The Hills March Against Maccas, Belgrave, Saturday March 2

Ah McDonald’s. The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases McDonald’s over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere. Currently, the multi-billion dollar corporation is extending its reach into The Dandenongs.

Against the odds, some plucky locals have been campaigning against the fast-food giant — with media coverage, popular support but limited success. Next weekend a march has been organised to draw further attention to the fact that McDonald’s is not welcome in Tecoma.

I reckon they’ve got three chances of stopping the juggernaut.

You still don’t get it, do you? It’ll find you. That’s what it does. That’s all it does! You can’t stop it. It’ll wade through you, reach down your throat, and pull your fucking heart out.

Still

Posted in State / Politics, That's Capitalism! | Tagged | 1 Comment

Rally for Jock Palfreeman, Sydney, March 14 [CANCELLED]

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE RALLY SCHEDULED FOR THURSDAY MARCH 14 HAS BEEN CANCELLED.

Rally for Jock Palfreeman!
Thursday, March 14, 12.30-1.30pm
Outside Bob Carr’s electorate office
4-6 Bligh St, Sydney CBD
Infos : Pip 0412 139 968

See also : Jock Palfreeman : February 2013 Update (February 18, 2013).

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La Mirage Receptions : Geert Wilders one day, Islamic Relief Australia the next

In a rather amusing irony and testimony, perhaps, to the flexible nature of the capitalist marketplace, the reception centre which yesterday hosted Geert Wilders will next month host his nemesis.

How might this situation be read? Is it evidence of the strength of Australian multiculturalism that the same venue can host an anti-Muslim demagogue one day and a Muslim charity the next? Or — should the Irish Republican Army Islamic Relief Australia cancel its booking at the phantastic business — an example of poor management practices?

We report.

You decide.

[Hat-tip: Natalie]

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Geert Wilders at La Mirage Receptions, 210 Hume Hwy, Somerton, Tonight


Above : Some elderly people have their prejudices about Mooselems confirmed by a dashing Dutchman. Img stolen from Hamish Fitzsimmons (Lateline).

Update (8:00pm) : The picket has wound down. Maybe 150 attended. There were no arrests. Wilders is next scheduled to speak in Perth tomorrow — the Q Society appears to be having some problems finding a venue; Muslims in Melbourne may like like to avoid La Mirage in future…

Update : There’ve been some scuffles between police, picketers and those attending Wilders’ speech. Police have used horses to break the picket outside the venue. Wilders’ supporters include a few known racists and fascists from organisations such as the ADL. It’s unclear yet if anyone’s been arrested. There’s a very large police and media presence.

Geert Wilders will be speaking in Melbourne tonight at La Mirage Reception & Convention Centre, 210 Hume Highway, Somerton in Melbourne’s outer-northern suburbs.

Tour organisers the ‘Q Society’ has requested ticket-holders attend at 6pm.

A protest/picket will be at the reception centre from this time.

Some people will be assembling in the City Square at 5pm; many no doubt then travelling to Somerton. Others will be meeting from 5.00-5.30pm at Roxburgh Park train station (Upfield line) before heading to the venue.

La Mirage Receptions may be congratulated for facilitating Wilder’s anti-Muslim mania on (03) 9305 4855.

See also : Geert Wilders in Australia, February 2013 (February 2, 2013).

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Jock Palfreeman : February 2013 Update

1. An article about imprisoned anti-fascist Jock Palfreeman appeared in the Fairfax press on the weekend. You can read it here.

2. Belinda Hawkins, the author of the article, has written a book about Jock’s case: Every Parent’s Nightmare. It’s being launched at the end of February/beginning of March.

3. An open letter from Jock (see below) has been circulating, describing the reasons for his recent hunger strike and appealing for support.

For general information on Jock’s case see the Free Jock site or elsewhere on this blog (The Hair of the Dog : Jock Palfreeman in Prison, November 11, 2012).

G-day guys! All at ABC,

Well, first of all, the Director stopped me from my Uni degree! See I’ve been helping other prisoners, obviously part of the union and solidarity with fellow convicts. So to punish me, for my solidarity ie legal advice! the Director of the prison cut me off from the computers where I write my essays. It happened several days ago after 10 guards badly beat a prisoner with batons. I helped the prisoner get legal advice and explained to him the procedure for how to instigate a criminal investigation into their attack. For that I’m being punished in that they are stopping me from my studies.

So on the 13/1/13 I started a hunger strike, I have not eaten since then, I am only drinking water drinks eg mint tea (without sugar) and normal water. I have lost a lot of weight in 9 days but I don’t know how much as the prison refuses to send a doctor to me. I don’t plan on stopping until I am returned to my studies, but I don’t think this director will allow me, so prospects look dim! To help me, please send letters of complaint to:

Ministry of Justice
Diana Kovacheva
No. 1, Slavanska Street
Sofia 1040
Bulgaria

I recommend writing as individuals.

22nd January 2013

Hunger strike… not happy, the worst is that I’m getting bad heart burn from my stomach acids!

Be good guys!
Solidarity
Comrade Jock Palfreeman

Please sent letters of support & solidarity to:

Jock Palfreeman
Sofia Central Prison
21 General Stoletov Boulevard
Sofia 1309
Bulgaria

Posted in Anti-fascism, State / Politics | Tagged | 1 Comment

The Invention of the White Race Slide Presentation/Talk by Jeffrey B. Perry

I thought I may as well draw your attention to this presentation by the historian Jeffry B. Perry. You may also be interested in: “Race suicide” (January 1, 2011) | The assault on American Indian tribal relationships… (May 31, 2009) | The Invention of the White Race (May 29, 2009) | Anarchy 102 : Race (April 10, 2007).

http://politube.org/show/3732

zzz

Posted in Anti-fascism, History, Media, State / Politics, That's Capitalism! | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Random acts of kindness and anarchist solidarity

It’s hardly news but still . . .

In England, Freedom Books has come under attack. On February 1 an unknown party set fire to the the anarchist publisher’s premises in Whitechapel, London, resulting in extensive damage to the property. An appeal for help recovering from the loss has been made and the Melbourne Anarchist Club, among others, has pledged support.

In Egypt, the seemingly sudden emergence of some kinda ‘black bloc’-type movement last month has produced baffled headlines, new-ish anxieties and further repression by the shadowy forces of the state (and its new allies the Muslim Brotherhood).

A real mystery, this one.

In response to the repression, February 6 has been designated an international day of action intended to draw attention to the plight of comrades in Egypt and to let them know that anarchists in other territories are watching. In Melbourne, some anarchists will be gathering at the Egyptian Consulate (50 Market St, City) at 3.30pm.

Last month in Germany, a leftist protester was jailed for almost two years after a judge ruled that he was responsible for breaching a police line during the course of an anti-fascist action in Dresden in February 2011. In Greece, fascism is growing — with swine taking both to the streets and being guided into the skools — and the anti-fascist movement is facing increasingly harsh repression by the state. (January 19 was an international day of solidarity with antifa in Greece and a coupla small gatherings were held in Canberra and Sydney in response.)

Finally, From Lake Eyre to West Papua is a journey of solidarity beginning in late July and ending in mid-August. For more infos, please see the Lizard’s Revenge website. Oh, and ACLU Defends Nazis’ Right To Burn Down ACLU Headquarters.

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Geert Wilders in Australia, February 2013

Update (February 19) : The venue for Wilders’ trouble-making in Melbourne on Tuesday, February 19 is La Mirage Reception & Convention Centre, 210 Hume Highway, Somerton. The venue can be contacted on (03) 9305 4855. A picket is being held at the venue from 6pm.

Update ( February 8 ) : Wilders’ tour appears almost certain to attract protest and it also seems that the venue originally booked by the Q Society in Sydney has cancelled its booking. Note that one of Wilders’ most recent project is an initiative intended to stop the construction of any further churches synagogues supermarkets mosques in the Netherlands.

Not that he’s got anything against Muslims: it’s teh Muslamics what done it.

Update : Fairfax has an article on Wilders’ tour titled ‘White supremacists ready for fight’ (Natalie O’Brien, The Age, February 2, 2012). It refers, inter alia, to the ‘Australian New Nation’ website — established several years ago in order to replace the White Pride Coalition of Australia site — and the Internet radio show ‘Australia Calling’. ‘Australia Calling’ is produced by Brisbane nazi Carl D Thompson, who briefly came to public attention some years ago when, after publishing some anti-Semitic material, he lost his job editing the One Nation newspaper.

Muslim-hating Dutch rightist Geert Wilders is gonna be touring Down Under in a few weeks. The Flying Dutchman’s tour is being organised by an anti-Islamic group known as the Q Society, and Wilders is scheduled to speak in Melbourne on the 19th, Perth on the 20th and Sydney on the 22nd of February, with the venues only being announced a day or two prior.* Unsurprisingly, having already roused controversy, Wilder’s tour is expected to generate some opposition, but also a good deal of support, especially among the far-right fringe. To that end, a number of individuals drawn from racist and fascist groups will be attending Wilder’s events :– some ostensibly in order to protect them from disruption.

Or were . . .

Within 48 hours of declaring that it was the sacred duty of White racialists to attend Wilder’s event in Sydney — largely in order to show the dastardly Reds who’s boss — Welf Herfurth — the leader of the minuscule forces of the New Right (NR) in Australia — changed his mind, and declared it to be a positively dreadful idea, one which risked aligning the NR with Zionists (ergo Jews).

Well, kinda . . .

Actually, the former NPD, ON and Democrats (!) member was admonished by his master, Troy Southgate, to pull his head in and think a li’l moar about the implications of aligning his handful of followers with The Jew. Thus:

Note that Herfurth’s mob last reared its head in Sydney back in November, when police provided them a platform at a Palestine solidarity rally; Herfurth himself is a Holocaust denialist and strong supporter of his kamerad Uncle Fred Toben.

Australian Protectionist Party & Conservative Islamophobia

Of course, support for Wilder’s message also extends deep into the conservative heartland, and includes prominent Muslim-baiters in the Tory party as well as handsomely-paid hacks in the corporate and state media. Further, the conservative embrace/promotion of paranoid fears over Muslamics has stolen a good deal of oxygen from a number of racist, right-wing fringe-dwellers, including Anders Breivik’s friends in the Australian Protectionist Party (APP). Just five short years after its foundation as a more ‘moderate’, less anti-Semitic version of the Australia First Party (AF), the APP has undergone its first major crisis, with the entirety of its Sydney branch decamping in order to establish yet another marginal bunch of kooks, this time modelled on Wilder’s Freedom Party (the APP modelled itself on the BNP). Whether or not the handful who spat the dummy can actually assemble another party remains to be seen, but given that they were the only active members the APP possessed the Protectionists seem doomed to disappear back into oblivion.

Or perhaps not.

Andrew Phillips, APP National Chairman, has relocated himself and his PO Box to Tasmania, while the party continues to nominate two others as contacts for NSW and VIC. Having lost perennial losers Darrin Hodges and Nicholas Hunter-Folkes, Phillips is now begging someone — anyone — to nominate themselves to undergo the humiliation of losing another popularity contest. Those interested can write to P.O. Box 170, Dover, Tasmania 7117 (which also functions as the postal address of Meals On Wheels in that part of the world).

*According to Q, “Details will be advised to paid-up patrons 48 hours prior to event. Expect a function centre within easy reach of the CBD. Photo ID is required to enter; only one small handbag per patron permitted into the venue.” Paul Sheehan writes for the defence here and you can read more about the Q Society on their webshite.

(More) Bloody Foreigners Making Trouble

Overseas: Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka ‘Tommy Robinson’ aka ‘Paul Harris’), the leader of the E E EDL, has been sentenced to 10 months jail for ‘possession of a false identity document with improper intention’, viz entering the US to attend an anti-Muslim gathering using a false passport. (Tommy’s troubles mirror those of Martin Brennan, another whinging Pom and the former leader of the A A ADL, forcibly expelled from Australia in August 2011 for immigration offences.) Also in attendance at the gathering in New York in September last year was Yanqui crackpot Robert Spencer. Spencer is described as ‘VP Islamic Scripture and History’ for the Q Society and runs a loon website called jihadwatch; the Coordinator for Victoria/Tasmania and Secretary of the Society is Ralf Schumann; Andrew McDonald is their Administrator in NSW while in Perth Debbie Robinson Coordinates teh stoopid. Anyway, here’s a picture of the patriotic sheila from Perf (Debbie Robinson) and two foreign loons (Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer) holding the Strayan flag at SION:

More on Geert’s tour later maybe . . .

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2013 : Year of the Trot?

Straya

OK, so The Chinese may reckon that 2013 is The Year of The Snake but I reckon it may be The Year of The Trot. Want evidence? See the following:

Yes that’s right: the leader of the God Delusional Opportunists (aka Socialist Alternative) and the leader of the Parliamentary Cretinists (also known as Socialist Alliance) are here seen conspiring to prevent the International Communist League from realising their dream: building an internationalist revolutionary workers party modelled on the Bolshevik party of Lenin and Trotsky, which led the working class to power in the 1917 Russian Revolution. Nationalist views are widely imbibed by the Laborite reformist left in this country, including the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) — which also sent a delegation to SA’s ninth annual conference in Geelong (January 18–20).

Reforge the Fourth International!

Speaking of the ICL, the latest issue of Australasian Spartacist makes reference to Louise O’Shea’s controversial attack upon the Jill Meagher mobilisation. Thus:

… the anti-communist Socialist Alternative have cause a a stir amongst the reformist left [with O’Shea’s article] … Seeking to distance SAlt from bourgeois feminism but lacking the necessary Marxist program to do so, O’Shea’s article is peppered with rhetoric against class collaboration. This takes some chutzpah given that SAlt is immersed in class-collaborationist politics, from entrenching itself in cross-class anti-war coalitions to calling for a vote to the capitalist Greens in numerous parliamentary elections.

~ ‘ALP Government: Enemy of Workers and Oppressed’, Australasian Spartacist, No.218, Summer 2012/13, p.5.

Meanwhile, Trotskyist Platform (“Splitters!”) has made the latest issue of its journal (#15) available online here. And hey! Kids! “Massively Increase Public Housing! Socialistic China is Doing That So Let’s Fight for the Same Here!” (Or so the Fawning Conciliator of the Social-Imperialist Left would have us believe.)

As for the “leadership of the world socialist movement”, it rightly denounces the AWL, SA and SAlt in its coverage of ‘The Australian pseudo-left and the NSW public sector union’ (Peter Symonds, wsws.org, January 19, 2013).

Further afield, SAlt’s British great-uncle, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), is currently in a state of ‘crisis’ (according to some), as they seek to address allegations of rape by a central committee member. The process instituted by the party to deal with these allegations has been the subject of much criticism, as has been the party leadership’s response to critics. A handful of prominent SWP members (China Miéville, Richard Seymour) have complained loudly and publicly about the affair and their discovery that the SWP may be moar ‘centralism’ than it is democratic. Unlike a handful of other dissenters, these two intellectuals can haz too much social status to simply be told to fuck off by the party leadership. They may even be in a position to mount some kinda challenge to the incumbents — who knows? The Weekly Worker, that’s who. (FWIW, my money’s on the son of John Alexander Callinicos and Hon. Ædgyth Bertha Milburg Mary Antonia Frances Lyon-Dalberg-Acton remaining on top; some SWP sympathisers have recently signed an open letter declaring that they’re not. happy. with the party leadership and will henceforth no longer be accepting invitations to be published by or speak on party platforms.)

Aotearoa/New Zealand

In other news, the (IMT) socialist fightback in the North and South Islands has suffered a setback with the appropriation of the Marxist Voice of Labour and Youth by a so-called “anarchist” group. Seriously. Note that fightback.org.au — originally the property of a Sydney wEirD0 and Cronulla fan, then the Marxist Voice of Labour and Youth Down Under — is now under the sinister control of the Socialist Party (SP). Incidentally, the SP’s views on left unity malarkey may be found here.

See also : Trot Guide 2012 (April 10, 2012).

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slackbastard: eXposed (again)

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