Yeah Nah Pasaran! #164 w Siân Norris on Bodies Under Siege: How the Far–Right Attack on Reproductive Rights Went Global : June 1, 2023

This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! we talk to Siân Norris [Twitter]. Siân is a writer and the author of Bodies Under Siege: How the Far–Right Attack on Reproductive Rights Went Global (Verso, 2023):

Think today’s anti-abortion ideas are rooted in religious prohibitions or arguments about where life begins? Wrong: today’s anti-abortion movements [are] largely financed and planned by far-right extremists. Many of them are avowedly fascist and white supremacist, afraid of a “great replacement” of the world’s white population by other races, who are working hard to reshape governments and policies across Europe, North America and around the world. Much of this far-right organizing and funding network, however, has been overlooked by today’s feminist and left movements.

As investigative journalist Sian Norris uncovers here, it is through attacking abortion rights that fascist ideas from the dark web, incel chat boards, and fringe organizations comes to enter mainstream debate — and to then shape governmental policy across Europe, from authoritarian regimes like Hungary’s to liberal democracies like Britain. As Norris goes undercover at anti-abortion activist meetings, and pieces together the money trail linking American think tanks to far-right fascist groups, she maps out the pipeline by which fascism has become respectable across the Global North by taking away women’s reproductive rights and autonomy.

You can read more of Siân’s work at Byline Times, The Guardian and elsewhere.

4.30pm, Thursday, June 1, 2023 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

• This episode will be available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify and other platforms after broadcast.
• We also have a Facebook page for the show, which you’re invited to ‘Like’ and to ‘Follow’.
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Yeah Nah Pasaran! #163 w Kristina Stoeckl on The Moralist International: Russia in the Global Culture Wars : May 25, 2023

This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! we talk to Kristina Stoeckl [Twitter]. Kristina is a professor of sociology at LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome, an adjunct professor at the University of Innsbruck and the author, with Dmitry Uzlaner, of The Moralist International: Russia in the Global Culture Wars (Fordham University Press, 2022):

The Moralist International analyzes the role of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian state in the global culture wars over gender and reproductive rights and religious freedom. It shows how the Russian Orthodox Church in the past thirty years first acquired knowledge about the dynamics, issues, and strategies of Right-Wing Christian groups; how the Moscow Patriarchate has shaped its traditionalist agenda accordingly; and how the close alliance between church and state has turned Russia into a norm entrepreneur for international moral conservativism. Including detailed case studies of the World Congress of Families, anti-abortion activism, and the global homeschooling movement, the book identifies the key factors, causes, and actors of this process. Kristina Stoeckl and Dmitry Uzlaner then develop the concept of conservative aggiornamento to describe Russian traditionalism as the result of conservative religious modernization and the globalization of Christian social conservatism.

NB. The Moralist International is available from the publisher on an open-access basis.

See/hear also : Yeah Nah Pasaran! #121 w Robert Horvath on Putin’s Fascists : June 23, 2022 (June 21, 2022) | In Italy’s city of love, global far-right groups join forces under a ‘pro-family’ umbrella, Kara Fox, CNN, March 31, 2019 | Russia and the Western Far Right, Anton Shekhovtsov, Routledge, 2018.

4.30pm, Thursday, May 25, 2023 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

• This episode will be available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify and other platforms after broadcast.
• We also have a Facebook page for the show, which you’re invited to ‘Like’ and to ‘Follow’.
• I have a Patreon account which youse are also invited to support.

Bonus! Kiera Butler

Last week, Cam had a yarn with Kiera Butler about Lawyers, Moms and Money.

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Nazi Rally @ Victorian Parliament, May 13, 2023

On Saturday, May 13, the neo-Nazi groupuscule ‘National Socialist Network’ (NSN) organised a rally at Parliament House in Melbourne. Desperately unhappy at being unable to afford to leave their parents’ leafy homes in the eastern suburbs, approximately 30 NSN members attended the event. There, under the direction of their fuehrer Tom Sewell, the boys briefly unfurled a banner demanding greater Lebensraum — both for themselves but, more importantly, their infantile phantasies of racial superiority.

Having announced that they’d assemble at midday, the nazis cheekily rocked up several hours early. Happily, that meant they were treated to some good old-fashioned YARDing by local comedian Sean Bedlam. However, not long after having been granted the chance to realise their main aim — a photo opportunity — the slow-witted but fast-moving police who’d joined the nazis on the steps of parliament — placed under some pressure from oppositional elements (see below) — ushered them off the stage and into Spring Street. There, many more police — on foot, mounted and utilising capsicum spray — were mobilised in order to facilitate the nazi parade, and to defend it from hundreds of anti-fascists who’d gathered in opposition.

In the end — which was half-an-hour before the official kick-off time of 12 o’clock — police eventually decided to escort the nazis away from parliament and to the nearby Fitzroy Gardens. There the budding génocidaires spent a short while recuperating (and graciously providing an opportunity to be d0xxed) before leaving the city. Sadly, at least one of their vehicles — which included a 2012 blue Holden Captiva, registration number ZAY 124, a 2008 red Holden Commodore (WMM 800), a 2007 red Ford Falcon (URF 470) and a 2006 blue Holden Berlina (UHD 454) — had developed some serious tyre problems in the meantime.

As expected, media reportage obsessed over the fact that there was some conflict between members of the NSN and counter-protesters and that police used violence in order to ensure the brief rally could take place and the NSN could be safely escorted from the area. To date, only two arrests have been reported (both of which would appear to have been of anti-fascists) though this may change as police review their own, surveillance and media footage. The sight of seig-heiling neo-Nazis parading outside parliament also inevitably produced the usual denunciations by political leaders and various other worthies.

plus ça change

See : Federal government labels neo-Nazis ‘political lunatics’ following violent clash at anti-immigration rally, Andi Yu and Phoebe Hosier, ABC | Two arrested as neo-Nazi group clashes with police at Victorian Parliament, Lachlan Abbott and Ashleigh McMillan, The Age | Neo-Nazis clash with police and counter-protesters at anti-immigration rally in Melbourne, Nino Bucci, The Guardian.

Above : Former ‘mummawarrior’ against Safe Schools turned secretary of ‘March for the Babies’ turned Liberal MP Moira Deeming being interviewed for ‘The UnHinged’ blog by editor Tim ‘Right Wing Death Squad’ Wilms.

• Leaving aside their attendance at ANZAC Day commemorations, the last time Sewell and his Lads rallied in public was on March 18, when they joined fans of right-wing grifter Posie Parker in denouncing local trans* communities. On that occasion, the local Hitler Yoof were able to take advantage of the additional protection afforded by police not only to the ‘foreign agitator’ but to local Liberal MP Moira Deeming. Deeming’s participation in the rally subsequently created severe headaches for the Victorian Liberals, which culminated on Friday with her expulsion from the parliamentary party room (if not, as she insists, the party itself). The anti-abortionist/’women’s rights’ campaigner is definitely not the sort to turn the other cheek and, in this context, I would like to state — for the record — that, in my view, Moira Deeming is a brilliant woman with lots of well thought-out, practical ideas. She is ensuring the political stability of her party for years to come. Oh yes, and her social media is above reproach.

• Convicted spousal abuser and serial pest Avi Yemini, having given a chummy interview to Lady Parker after the March 18 rally and already a nodding acquaintance with various local neo-Nazi activists, took the opportunity of this second rally to have a friendly chat with aspiring Victorian Gauleiter Tom Sewell. Prior to this grilling, Yeminem was reported to have been bonked on the head, but mostly he seems to have suffered (and got vewy angwy) from being reminded of his cowardly abuse.

• Curiously, while police declared the area around parliament a designated area and thus subject to the provisions of the Control of Weapons Act 1990 (10KA), they chose not to avail themselves of the opportunity to unmask the young nazis they’d gathered in order to protect. For those of you coming in late:

The Crimes Legislation Amendment (Public Order) Bill 2017 was introduced into parliament by the Victorian Attorney General, Martin Pakula to allow “new measures to prevent serious disturbances of public order, including outbreaks of violence at protests, demonstrations and other public events.” The intense media and public outcry after the clashes between neo-nazi and Antifa groups in Coburg in May 2016 meant that the pressure was on to introduce laws that make it look like the government is doing something about this.

Of course, this has not prevented anti-fascists from unmasking several of the participants in Sewell’s latest stunt and, unfortunately for them, his hare-brained schemes are certain to expose others. The video above, produced by the White Rose Society, names Jack Bell, Will Casdorff, Jesse Casdorff, Graham Connolly, Kai Cooper, Stephen Eracleous, Vincent Grillo, Ethan Hendren, David Hiscox, Tim Lutze, Rebecca Morris, Michael Nelson, Brodie ‘Cousin Lover’ Potts, Jimmy ‘The Neck’ Roberts, Raphael Smith and Jeremy White as NSN members. (See also : “The NSN is dead! Long live the NSN!” (September 9, 2021).) Having long since come out of the closet as a neo-Nazi, in January Sewell was sentenced to an 18-month community corrections order with 150 hours of community service for affray and recklessly causing injury, but the silly bugger from Balwyn is back again in court in a few months when he’ll be contesting charges arising from an alleged altercation in the Cathderal Range. While Sewell says he works full-time as a labourer and apprentice, word on the street is that, in addition to public embarrassment and a flat tyre or two, a number of his flunkys have experienced technical difficulties of their own with regards gainful employment.

• Several years ago, a Queensland electrician called Simon Hickey gained a small measure of internet fame as the ‘Nazi Sparky‘ after he became the official sponsor of Andrew Anglin’s blog ‘The Daily Stormer’. (In Australia, its principal contributor was convicted stalker, Australia First Party activist and NSN critic Nathan Sykes.) More recently, another small business owner, Jack Eltis, was reported as being the leader of the NSN franchise in NSW: ‘The NSN’s New South Wales cell leader is Jack Eltis, a tradesman who has conducted training events for neo-Nazis in NSW … “The men in our organisation know that no temporary sacrifice is too great for the future of the white race,” he says.’

• While not exactly setting the streets alight with Aryan supremacy, the nazis can claim a little victory in helping to shutdown drag queen events. As Cait Kelly notes (Councils call off drag storytime and LGBTQ+ events in Victoria after far-right threats, The Guardian, May 13, 2023):

Several councils across Victoria have quietly cancelled drag queen storytime and LGBTQ+ events after threats from far-right groups’Last week Monash council cancelled a drag storytime event scheduled for International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) after angry protesters derailed a council meeting. Several other local government areas have quietly followed suit, calling off family-friendly queer events planned for IDAHOBIT on 17 May.

The lesson here is that threats of violence towards performers and audiences works wonders, especially when the targets include families, children and young people. And even if the NSN has been joined by numerous other motivated actors in pressuring authorities to cancel these events, the lengths police are prepared to go in order to protect public assemblies by nazis stands in vivid contrast to their willingness to defend LGBTQIA+ events from nazi and anti-queer attack.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Bonus! Reddit-ed Account

• The NSN arrived at parliament early, around 9.25am. While other anti-fascists began arriving from around 10am, the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism (CARF) counter-protest was scheduled for 11.30am. Upon arrival, a small affinity group of antifascists penetrated the barricaded area surrounding parliament and ‘got up in the faces of the NSN, yelling at them by name. The nazis promptly lost their minds while police, who’d previously been having a laugh on the steps with the fascists, ran to push back the antifascists. Chaos ensued and, honeymoon over, the nazis scuffled with the cops as they were forced from the steps. One of the nazis, Nathan Bull (whose father is police), took a tumble and hit concrete. Another nazi, Jimeone ‘The Neck’/’Neckhole’ Roberts, got sprayed and arrested.’ (Roberts may have been the ’30-year-old Doreen man arrested for theft of a police body camera and assaulting police’.) Upon being given a move-on order by police, the NSN were followed by anti-fascists through side-streets, more scuffles followed and a can of something hit NSN leader Tom Sewell and he went down. Police responded with indiscriminate use of capsicum spray, hitting one of their own officers in the process, and detaining a number of people. Naarm Frontline Medics treated police casualties, while anti-fascists kept watch. The NSN had originally planned to crash the Nakba Rally at the State Library but needless to say, they never made it.

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antifa notes (may 11, 2023) : Vigilantes in Rockhampton, Nazis vs. Drag Queens +++

Rocky Justice

On Sunday, a lynch mob small group of concerned citizens attended several residences in Rockhampton they believed were sheltering criminals.

Their leader was Torin ‘TJ’ O’Brien and the alleged criminals were Indigenous youth.

9News described O’Brien as a ‘Local Muay Thai gym owner [who] had previously posted a $5000 reward on social media for information on youths believed to have robbed a home in town’, while subsequent reportage noted that O’Brien was a former PHONy candidate. On Tuesday, The Guardian revealed that the ‘Rockhampton mob ringleader was head of [a] ‘patriots’ group that posted anti-Islam content’: the group in question being the ‘Patriots Defence League’ of Australia (PDLA).

The PDLA first crossed my radar in July 2014, when a group employing that name (which had split from the ‘Australian Defence League’) held an event in Adelaide. In September 2014, I wrote an article for New Matilda about the ADL and terrorism. In it I referred to another article by Chris Johnston (Bendigo mosque a cause celebre for right-wing outsiders, The Age, June 27, 2014) which located the PDLA within a broader array of similar groups — Restore Australia, PHONy, Stop the Mosque In Bendigo, The Q Society, Defence Conservative Action Network, Concerned Citizens et. al. — while my own concluded as follows:

The changing political emphases of the far right and the attempt to build an Australian equivalent of the English Defence League demonstrates the flexible, syncretic nature of fascist ideology; the various conflicts, splinters, and rivalries the fractious nature of the milieu. In one sense, the ADL has found its real home on social media, allowing for the articulation and reinforcement of Islamophobic tropes which, the ADL hopes, will someday soon be translated into real mass action against Muslims.

In the next few years, these hopes gained some solid foundations and, while limited in scope, mass action took the form of public protests (against the construction of Bendigo mosque, halal foods and other expressions of Islamic life in Australia) along with political campaigns by various micro-parties. Also entryism and coalition-building among different elements of a broader far-right, both religious and secular. Such actions helped to foster a culture from which individualised actions arose: the most vivid and horrific demonstration of anti-Muslim feeling being enacted by one man in Christchurch in March, 2019.

In any event, to return to O’Brien and the PDLA, as I noted in December 2020:

…the PDLA continues to maintain dozens of pages and groups on Facebook, and one of its lvl bosses, Torin ‘TJ’ O’Brien, was Pauline Hanson’s nominee for Rockhampton at the Queensland state election in October. You may remember TJ from such cunning stunts as registering the PDLA as an ‘advocacy group for domestic violence victims’; quite something for a body devoted to eradicating Muslims (sadly, the Queensland Office of Fair Trading disagreed with TJ, and deregistered the organisation). Anyway, TJ got 3,714 votes for Pauline, winning third place after Labor and the LNP.

The context for this passing remark was the November sentencing of fellow ‘patriot’ Phill Galea to 12 years in prison after Galea was found guilty of conspiring to blow up various of his political opponents (myself included). Galea thus had the dubious honour of being the first ‘patriot’/’right-wing extremist’ to be convicted of terrorist offences in Australia (at least during the ongoing and seemingly-endless ‘War on Terror’ inaugurated by 9/11). In the years since, a number of other ‘extremists’ have been charged with alleged terrorist offences.

In an interview with 3AW’s Neil Mitchell on Monday, O’Brien announced that he’d compiled a list of 10 or so addresses in Rockhampton belonging to alleged criminals that he intended to visit. He also declared his intention to place pressure on the real estate agencies responsible for letting the properties. Subsequently, and following further media scrutiny, O’Brien’s Facebook account has been terminated, and a meeting with the ‘hopeless’ (according to O’Brien) MP for Rockhampton, Barry O’Rourke, has been cancelled.

See also : Fears of more vigilante mobs after Aboriginal men’s house surrounded in Rockhampton, Dan Butler, NITV, May 10, 2023.

The incident brought to mind similar events, such as when some patriotic Volk attended Catherine Deveny’s house in Melbourne in April 2018, when nazi serial pest Neil Erikson & Co. disrupted a church service in Gosford in May 2018, when Proud Boy turned neo-Nazi turned Fink Jarrad Searby paid a friendly visit to the presumed homes of critics in Albury-Wodonga in February 2021, when Mike Holt of Restore Australia fame published what he falsely alleged to be my own address on Facebook in March 2015 and so on and so forth. Some elements of these and other stories may be found in Ginger Gorman’s Troll Hunting: Inside the world of online hate and its human fallout (Hardie Grant, 2019), from which the following account of Deveny’s encounter is drawn:

After making controversial comments on Twitter and Facebook about Anzac Day in 2018 — describing it as ‘Bogan Halloween’ and a ‘fetishisation of war and violence’ — she was doxxed multiple times. Her home address was posted all over the internet and she received an avalanche of credible rape and death threats. She was the focus of several Facebook hate groups. One night, five men in a ute turned up to her house. One of them knocked on her door and videoed himself doing it … In contrast to many who’d gone before her, Deveny received significant and appropriate support.

Nazis: 1 def. Drag Queens: 0

While publicly threatening or seeking to intimidate others with violence can sometimes create legal issues for those responsible, it can also prove to be a remarkably effective political tool. Hence when neo-Nazis and others threatened a drag queen story time event scheduled to take place at an Oakleigh library this Friday, Victoria police advised Monash council to cancel the event, and its CEO agreed. Surprisingly, this didn’t provoke front-page headlines on any NewsCorpse property. Following several previous such cancellations, however, it did demonstrate the need for LGBTQIA+ communities to discuss possible responses, and some of these may be found in Richard Watts’ series for ArtsHub (see : Queer culture is under attack: fighting back, May 4, 2023).

Keyboard Warriors

After having written about several local fashy keyboard mashers, Cam Wilson has returned with news that one of these gentlemen, Sam Duncan, the Daily Mail reporter who ran a secret racist Twitter account is now an editor there (Crikey, May 5, 2023).

Hurrah for the blackshirts!

Along with Duncan, Wilson also wrote about Luke Hollowood, a contributor to Tim Wilms’ blog ‘The UnShackled’ — or, as I like to call it, ‘The Unhinged’. Armed with poor social skills and a rich imagination, Wilms has never met a right-wing extremist he didn’t like. Consequently, scores have featured on his propaganda network over the course of the last decade. Wilms’ embrace of the far-right has extended to wearing its merchandise, including promoting the notion of ‘Right Wing Death Squads’ (RWDS). And while gun massacres are seemingly a daily occurrence in the United States, a mass murder in Texas on May 6, in which thirty-three-year old Mauricio Garcia ‘shot and killed eight people and wounded at least seven others at a busy mall north of Dallas on Saturday’ has direct relevance. According to Hannah Gais, Michael Edison Hayden, Rachel Janik and Megan Squire:

Garcia’s social media history suggests he has a long history with fringe radical-right internet communities, due to the frequency with which he referred to their esoteric symbols and memes. He posted to Odnoklassniki photos of hand-drawn symbols associated with the radical right, including “Deus Vult” crosses, SS lightning bolts, swastikas and references to “right wing death squads,” a meme that celebrates extrajudicial killing on behalf of a fascist state. He also drew and posted photos of helicopters, which reference the killing of dissidents under the 20th-century regime of authoritarian Chilean President Augusto Pinochet. Garcia also shared photos that appear to be selfies on Odnoklassniki showing that he tattooed the logo of the Schutzstaffel, or SS, a Nazi-era paramilitary organization, and a swastika on his body sometime between 2022 and 2023.

For Bellingcat, Aric Toller writes ‘On 21 April, a photograph of a vest with the RWDS (Right-Wing Death Squad) patch that Garcia wore during the shooting was shared on the OK account’ (Tracing the Odnoklassniki Profile of the Texas Mall Shooter, May 8, 2023), while in The Progressive, Zach D. Roberts elaborates upon How the Texas Shooter’s RWDS Patch Became a Meme (May 11, 2023).

Still, it’s all just for the lulz, eh Tim.

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Yeah Nah Pasaran! #161 w Ali Breland on Groypers, Germans & Internet Grotesques : May 11, 2023

This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! we talk to Ali Breland [Twitter]. Ali writes about the internet, politics, and disinformation for Mother Jones. His most recent contributions to the zine include The Website That Wants You to Kill Yourself—and Won’t Die (‘How the trolls on Kiwi Farms hounded people to commit suicide and created the online culture we have today’) and It Came From the Basement (‘How Nick Fuentes groomed a new generation of racist hate’). He’s also responsible for Surviving Germany’s Neo-Nazi Resurgence in The New Republic (April 26, 2023).

• On Kiwi Farms, see also : Hard lessons for Australia from the Drop Kiwi Farms campaign, Natalie Feliks, Overland, September 29, 2022 | Uncovered Tweets Show Katherine Deves Seemingly Encouraging Visits To A Far-Right Forum, Michael Di Iorio, Pedestrian, May 20, 2020 (‘In a string of now-deleted tweets from 2021, Deves seemingly encourages her followers to visit Kiwi Farms, calling it a “valuable” source of information’).

• On Nick Fuentes and groypers, see also : ‘It’s Like F-cking Mean Girls’: Yiannopoulos Return Roils Kanye’s 2024 Campaign, Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone, May 5, 2023 | Nick Fuentes Holds Racist Conference Across From CPAC, Hannah Gais and Creede Newton, Southern Poverty Law Centre, March 4, 2023.

• On an earlier Nazi resurgence, see also : Martin A. Lee, The Beast Reawakens, Little Brown & Co., 1997. ‘This is the saga of an underground political movement that has reawakened after a half century of hibernation. It is the history of something long hidden reappearing in a new form, a thing once forbidden that is gradually gaining influence and respectability. Most of all, it is a story about a cadre of old-guard fascists who kept the torch burning and bequeathed it to a new generation of extremists who are carrying on the struggle today.’

4.30pm, Thursday, May 11, 2023 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

• This episode will be available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify and other platforms after broadcast.
• We also have a Facebook page for the show, which you’re invited to ‘Like’ and to ‘Follow’.
• I have a Patreon account which youse are also invited to support.

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Yeah Nah Pasaran! #160 w Alex Hinton on 2023 CPAC, anti-trans politics, genocide and justice : May 4, 2023

This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! we talk to return guest Alex Hinton [Twitter]. Alex is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Director of the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights, UNESCO Chair on Genocide Prevention. We first spoke to Alex in June 2021 about his book It Can Happen Here: White Power and the Rising Threat of Genocide in the US (NYU, 2021).

On this week’s episode we spoke to Alex about his experience at the 2023 CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) in March, ‘ground zero for the current onslaught of anti-trans rhetoric and legislation in the U.S.’ (see : Two Myths Fueling the Conservative Right’s Dangerous Transphobia, SAPIENS, April 2023). We also spoke to him about war crimes and the International Criminal Court, genocide, hate speech, conspiracy theories, education and more. (NB. The recent publicity tour of Australia and New Zealand by anti-trans activist ‘Posie Parker’ was sponsored by CPAC’s Australian franchise.)

See also : Opinion: The International Criminal Court wants to prosecute Russia for war crimes. The U.S. should help, Alex Hinton, The Los Angeles Times, March 13, 2023 | Violent extremists are not lone wolves – dispelling this myth could help reduce violence, Alex Hinton, The Conversation, February 24, 2023.

4.30pm, Thursday, May 4, 2023 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

• A longer version of this episode will be available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify and other platforms after broadcast.
• We also have a Facebook page for the show, which you’re invited to ‘Like’ and to ‘Follow’.
• I have a Patreon account which youse are also invited to support.

Bonus! Cat Tebaldi

Last week’s episode of YNP! (#159) featured Cat Tebaldi on Trad Wives and Granola Nazis.

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Sam Duncan, The Daily Mail & Anti-Semitism

After having exposed keyboard warriors Luke Hollowood and Ryan Anderson, Crikey’s Cam Wilson has done it again, this time zeroing in on semi-pro anti-Semite and The Daily Mail contributor Sam Duncan.

See : Daily Mail reporter secretly ran a popular racist, anti-Semitic Twitter account, Crikey, April 26, 2023.

The Daily Mail has a chequered history on the question of fascism, with its co-founder Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere openly recruiting for the British Union of Fascists (BUF) in the 1930s. Of late its online version has been subsisting on a steady diet of plagiarism and prejudice, with only rare Ws for the good guys.

Sam Duncam, better known as ‘Based Patrick’ (@patrickbasedmn), was a prolific twit whose profile received a massive boost after the platform was purchased by Emerald Mine Guy.

Cam writes:

[Sam Duncan’s] account regularly tweeted racist, anti-Semitic, anti-immigration and anti-vaccine content to its 32,000 followers. This includes criticising people for their “Naziphobia” and commending countries for expelling Muslims and Jewish residents.

It has collaborated with a group called Anti-White Watch, which was called a “sinister new effort from white nationalists to co-opt the language of social justice”. One of its posts was even featured in an investigation revealing a Fox News producer’s history of liking racist and sexist tweets. The account was deleted last week after Crikey sent a request for comment.

‘AnonCommieStan’ provides a few more details about Sam’s online twattery, which otherwise includes: positive references to Tom Sewell & Co.’s presence at Posie Parker’s rally outside parliament; agreement with Andy Ngo about anTEEfa; the dangers of non-violence; unfavourably comparing the physiques of CARF supporters to those of NSN members; crowing about owning libs and indulging in anti-feminist, white supremacist and anti-Semitic stoopid.

TLDR : Sam ‘Leftoids hate that we’re better looking, funnier and more interesting than them.’ Duncan is a nazi shitpoaster.

More broadly, while Sam Duncan, Luke Hollowood, Ryan Anderson, David Hiscox, David Hilton et. al. share much in common politically, they have other common attributes, being mostly tertiary-educated, well-travelled members of the multi-cultural/multi-ethnic/multi-racial lower-middle class. Thus, while anti-Semitism, misogyny and vulgar, ‘semi-ironic’ racism is more often than not (and quite happily) assigned to working-class meatheads by churnalists and crackademics, angry petit bourgeois boys such as these rarely get the credit they (well and truly) deserve.

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Keyboard Warriors of the Australian #AltRight (2023) : The UnShackled, The Spectator, Luke Hollowood & Ryan Anderson

See also : Keyboard Warriors of the Australian #AltRight : XYZ & David Hiscox, February 5, 2018.

Above : Luke Hollowood.

1) Spectator Australia keeps publishing white supremacists and anti-Semites writes Cam Wilson (Crikey, April 21, 2023). The white supremacists and anti-Semites in question: ‘Lucas Rosas’ and ‘@rjhenderso1’.

2) Tim Wilms, editor of The UnShackled The UnHinged blog: ‘Lucas Rosas has spent years monitoring far left extremists so you don’t have to. He lives in a secure location with multiple large and hungry guard dogs.’

3) Cam Wilson, Crikey’s associate editor: ‘Rosas appears to be the pseudonym for Luke Hollowood, a Townsville-based former member of the Australian Defence Force (ADF). A title search shows that his address is leased to Defence Housing Australia.’

4) Michael Cook, editor of MercatorNet: ‘Ryan Anderson is an essayist based in Australia. His work has appeared in Quillette and other assorted publications.’

5) Cam Wilson, Crikey’s associate editor: ‘[Ryan Anderson’s Twitter] account spews white supremacist, anti-Semitic and anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric, as well as engaging with other bigoted accounts. It retweeted baseless George Soros-esque conspiracies about support for the Voice to Parliament campaign, and posted photographs of people praying to Mecca in public parks, attacking them.’

So far, so typical.

Above : Tim Wilms poses for a photo with some of his #BFFs.

Hollowood began contributing to Tim Wilms’ blog in 2018 in defence of Stefan Molyneux and Lauren ‘The Great Replacement’ Southern. In subsequent years and scores of articles he assumed the role of an anti-antifa specialist. As such, the ex-soldier regularly disclosed the shocking-but-true fact that anarchists and leftists have played an active role in organising anti-fascist and pro-refugee rallies, local councils and progressive MPs have denounced racism, and both the ABC and the Greens take climate science seriously.

The increasingly shrill tone that’s characterised Hollowood’s blogposts over the last five years reflects his despair that outside of Wilms’ audience of various species of reactionary his diatribes are — with the exception of Rowan Dean and The Spectator and Tom Sewell and the National Socialist Network — largely ignored. Further, his near-constant whining about the nefarious influence of ‘Marxists’ upon the Australian body politic is standard fare for NewsCorprse, and racism and xenophobia are hardly unknown features of ‘Australia’s most-read columnist’:

As a general rule, however, the explicit endorsement of antisemitic perspectives is still considered a bridge too far, and why every now and again contributors to reactionary right-wing publications like The Spectator get into trouble if they’re revealed as such. As Cam notes, Hollowood and Anderson:

… join David Hilton as another former Spectator Australia writer exposed for anti-Semitic views. In 2018, the Southern Poverty Law Centre revealed that Hilton published under the nom de plume Moses Apostaticus in The Spectator along with the Daily Caller. The investigation also laid out his history of pro-Nazi comments, such as a Facebook post sharing an article about IBM’s involvement in the Holocaust with the caption “IBM did nothing wrong”. (That same investigation also drew attention to Scott Greer, the then-Daily Caller editor referenced by Anderson, and his links to white nationalists).

David Hilton’s cack-handed contributions to the defence of Western Civilization from (((Cultural Marxism))) were also noted on the blog in September 2017 and July 2017. But when he’s not helping ‘a Christian schools network, Australian Christian College’ develop its curriculum, David can be found inhabiting the classic Nazi paradox: simultaneously celebrating while also denying the Holocaust. Here, for example, he expresses delight in the macabre torture of a Jewish woman by Nazi scientists (The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty, Simon Baron-Cohen, Basic Books, 2011):

A few days after the Christchurch massacre, David opined that he has a much better command of written English than the killer:

And so on.

Above : Ryan Anderson.

As for Ryan Anderson, unlike his Brizvegas kamerad Herr Hilton, Ryan is BASED in Melbourne. He’s also had a little more success in educating the public than David, having been published over a dozen times by #RowanFromMarketing, about as many times by ‘Mercator’, having lamented the impact of ‘demographic change’ *nudge nudge, wink wink* on the Victorian Liberals for Quadrant and — just once — been a cultural critic for Amateur Phrenology (sic) zine. Mr Anderson would appear to have deleted his Twitter account shortly after being contacted by Mr Wilson, but happily enough his tweets have been preserved for your reading pleasure.

What’s it like walking through Melbourne CBD at night Ryan?

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Yeah Nah Pasaran! #158 w Jason Wilson on American Night Terrors : April 13, 2023


This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! we talk to our semi-regular US correspondent Jason Wilson [Twitter/Mastodon]. Jason is a journalist and researcher with the Southern Poverty Law Center and we last spoke to him in October 2022. See also : Violent White Nationalist Rob Rundo Arrested in Romania, Hannah Gais, Jason Wilson and Michael Colborne, Hatewatch (SPLC), March 31, 2023.

4.30pm, Thursday, April 13, 2023 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

• A longer version of this episode will be available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify and other platforms after broadcast.
• We also have a Facebook page for the show, which you’re invited to ‘Like’ and to ‘Follow’.
• I have a Patreon account which youse are also invited to support.

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Yeah Nah Pasaran! #157 w Ray Acheson on Banning Bombs & Abolishing State Violence : April 6, 2023

This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! we talk to Ray Acheson [Twitter]. Ray is an abolitionist, organiser and the author of Banning the Bomb, Smashing the Patriarchy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021) and Abolishing State Violence: A World Beyond Bombs, Borders, and Cages (Haymarket, 2022). We spoke to Ray about their work as the Director of Reaching Critical Will — the disarmament programme of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) — and with International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the campaign to Stop Cop City in Atlanta, Georgia and the meaning and possibilities of abolitionism.

Banning the Bomb, Smashing the Patriarchy ‘offers a look inside the antinuclear movement and its recent successful campaign to ban the bomb. From scrappy organizing to winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 and achieving a landmark UN treaty banning nuclear weapons, this book narrates the journey of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and developments in feminist disarmament activism.’

Abolishing State Violence ‘argues that abolition is transformative. It is about defunding, demilitarizing, disbanding, and divesting from current structures of violence, but also about imagining new ways to organize and care for each other and our planet, and about building new systems and cultures to sustain ourselves in a more equitable, free, and peaceful way. It shows that change is possible.’

See/hear also : Countering militarism: In conversation with Ray Acheson, Radioactive Show, 3CR, April 1, 2023 | Stop Cop City, Ray Acheson, Counterpunch, February 9, 2023 | Australian Anti-AUKUS Coalition (AAAC).

4.30pm, Thursday, April 6, 2023 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

• A longer version of this episode will be available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify and other platforms after broadcast.
• We also have a Facebook page for the show, which you’re invited to ‘Like’ and to ‘Follow’.
• I have a Patreon account which youse are also invited to support.

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