What Chip Le Grand gets wrogn about the Australian ‘alt-right’

Posted on September 10, 2017 by @ndy

On the weekend The Australian published an article by Chip Le Grand titled ‘Inside Australia’s own fractious alt-right’ (September 9, 2017) in which the ‘alt-right’ (which is left undefined) is represented by the dynamic duo of Blair Cottrell and Neil Erikson. The pair, along with Chris Shortis, were earlier in the week convicted of inciting hatred for Muslims; all three were at one stage members of the ‘United Patriots Front’ (UPF). The article is interesting but incomplete and what follows is my attempt to flesh out some of Le Grand’s account.

Cottrell the (neo-)Nazi

As Blair Cottrell tells Inquirer, “If you dress up as a brownshirt you are setting yourself up to be laughed at.’’

Cottrell first emerged into the public spotlight at the Reclaim Australia rally in Melbourne on April 4, 2015. On that occasion he gave a brief speech, accompanied by his cousin Christopher and several other members of neo-Nazi grouplet Nationalist Alternative (NAlt). The grouplet emerged during the course of anti-mosque activism in Williamstown several years ago, and until recently met under the auspices of the English-Speaking Union of Victoria at its headquarters in Toorak Road, South Yarra. The leader of the group, Mark Hootsen, was exposed as such by fellow member Neil Erikson in mid- to late-2014 following a dispute between the pair.

Cottrell’s political views may be established by reference to his online commentary, on sites like Facebook and YouTube. I documented these views from May 2015, when he announced the formation of the ‘National Democratic Party of Australia’:

There’s another kid on the fascist bloc: the ‘National Democratic Party of Australia’ (which is neither national, democratic nor a party). The group had a rather inauspicious beginning, ripping off a WA design company (and the WA RSL) to produce NDP agitprop. A convinced racialist, its chief spokesperson, Blair Cottrell, has some association with the Australia First Party and Nationalist Alternative, both of which had a presence on April 4 and are also committed to returning on July 18/19.

Not surprisingly, the Australian version of the German NDP constituted a mere blip on the political radar, and Cottrell soon moved on to the United Patriots Front, “a coalition of neo-Nazis, fundamentalist Christians belonging to the Rise Up Australia Party (RUAP), and a handful of semi-pro Islamophobes”. His views were more exhaustively documented in Quotations From Chairman Blair Cottrell (July 27, 2015). As I noted at the time, “The content below is sourced from comments by Blair Cottrell (AKA ‘National Democratic Party of Australia’), Melbourne organiser and spokesperson for the United Patriots Front, on Facebook, YouTube and Google. Almost all of the comments have since been deleted as part of Cottrell’s efforts to erase his neo-Nazi political commitments.” Some of this content was later reported in ‘Blair Cottrell, rising anti-Islam movement leader, wanted Hitler in the classroom’ (Michael Bachelard, Luke McMahon, The Sydney Morning Herald, October 17, 2015).

In other words, Cottrell’s anxiety not to be portrayed as a neo-Nazi is both rational — being known as a neo-Nazi is the political kiss of death — and commonplace — most neo-Nazis lie and dissemble about their political commitments and Cottrell is no exception. Finally, it’s worth noting that his former kamerad Shermon Burgess claims that, when he met Cottrell for the first time in Melbourne in May 2015, Cottrell had a copy of Mein Kampf in his ute, and when asked why he travelled with a copy of Mister Hitler’s book, referred to it as ‘The White Man’s Bible’. In any event, even if Le Grand chooses to ignore it, there’s certainly no shortage of evidence of Cottrell’s neo-Nazi views.

Erikson the (neo-)Nazi

There are certainly Nazis on the fringes of Australia’s underground alt-right. Neil Erikson, one of Cottrell’s co-accused, used to be one, although he has in recent years disavowed them. He dismisses the emergence of Australia’s newest neo-Nazi group, the Antipodean Resistance, as uni kids playing dress-ups on Twitter and describes his own renunciation of National Socialism as a case of growing up.

“I used to admire Adolf Hitler years ago but since then I have woken up and seen a different side to it. I used to think that all Jews were evil. Now I see that the racist stuff comes from the left. I used to be anti-Israel, now I’m pro-Israel. You can’t be a nationalist and be against Israel.’’ He once accused Cottrell of being a Nazi. He now says he’s not. “There are Nazis out there but they are clowns,’’ he says. “We all think they are clowns.’’

LOL.

By his own admission, Erikson became a ‘Nazi’ as a teenybopper; he first renounced ‘Nazis’ and ‘Nazism’, however, after he and his kamerad Shermon Burgess left the UPF in late 2015, precisely on the basis that the UPF was considered by them to be irredeemably ‘Nazi’. As well as being a member of NAlt, Erikson was also a ‘Crazy White Boy’, a short-lived gang of boneheads whose main claim to fame was the attempted murder of Vietnamese student Minh Duong in Ascot Vale in June 2012. In December 2012, several nazi yoof were convicted of the crime, which is worth recalling in some detail:

Wayne O’Brien, aged 20, and Shannon Hudson, now 21, committed a deplorable and unforgiveable attack on their smaller victim who they jumped as he was walking home alone from a Moonee Ponds 7/Eleven store where he worked.

The victim, a 21-year-old Vietnamese international student, was listening to music on his iPhone when attacked unawares on June 27 this year.

During the ferocious 10-minute bashing he was called names including a “yellow dog”, but Supreme Court judge Justice Betty King today said the bashing robbery was only partially racially motivated.

The victim was punched in the face and, after toppling over a garden fence, was pinned down and punched and kicked.

After he handed over his phone, O’Brien and Hudson dragged him down and bashed him again.

“He was terrified and believed he was going to be beaten to death,” Justice King said in sentencing.

The victim was dragged by his legs into the street and punched and kicked some more, and was also stabbed with a sharp weapon.

“Eventually (he) lost consciousness and lay in the gutter,” Justice King said.

“Despite that, it would appear that the assault continued.”

In what the judge described as a “particularly chilling episode of violence”, Hudson picked up a loose brick from the ground and, after raising it above his head in both hands, brought it down on the man’s head.

“The brick itself broke in half,” Justice King said.

The victim was left lying unconscious and shirtless in a pool of blood.

According to Erikson, after the assault his ‘Boys’ asked him to help dispose of Duong’s body. Whether they did or not (Erikson states that he declined their invitation), it’s curious that Le Grand avoids connecting Cottrell and Erikson to NAlt, and Erikson to the Boys. Of course, Le Grand also avoids reference to the ‘Aryan Nations’ (AN) in Perth. According to Erikson, when the UPF travelled to Perth to attend a rally in November 2015, they stayed with fellow UPF (Perth) member Melony Jane Attwood. Attwood, along with fellow neo-Nazis Robert Wayne Edhouse and Corey Joshua Dymock, are currently on trial for the murder of Alan Taylor, bashed to death with a hammer as he slept at his Girrawheen home in April 2016: barely six months after Attwood/Taylor hosted Cottrell and Erikson (and Cottrell’s sidekick, Li’l Tommy Sewell) at her home in Perth.

In summary, while choosing to focus upon Cottrell and Erikson as the most familiar faces on the ‘alt-right’ in Australia makes a degree of sense, for unknown reasons the fact that both men have emerged from the neo-Nazi milieu is significantly downplayed.

Finally, a few brief notes on some other aspects of Le Grand’s reportage:

• On Facebook kicking the UPF and others off the platform, see : antifa notes (may 10, 2017) : United Patriots Front kicked off Facebook &c. Note that for a brief period the UPF spawned another page titled ‘UPF Media’, which also claimed at one point the title of ‘Alt Right Australia’;
• The nü neo-Nazi grouplet ‘Antipodean Resistance’ — ‘a group that openly proclaims its adherence to National Socialism’ (ie, Nazism) — was spawned by the UPF and NAlt. Formed last year and inspired by the (now-banned) UK group ‘National Action’, members of the group attended various rallies organised by the True Blue Crew and UPF in Melbourne, including the anti-leftist/anti-Muslim/anti-immigrant rally in Coburg in May 2016 and the ‘Blue Lives Matter’ counter-protest in the CBD (along with a superbly-disguised Blair Cottrell) in July 2016.

There is, of course, a lot more to say about AR — and last week the media embarked on a publicity campaign on behalf of the boys — but that will come in good time;
• Finally, the alt-right’s favourite Australian Jew, Avi Yemini, is indeed organising a rally next weekend in Melbourne. While his attempt at organising hate rallies in Melbourne in December 2016 and in Sydney in August 2017 were not entirely successful, for its part the ‘Campaign Against Racism & Fascism’ has organised a counter-protest ‘From Charlottesville to Melbourne: Unite to fight the far right’.

See also : Who is Moses Apostaticus? (September 8, 2017) | TheDingoes.xyz /// The Convict Report /// DingoCon (July 8, 2017) | Depends What You Mean By Extremist : A Review (of sorts) (May 19, 2017) | Melbourne neo-Nazis celebrate Adolf Hitler’s birthday & ANZAC Day 2017 (April 26, 2017) | A (very) brief guide to the Australian far right (December 2016 Edition) (December 5, 2016).

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Who is Moses Apostaticus?

Posted on September 8, 2017 by @ndy

Back in July, The Spectator (Australia) published two articles by a writer known as ‘Moses Apostaticus’. After he was identified as elsewhere espousing anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, the articles were deleted, and the incident slipped down The Memory Hole (more-or-less, see : Rowan Dean, The Spectator, & anti-Semitism, July 14, 2017). Thankfully, you can still find Apostaticus’s (other) writings on Tucker Carlson’s site The Daily Caller and Adam Piggott’s site XYZ, read his magnum opus Civilizationism online, or receive a terrific education via his YouTube channel.

Rowan Dean’s decision to un-publish Apostaticus’s two contributions to The Spectator TRIGGERED the author, who composed an angwy response. Titled ‘The Far Left Terrorists Hiding in Plain Sight’ (XYZ, July 15, 2017), the article is chiefly dedicated to excoriating writer and broadcaster Jeff Sparrow for Cultural Marxisms and other alleged crimes. Apostaticus also claims that I’m Rob, Jeff’s brother, who is also a very bad egg(head):

Rob’s academic output is exactly the type of derivative, noxious bilge you see across the social sciences today. His papers include such significant and empirical topics as ‘Robots, rape, and representation’, ‘Queerin’ the PGD clinic: human enhancement and the future of bodily diversity’ and ‘Robots and respect: assessing the case against Autonomous Weapons Systems’. That first one is about whether it’s ethical or not to rape a robot. Seriously. Your tax dollars hard at work.

And Rob, only pretentious dicks still use the Oxford comma. Get over yourself.

Rob’s is the pierced and sallow face behind violent anarchist propagandist Andy Fleming, an online persona who writes hatespeech for the slackbastard blog. He writes regularly encouraging the university-age footsoldiers of Antifa to commit violence against anyone who disagrees with their neo-Marxist orthodoxy.

The close links between the slackbastard blog and Jeff Sparrow are not difficult to find. Slackbastard posted to Facebook the article attacking me, The Spectator and Mark Latham almost immediately upon it being published. Pretty sloppy fellas, even for Antifa.

Duh.

Note that the erroneous claim that I’m Rob Sparrow dates back to the end of 2015/beginning of 2016, and was first advanced by Neil Erikson on the one hand and the Australia First Party on the other. (See : Review : 2015 : Neil Erikson ~vs~ Rob Sparrow, January 2, 2016; you can listen to Rob being interviewed by myself and my ‘The SUWA Show’ co-host Cam Smith here.)

In any event, while I’m not Rob, ‘Moses Apostaticus’ is in fact an ex-high school teacher from Queensland called David Hilton (b.1979), who abandoned teaching history a few years ago to return to study for a PhD. (Or to put it another way: ‘Moses Apostaticus is a PhD student with a background in classics, history and literature. His years in education have made him a lifelong enemy of leftism’.) Thus before he was ‘Moses’, David was also known as @MisterHistory on Twitter (July 2009–April 2015), but despite having academic ambitions, poor old David doesn’t seem to have any great love for academics. Thus in ‘Academics: Smug High Priests of the Establisment [sic]’ (XYZ, May 5, 2017), he states:

Academic training is not training in wisdom, insight or even superior understanding of the problems of the human condition. It may have once been, but that was long ago. Academic disciplines today are training in the use of language as a weapon, as a means of social control. In ancient Greece, such fake intellectuals were called sophists. They are practiced at making the big seem small and the long seem short, but they know nothing. They are empty vessels.

They’re also not very smart. They are good with words to an extent, but even then the cronyism and careerism in academe these days selects for the most sycophantic, conformist and ruthless rather than the dedicated and brilliant. Many of them are rather dim. The only smart academics you’ll find in universities either come from outside the world of academe and have made careers in their fields first, or else are working in fields like medicine which require proven performance as a professional in the domain. Anything with ‘Studies’ after it is basically just cultural Marxist bulls—t.

Whether or not David regards his supervisor as being another empty-headed crackademic fulla cultural Marxist bulls–t is of course anyone’s guess.

Finally, it’s worth noting that, along with former Labor Party leader Mark Latham, sitting MP George Christensen and fellow XYZ contributors Adam Piggott and Ryan Fletcher, David has been a guest on neo-Nazi podcast ‘The Convict Report’; the talking-points he promotes are standard AltRight fare, concentrating upon the pernicious influence of (((Cultural Marxists))) on the education system in particular but also society as a whole, and otherwise developing a strand of fascist thinking dating back to Julius Evola.

See also : How the Alt-Right Trolled Triple J to Advance Their Agenda, Royce Kurmelovs and Rebecca Kamm, Vice, Aug 17 2017 (‘A few hours after the segment, a contributor to the far right site XYZ, writing under the name Moses Apostaticus, published a story titled: Triple J Rejects Multiculturalism, Embraces Alt-Right. Apostaticus, who runs the site RestoringAustralia.net, has a significant online presence.’) | ‘Dr Goebbels’ mastheads’: on antisemitism and News Corp, Jeff Sparrow, Overland, July 13, 2017 | Dialectic of Counter-Enlightenment: The Frankfurt School as Scapegoat of the Lunatic Fringe (Martin Jay), March 9, 2012 | Clinton Hits Alt-Right, While Old-School Rightbloggers Play ‘Real Racist’ With Kaepernick, Roy Edroso, Village Voice, August 29, 2016 (‘Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller ran an essay by some guy calling himself, I swear to God, “Moses Apostaticus” (I understand his real name is Biggus Dickus but his wife Incontinentia made him use a pseudonym) who advertised himself as “a PhD Candidate (Education) at a major Australian university and…a known voice in the alt-right sphere.” Dickus went on at length about how Hillary was, like, old and a “Cultural Marxist” and the alt-right is the new hip thing.’).

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Blair Cottrell, Neil Erikson and Chris Shortis found guilty of inciting hatred for Muslims

Posted on September 6, 2017 by @ndy

Briefly:

Yesterday, The Three Stooges (AKA ‘The Bendigo Three’) — Blair Cottrell, Neil Erikson and Chris Shortis — were convicted of serious religious vilification in Melbourne Magistrates Court over a publicity stunt the boys performed in October 2015, and fined $2,000 each. The trio has indicated that they intend to appeal the decision in the County Court.

See : Far-right nationalists found guilty of inciting serious contempt for Muslims after mock beheading video, James Oaten, ABC, September 5, 2017 | United Patriots Front trio found guilty of inciting contempt of Muslims, SBS (AAP), September 5, 2017 | Far-right trio convicted, fined $2000 each, over mock-beheading mosque protest, Adam Cooper, The Age, September 5, 2017.

The stunt — for which UPF lackeys ‘Farma’ John Wilkinson and Linden Watson acted as gormless witnesses — took place a few days prior to an anti-Muslim rally in Bendigo on October 10, which attracted as many as 1,000 bigots; the largest such demonstration to have taken place in Australia. Both Erikson and Shortis left the UPF in the months following the stunt, while Cottrell has remained the fuehrer of what is now largely a lame-duck organisation, and as of September 5 can add the crime of serious religious vilification to his list of priors. (Cottrell’s criminal record is detailed in a report by Geir O’Rourke and Angus Thompson in the Herald Sun (June 11, 2016). Of his offending, they write: ‘Cottrell, 26, was sentenced to four months in prison in May 2012 after being convicted of 13 charges, including seven counts of intentionally damaging property. County Court Judge Michael Tinney convicted the then-22-year-old of throwing a missile, stalking, failing to comply with a community-based order, and two counts of recklessly causing serious injury. In December 2013 he was fined $1000 and sentenced to seven days in jail by a County Court judge for aggravated burglary, property damage, arson, trafficking testosterone, possessing a controlled weapon and breaching court orders.’ Cottrell, as ‘Bruce’, appeared in a documentary about youth in the maximum-security Youth Unit at Port Phillip Prison in Truganina, in which he describes how he abused steroids, stalked his former partner and her boyfriend, tried to kill him, set fire to their house, and eventually got arrested, convicted, and sent to prison.)

As for Erikson, having already been convicted in February 2014 of stalking a local Melbourne rabbi — ‘Magistrate Donna Bakos said she had no doubt Erikson’s calls were motivated by prejudice and found he had little remorse for his crime’ — celebrated being given another slap on the wrist by the courts by disrupting a meeting of Yarra Council in order to harass councillor Steve Jolly. (See : Far right protesters storm Yarra City Council meeting over Australia Day ban, Melissa Cunningham, The Age, September 5, 2017 | Yarra Council meeting interrupted by far-right group protesting against Australia Day changes, ABC, September 6, 2017.) Among those who joined Erikson were George Jameson and Penny Louise/Tridgell of the Sydney-based Party for Freedom and locals Paul ‘Guru’ Franzi (sporting Soldiers of Odin merch) and UPF fanboy Luke Phipps. Note that the first public rally organised by the UPF took place in Richmond on May 31, 2015, and was called in order to demand Jolly be thrown out of office.

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antifa notes (august 22, 2017) : Charlottesville +++

Posted on August 22, 2017 by @ndy

Yeesh.

It’s been almost a month since my last post (July 25), so the following is just a few brief notes re some of the events that have transpired in the intervening period …

Charlottesville

Not surprisingly, the ‘Unite The Reich Right’ rally of August 12 has generated a great deal of discussion, which it would be impossible to summarise here. Certainly, a number of folks in the US and elsewhere have expressed varying degrees of shock and outrage, both at the sight of over 1,000 neo-Nazis, fascists and White supremacists (supplemented by small groupings of armed militants) staging a militant rally, and the murder of a counter-protester, Heather Heyer, by a nazi belonging to one of its constituent groups (‘Vanguard America’). FWIW, the CrimethInc podcast of August 14 provides what I think is the most useful accounts of events that I’ve encountered, while It’s Going Down continues to provide rolling coverage and analysis of the fallout from Charlottesville (and much more besides). Also useful reading is Jason Wilson in The Guardian — his recent interview with Corey Pein for Pein’s News From Nowhere podcast is also worth listening to — and Spencer Sunshine on Colorlines.

Closer to home, last week there was a minor brouhaha involving yoof radio JJJ and its news and current affairs program, Hack. Hosted by Tom Tilley, Hack decided to report on the events in Charlottesville by inviting one of its neo-Nazi organisers, ‘Eli Mosley’, on to the show to talk shit and to ensure that the ABC met its obligations to provide a platform for nazi propaganda (or something). Mosley — whose real name is Elliott Kline — has a brief history as a neo-Nazi organiser, and is one of thousands who’ve assumed this role in the wake of Trump’s becoming El Presidente. Writing for Andrew Anglin’s neo-Nazi Daily Stormer site regarding a Trump supporters rally in Philadelphia in March, Kline (Philly March Ground Report: Cops and Trumpenkriegers Work Together to Defeat Kikes and Antifa Faggots) writes that:

The boys are back in town.

On Saturday afternoon hundreds of marches took place across the Trumpenkrieg in support of Trump. In Philadelphia, the city of faggotry love, played out an alliance between the Nazi led marchers and local police departments against their oven-dodging enemies.

Up to their typical tricks again, not a single Shlomo-ran media outlet covered the event accurately. Of course. Luckily I was able to cover the event from on the ground to prevent the spread of fake news.

Spoiler, the Nazis won bigly.

A thinker as well as a doer, Kline concludes his examination of the bigly nazi victory as follows:

So what does this event mean in our struggle for total Aryan Victory? This is a sign that we have moved into a new era in the Nazification of America. Normie Trump supporters are becoming racially aware and Jew wise. They are willing to stick up for themselves side by side with Nazis without being adverse to violence. The police departments are begging for the return of law and order and love jokes about hooked-nose merchants, but need our help in getting strongmen elected so they can do their jobs. Antifa and the kike media are so dumb they can be tricked by a monkey in a police uniform. All of this while the media continues to cover antifa in a positive light while demonizing all Trump supporters and law enforcement, further pushing them into our arms.

So: is the neo-Nazi organiser of a neo-Nazi event, at which an anti-fascist protester was murdered by one of the neo-Nazis attending the event, really the best person for Australian yoof to gain a better understanding of the meaning and significance of Charlottesville? Apparently so. The stoopid was further compounded, however, when Hack put to air a call by a nazi troll, ‘Herschel from Brisbane’. So: not only did the episode feature an interview with a neo-Nazi organiser, it also put to air neo-Nazis posing as Jews (you can read some channers discuss the raid here).

Not everybody was opposed to Tilley’s decision to give a neo-Nazi platform to talk, however: Andrew Bolt thought he did a great job.

See also : How Triple J’s Hack presenter Tom Tilley became a far-right meme, Amanda Meade, The Guardian, August 18, 2017 | How the alt-right trolled Triple J’s Hack program over Charlottesville, Broede Carmody, The Sydney Morning Herald, August 17, 2017.

In terms of the reaction by denizens of the local far right to the murderous adventures of their American kameraden, their glee-filled commentary is available on Facebook, in the comment threads on Andrew Bolt’s ‘blog’ and in all the usual places. Two notable examples (both since DELed by their authors) are the reactions of former ‘United Patriots Front’ leaders Blair Cottrell and Neil Erikson:


Ho hum. The pair, along with Chris Shortis, are due back in court in September to face charges of serious religious vilification. Oh, and speaking of patriotik volk making appearances in court, Phill Galea had another a few weeks ago, and will be back again in November:

Delays in case for accused Vic terrorist
Amber Wilson (AAP)
August 10, 2017

A pre-trial court hearing for an anti-Islam extremist accused of plotting bomb attacks in Melbourne has been delayed while senior legal counsel is sourced.

Phillip Galea, 32, is accused of making preparations for terrorist attacks against properties occupied by Melbourne anarchist groups between November 2015 and August 2016.

Police allege Galea was preparing to target various locations inhabited by the Melbourne Anarchist Club and Melbourne Resistance Centre.

He ordered potassium nitrate for smoke bombs, aligned himself with right-wing and neo-Nazi groups and researched how to make improvised explosive devices, ballistic armour and firearms, prosecutors said.

Police arson and explosive experts raided Galea’s home in November 2015, allegedly seizing five cattle prods, 362.1 grams of mercury and computer equipment, the court has been told.

The case had been set down for a two-day committal hearing at the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court, but on Thursday the court was told the matter would not go ahead while Victoria Legal Aid secured a senior counsel to act for Galea.

There was no application for bail and Galea was remanded in custody until his matter is listed again on November 13.

Otherwise:

• Michael Brull examines what happened when local boofhead (and tireless self-promoter) Avi Yemini tried to team up with fascists to organise a protest in Sydney in A Synagogue Beat-Up, Nazis In Bondi And The Strange Ambivalence From The Jewish Leadership (New Matilda, August 14, 2017);
• Among the mountains of dross in the state/corporate media re ‘antifa’, this article by Mark Bray stands out as one of the most useful: Who are the antifa?, The Washington Post, August 16, 2017;
• Some local nazis have jumped on board the hatewagon in opposition to same-sex marriage (Neo-Nazis Are On The Frontline Of The Campaign Against Marriage Equality, Osman Faruqi, Junkee, August 22, 2017). Note that, according to the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, the nazi-produced and distributed ‘Stop the Fags’ posters are a legitimate part of the public debate on the question of marriage reform (#TrueStory);
• I’ve read but not finished reviewing Angela Nagle’s Kill All Normies (Zer0 Books, 2017) but following Charlottesville, Nagle has penned ‘Goodbye, Pepe’ for The Baffler (August 15, 2017), stating that:

But I believe now that Charlottesville marks the end of a significant phase of the alt-right. Their seemingly rapid growth was fueled—or at least bulked up—by an online culture of shared hatred for the cultural left. This collective reflex acquired an ironic, countercultural edge among a growing corps of transgressive shitposters and anti-PC trolls—and was duly amplified by a media infatuation with everything subcultural and extremely-online.

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A few notes on #J25Antifa …

Posted on July 25, 2017 by @ndy

To mark ‘International Day of Solidarity with Antifascist Prisoners’ (J25Antifa) I wrote a thing for overland which you can read here.

For more infos on J25Antifa, please see the NYC ANTIFA blog.

This coming Saturday @ The Coronation Hotel in Ipswich, QLD there’s a Riffs Against Racism gig. Get along to it if you can [Facebook event page].

See also : International Anti-Fascist Defense Fund /// Bulgarian Prisoners’ Association.

* 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.

Posted in Anti-fascism, Death, History, Media, Music, Poetry, State / Politics, That's Capitalism! | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Melbourne Anarchist Bookfair 2017 : Saturday, August 12

Posted on July 22, 2017 by @ndy

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 more details, please see the MABF website, Facebook event page and Twitter account (#MABF2017). See also : Melbourne Anarchist Bookfair 2016 : Sunday, August 14 @ Brunswick Town Hall.

Posted in Anarchism, Art, Film, History, Media, Music, Poetry, State / Politics | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Rowan Dean, The Spectator, & anti-Semitism

Posted on July 14, 2017 by @ndy

Oh noes!

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 be one 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.

See also : Ctrl-Alt-Delete: The origins and ideology of the Alternative Right, Matthew N. Lyons, PRA, January 20, 2017.

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Dr Tim Anderson has some funny friends

Posted on July 13, 2017 by @ndy

[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.

Posted in Anarchism, Anti-fascism, Broken Windows, Death, History, Media, Sex & Sexuality, State / Politics, That's Capitalism!, War on Terror | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

TheDingoes.xyz /// The Convict Report /// DingoCon

Posted on July 8, 2017 by @ndy

DingoCon

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.

See also : Are These Two Jewish Dudes The Aussie Voice Of The Alt-Right?, Leon Gettler, Forward, April 5, 2017 | The Dingoes claim to be ‘growing’ part of Australian alternative-right political scene, Victoria Craw, news.com.au, December 5, 2016 | Big Nazi on Campus: How Well Dressed Racists Are Coming to a College Near You, It’s Going Down, May 15, 2016 | Dialectic of Counter-Enlightenment: The Frankfurt School as Scapegoat of the Lunatic Fringe, March 9, 2012.

======

* 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.

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antifa notes (july 4, 2017) : international solidarity, anti-antifa +++

Posted on July 4, 2017 by @ndy

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.

Antifa … Not-Antifa

As noted previously, over the course of 2017 a number of fake ‘antifa’ social media accounts have emerged. Useful for conning the uninitiated, ignorant and naive, they’re also xclnt for spoonfeeding journalists drivel (cf. Andrew Bolt @ News and Michael Koziol @ Fairfax). In the United States, sadly, the fakery has resulted in one racist meathead shooting himself in the leg! Fake Event Mobilizes far-Right at Gettysburg; Militia Member Shoots Himself in Leg, It’s Going Down, July 1, 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.

Sad!

See also : He came to rally against a non-existent protest. Then he shot himself in the leg., Greg Hadley, The Sacramento Bee, July 2, 2017 | Antifa calls Gettysburg protest rumors ‘a complete fabrication’, Dustin B Levy, USA Today, June 30, 2017.

Vigilantes R Us

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’.

See also : We must draw attention to the far right. Not to do so is a dangerous concession, Jason Wilson, The Guardian, June 29, 2017.

BONUS! Moscow Death Brigade!

Posted in !nataS, Anti-fascism, Film, Media, State / Politics, Student movement | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments