antifa notes (march 21, 2018) : nazis, patriots, drama, murder … the usual

Posted on March 21, 2018 by @ndy

Yeesh: talk about drama.

Party for Freedom /// Neil Erikson

Nick Folkes’ micro-‘Party for Freedom’ (PFF) has undergone some settling of contents over the course of the last few months. Gone is George Jameson and Penny Louise/Tridgell, along with a number of PFF placards, which George has apparently refused to return to Nick. The placards made a brief appearance at a ‘True Blue Crew’ (TBC) anti-Muslim rally in Belmont on February 24. (Note that, in reality, it appears as though there is no application before the local council for the construction of a new mosque in the area.) Incensed by this traitorous act, Nick has been going off on Facebook, taking aim not only at George and Penny but also the TBC (in both NSW and VIC), the Australia First Party, its leader Dr Jim Saleam (who he accuses of playing spin-the-bottle), and one of Jim’s QLD-based flunkeys, Jim Perren (who notably helped organise the United Patriot Front’s (UPF’s) doomed party launch in Toowoomba in February 2016 — describing it as ‘a Nuremberg rally minus the swastikas’). Oh, he also accused Melbourne local Paul ‘Guru’ Franzi of drug abuse(!), and more besides. Further, Nick’s sidekick Toby Cook has recently gone full Nazi, and the day after the TBC rally in February attended Jura Books, where he and two others — Matt Lowe and Christopher Grantham — proceeded to make arses of themselves. To top it all off, Nick invited valour thief and serial pest Ralph Cerminara to act as mediator between the TBC methgoblins and whatever remains of the PFF in Sydney in order to arrange the return of the preciousss to Nick.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In any event, here’s a sampling of the sparkling prose coming from the patriotik camp:













Last week, serial pest Neil Erikson was in court again, on this occasion to be sentenced for contempt: see : Judge scolds far-right activist Neil Erikson as ‘childish’ for wearing uniform to court, Karen Percy, March 13, 2018 | You’re talking ‘rubbish’, judge tells far-right activist Neil Erikson, The Age (AAP), March 13, 2018. While sentencing has been reserved, Neil and his dickhead mates — Garry Hume, Ricky/Rikki Turner and Richard Whelan — are due back in court in June to face charges of riot, affray, assault etc arising from the MILO stoopid of last year.

Oh, Neil also acted stoopid outside Northcote Town Hall on election day in Batman and in the company of two other men later stalked Greens leader Samantha Ratnam.

True Blue Crew

Notwithstanding the angwy words with Folkes and Freedom, the TBC is making money thru selling memberships and merchandise — seemingly, with a plan to open a gym in Melton along the lines of their kameraden ‘The Lads Society’ in Cheltenham. Last month, the TBC’s number one fan, Phill Galea, was declared fit to stand trial for alleged terrorisms:

Anti-Islam extremist Phillip Galea to stand trial on alleged bomb plot
Tessa Akerman
The Australian
February 6, 2018

An anti-Islam extremist accused of plotting bomb attacks has been ruled fit to stand trial by the Victorian Supreme Court.

Phillip Galea is charged with collecting or making documents to prepare for terrorist acts between 2015 and 2016.

Police allege Mr Galea talked about bombing the headquarters of Melbourne’s anarchists.

Mr Galea is currently represented by Legal Aid after he sacked his first law firm, which commissioned a psychiatric report that found he was unfit to stand trial.

Barrister Tim Marsh today told the Supreme Court two subsequent psychiatric reports found his client able to explain the role of judge and jury and the difference between pleas.

Justice Elizabeth Hollingworth said it appeared as though the author of the first report was trying to determine Mr Galea’s beliefs and whether they were “radical”.

The Magistrates Court has previously heard Mr Galea has links to anti-Islam groups and had allegedly made an order for potassium nitrate, which can be used to manufacture explosives.

Mr Marsh this morning said the additional reports covered whether Mr Galea would be able to participate in a trial, and he and the commonwealth prosecution were in agreement that Mr Galea was fit to stand trial.

Justice Hollingworth remitted the case back to the Magistrates Court, where Mr Galea’s case is listed for committal in April.

Otherwise, the methgoblins cancelled a proposed meeting in Tarneit to organise anti-African vigilantes, but on the plus side have declared that, in-between court dates, they’ll be having another flagwit parade in June in Melbourne (see : June 26, 2016 : True Blue Crew & Co ~versus~ Melbourne and Australian Pride /// Flagwit Rally, June 25, 2017 : Recap), and will be joined by dozens of racist gronks in Sydney and elsewhere.

Aryan Nations /// Antipodean Resistance

In Perth, Aryan Nations members Robert Wayne Edhouse and Melony Attwood were convicted of murdering Attwood’s partner, Alan Taylor, seemingly in order to obtain his life insurance. See : Robert Edhouse and Melony Attwood convicted of murder in Nazi ‘death squad’ killing of Alan Taylor, Tim Clarke, The West Australian, March 12, 2018 | Perth murder scene reveals desperate attempts to conceal what really happened, Phil Hickey, WA Today, March 13, 2018 | Melony Attwood made distressed triple-0 call over murder with Aryan Nations boyfriend, Joanna Menagh, ABC, March 15, 2018.

While this may suggest the end of Aryan Nations in Perth, at least some of the handful of boneheads associated with the brand have instead decided to re-badge as ‘Combat 18’. Oh, I should also add that the site of the murder was also the site of Blair Cottrell’s announcement in November 2015 that he would be forming a political party (‘Fortitude’); he and other members of the UPF Melbourne having been guests of the Aryan Nations’ murderers for that weekend’s ‘Reclaim Australia’ rally.

As for Antipodean Resistance, they’ve been carrying on chucking up posters and going for walks and doing some other stuff. Their kameraden in the US (Atomwaffen) and the UK (National Action) have also been making headlines, albeit for killing people and doing terrorisms. VICE UK has recently published a series of articles on the far-right under the collective title of ‘Hate Island’; it includes one examining ironmarch dot org, a/k/a ‘The Obscure Neo-Nazi Forum Linked to a Wave of Terror’ (James Poulter, March 12 2018):

Ironmarch.org was not the kind of website to hang out on if you knew what was good for you. A swastika-plastered forum which took its users on a shared journey of extreme radicalisation, it kickstarted an international wave of Nazi terror.

Users of Ironmarch.org have attempted a mall shooting; murdered two young men; attempted to hack a Sikh dentist to death with a machete; and have been found to be in possession of illegal weapons and materials to make bombs, among other crimes. While these acts of violence mostly took place in North America, the forum had plenty of fans in the UK.

One of Ironmarch’s administrators founded the banned British Nazi terror group National Action (NA), while an infographic produced by the site lists NA among its “affiliated groups”, under the heading “Ironmarch members in the global fascist struggle”.

Curiously, along with National Action (banned by the UK government as a ‘terrorist’ organisation), Atomwaffen and Skydas (Lithuania), Antipodean Resistance is the only other group listed as an affiliate of IronMarch.

Meanwhile, antifa in Eugene, Oregon have been doing a bit of digging into Atomwaffen: Mr. and Mrs. Maci: The Atomwaffen Division Implodes (March 8, 2018).

See also : YouTube Belatedly Bans Neo-Nazi Group Atomwaffen, Melanie Ehrenkranz, Gizmodo, March 2, 2018 | Read the Chilling Texts of Nazis Celebrating the Murder of a Jewish Teen, A.C. Thompson, Ali Winston and Jake Hanrahan, Mother Jones, March 1, 2018 (‘When Samuel Woodward was charged with killing Blaze Bernstein last month, other Atomwaffen members cheered the death’).

Jordan Peterson

Kermit The Flog was in town recently. The following reviewers give his latest tome on 12 Rules For Life Big Ups:

Postmodernism Did Not Take Place: On Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, Shuja Haider, Viewpoint, January 23, 2018 | A Messiah-cum-Surrogate-Dad for Gormless Dimwits: On Jordan B. Peterson’s “12 Rules for Life”, Houman Barekat, LA Review of Books, March 11, 2018 | The Intellectual We Deserve, Nathan J Robinson, Current Affairs, March 14, 2018 | Jordan Peterson & Fascist Mysticism, Pankaj Mishra, The New York Review of Books, March 19, 2018.

*US propagandist Daniel Pipes was also recently in the cuntry: see : Daniel Pipes Comes to Melbourne: Are Australian Muslims Right to be Outraged?, Chloe Patton, ABC Religion and Ethics, March 8, 2018.

Mr Potato Head

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has extended the white hand of friendship to white farmers in South Africa and informed them that STRAYA has indeed ‘boundless plains to share’ (with white men). According to Jason Wilson, Peter Dutton’s offer to white South African farmers started on the far right (The Guardian, March 16, 2018) — which seems about right. According to Jon Piccini, Peter Dutton’s ‘fast track’ for white South African farmers is a throwback to a long, racist history (The Conversation, March 19, 2018) … which again, seems about reich. (See also : Drawing The Global Colour Line, Henry Reynolds, Marilyn Lake, Melbourne University Press, 2008.)

Dutton’s kamerad, the Very Ethical Jim Molan, was angwy and upset (presumably) when Little Britain First leaders Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen were jailed for hate crimes a few weeks ago; worse yet, the hate criminals had their Facebook page deleted. Oh, and Golding was attacked in prison and had his nose broken last week.

See also : Debunking a Myth: The Irish Were Not Slaves Too, Liam Stack, The New York Times, March 17, 2017.

terrorisms

In Germany, a number of neo-Nazis have been jailed for attacks upon refugees: see : Germany: Far-right ‘terrorists’ jailed for attacks on refugees, Al Jazeera, March 8, 2018 (‘Dresden’s high court sentences seven members of the Freital Group to between five and 10 years for attempted murder’).

In Greece, alleged members of neo-Nazi group ‘Combat 18’ got arrest: see : Greek counter-terrorism squad arrests five suspected of neo-Nazi group involvement, Neos Kosmos, March 7, 2018 (‘The men are alleged members of far-right criminal group, Combat 18, and suspected of involvement in a series of arson attacks and explosions’).

anTEEfa

Arsenal Pulp Press in Canuckistan is publishing a cartoon guide: The Antifa Comic Book: 100 Years of Fascism and Antifa Movements Around the World by Gord Hill.

In Russia, police in St Petersburg have arrested a man allegedly responsible for organising the murder of antifascist Timur Kacharava in 2005 (St. Petersburg: Police arrests man behind antifa activist Timur Kacharava’s assassination, Crime Russia, February 23, 2018). Elsewhere, Russian authorities have been keeping busy repressing anarchists and anti-fascists; a useful summary of recent bastardy is available via avtonom dot org: Review of repressions against anarchists in Russia – 2017 and first months of 2018. In Sydney on the weekend, local anti-fascists held a smol rally outside the Russian consulate in solidarity with compañerxs in Russia.

Finally, two four recent articles examine the impact anti-fascist action has had on fascist organising in the US: Is Antifa Counterproductive? White Nationalist Richard Spencer Would Beg to Differ., Natasha Lennard, The Intercept, March 17, 2018 | The alt-right is in decline. Has antifascist activism worked?, Jason Wilson, The Guardian, March 18, 2018 | How Antifa uses no-platforming successfully to fight white supremacy, David Griscom, New Statesman, March 19, 2018 | Antifa Has Richard Spencer on the Run. Does That Vindicate Its Tactics?, Joshua Holland, The Nation, March 22, 2018 (‘There’s good reason to believe that antifa’s success has come despite violent tactics, not because of them’).

Speaking of which …

Heimbach, Spencer, & The Yanqui AltReich

Recently, in Michigan, both Richard Spencer and Matt Heimbach had A Very Bad Time: see : After Fights And Arrests, Richard Spencer Speaks To Tiny Crowd At Michigan State, Christopher Mathias, Huffington Post, March 6, 2018 (‘Spencer and his white supremacist buddies had a miserable two days in Michigan. Everywhere they went, anti-fascist protesters were waiting’). Worse was to come for Heimbach, after he was caught fucking his father-in-law’s (Matt Parrott’s) wife; Parrott also being the other key leader of the neo-Nazi groupuscule ‘Traditionalist Worker Party’. See : How a white nationalist’s family came to blows over a trailer tryst, Marwa Eltagouri and Avi Selk, The Washington Post, March 14, 2018 | Neo-Nazi Group Implodes Over Love Triangle Turned Trailer Brawl, Kelly Weill, The Daily Beast, March 14, 2018 (‘Matthew Heimbach and his spokesman came to blows after Heimbach was caught sleeping with the spokesman’s wife. What’s more, Heimbach is married to the spokesman’s stepdaughter’).

M A S T E R R A C E.

See also : Alex Jones is a menace to society. I’m suing him., Brennan Gilmore, The Washington Post, March 14, 2018.

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Firearm Owners United with neo-Nazis : What Could Go Wrogn?

Posted on March 8, 2018 by @ndy

I’ll add some things to this later, but in the meantime …

Gun lobby group that helped bankroll One Nation linked to anti-Islam group / Special report: Firearm Owners United founder James Buckle attended United Patriots Front rallies, Michael McGowan, The Guardian, March 8, 2018; Australian gun lobby invests in rightwing parties in push to weaken reforms / Exclusive: Cashed-up firearm groups are using ballooning memberships to flex their political muscle, Michael McGowan, The Guardian, March 7, 2018.

See also : ‘The Lads Society’ : A new neo-Nazi social club opens in Melbourne (October 28, 2017).

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It’s Okay to Be White @ The University of Melbourne

Posted on February 28, 2018 by @ndy

On Monday, two men gathered outside the Baillieu Library at the University of Melbourne’s Parkville campus in order to distribute leaflets reading ‘It’s OK to Be White’. They were soon accosted by students and escorted to another part of campus by security (see : “Neo-Nazis” Escorted Off Campus on First Day of 2018, Ashleigh Barraclough and Monique O’Rafferty, Farrago, February 26, 2018). According to a witness:

Yesterday I was outside the library when a person handed me a piece of paper. The A4 leaflet read “it’s okay to be white”. He then demanded to know whether I was white or Jewish!

The guy who handed me that leaflet was not a stranger to me. I’ve seen him and his friend around campus before—sieg heiling when I’m doing left wing stalls, handing out leaflets advertising Adolf Hitler, postering pro-Trump propaganda and threatening people who speak up with “physical force”.

While I’m unsure which of the two men the writer is referring to, it does appear to be the case that one of them, Alex Wojno (pictured above on right wearing sunglasses), is indeed a student at the University.

Alex — who is also known as Aleksander/Alexander Wojno/Wojnowski — travels under the name of ‘Sefir Malthus’ on Facebook, and has many, ah, interesting opinions, inter alia defending White nationalist and aspiring Senator Paul Nehlen from unfair attacks by You-Know-Who:

as well as expressing commonly-held views on refugees:

Oddly enough, Alex was born in South Africa in 1995, and only came to Australia as a child. It would also appear to be the case that Alex completed an undergraduate degree in science before enrolling in medicine at Melbourne.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In other news: the baby nazis of Antipodean Resistance distroed shite on the weekend at various University campuses (La Trobe University’s Bendigo campus, UTAS, and Victoria University’s Footscray campus) and at the offices of Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson in Launceston. Ho hum. More seriously, Atomwaffen, the kissing cousins of Antipodean Resistance in the US, have been killing folks and talking terror. See : Inside Atomwaffen As It Celebrates a Member for Allegedly Killing a Gay Jewish College Student, A.C. Thompson, Ali Winston, Jake Hanrahan, ProPublica, February 23, 2018. Finally, Aryan Nations were in court again yesterday (see : Aryan Nations leader accuses associate of murdering man with claw hammer and knuckle dusters, Joanna Menagh, February 27, 2018). Note that the accused killers played host to the ‘United Patriots Front’ when they visited Perth in November 2015 and that their residence was used by Blair Cottrell as the location for the announcement that the UPF would be forming a political party, ‘Fortitude’. (The UPF has since morphed into something called ‘The Lads Society’.)

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antifa notes (february 11, 2018) : The Radical Right in Australia / Aryan Nations On Trial in Perth &tc

Posted on February 11, 2018 by @ndy

1) ‘The Radical Right in Australia’

OUP has published an essay on ‘The Radical Right in Australia’ by myself and Aurelien Mondon which you can read online or download for free here. The chapter is one of many in The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right (edited by Jens Rydgren) which will be published in hard-copy in a few months and which is intended to provide the reader with ‘an authoritative state-of-the-art overview of the scholarship on the contemporary radical right’.

Compared to its European counterparts, Australia was for the most part spared the rise of powerful extreme right movements, and at times appeared immune to their appeal. However, rather than immunity, the absence of extreme right politics can be explained by the ability and willingness of mainstream politics to readily, openly, and officially absorb such values. This chapter discusses how, for most of the country’s history, Australian mainstream politicians suffocated the extreme right, not merely by borrowing some key ideas of the extreme right, but by negating entirely its ability to appear as an alternative to the power in place. It then turns to the 1990s and explores the rise of Hansonism and its impact on mainstream politics. The final part of the chapter is dedicated to the current state of radical right politics in Australia.

2) Aryan Fortitude

Members of the Perth-based neo-Nazi groupuscule ‘Aryan Nations’ were in court last week, charged with murder: ‘Robert Wayne Edhouse, 22, Melony Jane Attwood, 36, and Corey Joshua Dymock, 21, are on trial in WA’s Supreme Court accused of murdering Ms Atwood’s partner, 42-year-old Alan Taylor, at their Girrawheen home in April 2016’ (Aryan Nations white supremacist ‘death squad’ murdered man for insurance claim, court told, Joanna Menagh, ABC, February 8, 2018). See also : Aryan Nations Perth: FIFO worker Alan Taylor allegedly killed by Nazi ‘death squad’, Tim Clarke, PerthNow, February 8, 2018 | ‘Death squad’ on trial for brutal murder of Perth man, Tegan Sapwell, 9News, February 9, 2018.

Leaving to one side the horrific nature of the alleged crime, it’s worth noting that the Aryan Nations played host to members of the United Patriots Front (now known as ‘The Lads Society’) when they visited Perth in November 2015 in order to both attend a Reclaim Australia anti-Muslim rally as well as to announce the formation of their political party, ‘Fortitude’. Indeed, the announcement by Blair Cottrell — in the company of Melbourne-based UPF members Neil Erikson, Chris Shortis, Tom Sewell and Linden Watson and Perth-based members Kevin Coombes (‘Elijah Jacobson’) and Dennis Huts — would appear to have taken place in the same property which, just a few months later, was the site of the grisly murder by their Perth neo-Nazi kameraden.

3) Vigilantes R Us

Closer to home, local superhero Daniel Jones has been in the news, touting his business and the virtues of vigilantism.

Founder of Epping ‘community response group’ says they’re not vigilantes
Paul Shapiro
Whittlesea Leader
February 5, 2018

WHITTLESEA’s top cop has poured cold water on a crime-fighting “community response group” led by a martial-arts expert.

Daniel Jones, the owner of martial-arts school Tactical Force Combatives, is in the early stages of setting up a “community response group” to deal with thugs and criminals despite police discouraging the plan.

Mr Jones said he had no fear of being harmed physically while confronting offenders.

He denied the group would act as vigilantes but rather said it would provide a community service where people in “distress” could contact “interested parties in the local area that would be able to rush to their assistance”.

“We’re not vigilantes because we don’t want to hurt people, we just want to help people who are in danger,” Mr Jones said.

“I’d prefer to handle any situation verbally but it wouldn’t concern me if it did get physical because I’m more than capable [of] dealing with aggressive behaviour.”

Mr Jones specialises in Krav Maga, an Israeli military self-defence system, and has experience as a security guard.

He said anyone “smashing in a front door” would most likely flee when his team arrived.

However, Victoria Police were quick to discourage the plan …

Daniel certainly gets around the traps, sticking his face in at Reclaim rallies in 2015, acting as bodyguard to Avi Yemini at his rally against crimens in September and at the MILO stoopid in December 2017 and more recently palling around and conspiring with neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell at the nü neo-Nazi clubhouse in Cheltenham (at a meeting to talk about taking on #AfricanGangs).

4) On other islands …

In the United States, billionaires and their right-wing foot-soldiers on college campuses are stepping up attacks on academics and higher education.

• Far-right attacks on faculty hurt us all, Jessie Daniels, Clarion, February 2018: ‘The increasing attacks on faculty are part of a well-funded and orchestrated campaign by the far right. Their strategy is to use social media to discredit academics and thereby devalue higher education.’
• No Re-Turning Point, U.S.A., The Baffler, Maximillian Alvarez, January 26, 2018: ‘From the “Professor Watchlist” to Tariq Khan, TPUSA’s campaign to silence opposition.’
• The Eye of the Troll Storm: Tariq Khan Interview with It’s Going Down, Black Rose/Rosa Negra, February 10, 2018:

In November, PhD student of history in Illinois, father, and Air Force veteran Tariq Khan, found himself in the center of a whirlwind of controversy, and a punching bag for a variety of Alt-Right and Alt-Lite blowhards – from InfoWars, to Gavin McInnes, to Anthony Scaramucci. Tariq stood accused of getting into a verbal argument with other students following a Trump protest, and the video of the argument, which shows people yelling at each other and ends in a phone being dropped on the ground, surfaced on the website, Campus Reform, the media wing of Turning Point USA. TPUSA is a growing collection of paleoconservative and Alt-Lite Libertarian students on campuses across the US, is financially backed by massive foundations and billionaires like the Koch Brothers, and is most known for harassing professors and students, often leading to individuals receiving massive amounts of death threats.

• Neo-Nazi organiser Elliott Kline (‘Eli Mosley’) was the go-to guy for JJJ’s Hack current affairs program back in August, called upon to explain to The Kids what happened in Charlottesville; he’s now been featured in an article for The New York Times (How Our Reporter Uncovered a Lie That Propelled an Alt-Right Extremist’s Rise, Emma Cott, February 5, 2018) which calls into question a number of aspects of his biography. Fingers xed, JJJ will have him back on to explain How Jews Control The Media. Oh, and in California, police have been collaborating with neo-Nazis in order to bring about prosecutions of anTEEfa (and otherwise being a nanny-state to fascists). See : California police worked with neo-Nazis to pursue ‘anti-racist’ activists, documents show, Same Levin, The Guardian, February 9, 2018.

• Finally, in the birthplace of Fascism, things are once again looking promising for the movement as a recent fascist terrorist attack ‘has highlighted the growing threat of Italy’s far right in the lead-up to the March 4 elections’ (Italy’s New Racist Storm, Richard Brodie, Jacobin, February 9, 2018).

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Keyboard Warriors of the Australian #AltRight : XYZ & David Hiscox

Posted on February 5, 2018 by @ndy

XYZ dot net dot au (‘The XYZ’) is one of a small number of Australian ‘AltRight’ blogs/websites/podcasts that have sprung up in the last few years … but admittedly not one that I’ve paid much attention to.*

Collectively, these sites have dedicated themselves to battling ‘Cultural Marxism’, which in the case of ‘The XYZ’ finds its chief expression in ‘The ABC’. Of course, along with ‘The ABC’, ‘The XYZ’ regularly denounces The ALP, The Feminists, The Greens, The Leftists, The Muslims, The Queers, The Unions, ‘multiculturalism’, ‘political correctness’ and sundry other un-Australian forces. As such, it’s not unlike one of Uncle Rupert’s tabloids, and its ideological obsessions are typical of the Tory yoof who appear to be its chief market. Recently, however, the blog (‘online newspaper’) has been becoming increasingly batshit, seemingly under the influence of the US Alt-Right and following the triumph of God Emperor Trump.

Above : David Hiscox. ‘When I am not worrying about the fate of Western civilisation, I play the piano’ (‘Felix Mendelssohn and Germany’s proud Christmas heritage’, December 20, 2016).

‘The XYZ’ is the bRaneschild of David Hiscox, a local musician and music teacher. As editor, David is the most frequent contributor to the site, publishing around a third of its output, followed by Ryan Fletcher. (David Hilton, previously known as ‘Moses Apostaticus’, is another contributor.) Whether or not Ryan has pulled one too many cones, or perhaps simply received one too many knocks to the head, over the course of the last year or so he’s become increasingly open in his espousal of anti-Semitism and White nationalism. Further, the content on the site more generally has increasingly adopted more frank expressions of commitment to the AltRight than was present when David first began publishing it.

Previously content to describe itself as a ‘classical liberal’ platform committed to celebrating ‘free speech’, ‘free markets’ and ‘Western Civilisation’, the site has recently extended its mission to the defence of ‘cultural libertarianism’ from ‘cultural authoritarians’: ‘We also stand in opposition to cultural Marxism, which seeks to bring about socialism by attacking political, cultural, social, and religious norms and institutions – dismantling our national identity and the foundations of Western civilisation’. Shortly after launching its crusade in mid-2015, ‘The XYZ’ had also joined the fight against Islam which, like Cultural Marxism, allegedly poses an ‘existential threat’ to ‘Western Civilisation’.

In summary, David and ‘The XYZ’ have adopted wholesale the talking-points of the US AltRight and recent postings suggest that they’re finally beginning to (more openly) address ‘The JQ’. This is particularly in evidence in Ryan Fletcher and David Hilton’s contributions to the site but is also reflected in the commentary, which is increasingly beginning to resemble threads on ‘The Daily Stormer’. Below is just a few examples of the hundreds of barking-mad, anti-Semitic, and increasingly violent commentary by Mr Fletcher and others (the last being a reference to the murder of Heather Heyer and serious injury to others by a neo-Nazi in Charlottesville last year):



Still, in fairness to David, the laissez-faire comments policy which allowed for racist and anti-Semitic creeps to infest the site has recently been ended. Not because of the grotesque racism and misogyny, of course, but because two keyboard warriors were sniping at one another: ‘The line for me came when I saw two contributors engaged in what had degenerated from rugged debate into open civil war’ (‘A few comments on comments’, February 4, 2018).

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

* Other sites/groups/projects include ‘The Australian Traditional Nationalist’, ‘The Convict Report/The Dingoes’, ‘The Lads Society’, ‘The Unhinged’, ‘Zero Filter’ and ‘Proud Boys Australia’. See also : Keyboard warriors of the alt-right have Australia in their sights, Daniel Flitton, The Sydney Morning Herald, November 26, 2016.

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antifa notes (february 3, 2018) : STRAYA Day +++

Posted on February 3, 2018 by @ndy

STRAYA Day

Tens of thousands of people attended Invasion Day rallies across the country, with the rally in Melbourne attracting anywhere from 30,000 to 60,000. See : Invasion Day: the tide is turning, Lalitha Chelliah & Jacob Andrewartha, Green Left Weekly, February 2, 2018 | Invasion Day marked by thousands of protesters calling for equal rights, change of date, ABC, January 27, 2018 | ‘People are starting to understand’: huge Invasion Day protest stuns Melbourne, Calla Wahlquist, The Guardian, January 26, 2018 | ‘Invasion day’ rally draws crowds as agitator barred from ceremony, Tammy Mills, Gene Efron, Tom Cowie, The Age, January 26, 2018.

Apart from its size, the rally in Melbourne was fairly unremarkable — people assembled, listened to speeches, and marched. A comment by Tarneen Onus-Williams, however, enshrined her as the latest entry in STRAYA’s Hate Week:

“Fuck Australia. Hope it burns to the ground,” Onus-Williams said.

“If you celebrate Australia Day, fucker, you’re celebrating the death of my ancestors. All you fellas with the Australian flag should be so embarrassed with yourself. It’s embarrassing. It’s embarrassing that you celebrate people’s deaths, the people of this land’s death. You make me sick to my stomach.”

In response to the Melbourne rally, Warren Mundine’s Knee demanded that the ‘Koorie Youth Council’/KYC (for which Onus-Williams works as a volunteer) be immediately defunded:

I support moving Australia Day to 1 January. But this lot says “We don’t want to celebrate Australia Day at all.’’ They’re ashamed of Australia. They insult all Australians and Aboriginal people who campaigned for equality & inclusion. Koorie Youth Council should be defunded. I call on Daniel Andrews, Matthew Guy, Senator Richard Di Natale, Bill Shorten MP, Malcolm Turnbull and Senator Nigel Scullion to take all steps necessary to immediately defund KYC[.]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Note that the principal organiser of the rally was a group called ‘Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance’ (WAR), not the KYC; the KYC later issued a statement reiterating this fact and distancing itself from Onus-Williams’ remarks. See also : Australia Is Tearing Down Another Woman Of Colour For Daring To Have An Opinion, Osman Faruqi, Junkee, January 31, 2018 | The Audacity of Anger, Chelsea Bond, IndigenousX, January 29, 2018.

WAR issued its own response to the kerfuffle, which you can read here, while #IStandWithTarneen became A Thing, and Tarneen elaborated on her views in ‘Invasion day’ rally organiser says her comments Australia should ‘burn to the ground’ should not be taken literally, Melissa Cunningham, Adam Carey, The Age, January 26, 2018.

As The Age report notes, earlier in the day Neil Erikson and ‘Patriot Blue’ — which on this occasion consisted of Neil and a handful of his mates — assembled at Moreland Council chambers in the morning to protest against Creeping Shariah & Cultural Marxism outside a citizenship ceremony; proceeded to the CBD to briefly occupy the steps of Parliament (long after the Invasion Day rally had left the assembly point); before eventually making their way to St Kilda, where the methgoblins of the ‘True Blue Crew’ and the remnants of the ‘United Patriots Front’ — now known as ‘The Lads Society’ — had organised a celebratory BBQ. About 50 or so patriotik volk rocked up. See : No clashes as patriots party with flags, cricket and racist slurs, Tom Cowie, The Age, January 26, 2018 | Fascists frolic on the foreshore, Ben Hillier, Red Flag, January 26, 2018.

local &/or general

In Sydney, the micro-Party for Freedom would appear to be in pretty dire health, with ‘Patriot Blue’ boy George Jameson leaving the group and Nick Folkes handing over the reins to Toby Cook, who’s recently come out as a neo-Nazi:

Some recent articles of interest include:

• The neo-Nazi has no clothes: In search of Matt Heimbach’s bogus ‘white ethnostate’, Caitlin Dickson, Yahoo News, February 2, 2018;
• Antifa vs. Milo Yiannopoulos: Who won?, Mark Bray, Salon, February 1, 2018 (‘It’s been a year since anti-fascist protests shut down a Yiannopoulos gig at UC Berkeley, to much media criticism’);
• An Investigation Into Red-Brown Alliances: Third Positionism, Russia, Ukraine, Syria, And The Western Left, libcom/Ravings Of A Radical Vagabond, February 1, 2018 (‘… is a comprehensive summary of Third Positionist fascist currents old and new, and the successful insertion of their ideas into leftist milieus and alternative media outlets’ — but one which requires some editing for clarity);
• The Rise of Australia’s Activist Far Right: How Far Will It Go?, Julie Nathan, ABC Religion and Ethics, January 31, 2018;
• How the far right has perfected the art of deniable racism, Gary Younge, The Guardian, January 26, 2018 (‘Electoral successes in Europe and the US are the result of a process whereby bigotry is made palatable’);
• A Decade of Resistance, Gabriel Hershman, Eye On Bulgaria, January 24, 2018 (‘Not even 10 years inside has quashed Jock Palfreeman’s spirits. A lesser man might have crumbled. To most people the processes that jailed Palfreeman, and then upheld his conviction for the murder of Andrei Monov, were marked by blatant corruption and lies’);
• Postmodernism Did Not Take Place: On Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, Shuja Haider, Viewpoint, January 23, 2018 (‘A specter is haunting North America — the specter of postmodernism. Or at least, that’s what Jordan Peterson would have you believe. Peterson, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, has entered into an unholy alliance with all the powers of the alt-right to exorcise this specter. Though he calls himself a “British classical liberal,” Peterson’s appeal feeds into the most reactionary tendencies in contemporary politics’).

Finally, in the US, Samuel Woodward, a member of neo-Nazi grouplet ‘Atomwaffen Division’, has been arrested and charged with the murder of a 19yo Jewish antifascist, Blaze Bernstein. The group has been linked to other murders as well. See : Suspects in five killings reportedly linked to macabre neo-Nazi group, Kyle Swenson, The Washington Post, January 29, 2018 | The Suspect in the Killing of Blaze Bernstein Belonged to a Neo-Nazi Group Allegedly Connected to Four Other Murders, Molly Olmstead, Slate, January 31, 2018 | 1 Neo-Nazi Group. 5 Murders In 8 Months., Christopher Mathias, The Huffington Post, February 1, 2018 (‘The Atomwaffen Division has emerged as one of the most disturbing and volatile hate groups in America.’) | What Is Atomwaffen Division, The Nazi Group Tied To The Murder Of Blaze Bernstein?, Sam Kestenbaum, Forward, February 1, 2018.

BONUS! Pepe

A very rare Pepe made an appearance at the Brisbane Invasion Day rally!

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From Cronulla to St Kilda? Australia/Invasion/Survival Day 2018

Posted on January 23, 2018 by @ndy

This Friday, the racist methgoblins of the True Blue Crew, in conjunction with the neo-Nazi remnants of the United Patriots Front now known as ‘The Lads Society’, are holding a rally and BBQ at St Kilda Beach. This is both a patriotik event and, perhaps, a response to recent news that #AfricanGangs have been running amok. The fact that Romper Stomper also featured a similar party at the beach is no doubt a coincidence. In any event, joining the boys will be Neil Erikson and ‘Patriot Blue’ (see Romper Stomper); or at least, that’s what The Australian reckons:

Neil Erikson and far-right group want to ‘welcome’ new Australians
Richard Ferguson
The Australian
January 22, 2018

A Victorian far-right activist has defended his plans to disrupt a citizenship ceremony at an anti-Australia Day local council.

Neil Erikson says he and other members of his group Patriot Blue would be counter-protesting Moreland City Council, which voted last year to scrap Australia Day.

“We’re not here to scare anyone, we’re peaceful … we want to welcome the new citizens at Moreland City Council to know it’s not just January 26, it’s Australia Day,” he told The Australian.

“And to know that the councillors are a bunch of undemocratic, treasonous communists.”

Mr Erikson, a former neo-Nazi, also said he will attend an Invasion Day rally in Melbourne’s CBD on Friday where he and Patriot Blue members will counter-protest with Australian flags.

“If the violent left want to attack us, that’s on them … we expect the police to protect us and protect Australia Day.”

Thousands of people, including children, are expected at Friday’s rally where they will demand [sic] Australia Day’s date is changed from January 26, which they consider offensive to Aboriginal people as it is the anniversary of the First Fleet and the start of colonialism.

Mr Erikson came to national prominence for ambushing former Labor senator Sam Dastyari in a Melbourne bar last year.

It was revealed last week in the Federal Circuit Court Mr Erikson had recently been charged with assault, affray and riotous behaviour in regards to a riot outside far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos’s Melbourne speaking gig last month.

Moreland City Council was targeted by a group including Mr Erikson last October for its decision to support a change to Australia Day’s date, when far-right protesters crashed a council meeting and brandished a fake coffin with the national flag painted on it.

But the council has only received a formal warning from the federal government over their anti-Australia Day stance unlike Yarra and Darebin Councils which had their citizenship ceremonies cancelled.

Sources close to the council said they had expected to fly under the radar of far right activists on Friday as their citizenship event clashed directly with the Invasion Day rally.

Mayor John Kavanagh said Moreland City has updated its security arrangements and had been working with Victoria Police in the run up to their Friday citizenship ceremony.

“It would be incredibly disappointing if such a joyous occasion was tarnished by individuals or groups protesting something unrelated to the ceremony,” he said.

Invasion Day rally organiser Tarneen Onus-Williams told The Australian she did not fear for the safety of her fellow protesters due to the large police presence she expects to be in the CBD on Friday.

“We also have legal observers and human rights observers coming who will be keeping watch over the rally,” she said.

Ms Onus-Williams said any violence would be a result of the “far right protesting against us.”

“This is a family event and people often bring children, our nieces and nephews and little cousins are there. This is not a violent protest,” she said.

Victoria Police told The Australian protesters and other Melburnians would note an “increased police presence” on Australia Day this year.

“Extensive planning has been undertaken with all relevant stakeholders including local councils … As always, police will not tolerate any anti-social or criminal behaviour,” a police spokesman said.

Note that Neil was angwy and upset at the popularity of last year’s Invasion Day rally in Melbourne, wishing that alleged killer James Gargasoulas — ‘accused of driving a car through the busy Bourke Street mall and along the footpath for several blocks on January 20, hitting and killing six people and injuring many others’ — had driven his car into the crowd:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Note:

• Along with Neil, Garry Hume, Ricky/Rikki Turner and Richard Whelan of ‘Patriot Blue’ are also facing charges in connection to the MILO stoopid of December last year;
• Both Garry (in blue jumpsuit) and Ricky/Rikki joined Neil in disrupting the Moreland Council meeting in October last year.

Never Mind The (White) Nationalist Bollocks, Here’s The Invasion Day Protests

2018 marks the 80th anniversary of the ‘Day of Mourning’: ‘a protest held by Aboriginal Australians on 26 January 1938, the sesquicentenary of British colonisation of Australia’.

Welcome To Country details a range of activities on January 26 in Melbourne, Meanjin (Brisbane), Sydney, Perth, Canberra, Adelaide, Darwin, Townsville, Hobart, Lismore and Bermagui; you can also celebrate Survival Day in Belgrave. The Melbourne (Naarm) event kicks off with a rally at 11am at Parliament; supporters are asked to bring flowers to lay on the steps if they’re so inclined. The Balit Narrun Festival commences at 1pm in Treasury Gardens. According to organisers, the ‘artistic direction for 2018 is about ‘strength in culture’ with the Songlines changing the name of the festival to Balit Narrun (Strong Spirit). Balit Narrun will feature cultural art, music, dance. It is family friendly, and will have food and children’s activities available’. See also : Survival Day events around Australia – What, When and Where?, NITV, January 23, 2018.

Indigenous X has published/is publishing a series of articles and reflections on Australia/Invasion/Survival Day, by Claire G Coleman, Tony Birch, Karen Wyld, Matt Hefferan and Eugenia Fylnn.

Finally, a note on history by way of Robert Hughes (The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia’s Founding, 1986):

• The proposal to colonize Botany Bay with convicts was formally drawn up in an unsigned document titled “Heads of a Plan for effectually disposing of convicts” and was presented to the British cabinet in August 1786. Its emphasis was clear: The proposed colony would serve as “a remedy for the evils likely to result from the late alarming and numerous increase of felons in this country, and more particularly in the metropolis.” The secondary benefit of the region’s raw materials was presented at the end of the document: “It may also be proper to attend to the possibility of procuring… masts and ships’ timber for the use of our fleets in India, as the distance between the two countries is not greater than between Great Britain and America…”

• By 1837, hanging was mainly restricted to cases of murder, while crime after crime — forgery, cattle-theft, housebreaking — was relegated to the less terrible and magical status of a “transportable” offense. Slowly, the English authorities acknowledged the mistakes and fantasies that had led their predecessors to fetishize the death penalty. But the real rise of transportation began, not with the law itself, but with its new enforcers: the “peelers,” the English police, established by Sir Robert Peel in 1827 [see also : Origins of the police, David Whitehouse, worxintheory, December 7, 2014]. A police force meant a huge rise, not in gross crime, but in successful arrests and convictions. Likewise, the abandonment of transportation was not caused by any fall in crime, but by three other factors: the growing moral and political opposition to the System of transportation among English reformers in the 1830s, the growth of an alternative English penitentiary system and the Australians’ own opposition to a continuous dumping of fresh criminals on what, after 50 years of settlement, they had come to view as their own soil.

• In their most sanguine moments, the authorities hoped that Australia would eventually swallow a whole class — the “criminal class,” whose existence was one of the prime sociological beliefs of late Georgian and early Victorian England. Australia was settled to defend English property not from the frog-eating invader across the Channel but from the marauder within. English lawmakers wished not only to get rid of the “criminal class” but if possible to forget about it. Australia was a cloaca, invisible, its contents filthy and unnameable. Jeremy Bentham, inveighing against the “thief-colony” in 1812, argued that transportation: “…was indeed a measure of experiment… but the subject-matter of experiment was, in this case, a peculiarly commodious one; a set of animae viles, a sort of excrementitious mass, that could be projected, and accordingly was projected — projected, and as it should seem purposely — as far out of sight as possible.”

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#7SummerOfNazis : The True Blue Crew & Co. Go Hunting Blacks While Channel 7 Cheers

Posted on January 16, 2018 by @ndy

img via The Simpsons against the Liberals

[UPDATE (January 17, 2018) : See also : How do you solve a problem like the ‘African Gang Crisis?’, Cam Smith, Overland, January 17, 2018.]

For those of you coming in late, on Sunday in Cheltenham the ‘True Blue Crew’ (TBC) — a racist street-gang based in Melton and Bendigo — organised a meeting in order to discuss the establishment of a vigilante group, one tasked with tackling #AfricanGangs. According to reports, the meeting attracted several dozen people: members of the TBC, the ‘United Patriots Front’ (UPF), and several members of other tiny, radical right-wing satellites.

Announced some weeks ago, the TBC declared that the meeting would be held at a secret location, the details of which would be released on late Sunday morning to those who’d expressed an interest in attending and passed their stringent vetting procedures. This was arranged so that the meeting would not be subject to disruption. Within the space of a few hours of this information being distributed, however, it was also made public: the TBC would be meeting at 4pm at Eddie’s bar in Cheltenham. Not long after this, and seemingly as the result of inquiries from journalists and concerned members of the public, the bar’s management decided to cancel the group’s booking, forcing them to hold the event elsewhere.

That elsewhere was Unit 9, 158 Chesterville Road, Cheltenham, the site of something called the ‘Lads Society’.

The ‘Lads Society’ announced its existence in October last year. The property was leased by UPF líder máximo Blair Cottrell’s sidekick, Thomas Sewell, who is joined by, among others, James Buckle — the President of gun lobby group ‘Firearm Owners United’. In promotional material for the new project, Tom indicated that among the reading materials the ‘Lads’ could enjoy perusing at the Society was Mein Kampf, the text Blair Cottrell notoriously declared that he wants issued to all Australian school children.

Annually.

See also : White nationalists True Blue Crew vow vigilante action in Melbourne, Rachel Eddie, The New Daily, January 14, 2018.

While some media did attend the event, and police lurked, only one media organisation was granted ‘exclusive access’ to the meeting: Channel 7.

    First tonight, 7 News has been granted exclusive access inside a secret meeting organised by right-wing activists in response to Melbourne’s African youth crime crisis. Reporter Jodi Lee was invited into the True Blue Crew’s gathering and joins us live now. Good evening Jodi, what went on behind closed doors?

    Jodi Lee: Well good evening Jackie as we go to air tonight that meeting is still very much under way. 7 News was the only media organisation invited inside the meeting where more than 50 people, mostly men, gathered from all across the state. They came from as far as Cobram and Shepparton, Melton in the city’s west and Mornington along the peninsula. Now, they gathered at a meeting spot that belongs to the United Patriots Front but the men there hail from several different groups. They don’t say that they are right-wing activists, they call themselves patriots, and say they have come together to help average Australians deal with what they are calling an immigrant crime crisis. Now, they say they’ve been disappointed by the Andrews government and by Victoria Police who this group believes have been rendered unable to cope with rising crime. Take a listen to what their leaders tonight had to say.

    Blair Cottrell : Well nothing is being done. The government could be doing a lot more to combat this crime but police aren’t being given the powers they need to combat this problem we have in this country.

    Kane Miller : We have a few ideas we hope to put in place, it’s about time the community get involved because it’s clear to see that police can’t save us all.

    Daniel Andrews : People are free to meet and discuss whatever matters they want to. What I would say though is Victoria Police are best capable, best able and best equipped to fight crime and keep the community safe.

    Jodi Lee : Now this group hopes to harness the power of social media to protect both them and their families. They’re hoping to create a kind of ‘Neighbourhood Watch’ that will be able to quickly let people know when an incident, a robbery or an attack in fact, is occurring and hopefully help send locals there to help protect residents, Jackie.

Not unexpectedly, Channel 7’s promotion of the TBC African-hunting project, as well as its decision to put to air the views of a leading Melbourne neo-Nazi and his mate, has come in for some criticism. See : Oh Look, 7 News Gave The Spotlight To An Actual Neo-Nazi, James Hennessy, Pedestrian, January 15, 2018 /// Congratulations Australia, We’ve Successfully Normalised Neo-Nazis, Osman Faruqi, Junkee, January 15, 2018 /// Channel Seven ‘crossed a line’ with neo-Nazi interview, Broede Carmody, The Age, January 15, 2018 /// Channel Seven under fire over interview with far-right activist, Melissa Davey, The Guardian, January 15, 2018 /// No Channel Seven, Cottrell is no ‘right wing activist’. He’s dangerous, John Birmingham, Brisbane Times, January 16, 2018.

Who are the True Blue Crew?

As noted above, the TBC are a Melton and Bendigo-based street gang that emerged in late 2015 and early 2016. It’s one of numerous flag-waving groups that have appeared during the course of the last decade, from the ‘Southern Cross Soldiers’ to the ‘Australian Defence League’. Since its inception, the Crew, under the leadership of Kane Miller, has organised a number of events. Its first rally took place in May 2016 in Coburg. Titled ‘Stop the Far Left!’, the rally intended to disrupt an anti-racist rally organised by the Socialist Alliance, to express opposition to the ‘Islamisation’ of Coburg and support for the concentration camps on Manus and Nauru (see : Coburg 1 /// Fascists 0; Or: The neo-Nazi rally that brought anti-fascists to the streets of Coburg, May 31, 2016 /// More reflections on ‘solidarity’ after the Coburg protest, January 7, 2017). As on future occasions, the TBC were joined on this occasion by (the remnants of) the UPF and a small clutch of (other) neo-Nazis wearing Wolk’s Hook regalia (note that members of this grouping later went on to form ‘Antipodean Resistance’).

Having successfully cleansed Coburg of Muslims and leftists, the TBC’s next big event was a flag parade in the CBD in June. On this occasion, as well as the UPF and others, the TBC were joined by a large number of Christian fun-da-mentalists from Pastor Danny Nalliah’s ‘Rise Up Australia Party’ (RUAP); the event was given an even more bizarre tenor by their performance of the traditional Australian haka. Also present at the event was alleged terrorist Phill Galea, who thrilled to the corporal punishment handed out to Coburg locals by the TBC at their coming-out party in May:

Having successfully waved flags in the city, the next TBC event was a ‘Rally Against the Rise of Islam in Melton’ in August 2016. This was another bizarre set-piece, this time pitting the TBC methgoblins up against the ‘Soldiers of Odin’ and its leader, Jason Moore (formerly a member of the ‘Patriots Defence League of Australia’). Undeterred by such shenanigans, the criminal prosecution of several of its members for assault (both upon anti-racists and their own — female — partners), common sense or basic decency, as well as appearing at several other events, the TBC returned in 2017 with another flag parade (June 2017) and have now embarked upon the formation — along with their neo-Nazi comrades in the UPF — of a lynch-mob to target African yoof. Or, as Jodi Lee put it, ‘a kind of Neighbourhood Watch’.

vid via ‘The Socialist’

So much for the TBC. As for the UPF and Blair Cottrell, I documented his views — as expressed on Facebook and YouTube — back in July 2015 (see : Quotations From Chairman Blair Cottrell, July 27, 2015), while his violent criminal record is detailed (in his own words) in a documentary film (see : Blair Cottrell : ” … and I started getting arrested after I did that.” #Fortitude /// #UnitedPatriotsFront, February 23, 2016) and by Geir O’Rourke and Angus Thompson for 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.

Last September, Cottrell — along with former UPF comrades Neil Erikson and Chris Shortis — was also convicted of serious religious vilification and received a small fine (and is appealing his conviction).

Thus, while it should be obvious where the UPF, Cottrell and his sidekick Sewell are coming from, their reaction to the murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville last year is telling:


As for Herr Cottrell’s attitude towards the (((media))):

Finally, Neil Erikson — who definitely did not attend the meeting on Sunday, as that would mean he was in violation of court orders not to associate with fascists — was in court again on Monday, facing a charge of contempt-of-court. See : A Dumbass Convicted Racist Almost Accidentally Swore On The Koran In Court, Cam Tyeson, Pedestrian, January 16, 2018 /// Anti-Islam activist Neil Erikson admits he breached court orders, The Guardian (AAP), January 15, 2018 /// Anti-Islam activist mistakes Koran for Bible in court appearance, Adam Cooper, The Age, January 15, 2018.

Note that Erikson was accompanied to court by several other ostensible members of ‘Patriot Blue’: Lachlan/Logan Spalding (also present when PB racially-abused Labor MP Sam Dastyari), Julian de Ross (who also attended the TBC meeting on Sunday) and George Jameson and Penny Louise, recently expelled from Nick Folkes’ micro-Party For Freedom in Sydney. Joining Julian was also Daniel Jones, previously employed as a bodyguard to Avi Yemini, but otherwise — like a number of the budding vigilantes — working in the security industry.

Posted in !nataS, Anti-fascism, History, Media, State / Politics, Television, That's Capitalism!, War on Terror | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Romper Stomper Pulls On Its Boots Again (But Forgets To Thread Its Laces)

Posted on January 13, 2018 by @ndy

WARNING : CONTAINS SPOILERS

Everything that needs be said about Stan’s new drama Romper Stomper has likely already been said, but for what it’s worth I thought I’d throw my two cents in.

To begin with, I suppose I should mention that I was contacted by the show’s producers back in August, asking me if I was interested in having a chat. I said yeah sure, but I never got a reply. In any event, I doubt very much anything I would’ve had to say would’ve made much difference to the final product, which adopts the conventional wisdom of liberal pundits: both neo-Nazis and anti-fascists are Bad because violence.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Among folks I know who watched it, most but not all thought it was Pretty Bad: ‘enough plot holes to trigger trypophobia’; ‘the acting was woeful’; ‘underwhelming’. Among the experts, opinion on the show seems fairly-evenly divided between fanboy enthusiasm (academic Troy Whitford describes it as ‘a compelling investigation into Australia’s extremist politics’) and severe reservation (television critic Craig Matheson reckons it ‘commits a fatal error by rehabilitating extremists’). On the whole, I thought it was reasonably entertaining, if somewhat daft in its pretensions to documenting recent political conflicts in Melbourne; I’m also a sucker for any show which depicts the city and enjoy guessing the location shoots (which in this case were kinda odd).*

Written by director Geoffrey Wright, James Napier Robertson, Malcolm Knox and Omar Musa, the first episode begins with a peculiar re-telling of a ‘real life’ incident which occurred in April 2016, when the Sydney-based ‘Party for Freedom’ organised a picket outside the halal expo in Ascot Vale. The reality was fairly mundane: a small group of anTEEfa clashed with the picketers, nicked some of their tat, and one white supremacist, Ryan Fletcher, fell over and hurt himself. The fictional account, on the other hand, features a very elaborate display on the part of the ‘Antifasc’ and a near-total absence of police. (IRL, all of the patriotik events of 2015–2016, especially those in Melbourne, witnessed very large and often overwhelming police mobilisations.) It was also amusing to witness ‘Antifasc’ retrieving rocks from a bucket and their primitive battle formation. While the scene serves to underscore the amateurish and para-military nature of ‘Antifasc’, it could be that the spectacular was inspired by a similar scene at an anti-Trump rally in November 2016:

Barista, Barista! Antifascista!

The clash outside the halal expo is also recorded by one of the ‘Antifasc’ and this data is then fwded to ‘McKew’, a politics lecturer who performs the role of the bRanes behind ‘Antifasc’. McKew maintains a site called ‘The Slacker’s Guide to Fascists’ which helpfully contains the byline ‘This blog is for all things Antifascist based in Melbourne Australia’.

No prizes for guessing who inspired that hottt take.

Described as ‘A high stakes drama that follows a new generation of far right activists, their Anti-Fascist counterparts, and its impact on today’s multicultural society’, the most sympathetic rendering is reserved for those:

Caught up in the conflict … three young Muslim characters, Farid, a nurse at an aged care facility studying at university, his girlfriend Laila, a student who will be appropriated as a media star of the left by the antifascist group, and Malik, Farid’s brother and a talented MMA fighter. The revolutionary zeal of the antifascist movement is embodied in the ruthless Petra, her boyfriend Danny, and the ideological ringmaster McKew.

Both Laila and Petra are students of the ideological ringmaster McKew, and indeed ‘Antifasc’ is composed exclusively of Uni students. ‘Patriot Blue’, on the other hand, are salt-of-the-earth types who attended The School of Hard Knocks and The University of Life; leaving aside their leader Blake Farron’s penchant for the poetry of Henry Lawson, the patriotik volk have scant interest in knowledge, but are very committed to acquiring (white) power. While this depiction has some merit, the reality, which is rather more messy, is obviously a little too messy for the show’s writers, and I suppose it makes narrative sense to squash it into more-easily digestible stereotypes. Kane, the troubled yoof who eventually displaces Blake as fuehrer of ‘Patriot Blue’, is presumably meant to be a typical patriot, though his motivations for joining the fascists is never really properly explored.

Other than collect rocks in buckets, members of ‘Antifasc’ also run some kinda street kitchen — the only indication that they’re involved in other political activities — in which they serve ‘Chicken or tomato?’ soup to the homeless. This, presumably, is a reference to Food Not Bombs, which has been providing free vegan food to the public at regular street kitchens for about the last 20 years in Melbourne, and for around 40 years across the globe. It’s at one of these kitchens that ‘Antifasc’ meet with Kane’s li’l sis (recently escaped from juvenile detention). Within the space of a day or two after this fortuitous meeting (the script teems with such coincidences), she suddenly finds herself at the heart of their operations. This is rather poor OpSec, as well as unbelievable, but it serves the story, and reproduces the compressed narrative that describes the arc of almost all the main characters.

The ‘Antifasc’ crew are also rather derelict in their revolutionary duties when in episode four, ‘The Dark Heart of Things’, one of their members, Danny (Petra’s boyfriend), is hospitalised and placed into an induced coma following a bizarre set-piece with ‘Patriot Blue’ on St Kilda beach (which also served as the location of the halal expo in the first episode). Again, police are absent from this scenario, as they are generally, with the exception of one spook working for the AFP. Neither is it front page news — which is also rather remarkable. The episode, written by Musa, also introduces African gangbangers, who run into the ‘Patriot Blue’ crew outside a convenience store (located on Sydney Road in Brunswick). Later, the gangbangers Hyjak N Torcha one of the men they encounter outside the store. Speaking of which …

The interaction between the fictional world of Romper Stomper and reality has been at the centre of many debates regarding it, both in its original iteration as a film (1992) and as TV (2017). Thus when twice-convicted racist Neil Erikson adopted the name ‘Patriot Blue’ in an attempt to capitalise on the publicity surrounding the relaunch, Stan and Roadshow initiated legal action against him for copyright violation:

Stan and Roadshow Productions would like to clarify that while our series does refer to a purely fictional group created for the series called Patriot Blue, there is no association between our organisations or the Romper Stomper production team and those involved in yesterday’s incident [ie, the racist abuse of Labor MP Sam Dastyari at a bar at Victoria University]. We strongly condemn the actions of this group and racial discrimination in all its forms.

Be that as it may, in the last few weeks the actions of so-called #AfricanGangs has once again been in the news, part of a campaign spearheaded by the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Peter Dutton. Dutton, Newscorpse, and numerous trollumnists obviously hope to create a wedge issue by which they further hope that the Andrews Labor state government may be defeated at the 2018 state election. The SCREAMING HEADLINES! have also naturally triggered the methgoblins of the True Blue Crew. (Note that, in episode two, the ‘Patriot Blue’ street patrol not only string up graf artists, beat African yoof and hand out blankets to the homeless, they also smash a meth lab. Remarkably, none of these activities result in police intervention. IRL, just a few weeks ago Nathan Davidson, a neo-Nazi United Patriots Front fanboy from Canberra, was arrested and charged — again — with possession of ‘600 grams of the drug ice, 1000 MDMA pills, as well as $90,000 in cash at his city home’, along with quantities of heroin, cocaine and anabolic steroids.)

Fourth Reich Fighting Men From Melton

Inspired by Dutton and the tabloids, the True Blue Crew has organised a meeting tomorrow to organise vigilantism directed at African yoof — the ones what stick guns in your face, kidnap and torture youse like what they do in ‘Romper Stomper’. Predictably, it’s received a ton of media attention, assurances from police that they’ll be keeping a close eye on the boys, and rapturous applause from the peanut gallery. If successful, the TBC (and the remnants of the UPF) will join the ranks of the Soldiers of Odin, A26A and Asolate Security in mounting street patrols and who knows, maybe even Avi Yemini will join the gang. And in another case of life-imitating-art-imitating-life, the same gang has refused to be SAD and have organised a BBQ for January 26.

On St Kilda beach.

Never Mind The Bollocks

Any body interested in the reality of anti-fascist activism should watch The Antifascists (2017).

See also : Romper stomped, Rick Kuhn, Red Flag, December 30, 2017 /// Romper stomping through the cliches, Nicola Paris, Medium, January 3, 2018.

* Kane and his sidekick Stix both reside at the Victoria Hotel in Brunswick, which also happens to be the favourite watering-hole of ‘Antifasc’.

Posted in Anarchism, Anti-fascism, Broken Windows, Death, Film, History, Media, State / Politics, Student movement, Television, That's Capitalism!, War on Terror | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Police Arrest and Charge Four Right-Wing MILO Supporters With Assault in Melbourne

Posted on January 4, 2018 by @ndy


Above : ‘Patriot Blue’ & Co having a laff after The Three Stooges got convicted for inciting hatred for Muslims (L to R : George Jameson (Party For Freedom)*, Christoper Shortis (Australia First Party)**, Neil Erikson, Blair Cottrell (The Lads Society), Ricky/Rikki Turner, Garry Hume, Luke Phipps).

Briefly:

Over the course of the last week, police have arrested and charged four men in connection to alleged offences committed at the Milo Yiannopoulos event at Melbourne Pavilion in Melbourne on December 4.

The four are Neil Erikson (33, Wonthaggi), Ricky/Rikki Turner (28, Sunbury), Garry Hume (48, Eltham) and Richard Whelan (33, Surrey Hills); their trials commence on June 8.

See : Two Victorian men charged after Milo Yiannopoulos riots, Melissa Cunningham, The Age, December 30, 2017 /// Two more charged after violent protests outside Milo Yiannopoulos’ Melbourne event, Melissa Cunningham, The Age, January 2, 2018.

Neil has a long history as a far-right activist, while Ricky seems to have come on board the ‘Patriot Blue’ hate bus only last year. As for Garry, the Instant Australian has, like Ricky/Rikki, taken part in several Patriot Blue publicity stunts, including the boys’ racist abuse of Labor MP Sam Dastyari, and various local council disruptions. Back in November 2016, Garry was also one of the Complainey Janeys who took part in the protest — organised by the Sydney-based Party for Freedom and Bendigo- and Melton-based True Blue Crew — against the settlement of refugee families in Eltham.

Finally, Richard is an olde nazi mate of Neil’s who, for whatever reason, has also decided now is a rlly good time to pose as a patriot alongside Neil.

Silly bugger.


*There have been some ructions in the Party of late: allegedly, George and his partner Penny have been kicked out of the micro-party (for unknown reasons), leaving Toby Cook and Matt Lowe holding the bag.
**Chris Shortis has publicly demanded that Neil be charged for racial abuse over the Sam Dastyari incident, though authorities have so far refused to acquiesce to his angwy demand. Chris has also accused Neil of being a police informant … which I can state with complete certainty is untrue and also reassure patriots that Neil is a bloke they can trust.

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