* This post is dedicated to the memory of murdered anti-fascists Alexander Ryukhin (April 2006, Russia); Alexei Krylov (March 2008, Russia); Anastasia Baburova (January 2009, Russia); Carlos Palomino (November 2007, Spain); Clément Méric (June 2013, France); Davide ‘Dax’ Cesare (March 2003, Italy); Fyodor Filatov (October 2008, Russia); Ian Kucira (January 2007, Czech Republic); Ilya Bondarenko (July 2007, Russia); Ilya Dzhaparidze (June 2009, Russia); Ivan Khutorskoi (November 2009, Russia); Jimi Karttunen (September 2016, Finland); Pavlos Fyssas (September 2013, Greece); Stanislav Markelov (January 2009, Russia); Timur Kacharava (November 2005, Russia) and to all the other fighters, known and unknown, who’ve left us.
Just a quick note to let folks know that the seventh annual Melbourne Anarchist Bookfair is on again in three weeks.
WHEN : 10am–6pm, Saturday, August 12 WHERE : Brunswick Town Hall (233 Sydney Road, Brunswick) COST : Free
The Bookfair sees thousands of people every year enjoying 40+ vendors sharing, selling and giving away zines, pamphlets, books, clothing, badges and all kinds of knowledge and information, and to partake in more than a dozen workshops and plenaries on anarchism, indigenous sovereignty, land rights and colonialism, sexism and gender, feminism, justice, sexual assault, workplace struggles, community spaces, environmental action and much more. Every year build on the ideas and networking, and welcome a broader audience and participation.
For reasons which remain unclear, Rowan Dean — world-renowned satirist, former ad-man, and current editor of The Spectator (Down Under) — has pulled two articles by Some Guy called ‘Moses Apostaticus’.
The decision to pull the articles — ‘The Democratic Socialist People’s Republic of Australia’ (July 6, 2017) and ‘How cultural Marxism created the Alt-Right’ (July 12, 2017) — happened just a day or so after Jeff Sparrow published ‘Dr Goebbels’ mastheads’: on antisemitism and News Corp (Overland, July 13, 2017), and after Richard Cooke drew attention to some of the nazi geek’s other online writings.
While Rowan may beone of the most respected and most creative figures in Australian advertising circles, responsible for helping to sell best-known brands including Nurofen, Mortein, Harpic, Finish and Dettol, he’s also allegedly a keen observer and critic of the ever-merging worlds of PR gimmickry, political dishonesty and manipulative ‘spin’.
Which begs the question: why decide to publish, then unpublish, such a brilliant man as Moses? One with lots of well thought-out, practical ideas, who is ensuring the financial security of The Spectator for years to come?
In any event, maintaining the paper-thin barrier between the usual batshit published by The Spectator & Co, on the one hand, and the unabashedly anti-Semitic and frequently neo-Nazi tripe published by aspiring AltRight bloggers and podcasters, on the other, is no easy feat: mostly, it’s accomplished by way of substituting the national flag for the Nazi one and, say, ‘cultural Marxism’ for ‘Jewish conspiracy’. Providing these basic rules are followed, it’s perfectly acceptable for anti-Semitic cranks to find a corner of the reactionary press in which to appear, and with a *nudge nudge, wink wink* to their audience, communicate precisely what they think. Indeed, play your cards right, and the national broadcaster will grant you an hour of prime time in which to promote yourself (albeit on delay).
As for Moses, you can continue to enjoy his writings on millionaire blabbermouth Tucker Carlson’s The Daily Caller website, and look forward in anticipation to the completion of his PhD thesis. You can also listen to him yap on ‘The Dingoes’ podcast, along with his XYZ kameraden Ryan Fletcher and Adam Piggott, MP George Christensen, former MP Mark Latham, racist Canuckistanian (and former academic) Drew Fraser and Greg Johnson of publisher Counter-Currents. Gregory Lauder-Frost of the Traditional Britain Group has also been a guest of The Dingoes, and his ‘exposure’ as a ‘Tory fringe group leader with Nazi sympathies’ rather closely resembles the comic habit of local Tories accidentally-stumbling-into-fascist-meetings, most recently when MP Craig Kelly wished a ‘Happy Birthday!’ (on behalf of former PM Tony Abbott) to the pro-Nazi Ustaše government of the 1940s.
Presumably, Rowan Dean is unlikely to publish a piece celebrating the destruction of ‘cultural Marxism’ at Jasenovac, but if he did, I wouldn’t be surprised if the facts of its removal — like so much else — simply disappeared down The Memory Hole.
[I stumbledupon this vid again the other day, courtesy of the scallywags of Anti Fascist Action Sydney (see : With Friends Like These… Tim Anderson & NSW’s Fascists, May 2, 2017), so I thought I may well as chuck it up here along with a few additional comments of my own.]
While it’s true that politics makes for odd bedfellows, it’s an unedifying spectacle to witness an ostensible leftist address a gathering of the extreme-right, in this instance University of Sydney academic Tim Anderson addressing the Leura Forum in November last year. In front of a banner reading ‘One People. One Destiny. One Flag.’, the brief vid below (the full vid is avail online elsewhere) begins with a very subtle dis of The Gay Mafia and a prayer for God Emperor Trump by the MC (dentist Dr Jim Sternhell), followed by a few words from Tim, interspersed with complaints about Jews from an audience member, Ross May.
Apart from anything else, the presence of geriatric neo-Nazi Ross ‘The Skull’ May in the front row of Tim’s audience brings to mind another academic from Sydney, Peter McGregor (1947–2008). An anarchist and a political activist in addition to being an academic, McGregor participated in numerous campaigns, groups and projects during his too-short life. This included participating in the campaign to free one Tim Anderson from jail after he was framed for the Hilton bombing (1978).
Peter’s activities, especially in the name of anti-racism, naturally antagonised fascists and the far right. Hence: ‘The Australian Nazi Party, ideologically aligned with apartheid, organised a brutal and cowardly assault on McGregor in 1971 which I witnessed. Its propagator, one Ross Lesley May (aka “The Skull”), subsequently served time; but the police more often than not acquiesced in Nazi violence and that of fellow racists and the more fanatical rugby fans, who were often inseparable.’
Note that the speaker who followed Tim, Dr Jim Saleam, was also a member of the Australian Nazi Party at this time, while the speaker who preceded him, Keith Windschuttle, has also had some interesting things to say about genocide, and history.
The situation is ironic, perhaps, but hardly a fitting tribute.
The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.
Last weekend, a small group of neo-Nazi geeks, White supremacist nerds, and extreme-right yoof met-up in Sydney to talk shop. Called ‘DingoCon’ and organised under the auspices of #DingoTwitter, the only person to have publicly confessed to having paid their $88 (fnarr fnarr) entrance fee is Melbourne-based neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell, the putative leader of the now defunct Facebook page ‘United Patriots Front’ (UPF). One person who definitely did not attend — and whose presence would apparently have been unwelcome — was Dr Jim Saleam of the Australia First Party: Everyone Wants To Be Fuehrer, but it would seem that the nü gen of Fashy Goys are keen to keep some distance from the fascists in cardigans.
Above : George Christensen poses with Kane Miller, lvl boss of the ‘True Blue Crew’.
The Dingoes
While Buzzfeed buzzed about The Dingoes back in October, to date the most publicity The Dingoes mob has received has likely come courtesy of Federal MP George Christensen, who was a guest on their podcast in February. A few months later — after having made the Columbus-like discovery that he’d been chatting to neo-Nazi yoof — Christensen declared that he’d stumbled onto the podcast entirely by mistake, was really sorry about the whole thing, and vowed to stop US neo-Nazi Mike Peinovich from coming to Australia in order to address the conference his erstwhile kameraden had organised for July. (Christensen’s sudden rise and very slow fall from Dingo grace is most-usefully examined by Richard Cooke in the July, 2017 edition of The Monthly.)*
Christensen’s decision to consort with anti-Semites angered some at the time, and Jenna Price may be correct to claim that ‘[o]nly Buzzfeed’s Mark di Stefano thought it wasn’t the best use of a politician’s time’, but as Jason Wilson wrote in February, Christensen is not the only political figure to have embraced The Dingoes:
Last week, for the second time, former Labor leader Mark Latham appeared on The Convict Report, aka The Dingoes, an Australian “alt-right” podcast. It’s part of the network of podcasts hosted by The Right Stuff, a major international far right hub. That’s the same website whose major players have been recently doxxed by the left, and whose unmasking as promoters of fascist ideology has, in some cases, brought suitably ruinous consequences.
After taking note of the fact that both Christensen and former Liberal turned Conservative Federal MP Bernardi were to be guests of The Q Society function in Melbourne in February (LOL), Wilson further writes that:
Bernardi also has other, perhaps even stranger connections. In particular, he has a long relationship with a group called the Sydney Traditionalist Forum. They describe themselves as “the first explicitly paleoconservative-leaning association in Australia”, and “the only local group that embraces the political currents of contemporary dissident reaction”. Their purpose is to provide “a forum where ideas once understood to be common sense can be exchanged, debated and discussed, unfettered and ungagged by modern liberal thought-control”.
The Sydney Traditionalists, as it happens, are also comrades of The Dingoes; which fact — together with their rejection of Dr Saleam — has apparently irked the authors of the United Nationalists of Australia (UNA) blog.
The Dingoes, Klub Naziya, Sydney Traditionalists, Liberals, United Nationalists and Australia First Party
Functioning largely as a forum for (Jewish?!) neo-Nazi and AFP member Nathan Sykes, but also occasionally featuring the musings of former UPF leader turned AFP member Chris Shortis, the UNA blog replaced the similarly batshit ‘Whitelaw Towers’, and frequently takes potshots at the various enemies and rivals of Saleam and the AFP. In keeping with this role, the blog has recently published an account of DingoCon and the nefarious forces allegedly pulling its strings.
According to UNA (‘DINGOES CONNED?’, July 6, 2017), Liberal and Leo Strauss aficionado David McBryde is ‘the man behind the curtain of DingoCon’. The logic governing the proposal is fairly convoluted but whatever its sketchy merits, it does reveal something of the fractious nature of the extreme-right in Sydney. Thus, in another post on the UNA blog authored by Saleam, McBryde is nominated as being one of a number of individuals — along with Steven Moore, Mark Pavic, Jason Rafty and Andrew Wilson — comprising the shadowy Klub Nation (AKA Klub Naziya), a bizarre group which, inter alia, organised meetings at Humanist House in Chippendale in the period 2005–2009 before staging an unsuccessful attempt to seize control of the group which owns it, the Humanist Society of NSW. KN is also alleged to have been involved in some dingbat investment scheme — the purchase of gold and silver — in which several investors allegedly lost some small sums of money. (For more on KN and Humanist House, see : Fascist infiltration of the ‘Humanist Society of New South Wales’ (Inc.), November 25, 2009.)
Above : Andrew Wilson with fellow members of (defunct) neo-Nazi skinhead gang Volksfront.
According to another source, Andrew Wilson is in fact one of the regular hosts of The Convict Report, where he podcasts under the name of ‘Aussie Tory’; certainly, Wilson once put the yoof in the Patriotik Yoof League (PYL) — the ill-fated attempt by Saleam’s Australia First Party to develop a yoof wing in the early noughties — and was one of the volk in the similarly short-lived neo-Nazi grouplet Volksfront. Since then, after various twists and turns, the PYL has been replaced by the imaginatively titled ‘Eureka Youth League’, AKA Canberra boy Matthew Grant. (You may remember Grant from such rallies as the UPF anti-Muslim rally in Bendigo in October, 2015.)
Other individuals nominated as being in some way complicit in McBryde’s plotting to undo the (White) nationalist content of The Dingoes and to bring its handful of followers (back) into the Liberal fold are: Sydney Traditionalist, DingoCon organiser, aspiring academic and self-described ‘paleo-conservative’ Luke Torrisi; fellow Traditionalist, sometime Humanist and USYD activist Morgan Qasabian and finally; Clifford Jennings, described by Saleam as an ‘Alt-Right leader and the organizer of Dingo activity’ and a former Liberal: also an aspiring USYD student politician, and organiser of a ‘Pro-Trump Counter Protest’ in Sydney in January (‘Communists, Marxists, Globalists and Cucks are going to be protesting against the inauguration of the God Emperor Trump to the Presidency of the United States of America, please join me in a very merry counter protest. Please invite those who are truly pro-Trump.’).
In summary, it’s not without reason that Jason Wilson wrote that ‘The Dingoes attempt to produce the same edgy fare as The Right Stuff flagships like The Daily Shoah, but they sound a little too much like chinless Young Liberal nerds to bring any real menace’. Beyond that, while much media reportage on the ‘AltRight’ has been obsessed with the bells and whistles (haircuts and memes) attached to it, as a general rule it’s just the old anti-Semitic and fascist whine in new bottles.
* Conservative MPs accidentally-stumbling-into-fascist-and-anti-Semitic-groups has a long, colourful, and generally comedic history Down Under. STRAYA has also often been a safe space for Nazi war criminals, some few recruited by the intelligence agencies to better battle Communism while others, most notoriously Slovenian Nazi propagandist Ljenko Urbančič (1922–2006), pursuing careers within the Conservative parties themselves. Urbančič, who joined the NSW Liberal Party and exercised considerable influence upon it during the 1960s and 1970s via the ‘Uglies’ faction, also enjoyed Australian hospitality by organising campaigns in support of apartheid, White rule in Rhodesia, and against the influence of liberals within the Liberals. The political legacy of the ‘Little Goebbels’ of Ljubljana continues to be exercised and/or exorcised via his #BFF and NSW state MP David Clarke and Clarke’s former acolyte, federal MP Alex Hawke. For more infos on STRAYA as a safe space for Nazis and war criminals, see : Mark Aarons, War Criminals Welcome (Black Inc., 2001).
Sadly, Mike Peinovich (‘Mike Enoch’) did not attend DingoCon, instead electing to goto the Scandza Forum in Oslo, Norway on July 1. Erik Olson (Searchlight) writes: ‘Recently a small “volkisch” far-right group called Scandza Forum started making its presence felt publicly with calls for more international activity. Some minor events took place and then we learned from our inside sources that a major event was to take place in Oslo on 1 July 2017 under the Scandza banner heavily supported by Greg Johnson’s Counter-Currents.’ Note that Johnson was a guest of The Dingoes in September last year.
3rd Annual International Day of Solidarity with Antifascist Prisoners on July 25, 2017
July 25, 2017 is the third ‘International Day of Solidarity with Antifascist Prisoners’. NYC Antifa:
As the third annual July 25th International Day of Solidarity with Antifascist Prisoners approaches, we find ourselves fighting the hydra of fascism and far-right ideology. While its many heads have distinct looks in different parts of the world, this beast spews the same venomous poison of nationalism and bigotry everywhere. It demonizes refugees and immigrants, stokes hatred for Muslims, and attacks LGBTQ and other oppressed groups who are fighting for liberation and their very lives.
The July 25 International Day of Solidarity with Antifascist Prisoners originated in 2014 as the Day of Solidarity with Jock Palfreeman, an Australian man serving a 20-year sentence in Bulgaria for defending two Romani men being attacked by fascist football hooligans. Whether acting as individuals or as part of larger organized demonstrations, this is the kind of bravery and solidarity which defines antifascist actions against the forces of hate. Since the day of solidarity last year, we have seen this spirit all over the world—in Indonesia, Czech Republic, Brazil, Poland, England, Greece, the United States, France, Syria, Australia, Japan and all points in between.
Read more in English here; you can read translations of the call out im Deutschen, ελληνικά, français, Bahasa Indonesia and other languages here.
The Antifascists (documentary film)
The Antifascists is a new Swedish/Greek documentary ‘that takes us behind the masks of the militant groups called antifascists’.
It will hopefully be screening in Australia later in the year.
The Anti-Antifascists (lol)
Or: Bring all the crew mate it’s gonna be YUGE. Possibly the biggest Sydney has seen for this type of protest march.
On Saturday, July 1, Nick Folkes and the ‘Party for Freedom’ held a small rally in Newtown in order to whinge about ‘anti-fascists’. About 20-30 or so individuals attended the event, which consisted of marching the brief distance from Newtown railway station (chanting the usual inanities), then gathering outside Sergio Redegalli’s former studio (for more chanting), then standing around for an hour as puzzled locals went about their business. Peter Grace:
Apart from All The Usual Suspects, among those who bothered to rock up was Mark McDonald, the former leader of the short-lived neo-Nazi groupuscule ‘Squadron 88’. His presence was more welcome on Saturday than it was in July 2015, when he and geriatric bonehead Ross ‘The Skull’ May were kicked off the ‘patriot’ bus from Sydney to Melbourne for being ‘Nazis’. Among those who turned on the pair was Shermon ‘The Great Aussie Patriot’ Burgess who, since being kicked off Facebook, has now embraced, inter alia, Adolf Hitler and Flat Earthism. Still, the neo-Nazi pinhead was also presumably heartened by the PFF’s recent adoption of the ‘White GeNOcide’ meme, ably embodied by Folkes’ own marriage to an Asian woman (with whom he apparently has children) and the mixed-up confusion that is his young sidekick Toby Cook (below), whose commitment to White nationalism is unimpeded by his own non-European ancestry.
They’re a wEiRd mob!
*Oh yeah: neo-Nazis, White supremacists and AltRight geeks (‘Dingo Con’) also held a gathering in Sydney on the weekend to talk shite. Local neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell attended but Yanqui neo-Nazi Mike Peinovich did not. Note that former Labor leader Mark Latham is a YUGE fan of the neo-Nazi dogs. See also : Mark Latham is working with Rebel Media. Can he also work at the Daily Telegraph?, Jason Wilson, The Guardian, June 14, 2017.
In the last two weeks, Alt-Right trolls have attempted to replay the events in Houston, Texas in June, where using over the top threats from fake antifa groups on social media, they galvanized a ‘counter-protest’ from the militia movement.
Moreover, it turned out that the people behind the trolling where also raking in thousands of dollars off of crowdfunding for the ‘counter-demonstration’ which drew several hundred and led to infighting between militia members and neo-Nazis. Seems like the Right has a business plan! Make a fake antifa group, make over the top threats, and then crowd fund money off of people that want to protest it.
This time around, trolls using the page ‘Harrisburg Antifa’ alleged that antifascists would burn flags and urinate on the graves of Confederate soldiers. These outright lies were then picked up by the ‘journalists’ at Fox News and distributed as actual truth. This connection between Alt-Right trolls and Fox News is not new; just last week Fox reprinted an article written by a member of the Alt-Right who wrote a hit piece about IGD at HeatSt.com.
Interestingly enough however, in the lead up to the protest, Navy Jack, a mover and shaker within the far-Right Oath Keeper militia, called out the event as total make-believe in a tweet (see image on the top-right), which has since been deleted. Navy Jack also included the photos of the two people he believed were behind the fake event and called it #FakeNews.
Other members of the far-Right, such as Joe Biggs, who recently left InfoWars because of the #Pizzagate conspiracy, have stated publicly that the rise of such fake antifa accounts have hurt the far-Right who continues to take them seriously.
In Melbourne on the weekend a dozen or so members of private security company Asolate Security, in conjunction with various self-described ‘patriots’ from the Soldiers of Odin and a handful of other groupuscules, conducted brief forays into Southbank, apparently in order to stop African yoof from stealing Moomba showbags. Or something. The meatheads are active online as ‘A26A’.
The Melton-based grouplet True Blue Crew (TBC) organised an ‘Australian Pride’ rally in Melbourne today; the Campaign Against Racism & Fascism in conjunction with No Room For Racism organised a counter-rally to oppose it.
In brief:
About 100 or so fascists (possibly fewer, and mostly familiar faces), assembled in Carlton Gardens at approximately 11am, near the corner of Victoria & Rathdowne streets, as did a larger counter-protest nearby (and closer to the intersection). Several hundred police were also present, separating the two groups and otherwise maintaining a presence in the Gardens. After half-an hour or so of milling about and shouting, the fascists made their way to the Gardens near the corner of Victoria & Nicholson streets. With several hundred police reinforcements, they then marched up Nicholson onto Spring street before assembling in front of the Parliament — the counter-rally tried to follow but was blocked by police and forced to approach Parliament up Bourke street, before again being blocked by a police line at the corner of Bourke & Spring streets.
For maybe 30 minutes or so the fascists chanted, sang an awful rendition of the STRAYAN anthem (stopping after the first verse — lol), while also being treated to some speechifying by United Patriots Front (UPF) fuehrer Blair ‘A picture of Adolf Hitler in every Australian classroom!’ Cottrell and his sidekick, Li’l Tommy Sewell. (On a brighter note, the patriotik dregs were also treated to ‘77%’ by The Herd, which was blasting from the counter-rally.) The fascists were then marched by police back the way they came, up Nicholson street and to the Gardens, at which point they dispersed. The counter-rally was blocked by police from returning to the Gardens and at some point police used pepper spray (near the corner of Russell & Lonsdale streets), which affected maybe 10 or more individuals.
Unbelievable protests in the city. Anti-racism left marching & running through city streets crippling traffic. @9NewsMelbpic.twitter.com/vqTBXhSWFN
Spotted at the fascist rally were members of TBC and UPF, obviously, Soldiers of Odin, and a handful of members of neo-Nazi grouplet Right Wing Resistance Australia. (Most who sported merch were wearing TBC gear, although a handful had UPF.) Notable for their absence was the Kekistani Army, with just one yoof sporting the flag. Finally, rather than retire to The Pumphouse as on previous occasions, a small group of fascists was escorted by police to Fed Square, where they were welcomed by Transport Bar.
So:
Congratulations to police (I guess) on facilitating a fascist rally and march through Melbourne (and for pepper-spraying opponents — for medical advice, please see Black Cross Resilience); the size of the fascist crowd was approximately the same as it was 12 months ago, if not slightly smaller, with those present forming the core of extreme-right opinion in Melbourne. They were vocal, and cobbled together from every tinpot group in town and from further afield (principally Bendigo). Despite some frothing-at-the-mouth commentary by some TBC loons, there were no clashes between the two sides as far as I’m aware, with police being delegated the task of protecting the rally and march — which, with overwhelming force, they achieved. Finally, any possibility of halting a fascist march in future will likely depend on there being (many) more counter-protesters — a possibility, but one requiring a good deal of work.
In any case, mAd props to every one who came out today to oppose the flagwits!
Above : As noted, a handful of members of neo-Nazi groupuscule ‘Right Wing Resistance Australia’ were present. From L to R : Cleve Pepprell (?); ‘Sammy Chelsea’; James Lawrence; unknown. Note that one member of RWRAU, Ricky White, was arrested in September last year and charged with the arson of a church in Taree: I’ve no idea what’s become of his case. Finally, note that most neo-Nazis have too many smarts to wear their swastikas in public and for today’s performance the Nazi flag was replaced by the Australian.
NB. NO BEER FOR YOU!
At around 3.30–4pm today, a small group of TBC gronks, including their lvl boss Kane Miller, attended The Curtin Hotel opposite Victorian Trades Hall Council.
Upon entering the premises they proceeded to the bar, but were denied service, and left. As they did so the boys shouted something about ‘slanty-eyed c*nts’, and otherwise entertained pub-goers and passersby with abuse (‘f*cking dirty lefties’ etc., etc., etc.).
Props to the staff at The Curtin for showing the boys the door.
Otherwise, while they remain a very small group of racist meatheads, the fact that the TBC receives the nurturance and support of VicPol means incidents like this will become more likely … and the situation end in tears.
This month’s episode of ‘Floating Anarchy’ on The SUWA Show features an interview with Max Kaiser of local trouble-makers ‘Jews against fascism’. 5.30–6.30pm, Friday, June 23, 2017 on 3CR: 855AM or livestreaming on the 3CR website.
You can read more about Jews against fascism on their Facebook page; Max K’s podcast is called Mazel Tov Cocktail and you can listen to it here. For Max’s academic writings, see academia.edu.
Next Sunday, June 25, Phillip Galea’s favourite patriotik gang the True Blue Crew (TBC) have organised a flagwit rally in Melbourne. (Note: that’s Phill at last year’s flagwit rally above.)
In response, the Campaign Against Racism & Fascism and No Room For Racism have organised a counter-rally.
So why are the TBC rallying?
According to the somewhat incoherent blurb which accompanies the Facebook event page, the flagwit rally in June last year was much victory, very success, so they wanna make it an annual affair. In terms of political content, the TBC claim that Australian nationalism and culture is under attack by leftists and other ‘traitors’, who must be crushed. As evidence of treasonous behaviour, they cite the the traitorous left’s desire to: ‘destroy’ Australia Day and ANZAC Day; increase immigration and allow refugees into the country; close the offshore concentration camps for asylum seekers and; enact the Safe Schools program. The chief problems facing Australia, according to the TBC, are the existence of African crime gangs and the threat of Muslim terrorism. Worse, both these subjects are — despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary — unable to be discussed in public because of ‘political correctness’.
To put it another way: the TBC flagwit rally is basically a particularly angwy Andrew Bolt blogpost come to life.
At this stage, it’s unclear if the fundamentalist Christian political party ‘Rise Up Australia’ will be attending (as they did last year), but presumably whatever remains of the United Patriots Front will attend, as will the Soldiers Of Odin, and numerous other little far right groupuscules, as well of course as a busload of TBC boys from Bendigo and Melton, and maybe even members of the Asolate Security Group, who knows?
PS. The Pumphouse Hotel (128 Nicholson St, Fitzroy) is likely to be the watering hole of choice for the dingbats after they’ve finished all their whinging and whining, thus maintaining the pub’s status as a fascist-friendly venue: boo!.
Reactionary commentator and convicted racist Andrew Bolt was a special guest at a book launch at Il Gambero restaurant in Carlton this time last week. Organised by a group called The Unhinged The Unshackled, the event was intended to promote a paean to Donald Trump penned by RMIT academic Steven Kates. Called The Art of the Impossible, ‘The entire book is comprised of blog posts on my own website: www.lawofmarkets.com some of which were also then published on my shared website: www.catal[l]axyfiles.com.’
Sounds riveting.
In any case, prior to the launch two people accosted Bolt outside the restaurant, and one of them poured sparkles on his suit. This triggered Bolt, and there was a brief scuffle, captured on both CCTV and by a photojournalist. Or as Kates puts it on his blog: Violent thugs attack speaker at Art of the Impossible book launch. Thus far, Bolt himself has managed to squeeze out a mere 14 blog posts on the subject (and counting), the first titled ‘ON THE FASCISTS WHO ATTACKED ME’ (June 6): ‘Watch the fascist Left attack me and get clobbered. Luckily the cameras do not capture me kicking one between the legs.’
From here the story quickly snowballed into an heroic epic in which Bolt became an Antipodean Alt-Knight bravely battling the fascist anti-fascists with his bare fists (e.g.: Here’s A Thug’s-Eye View Of That Antifa Attack On Andrew Bolt, The Daily Caller, June 8, 2017; Watch Conservative Commentator Beat Down Leftist Thugs Attacking Him Over Trump Book, FrontPageMag, June 8, 2017; Thunder Down Under: Aussie Columnist Fights Off Antifa, National Review, June 8, 2017).
A writer unlikely to ever win a Walkley, in one post Bolt quotes ‘Melbourne Antifa’ as having assumed responsibility for the glitter-bombing on behalf of their ‘family’:
Of course, the one slight problem with this claim is that the Facebook page to which Bolt links — https://www.facebook.com/antifamelb — is a fake account, created by one or another species of nazi troll. In fact, as I’ve noted previously, ‘Melbourne Antifa’ is one of several such accounts on Facebook and Twitter (a recent addition is ‘ANTIFA Toowoomba’: legit accounts are Antifascist Action Brisbane, Antifascism Tasmania, Anti Fascist Action Sydney and Melbourne Antifascist Info). Such trollery, especially when performed for a gormless reactionary like Bolt, often works, but not always: the nazi(s) trolling Socialist Alternative in Perth being a case in point (‘Fake’ anti-Semitic Socialist Alternative posters appear in Leederville, Natalie Richards, The West Australian, June 12, 2017). Rather, generally speaking, these fake accounts only manage to fool teenyboppers, the ignorant, and the naif … and occasionally professional trolls like Bolt (when it suits them). See : Houston Chronicle, KPRC Duped by Alt-Right Trolls Over Sam Houston Protest, Craig Malisow, Houston Press, June 1, 2017; Fake Antifa Twitter Accounts Are Trolling People And Spreading Misinformation, Craig Silverman, BuzzFeed, May 31, 2017 (‘This is part of a coordinated campaign to create fake accounts in an attempt to troll and discredit anti-fascist activists’).
Nazis have been a bit more active of late. Leaving aside the nipsters of Antipodean Resistance, their various attempts to gain publicity (pro-tip: try Bolt), and the wreckage of the zombie Aryan Nations, Combat 18 has been rearing its head again in WA. But more on that later … in the meantime, this article by Spencer Sunshine about ‘The Growing Alliance Between Neo-Nazis, Right Wing Paramilitaries and Trumpist Republicans’ in the US of A (Colorlines, June 9, 2017) is essential reading:
I have been following Far Right movements for more than a decade as a researcher and journalist. Over the past few months, I’ve seen an increase in the visibility of a new, violent, right-wing street protest movement that I call “Independent Trumpism.” It unites neo-Nazis, members of the alt-right, Patriot movement paramilitaries and Trumpist Republicans.
Two things set Independent Trumpism apart from usual right-wing politics. First, the group’s rallies are in support of the president, but are organized outside of the Republican Party structure. Second, mainstream Republicans are appearing alongside open White supremacists, especially at events billed as “Free Speech” marches …
Oh, and finally, I suppose I should also note the recent death of Bob Whitaker, Presidential candidate for the fascist American Freedom Party and author of the slogan ‘Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white’.
vigilantes!
On June 11, a small group of local far-rightists gathered in Dandenong in order to discuss the establishment of a vigilante gang to protect the ‘burb from marauding African kidz. While this is not the first time that fascists and the far-right have openly discussed taking the law into their own hands — the Soldiers Of Odin were gamely compared by The Age to Guardian Angels, and the UPF once discussed covertly organising some Right Wing Death Squad Entertainment — the participation of an actual registered security organisation in the project is novel, as well as ambitious.
Spearheaded, seemingly, by a patriotik fella called Daniel Purton (who’s the leader of a nü gang called A26A), those at the meeting included ‘True Blue Crew’ lvl boss Kane Miller, some Soldiers Of Odin, and various other minor characters on the far right. Police kept an eye on things, as did members of a new security company called Asolate Security, who’ve expressed full support for the budding vigilante campaign. This seems rather odd behaviour for a licensed security company, but then we live in interesting times.
Two Greek anarchists are making molotov cocktails. One says to the other: "So who will we throw these at then?" The other replies: "What are you, some kind of fucking intellectual?"
