Cronulla 2.0? : Racist assembly @ St Kilda Beach, Saturday, January 5, 2019

[Update (January 8, 2019) : Rather than compose another post, I thought I’d update this one with some more infos arising from Saturday’s hate-rally. The first segment concerns police deployment of capsicum spray and use of rubber pellets; the second, the employment by NITV and SBS of neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell on the renovations to their centre at Federation Square in Melbourne.]

Capsicum & Pellets

Among all the media reportage on events at St Kilda on Saturday, one thing that caught my eye was the following (St Kilda beach rally: far-right and anti-racism groups face off in Melbourne, Lisa Martin, The Guardian, January 6, 2019):

In one heated confrontation a rightwing protester broke through police lines and tried to grab a banner from three anti-racism campaigners.

Police sprayed capsicum spray and used rubber pellets before arresting the rightwing protester.

It caught my attention partly on account of what others related to me about the incident. This is their account:

The incident occurred when the anti-racist contingent went out on to the road at Beaconsfield Parade and the fascists were on the embankment leading up to The Esplanade. A few of the fascists started running down the hill and Beaconsfield Parade. At this point, most of the remaining fascists followed them, and the main contingent of the anti-racist rally did as well. This meant that the police followed the main groups (and the fastest-moving parts of those groups) down the road. This left the back of the anti-racist rally completely exposed to both the slower-moving fascists and the ones staying on the embankment.

As there was no police line separating the back end of the rally from the fascists, three anti-racist activists held a banner as a first-line of defence. At this point, a member of the fascist rally approached the three activists holding the banner and tried to rip it out of their hands. The three anti-racists pulled the banner, back but at this point police entered from behind the anti-racists and pepper-sprayed the three of them. As the pepper spray was deployed, the three anti-racist activists and another witness heard at least three loud ‘pops’ in quick succession.

No one was injured from whatever was shot (pepper-ball pellets or rubber pellets) and no-one was marked with dye. However, the OC spray was quite severe. Two women required medical treatment (the pepper spray was mainly levelled against the defensive position of the anti-racists). They were decontaminated on the side of Beaconsfield Parade, initially by other anti-racists, and eventually by paramedics. Those who had just been attacked by the fascists, and then by police, were left exposed as their injuries were treated and as fascists walked past, filmed them, mocked them, and called the women ‘bitches’ and ‘scum’.

We all believe that the police deployed their new weapons, as well as the usual OC spray, and then immediately left the area, without accounting for their behaviour.

Blair Cottrell, NITV, SBS, & Federation Square

According to a source, neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell, in addition to leading the hate-rally in St Kilda on Saturday, has been working as a sub-contractor on the renovations to the building in Federation Square which houses SBS and NITV. As of (very) recently, he’s been re-deployed elsewhere, but was working at the site throughout the Christmas period, in December and January: the precise date on which he commenced working there is unclear.

Cottrell is on the record as advocating the execution of ‘leftist’ media workers. In November 2015, he — along with Neil Erikson, Chris Shortis, Linden Watson and Andrew Wallis — staged a brief occupation of community radio station 3CR. While there, they took notes on staff and stole photographs (and, it seems possible, other d0x).

On that basis, it seems reasonable to conclude that, during the weeks he spent working on site, African, Muslim and Indigenous staff members were potentially exposed to an unsafe work environment. Further, Cottrell has potentially had access to sensitive information; certainly, he’s had the opportunity to put faces to names, acquire detailed knowledge about access to and egress from the building, the comings and goings of particular staff members, and so on.

For the record, nobody much cared about the invasion of 3CR. It’s a small, community-based organisation, targeted on account of my involvement in hosting a radio show there. SBS and NITV, on the other hand, are large media organisations, with many employees and sizable budgets, so it’s possible that Cottrell’s employment there, and seemingly ready-access to its staff and layout, may prompt more serious reflection. At this stage, it remains unclear if the site was a union job, and who exactly was responsible for his employment in the first place. Thus, while members of his extended family run a company called ‘Cottrell Constructions’, via which he’s apparently obtained work, I dunno if this company or some other was contracted to undertake work at Federation Square.

All of which sounds like lines of inquiry that a journalist might like to pursue eh.

[Update (January 7, 2019) : See also : St Kilda rally: A fascist movement can only be kept small if we call it by its name, Jason Wilson, The Guardian, January 7, 2019.]

[I’ve briefly revived the blog in order to write the following. I’m still gonna be taking a break in January, and unpublishing the facebook page. I may add to the post in the next few days as further infos comes to light.]

Aiming to capitalise upon media-driven panic over African youth crime, on Saturday, January 5, serial pest Neil Erikson joined with neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell to organise a racist rally at St Kilda Beach. While estimates vary, and numbers fluctuated during the course of the afternoon, somewhere around 150 people attended their rally, the great majority men and almost all white/’of Anglo appearance’. A larger crowd of perhaps 2-300 attended two anti-racist events on the same strip of beach: one a community picnic, and the other an anti-racist rally organised by the Campaign Against Racism & Fascism (CARF). Both the picnic and rally were scheduled to kick-off at midday, with Erikson and Cottrell’s event due to start at 1pm.

While scheduled to end at 4pm, as it happened the racist rally didn’t last that long and, after perhaps an hour or so of (no-doubt electrifying) speeches — including an address by Senator Fraser ‘Final Solution’ Anning — it abruptly ended. Those who’d assembled then turned their attention to the anti-racist contingent, which by this point had formed one grouping around the picnic, the CARF contingent having marched the very short distance from Catani Arch to join the picnickers. The next hour or two saw various attempts by the racist mob to break the police lines that had formed around the anti-racist contingent. While generally unsuccessful, the mob was free to roam around the police kettle, and continued to harass anti-racists, including when they attempted to leave the area. (For whatever reason, when CARF initially tried (unsuccessfully) to leave the area by crossing Beaconsfield Parade to the Esplanade, the anti-racist assembly was split in half, with the picnickers left behind, and only later being able to leave — either along the Parade, and eventually rejoining CARF — or by another route.)

At various points during this protracted exit from the area, there were brief clashes involving the two sides. In this sense, policing of the event mirrored to some extent that witnessed at the Milo stoopid of December 2017. On that occasion, police were content to allow a small group of fascists to occupy the intersection outside the venue (Melbourne Pavilion) for several hours. On Saturday, the racist mob assembled on Beaconsfield Parade to taunt anti-racists. At one stage, during the (at first) static confrontation between the kettled anti-racists in the park and their loyal opposition (located between it and the road), Some Guy driving a sound system along the Parade paused alongside the racist mob, and two adventurous lads from within the crowd stole a generator from the vehicle. (I understand that they later abandoned the equipment, which was collected by police.) Or as the ABC reported: The conflict spilled onto the road when far-right demonstrators attacked a car which was carrying a loudspeaker broadcasting “Sudanese are welcome, racists are not”.

As the afternoon progressed, there were multiple opportunities for clashes between the two sides, and I’m mildly surprised nobody was seriously injured in these encounters: police reported just three arrests, possibly including that of Rino ‘Bluebeard’ Grgurovic (above). As media have noted, the police presence was massive on the day, with many hundreds mobilised for the occasion, including regular police, uniformed and plainclothes, dog and horse, PORT, undercover, community liaison and specialist media. They also had a helicopter — and a boat!

In terms of who attended, many were known faces and/or drawn from the various groups which have sprung up in Melbourne in the last few years. So Cottrell and Erikson were joined by former United Patriots Front supporters, Kane Miller and the True Blue Crew, Jason Moore and a handful of Soldiers of Odin, half-a-dozen Proud Boys, Tom Sewell and members of The Lads Society from Melbourne and Sydney (and possibly elsewhere), including its Sydney organisers Alex Annenkov and Mark McDonald (the latter of which was the chief organiser of defunct neo-Nazi grouplet ‘Squadron 88’), and so on. Most were not flying colours on the day, however, and most who attended would seem to have been drawn from the wider white nationalist, anti-African and anti-Muslim milieu, the principal platform for which is facebook. Sewell and The Lads arrived a bit late in the piece, and at first appeared to want to march through the anti-racist crowd, but eventually decided not to. Their arrival did, however, appear to be the trigger for the racist rally as a whole to begin to move to surround the anti-racist picnic and attempt to find ways around police lines to attack.

Finally:

• Senator Fraser Anning’s attendance at the racist rally has been noted. Laughably claiming that the nazi contingent was leftists-in-disguise, his trip was, according to the Senator, official business (ie, The Taxpayer footed the bill for his expedition to St Kilda), and in solidarity with the Vietnamese community. One of the fellas pictured above does a very good line in racist rhetoric directed at African-Australians, and promoted the event on facebook by way of terming it ‘Romper Stomper 2.0’, seemingly (and presumably blissfully) unaware that the 1992 film pitted boneheads against Vietnamese-Australian workers.

• One racist meathead in attendance at the rally sported an SS helmet and a Cosmic Psychos tee. The Cosmic Psychos issued a statement in response to the meathead’s use of their merch. Note that the dickhead was pictured in the company of Kane Miller, the lvl boss of the TBC: Miller and the TBC have worked in close collaboration with nazis for several years now.

• The anti-racist and anti-fascist contingent was on the whole poorly-coordinated. At best, this is a good opportunity for those involved to reflect upon what happened, and think about ways in which to improve upon Saturday’s outing. In this context, I’d suggest that, inter alia, a better understanding of the nature of the opposition is required, as is having a very clear idea of what the purpose of attendance is, along with movement within, to and from the event and the area as a whole. In other words, it’s not just a matter of rocking up, but having an exit strategy. That said, there was relatively little time to prepare for the event, it only being announced about a week prior to its occurrence, so there was always going to be some limitations.

• On the whole, I think that the far right had a good day on Saturday. Able to roam about with relative ease, being much more mobile and appearing to be both more able and willing to engage with the enemy, was certainly an advantage. As a result, I’d be very surprised if they don’t take advantage of the relative momentum generated by the event, and will be organising similar events in the near future.

Select media reportage

(January 5, 2019) : Huge Crowds In St Kilda As Police Separate Far-Right And Anti-Racist Groups, Josh Butler, ten daily | St Kilda Beach far-right rally draws hundreds of Melbourne police, rival protesters, Loretta Florance and Jean Edwards, ABC | St Kilda beach rally: far-right and anti-racism groups face off in Melbourne, Lisa Martin, The Guardian | Here’s Senator Fraser Anning Hanging Out With A Bunch Of Far Right Extremists, Tom Clift, Junkee | Arrests and violence as rival protests clash in St Kilda, The New Daily/AAP | Extreme right-wing ‘patriot’ rally in Melbourne: Nazi salutes and scuffles, police on high alert, Shannon Molloy, news dot com dot au | Race Discrimination Commissioner condemns far-right rally in Melbourne, SBS/AAP.

(January 6, 2019) : Scott Morrison Condemns ‘Ugly Racial Protests’ At St Kilda, But Not Fraser Anning, Emma Brancatisano, ten daily | Australian senator attends far-right rally in Melbourne as protesters perform Nazi salutes, Lizzie Dearden, The Independent | Australian PM condemns ‘ugly’ Melbourne rallies involving right-wing extremists, anti-fascists, tvnz/AAP.

(January 7, 2019) : Fraser Anning billed taxpayers thousands to attend two more far-right events, Max Koslowski & Michael Koziol, The Sydney Morning Herald.

(January 8, 2019) : Fascists Rallying over a Fallacy: Nazi Sentiment Seen as Acceptable by Some, Sydney Criminal Lawyers.

See also : Quiet riot: The race to ‘another Cronulla’, Benjamin Millar, medium, January 3, 2019.

2018 True Blue Crew Aussie Pride / Flagwit Parade : All Aboard The Failboat — Toot Toot!

tl;dr : LOL

In Melbourne on Sunday, a small group of racists and fascists, assembled under the banner of the ‘True Blue Crew’ (TBC), undertook a rally and march, ostensibly in order to celebrate ‘Aussie Pride’. The flagwit parade is an annual event, inaugurated in 2016. Thus, this was in fact the third occasion that the TBC has rallied: you can read about last year’s event here and the 2016 event here. Most estimates place the number of participants at around 60-80, with numbers varying somewhat over the course of the few hours that the TBC occupied the CBD. In comparison to 2016 and 2017, this represented a small but significant drop in attendance, and confirms that, while the TBC, its numerous patriotik equivalents, and the various personalities that constitutes the movement’s leadership, can command hundreds of thousands of followers on facebook, this does not translate into actual mobilising capacity.

Touted by Timmeh! of AltRight upstart The Unhinged as being the biggest event on the nationalist calendar, participants assembled outside the Exhibition Building a little after midday, performed an execrable rendition of the national anthem (‘boundless plains to share’ — lol), and then, reinforced by a sizable police contingent, they marched: via Exhibition Street, to the corner of Bourke and Spring Streets in the CBD. Upon arrival, the ultra-nationalists milled about, exchanged pleasantries with the opposition corralled by police on Spring Street, then listened to speeches by local neo-Nazis Blair Cottrell and Tom Sewell of ‘The Lads Society’.

After about 20 minutes of this no-doubt electric speechifying, the group — which at this stage numbered around 50 or so — were again marched away by police (via Spring Street) to Carlton Gardens, whereupon the event more-or-less ended. Fittingly, Cottrell ended his speech by declaring Melbourne to be a ‘shithole’; I suspect he may have been a tad upset that, after three years of self-promotion, only a tiny number of gronks were prepared to follow their fuehrer into battle on Bourke Street. In any case, some of the Lads reassembled for a drink at Transport Bar in Fed Square (see below) and then at Y&J’s.

Naturally — what with Melbourne being a shithole and all — the rally and march was also the subject of a counter-rally, organised by the Campaign Against Racism & Fascism (CARF) and allied groups. Their accounts of the day are also worth reading, and hopefully some lessons have been learned. In this context, it should be emphasised that, while the combined numbers of people taking part in the rally and counter-rally was several hundred, this was possibly exceeded by the number of police mobilised in order to contain them: as ever, it’s the state that determines the terrain. Be that as it may, here’s some links to media reportage, and below these are a few further notes for those interested. See : ‘They can’t summon as much violence as I can’: Leader of far-right ‘true blue crew’ vile boast as his supporters clash with anti-racism supporters at Melbourne ‘flag pride rally’, Cait Kelly/Australian Associated Press, Daily Mail Australia, June 24, 2018 (NB. To the best of my knowledge, this is one of the only media reports that actually labels Cottrell correctly as a neo-Nazi.) /// Far Right Group Host Rally In Melbourne But Were Outnumbered By Counterprotestors Three-To-One, Max Koslowski, Junkee, June 24, 2018 /// Far-right and counter protesters scuffle in Melbourne CBD, Rick Goodman, The New Daily, June 24, 2018 /// Far-right and anti-racism protesters trade verbal barbs in CBD clash, 9News, June 24, 2018 /// TRUE BLUE CREW AUSSIE PRIDE MARCH (AAP).

With regards to the political complexion and very brief history of the TBC, Tom Tanuki provides the following colourful, but basically accurate account:

The True Blue Crew are rallying tomorrow in the city, holding a vague kind of ‘flag worship’ event. It marks two years since an event in Coburg when the TBC got popular for punching on with lefties. Are you going to counter them or to wave a flag alongside them? Either way, it’s important to know what exactly the TBC is. Let’s recap and go through what we know in brief.

The TBC were formed after a few of their original core crew got into a scrap with some Antifa kids after a 2015 rally. ‘Never again,’ they said! So, the TBC were originally meant to be a patriot answer to black bloc Anteefa contingents.

Their red letter day came in May 2016, when they took part in an organised attempt to have the far-right march through Coburg. Their brief, televised fights with masked lefties were a big popularity boost for them. TBC started charging membership fees – $20 a week, $10 for ‘casual’ members. At one point, they were earning tens of thousands of dollars in just a few months! The money was being managed by TBC ‘President’ Kane Miller’s partner and her sister and all of that money was going to Kane. He was largely spending it as he liked.

Behind closed doors, the ‘President’ was abusing his partner. He even broke her back. He wasn’t the only woman-bashing TBC member, either – and when photographic evidence of another member’s brutal assault on his wife was made public, Kane avoided the increasing media spotlight on TBC by kicking Mark out. Members knew that decision made Kane a bit of a hypocrite, for the abovementioned reasons… So they started leaving the TBC. Kane’s abused partner finally left him too and the money management side of TBC went down the drain. The things she revealed about the abuse meant even more TBC members left the group – and they took their membership fees with them.

Kane went quiet for a long while, feeling defeated. TBC ‘club meetings’ dwindled after a time to little more than 12 unemployed blokes sitting around sucking cones in Kane’s mum’s living room. But the lure of conning working class Aussies out of their hard-earned wages still called to Kane. So TBC returned somewhat with an Australia Day BBQ in St Kilda (a genius idea he came up with after a sesh watching the new Romper Stomper). And he had some stupid fucking idea to wander around parks with a bunch of other losers looking for Sudanese children to fight. A meeting he held at Tom Sewell’s Cheltenham clubhouse was televised, with Channel 7 airing a description of the TBC’s initiative as being ‘like a Neighbourhood Watch’ – and it seemed to the world like the TBC were back!

It was not like a Neighbourhood Watch. It was just more hare-brained, shard-addled fantasy garbage from a man who was desperate to be given more membership fees to enjoy himself with. He says it’s for a ‘clubhouse’ but it isn’t and it never will be. TBC only have about 5-10 people contributing membership fees and they get most of their cash from merch. It’s not enough. Kane just wants to siphon more money out from poor, angry, confused Aussies.

That money won’t do anything but fund the TBC ‘President’ and his lifestyle. This is a man who gets cash-in-hand from his Muslim boss (serious!) and has membership fees go into his mates’ bank account so child support can’t take it. This is a man with convictions for domestic violence (he was also violent to his last ex, who also dumped him), multiple AVO breaches and firearms charges who won’t pay for his own child. Money given to TBC is fleeced money, and it pays for a shit fucking dude.

Hey. Put the culture wars down for a moment. Are you a right-winger intending on going tomorrow? Don’t. Pick your battles, and more importantly, pick your allies. These are bad ones. Spend your petrol money on beer, yeah? Enjoy your Sunday.

Are you a left-winger going tomorrow to counter? Fuck yeah! I can’t come coz I’m interstate. I wish I could. I’d love to yell at them. Of course you should show these egomaniacal arseholes they can’t march through the city uninterrupted. Go and yell at racist dogs!

Just remember, y’all – the filmed fights at Coburg were the best thing that ever happened to these guys. So, be careful. And don’t lose on camera!

While the bulk of those who attended the event were members of and/or sporting TBC merch, also present were members of neo-Nazi grouplet Antipodean Resistance, Cooks Convicts (Neil Erikson, Rino ‘Bluebeard’ Grgurovic and Ricky Turner), The Lads Society (‘Troy Bloodstone’, Blair Cottrell and Tom Sewell), Soldiers of Odin (Jay B Moore) and, for some reason, Daniel Purton/A26A (AKA ‘The Crew’).

They were joined by a handful of budding AltRight media creators — a teenybopper calling himself ‘The Young Conservative’, Some Guy called Bayden Mottee and his sidekick Lee/Leon Taylor (who travelled from NSW for the event) — while most of the rest were faces familiar from previous rallies. The nipsters below were in the company of Jacob Hersant:

Finally:

• According to spotters: police worked closely with TBC throughout the course of the event and relations between the two were friendly and relaxed — one might even say that they worked hand-in-glove. This was no doubt a good and useful thing, as several TBC members were wearing gloves that were steel-reinforced. Police conducted a handful of body searches on rally-goers but were rather more thorough in the case of anti-fascists; upon completion of the event, participants were invited by Cottrell to join he and the other neo-Nazi Lads at their club house in Cheltenham.

• Having journeyed to Transport Bar at Fed Square upon completion of the rally, Cottrell and a number of his followers took the opportunity to engage in some cultural criticism. Spying a street performer, ‘Dandyman’, dressed in pink, and possibly imagining himself in the role of head of an Antipodean Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Cottrell & The Gang vocally objected to the performer’s pink costume. This, apparently, was sufficient reason to demand that he remove himself from the Square, and sufficient evidence for the performer to be accused of being a paedophile(!). Requesting assistance from police, they merely oversaw the cancellation of Dandyman’s performance and their removal from the Square. Granting de facto recognition of the authority of Cottrell & The Gang to decide who comes to Fed Square and the circumstances in which they come is a bold move by police, but is perhaps in keeping with the generally amiable relations between the two forces. In any case, it also reminded me of another brilliant piece of cultural criticism Cottrell mounted back in June 2015 as the poor boy struggled to come to terms with the suburb of Northcote:

… The drive into the heart of the city from the northern suburbs was not without drama. I was among our two carloads of eager souls traveling from the north inbound and I have never experienced such appalling traffic conditions.

I specifically remember crawling slowly through the suburb of Northcote and I have never in my life witnessed such a putrid expression of civilized humanity; not even in Dandenong is there such a profoundly visible depression of the buildings, the atmosphere, and the people themselves. I found myself staring open-mouthed out of the car window; for some moments, I was in a state of disbelief and felt as though the surrounding depression was creeping through my car window and licking at my sentiments of hope. The contagious despair of the place threatened to engulf my person after only a few minutes of being there.

Had the people living here really begun to believe such conditions were normal?

The walls of the buildings were literally caked in vulgar graffiti – and not the kind which had any creative or admirable aspect to it. Peeling and faded old advertising posters for music shows long since passed, mold and rot which would take the local business owner perhaps 30 minutes to remove with a high pressure hose, yet none anywhere seemed to have bothered. Even the smell of the place quickly quelled a painful hunger for breakfast I had been feeling hitherto.

And the propaganda there was all anti-racist material.

Posters, graffiti, and even large banners hanging from old public buildings of British-Australian architecture read “racism-free community”, “smash racism”, and so forth.

A structural dedication to past Australian military services, a building of some sort with architectural dedications in the front gardens, was the only decent looking building in the area, however, not even it was spared by the local graffiti bandits who had ‘tagged’ the walls and panels with some unintelligible scribble.

Was this suburb of Northcote the ultimate expression of so-called anti-racism? If so, the cultural degeneration of this place speaks absolute volumes of the philosophical and moral backwardness of these self-abnegating plebeians: today’s Marxistic Left-wing.

Had these pioneers of cultural decay gained any knowledge of our intentions on this particular day, you can rest assured they would have flocked to the area in formidable numbers to “smash the fash”, as they put it …

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

PS. TBC gangs in Perth and Sydney also held flag-waving rallies. In Perth, approximately a dozen or so boofheads assembled in order to be laffed at by scores more; in Sydney, Kokoda veteran Bill Ryan took the opportunity to denounce racism, but received little if anything in the way of support. Sydney eh?

BONUS! DandyMan versus nazi goons

This article by Richard Watts provides a good breakdown of Cottrell & The Gang’s harassment of Dandyman and the heartening response of the Melbourne community: Street performer reclaims Fed Square after far-right threat, ArtsHub, June 26, 2018. See also : Dandyman to perform this afternoon despite right-wing attack, Javier Encalada, The Northern Star, June 26, 2018 /// Melbourne street performer abused with homophobic slurs, Jesse Jones, Star Observer, June 26, 2018 /// What Happened When A Far-Right Group Bullied A Street Performer?, The Project, Channel Ten, June 26, 2018 /// Blair Cottrell and the problem of male aggression, Clementine Ford, The Sydney Morning Herald, June 26, 2018.

Cottrell was accompanied by at least thirteen others during the course of his artistic cleansing of Fed Square:

1: Luke Phipps; 2: Bayden Mottee; 3: Ian Sayer; 4: Max Towns; 5: Lee/Leon Taylor; 6: Jacob Hersant (Antipodean Resistance); 7: TBC; 8: Kane Miller; 9: ‘Troy Bloodstone’ (Lads Society); 10: TBC; 11: Rino ‘Bluebeard’ Grgurovic; 12: Steven Hansford; 13: TBC.

See also : We give you Melbourne’s thug Taliban, DYVRS, June 26, 2018.

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

img via The Simpsons against the Liberals

[UPDATE (January 17, 2018) : See also : How do you solve a problem like the ‘African Gang Crisis?’, Cam Smith, Overland, January 17, 2018.]

For those of you coming in late, on Sunday in Cheltenham the ‘True Blue Crew’ (TBC) — a racist street-gang based in Melton and Bendigo — organised a meeting in order to discuss the establishment of a vigilante group, one tasked with tackling #AfricanGangs. According to reports, the meeting attracted several dozen people: members of the TBC, the ‘United Patriots Front’ (UPF), and several members of other tiny, radical right-wing satellites.

Announced some weeks ago, the TBC declared that the meeting would be held at a secret location, the details of which would be released on late Sunday morning to those who’d expressed an interest in attending and passed their stringent vetting procedures. This was arranged so that the meeting would not be subject to disruption. Within the space of a few hours of this information being distributed, however, it was also made public: the TBC would be meeting at 4pm at Eddie’s bar in Cheltenham. Not long after this, and seemingly as the result of inquiries from journalists and concerned members of the public, the bar’s management decided to cancel the group’s booking, forcing them to hold the event elsewhere.

That elsewhere was Unit 9, 158 Chesterville Road, Cheltenham, the site of something called the ‘Lads Society’.

The ‘Lads Society’ announced its existence in October last year. The property was leased by UPF líder máximo Blair Cottrell’s sidekick, Thomas Sewell, who is joined by, among others, James Buckle — the President of gun lobby group ‘Firearm Owners United’. In promotional material for the new project, Tom indicated that among the reading materials the ‘Lads’ could enjoy perusing at the Society was Mein Kampf, the text Blair Cottrell notoriously declared that he wants issued to all Australian school children.

Annually.

See also : White nationalists True Blue Crew vow vigilante action in Melbourne, Rachel Eddie, The New Daily, January 14, 2018.

While some media did attend the event, and police lurked, only one media organisation was granted ‘exclusive access’ to the meeting: Channel 7.

exclusive

Jodi Lee: Well good evening Jackie as we go to air tonight that meeting is still very much under way. 7 News was the only media organisation invited inside the meeting where more than 50 people, mostly men, gathered from all across the state. They came from as far as Cobram and Shepparton, Melton in the city’s west and Mornington along the peninsula. Now, they gathered at a meeting spot that belongs to the United Patriots Front but the men there hail from several different groups. They don’t say that they are right-wing activists, they call themselves patriots, and say they have come together to help average Australians deal with what they are calling an immigrant crime crisis. Now, they say they’ve been disappointed by the Andrews government and by Victoria Police who this group believes have been rendered unable to cope with rising crime. Take a listen to what their leaders tonight had to say.

Blair Cottrell : Well nothing is being done. The government could be doing a lot more to combat this crime but police aren’t being given the powers they need to combat this problem we have in this country.

Kane Miller : We have a few ideas we hope to put in place, it’s about time the community get involved because it’s clear to see that police can’t save us all.

Daniel Andrews : People are free to meet and discuss whatever matters they want to. What I would say though is Victoria Police are best capable, best able and best equipped to fight crime and keep the community safe.

Jodi Lee : Now this group hopes to harness the power of social media to protect both them and their families. They’re hoping to create a kind of ‘Neighbourhood Watch’ that will be able to quickly let people know when an incident, a robbery or an attack in fact, is occurring and hopefully help send locals there to help protect residents, Jackie.

Not unexpectedly, Channel 7’s promotion of the TBC African-hunting project, as well as its decision to put to air the views of a leading Melbourne neo-Nazi and his mate, has come in for some criticism. See : Oh Look, 7 News Gave The Spotlight To An Actual Neo-Nazi, James Hennessy, Pedestrian, January 15, 2018 /// Congratulations Australia, We’ve Successfully Normalised Neo-Nazis, Osman Faruqi, Junkee, January 15, 2018 /// Channel Seven ‘crossed a line’ with neo-Nazi interview, Broede Carmody, The Age, January 15, 2018 /// Channel Seven under fire over interview with far-right activist, Melissa Davey, The Guardian, January 15, 2018 /// No Channel Seven, Cottrell is no ‘right wing activist’. He’s dangerous, John Birmingham, Brisbane Times, January 16, 2018.

Who are the True Blue Crew?

As noted above, the TBC are a Melton and Bendigo-based street gang that emerged in late 2015 and early 2016. It’s one of numerous flag-waving groups that have appeared during the course of the last decade, from the ‘Southern Cross Soldiers’ to the ‘Australian Defence League’. Since its inception, the Crew, under the leadership of Kane Miller, has organised a number of events. Its first rally took place in May 2016 in Coburg. Titled ‘Stop the Far Left!’, the rally intended to disrupt an anti-racist rally organised by the Socialist Alliance, to express opposition to the ‘Islamisation’ of Coburg and support for the concentration camps on Manus and Nauru (see : Coburg 1 /// Fascists 0; Or: The neo-Nazi rally that brought anti-fascists to the streets of Coburg, May 31, 2016 /// More reflections on ‘solidarity’ after the Coburg protest, January 7, 2017). As on future occasions, the TBC were joined on this occasion by (the remnants of) the UPF and a small clutch of (other) neo-Nazis wearing Wolk’s Hook regalia (note that members of this grouping later went on to form ‘Antipodean Resistance’).

Having successfully cleansed Coburg of Muslims and leftists, the TBC’s next big event was a flag parade in the CBD in June. On this occasion, as well as the UPF and others, the TBC were joined by a large number of Christian fun-da-mentalists from Pastor Danny Nalliah’s ‘Rise Up Australia Party’ (RUAP); the event was given an even more bizarre tenor by their performance of the traditional Australian haka. Also present at the event was alleged terrorist Phill Galea, who thrilled to the corporal punishment handed out to Coburg locals by the TBC at their coming-out party in May:

Having successfully waved flags in the city, the next TBC event was a ‘Rally Against the Rise of Islam in Melton’ in August 2016. This was another bizarre set-piece, this time pitting the TBC methgoblins up against the ‘Soldiers of Odin’ and its leader, Jason Moore (formerly a member of the ‘Patriots Defence League of Australia’). Undeterred by such shenanigans, the criminal prosecution of several of its members for assault (both upon anti-racists and their own — female — partners), common sense or basic decency, as well as appearing at several other events, the TBC returned in 2017 with another flag parade (June 2017) and have now embarked upon the formation — along with their neo-Nazi comrades in the UPF — of a lynch-mob to target African yoof. Or, as Jodi Lee put it, ‘a kind of Neighbourhood Watch’.

vid via ‘The Socialist’

So much for the TBC. As for the UPF and Blair Cottrell, I documented his views — as expressed on Facebook and YouTube — back in July 2015 (see : Quotations From Chairman Blair Cottrell, July 27, 2015), while his violent criminal record is detailed (in his own words) in a documentary film (see : Blair Cottrell : ” … and I started getting arrested after I did that.” #Fortitude /// #UnitedPatriotsFront, February 23, 2016) and by Geir O’Rourke and Angus Thompson for the Herald Sun (June 11, 2016). Of his offending, they write:

Cottrell, 26, was sentenced to four months in prison in May 2012 after being convicted of 13 charges, including seven counts of intentionally damaging property. County Court Judge Michael Tinney convicted the then-22-year-old of throwing a missile, stalking, failing to comply with a community-based order, and two counts of recklessly causing serious injury. In December 2013 he was fined $1000 and sentenced to seven days in jail by a County Court judge for aggravated burglary, property damage, arson, trafficking testosterone, possessing a controlled weapon and breaching court orders.

Last September, Cottrell — along with former UPF comrades Neil Erikson and Chris Shortis — was also convicted of serious religious vilification and received a small fine (and is appealing his conviction).

Thus, while it should be obvious where the UPF, Cottrell and his sidekick Sewell are coming from, their reaction to the murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville last year is telling:

As for Herr Cottrell’s attitude towards the (((media))):

Finally, Neil Erikson — who definitely did not attend the meeting on Sunday, as that would mean he was in violation of court orders not to associate with fascists — was in court again on Monday, facing a charge of contempt-of-court. See : A Dumbass Convicted Racist Almost Accidentally Swore On The Koran In Court, Cam Tyeson, Pedestrian, January 16, 2018 /// Anti-Islam activist Neil Erikson admits he breached court orders, The Guardian (AAP), January 15, 2018 /// Anti-Islam activist mistakes Koran for Bible in court appearance, Adam Cooper, The Age, January 15, 2018.

Note that Erikson was accompanied to court by several other ostensible members of ‘Patriot Blue’: Lachlan/Logan Spalding (also present when PB racially-abused Labor MP Sam Dastyari), Julian de Ross (who also attended the TBC meeting on Sunday) and George Jameson and Penny Louise, recently expelled from Nick Folkes’ micro-Party For Freedom in Sydney. Joining Julian was also Daniel Jones, previously employed as a bodyguard to Avi Yemini, but otherwise — like a number of the budding vigilantes — working in the security industry.

Avi Yemini ~versus~ APEX : “Make Victoria Great Again” LOL (September 17, 2017)

This Sunday, September 17, Avi Yemini has organised a rally to castigate the Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews, for failing to stop African yoof from slaughtering Victorians.

Or something.

According to Avi:

The government has failed us.

Violent crime in Victoria is out of control and we refuse to wait until the next elections [sic] to demand safety and security for the good people of our great state.

We will be demanding:

1. Minimum sentencing for violent offenders, including teenage ‘minors’.

2. NO bail for violent offenders.

3. NO early release for violent offenders.

4. Adult jails for offenders over the age of 18. No matter their sob story.

5. Deportation of violent immigrant offenders.

6. Empowering the community through the legalisation of defensive tools, such as pepper spray.

Avi has previously stated that ‘[t]here’s no question that Melbourne is currently under siege’, and that those besieging it are APEX (‘APEX: How to end their reign of terror’, July 16, 2016). On APEX, see : In defense of the “Apex gang”, Kieran’s Review, November 7, 2016; on crime in Victoria, see : FactCheck Q&A: is violent crime getting worse in Victoria and do people feel less safe than ever?, The Conversation, February 18, 2017.

Joining him on the day will be All The Usual Suspects, drawn from A26A, Asolate Security Group, Patriots Defence League of Australia, Reclaim Australia, Soldiers of Odin, True Blue Crew, United Patriots Front and various other right-wing satellites.

Well, actually, lvl boss of the TBC, Kane Miller, announced on Tuesday that the boys from Bendigo and Melton will not be joining Avi on Sunday. According to Kane, this is because of the unfortunate fact that, while they too regard African yoof as being suitable only for deportation, Avi simply failed to respond to their messages to him about the event.

This is very sad news.

But wait! There’s more! On Friday, Kane informed the world that he and his Crew will indeed be attending on Sunday, because while they don’t support Avi or his #BFF Neil Erikson (who has previously denounced the TBC as the ‘True Meth Crew’), they rlly do hate African yoof as much as any other flag-waver.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In any case, the Soldiers of Odin — y’know, the mob founded by a Finnish neo-Nazi, Mika Ranta (Finnish Resistance Movement) — will mos def be present, including its President Jason (‘Jay B’) Moore, and Swiss member Jan Herweijer. Jan was recently in the news (August 22, 2017) because he ‘was issued with a letter from the immigration department last month informing him he had failed a character test. The letter, seen by nine.com.au, informs Mr Herweijer the department is considering cancelling his current bridging visa and refusing his partner visa application because of his online activity and affiliation with Soldiers of Odin (SOO).’ Note that in July:

Three men with ties to the [Nordic Resistance Movement] were sentenced on Friday to up to eight and a half years in prison for bomb attacks in western Sweden over the past year. Viktor Melin, 23, received the longest sentence for carrying out bomb attacks on a left-wing bookstore and an asylum center and an attempted bombing of a second asylum center. The attacks took place in November and January. Nobody was killed but one man was seriously wounded in the asylum center attack.

The Soldiers’ cousins in Sweden are also organising a march on a synagogue on Yom Kippur (Neo-Nazis Get Green Light To March Outside Swedish Synagogue On Yom Kippur, Aiden Pink, Forward, September 11, 2017).

Joining the Soldiers Of Odin will be whatever remains of the PDLA, which in this case seems to be Damian/Damien Kourevellis (Court told violent man not detained, Steve Butcher, The Age, March 26, 2009):

A man arrested and then released from hospital hours after threatening “suicide by police” was shot and wounded months later by an officer in a second violent confrontation. A court heard that father of three Damien Kourevellis left Sunshine Hospital on March 24 last year after police sought his involuntary detention under the Mental Health Act. Kourevellis that day had assaulted his partner, threatened to blow up her house with petrol bombs and then armed himself with a knife. But he was not charged for seven months.

Kourevellis later ‘pleaded guilty to nine charges from both incidents that included reckless conduct endangering serious injury to police and manufacturing an explosive device’, crimes which bring to mind both Blair Cottrell’s criminal record and of course my good friend Phill Galea, who if he wasn’t awaiting trial on terrorism charges would also be joining Avi outside Parliament.

One grouping that will not be present on Sunday will be Chris Shortis and the Australia First Party. Despite being a confirmed anti-Semite and White supremacist, Avi found time last week to congratulate Chris on his brave defence of the crime of inciting hatred for Muslims. This is a heartwarming tale and one which demonstrates that Avi and Chris can at least bond over their mutual fear and suspicion of Muslims and Africans.

Certainly, the extreme-right and neo-Nazis have nothing to fear from Avi, whose main concern is to combat those opposed to the extreme-right. Thus: The media love to highlight the stereotypical mad-dog, right-wing, “neo Nazi”-looking crew, but they’re not the real problem. The real problem is the so-called “anti-fascists” who claim to be standing against hate (ironically in a very hateful way). (‘Burning the flag: A hate crime every time, The Times of Israel, June 28, 2016).

ABOVE (L to R) : George Jameson (Party for Freedom, Sydney), Chris Shortis (Australia First Party, ex-United Patriots Front), Neil Erikson (ex-UPF, ex-Nationalist Alternative), Blair Cottrell (UPF, ex-NAlt), Ricky/Rikki Turner, Garry Hume, Luke Phipps.

Finally, the state government passed the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Public Order) Act 2017 this week, which:

essentially bans face coverings during protest events where OC (capsicum) spray is commonly deployed by police (often in inappropriate, excessive and potentially unlawful circumstances). This means journalists, photographers, street medics and legal observers, as well as protestors will not be able to protect themselves from the effects of direct spraying or by-spray. This is despite numerous recent incidents where journalists, medics and legal observers (along with dozens of protesters posing no threat to police whatsoever), have been directly sprayed by ill-disciplined, under trained or over-zealous police.

The CBD has also been declared a ‘designated zone’ between 8am and 8pm on Sunday.

See also : AJDS Statement on Avi Yemini and the rise of far-right racism, September 14, 2017 | Counter Fascism Action: Join the Jew Bloc (Hosted by Jews against fascism) | From Charlottesville to Melbourne: Unite to fight the far right (Hosted by Campaign Against Racism and Fascism): 11.30am, Sunday, September 17, 2017 @ State Library of Victoria.

antifa notes (october 10, 2016) : Soldiers of Odin Redux /// Eltham /// Hammerskins

See also : Who are the Soldiers of Odin?, Kieran’s Review, October 10, 2016 | An Anti-Muslim Vigilante Group Is Roaming The Melbourne CBD Pledging To “Keep Our Streets Safe”, Tom Clift, Junkee, October 10, 2016.

1) Soldiers Of Odin

Several months after they began parading around the Melbourne CBD, The Age has taken notice of the Soldiers of Odin. See : Vigilante-style group Soldiers of Odin patrolling Melbourne CBD, Chris Vedelago and Cameron Houston, October 10, 2016. According to The Age: “The Soldiers of Odin appear to operate similarly to the Guardian Angels network, founded in New York City in 1979 to patrol the subway system amid growing crime rates.” I would suggest that a better model would be the street patrols of Greek neo-Nazis Golden Dawn. Be that as it may, a few points:

• The SOO were founded in October 2015 by Mika Ranta, a Finnish neo-Nazi activist with links to the Suomen vastarintaliike or Finnish Resistance Movement (FRM), the local branch of neo-Nazi grouplet Nordic Resistance Movement. Like others belonging to SOO, Ranta has a violent criminal record.

• Members of the FRM are allegedly responsible for the recent killing of an anti-racist activist, 28-year-old Jimi Karttunen: “The man arrested in connection with assaulting a man to death at the Helsinki Central Railway Station is a key figure in the Finnish Resistance Movement (SVL), confirmed the police. A passer-by was beaten up outside the Helsinki central railway station where the Finnish Resistance Movement was holding a demonstration on September 10. The man succumbed to his injuries at the Helsinki Meilahti hospital on September 16” (Helsinki murder suspect key figure in SVL, FTimes-STT Report, September 21, 2016). His murder sparked a massive protest in Helsinki, one of the largest in recent memory.

• Since its formation in Finland, the SOO — rather like the (now largely-moribund) English Defence League — has expanded to a number of other territories, including Canada. Anti-Racist Canada has exhaustively documented SOO’s links to neo-Nazism and criminal violence.

• The leader of SOO in Melbourne is Jay B Moore. Like other Soldiers, Moore has an association with other patriotik groups, in particular the Patriots Defence League of Australia (PDLA). Below he’s pictured at the joint Reclaim Australia/United Patriots Front (UPF) anti-Muslim rally in Melton in November 2015 and at the UPF rally in Bendigo in February 2016 sporting PDLA merch. (Another member of the SOO, Cam ‘Moody’ McCann, was present at the Reclaim Australia rally in Melbourne in April 2015 in the company of a small clutch of neo-Nazi methgoblins.) Given the apparent collapse of the PDLA, it makes sense for Moore and others to have hitched their wagon to yet another anti-Muslim vehicle; an ever-present dynamic within the broader milieu. Or: same shit, different pile.

• While the meatheads belonging to SOO are obviously more attracted to the bells, whistles and uniforms, the association between Odinism (and other forms of esoteric religion), fascism and neo-Nazism extends back many years, including in Australia, and most especially by way of Alexander Rud Mills (1885–1964). His peculiar beliefs are examined in ‘Skeggold, skalmold; vindold, vergold’: Alexander Rud Mills and the Asatru faith in the New Age (Australian Religion Studies Review, Vol.12, No.1, January 1999) while his (Nazi) political beliefs are examined more closely in David S. Bird’s Nazi Dreamtime: Australian enthusiasts for Hitler’s Germany (ASP, 2012). See also : Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (2002). Anti-Fascist News provides some more recent accounts of the relationship between neo-paganism and the far right on its site here; it’s also worth noting that other ‘heathens’ reject racism and fascism. See : Heathens United Against Racism.

• The SOO joined the True Blue Crew (TBC) and UPF at their anti-Muslim rally in Melton in August this year at which members of the TBC and SOO clashed. The TBC eventually booted the SOO from Melton, with most of their animosity seemingly being directed at SOO President Jay B Moore. Despite this, the SOO — ~~minus~~ including Moore — joined with the TBC at an anti-refugee rally in Eltham on October 1.

Source : DYVRS

Speaking of which …

2) DYVRS – Diamond Yarra Valley Resistance Solidarity

The Party for Freedom (PFF) is holding another anti-refugee rally in Eltham on November 5. The ostensible target of their ire is St Vincent’s Care Services, which has recently won a contract to provide housing to something in the order of 100 Iraqi and Syrian refugees. St Vincent’s has published a fact sheet explaining the initiative here.

In response to this rally and the rally of October 1 a new group has formed: Diamond Yarra Valley Resistance Solidarity (DYVRS). On the DYVRS blog it notes that a majority of those present at the rally on October 1 were drawn from the TBC, SOO and other satellites; the Soldiers, the Crew, the UPF, the PFF and All The Usual Suspects (even Ralph Cerminara!) have announced their intentions to return on November 5, making it a fun day for the whole racist family. Those unhappy at the prospect of another assembly of racist and fascist bigots should follow DYVRS for more announcements.

3) Blood & Honour / Southern Cross Hammerskins

FTR, Benson & Hedges and the Southern Cross Hammerskins are holding their annual Ian Stuart Donaldson memorial gig this weekend in Melbourne. The event commemorating the death of the Skrewydriver has been held every year for the past two decades with only occasional fanfare in the media — even the massacre conducted by Hammerskin Wade Michael Ppage at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin 2012 barely registered in Australia. In any case, their cheeky kameraden in the UK managed to fool keen-eyed and whip-smart Cambridgeshire Police a few weeks ago as ‘Hundreds of people attended a neo-Nazi rally that was not opposed by police in the belief it was a charity event’ LOL (Cambridgeshire neo-Nazi rally allowed as ‘charity’ event, Sally Chidzoy, BBC, October 6, 2016).

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Anarchy and apathy battle it out on @ndy's blog.

Tagged with Jay B Moore