slackbastard

antifa notes (december 16, 2022) : last drinks for 2022

Posted on December 16, 2022 by @ndy

It’s been a while since I published some notes: about two-and-a-half months in fact. Inter alia, I suppose I could discuss how (anti-)social (corporate) media has destroyed the blogosphere, and maybe whine about how Facebook and Twitter are shit (as well as a somewhat necessary if radically-insufficient means of communication) but that’s very old news, so instead I’ll just reiterate I gotta Mastodon account and Carry On Blogging.

Baby Boikov

Australia’s No.1 Putin fanboy Simeon Boikov is in trouble with the law again, having been charged with assault occasioning bodily harm after encountering an elderly Ukrainian in Sydney. Apart from anything else, the incident has resulted in ‘The Aussie Cossack’ attending the Russian consulate in order to beg for political asylum.

Balwyn Calling

In October, Tom Sewell‘s European Australian Movement (EAM)/National Socialist Network (NSN) held a rally in Moonee Ponds to protest a queer youth event, recently threatened to hold another in St Kilda, but in the end left it up to some Proud Boys/left wing feminists to raise the flag.

St Kilda is of course an olde stomping ground for The Lads. So, it was heartwarming to see Blair Cottrell back in court this week as one of several support persons to The Boy From Balwyn as he once again faced court for an alleged assault. (As it happens, Cottrell’s last formal appearance was in April when he himself got a slap on the wrist for assaulting Some Guy in a supermarket.) The EAM/NSN also appeared in an article in the Herald Sun after one of its investigative journalists uncovered the fact that they: use Telegram to publicise their activities; a child appears in a photo they used to document the fact that they held an event in Melbourne on December 3.

See also : Thomas Sewell argues self-defence in alleged attack on TV security guard, Erin Pearson and Lachlan Abbott, The Age, December 14, 2022.

Banned By AC

Apartheid Clyde has begun accelerating the banning of anti-fascist accounts on the bird site. Seemingly under instruction from a smol number of prominent right-wing propagandists and having already gotten rid of those meddling kids at CrimethInc, Space Karen has now terminated the account of It’s Going Down!. As the conrads write in It’s Going Down Suspended from Twitter as Billionaire Elon Musk Fulfills Far-Right Agenda (December 15, 2022):

Today, It’s Going Down (IGD), along with several other news and journalist accounts, was permanently suspended without warning or justification by billionaire owner of Twitter, Elon Musk. In the past several weeks, Musk has suspended anarchist, left-wing, and anti-fascist accounts known for reporting on both the far-Right and on Musk himself. In some cases, Musk has targeted accounts at the explicit request of Alt-Right trolls, many of whom Musk regularly consults and responds to. Now, following Musk’s viral humiliation in San Francisco, he seems determined to silence anyone who criticizes him.

See also : Canary in the Coal Mine: Twitter and the End of Social Media, CrimethInc, December 9, 2022.

Boneheads

In ‘Neo-Nazi Desmond Liddington admits attacking activist Paddy Gibson at Arncliffe’ (St George Shire Standard, December 6, 2022), Ashleigh Tullis writes:

A neo-Nazi group leader attacked the home of a prominent Black Lives Matter and Aboriginal activist due to his white-supremist [sic] ideological beliefs, a court has heard.

Desmond Liddington, 38, was expected to be sentenced on Tuesday but the case was adjourned to next year for the lawyer to prepare further material.

He has pleaded guilty to intimidation and affray over a terrifying incident involving Maxwell Ferrer and a third man at Padaric “Paddy” Gibson’s Arncliffe home on December 4 last year.

You may remember Desmond Liddington from such neo-Nazi groupuscules as Combat 18 (‘C18’ is tattooed on his right hand), but he’s described as the fuehrer of ‘Firm 22’ in the article. (In January 2014, Liddington was one of five men, along with Jacob Hort of the band ‘Indigenous Hate’, convicted of ‘criminal damage’ for distributing C18 propaganda in Perth.) Paddy Gibson, meanwhile, in addition to being a ‘Black Lives Matter and Aboriginal activist’ (?), is a bloody unAustralian Marxist.

Bourgeois Parliament

Who won, I said, the election? Well, I may examine the results more closely at a later date but in the meantime: BAKER-PEARCE, Tylere came dead last in Narre Warren South, with just 290 votes (0.68%). Rebekah Spelman — whose BFF is partnered to local bonehead Scott McGuiness — contested the South-East Metropolitan region with the leader of the Freedom Party (FPV), Morgan C. Jonas. For their troubles (and no doubt much to #DictatorDan’s satisfaction), Spelman (a former United Australia Party candidate), Jonas and FPV got 8,338 votes (1.77%) in total. On a brighter note, the Grey Wolves will continue to enjoy having Adem Somyurek on their side in the Upper House.

… Wieambilla

The shooting deaths at Wieambilla have obviously sparked a good deal of discussion, especially in regards to the motivations of those responsible. I may write more later but in the meantime, as I wrote on the bird site …

… it’s weird seeing reportage on #freedumb stuff that’s been going on in the public eye for years as though it’s in any way, shape or form new or shocking and it very much reminds me of the effect of the Christchurch massacre. As in that case, state authorities are now confronted with having to wade through an absolute mountain of similarly batshit material in order to establish ‘motivation’ and ask what, if anything, distinguishes one man’s output from thousands of others of a fundamentally identical nature. If you think about it, this fact opens up the possibility of talking about the ideas espoused by these individuals as situated within a much larger and broader movement; one which finds expression not just on isolated farms, but in corridors of power, especially in media and politics.

See also : US religious conspiracist linked to Queensland police killers Gareth and Stacey Train, Michael McGowan and Eden Gillespie, The Guardian, December 16, 2022.

Posted in Anti-fascism, Broken Windows, Sex & Sexuality, State / Politics, That's Capitalism!, Trot Guide, War on Terror | Tagged Adem Somyurek, antifa notes, Apartheid Clyde, Becky Spelman, Blair Cottrell, Combat 18, Combat 18 Australia, CrimethInc, Des Liddington, Desmond Liddington, Elon Musk, European Australian Movement, Firm 22, Fortress, Freedom Party of Victoria, Grey Wolves, It's Going Down, Jacob Hersant, Jim Roberts, Kate Callan, Morgan Jonas, National Socialist Network, Neil Erikson, Paddy Gibson, Rebekah Spelman, Scott McGuinness, Southern Cross Hammerskins, Space Karen, Thomas Sewell, Twitter | Leave a comment

Q. Are the Proud Boys left wing feminists?

Posted on December 13, 2022 by @ndy

A. No, they’re not.

Obviously.

Apart from that, I don’t like being verballed.

So, Last Thursday (no really!) I made a very brief appearance on Drive on ABC Melbourne to talk about a public protest against an end-of-year pride celebration called ‘Glitter Nova’ local neo-Nazis and fascists had threatened to organise that evening. In response, someone on Twitter wrote the following:

This is incorrect, as I stated at the time. But, being a sucker for punishment, I’ve since decided to undertake the dread task of listening to the interview and transcribing it below:

Glitter Nova

saying

Andy: Thanks for having me on Raf.

R: Is it new that they sort of announce these protests?

A: Um, yes and no. I mean, I guess the community in this case that’s been targeted is one that’s been subject to fascist abuse for many years but as you may have noticed in the last few years in the United States in particular, performances which include drag kings [ie, drag performers], which are family-friendly, have been targeted by the far-right for disruption, so in that sense it’s not that surprising.

R: I think actually Marjorie Taylor Greene … the Congresswoman in, I think she’s in Atlanta, Georgia, she’s a big Trump supporter, I think she rose to prominence initially by opposing drag queens doing story time at a local library. So it’s a bit of a, it’s a signature protest for some of the far right groups?

A: Yeah it is. It has developed as such in the last few years and in this particular case there was a similar protest that took place in the beginning of October [end of September] in Moonee Ponds, which targeted a similar kind of event.

R: How would you describe these groups? Are they neo-Nazis? How would you describe them?

A: In this particular case yes, there are neo-Nazis, and there are others who belong on the right who might be called or might be members of group likes the Proud Boys and so on and so forth. So there’s a broad far right, but in this particular case neo-Nazis are taking the lead.

R: Is it the right decision to postpone the event?

A: I can’t really speak for the organisers. I think it needs to be … well, one thing that needs to be considered is the safety and security of those attending it, but on the other hand, whether or not it’s a good idea to allow threats being made by online groups like nazis to events like this, whether or not that should be considered sufficient reason to cancel an event, and whether or not this constitutes a pretty bad precedent.

R: OK so a slightly different question. As someone who researches fascists, does it embolden them?

A: Success does embolden them, yes. If their aim was to prevent an event from taking place, and they appear to have done so, I can’t see that dissuading them from carrying on in future. So unfortunately yes, I think that there’s a good argument that actually these sorts of things can embolden them.

R: Is there a way to ward this off? Is there, I dunno, do you speak about it more openly, do you not speak about it? I mean, if this is going to be a feature of any event organised say by the Pride Centre or if the library has a drag queen come and read a story, is there a way to pre-empt this do you think?

A: I think it’s probably a good idea for organisers, people organising these sorts of events, to consider the possibility that it may be subject to these sorts of threats, to take that into account and think about ways they can respond whether by ensuring that they have appropriate security in place or by publicising it and calling upon the community to support these events. There will be a rally in support of queer rights at the Pride Centre this evening, even though …

R: Oh so like as an anti-anti rally.

A: Yeah, as a way of demonstrating solidarity and saying that actually, most people welcome these events and are going to defend the right of organisations to hold them.

R: How do we hold these public conversations Andy? Because I mean this was a feature of the election campaign as well. The government accused the Liberals of preferencing nazis — I don’t want to get into the politics of it — then the government said we don’t want to name the people because we don’t want to give them publicity, like do we talk about it or do we not talk about it? What’s the right approach?

A: I think in general yes, it should be talked about. I mean how it’s talked about is another matter and, in the case of the election, I guess the question was, does it make sense, other than to note that there’s some alleged nazis taking part in the election, does it make sense to actually nominate them or is it sufficient to simply say well …

At this point my phone failed and the interview ended.

More later, maybe!

Posted in !nataS, Anti-fascism, Art, Broken Windows, History, Media, Sex & Sexuality, State / Politics, That's Capitalism!, War on Terror | Tagged Drive with Rafael Epstein, Glitter Nova, National Socialist Network, Proud Boys, Proud Boys Australia, Victorian Pride Centre | Leave a comment

Yeah Nah Pasaran! #145 w Ryan Broderick on Elon Musk’s Mission to Extend the Light Of Consciousness : December 15, 2022

Posted on December 12, 2022 by @ndy

On this week’s episode of Yeah Nah Pasaran! on 3CR, our final one for 2022, we talk to Ryan Broderick [Twitter///Mastodon]. Ryan publishes Garbage Day and co-hosts the podcast The Content Mines. We last spoke to Ryan in December 2021, but in this episode we agreed that Elon Musk’s sacred mission to extend the light of consciousness is surrounding us all in a beautiful glow on Twitter.

See : Elon Musk Is a Far-Right Activist, Charlie Wurzel, The Atlantic, December 11, 2022 | I have been shadowbanned by the libs, Ryan Broderick, Garbage Day, December 10, 2022 | There Will Never Be Another Twitter, Ryan Broderick, The Information, December 9, 2022.

4.30pm, Thursday, December 15, 2022 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

• A longer version of 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.

Posted in Anti-fascism, Art, Broken Windows, Death, History, Media, State / Politics, That's Capitalism! | Tagged 3CR, Elon Musk, Garbage Day, Ryan Broderick, The Content Mines, Twitter, Yeah Nah Pasaran | Leave a comment

No Glitter For Nazis : Defend Queer Rights in St Kilda, December 8, 2022

Posted on December 8, 2022 by @ndy

[Update : Organisers cancelled/rescheduled ‘Glitter Nova’ /// Many score rocked up to support the event/oppose fascism /// While a handful of Proud Boys also went to St Kilda, it seems none of the Balwyn Boy’s mob bothered. See : Glitter Nova youth pride celebration postponed due to safety concerns after protest threat, Madi Chwasta, ABC Radio Melbourne, December 8, 2022.]

NB. Organisers have postponed the Glitter Nova event however there will still be a gathering in solidarity.

According to conrads at The White Rose Society, nazis belonging to the European Australian Movement/National Socialist Network (& Co.) have threatened to disrupt an event at the Victorian Pride Centre this evening. As a result, an emergency call to action has been made, requesting queer-friendly people attend the event in solidarity and to demonstrate that nazi threats won’t be tolerated by the general public.

Please note that the EAM/NSN have form, having picketed (while under police protection) a family-friendly queer event (YouthFest 2022) in Moonee Ponds at the beginning of October. Prior to this, the boys played a game at the Irish Times Pub in Melbourne, and later won some stupid prizes. Curiously, their efforts won the support of Christian nationalists in the United States, along with Srah Ferguson’s sometime fren, Steve Bannon.

See also : Neo-Nazis Discuss Plans To Target Drag Event At Melbourne’s Victorian Pride Centre, Shibu Thomas, Star Observer, December 8, 2022.

Posted in Anti-fascism, Art, History, Music, Sex & Sexuality, State / Politics, That's Capitalism!, War on Terror | Tagged European Australian Movement, Jim Roberts, National Socialist Network, Steve Bannon, Victorian Pride Centre | Leave a comment

Yeah Nah Pasaran! #144 w Alex Newhouse on accelerationism : December 8, 2022

Posted on December 6, 2022 by @ndy

On this week’s episode of Yeah Nah Pasaran! on 3CR we talk to Alex Newhouse [Mastodon]. Alex is Deputy Director at the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism at Middlebury Institute of International Studies and Director of Technical of Research at The Accelerationism Research Consortium. We spoke to him about accelerationism, alt tech, esoterics and ideology.

4.30pm, Thursday, December 8, 2022 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

Posted in !nataS, Anti-fascism, Art, Broken Windows, Death, History, Media, Music, Poetry, Sex & Sexuality, State / Politics, Student movement, Television, That's Capitalism!, War on Terror | Tagged 3CR, accelerationism, Alex Newhouse, eco-fascism, Iron March, The Accelerationism Research Consortium, Yeah Nah Pasaran | Leave a comment

Yeah Nah Pasaran! #143 w Dr April Anson on Ecofascism : December 1, 2022

Posted on November 29, 2022 by @ndy

On this week’s episode of Yeah Nah Pasaran! on 3CR we talk to Dr April Anson [Twitter]. April is an Associate Professor at San Diego State University, and (as part of the Anti-Creep Climate Initiative) the co-author of Against the Ecofascist Creep:

Sometimes we wish we could solve the world’s problems with a *snap* of our fingers, even though we know it’s never that simple: compound problems require compound solutions. Still, accelerating climate crisis and the unwillingness of global leaders to take meaningful climate action can breed nihilism – likely we’ve all witnessed it in students, colleagues, family members, and even ourselves. With such nihilism, though, sometimes comes a notion that mass violence could be a viable environmental solution. This specter of ecofascism looms in pop-cultural imaginations as a malevolent threat for some and a tantalizing fantasy for others.

We spoke to April about the relationship between ecological and fascist thought, colonialism and political crisis, and more besides.

See also : “Master Metaphor”: Environmental Apocalypse and the Settler States of Emergency, April Anson, Resilience: A Journal of Environmental Humanities, Vol.8, No.1, 2020 | Ecofascism – are far-right extremists the new environmentalists?, Science Friction, ABC Radio National, July 29, 2022.

4.30pm, Thursday, December 1, 2022 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

Posted in Anti-fascism, Broken Windows, Cats, Death, History, Media, State / Politics, Student movement, That's Capitalism!, War on Terror | Tagged 3CR, Against the EcoFascist Creep, April Anson, eco-fascism, Yeah Nah Pasaran | Leave a comment

Yeah Nah Pasaran! #142 w Meghan Tinsley on War & Memory : November 24, 2022

Posted on November 23, 2022 by @ndy

Lest We Forget …

On this week’s episode of Yeah Nah Pasaran! on 3CR we talk to Dr Meghan Tinsley [Mastodon / Twitter]. Meghan is the author of Commemorating Muslims in the First World War Centenary: Making Melancholia (Routledge, 2022) and the Presidential Fellow in Ethnicity and Inequalities at the University of Manchester. We talked to Meghan about her book, war, nationalism, narrative and memory.

See also : Statues, street names, and contested memory, Meghan Tinsley, Red Pepper, February 10, 2021.

4.30pm, Thursday, November 24, 2022 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

• I’ve been absent from the show these last few weeks, which have comprised interviews with Dylan Reeve on Fake Believe (November 3, 2022), Dr Steph Reist on Post-Bolsonaro Brazil (November 10, 2022) and Dr Sarah Riccardi-Swartz on ROCOR & Appalachia (November 17, 2022).

Posted in Anti-fascism, Death, History, Media, State / Politics, That's Capitalism!, War on Terror | Tagged “...And That’s Why We Should Keep The Bloody Flag The Same!”, cenotaph, Commemorating Muslims in the First World War Centenary: Making Melancholia, First World War, Islam, Meghan Tinsley, nationalism, The Great War, ultra-nationalism, World War 1 | Leave a comment

2022 Victorian state election : Left and Right

Posted on November 17, 2022 by @ndy

I asked a mexican who
ran a bar for americans “who won”
I said “the election?” he laughed and I felt
like a gringo

It’s that time again!

Leaving aside The Usual Suspects (Labor, Liberal/Nationals and Greens), you can find a ‘highly-simplified’ guide to the minor and micro-parties contesting the 2022 Victorian state election here.

Otherwise:

Communisms

Last time, I wrote 2018 Victorian state election : far right (and left) candidates and 2018 Victorian state election : Left / Right : Results!.

There’s been some slight settling of contents since then, with the departure in May 2020 of the Socialist Alliance (SAll) from the Victorian Socialists (VS). As a result, SAll will be running independently of VS, in the following seats: Arie Huybregts in Broadmeadows (where Huybregts will be pitted against Omar Hassan of VS), Angela Carr in Geelong, Sarah Hathway in Lara and Sue Bolton in Pascoe Vale (where Sue will be facing off with Madaleine Hah of VS). Because SAll is unregistered in Victoria, they all appear as independents on the ballot.

VS, on the other hand, is fielding 22 candidates for Lower House seats in northern and western Melbourne, and is also contesting each of the eight regions in the Upper House — which, notwithstanding SAll’s withdrawal, is a considerable increase on 2018’s effort. Back then, VS got close to winning a seat in the Upper House in the Northern Metropolitan region and fared reasonably well in a number of other Lower House seats (though naturally came nowhere close to winning one). The party seems bullish on its chances of picking up at least one seat in the bourgeois parliament this time around, and it would be quite remarkable if it succeeded in doing so. Much, however, would seem to depend on preference flows in Northern Metropolitan. Certainly, their results can no longer be compared to those of wealthy Perth gadabout Debbie Robinson’s vanity projekt ‘Australian Liberty Alliance’ (2015–2019) which, after having briefly assumed working-class drag as ‘Yellow Vests Australia’, finally collapsed in an ignominious heap in mid-2020.

• Oh. I should also add that, having contested the seat of Albert Park in 2018, in 2022 Dr Joseph Toscano has set his sights on Mulgrave, where he’s one of 13 rivals to #DictatorDan; also of relevance is the Legalise Cannabis Party.

See also : Victorian Socialists – for real change, look beyond the ballot box, Black Flag Sydney, November 17, 2022.

Freedumbs

On the freedumb-loving right there’s a plethora of candidates, running both as members of political parties and as independents. You could even say the voter is being offered an embarrassment of riches in this regard. Hence, in addition to:–

• Angry Victorians Party (The Party formerly known as The Australian Values Party)
• Freedom Party of Victoria
• Health Australia Party
• Liberal Democrats
• Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party
• Restore Democracy Sack Dan Andrews Party
• United Australia Party

— Riccardo Bosi (AKA ‘AustraliaOne Party’) has endorsed James Laurie in Bendigo East, Darren Bergwerf in Frankston, Sonia Brymer in Mildura, Craig Cole in Monbulk, Dominique Murphy in Oakleigh and Denes Borsos in Polwarth.

While the above have their differences, all are either competing for the angry, disgruntled Tory; the upset Laborite; and/or the determined anti-vaXXer/‘Hang Dan Andrews!’ vote: or what political scientists have dubbed the cooker vote. This segment is (to some, seemingly increasing extent) also being appealed to by the Tories, with a recent advertising campaign portraying Lobster Guy’s mob as a true fren of the angwy lockdown protester of yesteryear. As a further nod to the right-wing loon voting public, ‘The Victorian Liberal Party has preferenced Labor behind a woman who publicly called for Premier Daniel Andrews to be hanged, in a Melbourne upper-house seat’ … which is, ah, pretty mean? The Tories are also being challenged in several seats by liberal independents, often called ‘teals’, including Sophie Torney in Kew, Melissa Lowe in Hawthorn and Kate Lardner in Mornington.

By the same token, Dictator Dan has to contend with several ex-Labor hacks. This includes Kaushaliya Vaghela, MLC for the Western Metropolitan Region, the first Indian-born MP to be elected to the Victorian Parliament and now (October 2022) leader of something called the ‘New Democrats’. ND is contesting 10 Lower House seats and all 8 regions in the Upper. Meanwhile Adem Somyurek, the ‘Member for South-Eastern Metropolitan Region, author, former faceless man, drainer of Dan’s swamp, only verified clean MP in Australia’ is — after briefly seeming to have abandoned his comfy seat in parliament — now trying to retain it as a ‘Democratic Labor’ man.

Sadly, it appears that the one, solitary, lonesome candidate Dr Jim Saleam’s ‘Australia First Party’ ran in 2018 has been reduced to zero. (Australia First Party (NSW) Incorporated was deregistered as a federal party in January but it remains registered in NSW for local council elections.)

• Finally, the Group Voting Ticket (GVT) system that operates in Victoria has provided fun and profit to many over the years, especially to cheeky buggers like Glenn Druery. Serious commentators like Antony Green, on the other hand, think it’s rotten, mostly because the results don’t accurately reflect voters’ intentions. In 2022, Ben Raue reckons it’s a story of three blocs: a loose alliance of minor parties engineered by Druery, ‘a smaller left bloc of parties who have preferenced each other and the ALP and Greens, and another bloc of parties on the right who have preferenced the Coalition highly and seem to have only engaged in more simple preference swaps’.

See also : Leaked video shows Glenn Druery bragging of working with CFMEU to help Labor hobble Greens, Benita Kolovos and Adeshola Ore, The Guardian, November 17, 2022 | The Tally Room on Victoria 2022 and The Poll Bludger on Victorian Election 2022.