Tagged with Anti-Semitism

Keyboard Warriors of the Australian #AltRight : XYZ & David Hiscox

XYZ dot net dot au (‘The XYZ’) is one of a small number of Australian ‘AltRight’ blogs/websites/podcasts that have sprung up in the last few years … but admittedly not one that I’ve paid much attention to.*

Collectively, these sites have dedicated themselves to battling ‘Cultural Marxism’, which in the case of ‘The XYZ’ finds its chief expression in ‘The ABC’. Of course, along with ‘The ABC’, ‘The XYZ’ regularly denounces The ALP, The Feminists, The Greens, The Leftists, The Muslims, The Queers, The Unions, ‘multiculturalism’, ‘political correctness’ and sundry other un-Australian forces. As such, it’s not unlike one of Uncle Rupert’s tabloids, and its ideological obsessions are typical of the Tory yoof who appear to be its chief market. Recently, however, the blog (‘online newspaper’) has been becoming increasingly batshit, seemingly under the influence of the US Alt-Right and following the triumph of God Emperor Trump.

Above : David Hiscox. ‘When I am not worrying about the fate of Western civilisation, I play the piano’ (‘Felix Mendelssohn and Germany’s proud Christmas heritage’, December 20, 2016).

‘The XYZ’ is the bRaneschild of David Hiscox, a local musician and music teacher. As editor, David is the most frequent contributor to the site, publishing around a third of its output, followed by Ryan Fletcher. (David Hilton, previously known as ‘Moses Apostaticus’, is another contributor.) Whether or not Ryan has pulled one too many cones, or perhaps simply received one too many knocks to the head, over the course of the last year or so he’s become increasingly open in his espousal of anti-Semitism and White nationalism. Further, the content on the site more generally has increasingly adopted more frank expressions of commitment to the AltRight than was present when David first began publishing it.

Previously content to describe itself as a ‘classical liberal’ platform committed to celebrating ‘free speech’, ‘free markets’ and ‘Western Civilisation’, the site has recently extended its mission to the defence of ‘cultural libertarianism’ from ‘cultural authoritarians’: ‘We also stand in opposition to cultural Marxism, which seeks to bring about socialism by attacking political, cultural, social, and religious norms and institutions – dismantling our national identity and the foundations of Western civilisation’. Shortly after launching its crusade in mid-2015, ‘The XYZ’ had also joined the fight against Islam which, like Cultural Marxism, allegedly poses an ‘existential threat’ to ‘Western Civilisation’.

In summary, David and ‘The XYZ’ have adopted wholesale the talking-points of the US AltRight and recent postings suggest that they’re finally beginning to (more openly) address ‘The JQ’. This is particularly in evidence in Ryan Fletcher and David Hilton’s contributions to the site but is also reflected in the commentary, which is increasingly beginning to resemble threads on ‘The Daily Stormer’. Below is just a few examples of the hundreds of barking-mad, anti-Semitic, and increasingly violent commentary by Mr Fletcher and others (the last being a reference to the murder of Heather Heyer and serious injury to others by a neo-Nazi in Charlottesville last year):



Still, in fairness to David, the laissez-faire comments policy which allowed for racist and anti-Semitic creeps to infest the site has recently been ended. Not because of the grotesque racism and misogyny, of course, but because two keyboard warriors were sniping at one another: ‘The line for me came when I saw two contributors engaged in what had degenerated from rugged debate into open civil war’ (‘A few comments on comments’, February 4, 2018).

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

* Other sites/groups/projects include ‘The Australian Traditional Nationalist’, ‘The Convict Report/The Dingoes’, ‘The Lads Society’, ‘The Unhinged’, ‘Zero Filter’ and ‘Proud Boys Australia’. See also : Keyboard warriors of the alt-right have Australia in their sights, Daniel Flitton, The Sydney Morning Herald, November 26, 2016.

Antifa Australia goes for the jugular (while I make some comments) …

On the weekend The Australian published a lengthy article by Chip Le Grand on antifa in Australia.

Below are some comments.

Antifa Australia goes for the jugular
Chip Le Grand
The Australian
December 9, 2017

The first rule of antifa is you do not talk about antifa. Not to a journalist, at any rate. It is less an organisation than a broad objective across the radical left; a determination to block, frustrate and ultimately silence far-right politics. It is fundamentally illiberal and necessarily secretive. For these reasons, it is poorly understood and readily mischaracterised.

Ssshhh …

To the best of my knowledge, there have only been one or two occasions on which anTEEfa in Australia have spoken to journalists. First, ‘Beneath the black mask: inside Australia’s anti-fascist Antifa groups’ (Peter Munro, The Sydney Morning Herald, May 21, 2016) contains interviews with three anti-fascists. Secondly, a former anti-fascist, Shayne Hunter, was recently interviewed for a piece in the Murdoch press (‘I established a terror movement in Australia, and I quit’, news.com.au, October 25, 2017). Perhaps the first time the term was used in media reportage in a local context was 2014 (Australia’s Golden Dawn Rally Falls Embarrassingly Flat, Lauren Gillin, VICE, May 7, 2014). See also : Cronulla protests: what is the anti-fascist group Antifa?, Michael McGowan, The Sydney Morning Herald, December 12, 2015 | Explainer: what is antifa, and where did it come from?, Troy Whitford, The Conversation, August 30, 2017.

Beyond that: while it’s true that ant-fascists generally seek to disrupt fascist organising, completely eradicating far-right and fascist politics is hardly an achievable objective. Instead, most seek to simply limit, as much as possible and given the means available, the growth of such political expressions. The liberality of these actions, as well as their public status, is generally determined by their context.

Antifa activists are not mindless thugs. They are well organised and, generally, experienced political and social activists who are prepared to resort to violence — they say reluctantly — to deny the far right any platform from which to promote its ideas. In Melbourne and Sydney this week, they mobilised more than 100 supporters within an hour to shout down a speaking event by the alt-right’s charismatic bomb thrower, Milo Yiannopoulos.

Leaving aside the alleged mindlessness and thuggery (and the claim that Milo is ‘charismatic’), the fact that several hundred people (ie, several hundred more than 100) mobilised in Melbourne in order to protest Milo Yiannopoulos’s performance at Melbourne Pavilion last Monday was. not. simply. the result of a preparedness to act at short notice, but rather active campaigning over months (and years).

[snip] The antifa view of the world is that far-right politics — particularly white supremacy, nationalist chauvinism and the kind of fascism that tore Europe apart in the middle of the 20th century — is again on the rise across Western democracies.

Accurate or otherwise, that’s not a view confined to those actively opposing white supremacy and ultra-nationalism, as a search for relevant materials would demonstrate. To put it another way: there’s a rational basis for concern over a resurgent far-right in Europe, both Western and Eastern. That said, Australia is somewhat peculiar in terms of Western democracies, a theme also explored in the relevant literature. Or as Oswald Mosley claimed in 1933: ‘I always thought it remarkable that Australia, without studying the Fascist political philosophy and methods, so spontaneously developed a form of fascism peculiarly suited to the needs of the British Empire.’ See also : Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association (ACRAWSA).

In the US, this conviction has made bedfellows of anarchists, Marxists, socialists, anti-racists and other militant activists beneath the antifa doona. In Australia, existing left-wing groups such as Socialist Alternative have diverted resources from other campaigns to fight what they describe as the fascist menace. New groups, such as Jews Against Fascism, have formed to fight the far right.

The start of this counterculture war can be traced to the Easter weekend two years ago when a large Reclaim Australia rally took over Melbourne’s Federation Square. Hassan is a 31-year-old bartender and events manager. He is also an active member of Socialist Alternative who contributes regularly to its online publication, Red Flag. “The size and breadth of that mobilisation of the far right shook many of us up,” he says. “Nationally, we decided to prioritise anti-fascist organising.”

The same event prompted Jordana Silverstein, a University of Melbourne academic, to form Jews Against Fascism. “We fundamentally disagree that if you ignore fascists they will go away,” she tells Inquirer. “They don’t. They become emboldened.”

In the US, contemporary antifa activity is generally traced back to the 1980s, when youth subcultures like skinhead and punk were the subject of concerted efforts at infiltration by the radical right, which in turn generated (militant) opposition. Hence it was in the late ’80s that Skin Heads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP) formed in New York and Anti-Racist Action (ARA) was born, the groundwork for the latter being laid by a skinhead crew in Minneapolis called The Baldies. (ARA’s contemporary expression is the Torch network.) A lot has happened between Then and Now, but certainly the Trump era has given added impetus to antifa organising in the US. See also : Inside the Underground Anti-Racist Movement That Brings the Fight to White Supremacists, Wes Enzinna, Mother Jones, May/June 2017.

In Australia, I’d argue that ‘the start of this counterculture war’ was a little earlier than April 4, 2015. Certainly, if anti-fascism is ‘less an organisation than a broad objective across the radical left; a determination to block, frustrate and ultimately silence far-right politics’, then its origins in Australia may be traced back as far as the 1920s and to the Italian migrant anti-fascists (see : Fascism, Anti-Fascism and the Italians in Australia: 1922–1945, Gianfranco Crestiani, Australian National University, 1980). More recently, anti-fascists in Melbourne actively campaigned against Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party and National Action in the 1990s. [For (Marxist) analysis, see : How we stopped Pauline Hanson last time, Tess Lee Ack, Marxist Left Review, No.12 (Winter 2016) / Understanding Hansonism (Ben Reid) & When the Australian ruling class embraced fascism (Louise O’Shea), Marxist Left Review, No.13 (Summer 2017).]

Otherwise: SAlt was largely absent on April 4, 2015, this also being the weekend of their annual Marxism conference, and the opposition to Reclaim on that occasion was drawn from other segments of Teh Left in Melbourne.

The antifa armoury includes more than protest chants and punches. Mark Bray, formerly an activist in the Occupy Wall Street movement, is the author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, published in Australia by Melbourne University Press. In interviews with anti-fascist activists in Europe and the US, Bray explores antifa tactics including the dark art of doxxing, a form of online sabotage pioneered by computer hackers.

In the antifa context, doxxing means the outing of Nazi sympathisers — the publication of ­information that identifies anonymous far-right bloggers or activists, which in turn puts pressure on employers to sack them. This year a University of Nebraska philosophy student, Cooper Ward, was doxxed and unmasked as the voice on an anti-Semitic podcast, The Daily Shoah. Bray says he was driven off campus and into hiding.

“Despite the media portrayal of a deranged, bloodthirsty antifa … the vast majority of anti-fascist tactics involve no physical violence whatsoever,” Bray writes.

“Anti-fascists conduct research on the far right online, in person and sometimes through infiltration; they dox them, push cultural milieux to disown them, pressure bosses to fire them and demand that venues cancel their shows, conferences and meetings; they organise educational events, reading groups, trainings, athletic tournaments and fundraisers; they write articles, leaflets and newspapers, drop banners, and make videos … But it is also true that some of them punch Nazis in the face and don’t apologise for it.”

Got d0x?

First, yes, ‘d0xxing’ is A Thing … though in Australia it tends not to extend as far as it does elsewhere. Thus, in my own case, while I’ve named a number of local AltRight figures — David Hilton (‘Moses Apostaticus’) is one recent example — I don’t publish full deets, most infos is drawn from open-sources and often relies upon simply drawing upon previous research (or is the result of a tip-off). Thus it’s also been possible to identify a number of the nazis who assembled outside Melbourne Pavilion last week simply by referring to previously published material. Inre Cooper Ward and ‘The Daily Shoah’, Ward was one of several neo-Nazis ‘outed’ at this time, including Mike Peinovich (‘Mike Enoch’). His outing as a neo-Nazi activist resulted, inter alia, in his separation from his (Jewish) wife — but the Shoah must and has gone on. Unmentioned but relevant in this context is that both the sitting MP George Christensen and former Labor leader turned angry old pensioner Mark Latham have appeared as guests on the podcast network TRS (for which ‘The Convict Report’ is the local expression).

[snip] A problem for the Australian antifa, and indeed for anti-fascist groups in Europe and the US, is that few people and organisations they oppose here have much to do with Nazism. Consider the rollcall of hard-right leaders who turned out in Kensington in support of Yian­nopoulos. Neil Erikson, a far-right agitator and leader of a small group known as Patriot Blue, used to be a Nazi but in recent years has publicly disavowed his former beliefs and now says he is a supporter of Israel.

Who you calling a Nazi, Nazi?

First, Erikson has publicly acknowledged the fact that, from his early- to mid- teens through until the end of 2015/beginning of 2016, he considered himself — and was considered by others — a neo-Nazi activist. A former member and/or associate of Blood & Honour and Nationalist Alternative, Erikson, in addition to having a criminal conviction for stalking a rabbi (February 2014), also ran with the short-lived gang ‘Crazy White Boys’, responsible for the attempted murder of Vietnamese student Minh Duong in 2012. Secondly, prior to ‘Patriot Blue’, Erikson had cycled through numerous other brands and Facebook platforms, and no doubt will jump on another bandwagon when it suits him. Finally, given his record, it’s not unreasonable to view Erikson’s posturings — first as a neo-Nazi, now as a ‘supporter of Israel’ — with some degree of skepticism, and to view his performances as being simply (and more accurately) opportunistic exercises by an attention-seeking, racist, meathead.

Blair Cottrell, the hulking former leader of the defunct United Patriots Front, is fascinated by Adolf Hitler as a historical figure but ridicules neo-Nazism as a contemporary political movement.

Or; Pull the other one (it’s got bells on).

Of course, being a semi-rational political actor, Cottrell doesn’t want to be known as a neo-Nazi. Like others, he understands that this is — still — a political kiss-of-death, properly the domain of uniform fetishists. That said, the reasons he may be described as one are rather more extensive than an apparent fascination with Mister Hitler: from celebrating his birthday to expressing a desire for every Australian school child to be issued with a copy of Mein Kampf … annually. Cottrell’s determination to fight the moral and political degeneracy allegedly caused by The Jew — of which ‘Cultural Marxism’, ‘feminism’ and ‘multiculturalism’ are major symptoms — lies at the heart of his political vision. I documented this in early 2015, collecting a series of his online postings on sites like Facebook and YouTube and republishing them as ‘Quotations From Chairman Blair Cottrell’ (July 27, 2015). Elements of this formed the basis of a The Sydney Morning Herald article published in October 2015 (Blair Cottrell, rising anti-Islam movement leader, wanted Hitler in the classroom, Michael Bachelard, Luke McMahon, October 17, 2015). Leaving aside the fact that Cottrell and the UPF lodged with members of Aryan Nations when they held a rally in Perth; that Queensland neo-Nazi Jim Perren, along with fellow neo-Nazi Bradley Trappitt (Combat 18), organised their failed party launch in Toowoomba in early 2016 (Perren described it as a mini-Nuremberg rally minus the swastikas); that in their internal discussions Cottrell recommended reading The Protocols; that the UPF gave birth to Antipodean Resistance and The Lads Society … leaving all that, and much more, aside, it’s also the case that Cottrell was denounced as a ‘Nazi’ by his former UPF colleagues Shermon Burgess and Neil Erikson. Finally, the words of Jean-Paul Sartre are rather apt in this context:

Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

To continue:

Avi Yemini, a tough-on-crime activist, is a former Israeli soldier. He recently joined Cory Bernardi’s Australian Conservatives and hopes to stand as a candidate in next year’s Victorian election.

Yemini is not a neo-Nazi, though he wouldn’t be the first Jew to assume such a mantle (cf. Danny Burros and Nathaniel Jacob Sassoon Sykes). Indeed, in May 2013, one Jewish bloke and Republican Party booster, David Cole/Stein, was exposed as a Holocaust denialist; most recently, he’s gone into bat for local ‘transcendental’ fascist Richard Wolstencroft. In any case, Yemini certainly loves associating with neo-Nazis and other fascists, and rarely misses an opportunity to join with them in castigating Bad People (leftists, Muslims, et. al.) for their crimes. On his relationship to the wider Jewish community, this statement by the Australian Jewish Democratic Society is germane.

As for Yiannopoulos, although some of his supporters are Nazi sympathisers — Inquirer was sent a picture of a man giving a Nazi salute as he walked out of his Kensington speaking engagement — there is scant evidence that he is.

When Yiannopoulos was preparing a treatise on the alt-right for the Breitbart website early last year, he sought the input of a white nationalist blogger and self-described Nazi, Andrew Auernheimer, and forwarded it along with contributions from other hard-right figures to his co-author, a Breitbart staff journalist. When the Buzzfeed news site obtained emails exchanged between Auernheimer and Yiannopoulos, it reported them as proof that “Breitbart and Milo smuggled Nazi and white nationalist ideas into the mainstream.” There was no smuggling involved, Nazi or otherwise; Yiannopoulos’s treatise was a rambling cook’s tour of right-wing groups, with Auernheimer quoted as an on-the-record source.

O RLLY.

Actually, the Buzzfeed article — Here’s How Breitbart And Milo Smuggled Nazi and White Nationalist Ideas Into The Mainstream (Joseph Bernstein, October 6, 2017) — does a little more than document the fact that Yiannopoulos sought the input of neo-Nazi weev into one article he — or rather one of his Breitbart lackeys — wrote. Inter alia, the article ‘also reported that Yiannopoulos’s passwords included references to Kristallnacht, the 1938 anti-Semitic German pogrom that historians mark as the beginning of the Holocaust, and the Night of the Long Knives, the murderous 1934 purge of Hitler’s onetime allies by Nazi paramilitaries.’ It also contains footage of Milo singing karaoke while his friends make Nazi salutes. In any case, Roger Mercer, the billionaire hedge-fund manager bankrolling Breitbart and Milo, recently withdrew his support (citing ‘personal reasons’ for doing so).

[snip] The fallout for antifa [from Milo’s cancelled gig at Berkeley] has been mixed. Speaking to Inquirer from New York, Bray says the movement is stronger and better organised than it was a year ago. “The spectacle of Berkeley and the precedent it set emboldened a lot of anti-racists and anti-fascists,’’ he says. “It was a call to arms for the movement.’’

Berkeley also set in train a series of events that last week culminated in FBI director Christopher Wray announcing that antifa activists were the subject of a counter-terrorism investigation. Wray told the US House of Representatives homeland security committee: “While we are not investigating antifa as antifa — that’s an ideology and we don’t investigate ideologies — we are investigating a number of what we would call anarchist-extremist … people who are motivated to commit violent criminal activity on a kind of antifa ideology.’’

(Don’t Talk To The) FBI

On June 15, 1917, President Wilson signed the Espionage Act, which delineated punishments for foreign spies and prohibited organized resistance to WWI. A great deal of repressive federal and state legislation followed, including the Trading with the Enemy and Sedition Acts. The government apparatus for enforcing these laws also expanded, including to the recently formed Bureau of Investigation (a precursor to the FBI). These mechanisms were used against anarchists, the IWW, and other left-wing organizations: on the same day that the Espionage Act took effect, police arrested Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. The leader of the Socialist Party, Eugene Debs, was sentenced to ten years in prison for delivering an antiwar speech in Ohio in June, 1918. The ‘Red Scare’ of 1917–1921 reached a peak with the Palmer Raids of November 1919 and the targeting of the Union of Russian Workers, an anarcho-syndicalist labour union composed of Russian immigrants. On November 8, 700 police raided seventy-three radical centres, arrested more than 500 individuals, and seized tons of literature. Many of those arrested were transported to Ellis Island and deported to Russia on the transport ship, the Buford. Over 3,000 people were deported in 1919, 2,000 in 1920 and over 4,500 in 1921.

Fast-forward to the early 2000s, and the Red Scare has become the Green Scare. In January 2015, one of its primary targets, Eric McDavid, was released from prison after serving almost nine years jail, his conviction the outcome of an FBI entrapment operation. See : Manufacturing Terror: An FBI Informant Seduced Eric McDavid Into a Bomb Plot. Then the Government Lied About It., Trevor Aaronson, Katie Galloway, The Intercept, November 10, 2015. The FBI has also been actively engaged in the infiltration and disruption of other groups, projects and social movements during this period. CrimethInc:

… starting with the entrapment case of Eric McDavid—framed for a single conspiracy charge by an infiltrator who used his attraction to her to manipulate him into discussing illegal actions—the FBI seem to have switched strategies, focusing on younger targets who haven’t actually carried out any actions.

They stepped up this new strategy during the 2008 Republican National Convention, at which FBI informants Brandon Darby and Andrew Darst set up David McKay, Bradley Crowder, and Matthew DePalma on charges of possessing Molotov cocktails in two separate incidents. It’s important to note that the only Molotov cocktails that figured in the RNC protests at any point were the ones used to entrap these young men: the FBI were not responding to a threat, but inventing one.

Over the past month, the FBI have shifted into high gear with this approach. Immediately before May Day, five young men were set up on terrorism charges in Cleveland after an FBI infiltrator apparently guided them into planning to bomb a bridge, in what would have been the only such bombing carried out by anarchists in living memory. During the protests against the NATO summit in Chicago, three young men were arrested and charged with terrorist conspiracy once again involving the only Molotov cocktails within hundreds of miles, set up by at least two FBI informants.

And so on and so forth. To cut a long story short, the fact that the FBI is investigating anTEEfa should surprise no-one. As Ward Churchill has written (“To Disrupt, Discredit and Destroy”: The FBI’s Secret War against the Black Panther Party, [PDF], 1988]):

The FBI’s politically repressive activities did not commence during the 1960s, nor did they end with the formal termination of COINTELPRO in 1971. On the contrary, such operations have been sustained for nearly a century, becoming ever more refined, comprehensive and efficient. This in itself implies a marked degradation of whatever genuinely democratic possibilities once imbued “the American experiment,” an effect amplified significantly by the fact that the Bureau has consistently selected as targets those groups which, whatever their imperfections, have been most clearly committed to the realization of egalitarian ideals. All things considered, to describe the resulting sociopolitical dynamic as “undemocratic” would be to fundamentally understate the case. The FBI is and has always been a frankly anti-democratic institution, as are the social, political and economic elements it was created and maintained to protect.

Naturally, anti-fascists organise not only to defeat fascism, but also to combat repression. The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund is one such project, but there are others, and no doubt there’ll be more as the state — increasingly, in close collaboration with the corporate sector — acts to repress dissent.

See also : What Chip Le Grand gets wrogn about the Australian ‘alt-right’ (September 10, 2017) /// Three Way Fight /// Anti-Fascism Beyond the Headlines: Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore Interviews Mark Bray, LA Review of Books, December 11, 2017.

Now that Yiannopoulos’s tour has ended, antifa in Australia will readjust its sights to homegrown targets …

The risk here is that, in the absence of genuine Nazis to punch, antifa will employ its tactics against people who hold legitimate conservative political views.

Bray, who introduces his book as a “unashamedly partisan call to arms”, defends militant anti-fascism as a “reasonable, historically informed response to the fascist threat”. If that threat in Australia is more perceived [than] real, where does that leave antifa?

Bonus! Aamer

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

First, a few updates:

1) Dick & MUFF

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

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

2) Patriot Blue

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

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

3) FREE PHIL!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LOL.

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

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

And so on and so forth …

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

4) Pauline Hanson ~versus~ Queensland

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

5) Anti-Semitism

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

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

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

6) From Cootamundra to Cheltenham


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

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

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

7) Fascism in reality (and phantasy)

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

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

8) anTEEfa!


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

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

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

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

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

BONUS! Slime

A further note on Avi Yemini’s fascist and neo-Nazi friends …

Yeah well anyway, I thought I might just note in passing some of Avi Yemini’s fanbase among the extreme-right.

To begin with, unhappy with the media reportage of his hate rally on Sunday, Avi instead recommends everybody read the report on the ‘altright’ website ‘The Unshackled’ (2016–) by Tom Pirrone. According to Tom, ‘hundreds’ attended Avi’s shindig — which is about as accurate as most of the reportage on the site, which otherwise reflects the preoccupations of the Tory yoof which constitutes its audience.

The Unhinged editors of The Unshackled are Tim Wilms and Sukith Fernando (above). Like many other #altright yoof, Sukith is a card-carrying member of the Liberal Party, and it was while campaigning for student elections that Sukith got into some hot water at the University of Sydney last week. Thus according to Honi Soit (Holocaust denying student confronted on campus, Kishor Napier-Raman and Aidan Molins, September 15, 2017): ‘Fernando was confronted on Eastern Avenue by members of both Stand Up (Labor) and Switch (Grassroots/independents) who questioned him about his beliefs. Fernando repeatedly claimed that he “didn’t know” whether the Holocaust happened.’ He is also reportedly a member of multiple right-wing Facebook groups, including one called ‘Holocaust Revisionism’.

As was the case with University of Queensland student David Hilton (‘Moses Apostaticus’), being an anti-Semite and Holocaust denier is no barrier to being adopted by more mainstream publications, including The Spectator. Thus in July Sukith contributed a sterling essay to the site (Goodbye Yassmin and #PrayForLondon, July 13, 2017) celebrating Yassmin Abdel-Magied’s decision to leave Australia for London, while also deriding her for her alleged apostasy and racism. For its part, the Liberal yoof who’ve assembled behind the ‘Vanguard’ banner to contest the election have denounced Sukith for his public expressions of racism, anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial and informed the world that, if elected, Sukith will not hold office. On the other hand, Sukith’s brave stand against The Jew at his university did at least win the approval of neo-Nazi and former Grand Poobah of the KKK, David Duke, so that’s something eh.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Leaving aside Sukith, as noted previously, the main body of supporters at Avi’s rally on Sunday were drawn from pre-existing extreme-right street gangs, especially the Soldiers of Odin and True Blue Crew. Funnily enough, apart from ignoring actually-existing laws and legal processes, the implementation of the rally’s demands — minimum sentencing for violent offenders (including minors), no bail for persons charged with violent offences, no parole for those convicted for violent offences, minors to be incarcerated in adult jails and the deportation of immigrants convicted of violent offences — would actually decimate his support base.

See also : TheDingoes.xyz /// The Convict Report /// DingoCon (July 8, 2017).

Rowan Dean, The Spectator, & anti-Semitism

Oh noes!

For reasons which remain unclear, Rowan Dean — world-renowned satirist, former ad-man, and current editor of The Spectator (Down Under) — has pulled two articles by Some Guy called ‘Moses Apostaticus’.

The decision to pull the articles — ‘The Democratic Socialist People’s Republic of Australia’ (July 6, 2017) and ‘How cultural Marxism created the Alt-Right’ (July 12, 2017) — happened just a day or so after Jeff Sparrow published ‘Dr Goebbels’ mastheads’: on antisemitism and News Corp (Overland, July 13, 2017), and after Richard Cooke drew attention to some of the nazi geek’s other online writings.

While Rowan may be one of the most respected and most creative figures in Australian advertising circles, responsible for helping to sell best-known brands including Nurofen, Mortein, Harpic, Finish and Dettol, he’s also allegedly a keen observer and critic of the ever-merging worlds of PR gimmickry, political dishonesty and manipulative ‘spin’.

Which begs the question: why decide to publish, then unpublish, such a brilliant man as Moses? One with lots of well thought-out, practical ideas, who is ensuring the financial security of The Spectator for years to come?

In any event, maintaining the paper-thin barrier between the usual batshit published by The Spectator & Co, on the one hand, and the unabashedly anti-Semitic and frequently neo-Nazi tripe published by aspiring AltRight bloggers and podcasters, on the other, is no easy feat: mostly, it’s accomplished by way of substituting the national flag for the Nazi one and, say, ‘cultural Marxism’ for ‘Jewish conspiracy’. Providing these basic rules are followed, it’s perfectly acceptable for anti-Semitic cranks to find a corner of the reactionary press in which to appear, and with a *nudge nudge, wink wink* to their audience, communicate precisely what they think. Indeed, play your cards right, and the national broadcaster will grant you an hour of prime time in which to promote yourself (albeit on delay).

As for Moses, you can continue to enjoy his writings on millionaire blabbermouth Tucker Carlson’s The Daily Caller website, and look forward in anticipation to the completion of his PhD thesis. You can also listen to him yap on ‘The Dingoes’ podcast, along with his XYZ kameraden Ryan Fletcher and Adam Piggott, MP George Christensen, former MP Mark Latham, racist Canuckistanian (and former academic) Drew Fraser and Greg Johnson of publisher Counter-Currents. Gregory Lauder-Frost of the Traditional Britain Group has also been a guest of The Dingoes, and his ‘exposure’ as a ‘Tory fringe group leader with Nazi sympathies’ rather closely resembles the comic habit of local Tories accidentally-stumbling-into-fascist-meetings, most recently when MP Craig Kelly wished a ‘Happy Birthday!’ (on behalf of former PM Tony Abbott) to the pro-Nazi Ustaše government of the 1940s.

Presumably, Rowan Dean is unlikely to publish a piece celebrating the destruction of ‘cultural Marxism’ at Jasenovac, but if he did, I wouldn’t be surprised if the facts of its removal — like so much else — simply disappeared down The Memory Hole.

See also : Ctrl-Alt-Delete: The origins and ideology of the Alternative Right, Matthew N. Lyons, PRA, January 20, 2017.