4.30pm, Thursday, May 12, 2022 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website
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On this week’s episode of Yeah Nah Pasaran! on 3CR we talk to semi-regular US correspondent Jason Wilson [Twitter]. We last spoke to Jason in October last year about all the cool and normel responses to COVID-19. Having been a regular columnist with The Guardian, Jason is now working with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). We spoke to him about American neo-Nazi leader Rob Rundo’s recent adventures, the problem with Todd Sampson’s flirtations with Rundo’s kameraden Down Under and the political meaning and significance of the elevation of anti-trans sentiment in the United States.
4.30pm, Thursday, May 5, 2022 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website
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Nominations for the 2022 Australian federal election have now been officially confirmed and — despite rumours that communists, socialists and other ‘far’ leftists lurk within the bosom of the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Greens — there’s only a smol handful of self-proclaimed socialists taking to the parliamentary barricades this year.
Sadly, having been de-registered by the Australian Electoral Commission in June 2021, the Australian Workers Party appears not to be running any candidates in 2022. Further, Ron Poulsen of the Communist League has once again failed to nominate for a seat, and no Communists of any other variety would appear to have thrown their flatcap into the ring. Happily, the Australian Progressives are fielding candidates in the race for the Senate in the ACT and Victoria, while Janine Rees is battling over Ryan (NSW) and Angela Fulco wants to steal Sturt (WA) from the Liberals. Finally, in a special 2022 BONUS!, Drew Pavlou’s Democratic Alliance wants to ‘give power back to the people’ by first installing itself in the Lower House seats of Chisholm (VIC) and Stuart (WA) and in QLD, NSW and SA in the Upper House. Note that, while Pavlou has described himself as a libertarian socialist, (Dr) Joe Toscano, formerly of ‘Libertarian Workers for a Self-Managed Society’, wants to put ‘Public Interests Before Corporate Interests’ by running for a seat in the Senate in Victoria.
Socialist Alliance
SAll is running five candidates for the House of Representatives — Sue Bolton in Wills and Sue Bull in Corio (VIC), Andrew Chuter in Sydney (NSW), Pat O’Shane in Leichhardt (QLD) and Sam Wainwright in Fremantle (WA) — and Senate tickets in NSW, QLD, VIC and WA. The Party recommends ‘preferences to socialist and Greens candidates ahead of the ALP, ALP before the Coalition parties and far right parties last’.
Socialist Equality Party
Our candidates are SEP assistant national secretary Max Boddy and WSWS writer Oscar Grenfell in NSW, longtime party member Peter Byrne and an International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) leader, Jason Wardle, in Victoria, and longstanding WSWS correspondent Mike Head and another IYSSE leader, John Davis, in Queensland. Their biographical details and how to vote for them as the SEP candidates can be found here.
Like the AWP, in February 2022 the SEP was de-registered by the AEC, but they can’t. won’t and don’t stahp campaigning on ‘A socialist program of action for the working class to oppose war and fight COVID-19 and austerity’.
Victorian Socialists
VS are running 11 Lower House Candidates in Victoria (Calwell, Cooper, Fraser, Gellibrand, Gorton, Hawke, Lalor, Maribyrnong, Melbourne, Scullin and Wills) and Aran Mylvaganam for a seat in the Senate. VS fared reasonably well at the 2019 Australian federal election all things considered, and also upon debut at the 2018 Victorian state election. But whether or not it can improve upon these performances is somewhat doubtful, and I don’t see the sense of splitting the socialist vote in Wills (Bolton versus Black).
On this week’s episode of Yeah Nah Pasaran! on 3CR we talk to Anke Richter [Twitter]. Anke is a Kiwi-Kraut, freelance journalist and foreign correspondent, taz columnist, lover and writer of books. Anke has also been involved with FACT Aotearoa (Fight Against Conspiracy Theories Aotearoa): ‘a grass-roots activist group made up of volunteers from all professions’ which is ‘committed to fighting against harmful conspiracy theories that harm the very fabric of New Zealand society’.
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Today, anti-fascist research group The White Rose Society published a statement regarding an upcoming documentary by TV personality Todd Sampson. It draws attention to a key failing of media reportage on fascism and the far right: uncritically amplifying the views of neo-Nazis. You can also read Tom Tanuki’s thoughts on the matter here. For the record, I too was contacted by the producers, expressed a willingness to talk to them, but … they never got back to me (see also : Romper Stomper Pulls On Its Boots Again (But Forgets To Thread Its Laces), January 13, 2018).
Recently we, and a number of other antifascists, were approached by Rebecca Le Tourneau @becletourneau to discuss a documentary she is producing with Todd Sampson @toddsampsonOz on radicalisation and social media. We agreed to a background chat with her.
Tonight we found out on Telegram that @toddsampsonOz is working on the documentary with two of Australia’s most hateful and violent neo-Nazis, Blair Cottrell and Tom Sewell.
Here is Tom Sewell vague posting about his involvement in the documentary, sandwiched in between a post to celebrate Hitler’s Birthday yesterday. [snip]
Here is Blair Cottrell announcing his involvement in the project by posting a photograph with a smiling @toddsampsonOz (and Tom Sewell in the background of the shot).
The violent Islamophobic rhetoric of neo-Nazis Blair Cottrell and Tom Sewell and their group the United Patriots Front, were a major factor in the radicalisation of Brenton Tarrant and his act of terror, slaughtering 51 Muslims at prayer in Christchurch.
National Socialist Network and Tom Sewell have also made repeated Antisemitic and violent threats towards colleagues of @becletourneau and @toddsampsonOz.
The Australian media’s Islamophobic rhetoric and platforming of neo-Nazis like Blair Cottrell, (including on Sky News where @becletourneau was a producer), were also major contributing factors in the radicalisation of Brenton Tarrant and the rise of fascism in Australia.
The Murdoch empire is so desperate to avoid a #MurdochRoyalCommission that they'll take any distraction they can. What's their latest tactic? A "documentary" about me and @TurnbullMalcolm, hosted by right-wing hatchet man Chris Kenny! No thanks, Chrisums, not this time… pic.twitter.com/qOvd0z7KtC
The Australian government and media’s own complicity in the terrorist attacks in Christchurch is yet to be reckoned with in Australia. How many times must we draw the attention of journalists to The Oxygen of Amplification?
We advise any antifascists or academics that have been approached by Rebecca Le Tourneau or Todd Sampson about their documentary to tell them to fuck off. Nothing good can come from providing a platform to violent neo-Nazis. No pasarán.
On this week’s episode of Yeah Nah Pasaran! on 3CR we talk to Andy Campbell [Twitter]. Andy is a senior editor and reporter at HuffPost, focusing on crime and extremism. He’s also the author of We Are Proud Boys: How a Right-Wing Street Gang Ushered in a New Era of American Extremism, which will be published by Hachette in October:
After the 2016 election, Americans witnessed a frightening trend: the sudden rise of a host of new extremist groups across the country. Emboldened by a new president, they flooded political rallies and built fervent online presences, expanding rapidly until they were a regular sight at everyday demonstrations. Amid the chaos, one group emerged as a leader among the others, with matching outfits, bizarre rituals, and a reputation for violence: the Proud Boys.
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The Anarchist Inquisition explores the groundbreaking transnational human rights campaigns that emerged in response to a brutal wave of repression unleashed by the Spanish state to quash anarchist activities at the turn of the twentieth century. Mark Bray guides readers through this tumultuous era—from backroom meetings in Paris and torture chambers in Barcelona, to international antiterrorist conferences in Rome and human rights demonstrations in Buenos Aires.
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Last week, neo-Nazi keyboard warrior and Australia First Party member Nathan Sykes was sentenced to a 19-month intensive corrections order (ICO) and ordered to perform 150 hours of community service:– Herr Sykes had previously pleaded guilty to using a carriage service to threaten serious harm to a journalist who’d written things about him he didn’t like. For example: ‘In a ramshackle inner Sydney boarding house, surrounded by his collection of Adolf Hitler dolls, a 48-year-old unemployed neo-Nazi plies his trade as one of Australia’s most aggressive online trolls.’
While Syke’s ICO presumably means he can no longer issue threats to harm others — he sent messages to the journalist threatening to smash him “to a f***ing pulp” and “circumcise you into a carrot”, and further proclaimed that he was going to “absolutely f***ing destroy you” and “torture you to an absolute delight” — I don’t know whether it permits him to continue to publish propaganda online. To date, Sykes’ output has included numerous anti-Semitic screeds for ‘The Daily Stormer’, spirited defences of his party and its leader James Saleam by way of the defunct blogs ‘Whitelaw Towers’ and ‘United Nationalists Australia’ and various other fascist vituperations. Currently, Sykes maintains a blog called ‘New Australian Bulletin’ (and its associated YouTube channel) which champions white nationalism, glorifies Saleam, and attacks their various opponents on the right.
Given the utterly demented nature of his writing, it’s certainly no great loss to literature if Sykes is temporarily prevented from sharing it with the world. As Paddy Gibson has observed, ‘his online bulletin is a cesspit of extreme racism and homophobia that has published calls for violence against many, including me – and advertised my home address’. As it happens, Gibson’s home was allegedly attacked in December, and last month a man was arrested and charged as a result (Man charged over alleged attack on the home of Sydney activist Paddy Gibson, Nino Bucci, The Guardian, March 30, 2022):
Police say they were called to a home in Sydney’s south in December following reports three men had demanded to speak to the occupant and smashed windows. Gibson and his partner were in their home at the time of the alleged incident. On Tuesday, NSW police charged a 30-year-old man in relation to the alleged attack. A spokesperson confirmed the man was charged with affray, stalking or intimidating another person with the intention of causing the other person to fear physical or mental harm, and possessing a prohibited weapon.
Fingers crossed, Herr Sykes spends the next 19 months at home playing with his dolls rather than making death threats and engaging in racist abuse online.
[Last week’s episode was a repeat of our interview with Antti Rautiainen on ‘The Network’, Russia & anti-fascism, first broadcast on April 2, 2020.]
On this week’s episode of Yeah Nah Pasaran! on 3CR we talk to Dr Stephanie Alice Baker [Twitter], a senior lecturer in sociology at the City University of London, where she studies medical misinformation/disinformation, influencer and wellness culture.
4.30pm, Thursday, April 7, 2022 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website
• This episode will be available on Apple, Spotify and other platforms after broadcast.
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With a federal election just around the corner, now is the time that Australia’s best and brightest political thinkers and doers really start to shine. With things like The Economy, The National Interest and Freedom always on their mind, the public is treated to a truly spectacular display of The Battle of Ideas. This is democracy manifest, and only a Cultural Marxist would claim that nothing appears more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers.
That said, yesterday I was delighted to discover that Elvis Sinosic, Cliev’s sockpuppet in Blaxland, has discovered Shane Warne’s soon. According to Sinosic, Shane Warne’s soon espouses many remarkable beliefs, including radical skepticism towards the use of vaccines.
Of course, Shane Warne’s soon is better known as Blair Cottrell: a neo-Nazi social media personality, convicted racist, arsonist and stalker. Sadly, Sinosic was unable to tag Cottrell to express thanks for his hard hitting truths because the aspiring fuehrer was banned from Twitter after joking about raping a journalist. Happily, you can easily find our brave ANZAC grooming teenyboppers on Twitter-For-Nazis (Gab) and Telegram. Of course, one of Cottrell’s YUGEST fans was not a teenybopper but the Christchurch killer, who called him ‘Emperor’ and expressed a desire to kill Cottrell’s critics. (Note that Cottrell is back in Frankston Magistrates’ Court on April 28.)
As for the anti-vaccine sentiment shared by the convicted neo-Nazi, hard-working billionaire and his gym-owning flunky, while it may have animated thousands to take to the streets in protest in recent months, it’s thus far been unable to find coherent expression at the ballot box. Despite reviving itself in South Australia in order to ride the wave of ressentiment generated by government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, as Tom Tanuki and Cam Wilson have pointed out, PHONy has failed to capitalise on the stoopid, and the movement as a whole is struggling to maintain its momentum as 2022 unfolds.
Finally, REVEALED: AMONGST US – NEO NAZI AUSTRALIA is ‘an eye-opening investigation led by 12-time Walkley Award-winner and two-time Australian journalist of the year Nick McKenzie that explores the terrifying rise of neo Nazi activity in Australia’. It was released on Stan on March 27. (Note that Tom Sewell is back in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on May 20.)
Two Greek anarchists are making molotov cocktails. One says to the other: "So who will we throw these at then?" The other replies: "What are you, some kind of fucking intellectual?"
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