Yeah Nah Pasaran! #020 w Tom Tanuki on conspiracies, lockdowns, protests & Coronavirus : May 28, 2020

Posted on May 27, 2020 by @ndy

On this week’s episode of Yeah Nah, we talk to Tom Tanuki. You may remember Tom from such comedic moments as the Million Flag Patriots (still the most prestigious, unbashable & patrioty neo-patriot group in Australia) or when he was Yelling At Racist Dogs. More recently, Major Tom has launched a podcast, The Poor Can Feed The Birds, and of late has taken a big breath, cashed his cheque from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and on behalf of The Vril Society gone on a deep dive into The Wonderful Worlde of Conspiracy …

• Note that the podcast version of this episode is longer than the broadcast one, and reveals the troof about Tom’s role as an emissary for the Gates Foundation, Cam’s vision of the world as seen through Lucifer’s Telescope, my own love of Spirit Cooking, and much, much moar. Educate yourself, sheeple!
• Note also that this Saturday, May 30, there will be further anti-lockdown protests in Melbourne and elsewhere across the country. The last such event in Melbourne gathered something in the order of 100 (or more — some suggest 2 or 3) individuals and 10 arrests. Since then, police have issued a number of fines to participants.

Arrest Bill Gates! Arrest Bill Gates!

• Much more can be learned about this particular plot in bizarr0 land by listening to the QAnon Anonymous podcast and via Cam’s Hypothetical Institute, especially Episode 122: Coronavirus, Episode 124: Good Heavens Pete Evans & Episode 125: Lockdown, Plandemic & Lucifer’s Telescope.

No Consent! No Consent!

• Our radio show/podcast is featured in the latest 3CR newsletter, CRAM Guide: ‘The CRAM Guide is 3CR’s annual magazine printed each year in May. It includes news, program profiles, station updates and the latest program guide’.
• Cam and Tom have been following The Adventures of the Anti-Lockdown Gang reasonably closely: follow Cam on the tweets for moar and watch Tom on the Youtubes.
• Paleo Pete Evans has jumped on the conspiracist bandwagon, and to that end the scientician has agreed to be interviewed by right-wing YouTube e-celeb Claudia Benitez (‘Dia Beltran’). The Grauniad (May 24, 2020):

As my colleague Elias Visontay mentioned earlier, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners has taken a swipe at radio broadcasters Kyle and Jackie O for their interview with Pete Evans today.

Evans, we know, has some, erm, non-mainstream views about, well, a lot of things.

But the (former?) celebrity chef isn’t so high and mighty that he’ll only appear on the big commercial radio stations.

Dia Beltran, an anti-abortion, far-right personality with links to former United Patriots Front members Neil Erikson and Blair Cottrell, is also spruiking an interview with him this coming Wednesday. According to Beltran, Evans will appear on her show on the same day as the hard-right Russian nationalist Alexander Dugin.

We can only assume that Evans plans to denounce the far-right and offer some tips on avocado preparation, but still, it’s quite a line-up.

(Thanks to Cam Smith for the heads-up on this).

You may remember Benitez from such church invasions as that which took place at the ‘f*ggot’ church in Hawthorn in May last year (following which, sadly, she lost her jerb). Benitez was joined on that occasion by neo-Nazi serial pest Neil Erikson. While Benitez ESCed charges over the matter, Erikson heads to court in November, seemingly for that incident but also for disrupting a Muslim prayer service in Fed Square a month earlier. If convicted, the most likely outcome is that he’ll get another slap on the wrist and Carry On LARPing.

See also : Why Are Australians Chanting “Arrest Bill Gates” At Protests? This Wild Facebook Group Has The Answers, Cameron Wilson, Buzzfeed, May 11, 2020 | Former TV Chef Behind Australia’s Anti-Lockdown Uprising, Josh Butler, 10Daily, May 12, 2020 | Why are Australians smashing their TVs? And what does it have to do with 5G and coronavirus?, The Guardian, Josh Taylor & Steph Harmon, May 13, 2020 | Under financial pressure and slipping into conspiracies, why Instagram influencers promote coronavirus lockdown protests, Oliver Gordon, ABC (PM), May 15, 2020 | The Prophecies of Q: American conspiracy theories are entering a dangerous new phase, Adrienne LaFrance, The Atlantic, June 2020.

4.30pm, Thursday, May 28, 2020 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

• 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.

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Yeah Nah Pasaran! #019 w Alana Lentin on Why Race Still Matters : May 21, 2020

Posted on May 19, 2020 by @ndy

On this week’s episode of Yeah Nah, we talk to Alana Lentin. Alana [Twitter] is a race critical scholar and Associate Professor in Cultural and Social Analysis at Western Sydney University who’s just had published a NEW! book titled Why Race Still Matters (Wiley, 2020):

Race critical scholar Alana Lentin argues that society is in urgent need of developing the skills of racial literacy, by jettisoning the idea that race is something and unveiling what race does as a key technology of modern rule, hidden in plain sight. Weaving together international examples, she eviscerates misconceptions such as reverse racism and the newfound acceptability of ‘race realism’, bursts the ‘I’m not racist, but’ justification, complicates the common criticisms of identity politics and warns against using concerns about antisemitism as a proxy for antiracism.

Dominant voices in society suggest we are talking too much about race. Lentin shows why we actually need to talk about it more and how in doing so we can act to make it matter less.

Along with numerous other books and articles, Alana also recently wrote about the coronavirus as the ultimate demonstration of the real-world impact of racism for The Guardian (May 12, 2020), and was until recently President of the Australian Critical Race And Whiteness Studies Association.

See also : Noel Ignatiev’s Long Fight Against Whiteness, Jay Caspian Kang, The New Yorker, November 15, 2019 | How To Be An Anti-Racist (Ibram X Kendi, One World, 2019) | “Race suicide” (January 1, 2011) | Anarchist Studies Network Reading List on Race & Ethnicity.

4.30pm, Thursday, May 21, 2020 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

• 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.

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Trot Guide May 2020 Update

Posted on May 15, 2020 by @ndy

… and they’re off!

For those of you coming in late, ‘Trot Guide’ is an overview of the current state-of-play on the Australian far-left. Thus it includes groupuscules that consider themselves Trotskyist (‘Trots’) as well as those who do not. I last reviewed the scene in April 2019 (and prior to that in September 2018). At that point, there were a number of promising developments in the political ecosystem, with the emergence of NEW! groupuscules Left Unity, the Stalin Society of Australia, Victorian Socialists and the Workers League (nee ML Group (MLG)). Sadly, Left Unity appears to have permanently stalled in May 2018 and failed to leave its home in Adelaide, while the Stalin Society has been inactive for a similar period — though local Uncle Joe fans come alive on Facebook. Meanwhile, the Workers League (by way of its publication ‘Redfire Online’) has elevated itself above the pack by denouncing the rest of the left for implicating themselves in a massive hoax perpetrated by the bosses. Thus the Coronavirus circus will go down as arguably the largest ruse ever perpetrated in history. Is Covid-19 highly infectious? Yes. Is Covid-19 highly dangerous? To a very small minority it might be, depending on a whole heap of variables… : mAd props!

As for the Victorian Socialists (VS), it performed reasonably well at the 2018 Victorian state election; in Northern Metro, where Steve Jolly ran, it was pipped at the post by preferences directed to Fiona Patten’s Reason. At the 2019 Australian federal election, VS ran three candidates: Jerome Small in Calwell, Kath Larkin in Cooper and Sue Bolton in Wills. In each case they came fourth behind the majors (Labor, Liberal, Green), gaining about 4.5%.

So far, so-so.

But in news just-to-hand, the Socialist Alliance (SAll), one of the two primary groups which formed VS, has announced it’s quitting:

While Victorian Socialists showed great potential when it was formed in early 2018 and ran two big and exciting socialist election campaigns, it has not lived up to its promise to build a more united left …

… we no longer feel that the Victorian Socialist project is capable of uniting broader layers of socialists in an alliance that has the dynamic to move beyond electoral politics.

Recent decisions have shown that Victorian Socialists is not open to allowing any groups of independents, for example, to develop its political life outside of elections …

Socialist Alternative’s preparedness to use its numbers to restrict the democratic participation of independents in the Victorian Socialists means that Socialist Alliance does not believe that our continued participation in the project can be effective …

This leaves Socialist Alternative (SAlt) in the somewhat odd position, given the history of its tradition, of having — along, of course, with other, non-aligned or independent members of VS — its own electoral vehicle. Still, VS won’t collapse, and its real challenge lies in its capacity to increase its vote at the next round of electoral contests:

Local council elections are taking place in October this year and Victorian Socialists will be standing candidates in councils across the Northern Metro. In the context of the unfolding health and economic crisis, it is more important than ever to win a series of elected Victorian Socialists representatives so they can use whatever platform we can get to give voice to resistance to attempts by government and bosses to make workers’ pay for the crisis.

As for SAll, with its nominally-independent yoof wing (‘Resistance’) having folded back into its parent party (to become ‘Resistance: Socialist Alliance’) in 2014, and largely inactive, I got worry for its long-term future. The party does still regularly produce Green Left Weekly, however, and boasts two local councillors.

NEW!

Disappointingly, Australia has not been blessed by an explosion of Maoism (Third-Worldism) blogs — the Global People’s War appears to have stalled in the Dandenongs sometime in the 1960s — and cannot even boast a Posadist venture. Still, you’ll find some older Maoists on teh intarwebs at blogs like C21st Left and Strange Times (nee Last Superpower). Happily though, there’s a spectral presence of Trots online, including:

Bolshevik-Leninist

We are a collection of individuals who see the need of a Marxist (i.e. Trotskyist) organisation in Australia. We defend the program of proletarian internationalism set by the Fourth International before it was destroyed by Pabloite liquidationism in the 1950s. As Marxists, we recognise that a workers’ revolution would entail liberation of all the oppressed of the world including workers, peasants, women, indigenous peoples, ethnic and religious minorities as well as lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people.

B-L is a new project allied with Revolutionary Regroupment in Brazil.

Class-Conscious

Class-Conscious exists to promote the unity of the international working class in the struggle for socialist revolution. Closely-aligned to the views and perspectives of the SEP/ICFI (International Committee of the Fourth International), CC is not a party as such, but moar like a project.

Revolution Australia

Seemingly a placeholder for the IMT (International Marxist Tendency), fingers crossed the IMT recruit at least one local member prepared to update their site with original material.

BONUS! The Internationalist Communists Oceania (ICO) have formed! Unfortunately, their website is down at the moment, but they have Facebooks and Twitters and several of their articles may be found online, including Breaking from Stalinism (Intransigence, November 2, 2018) and several writings on libcom.

OLDE!

Still having a crack :

1. (Alliance for) Workers’ Liberty
2. Australian Communist Party — A nü/olde entry, the ACP split from the CPA in 2019 ‘after analysing the marked inadequacy of the parties of the left and deciding on a new path in the movement for socialism in Australia’.
3. Communist League
4. Communist Party of Australia
5. Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)
6. Communist Workers Party of Australia — ‘Newspaper coming soon!’
7. Freedom Socialist Party
8. Progressive Labour Party [Facebook] — ‘With recent influx of new members we are re-launching during 2019 to expand our political impact. We invite all supporters to contact us on email to get involved in the re-launch.’ (Unlike the others on the list, the PLP is a non-Leninist grouping, and could be compared to the ‘Australian Workers Party’.)
9. Socialist Alliance
10. Socialist Alternative
11. Socialist Equality Party
12. Socialist Party — The Socialist Party has re-branded as ‘Socialist Action’. Previously a member of the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) — which underwent a split in 2019 — SA has instead opted to join the ‘International Socialist Alternative’, which one side in the split created in February 2020.
13. Solidarity
14. Spartacist League of Australia
15. Trotskyist Platform
16. Workers League

Not still having a crack :

The Socialist — A recent derivation from The Socialist Party, ‘The Socialist’ appears to be moribund.

See also : Being Left-Wing in Australia: Identity, Culture and Politics After Socialism, Geoff Robinson, Australian Scholarly Publishers, 2019.

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Yeah Nah Pasaran! #018 w Max Kaiser on Jews against fascism (then & now) : May 14, 2020

Posted on May 13, 2020 by @ndy

On this week’s episode of Yeah Nah, we talk to Max Keiser Kaiser about Jews against fascism. Max recently completed his PhD at the University of Melbourne (Between nationalism and assimilation: Jewish antifascism in Australia in the late 1940s and Early 1950s) and is co-host of the New Books in Jewish Studies podcast. Max’s thesis argues ‘that Jewish antifascism was a major political and cultural force in Australian Jewish communities in the 1940s and early 1950s. It charts the emergence of a non-nationalist and anti-assimilationist Australian Jewish antifascist political subjectivity, and examines its ideological basis, cultural and political practice, and the circumstances of the rapid demise of its hegemony.’

See also : Australian Jewish Democratic Society : Statement against fascism and Milo Yiannopoulos in Kensington (December 10, 2017) | antifa notes (december 2, 2016) : jewsagainstfascism ~versus~ One Nation Party (December 2, 2016).

4.30pm, Thursday, May 14, 2020 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

• 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.

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‘The Australian Scene’, Jack The Anarchist, Red & Black, No.5, April, 1973

Posted on May 11, 2020 by @ndy

Source : The Canberra Times, October 1, 1974.

[Source : ‘The Australian Scene’, Jack The Anarchist, Red & Black, No.5, April, 1973.]

After twenty painful years of struggle the A.L.P. finally succeeded in becoming a government. The event was greeted by the left as a triumph for radicalism and socialism.

The term “radicalism” often creeps into the New Left phraseology. It has been the catchword rallying all forces opposed to the war in Vietnam, to conscription, the Establishment and the Liberal Government. Soon after the defeat of the Liberals, the official termination of the Vietnam War, the end of conscription and the installment of a [Labor] government, radicalism has been quickly absorbed by the A.L.P. The reasons: its objectives were the old authoritarian socialist cliches: capture the state and change it into a weapon of the revolution. The facts: paradoxically, no socialist state is any nearer to socialism. The state is an extension and a creator of class divisions and social antagonism and, as such, is an extension of the bourgeoisie.

The radicals have dispersed, to appear here and there as staunch supporters of the A.L.P.’s policies. As its agents they are trying their quixotic task: to radicalize the Public Service and the Commonwealth Police. Also they are trying to smooth over the antagonism between labour and capital and to stabilize the existing social order. And so they are becoming the spearhead of the bourgeoisie.

Their proclivity to such nefarious activities lies in the radicals’ misconception of radicalism. If we adopt Webster’s definition of radicalism “overturning and changing the existing state of things” then the A.L.P. has no claim to it.

The A.L.P. is a conservative social democratic party. It stands for the stability of capitalism. It supports the existing social order. Its function is to paralyse any revolutionary awareness; to harmonize social antagonisms and thus prevent the workers from seeing through the liberal-bourgeois ideology. It encourages nationalism at the expense of internationalism and thus strengthens the dominant social relationship.

The war in Vietnam, the conscription, the myopic internal and external policy of the Liberals have produced confrontation between the forces of law and order and their opposition. In the process of confrontation there has been observed the awakening of a revolutionary tendency. To prevent such trands [sic] from materializing, the most progressive bourgeois shift allegiance from the Liberals to the A.L.P. Once in power A.L.P. militancy ends in Social Democratic social harmony. Social Democracy today more than ever stands for virulent aggressive neo-capitalism. Where the Liberals have failed labour tries to succeed, as usual at the expense of the revolution.

To speak of the A.L.P. as a socialist party is absurd. A party which preserves the capitalist structure in the mode of production, exchange and distribution cannot be classified, or thought of, as a socialist one. Socialism means workers’ self-management. It means autogestion, direct involvement and participation in the control of production, distribution and the problems of the environment. It means an end to the master-slave relationship, and its corollary: leaders and elitism. Socialism, stripped of its ideological content is pure anarchism. This was clearly understood by the anti-authoritarian sections of the [I]nternational in their congress at Saint-Imier one hundred years ago. They declared:*

1. The destruction of the political power is the first duty of the proletariat.
2. To organize the proletariat in a provisional political party capable of accelerating the destruction of the state is a deception and as dangerous as any of the existing governments.
3. We reject all compromises as a means to achieve the Social Revolution. The proletariat of all countries has to establish the solidarity of revolutionary action outside of all bourgeois politics.

But one may argue that for some socialists, radicals and leftists history does not exist except when it is used as an “historical method” to apologize for the historical function of their dysfunctional socialism and counter-revolutionary social practices.

*My translation.

See also : Jack ‘The Anarchist’ Grancharoff (1925–2016), May 21, 2016 | The Far Left in Australia since 1945, Jon Piccini, Evan Smith, Matthew Worley (eds), Routledge, 2018.

Source : Direct Action: Paper of the Industrial Workers of the World, Vol.1, No.14, Industrial Workers of the World, Sydney, October 1, 1914.

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Yeah Nah Pasaran! #017 w David Neiwert on militias, history, Trump & Hawaiian shirts : May 7, 2020

Posted on May 5, 2020 by @ndy

On this week’s episode of Yeah Nah, we talk to US journalist David Neiwert about Trump, the far-right, COVID-19, the AltRight, and history. David writes for Daily Kos and is the author of many books, including Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump (Verso, 2017/2019). David also has a blog and tweets here.

David was a guest at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival in 2018, and you can listen to him in conversation with Sally Warhaft here. On the AltRight, see also : Ctrl-Alt-Delete: An Antifascist Report on the Alternative Right (Kersplebedeb, 2017) | Making Sense of the Alt-Right, George Hawley, Columbia University Press, 2017 | Insurgent Supremacists: The U.S. Far Right’s Challenge to State and Empire, Matthew N. Lyons, Kersplebedeb/PM Press, 2018.

*Note that the podcast version of this episode contains a longer discussion with David.

4.30pm, Thursday, May 7, 2020 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

• 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.

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Yeah Nah Pasaran! #016 w Eviane Leidig on the far-right, India & The West : April 30, 2020

Posted on April 29, 2020 by @ndy

On this week’s episode of Yeah Nah, we talk to Eviane Leidig about Hindutva, India and the far-right. Evian is an Affiliate at the Center for Research on Extremism in Oslo, and her ‘doctoral dissertation traced transnational connections of the far right between India and the West, particularly through Indian diaspora supporters of Brexit and Trump in the UK and US’. Some of her recent writings include #CoronaJihad”: How the Far-Right in India is Responding to the Pandemic, Global Network on Extremism & Technology, April 15, 2020 and The Far-Right is Going Global, Foreign Policy, January 21, 2020.

See also : Yeah Nah Pasaran! #005 w Shuddhabrata Sengupta on BJP, CAA, Delhi & fascism in India : February 13, 2020 (February 12, 2020) | On Savitri Devi and esoteric neo-Nazism, see : Hitler’s Priestess: Savitri Devi, the Hindu-Aryan Myth, and Neo-Nazism, Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, NYU Press, 1998. For shits + giggles, hear : Spear of Longinus, the Brisbane-based reich ‘n’ rollers and sometime devotees of Hitler’s Priestess.

4.30pm, Thursday, April 30, 2020 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

• 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.

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Yeah Nah Pasaran! #015 w Patrik Hermansson on (Infiltration &) The International Alt-Right : April 23, 2020

Posted on April 22, 2020 by @ndy

On this week’s episode of Yeah Nah we speak to Patrik Hermansson, a researcher with Hope Not Hate in the UK and a co-author of The International Alt-Right: Fascism for the 21st Century? (Routledge, 2020). In 2016/7, Patrik infiltrated Alt-Right networks in Europe and North America, the resultant exposes proving to have had some disruptive effects:

Over the last year, we have infiltrated the very heart of the UK far-right, from which we have gained access to some of the most important alt-right figures in the world. The information we gleaned is spread across this report and the whole story is also told in detail. This unprecedented access allows us to understand the alt-right like never before and allows us to expose their often extreme and sometimes dangerous world. This report includes bizarre and even funny details about the esoteric and extreme UK movement, never before seen photos of leading American alt-right figures such as Greg Johnson, and exposes claims by Jason Jorjani from AltRight Corp that he had links to the Trump administration.

See : We Had a Spy on the Inside, That’s Right, Patrik Hermansson, Hope Not Hate, September 24, 2017 | Undercover With the Alt-Right, Jesse Singal, The New York Times, September 19, 2017. See also : The Murky World of ‘Extremism’ Research, Richard McNeil-Willson, The New Ethnographer, April 15, 2020.

4.30pm, Thursday, April 23, 2020 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

• 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.

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Yeah Nah Pasaran! #014 w Anastasia Kanjere on Fascists in & out of uniform : April 16, 2020

Posted on April 15, 2020 by @ndy

On this week’s episode of Yeah Nah, we speak to academic and writer Anastasia Kanjere about critical race theory (CRT), whiteness studies, and the contemporary Australian far right. Anastasia presented a paper titled ‘Fascists in and out of uniform: making sense of street fascism in the broader context of white supremacy’ at the Histories of Fascism And Anti-Fascism in Australasia Symposium in Adelaide in December last year; fingers crossed it’ll be published at some point. See also : A “Policing Point of View”: On The Borders of the Polity, XBorder, July 29, 2015.

*For those wanting to explore some of the issues and texts referred to in the interview, on the origins of CRT Anastasia recommends: James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name (1961); Derrick Bell, Faces At The Bottom Of The Well (1992); Angela Davis, If They Come in the Morning (1971); Richard Dyer, White (1997); Toni Morrison, Playing In The Dark (1992). On Noel ‘Race Traitor’ Ignatiev, see : Our Symposium on the Life and Work of Noel Ignatiev, Insurgent Notes, March 16, 2020. See also : Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association.

**See also : White Privilege // Whiteness Studies (October 7, 2008) /// Whites not all right! Anti-White Conference bad! Exclamation marks good!!! (December 5, 2008) /// The Invention of the White Race (May 29, 2009) …

4.30pm, Thursday, April 16, 2020 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

• 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.

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A Tribute To Black Star (1996 — 2020)

Posted on April 11, 2020 by @ndy

Sad but true.

After almost 25 years of service, the Black Star PA Collective has dissolved.

The Black Star PA Collective (BSC) has recently announced that they’re winding-up as a collective. For 24 years, BSC provided audio for the activist and underground music communities of Melbourne. To compile a definitive list would be impossible, but some of the events they provided sound production for included the Friends of the Earth annual ball and Such is Life punk festival, fundraisers for the Goongerah Environment Centre (GECO), and numerous gigs at the Pink Palace, Black Goat and other DIY venues.

BSC also provided sound for many rallies and protest actions, both big and small. These included S11 (the protests in Melbourne in September 2000 against the ruling-class summit known as the World Economic Forum), May Days, refugee solidarity events (including the infamous ‘Woomera Breakout’), the enormous anti-war rally of February 2003, anti-racist and anti-fascist protests, and numerous other events organised by local anarchist and socialist groups.

BSC’s remaining equipment is being sold and the proceeds donated to various worthy causes around town. A portion is also being donated to the Solidarity Sound System Collective, ensuring that the good vibes and righteous anger BSC helped fuel over many years carries on into the future …

A sincere and heartfelt thank you to BSC for all its efforts over the years — you rock!

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