On Right-Wing Trolls Touring Australia in 2018

Update (December 3, 2018) : Hope Not Hate provide a potted summary of Milo Yiannopoulos’ financial and legal situation in Milo Yiannopoulos’ debt crisis (December 2, 2018).

In so many ways, Milo Yiannopoulos is unremarkable. He is just one of a long line of conservative grifters making hay in Australia. ~ Richard Cooke, Australia’s welcome mat for right-wing trolls, The Saturday Paper, October 21, 2017.

See also : Age-old hate, The Monthly, July 2017 | Alt wrong, The Monthly, April 2017.

Gavin McInnes : CANCELLED

This week, the Australian Minister for Immigration, David Coleman, decided to refuse to issue a visa to Gavin McInnes on the basis of his ‘bad’ character. His decision follows closely upon the tabling of a petition to the Australian Parliament with over 80,000 signatures calling upon the Minister to do just that (and — no doubt coincidentally — a mere week after the Victorian Liberals got trounced in the state election after running a race-baiting law-and-order campaign).

See : Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes denied visa to tour Australia with ‘The Deplorables’, Matthew Doran, ABC, November 30, 2018 | Australia rejects far-right Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes’ visa application, Riley Morgan, SBS, November 31, 2018 | Founder of US far-right group denied Australian visa: ABC report, Al Jazeera, November 31, 2018 | Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes denied entry to Australia for ‘Deplorables’ speaking tour, Travis Gettys, Raw Story, November 30, 2018.

As for the Proud Boys, in addition to having most if not all of their Facebook pages closed, yesterday it was announced NYPD Arrests Two More Proud Boys As Hate Group Grapples With ‘Cuckery’ (Jake Offenhartz, Gothamist, November 30, 2018). See also : Scary Clowns, Brendan O’Connor, The Baffler, November 21, 2018 ~and~ follow AntiFash Gordon and Rose City Antifa for d0xx.

Milo Yiannopoulos ~versus~ AE Media

For those of you coming in late, back in April ‘Future Now’ (AKA Queensland businessmen Ben & Dan Spiller) announced that Milo Yiannopoulos and Gavin McInnes would be touring the country in May, accompanied by serial pest Neil Erikson (and possibly disgraced Sky News presenter Ross Cameron). Almost immediately upon it being announced the tour collapsed in a heap.

Undeterred, in September ‘Future Now Australia’ announced that they would be touring Fraser ‘Final Solution’ Anning, Ann Coulter, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (‘Tommy Robinson’) and Milo Yiannopoulos in November/December. That, too, collapsed in a heap, with Yaxley-Lennon withdrawing and the tour being promoted as ‘Ann & Milo’. Not long after, the organisers announced that this tour too was cancelled, and ticket-holders would instead be issued tickets to see Gavin McInnes. That tour, organised by Damien Costas (Penthouse Australia), would later add Yaxley-Lennon to the bill. Intended to kick-off in December, the tour has now been delayed until February 2019, will not feature McInnes and — given his extensive criminal and political record of racist agitation — there’s a serious question mark hanging over the likelihood of Yaxley-Lennon being admitted to the country.

In any case, there’s no love lost between ‘Future Now/Australia’ — now re-badged as ‘AE Media’ — and Milo Yiannopoulos, which has come to a head in the last few days with d0x being released by Erikson which purport to detail financial shenanigans by Milo. One is titled Milo-Event-Facts-Press-Version and the other Dan-helping-milo-with-bills-email-chain-PRESS-1. For his part, Yiannopoulos published a YouTube video (streamed live on November 28, 2018) and issued a statement:

MILO JOINS PENTHOUSE AUSTRALIA’S “THE DEPLORABLES” TOUR WITH GAVIN AND TOMMY

Sydney, Australia.— Milo Yiannopoulos is joining Penthouse Australia’s “The Deplorables” Tour, alongside Gavin McInnes and Tommy Robinson, following the cancellation of his previously slated tour in December by original promoters AE Media.

Ticket-holders for the original “Milo and Ann” tour will have their tickets honored and they will see Milo, Gavin McInnes and Tommy Robinson live in Australia in February 2019. Ticket-holders will be contacted via email by Penthouse in the coming days.

Damien Costas, publisher of Penthouse Australia, said: “Milo’s record-breaking Australia tour remains the standard by which conservative speaking tours are judged. And now we’re adding him to an already brilliant line-up. The three of them together promise an absolutely spectacular show—not to mention terrific value for money.”

Yiannopoulos said: “I’m delighted to be rejoining Penthouse for another tour in Australia in 2019, after my sellout runaway success with them last time. I’d like to thank Penthouse for honoring the tickets sold under my previous promoter, who unfortunately could not meet their financial or logistical obligations. I’m delighted my fans will not lose out and can’t wait to be back in Australia.”

Yiannopoulos has delayed the release of his forthcoming book, Australia, You’re My Only Hope!, to coincide with the rescheduled Deplorables tour. The book will now be released in February 2019. VIP ticket holders will receive a free signed copy.

“For those of you who want to know what went down with my last promoters, well. It’s an ongoing drama, and I need your help,” Milo added. “I’ll be doing a stream today, November 28, for fans, live on YouTube. Look out for notices on Facebook and Instagram for a link to the stream.”

The Deplorables Tour Enquiries: [email protected]

Ticket-holders seeking refunds from the previous promoter should contact: Daniel Spiller, Seagate Services Pty Ltd, [email protected] and Benjamin Spiller, Seagate Services Pty Ltd, [email protected]

*Presumably, Milo didn’t get the memo that Gavin won’t be coming.

In the video which accompanies the statement, Yiannopoulos variously describes AE Media and the Spiller brothers as inter alia ‘fraudulent’, ‘insane’, ‘incompetent’, ‘liars’ and ‘cunts’. For their part, the Spillers have contracted the services of fellow Queenslanders Rose Litigation in order to sue Yiannopoulos for monies allegedly owed them. The video also contains some discussion around Australia and the upcoming publication of his book, Australia, You’re My Only Hope!. Note that the conception of Australia as ‘The Last Great (White) Hope’ has been a trope among White nationalists for quite some time.

Be that as it may, Yiannopoulos, while bemoaning the awful sacrifices he’s made in order to write the book, also expresses concern that it might contravene Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. Given that the racist commentary he provided on his December 2017 tour (organised by Costas/Penthouse) triggered no such prosecution; that his fanbase includes such luminaries as Richard Wolstencroft and Kate Langbroek and Janet Albrechtsen (an Ambassador for the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation); that a number of the venues at which he performed both celebrate their Indigenous art collections while profiting handsomely from Milo’s anti-Indigenous hate-speech; that, in October, Indigenous Affairs minister Nigel Scullion was one of the 23 members of government who voted to support Pauline Hanson’s motion decrying ‘anti-white racism’; and given that the (to-date unsuccessful) campaign to amend or indeed scrap altogether Section 18C has won broad support from Tories, it may be that his angst is unfounded.

More broadly, Yiannopoulos notes that while anti-fascists in the US have had some degree of success in de-platforming and marginalising him, Australia is a very ‘safe space’. Thus (52:00), ‘I’m kind of mainstream in Australia. You know, I’m kind of like a ‘normal’ conservative in Australia … if you tone down the language a little bit, I’m kind of like safe for public consumption in Australia. I’m just worried about the book …’. Further (2:24:36), ‘I only engage with you because you were going to pay me a shit-tonne of money, and I was going to have fun in Australia … Australia? I like the country, but I was, you know, I’m fundamentally touring because I like the country and because I’m very popular there, and it pays a lot.’ Finally, with regards the Spiller brothers, his invitation (2:07:40) to examine their correspondence is introduced by way of stating ‘Let’s just have a quick window into the insane world of the Spiller brothers.’

Yiannopoulos on Australian Indigenous life, art and culture

The following is an extract from Yiannopoulos’s December 2017 speech at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre:

Because newsflash [Aboriginal art] really is shit … Now Australians in this sort of bizarre form of middle-class guilt have decided to pay obeisance to a culture that failed to invent the wheel — and whose signature musical achievement is a big stick … The ugly truth that they don’t want you to say out loud is that history has winners and losers. The progressive left wants to turn Western countries into the only developed civilisations in the history of human society that shit on their own accomplishments in favour of vastly inferior civilisations for no apparent reason. Hence we’re confronted with the ugly spectacle of your own nation and ‘welcome to country’ … and the desperate, pathetic attempts to pretend that didgeridoos represent a beautiful and historic cultural achievement, and not a punchline to a joke. Now you might not know this, but there are absolutely no Aboriginal people left alive in Australia — the last ones died in the ’60s and ’70s, and since then George Soros has been shipping over Black Lives Matter activists, giving them tubs of white-out, and telling them to just daub themselves and make all the White people feel bad. Your politicians in a symbol of how intelligent they are have been falling for it for half-a-century.

Milo Yiannopoulos ~versus~ Axiomatic Events

The other bit-player in the Australian foreign troll circuit is ‘Axiomatic Events’. As Axiomatic Events, Dave Pellowe and Luke Chandler toured Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern in July. They also hired neo-Nazi grouplet ‘The Lads Society’ to provide security for the tour. Of the tour, Yiannopoulos notes (54:58) that ‘Their promoters really fucked them … [Axiomatic Events is an] equally amateurish, disastrous outfit… I don’t even know if they’ve [Molyneux and Southern] been paid yet, their audiences were tiny …’.

See also : Dave Pellowe & Axiomatic Events ~versus~ Daniel Spiller & Future Now +++ (June 6, 2018) | Stefan Molyneux & Lauren Southern’s hate-speech tour kicks off in Cairns (with a little help from the AFL) (July 16, 2018) | Stefan Molyneux & Lauren Southern @ La Mirage, Somerton : Friday, July 20, 2018 (July 20, 2018).

Kermit The Flog

Jordan Peterson’s March 2018 tour was organised by ‘True Arrow Events’ (Sam McClelland); his upcoming 2019 tour by TEG Dainty & Nice Events.

Saturday, February 9 : Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre, Riverside Theatre
Monday, February 11 : Adelaide Entertainment Centre Theatre
Wednesday, February 13 : Plenary, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre
Friday, February 15 : Llewellyn Hall, Canberra
Saturday, February 16 : Sydney Opera House
Sunday, February 17 : Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre

• 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’). See also : 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.