Tagged with George Jameson

October 6, 2018 : “International Freedom of Speech Day” : LOLWUT

Blink and you might have missed it, but Saturday, October 6 was ‘International Freedom of Speech Day’, with ‘International’ having the operative meaning of ‘Wiley Park in Sydney and Docklands in Melbourne’ and ‘Freedom of Speech’ ‘whining about Facebook and the Racial & Religious Tolerance Act‘.

Organised by Adelaide-based law-talking guy John Bolton, two months of solid promotion on social media yielded … well, not a lot, really. Thus, maybe 30 or so patriotik Volk joined John at Wiley Park, where they listened to him whine alongside his neo-Nazi client Blair Cottrell and er, Nick Folkes (ex-Party for Freedom). Included in the audience was ‘Mark McDonald’/’Tyler Winchester’, formerly of ‘Squadron 88’ but now of the Sydney franchise of ‘The Lads Society’, NSW True Blue Crew lvl boss ‘Mitch(ell) van Dam’, and various members of both grouplets (Dwayne Bullen, Max Towns), former Reclaimers and Peanuts — even Rino ‘Bluebeard’ Grgurovic put in an appearance.

In Melbourne, the very smol rally was organised, appropriately enough, by ‘Tiny’ Avi Yemini. On stage he was joined by Fraser ‘Final Solution’ Anning and ‘Australian Liberty Alliance’ boss and wealthy gadabout, the Perth-based Debbie Robinson. As usual, Daniel Jones and George Jameson played dress-ups, some other pretend ‘Soldiers’ (of Odin) were present, but most in the crowd of perhaps 50 seemed to be drawn from Tiny’s facebook klvt and/or were elderly racists. The only interesting moment, of course, was when a deadset legend exercised his Freeze Peach by asking Anning if the allegation that he’s a ‘massive f*cking c*nt’ is correct, to which the whiny manbabies naturally responded by screaming for the police to silence Our Hero.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As for Bolton, he spoke at the Reclaim Australia rally in Adelaide in November 2015, a PEGIDA rally in Canberra in February 2016, an anti-refugee protest in Eltham in November 2016 and the final. ever. Reclaim rally in Sydney in January 2017. After being dropped by the ALA, Bolton ran as an Independent for the seat of Wakefield at the 2016 federal election and placed 6th of 7 candidates with 2,728 votes (2.84%).

More recently, Bolton joined a handful of Peanuts in Sydney in September last year to proclaim ‘Straight Lives Matter’ and in June this year expressed his support for poor old Sonia Kruger (see : How An Australian Television Host Became The Latest Free Speech Hero Of The Far-Right, Brad Esposito & Lane Sainty, Buzzfeed, June 25, 2018). But while Bolton obviously enjoys the company of racists and fascists, his chief point of interest is, I suppose, his legal work on behalf of Melbourne-based neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell: apparently, Bolton is mos def gonna win in the High Court, and have Cottrell’s criminal conviction for arson drug trafficking inciting hatred for Muslims struck out because the Racial & Religious Tolerance Act‘ is like, totes un-Constitutional.

antifa notes (may 21, 2018) : anti-semites goto church in gosford /// bigly league politics

Briefly:

‘Cooks Convicts’ ~versus~ Jesus Christ


L to R : Neil Erikson; Paul Exley; Rino ‘Bluebeard’ Grgurovic; Danny Peanna/Parkinson.

‘Cooks Convicts’ — on this occasion, being repped by Neil Erikson, Paul Exley, Rino ‘Bluebeard’ Grgurovic, Danny Peanna/Parkinson and Lachlan/Logan Spalding — disrupted the 6pm service at Gosford Anglican Church on Saturday night. Dressed as Jesus(?!), the convicted anti-Semite and racist Erikson talked shit thru a megaphone while the priest, Father Rod Bower, asked them to leave and to stop harassing the dozen or so old people who’d joined him in prayer. Exley and Peanna/Parkinson were members of the now-defunct micro-Party for Freedom (PfF), which in August 2016 staged a similar disruption. On that occasion, Exley and Peanna/Parkinson were also present. (See : Anti-Islam group ‘Party for Freedom’ disrupts Sunday service in ‘racist stunt’ at Gosford’s Anglican church, Danuta Kozaki, ABC, August 2016.) Note that the PfF has recently completely fallen apart, and the remnants — including Nick Folkes, Toby Cook and Matt Lowe — have gone ‘full nazi’. Also: oddly, ex-PfFer George Jameson didn’t take part in Erikson’s latest stunt but was in Melbourne, where he joined Avi Yeminem and a tiny clutch of ‘Australian Liberty Alliance’ members in a counter-rally the ALA organised in response to a Palestinian solidarity rally outside the State Library. As for Erikson, on May 11 he got another slap on the wrist for contempt of court. See : Neil Erikson, who ambushed Sam Dastyari on video, avoids jail for contempt of court, James Oaten, ABC, May 11, 2018.

See also : The priest whose blunt billboards have gone global, Frances Mao, BBC, May 19, 2018 /// Right-Wing “Terrorists” Interrupted An Evening Mass To Scare And Intimidate Church Goers, Brad Esposito, Buzzfeed, May 21, 2018 /// “Neo Nazis” Allegedly Intimidate Gosford Church, Triple M, May 21, 2018.

BIGLY League Politics

Huh. That was weird. On Friday, I received a message from some body called Pete D’Abrosca, who asked ‘Whatever happened to the old Melbourne Antifa page that caimed [sic] the Vegas shooting?’, to which I replied ‘I assume it got deleted.’

Pete D’Abrosca: ‘Is there a way to know for sure that it was a hoax? Or do I have [to] trust “real antifa” and Snopes?’
slackbastard: ‘Well I reckon it was a hoax. And I should prolly know.’
Pete D’Abrosca: ‘How?’
slackbastard: ‘For a no of reasons: I live in Melbourne; I’ve been participating in anti-fascist activism for years; I know other anti-fascists in Melbourne; I read it; like other fake pages, it was a garbagefire; it appeared along w a slew of other such pages.’

This was apparently sufficient for D’Abrosca to pen an article for a nü right-wing site called ‘Big League Politics’. Titled ‘FACT CHECK: Did Snopes Source an Anonymous Blogger to Challenge the Veracity of an Established News Source?’ (May 17, 2018), D’Abrosca writes:

Mr. slackbastard gave a number of reasons why we should believe him and Snopes’ version of the events.

He lives in Melbourne. (Obviously he knows everyone in Melbourne).
He’s been “participating in anti-fascist activism for years.” (One can only imagine the amount of brain damage caused by such activity, which actually tends to discredit his claims further).
He “knows other anti-fascists in Melbourne.”
Finally, the page was a “garbagefire.” (Garbage fire spelled as one word).

LOL. In any event:

• I pegged the ‘Melbourne Antifa’ Facebook page as an exercise in trollery six months prior to when The Daily Mail‘s Stephen Johnson used it as the basis of a fraudulent claim;
• ABC-TV’s ‘Media Watch’ program examined the avalanche of fake news generated by the Las Vegas shooting, including the idiot claim inre ‘Melbourne Antifa’, in the episode broadcast on October 9, 2017;
• There’s good reason The Daily Mail has been tagged as ‘unreliable’ by Wikipedia.

On ‘Big League Politics’, see : Roy Moore Consultants’ New Project: A Conspiracy-Theorizing Pro-Trump News Site, Lachlan Markay, The Daily Beast, February 28, 2017 (”Big League Politics’ editor in chief has called Alex Jones ‘my Walter Cronkite.’ Its new owners think the site is the future of journalism.’). See also : Did ‘Melbourne Antifa’ Claim Responsibility for the Vegas Massacre?, Kim LaCapria, Snopes, October 4, 2017 /// Hoaxes, fake news about the Las Vegas massacre, Louis Jacobson, Emily Tanaka, Miriam Valverde, Politifact, October 2, 2017 /// No Evidence Linking Vegas Shooter to Antifa, Saranac Hale Spencer, FactCheck, October 5, 2017. On Stephen Paddock, see : New documents suggest Las Vegas shooter was conspiracy theorist – what we know, Jason Wilson, The Guardian, May 19, 2018.

Antipodean Resistance

The local Hitler Yoof done a coupla banner drops over the Eastern Freeway today. More on them laters …

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

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.

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

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!

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

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.