Tagged with Anglican Parish of Gosford

On Troll Hunting (Ginger Gorman)

Troll Hunting by Australian journalist Ginger Gorman is a new book which examines the world of online hate and its human fallout. Along with interviews with a small number of trolls and general reflections upon this hateful world, Gorman’s book includes a number of case studies of trolling, some of which are relatively well-known while others not: all make for disturbing reading. While it’s of general relevance, many of the characters and events which populate this world would be especially familiar to (Australian) readers, or at least those who take an interest in such matters: on the one hand, ‘GamerGate’, convicted terrorist Joshua Goldberg, Andrew Auernheimer (AKA ‘weev’) and GNAA; on the other hand, those subject to what Gorman calls ‘predator trolling’, including writer Van Badham and lawyers Josh Bornstein and Mariam Veiszadeh (among others). Gorman’s book is well-written and engaging, and weaves together the author’s own experience of being ‘trolled’ with those of others, along with some examples of ‘troll hunting’ and ‘troll hunters’, the latter category including journalist and lawyer Luke McMahon. As well as being of general interest, the text is of particular interest to me because of the ways in which the ‘world of online hate’ has been ‘weaponized’ by elements of the far right, a theme explored in more detail in the anthology Cyber Racism and Community Resilience: Strategies for Combating Online Race Hate (Palgrave, 2017). At a little over 250 pages long, the text includes endnotes, which are useful, but — rather annoyingly — no index.

Gorman’s book is divided into three parts: ‘Trolls’, ‘Targets’ and ‘Troll hunting’. The first part examines the evolution of online trolling, the emergence of ‘predator trolls’ in particular — which Gorman defines (p.18) as those who set out to do real-life harm — and details the author’s lengthy conversations and interactions with several of its enthusiastic practitioners. In the second part, Gorman provides case studies of predator trolling and investigates the ways in which law enforcement has responded, or more precisely failed to respond, to these activities. Gorman also explores how social media giants like Facebook and Twitter have dealt with trolling and cyberhate generally — which is argued to be less-than-adequate. The third and final part of the book explores how some trolls, including Goldberg, came unstuck. Throughout the text, Gorman reflects upon her journey into this ‘world of online hate’, and how her interactions with the creatures which inhabit it change her understanding of them, their world, and its relationship to broader social and technological trends, especially racism and misogyny and the central place of social media in everyday life.

‘Trolling’ IRL

While the second part reveals varying degrees of incompetency and indifference on the part of tech companies, after documenting the systemic failure of law enforcement to address cyberbullying, Gorman does detect a more hopeful sign (pp.119–120):

Some stories are emerging of more appropriate, and effective, responses to cyberbullying complaints. Take comedian and writer Catherine Deveny. After making controversial comments on Twitter and Facebook about Anzac Day in 2018 — describing it as ‘Bogan Halloween’ and a ‘fetishisation of war and violence’ — she was doxed multiple times. Her home address was posted all over the internet and she received an avalanche of credible rape and death threats. She was the focus of several facebook hate groups. One night, five men in a ute turned up to her house. One of them knocked on her door and videoed himself doing it.

Within forty-eight hours of Deveny’s original comments being posted — and the resultant blow-up of public vitriol — Victorian counter-terrorism police reached out to her. They got her statement and started investigating. Police patrolled outside her house and work events. An investigator from the Office of the Federal eSafety Commissioner also got in touch. In contrast to many who’d gone before her, Deveny received significant and appropriate support. After hearing so many dire stories, it’s great to hear one like this. Wouldn’t it be amazing if all predator-trolling victims could rely on getting this kind of assistance?

LOL.

For what it’s worth, I remember when this incident took place, and at the time made brief reference to it on the blog. In which context, a few things. First, those responsible for paying Deveny a nocturnal visit included right-wing activists Julian de Ross (AKA ‘Hugh Pearson’), Rino ‘Bluebeard’ Grgurovic and Ricky Turner. Secondly, whatever became of the intervention by Victorian counter-terrorism police and the Office of the Federal eSafety Commissioner, the boys carried on as before. Thus one month later, members of the same crew — on this occasion consisting of Paul Exley and Danny Peanna/Parkinson from Sydney, together with the Melbourne-based Grgurovic, Logan Spalding, and their ringleader Neil Erikson — filmed themselves disrupting a church service in Gosford; in June, Erikson, Turner and several others paid another nocturnal visit to a private address, on this occasion that of rival right-wing entrepreneur Dave Pellowe. While it’s unclear if those responsible for attending Deveny’s and Pellowe’s address faced any legal repercussions (it seems not), for his part in the disruption of the church service Erikson at least was later charged under an obscure law making it an offence to ‘obstruct a member of the clergy in the discharge of his or her duties’.

It’s possible, I suppose, to characterise this behaviour as ‘IRL trolling’ — but there’s certainly other interpretations. One critical difference is that, while it may be performed for teh lulz, unlike almost all of the examples of ‘trolling’ Gorman provides in her book, such actions are not really all that anonymous. In fact, while there’s occasionally some effort made to disguise the identities of those responsible, for the most part it’s very public — and by public I mean ‘filmed and then published by/on Facebook’. When de Ross, Grgurovic, Turner & Co. visited Deveny’s home; Exley, Peanna, Grgurovic, Spalding and Erikson disrupted a church service; and Erikson, Turner & Co. visited Pellowe’s home; these actions were undertaken precisely in order to be documented and distributed via Facebook. So too, the numerous other occasions upon which Erikson in particular has undertaken the role of a serial pest, from disrupting council meetings and various left and ‘multicultural’ events to stalking and abusing various public figures he happens to dislike. (Note that Grgurovic is due in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on February 26 over assault charges; Erikson, along with his kameraden Ricky Turner and Richard Whelan, have a date on May 13 over similar.)

All of these acts have been performed publicly and for the benefit of his Facebook audience, the corporation having granted Erikson permission to do so for at least the last four years. Thus, it was only in the space of the last few days that Facebook, for unknown reasons, banned a number of Erikson’s accounts. (It’s possible that the pest may have come unstuck upon announcing the re-launch of the ‘United Patriots Front’ by creating an event page for a February 16 rally at Federation Square — the UPF collapsed after Facebook banned its page in May 2017.) Still, there are hundreds if not thousands of very similar pages on the site, and it remains the critical tool for far-right organising in Australia and elsewhere. (See, for example, Fraser Anning’s Neo-Nazi connections (The White Rose Society, January 11, 2019) and Facebook Fueled Anti-Refugee Attacks in Germany, New Research Suggests (Amanda Taub and Max Fisher, The New York Times, August 21, 2018) for two among innumerable other instances.)

More broadly, while Gorman makes fairly short work of the corporate pablum spewed by Facebook and Twitter concerning their commitment to combating trolling and ‘hate speech’, if Facebook in particular is understood as being a massive private data-collection agency — one which derives a substantial proportion of its profits from selling this information to advertisers (and whoever else can pay for it) — it’s possible to cut through this nonsense fairly easily. Further, like corporations generally, Facebook is able to use the enormous financial and political power at its disposal to ensure the forms of regulation which might inhibit its continued growth and profitability are kept at bay. And while YouTube/Google doesn’t feature in Gorman’s account, its role in promoting racist and fascist propaganda, along with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, rivals that of Facebook, and has long been understood as a key node in the distribution and promotion of race-hate and other forms of hate speech (see, for example, ‘Fiction is outperforming reality’: how YouTube’s algorithm distorts truth, Paul Lewis, The Guardian, February 2, 2018 and ‘Alternative Influence: Broadcasting the Reactionary Right on YouTube’, Rebecca Lewis, Data & Society, September 9, 2018).

In any case, to return to Goldberg and Veiszadeh (pp.218–219):

Towards the end of 2014, [Veiszadeh] publicly voiced her outrage that a Woolworths supermarket in Cairns was selling singlets printed with the Australian flag alongside the tagline,’If you don’t love it, LEAVE’.

Three months after her tweet, the far right anti-Islam group The Australian Defence League posted her tweet to their Facebook page. From there, it was picked up by the alt-right Daily Stormer website. Chillingly, The Daily Stormer post about Veiszadeh, written under the byline Michael Slay, demanded of its thousands of followers: ‘Stormer Troll Army … assemble!’ ‘We need to flood this towelhead subhuman vermin with as much racial and religious abuse as we possibly can,” the spite-filled post reads …’

(Note that a few weeks ago the former ‘President’ of the ADL, Ralph Cerminara, was found ‘guilty of two counts of intimidation and one count of common assault’ after attacking his neighbour in Sydney.)

In addition to being attacked on The Daily Stormer, Veiszadeh’s tweet also triggered a Queensland woman, Jay-Leighsha Bauman, to send Veiszadeh messages calling her a “whore”, a “rag-head” and [telling] her to return to her own “sand dune country” — Bauman was later sentenced to 180 hours of community service for the crime. A few months later, an Ordinary Mum™ and Reclaim Australia supporter was charged with threatening to slit Veiszadeh’s throat. On these and other occasions, it seems the chief fault of those charged was not bothering to anonymise their threats; the fact that Bauman’s threats were reported on by both the BBC and CNN may also have prompted authorities to take a closer look. That said:

Later in 2015, Luke McMahon and Elise Potaka reported in Fairfax newspapers that Michael Slay turned out to be not one person, but two. One of those two men was Joshua Goldberg, whose main trolling preoccupation was preserving freedom of speech. As the troll hunter explained earlier, this was how he ended up choosing targets such as Josh Bornstein.

Nathaniel Jacob Sassoon Sykes

The ‘other’ Michael Slay was of course Jewish neo-Nazi and toy-doll enthusiast Nathaniel Jacob Sassoon Sykes, who was exposed by McMahon in April 2017. Like Goldberg, Sykes contributed scores of articles to The Daily Stormer, inter alia attacking Veiszadeh along with Badham, Bornstein, Dr Tim Soutphommasane and yours truly. Currently, Sykes is the chief writer for the ‘United Nationalists of Australia’ blog, the online shitsheet of the ‘Australia First Party’. In that capacity, Sykes attacks the various enemies of the AFP on the left as well as the right. Sometimes, this creates legal difficulties. Hence, after publishing an article in June 2017 by party leader Dr Jim Saleam which detailed alleged crimes committed by members of rival fascist groupuscule ‘Klub Nation’, in May 2018 legal action against Saleam and the blog was apparently taken by various persons associated with KN. (Member of this radical right-wing network are also implicated in an attempt to infiltrate the Young Nationals in NSW last year.) Beyond this, members of the neo-Nazi ‘Lads Society’ and, more recently, a man called Michael Freshwater, have also been attacked by Sykes on the UNA blog. While Sykes was dismissed by ex-UPF and Lads Society organiser Tom Sewell as a ‘divisive little Jew’, Freshwater, it’s alleged, has been part of a conspiracy to undermine AFP, embracing elements of the Liberal Party as well as neo-Nazis like Mark McDonald, the leader of the Lads Society in Sydney and former leader of neo-Nazi groupuscule ‘Squadron 88’.

Notes

• Joshua Goldberg (as ‘Moon Metropolis’) published a statement on Medium on December 28, 2018 which provides a defence of sorts to his actions: ‘It was always my intention to infiltrate online jihadist spheres so that I could eventually become either a journalist, an FBI agent, or both.’ The statement also refers to … when I got Milo Yiannopoulos to publish that “expose” on Shaun King, I did it purely to see the shitstorm that I knew it would create, not because I actually care in the least about anything involving either Shaun King or Milo Yiannopoulos (both of those people are complete and utter clowns as far as I’m concerned). The article, ‘Did Black Lives Matter Organizer Shaun King Mislead Oprah Winfrey By Pretending To Be Biracial?’ (Breitbart, August 19, 2015), is dissected in this blogpost on Internet Famous Angry Men. Yiannopoulos is of course a very well-known troll who for several years was able to translate his trolling activities into sponsorship by wealthy right-wing reactionaries and sought to acquire more filthy lucre by conducting (semi-)lucrative tours. In fact, Yiannopoulos, along with Gavin McInnes and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, are supposedly being brought to Australia by Penthouse Australia publisher Damien Costas next month (March 9–14) for a speaking tour. For his part, Costas is currently embroiled in a legal battle with publicist Max Markson regarding alleged unpaid debts; there’s also allegedly been some fisticuffs. See also : Here’s How Breitbart And Milo Smuggled White Nationalism Into The Mainstream, Joseph Bernstein, BuzzFeed, October 5, 2017 (A cache of documents obtained by BuzzFeed News reveals the truth about Steve Bannon’s alt-right “killing machine.”).

• Gorman makes reference (pp.199-200) to a category of trolling known as ‘media fuckery’, and cites US academic Whitney Phillips who defines it as ‘the ability to turn the media against itself … by either amplifying or outright inventing a news item too sensational for media outlets to pass up’. This brought to mind two things. First, a recent example of ‘media fuckery’ in which a fake Facebook page titled ‘Melbourne Antifa’ applauded the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. This later featured in an article in The Daily Mail by Stephen Johnson (‘Melbourne Antifa extremists praise Las Vegas shooter’, October 2, 2017), was fact-checked by FactCheck.Org and Snopes and in May 2018 also triggered a bizarre interaction between myself and a right-wing blogger in the US. Secondly, the phrase immediately brought to mind similar terms such as ‘culture-jamming’ and ‘subvertising’, political practices which pre-date both ‘media fuckery’ and teh intarwebs as a whole. See : How To Make Trouble And Influence People.

• Gorman also makes reference (p.47) to local neo-Nazi activist Blair Cottrell in the context of a discussion regarding ‘hate leaching into the mainstream’ and Cottrell’s appearance as a very special guest on Adam Giles’ show on Sky News in August last year. As noted elsewhere, Cottrell – following an appearance on Sky News – told his 25,000 Twitter followers he might as well have raped presenter Laura Jayes on air because “not only would she have been happier with that but the reaction would’ve been the same”. In which context, a few things: first, while Facebook has banned the UPF and Cottrell, such commentary is considered acceptable by Twitter (to which platform Cotrell shifted after being kicked off Facebook). Secondly, his kamerad Neil Erikson made a similar remark directed at another female journalist, Jodi Lee, in November last year: ‘Jodie [sic] Lee acted like I had raped her on live TV….. She wishes!’ Thirdly, Cottrell has an extensive criminal record, mostly revolving around his stalking of an ex-girlfriend. Finally, Cotrell, Erikson and fellow white nationalist Chris Shortis were convicted in September 2017 of inciting hatred for Muslims; Cottrell is appealing the conviction on the grounds that the Victorian Act under which he was convicted (The Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001) is in fact un-Constitutional, and will be appearing in the County Court in Victoria on February 19.

• While Gorman devotes relatively little space to d0xing, it’s relevant in several instances. In her chapter on weev, ‘A Professional Racist’, for example, Gorman notes (p.232) that weev appeared on a neo-Nazi podcast with Mike Enoch and Christopher ‘Crying Nazi’ Cantwell. Later in the chapter (p.236), Gorman also refers to ‘Azzmador’, who along with Daily Stormer publisher Andrew Anglin wrote a post for the site encouraging their fellow neo-Nazis to attend the murderous ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville in August 2017. As it happens, Mike Enoch is in fact Mike Peinovich, who got d0xxed in January 2017, while ‘Azzmador’ is Robert Warren Ray. (According to a November 2018 report, Ray is currently a fugitive after being charged with a felony allegedly committed at the rally.) As for Cantwell, late last year he voiced an audio version of local neo-Nazi Ryan Fletcher’s tract ‘From HEMP to Hitler’, which has been promoted on David Hiscox’s AltRight website XYZ. See also : The far right, the “White Replacement” myth and the “Race War” brewing, Julie Nathan, ABC (Religion & Ethics), February 12, 2019:

The potential for violence which such online posts portend was graphically demonstrated in the United States in October 2018 by Robert Bowers, who wrote on Gab, a Twitter-like platform which is a haven for extremists and racists, “Screw your optics, I’m going in.” Shortly afterwards, he entered the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and murdered eleven Jews. Afterwards, Bowers told police that he was motivated by his belief that “the Jews” were “committing genocide to my people.”

Chillingly, these words were echoed by another Gab user, an Australian named Ryan Fletcher, who wrote, “I think its [sic] about time to say ‘f*** your optics I’m going in’.” Fletcher has a dark history of calling for the murder of Jews in Australia and worldwide, and of posting images of Jews being killed, on his Gab account. Fletcher subscribes to the myth: “#White gentiles are waking up to the agenda of #ZOG (which is #WhiteGenocide).” “ZOG” stands for “Zionist Occupied Government,” a term used to insinuate that “the Jews” control the United States and other Western governments. Fletcher also writes articles for XYZ.

• Speaking of neo-Nazis, Gorman notes that inre her own experience of being trolled in 2013 (pp.10–11), Six days after Newton was sentenced in 2013 came the second frightening moment. Don found a photo of our family on the fascist social network Iron March. The now-defunct website carried the slogan ‘Gas the kikes’ on its homepage. Iron March was of course the birthplace of Australian neo-Nazi groupuscule ‘Antipodean Resistance’. Its British cousins, National Action, have been proscribed as a terrorist organisation (see : See Graham Macklin, ”Only Bullets will Stop Us!’: The banning of National Action’, Perspectives on Terrorism, Vol.12, No.6 (2018) [PDF]). See also : Extreme neo-Nazi ‘death cults’ drawing in children as young as 13, report warns, Lizzie Dearden, The Independent, February 17, 2019 (‘Exclusive: Children as young as 13 being drawn into ideologies ‘harder, darker and more committed than ever before’’).

Below : Nathaniel Jacob Sassoon Sykes (Australia First Party/United Nationalists (of) Australia; Jacob Hersant (Antipodean Resistance/The Lads Society):

See also : Online abuse of women in the media, Justine Landis-Hanley, The Saturday Paper, February 16, 2019 | Meet The Woman Giving A New Face To Troll Hunting, Jamila Rizvi, Future Women, February 2019 | The ‘Canary In The Coalmine’ Link Between Terrorism And Trolling, Alex Bruce-Smith, Ten Daily, February 5, 2019 | Internet trolls are not who I thought — they’re even scarier, Ginger Gorman, ABC, February 2, 2019 | Troll hunting: a journey to the dark side, Karen Hardy, The Canberra Times, February 2, 2019 | Twitter, the barbarian country, or how I learned to love the block button, Van Badham, The Guardian, January 31, 2019 | Troll Hunting review: Ginger Gorman goes in search of the online bullies, Jonathan Green, The Sydney Morning Herald, January 18, 2019 | Staring down the trolls: Mute, block or resort to ‘digilantism’?, Ginger Gorman, The Sydney Morning Herald, June 16, 2017 | Cyberhate With Tara Moss, ABC, 2017 | Misogyny Online: A Short (and Brutish) History, Emma A Jane, SAGE (2017) | Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous, Gabriella Coleman, Verso (2014). As well as providing some further detail regarding weev’s activities prior to his going full nazi as an editor for The Daily Stormer, Coleman’s book also contains important background on the various (sub-)cultural contexts from which the ‘predator troll’ emerged. (Note also that, in conversation with weev in August 2010, Coleman writes (p.22): ‘His denunciation of “the repulsive order of the financiers” had the ring of truth, given the recent financial mess their recklessness has engendered, so I found myself, only minutes into my first bona fide conversation with a world famous troll, in agreement with him.’ LOL.)

antifa notes (august 29, 2018) : March For Men, Nazis Go To Canberra +++

Ah-men

On Saturday, YouTube personalities and budding AltLite superstars Avi Yeminem and Sydney Watson organised a ‘March For Men’ in Melbourne. Unlike ‘March For Men’ events in the UK, this march did not raise funds for cancer research but rather was an excuse for IRL trolling and the sale of crappy merch.

Reports on attendance range from 150 (Jeff Sparrow) to 250–300 (spotters) to 500–700 (organisers); a smaller counter-protest was organised by CARF. According to CARF, in addition to Men’s Rights Activists, the event also attracted participation by members of neo-Nazi grouplets Antipodean Resistance and The Lads Society, as well as the methgoblins of the True Blue Crew (TBC) and, in a rare excursion, The Proud Boys (PBs). The PBs also carried a banner reading ‘The West is the Best’ but, sadly, it got lost, then incinerated:

For an account of the action, see : ProudBoys Victoria Go Flaccid…; note that PB fuehrer Gavin McInnes is scheduled to tour STRAYA in November. See also : ‘Stop the name-calling!’: anger unites Melbourne’s March for Men protesters, Jeff Sparrow, The Guardian, August 26, 2018 | What the people at Australia’s March for Men had to say, Madison Griffiths, The Feed, SBS, August 27, 2018.

Speaking of violent misogynists, Adam Giles’ ‘mate’, the steroid-munching neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell, dropped this banger on Twitter on Monday night, before then suspending his account … presumably to return another day to continue to threaten street performers and schoolgirls with violence:

See also : Blair Cottrell and the problem of male aggression, Clementine Ford, The Age, June 26, 2018.

Mister Cottrell, having been convicted in September last year of inciting hatred for Muslims, returns to court in November to appeal the conviction, when he’ll be ably-represented by Adelaide barrister John (W) Bolton, increasingly the go-to law-talking guy for the extreme-right. On his blog, Mister Bolton (Invalid because they impermissibly burden the implied freedom of political communication contrary to the Commonwealth Constitution., July 18, 2018) writes that:

At 9.00 a.m. on 19th July 2018 Mr.Cottrell appeared in the County Court in Melbourne. He has lodged an appeal against a conviction after a [t]rial in which he was un-represented in the Victorian Magistrate’s Court. The appeal was set for a mention only and trial directions.
​
The [t]wo day County Court trial date in August 2018 has now been vacated because a notice was lodged with the Court that asserts that the sections of the Victorian Racial and Religions Villification Act [sic] with which Mr. Cottrell is charged are invalid.

Note that Mister Bolton is organising some crackpot PR stunt in Lakemba in NSW in October.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

One court date that has not been vacated takes place on Friday, when THE MILO FIVE FOUR THREE (Neil Erikson, Rick Turner & Richard Whelan: Garry Hume and Garry ‘Soldier of Odin’ Mattsson have both obtained diversion orders) will be appearing in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court for contest mentions arising from the Milo stoopid of December last year. The stoopid also resulted in Victoria Police billing tour organisers $50,000 for their troubles but, not surprisingly perhaps, Damien Costas and Penthouse Australia have told them to go fuck themselves. As for the Infowars-supplements salesman, dumped from the line-up of some US conference called ‘Politicon’, he returns to our shores in November, bringing with him some very expensive luggage, not least fellow right-wing blabbermouth Ann Coulter.

In any event, as well as having a court hearing in Victoria on Friday, Erikson has another court date in Gosford (NSW) on September 11 to face charges arising from his disruption of a service at Gosford Anglican Church. Standing alongside Erikson on this occasion will be a handful of racist gronks from the TBC (who are also demanding that Father Rod Bower is dismissed from his position).

See also : Neil Erikson ~versus~ Law & Order (June 30, 2018).

Nazis Go To Canberra

This Saturday, The Performance Artist (Formerly Known As The Great Aussie Patriot), Shermon Burgess, has organised a rally in Canberra. Grandly titled ‘Spirit of Australia’, it would be more aptly described as ‘Spirit of Nazi Germany’. Thus in addition to Burgess, the MC for the event is Matt Lowe, currently the fuehrer of a tiny neo-Nazi grouplet called ‘Australian Patriot Uprising’, a splinter from the now-defunct ‘Party for Freedom’. While the list of speakers, like the expected attendance, is very smol (Burgess and Lowe), Senator Fraser ‘Final Solution’ Anning appears to have initially accepted an invitation to speak on the podium but then to have withdrawn. One group that will not be attending the event is the TBC in NSW, who’ve recently made the Columbus-like discovery that: a) some of their comrades are ‘nazis’ and; b) it can be a bit tricky claiming to be a 100% True Blue Dinky-Di Aussie Patriot™ while organising with ‘nazis’.

anTEEfa

On the weekend, ‘Independent Australia’ published an interview what I done with Martin Hirst, which you can read here. See also : Understanding the mainstreaming of the far right, Aurelien Mondon and Aaron Winter, Open Democracy, August 26, 2018.

As noted previously (April 24, 2017 and October 4, 2017), there’s a number of spectacularly daft (fake) ‘antifa’ pages on Facebook. More recent/still extant pages include: Antifa Queensland; Antifa Sydney; Brisbane Antifa; Sydney Antifa.

Finally, there’s a nu/olde anti-fascist kid on the bloc: PUSH! Organising and Educating to Build an Anti-Fascist United Front and ‘The Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group is pleased to announce that we have participated in the launch of a new anti-Fascist organisation. The initial callout is reproduced below.’

antifa notes (july 14, 2018) : Lauren Southern & Stefan Molyneux Down Under +++

LOCAL

After a minor roadbump (seemingly generated by their applying for the wrogn category of visa), Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern were this week issued working visas in order to conduct their speaking tour of Australia. See : ‘It’s OK to be white’: Anti-immigration activist Lauren Southern in Australia, SBS, July 13, 2018.

Sadly, but perhaps fittingly, at approximately the same time Southern touched down in Brisbane, a neo-Nazi allegedly stabbed to death an Indigenous man. See : Hunt continues for Queen St Mall gunman after stabbing north of Brisbane, Lucy Stone and Toby Crockford, Brisbane Times, July 13, 2018.

In any case, the hate-speech tour kicks off in Cairns on Monday, July 16 when Molyneux and Southern will be joined by tour organisers Dave Pellowe and Luke Izaak (Axiomatic Events), Lyle Shelton and Dr Peter Ridd.

The July 16 event is being auspiced by the ‘Young Conservatives North Queensland’, a yoof project of Cory Bernardi’s Conservatives party (‘Young Conservatives is the Anti-PC movement aiming to convince young Australians to become interested in Aussie politics and conservative values in NQ’) which operates under the wing of Tory yoof Ryan Hasson. You may remember Ryan from such websites as ‘Australian Majority’. See also : Senator Cory Bernardi’s conservative movement shares $1 million headquarters, Deborah Snow, The Sydney Morning Herald, August 12, 2016.

Otherwise, the remaining dates on the hate-speech tour are: July 20 : Melbourne /// July 22 : Perth /// July 26 : Adelaide /// July 28 : Sydney /// July 29 : Brisbane.

* The Melbourne event is the subject of a counter-rally. For more information, please see : Protest fascist mouthpieces Southern and Molyneux in Australia (Campaign Against Racism and Fascism) & Alt-Right Not Welcome-Protest Lauren Southern & Stefan Molyneux! (Melbourne Antifascist Info /// Jews against fascism /// Northern Suburbs Antifascists /// South East Anti-Racists /// Outer-Eastern Anti-Fascists).


img via Yelling At Racist Dogs

** The hate-speech tour was scheduled to touch down in Auckland on August 3 but it’s unclear if the event will be going ahead at this stage following the cancellation of a venue booking by Auckland Council. See : Controversial Canadian speaker denied visa as Auckland agency cancels booking, Todd Niall, stuff dot so dot nz, July 6, 2018. Unsurprisingly, news of the cancellation triggered a racist backlash, which among other things resulted in the NZ Greens co-leader Marama Davidson receiving the usual barrage of death and rape threats. See : Greens co-leader Marama Davidson receives violent threats on social media, Debrin Foxcroft, stuff dot co dot nz, July 8, 2018.

Finally:

• Last weekend, the Melbourne Arms and Militaria Fair was held in Altona North. As usual, the Fair was used to distribute Nazi tatt:

Replica Nazi flags and badges available at Melbourne gun show
Tamsin Rose
Sunday Herald Sun
July 7, 2018

REPLICA Nazi flags, uniforms, badges and pins were for sale at a gun show in Melbourne’s south west today.

Gas masks and miniature Nazi model sets were also available to the thousands that visited the Melbourne Arms and Militaria Fair in Altona North.

Australia’s peak Jewish body said paraphernalia available at the Westgate Sports and Leisure Complex event indicated growing antisemitism and neo-Nazi behaviour.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry researcher Julie Nathan said the sale of such products was unacceptable.

“It is appalling that some people are willing to profit from the collection or sale of Nazi and Holocaust memorabilia,” she told the Sunday Herald Sun.

“Any Nazi memorabilia being sold in Australia is an insult to the millions who suffered and died under Nazi brutality and genocide.

“It is especially problematic at a time of rising antisemitism from the far right.”

The researcher said 230 antisemetic [sic] incidents were recorded in Australia last year and more than more than 50 were perpetrated by a Melbourne-born neo-Nazi group called Antipodean Resistance.

Event organiser Jeff Pannan said not everyone could afford genuine articles and replicas provided an alternative to collectors.

“If they can’t afford the real thing, then there are reproductions and that’s fairly common,” he said.

“If it’s available, it’s available.”

Mr Pannan said the world was in the “grips of too much ‘do-gooderism’” and that people have the right to sell whatever they wanted.

“I know everybody wants to be politically correct at the moment but this world is probably getting too politically correct,” he said.

“Whether people think it’s good or bad, I think people have the right to do it”

At the same event earlier in the year, the Herald Sun uncovered replica Zyklon B gas canisters for sale.

Chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission Dr Dvir Abramovich said vendors needed to be held accountable.

“I would not be surprised if neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers and white-supremacists are buying such items as a way to celebrate their dangerous ideology and to recruit new members,” he said.

“I call on all dealers to start exercising moral judgment by stopping the sale of these perverse articles.

“Perhaps it’s time that the state and federal governments consider regulating and controlling this reprehensible practice.”

• As noted previously, Cooked Convict Neil Erikson has been charged over his disruption of a church service in Gosford in May. To celebrate his court date, the methgoblins of the True Blue Crew in NSW have promised to kick up a stink at Erikson’s court hearing on September 11.

• Fuehrer of the Australia First Party, Dr Jim Saleam, has thrown his hat into the ring for the federal seat of Longman in Queensland. The various preference deals undertaken by the other parties for the July 28 by-election have generated some reportage, wailing, and gnashing of teef, but it remains unclear at this stage who will beat Saleam into the category of least-favourite candidate.

• Old mate Ricky White (Right Wing Resistance Australia) was in the news again recently:

A [bonehead] who set a church on fire and made anti-Semitic threats of extreme violence and sexual assault has been placed on an interim NSW supervision order.

The State of NSW sought the Supreme Court order against Ricky White, whom Justice Monika Schmidt said admitted having a longstanding history of involvement with white supremacist groups.

The 27-year-old is on parole for setting alight a church at Taree, in northern NSW, causing an estimated $200,000 damage, after which he sent pictures of a burning church with inverted crucifixes to friends.

The 28-day interim order, which White agreed to after disputing only a small number of the conditions, was made by Justice Schmidt on Wednesday under the Terrorism (High Risk Offenders) Act …

See : Church arsonist put on supervision order, 9News, July 11, 2018.

• At the start of July, some naughty students at Charles Sturt University were disciplined after taking part in an event to celebrate their opposition to ‘political correctness’ by dressing up ‘as members of the Ku Klux Klan and in blackface as a “cotton-picking” slave’ (see : Australian students who dressed as KKK forced to complete Indigenous subject, Michael McGowan, The Guardian, July 2, 2018). Note that the freedom-loving students also dressed up as Jewish concentration camp inmates and a Nazi guard, although oddly this is not referenced in the article.

AND/OR GENERAL

• In Germany, the trial of neo-Nazi Beate Zschäpe has ended with her conviction for her involvement in the multiple murders conducted by her group the ‘National Socialist Underground’ during the years 2000–2007, a period in which the NSU operated under the protection of German secret police in the BfV. Zschäpe was sentenced to life imprisonment. For useful background on the case, see : NSU Watch’s article ‘The NSU Case in Germany – as at July 3rd, 2018’.

• In the US, A.C. Thompson and Ali Winston write that There likely isn’t such a thing as a “typical” violent white extremist in America in 2018. Still, Michael Miselis — a University of California, Los Angeles doctoral student with a U.S. government security clearance to work on sensitive research for a prominent defense contractor — makes for a pretty unusual case … (He Is a Member of a Violent White Supremacist Group. So Why Is He Working for a Defense Contractor With a Security Clearance?, ProPublica, July 5, 2018).

Whether this proposition is true or not, the case of Miselis naturally brought to mind the case of Nicole ‘BlueEyedBlonde’ Hanley, the Canberra-based neo-Nazi who worked for Thales, the French corporation. See : Nicole Hanley : For Blood & Honour (April 6, 2009).

In Portland, June 30 witnessed bloody clashes between fascists (including many Proud Boys gathered under the umbrella of ‘Patriot Prayer’) and anti-fascists. See : Riot in Portland as far-right marchers clash with anti-fascists, Jason Wilson, The Guardian, July 1, 2018 & Portland Holds It Down against Fascists and Police: The Clashes of June 30, 2018, CrimethInc, July 1, 2018. See also : Rose City Antifa.

Obviously under some pressure from anTEEfa and worried about protecting the AltRight, neo-Nazis and white supremacists, US Republicans have introduced legislation — viz, the ‘Unmasking Antifa Bill’ — intended to further criminalise the movement. See : Republican Congressmen Are Pushing Anti-Antifa Bill, Kelly Weill, The Daily Beast, July 7, 2018.

Washington, meanwhile, is gearing up for ‘Unite The Reich 2.0’, as Jason Kessler continues on his merry racist way. See : A Year Later, the Fascists of Charlottesville Are Back for More — This Time Outside the White House, Natasha Lennard, The Intercept, July 3, 2018.

Otherwise, diminutive nipster Andrew Anglin’s webshite The Daily Stormer is experiencing some further technical difficulties as Pepe disappears from the scene (Neo-Nazi Site Daily Stormer Takes Down Pepe Images After Getting Copyright Claims From Its Creator, Matthew Gault, VICE, July 11, 2018), while Shane Burley takes note of the American far-right’s latest attempts to consolidate their international linkages (The US White Nationalist Movement Is Attempting to Build International Allies, truthout, July 9, 2018), and Ari Paul has some observations about Resisting White Nationalism (Souciant, July 11, 2018).

ANTIFA

In Russia, Putin’s gangsta state has been kept busy repressing anti-fascists (Anti-fascist teenager reveals how Russian security services brutally beat and tortured him, OVD-Info, opendemocracy, June 23, 2018), but has thus far failed to completely exterminate the movement, including on the terraces (see : Meet the football ultras ‘all of Russia hates’, Mariya Petkova, Al Jazeera, July 12, 2018).

In the UK, Ayoola Solarin explores Fighting Fascism at the UK’s Feminist Antifa Martial Arts Gym (VICE, July 10, 2018), and July 25 is, of course, the (Fourth Annual) International Day of Solidarity with Antifascist Prisoners.

See also : The Untold Story of Syria’s Antifa Platoon, Seth Harp, Rolling Stone, July 10, 2018 (‘How a ragtag crew of leftist revolutionaries and soldiers of fortune helped defeat ISIS’).

antifa notes (may 21, 2018) : anti-semites goto church in gosford /// bigly league politics

Briefly:

‘Cooks Convicts’ ~versus~ Jesus Christ


L to R : Neil Erikson; Paul Exley; Rino ‘Bluebeard’ Grgurovic; Danny Peanna/Parkinson.

‘Cooks Convicts’ — on this occasion, being repped by Neil Erikson, Paul Exley, Rino ‘Bluebeard’ Grgurovic, Danny Peanna/Parkinson and Lachlan/Logan Spalding — disrupted the 6pm service at Gosford Anglican Church on Saturday night. Dressed as Jesus(?!), the convicted anti-Semite and racist Erikson talked shit thru a megaphone while the priest, Father Rod Bower, asked them to leave and to stop harassing the dozen or so old people who’d joined him in prayer. Exley and Peanna/Parkinson were members of the now-defunct micro-Party for Freedom (PfF), which in August 2016 staged a similar disruption. On that occasion, Exley and Peanna/Parkinson were also present. (See : Anti-Islam group ‘Party for Freedom’ disrupts Sunday service in ‘racist stunt’ at Gosford’s Anglican church, Danuta Kozaki, ABC, August 2016.) Note that the PfF has recently completely fallen apart, and the remnants — including Nick Folkes, Toby Cook and Matt Lowe — have gone ‘full nazi’. Also: oddly, ex-PfFer George Jameson didn’t take part in Erikson’s latest stunt but was in Melbourne, where he joined Avi Yeminem and a tiny clutch of ‘Australian Liberty Alliance’ members in a counter-rally the ALA organised in response to a Palestinian solidarity rally outside the State Library. As for Erikson, on May 11 he got another slap on the wrist for contempt of court. See : Neil Erikson, who ambushed Sam Dastyari on video, avoids jail for contempt of court, James Oaten, ABC, May 11, 2018.

See also : The priest whose blunt billboards have gone global, Frances Mao, BBC, May 19, 2018 /// Right-Wing “Terrorists” Interrupted An Evening Mass To Scare And Intimidate Church Goers, Brad Esposito, Buzzfeed, May 21, 2018 /// “Neo Nazis” Allegedly Intimidate Gosford Church, Triple M, May 21, 2018.

BIGLY League Politics

Huh. That was weird. On Friday, I received a message from some body called Pete D’Abrosca, who asked ‘Whatever happened to the old Melbourne Antifa page that caimed [sic] the Vegas shooting?’, to which I replied ‘I assume it got deleted.’

Pete D’Abrosca: ‘Is there a way to know for sure that it was a hoax? Or do I have [to] trust “real antifa” and Snopes?’
slackbastard: ‘Well I reckon it was a hoax. And I should prolly know.’
Pete D’Abrosca: ‘How?’
slackbastard: ‘For a no of reasons: I live in Melbourne; I’ve been participating in anti-fascist activism for years; I know other anti-fascists in Melbourne; I read it; like other fake pages, it was a garbagefire; it appeared along w a slew of other such pages.’

This was apparently sufficient for D’Abrosca to pen an article for a nü right-wing site called ‘Big League Politics’. Titled ‘FACT CHECK: Did Snopes Source an Anonymous Blogger to Challenge the Veracity of an Established News Source?’ (May 17, 2018), D’Abrosca writes:

Mr. slackbastard gave a number of reasons why we should believe him and Snopes’ version of the events.

He lives in Melbourne. (Obviously he knows everyone in Melbourne).
He’s been “participating in anti-fascist activism for years.” (One can only imagine the amount of brain damage caused by such activity, which actually tends to discredit his claims further).
He “knows other anti-fascists in Melbourne.”
Finally, the page was a “garbagefire.” (Garbage fire spelled as one word).

LOL. In any event:

• I pegged the ‘Melbourne Antifa’ Facebook page as an exercise in trollery six months prior to when The Daily Mail‘s Stephen Johnson used it as the basis of a fraudulent claim;
• ABC-TV’s ‘Media Watch’ program examined the avalanche of fake news generated by the Las Vegas shooting, including the idiot claim inre ‘Melbourne Antifa’, in the episode broadcast on October 9, 2017;
• There’s good reason The Daily Mail has been tagged as ‘unreliable’ by Wikipedia.

On ‘Big League Politics’, see : Roy Moore Consultants’ New Project: A Conspiracy-Theorizing Pro-Trump News Site, Lachlan Markay, The Daily Beast, February 28, 2017 (”Big League Politics’ editor in chief has called Alex Jones ‘my Walter Cronkite.’ Its new owners think the site is the future of journalism.’). See also : Did ‘Melbourne Antifa’ Claim Responsibility for the Vegas Massacre?, Kim LaCapria, Snopes, October 4, 2017 /// Hoaxes, fake news about the Las Vegas massacre, Louis Jacobson, Emily Tanaka, Miriam Valverde, Politifact, October 2, 2017 /// No Evidence Linking Vegas Shooter to Antifa, Saranac Hale Spencer, FactCheck, October 5, 2017. On Stephen Paddock, see : New documents suggest Las Vegas shooter was conspiracy theorist – what we know, Jason Wilson, The Guardian, May 19, 2018.

Antipodean Resistance

The local Hitler Yoof done a coupla banner drops over the Eastern Freeway today. More on them laters …