slackbastard

Glenn Beck is Fox News’ resident literary critic. Recently, he has reviewed a mysterious French publication called The Coming Insurrection by some mob calling itself the ‘Invisible Committee’. As Beck, a keen historian of radical politics, notes in his review, this term naturally brings to mind both Bakunin’s writings on “invisible dictatorship” and The Committee of Public Safety (Comité de salut public) of post-Revolutionary France. In the contemporary era, however, as Marxist philosophers Mick Armstrong and Slavoj Žižek document in another forthcoming title The Secret Masters: How 40 Kiwi Anarchists Are Plotting to Destroy Western Civilization (Verso, 2009), the so-called ‘Invisible Committee’ is not a small coterie of French Bakuninists but, rather, is composed of Swedish, German and English football hooligans under the command of New Zealand terrorists, who issue orders from their London bunker.

Fact.

Fearful of a rash of deaths from spontaneous human combustion caused by falling profits and mass unemployment, Beck’s review is very timely. Wearing his very special detective hat, Beck has even been able to trace the uprisings in Greece and Iceland in late 2008 to the forthcoming publication in English of the dangerous tract in question.

A speculative fiction? Perhaps. But as Beck notes in his conclusion: “I am not calling to ban this book, but you should read it to know what is coming and be ready when it does.”

Extreme Left Calling People to Arms
Glenn Beck
July 1, 2009

While the government warns that right-wing extremists could be domestic terrorists, and The New York Times, says I could incite those crazy conservatives to violence, the extreme left is actively calling for violence!

As world economies go down the tank and unemployment continues to rise, disenfranchised people are set to explode.

The dangerous leftist book that could spark this is “The Coming Insurrection.” This is a call to arms for violent revolution, authored anonymously by a French group called the Invisible Committee who want to bring down capitalism.

This started in France and spread to countries like Greece and Iceland, where people are out of work, out of money and out of patience.

Now it’s coming here. The book comes out in English in the U.S. in August. I have one of the first English copies.

The book was written after riots in the Paris suburbs in 2005 tore the country apart, and that was before the economy really got bad. This is the anti-”Common Sense,” where I call for peaceful protest.

This is a book of revolution. Remember this is not from the right, you know the radicals that everyone is so worried about in government. This is from the far left. Let me share a bit:

“Take up arms. Do everything possible to make their use unnecessary. There is no such thing as a peaceful insurrection. Weapons are necessary.”

The French government was so freaked out they arrested nine people believed to have written “The Coming Insurrection” on charges of “criminal association for the purposes of terrorist activity” for allegedly sabotaging train lines in France.

When I first heard of this book it was in The New York Times book section. A group had organized an unauthorized reading of “The Coming Insurrection” at a New York City bookstore. When they were shooed out of the store they went to Starbucks and so on. Not exactly terrorist activity; more of a curiosity.

But it gets a little more creepy when you look at this: One of those leaders arrested in France Julien Coupat was held for six months and just released this May. According to a story in The Globe and Mail back in January of 2008 while visiting Canada, Coupat and his girlfriend sneaked over the border to visit New York City. According to relatives, they didn’t want their photos and fingerprints in the hands of U.S. authorities. Why is that? (By the way are our borders protected yet?)

Remember the media will tell you the right is the one to be feared. They do everything they can to tie any random nutjob shooting to conservatives. “The shooter was a fan of ‘24′ — ‘24′ starred Jon Voight — Jon Voight is a conservative!”

But this is a call for violence. Here is more:

“It’s a question of knowing how to fight, to pick locks, to set broken bones and treat sicknesses; how to build a pirate radio transmitter; how to set up street kitchens; how to aim straight.”

The synopsis of the book describes it as “an eloquent call to arms arising from the recent waves of social contestation in France and Europe… a strategic prescription for an emergent war-machine to spread anarchy and live communism.”

A few years ago I said that Europe is on the brink of destruction. This is yet another sign that it’s coming. Even in Japan where protests have been seen as taboo since the 1960s, young people angered over the economy and fear for their future — taking to the streets, beginning to unionize. The communist party of Japan says they are getting 1,000 new members a month.

This book has not even been released in this country yet. It has been passed hand to hand and via the Internet, much like the pamphleteers in pre-revolution America. Thomas Paine was one of them. He issued a call to arms. I am not doing that. You are an idiot if you start shooting people — all that does is delegitimize the cause. Be like Ghandi [sic], like Martin Luther King.

But people on the extreme left are calling people to arms. I am not calling to ban this book, but you should read it to know what is coming and be ready when it does.

See also : Cheese-eating surrender monkeys vs. very fast trains : Free the Tarnac Nine! (November 25, 2008) | Meanwhile, in Europe, ¡anarcholocos! (December 14, 2008) | “Your heads are full of rubbish because you have read too many books.” (December 19, 2008) | So Frenchy So Chic (January 5, 2009) | The War Against Preterrorism: The ‘Tarnac Nine’ and The Coming Insurrection (January 17, 2009) | Suspicious Minds & Barking Dogs: Canada, France, Russia (& Australia) (February 3, 2009) | Anarchism and Terrorism (In the Real World) (May 6, 2009) | More blah on European politics (June 11, 2009)…

Ukip, Lega Nord form hard-right bloc in EU Parliament, Leigh Phillips, EUobserver, June 30, 2009 | RISE OF THE CZECH FAR RIGHT: Neo-Nazis Exploit Growing Anti-Roma Racism, Gwendolyn Albert, World War 4 Report, July 1, 2009…

The 10.31 Project

Update : Terrible news for Terrie-Anne: Indian media have picked up on her racist diatribes, presumably further confirming in the minds of the Indian public(s) — and despite PM KRudd’s assurances to the contrary — that ‘Australia’ — and moreover ‘Australians’ — are, well, kinda racist. Terri-Anne “was reported to have written extremely rude comments about the recently attacked Indian students in Australia, saying that attacked Indian students were “playing the victim card” and the “shit around their head must do something to their brain”. “Maybe a gun to their head might help them get the hint that they are not wanted here!”, Verney reportedly wrote on one of her Facebook groups.”

Silly Terrie-Anne!

NB. “Terrie-Anne Verney is the Sales Manager for 95.1 FM. Contact her today to see exactly what Community Radio can do for you!”

Oh dear.

Once there were keyboard warriors — over 60,000 of them — belonging to ‘The Facebook Special Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics’, aka ‘Fuck Off We’re Full’. Sadly, it was subverted by Un-Australian forces, and so a new group was established, with a very similar name, but this time under the careful stewardship of ‘Australian Protectionist Party’ spokesperson Darrin Hodges and his leading lady Terri-Anne Verney: Terri-Anne has a position @ ‘multi-cultural’ community radio station Griffith FM. Further:

I have been writing for many years, and am currently studying journalism.
I write regular newsletter articles for community organisations, and write advertising copy.
I work in broadcasting, at a not for profit radio station, where I am the sales manager/office assistant.
I have varied intrests [sic] and general knowledge in many fields.
I am an accurate typer [sic] and very efficent [sic], with Australian English being my native language.

Some very obvious questions occur at this point:

1. Is Griffith too full of immigrants?
2. Should immigrants thinking of moving to Griffith simply “fuck off” as Terri-Anne recommends?
3. Are all the KKK members Terri-Anne claims to have met as “intelligent” as those who wear bedsheets and burn crosses on other people’s front lawns?
4. Does the “shit” which Indian students wrap around their heads really damage their mental functioning, as Terri-Anne argues?

Terri-Anne is on the air in Griffith every Saturday. This week’s guest is a Canberra mom named Nicole Hanley.

Should be a rip-snorter I reckon.

Multicultural radio presenter linked to anti-immigration Facebook groups
Asher Moses
The Age
July 2, 2009

A presenter for a NSW community radio station that specialises in multicultural programming has been reprimanded after she was revealed to be an administrator of several racist, anti-immigration groups on Facebook.

Terrie-Anne Verney, a presenter and sales representative for Griffith FM radio station 2MIA, was the administrator of the group “F— Off, We’re Full” and had also joined several Facebook groups including “Stop the Islamisation of Australia while we still can”, “Australian Conservative United Party”, the “Australian Protectionist Party” and “Australians against Multiculturalism”.

In posts on the site she ridiculed foreigners who did not have a good grasp of English, claimed the Islamic faith was destroying the Australian way of life and said that attacked Indian students should go back home to study.

She also wrote that groups of immigrants tended to develop a “mob mentality”, claimed KKK members she knew were “intelligent” and that she did not want immigrants who did not speak English or assimilate into “the Australian life” to be allowed into the country.

“If we allow the Islamic faith to continue to grow, sooner or later the Australian way of life will be destroyed,” Ms Verney wrote in one post.

“I can’t even imagine where we start to fix the problems caused by the introduction of this *cough cough* religion and its invasion of our society, but something needs to be done. Before its (sic) too late.”

Of bashed Indian students, she said they were “playing the victim card” and “the shit around their head must do something to their brain”.

“Maybe a gun to their head might help them get the hint that they are not wanted here!!,” she wrote.

Edna Wakley, president of the Griffith Community FM Association and station manager at 2MIA, said in a statement that she was “horrified” by Ms Verney’s affiliations, and that she was unaware of until yesterday.

She said the station did “not condone in any way sites such as these” and would “take appropriate disciplinary action where necessary”.

2MIA prides itself on “multicultural programming” and has several presenters from diverse backgrounds. Ms Verney works there as a sales representative and also presents a music show on Saturday afternoons.

“It is disappointing that this staff member’s actions could place a cloud over the integrity of this Association and all that it has achieved in Ethnic Broadcasting, multiculturalism and the community at large,” the statement said.

When Ms Verney was approached for comment over her Facebook posts, she said it was “unfortunate” patriotism was now regarded as racism.

“As a proud Aussie, I welcome new Australians in the hope and belief that they too, become proud Aussies,” she said.

“This country is beautiful the way it is, and like most average citizens, [I] do not want our society to change to suit others’ needs.”

But after this website approached 2MIA for a comment yesterday, Ms Verney began removing some of her Facebook group affiliations and posts.

In April, a contractor for one of Australia’s largest Defence Department-linked companies was suspended after she was alleged to have been involved as an administrator of the neo-Nazi web forum Blood & Honour.

“I don’t mind having battles, but let them be battles about policy and ideas not battles on negative campaigning… We’ve got an extraordinarily highly educated community … you can’t resort to simple slogans.” ~ Carlo Carli

“My job is to win seats for the Labor Party and not participate in popularity contests.” ~ Stephen Newnham

Hurr hurr.

In the popularity contest that is a state election, you can resort to simple slogans for the benefit of the poorly educated community of north Brunswick amiright?

According to a report in The Age, the ALP is faced with a real struggle to retain their century-old stranglehold over the inner city seats of Brunswick (1904–*), Melbourne (1905–*), Northcote (1927–) and Richmond (1908–*) as a result of:

The greening of inner Melbourne
Sarah-Jane Collins and David Rood
The Age
June 30, 2009

The Victorian ALP is divided about whether fighting dirty is the best way to turn back the “Green tide” in former Labor strongholds…

Will the ALP fight dirty?
Are the police corrupt?
Does The Pope shit in the woods?

“This is New Labour’s legacy. They sacrificed principles, debates, humanity, purpose and personality for the prize of getting elected. But now they can’t get elected to anything so there is absolutely nothing left.” ~ Mark Steel on the EU elections.

The changing tide is inevitable: the ALP is doomed in the inner city I tells ya, doomed! The question is, will the bad news come in 2010, or later? In the 2006 state election, Carlo Carli snuck in on a two-party preferred basis (53.65% ~vs~ 46.35%; the Socialist Alliance/Democratic Socialist Perspective candidate gaining 645 votes (1.94%)). In Northcote (Fiona Richardson), the margin was 58.52% ~vs~ 41.48% (Alex Bhatal); in Melbourne (Bronwyn Pike), 52.01% ~vs~ 47.99% (Richard Di Natale); and in Richmond (Richard Wynne) 53.64% ~vs~ 46.36% (Gurm Sekhon).

The People’s Republic of Brunswick has of course got form. In 1992, Dr. Phil was elected to the Federal seat of Wills, narrowly defeating a rat, Ian Formal, endorsed by local anarchists (a mere 4,348 votes or 6.4%). He won Wills again in 1993, then lost it in 1996. Recently, cheeky Phil quipped: “If I ran and the Greens and I preferenced, the ALP would be a dead duck” (Cleary likely to take Brunswick off Labor, Sarah-Jane Collins, The Age, June 23, 2009).

In January, poor old Race ‘Mondragon is ace!’ Matthews was the bearer of bad tidings:

In a letter to leaders of Premier John Brumby’s dominant Right faction, former cabinet minister Race Mathews reveals the party’s national membership has plummeted to about 50,000 — down from about 370,000 immediately after World War II — and the average age is about 50. Dr Mathews’ letter, dated last Thursday and obtained by The Age, says there are fewer than 13,000 ALP members in Victoria and most are inactive. He says this is “a recipe for extinction, and places the party in the category of an endangered species.” ~ The ALP facing extinction?, January 31, 2009.

Kinda sorta. The Labor rank ‘n’ file may be disappearing (who joins apart from the sons and daughters of older members and/or student politicians and/or or trade union hacks?), but the Labor Mafia retains overall control of both the political and industrial wings of the labour movement. As a result, trade unions continue to pump millions into Labor’s coffers annually, and provide a stepping-stone into (and sometimes out of) power for several generations of middle class careerists. (The Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union / Australian Services Union / Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union / Australian Workers’ Union / Blind Workers Union / Communications, Electrical, Electronic, Plumbing & Allied Workers Union / Construction, Forestry, Mining & Energy Union / Health Services Union of Australia / Institute of Marine & Power Engineers / Australian Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union / Maritime Union of Australia / National Union of Workers / Rail, Tram & Bus Union / Shop Distributive & Allied Employees’ Association / Textile, Clothing & Footwear Union of Australia / Transport Workers Union / United Firefighters Union are all affiliated to the Victorian ALP.)

Race himself is a Fabian — the pinko stream within the ALP, whose famous members include(d) Dapper Don, Nifty Nev & The Silver Bodgie — and a proponent of ‘Distributism’ (see review of Matthew’s Jobs of Our Own: Building a Stakeholder Society, Pluto Press, 1999 by Ian Barns (Murdoch University) [PDF]).

In the meantime, “LaborFirst is [/was] a grass-roots renewal movement of ALP members and supporters working to strengthen the party through New Ideas, Stronger Membership, Better Candidates, Structural Reform, Better Campaigning” and Unnecessary Capitalisation. Or: Jobs Jobs Jobs Jobs Jobs Jobs Jobs, Working Families Working Families Working Families Working Families Working Families Working Families Working Families. Remnants of the Labor left complain here and er, elsewhere.

See also : Labor’s underbelly, Rick Wallace, The Australian, June 30, 2009 | Andrew Scott, Running on Empty: ‘Modernising‘ the British and Australian labour parties, Pluto Press, 2000 | ‘The boom, the left and capitalism’, Ashley Lavelle, Journal of Australian Political Economy, June 2008.

Distributism ~vs~ Constructivism

…In Canada Gary Jewell had been in the IWW and raised funds for our prisoners. He had definitely changed sides but had not thought fit to announce his change to his former associates. He visited England in the late Seventies and met many people in the old SWF and they found it hard to believe he had reneged, but we had it from himself in black and white, telling the spurious journal he had been a syndicalist and was now a “third positionist”. This was a line coming into favour from British fascism, suggesting they wanted neither capitalism nor communism but a third position, and mixed with the nonsense of Distributism and Catholic-Fascism. To muddle the situation further I wrote a cod pamphlet putting forward the claims of Constructivism but not saying what it was. It was a theory invented by a fictitious person I always referred to as The Beloved Dr Ludwig Gans or The Great and Learned Dr Gans. I had invented him years before when at the invitation of some group on the lines of Mensa, I gave a lecture in a series of others in which they had to guess which was deliberately phoney. I pulled one over on them by giving it on Constructivism and all these Certified Intelligents believed it, nodding in agreement when I mentioned Ludwig Gans’ work The Menace of Anti-Constructivism. I did it as a pure joke on George Plume, its secretary, who was always kidding someone. He even pretended to have been sentenced to death during the war for incitement by supporting a Scottish Nationalist in a by-election, only being reprieved because the seat had been won.

I am told that Constructivism, while never as popular as Distributism though equally mysterious, was seriously discussed in fascist circles for some time after I quite inadvertently slipped it in, though nobody ever knew what it was except the great and good Dr Gans, and he never existed.

It was a shame to lose him altogether so once or twice I put in quotes from him in Black Flag as a joke against Marxists who wrote in with equally preposterous quotations. Sure as fate one such wrote in, protesting at the notoriously “reactionary professor” currently in favour with the fascists.

Whatever you think of Constructivism, so far as I was concerned, it beat Gustav Metzger and his Auto-Destructive Art hands down, and was a change from writing sense, with nobody, certified intelligent or not, nodding in agreement.

~ Albert Meltzer, I Couldn’t Paint Golden Angels, AK Press, 1996, Chapter XVIII: The Wooden Horse.

See also : King of Pop Pops His Clogs (June 26, 2009).

One People’s Project is a nasssty, howwible group of people; Daryle Lamont Jenkins is the group’s nasssty, howibble, mean and twicksy spokesperson. He’s also been interviewed by Kam Williams of NewsBlaze (June 28, 2009).

KW: Have you noticed an up-tick in the activities of the Klan and neo-Nazis since President Obama took office?

DLJ: This is going to be a rather long answer. See, I try not to lend credence to the regular posturing of that crowd because you knew they were going to try and get some mileage from the first black president being elected. We always hear some story about how the number of hate groups rose - when in truth, many of them are just some chump who started a blog calling himself a group - or that such-and-such recent event is going to “wake up white people”. Today’s white racist activists are nowhere near as strong or even as dedicated as the ones you might have seen maybe twenty years ago. They are always rather young, and where the hate mongers of generations past still had a connection to those older ones who were active and successful, the young activists of today don’t have that solid foundation their predecessors had. The older ones are now dying or just giving it up, so without that “guidance,” if you will, the young ones show themselves to be more of a psychological train wreck looking for an outlet, than some dedicated White Aryan soldier trying to create a whites-only homeland. And it doesn’t help matters much that those older activists that are doing things today have in the past few years tempered their activities to be a little more mainstream-friendly. The groups trying to gain respectability now will stay away from Nazi and Klan symbols, they prefer to hold meetings and conferences as opposed to public rallies, and the rhetoric has been tempered. In fact, to make reference to the Klan is rather antiquated because anyone who says they are in the Klan in this day and age is seen as a buffoon even among white supremacists. Some white supremacist groups have even had people of color within their ranks! Needless to say, that is part of a rather fierce debate amongst them, but it gives you an idea of the climate out there. Having said that, these groups still have managed to create a greater threat in regard to that aforementioned “psychological train wreck,” lashing out and killing people. That is where you have seen the up-tick. It was a rather interesting thing during the last administration to hear conservatives beat their chest about how there hadn’t been a terrorist attack on our shores since 9-11, which was meant to be some sort of endorsement of President Bush. Well, what’s curious about that is the fact that with the exception of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, most if not all of the terrorist attacks have been by right-wing extremists. The abortion clinic bombings of the 80s, the abortion shootings of the 90s, the Oklahoma City bombing, Eric Rudolph’s bombings, the shooting sprees of white supremacists Buford Furrow and Benjamin Smith in 1999 - all of those solidly right-wing. They quieted down while Bush was president, but as soon as Obama is elected we hear reports of all these loons across the country shooting people. The DC shooting was the second in as many weeks, and maybe the fourth or fifth since Election Day. Also, we can only imagine what we might be talking about today were it not for an abused wife killing her husband in Maine back in December. He was a racist who was reportedly building a dirty bomb at the time.

Pffft. Who cares? And I hate to say it Daryl, but: “As I stated on the Bombshell forum Andy Daryl, you are a liar, a hypocrite and no better than the trash that you fight against.” ~ Dion, December, 2007 | “Your problem is that you follow the old right membership groups. That’s simple, but try following the Lone Wolves. No meetings, no uniforms, no demonstrations. Just infiltration. [You're] whistling past the graveyard. Tom Metzger, The Insurgent” ~ May 24, 2009.

Bonus!

2 in Ariz. bombing case had ties to supremacists
Amanda Lee Myers
June 27, 2009

PHOENIX (AP) — One of two Illinois brothers charged in a 2004 bombing that injured a black city official in a Phoenix suburb had extensive ties with white supremacist groups and once was deported from Canada because of his activities.

Groups that track hate groups describe Dennis Mahon, 58, as a prominent player in white supremacist groups for 15 to 20 years. Less is known about his twin brother, Daniel Mahon, but he also belonged to such groups, federal officials said Friday.

The brothers are charged with conspiracy to damage buildings and property by means of explosive. They were arrested Thursday at their home in Davis Junction, Ill., where authorities say they found assault weapons, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and white supremacist material.

The brothers pleaded not guilty and were in the custody of federal authorities in Illinois. They are scheduled for an extradition hearing Wednesday.

Authorities didn’t know if the brothers had attorneys.

On Feb. 26, 2004, a package detonated in the hands of Don Logan, Scottsdale’s diversity director at the time, in the city’s Human Resources Complex. The explosion injured his hand and arm and hurt a secretary.

Dennis Mahon led the Ku Klux Klan in Oklahoma in 1991, recruited neo-Nazis and boneheads in the former East Germany, and later joining White Aryan Resistance, according to the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center.

“Dennis Mahon in the 90s was one of the scarier guys around,” said Mark Potok, director of the center’s Intelligence Project.

In 1993, Dennis Mahon was deported from Canada after an immigration official ruled he would likely break the law while there. Officials there had obtained a videotape of a 1991 speech Mahon gave to the neo-Nazi Heritage Front in Toronto and similar tapes from Germany and the U.S.

Daniel Mahon was a member of the White Aryan Resistance and a recruiter for the KKK, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

A federal indictment unsealed Thursday says Dennis Mahon participated in the construction of the bomb, disguising it in a cardboard box addressed to Logan, an ombudsman for city employees and citizens on issues including racial and sex discrimination. The explosion forced the evacuation of 25 people in the building.

Dennis Mahon also is charged with malicious damage of a building by means of explosive and distribution of information related to explosives, according to the indictment.

Authorities said the Wednesday arrest of Robert Neil Joos, 56, of Missouri, arose from the bombing. He is charged with being a felon in possession of firearms but is not charged in the bombing.

Dennis Mahon made a call to a cell phone registered to Joos the morning of the bombing, according to an affidavit filed supporting the arrest.

A public defender assigned to his case did not immediately return a call for comment Friday afternoon.

Federal agents also raided the Indiana home of Tom Metzger, president of the White Aryan Resistance, as part of their investigation into the bombing, said Special Agent Tom Mangan, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Authorities removed computers and other items from Metzger’s house but did not arrest him.

A call to Metzger went unanswered, and he did not have an answering machine.

Mangan said authorities are looking into other members of white supremacist groups who associated with the Mahon brothers, and that more arrests could come in the bombing case.

Associated Press Writer Bob Christie contributed to this report.

See also : Exclusive: Arrests made in ‘04 bombing of Scottsdale diversity office | Hate leader tells followers, ‘Don’t worry’ about raids, arrests, Nick R. Martin, Heat City, June 25, 2009.

Added Bonus!

“In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.” ~ Douglas Adams

Stone the bloody crows, throw another shrimp on the barbie, and I tell you what, any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum!

Anti-Fascism

Once upon a time I was gonna ‘reply’ to Jean Barrot/Gilles Dauvé’s ‘Fascism/Anti-Fascism’ but: a) I couldn’t be arsed; b) it’s been done (to death) and; c) nobody cares what I think anyway. That said… other materials on Fascism (and fascism) what are worthwhile reading are Roger Griffin’s reader on Fascism (Oxford University Press, 1995) and Robert O. Paxton’s The Anatomy of Fascism (Random House, 2007). Otherwise, I’ve categorised a handful of posts ‘Anti-fascism’, so yeah: go read ‘em.

Choice Anti-Fascism quote: “As one might expect of a group of people who, despite their ideological differences, all reject the fundamental organizing principles of Western societies, Antifa members do not seem to be high earners. It is also hard to see how a group of this nature could generate any reliable flow of funding of any sort, or who it would be prepared to accept it from.” (The Blackhoods of Antifa, From the mahogany desk of The Brussels Journal, October 10, 2008.)

Anti-German

While drawing on various (and overwhelmingly Marxian) ideological antecedents, the ‘Anti-German’ camp really only established itself in Germany after re-unification, and as one of many responses to a more general ideological crisis on Teh Left that the outpouring of nationalist sentiment this world-historical event provoked. One of the best Anti-German sauces I’ve tasted is ‘Anti-German Translation’: it’s regularly updated, and contains links to many other writings on the Anti-German tradition. Two overviews of the subject are available via ‘Letter from Berlin: The anti-anti-Zionists’ (Benjamin Weinthal, Haaretz, August 8, 2007) and ‘Antinationalist Nationalism: The Anti-German Critique and Its All-Too-German Adherents’ (Rolling Thunder, No.3, Summer 2006).

Choice Anti-German quote: ‘Do they ever have any fun? “We don’t have much fun,” Dahlmann concedes. “But we are not ascetics. We drink beer and wine”.’ (Meet the Anti-Germans, Luke Harding, The Guardian, August 28, 2006.)

Anti-Semitism

A German hack named Wilhelm Marr is the man generally credited with coining the term ‘Anti-Semitism’ in the 1870s; in her book Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women’s Liberation, Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) describes Bill as having been an ‘anarchist’. Whatever.

…And now she has published what she believes to be her life’s work, nine years in the making; not another assault on gender relations or the sex industry but a polemical account of modern Israel and the lessons it holds for women. It is a book which many Zionists, non-Zionists, Palestinians, scholars of the Holocaust, pacifists, the left, women, men, are bound to find offensive. Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel And Women’s Liberation, sparked by a visit to Israel in 1988, is a critique of Middle East politics which sees the whole situation as a product of wounded and then enraged testosterone. It is an analysis of the Holocaust and Israel through the eye of gender relations, drawing together strands of Zionism, feminism and Holocaust studies to produce a radical new thesis: that the Jews, downtrodden, had to fight back; and that women, downtrodden, must do the same.

From memory, Dworkin concludes her survey with an appeal to women to seriously consider forming their own, ‘female’, state. A caustic review is available in ‘Dworkin’s Scapegoating’, Veronica A. Ouma, Palestine Solidarity Review, Fall 2005. See also : Prophet with honour the wilderness, Michael Arditti, The Independent, June 10, 2000.

One of the best sauces of raving anti-Semitism comin’ straight outta Australia is provided by Australian Protectionist Party member Martin Fletcher on his ‘Downunder Newslinks’ website. (In fairness to Fletcher, I should point out that on his site he includes vitriolic denunciations of Aborigines, Asians, Muslims, queers, and all the ‘usual suspects’ who occupy the far-right line-up.) Along with his support for the APP — he co-administers their online Forum with Darrin Hodges — Martin’s efforts on behalf of the 14 words — “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children” — are worthy of recognition. So too his provision of a copy of the Muslim Massacre videogame. Martin provides further hours of Yanqui infotainment on his ‘news’ site, including documentary videos on Barack Hussein O’Bama, Holocaust denial, David Duke, Stormfront and dead Nutzi Dr William Pierce (author of The Turner Diaries). Indeed, on Downunder Newslinks, The Turner Diaries, along with The Myth of the Six Million, The International Jew, Did Six Million Really Die? and The Protocols of Zion are all available to help White People interpret the Australian news.

Speaking of the sun-burnt country, Anti-Semitism exists as a cultural undercurrent, but not an especially popular one. Thus, while various forms of abuse and harassment continue to occur — one particular incident involving an angry man from Perth, WA drew some media attention recently — it does not form the important political principle it does on other islands, nor does it constitute an idea or practice with sufficient social weight to propel political careers forward; quite the opposite, in fact. As such, principal political scapegoats are kindly provided by the Muslim menace. (Oh. And The Blacks. Of course.)

Choice Anti-Semitism quote: ‘MY favourite definition of an anti-Semite is “a person who hates Jews more than is absolutely necessary”.’ (Some of my best friends [are] anti-Semitic, Barry Cohen, The Australian, May 21, 2008.)

Anti-Zionism

‘Zionism’, like ‘Anti-Semitism’, may trace its roots back many centuries, but only really became solidified as an ideology and as a movement in the late 1800s, in particular by way of Theodor (Binyamin Ze’ev) Herzl (1860–1904). Like Uncle Ziggy, Herzl confronted Anti-Semitism during the course of his studies at the University of Vienna — unlike Freud, Herzl sought to confront it politically, most famously in his book Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), published in February 1896. (Note that Freud did join the lodge “Wien” of B’nai B’rith in 1897; he also responded to Nazi Anti-Semitism by proclaiming his Jewish identity even more strongly. Further disco on Freud’s Jewish identity is contained in the final chapter, ‘To Die In Freedom’, of Peter Gay’s biography, Freud: A Life For Our Time, Papermac, 1995 (1988). He certainly had a grim sense of humour: Just before 82-year-old Sigmund Freud was allowed to leave German-occupied Austria in 1938, the SS insisted he sign a statement claiming he had been treated well. He complied with a flourish: “I can most highly recommend the Gestapo to everyone.”)

Of course, the realisation of the idea of a Jewish nation-state in/as Israel in 1948 has been considered a triumph for some, and a disaster for others. Like other Big Ideas — Australia, Christianity, Fascism, Germany, Islam, Marxism, Nationalism, and so on — nearly two thousand years after a Jewish carpenter got nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, Zionism has a long and complex history (one antagonistic account is Ralph Schoenman’s The Hidden History of Zionism, 1988) and so too ‘Anti-Zionism’. An examination of the relationship between Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism — one of many — is available by way of Robert S. Wistrich’s essay ‘Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism’ (Jewish Political Studies Review, Vol.16, Nos.3/4, Fall 2004). Wistrich argues that “anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are two distinct ideologies that over time (especially since 1948) have tended to converge, generally without undergoing a full merger”; the strong link between the two is one of the principal criticisms of the Anti-German camp (for further elucidation, see : ‘Communism, anti-German criticism and Israel’, An interview with Stephan Grigat by Jens Misera. First published in Israel Nachrichten, the German daily newspaper in Tel Aviv in 2004; first published in English at http://info.interactivist.net in 2005.)

The beardy bloke presiding over the meeting is Herr Herzl.

Of contemporary ‘Anti-Zionism’, Jacques Hersh offers some Inconvenient Truths about ‘Real Existing’ Zionism in the Monthly Review (May 2009, Vol.61, No.1); further supplemented by Daniel Lang/Levitsky’s thoughts on how Jews Confront Zionism (June 2009, Vol.61, No.2). Probably the most well-known Australian Jewish critic of Zionism is Antony Loewenstein.

Choice Anti-Zionism quote: “Anti-Zionism has become so widespread and “politically correct” and it is so extreme and so divorced from political and historic reality that one suspects that it masks even more dangerous and more ancient hatreds.” Bill Anderson, The Age, June 20, 2009.

…and Anarchism

The Free Voice of Labor: The Jewish Anarchists is the title of a kick-arse 1980 doco by Steve Fischler and Joel Sucher of Pacific Street Films (also available from AK Press, which re-released the film, along with Anarchism in America, in 2006):

See also : Albert Meltzer: The Fascist Objection to Anarchism (January 6, 2006) | Israel, Jews, the state, anarchism… (May 22, 2008) | Black Flag: Bulletin of the Anarchist Black Cross (April 14, 2009) | ‘Co-opting the Counter Culture: Troy Southgate and the National Revolutionary Faction’ by Graham D. Macklin (May 30, 2009) | Messianic Troublemakers: The Past and Present Jewish Anarchism, Jesse Cohn, Zeek, April 30, 2005 | Dolgoff, Sam, 1902-1990 | The Rudolf Rocker Cultural Centre.

Bonus!

A “Literary Political Salon”

It is evident that Chomsky’s passion for libertarian anarchism and political debate could not be accommodated by the school system. So, curious and free spirited, he began, at the age of thirteen, to travel alone by train to New York City. There he visited relatives and haunted the secondhand bookstores on Fourth Avenue. In the course of these visits he picked up lots of books, which he devoured at home in Philadelphia. But he also spent many of his precious New York hours with an uncle (his mother’s sister’s husband) who ran a newsstand on Seventy-Second Street. He was a very bright, though little-educated man with a varied background. He taught Chomsky about Freud, and indeed, attracted by his grasp of Freud’s theories, people came to him for analysis. He had also been exposed to “Marxist sectarian politics ­ Stalinist, Trotskyite, non-Leninist sects of one sort or another” ­things about which Chomsky himself was just beginning to learn (Chomsky Reader 11). A hunchback, Chomsky’s uncle benefited from a program for people with physical disabilities. He was offered employment selling newspapers; however, given the unfavorable location of the stand, he did very little business. Instead, the stand became a lively “literary political salon” for Jewish professional and intellectual emigrés. Says Chomsky, “The Jewish working-class culture in New York was very unusual. It was highly intellectual, very poor; a lot of people had no jobs at all and others lived in slums and so on. But it was a rich and lively intellectual culture: Freud, Marx, the Budapest String Quartet, literature, and so forth. That was, I think, the most influential intellectual culture during my early teens” (Chomsky Reader 11). Chomsky’s uncle eventually went on to become a successful lay psychiatrist, but he made his most indelible mark upon his young nephew during this period of informal contact in New York.

Deeply influenced by what he was reading and by the discussions he was having with a host of new acquaintances, Chomsky was moving more and more in the direction of anarchism and away from Marxism. Otero notes that since a number of his relatives were on the fringes of the Communist Party, the young Chomsky did develop interests related to Marxism, “but by the time he was twelve or thirteen he had already `worked out of that phase’” (”Chomsky and the Libertarian Tradition” 4). So, during his visits to New York, Chomsky also frequented the office of Freie Arbeiter Stimme, an anarchist journal with notable contributors, such as Rudolf Rocker…

Chomsky was reading other anarchist material by, for example, Diego Abad de Santillán, who, a few months before the onset of the Spanish Civil War (in March of 1936), wrote a book that was partially translated and republished as After the Revolution. During this period Chomsky also read works by left Marxists (non-Bolshevik Marxists), including Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, and Karl Korsch. Korsch’s work was an important source of inspiration for some of the more theoretically oriented Marxist thinkers who, in turn, exerted various degrees of influence upon Chomsky. In fact, Chomsky claims that Korsch was a Spanish-anarchosyndicalist-movement sympathizer, suggesting that a broad camp of left-thinking individuals found much that was worthwhile in the Spanish anarchist actions: “Marxism also covers a pretty broad spectrum and there is a point at which some varieties of anarchism and some varieties of Marxism come very close together, as for example, people like Karl Korsch, who was very sympathetic to the Spanish anarchist movement, though he himself was sort of an orthodox Marxist” (Language and Politics 168).

[On Korsch, anarchism and Marxism, see also : Andrew Giles-Peters (January 22, 2009) | Anarchism & Marxism Part 666 (May 11, 2009).]

These orthodox Marxists were generally less important to Chomsky because of the extreme level of their commitment to Marxism and because he felt their analyses were overly complex. This is a point of contention for others who, though in pursuit of goals similar to Chomsky’s, nonetheless believe that the mechanisms and strategies of capitalism must be subjected to the kind of deeply philosophical and complex reflection that characterizes some Marxist analysis [--]­ for example, the works of Frankfurt School theorists. Chomsky comments: “The intellectuals around the Marxist tradition (Lukács, Frankfurt School, etc.) I read a bit but wasn’t much interested in, frankly. I don’t find that kind of work very illuminating, to tell the truth. The ideas that seem useful also seem pretty simple, and I don’t understand what all the verbiage is for” (8 Aug. 1994). His early attraction to anarchism and resistance to the Marxist tradition was eventually translated into a strong interest in local activist work and a rejection of overly complexified studies [of] class analysis, even though he did discover some crucial overlaps between the two…

New music video ‘Bow Down No Way’ by Shoe Shine Boy (Kenya) and Izzy Brown from Combat Wombat (Australia). Film clip by Labrats and Hoodman Productions. Fat hip-hop/ragga collaboration from the slums of Nairobi to the town camps in Alice Springs…

Bonus!

77%. One in five. 6.5 per cent. Over 40 per cent. 87 per cent. 85 per cent. 11 per cent. $2 billion. Forty per cent. One in 10…

Australians are racist, say Australians // Australians struggling with multiculturalism
AAP
June 24, 2009

AUSTRALIANS are in two minds about multiculturalism, a long-term survey has found.

They believe cultural diversity is good for the country but they’re worried that cultural differences will stop everyone from getting along.

An 11-year study by a collaboration of Australian universities has found 85 per cent of Australians acknowledge racial prejudice occurs in the nation and one in five has been a victim of racist verbal abuse.

The study found that 6.5 per cent of the 16,000 Australians surveyed were against multiculturalism.

Professor Kevin Dunn, from the University of Western Sydney’s school of social science, said the study revealed that the majority of Australians are pro-multiculturalism but are anxious that the diversity will not be managed well.

“Over 40 per cent of those surveyed feel that cultural differences pose a threat to societal harmony,” he said.

“So if you take that alongside the 87 per cent that are pro-multiculturalism, clearly you’ve got a third of the nation that tolerate cultural diversity but are concerned at the impact it will have on society.

“The Cronulla riots and the recent attacks on people of Indian descent are an example of this.

“The figures show that 85 per cent of Australia acknowledge there is racial prejudice in the country.”

Prof Dunn believes previous governments have done nothing to address the issue for the past decade, with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma spending only part of his time dealing with race discrimination.

“For the last decade, the government hasn’t appointed a full-time Race Discrimination Commissioner,” Prof Dunn said.

“Because of the severe underfunding of the commission, they’re just unable to offer the sorts of services required.”

The survey also found that at least one in five Australians experience verbal abuse such as offensive slang names for different cultural groups, or swearing and offensive gestures, while 11 per cent feel they don’t belong or are inferior.

PM KRudd says ’sorry India, but if you think Australia is racist, you’re wrong’…

Australia isn’t racist, KRudd tells India
AAP
June 1, 2009

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd has moved to reassure New Delhi that Australia isn’t a racist nation, as attacks against Indian students threaten to disrupt relations between the two countries.

The violence has made headlines around the world and India has warned it could jeopardise Australia’s lucrative education sector, which earns $2 billion annually from Indian students…

The latest reportage on Professor Kevin Dunn’s research follows on from earlier reports in September 2008. The title of the project — curiously absent from the AAP story — is ‘Challenging Racism: The Anti-Racism Research Project’. By a very small margin and on a geographical basis, Perth residents are supposedly the most ‘racist’. However, ‘Lead researcher Kevin Dunn from the University of Western Sydney says while there were differences between the states, the greatest difference in attitudes was between generations. “Older Australians - not all older Australians - but in general are more intolerant and younger Australians much more tolerant,” he said’ (Perth people ‘more racist’ than others, ABC, June 26, 2009). With some exceptions: see : Southern Cross Soldiers can has manifesto., March 19, 2009.

On a final and related, superbly bizarro note, in Calgary anti-racist activists belonging to ARA Calgary have so incensed local boneheads the little darlings have sprayed nonsense on their walls: “A black swastika was found spray-painted on the front window of the couple’s home. Their front door was spray-painted red with the symbol “C-18,” which stands for Combat 18 and refers to the armed wing of a British neo-Nazi group” (Swastika sprayed on home of anti-racism activists, Tarina White, Edmonton Sun, June 28, 2009). Whether or not the cretins in Calgary were inspired by the boofheads in Belfast to daub C18 on the door is unknown.

Oh yeah: over six years after George II declared that the Coalition of the Killing had secured a magnificent victory in Iraq, the forces of victory are leaving the country, now a workers’ paradise just like Australia.

Come July 1, most American combat troops remaining in the cities will become trainers. In some cases that will be nothing more than a semantic dodge. For the most part, it really will be happening, and many Iraqi troops will indeed be on their own by Wednesday.

Except, that is, for their embedded trainers and advisers, who will be fairly numerous — at least 10,000 now, according to military estimates, rising to 35,000 to 50,000 by the high point, according to a Congressional Research Service report last month. In addition, each team will need force protection — that is, other American troops to guard the trainers, mostly from Iraqis they’re teamed with. They will number from 10 to 20 per team of trainers. The fear of fragging is so strong that most trainers live in compounds fortified against the people they’re training, a sort of American fort within the Iraqi fort…

In a development that is sure to enrage law-abiding, tax-paying, and property rights-respecting citizens everywhere…

Squatters take over the tumbledown ‘main’ house of Mr and Mrs Expenses
Christopher Leake
Daily Mail
June 27, 2009

The ramshackle house that the married Labour MPs known as ‘Mr and Mrs Expenses’ claim as their ‘main’ home has been taken over by squatters.

Alan and Ann Keen say the derelict semi-detached house in Brentford, West London, is their primary residence and have claimed £140,000 in four years for a second home ten miles away in Westminster.

But now ten squatters have taken up residence in the Brook Road South property, which has boarded-up windows, weeds choking the front steps and a beer-can strewn garden…

Eco-terrorists take advantage of down surge in working-class struggle.

Ultra-violent anarchist crazies definitely best left isolated are also stirring up trouble across the water in Calais, where they have joined swarms of illegal non-citizens in a manic attempt to kill, crush, and destroy Western Civilization by way of forming a temporary community centred on a ‘NoBorders’ camp. A leaked intelligence report has revealed that local authorities are especially worried about the presence of several dozen Kiwi anarchists, whose previous efforts at causing chaos have struck fear into the hearts of both police and Marxist revolutionaries alike.

See also : 40 Kiwi anarchists headed for Calais! (June 17, 2009).

Awesome!

From The People Who Brought You Right-Wing Christian Fundamentalist Family First Senator Steve Fielding:

The brains trust at ‘Another Liberal Party’ Victorian HQ — after having paid private consultants $25 million for the privilege of their sterling advice — has awarded the contract to manage Melbourne’s train system to ‘Metro Trains Melbourne’, a mob whose CEO, Andrew Lezala, presided over the fantastically-inefficient — and, not-coincidentally, massively-profitable — British rail maintenance company Metronet (City’s new train chief ran insolvent rail firm, Clay Lucas, The Age, June 27, 2009; see also New train boss ran bust UK rail company, Australian Associated Press, The Australian, June 27, 2009). Despite his term @ Metronet being a less-than-total success for the travelling public in London (Metronet itself collapsed in July 2007), Lezala received a £500,000 payout for his two years of back-breaking labour in the Underground. Metronet’s tenure over the London Underground, then, had its ups and downs: the ‘ups’ including fat payouts to its management, the ‘downs’ its failure to sack union activist Andy Littlechild.

The winners in the battle to profit from the public is, as noted, a consortium known as mtm, or ‘metro trains melbourne’, the new ruling triumvirate being composed of MTR Corporation (Hong Kong), United Group Limited (UGL) Rail and John Holland Pty Ltd (Australia). MTR was formerly a government-owned company, privatised in 2000; UGL Rail is one branch of a Perth-based engineering firm which now ranks among some of Australia’s largest corporations, while John Holland Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of Leighton Holdings, is a company notorious for its hostility to unions (apart from lapdogs such as the AWU — ‘Australia’s Worst Union’, and a fiefdom of the ALP Right).

Unlike British Labor following the Metronet debacle, the Victorian ALP, under John Brumby, has elected not to ‘re-nationalise’ (place under state control) the public transport system privatised by the previous Tory Government (under the hugely depressing Jeff Kennett, 1992–1999.) (Note that there is an intense rivalry between the Tory Kennett and the horny-handed son-of-toil Brumby, which extends back to when the boys were in short pants, Kennett at Scotch College and Brumby at Melbourne Grammar). Rather, the blame for the craptastic state of the public transport sector has been successfully sheeted home to Connex, and a new corporation given the opportunity to make further profits by doing exactly the same as the French-based TNC.

Roots, Bloody Roots

As in London, the privatisation of the Victorian public transport industry proceeded with only token opposition from the trade union bureaucracy, which was assigned the role of destroying attempts by rank-and-file militants to take direct action against the industry’s degradation. In late 1989/early 1990, tram workers even managed for a brief period to place the system under workers’ control, this outbreak of workers’ power requiring the Victorian government, then under the control of the ALP, to cut the power to the system, thus averting their worst nightmare: the provision of a free public service under workers’ self-management. (It’s worth noting that anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists played a significant role in this dispute. See : Melbourne Tram Dispute and Lockout, January–February 1990: Anarcho-Syndicalism in Practice, Dick Curlewis (1917–2002) (Jura Media Publications, 1997.) Having effectively broken the back of this movement, the subsequent Tory government experienced little opposition to its further privatisation, and the extension of this project to the rail sector.

Queensland

Following the triumph that has been the privatisation of the Melbourne (Victorian) public transport system, the Queensland Working Families Government has also elected to go down the same track (not, of course, that it was elected on that platform). According to Wikipedia (citing ‘Out of left field’, Jamie Walker, QWeekend Magazine, June 3, 2006) Queensland Premier Anna Bligh “traces her politicisation to her first year at University, observing a right-to-march rally in King George Square where people were being hit over the head by the police”. Sadly for Captain Bligh, in the unlikely event a militant campaign against the privatisation effort is launched, more people will be hit over the head by police (see also The Silver Bodgie’s role in the SEQEB dispute).

An uppity SEQEB worker learns his place.

See also : P-P-Privatising the underground, and ‘opposition’, Daniel O’Rourke, libcom, January 4, 2006: “As London Underground (LU) workers strike once again, Daniel O’Rourke looks at Labour’s Public-Private Partnership (PPP) scheme which is largely behind the recent problems.” | A tangled transport web, Kenneth Davidson, The Age, October 6, 2005 | it takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry…

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