A (very) brief guide to the Australian far right (December 2016 Edition)

11 Responses to A (very) brief guide to the Australian far right (December 2016 Edition)

1. @ndy says:

   December 6, 2016 at 1:42 am

   ‘Extremism taking us to dark places’
   Paul Toohey
   news.com.au
   June 18, 2016

   AT THE Bush Pig Inn, a rustic Aussie-themed drinking hole in bush just out of Bendigo, the inner-circle of the United Patriots Front, the public face of Australia’s most far-Right “racialists”, are holding court.

   Some 40 people, mostly men decked out in black with nationalist insignia, have come from around the state and beyond to hear today’s seminar on the white genocide facing Australia.

   The UPF claim to be great patriots, who feel a deeper love and concern for this country than the general population. Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” plays in the background, summing up their view of Australia.

   THE MAIN PLAYERS

   The main man is Blair Cottrell, 27, leader of the UPF and its so-called political wing, Fortitude. He was sentenced to four months jail in 2012 for torching a man’s garage in a jealous rage, and has convictions for burglary and trafficking testosterone.

   Tall, well-built and V-shaped, bringing to mind the guy from Despicable Me, Cottrell talks with scrupulously controlled diction, to provide the impression that he is intelligent — which he is.

   Even Cottrell’s most furious detractors admit he has charisma. He offers tea, because even though the bar is open and some guests have started drinking, this is not meant to be a piss-up: frivolity is frowned upon by these intense men.

   At his side is Chris Shortis, 45, who like Cottrell has short, chiselled hair. Of English-Irish descent, Seventh-Day Adventist by faith, Shortis says he found an outlet for his thoughts when he finally discovered like-minded people on Facebook, in late 2014. Prior to that, he thought he was alone.

   He will address the crowd on how white Australia is being overrun.

   And there’s Thomas Sewell, early 20s, taciturn, watchful and mildly seething. The best guess is that he’s an adviser and tactician.

   A former Australian soldier, he’s the one who decides after two minutes that enough photos have been taken. Sewell can be seen on video, brawling at a UPF rally last year.

   The UPF rejects Islam, but also Christianity. They especially despise multiculturalism. “We’re modern-day heretics,” says Cottrell, who once said a portrait of Hitler should hang in every Australian classroom.

   It is likely, according to a reformed white supremacist source who once planned to hit the streets of Sydney with a small army to gun down Asians, but these days assists authorities in infiltrating Right-wing extremist groups, that someone in this crowd is reporting back to federal agents.

   Far-Right groups are now everywhere on social media, mostly using Facebook sites with no links to web sites or organisers. Unchecked, the fear is they could attract exactly the same sort of disaffected young man who, on the extremist scale, is no different from those they despise most: the loose-wheeled young Muslim.

   I. SURGE IN ONLINE EXTREMISM

   The concern is that the UPF, which six months ago broke away to take a harder line from the more mainstream “mums and dads” anti-Islamic group, Reclaim Australia, has begun engaging some angry young minds.

   There is an unnamed young white extremist on remand for weapons charges, but News Corp understands he was plotting actions that were far more organised than anything Man Haron Monis planned for the Lindt Café.

   Andre Oboler, who leads Australia’s only monitoring site for online extremism, the Online Hate Prevention Institute, says interest in patriotic groups is surging, with 200,000 Australians now actively following hate sites.

   He reveals that neo-Nazis out of the US have been using pro-Islamic State forums in Australia “to incite them to attack targets within Australia”.

   “We’re seeing the internet being used as a way of creating strange coalitions across borders, and through anonymity people are able to use others,” says Oboler. He will not publicly name the targets, which are now heavily guarded.

   He says his organisation, in conjunction with ASIO and the AFP, monitored “the content, the conversations and the planning right through to the final tweets from ISIS”. Neither ASIO nor the AFP will comment.

   “ISIS certainly would not have known they were being manipulated by neo-Nazis,” he says.

   II. DIVISIONS IN THE FAR-RIGHT

   UP IN Sydney, Ralph Cerminara, who encourages people to take and post video of lone Muslims to show “how out of place they look”, warns: “There will be another Cronulla II. There will be a backlash, eventually.

   “The police are aiding by not arresting the violent left wing, while scores of Muslims are getting slapped on the wrist with the coward-punch law. They get good behaviour bonds.”

   He says he’s currently on a court order that prevents him badmouthing Muslims after a dust-up in Lakemba. None of it slows him down. “I should be able to walk down here in a bikini and [eat] a bacon sandwich and not be attacked,” he says.

   Cerminara has also been savaging the current UPF leadership accusing it [of] associating with skinheads [sic], which he says damages the anti-Islam brand. “There is no such thing as a moderate Muslim, just as there is no such thing as a moderate neo-Nazi,” says Cerminara, 37, an IT worker.

   This is a divisive distraction from the rolling battles with the far-Right’s most hated enemy, Antifa, the masked anti-fascist movement of the extreme Left.

   Cerminara, who was allegedly slashed while shooting video of an anarchist bookstore in Newtown earlier this year, says anti-fascists have published his address and made home visits — where he lives with an Asian wife.

   He has a machine-gun response for every question, pausing only when pressed on what his wife thinks of his 24/7 obsession: Muslims and the extreme Left.

   Cerminara says she has received death threats and became dismayed when Nathan Abela, once a Cerminara lieutenant, had his home in Sydney sprayed with bullets in 2014. Abela has since then kept a very low profile.

   “My wife saw that and she got upset,” says Cerminara. “She wants me to stop it. She knows it’s right, but she wants someone else to do it.”

   On the UPF Facebook page, inviting people to the Bush Pig Inn, someone has urged Cerminara be attacked if he shows, due to his criticisms of the UPF’s skinhead [sic] element (Cerminara did not attend, and says he did not see the post).

   ‘IT’S APPEALING TO JOIN SOMETHING LIKE THAT’

   Melbourne man Neil Erikson, 31, was one of the founders of UPF who has since left the organisation for what he sees as a shift towards neo-Nazism.

   Talking on the steps of Federation Square in Melbourne, he tells how his mother-in-law recently received a cut-up photo of a foetus in the mail, which he thinks was meant to represent his young son.

   That letter came from within the far-Right, he guesses, but two weeks earlier he’d been bashed by Antifa activists who’d spotted him while attending a meeting of the Australian Liberty Alliance, which is fielding anti-Islam candidates in the federal election. Erikson, whose facial scars are only starting to fade, doesn’t feel too comfortable in public spaces.

   It’s tough out there being anti-Muslim.

   “I originally started out in the neo-Nazi movement when I was about 16, until about four years ago,” says Erikson, who in 2014 was sentenced to a community work order, and a visit to the psychologist, for phone threats to a rabbi. “If you wanted to show pride in Australia, there was no other place to go.

   “In hindsight, it’s appealing to join something like that. But there are darker sides to neo-Nazis — lost kids, lost people. Until this patriotic rise of Reclaim last year, there was no one to hang out with apart from neo-Nazis.”

   The neo-Nazis Erikson associated with were “in and out of prison all the time, for bashing some random Asian on the street.” Like the 21-year-old Vietnamese student from Pascoe Vale, severely beaten in an unprovoked attack by skinheads [sic] while walking home from work, in Moonee Ponds, in 2012.

   “I was there that night, just before,” says Erikson, who saw young neo-Nazis shaving their heads earlier in the day in anticipation of a random attack.

   “That’s when I started turning off that Nazi stuff. It’s not his fault he’s here,” says Erikson of the Vietnamese man. “He’s come here for a better life. It’s our government’s fault for letting him in.”

   He wants the public to march against Islam, but people are too scared after the first Reclaim Australia rally at Federation Square, in April last year, fell to violence, with a grandma — among others — getting hurt.

   Scenes of screaming, masked anarchists — whose contribution to the federal election campaign is street posters of party leaders dangling from nooses — and skinheads [sic] marching on the frontlines with the UPF has seen the public retreating from rallies, but not from its views.

   The Reclaim movement “woke everyone up and got them out of their houses,” says Erikson.

   “It’s now lost support. The neo-Nazi movement has scared people away. If Reclaim were to hold a rally now, they’d be lucky to get 20 people. It’s all gone online. They’re safer at home.”

   III. UNPLEASANT TRUTHS

   WORLDWIDE, says Andre Oboler, Australia ranks third or fourth for supporters of anti-Islam, anti-Semitic and pro-white sites.

   “When we consider the size of Australia’s population we see that a far larger portion of Australian Facebook users are actively joining such hate groups online than occurs in other countries,” he says.

   As a Jewish organisation, OHPI, which attracts no federal funding, has not been able ignore what has happened in the last 18 months: anti-Semitism has been replaced with anti-Islam. They are bound to report hate, whatever its flavour.

   “There’s an element of bigotry and racism that has [been] brought into the political sphere in the last few years at a much higher level than we’ve seen since World War II,” says Oboler.

   In Australia, online bigotry “has risen steeply over the past year”, and especially in the last six months with “a shift with more Australians starting to engage in a small number of significant Australian specific (hate/patriotic) groups.”

   Oboler tracks the rise of hate in Australia to the English Defence League, which began in 2009 with football supporters fighting anti-war Islamists on the streets of Luton. It eventually became controlled by white supremacists.

   The EDL’s argument was original and appealed to many: they weren’t racists because Islam is a religion, not a race.

   Oboler says the distinction is not legitimate. “No. It’s like saying, ‘I’m not racist, I’m just homophobic.’ Well, you’re still a bigot.”

   It was nonetheless a powerful argument that took the far Right a lot further than it had under the founding anti-Islam matriarch, Pauline Hanson, who first appeared in 1996 with her anti-multicultural agenda.

   It caught on with the Australian Defence League, “Fuck Off We’re Full” bumper stickers, anti-Halal and anti-Sharia movements, and then Reclaim Australia — formed partly in response a belief that the Lindt siege was created by favourable immigration policies to Muslims.

   Then came the extremist groups and the street clashes.

   There are up to 50 anti-Islam Senate candidates standing on July 2, but most — possibly with the exception of Hanson, who is running in Queensland — will have trouble under the new ballot system gaining preferences.

   Daniel Nalliah’s Rise-Up Australia has 11 Senate candidates. The Sri Lankan-born Victorian developed his antipathy for Islam while living with his Asian wife in Saudi Arabia, before coming to Australia as a migrant in 1997.

   Nalliah wants a 10-year moratorium on all Islamic migration to Australia.

   He says the concept of multiculturalism should be replaced by “multi-ethnicity”, meaning people retain their culture while complying and integrating with Australian life and law. Which is how it already is for the Muslim majority who reject militant Islam.

   “They can’t call me a racist because I’m black,” says Nalliah. “People laugh. It’s taken a blackfella to stand up for Australian culture.”

   At a Saturday morning Rise-Up election campaign in Bendigo, the town that has become the nation’s unwanted anti-Islam focal point for its no-mosque campaign, Nalliah’s group are shooed away from the Bendigo Marketplace, as they hand out leaflets.

   The security guard is at a loss when asked whether she would also order Malcolm Turnbull or Bill Shorten to leave. The Rise-Up people then congregate downtown outside a cafe, where the owner tells them to get lost or she’ll call the cops. They move, again.

   Oboler says anti-Islam political groups should be allowed their voice. Australia has limited constitutional free-speech rights, but the High Court says we have the right to open political communication to enable the democratic process.

   “There should be leeway for political parties,” says Oboler. “If you force them to code what they’re saying, people might vote for them accidentally.”

   The Bendigo mosque was last week cleared to be built, but Cerminara tells me plans are afoot to block it: “It will not be built. The Greens tie themselves to trees. We will do it as well.”

   IV. THE LANGUAGE OF HATE

   THE UPF leadership group sticks close to each other at the Bush Pig Inn, scanning faces, not sure of who is who among those who have arrived in response to its open Facebook invitation.

   They won’t let us take crowd photos, because “some of these people have jobs”.

   They nevertheless extend politeness to two members of News Corp. The UPF expects bad press, so doesn’t have much to lose.

   Asked to explain core beliefs, Cottrell says: “It is essentially racialism, but it’s not what you think it is. It’s not supremacist. We actually advocate for an exclusive existence for all the races of the world — not this blending, multiculturalism, egalitarianism nonsense.

   “We want to encourage different cultures to stay who they are to remain as they have always been. Every culture, every race, must have exclusive existence. Anyone who tries to take that away is an enemy.”

   Cottrell’s language sounds like one of white supremacy. He proposes that one race — the white one — controls Australia.

   The problem, says the former neo-Nazi source, is that UPF leadership — even if they are not themselves advocating terror — will attract kids, just as ISIS does.

   “If you’re an ISIS guy, the majority are not even believers in Islam,” he says. “Most of it is attachment problems, being bullied at school and mental illness. They get disaffected and have got to find somewhere where they belong.

   “It’s the same with white extremists. They don’t really believe in racial segregation, but they go along with it because they need something.”

   This man, himself a master indoctrinator, building a far-Right army of 150 people to attack Asians (whom he later went back to and tried to de-radicalise), explains how it works.

   “You say to the guy, ‘Come here, we’re your mates. Who was it who bashed you? We’ll get them.’” Then they’re hooked. But the real threat comes from those who are too unmanageable even for the white extremists.

   “The danger is the people on the fringes who might get rejected,” he says. “They’re going to be your lone wolves.”

   He says of the far-Right groups: “They want chaos in order to rebuild the nation. And they’re inviting everyone to join them. If Muslim kids look at this, how will they feel?”

   He says that the feds and state police are watching closely.

   ‘OUR FREEDOMS HAVE DIMINISHED’

   When the UPF are asked if they can channel patriotism into love of sport, they sneer. Asked about the first Australians, they trip up, because they are outranked. Questions become futile, because they have it all figured out.

   Shortis makes the extraordinary claim that Australia’s constitution is a “nationalist” document, which sets out a formula for a nation to be ruled on separatist lines. This is news. The Australian constitution does not use the words “nation”, “national” and especially not “nationalist”.

   The constitution creates a federation. Nothing in the document mentions race or exclusion. That is why Aborigines are fighting to get a brief mention in the preamble.

   “Israel has laws to preserve Israel as a Jewish state,” says Shortis. “Because they want to preserve their racial and cultural identity. I ask the question to the far-Left: why are we called white supremacists?

   “It’s far from the case. If anything, the white race is the most disgusting, self-loathing race on the face of the earth. How long does the white man have to pay for the perceived evils of our colonial history?”

   There is nostalgia here for a time before they were born. “Our freedoms have diminished in the last 40 years,” says Shortis. But do you diminish the freedoms of others? “This lie that we go out looking for Muslims to seek them out, I don’t know who invented that.”

   We take our leave. There’s a game on back in Melbourne at Etihad I’d like to see. Shortis says something about my “poor priorities”. But I’m not so sure.

   Later that day, departing the stadium with 28,000 people, mostly white but a whole lot more, you can’t help look at the little Asian and Indian kids at the game with mum and dad.

   Do they want to hear bad things about who they are, or where they come from? Do we want to make them [feel] hated? We do not. That is why most of us refuse to do it.

   Most who leave this stadium wear the tribal insignia of their teams. But all who leave the stadium pass untroubled, in peace.
2. Andrew Harrison says:

   December 11, 2016 at 11:37 am

   Thanks for keeping tabs on and exposing these people. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
3. Sossle says:

   December 15, 2016 at 2:50 pm

   So only white people can be on the “Far Right” apparently? Or is it that the Anarcho-Leftists are more than just a little bit racist themselves? It would seem that you are missing a bunch of dangerous Australian groups here and have again simply exposed the base racist nature of your blog. The predominant connection between these groups that you have mentioned here is as per usual, their racial descent.

   I guess you could start by providing a definition of what you mean by “Far Right” which is sketchy at best and is up [there] with definitions of “Fascist”, which you are also so vehemently opposed to, but also struggle to adequately define?

   Anyway let’s just start by using a recent definition found here for “Far Right”.

   http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/the-rise-of-the-far-right/7858282

   Duncan McDonnell, from the School of Government and International Relations at Griffith University, explains what the far right typically stands for:

   “The far right is a series of movements and political parties which tend to be extremely anti-immigration, and they tend to be very much against the elites – so political parties, media elites, banks, cultural elites – in society,” Duncan McDonnell explains.

   “They claim that the ‘real’ people in countries—the honest, hardworking silent majority of citizens—are not represented.”

   So it seems “Far Right” is:
   Anti-immigration
   Against the “elites”
   Claim that ‘real’ people are not adequately represented
   One of the key indicators is a tendency to racism

   That definition would cover almost any National Indigenous movement in Australia, especially those calling for the formation of an independent Indigenous state. Except for one thing, the colour of [their] skins.

   Take a look at this story regarding Michael Mansell’s call for an [A]boriginal independent state.

   https://newmatilda.com/2015/06/13/7th-state-michael-mansell-another-way-forward-first-nations-self-rule/

   Michael Mansell’s call seems to be clearly leaning to the Far Right as far as I can tell, yet you have excluded him from your little list here. I wonder why that is?

   I wonder what you would call a group based in Europe calling for a foundation of a ‘White’ state? A group like Pioneer Little Europe for example. How would you define them I wonder? As evil, Far Right, White supremacists? It’s obvious that forming communities within Europe to protect Indigenous cultural traditions is nothing more than blatant racism and white separatism at its best right?

   Rationwiki defines White separatism as:

   White separatism is a separatist political movement that seeks separate economic and cultural development for white people. White separatism is a form of White nationalism and can be a form of White supremacy.

   http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/White_separatism

   Hmm let’s change that statement a little to be relevant in this context changing nothing more than the racial tags. Let’s [change] “White” to “Indigenous Australian 7th State”.

   A call for an Indigenous Australian 7th State is a separatist political movement that seeks to separate economic and cultural development for Indigenous Australians. Indigenous Australian 7th state is a form of Indigenous nationalism and can be a form of Indigenous racial supremacy.

   See what I did there @ndy[?] OK, clearly you can’t or won’t and of course I must simply be a clear cut racist to attempt to draw any kind of parallel in this case right? We all know that not being racist these days means acceptance that definitions apply differently to different racial groups. As in you must categorise individuals based on their racial profile not the actual concept. As in your race defines you and defines what rules you need to adhere to and whether or not what you do, believe or say is OK or not. As in White Pride = Evil Incarnate, Black Pride = Positive Belief. Right? Taking the racial identity out of the concept makes that concept rather illogical. Either racial pride is okay or it’s not okay. Black Panthers are social revolutionaries, right? And not extremist racial supremacists. Does [their] race [a]ffect which one is correct, I wonder?

   Strange that you do not have a single extremist Islamic group on your little list here. When according to Australian National Security the far majority of Australian Terrorist threats are related to Islam. Yet you do not see a single group as worthy of note? Are they not Far Right enough for you? Or is it just that they are not white enough that’s your issue @ndy?

   https://www.nationalsecurity.gov.au/Listedterroristorganisations/Pages/default.aspx

   Not a single mention of the APEX gang or The Company. Why is that I wonder???

   Of course Battalion88 is a bigger threat to every Australian th[a]n “The Company”, a coalition of international gangs flooding Australian neighbourhoods with Ice, violence and financing ruthless organised criminals on our shores.

   If [you’re] buying this people, you are simply being hoodwinked into tilting at windmills, designed to draw you into a Socialist agenda which gave the world the likes of Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot.

   Try this if you doubt my claim, search the news for “Battalion88” and see what you find their, now try a search for “Ice drug Australia” and then tell me which you think is the biggest threat to the future of all Australians regardless of the colour of their skin. Why does @ndy see Battalion88 as a bigger threat to Australia than “The Company” or Islamic Extremism? I can tell you why, Battalion88 are white and it really is as simple as that. If they were not Caucasians, they wouldn’t get a mention here. A group with the same beliefs that’s not Caucasian would also not get a mention here.
4. @ndy says:

   December 15, 2016 at 6:29 pm

   1)

   So only white people can be on the “Far Right” apparently?

   Evidently not. While most of the groups listed are committed to some form of White nationalism, some are not. For example, RUAP’s leader is a brown-skinned immigrant from Sri Lanka; both RUAP and its religious arm (Catch the Fire Ministries) have a diverse (ethnic and national) support base. ALA, APP, LAOL, ONP and PFF also welcome, to one degree or another, support from ‘people of colour’, their principal platform being opposition to Islam and multiculturalism.

   2)

   I guess you could start by providing a definition of what you mean by “Far Right” …

   As the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ suggest, these are positions on a political spectrum, originally derived from the seating arrangements in the National Assembly following the French Revolution. Wikipedia: The terms “left” and “right” appeared during the French Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president’s right and supporters of the revolution to his left. Sometimes, such designations are supplemented by another axis — authoritarian/libertarian. Stuart Christie and Albert Meltzer provided one early example of such a political compass in their book Floodgates of Anarchy (1970).

   Re McDonnell’s definition, it’s an approximation, one of many.

   Generally speaking, words derive their meanings from their contexts. In other words, ‘far right’ in contemporary Australia has one set of meanings, while ‘far right’ in another time and place may have a slightly different one. Certainly, the contemporary Australian far right is characterised (inter alia) by: opposition to (sometimes ‘uncontrolled’) immigration; a generally conspiratorial understanding of ‘elites’ (however defined, and typically contrasted with ‘The Masses’ or ‘The People’) and; White supremacy (‘racism’). In terms of ‘fascism’, I think that Roger Griffin’s definition — fascism is a form of ‘palingenetic ultranationalism’ — is useful, if not exhaustive, and one which has been subject, of course, to criticism, on a range of grounds.

   3)

   Re Mansell’s proposal to create a seventh, ‘Indigenous’ state: Mansell is a member of the ‘Aboriginal Provisional Government’, which was established in 1990; its activities are fairly limited, but forms one part of a broader discussion inre the place of Indigenous peoples vis-à-vis the Australian state and society.

   The article by Mansell in New Matilda you link to states:

   One model worth looking at is the 7th State: A defined territory in Australia made up of Aboriginal-owned or native title lands; an elected Assembly with powers of State governments; having its own constitution; all Aboriginal people having a right to participate (by voting or standing for elections to the Assembly) regardless of where they live, plus any non-Aboriginal residents within the territory; and established by Commonwealth legislation. That summarises a new 7th State of Australia.

   In other words, the proposal concerns the establishment of another, seventh state — alongside NSW, QLD, SA, TAS, VIC and WA — under the jurisdiction of the federal government (Commonwealth of Australia). It does not designate any policy inre immigration (which is a federal, not state, responsibility); it doesn’t specify any particular position inre ‘elites’ (though I assume Mansell himself has views on the subject) and; the proposed seventh state allows for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous persons to reside within its territorial boundaries (however defined) and to participate in the political process.

   4)

   I’ve discussed the ‘Pioneer Little Europe’ project on my blog previously. Its champion in Australia was, for a brief period, a bloke from WA called Paul Innes. The project didn’t seem to get very far.

   5)

   … you do not have a single extremist Islamic group on your little list here …

   Yes. I don’t regard the various Islamist tendencies as being ‘far right’ in the sense that I use the term, nor am I simply listing ‘terrorist’ organisations. By the same token, Apex is not a ‘far right’ grouping and neither is ‘The Company’. Finally, nowhere have I stated that I believe that Battalion88 is a bigger threat to Australia than “The Company” or Islamic Extremism.
5. ablokeimet says:

   December 16, 2016 at 2:43 pm

   Sossle: “So only white people can be on the “Far Right” apparently?”

   The short answer is No – but it’s likely to mislead many people, especially such as Sossle.

   1. As Andy points out, there are people of colour in the Rise Up Australia Party – including its leader. I’d also like to point out that the Mayor of Casey, who has played a very Islamophobic role, is a Coptic Christian immigrant from Egypt.

   2. Looking overseas, we can see that Japan is an intensely racist society. Non-Japanese, especially Koreans, are treated abominably. The Japanese Government is called on this all too rarely.

   3. If one takes the definition of Left & Right according to its traditional origins (as I do), it can be seen that the supporters of Liberty, Equality & Fraternity are on the Left, while the upholders of the traditional social hierarchy and the sort of State apparatus necessary to enforce that, are on the Right. Accordingly, Anarchists are the extreme Left, while the extreme Right is composed of Fascists and absolute monarchists.

   On the global scale, it can be seen that there is not one, but several far Rights. The one that is usually referred to as “the extreme Right” in Australia is a Western far Right, which is composed of Fascists at its extreme edge and hard Right racist populists (like Pauline Hanson) at its more mainstream edge. One of the other far Rights is a Muslim one, composed of fanatical jihadis like Daesh & Al-Qaeda at its extreme edge and electoral Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood at its more mainstream edge. This Muslim far Right is tiny in Western countries, though it gets inordinate media attention due to the fear it generates in non-Muslim Westerners.

   4. Finally, a word on racism. Sossle seems to identify it as racial prejudice and the behaviours that exhibit it. This is a widely held misapprehension. It is actually essential to distinguish between racism and racial prejudice:

   (a) Racial prejudice is a mental attitude. It’s something that exists in people’s heads. It’s also something that has been around for ages, possibly since the first time two tribes argued over a waterhole. It’s a character flaw in people and most of us have it to some degree, though a majority of people in Western countries try to rid themselves of it. It should be noted that people from oppressed groups are far from immune to racial prejudice, in that they a quite capable of making unwarranted and prejudicial generalisations about people from other ethnic groups, whether the dominant group or other oppressed groups.

   (b) Racism is a system of power. It is a set of objective social relations that put one “race” in an oppressed place in society, by direct or indirect State action, or by the mobilisation of racial prejudice leading to informal, though often officially tolerated, actions. It is vital to note here that “race” is an imaginary and unscientific category, conjured up in the minds of racists and given material reality by the practice of racism. It is not necessary for these categories to have any intellectual coherence, but rather merely to allow most people in the oppressed “race” to be identified, ideally by sight.

   A couple of things follow from this. One is that racially prejudiced behaviour is racist when it reinforces the racist power structure (e.g. when someone from the dominant group speaks or acts in a racially prejudiced way towards someone from an oppressed group), but not when it doesn’t (e.g. when someone from an oppressed group speaks or acts in a racially prejudiced way towards someone from the dominant group). In the latter case, it’s still a character flaw, but it’s not racist.

   The other thing is that the people who engage in racist behaviour are not necessarily the people who reap the benefits from it. A classic case can be seen in the Southern States of the US. Statistics have been compiled of the average wages of White workers and the average wages of Black workers in a wide range of US States. I think it can be generally agreed that the difference between White workers’ wages & Black workers’ wages can be regarded as a pretty hard index of racism. The surprising thing to many (in the capitalist press and in many parts of the extreme Right) is that the States with the biggest gap between White workers’ wages & Black workers’ wages are the States with the lowest wages for White workers. What this means is that racism is not benefiting White workers – and that racist White workers are shooting themselves in the foot. Racism lowers wages all round, to the benefit of employers.

   There are many other things that can be said to take issue with Sossle’s nonsense, but I’ll leave it there for the moment.
6. Sossle says:

   December 22, 2016 at 1:32 pm

   Speaking of nonsense:

   “3. If one takes the definition of Left & Right according to its traditional origins (as I do), it can be seen that the supporters of Liberty, Equality & Fraternity are on the Left, while the upholders of the traditional social hierarchy and the sort of State apparatus necessary to enforce that, are on the Right. Accordingly, Anarchists are the extreme Left, while the extreme Right is composed of Fascists and absolute monarchists.”

   Liberty, Equality & Fraternity such as http://www.killingfieldsmuseum.com/s21-victims.html, http://gulaghistory.org/nps/onlineexhibit/stalin/ ?

   Maybe it’s time to let go of your old world thinking and walk into the modern age with eyes open?

   “Left” and “Right” has become no better than terminology like “Us” the good guys and “Them” the bad guys. Perpetuating Left equals good and Right equals bad is quite simple minded and smacks of the usual propaganda found around here. Sorry but Antifa foot soldiers and the Deutsch Schutzstaffel have a lot more in common than you guys can accept. It’s amazing what the use of fear and violence can accomplish when you pull on some black gloves and take to the streets ready to crack skulls. Or for that matter the similarities between IS terrorism and the ‘propagande par le fait’ of the Anarchist movement. In fact you could almost say that Islamic Extremists and Left wing Anarchists/Extremists are of exactly the same gene pool. Both have no squirms about murdering others for the promotion of their own revolutionary ideology. Pushing myths that usually are realised as the blood of countless innocents and not as a glorious new age for all. This blog has numerous hyperlinks to communist propaganda sites, communism has been directly linked to how many millions of mass killings globally? I know irrelevant right? ‘They are not the real communists or we have since discarded those negative aspects and are now progressives that simply love unicorns and butterflies that could never happen again’…

   The “extreme left” is not only populated by violent Anarchists but by extremist authoritarians and are backed by a mass of incredibly naive individuals with beliefs that are up [there] with hugging lions because god loves you. Anyone can see that throughout history the glorious Left have engaged in just as much mass murder and racism as any on the “extreme right”. The Australian Left have a long history of racism in this country, such as the Lambing Flat riots and its banner that came to symbolise Australia’s racist face in the early days of federation, a banner made by members of the trade unions (http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibition/objectsthroughtime/lambingflatsbanner/).

   Or maybe let’s talk about Sir Edmund Barton who introduced the ‘Immigration Restriction Act 1901’ (aka the White Australia Policy) who at the time was the leader of the Protectionist Party whose foundation was one of Social Liberalism. Sir Edmund Barton was also the President of University of Sydney Union, before his political career. Sure the Socialists have worked hard to repaint themselves, but the rust still shows through in many places for those willing to look beyond the typical propaganda being shovelled out from the source. Eventually the Protectionist Party slowly merged into what is now the Australian Liberal Party. This seems to be a bit of a trend globally. What generally starts as Left wing peoples/workers movements more often than not, when moved into any kind of positions of power, begin to lean swiftly to the Right and sadly it is often as far as right wing totalitarianism such as Stalin. Left and right are not opposites as you try so hard to establish here just different ends of the same beast. People/workers revolutions more often than not end in brutal dictatorships that feed on mass death and authoritarianism that enslaves people and does not free them as it claims it will.

   Don’t forget that the French revolutionary who coined the phrase “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity” was also sent to the guillotine by the very same revolution he had helped create… On sentence he cried “You accuse me, who has given everything for the Revolution!” Hébertists of which Momoro was a patron have been described as. “Ideologically, their violent, anti-intellectual, and ultra-populist views centered chiefly on what historian Simon Schama describes as “an anarchic notion of popular government, always armed to impose the will of the people on its mandatories,” and took the form of support for “unrelenting surveillance, denunciation, indictment, humiliation, and death.”
   Catchy motto [there] mate…

   “This Muslim far Right is tiny in Western countries, though it gets inordinate media attention due to the fear it generates in non-Muslim Westerners.”

   Like in Berlin at the moment right, or in Nice in July where 90 people were murdered on Bastille day, the day that celebrates the French revolution and their belief in the principles of “Liberté, égalité, fraternité”. Principles which are under attack globally but not by the groups represented here. Maybe these attacks are what’s drawing the scrutiny in these cases and not the evil racists? Or their religious food taxes, treatment of women, or … I know madness right …

   “We started off trying to set up a small anarchist community, but people wouldn’t obey the rules.”
7. Sossle says:

   December 23, 2016 at 1:12 pm

   “4. Finally, a word on racism. Sossle seems to identify it as racial prejudice and the behaviours that exhibit it. This is a widely held misapprehension. It is actually essential to distinguish between racism and racial prejudice:”

   I am fully aware of the meaning and common usage of the word “racism”. Though I am not sure if the Left is, and by default the meaning they accept is racially prejudice[d] itself and is used primarily as a weapon to shut down open discourse and openly attack their enemies who seem to be predominantly from a single descent.

   Declaring a racial group as a “First People” who then seek to reform the [C]onstitution to protect their own culture and traditions is either supported or not by the Left based on the race of the “First People” in question. Indigenous Australia[n]s seeking this are accepted and supported, whereas any Caucasian group would be seen as promoting racism, no matter where on the planet it occurred.

   “It is vital to note here that “race” is an imaginary and unscientific category, conjured up in the minds of racists and given material reality by the practice of racism.”

   So by declaring oneself an [I]ndigenous Australian or an Aborigin[e] would be by that definition participating in racism itself. And should be discouraged. As race doesn’t technically exist and we are all of the modern era there is no difference at all between a 7th generation white colonist and 1000th generation traditional owner of the land. Right? Somehow I thought not…

   If race is imaginary you could say the same of any attempt to define a group as a gathered lot, such as Left wing or Right wing tags or even the use of the label “Racist” itself. It is only the particulars that one imagines and then assigns to any given group that then goes on to in reality to define it in common language. Because of that, definitions will always vary from individual to individual but are always technically imagined. I think [you’re] also making a typical anti-intellectual blunder here by separating science and imagination. Science itself is at basis dependent on imagination and is a testament to our creative and logical thought processes as humans and is key to helping arrange our surrounding universe into coherent and cognitive thought. You know what else is imaginary? Mathematics, Language, Religion etc…

   “A couple of things follow from this. One is that racially prejudiced behaviour is racist when it reinforces the racist power structure (e.g. when someone from the dominant group speaks or acts in a racially prejudiced way towards someone from an oppressed group), but not when it doesn’t (e.g. when someone from an oppressed group speaks or acts in a racially prejudiced way towards someone from the dominant group). In the latter case, it’s still a character flaw, but it’s not racist.”

   So attacking white right leaning nationalists would be in fact racism if we had an African descent prime minister and the attack was performed by an individual of Asian descent. But it would only be racial prejudice if the prime minister was white, the nationalist was white and the attacker was of Asian descent? And if it was performed by a white person on a white nationalist with a white prime minister it would just be perpetuating hatred? Makes perfect sense now… Glad to see you guys are clearly against racism…
8. Sossle says:

   December 23, 2016 at 1:59 pm

   Also your definitions of racism further discredits any attempt to label opposition of Islam as being racist in nature.

   Opposition to Islam if anything is anti-theism, atheists globally compared to theists are a minority group. Islam systematically discriminates against and suppresses atheists and other minority groups even as far as execution, maiming and imprisonment. Standing against any radical religion including Islam is a stand against authoritarian and totalitarian values. Supporting the supplantation of Islamic ideals over western values in western countries is an endorsement of that same radical thinking and more akin to being a Nazi sympathiser than a freedom seeking Anarchist.

   The Left/Anarchists supporting Islam is hypocrisy at its very best. Or at its worst what’s really behind that red balaclava is just another extremist seeking regime change for their own benefit and political affiliation. Just another little Hitler.

   Misrepresentation of Australia and Australians is par for the course for the Left, strange that Australia doesn’t appear on this list of racist countries. Though quite a few Islamic countries in it. Must be a coincidence right? Or maybe just those “racist” South Africans…

   https://businesstech.co.za/news/lifestyle/116644/the-most-racist-countries-in-the-world/
9. a summary of sossle says:

   December 28, 2016 at 8:55 pm

   sossle,

   a few things:

   1 autism and ad nauseam are common themes in your writings.
   2 look up cognitive bias to help you overcome your ignorance.
   3 go to a muslim country and interact with muslims to see how they treat you – you’ll come back a little surprised.
   4 take time to actually read anarchist literature before committing yourself to lazy arguments – slackbastard has already called you out.
   5 varg vikernes intended to blow up an anti-fascist squat in norway, and he sent a letter bomb to an israeli band called salem, a band that were part of the second wave of black metal.
   6 ‘the Socialists have worked hard to repaint themselves, but the rust still shows through’ – sossle. are you a panel beater with a penchant for poetry?

   to reiterate, stop masturbating.

10. Pingback: Media coverage of the far-right in Australia, 2015-2016 | Kieran's Review

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