badly by attendees of a show by the Buffalo, NY band Snapcase, which is known for being decidedly anti-racist. Coby Stonecypher has been noted by those familiar with him as the right-hand man of CHS’s leader Ritchie Myers, and has served time in jail on a hate crime charge in 1999 stemming from an assault charge for allegedly threatening a black man in connection with a neo-Nazi gathering at a hotel in Plant City, FL.

Ironically, the Hammerskin court date is also the same day that National Vanguard founder Kevin Alfred Strom will be in court in Virginia facing child porn charges.

Strom eventually eventually plead guilty to one charge of possessing child pornography.

That story comes courtesy of DLJ / One People’s Project. See also Hate-crime case award will be hard to collect, experts say, Sean Nelson, The Press-Enterprise, August 24, 2007:

A man described as a recruiter for a white supremacist group and the parents and sisters of two men convicted of beating and slashing Randy Wordell Bowen, who is black, were ordered to pay damages…

Some men charged and sentenced in the Bowen case were admitted members of Western Hammerskins, a regional branch of an international white-supremacy group. Roth said he filed the suit to stop Western Hammerskins from operating in the Murrieta area.

Tim Hales, commander of the Murrieta-Temecula Regional Gang Task Force, said the prosecution and civil lawsuits against members and their families likely contributed to the declining visibility of Hammerskins.

Riverside County prosecutors called the attack on Bowen one of the worst racially motivated crimes in county history.

Bowen was struck in the head with a bottle and chased by a group of people — many of whom shouted racial slurs and Nazi slogans — during a 1999 bonfire party in the Temecula Valley Wine Country, prosecutors said at the time. He was then beaten and slashed across the back with a straight razor, prosecutors said.

In 2001 and 2002, six men charged in the beating were sentenced to prison terms ranging from four to 20 years.

The convicted men and three others involved in the attack but not criminally charged were subsequently sued in civil court and ordered by a judge to pay Bowen about $4.8 million in damages, Roth said.

Ring Dang Doo!

I don’t think it takes a genius to work out that maybe the Hammerskins are a bunch of psychotic racists. Further, that they’re probably not a group of people worth supporting. But Gary Birmy doesn’t think so, and the same could be said of Blood & Honour, the other neo-Nazi organisation his pub has played host to.

Response

As noted, there has been no official response by Starlight to the gig, or the use by its organisers of the Starlight logo. There have been a small number of other responses however. Darrin Hodges (aka the Anglo-Australian National Community Council — described by MediaWatch as a “White supremacist” organisation) is among a small number of local racists and other critics who’ve attempted, perhaps inevitably, to distort the very plain message of the FDB! press release (issued on Monday February 4) in relation to the gig. (More recently, Hodges gained some small degree of notoriety by campaigning against the construction of an Islamic school in Camden to service members of what he describes as that “despicable religion of filth”.) Thus according to Darrin:

Thursday, February 07, 2008
“Anti-racist” group FightDemBack! smear Starlight Foundation children’s charity as “nazis”

The fightdemback! group - a self-proclaimed “anti-racist” group - have taken to smearing the Starlight Foundation (a charity organisation to help very ill children and their families) by claiming the charity endorses Nazism. FDB! is an extremist leftwing organisation who spend their time persecuting anyone they see as their political enemies[.] [T]o attack a children’s charity in this manner is disgusting and vile…

They are fully prepared to destroy a charity dedicated to helping children with cancer simply to further their own political goals. Andrew (owner of the “slackbastard” blog), Cam Smith and associate [Mathew Henderson-Hau] are clearly sick and twisted individuals if they think they can use seriously ill children as a political football - their condemnation is deserved.

On the other hand, according to the Reverend Jack Petty:

Reverend Jack Petty Says:
February 9, 2008 at 5:44 am

Good on you mate!

It[’]s great to see someone put in so much effort to keep money from dying kids. Presenting false info[r]mation and slander is one thing but this really is a new low, even for a sad cunt like you.

Chunga of The Worst:

You really sunk to an all time low haven’t you Andy? Going out of your way to stop people who are trying to do a good thing… is not cool.
It seems your beliefs are that anyone who doesn’t conform to your same beliefs is apparently a nazi or nazi sympathiser or a wanker. You wouldn’t know a thing about anarchy if the definition was tattooed on your fucking face. And you deserve a bat to the head for changing that Starlight flyer you pathetic cunt!

andysadeadmanwalking:

you’re going to die you fuckwit! you must have a boring life that you sit here all day writing bullshit that isnt true… good life fuckhead! die already…

The standard response on the part of local racists and apologists for The Birmy, in other words, has been engendered. Lies, threats of violence, and slander. As for The Birmy itself, word on the street is that it may be sold. Let’s hope that the new proprietors, unlike its current owners, understand that neo-Nazis really aren’t welcome in Marvellous Melbourne.

:::::: APPENDIX ::::::

FROM THE MINISTER FOR CONSUMER AFFAIRS
DATE: Friday, January 14, 2005
FUNDRAISERS MUST KNOW THEIR LEGAL RESPONSIBILITIES

The Acting Minister for Consumer Affairs, Andre Haermeyer, today reminded Victorian individuals, businesses and community groups fundraising for victims of Asia’s tsunami tragedy about their legal requirements.

“The community response to this disaster has been overwhelming, and I commend all those who have organised events and other activities to raise money for the relief effort,” Mr Haermeyer said.

“However, all organisations or individuals who raise money in Victoria must abide by fundraising laws…

Mr Haermeyer said the Fundraising Appeal Act required all people raising funds for appeals, including businesses, to be registered, meet account and record keeping requirements and comply with proper collections methods, such as wearing identification and using secure collection containers.

The penalty for unregistered fundraising in Victoria is a $24,000 fine for a corporation and a $12,000 fine, or one-year jail term, or both, for an individual…

Also, collectors raising money for registered fundraisers must be authorised by the registered fundraiser to raise money on their behalf…

Following on from his success in stalling a probe into alleged bullying in his union (Vic Police union stalls bully probe, The Age, January 25, 2008), Police Association Victorian secretary Paul Mullett finds himself accused of being embroiled in a snakepit of skulduggery and as a result:

Victoria Police face transvestite hooker scandal!

*shock*

“ninemsn can reveal exclusively the OPI is investigating allegations that senior officers in a Melbourne suburban station are in corrupt relationships with transvestite prostitutes, who illegally work the streets.”

*horror*

Further, the Office of Police Integrity (boom boom) has recommended that The Bloke They Call Mullett be charged with a number of criminal offences, including being a pervert when it comes to the racecourse of justice, lying, and being very very tricksy (or words to that effect).

Well, kinda. Actually, the OPI Report merely recommends such charges be considered by the DPP.

The case now moves to the next phase, when the Office of Public Prosecutions will have to decide what charges — if any — will be laid against Mullett, Ashby and Linnell. The OPI’s public reports work on the same level as a royal commission. The findings are based on inadmissable evidence, logic and deduction. Its standard of proof is the balance of probabilities. The Office of Public Prosecutions now has to decide whether to follow the OPI’s recommendation on charges and, if it does, structure a case to prove the claims. The long-held standard for the Office of Public Prosecutions is higher than that of a report to Parliament. The director must be satisfied that “it is more likely than not that there will be a successful prosecution”. In other words, he has to believe there is not only a case but a winning one. Director Jeremy Rapke, QC, is an expert on police corruption evidence and has run most of the serious police cases in the past five years. He understands which charges are likely to stick and which to fall flat. In its report, the OPI outlines a circumstantial case that Mullett tipped off a detective that the phones were being bugged because he was suspected of serious corruption. But the report offers no proof of the core allegation — that Mullett helped warn detective Peter Lalor that he was the suspect of a murder taskforce.

Normally, I’d suggest that the possibility of charges being brought against such a senior figure — let alone that person being found guilty of a serious crime — are nil. On the other hand, given the recent conviction of Darren (Kenneth) Ray for fraud, anything is possible.

What a wanker. An Australian member of one of the KKK’s umpteen franchises decided (February 1, 2008) to upload a video on to YouTube giving his opinion on the recent decision by the KRudd Government to issue a formal apology to the thousands of indigenous peoples who constitute the Stolen Generations.

KKK’s vile response to apology
Peter Michael
The Courier-Mail
February 7, 2008

TOWNSVILLE police are investigating a Ku Klux Klan video that appeared on the internet featuring a burning cross and a white-hooded man making racist comments in response to the national “Sorry” motion.

Aboriginal activists, police, and race discrimination experts yesterday condemned the “vile” and “frightening” film posted six days ago on video-sharing website YouTube.

North Queensland Regional Crime Co-ordinator Det-Insp Warren Webber said officers would investigate the video. But he denied any significant KKK activity in Townsville.

“I don’t think racism is confined to Townsville,” Det-Insp Webber said.

“And I don’t think there is any magic wand to eliminate racist behaviour.”

The 30-year-old Townsville man who posted the footage, when contacted by The Courier-Mail yesterday, said Australian Aborigines did not deserve an apology.

“Why say sorry? If we did not come here they would still live in caves and be throwing spears. And they want us to say sorry for what?,” he emailed.

Under the username of Bennypip, he posted the video on February 1 in response to the proposal by the Federal Government to say “sorry” next Wednesday.

From: bennypip
Date: February 01, 2008, 03:33 AM
Subject: Australia says sorry
Body: no way go and screw your self monkeys

He refused to accept the racist attack was wrong.

Local Federal MP Peter Lindsay urged federal police to “hunt down this person” and charge him with racial vilification.

“Australians just don’t tolerate this kind of behaviour in our country. We won’t put up with it,” Mr Lindsay said.

He said he hoped there was no link to the large military community in the north Queensland city.

“Previously these sorts of things in Townsville have been associated with the Defence Force and I hope that is not happening again,” he said.

Aboriginal activist Gracelyn Smallwood said Townsville was well-known as “the nation’s KKK capital” and a “hotbed of racial discontent”.

“We can’t get too wound up, and hopefully all those people, both black and white, standing side-by-side prepared to say sorry will not be overshadowed by this sort of red-neck, bigoted behaviour,” Ms Smallwood said.

Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Susan Booth said she was shocked by the footage.

“The KKK is the symbol of hate. I don’t understand the appeal the KKK has for these sorts of people, but this is very serious,” she said.

Understandably perhaps, authorities have announced a police investigation into the video (Police probe Townsville KKK internet video, ABC, February 7, 2008: “North Queensland police are investigating a racist internet video describing Aborigines as in-breds…”). And since it was brought to the attention of the corporate media, the video has been pulled. Which is somewhat curious, as there’s actually an abundance of racist videos on YouTube. For example, a local bonehead named Jesse has a channel ‘genocidal88′ (88 = HH = Heil Hitler) on YouTube which contains a number of videos celebrating neo-Nazism and the Holocaust, including two crude cartoons which depict the murder of a Jew. Jesse himself is a member of local neo-Nazi groups Blood & Honour and the Southern Cross Hammerskins, which last came to the attention of the mass media when the groups organised a gig at the Melbourne Croatia Social Club. Prior to that, the groups used The Birmingham Hotel in Fitzroy as a venue; this weekend, one of Jesse’s former band mates is performing at a benefit gig at The Birmingham, on this occasion in aid of the Starlight Children’s Foundation!

Chances are our amateur filmmaker is a member of Stormfront Down Under (SFDU). SFDU last made the news in early January, when discussions on it by racists to march on the Cenotaph in Sydney for Australia Day were unveiled by Joe Hildebrand: “Much of the activity has been co-ordinated through the neo-Nazi website Stormfront, whose Australian arm is [sic] moderated by 18-year-old Newcastle resident Rhys McLean [below]. Mr McLean said he was aware of the plans but said it was a matter for the individual organisers, not the website”.

The SFDU forum is populated by a diverse range of fascist and racist cranks — from members of the KKK to outright neo-Nazis, members of the Australia First Party (such as Dr James Saleam) and Australian Protectionist Party to Jim Perren (formerly of the White Pride Coalition of Australia); Patrick O’Sullivan of the ‘Creativity Movement’ to men such as Carl D. Thompson.

On February 5, 2008, in a thread on the subject “What the **** is wrong with Abos?”, Carl writes:

There is one answer that covers all questions about the Australian Aborigines: they are retards.
The average IQ of the Aborigine is in the same range as the African Negro, which gives them an average in the 60s. Someone is considered to be a retard at 75, so the average Aborigine is 10 to 15 IQ points below the level of a retard.
Do not forget that the way that statistics work about 40 per cent of Aborigines do not even make average.
If you look at the self-appointed Aboriginal leaders out there, every one of them has white genetic material in them.
Racially-pure Aborigines are not intellectually capable of anything more than digging up and eating grubs.

On January 13, 2008, a Victorian racist, using the pseudonym ‘revcore’, writes on a thread titled “Aboriginals and pushing white guilt about Europeans stealing ‘their’ land”: “If whites didn’t civilise this land of ours, Australia would still be a land full of violent monkeys”. Another forum member, a woman using the pseudonym ‘ladyfuro’, writes in a thread titled ‘SORRY’ (January 1, 2008):

Abos…gratefull? [sic] At every turn they sue us for the menial [sic] of acts.
They demand their sacred land back…then sell it to developers. They are an ungrateful, alcoholic, hate filled useless race of people…
After they killed an innocent white man over Christmas…he had the hide to play beach cricket with his family! The charges are assault and assault causing bodily harm…No love lost here…

Oh…and NOT SORRY

There are numerous other examples of racist sentiment being expressed by SFDU members, especially with regards Australia’s indigenous peoples, and of the most vulgar nature. So appalling is some of it that the Forum’s Administrators actually remove it from public display. It’s also the case that many SFDU members are involved in ‘real life’ activism, from membership in one of the small number of fringe political parties — such as Australia First and the Australian Protectionist Party — to the KKK, Blood & Honour, the Hammerskins and moribund groups such as the ANM/ANWU, Patriotic Youth League and White Pride Coalition of Australia. A profile of three current and former members of SFDU — Dävid Palmer, David Innes and John Drew — is available here. As for ‘bennypip’, it’s quite possible that he’s one of the handful of members of the White Legion Knights of the KKK.

On a final note, the KKK has raised its pointy head in Townsville before, most recently last July. Note that: “Townsville Police Crime Co-ordinator Detective Inspector Warren Webber said he had never heard of the group and at this stage was not making any investigations. Townsville Mayor Tony Mooney and Thuringowa Mayor Les Tyrell both refused to comment on the rumoured branch.”

Nazi salute in court as tensions spill over
NZPA
The New Zealand Herald
February 7, 2008

A Nazi salute was delivered as gang tensions spilled into a court today when two brothers accused of a drive-by shooting appeared in the dock.

The police had a strong presence inside and outside the courtroom and bundled about 12 rival gang associates out of the Court House.

“I’m advised tensions are running high and we have seen a demonstration of that this morning,” said Christchurch District Court Judge Raoul Neave.

One of the accused in the dock, Christopher Allan McKenzie, hurled abuse at the judge as he was remanded in custody for six days.

He called the judge a name and grumbled, “I didn’t consent to nothing.”

The shaven-headed 30-year-old had already delivered a Nazi salute to people being cleared from the courtroom, who had stood and begun mouthing threats to the pair in the dock as soon as they came into the room.

Christopher McKenzie and his brother Daniel Robert McKenzie, 25, both of Sydenham, were jointly charged with discharging a firearm at Wendy May Stewart yesterday with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

They entered no plea and were remanded in custody to February 13 after police opposed them being granted bail…

Another Kiwi neo-Nazi, Brendon ‘Nasty’ Rimmer, 22, is sentenced today on three charges of assault. Rimmer abused, spat on, and struck a group of teenagers (aged between 15 and 17) in Taupo last November (”A Taupo man who spat in an Asian teenager’s face and told him to “get out of my country” has been labelled as nasty by a judge”). Rimmer has previously been involved in the Creativity Movement, popularised [sic] by local bonehead Patrick O’Sullivan.

STARLIGHT CHILDRENS’ FOUNDATION ENDORSES USE OF NEO-NAZI LINKED PUB
Monday, February 4th, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE USE

Australasian anti-fascist campaigners Fight Dem Back! (FDB!) notes with concern that on Saturday, February 9th, 2008, a benefit gig for the Starlight Childrens’ Foundation is being held at The Birmingham Hotel in Fitzroy, Melbourne. FDB! understands that the Foundation is a worthy charity dedicated to brightening the lives of seriously ill and hospitalised children and their families. Unfortunately, the venue for the gig, The Birmingham Hotel, is currently the subject of a community boycott, and has been since its role as a venue for neo-Nazi groups was revealed in September 2006.

On Saturday, September 23rd, 2006, neo-Nazis from around Australia and the world came to Melbourne for the annual Ian Stuart Donaldson memorial gig. Ian Stuart, who died in a car crash in 1993, was the lead singer for neo-Nazi band Skrewdriver. The gig was organised by the local branch of Blood & Honour - a global neo-Nazi network banned in Germany and considered a terrorist organisation by British and Belgian authorities - and the Southern Cross Hammerskins (SCHS), the local branch of another international neo-Nazi skinhead network. These two networks are responsible for numerous murders, bombings, arsons and assaults around the world. On the night of the gig itself, a local woman was assaulted by a group of neo-Nazis in attendance.

As a result of subsequent investigations, FDB! discovered that this was not the first time that The Birmingham Hotel had granted these groups permission to hold events at the venue. In 2002, for example, a gig was organised to celebrate Hitler’s birthday. And in 2005 and for a number of years prior, The Birmingham Hotel has been the regular host for other ISD memorial gigs. Collingwood police subsequently stated that it was well known that skinheads and neo-Nazis frequented at the Birmingham.

(In 2007, as a result of public protest and adverse publicity, the venue for the gig was changed to the Melbourne Croatia Social Centre in Sunshine.)

FDB! spokesperson Cam Smith has urged the Starlight Childrens’ Foundation to reconsider any decision to raise funds through The Birmingham. “The Starlight Childrens’ Foundation’s work with seriously ill children is to be admired, but not to put too fine a point on it, we would hate to see their reputation tarnished by association with those whose attitudes to same are that they should be euthanised,” said Smith.

======

Links :

Starlight Childrens’ Foundation
Fight Dem Back!

Starlight Childrens’ Foundation
Victorian Office

128 Jolimont Road, EAST MELBOURNE VIC 3002
Postal Address: PO Box 276, East Melbourne 8002
Phone: (03) 9663 3300
Facsimile: (03) 9663 2800
Email Address: vic@starlight.org.au

Police Find Neo-Nazi Graffiti on Burnt-Out Building
Spiegel Online
February 6, 2008

German police investigating eyewitness claims that Sunday’s blaze in Ludwigshafen was caused by arson have found neo-Nazi graffiti daubed on the building where nine Turkish immigrants died. Turkish media are reporting that the occupants had received xenophobic threats.

German police said on Wednesday they had found neo-Nazi symbols daubed next to the entrance to a Turkish cultural center on the ground floor of the Ludwigshafen building where nine Turkish immigrants, including five children, died in a fire on Sunday.

The word “Hass,” German for hatred, had been smeared twice next to the door, with the last two letters written in the style of the Germanic runes of Hitler’s SS organization…

Turkish media are speculating that the fire was laid by German neo-Nazis. If the suspicion is confirmed, Germany will have to brace itself for the same international condemnation that followed the 1993 killing of five Turkish women and girls in a fire in Solingen, western Germany, which was set by German youths.

Reports of Far-Right Threats

Turkish newspaper Zaman reported on Wednesday that the Kaplan family living in the century-old apartment block had been threatened by young German right-wing extremists after they moved into the building…

Previously…

Germany bans neo-Nazi group
BBC
September 14, 2000

The German Government has banned the German branch of an international white supremacist group called Blood and Honour. The German Interior Minister, Otto Schily, said the group was spreading Nazi messages. He said some of those arrested after a recent spate of attacks on foreigners in Germany had been inspired by music played at concerts organised by the group. But he said there was no evidence directly implicating Blood and Honour in the attacks…

First, The Scoreboard:

A) Dead Parrots

1) Committee for a Revolutionary Communist Party in Australia;
2) Communist Left Discussion Circle;
3) Communist Party Advocate(s) [i];
4) International Socialist Organisation (ISO) [ii];
5) Marxist Initiative;
6) Marxist Solidarity Network [iii];
7) National Preparatory Committee of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Australia;
EIGHT) New Era Communist Party of Australia;
9) Socialist Action Group [ii];
10) Socialist Appeal;
11) Socialist Democracy;
12) Socialist Labor Party of Australia;
13) Solidarity [ii];
14) Workers’ League;
15) Workers’ Power [iv].

B) Twilight Zone

1) October Seventh Socialist Movement;
2) Permanent Revolution [iv];
3) Trotskyist Platform;
4) World Socialist Party of Australia.

C) Hail Satan!

1) Communist League;
2) Communist Party of Australia (CPA);
3) Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) (CPA-ML);
4) Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP);
5) Freedom Socialist Party (FSP);
6) Progressive Labour Party (PLP);
7) Radical Women (see FSP);
EIGHT) Resistance (see DSP);
9) Socialist Alliance (SA; see DSP);
10) Socialist Alternative (SAlt);
11) Socialist Equality Party (SEP);
12) Socialist Party (SP);
13) Solidarity;
14) Spartacist League of Australia [v];
15) Workers’ Liberty (AWL).

Now, The Devil:

[i] Communist Party Labor Tribune Advocates of the World Unite and Take Over!

“Labor Tribune promotes analysis from a Marxist perspective. Our supporters are predominantly members of the Austalian Labor Party (ALP)”; the brainchild of Marcus Strom, Labor Tribune represents one of the last gasps of the Left in the ALP, and has replaced (May 2006) the more ominously titled Communist Party Advocates.

[ii] Solidarity is dead! Long live Solidarity!

Perhaps the most exciting spotting news of recent times is the announcement by the remnants of the post-Socialist Alliance ISO, a breakaway from Socialist Alternative in Brisbane called the Socialist Action Group and another, Sydney-based breakaway from the ISO called Solidarity to merge into the one organisation, called Solidarity. This took place at a conference in Sydney on the first weekend of February 2008.

[iii] Maybe if we changed our name…

A minor split from the DSP a few years ago (July 2006), the Marxist Solidarity Network (nee Leninist Party Faction) has changed its name (but not its spots) twice: first to ‘Workers & Community First’, latterly to ‘Direct Action’. Its leading spokesperson, Jorge Jorquera, stood for the seat of Derrimuit in the 2006 Victorian state election. Unfortunately, Jorquera came last, garnering just 275 votes or 1.0% of the total. Worse yet, a member of the DSP’s arch-rivals in the CEC, Rod Doel, gained 330 votes, or 1.2% of the total.

[iv] What Do You All Think About A Sixth International Then?

One of the more entertaining stories concerning the Revolutionary Left is the saga of Workers’ Power. In July 2006, the five members of the Australian franchise dissolved, along with a small group of others, into another mob called permanentrevolution. However, “While the Australian section of Revolution [Workers’ Power yoof branch] was also thrown out of its organisation, Permanent Revolution Australia continues to support the ideals of a revolutionary youth international, and supports the iRevo tendency of Revolution in its fight to win Revolution back to political and organisational independence”. But wait! There’s more! “At the Revolution International Delegates Confere[n]ce, Prague 2006 (the highest decision making body of Revolution internationally), Revolution Australia was deemed to not be a section of Revolution anymore.”

[v] “I know you are but what am I?”

ISO, SAlt: Anti-Communists to the Core! scream the Spartacists:

Two groups in Australia who don’t claim capitalism has recently been restored in China are the International Socialists (ISO) and Socialist Alternative. These Laborite reformists consider the 1949 Chinese Revolution merely a step sideways to “state capitalism,” with the Chinese bureaucracy a new ruling class. This anti-Marxist “state capitalist” “theory” serves as a justification for their abiding hostility to the workers’ states and siding with “democratic” capitalism. Here they stand in the traditions of their British parent group, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) of the late Tony Cliff…

A w e s o m e.

Update : The Age publishes a follow-up piece:

Former student union head jailed for $180,000 tax fraud
Kate Hagan
February 7, 2008

A FORMER Melbourne University student union president has been sentenced to 20 months in jail after defrauding the tax office of more than $180,000. Darren Kenneth Ray, 26, was sentenced in the County Court yesterday after pleading guilty to 10 charges including obtaining financial advantage by deception and opening bank accounts in false names. The court heard Ray obtained personal details, including tax file numbers, from people responding to advertisements he placed on a website for non-existent jobs. He used their details to register five businesses for which he falsely claimed GST refunds totalling $182,281 from the Australian Tax Office between 2004 and 2006. Ray tried to claim another $10,753 in refunds before he was detected in a tax office audit. The court heard he carried out the scheme after reading about someone who had committed similar offences, and set out to avoid the pitfalls that had led to detection. He spent $120,000 on gambling and the rest on car repayments and living expenses. He has repaid only $800. Judge Jane Campton said Ray was paranoid and depressed when he began offending after being the target of corruption allegations connected with his presidency of the union in 2002. The union collapsed into administration in 2004 after auditors identified a $46 million potential liability from a secret 20-year deal for the union to lease student apartments from a company partly controlled by a former student politician. The court heard Ray now ran a business [Victorian Student Housing] sub-letting accommodation to international students. He was ordered to serve a minimum of six months and be of good behaviour for two years after his release.

Whoopsadaisy.

In a surprising turn of events, corrupt student hack and former President of the Melbourne University Student Union Darren Ray has been sentenced to jail for fraud. I’m not sure exactly what relationship the jailing has to his role in events at MUSU, but “The court heard Ray swindled Australian taxpayers of $182,281.42 by lodging business account statements under false names”. Further:

Forgery alleged on contract benefiting union leader
Martin Daly
The Age
December 17, 2004

A Melbourne man testified yesterday that a signature on a contract giving tens of thousands of dollars a year to a company secretly run by a former president of the Melbourne University Student Union is a forgery.

In the Victorian Supreme Court, lawyers for the liquidator winding up MUSU examined a contract for services to the union by a company called the BV Sachsen Group Australia Pty Ltd. BV Sachsen was set up by Darren Kenneth Ray, MUSU president in 2002, who used the name Marcus Kemp to mask his identity and win lucrative business deals from the union.

In 2003, new union president Scott Crawford signed an agreement that substantially increased payments to the company.

Ray and Crawford are still students at the university.

The new deal gave Ray’s company up to $30,000 more a year on the contract, initially listed at $43,000 a year, for three years.

The document was purportedly witnessed by Miles Clemens, who had been hired by Ray, alias, Marcus Kemp, to work for BV Sachsen.

Mr Clemens told Garry Bigmore, QC, for the union’s liquidator, that the signature was not his…

Prior to this, Ray was involved in a business — Victorian Student Housing — providing accomodation to Indian students studying in Australia:

Victorian Student Housing (VSH) was established in 2005 to provide low cost rooms to the international student market. With the support of key student organisations, education agents and community groups, VSH has established an enormous client base throughout Melbourne and regional Victoria. Our staff understand the needs of international students and work hard in providing objective advice based on a student’s financial circumstances and choice of campus.

Needless to say, VSH wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, and it’s future now lies in the capable hands of Darren’s business partner, Benjamin Cass.

Former Vic student union chief jailed
The Age
February 6, 2008

A disgraced former president of the Melbourne University Student Union has been sentenced 20 months’ jail with a minimum of six months for fraud.

Darren Kenneth Ray, 26, was sentenced in the Victorian County Court on charges relating to operating bank accounts under false names and obtaining financial advantage by deception.

The court heard Ray swindled Australian taxpayers of $182,281.42 by lodging business account statements under false names.

In sentencing, Judge Jane Campton said she had taken into account Ray’s youth and genuine remorse, but that a term of imprisonment was appropriate.

“No other sentence is appropriate,” Judge Campton said.

“You took advantage of the GST system. Crimes of this nature are difficult to detect, your offending was well planned and carried out with a degree of sophistication.”

He was ordered to repay the fraudulent funds to the Commonwealth of Australia.

Ray, of St Kilda Road, Melbourne, has been embroiled in several legal disputes since the collapse of the Melbourne University Student Union in 2004.

He was president of the union in 2002 and presided over a $46 million property deal to develop a student accommodation building.

A 2003 auditor’s report warned the deal could send the student union broke.

In February 2004, the Melbourne Supreme Court ordered the union be wound up based on the report.

Dion: December 12, 2007: “As I stated on the [Bombshell] forum Andy, you are a liar, a hypocrite and no better than the trash that you fight against.”

Russia police arrest skinheads in 20 murders probe
Reuters
February 5, 2008

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Police in Moscow on Tuesday said they arrested four Russian teenagers linked to a skinhead gang that prosecutors accuse of murdering at least 20 foreigners. Attacks on dark-skinned foreigners have risen dramatically in Russia, especially on migrants from former Soviet states in Central Asia and the Caucasus attracted northward by an economy stronger than their own. “They were all arrested in the course of an investigation into a group of skinheads guilty of the murder of at least 20 non-Slavic people,” a spokesman at the Moscow Prosecutor General’s office said. Police have now arrested nine members of the group headed by a 17-year-old, the spokesman said. Last October Moscow’s deputy mayor warned the Russian capital stood on the brink of an explosion in racist skinhead violence directed at foreigners.

(Reporting by Tanya Ustinova, writing by James Kilner, editing by Matthew Jones)

Turkish national killed in Moscow
RIA Novosti
February 4, 2008

MOSCOW, February 4 (RIA Novosti) - A Turkish national has been stabbed to death by unknown assailants in southeast Moscow, a police source said on Monday. The body of the 27-year-old male, who worked as an electrician at a Moscow-based company, was found on Sunday evening in the doorway of an apartment house. Forensic experts said the man had died from multiple stab wounds. A criminal case has been opened. Routine attacks by skinheads and young gangs on foreigners and people with non-Slavic features have been reported across Russia in recent years. Earlier on Monday, four people in St. Petersburg, Russia’s second largest city, were detained on suspicion of murdering a Kyrgyz man, the fourth murder of a Kyrgyz national in Russia in the last month.

From Russia with hate: Jew attacks get more violent
Russia Today
February 2, 2008

An apparent drop in the number of attacks on Jews in Russia appears to be masking a more troubling trend – the incidents are getting more violent. The community has suffered three attacks in just two weeks. Young people protested in front of the Ulyanovsk Jewish cultural centre, a Holocaust memorial was desecrated in Volgograd, and in Nizhny Novgorod three young men broke into a synagogue shouting nationalist slogans. “The rise of ethnic nationalism endangers the very foundation of Russia, which is a multiethnic and multiconfessional country,” Andrey Zolotov from Russia’s Profile magazine says. Perhaps the most shocking and widely discussed act occurred two years ago, when a young man freely entered the doors of a synagogue in Moscow’s centre during an evening service. A few minutes later a bloody drama played out. Aleksander Koptsev stabbed nine Jews. The 20-year-old Muscovite was charged with attempted murder and fomentation of racial hatred. The verdict was 13 years behind bars - an outcome which did not satisfy the Jewish community. Statistics from the Federation of Jewish Communities in Russia show that the number of anti-Semitic acts actually declined slightly last year. “Social situation and political situation in the country became much more stable. Stability in the country is the best weapon against xenophobia. So we hope as Russia becomes stronger xenophobia will become less,” Borukh Gorin from the Federation of Jewish Communities says. More than one per cent of Russian citizens are Jews.

A trashy video of some trashy antifa hooligans from trashy Russia.

Another trashy video of some trashy SHARPs, also from Russia. (Trashy.) And RASH trash.

The following obituary appeared in The Age, Monday, February 4, 2008, p.12. As it doesn’t appear to be available online, I thought I’d publish it here.

Filmmaker with lens focused on injustice
Stuart Andrew Hill (Pip Starr)
Documentary Producer
20-12-1967 — 22-1-2008

Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Stuart Hill, professionally known as Pip Starr, has died suddenly at his home in Footscray. He was 40.

His films about the Jabiluka uranium blockade, refugees breaking out of Woomera Detention Centre, the plight of small coffee producers, and victims of rising sea levels due to global warming are just some of the subjects his films tackled with honesty, sensitivity and great skill.

Born in Mildura, Pip was the fourth child of Helen and John Hill, both teachers. He attended St Paul’s Primary School and Mildura High School, and when he was 15, his father died suddenly from a cerebral hemorrhage.

Pip trained as a nurse in Mildura for three years and then moved to Melbourne in 1988 to train as an actor at Victorian College of the Arts. But in the early 1990s, he decided he wanted to document injustice and make a difference to the world.

After volunteering in community television for several years, in 1995 he joined a colleague and set up Rockhopper Productions. His first big project was to film at the Jabiluka uranium blockade in Kakadu for six months in 1998, which resulted in a 60-minute film, Fight for Country, which eventually premiered in August 2001 to much acclaim.

That year he won the filmmaker award at the Wild Spaces Film Festival, and his film played a big part in forcing Rio Tinto to abandon plans to build the Jabiluka uranium mine. As well, the country of the Mirrar people was saved from destruction.

In 2002, Pip travelled to the Woomera detention centre to document a protest action. He captured dramatic images there under difficult conditions. Noted Australian documentary filmmaker David Bradbury said: “His footage of the break-out at Woomera refugee camp was the most dramatic and well-shot footage under pressure I ever saw in that shameful chapter of Australian history. It brought home to anyone who saw it the inhumanity of the HoWARd government’s policy on refugees and their imprisonment.”

From the footage Pip made the short film Through the Wire, which was honoured with a screening at the Human Rights Watch Festival in New York in 2004, and it later had a short cinema run in that city.

Also in 2002, Pip set off around the world to document poverty in the coffee industry. “Fair Trade” is a means of licensing growers so that they receive a fair price for their beans, and this minimises slavery and child labour. To highlight this Pip went to the US, Central and South America, Britain and South Africa. He was overseas for eight months and made a short film called The Okapa Connection, as a prelude to his main film, which has not yet been completed.

Pip’s most recent passion was climate change. He made several trips filming sea levels rising in the Carteret Islands, north-east of Bouganville in the South Pacific, and was in the process of producing The First Wave, a documentary about the upcoming evacuation of those islands by its peoples. On the day of his death he was due at Port Arthur in Tasmania to meet climate-change scientists, to film rising sea levels at the old penal settlement.

Pip was mugged and had his precious camera gear stolen while filming for his coffee film in Mexico City, and up to the time of his death he was regularly hospitalised for bouts of malaria that he contracted while filming in the Carterets.

Like many highly driven and talented people, Pip had many personal demons that he often found hard to control. He took an overdose of anaesthetic drugs and went peacefully to sleep.

He is survived by his partner Gurney, mother Helen, siblings Karen, Jennie and Martin, and nine nephews and nieces.

Jennie Hill is Pip Starr’s sister.

See also : Pip Starr // Paddy McGuinness (January 27, 2008)