Dave Pellowe & Axiomatic Events ~versus~ Daniel Spiller & Future Now +++

Above : Dave Pellowe (Axiomatic Events) / Daniel Spiller (Future Now Australia)

Oh dear.

Last weekend, ‘Cooks Convicts’ — in this case Neil Erikson, his loyal sidekick Ricky Turner, and a coupla bikies — paid a nocturnal visit to Dave Pellowe’s house in Queensland. According to Erikson & Co, Pellowe is the person responsible for sabotaging fellow Queensland businessman Daniel Spiller’s attempt to organise back in April a tour Down Under by infowars supplements salesman Milo Yiannopoulos. The plan, apparently, was for Yiannopoulos to join Erikson, Sky News’s Ross Cameron, and ‘Proud Boy’ Gavin McInnes to talk shite LIVE! and/or via skype in Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and Perth. For whatever reason, Spiller’s tour collapsed in a heap almost immediately upon his making the announcement.

In any (non-)event, Pellowe, trading as ‘Axiomatic Events’, has recently decided to join others, like Spiller and Damien Costas (the publisher of Penthouse and sponsor of Milo Yiannopoulos’s December 2017 tour), in seeking to profit from the international troll circuit. As Richard Cooke writes (Australia’s welcome mat for right-wing trolls, The Saturday Paper, October 21-27, 2017): ‘In so many ways, Milo Yiannopoulos is unremarkable. He is just one of a long line of conservative grifters making hay in Australia.’

In 1943, a time when the devil had the best poems, if not the best tunes, George Orwell could write: “By and large the best writers of our time have been reactionary in tendency.” Sadly, the West just can’t field the calibre of fascist it once did. He was talking about W. B. Yeats, and could have also called upon Ezra Pound, Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Knut Hamsun from the far right. After that lot, Milo Yiannopoulos feels like a real climb-down.

A right-wing troll and professional attention seeker who scores novelty points for being gay, Milo was fast on his way to assisted career suicide in the rest of the world, dumped by his publisher and even his own website. But here he swung interviews on morning TV and FM radio to promote a series of Australian appearances later in the year, following a hallowed local tradition of taking the world’s worst commentators seriously. Elsewhere these people barely qualify as hecklers; here, they’re ushered onto centrestage.

The Melbourne leg of Milo’s tour (at Melbourne Pavilion in Kensington) witnessed clashes, and on Friday, June 8, ‘Cooks Convicts’ members Erikson, Turner, one of Erikson’s old neo-Nazi comrades, Richard Whelan, Garry Hume, and ‘Soldier of Odin’ Garry Mattson are to face Melbourne Magistrates’ Court, charged with a variety of offences, including assault. Erikson’s last adventure in court took place early last month, when he was given a slap on the wrist for contempt of court. The judge in that case (Toll Transport Pty Ltd & Ors v Erikson (No.3) [2018] FCCA 1120 (11 May 2018)) observed that:

Mr Erikson has not provided any expression of genuine contrition. In fact, having observed Mr Erikson’s conduct over a number of proceedings, I have formed the view that he is indifferent to the seriousness of his contempt. The evidence that Mr Erikson has given in these proceedings has been inconsistent, implausible and lacks credibility. I observed in the Contempt Decision that it was likely that when it suits him, Mr Erikson has a tenuous relationship with the truth.

Similar observations were made by another judge when Erikson was convicted of stalking and harassing a local rabbi:

Magistrate Donna Bakos said she had no doubt Erikson’s calls were motivated by prejudice and found he had little remorse for his crime. But she ignored prosecution pleas to jail Erikson, sentencing him instead to psychological assessment and treatment in the community. “There is no other explanation except that they were motivated by prejudice, if not hatred, toward the victim because of his race,” she told Erikson.

Erikson himself expressed the same to me:

Note that the expedition to David Pellowe’s home in Queensland by ‘Cooks Convicts’ was preceded by the disruption of a church service in Gosford (which scared some old people outta their wits) and a visit to the home of Catherine Deveny in Melbourne. In both cases it appears that the cooked units escaped without penalty.

Speaking of cooked units, several former United Patriots Front flunkeys have had to goto jail recently. Thus in addition to the murder convictions of Aryan Nations members Robert (Wayne) Edhouse and Melony (Jayne) Attwood/Taylor in Perth, in Canberra UPF fanboy Nathan Davidson was last month sentenced to six years and nine months (with a non-parole period of three years and eight months) for drug offences (Dealer sentenced over massive Civic drug bust, Alexandra Back, The Canberra Times, May 26, 2018). Oddly, another report on the sentencing (Canberra man jailed after drugs, cash found in kitchen appliances, Elizabeth Byrne, ABC, May 26, 2018) includes the following:

Davidson also admitted to the court he once had links to far right groups and has tattoos including a German eagle. But he said he was no longer affiliated, partly because his drug-taking and dealing behaviour was at odds with their beliefs. “I was an embarrassment to them,” he said.

In which context, two things: 1) Davidson’s tattoos include not only a ‘German eagle’ (lol) but the words ‘Aryan’ on one arm and ‘1488’ on the other; 2) UPF fuehrer Blair Cottrell, now busy building a neo-Nazi cadre called ‘The Lads Society’, also has criminal convictions for abusing steroids. As a general rule, then, neo-Nazi criminals are only an ’embarrassment’ to the far right if they get caught.

notes

• Speaking of tours, Axiomatic Events/Dave Pellowe is also touring Marijke Rancie, AKA ‘Political Posting Mumma’; she’ll be appearing at Mt Gravatt Bowls Club in Queensland on June 21. Rancie gained some notoriety for fronting an anti-‘Safe Schools’ campaign last year. A Tory who was employed in December last year as an electorate officer for Mount Waverley MP, Michael Gidley, Rancie is also part of a wave of fun-da-mentalist Christians currently attempting to seize control of the Tories in Victoria (see : The religious minority seizing power in the Liberal Party, Ben Schneiders & Farrah Tomazin, The Age, June 3, 2018).

• Recently, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (‘Tommy Robinson’) went to jail, after trying — but failing — to sabotage a rape trial in the UK. See : What on earth happened to poor Tommy Robinson? 10 Things You Should Know., thesecretbarrister, May 28, 2018. Naturally, this made his fans in the UK, Australia and elsewhere very unhappy. In response, Avi Yeminem and the Australian Liberty Alliance organised a picket outside the British consulate in Melbourne on May 28, and will be gathering again outside the consulate in Melbourne and elsewhere in the country this weekend (June 9/10).

• Meanwhile, in Russia, Putin’s gangsta state has (again) declared war on anarchists and antifascists, on this occasion attempting to frame a number as belonging to a fictional terrorist network called, imaginatively enough, ‘The Network’. See : The Network: Russia’s Odd, Brutal, and Maybe Invented Pre-World Cup Terrorism Case, Joshua Yaffa, New Yorker, June 3, 2018. See also : avtonom.

• Speaking of anTEEfa, check Northern Suburbs Antifascists; for the western ‘burbs, contact westsideantifa[at]protonmail[dot]com.

• Finally, some items of interest from the US:

Stabbed at a neo-Nazi rally, called a criminal: how police targeted a black activist, Sam Levin, The Guardian, May 25, 2018;
A Member Of The Far-Right Proud Boys Menaced A Twitter User On His Doorstep, Andy Campbell, Huffington Post, May 26, 2018;
After Charlottesville: how a slew of lawsuits pin down the far right, David Smith, The Guardian, May 29, 2018;
The Daily Caller exposed for publishing prolific antisemite; still employs editor with white nationalist ties, Hatewatch, Southern Poverty Law Centre, May 29, 2018 (starring David Hilton/Moses Apostaticus);
How the resurgence of white supremacy in the US sparked a war over free speech, Alex Blasdel, The Guardian, May 31, 2018;
Trump’s Loudest Anti-Muslim Twitter Troll Is A Shady Vegan Married To An (Ousted) WWE Exec, Luke O’Brien, Huffington Post, June 2, 2018;
Islamophobia Inc., Al Jazeera, May 14, 2018:

Across the United States, there has been a growth in organizations that portray Islam as a threat.

Over two years, the number of groups that make up what’s become known as the Islamophobia industry has more than tripled.

This investigation reveals the tactics these groups use to instigate a fear of Islam, including how they manipulate social media to create a false narrative that Muslims are trying to take over the country.

Anti-Muslim messages proliferate social media with bought-in followers, fake accounts and robotic amplifiers.

The investigation also shows how these organizations try to suppress the rise of a Muslim political voice in America. It uncovers the “dark money” that has fuelled the rapid growth of Islamophobia Inc. – tens of millions of dollars which is funnelled through secretive, anonymous donor funds.

We unveil the donors of the dark money and ask; what do they ultimately hope to achieve?

Romper Stomper Pulls On Its Boots Again (But Forgets To Thread Its Laces)

WARNING : CONTAINS SPOILERS

Everything that needs be said about Stan’s new drama Romper Stomper has likely already been said, but for what it’s worth I thought I’d throw my two cents in.

To begin with, I suppose I should mention that I was contacted by the show’s producers back in August, asking me if I was interested in having a chat. I said yeah sure, but I never got a reply. In any event, I doubt very much anything I would’ve had to say would’ve made much difference to the final product, which adopts the conventional wisdom of liberal pundits: both neo-Nazis and anti-fascists are Bad because violence.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Among folks I know who watched it, most but not all thought it was Pretty Bad: ‘enough plot holes to trigger trypophobia’; ‘the acting was woeful’; ‘underwhelming’. Among the experts, opinion on the show seems fairly-evenly divided between fanboy enthusiasm (academic Troy Whitford describes it as ‘a compelling investigation into Australia’s extremist politics’) and severe reservation (television critic Craig Matheson reckons it ‘commits a fatal error by rehabilitating extremists’). On the whole, I thought it was reasonably entertaining, if somewhat daft in its pretensions to documenting recent political conflicts in Melbourne; I’m also a sucker for any show which depicts the city and enjoy guessing the location shoots (which in this case were kinda odd).*

Written by director Geoffrey Wright, James Napier Robertson, Malcolm Knox and Omar Musa, the first episode begins with a peculiar re-telling of a ‘real life’ incident which occurred in April 2016, when the Sydney-based ‘Party for Freedom’ organised a picket outside the halal expo in Ascot Vale. The reality was fairly mundane: a small group of anTEEfa clashed with the picketers, nicked some of their tat, and one white supremacist, Ryan Fletcher, fell over and hurt himself. The fictional account, on the other hand, features a very elaborate display on the part of the ‘Antifasc’ and a near-total absence of police. (IRL, all of the patriotik events of 2015–2016, especially those in Melbourne, witnessed very large and often overwhelming police mobilisations.) It was also amusing to witness ‘Antifasc’ retrieving rocks from a bucket and their primitive battle formation. While the scene serves to underscore the amateurish and para-military nature of ‘Antifasc’, it could be that the spectacular was inspired by a similar scene at an anti-Trump rally in November 2016:

Barista, Barista! Antifascista!

The clash outside the halal expo is also recorded by one of the ‘Antifasc’ and this data is then fwded to ‘McKew’, a politics lecturer who performs the role of the bRanes behind ‘Antifasc’. McKew maintains a site called ‘The Slacker’s Guide to Fascists’ which helpfully contains the byline ‘This blog is for all things Antifascist based in Melbourne Australia’.

No prizes for guessing who inspired that hottt take.

Described as ‘A high stakes drama that follows a new generation of far right activists, their Anti-Fascist counterparts, and its impact on today’s multicultural society’, the most sympathetic rendering is reserved for those:

Caught up in the conflict … three young Muslim characters, Farid, a nurse at an aged care facility studying at university, his girlfriend Laila, a student who will be appropriated as a media star of the left by the antifascist group, and Malik, Farid’s brother and a talented MMA fighter. The revolutionary zeal of the antifascist movement is embodied in the ruthless Petra, her boyfriend Danny, and the ideological ringmaster McKew.

Both Laila and Petra are students of the ideological ringmaster McKew, and indeed ‘Antifasc’ is composed exclusively of Uni students. ‘Patriot Blue’, on the other hand, are salt-of-the-earth types who attended The School of Hard Knocks and The University of Life; leaving aside their leader Blake Farron’s penchant for the poetry of Henry Lawson, the patriotik volk have scant interest in knowledge, but are very committed to acquiring (white) power. While this depiction has some merit, the reality, which is rather more messy, is obviously a little too messy for the show’s writers, and I suppose it makes narrative sense to squash it into more-easily digestible stereotypes. Kane, the troubled yoof who eventually displaces Blake as fuehrer of ‘Patriot Blue’, is presumably meant to be a typical patriot, though his motivations for joining the fascists is never really properly explored.

Other than collect rocks in buckets, members of ‘Antifasc’ also run some kinda street kitchen — the only indication that they’re involved in other political activities — in which they serve ‘Chicken or tomato?’ soup to the homeless. This, presumably, is a reference to Food Not Bombs, which has been providing free vegan food to the public at regular street kitchens for about the last 20 years in Melbourne, and for around 40 years across the globe. It’s at one of these kitchens that ‘Antifasc’ meet with Kane’s li’l sis (recently escaped from juvenile detention). Within the space of a day or two after this fortuitous meeting (the script teems with such coincidences), she suddenly finds herself at the heart of their operations. This is rather poor OpSec, as well as unbelievable, but it serves the story, and reproduces the compressed narrative that describes the arc of almost all the main characters.

The ‘Antifasc’ crew are also rather derelict in their revolutionary duties when in episode four, ‘The Dark Heart of Things’, one of their members, Danny (Petra’s boyfriend), is hospitalised and placed into an induced coma following a bizarre set-piece with ‘Patriot Blue’ on St Kilda beach (which also served as the location of the halal expo in the first episode). Again, police are absent from this scenario, as they are generally, with the exception of one spook working for the AFP. Neither is it front page news — which is also rather remarkable. The episode, written by Musa, also introduces African gangbangers, who run into the ‘Patriot Blue’ crew outside a convenience store (located on Sydney Road in Brunswick). Later, the gangbangers Hyjak N Torcha one of the men they encounter outside the store. Speaking of which …

The interaction between the fictional world of Romper Stomper and reality has been at the centre of many debates regarding it, both in its original iteration as a film (1992) and as TV (2017). Thus when twice-convicted racist Neil Erikson adopted the name ‘Patriot Blue’ in an attempt to capitalise on the publicity surrounding the relaunch, Stan and Roadshow initiated legal action against him for copyright violation:

Stan and Roadshow Productions would like to clarify that while our series does refer to a purely fictional group created for the series called Patriot Blue, there is no association between our organisations or the Romper Stomper production team and those involved in yesterday’s incident [ie, the racist abuse of Labor MP Sam Dastyari at a bar at Victoria University]. We strongly condemn the actions of this group and racial discrimination in all its forms.

Be that as it may, in the last few weeks the actions of so-called #AfricanGangs has once again been in the news, part of a campaign spearheaded by the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Peter Dutton. Dutton, Newscorpse, and numerous trollumnists obviously hope to create a wedge issue by which they further hope that the Andrews Labor state government may be defeated at the 2018 state election. The SCREAMING HEADLINES! have also naturally triggered the methgoblins of the True Blue Crew. (Note that, in episode two, the ‘Patriot Blue’ street patrol not only string up graf artists, beat African yoof and hand out blankets to the homeless, they also smash a meth lab. Remarkably, none of these activities result in police intervention. IRL, just a few weeks ago Nathan Davidson, a neo-Nazi United Patriots Front fanboy from Canberra, was arrested and charged — again — with possession of ‘600 grams of the drug ice, 1000 MDMA pills, as well as $90,000 in cash at his city home’, along with quantities of heroin, cocaine and anabolic steroids.)

Fourth Reich Fighting Men From Melton

Inspired by Dutton and the tabloids, the True Blue Crew has organised a meeting tomorrow to organise vigilantism directed at African yoof — the ones what stick guns in your face, kidnap and torture youse like what they do in ‘Romper Stomper’. Predictably, it’s received a ton of media attention, assurances from police that they’ll be keeping a close eye on the boys, and rapturous applause from the peanut gallery. If successful, the TBC (and the remnants of the UPF) will join the ranks of the Soldiers of Odin, A26A and Asolate Security in mounting street patrols and who knows, maybe even Avi Yemini will join the gang. And in another case of life-imitating-art-imitating-life, the same gang has refused to be SAD and have organised a BBQ for January 26.

On St Kilda beach.

Never Mind The Bollocks

Any body interested in the reality of anti-fascist activism should watch The Antifascists (2017).

See also : Romper stomped, Rick Kuhn, Red Flag, December 30, 2017 /// Romper stomping through the cliches, Nicola Paris, Medium, January 3, 2018.

* Kane and his sidekick Stix both reside at the Victoria Hotel in Brunswick, which also happens to be the favourite watering-hole of ‘Antifasc’.

antifa notes (april 5, 2017) : trolls & goons & masks & moar

The last few months has witnessed the emergence of a number of fake antifa accounts on Facebook and Twitter. Most are fairly obviously fake, some less so. In any event, blogger b9AcE has compiled a list of fake antifa accounts, around 40 or so, and notes that:

After those and other fake antifa-accounts were made well known, they and other newly created ones now use extremely obvious sarcasm, whereas many previously even copied the entire content of genuine antifa-accounts to seem legitimate.
In the cases of accounts that clearly pretended to be legitimate, they seem to now in many cases have deleted the content that was obviously meant to mislead.
Considering this change, the purpose of the original post has been fulfilled… by them.
On those grounds, it does not seem beneficial to post further updates to the previous list here.
If the behavior changes again, that stance might change and this revision’s notification be replaced by other content.

Note also that a silly ‘Antifa Australia’ Facebook page has popped up here, ‘Boston Antifa’ have been revealed as two right-wing nerds called Alexis Esteb and Brandon Krebs, while snopes ponders a fake antifa flyer here. My personal favourite fake is the Antifa Squad YouTube channel and this comment (posted on or about November, 2013):

Elsewhere, Lucy Battersby (Government suspends its YouTube advertising, amid concerns about where revenue goes, The Age, April 1, 2017) writes of some problems Google has in adhering to the corporate commandment ‘Don’t Be Evil’:

The global Google boycott keeps on rolling, with the Australian government the latest big spender to suspend advertising on Google’s YouTube platform.

The move comes at the end of a week when several advertisers have pulled out of the platform causing massive brand damage to Google …

Some YouTubers like Millennial Woes – a Scotland-based video blogger who posts bigoted monologues – claim to be able to make a living from their posts, according to one expert on far right groups.

And in Australia groups like the far-right United Patriots Front use social media to reach out to supporters.

“Blair Cottrell and the United Patriots Front use Facebook as their main platform, not YouTube. And while they have a real large audience and some of their Facebook videos reach millions, these are not monetised by them but rather by Facebook,” another expert said.

The UPF has tried to use crowd funding to raise money, but these are usually shut down by appeals to the platform for breaches of terms of service, he added.

Otherwise:

• Shermon Burgess and Neil Erikson have re-badged their Facebook page. Previously known as ARSE (Australian Settlers Rebellion), it’s now known as ‘Nationalist Uprising’. By my count, the boys have now burned through: 1) Aussie Patriot Army; 2) Australian Defence League; 3) Australian Settlers Rebellion; 4) Ban Islam Party; 5) European Australian Civil Rights League; 6) Generation Identity Australia; 7) Nationalist Alternative; 8) Nationalist Republican Guard; 9) Neil Erikson Media; 10) NRG Media; 11) OzConspiracy; 12) Pauline Hanson’s Guardian Angels; 13) Reclaim Australia; 14) United Patriots Front; 15) United Patriots Front — Originals and who knows, maybe more. In other words, the pair have had more Facebook pages than they have friends.

• Speaking of Neil Erikson’s (former) friends: ‘Michael James Holt, 26, has pleaded guilty to a string of firearm manufacture and possession charges, including manufacturing a gun without a licence, after police found a large stash of guns and weapons across three properties in 2015 … [Holt] remains in custody and is due to be sentenced on April 12.’ Previously, Erikson had enthusiastically agreed with Holt about the desirability of arranging for the mass execution of ‘mudbloods’ at Federation Square — while selling fairy floss, popcorn and showbags.

Top Blokes.

• Another Top Bloke to have attached himself to the neo-Nazis in the UPF is Canberra’s most impressive cement renderer, Nathan Davidson. Davidson, who while the subject of a suspended sentence for a conviction of assault occasioning actual bodily harm in 2013 and on bail for traffic matters, got busted in early 2016 with drugs and guns and stuff. Word on the street is that the naughty naziboy got a slap on the wrist and is currently serving a community order.

• Not serving a community order — but very much wanting to serve the white community of Manly — is Australia First Party (AFP) member Victor Waterson, who’ll be losing the Manly by-election on April 8. Waterson had fifteen seconds of fame back in October 2014 when he played dress-ups with Nick Folkes (Party For Freedom) and Sergio Redegalli. Previously, Waterson was the losing One Nation candidate for Bennelong at the 2010 Federal election (0.8%), the losing ‘independent’ candidate for Epping at the 2011 state election (2.6%), and the losing AFP candidate for Bennelong in 2013 (0.6%). He was also the losing AFP candidate for McMahon at the 2016 Federal election (2.1%) and for Penrith at the 2015 NSW election (0.7%).

• The Victorian state government has introduced legislation — the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Public Order) Bill 2017 — intended to provide Victorian police with greater powers to control and repress public protest. These powers include, inter alia, greater scope to influence local council’s capacity to grant permits for public protests and to prevent persons from shielding themselves from the effects of chemical weapons (capsicum spray) or to conceal their face at public events. The Bill also re-defines and increases criminal penalties for ‘riotous’ behavior. See : Anti-mask laws proposed in Victoria, Melbourne Activist Legal Support, March 14, 2017.

• Josh Dukes, the antifa who got shot by a Milo Y fan in Seattle in January, has been interviewed by Teh Grauniad: ‘I refuse to be like them’: why the man shot while protesting Milo Yiannopoulos doesn’t want revenge (Julia Carrie Wong, April 4, 2017).

• Finally, ABC’s 4 Corners has profiled Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party. In a mildly amusing episode (Please Explain), PHONy is revealed as a political plaything for Our Pauline, her gormless followers rich pickings for the chancers that assemble under her banner, and otherwise rather similar to PHONy of the 1990s, with Muslims now replacing Asians as the boogeyman of choice — and the Tories much happier to play along. (Of passing interest is the financial support given the party by multi-millionaire property developer Bill McNee, who has also donated fat sums to the Tories.) See also : antifa notes (march 14, 2017) : One Nation Party too sophisticated for WA; UPF Go To Court; boneheads; ‘Alt-wrong: The Australian right is startling for its incoherence’, Richard Cooke, The Monthly, April 2017:

There is a pat explanation available, where Pauline Hanson is simply the antipodean franchise of a global movement of right-wing populism. Like Nigel Farage in the United Kingdom, or Marine Le Pen in France, or Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, she has been a chronic presence. Like them she has undergone decades of gestation, from a larval stage on the fringes of discourse to a resplendent full expression in the mainstream of politics. But, so far, this rise of the right has proved abortive for Hanson. Unlike them, she is unlikely to contest anything as monumental as Brexit, or challenge for the leadership of her country. Unlike them, she is also one of the least coherent politicians of her era.

antifa notes (april 12, 2016) : hard times for patriots

April 4 was the one-year anniversary of the first ‘Reclaim Australia’ rally. The occasion prompted me to write a few lines on my Facebook page (see below). Since then:

• The United Patriots Front (UPF) has engaged in another publicity stunt, unfurling a banner at the local AFL derby in Perth (April 9). See : United Patriots Front evicted from West Coast vs Fremantle game for anti-mosque banner, ABC, April 10, 2016.

• Several members and/or close associates of the UPF — Ralph Cerminara, Blair Cottrell and Neil Erikson — have been nominated to appear in the Magistrates Court in Maryborough on Thursday, April 14, to respond to an application for an intervention order by a former associate, Joelle Norris. Whether Cottrell & Co appear or not would seem to depend on several factors. One is whether or not it has any impact on his parole conditions (if any). If so, he will likely appear to contest the order. It’s equally possible that Cottrell hasn’t been served with a notice of the hearing — but far less likely to have failed to notice its appearance on Facebook. Given his history of family violence, Cottrell would presumably be savvy enough to understand that if he fails to attend the hearing it will almost certainly be granted in Norris’s favour, meaning it’s very much in his interests to attend and to contest. Who knows? Hopefully he doesn’t bring an axe or a tomahawk along with him …

• Speaking of BFFs, Peter Grace has examined Cottrell’s views on ‘friendship’ here:

• Karen Street, the Tasmanian senatorial candidate for Kim Vuga’s ‘Australia Love or Leave’ party, did the same trick as the UPF at Bellerive Oval on Sunday, April 10. See : Hobart woman Karen Street stands by banner that got her ejected from Bellerive Oval, ABC, April 12, 2016.

• Also on April 10, around 20 or so flagwits belonging to Nick Folkes’ Party for Freedom gathered near the Halal Expo in Sydney. They shouted abusive slogans, waved placards for a while, and then went home.

• Dr Jim Saleam’s Australia First Party has lodged an application with the AEC to use the Eureka flag as its symbol on ballot papers (see : Australia First Party’s use of Eureka flag angers rebels’ descendants in Ballarat, Bridget Judd, ABC, April 12, 2016). The quest to appropriate the symbol is a long-running campaign of Dr Jim’s, dating back to the 1970s, and disputes over its status as an emblem of ‘left’ or ‘right’ has involved a wide range of historical and contemporary actors, from anarchist to neo-Nazi. Certainly, when the AFP joined fellow neo-Nazis from Golden Dawn at a public demonstration in Brisbane in May, 2014, they were rudely reminded that, as far as anti-fascist construction workers are concerned, the flag has no place in their hands. (Note that Jim Perren, one of the AFP dingbats present at the rally and co-author of the neo-Nazi ‘Whitelaw Towers’ blog, later helped arrange the UPF’s visit to Toowoomba in February.)

In any event …

As a mobilising force, Reclaim Australia seems to have more-or-less disappeared up its own bottom: — widely understood as an essentially racist and xenophobic movement, met with sometimes fierce opposition on the streets, riven by internal conflict among the handful of dumbs and mads who constituted its core organisers, and in other ways eclipsed by the emergence (or re-emergence) of various other, largely online anti-Muslim projects, chief among them the UPF, RA appears spent. If so, RA will have become just one more of the already innumerable anti-Muslim propaganda pages FB happily carries and promotes. Of course, this may be a temporary retreat, and RA once again be the broad umbrella under which a liquorice all-sorts of anti-Muslim prejudice takes to the streets. Who knows? Barring some dramatic development, it does seem doubtful it will again stir as many suburban keyboard warriors as it did in 2015.

The UPF, which constituted itself as the vanguard of RA, is also barely a year old, and has obviously undergone some settling of contents during transit. As well as, first, the departure of Shermon Burgess and Neil Erikson from the UPF and, secondly, their denunciation of it as a ‘Nazi’ organisation, most recently Perth flunkey Dennis Huts declared that he was leaving the UPF — as much a man of his word, and his criminal convictions, as his fuehrer, he’s now back — while fellow sandgroper Nic Genovese has also elected to leave. Others to have ostensibly left the group’s inner circle include Kris0 Richardson, Linden Watson and John ‘Farma John’ Wilkinson. In any case, the UPF is now very much a vehicle for the political ambitions of local neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell and his sidekick Thomas Sewell (the football-hating, Hitler-loving pair carried the UPF banner at the Collingwood-Richmond match last week), with the financial support of Christian fundamentalist Chris Shortis, largely moral support from fellow Bible-basher Scott Moerland, and G*d knows what from the crazy, mixed-up Kevin Coombes (aka ‘Elijah Jacobson’ aka ‘Abdullah Islam’; Coombes was first a born-again Christian, then a Muslim, and is now a neo-Nazi sycophant).

Such, at least, is the UPF leadership. Around it has gathered a very small base of (generally quite demented) fanboys, chiefly from Bendigo, Melbourne and Perth, but also including a handful of neo-Nazis and other White supremacists from Queensland and elsewhere; Jim Perren of Whitelaw Towers/Anti-Antifa blog being one. While some have a developed political perspective, an emotional attachment to flags and other nationalist symbols, combined with a visceral hatred of Muslims and other racialised elements, typically eclipses any thoughtful or genuine political commitment. They are thus easily manipulated, lied to, and used — and are. Further, their commitment is just as often fleeting: — their naivete about politics, society and social change leading them to mistakenly believe both that their views are more popular than they are in reality and that acting like a racist dickhead in public is a surefire way to win friends and influence people.

(I should add that the UPF has little support in Sydney partly because its leadership is based in Melbourne but also because Sydney’s far right has already been colonised by Dr Jim Saleam’s Australia First Party on the one hand and Nick Folkes’ Party for Freedom on the other. The UPF has sought counsel from AFP but has not explicitly allied itself to it; Shortis has recently been playing with the PFF in Sydney but was noticeably absent — as was the UPF as a whole — from the PFF’s rare Melbourne excursion last weekend. Sydney is of course also home to Ralph Cerminara, an Australian Defence League activist and serial pest who was previously aligned with Shermon Burgess but is now singing from the UPF hymnbook. Now BFFs, the fact that Cottrell memorably described Cerminara as a ‘cancer’ — and late last year expressed a desire to travel to NSW in order to break the cancer’s jaw for some infraction — gives some insight into the highly unstable nature of the boys’ relationships.)

Of course, in addition to being a ‘street movement’, the UPF also fancies itself as a political party: ‘Fortitude’. Announced with much fanfare late last year in Perth, the UPF embarked upon an east coast tour to promote the fledgling party in February. The tour was not especially successful. Barely 40 or so attended its meeting in Orange, NSW, perhaps twice as many in Toowoomba, QLD (where organisation of the meeting was left in the hands of Catholic relief teacher Liz Carlsen, Perren, and a handful of QLD-based neo-Nazis), and several hundred in Bendigo. The attendance in Bendigo was the largest by far, but still far less than the UPF managed to attract at its peak, which in October last year was somewhere between 500 and 1,000. Further, despite now having over 40,000 likes on FB, it seems as though the UPF/Fortitude is still struggling to obtain the 500+ signatures required in order to register with the AEC (and, crucially, to contest elections under its own name on the ballot). The proximity of the next federal election also means that it’s now almost impossible for the party to do so — even if it did manage to collect the requisite total.

That’s not the only or biggest problem Fortitude faces, for it enters a field already crowded with radical and populist right-wing electoral alternatives, most notably the Australian Liberty Alliance and One Nation. The ALA in particular is a far slicker, well-funded, well-organised and generally palatable option for the anti-Muslim crowd than Fortitude, with its neo-Nazi leadership, criminal history, white nationalism and crude, racist outpourings. It seems possible that even if it does register, Fortitude will likely crash soon after launch, and the boys again be reduced to orchestrating publicity stunts and conducting closely chaperoned (and very small) police rallies. It will then find itself in a position to produce more characters like Phill Galea and Nathan Davidson: — and John Wilkinson’s public exhortation to ‘stop the mosques’ by burning them down will become a much more attractive proposition for its violent fanbase.

BONUS!

In April last year a page called “Slackc-nt” appeared on Facebook. It’s now been publicly disclosed that the author of the page is a man by the name of Andrew Wallis — AKA Drew Smith, Tommo Oro, et. al.. Wallis was also one of the five UPF meatheads — along with Blair Cottrell, Neil Erikson, Chris Shortis and Linden Watson — who paid a visit to 3CR Community Radio and the Melbourne Anarchist Club in November last year.

antifa notes (january 30, 2016) : Black Rose, UPF and moar

Black Rose

On Thursday night in Newtown an altercation occurred outside of Black Rose anarchist infoshop involving Ralph Cerminara (Australian Defence League/Left Wing Bigots & Extremists Exposed Facebook page) and Dan Evans (Reclaim Australia and principal organiser of the February 6 PEGIDA rally in Canberra) on the one hand and two or three people at the infoshop on the other.

Charges laid following brawl – Newtown
NSW Police Force Media Release
January 29, 2016

Four men have been charged following an alleged brawl in Newtown last night.

Just after 8pm (Thursday 28 January 2016), emergency services were called to a service station on Enmore Road, following reports of a brawl nearby involving men armed with poles, bottles and fluorescent light tubes.

On arrival, officers attached to Newtown Local Area Command located a 37-year-old man [Ralph Cerminara] and a 36-year-old man [Daniel Evans] suffering minor injuries.

They were assisted at the scene by Ambulance Paramedics, before being taken to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in a stable condition.

Both men were arrested this morning (Friday 29 January 2016) after leaving hospital, and taken to Newtown Police Station.

Police also arrested two men, 21 and 23, at the scene.

They were also taken to Newtown Police Station.

The 23-year-old man was charged with affray, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and being armed with intent to commit actual bodily harm.

The 21-year-old man was charged with affray and being armed with intent to assault.

The two younger men were refused bail, to appear in Newtown Local Court today.

Both the 37-year-old and the 36-year-old were charged with affray; with the younger man also charged with being armed with intent to commit an indictable offence.

They were both granted strict conditional bail, to appear before Newtown Local Court on 18 February 2016.

See also : Four arrested over brawl outside Newtown service station, Megan Levy, The Sydney Morning Herald, January 28, 2016‎ | Newtown petrol station brawl: Members of rival political groups allegedly fight using fluorescent lights as weapons, Jessica Kidd, ABC, January 28, 2016‎ | Four men charged after Sydney brawl, Channel 9 (AAP), January 29, 2016 | Rivals armed with fluro tube, pole and golf club brawl outside anarchist bookstore, Emma Partridge, The Sydney Morning Herald, January 29, 2016 | Political rivals used broken light, metal pole and golf club in battle, police say, Matt Bamford, The Daily Telegraph, January 29, 2016.

Cerminara — a valour thief and close comrade of Shermon Burgess (‘The Great Aussie Patriot’), has previously been arrested for trying to provoke a fight in Lakemba in December 2014 and generally tries to make mischief by filming himself harassing Muslims and leftists on the streets; videos which are later uploaded to his Facebook page. In recent months, Black Rose has become the focus of his ire. He published this video on November 14, 2015:

Otherwise, the incident has provoked the usual response from ‘patriotik’ folk — and anarchists and other anti-fascists should expect further attacks.

Walter Benjamin, eat yr heart out.

United Patriots Front

In February the UPF is embarking upon a promotional tour for its yet-to-be-registered political party, ‘Fortitude’. They’re planning on holding public rallies in Toowoomba, Queensland on February 13; Orange, NSW on February 20; and Bendigo on February 27. Chris ‘The United Nations is attempting to install the Pope as leader of a new world government!’ Shortis has been announced as the party’s candidate for the Senate in Victoria at the next federal election.

In other news, neo-Nazi UPF supporter Nathan Davidson has been charged with “drug trafficking, dealing in the proceeds of crime and firearm-related offences” (Man faces court after guns, drugs, large sum of cash seized at Wanniassa, ABC, January 15, 2016). See also : Man arrested after drugs, weapons and cash seized from Wanniassa home, Michael Inman, The Canberra Times, January 15, 2016.

Another neo-Nazi UPF supporter, Phillip Galea, was due in court on January 27 (Police on the hunt for missing stun guns amid fears of use by extremists, Angus Thompson, Herald Sun, January 13, 2016). Gallea was arrested by police after meeting up with UPF member John Wilkinson (‘Farma John’) in Sandringham at the beginning of the year:

Det Sgt Tierney said Mr Galea met anti-immigration activist “Farmer John” Wilkinson, as well as other UPF members, across the road from a UPF barbecue at Sandringham Beach on January 3.

The court heard that Mr Wilkinson told police on January 7 that he had bought up to 22 stun guns, and that police were still searching for seven of these.

Previously, Wilkinson gave the following stirring address at a Reclaim Australia rally in Melton in November alongside Casey councillor (and deputy president of the Rise Up Australia Party) Rosalie Crestani. According to the Herald Sun:

Farmer John, from United Patriots, spoke to the crowd while it chanted “No Muslims in Melton”, and threatened more violent action. “We’re going to burn every mosque down if they build them … Let’s stick it up them,” he said.

*smh*

… in Bendigo

On Australia/Invasion/Survival Day, the UPF paid a visit to Bendigo. Among other things, they went to the house of a man, Jason Godwell, they believed had registered ‘United Patriots Front’ as an ABN. The home visit was filmed and uploaded to the UPF Facebook page, and as well as being named and having his address published, Godwell was denounced to the UPF’s 30,000+ followers. (Subsequently, the video was deleted.) Godwell himself later stated that he had not registered UPF and was a victim of identity theft. Having been publicly named by the UPF as a Bad man, Godwell further claims that he was forced to abandon his home and the care of his child.

Maajid Nawaz /// PEGIDA /// Tommy Robinson/Stephen Yaxley-Lennon

Former Islamist Maajid Nawaz is currently undertaking a brief tour of Australia. You can listen to an interview with him on ABC radio here (January 27), while a critical account of his political evolution has been published in New Republic (What Does Maajid Nawaz Really Believe?, Nathan Lean, January 27, 2016).

Curiously, Nawaz makes explicit reference to the role of neo-Nazi grouplet ‘Combat 18’ in ‘radicalising’ him as a teenager; in Melbourne, there have been numerous reports of ‘Combat 18’ stickers popping up around town in the last few months, meaning former Creatard Patrick O’Sullivan and his nazi chums have been more active than usual. Coincidentally, some wanker stuck a sticker up in Chapel Street Prahran reading “Cure AIDS, kick a poofter to death”.

Nawaz is also famed for helping to establish the Quilliam Foundation, a UK-based project which claims to attempt to ‘de-radicalise’ Islamists and other ‘extremists’. Its most famous success story is (was) Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (‘Tommy Robinson’), the former leader of the English Defence League (EDL), who announced (in conjunction with the Foundation) his resignation from the group and the anti-Muslim movement in October 2013. The mouthy little gobshite claims that the Foundation paid him thousands of pounds to resign in a move that many saw as a bribe: Robinson stepped down, and Quilliam took credit for bringing about his departure. The money, Robinson said, went to pay “my wife’s rent and help with basic bills, [and] in return Tommy Robinson would be their poster boy.”

Fast-forward a year or two and Yaxley-Lennon is back, baby, this time as the spokesperson for PEGIDA UK, and will be addressing a rally in Birmingham on February 6. On the same date, another dozen or so anti-Muslim protests are planned, while in Australia, neo-Nazis, fascists, racists and a motley assortment of other bigots will be converging on Parliament House in Canberra. See : Pegida meets with European allies in the Czech Republic, Deutsche Welle, January 23, 2016.

See also : Muslim mainstream snubs counter-extremist, SKYnews (AAP), January 29, 2016 | Former Islamic extremist: ‘The far Left is helping ISIS’, Trevor Treharne, The West Australian, January 27, 2016. (Oddly, Nawaz gives props to the Kurdish struggle against ISIS; a struggle whose leading edge is ‘far left’.)

BONUS STICKERS!

I have a stack of stickers to give away to good homes. If you’d like some, leave a comment, send me an email or contact me via my Twitter account or Facebook page.

slackbastard

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

Tagged with Nathan Davidson