… Since 2015, and the emergence of ‘Reclaim Australia’, the ‘United Patriots Front’ and allied groups, but especially since the election of Trump in the United States and the re-emergence of movements of the far right in many other countries, a lot more people are paying attention to fascism and the far right and my work has begun to reach a wider audience. Unfortunately, monitoring and analysing these ideologies and movements is both very time-consuming and completely unrewarding financially, so while to date I’ve not asked for any form of financial support, it’s now gotten to the stage that, without some form of subsidy, I’ll have to stop doing this work and do something else to pay the rent. So … if you’ve found what I’ve had to contribute to political discussions over the past few years to be of value, and you’d like to see me continue to do so, please consider making a donation …
Assuming the account stays up, I’ll be adding to it over time, and also giving away stickers and other stuff — more deets to come.
The ABC published a very silly article on the weekend. Variously titled “The alt-right has been under the media spotlight — but should we be concerned about the ‘alt-left’?” and “‘Bad people from both sides’: Should we be concerned of [sic] a rising alt-left?”, the URL reads “what-is-the-alt-left-and-does-it-actually-exist”.
So yeah: a very silly article, and for a number of reasons, including but not limited to the fact that:
• The only academic study cited (February 2019) concludes that the Alt Left as such is ‘fake’ or faux. Trump supporters have succeeded in creating a fictional anti-public, the Alt Left, associating it with violence, as a form of moral equivalency to the Alt Right after Charlottesville, and mainstreaming it in the news. Which fact might render the article as a whole either: a) very brief or; b) entirely redundant.
• Of the two experts quoted, one is a student tutor (‘a political theorist from the Australian National University’) who, as best I can tell, has published nothing little on the alt-left, alt-right or antifa*, and the sociologist Steve Fuller, whose main contribution to the field is a blogpost from January 2018 titled ‘We have seen the Alt-Right, but what about the Alt-Left?’. It argues that those wanting a proper Alt-Left should take a page from the Alt-Right’s own playbook and delve deep into the Left’s own psyche to redraw its ideological ground – in particular, to rediscover its own positive understanding of freedom. A rather vacuous line of thinking, as it happens, but also one very much in evidence among the former partisans of the Revolutionary Communist Party (UK). It was for the benefit of an RCP front group, the ‘Institute of Ideas’, that Fuller has performed at a number of events organised by newly-elected Brexit Party MEP, Claire Fox. See also : Bosnian Muslims mark 1995 massacre of thousands with burials, The Washington Post, Darko Bandic, July 10, 2019.
• The article collapses the distinction between the alt-left, far left, and antifa, though all are understood to exist at the extreme opposite end of the political spectrum to neo-Nazis, racists, fascist[s]; the beliefs of which are, we’re assured, seen as a departure from mainstream values(!). Presumably, then, and insofar as the ABC embodies these mainstream values, it may be a while before we see an article titled ‘The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion has been under the media spotlight — but should we be concerned about The Jew?’.
• Rather than examine the recent history of, say, antifascist activism in the United States, the frame of reference provided for understanding the alt-left is frankly bizarre:
Unlike the far right and the alt-right, the far left do not call or associate themselves with the term alt-left.
They do, however, also have a history of violence and the prospect of a militant left actively fighting its ideological opposite is not far removed from history.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Shining Path, and the 19th of April Movement were involved in bloody conflicts in South America in the 1970s, while the Red Army faction carried out a series of terrorist attacks in the 1970s and remained active for more than 20 years.
However, whether we will see the resurgence of a militant far left to counter the rising far right remains to be seen.
In reality — and leaving aside the fact that anti-fascists have been countering fascism and the far right for about a century now — FARC, Sendero Luminoso (‘Shining Path’) and M-19 were three of the more well-known armed struggle groups in Colombia and Peru during roughly this period, although quite how these alt-left (sic) formations have contributed to the development of, say, Redneck Revolt (or Rose City Antifa), is unexplained. Further, while ‘The 1970s’ were indeed an interesting period in the history of the ‘non-tolerant left’, Sendero Luminoso only launched its struggle against the Peruvian state in 1980, collapsed in 1992 following the capture of its leader and, while massively-reduced in its capacities, continued to undertake armed action into the 21st century; FARC, meanwhile, signed a (shaky) peace treaty with the Colombian state in 2016, having engaged in a 50-years long campaign against it, while M-19 continued its armed assaults into the 1980s (before opting for the parliamentary road). As for the Rote Armee Fraktion (1970–1998), that too is a long and interesting story, though like Colombian and Peruvian armed struggle groups, it’s one that took place quite some distance from Trump’s American “alt-left” of 2017. Thus, a semi-coherent account of an imaginary alt-left might look at the left tradition in the US, perhaps by way of relying less on, say, Chairman Gonzalo Thought! and more, perhaps, on the United Front Against Fascism (UFAF) conference of 1969, or even This Nonviolent Stuff′ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible.
*shrugs*
One thing I don’t understand about the article is the timing. I mean, Trump invoked the ‘alt-left’ in August 2017 (post-Charlottesville), and the one academic study cited — which concludes that it’s a nonsense term — was published four months ago. And while the term is bunkum, it entered into usage some years ago: one of the earliest expressions I can find is from a blog dating back to November 2015 (in which it’s understood to appeal to racially-conscious white semi-progressives), though astrologer turned US foreign policy critic Caitlin Johnstone copped some flak in 2017 for suggesting that Lefties Need To Stop Being Shy About Working With The Anti-Establishment Right.
Speaking of the Revolutionary Communist Party/spiked online, earlier this month, one of its scribblers penned ‘Meet the anti-woke left’, starring ‘dirtbag’ leftists Amber A’Lee Frost and Anna Khachiyan. Frost is a member of the Chapo Trap House mob and a sometime contributor to The Baffler; Khachiyan is a ‘bohemian layabout’ from Brooklyn. The article is — like the one published by the ABC, or almost anything by iamverysmart spiked contributor, frequent ABC guest commentator and professional whiner Brendon O’Neill — very (very) silly, but also useful — presumably — in expanding their market.
What Antifa activists did to Andy Ngo was just awful. But also Antifa are socially irrelevant numpties who (just like their far right opponents) have been given outsize attention — and thereby encouraged — by mainstream media and politicos running a culture war about Trump.
The really great thing about your work [Andy] is that it empirically verifies the very good news that the far right remains utterly socially marginal in Australia.
Cheeky! Still, like everything else in life, responding is pointless.
And yet — here we are.
So …
Where to begin? Regarding Quillette editor Andy Ngo: he got milkshaked at a counter-protest in Portland on the weekend, becoming a martyr in the process and, with the help of fellow propagandist Michelle Malkin, scored himself a very cool USD190K (and counting) for his troubles.
Props!
The assault on Ngo — he was milkshaked, punched, and sprayed with silly string — has triggered some YUGE disco on anTEEfa, jernalisms and violence. It also inspired a naughty troll to send a sneaky message to the Portland Police Bureau about anTEEfa super-soldiers concealing concrete mix in their vegan, PopMob milkshakes, which PPB faithfully repeated for the benefit of Fox News and their other allies in the meeja.
Still, such nonsense is to be expected, and the lies and the stoopid about concrete milkshakes, urine-filled balloons and other amateur weapons of mass destruction has a long history. While there are innumerable other examples, in the Australian context, see : G20: And balloons filled with… urine? (November 23, 2006) and, earlier (1991), AIDEX:
What most infuriated those opposed to AIDEX however was a series of bizarre police allegations that were aired in the closing days of the protest. The Canberra Times variously reported that protesters had wielded vegetables stuffed with nails and needles, a spear gun, knives, Molotov cocktails, pieces of wood stuffed with nails, steel spikes and acid filled condoms. On top of this, demonstrators had supposedly laid booby traps made out of wood studded with spikes, bashed police in packs, cut the brake lines and slashed the [tyres] of police cars, attempted to electrify NATEX’s fences, covered themselves in faeces and urine, and abandoned small children on the picket lines for police to rescue …
Despite none of the police injuries being consistent with the use of such weapons and no one being charged with possessing or using such weapons, the police allegations were nevertheless presented as fact in both the Canberra Times and much of the commercial news media. Similarly, a lack of footage or photos of anyone using or displaying such weapons was never questioned despite the only evidence of their existence being a motley collection of pocket knives, steel drink bottles, soiled condoms and other items that were presented at a police press conference.
Regarding Quillette, it became the centre of a controversy recently when it published an essay by Internet troll ‘ProgDad’ (AKA Eoin Lenihan) which purported — using SCIENCE, LOGIC and FACTS — to demonstrate that ‘It’s Not Your Imagination: The Journalists Writing About Antifa Are Often Their Cheerleaders’ (May 29, 2019). Of the fifteen doubleplusungood journalists identified, only a handful are named: Christopher Mathias (Huffington Post), Kit O’Connell (freelance), Patrick Strickland (freelance) and Jason Wilson (The Guardian). According to Jared Holt in the Columbia Journalism Review (Right-wing publications launder an anti-journalist smear campaign, June 12, 2019):
The Quillette article was circulated approvingly on white supremacist forum Stormfront the day after its publication; a day later, a YouTube user uploaded a video of imagery of mass shooters intercut with images of the reporters mentioned by Lenihan under the heading “Sunset the Media.” Some reporters who do not cover the far-right but were listed as “connected” to antifascists by Lenihan appeared in the video…
Quillette writer Andy Ngo, who called attention to Lenihan’s work on Twitter and whose work Lenihan cites in his article, insisted that the legitimacy of Lenihan’s findings was self-evident from Lenihan’s Twitter posts.
On Portland, Rose City Antifa is my go-to, but this thread by ‘It’s Going Down’ provides a useful summary of political conditions in that rosy place. (Bizarrely, Ngo’s Republican lawyer, Harmeet Dhillon, attributed the production of the non-existent concrete milkshakes to Rose City: ‘The Rose City Antifa criminal enterprise that made the concrete milkshakes to assault our client [Ngo] had custom cups printed up with their criminal gang symbol. Who is the printer? Can anyone identify who made these cups?’) Further coverage of the protest and counter-protest is available viaFar-Right Extremists Wanted Blood In Portland’s Streets. Once Again, They Got It., Andy Campbell, Huffington Post, June 27, 2019 (‘It’s not a surprise a conservative writer was bloodied in a street brawl in Portland ― far-right extremists have been freely hosting skirmishes there for years’) and Portland police clash with protesters and make ‘cement milkshake’ claim, Jason Wilson, The Guardian, June 30, 2019 and Massive Anti-Fascist Coalition Rebuffs Far-Right Proud Boys in Portland, Shane Burley, truthout, July 3, 2019.
In terms of police and the far-right, this August 2018 article by Robert Evans of bellingcat — Fascist Activists Have Spent The Last Year Trying to Win Over Police — is also required reading, exposing the ways in which facho and other jerks in Portland have been seeking to cultivate closer ties with police (the ranks of which contain more than one sympathiser) in that fine city. More broadly, Kathleen Belew’s recent title Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America is a brilliant account of the development of the white power movement in the United States in the post-Vietnam era through to the mid- to late-1990s, one which locates so-called ‘lone wolves’ within the wider context of the movement in which they are embedded. The failure to learn from this history — a failure shared by not only government actors but scholars and journalists — is one that has consequences for the contemporary white power movement and efforts to confront it.
In response to fascist organizing and even threats of violence, antifa activists mobilize public shaming and confrontational protest. They do so as part of a countermovement strategy designed to demobilize the fascist movement, and in doing so secure the safety of themselves, vulnerable populations, and their communities.
Much more could be said on this subject, and happily enough Vysotsky is publishing American Antifa: The Tactics, Culture & Practice of Militant Anti-Fascism through AK Press later this year.
Three cheers and a loud huzzah!
At approximately the same time as the fascist parade in Portland was taking place, Deutsche Welle published an article detailing how German neo-Nazi doomsday prepper network ‘ordered body bags, made kill lists’ (June 26, 2019). Weeks prior to this, of course, German conservative politician Walter Lübcke was shot dead by a right-wing extremist; in England, a plot by another neo-Nazi to kill another politician, Rosie Cooper, was spoiled thanks to the work of Hope Not Hate, though sadly the life of Jo Cox MP (June 22, 1974 -– June 16, 2016) was unable to be saved. See also : Germany Has a Neo-Nazi Terrorism Epidemic, Peter Kuras, Foreign Policy, July 2, 2019 (‘How many political murders do far-right extremists have to commit before the German government does something about it?’).
Anyways, back to Dr_Tad:
[redwog] By awful do you mean politically, morally or ethically?
[Dr_Tad] Politically idiotic. Although that’s par for the course with them. But also just plain nasty.
[Dr_Tad] What unpleasant people.
LOL.
[hailants] It’s socially irrelevant to make fascists afraid?
[Dr_Tad] When the fascists themselves are socially irrelevant, yep.
[hailants] Fascists are murdering folks left right and centre… so your definition of socially irrelevant is totally deranged.
[Dr_Tad] Actually politically motivated murders by the far right are at historically very low levels in the USA, and there is no evidence of a trend upwards from that very low level.
Well, actually … I’m not so sure about that. Thus according to the ADL’s COE (Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2018 [PDF]), the ‘Five Most Deadly Years for Domestic Extremist Killings (1970-2018)’ were:
Year : Deaths
1995 : 184 Oklahoma City bombing (168 deaths)
2016 : 72 Orlando nightclub shooting (49 deaths)
2015 : 70 San Bernardino, Chattanooga, Charleston shootings (28 deaths total)
2018 : 50 Pittsburgh synagogue, Parkland High School shootings (28 deaths total)
2009 : 46 Ft. Hood shooting (13 deaths)
Further:
In terms of lethal violence, 2018 was dominated by right-wing extremism. Every one of the 50 murders documented by the COE was committed by a person or persons with ties to right-wing extremism, although in one incident the perpetrator had switched from white supremacist to radical Islamist beliefs prior to committing the murder. In fact, 2018 saw the highest percentage (98%) of right-wing extremist-related killings since 2012, the last year when all documented killings were by right-wing extremists. Right-wing extremists also killed more people in 2018 than in any year since 1995. For comparison, only 62% of extremist killings in 2017 were committed by right-wing extremists, and only 21% in 2016.
Of course, questions of methodology are very important. In which case, it seems germane to draw attention to the work of the Brennan Center:
In Fighting Far-Right Violence and Hate Crimes: Resetting Federal Law Enforcement Priorities, authors and Brennan Center Fellows Michael German and Emmanuel Mauleón write that ill-conceived Justice Department and FBI policies result in uneven enforcement, unequal protection of targeted communities and unreliable data that mask the extent of the problem. The government does not keep accurate statistics on far-right violence and hate crimes, despite a congressional mandate to do so.
“As a result,” the report warns, “the Justice Department doesn’t know how many people far-right militants attack each year in the United States, which leaves intelligence analysts and policy makers in the dark about the impact this violence inflicts on our society and how to best address it.”
There are, of course, other analyses available in the relevant literature which contradict Dr_Tad’s claim that ‘politically motivated murders by the far right are at historically very low levels in the USA, and there is no evidence of a trend upwards from that very low level’; in fact I would suggest the opposite is the case, ie, politically-motivated murders (and other, non-lethal forms of violence) by the far right are at historically-significant levels, and if there’s a trend, it’s upwards: see the invaluable work of Spencer Sunshine, for example, or read David Neiwert’s Alt America (which in some ways could be read as an extension of Belew’s work on the white power movement up until the Oklahoma bombing).
As for the far right and political and social marginality, a few remarks are in order.
First, in the US context, the election of Trump is significant. And while there’s been a mountain of commentary on The Trump Effect, to cite just one example, Michael German of the Brennan Center argued in February 2017 that ‘The new president has given white supremacists plenty of reasons to feel he’s copacetic with their agenda’, and I’m not aware of any evidence since that this is not in fact a feature of his Presidency.
Secondly, the relationship between the (political) margin and the centre is not straightforward, and it’s obviously possible for seemingly marginal political phenomena to both exercise influence and to grow. A useful examination of the relationship between the margin, the mainstream and the far right is available in Aaron Winter and Aurelien Mondon’s Understanding the mainstreaming of the far right (Open Democracy, August 26, 2018). Or as Shane Burley writes:
White nationalist violence has to be understood within the complicated social framework in which it exists, a framework intended to manipulate the fringes of the movement to take on the dirty work and carry out its underlying methodology. The fact that [James Fields, the Charlottesville killer] may not have been a formal member of one of its coalition organizations, or even a part of a tangible friendship circle, does not take away from his membership in a movement. Instead, he is the perfect image of what their movement creates, the clearest example of who they are and what they do.
So Fields is guilty. They are all guilty.
Thirdly, in the Australian context (which which I’m more familiar than the US), I maintain that, in the last few years, the far right has been struggling to ESC its ‘utterly socially marginal status’, with many failures but also with some degree of success. This progress is less about building a political party than a political movement — if we exclude PHONy, then Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party is the likeliest candidate in this sense — and, crucially, seeking to influence political discourse. Perhaps the most obvious success in this regard is the passage of the ‘It’s OK To Be White’ meme from the chans to Pauline Hanson to the ruling Coalition (with the government voting in favour of its adoption by the federal parliament), but there are certainly others, many of which may be found on the blog.
Finally, I might also add that, in January 2013, Dr_Tad was able to inform me that as far as Australian fascism was concerned, ‘There are some groups, thankfully marginal right now’ but on a cautionary note ‘But then so was Golden Dawn for many years’. I’m unsure what’s happened to the doctor to cause him to reverse perspective in the interim, but GD is still kicking goals. See : Racist attacks rise in Greece as landmark neo-Nazi trial enters fifth year, Billy Briggs, The Ferret, May 23, 2019 (also : The killing of Zak: the astonishing violence and impunity of Greek police, Mariniki Alevizopoulou and Augustine Zenakos, Open Democracy, October 31, 2018).
To conclude, it’s certainly the case that questions of strategy & tactics are important, and any sensible anTEEfa (or anti-fascist) must necessarily pay careful attention to such matters. But the slew of ill-informed opinion which surrounds and crowds out any sensible discussion of such things does take some effort to cut through. For a rational accounting see, for example, Antifa: The anti-fascist handbook, Mark Bray, Melbourne University Press, 2017.
A while ago some body asked me to recommend some (anarchist/left/progressive) /pəˈlɪtɪk(ə)l/ podcasts. As a slave to the market, below is a list of a few dozen that I think may be of interest. Most are published on multiple platforms, but where they’re not I’ve included links to specific instances; most are also Yanqui, gotta Patreon, and Twitter account. Obviously, there’s hundreds and thousands of other interesting podcasts out there. Equally obviously, this list is not exhaustive, and I may add to it as time goes by, so feel free to leave a comment with suggestions.
Note:
• I do monthly radios on Melbourne community radio station 3CR with my co-host Dr Cam. It’s Radiothon time and we need your filthy lucre. Please feel free to make a donation. Cam is holding our old shows ransom at the moment, and stated that he’ll only release them if we hit our target, when I can then upload them to Patreon.
• Special shout-out to Channel Zero Anarchist Podcast Network (CZN) and its unruly constituents, including A-Radio Berlin, The Final Straw Radio, It’s Going Down, Solecast and Subversion 1312. CZN is ‘an english-based anarchist radio/podcast network run by radical media makers. We are here to present anarchist analysis & context to deepen people[‘]s understanding of the situation and broaden the struggle. We share stories from the front-lines, lessons from history, and battle-tested ideas to spread revolutionary practices.’
12 Rules For What
‘A podcast about fascists, nazis, and [the] far right, from the perspective of the left’ [Patreon/Twitter].
Against the Grain
‘Against the Grain is a radio and web media project whose aim is to provide in-depth analysis and commentary on a variety of matters — political, economic, social, and cultural — important to progressive and radical thinking and activism’ [via KPFA].
AnarchyRadio
‘Since the millennium change John Zerzan has been expressing his anti-civilization views on his one hour live radio show‘, smashing civilisation one broadcast at a time.
The Antifada
‘A comedy and politics podcast from the leftest reaches of the left. Get that Antifada Mindset’ [Patreon/Twitter].
Aufhebunga Bunga
‘The period in which Western liberal democracy was held to be ‘the final form of human government’ is now over. Aufhebunga Bunga is the left-wing podcast that is charting what’s emerging and what comes next’ [Patreon/Twitter]. Sidenote : Aufheben is one of the more interesting Marxist zines.
Behind the Bastards
A podcast (via HowStuffWorks) by a bastard otherwise known as Robert Evans, which profiles some of the nicest people you’d ever want to meet [Twitter].
Behind the News
‘Host Doug Henwood covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global] [KPFA].
Belabored
A podcast sponsored by Dissent magazine and hosted by Josh Eidelson and Sarah Jaffe, Belabored examines the trials and tribulations of the US lab0ur movement: ‘Every week, they’ll take listeners behind the scenes of the latest stories in labor journalism. They’ll interview high-profile guests and working people.’
‘Citations Needed is a weekly podcast about the intersection of media, PR, and power, hosted by Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson’ [Patreon/Twitter].
Coffee with Comrades
‘Coffee with Comrades is rooted in militant joy. We make a conscious effort to eschew pretentious sectarian shenanigans. Instead, our hope is to cultivate a warm and inviting atmosphere, like walking into your favorite coffee shop to sit down with some of your closest comrades and share a heart-to-heart conversation’ [Patreon/Twitter].
Current Affairs
The zine with a podcast. ‘Every other week our editorial team brings you a mixture of discussion, analysis, and whimsy’ [Patreon].
David Harvey’s Anti-Capitalist Chronicles
David Harvey is a Marxist geographer: these are his stories.
Dead Pundits Society
Democratic Socialism, yeah? ‘Forging a new left agenda in the midst of our neoliberal hellscape — Join us weekly for the best news and analysis from a left perspective’ [Patreon/Twitter].
Delete Your Account
‘Hosted by journalist Roqayah Chamseddine and her plucky sidekick Kumars Salehi. Every week we will talk about important stories from the worlds of politics and pop culture, both on and off-line, in a way that will never bore you’ [Patreon/Twitter].
‘A Podcast of Anarchist Ideas and Action For Everyone Who Dreams of a Life Off the Clock’ — a part of the sprawling CrimethInc media empire.
Floodcast
‘The Floodcast is Flood Media’s regular political podcast. It brings together a range of Brisbane-based commentators to discuss and analyse contemporary political issues from a radical left standpoint.’
From Below
‘A podcast focused on social movements and international politics from a libertarian socialist perspective, brought to you by members of Black Rose/Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation.’
General Intellect Unit
‘Podcast of the Cybernetic Marxists. Examining the intersection of Technology, (Left) Politics, and Philosophy’ [Patreon/Twitter].
‘Helen Razer is creating a podcast Yes. Another one. Another Leftist podcast’ [Patreon/Twitter].
The Hypothetical Institute
‘A lighthearted look at conspiracies and their theorists… or deep state shills working to obfuscate the truth? You decide’ [Patreon/Twitter].
I Don’t Speak German
Daniel Harper wades thru the batshit propaganda of various prominent (and not-so-prominent) AltRight and nazi ideologues so you don’t have to [Patreon/Twitter].
‘Inward Empire explores the role of ideas and ideology in American history — how the surface of actions and events can be shaped by undercurrents of thought and belief.’
The Katie Helper Show
TKHS is ‘a weekly radio show and podcast that tries to make you laugh about things that could make you cry’ [WBAI: Patreon/Twitter].
Living The Dream
Dirty-rotten-stinking-communists Dave E & Jon Ptalk (Australian) economics, history, philosophy, politics & current affairs.
‘TMBS is the Vanguard of the New Left’ [Patreon/Twitter].
The Nostalgia Trap
‘A Marx-ish™ podcast about history, politics, pop culture, and the end of the world’ [Patreon/Twitter].
Pluto Press: Radicals in Conversation
‘Radicals in Conversation is a monthly podcast from Pluto Press, one of the world’s leading independent, radical publishers.’
Proles of the Round Table
From The Department Of Communism Will Win, ‘a podcast where a group of communists sit down, have some drinks (usually beer or La Croix), and talk about leftist history. Sometimes we have guests and sometimes it’s just us, but it’s always spicy. The only thing that will never change is the heat of the takes’ [Patreon/Twitter].
Sigmarxism is surely among the top 100 podcasts ‘dedicated to discussing Warhammer 40k and Age of Sigmar from the perspective of leftist ideology’ [Twitter].
SRB Podcast (Sean’s Russia Blog)
Cool story, comrade: a podcast examining Soviet/Russian history, politics and society, brung to you by Sean Guillory.
SRSLY WRONG
Srsly Wrogn ‘is a podcast about: liberalism, marxism, utopianism, anarchism / the personal as political / alleged paradoxes / world peace / common ground / phronesis/praxis / metamodernism’ [Patreon/Twitter].
Street Fight Radio
‘The #1 Anarcho-comedy show on any station across the nation’ [Patreon/Twitter].
Struggle Session
‘Struggle Session is the world’s finest politics and pop culture podcast’ [Patreon/Twitter].
Swampside Chats
‘This is Swampside Chats. The podcast where, every week, communists shoot the shit about current events, history, political economy, and theory’ [Twitter]. See also : Communist League Tampa [RIP].
This Is Hell!
‘This is Hell is a weekly longform political interview program broadcast across Chicago on WNUR since 1996′ [Patreon/Twitter].
TRASHFUTURE
‘We’re a comedy podcast based in London. We talk about the grasping moronic politicians, the serenely evil tech zillionaires, the garbled nonsense culture, and all the other dumb shit around the globe that makes our current horrible existence possible’ [Patreon/Twitter].
TREYF
‘A debatably Jewish podcast … Recorded at CKUT on occupied Kanien’kehá:ka territory (Montreal), Sam Bick and David Zinman reflect on the political discussions that are happening (and not happening) in North American Jewish communities’ [Patreon/Twitter]. See also : Mazel Tov Cocktail (2017), ‘A Jew-ish left podcast from the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation (Melbourne)’.
Trillbilly Workers Party
‘Trillbilly Workers Party is a podcast about a town called Whitesburg, Kentucky’/’Voted best left politics podcast in the Appalachian region—three years running’ [Patreon/Twitter].
What is says on the tin … History is not made by the actions of a few rich and powerful individuals, like so much of the history we learn in school. History is made by the combined everyday actions of hundreds of millions of us: women, men, youth, people of colour, migrants, indigenous people, LGBT people, disabled people, workers, older people, the unemployed, housewives – the working class.
Working People
‘A podcast by, for, and about the working class today’ [Twitter].
• In response to mounting public criticism, and in an attempt to forestall legal and financial penalties, Facebook, Twitter & YouTube have announced, each in their own way, that they’ll remove bAd content: ‘hate speech’, mostly (see : YouTube bans videos promoting Nazi ideology, Jim Waterson, The Guardian, June 6, 2019: ‘Content promoting fascism, supremacism or Holocaust denial will no longer be hosted’; YouTube bans neo-Nazi and Holocaust-denial videos in push against hate speech, Jon Brodkin, ars technica, June 6, 2019). Obviously, the rollout has had uneven effects, and been marked with the incompetency that’s now a hallmark of the social media giants’ attempts to placate lawmakers and publics … but it does represent an interesting moment in corporate policing.
As a result of YouTube/Google/Alphabet’s crackdown this week, a smol number of Australian channels have been closed, including ‘AustralianMeditations’, ‘BringingBackTheMan’ and ‘genocidal88’. The first belonged to ex-Liberal Party student Stefan Eracleous, the second to Shermon ‘The Great Aussie Patriot’ Burgess (remember him?) and the third to the boneheads of Blood & Honour Australia/Southern Cross Hammerskins. ‘Thousands’ of other accounts have been removed, according to reportage, though it’s unclear precisely precisely which. Further, while some antisemitic and white supremacist channels have had their ability to generate revenue compromised, as Wired reports, ‘The YouTube channels of David Duke, Richard Spencer, Lauren Southern, and many other white supremacist figures remain on the site’ (YouTube Is Banning Extremist Videos. Will It Work?, Paris Martineau, June 5, 2019).
Another local serial pest, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon fanboy and YouTuber, Avi Yemini, has had his channel demonetised; Yemini is due back in court next week (June 13) to fight charges including ‘that he injured, harassed and threw a knife at the face of a woman’. YouTuber Claudia Benitez (‘Dia Beltran’) — who once allegedly sent an antisemitic text to Yeminem — has starred in an article in The Guardian titled Victorian Liberals fear far-right incursions as YouTuber attends party event (Christopher Knaus and Michael McGowan, June 5, 2019). Benitez has regularly interviewed various luminaries on the Australian far-right, including Cottrell, Erikson and Yemini, along with The Fake Sheikh, PHONy’s Mark Latham, Robert Spencer, Thomas Brasher (The Lads Society), Eurydice Dixon memorial vandal Andy Nolch, ex-United Patriots Front and Australia First Party member Chris Shortis, Fraser ‘Final Solution’ Anning, Daisy Cousens and various other, even lesser-known figures; her most-popular video, however, remains one about ‘rude customers’.
• Neo-Nazi bodybuilder Blair Cottrell (The Lads Society/YouTube) had a court hearing this week, the final one before his appeal against a criminal conviction for religious vilification commences on August 12; Cottrell and his lawyer, John Bolton, are arguing that the Act under which he was convicted — the Victorian Racial & Religious Tolerance Act (2001) — is in fact un-Constititional.
• The True Blue Crew — one of the groupings that, along with the United Patriots Front, the alleged Christchurch killer, Brenton Tarrant, gave props to — has organised a flag parade in Sydney (Penrith Park) on Saturday, June 22. Co-sponsored by a segment of Reclaim Australia, it will presumably attract a similar number as last year’s event, it in turn inspired by similar rallies in Melbourne (2016/2017/2018).
• To the surprise of pundits and pollsters, the ruling Liberal-National Coalition won majority government at the 2019 Australian federal election, with a likely total of 77 seats in the 151-seat parliament. Rah rah rah! They’re going to smash the oiks!
• Preference flows from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party (PHONy) and Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party (UAP) voters appear to have secured victory for the Coalition in a number of seats in Queensland, but the billionaire mining magnate failed to (again) get bumped into parliament, none of UAP’s candidate obtained more than a handful of votes, and while PHONy didn’t do too badly — its national primary vote doubled — it too failed to gain any further seats, with Senator Peter Georgiou (WA) out and Malcolm Roberts (QLD) in.
• Outside of PHONy and UAP, the right-wing micro-parties — Dr Jim Saleam’s Australia First Party (AFP), Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party (FACNP), Rod Culleton’s The Great Australian Party (GAP), Kim Vuga’s Love Australia Or Leave (LAOL), Danny Nalliah’s Rise Up Australia Party (RUAP), Debbie Robinson’s Yellow Vest Australia (YVA) — fared poorly at the ballot box. Still: ‘Rising White Nationalism Was The Real Story Of Australia’s Elections’, according to James Muldoon, who argues that ‘It’s too early to obtain exact figures, but it looks like over 1,000,000 first preferences were directed towards right-wing minor parties – xenophobes were spoilt for choice.’ On the other hand, white nationalist Queensland Senator Fraser ‘Final Solution’ Anning — that dawg — failed in his attempt to retain his spot in the Senate, receiving less than 30,000 votes (about 1.3%), while in the Lower House, no FACNP candidate managed to break thru the magical 4% barrier, with most receiving 1 or 2% and generally being ranked last or near-last. And why did Anning and his party fail? According to the reject(ed) senator: ‘I think we got dudded at the counting stations. We’re investigating that now. But that’s what you’d come to expect from a socialist government.’ *Note that Max Towns, the over-enthusiastic fascist teenybopper and Anning fan who allegedly assaulted overly-critical journalists at the launch of FACNP’s campaign in Cronulla a month ago, pleaded not guilty at a hearing on May 17; he returns to court on June 27.
Last week, in a joint investigation by the ABC and 9/Fairfax, several articles were published about a Canberra-based neo-Nazi couple, Justin Beulah and Lisa Sandford. You may remember Beulah and Sandford from the failed attempt to infiltrate the NSW Young Nationals late last year — or perhaps as some of the voices on AltRight podcast ‘The Convict Report’.
Secret conversations between neo-Nazis who tried to take over the NSW Young Nationals have been uncovered in a leak of online chat logs that also reveal contact with a leading US alt-right figure.
A joint Herald-ABC investigation has identified several Australians within a previously hidden online world, where racists post memes, share gun pictures and discuss real-life meetings …
…. a fascist Australian couple … courted each other online with talk of “swastika cupcakes” and “jokes” about killing non-white people.
Justin Beulah was a Young Liberal university student at the time of the 2017 messages. He and his now wife Lisa Sandford, a former One Nation member, then joined a far-right attempt to branch stack the NSW Young Nationals last year.
The couple say they have now abandoned the “toxic” white supremacy movement and urge others to do the same.
The clandestine activities of an Australian neo-Nazi couple and their network have been exposed in a leak of hundreds of thousands of secret messages from a forum used by American white supremacists.
A joint investigation by ABC News and The Sydney Morning Herald reveals the pair also tried to recruit others to their cause and spread their views to mainstream political parties.
The messages, which date back from 2017, show that they engaged in racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic slurs, as they conversed in a closed community of like-minded zealots.
The investigation identified the couple as Canberra newlyweds Lisa Beulah (née Sandford) and her husband, Justin, who say they have now renounced their former lives.
For what it’s worth, I don’t believe that Beulah and Sandford have had a genuine change of heart, nor that this supposed shift took place post-Charlottesville (August 2017) as they claim. Thus in reality, both celebrated Heather Heyer’s murder.
Beulah:
Sandford:
Sandford’s account of how she drifted from ‘anti-feminism’ to antisemitism/white supremacy/neo-Nazism is also contradicted by the biographical one she provides on Discord, in which she attributes responsibility for her adult worldview to her father, a bonehead, who fed her a steady diet of war propaganda growing up:
There’s numerous other problems with Beulah and Sandford’s account, but I’ll leave it up to the reader to detect them.
As I see it, the story is really one in which, under media scrutiny, a newly-married (February 2019) couple has decided that distancing themselves from their neo-Nazi beliefs is probably A Very Good Idea. Thus while claiming to have abandoned the “toxic” white supremacy movement, when contacted by media about her views and opinions, Lisa sought counsel from leading Melbourne neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell (whose trial for religious vilification fangirl Lisa attended). In any case, anybody interested in reading the thousands of comments the couple made on Discord should consult Unicorn Riot’s logs. See : MsNatSocialist (Discord ID: 279874893846413313) and Brad Small (Discord ID: 211098280761884672). *Note that Clifford Jennings (‘The Dingoes’) was also active as ARA1788.
Serial Pests!
1) E r i k s o n
A few months ago, Melbourne’s premiere neo-Nazi serial pest, Neil Erikson, made a number of claims about meeting and organising with several Coalition MPs, viz, Andrew Hastie and Ian Goodenough in Perth: Hastie denied all knowledge. Erikson later claimed to have attended, along with his mate Ricky Turner and FACNP candidate and Erikson’s former ‘United Patriots Front’ comrade Scott Moerland, another meeting on the Gold Coast last year, organised by Liberal Party hacks in order to discuss how-to stack a branch with ‘conservatives’. (Moerland ran for Pauline Hanson’s former seat of Oxley, and received a little over 1,400 votes (1.6%) for his troubles — as a RUAP candidate in 2013, Moerland got just 400 votes, so well done Scott.)
Guest speakers at the Queensland recruitment drive included David Goodwin – a former LNP Senate candidate and former president of the Young Nationals and the Young LNP – and Victorian conservative Elliot Watson.
At the function, which is understood to have been held at a private residence, Goodwin and Watson both spoke about the need to recruit more conservatives into the party.
Watson, who is reportedly one of a number of Mormons appointed as party delegates in the Victorian Liberal Party, is credited with playing a “leading role” in recruiting conservatives to the Victorian branch of the party.
The Victorian branch of the party has been riven by factional divisions, amid claims that an insurgent group led by hardliner Marcus Bastiaan is pushing the Liberals too far to the right.
At the time of the Gold Coast meeting in June 2018, Erikson had acquired some sugar-daddies: Queensland businessmen, failed political entrepreneurs and Mormons Ben and Dan Spiller (AKA ‘AE Media’ and ‘Future Now Australia’). Thus the meeting appears to have taken place at the same time that Erikson and Turner paid an unscheduled nocturnal visit to the private residence of David Pellowe, a sometime rival of the Spillers on the AltRight tour-circuit.
Erikson later claimed that he met with former Victorian Liberals leader Matthew Guy during the Victorian state election campaign of last year (a claim Guy strongly denies). For its part, Victoria Labor issued a statement (May 6, 2019) demanding that ‘Victorian Liberals Must Explain Extremist Links’. The saga to that date is summarised by Richard James in Here’s Everything We Know So Far About Far-Right Activist Neil Erikson’s Alleged Meetings With The Liberal Party (Buzzfeed, May 7, 2019), but under pressure and having already lost almost all of his Facebook and Twitter accounts, Erikson eventually closed his gab account too, along with his wesbshite (neilerikson dot com).
On May 12, the pest was at it again, only this time in the company of AltRight chum Claudia Benitez (AKA ‘Dia Beltran’), who together decided it would be fun! to interrupt a church service at West Hawthorn Uniting Church, it having been selected by the pair on account of its queer-friendly status. To cut a long story short, it appears as though — apart from anything else — Benitez lost her job at a local orthodontic clinic as a result of her participation in the idiotic stunt.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Having disturbed a gathering of “faggots” on Sunday, on Monday Erikson was in court, along with Turner, to face charges arising from the Milo stoopid of December 2017. Erikson was later found guilty of affray & assault with a weapon, and received a 120-hour community corrections order as punishment; Turner accepted a plea deal of a $1,000 fine and a 12-month good-behaviour bond. (Last month, Erikson’s olde nazi chum Richard Whelan had his charges dropped, and earlier Dwayne McKenzie and Garry Hume received diversion orders, as did Soldier of Odin Garry Mattsson.)
Convicted racist Neil Erikson spared jail despite assault and affray conviction
Genevieve Alison
Herald Sun
May 16, 2019
Convicted racist Neil Erikson has been spared prison for his role in a Right-wing riot after begging a magistrate not to jail him because he is soon to become a father.
After a two-day hearing, Erikson, 33, was this week found guilty of affray and assault with a weapon in a brawl during which hundreds of protesters clashed with police.
A charge of inciting riotous behaviour was dismissed.
Erikson’s lawyer, John Bolton, unsuccessfully argued his client had been acting in self-defence during a confrontation with a group protesting against a speaking appearance by Right-wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulos in Kensington on December 4, 2017.
Erikson told police he had been “in fear” and only stepped in to protect his friends because police “were nowhere”.
And Mr Bolton argued in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court that Erikson was forced into the confrontation and had been protecting his mates when he punched, kicked and hit protesters with a pole.
But after viewing hours of CCTV footage from news media and police bodycams, which showed dozens of riot squad officers rushing to break up the violence, magistrate Michael Smith said Erikson had entered the affray voluntarily.
“No one was attacking him at the time,” Mr Smith said.
“He’s standing on the edge and voluntarily entered the affray with his banner.”
Erikson told the court he regretted the incident and was “never looking for any trouble that day”.
He pleaded with Mr Smith not to lock him up, because he was about to become a father.
The far-Right activist said while he received a small income from making “political videos”, he had been jobless for some time after finding it difficult to get a job because of his “political history”.
Erikson is one of the first people in Victoria to have been charged under racial vilification laws.
In 2017, he and two others were convicted of inciting contempt for Muslims and fined $2000 after they filmed a video of themselves beheading a mannequin outside Bendigo council offices in 2015.
The film was meant as a protest against the construction of a local mosque.
And last year, he was found guilty of contempt of court for failing to observe orders that he take down social media posts of himself wearing a uniform of a former employer.
One of those posts showed him haranguing former senator Sam Dastyari in a pub.
Mr Smith sentenced Erikson to a 12-month Community Corrections Order.
2) Y e m i n e m
Also experiencing some legal difficulties at the moment is Erikson’s rival serial pest Avi Yeminem. (Note that Yeminem’s party, Yellow Vest Australia, held a fairly desultory rally in Melbourne on May 4: a few dozen attended, while at the federal election just under 1,800 (0.06%) voted for the party for the Senate in Victoria — a drop of 0.60% since 2016.)
Avi Yemini in court over assault, knife-throwing charges against woman
Jon Andrews
Caulfield Glen Eira Leader
May 2, 2019
Activist and self-defence guru Avi Yemini has appeared in court facing charges that he injured, harassed and threw a knife at the face of a woman.
Mr Yemini, whose real first name is Avraham, pleaded not guilty to eight charges at Moorabbin Magistrates’ Court yesterday morning.
The 33-year-old’s case was adjourned until next month, with his lawyer saying he will contest the case.
Court documents released to the Leader state he has been charged with recklessly causing injury to a woman at a Caulfield North premises on March 18, 2016.
Police allege on the same day he also recklessly engaged in conduct by throwing a knife at the victim’s face that placed her in danger of serious injury.
They also believe in December 2015, three times in July 2017 and again in November last year he used a carriage service to harass her.
A summary of his alleged offending was not released.
The self-proclaimed “proud Ozraeli” promotes himself as someone who empowers women through self-defence classes.
A former Israel Defence Force soldier, he has a large Facebook following under his page Avi Yemini Unbanned and is an avid Twitter user, reaching out to his more than 43,000 fans.
His website states he is a voice for “issues relating to self-defence, counter-terrorism, being pro-Israel in Australia and the Jewish community in Melbourne”.
Considered as a far-right political activist, he failed in his bid last year to become an Upper House Victorian MP.
His lawyer, Deborah Mandie, told the court she believed the reckless cause injury charge was likely to be withdrawn, and the knife-throwing incident was disputed.
She said the defence needed statements regarding the carriage service to harass charges, which the police prosecution said they would be happy to provide.
Mr Yemini was bailed to his Berwick home on the condition he did not contact any witnesses.
He will appear in court again on June 13.
Balwyn Calling!
The Christchurch massacre continues to have some minor repercussions in the land of the alleged killer’s birth. Thus Tom Sewell, the fuehrer of neo-Nazi groupsucule The Lads Society, featured in ‘Threats from white extremist group that ‘tried to recruit Tarrant” (Patrick Begley, The Sydney Morning Herald, May 2, 2019), which details a sooky Sewell’s response to inquiries regarding the relationship between the Society and Brenton Tarrant.
“The difference between my organisation, myself and him [Tarrant], is simply that we believe, certainly at this stage, that there is a peaceful solution for us to create the society we want to live in,” Mr Sewell said.
“We want a peaceful alternative, we want to be treated with respect, we want to be left alone. If we are not given that opportunity, well, time will tell. I’m not going to give you any explicit threat but it’s pretty f–king obvious what’s going to happen.”
Mr Sewell said “we’re all gravy at the moment” because police were leaving his group alone but that people were “making the world burn, and they have names and addresses.”
With the 2019 Australian federal election less than two weeks away, now seems like a good time to update Trot Guide (which I last updated seven months ago, in September 2018). The most exciting news is the emergence of a NEW! Communist party. But first, a handful of left parties are contesting the election: the AWP, SA, SEP and VS. While none are expected to make much of a dent in the state apparatus or cause much upset in the bourgeois parliament, the fact that the oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament is too good an opportunity not to take advantage of, amirite?
1) Australian Workers Party
The AWP is a new-ish formation which, rather like the Progressive Labour Party, appears to be of the social democratic left but which also, unlike the PLP, is actually standing several candidates: Ed Caruana in Lynne (NSW) and Senate teams in NSW, QLD and VIC.
2) Socialist Alliance
The SA is running Senate candidates in NSW (Susan Price and Joel McAlear) and WA (Petrina Harley and Alex Salmon) along with Sam Wainwright in Fremantle (WA), Kamala Emanuel in Brisbane (QLD) and Mike Crook in Lilley (NSW). In 2016 the party ran candidates for the Senate in NSW, WA and VIC and four seats in the House of Representatives. This fact would appear to confirm the long, slow decline of the party (2001–) as a whole.
3) Socialist Equality Party
The SEP is standing Senate teams in NSW and VIC and running candidates in the House of Representatives’ electorates of Parramatta in Sydney, Calwell in Melbourne, Hunter in Newcastle and Oxley in Brisbane. (In 2016, the world leadership of the socialist movement ran for the Senate in QLD too.)
4) Victorian Socialists
The Victorian Socialists are running three candidates: Jerome Small in Calwell, Kath Larkin in Cooper and Sue Bolton in Wills. For last year’s Victorian state election, VS ran candidates in every Upper House region and 18 (of 88) seats in the Lower House, but most of their energies were focused upon the Northern Metropolitan region, where Steve Jolly was lead candidate. The party fared reasonably well in the region, scoring more votes (4.2%) than all other contestants apart from Labor (42.58%), The Greens (16.76%) and The Liberals (16.48%). Given that Calwell, Cooper and Wills are also in the northern metropolitan region, VS is presumably hoping that their vote may be a little higher than would otherwise be expected of socialist candidates in these seats. Calwell is also being contested by the SEP in the shape of Peter Byrne, who had a previous crack at the seat in 2010 (gaining 1,181 votes/1.3%).
*VS was denounced by the Spartacist League of Australia as ‘just another form of parliamentarist left Laborism, with an appeal to the petty-bourgeois liberal fringe around the Greens’, which was pretty mean. In other sad news, the ICL lvl boss, Jim Robertson, died recently, as has the US-based International Socialist Organization (ISO). The ICL picks over the ISO’s bones here, while official statements regarding the group’s demise are available on its website. (Note that in Australia Solidarity remains within the iSt, as does Socialist Aotearoa in NZ.) Oh, also having a crack at VS is SEP (AKA WSWS). See : Victorian Socialists’ fake-left election campaign, Patrick O’Connor, May 2, 2019.
NB. There are several liberal and progressive parties running, including the Australian Democrats, Australian Progressives, the bizarr0 “Climate Action! Immigration Action! Accountable Politicians!” party (ex-Online Direct Democracy), Pirate Party and others. But most of the micro-party field would appear to be already occupied by racist, reactionary, religious and right-wing formations, and what progressive sentiment there is at the ballot box looks likely to be absorbed by either Labor or the Greens.
Australian Communist Party
The ACP is a NEW! party, forming as a split from the Communist Party of Australia, seemingly as a result of differences of opinion regarding strategy and the resignation of its general secretary, Bob Briton. According to the ACP:
… unresolved issues regarding the Party’s work in the trade unions and with the Australian Labor Party eventually resurfaced and combined with lax recruitment practices and general ill-discipline to produce an unworkable environment for committed Communists. It was these regrettable circumstances that led the founders of the Australian Communist Party to re-establish a Marxist-Leninist party in Australia.
Finally, note that the SEARCH Foundation — one of the remnants of the OG CPA (1920–1991) — has published a Federal Election Statement which urges its supporters to join the ‘campaign to defeat the Coalition government as a matter of urgency and priority in the remaining days to 18 May’.
As for the other NEW! (as of September 2018) entries to the Guide, the Stalin Society of Australia is still keeping busy pursuing its dream of ‘rehabilitating the memory of Joseph Stalin by distributing accurate information about him to the working class of Australia’, while Left Unity SA appears to have been resting since March 2018. On the bright side, the Communist Workers Party of Australia is still workering, and you can follow the continuing adventures of the Workers League by way of redfireonline dot com.
*Oh, and for the #lulz, here’s what Rise Up Australia Party/Catch The Fire Ministries/Reformation Harvest Fire Ministries has to say about, ah, ‘Communism’: Currently in the West we are witnessing a revival of Communism combined with Islamism. Obama, who was elected on behalf of a netter social justice has defected on promises to keep the American Heritage by upholding the Christian faith, and in reality appears to be a Cultural Marxist Statesman, allied with Islam if not an Islamist himself. So there you have it!
Update (April 28, 2019) : The ‘White Rose Society’ has published an account of the little fascist shit Max Towns, the 19yo what allegedly assaulted the photographer @ Fraser ‘Final Solution’ Anning’s campaign launch @ Cronulla on Friday. The article also contains an appeal for more infos on the subject of neo-Nazi activist Troy Crockett, an associate of Blair Cottrell’s and the UPF and a member of ‘The Lads Society’. Crockett has not previously been publicly named but has otherwise been active as ‘Trè Blackstone’, ‘Trè Bloodstone’, ‘Troy’ or ‘Trè Targaryen’ and ‘Trè Greystoke’.
Update : The fascist teenybopper who allegedly punched a photographer at Anning’s media conference in Cronulla today is ‘True Blue Crew’ (TBC) NSW associate Max Towns. Towns has form, being one of a dozen or so meatheads who joined neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell in monstering entertainer Dandyman outta Fed Square in Melbourne following the TBC flagwit parade in June last year, and otherwise reportedly enjoys attacking leftist women along King Street in Newtown. The TBC was of course one of the groups the Christchurch killer was a YUGE fan of, and the TBC in QLD has organised a picnic for FACNP candidate Perry Adrelius and other patriotik candidates this Sunday in Gatton …
As usual, I’ll examine candidates for the 2019 Australian federal election from the far left and the far right at a later date, but in the meantime I thought I’d take a brief look at the few score Volk who’ve decided to join Senator Fraser Anning in his pursuit of a Final Solution to The Immigration &/Or Muslim Problem. With the possible exception of Anning himself, none have any real chance of being elected to office, and their entry into the contest may well simply end up fracturing the far right vote, pitted as they will be against Pauline Hanson’s mob. Still, as the Prime Minister put it so eloquently ‘If you have a go, you get a go’, so who knows who’ll end up getting what.
In summary then, Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party (FACNP) is fielding candidates in 45 seats in the House of Representatives — 30 in Queensland, 6 in Victoria, 5 in New South Wales and two each in the Northern Territory and Tasmania — along with Senate teams in every state and territory. Most are unknown figures, with just a handful having any kind of public profile, and others transferring their political loyalties from a previous micro-party to Anning’s.
As noted below, Anning choose Cronulla beach to launch the NSW component of his campaign today, the beach being the site in 2005 of a major race riot and a point of celebration for many other white nationalists. In January, Anning held an anti-African rally at St Kilda Beach in Melbourne on the 100th anniversary of the launch of The German Workers’ Party (German: Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP), the precursor to the Nazi party (NSDAP). As also noted previously, his office and social media campaign employs a number of neo-Nazis, fascists and White supremacists. See : Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party, Andrew Wilson, neo-Nazis, & the 2019 Australian federal election (April 20, 2019).
Above : Anning @ St Kilda Beach with Kiwi Mark McDonald, former leader of neo-Nazi grouplet ‘Squadron 88’ turned The Lads Society organiser in Sydney.
Anyway, here’s a few of the more colourful characters running with Anning this year (a list to which I may add in the coming weeks):
• Mark Absolon (Senate, QLD)
Mark Absolon would appear to be ‘Messianic Torah Observant’, which is … ah … yeah.
• Perry Adrelius (Groom, QLD)
A Swedish migrant opposed to (non-white) migration and ‘socialism’, Adrelius’ campaign manager, Nicole Kinsey, is a QAnon fangirl.
• David Archibald (Senate, WA)
A semi-professional climate change denialist, scribbler for Quadrant and The Spectator who reckons single moms are too lazy and stoopid to attract a mate, Archibald is a former One Nation Party (ONP) candidate (Western Australian state election, 2017: Pilbara) and one of several aspiring MPs to have jumped ship for Anning’s party. (He also ran in the federal seat of Curtin in 2016 for the anti-Muslim micro-party ‘Australian Liberty Alliance’, which is now known as ‘Yellow Vest Australia’).
• Adrian Cheok (Boothby, SA)
A Bannon and Trump fanboy, Professor Cheok got a few moments in the spotlight last year. Hence:
The political views of Stephen K. Bannon, the former White House chief strategist and co-founder of the far-right Breitbart News, are considered repugnant by many people in academe.
So when it was announced last week that Bannon would be a keynote speaker at the Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology conference, to be held at the University of Montana’s flagship campus in December, people revolted. Bannon is said to be an architect of Gamergate, a 2014 hashtag campaign that brought virtual hatred to women and minorities in the gaming community.
The other keynote speaker dropped out. The university distanced itself. A hashtag circulated, calling for those who had submitted papers to withdraw them, and for potential attendees to boycott the conference.
The Future of Learning
And at the center of the outrage is Adrian David Cheok, who in the past year has alienated his colleagues through a presentation on sex robots, and by his online emulation of the only hard-right figure more famous than Bannon: President Trump.
Just a few weeks ago, Cheok was urging the importance of voting for the Christian fun-da-mentalist ‘Rise Up Australia Party’ (RUAP), but has obviously changed his mind, and now urges concerned citizens to support Final Solution.
• Julie Hoskin (Bendigo, VIC)
You may remember Julie Hoskin from such anti-Muslim groups as ‘Rights For Bendigo Residents’ (2014–), which among other things staged demonstrations against and launched a legal challenge to the construction of a mosque in the Victorian town. Unhappily for Hoskin, the legal challenged ultimately failed, and she ended up owing tens of thousands to solicitor Robert Balzola, who undertook the case. Consequently, in September last year, Hoskin was declared bankrupt and forced to resign her seat on Bendigo council. As a result, Hoskin is likely ineligible to take up a seat in parliament in the miraculous event (“Praise Jesus!”) she should win.
Not to be confused with the serial killer AKA ‘The Beast of Birkenshaw’, Manuel is a ‘salt-of-the-earth farmer’ according to his comrade David Flint. Further, according to the elderly monarchist, at the nineteenth annual gathering of ‘Australians for Constitutional Monarchy’, Manuel warned that ‘mainly republican politicians who prefer to waste money on buying votes or on massive financial disasters like the NBN … prefer to have our water flow out to sea while unleashing a reign of terror on our persecuted farmers as if they were latter-day Kulaks’ (‘Aux bien pensants’, Spectator, February 16, 2019). When he’s not being a persecuted, climate-change denying Kulak, Manuel may be found touting the virtues of some thing called ‘FLAG Australia’.
• Scott Moerland (Oxley, QLD)
Scott Moerland is best known for being one of the faces of ‘Reclaim Australia’ in Queensland and a founding member of the ‘United Patriots Front’ (2015–2017). A Christian, Moerland ran for RUAP at the 2013 federal election and received 400 votes (0.53%) for his troubles. Otherwise, Moerland’s candidacy contradicts Anning’s claim, made in early April, that he would rule out running anyone tied to Blair Cottrell and Neil Erikson (Moerland’s former UPF comrades).
• Rod Smith (Wright, QLD)
Another Hanson reject, Smith was the One Nation candidate for the federal seat of Wright in 2016 (18,461 votes/20.9%), the QLD state seat of Scenic Rim in 2017 (8,662 votes/27.6%), and the federal seat of Page (NSW) in 2013 (1,381 votes/1.61%).
• Paul Taylor (Senate, QLD)
Like Moerland, Taylor is a former candidate for ONP and RUAP, standing for ONP in Capalaba at the 2017 Queensland state election (gaining 6,049 votes or 19.5%) and as a Senate candidate for RUAP in Queensland at the 2016 federal election (receiving 5,734 votes or 0.21%). Taylor is a Good Christian and a migrant from India.
• Adam Vail (Calwell, VIC)
On his Facebook page promoting his campaign, Vail endorsed Bill Heffernan’s 2015 claims about elite paedophile rings, concluding that ‘If you put a number in a box on any ballot paper that now makes YOU an enabler of Paedophile filth’.
• Shane Van Duren (Senate, ACT)
A former soldier with 3RAR, Van Duren’s candidacy was soon brought into question on account of his criminal record — he assaulted a police officer and choked an RSPCA inspector in Canberra in 2015, and last year was involved in an exciting escapade with his brother Owen in Thailand — and as a result it would seem likely that, in the extraordinary event he was elected to the Senate from Canberra, he too would be ineligible to sit.
House of Representatives
NSW
Cook : KELLY, Peter (Student) / Hume : HARGRAVES, Tanya (Graphic Designer and Marketing) / Lindsay : LEES, Brandon (Warehouse Worker) / Lyne : GOLDSPRING, Ryan Frederick (Primary Producer) / Warringah : CLARE, Brian (Retired)
QLD
Blair : FITZPATRICK, Peter John (Diesel Fitter) / Bonner : MAYNARD, Alex (Unemployed) / Bowman : ANDERSON, David (Electrician) / Brisbane : JEANNERET, Rod (Retired) / Capricornia : PRATT, Grant (Motor Technician/Business Owner) / Dawson : TURNER, Michael Wayne (Small Business Ownr (Heavy Trns)) / Dickson : SIMPSON, Richelle (Unemployed) / Fadden : BARBER, Allan (Business) / Fairfax : RYAN, Jake Luke (Metal Fabricator) / Fisher : JESSOP, Mike (Boat Builder) / Flynn : HIESLER, Marcus John (Manager) / Forde : INNES, Les (Retail Manager Semi Retired) / Griffith : MURRAY, Tony (Retired) / Groom : ADRELIUS, Perry (Self Employed) / Herbert : DURANT, Tamara (Self Employed) / Hinkler : ERSKINE, Aaron (ICT Specialist) / Kennedy : HACKWELL, Ian Douglas (Retired) / Leichhardt : ASHBY, Jo (AIN Nurse) / Lilley : COLES, Don (Restoration Specialist) / Longman : PAULKE, Dave (Semi Retired) / Maranoa : CHRISTIANSEN, Darren Lee (Farmer Grazier) / McPherson : GAFFY, Sean Gordon (Service Advisor) / Moncrieff : LONG, Darren Alan (Business Owner) / Moreton : NIEASS, Aaron (Tradesman Tiler) / Oxley : MOERLAND, Scott (Business Owner) / Petrie : FOWLER, Neville John (Retired) / Rankin : ANDREWS, Peter James (Retired) / Ryan : BANKS, Andrew (Civil Engineer) / Wide Bay : SMITH, Jasmine (Delivery Driver) / Wright : SMITH, Rod (Tiler)
SA
Boothby : CHEOK, Adrian David (Professor) / Hindmarsh : VAID, Rajan (Telecommunication Engineer)
TAS
Braddon : ALLAN, Shane (Fitter Machinist) / Franklin : HAWES, Darren John (Electrical Contractor)
VIC
Bendigo : HOSKIN, Julie (Advocate) / Bruce : BOYANTON, Tim (Storeman) / Calwell : VAIL, Adam (Factory Hand) / Dunkley : JAMES, Christopher Ronald (Builder) / Gippsland : TICKNER, Neville Phillip (Truck Driver) / Mallee : GROSVENOR, Rick (Farmer)
Senate
ACT
VAN DUREN, Shane (Veteran)
BIRKETT, Scott (Client Service Administrator)
NSW
THOMSON, Carolyn (Financial Reform Advocate)
YOUNG, Gary (Manager)
SWANN, Paul (Roads Infrastructure Supervisor)
WHARTON, Ian (Farmer)
NT
DICKSON, Mark James (OIG Professional)
WHEELER, James David Richard (Student/Casual Pest Management)
QLD
ANNING, Fraser (Senator for Queensland)
TAYLOR, Paul Arthur Simon (Manager/Trade)
ABSOLON, Mark (Property Services)
SANDFORD, Nancy Louise (House Keeper)
CAMERON, Brad (Bus Driver)
SA
MANUEL, Peter (Primary Producer)
DWYER, Tim (Business Owner)
TAS
JONES, Michael (Sales Manager)
FALZON, Frank (Insurance Assessor)
VIC
STEVENS, Bruce (Maintenance Officer)
MAZALEVSKIS, Rita (Bank Victim Advocate)
WILLIAMSON, Benjamin (Owner/Operator)
WA
ARCHIBALD, David (Geologist)
CAMPBELL, Meredith Melinda (Hairdresser)
Above (L to R) : Radomir Kobryn-Coletti, Morgan Munro, Andrew Wilson.
On Thursday, ABC’s ‘Background Briefing’ published several articles documenting the involvement of various far-right personalities in Senator Fraser Anning’s party and office, among them Andrew Wilson and Radomir Kobryn-Colleti.
tl;dr : A number of key figures from a radical right-wing political and social network — previously implicated in the infiltration of the Young Nationals last year and the (ultimately-unsuccessful) attempt to seize control of the Humanist Society in NSW ten years ago — have been recruited into Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party (CNP), where they play a key role in the CNP’s 2019 Australian federal election campaign.
Of the young men involved in the CNP, as well as the networks which facilitated their passage, some further details may be found by way of thewhiterosesociety, but in the meantime:
• Radomir Kobryn-Coletti is ‘a conscientious and highly talented individual who’s personal skills and diverse network make him stand out as one of Perth’s most attractive young entrepreneurs’. Or at least, that’s how he describes himself on his LinkedIn profile; others may beg to differ.
• Morgan Munro is another ‘attractive young entrepreneur’ from Perth, who made his debut on AltRight website ‘The Unhinged’ on Hitler’s birthday in 2018, and has since become a regular contributor, with most of his content revolving around events in his new home of Melbourne.
• Zack Newton has closed his Facebook account but remains open for fashy business.
• Boston White is innocent.
• Andrew Wilson is ‘a toxic leach on the face of Australian nationalism … who lives off character assassination’. Well, according to one critic, anyway (see below). According to neo-Nazi troll Nathan Sykes and the Australia First Party, Wilson is A Very Bad Egg who’s implicated in a range of dirty tricks against them, performed for the benefit of the Liberal Party in Sydney. He’s also a veteran agitator and was once, in the early 2000s, the lvl boss of the ‘Patriotic Youth League’, a failed attempt by AFP to establish a yoof wing. At this time, Wilson was also a member of the Australian franchise of now-defunct neo-Nazi grouplet Volksfront (VF dissolved in 2012/3 after one of its associates, Wade Michael Page, shot to death six people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, USA).
The fallout from the ABC’s reportage has to date been minimal, with the usual denials being issued and some minor online recomposition taking place. Thus when asked for commentary on the matter the Prime Minister Scott Morrison dismissed it as some kind of ‘conspiracy theory’, while Anning himself has declared that he knows nothing and besides, what his employees do in their leisure time is none of his concern. One minor casualty of the affair has been the boys’ Facebook page ‘Abhorrent Australian Memes Did Nothing Wrong’ (itself an alternate for an earlier page titled ‘Abhorrent Australian Memes’) which has now been unpublished. The reasons for this are unclear, though it may have something to do with the page publishing a photo taken in federal parliament of Greens MP Larissa Waters — an action which is apparently contrary to parliamentary regulations.
There are, of course, dozens of such pages, which routinely share the same or similar material, often in a coordinated fashion. One example from last week revolves around the false attribution of a quote about immigration to cricketer Shane Warne, which was posted to the Spiller brothers’ page ‘Future Now News’ (since deleted) and twice on conspiracist page ‘Agenda 21 Australia/COP 2030/Politics’ (where it remains). Note that ahead of the Australian federal election Facebook has declared that it’ll do nothing to stop the flood of lies and propaganda, which fact may play some marginal role in determining the outcome. See : A Completely Made Up Racist Shane Warne Quote Went Viral On Facebook, Brad Esposito, Pedestrian, April 16, 2019 | Shane Warne Denies Anti-Immigration Comments In Viral Far-Right Meme, Josh Butler, 10 daily, April 16, 2019 | Social media platforms slammed for lax approach to policing fake news, Claire Bickers, Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson, News Corp Australia Network, April 17, 2019.
On the same day as the Background Briefing report was published, in Townsville Senator Anning announced his Senatorial team in Queensland: Paul Taylor, Mark Absolon, Nancy Sandford and Brad Cameron. Previously, he’d introduced Perry Adrelius as the party’s candidate for Groom, Rod Smith for Wright, and Tim Dwyer and Peter Manuel for the Senate in South Australia.
Anning extended an invitation to the public to nominate themselves as candidates for his party by way of an email sent earlier in the month:
Hi all,
You are receiving this email because you have expressed an interest in standing for election as a candidate for Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party.
Our initial intention was to make first contact with each of you by phone within a few days (and members of our team have already spoken to a significant number of you), but the sheer volume of nominations has overwhelmed any possibility of that. At the moment we are a small team trying to coordinate a movement that has exploded into something much, much bigger than ourselves. And with the Federal Election having just been called there is not a lot of time to do it.
The close of nominations is midday on the 23rd of April, and we want to have nominations finalised a couple of days before then. This means we need to substantially accelerate the nomination process.
This email is therefore going to serve as what would ordinarily be the first step of our interview and vetting process. It will lay out bluntly and frankly what the expectations of our candidates are and allow you to decide if you want to continue in this process. The goal is to quickly weed out as many of the uncommitted, unprepared, and unsuitable as possible.
The first thing I want to do with this email is to make clear exactly what the commitments of being a candidate are. If you have not previously had any experience in politics, this might be intimidating.
FINANCIAL COMMITMENT
Firstly, you will need to pay a nomination deposit of $2000 to get on the ballot paper … Then on top of that are the costs of the campaign. Campaign costs are variable depending on what you choose to invest in and how much you decide to spend, but don’t expect to be able to run a credible campaign with less than $5000.
You will be refunded your $2000 nomination deposit and campaign spending (up to $2.73 per vote won – approximately $2500-$3000 per percentage point in a lower house electorate) if you secure 4% or more of the vote at the election. However, you need to be able to put this money up out of pocket and potentially lose it all if things don’t go right for you. Even if you are successful enough to reclaim your expenses, you may need to wait for a significant period for your claim to be processed. If you don’t have the liquidity to dedicate these sorts of resources towards a campaign, it would be wise to take a step back.
ELIGIBILITY
When nominating you will need to complete this form [snip]. There are various reasons why you may not be constitutionally eligible for nomination. Dual citizenship is the obvious one, and if you have parents or grandparents from another country, you should provide evidence of why that does not make you a dual citizen.
Additionally working in a government job or having some sort of contract with the government may also disqualify you. So does being an undischarged bankrupt or insolvent or being under sentence for a crime punishable by 12 months imprisonment or more.
Go through the form linked above, and if you have any difficulties completing it in a way that confirms your constitutional eligibility to be elected, you should strongly consider withdrawing from the process.
POLICY
The objects of Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party are as follows:
i) the vision of Sir Henry Parkes of Australia as an English speaking, predominantly European Christian Commonwealth, as originally described in 1901 when Australia as a nation was founded;
ii) social cohesion by an immigration program that gives preference to those best able to integrate and assimilate;
iii) traditional family values, including recognising marriage as only the union of a man and a woman and the sanctity of human life at all ages, including both the unborn and the elderly;
iv) government through the democratic consent of the governed;
v) individual freedom, including unrestricted freedom of speech, association and belief;
vi) private enterprise;
vii) private property as an inviolable natural right;
viii) universal home-ownership as a national objective;
ix) Australian ownership of our infrastructure, manufacturing and agriculture;
x) widely distributed ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange through owner operated farms, small business and co-operatives;
xi) collective bargaining in agriculture and industry;
xii) orderly marketing of agricultural products;
xiii) the development of rural and regional infrastructure and the re-industrialisation of Australia;
xiv) an end to usury through the establishment of a not-for-profit government bank;
xv) the right to own firearms and use them in self-defence;
xvi) welfare as a safety net but restricted to citizens;
xvii) citizens initiated referenda and voluntary voting;
xviii) decentralisation of power and competitive federalism;
xix) a fair taxation system that encourages productivity and savings and rewards hard work;
xx) the restoration of Australia’s national sovereignty through repudiation of coercive international treaties and a foreign policy that puts Australia first;
xxi) a capable and well-resourced military and strong support for our veterans.
Please read all of the above points carefully. If you are not able to whole heartedly support each and every point in this platform, please withdraw yourself from this process. Contradicting the party platform in any way will be grounds for immediate disendorsement. The reason is we expect the media will exploit any difference of view between Fraser and a candidate – even a small difference. While we respect people having different views, Party candidates have to be solid.
VOLUNTEERS
Ideally you will have a strong network of friends and supporters you can rely on to help you in your campaign. We will help our network of supporters to make contact with the endorsed candidate in each electorate, but it will be incumbent on each candidate to run their own campaign, including coordinating volunteers.
The most labour-intensive job will be handing out how-to-vote cards. Follow this link and choose your electorate, then select “polling places” to see all the locations you will need volunteers to man on election day. It’s not uncommon for a single electorate to have around 50 polling places, and usually its better to have two supporters at each location.
It’s common for many parties to be unable to have volunteers at all polling locations. However, the more people you have doing it, the higher your vote will be.
We are hopeful that strong public support for Senator Anning will translate into an unusually strong “ground game”.
POTENTIAL CONTROVERSY
If you have issues in your life that may attract attention and criticism of Senator Anning and the party, you must proactively disclose them to us before being nominated. We are not afraid of criticism, but we need to know ahead of time what issues may arise. These issues may include:
– Past criminal or legal issues
– Controversial career paths
– Previous political associations
– Publicly expressed positions or actions that may conflict with the objects of Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party
– Inflammatory social media comments
– Anything else that could become an issue
It will be grounds for immediate disendorsement if an issue emerges during the campaign that you have not revealed to us ahead of time. If you are in any doubt, disclose it.
MEDIA
All media requests will need to be passed on to and approved by Senator Anning’s media advisor. We want you to get publicity, but we are also mindful of avoiding media traps.
If you are being interviewed and are asked a loaded question designed to have no good answer (as a classic example, “Have you stopped beating your wife?”), remember that the best way to respond is usually by challenging the premise of the question (e.g. “I never beat my wife in the first place”).
If you get truly flustered, simply state the party’s position and say it is up to the public to decide if that is what they want.
And most importantly, you must never qualify or retreat from the policy platform of Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party. The number one way for our enemies to undermine the credibility of the party is to get candidates to contradict Senator Anning in some way. It is essential that voters can trust that if they vote for the party they will get exactly what they are being promised. No matter how much pressure is put on you, you must never concede any point. Failure to adhere to the objects of the party will be grounds for immediate disendorsement.
Our intent is to give each candidate a mock interview where we pose the type of questions they may be asked by the media during the campaign to test their readiness to represent the party.
SENATE CANDIDATES
Currently, we have a great many candidates who have indicated interest in Senate positions. That is of course to be expected as Senate candidates are the ones most likely to be successful, but it is inevitable that a very large number of candidates will be rejected. On the other hand it’s a good problem to have as it means that we can afford to be very selective about who we choose for our Senate team.
If you are someone who has indicated interest in standing for the Senate, we would love it if you would consider standing in your local electorate instead. While we already have more than enough potential candidates to stand in every lower house seat, they are not evenly distributed and there are still some electorates which no candidate has nominated for.
On the other hand if you believe you are an unusually strong candidate, you may still wish to be considered for a lead Senate nomination.
THE NEXT STEPS
If after reading everything above you still want to represent Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party at the election, great! We really value your passion, your support, and your dedication.
Please respond to this email by completing the attached declaration form to indicate your continued interest.
Following that, expect to be contacted by phone for an interview …
Scores have applied to become candidates for the election, though only a handful have been officially confirmed as yet, and nominations will not officially close until April 23. Still, the Very Normal folks who’ve applied to or indicated an interest in contributing to Anning’s Final Solution range from ammosexuals to budding C&W stars, bureaucrats to lawyers, neo-Nazi thugs to racist tradies and Xtian fun-da-mentalist preachers. Most, in other words, are Ordinary Mums & Dads™, though a few are more familiar figures, drawn from the One Nation, Palmer United and Rise Up Australia parties, and some will be famous soon enough I expect.
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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