Update (November 3, 2018) : Nationals ban 22 members for life after investigation into neo-Nazi links, Michael Koziol, The Sydney Morning Herald, November 3, 2018.
Above : On L, alleged killer Robert Bowers announcing his intention to GTKRWN; on R, Brisbane-based neo-Nazi and member of The Lads Society Beau Maverick. Neither man cares greatly for ‘optics’.
* The massacre at the synagogue in Pittsburgh on October 27 was reportedly the worst such event in US history. Unfortunately, given current political trends, that record may not last very long. In any case, Julie Nathan of the ECAJ has written ‘As the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre shows, fears of “White Genocide” are incitement to murder’ (ABC Religion & Ethics, October 29/31, 2018), while CEO Alex Ryvchin reckons ‘Synagogue slayings not a shot in the culture wars’ (October 31, 2018 — for a contrary view, see : Jews Against Fascism).
I may add some more thoughts at a later date, but in the meantime I think it worthwhile highlighting the fact that the rehabilitation of anti-Semitism and its increasing centrality to extreme-right perspectives in the United States is echoed Down Under as an increasingly larger segment of younger right-wing activists not only adopt a fascist outlook but place anti-Semitic conspiracy theories at the heart of their worldview. By way of example, the AltRight media platforms ‘XYZ’ and ‘The Unshackled’ (AKA ‘The Unhinged’ — which, to its credit, has been authorised by Google as a trusted media source) have drifted over the course of the last year or two from fairly conventional arch-Toryism to an open embrace of white nationalism. Leaving aside David Hilton (‘Moses Apostaticus’), fellow XYZ contributor Ryan Fletcher has accounted for this shift in an essay titled ‘Trading HEMP for Hitler’ (a text which comes highly recommended by editor David Hiscox). Fletcher is also a YUGE fan of James Mason’s Siege — required reading for members of local neo-Nazi grouplet Antipodean Resistance.
Above : Tim Wilms of The Unhinged wearing his Proud Boys ‘Pinochet Did Nothing Wrong’ shirt. Note that the arm reads RWDS (‘Right Wing Death Squad’). Under the Pinochet dictatorship (1973–1990), tens of thousands of Chileans were raped, tortured, murdered and forced into exile by his death squads. (Coincidentally, this weekend, LASNET has organised a gathering on Autonomy & Resistance at Trades Hall in Melbourne.)
See also : Pittsburgh shooting extends wave of conspiracy-minded rightwing violence, Jason Wilson, The Guardian, October 27, 2018 | George Soros: Why Are Australians Flirting With This American Conspiracy Theory?, Alex Bruce-Smith, 10 Daily, October 31, 2018 | Dialectic of Counter-Enlightenment: The Frankfurt School as Scapegoat of the Lunatic Fringe (March 9, 2012).
1) Dan Spiller/Future Now Australia Presents: Milo Yiannopoulos & Ann Coulter
Queensland businessman Dan Spiller (AKA ‘Future Now Australia’ AKA ‘AE Events’) has recently announced the cancellation of the upcoming tour by Infowars-supplements salesman and paedophile apologist Milo Yiannopoulos (accompanied by fellow wealthy blabbermouth Ann Coulter). This is the second time Spiller has tried and failed to organise a tour by ‘foreign radicals’: back in April, Spiller announced that he’d be bringing both Yiannopoulos and ‘Proud Boys’ founder Gavin McInnes to Australia. That effort collapsed in a heap within a few days, but Spiller’s latest production took several months to fall apart … which I suppose could be considered either an improvement or a degeneration (depending on your perspective). In any (non-)event, the decision to cancel the tour has been compounded by Spiller’s decision not to refund buyers but instead offer them tickets to go and see two other ‘foreign radicals’ — Gavin McInnes and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon — when they tour in December.
Fingers crossed, Mr Spiller’s seemingly chronic inability to successfully profit from foreign hate-merchants will not deter him from attempting to do so and being similarly adept in future. The silver lining on this grey cloud of failure, however, is perhaps the new book by Milo, which is apparently All About Australia:
Above : An extract from Yiannopoulos’s upcoming book on Australia. It’s unclear at this stage if Janet Albrechtsen has accepted an invitation to write the foreword.
See also : Milo Yiannopoulos Fans Are Pissed His Aussie Tour Got Cancelled, And It’s Extremely Funny, Tom Clift, Junkee, November 1, 2018 | Milo Yiannopoulos’ Australian Tour Has Been Cancelled And Fans Want Refunds, Josh Butler, 10 Daily, October 31, 2018 | Milo Yiannopoulos’ Australian tour cancelled with no refunds, SBS, October 31, 2018 | Milo Yiannopoulos’ Aussie Tour Has Been Cancelled, Disappointing Dozens, Ben McLeay, pedestriantv, October 31, 2018 | Milo Yiannopoulos tour cancelled; Gavin McInnes visa debate continues, Kieran’s Review, October 30, 2018.
2) Gavin McInnes & Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (‘Tommy Robinson’)
Damien Costas, publisher of Penthouse Australia, is planning on bringing Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes and ex-BNP member and founder of the English Defence League Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (AKA ‘Andrew McMaster’/’Paul Harris’/’Tommy Robinson’) to Australia in December. As usual, venues will be made public 24 hours prior to the event, but it’s not unreasonable to expect previous venues, including Festival Functions in Findon (Adelaide), Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre, Melbourne Pavilion in Flemington/La Mirage in Somerton, Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre and Le Montage/International Convention Centre Sydney (ICC Sydney) to again provide a platform for race-hate. The dates for the tour are as follows:
• ADELAIDE : WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5
• PERTH : FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7
• MELBOURNE : TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11
• GOLD COAST : THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13
• SYDNEY : SUNDAY, DECEMBER 16
Of course, the possibility of either McInnes or Yaxley-Lennon being able to enter the country is entirely dependent upon Mr Potato Head’s feels on the subject. On Robinson, and in particular his current legal troubles (which may also see him prevented from coming), see : David Renton and Barrister Blogger.
With regards McInnes, he and his ‘Boys’ have been getting into some bother of late. Just a few weeks ago (Friday, October 12) in New York, McInnes was invited by the Metropolitan Republican Club to celebrate the anniversary of the assassination of Japanese socialist Inejiro Asanuma on this date in 1960. Following the event, some of McInnes’s fanboys went on a bit of a rampage, and some got arrest. An awful lot of ink has been spilled on the subject of the event and its aftermath, but as ever New York City Antifa (Twitter) is an xclnt resource. See also : The Proud Boys, The GOP And ‘The Fascist Creep’, Christopher Mathias, Huffington Post, October 18, 2018 (‘Gavin McInnes spoke at a GOP club, then his followers violently attacked leftist protesters. Modern American fascism finds its foot soldiers’) | NYPD arrests 14 Jewish protesters outside Republican club where Proud Boys brawled, Rex Santus, Vice, October 31, 2018 (‘The protesters outside the Club on Tuesday were there to call on the Republican Party to denounce white nationalism after the Saturday shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue where 11 worshippers were murdered by a man who’d shared anti-Semitic and white supremacist comments online.’).
Closer to home, Melbourne lawyer Nyadol Nyuon has launched an online petition, calling on the Minister to deny McInnes a visa. For their part, both Facebook and Instagram appear to have removed a large number of (official and unofficial) Proud Boy accounts from their sites. ‘The crackdown came slightly more than two weeks after members of the group reportedly attacked and beat activists protesting at an event in Manhattan. It also follows the massacre of 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue — the worst anti-Semitic attack in recent US history.’ The gab.ai webshite (AKA ‘Twitter for nazis’) is also experiencing technical difficulties at the moment …
Above : Melbourne-based neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell tweets a dank meme about killing socialists. Note that Asanuma’s teenybopper assassin, Otoya Yamaguchi, killed himself a few weeks later.
See also : Australia should be wary of the Proud Boys and their violent, alt-right views, Kaz Ross, The Conversation (ABC), October 30, 2018 | Proud Boys Founder Gavin McInnes: ‘We Need More Violence from the Trump People’, gritpost, October 18, 2018 | The New Nazis: How the meme-rich world of the internet is a threat in Australia, Kaz Ross, ABC, October 14, 2018.
3) Young Natzionals
The recent revelation that the Young Nationals in NSW have been targeted for infiltration by neo-Nazis and White supremacists created some mild embarrassment for the party over the course of the last few weeks. On Wednesday, it was announced that 15 members of the party — including Thomas Brasher, Michael Heaney, Clifford Jennings and Oscar Tuckfield — had resigned, while something like another 20 have had their membership status questioned, and may yet leave or be forced out of the party. See : Nationals members resign en masse amid investigation into neo-Nazi ties, Michael Koziol, The Age, October 31, 2018 | Young Nationals resign after after ABC investigation reveals alt-right push, Alex Mann, ABC, October 31, 2018.
On Monday the story — the origins of which may be traced back to some reportage in The Australian back in May, but which was given flesh by Alex Mann for the ABC — provoked the following front-page treatment in The Daily Telegraph:
Oddly enough Sharri’s father, Max Markson, has been doing his bit to promote racism and fascism in Australia by way of Penthouse and in his capacity as Milo’s Australian publicist. Sadly, the relationship between Costas and Markson has broken down in the wake of the paedophile apologist’s December 2017 tour: ‘ … Mr Markson called Mr Costas a “lying conman”. Mr Costas, the publisher of Penthouse Australia and owning a company alongside one of Australia’s biggest drug dealers, convicted ice importer Sean Dolman, retaliated by calling Mr Markson “a very naughty boy” who “had his finger in the till”‘ (Private Sydney: Markson sparks up in court in dispute with Penthouse publisher, Andrew Hornery, The Sydney Morning Herald, September 6, 2018).
See also : “I’ve had pictures of the Florida school shooter posted on my door”. UTAS’s Dr Kaz Ross says she has had death threats since exposing young Nationals alt-right supporters, On Mornings with Sarah Gillman, ABC, November 1, 2018 | NSW Nats clear key player in Nazi scandal, SBS (AAP), October 31, 2018 | White Nationalists Plan to Infiltrate Mainstream Australian Politics, Paul Gregoire, Sydney Criminal Lawyers, October 22, 2018.
4) The Lads Society
As noted a year ago, the neo-Nazi grouplet ‘The Lads Society’ has a clubhouse in the Melbourne suburb of Cheltenham. The nazis also have a training facility in Sydney, which is located at 34 Thomas Street, Ashfield. The Lads certainly have a sense of humour, with the lease on the property being signed with Colemon Property Group on Hitler’s birthday (April 20).
The chief organiser of ‘The Lads’ in Sydney is a Kiwi called ‘Mark McDonald’. Previously, Mark was the lvl boss of another short-lived neo-Nazi grouplet called ‘Squadron 88’. It attracted some media attention by way of stuffing letterboxes in Jewish areas of Sydney with anti-Semitic tracts. McDonald is also widely-believed to be responsible for the distribution of some racist posters in Sydney in mid-2017. Most recently, McDonald and several other Lads attended Adelaide barrister John Bolton’s batshit rally in Wiley Park:
Above : Partially-obscured, joining Cottrell on the right is Adelaide barrister John Bolton; standing between Cottrell and Tuckfield is Mark McDonald, founder of defunct neo-Nazi grouplet Squadron 88 and current lvl boss of The Lads Society in Sydney.
Finally, ladsleaks has published an interesting discussion drawn from The Lads’ private Facebook page. The list of participants in the discussion reads like a Who’s Who of neo-Nazism Down Under, including both founders Blair Cottrell and Tom Sewell, Mark McDonald (‘Tyler Winchester’) and Stuart Von Moger, David Hilton (‘Moses Apostaticus’), Jim Perren (Australia First Party/’Whitelaw Towers’/United Patriots Front), Welf Herfurth and more. Much of the discussion revolves around The Lads’ shared hatred for Jewish neo-Nazi Nathaniel Jacob Sassoon Sykes. Based in Sydney, Sykes was until a few years ago a prolific contributor to the world’s leading neo-Nazi webshite ‘The Daily Stormer’. A member of the Australia First Party, Sykes uses his blog ‘United Nationalists of Australia’ to take aim at the party’s rivals on the right — including, of course, The Lads.
The post which triggered Tom can be read here — I’ll post other commentary from ladsleaks here laters.
5) … of note
• Guns, fascism, infighting and couch-surfing: Researcher Serena Tarr recounts a year studying the alt-right, Emma McClatchey, Little Village, October 8, 2018;
• Here Is a List of Far-Right Attackers Trump Inspired. Cesar Sayoc Wasn’t the First — and Won’t Be the Last., Mehdi Hasan, The Intercept, October 28, 2018;
• We Must Pressure Mainstream Forces to Stop Downplaying the Far Right, Spencer Sunshine, truthout, October 29, 2018;
• Three Months Inside Alt-Right New York, Jay Firestone, Commune, Fall 2018 (‘An undercover antifascist descends through all nine circles of the alt-right inferno.’);
• Twilight of the Racist Uncles: How Facebook is melting the minds of our elders, Ed Burmila, The Baffler, October 30, 2018;
• After Last Week, There’s No Hope That the Media Will Ever Abandon False Equivalencies With the Far Right, Natasha Lennard, The Intercept, October 31, 2018;
• Engedaw Berhanu Remembers His Nephew—Brought to Portland, Then Forever Lost, Jason Wilson, Willamette Week, October 31, 2018;
• Punching On With Patriots: How To Tackle Gavin McInnes And His Proud Boys’ Promise of Violence In Australia, Tom Tanuki, New Matilda, October 31, 2018.
So because of Slackbastard I inadvertently google-searched some Nazi acronym about gassing Jews and now I’m on some kind of watchlist…
It is good you are back, thank you for letting us know who all the Nazi’s are. Without others to tell me how to think I would be incapable of making my own decisions on issues.
Can you please give us tips on how to spot them or is it just a matter of if they like Australia and they think it’s OK to be White they are Nazi’s? Please let me know, I need to be told what to think.
Why does nobody read or care about what you have to say? I don’t understand it, everything you say is just so verifiable and true, totally not slanderous lies crossing the line into legal defamation or anything.
You will never need a lawyer, you are just so smart.
Hi Matty NPC-AN71F4,
Thanks for the well-wishes.
In answer to your questions: neo-Nazism is an ideology and a social movement — if you’d like to familiarise yourself with its contents you’re free to do so; it’s not true that nobody reads me or cares about what I have to say, as your own comment and that of many thousands of others demonstrates.
What a wonder answer, but you still haven’t explained why these people are “Nazi’s” as you claim, we NPC’s who cannot think for ourselves need you to explain it so we can own the fash.
It’s true, I care about what you have to say, that’s why I want you to tell me how to think, I’m a Leftist after all.
We can’t think for ourselves, you know that.
Is David Hilton a Nazi? https :// www . xyz . net . au / the-womb-is-cultural-marxisms-gas-chamber
Hi again Matty NPC-AN71F4,
‘ … you still haven’t explained why these people are “Nazi’s” as you claim …’
By context, I assume that by ‘these people’ you mean to refer to the members of the Young Nationals who have recently been expelled or left the party on account of their ‘nazi’ beliefs? If so, I suggest you read about the reasons why in media reportage and on ‘The White Rose Society’ blog. (Also: no apostrophe required when writing ‘Nazis’.)
‘Is David Hilton a Nazi?’
Literally speaking, no: Mr Hilton is not a member of the NSDAP. A neo-Nazi? Perhaps. Again, much depends on how you define the term. In either case, I’ve written about that subject elsewhere on the blog.
Hmm… that blog doesn’t explain why they are Nazi’s and you haven’t explained why they are Nazi’s. Nor have the Nationals explained exactly why they are “Nazi’s.” In fact, nobody has explained why they are Nazi’s, it just says “they are neo-Nazi’s” over and over without ever defining the term.
What’s a Nazi and why are the people you talk about in this blog Nazi’s?
Are you dodging the question because you are unable to answer it? This would be very disappointing. I need to know why exactly the people you speak about here are “Nazi’s” please explain it to me specifically by defining what a Nazi is and how they fit into that category of thought. How can I keep my Leftist NPC program running smoothly if it hasn’t been explained?
“Again, much depends on how you define the term.”
OK, so it all depends on defining terms. Got it, they are Nazi’s because us Leftists say so therefore it’s true.
We don’t need to be intellectually honest, we are Leftists!
Matty NPC-AN71F4 says:
Hmm… that blog doesn’t explain why they are Nazi’s [sic] and you haven’t explained why they are Nazi’s [sic]. Nor have the Nationals explained exactly why they are “Nazi’s” [sic]. In fact, nobody has explained why they are Nazi’s [sic], it just says “they are neo-Nazi’s” [sic] over and over without ever defining the term.
What’s a Nazi and why are the people you talk about in this blog Nazi’s [sic]?
What blog? Or do you mean blogpost? Which blogpost? Which ‘Nazis’? It would help matters, I think, if you tried to be a bit more precise in your comments … though I guess an absence of clarity would form a fitting adjunct to your inexpert reproduction of a Yanqui meme.
As for ‘Nazi’, as I wrote inre Mr Hilton, the standard definition of a Nazi is a member of the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers’ Party); ‘neo’ is a prefix meaning ‘new’, so ‘neo-Nazi’ is a post-WWII term for describing later iterations of the same basic doctrine. In Germany, this evolution took the party-political form of the Socialist Reich Party, and later the NDP. Martin A Lee provides an account of this in The Beast Reawakens (the ‘Introduction’ to which may be read online). Otherwise, there’s obviously a vast wealth of literature on the subject of neo-Nazism and other fascisms, but a recent text worth paying particular attention to is Roger Griffin’s Fascism (an extract from which I’ve chucked up on the blog). A very useful introduction to fascist studies which explores the various definitional and methodological problems associated with the discipline, he also argues for something called ‘Universal Nazism’, a term which could probably be applied to a number of the Young Nationals in question.
That said, I assume that what you mean to ask is: what evidence is there that the Young Nationals who have been expelled or forced to resign from the party are ‘neo-Nazis’? Well, to begin with, as I stated above, evidence supporting this claim has been published in media reportage. For example (The Daily Telegraph): some Nationals members have posted photographs of Nazi guards outside the Holocaust extermination camp at Auschwitz and posted comments celebrating Adolf Hitler. One female member created a National Socialist (Nazi) Women’s group online.
According to reports, the Nationals are in possession of a dossier with materials relating to these members, who number somewhere around 40. This dossier is not public, so I don’t know what it contains, or which names are mentioned. Presumably, it’s based on reports dating back to May (The Australian), Alex Mann’s reportage last month, and other materials such as that found on The White Rose Society blog. If you were genuinely interested and not arguing in bad faith, you’d naturally have read this material and wouldn’t need to ask silly questions.
“What blog? Or do you mean blogpost? Which blogpost? Which ‘Nazis’? It would help matters, I think, if you tried to be a bit more precise in your comments … though I guess an absence of clarity would form a fitting adjunct to your inexpert reproduction of a Yanqui meme.”
The blog you just referred to, the White Rose blog. I just want to know how I am supposed to define a “nazi”.
“a Nazi is a member of the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers’ Party”
OK, so Nazi’s are actually National Socialists, good to know but as a Leftist I love socialism so I’m not sure why this is a problem. Don’t you like socialism? Or are we communists therefore anyone who isn’t a communist is actually our ally?
What is it exactly about these Socialists that we hate so much given we are also essentially socialists? Is it just that they are rivals to our dominance over the Left?
Now that we know a Nazi is actually a socialist, how are the people you discuss in this blog socialists and why is them being socialists bad but us being socialists good? You mention a number of people including Tim Wilms, Gavin McInnes, Lads Society and things, can you please explain to me how each individual mentioned is a socialist with examples as proof?
Also, please provide evidence that David Hilton is a National Socialist given in the article I read by him he says National Socialists are Leftists and he doesn’t like Leftists. This is causing a glitch in my program, I need it rectified. Should we just call him a racist? I hear that works wonders to help cognitive dissonance.
I just need to get a picture of exactly what I’m supposed to think as I really can’t think for myself.
“According to reports, the Nationals are in possession of a dossier with materials relating to these members, who number somewhere around 40. This dossier is not public, so I don’t know what it contains, or which names are mentioned.”
Great, so as a Leftist I’m supposed to report with absolutes and specific claims that people are national socialists even though we haven’t actually seen any evidence that they are national socialists. I mean, it’s not like the Nationals would ever use a different definition of the term or outright lie or anything, listen and believe is the strategy.
Good to know, this has been added to my program.
“If you were genuinely interested and not arguing in bad faith.”
I am a Leftist but I am genuinely interested in this topic, I will leave the bad faith arguments for when I’m trying to convince people to join the Leftist side and thus defame my political opponents as “nazi’s” even when I actually have no evidence at all that this is the truth.
Other than “someone says so” of course.
“Alex Mann’s reportage.”
This was an excellent report, I really enjoyed how he went to the secret clubhouse of the Lads Society that nobody could ever ask for the location of because it’s totally secret. I also loved how he pointed out that a garage converted into a gym was a garage converted into a gym, it was great journalism.
I especially loved how Kaz Ross explained that being anti-Chinese takeover was a short trip away from becoming a National Socialist. It made me totally happy to accept the Chinese takeover of our country, wouldn’t want to be racist or anything.
I’m so glad we enjoy the same things.
Right.
So.
Your complaint is two-fold:
1) The White Rose Society blog doesn’t define what a ‘Nazi’ is;
2) It also fails to explain why it believes the term may be applied to this group of Young Nationals.
In reply:
Complaints about the contents of another site may be more profitably referred to it, not me.
The site carries several articles of relevance. The first, published October 11, 2018, is titled ‘NSW Young Nationals stacked by Clifford Jennings and Neo-Nazis’. Note the use of the term ‘neo-Nazi’ as opposed to ‘Nazi’.
I think it likely that the author/s assumed that most people are familiar with the term ‘Nazi’, and that those who aren’t have ready access to a dictionary, encyclopedia and/or library. You don’t, for some reason, but one standard definition reads:
• a member of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party;
• a person with extreme racist or authoritarian views.
Further:
The Nazi Party was formed in Munich after the First World War. It advocated right-wing authoritarian nationalist government, and developed a racist ideology based on anti-Semitism and a belief in the superiority of ‘Aryan’ Germans. Its leader, Adolf Hitler, who was elected Chancellor in 1933, established a totalitarian dictatorship and precipitated the Second World War. The Nazi Party collapsed at the end of the War and was outlawed.
As for ‘neo-Nazi’:
• a member of an organization similar to the German Nazi Party;
• a person of extreme racist or nationalist views.
Again, it’s not rocket science.
As for what evidence the blog provides regarding the degree to which nominated parties espouse views similar to that of the Nazi party or express extreme racist or nationalist views:
First, with regards Clifford Jennings, inter alia it notes that:
• In May, The Australian (‘Fears of right push ripe in Young Nationals’) reported that he’d just been elected to the Young Nationals State Executive. The article further notes that Jennings was a ‘former Alt-Right Australia member’, ‘denied any nationalist views’ (claiming to have ‘simply supported Donald Trump’), and was also responsible for creating The Dingoes podcast;
• He was part of a wider push into the ranks of the Young Nationals in NSW;
• When the author/s read about this in the media (reportage in The Land is also referred to), they recognised Jenning’s name and knew him to be part of a wider network, one which included members of Antipodean Resistance and The Lads Society (among others);
• The closed Facebook group ‘The New Guard’ was a key organising node.
Secondly, the post contains material from this closed group. This material discloses the fact that, when the group was created on February 25, 2017, it was originally named ‘Fash Queensland’ (adopting the name ‘The New Guard’ on March 4, 2017). ‘The New Guard’ itself refers to an historical antecedent, the original ‘New Guard’ having been a fascist political party operating in Australia in the 1930s. (The post includes a link to an essay by historian Andrew Moore on the group.) The group’s ‘Description’ identifies this earlier Guard as the new New Guard’s political forefathers, each similarly dedicated to the fight against ‘communism’. In response to a poll asking members to nominate their chief political commitments, Jennings chooses ‘Nationalism (Nation First)’, ‘Ethno Nationalist (Race Over All)’ and ‘Fascism’. In January 2017, Jennings declared that he cared only for The 14 Words. When on October 15, 2017 ‘Rhyan Sturm’ expressed a desire to establish an Australian version of the ‘Swedish Resistance Movement’, Jennings declared that he was interested in collaborating with ‘Rhyan’ in order to pursue this goal. The SRM (which later evolved into the Nordic) has an explicit commitment to national socialist ideology and a bloody history.
Thirdly, the blog makes reference to my own blog, and a post detailing Jennings’ role in organising ‘DingoCon’ (a gathering for the folks around The Dingoes podcast and other, related projects), which took place in Sydney in mid-2017. The Dingoes podcast is unabashedly AltRight, welcomes a range of anti-Semitic crackpots, neo-Nazis and White supremacists as guests, and expresses support for such views. In May 2017, former guest George Christensen MP denounced the podcast, and called for DingoCon’s supposed guest speaker, notorious American anti-Semite Mike Peinovich, to be denied a visa to the country. As I wrote at the time, it wasn’t a coincidence that tickets were priced at $88.
Finally, there are a number of other individual Young Nationals members identified on the site (Nicholas Walker, Stuart Churchill, Oscar Tuckfield, Lisa Sandford, Justin Beulah and Thomas Brasher) and hints that the site’s authors have infos on many others who formed part of the push. Certainly, as documented on The White Rose Society site, anybody interested in the political views of these current (and former) Young Nationals can read them and come to their own conclusions. You’ve elected to ignore this material, and instead perform a tedious rendition of somebody else’s joke.
Neo-Nazi Nats and party infiltrations
Mike Seccombe
The Saturday Paper
November 10, 2018
They hid behind aliases, organised themselves through private social media groups and communicated their racist and anti-Semitic beliefs in coded messages and gestures. Their aim was to remake a political party in their own extremist image.
The tale of the push by alt-right activists, self-acknowledged fascists and neo-Nazi sympathisers to infiltrate the National Party through its youth wing – and of how they were eventually exposed and banned – is not just a great political story, it’s a great detective story. Not to mention a timely warning to political parties, not only those of the conservative side, to watch carefully for weeds growing among the grassroots.
It began early this year, when suspicion dawned among some of the Young Nationals that there was something odd about a recent influx of dozens of new members. These weren’t bushies; they came with city addresses.
Suspicion turned to worry in May, at the Young Nats’ annual general meeting and conference in Lismore, when it became apparent the new members were an organised bloc with a far-right agenda.
Two motions they proposed caused particular concern. One, in the name of a Clifford Jennings, called for the Young Nationals to “endorse immigration from culturally compatible people and nations but support strict immigration controls from those who are not”.
“Political parties have always been vulnerable. But There’s no doubt the size of their memberships is shrinking. It can make the major parties more ideological and prone to misreading the mood of the electorate.”
Another motion moved by Jennings proposed that the party “denounce racial violence against white South Africans” and called for them to be offered refugee status.
To the credit of the Young Nationals, says Ross Cadell, the New South Wales state director of the party, “the one about cultural compatibility was pulled before the conference, after some concern expressed by the party. They had 90 minutes of debate on the white farmer one, but it didn’t get up, even with the influx of new members.”
While they failed to get their motions up, the new bloc did succeed in getting Jennings elected to the executive of the NSW Young Nationals.
By then, moderate elements had already discovered the first evidence of the dubious antecedents of their newly installed metro regional co-ordinator. It was a grainy video interview, posted to Facebook in January 2017, in which Jennings, speaking under the alias of “John Smith”, claimed to have “created alt-right Australia”.
But when Jennings was asked about the video, The Land reported, “he said it was a ‘long time’ ago and denied any current involvement, or sympathies towards white nationalism or the alt-right movement”.
And there the matter rested until four weeks ago, with the airing of a bombshell report on the ABC’s Background Briefing program, which detailed “a covert plot by Australia’s alt-right movement to join major political parties and influence their policy agendas from within”.
The report drew heavily on the work of Dr Kaz Ross – a lecturer in Asian studies at the University of Tasmania, who started out tracking anti-Chinese online extremism a couple of years ago – and, through her, a group called the White Rose Society, which monitors the online activity of extreme right organisations in Australia.
Over almost two years, they had compiled dossiers that linked a significant number of Young Nationals to the group and to other extreme right organisations and individuals, gaining access to social media posts and closed Facebook groups, including one called “The New Guard”.
On Background Briefing, the ABC’s Alex Mann presented a damning body of evidence of Young Nationals “sharing alt-right talking points, racist in-jokes containing coded references to Hitler, and theories of a global Jewish conspiracy”.
The report revealed aliases and named names. It showed, for example, one Young Nationals member – who went under the name “Niklaus Velker” online – commemorating the anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s death on April 30 this year, with a Facebook post reading “Rest in Peace. 88!” It was code – the number 8 stands for the eighth letter of the alphabet, H, and 88 for “Heil Hitler”.
Another Facebook profile linked to a Young Nats member listed his place of work as “Auschwitz Concentration Camp”.
The report focused largely on Jennings, noting among other things that, on March 12 last year, he responded to a Facebook poll seeking his main political opinions.
“Mr Jennings selected ‘Ethno-nationalism (race over all)’ and ‘Fascism’,” Mann reported.
Also noted was another post by Jennings, in which he wrote: “All I care about is the fourteen words” – an apparent reference to a phrase widely used by white supremacists. The 14 words are: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”
Mann’s story connected various members of the Nationals’ youth wing to extremist groups and high-profile white nationalists, including Blair Cottrell, the former leader of the United Patriots Front who was convicted last year of inciting contempt towards Muslims. The link was through a men’s-only fight club, called the Lads Society.
There was more, too, much more, and when the story aired it stirred the Nationals to belated action.
Ross Cadell defends the party from claims it has ignored the cancer growing in its ranks.
“We did go looking,” he tells The Saturday Paper. “We went into our own social media. But the majority used pseudonyms or different Facebook profiles. A lot of the chats were in closed groups, so we had very little ability to vet – even when we were concerned with what was happening – where these people came from and what their views were.
“It was not until we got the assistance of some outside experts – Dr Kaz Ross, the Jewish Board of Deputies, other groups – that we were finally able to get a body of evidence that linked it together,” he says.
Even so, it was a tortuous and time-intensive process.
“These guys hid behind a lot of explainable things,” he says.
“The white power hand signals they say means ‘okay’ or ‘bon appétit’. The 88 number, for Heil Hitler, is just a coincidence. The 14 words and number 14, just another coincidence.”
In all, the Nationals investigated 35 people, going back two years and “looking at everyone who was in a photo with these people at the conference, or who had shared friendship on social media with one of these people”.
“We had three staff on it, full-time,” says Cadell. “I was on it about half-time, so probably eight weeks of manpower in all, plus those third parties, being very supportive in the exchange of information.”
They identified 22 members with unacceptable links.
In the end, most jumped before they could be pushed out of the party. Last Wednesday, Jennings made public a resignation letter from 15 of them, in which he stridently attacked “leftist journalists”, “globalist elites”, the “ABC and other radical forces” and the “hopeless leadership” of the Coalition parties, whose commitment to “third world immigration” would make Australians “a minority in their own country”.
Last Friday, the National Party’s central executive, the peak body in NSW, passed a resolution declaring that “involvement in the Lads Society, Squadron 88, The Dingoes, New Guard or Antipodean Resistance is incompatible with membership of the National Party of Australia – NSW”.
“The most obvious example of a takeover by the motivated few is what’s happened to the American Republican Party.”
It had been some 40 years since the Nationals – then the Country Party – passed such a resolution, at that time against the extreme right-wing group the League of Rights.
Is that the end of the matter? Maybe not. Even Cadell admits the party may not have identified all the infiltrators. And Ross says the alt-right continues to shapeshift and grow. She gives credit to the National Party for its efforts, but notes the difficulty faced by all political parties in vetting their memberships.
In some ways, the problem of infiltration is not new. John Warhurst, emeritus professor of political science at the Australian National University, cautions that any analysis needs to “build in a bit of history”.
Just as the League of Rights and other extreme groups were a concern in the Country Party, the Labor Party faced a standoff between the Communist Party versus the Catholics in the 1940s and ’50s.
“Political parties have always been vulnerable. But it makes it easier when their membership is weaker. There’s no doubt the size of their memberships is shrinking. It can make the major parties more ideological and prone to misreading the mood of the electorate,” says Warhurst.
Another political scientist, Nick Economou, of Monash University, has an even darker view. He sees party rank and file as a big factor in the decline of major parties.
“The days of people joining a party just to indicate they were supporters – you know, here’s my $5 a year and I will just hand out how-to-vote cards – are over.
“The sorts of people who want to join political parties these days are increasingly either people aspiring to a career in politics, friends of people who aspire to a career in politics – that is, branch stackers – or, most problematic, people who actually believe in politics, the ideologues.
“The most obvious example of a takeover by the motivated few is what’s happened to the American Republican Party. The Tea Party phenomenon mobilised the disaffected. Next thing you know, they were having a profound influence over what are effectively preselection decisions.
“Interestingly, the right-of-centre parties are struggling more with this at the moment.”
In Australia, says Economou, there are structural factors at play. Labor keeps a tighter rein on branch activities and the preselection of candidates. They have a state executive and a federal executive overseeing things and able to intervene if they don’t like a candidate selection.
“But it’s much less the case in the Liberal and National Parties,” he says.
They give greater autonomy to the branches because “that resonates with the conservative notion of decentralised power”.
The problem is exacerbated by the rise of identity politics, as the Nationals’ Cadell concedes.
His party, like all the others, is “struggling a bit because we are for a shopping cart full of beliefs and ideas, and people are becoming more causational,” he says.
“People might want to choose one or two things to support, and not the rest. It’s harder to get them to buy into the overall package we represent, and I think that’s true of all parties.”
There is evidence of that on the left, too. The Greens, for example, struggle to accommodate the various agendas of their constituents. Economou recalls the term the Greens’ hard-left social activists use to disparage those whose major focus is the environment – “tree Tories”.
“Many of those flocking to the Greens are not all about saving the environment, but about bringing Syrian refugees to Australia, or what have you,” he observes.
One example of this tension between the Greens’ environmental and social agendas is Andrew Wilkie, who stood twice for the party, in 2004 and 2007, before leaving “in a bit of a huff”.
“I joined the Greens in NSW and when I moved to Tasmania for the 2007 election I was not supported,” Wilkie says. “In fact I was undermined because I came from a social justice, anti-war background. Here they are much more a party of environmental activists.”
In 2010, Wilkie stood for the seat of Denison, previously a Labor electorate, and won narrowly. In the two subsequent elections, he has increased his share of the vote, from 51 per cent to 65 per cent in 2013 then to 68 per cent in 2016.
Interestingly, last weekend another former Green, Anna Reynolds, romped home as lord mayor of Hobart. She came out of the environmental stream. Another successful council candidate was also a recent departure from the party. The Greens in Tasmania are in real trouble.
Former hard-left Greens senator Lee Rhiannon, dumped by the party last year, took to Facebook recently to claim the NSW division had just 426 members under the age of 31 as of mid-October, compared with 629 members in June when membership renewals were due. She blamed “the actions of high-profile men in the Greens towards women”, though the exodus is plausibly due to factional infighting as well.
So, where is all this fracturing of the party system leading? A report by the Grattan Institute earlier this year set it out clearly – we are headed towards more independent and minor party representatives in government.
Between 2004 and 2016, the institute found, the vote for the Liberal and National parties declined almost 10 percentage points. Labor lost six. The Greens barely improved, but other parties and independents were up 15 percentage points.
“In both the senate and the house of representatives the vote for minor parties reached the highest level since the Second World War. This long-term shift towards voting for ‘outsider’ parties has accelerated in the past decade,” the report said.
Notably, this drift was more pronounced in rural and regional areas, and did not simply reflect the rise of One Nation and other parties representative of sectional and extreme views.
Indeed, as Grattan’s chief executive John Daley notes, one interesting aspect of the rise of the independents was the increase in relatively moderate members of the house of representatives.
“The senate has always been a bit of a lottery,” he says. “Because people can scoop up one-seventh of the electorate through preferences in a multi-member exercise, they can come in with quite low personal recognition and also holding views that are not particularly representative of the electorate.
“This is in strong contrast to the lower house, where you need to come second at least, which means you need at least 30 per cent of the primary vote, and preferences from whichever of the major parties came third. Therefore those elected have much more centrist views.”
Wilkie agrees, and cites broad agreement between the crossbenchers on a range of issues from the need for an independent anti-corruption body to concern about climate change, to more human treatment of refugees and other issues.
“As an independent, you can address the tough issues the major parties won’t go near. One of the reasons their stocks are going down is because they have dodgy policies on issues that are important to the community. Gambling is another good example,” he says.
It’s a somewhat self-serving argument for Wilkie, but it carries the ring of truth.
Independents are less beholden to vested interests. Because they represent individual electorates, they are more plugged in to local concerns. They don’t have to worry about how their policies are viewed across the whole, diverse nation and so are spared the necessity of offering different messages in different electorates.
And, as Economou notes, they don’t have to worry about their branches being stacked by the religious right, as in the case of the Liberal Party, or by the radical left, as in the case of the Greens, or, as the recent Young Nationals case shows, white supremacists and neo-Nazis.
“It’s an awful thing to say, because it sounds profoundly anti-democratic,” Economou says, “but the ordinary branch member is a big problem in political parties.”
Its obvious that Slackbastard is not a journalist. He doesn’t get that the Daily Telegraph saying something does not make it fact. The White Rose Society is similarly not journalism, just a bunch of politically motivated accusations, some false, some taken out of context with no right of reply. Using fake identities to facebook friend teenagers, taking screen grabs from their facebook from when they were 14, 15 or 16 years old and branding them ‘Nazis’ is not journalism – it’s lazy sensationalism. Pathetic and frankly creepy. And the Nationals, who lock refugee kids up on Nauru, calling teenagers ‘Nazis’ for a few offensive facebook posts has got to be the biggest joke of all. Oh – the guys also made an ALL MALE group to work out together – must be Nazis! Get a grip Slackbastard. It’s like that old saying, if you have a hammer everything looks like a nail, but in your case (and the ABC’s case too), everyone who’s not a fully signed up member of the [bourgeois] left must be a … NAZI!
Briefly:
It takes some effort to ignore the obvious evidence, but wilful ignorance is hardly surprising;
I don’t care whether or not you consider me a journalist;
The Young Nationals were not 14, 15, or 16yo when they made the remarks that have been documented, nor is the case against them a matter of ‘a few offensive facebook remarks’ but rather a coordinated effort to infiltrate and hijack the party’s yoof wing in NSW, organised via a private facebook group which described itself as ‘fascist’;
The effort had some success — Clifford ’14 Words’ Jennings was in fact elected to their state executive;
The same rules of evidence applies to The Lads.
You’re free to ignore the evidence, and will no doubt continue to do so.
What is the definition of “neo-Nazi’? Is it… a) A teenager who posts an image of himself making the (white supremacist!) OK symbol and goes to the odd demo waving an Aussie flag or b) A political party that has as its official policy the locking up of child refugees on Nauru? It seems all the so-called “journalists” so captivated by the idea of young male “neo-Nazi’s” that they have lost their ability to reason. And will no one call out the uni lecturer who admits to facebook friending (under aliases) and stalking teenage boys online? (They might be “Nazi’s”, so apparently it’s OK.)
Clearly you’re free to ignore the evidence, you do it on almost every post. If you read the White Rose stuff, which I am sure you have done, over and over again, you will see specifically that some of the comments date from when the teens (now 18 and 19 years old) were under 16 years of age and have nothing to do with alleged “fascist” views. White Rose is claiming the moral high ground, but how is it ethical, to re-post the dumb comments and images of 14 year olds? Not all of those mentioned and labelled as “neo-Nazis” are, or were, members of the facebook group New Guard. In any case, membership of a facebook group is hardly evidence of “Nazism.” As to joining the Nats, there’s nothing new about people joining political parties to advance their views, that’s how our democracy works. It is better if people are in the system than excluded – a political party is where views should be tempered. Apparently they got no policies through at the Young Nats conference anyway.
PS I look forward to the breathless expose on how Socialist Alliance, Antifa and other (so-called) leftist groups have infiltrated and hi-jacked the Greens. It’s a shame to see a party that once had a passion and purpose taken over by bullies and ideologues.
What is the definition of “neo-Nazi’? Is it… a) A teenager who posts an image of himself making the (white supremacist!) OK symbol and goes to the odd demo waving an Aussie flag or b) A political party that has as its official policy the locking up of child refugees on Nauru?
As we both know it’s neither. I use a standard definition of the terms ‘Nazi’ and ‘neo-Nazi’, which you can avail yourself of by way of a dictionary or encyclopedia. Or, you can read the thread.
It seems all the so-called “journalists” [are] so captivated by the idea of young male “neo-[Nazis]” that they have lost their ability to reason. And will no one call out the uni lecturer who admits to facebook friending (under aliases) and stalking teenage boys online? (They might be “[Nazis]”, so apparently it’s OK.)
I don’t understand. Why are you obsessing over ‘teenage boys’? The White Rose blog names seven individuals: Clifford Jennings (30-something?), Nicholas Walker AKA Niklaus Velker (20-something?), Stuart Churchill AKA Stuart Durand (24), Oscar Tuckfield AKA Oscar Tuckers or Oscar Tucker (19?), Lisa Sandford (22), Justin Beulah (20-something?) and Thomas Brasher AKA Thomas Hopper (19). None are 14 or 15 or 16yo boys, nor were they in the period under review, which largely concerns the year 2017: ie, from about the time the New Guard facebook group was published in early 2017 thru to when they joined the Young Nats (late 2017 onward). So, which comments, specifically, date ‘from when they were under 16 years of age’?
… membership of a facebook group is hardly evidence of “Nazism.”
Which is just as well, as nobody is suggesting otherwise. Take, for example, Lisa Sandford. What is one to make of the fact that:
a) in October 2017 a person called;
b) ‘The Australian Fascist’ suggested members form a women’s auxilliary of some kind on the behalf of a group called;
c) the ‘New Guard’ of which she was a member, and she;
d) not only responded positively but;
e) used a picture of Nazi death camp guards partying outside Auschwitz to illustrate the new group’s arrival?
To me, that sounds like something that a neo-Nazi might do eh.
Perhaps you prefer the term ‘classical liberal’?
As to joining the Nats, there’s nothing new about people joining political parties to advance their views …
Again, neither I nor the authors of the White Rose blog, nor any journalist or commentator that I’m aware of, is making the case against anyone joining a political party or engaging in political activity. You’re simply introducing another red herring here.
… that’s how our democracy works. It is better if people are in the system than excluded – a political party is where views should be tempered. Apparently they got no policies through at the Young Nats conference anyway.
Leaving aside your belief that it’s better for people to join ‘the system’ rather remain outside of it (which, whether right or wrong, is incidental to the matter under discussion), the truth is exactly the opposite: a small group of neo-Nazis and their allies collectively conspired and secretly organised to infiltrate the youth wing of a state branch of a major political party precisely in order to subvert its democratic processes. They weren’t there in order for their views to be ‘tempered’ but rather to work to reshape Nationals policy in line with their actual but concealed political beliefs.
PS I look forward to the breathless expose on how Socialist Alliance, Antifa and other (so-called) leftist groups have infiltrated and hi-jacked the Greens. It’s a shame to see a party that once had a passion and purpose taken over by bullies and ideologues.
I’ve written about Socialist Alliance, ‘Antifa’ and many left groups and projects. Extensively, in fact. The Alliance is an independent political party which, if you knew of its history, has had a fractious relationship with the Greens. The only ‘infiltration’ (sic) they’re undertaking currently is of the Victorian Socialists, a fact which is known and public. What you’re attempting to describe is the practice of ‘entryism’, which has been a formal practice of a fraction of Trotskyist parties. In the English-speaking world, the most well-known example of that is Militant’s entry into the Labour Party. In the Australian context, I’m not aware of anything comparable.
“taking screen grabs from their facebook from when they were 14, 15 or 16 years old and branding them ‘Nazis’”
Which specific screen grabs are you talking about Possum? Can you back your claim with actual examples, or is this a baseless accusation?