Stefan Romaniw & the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (B)

Posted on June 29, 2024 by @ndy

The death this week (June 26) of Mr Stefan Romaniw OAM has been mourned by many, including numerous and very prominent Australian politicians. Among these is former Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, whom Rob Harris notes (Tony Abbott, John Howard earn Putin’s ire, hit with sanctions by Kremlin, The Sydney Morning Herald, June 28, 2024):

paid tribute to the “late, great” Stefan Romaniw, co-chair of the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations, who died suddenly this week in Poland after attending a conference in Lithuania.

Romaniw, 68, the former chairperson of the Victorian Multicultural Commission and Multicultural Arts Victoria, had rallied support for [his] country of heritage in recent years against Russian aggression, and was influential in the last push for … Canberra to divert billions in “dirty money” held in Australia since it sanctioned Russian oligarchs and others deemed to have aided and abetted the invasion and the occupation of Ukraine.

Others to have issued public statements (on Twitter/X, below) include the current Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, and Opposition leader Peter Dutton:

The reaction to Mr Romaniw’s death is inseparable from its context — his activism in support of Ukrainian resistance to its attempted annexation by Putin’s gangsta state — but, leaving aside this factor, and whatever contributions Romaniw made to Australian public life in the various other roles he undertook (see, for example, Farewell to Stefan Romaniw OAM, Fotis Kapetopoulos, Neos Kosmos, June 27, 2024), one aspect of his career that seems to have been overlooked in these tributes is his former role (2009–2022) as the leader of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (B): OUN/B. And, while there’s naturally a good deal of debate about the historical role of the OUN (and this, its ‘militant’, Banderist wing), I think it worthwhile noting some aspects of its activities in Ukraine in World War II; and, post-war, in Australia: especially as we are being called upon by some of the same figures who now lament his death to re-double our efforts in ‘the fight against antisemitism’.

Thus, with regards the OUN/B, the antisemitic and fascistic dimensions of these activities were documented by Mark Aarons, author of Sanctuary: Nazi Refugees in Australia (William Heinemann, 1989: reviewed by Drew Cottle for the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History here) and War Criminals Welcome: Australia, a Sanctuary for Fugitive War Criminals Since 1945 (Black Inc., 2001), relevant portions of which I republish below.

In chapter three of Sanctuary, ‘ABN is for Action’, Aarons writes that:

By the beginning of 1957 the small enclaves of former Nazi collaborators, hidden among the mass of Central and Eastern European migrants in their new homeland, felt so secure that they organised a major political convention. The key speaker was Jaroslav Stetsko, one of the most senior international émigré Nazi leaders. Stetsko arrived in April to establish the Australian Central Delegacy of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN), an international ‘peak council’ of émigré Nazis which had helped Western intelligence to launch what proved to be a disastrous series of operations behind the Iron Curtain in the late 1940s and early 1950s …

Who were these ‘anti-bolsheviks’ who met in 1957 to form the Australian branch of the international ABN? According to its own version of history, this alliance of anti-communist crusaders was born in 1943 in the Ukraine where Jaroslav’s Stetsko’s Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists was defending ‘the honor of the Ukrainian nation during World War II’ as the leader of both the anti-Nazi and anti-communist armed struggle to achieve ‘Ukrainian independence and freedom’ …

However, the true history of ABN is somewhat different. United States intelligence supremo, Allen Dulles, says that the ABN was created from three extreme right-wing nationalist organisations …

The most prominent of these groups, the OUN, was formed in 1929 by fascist-oriented Ukrainians, distinctly anti-parliamentary, anti-democratic and pro-Nazi, who from the beginning forged close links with the German Nazi Party through one of its chief ideologists, Alfred Rosenberg [1893–1946] …

[In 1939, following the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and the assignment of the Polish-dominated Ukrainian area to Stalin, Stepan Bandera and] Stetsko led a split from the main OUN leadership, establishing an even more radical fascist organisation named OUN/B, after its supreme leader, Stepan Bandera. The OUN/B adopted a virulently anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi program in April 1941, pledging to combat ‘the Jews as the prop of the Muscovite-Bolshevik regime’. This was not idle rhetoric; Bandera’s second-in-command, Stetsko, wrote in his memoirs that he approved of ‘the German methods of exterminating the Jews’ …

Aarons then proceeds to describe the Soviet repression of the Ukrainian nationalist uprising in Lvov in June 1941 (following the launch of Operation Barbarossa), the Nazi and OUN/B’s pogrom (resulting in the deaths of 7000 Jews as Soviet forces withdrew), the installation of Stetsko as Prime Minister, the disbandment of his government by the Nazis, and the subsequent imprisonment of he and Bandera in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. According to Aarons:

The repression of the Stetsko ‘government’ created a myth that he and the OUN/B were anti-Nazis, victims of German repression, helping them to establish their anti-communist credentials with the West after the war. The truth was that they never broke with the Nazis, and although their Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), occasionally harried the Germans towards the end of the war, throughout most of the war years it carried out massacres of Jews and Poles and helped the Nazis to fight Soviet partisans and the Red Army … The OUN’s unofficial program was summarised by the slogan ‘Poles behind the Sun [river], Germans to Berlin, Jews to the gallows’. They implemented this policy with great savagery, as testified to by Jewish and Polish survivors who witnessed massacres perpetrated by the Banderovsky, as they were dubbed.

Finally, in War Crimes, with regards Stetsko’s reception in 1957, Aarons writes that:

Many prominent Australians received Stetsko during his 1957 visit, including Victorian Premier Henry Bolte, Sydney’s Cardinal Gilroy and Lord Mayor Harry Jensen, Melbourne’s Archbishop Mannix and Democratic Labor Party Senator Frank McManus. Most supported Stetsko’s anti-communist and nationalist crusade, apparently without inquiring into his deeper background.

One who did inquire, and who especially objected to the role of Stetsko’s ‘major champion’ Victorian Liberal Senator John Gorton in welcoming Stetsko to Australia, was Stephen Dattner, a Melbourne businessman and member of the Jewish Council to Combat Fascism and Anti-Semitism. Raising his concerns with Gorton over Stetsko’s warm reception, Dattner, who also considered himself ‘an anti-communist’, wrote:

‘I cannot regard service under this banner as redemption in whole or in part for crimes committed against my people.’ He also quoted from evidence given before the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal proving that the OUN and Stetsko had been responsible for massacring the Jews of Lvov in western Ukraine.

Any further commentary is superfluous.

See also : Differing views of a Ukrainian nationalist’s role in the Holocaust expose divisions over the past., Erika Solomon, The New York Times, July 13, 2022 /// ‘The Radical Right in Post-Soviet Ukraine’, Melanie Mierzejewski-Voznyak, in The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right, Jens Rydrgen (ed.) (Oxford University Press, 2018) /// Bandera mythologies and their traps for Ukraine, Andrii Portnov, Open Democracy, June 22, 2016 /// Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist: Fascism, Genocide, and Cult, Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe (ibidem Press, 2014) | Sydney football fans’ fascist salute has its origins in ASIO’s post-war failure, Mark Aarons, The Jewish Independent, November 8, 2022 | antifa notes (june 22, 2024) : Stefan Eracleous, antisemites, cookers & other losers | Inquiry: Anarchists and the War in Ukraine, Contradictions, Vol.7, 2023 …

Posted in Anti-fascism, Broken Windows, Death, History, Media, State / Politics, That's Capitalism!, War on Terror | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Yeah Nah Pasaran! #213 w Tinfoil Tales : June 27, 2024

Posted on June 26, 2024 by @ndy

This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! we talk to SOS and Sandee of Tinfoil Tales [X/Twitter, Patreon], ‘a podcast about anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists, SovCits & politics – with an Australian bent’. We talked to the story-tellers about their experience covering the antics of the various characters who’ve emerged, slightly worse-for-wear, from under #DictatorDan’s jackboot. Inter alia, we also discussed the National Workers Alliance meeting at the Polish Club on June 19 (and how it represents a point of convergence between cookers, white nationalists and neo-Nazis).

4.30pm, Thursday, June 27, 2024 /// 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 …

Posted in !nataS, Anti-fascism, Broken Windows, History, Media, Sex & Sexuality, State / Politics, That's Capitalism! | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

antifa notes (june 22, 2024) : Stefan Eracleous, antisemites, cookers & other losers

Posted on June 22, 2024 by @ndy

But first …

    Compañerxs in Buenos Aires are facing heightened state repression in very difficult circumstances. Currently, La Cultura Del Barrio, ‘the first and only antifascist social and sports club in Latin America’, is appealing for funds in order to continue its vital work. As they note, ‘The outlook is not encouraging, but it is precisely at times when the capitalist class is waging its most frontal attack on workers, trying to impose a vision of society which degrades our existence to a war of all against all to survive that it is most important to support and maintain self-managed collective spaces.’ Please donate to Accion Antifascista Buenos Aires if you’re able.

1) ‘Oh Stefanaki, will you ever learn?’

It’s not been reported by Australian media as far as I know, but last week Melbourne-based neo-Nazi Stefan Eracleous (AKA ‘Australian Meditations’) was sentenced in Heidelberg Magistrates’ Court for a number of minor crimes.

You may remember Stefanaki from such headlines as Neo-Nazi unmasked as former Young Liberal (Nick McKenzie, The Age, February 12, 2022) and Melbourne man accused of making violent threats against senator Lidia Thorpe (ABC, August 26, 2023).

The St Tarrant fan’s crimes included his publication/distribution of a video in 2022 targeting Senator Lidia Thorpe (use carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence) and ah, scrawling swastikas on a public library toilet (intentional damage to property and intentional display of a Nazi symbol). For his troubles, the ex-University of Melbourne Liberal Club office-holder got a slap-on-the-wrist from the courts and was further instructed to stop. being. such. a. naughty. little. boy. in the future: ie, the court imposed a 15-months corrections order, 150 hours of community work and a smol fine ($550). As such, apart from anything else, Stefanaki would appear to have the signal honour of being the first individual in Victoria, and possibly Australia, to have been convicted of laws prohibiting the public display of the Hakenkreuz (see also : Nazi salute accused to fight charge in two-day hearing, Sara Cosoleto, The Canberra Times, May 9, 2024).

Curiously, Stefanaki — along with his #BFF and fellow gang member Jim/eone Roberts, who in September 2022 was judged to have been criminally responsible for ‘one of the most disgusting, vile, repugnant acts of antisemitism and racial behaviour’ that the sentencing magistrate had ever seen — was also allegedly responsible for the production/distribution of another, very similar video last year, which at the time the Australian Federal Police stated it would investigate (see : Notorious Neo-Nazis likely architects of ‘menacing’ video directed at Lidia Thorpe, Kevin Nguyen and Pat McGrath, ABC, October 11, 2023).

In any case, to compound Stefanaki’s legal difficulties, the poor wee fella was recently expelled from Tom Sewell’s nazi gang, the ‘National Socialist Network’ (NSN). The primary reason for this, according to the boy from Balwyn, was because Stefanaki had misappropriated tens of thousands of dollars that had (ostensibly) been donated to the NSN.

Cheeky!

See also : ‘It won’t silence us’: Islamophobic graffiti sprayed in woman’s driveway referred to police, David Estcourt and Alex Crowe, The Age, June 8, 2024 | Prison release of Golden Dawn founder angers Greek anti-fascists, Helen Smith, The Guardian, May 3, 2024.

2) Tory anti-antisemitism

Nevertheless, it must be said that this modern abandonment by the Germans of individual liberty and of the easy and pleasant things of life has something rather magnificent about it. The Germans may be pulling down the Churches, but they have erected the State, with Hitler at its head, into a sort of religion which produces spiritual exaltation that one cannot but admire and some small portion of which would do no harm among our somewhat irresponsible populations.

That’s Robert Menzies, the founder of the Liberal Party and the federal MP for Kooyong (1934–1966), in a letter from London to his family, dated August 6, 1938.

Prior to this, on March 30, 1933, the SS opened the Dachau concentration camp outside of Munich, followed promptly by the institution of a boycott of Jewish-owned shops and businesses in Germany (April 1), the introduction of the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, which excluded Jews and political opponents of the Nazis from all civil service positions (April 7) and the Law for the “Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases”, which mandated the forced sterilisation of certain individuals with physical and mental disabilities (July 14); in 1935, the (re-)introduction of military conscription (March 14) and the ‘Nuremberg Race Laws’ (September 15); in 1936, the occupation of the Rhineland (March 7) and on March 11-13, 1938, the annexation of Austria into the Nazi Reich in the Anschluss.

His letter was also sent just three months prior to Kristallnacht (AKA Pogromnacht).

Anyway, where was I?

Oh yeah.

Last month, Josh Frydenberg, another former federal Liberal MP for Kooyong (2010–2022), presented Never Again: The Fight Against Antisemitism for Sky News Australia. Columbus-like, it claims to examine ‘the alarming rise of antisemitism in Australia and its impact on our country and our democracy’.

In my view, Rupert Murdoch’s local iteration of Fox News is an especially, ah, ‘interesting’ avenue for ‘the fight against antisemitism’, given its status as having provided a platform for both the failed Frankston Führer Blair Cottrell and Canuckistanian AltRight propagandist Lauren ‘The Great Replacement’ Southern — while also being home to noted anti-racist activists like, er, Rowan Dean.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I’ve not watched Frydenberg’s documentary (and I obviously dunno how many of the Boomerwaffen who watch Sky were convinced one way or the other by his presentation), but Tom Tanuki loved it so much he watched it twice: you can read his thoughts on the subject via Frydenberg documentary ‘reframes’ legitimate protest as antisemitism (Independent Australia, June 18, 2024) or even watch how impressed he was by way of viewing Frydenberg’s Lock-Em-Up Weepfest Review on The YouTubes (June 21, 2024).

Sadly, in his fight against antisemitism, Frydenberg failed to interview fellow Tory anti-antisemite Warren Mundine, one of several celebrities to join ex-PM Scott Morrison in Sydney early this year to bravely declare ‘Never Again is Now!’ (Morrison also accused the United Nations of antisemitism at the rally). If they had spoken, it would’ve provided Comrade Josh with a truly wonderful opportunity to ask Comrade Warren why Christian nationalist crowdfunder ‘Give Send Go’ was happy to both sponsor Mundine’s ‘Conservative Political Action Conference’ and provide numerous opportunities for the NSN to raise funds to support its activities in Orstralia. That said, Fundraising website GiveSendGo defends decision to host Australian ‘whites-only’ community campaign on platform (Hannah Murphy, ABC, April 30, 2024) also manages to avoid the question, so perhaps I shouldn’t be too harsh.

See also : Strange bedfellows: Pro-Israel lobby groups embolden far-right extremists in ways that make us all less safe, Sarah Schwartz, The Politics, June 18, 2024 /// Examining the ADL’s Antisemitism Audit, Shane Burley and Jonah ben Avraham, Jewish Currents, June 17, 2024 /// Yeah Nah Pasaran! #210 w Shane Burley and Ben Lorber on fighting antisemitism with solidarity : June 6, 2024.

3) Cookers & Nazis FTW

On June 19, the Polish Club in Rowville — a suburb which previously hosted a relatively short-lived housing/training project for Sewell’s previous group ‘The Lads Society’ — was the venue for a public meeting organised by former Lad Matt Trihey of the ‘National Workers Alliance’ (NWA) in order to oppose ‘cultural diversity’, gender affirmative health care, ‘globalism’ and ‘mass immigration’ — in defence of ‘Western civilisation’.

You may remember Trihey from when he was, um, one of the women speaking out against the trans* community outside the Victorian state parliament in March this year.

The event itself was host to a glittering array of local cookers, including Craig ‘Pitbull’ Cole, Nick ‘Peacemaker’ Patterson and ‘Bad Neighbour!’ Damien Richardson. With Trihey acting as MC on the evening, the freedumb-loving throng (a few hundred mostly Boomerwaffen) was also treated to an intervention by members of the NSN, including lvl boss Tom Sewell and (his now-sidekick) Blair Cottrell, along with blabbermouth Joel Davis. Oddly enough, Mr Patterson was also one of those who helped provide security for the Melbourne leg (May 19) of the ‘Never Again is Now!’ series of rallies organised by local Christian Zionists. Featured among the speakers on May 19 was, of course, Warren Mundine (though it seems that on this occasion he needed no sponsorship from Give Send Go in order to attend).

For those of you coming in late, Christian Zionism is informed by the belief that the restoration of the state of Israel is a prerequisite for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ:

Allies for Armageddon traces the history of Christian Zionism from its sixteenth-century Calvinist roots to today’s American Christians, led by the likes of the late Jerry Falwell and John Hagee, who fit a fervent this-worldly support for Israel into their millenarian beliefs. Clark has done much more than examine the copious literature, past and present, asserting the central role of Israel in end-time prophecies. She became a sharply critical participant-observer, interviewing Christian Zionist leaders, mixing with the rank and file, attending church services, and even joining a Holy Land tour. The resulting book is an intimate portrait of what can fairly be called a cult, tightly organized and embracing a Manichaean doctrine that, being accepted as God-given, is impervious to worldly reasoning. Clark also brings out in full detail the theologically dubious alliance between the Israeli leadership and Christian Zionism, which depicts Israelis doing the heavy lifting in provoking Armageddon but not ultimately saved unless they convert to Christianity. She persuasively argues that Christian Zionism, embracing wars and rumors of wars as divinely mandated, has a significant and unfavorable impact on U.S. foreign policy toward Israel and the Middle East in general.

See also : Allies for Armageddon: The Rise of Christian Zionism, Victoria Clark, Yale University Press, 2007.

4) Very Metal

Another metal gig starring Haste (AKA Gurn) is scheduled to take place in a vewy secwet location in Melbourne in August. A model adopted by numerous fashy groups, the need to be sneaky (‘venue will be messaged on the day’) was occasioned by the unhappy fact that the last gig the boys arranged in March fell over in a heap.

Sad!

Bonus NDIS!

News of another former Lad …

Posted in Anti-fascism, Art, Broken Windows, History, Media, State / Politics, That's Capitalism!, War on Terror | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Yeah Nah Pasaran! #212 w Aurelien Mondon on ethics, research and the (far) right : June 20, 2024

Posted on June 19, 2024 by @ndy
    Please note that June is Radiothon month at 3CR and Conrads are cordially invited to donate to the station in order to keep community voices on the air.

This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! we talk to Aurelien Mondon [X/Twitter]. Aurelien is a Senior Lecturer in Politics, Languages & International Studies at the University of Bath, the co-author with Aaron Winter (with whom we spoke in November) of Reactionary Democracy: How racism and the populist far right became mainstream (Verso, 2020) and the co-editor (with Antonia Vaughan, Joan Braune and Meghan Tinsley) of The ethics of researching the far right (Manchester University Press, 2024). Inter alia, we spoke to Aurelien about the dynamic relationship between right-wing political formations, media representations of same, the ethics of researching the far right, and the upcoming French and British elections.

See also : ‘Really existing liberalism, the bulwark fantasy, and the enabling of reactionary, far right politics’, Constellations (2024) /// ”I was gonna fight fascism …’: the need for a critical approach to illiberalism‘, Illiberalism Studies, Vol.4, No.1 (2024) /// Another election, another round of Nigel Farage hype, with no lessons learned, Aurelien Mondon, The Conversation, June 18, 2024 | Pour un soulèvement antifasciste, Les soulèvements de la terre, le 14 juin 2024.

4.30pm, Thursday, June 20, 2024 /// 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 …

Posted in Anti-fascism, History, Media, State / Politics, That's Capitalism!, War on Terror | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sound On For Solidarity : 2024 3CR Radiothon

Posted on June 12, 2024 by @ndy

G’day my fellow Aussie patriots!

Melbourne community radio station 3CR’s annual fundraiser runs throughout June. The station needs your support to continue to be an independent, community-controlled medium and — of course! — provide a space for Yeah Nah Pasaran! and scores of other shows:

Folks, every week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! we try to shine a light on a particular aspect of the global far-Right, be it the algorithmically-overcharged manosphere, Christian Nationalism’s holy crusade against queer identity, or even just old-fashioned goat-sacrificin’ accelerationists.

Let’s be honest: this is not a show that is going to go to air anywhere other than 3CR.

We need the support of people like you so we can keep the lights on, keep the amplitudes modulatin’, and keep pumping out radical anti-fascist radio every single week.

Any little bit you can spare counts! We really appreciate it.

Tomorrow’s episode of YNP! is our annual appeal for support for the show and, of course, the station: we’re hoping to raise $2,500.

You can donate via the 3CR website and also via GiveNow here.

Cheers!

Posted in Anti-fascism, Media | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Yeah Nah Pasaran! #210 w Shane Burley and Ben Lorber on fighting antisemitism with solidarity : June 6, 2024

Posted on June 4, 2024 by @ndy

This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! we talk to Shane Burley [X/Twitter] and Ben Lorber [Twitter/X], authors of the brand, spanking NEW! book Safety through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism (Melville House):

Antisemitism is on the rise today. From synagogue shootings by white nationalists, to right-wing politicians and media figures pushing George Soros conspiracy theories, it’s clear that exclusionary nationalist movements are growing. By spreading division and fear, they put Jews, along with other marginalized groups and multiracial democracy itself, at risk.

And since the outbreak of war in Gaza, debates around antisemitism have become more polarized and high-stakes than ever. How can we stand in solidarity with Palestinians seeking justice, while also avoiding antisemitism — and resisting those who seek to conflate the two? How do we forge the coalitions across communities that we need, in order to overcome the politics of division and fear?

See also : How to fight antisemitism – and win, Shane Burley and Ben Lorber, Vashti Media, June 2, 2024 | Zionism Will Never Be a Solution to Antisemitism, Ben Lorber and Shane Burley, truthout, May 16, 2024 /// Political opportunism in full flight, Sarah Schwartz, The Politics, June 4, 2024 | Frydenberg documentary ‘reframes’ legitimate protest as antisemitism, Tom Tanuki, Independent Australia, June 1, 2024 | Victorian MPs condemn anti-Semitic graffiti attack on Melbourne school, ABC, May 27, 2024.

4.30pm, Thursday, June 6, 2024 /// 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.

Posted in !nataS, Anti-fascism, Broken Windows, History, Media, State / Politics, Student movement, That's Capitalism!, War on Terror | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Yeah Nah Pasaran! #209 w Jason Wilson on Republicans and the far right : May 30, 2024

Posted on May 29, 2024 by @ndy

All hail …

    Since our interview with Stephanie Wescott (May 9), previous episodes of Yeah Nah Pasaran! include Cam having a chat (May 16) with militias expert Dr Amy Cooter about her book Nostalgia, Nationalism and the US Militia Movement and Dr Spencer Sunshine (May 23) discussing his long-awaited book Neo-Nazi Terrorism and Countercultural Fascism: The Origins and Afterlife of James Mason’s Siege.

This week on YNP! we talk to our semi-regular US correspondent Jason Wilson [X/Twitter], whom we last spoke to about racist pseudo-science in February. For tomorrow’s episode, we spoke to Jason about some of his recent reportage, including the exposure of a US university lecturer as being behind a far-right Twitter account and publishing house, the extremist Maga lobbying group driving far-right Republican policies and about how at least 66 members of far-right group in rural Oregon standing for office.

4.30pm, Thursday, May 30, 2024 /// 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.

Posted in !nataS, Anti-fascism, Broken Windows, History, Media, State / Politics, Student movement, That's Capitalism!, War on Terror | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Yeah Nah Pasaran! #206 w Dr Stephanie Wescott on Andrew Tate & misogyny in the classroom : May 9, 2024

Posted on May 7, 2024 by @ndy

This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! we talk to Dr Stephanie Wescott [X/Twitter]. Stephanie is a feminist researcher and lecturer in humanities and social sciences in the Faculty of Education’s School of Education, Culture and Society at Monash University and co-author (with Xuexen Hao and Steven Roberts) of Institutional responses to sexual harassment and misogyny towards women teachers from boys in Australian schools in the post-#metoo era (Journal of Educational Administration and History) and The problem of anti-feminist ‘manfluencer’ Andrew Tate in Australian schools: women teachers’ experiences of resurgent male supremacy (Gender & Education, Vol. 36, No.2, 2024).

We spoke to Stephanie about the impact Andrew Tate’s propaganda has had on Australian classrooms.

See also : Andrew Tate and brother Tristan to be tried in Romania on rape and trafficking charges, BBC, April 27, 2024 | Andrew Tate’s ideology driving sexual harassment, sexism and misogyny in Australian classrooms, Norman Hermant and Ahmed Yussuf, ABC 7.30, April 2, 2024 | Can we talk about Tate? The ‘manosphere’ in Australian schools, Lyndal Rowlands, Al Jazeera, March 24, 2024 | The Tate race, Anna Krien, The Monthly, March 2024 | Raewyn Connell on Masculinities.

4.30pm, Thursday, May 9, 2024 /// 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.

Posted in Anti-fascism, Media, Sex & Sexuality, State / Politics, Student movement, That's Capitalism! | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Yeah Nah Pasaran! #205 w Jordana Silverstein on history, Palestine, Zionism & more : May 2, 2024

Posted on May 1, 2024 by @ndy

This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! we talk to Jordana (Jordy) Silverstein [X/Twitter]. Jordy is an academic based in Melbourne/Naarm and the author of Cruel Care: A History of Children at Our Borders (Monash University Publishing, 2023) and Anxious Histories: Narrating the Holocaust in Jewish Communities at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century (Bergahn Books, 2015). We spoke to Jordy about her writing, education, student protest, scholasticide, the war on Gaza, antisemitism, anti-Zionism, Jewish histories and more.

See also : The evidence of emotions, Jordy Silverstein, Overland, April 4, 2024 | ‘Political arrest’ of Palestinian academic in Israel marks new civil liberties threat, Emma Graham-Harrison and Quique Kierszenbaum, The Guardian, April 26, 2024 | Jewish Council of Australia | Jewish Australians Are Rejecting the Zionist Establishment: An interview with Max Kaiser, Jacobin, April 27, 2024 /// We’re fighting to stop a genocide. Slanders against our movements are a distraction, Jewish Voice For Peace, April 25, 2024 /// We need an exodus from Zionism, Naomi Klein, The Guardian, April 24, 2024 | Scholars Against Genocide & Zionism vs. Anti-Zionism Ep. 1 w/ Shaul Magid & Zionism vs. Anti-Zionism Ep. 2 w/ Shaul Magid, The Dig Radio (April 19, 2024/December 7, 2023/December 15, 2023) | Free Voice of Labour: The Jewish Anarchists (1980).

4.30pm, Thursday, May 2, 2024 /// 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.

Posted in Anti-fascism, Broken Windows, Death, History, Sex & Sexuality, State / Politics, Student movement, That's Capitalism!, War on Terror | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

May Day in Melbourne : 2024

Posted on April 30, 2024 by @ndy

I’ve periodically written about May Day over the years, on the last occasion in 2021. In fact, I started blogging here on May Day in 2006 — 18 years ago! — and started my Patreon account on this date in 2019. In Melbourne (Naarm), May Day’s been a largely desultory affair during this period — and for many decades previous — which I think is both unfortunate but also explicable.

Who knows, maybe one (May) day things will change?

In any case, in 2024 I thought I’d once again cast my eye over whatever’s happening, and note the following:





Melbourne community radio 3CR has a special workers’ radio broadcast on May Day, beginning with a marathon edition of Talkback With Attitude from 12 midnight to 7.30am, followed by dedicated episodes of Wednesday Breakfast, Stick Together, City Limits, Anarchist World This Week, Bunjil’s Fire, Kultural Kinetics, Lazy Wednesday Afternoon, Radical Australia, Uprise Radio and concluding at 7pm with a special episode dedicated to the Pilbara Strike, ‘the longest strike in Australian history lasting 3 years, starting on 1 May 1946 and ending in 1949’.

Other May Day related events conducted under the auspices of VTHC include a wreath laying-ceremony and dinner on Thursday May 2, a rally and march on Sunday May 5, and guided tours of Trades Hall on Monday May 6 and Thursday May 9.

Also in Sydney on May Day, CFMEU and MUA members — along with other unionists and activists — will be taking part in a walk-out, march and rally to protest a proposed ban on duck hunting for workers’ rights, wage justice and in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

BONUS! historical note : The ACTU Institute artfully manages to provide an account of ‘The origins of May Day’ (April 27, 2022) without making mention of Haymarket, the Martyrs or anarchism. A more useful (and thorough) account is provided by Peter Linebaugh in The Incomplete, True, Authentic, and Wonderful History of May Day (PM Press/Spectre, 2016). By the same token, as Erica Lagalisse notes (Occult Features of Anarchism: With Attention to the Conspiracy of Kings and the Conspiracy of the Peoples, PM Press, 2019, pp.54–55):

Over time, these symbols [the red star and the circle-A] have developed a new complement of meanings — many twenty-first-century anarchists don’t even know that the star used by communists, anarchists, and Zapatistas alike is the pagan pentagram. They are not reminded of the mathematical perfection of cosmogony when they behold it, or of Giordano Bruno’s geometric arts of memory, nor do they necessarily realize there is a genealogical link between the (neo)pagan May Day celebration and today’s anarchist May Day marches. Nowadays the May Day march is taken to commemorate the Haymarket massacre (1886), yet it is no coincidence that there was much upheaval in Chicago that day, because revolutionaries had been honouring May Day since before the time of the Illuminati, which was also founded on this symbolic day. In the nineteenth century, these symbolic associations were well known by those involved.

Posted in Anarchism, History, State / Politics, That's Capitalism! | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment