Tom Tanuki has created a video to explain WTF happened when a dozen or so members of Tom Sewell’s neo-Nazi groupuscule the ‘National Socialist Network’ unwisely decided to attend an antifascist benefit gig last Friday:
I thought I’d share it here because YouTube.
This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! on 3CR we talk to Emily M. Bender [Twitter/X///Mastodon]. Emily is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Washington and is one of the people Time has named as among The 100 Most Influential People in AI 2023. She co-hosts, with Alex Hanna, the podcast Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000.
She also two cats — Euclid and Euler — which is pretty cool.
We spoke to Emily about ‘Artificial Intelligence’. More precisely, why it’s important to debunk the myths surrounding the label, the better to analyse the reality it obscures: for example, Large Language Models of the kind that produce ChatGPT are not ‘intelligent’, and AI would be better termed something like ‘mathy math’. Further, we discussed why it’s more important to focus upon the real and present harms of ‘AI’ than it is to join in ungrounded speculation on hypothetical risks in the future.
The world becomes a sum of lifeless artifacts; from synthetic food to synthetic organs, the whole man becomes part of the total machinery that he controls and is simultaneously controlled by. He has no plan, no goal for life, except doing what the logic of technique determines him to do. He aspires to make robots as one of the greatest achievements of his technical mind, and some specialists assure us that the robot will hardly be distinguishable from living men. This achievement will not seem so astonishing when man himself is hardly distinguishable from a robot.
~ Eric Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973)
See also : You Are Not a Parrot, Elizabeth Weil, NYMag, March 1, 2023 | What Really Happened When Google Ousted Timnit Gebru, Tom Simonite, Wired, June 8, 2021 | On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? 🦜, Emily M. Bender, Timnit Gebru, Angelina McMillan-Major, Shmargaret Shmitchell, FAccT ’21: Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency, March 2021 | The #BenderRule: On Naming the Languages We Study and Why It Matters, The Gradient, September 14, 2019 | Distributed AI Research Institute.
4.30pm, Thursday, September 21, 2023 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website
• This episode will be available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify and other platforms after broadcast.
• We also have a Facebook page for the show, which you’re invited to ‘Like’ and to ‘Follow’.
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Just a brief note to highlight two things:
1)
The Campaign Against Racism and Fascism has organised a protest rally in Sunshine West on Saturday. The rally meets at 2pm at IGA Sunshine West. CARF organised a previous rally in July and another in February. See the Facebook event page for more details.
2)
Legacy Boxing Gym in Industrial Drive in Sunshine West is the organising base for the neo-Nazi National Socialist Network, members of which tried and failed to disrupt a benefit gig in Thornbury on Friday. The gig was to benefit the Black Peoples Union and the White Rose Society and, if you didn’t make it on the night, you can still donate to them via Chuffed.
Every dollar donated = one nazi tear.
TLDR:
On Friday night, a small group of neo-Nazis armed with knives attempted to disrupt an anti-fascist benefit gig in Thornbury. Happily, the cowards were chased away by attendees. Currently, while several have previously been identified as belonging to Tom Sewell’s ‘National Socialist Network’ (NSN), help is being sought in identifying several of the other individuals who took part in the failed attack.
If you have any infos on the parties pictured below (click for a larger version), please contact The White Rose Society: [email protected].
Briefly:
Because footage of the incident was made available to them, both 9 News Melbourne and 7 News Melbourne carried reports. The 9 News account was fairly straightforward, if inevitably tabloid.
The 7 News report, on the other hand, as well as being sensationalist, was also reliably stoopid, rendering what happened as a random clash between two groups of ‘extremists’, both exotic to the area, and each acting without regard for locals.
In reality, the nazis had gone to Cafe Gummo — a well-known, queer-friendly dive bar in Thornbury, popular with locals — because that evening it was hosting a benefit gig for a local Indigenous group (the Black Peoples Union) and anti-fascist research group The White Rose Society. The gig was organised by local anti-fascists, including Melbourne SHARPs (Skin Heads Against Racial Prejudice), a local chapter of a global network of anti-racist skinheads which has been fighting racism and fascism for decades. The performers included local bands An Effigy To Extinction, Dire Need, Louts and The Victim’s Ball.
The nazis were also members of the NSN, recently made infamous by, inter alia:
• their fuehrer, Thomas Sewell, pleading guilty (August 1) to a violent attack on a group of hikers at a Victorian state park;
• hosting (July 30) an organising event at Altona RSL;
• the recent jailing (June 2) of two members in Adelaide for terrorist offences;
• their attendance at an anti-trans rally (March 18) hosted by Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull (AKA ‘Posie Parker’) and starring disgraced Liberal MP Moira Deeming.
The nazis — whose ranks include the son of a Melbourne police officer — wore their typical black uniforms (including masks) and were armed with GoPro cameras and knives.
(In this context, it’s important to note that, along with Adolf Hitler, the NSN worships the Christchurch terrorist, who wore a GoPro in order to film the mass murder of 51 Muslims he committed in March 2019. Further, that another NSN member has recently been charged with making violent threats against federal Senator Lidia Thorpe.)
To cut a long story short, upon arriving at the gig, the nazis were spotted and chased away from the venue by attendees, fleeing north up High Street and into the surrounding area.
Finally, 7NewsMelbourne has a very poor record of reporting on fascism and the far-right in Melbourne. Most notoriously, in 2018, it portrayed the formation of a racist vigilante group — one directed at and attempting to capitalise upon Liberal Party hysteria over African youth crime — as ‘a kind of Neighbourhood Watch’.
The leadership of 2018’s racist vigilante gang is now the leadership of the nazi gang who attacked the benefit gig.
This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! on 3CR we talk to Mike Rothschild [Twitter/X]. Last time we spoke to Mike (July 2021) we talked about his book about that stormy nonsense called QAnon and — 100 episodes later(!) — Mike’s back to tell us about how to build a Jewish Space Laser.
Well, kinda.
Actually, Mike has a new book out called Jewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories (Melville House Publishing) which drops next week and which ‘looks at how one Jewish family —the Rothschilds—became a lightning rod for the conspiracy theories of the last two centuries, and how those theories are still very much alive today’ and:
is a deeply researched dive into the history of the conspiracy industry around the Rothschild family – from the “pamphlet wars” of Paris in the 1840s to the dankest pits of the internet today. Journalist and conspiracy theory expert Mike Rothschild, who isn’t related to the family, sorts out myth from reality to find the truth about these conspiracy theories and their spreaders. Who were the Rothschilds? Who are they today? Do they really own $500 trillion and every central bank, in addition to “controlling the British money supply?” Is any of this actually true? And why, even as their wealth and influence have waned, do they continue to drive conspiracies and hoaxes?
See/hear also : Marjorie Taylor Greene Blamed Wildfires on Secret Jewish Space Laser, Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine, January 28, 2021 /// Marjorie Taylor Greene blames unabashed ignorance for her Jewish space lasers post, Adam Kovac, Forward, February 17, 2023 /// Did space lasers cause Hawaii wildfires? The many conspiracies debunked, Firstpost, August 16, 2023 | Yeah Nah Pasaran! #045 w Emily Tamkin on The Influence of George Soros : November 19, 2020.
4.30pm, Thursday, September 14, 2023 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website
• This episode will be available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify and other platforms after broadcast.
• We also have a Facebook page for the show, which you’re invited to ‘Like’ and to ‘Follow’.
• I have a Patreon account which youse are also invited to support.
Stand Back, Stand By, Go To Jail, Do Not Pass GO
The leadership of the Proud Boys in the United States have been sent to jail over their role in the January 6 stoopid. What effect this will have on the Trumpist rank ‘n’ file of the organisation is unclear, but Andy Campbell (Proud Boys Didn’t Just Crash An Election. They Upended The Next One Too., HuffPost, September 6, 2023) reckons the zombie army will march on.
Closer to home and only a tiny fraction by comparison, the Australian franchise of the PBs mirrors its Yanqui brotherhood in its political pre-occupations, celebrating capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy on the one hand while expressing hatred and contempt for dissenting voices on the other. Of late, this has meant whinging and whining about drag queen story time.
Naturally, while Enrique Tarrio got 22 years, Gavin Mcinnes got a $2 million waterfront mansion in Larchmont, New York and any number of opportunities to laff all the way to the bank. As for Joseph “Joe” Biggs, Ethan Nordean, Dominic Pezzola, Zachary Rehl and Tarrio, they’re hoping and praying for a Trump victory and a Presidential pardon in 2024. Given his large and fanatical support base, ownership of the Republican party and the decrepitude of Sleepy Joe Biden and the Democrats, this remains a real possibility.
Blue Collars & Dead Ducks
At this stage, it’s unclear if and when the Victorian branches of the AMWU, CFMEU, ETU and PPTEU will release the millions of dollars they’ve committed to spending (or begin the industrial action they’ve vowed to take) in order to Make Duck Hunting Great Again but, along with the state opposition and the Shooters Party, the BIG fellas have won the enthusiastic support of a variety of others, including a dissident Labor MP from the latte-sipping inner north of Melbourne, an IPA bizarr0 writing for The Spectator, and an old mate in the local gun lobby/trade and former stalwart of a local fascist groupuscule: James Buckle.
The co-founder of a gun lobby group called ‘Firearm Owners United’ (FOU), Buckle was also involved in the establishment of the now-defunct grouplet ‘The Lads Society’ under Balwyn Gauleiter Tom Sewell. Sewell is currently awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to violent disorder in the County Court last month but otherwise keeps himself busy running the ‘National Socialist Network’; his chum Buckle, meanwhile, is selling hunting merch and military tat by way of ‘Eureka Tactical’. FOU, ET and other lobbies also joined the ETU and other unions in making submissions to the Victorian government inquiry into duck hunting, each agreeing with the other that the activity was vital to the health of the economy, the welfare of workers and industry, and to the well-being of society as a whole.
Fuehrer X
Apartheid Clyde has been threatening to sue The Anti-Defamation League, claiming that it — rather than his spectacularly inept management — is responsible for the plummeting advertising revenue which has apparently wiped much of the share value from his latest toy. Given that Space Karen is a renowned blowhard and that the organisation he’s blaming for the financial consequences of his idiot reign specialises in ah, defamation, it seems unlikely The World’s Richest Man will carry through on his threat, but time will tell. In the meantime, antisemitism will continue to flourish on the FAILING! platform, even as his Saudi Arabian partners murder its Twitter-based critics.
Stop Cop City
In Atlanta, Georgia, the relative success of the campaign to Stop Cop City has resulted in authorities launching an even more extraordinary effort to destroy it. Hence, following the police killing of Tortuguita in January, a RICO prosecution has been launched against 61 individuals associated with the campaign.
See : Understanding the RICO Charges in Atlanta, CrimethInc, September 5, 2023 | ‘Stop Cop City’ Activists Hit With RICO Charges By Same Grand Jury That Indicted Trump, Kelly Weill, The Daily Beast, September 5, 2023 | Defying RICO Indictment, Faith Leaders Chain Themselves to Bulldozer to Stop Cop City, Natasha Lennard, The Intercept, September 7, 2023.
Worse than ISIS
The former CEO of Antifa in Australia is returning to Melbourne in October to talk loudly on trains and to walk funny around the city.
Otherwise:
• Neo-Nazis Are Shocked a Guy Called ‘BoneFace’ Isn’t Who They Thought He Was, Marc Lamoureux, Vice, September 9, 2023
• Kellerberrin shooting: Gunman Lachlan Bowles’ sick nazi links uncovered, Caleb Runciman, Lauren Price, Shannon Hampton and Rebecca Le May, The West Australian, September 7, 2023
Free Alex Stokes! : “Anti-fascist, artist, and independent journalist Alex Stokes has been reporting on civil conflict in the United States for over five years … On January 6, 2021, as a mob attempted to overthrow the US government on Capitol Hill, armed members of the Proud Boys fascist gang who didn’t join their pals in Washington, DC. tried to stage their own violent threat to democracy at the New York state capitol. Alex was there among counter-protestors. When the Piss Boys attacked the counter-protestors with weapons, Alex jumped up to defend those being assaulted … the courts did not see what Alex did as clear self-defense and instead convicted him on assault charges, sentencing him to twenty years in prison. This is an obvious miscarriage of justice and the stakes of Alex’s appeal of his sentence could not be higher. [The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund] are in direct contact with Alex’s lawyer and are raising funds to ensure that is appeal case does not lack for resources. Please help us to ensure this injustice is overturned and Alex walks free!”
Free Azat Miftakhov! : Russian mathematician and anarchist Azat Miftakhov was arrested on new felony charges on Monday, immediately after his release from the prison where he had just finished serving a years-long sentence in a separate case. He stands accused of “justifying terrorism.” See also : The case of Azat Miftakhov.
This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! on 3CR we talk to Eviane Leidig [Twitter/X]. Eviane has been featured by The Independent, Al Jazeera, BBC, Australia Broadcasting Corporation, and Bellingcat but — moreover — YNP! had a yarn with Eviane three years ago, when we discussed the far-right, India and The West (April 30, 2020). On this occasion we spoke to her about her new book, The Women of the Far Right: Social Media Influencers & Online Radicalization (Columbia University Press, 2023):
Eviane Leidig offers an in-depth look into the world of far-right women influencers, exploring the digital lives they cultivate as they seek new recruits for white nationalism. Going beyond stereotypes of the typical male white supremacist, she uncovers how young, attractive women are playing key roles as propagandists, organizers, fundraisers, and entrepreneurs. Leidig argues that far-right women are marketing themselves as authentic and accessible in order to reach new followers and spread a hateful ideology. This insidious—and highly gendered—strategy takes advantage of the structure of social media platforms, where far-right women influencers’ content is shared with and promoted to mainstream audiences. Providing much-needed expertise on gender and the far right, this timely and accessible book also details online and offline approaches to countering extremism.
See also : The Culture War Coming for Your Birth Control, Lois Shearing, Byline Times, August 30, 2023 | ‘Better martyrs’: the growing role of women in the far-right movement, MacKenzie Ryan, The Guardian, August 12, 2023 | Tradwife Influencers Represent an Authoritarian, Sexist Ideology, Julie Kohler, Teen Vogue, July 3, 2023.
4.30pm, Thursday, September 7, 2023 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website
• This episode will be available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify and other platforms after broadcast.
• We also have a Facebook page for the show, which you’re invited to ‘Like’ and to ‘Follow’.
• I have a Patreon account which youse are also invited to support.
I don’t remember why exactly but — a long, long time ago, when I began blogging, I made a list of some of the muzak what I like:
Brigada Flores Magon • Brujeria • Built to Spill • Christ On A Crutch • Chumbawamba • Combat Wombat • Consolidated • Michael Franti [& Spearhead] • Fugazi • Insurgence Records • The (International) Noise Conspiracy • Linton Kwesi Johnson • Killdozer • Pisschrist • Pitchshifter • Schifosi • Gil Scott-Heron • Sin Dios • SNOG • Stage Bottles • Stereolab • The Celibate Rifles • The Oppressed • Yidcore
In 2023, most of these bands/musical projekts — some of whom were kinda un-well when I wrote about them — are deaded. Still standing are Brujeria, Built to Spill, Combat Wombat and ‘Insurgence Records’ (Urban Strife), Stage Bottles and Stereolab. And maybe Pitchshifter. And Consolidated. I’m also happy to learn that Brujeria have just dropped a new album but less happy that I’ve missed out on tickets to Built to Spill. Otherwise, for Pisschrist, see also Enzyme /// Jalang.
There’s Over 9,000 other artistes I could list, but never mind the bollocks, here’s Brujeria:
See also : Mat Ward on political news and the best new music that related to it in Green Left.
This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! on 3CR we talk to Tom Tanuki [X/Twitter/The YouTubes]. Tom has been a guest on the show on several previous occasions, most recently in August last year when we talked to him about conspiracies, freedumbs and a kidnapping case involving sovcits.
This time around, we spoke to him about Warren Mundine’s Conservative Political Action Conference and the remnants of the anti-lockdown turned anti-trans movement in Melbourne and their appearance at a recent drag event.
See also : CPAC 2023 a breeding ground for dangerous ideologies, Independent Australia, August 26, 2023 | Cookers & the Drag Expo (ft. SOS & Sandee), August 18, 2023 | TINFOIL TALES : ‘SOS and Sandee have been observing the Australian Freedom Movement since its Covid-era inception’.
4.30pm, Thursday, August 31, 2023 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website
• This episode will be available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify and other platforms after broadcast.
• We also have a Facebook page for the show, which you’re invited to ‘Like’ and to ‘Follow’.
• I have a Patreon account which youse are also invited to support.
[Update (August 31, 2023) : The Victorian parliament’s Select Committee on Victoria’s Recreational Native Bird Hunting Arrangements has published its report and among other things recommended recreational duck hunting be completely banned from 2024. You can download a PDF copy of the report here. Dictator Dan’s government has six months to implement the Report’s recommendations (or not), while the BIG unions have vowed to punish Labor MPs if they proceed a ban. (August 26, 2023) : Feathers ruffled: Unions vow to shut out Labor if duck hunting banned, Kieran Rooney, The Age, August 25, 2023.]
There’s BIG news on the local industrial relations front:
The combined forces of the Victorian branches of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), Construction Forestry Maritime Mining And Energy Union (CFMEU), Electrical Trades Union (ETU) and Plumbing and Pipe Trades Employees Union (PPTEU) have declared WAR! on the Blue-winged Shoveler & Co..
Well, kinda.
Actually, the unions — as members of the Victorian-based ‘Building Industry Group’ (BIG) — have issued a joint statement denouncing a proposed ban on duck hunting in Victoria, and vowed to take, inter alia, some form of unspecified industrial action should Dictator Dan’s ruthless government deny their members the right to go duck hunting next year.
On the other side of the equation to the unions are the eight species of native duck currently considered fair game: the Blue-winged Shoveler, Grey Teal, Chestnut Teal, Hardhead, Mountain Duck, Pink-eared Duck, Pacific Black Duck and Wood Duck.
But wait, there’s more!
In addition, presumably, to the Native Fowl Association, Animals Australia, the Australian Veterinary Association, Birdlife Australia, Environment Victoria, Labor Environment Action Network, RSPCA Victoria and Wildlife Victoria are also calling on the Victorian state government to ban duck hunting.
Exactly why these unions — with a membership in the order of 85,000 workers — have decided to adopt this particular issue as a hill to die/lake to kill on is unclear, but the BIG statement takes note of the fact that workers on the various construction projects of the government’s Big Build do ‘suicide shifts’ — ‘7 x 12-hour days followed by 7 x 12-hour nights’ — and that, consequently, many have great difficulty finding time for recreation: for some, that means time to go duck hunting.
For context, Davey Heller writes:
The threatened industrial action takes place as the Victorian Labor Government holds a Parliamentary Inquiry into the duck hunting season. Half of Australia’s state governments have already banned the hunting of native water bird species including NSW, WA and Queensland over concerns of animal cruelty and a long-term trend of declining numbers of native wetland birds.
In a highly-informative thread on Apartheid Clyde’s micro-blogging service, Sarah Missen notes:
The framework around the discussion of “suicide shifts” is alarming. The industrial action isn’t about dangerous & strenuous rosters. It is about the “right” of these workers to go hunting in order to relax after these “suicide shifts”.
In an OHS framework, eliminating “suicide shifts” would be the most effective. Ensuring access to duck hunting isn’t on the [hierarchy] of controls. This is like bosses telling stressed out workers to practice mindfulness rather than addressing the issues at work.
According to Mates in Construction, 190 construction workers die by suicide in Australia each year. Construction workers are 6x more likely to die from suicide than an accident at work. Promoting relaxing with firearms, & terminology like “suicide shifts” are both concerning.
Why are unions willing to put so much time, effort and resourcing into this campaign? With so many OHS issues; a cost of living crisis; a housing crisis; a climate emergency… why is this the big issue? And is it even an issue for the majority of union members?
Given all this, it poses the question of whether and to what extent the BIG unions are in fact being used as a stalking horse by lobby groups; those whose interest lies less in maintaining safer working conditions and more, perhaps, in propping up a failing industry. To the best of my knowledge, the BIG has not issued any other public statements — on any subject — so it may be that there’ll be clarifications in future. The BIG has in fact issued previous statements, and been in operation for some years. See, for example, this one issued in October 2021 welcoming the re-opening of construction work [PDF].
In any case, of ‘The politics of duck hunting’, Former Labor Guy Kos Samaras reckons only ‘Around 11k Victorians hunt ducks. They mostly earn over 100k. The ave working class income is almost half that. Who they are not? Labor/Greens voters in Melbourne and ‘red’ regional cities. Especially Millennials, Gen Z in these areas.’ I suppose the only other thing to add at this stage is that one of the only actual construction workers and CFMEU members to have been elected to the Victorian state parliament in recent years is Andy Meddick of the Animal Justice Party, who campaigned for a ban on duck hunting.
• In other news, the CFMEU asked Labor’s national conference ‘Corporate super-profit tax?’, to which the party said ‘No!’ (Union push for ‘super profit tax’ to fund housing watered down at Labor conference, Jake Evans, ABC, August 17, 2013), while saying ‘Yes!’ to greater access rights (CFMEU commits Labor to get ‘foot off our necks’, David Marin-Guzman, Australian Financial Review, August 18, 2023).
See also : Victorian unions take wrong turn in campaign against duck hunting, Davey Heller, Independent Australia, August 24, 2023.
I forgots to add some of the public relations material produced by the BIG in conjunction with the ‘Outdoor Recreation Advocacy Group’ (ORAG) above, so will instead upload it below.
First, the BIG statement of August 17 (AKA ‘They’re coming for your salami!’):
Secondly, the advertisement the BIG and/or ORAG placed in the printed edition of The Age and Herald Sun newspapers of July 19 (AKA ‘Outdoor Recreation Under Attack!! It’s Coming Right For Us!!!!‘):
