Tagged with Executive Council of Australian Jewry

antifa notes (november 2, 2018) : milo & mcinnes; lads, proud boys & natzis

Update (November 3, 2018) : Nationals ban 22 members for life after investigation into neo-Nazi links, Michael Koziol, The Sydney Morning Herald, November 3, 2018.


Above : On L, alleged killer Robert Bowers announcing his intention to GTKRWN; on R, Brisbane-based neo-Nazi and member of The Lads Society Beau Maverick. Neither man cares greatly for ‘optics’.

* The massacre at the synagogue in Pittsburgh on October 27 was reportedly the worst such event in US history. Unfortunately, given current political trends, that record may not last very long. In any case, Julie Nathan of the ECAJ has written ‘As the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre shows, fears of “White Genocide” are incitement to murder’ (ABC Religion & Ethics, October 29/31, 2018), while CEO Alex Ryvchin reckons ‘Synagogue slayings not a shot in the culture wars’ (October 31, 2018 — for a contrary view, see : Jews Against Fascism).

I may add some more thoughts at a later date, but in the meantime I think it worthwhile highlighting the fact that the rehabilitation of anti-Semitism and its increasing centrality to extreme-right perspectives in the United States is echoed Down Under as an increasingly larger segment of younger right-wing activists not only adopt a fascist outlook but place anti-Semitic conspiracy theories at the heart of their worldview. By way of example, the AltRight media platforms ‘XYZ’ and ‘The Unshackled’ (AKA ‘The Unhinged’ — which, to its credit, has been authorised by Google as a trusted media source) have drifted over the course of the last year or two from fairly conventional arch-Toryism to an open embrace of white nationalism. Leaving aside David Hilton (‘Moses Apostaticus’), fellow XYZ contributor Ryan Fletcher has accounted for this shift in an essay titled ‘Trading HEMP for Hitler’ (a text which comes highly recommended by editor David Hiscox). Fletcher is also a YUGE fan of James Mason’s Siege — required reading for members of local neo-Nazi grouplet Antipodean Resistance.


Above : Tim Wilms of The Unhinged wearing his Proud Boys ‘Pinochet Did Nothing Wrong’ shirt. Note that the arm reads RWDS (‘Right Wing Death Squad’). Under the Pinochet dictatorship (1973–1990), tens of thousands of Chileans were raped, tortured, murdered and forced into exile by his death squads. (Coincidentally, this weekend, LASNET has organised a gathering on Autonomy & Resistance at Trades Hall in Melbourne.)

See also : Pittsburgh shooting extends wave of conspiracy-minded rightwing violence, Jason Wilson, The Guardian, October 27, 2018 | George Soros: Why Are Australians Flirting With This American Conspiracy Theory?, Alex Bruce-Smith, 10 Daily, October 31, 2018 | Dialectic of Counter-Enlightenment: The Frankfurt School as Scapegoat of the Lunatic Fringe (March 9, 2012).

1) Dan Spiller/Future Now Australia Presents: Milo Yiannopoulos & Ann Coulter

Queensland businessman Dan Spiller (AKA ‘Future Now Australia’ AKA ‘AE Events’) has recently announced the cancellation of the upcoming tour by Infowars-supplements salesman and paedophile apologist Milo Yiannopoulos (accompanied by fellow wealthy blabbermouth Ann Coulter). This is the second time Spiller has tried and failed to organise a tour by ‘foreign radicals’: back in April, Spiller announced that he’d be bringing both Yiannopoulos and ‘Proud Boys’ founder Gavin McInnes to Australia. That effort collapsed in a heap within a few days, but Spiller’s latest production took several months to fall apart … which I suppose could be considered either an improvement or a degeneration (depending on your perspective). In any (non-)event, the decision to cancel the tour has been compounded by Spiller’s decision not to refund buyers but instead offer them tickets to go and see two other ‘foreign radicals’ — Gavin McInnes and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon — when they tour in December.

Fingers crossed, Mr Spiller’s seemingly chronic inability to successfully profit from foreign hate-merchants will not deter him from attempting to do so and being similarly adept in future. The silver lining on this grey cloud of failure, however, is perhaps the new book by Milo, which is apparently All About Australia:


Above : An extract from Yiannopoulos’s upcoming book on Australia. It’s unclear at this stage if Janet Albrechtsen has accepted an invitation to write the foreword.

See also : Milo Yiannopoulos Fans Are Pissed His Aussie Tour Got Cancelled, And It’s Extremely Funny, Tom Clift, Junkee, November 1, 2018 | Milo Yiannopoulos’ Australian Tour Has Been Cancelled And Fans Want Refunds, Josh Butler, 10 Daily, October 31, 2018 | Milo Yiannopoulos’ Australian tour cancelled with no refunds, SBS, October 31, 2018 | Milo Yiannopoulos’ Aussie Tour Has Been Cancelled, Disappointing Dozens, Ben McLeay, pedestriantv, October 31, 2018 | Milo Yiannopoulos tour cancelled; Gavin McInnes visa debate continues, Kieran’s Review, October 30, 2018.

2) Gavin McInnes & Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (‘Tommy Robinson’)

Damien Costas, publisher of Penthouse Australia, is planning on bringing Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes and ex-BNP member and founder of the English Defence League Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (AKA ‘Andrew McMaster’/’Paul Harris’/’Tommy Robinson’) to Australia in December. As usual, venues will be made public 24 hours prior to the event, but it’s not unreasonable to expect previous venues, including Festival Functions in Findon (Adelaide), Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre, Melbourne Pavilion in Flemington/La Mirage in Somerton, Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre and Le Montage/International Convention Centre Sydney (ICC Sydney) to again provide a platform for race-hate. The dates for the tour are as follows:

• ADELAIDE : WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5
• PERTH : FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7
• MELBOURNE : TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11
• GOLD COAST : THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13
• SYDNEY : SUNDAY, DECEMBER 16

Of course, the possibility of either McInnes or Yaxley-Lennon being able to enter the country is entirely dependent upon Mr Potato Head’s feels on the subject. On Robinson, and in particular his current legal troubles (which may also see him prevented from coming), see : David Renton and Barrister Blogger.

With regards McInnes, he and his ‘Boys’ have been getting into some bother of late. Just a few weeks ago (Friday, October 12) in New York, McInnes was invited by the Metropolitan Republican Club to celebrate the anniversary of the assassination of Japanese socialist Inejiro Asanuma on this date in 1960. Following the event, some of McInnes’s fanboys went on a bit of a rampage, and some got arrest. An awful lot of ink has been spilled on the subject of the event and its aftermath, but as ever New York City Antifa (Twitter) is an xclnt resource. See also : The Proud Boys, The GOP And ‘The Fascist Creep’, Christopher Mathias, Huffington Post, October 18, 2018 (‘Gavin McInnes spoke at a GOP club, then his followers violently attacked leftist protesters. Modern American fascism finds its foot soldiers’) | NYPD arrests 14 Jewish protesters outside Republican club where Proud Boys brawled, Rex Santus, Vice, October 31, 2018 (‘The protesters outside the Club on Tuesday were there to call on the Republican Party to denounce white nationalism after the Saturday shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue where 11 worshippers were murdered by a man who’d shared anti-Semitic and white supremacist comments online.’).

Closer to home, Melbourne lawyer Nyadol Nyuon has launched an online petition, calling on the Minister to deny McInnes a visa. For their part, both Facebook and Instagram appear to have removed a large number of (official and unofficial) Proud Boy accounts from their sites. ‘The crackdown came slightly more than two weeks after members of the group reportedly attacked and beat activists protesting at an event in Manhattan. It also follows the massacre of 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue — the worst anti-Semitic attack in recent US history.’ The gab.ai webshite (AKA ‘Twitter for nazis’) is also experiencing technical difficulties at the moment …


Above : Melbourne-based neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell tweets a dank meme about killing socialists. Note that Asanuma’s teenybopper assassin, Otoya Yamaguchi, killed himself a few weeks later.

See also : Australia should be wary of the Proud Boys and their violent, alt-right views, Kaz Ross, The Conversation (ABC), October 30, 2018 | Proud Boys Founder Gavin McInnes: ‘We Need More Violence from the Trump People’, gritpost, October 18, 2018 | The New Nazis: How the meme-rich world of the internet is a threat in Australia, Kaz Ross, ABC, October 14, 2018.

3) Young Natzionals

The recent revelation that the Young Nationals in NSW have been targeted for infiltration by neo-Nazis and White supremacists created some mild embarrassment for the party over the course of the last few weeks. On Wednesday, it was announced that 15 members of the party — including Thomas Brasher, Michael Heaney, Clifford Jennings and Oscar Tuckfield — had resigned, while something like another 20 have had their membership status questioned, and may yet leave or be forced out of the party. See : Nationals members resign en masse amid investigation into neo-Nazi ties, Michael Koziol, The Age, October 31, 2018 | Young Nationals resign after after ABC investigation reveals alt-right push, Alex Mann, ABC, October 31, 2018.

On Monday the story — the origins of which may be traced back to some reportage in The Australian back in May, but which was given flesh by Alex Mann for the ABC — provoked the following front-page treatment in The Daily Telegraph:

Oddly enough Sharri’s father, Max Markson, has been doing his bit to promote racism and fascism in Australia by way of Penthouse and in his capacity as Milo’s Australian publicist. Sadly, the relationship between Costas and Markson has broken down in the wake of the paedophile apologist’s December 2017 tour: ‘ … Mr Markson called Mr Costas a “lying conman”. Mr Costas, the publisher of Penthouse Australia and owning a company alongside one of Australia’s biggest drug dealers, convicted ice importer Sean Dolman, retaliated by calling Mr Markson “a very naughty boy” who “had his finger in the till”‘ (Private Sydney: Markson sparks up in court in dispute with Penthouse publisher, Andrew Hornery, The Sydney Morning Herald, September 6, 2018).

See also : “I’ve had pictures of the Florida school shooter posted on my door”. UTAS’s Dr Kaz Ross says she has had death threats since exposing young Nationals alt-right supporters, On Mornings with Sarah Gillman, ABC, November 1, 2018 | NSW Nats clear key player in Nazi scandal, SBS (AAP), October 31, 2018 | White Nationalists Plan to Infiltrate Mainstream Australian Politics, Paul Gregoire, Sydney Criminal Lawyers, October 22, 2018.

4) The Lads Society

As noted a year ago, the neo-Nazi grouplet ‘The Lads Society’ has a clubhouse in the Melbourne suburb of Cheltenham. The nazis also have a training facility in Sydney, which is located at 34 Thomas Street, Ashfield. The Lads certainly have a sense of humour, with the lease on the property being signed with Colemon Property Group on Hitler’s birthday (April 20).

The chief organiser of ‘The Lads’ in Sydney is a Kiwi called ‘Mark McDonald’. Previously, Mark was the lvl boss of another short-lived neo-Nazi grouplet called ‘Squadron 88’. It attracted some media attention by way of stuffing letterboxes in Jewish areas of Sydney with anti-Semitic tracts. McDonald is also widely-believed to be responsible for the distribution of some racist posters in Sydney in mid-2017. Most recently, McDonald and several other Lads attended Adelaide barrister John Bolton’s batshit rally in Wiley Park:


Above : Partially-obscured, joining Cottrell on the right is Adelaide barrister John Bolton; standing between Cottrell and Tuckfield is Mark McDonald, founder of defunct neo-Nazi grouplet Squadron 88 and current lvl boss of The Lads Society in Sydney.

Finally, ladsleaks has published an interesting discussion drawn from The Lads’ private Facebook page. The list of participants in the discussion reads like a Who’s Who of neo-Nazism Down Under, including both founders Blair Cottrell and Tom Sewell, Mark McDonald (‘Tyler Winchester’) and Stuart Von Moger, David Hilton (‘Moses Apostaticus’), Jim Perren (Australia First Party/’Whitelaw Towers’/United Patriots Front), Welf Herfurth and more. Much of the discussion revolves around The Lads’ shared hatred for Jewish neo-Nazi Nathaniel Jacob Sassoon Sykes. Based in Sydney, Sykes was until a few years ago a prolific contributor to the world’s leading neo-Nazi webshite ‘The Daily Stormer’. A member of the Australia First Party, Sykes uses his blog ‘United Nationalists of Australia’ to take aim at the party’s rivals on the right — including, of course, The Lads.

The post which triggered Tom can be read here — I’ll post other commentary from ladsleaks here laters.

5) … of note

• Guns, fascism, infighting and couch-surfing: Researcher Serena Tarr recounts a year studying the alt-right, Emma McClatchey, Little Village, October 8, 2018;
• Here Is a List of Far-Right Attackers Trump Inspired. Cesar Sayoc Wasn’t the First — and Won’t Be the Last., Mehdi Hasan, The Intercept, October 28, 2018;
• We Must Pressure Mainstream Forces to Stop Downplaying the Far Right, Spencer Sunshine, truthout, October 29, 2018;
• Three Months Inside Alt-Right New York, Jay Firestone, Commune, Fall 2018 (‘An undercover antifascist descends through all nine circles of the alt-right inferno.’);
• Twilight of the Racist Uncles: How Facebook is melting the minds of our elders, Ed Burmila, The Baffler, October 30, 2018;
• After Last Week, There’s No Hope That the Media Will Ever Abandon False Equivalencies With the Far Right, Natasha Lennard, The Intercept, October 31, 2018;
• Engedaw Berhanu Remembers His Nephew—Brought to Portland, Then Forever Lost, Jason Wilson, Willamette Week, October 31, 2018;
• Punching On With Patriots: How To Tackle Gavin McInnes And His Proud Boys’ Promise of Violence In Australia, Tom Tanuki, New Matilda, October 31, 2018.

antifa notes (november 29, 2017) : From MUFF to Romper Stomper

First, a few updates:

1) Dick & MUFF

Following his batshit, public, and VERY ANGRY reaction to the same-sex marriage ballot survey’s majority support, after first doubling-down on his defiance of the (((gay))) agenda and — not coincidentally — following MUFF’s sponsors, and a considerable number of its supporters, declaring MUFF to be FUBAR, Richard Wolstencroft announced his resignation as Director and handballed responsibility for it to his mate and MUFF patron, Frank Howson. Whether or not this means MUFF will continue remains an open question. In any case, Dick did find vocal support from at least one other filmmaker: Ian Nicholson of the Sydney Short Film School. Ian also decried the influence of ‘dumb, lefty cunts’ on Australian culture and society, and compared gay couples to motorbikes. True Story! Resembling Richard in more ways than one, after doubling-down on his original cray-cray and — not coincidentally — after the Australian Cinematographers Society announced that he was no longer welcome to use their facilities to run his skool, Ian made a public apology.

See : Richard Wolstencroft & MUFF ~versus~ Those Degenerate Gays, November 18, 2017.

2) Patriot Blue

‘Patriot Blue’ is serial pest Neil Erikson’s latest political vehicle, one into which he’s enrolled his stoopid mate, Ricky/Rikki Turner. (Other participants in the stoopid have included Paul ‘Guru’ Franzi, Pommy whinger Garry Hume, George Jameson and Penny Tridgell (Party for Freedom, Sydney), Luke Phipps, Lachlan/Logan Spalding, and a handful of others.) After having made a splash by disrupting council meetings and, most recently, racially abusing Labor MP Sam Dastyari at a pub, on Friday (November 24), Neil and Ricky/Rikki took it upon themselves to attempt to disrupt a solidarity rally with the men on Manus. Collective Action have published an account of what followed here: What happened in Melbourne yesterday? (November 25, 2017). Yesterday’s Manus solidarity rally in Melbourne did not “turn violent”, it was attacked first by a known fascist and then by the police. The racist violence of the Australian state, directed at Indigenous peoples, Muslims, and anyone who would dare seek asylum whilst non-white, continues to embolden far-right thugs …

Finally, in addition to clashing with STAN over their unauthorised use of ‘Patriot Blue’, Neil and Ricky/Rikki have also fallen foul of TOLL, which yesterday published the following statement on the boys’ use of TOLL uniforms during their dickheaded stunts:

3) FREE PHIL!

Old mate Phill Galea is slowly making his way through the courts — today he was again having his bRanes assessed. AAP:

Probe into accused Vic terrorist’s mind
November 29, 2017

A far-right anti-Islam extremist accused of planning to bomb left-wing groups in Melbourne may not stand trial for terrorism offences if a second expert finds him mentally unfit.

Phillip Galea, 33, faced the Victorian Supreme Court on Wednesday via video link for a brief directions hearing about his case, which is still before a lower court.

Galea is charged with making preparations for terrorist attacks against properties occupied by Melbourne anarchist groups between November 2015 and August 2016.

The 33-year-old is also charged with collecting or making documents to prepare for terrorist acts between September 2015 and August 2016.

A pre-trial committal hearing in the Melbourne Magistrates Court has been delayed amid concerns about his mental state.

Prosecutors and defence lawyers on Wednesday said they are waiting for a report by a second mental health expert before deciding if Galea’s fitness to stand trial should be determined in the Supreme Court.

Galea is due to see a psychiatrist on December 13 for a second opinion.

His case will return to the Supreme Court on January 29 so counsel can decide the next step.

Galea has been in custody since he was arrested in August 2016.

Police have accused Galea of preparing to target various locations inhabited by the Melbourne Anarchist Club and Melbourne Resistance Centre.

The Braybrook resident allegedly told an associate he wanted to cause as much devastation to his targets as possible in a coordinated attack, according to a summary previously released by the Magistrates Court.

He allegedly ordered potassium nitrate for smoke bombs, aligned himself with right-wing groups True Blue Crew and Patriots Defence League Australia, and researched how to make improvised explosive devices.

Note that, while the majority of his patriotik kameraden have run screaming from Galea, in Queensland one-man band Mike Holt is spearheading a campaign to #FREEPHIL. Launched in August, Mike’s petition has to date attracted over 1,000 signatories. According to the OAP, Phil Galea, Australian patriot, was arrested and accused of being a terrorist in August 2016 after he followed and filmed ANTIFA terrorist thugs at their headquarters. The police allege that he had “bomb making materials”, but Phil denies this and says he can prove why he had the chemicals for peaceful scientific experiments.

LOL.

More recently (November 16, 2017), Mike published a letter from Galea about a dead patriot called Shannon Wallace, in which Phillthy speculates that Wallace may have suffered an ‘unnatural’ death (possibly murdered by use of a ‘sonic gun’?). In early 2016 I visited Shannon Wallace in what was called The Compound by him and his father, writes Phil, before providing a garbled account of various persons and events and identifying Darren Norsworthy (PDLA and ‘Battalion 88’) and ‘Aaron’ [Dekeulenaer, presumably; a nazi dork from Ballarat associated with PDLA, ‘Battalion 88’ and RWRAU] as police informants. Phill also writes:

If I was murdered (or had an “accident”), Shannon was to use an internet café to sign into my e-mail account and send Blair Cottrell (UPF), Mike Holt (Restore Australia), and Liz Sheppard (Reclaim Australia) all of my recordings from a fake account. Then Shannon was to use the Linux computer I had given him to make dozens of copies of the discs and hand them out to all True Blue Crew Members who were on a list I had given him when he went to the Melton anti-mosque rally. Then he was to hand the discs directly to the press as well.

And so on and so forth …

See also : Will the Alt Right Produce the Next Timothy McVeigh?, Alex Reid Ross, AlterNet, November 27, 2017 (‘The history of white nationalism suggests we could be entering a period of violent upheaval’).

4) Pauline Hanson ~versus~ Queensland

Sadly, NASA and the United Nations successfully conspired to rob Malcolm ‘Jew World Order’ Roberts of his rightful place in Queensland’s state parliament on the weekend. Worse yet, it seems as though possibly only one ONP candidate, Stephen Andrew, will get the bump. On a brighter note, Pauline Hanson will be pocketing a cool million from the election, adding to the estimated six million dollarydoos she’s earned contesting numerous elections over the last 20 years.

5) Anti-Semitism

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) has published its annual report on anti-Semitism in Australia. See : Antisemitic incidents in Australia up nearly 10% over year, study says, Helen Davidson, The Guardian, November 27, 2017; read/download a copy of the report here. Among those who get a guernsey are Hitler fanboys Antipodean Resistance, Mark Latham’s chums at The Convict Report (‘The Dingoes’), the Australia First Party, Nationalist Alternative, United Nationalists Australia and Blair Cottrell, David Hilton and even Brendon O’Connell. Speaking of O’Connell, it appears that he’s currently stuck in jail in New Zealand, presumably before Kiwi authorities deport him (see : Anti-semitic blogger detained for nearly six weeks, Radio New Zealand, November 21, 2017).

See also : Nazi-inspired vandals deface central Ballarat, damage house, Brendan Wrigley, The Courier, November 14, 2017.

Coming at things from a slightly different angle, the latest issue of the Australian Jewish Democratic Society’s zine ‘Just Voices’ (No.14, November 2017) is also dedicated to the subject of anti-Semitism, a broad topic that encompasses many different and related phenomena, past and present. It deserves our attention now no less than ever, especially since it is largely neglected in the Left, and concerns many developments within mainstream culture, including the American government openly spouting antisemitic views. It also contains, inter alia, an interview with the compañerxs of Jews against fascism. NB. Jaf are also organising a presence at the Milo Yiannopoulos show on Monday (December 4).

6) From Cootamundra to Cheltenham


Above : James Buckle of gun lobby group Firearm Owners United outside his neo-Nazi clubhouse in Cheltenham

Speaking of Nazis … back in September there was a by-election in the regional seat of Cootamundra in NSW, which the Nationals managed to retain (but experienced a big swing away from the party, rendering it nominally marginal). Australia First Party fuehrer Dr James Saleam ran (coming last on 453 votes or 0.99%), as did Matthew Stadtmiller of the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers (who got just a few more votes than Dr Jim). Earlier, in January, Stadtmiller had described NSW MP (and Minister for Lands and Forestry and Racing) Paul Toole as a ‘Nazi’; this prompted an article in the regional Southern Cross newspaper in September about his faux pas, one which prompted a further contribution from former Cootamundra MP Katrina Hodgkinson. Weirdly, the article also included commentary from James Buckle of gun lobby group ‘Firearm Owners United’: “We expect this sort of thing from Greens candidates, not from outgoing Nationals,” group president James Buckle told the Herald on Thursday morning. “It’s just another sign the Nationals have abandoned their rural constituents and we’ll be actively lobbying against them in the Cootamundra by-election.” That’s wEiRd because, apart from anything else, Buckle is a Melbourne resident and one of those who, in addition to Blair Cottrell and Thomas Sewell, is part of something called ‘The Lads Society’: a clubhouse for neo-Nazis based in Cheltenham.

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

7) Fascism in reality (and phantasy)

Romper Stomper returns to the (small) screen in the New Year. See : Geoffrey Wright on his Romper Stomper remake – and why Donald Trump inspired him, Tim Elliott, The Age, November 17, 2017.
• “Sweetman was a Melbourne neo-Nazi who axe-murdered a fellow bonehead at a party to celebrate Adolf Hitler’s birthday, which sounds ridiculous but is true,” Wright tells me. Wright read all the reports on Sweetman, and even talked to people who knew him, eventually drawing from his story the rudiments of Hando, the character at the centre of what would become the film Romper Stomper. Old Mate was released from Fulham prison on parole in October 2005, after serving 15 years of a 20-year sentence for the 1990 murder of David Noble; he then (briefly) settled in @ The Tote along with Patrick O’Sullivan. A former Creatard, O’Sullivan is now ‘Combat 18’; in 2002, O’Sullivan was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for stabbing another bonehead (also at a party) — which is where he became chums with Sweetman.
• The day I visit the Melbourne set, Wright is directing a scene in which Farron and Laila appear on No Quarter, ostensibly to discuss a clash that took place, at a recent halal-food festival, between Patriot Blue members and hard-left activists. The clash would appear to be based on an incident in Melbourne in April last year in which Nick Folkes and the Party for Freedom had its anti-Muslim rally gatecrashed by anTEEfa.
• Like Romper Stomper, the US film Imperium (2016) — which borrows its title from Francis Parker Yockey‘s 1948 magnum opus — also features anTEEfa, who are known as ‘The Anti-Fascist League’ (in Romper Stomper they’re called ‘anti-fash’ or something). At one point, Daniel Radcliffe and his nazi chums — Radcliffe plays the role of an FBI agent tasked with infiltrating the nazi group — assemble at a comrade’s haus to watch a TV show promoting an upcoming nazi rally. The hosts make reference to their opposition (The Anti-Fascist League) and then show some photos of the mob expected to rock up and try and spoil the party. Fuck me dead if it isn’t a photo of THE LEAGUE in action in Melton in November 2015.

See also : Dead fascist poets society: why CasaPound are no book club, libcom, November 10, 2017 /// I learned German with white supremacist Richard Spencer, Julie Hill, The Spinoff, November 12, 2017 /// A Contemporary Taxonomy of Britain’s Far Right, base, November 21, 2017 (‘Anti-fascists need to look at how the far-right has organised in the past and is currently organising if they are to halt the rise of a potentially resurgent far-right’) /// Andrew Anglin: The Making of an American Nazi, Luke O’Brien, The Atlantic, December 2017 (‘How did Andrew Anglin go from being an antiracist vegan to the alt-right’s most vicious troll and propagandist—and how might he be stopped?’).

8) anTEEfa!


Above : ‘Follow Your Leader’ by David Wilcox : Cover of Anarchist Studies (Vol.25, No.2), Autumn 2017

Finally, there’s been a blizzard of writings on anTEEfa this year. Here’s a sample:

The First Thing Colleges Must Understand About Antifa: What the Word Means, Nell Gluckman, The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 10, 2017.

Pro Anti, Angela Mitropoulos, The New Inquiry, August 20, 2017 (‘Antifa’s horizon is in toppling the legitimacy of extraction and ownership anchored in presumably natural foundations’) /// Antifascism: Pros and cons, Ross Wolfe, The Charnel House, August 20, 2017 /// The Forgotten Roots of Antifa, Kevin Mattson, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, September 19, 2017 (‘Although defenses of Antifa, like a recent one in The New Inquiry, are relevant, the movement may do well to remember its less romanticized intellectual roots, from Orwell to Camus’).

… and for #lulz, see : Alt-right Trump supporters and left-wing Bernie Sanders fans should join together to defeat capitalism, Slavoj Žižek, The Independent, November 25, 2017 (‘Class struggle is back as the main determining factor of our political life – even if the stakes appear to be totally different, from humanitarian crises to ecological threats, class struggle lurks in the background and casts its ominous shadow’).

BONUS! Slime

antifa notes (december 2, 2016) : jewsagainstfascism ~versus~ One Nation Party

From The Department Of “And I Would Have Gotten Away With It Too, If It Weren’t For You Meddling Kids” …

happymalcolm

Local gym owner Avi Yemini’s invitation to One Nation Party senators Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts to address a public meeting in Caulfield this weekend (Sunday, December 4) was rejected by the dynamic duo on Wednesday (November 31), ostensibly as a result of security concerns.

See : ‘Intimidated’: Hanson, Roberts cancel plans to address Melbourne’s Jewish right, Bianca Hall, The Age, November 30, 2016 | Security fears cancel Hanson’s Melbourne meeting, 9News (AAP), November 30, 2016 | Hanson, Roberts cancel event due to security scare, Crikey, December 1, 2016 (According to Crikey, “The event was originally meant to take place at Glen Eira Town Hall, but it was moved to a pub when the council decided they didn’t want to be associated with it” — I assume that the ‘pub’ in question refers either to Yemini’s gym or the Bowls Club).

The meeting attracted opposition organised under the umbrella of ‘Jews against fascism’ — a dangerous rabble described by Malcolm ‘Jew World Order’ Roberts as being ‘horrid’, ‘vicious’, ‘vile’ and ‘violent’. The cancellation of the meeting has deeply upset Hanson fanboys, from Yemini to professional trollumnist Andrew Bolt. Bolt himself has pleaded — from the safety of his plush office — for Victoria police to stage a showdown with the far left, and to rid Melbourne of these meddling kids.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Originally scheduled to take place at Glen Eira council, the venue was changed to Yemini’s gym and finally — thanks to the active support of its president and board — to Caulfield Bowls. While Yemini has assumed responsibility for arranging the meeting, also invoked as supporting the initiative is the ‘Independent Jewish Council of Australia’ (IJCA), an obscure group that apparently formed in 1996 but only acquired a website a few weeks ago … though judging by the site’s contents, it’s far from certain that the site is, er, legit.

Other Jewish organisations responded negatively to the proposed meeting.

Australian Jewish Democratic Society (AJDS):

As many would be aware, One Nation senators Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts will be coming to Caulfield to spruik their divisive and racist politics to the Jewish community. Along with many others in the Jewish community, AJDS stands firmly opposed to the ideas which they put forward, standing instead for principles and practices of inclusion, diversity, and real, substantial multiculturalism.

Australian Jewish News (From Cable Street to Caulfield, November 24, 2016) editorial:

… those of us who do not share those sympathies, who are prepared to stand up to bigotry and defend the rights of minorities, are entitled to protest: to say that while Hanson and Roberts may be speaking in our heartland, the majority of us do not feel they are welcome.

B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission:

While people are entitled to express their views, we hope that Senators Hanson and Roberts do not use this platform to scapegoat, single out and demonise any religious and ethnic group, which only undermines our multicultural society and contributes to a climate in which bigotry and hatred become mainstream and acceptable …

Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV):

Whilst the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) and the Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) generally support the right of people to express their opinions and speak publicly, neither the ECAJ nor the JCCV supports the planned One Nation event being organised in Caulfield in December by the self-styled Independent Jewish Council of Australia (IJCA).

(In its Annual Report on Anti-Semitism for 2015, the ECAJ notes that “Reclaim rallies have included neo-Nazis, and other far Right people, Pauline Hanson as a speaker, white pride groups, racist sentiment, and swastika tattoos. One major Reclaimer, neo-Nazi Neil Erikson [see below], was convicted of making abusive and racist phone calls to a Melbourne rabbi. Australia’s most prominent neo-Nazi, Ross ‘The Skull’ May, has given support to Reclaim.” In which context, it’s worth noting that, as well as being arguably ‘Australia’s most prominent neo-Nazi’ and Reclaim Australia supporter, ‘The Skull’ was on board the bus from Sydney to Melbourne in order to attend the July 18 Reclaim Australia rally, along with John Oliver of the Patriots Defence League of Australia. Oliver tried to bring a gun with him, and had previously threatened to kill me. He now appears to be active on Twitter as @Ban_asslam.)

National Council of Jewish Women of Australia:

We stand firm against the policies and politics of those such as Pauline Hanson, Malcolm Roberts and the One Nation Party. We believe that people should not be judged by their ethnic origin or religion, but by their actions towards peace and the harmony of our community.

The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council did not release a position statement on the affair, but Tzvi Fleischer wrote about ‘Senators in glass houses’ and attempted to trace connections between Malcolm Roberts and anti-Semitism in particular. Dean Sherr, writing for the AJN (Not in our backyard!, November 25, 2016), notes that:

… across the two federal seats that cover Caulfield and much of Glen Eira, Goldstein and Melbourne Ports, Hanson’s One Nation polled between 0.38 per cent and 0.40 per cent. In the six booths across Caulfield, One Nation polled a total of 26 votes, a similar percentage. Even combined with the more explicitly anti-Islam party, the Australian Liberty Alliance, the anti-Islam bloc failed to total one per cent in the heart of Melbourne’s Jewish community. To paraphrase Senator Roberts, where’s the “empirical evidence” of a Jewish undercurrent of One Nation support?

When One Nation first emerged in the late ’90s, its relationship with the far right was a key issue. In 2001, Danny Ben-Moshe wrote (One Nation and the Australian far right, Patterns of Prejudice, Vol.35, No.3):

One Nation, the Australian anti-immigration political party established in April 1997 by independent MP Pauline Hanson, was defined by its founder’s explicit and hostile attitude towards Aboriginal reconciliation, Asian immigration and the resulting multiculturalism. With similar views being espoused by Australia’s organized racist groups, there was constant speculation about the nature of One Nation’s ties to the racist right. Theories ranged from active recruitment to subversive infiltration, but the truth is somewhere in between. Almost every racist group endorsed One Nation and their members joined the party and sought to exert influence over it, both at a leadership and grassroots level.

The furore over Yemini’s invitation to Hanson and Roberts to address a meeting in Caulfield, and its subsequent cancellation, has similarly provoked a number of racist groups, including the Facebook group ‘Australian Settlers Rebellion’, which offered the following meme as a puny defence:

arseavi2

In which context:

• ‘Australian Settlers Rebellion’ (ARSE) is the Facebook safe space for Shermon Burgess and Neil Erikson: the racists the United Patriots Front (UPF) rejects;

• Erikson, a former member of the neo-Nazi groupuscule ‘Nationalist Alternative’, spent years as a neo-Nazi activist in Melbourne and, as noted by the ECAJ Report, has a criminal conviction (February 2014) for harassing a Melbourne rabbi:

Neil Luke Erikson, 29, phoned Rabbi Dovid Gutnick of Melbourne City Synagogue on three occasions, telling him “Give me the money Jew or else I will get you” and abusing him for his faith.

He also spoke of circumcisions, blood money and Jewish sidelocks and told Rabbi Gutnick he knew his location and was coming to get him.

Magistrate Donna Bakos said she had no doubt Erikson’s calls were motivated by prejudice and found he had little remorse for his crime.

Erikson is due back in court in March next year, along with UPF fuehrer and neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell and fundamentalist Christian and White nationalist Chris Shortis (Australia First Party), for alleged racial and religious vilification arising from the publicity stunt the trio (along with John Wilkinson and Linden Watson) staged in Bendigo last year in order to promote an anti-Muslim rally;

• The photo the simpletons have used is actually of Manny Waks (R) and his father, Zephaniah (L). Avi Yemini, the captain of the Hanson failboat in Caulfield, is brother to Manny;

• The protest was organised by Jewsagainstfascism. Burgess and Erikson, on the other hand, happily and knowingly collaborated with a range of neo-Nazis and fascists in both Reclaim Australia and the UPF before spitting their dummies and embarking on a number of other failed projects, of which ARSE is merely the latest;

• Can you spell ‘anti-Semitic’? LOL.

See also : Jews United: Pauline Hanson And Malcolm Roberts Sent Packing, Michael Brull, New Matilda, December 2, 2016. Brull (and New Matilda) takes note of Avi Yemini’s desire to have Waleed Aly removed from television and from the country, but he is also on record as wanting to impose a total ban on immigration from Africa and the Middle East on the basis that such people will dirty the streets.

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BONUS! #altright

trumpy

A few articles of interest: New York’s Alt Right (Part I), NYC Antifa, November 29, 2016 | Hate speech by another name: Why the term ‘alt-right’ should not be legitimised, Celeste Liddle, The Age, November 28, 2016 | Keyboard warriors of the alt-right have Australia in their sights, Daniel Flitton, The Sydney Morning Herald, November 26, 2016 | Calling them “alt-right” helps us fight them, Matthew N Lyons, Three Way Fight, November 22, 2016 | SPLC on Alternative Right. Note that for a very short period, the UPF media page touted itself as ‘The Offical AltRight of Australia’.