Trot Guide 2012

Posted on April 10, 2012 by @ndy

Due to popular demand, I thought it was about time I updated Trot Guide — “an overview of the current state-of-play on the Australian far left” — for the year 2012.

In truth, there’s not a great deal to add to the record since I last formally updated the Guide (December 21, 2009); few if any new groupuscules have emerged in the interim. Indeed, it will be my sad and solemn duty to remove a large number of Cheap, Proletarian, Wholesale-Prices-Straight-from-the-Lock-Up Mini-Vanguards from the redlist. On the other hand, I also have the opportunity to survey the wreckage that is the far left in Aotearoa/New Zealand, as well as link to a small range of historical dox which make for great spotterly reading.

First, the losers.

Gone… But Not Forgotten
“Your role is finished and you may go where you belong — to the garbage pit of history!” ~ Trotsky (attrib.)

1. Committee for a Revolutionary Communist Party in Australia
2. Communist Left Discussion Circle
3. Communist Party Advocate(s)
4. Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP)
5. Direct Action (DA)
6. International Socialist Organisation (ISO)
7. Leninist Party Faction (LPF)
8. Marxist Initiative
9. Marxist Solidarity Network (MSN)
10. National Preparatory Committee of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Australia
11. New Era Communist Party of Australia
12. October Seventh Socialist Movement
13. Revo Australia (Revo)
14. Socialist Action Group (SAG)
15. Socialist Appeal
16. Socialist Democracy (SD)
17. Socialist Labor Party of Australia (SLP)
18. Workers’ League (WL)
19. Workers’ Power (WP)

Undead… Undead?

1. Internationalist Communist Affiliate Network (ICAN)
“Over the weekend of July 10-11 [2010] the Internationalist Communist Affiliate Network (ICAN) held its first round of formal discussions. Six comrades attended the meeting held at Black Rose Anarchist Library and Bookshop in Newtown, Sydney.” AND THEN THEY DISAPPEARED.

2. World Socialist Party of Australia
The WSPA continues to maintain a PO Box in Richmond; I continue to fail to remember to write it asking for confirmation of its continued existence.

Alive and Kicking!

1. (Alliance For) Workers’ Liberty (AWL)
The AWL, like most of the other groups listed below, is part of an international or in this case bi-national (Australia + UK) network. A Trotskyist organisation, the AWL in Australia’s tiny membership seems largely confined to Sydney.

2. Communist League (CL)
I used to think that the CL was either a myth or simply the name the indefatigable Ron Poulsen liked to travel under when contesting his local election. But then I spotted several CL members in Sydney late last year and The Militant subscription renewal drive of February 11–March 18, 2012 attracted no less than 15 supporters, thus confirming the CL’s continuing historical mission.

3. Communist Party of Australia (CPA)
The CPA is The Stalinist Party Formerly Known As The Socialist Party of Australia (b.1971), having assumed the name of the CPA (1920–1991) back in 1996. Peter Symon was General Secretary from 1971 until his death in 2008; whether or not his replacement Hannah Middleton will last as long as Peter did is obviously unknown at this stage. The CPA recently formed The Communists (previously, The Communist Alliance) in order to contest elections, regularly participates in the ‘International Meetings of Communist and Workers’ Parties’ and publishes the weekly The Guardian in addition to the journal Australian Marxist Review.

4. Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) (CPA-ML)
A 1964 split from the CPA and a product of the fractious Sino-Soviet relationship, the CPA-ML continues to produce a monthly newspaper titled Vanguard. The party is inclined to look favourably upon China and its Chairman, and once exercised some real influence in a select few unions, but this seems to have collapsed completely since the 1980s. See ‘Anti-Revisionism in Australia’ for more on origins.

Both the CPA and the CPA-ML are responsible for producing a good number of tiny splinter groups, all of which seem to have joined Stalin and Mao in permanent retirement from worldly affairs.

5. Freedom Socialist Party (FSP)
Feminism + Trotskyism = Freedom Socialist Party. The FSP is based in Melbourne and maintains a shopfront called Solidarity Salon on Sydney Road, Brunswick.

6. Progressive Labour Party (PLP)
Formed in November, 1996, the PLP preceded the Socialist Alliance by some five years (and succeeded the Rainbow Alliance by a similar margin). Sadly, it seems to have enjoyed only a brief moment in the sunshine, and to have been largely eclipsed by it when SA formed in 2001. Further, while the PLP has a website, it hasn’t been updated in some years, and I can detect few other signs of life. Nonetheless, the Party held a ‘National Conference’ in 2007, and also issued a newsletter in February 2010, so I reckon it’s in.

7. Resistance
Nominally independent yoof wing of SA.

8. Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP)
The young, angrier and much smaller kid sister to SA, the RSP formed as a split from the DSP shortly before it liquidated into SA, and brought together the ‘Leninist Party Faction’ (expelled from the DSP in May 2008) with the tiny, Melbourne-based grouplet variously known as the ‘Marxist Solidarity Network’ (from July 2006 after its initial expulsion from the DSP) then the ‘Marxist Study Network’, ‘Direct Action’ and (briefly) the electoral platform ‘Community & Workers’ First’. The RSP publishes a monthly magazine named Direct Action, which was the name of the DSP newspaper prior to it becoming Green Left Weekly (now the weekly newspaper of SA) and is also the title of the IWW’s irregular publication.

9. Socialist Alliance (SA)
SA formed in 2001, as a loose coalition of a number of Leninist parties, in order to take advantage of a seeming upswing in ‘progressive’ political sentiment, with the DSP and ISO being the major sponsors. In the intervening period the ISO and most other coalition partners have left SA, generally complaining of the undue influence of the DSP upon its direction and activity (see also : Raiders of the Left Ark). So it was to nobody’s great surprise that, in January 2010, the DSP elected to liquidate itself into SA. (At the end of 2003, the DSP, formerly the Democratic Socialist Party, described itself as a “Marxist tendency in the Socialist Alliance”.)

SA has contested a number of elections in the last decade to no great effect, the single exception being elevating Sam Wainwright to local council in Fremantle. Recently, SA has formally subscribed to ‘eco-socialism’ (tho’ with some minor opposition). Ironically, former DSP member Paul Howes (now Secretary of Australia’s Worst Union) has been insisting that The Greens are the real watermelons. Finally, while the DSP was known for singing the praises of Castro’s Cuba, SA has established a strong relationship with the Chavez regime in Venezuela.

10. Socialist Alternative (SAlt)
Formed in 1995 as a split from the International Socialist Organisation, over the last 15 years or so SAlt has built itself into the largest party on the student left, and now claims to be the largest far-left group in Australia full stop. As well as publishing a monthly, in 2010, SAlt launched a journal, Marxist Left Review.

11. Socialist Equality Party (SEP)
The SEP exists largely as an electoral vehicle for the local branch of the ‘International Committee of the Fourth International’, publishers of the World Socialist Web Site. The SEP regularly receives extremely low voting tallies and — rather oddly — held its ‘founding conference’ well over a decade after it emerged from the womb of the ICFI.

12. Socialist Party (SP)
The Committee for (A) Workers’ International (CWI), of which SP is the Australian expression, is strongest in Melbourne, where the SP has begun the long, slow, painful process of transforming the Yarra Council into the Yarra Soviet. (In January 2011 Steve Jolly (2004-) was joined by Anthony Main on the council benches.) The Socialist is the SP’s monthly newspaper.

13. Solidarity
The Official IST franchise Down Under, Solidarity formed in February 2008 via the amalgamation of the ISO, SAG and Solidarity (also the title of its monthly zine). Recent months have witnessed a bitter battle with erstwhile comrades SAlt for the hearts and minds of unimelb students. Tom O’Lincoln’s ‘Marching Down Marx Street: The International Socialists in Australia, 1972-92’ provides a neat history of the Cliffite Tendency in Australia.

14. Spartacist League of Australia
Experts agree that The Sparts are The Best. Wanna Know Moar? Spartacist Class Series / Why China is Not Capitalist / Saturday 30 April, 3pm / New International Bookshop, Basement / Trades Hall, corner Victoria and Lygon Sts / Carlton / Information and readings: (03) 9654 4315 / [email protected]/.

15. Trotskyist Platform (TP)
TP formed in mid-2005 when the former editor of Australasian Spartacist split. Based in Sydney and unlikely yet to have reached a double-figure membership, TP is given big ups by unaligned travelling communist ‘Paul Justo’.

Aotearoa/New Zealand

The North Island of New Zealand combines natural beauty with city style in a mild climate; the South Island of New Zealand is full of some of the most spectacular scenery on Earth. The beauty and splendor of New Zealand was certainly exposed to the world in the Lord of the Rings series, and from the famous Milford Sound to the bubbling thermal springs, New Zealand is still forming beneath our feet.

But what of its far-left?

1. Communist League
The Communist League of New Zealand closely resembles the Communist League of Australia, both in terms of being a satellite of the SWP (US), obscurity (it has no independent web presence) but also persistence. Thus it ran two candidates in the 2011 general election and received 80 votes. Otherwise, the Permanent Revolution Group (New Zealand Section of the International Bolshevik Tendency), wrote in The Bolshevik (No 1, April 1993): “In New Zealand the SWP has an affiliate called the “Communist League” (CL)—known until 1989 as the Socialist Action League (SAL)—which shares its politics in every respect.”

2. Communist Workers’ Group of Aotearoa/New Zealand
The CWG is “committed to building a new communist international to lead workers to the revolutionary overthrow of global capitalism. Until March 2010 a member of the Internationalist Leninist/Trotskyist Fraction (FLTI). Now in a Liaison Committee with the Humanist Workers for Socialist Revolution (US).” Publish the bi-monthly Class Struggle.

3. International Bolshevik Tendency (IBT)
Derived in large part from the Spartacists, the IBT formed in 1991 as the fusion of several tiny Trotskyist satellites, including the ‘Permanent Revolution Group’ of NZ. The IBT modestly notes that it “is conscious of its responsibility as a bearer of the historic lessons of the workers movement, codified in the early years of the Communist International and the subsequent struggle of the Left Opposition under Trotsky, to preserve and carry forward the Bolshevik tradition”. In this context, a bloke called Bill Logan is either a Hero or a Villain.

4. International Socialist Organisation (Aotearoa/New Zealand)
The ISO closely resembles SAlt in Australia; it derives from but is not formally a part of the Cliffite tradition. Based in Dunedin, the ISO publishes Socialist Review.

5. Socialist Aotearoa (SA)
Socialist Aotearoa was founded on May 1, 2008 by former members of Socialist Worker after the latter decided that RAM was a Good idea. (Turned out it wasn’t.) The decision to form SA prompted the WPNZ to write a letter. Each month SA publishes Anticapitalist. And ah, yeah.

6. Socialist Appeal
Oddly, followers of Ted Grant–as The Marxist Voice of Labour & Youth–have better luck in Aotearoa/New Zealand than they do Australia.

7. Socialist Worker (Aotearoa)
Socialist Worker, like Socialist Alliance in Australia, recently plumped for eco-socialism, a formal decision taken at its January 2012 conference. As a result SW has passed on, is no more, has ceased to be; the party has expired and gone to meet its maker. A stiff, bereft of life, it rests in peace. Long live the Eco-Socialist Network!

8. Workers’ Party of New Zealand (WPNZ)
“The Workers Party of New Zealand is a socialist political party active in campaigns nationwide.”

Bonus!

Reforging the Communist Party of Australia
Weekly Worker
No.135, March 21, 1996

Marcus Larsen of the Communist Party Advocates reports on its conference in Australia

Over the weekend of March 9-10 a meeting was held in the Australian industrial city of Wollongong. The meeting resolved to form an organisation, Communist Party Advocates, with, as our founding principles state, “the central aim of reforging a Communist Party in Australia.”

The formation of CPA is important in that it is a beginning to the long and arduous process of reforging a revolutionary party in Australia after the Communist Party of Australia succumbed to its long, inexorable process of liquidation in 1990. The meeting was attended by people from Sydney, Melbourne, Wollongong and Perth which is giving us an important national identity in our embryonic stages. People attending came from a variety of backgrounds, with Party and non-Party histories and experience in the trade union movement, the unemployed workers’ movement, the women’s movement and the student movement.

Importantly, the CPA is struggling to provide a nexus, an organisation and theoretical focus which is not based on any particular sectarian world outlook. As our basic principle states: “CPA aims for the unity of communists at the highest possible level and struggles against all forms of sectarianism and opportunism in the revolutionary and workers’ movement. Our goal is to unite all pro-Party forces into the one organisation.”

The meeting heard a political report from comrades from Wollongong on the process of liquidation of the old CPA, as well as a history of the unemployed movement in that city.

This was followed by a theoretical opening on the Communist Party, and the first day concluded with discussion on an opening on capitalism and class composition in Australia.

Day two discussed an opening on debates around the materialist conception of history and concluded with discussion and debate on our strategic perspectives, our structures and the content of our basic principles.

The major organisational question we are now facing is that of centralisation versus federation. The founding meeting agreed to allow the existence of ‘autonomous’ cells to operate under the guidelines, not of a central leadership, but of our basic principles. This creates a definite tension amongst people in the organisation as to whether we move immediately to a centralised form of organisation (my preference) or whether we continue along a federalist line.

In my opinion, the best way to form a centralised leadership would be to take one of the local cells to become a national leadership, for it is essential that our new organisation adopts a national identity. If we move along in a ‘federalist’ manner, or in the manner of the ‘Marxist circle’, we are in constant danger of slipping back into the marsh of liquidation. Our other debates – on rules, our mass work, our immediate strategic objectives – are in my opinion linked, but are secondary to this question.

However, we have learnt the first lesson – that it is impossible to be an individual communist. We are slowly moving to an understanding of what it means to be a pro-Party formation in a period of liquidation.

As well as our organisational questions we will embark on developing mass work.

Initially, we are working towards the formation of a united front defence of the Maritime Union. This union, with a militant history on the waterfront and in shipping, is in the front line against the new conservative Liberal government. The Liberals’ attack on the Maritime Union is as strategically important to the ruling class in Australia as was the attack on the NUM for the British ruling class. We are proposing that localities form Maritime Union defence committees which are based on rank and file support for the wharfies and seamen in the upcoming confrontation on the waterfront.

As a pro-Party grouping in formation, we welcome contact with the Provisional Central Committee of the CPGB. In the pages of our forthcoming journal, The Communist Advocate, and in the pages of the Weekly Worker, we hope to maintain healthy debate and polemic that is in both our interests and in the interests of reforging the world communist movement.

Posted in !nataS, Death, History, State / Politics, Trot Guide | Tagged , | 40 Comments

Frankie Goes to Prison : The Rumjacks

Posted on April 8, 2012 by @ndy

[Update (September 1, 2016) : This post has been edited. In August this year, The Rumjacks released a new album, Sleepin’ Rough, and are currently on tour. Their return has sparked some controversy in the music press, and the band has published a statement on their website in response. You can read it here.]

A few days ago (April 5) Frankie McLaughlin, vocalist in Sydney band The Rumjacks, was apparently found guilty at Penrith Court House of assault and was sentenced to 16 months prison.

Last month, The Rumjacks were the first band to be signed to the ABC Music’s new imprint FOUR | FOUR.

ABC Music has always strived to be a very diverse label, with FOUR | FOUR being yet another step in that direction. As Head of ABC Music Robert Patterson says, “In essence, FOUR | FOUR represents music that, at its core, is as simple as a 4/4 time signature… It’s music that moves people in a fundamental way. The imprint’s first signing, The Rumjacks, typifies what FOUR | FOUR is all about – honest music making with a no-nonsense directness and immediacy that connects with the listener from the first moment.”

So yeah. Men assault. Even men who play in punk rock bands. (Previously, a frustrated and “hungry” local punk rocker broke the nose of a 7-Eleven staffer because the victim struggled to understand which pie he wanted.)

Update (April 9, 2015) : The Rumjacks have issued the following statement:

In light of recent events concerning band member Frankie, we have decided to take an indefinite break.

As a result all upcoming gigs and recording plans have been cancelled.

We refute any suggestion that we condone domestic violence. It is an abhorrent crime and its perpetrators should be dealt with under the full extent of the law.

We thank all of our fans worldwide for their support over the years.

Johnny, Adam, Gabe, Anthony.

Posted in Music, Sex & Sexuality, State / Politics | Tagged , | 4 Comments

May Day in Melbourne 2012

Posted on April 7, 2012 by @ndy

Last December, Occupy Los Angeles proposed a General Strike on May 1 “for migrant rights, jobs for all, a moratorium on foreclosures, and peace – and to recognize housing, education and health care as human rights.” The idea has spread through the Occupy movement. Occupy Wall Street in New York recently expressed solidarity with the proposal and called for “a day without the 99%, general strike, and more!” with “no work, no school, no housework, no shopping, take the streets!” Reactions are ranging from enthusiastic support to outraged skepticism. What form might such an action take, and what if anything might it achieve?

~ Jeremy Brecher, Occupy May Day: Not Your Usual General Strike, Z, March 27, 2012

In Victoria, ‘Labour Day’ is celebrated not in May but in March (on the second Monday). Elsewhere in Australia, May Day proper (May 1) is only celebrated in Queensland and the Northern Territory (on the first Monday). State propaganda proclaims that “Labour Day in Australia celebrates workers’ contribution towards the nation’s economy” while May Day is largely ignored and has been for some years. In Melbourne in 2001 a half-hearted attempt was made to revive the day but this soon ended, and for all the obvious reasons.

This year, the VTHC will again be organising an Event on the first Sunday (May 6) following May Day, AAWL has organised a rally at 5.30pm outside the State Library, on May 2 ASF Melbourne has organised a Sparks retrospective to be held at the Melbourne Anarchist Club and I dunno what else is gonna happen on the Day (maybe you do?); a general strike, perhaps?

LOL.

Sparks was published 1986-91 originally by ASF Melbourne and then the Public Transport Workers Association (PTWA-ASF) and became the most widely read anarcho-syndicalist paper in Australia with a circulation in excess of 5,000. A former editor of Sparks will give a talk about the magazine and its impact in public transport industry in Melbourne as well as a brief history of the PTWA.

Scanned copies of original front covers will be on display. Refreshments available.

All workers welcome!

May Day 2012 also marks the sixth anniversary of my blogging @ anarchobase.com. Thanks to a and D for the assist.

See also : May Day in Melbourne 2011 (April 27, 2011) | May Day 2010 (April 27, 2010) | May Day (April 14, 2009) // May Day Melbourne 2009 | May Day / Labor Day / International Workers’ Day 2008 / a sizzling BONK holiday // Happy May Day! (May 1, 2008) | Happy May Day! (May 1, 2007) | Kyla Cassells, ‘Politics and meaning: Melbourne’s Eight Hours Day and Anzac Day, 1928-1935’, Marxist Interventions, No.2, 2010 (PDF).

Posted in Anarchism, History, State / Politics, That's Capitalism! | Tagged | 2 Comments

Greek austerity measures paying dividends : Dimitris Christoulas

Posted on April 7, 2012 by @ndy

The Greek Government continues to reap the benefits of its austerity measures, the latest dividend being the suicide of retired pharmacist Dimitris Christoulas. Dimitris left the following note:

The Tsolakoglou government has annihilated all traces for my survival, which was based on a very dignified pension that I alone paid for 35 years with no help from the state. And since my advanced age does not allow me a way of dynamically reacting (although if a fellow Greek were to grab a Kalashnikov, I would be right behind him), I see no other solution than this dignified end to my life, so I don’t find myself fishing through garbage cans for my sustenance. I believe that young people with no future, will one day take up arms and hang the traitors of this country at Syntagma Square, just like the Italians did to Mussolini in 1945.

A Dutch writer, Jelle Bruinsma, has written ‘Shameless: how the media de-politicize the suicide on Syntagma’ in response to Dutch media treatment of the death. Apparently, it was rejected for publication by a left-wing Dutch website. It appears in English here and in the original Dutch here. Note that suicide and other social ills “are rising at an alarming rate” in Greece, along with popular resistance to Government policy, and so too state violence.

Posted in Death | Tagged | 1 Comment

Craig Thomson, Ben Polis & Freedom of Speech Under Attack! by The Politically Correct Brigade

Posted on April 5, 2012 by @ndy

From the Department of ‘‘OMG A BOGAN FROM ALTONA AND A N***A! ABORT!!!!’’:

There’s a lotta haters out there these days. As if the censorship of Australia’s leading climate change scientist Andrew Bolt and the hounding of the Honourable Member for Dobell weren’t bad enough, now the entrepreneurial Ben Polis has witnessed his Freedom of Speech come under savage attack by the politically-correct brigade. As Craig Thomson once memorably said, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.

Update : The Herald Sun can has moar words of wisdom from Ben. (Q. Isn’t this just what all rich wankers think?)

Posted in !nataS, Media, State / Politics | Tagged , , | 12 Comments

“Yes I am the chief and y’all just the Indians” proclaims runaway slave master.

Posted on April 3, 2012 by @ndy

Get off my dick and tell your bitch to come here because I totally care what young celebrities say and do, even if they are mutanoid, Caucasoid, white cave bitches…

A RAPPER from Mullumbimby who has become a star in the United States has unwittingly sparked outrage there over her use of terms seen as racist.

This has raised questions here over how sensitive young Australians are to other cultures.

Former model, 21-year-old Iggy Azalea, whose real name is Amethyst Kelly, was signed by Interscope Records after fans flocked to her rap videos on YouTube but has been accused of rapping racist lyrics for the second time in a few weeks.

In February she released a song called DRUGS in which she referred to herself as a “runaway slave master” that some Americans found offensive, including rising rap star Azealia Banks who accused her of “trivialising” black culture.

Iggy rapped into more hot water this week with the lyrics: “Yes I am the chief and y’all just the indians”.

Southern Cross University Associate Professor in Cultural Studies Dr Baden Offord said we often use racist language unknowingly.

“It’s good to air these issues because racism is often something that we tend to shy away from, [b]ut it exists in our language and in all of our institutions,” Prof Offord said.

“We live in a society where we frequently say: ‘I’m not a racist, but…’ and we need to acknowledge that we do make mistakes, offend people and hurt them and of course not always intentionally[“].

He said creative artists and performers question, challenge and play with meaning but they “do have responsibilities to society and they aren’t ever outside scrutiny”.

Iggy apologised for the “runaway slave master” lyrics earlier this month.

In other news…

News Ltd website breached race law, Ben Butler, The Age, March 29, 2012:

NEWS Limited breached racial discrimination laws by publishing on its Perthnow website “utterly offensive” reader comments that attacked four Aboriginal boys killed after crashing a stolen car, a court has found.

It is the second time in six months that the embattled media giant has been found in breach of the Racial Discrimination Act over material it has published about Aborigines.

In comments cleared by a News Limited moderator and published on Perthnow readers said the “young boys” were “criminal trash”, “scum” who should be used as “land fill” and would have continued a life of crime if they “had not been killed in the course of their criminal activities”. The boys were aged 15, 11, 10 and 17 at the time of the crash in June 2008.

Federal Court judge Michael Barker ordered News subsidiary Nationwide News to remove the comments and pay the mother of three of the boys damages of $12000.

Posted in !nataS, History, Media, Music, Sex & Sexuality, State / Politics, That's Capitalism! | Tagged , , | 21 Comments

Dan Van Blarcom, Julian Ripley, Anarchists, Nazis, Bombs & Lulz

Posted on April 1, 2012 by @ndy

Huh.

The Brisbane Times has an article by Frank Robson, titled ‘Spy or Nazi?’ (April 1, 2012), all about some bloke called Dan Van Blarcom. As a young man in the late 1960s, Dan joined the Australian Nazi Party (National Socialist Party of Australia), apparently on behalf of the Queensland Special Branch, and principally as a means by which the state could harass the left. Later, Dan joined the WA Anarchist Federation and also mucked about with anarchists in Brisbane in the 1970s.

To be precise:

In 1975, our restless mystery man joined something called the Libertine Socialist Organisation, a Brisbane anarchist group led by Brian Laver (Rod Laver’s cousin). Still a political activist, Laver tells me Van Blarcom claimed at the time to have been a ”committed fascist” who had experienced a change of heart.

”I still believe Dan was telling the truth about that,” Laver says. ”He gave us an amazing amount of information and files about the fascist movement in Australia which was very useful to us. Of course, he didn’t tell us back then that he had been a Special Branch agent. We only found out about that in 2004, when he was disendorsed, and it was quite a shock.”

Cool story, bro.

Apart from recalling the lulzy work of Hal Turner for the FBI (and provoking the question which of the current crop of loud-mouthed nazis are drawing a government wage) / recalling the heady days when Dr James Saleam was running about with a swastika armband / causing me to wonder whether Brian sees the funny side of having been a Libertine Socialist, the reference to the WA Anarchist Federation got me to thinking, and sure enough Takver can has moar.

Apparently there was a WA Anarchist Federation (oh and a Libertarian Socialist Organisation too, btw). Thus the FAAB, No.1 (1973) contains the following statement: “In the last couple of months the few anarchist activists in West Australia have landed together in a loose federation [sic]. We have obtained premises for living and printing etc and we are now in the process of running off edition no 2 of King Mob, our duplicated paper.” The only (other) trace online I can find of King Mob comes courtesy of the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, which apparently holds a copy of #5 somewhere in its voluminous archives.

In addition, “One of the people involved in Perth, Julian Ripley, was framed in 1972 of the planting of a bomb in the Department of Labour and National Service.”

Takver writes more about Julian here. In brief, in September 1972 two men, 21yo Ripley and 19yo Rupert Gerritsen, were arrested and charged with conspiring to blow up the Department of Labour and National Service building in Perth on August 23. In April 1973, Ripley was found guilty and sentenced to five years jail; Gerritsen was sentenced to six years jail in September.

At the time, anarchists maintained that Ripley was verballed. Note that Ripley and Gerritsen were arrested by police following a raid upon the Collingwood Free Store at 42 Smith Street (now home to a hairdressing salon).

On September 11, 2002, the Liberal MP for Nedlands, Sue Walker, made the following remarks in the WA State Parliament (PDF):

I refer to the facts of a highly sensational case which involved the making of a homemade bomb by a young man called Rupert Gerritsen. He placed the bomb on the third floor of the Victoria Centre in St Georges Terrace on 23 August 1972. The building was occupied at the time by the then Department of Labour and National Service. The bomb was set to go off at 2.40 am and was placed there by Gerritsen earlier in the evening when he thought everyone had gone home. When the bomb did not go off, a phone call was made to police stating that a bomb had been planted. That caller was not Rupert Gerritsen. I was told by an Albany man who has just come forward, Mike Payne, that he made that phone call and that he was involved in that offence. He said that he did not know that the bomb had been found by a caretaker in the building and had been dismantled. That case was viewed seriously then, as it should have been, and as it would be now. The intention was to blow up the files of the department to hinder the drafting of young men into service in Vietnam. Two men have done time on this matter – Rupert Gerritsen, who was 19 at the time, and Julian Ripley. Rupert Gerritsen pleaded guilty to that offence. Julian Ripley went to trial and has always declared his innocence, as far as I know. Rupert Gerritsen, who has been in contact with me, was on the run from bail when Ripley was undergoing trial on 29 March 1973. Gerritsen was extradited from New Zealand on 23 July 1973 and pleaded guilty. He was not around when Julian Ripley was the subject of a trial. Both men had been picked up in Melbourne by detectives from WA a few weeks after the incident. One of those detectives was the Minister for Health, who was then Detective Sergeant Kucera. At the time Gerritsen and Ripley were members of the Australian Labor Party branch of the University of Western Australia, as were the Attorney General, Kim Beazley, and the Treasurer Eric Ripper. Those men provided character references for Mr Rupert Gerritsen, who has asked me to raise this in the Parliament because he cannot get the Government to act. Ripley maintained that he was innocent. Newspaper reports tell of a campaign that included posters on the wall of the Swan Brewery proclaiming, “Ripley innocent, Kucera lied” or words to that effect. In 1973, Ripley was sentenced in the District Court after his trial. It was a sensational case for Western Australia. He was sentenced by Judge Jackson to a term of imprisonment of five years, with no parole for 12 months. He was charged by then Detective Robert Charles Kucera, originally with a conspiracy offence but ultimately with an offence of wilfully and unlawfully putting an explosive substance, namely a mixture of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, in a certain place – Victoria Centre – with intent to damage property. He was also charged at Leederville on 23 August with wilfully and unlawfully doing a certain act – constructing an explosive device by the mixing of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil – with intent to cause an explosion in Western Australia of a nature likely to cause serious injury. He pleaded not guilty. The circumstances in which he was convicted would not apply today, mainly because processes have moved on. We now have video recordings of interviews. Video records of interviews were introduced because of the isolation in which people in police stations found themselves. Ripley was convicted on admissions alleged to have been made by him to then Detective Kucera. Hugh McLernon was the counsel for the Crown, and he had this to say before the trial –

It is obvious at once that the major part of the Crown case against Ripley is the statement alleged to have been made by him and the Crown therefore has the task of establishing the credibility of that statement before the jury . . .

That statement was taken by Detective Kucera in the Russell Street headquarters. Prior to Ripley giving evidence-in-chief during his trial, Detective Kucera read to the court an unsigned record of interview with Ripley, said to have been made, and taken by him, at the Russell Street headquarters on 15 September 1972. After the alleged record of interview was finished, then Detective Kucera left the room for coffee, and a Detective Markham stepped in for 10 minutes. Detective Kucera then returned to the room and handed Ripley the record of interview. Ripley wrote at the bottom of that record of interview words to the effect that it was a true and correct record, but he refused to sign it. In his evidence, Ripley told how that record of interview came about. The Crown accepted during the trial that Ripley did not place the bomb in the building. None of the fingerprints on the bomb belonged to Ripley. The Crown accepted that there was never any intention to harm anyone. In his evidence-in-chief, Ripley talked about the making of the record of interview, the phone call that was alleged to have been made, and who he believed had made it. I refer to page 179 of the transcript –

Who accompanied you to the headquarters?—Kucera and a Victorian police officer.
Were you in the car together?—Yes.
. . .
Before we get to the record of interview, first of all what did he –

That is, Detective Sergeant Kucera –

do when you first got in about these notes?—Well, he just sat down and got a typewriter. He had to get a second one because the first one didn’t work and said “We are going to have an interview and I am going to keep a record of that interview.” He then proceeded to type out a record of interview.

Peter Dowding was representing Ripley, and he asked –

How did the interview proceed?—He would ask a question typing it while he asked it, wait for a response and if I did not make an answer, he would write in one himself.

Dowding asked Ripley to look at the record of interview and asked –

Have you seen that record of interview before?—Yes, this is what he typed out at that time.
Just looking at it first of all, perhaps we can go through it. First of all he has typed down there a question: “You know your, rights, Julian. You don’t have to say anything unless you want to but anything I do say will be taken down in writing.” Did he say that to you?—Yes, he typed that out saying it while he typed it.
How did you know he was typing that out?—Well, he said whatever he was typing as he was typing.
Did you respond?—No, I did not.
What did he type down?—“Yes.”
And did he tell you what he was typing down for the answers?—Yes.
What about the next question: “Who made the bomb?”—He asked the question.
What was the response from you?—I didn’t make a response.
What did he put down?—“Rupert and myself.[“]

I have received fresh evidence that I believe the Premier should consider. It relates to what was said in that interview between Detective Kucera and Ripley. It was alleged that someone other than Ripley made the phone call. Gerritsen and Mike Payne say that Ripley could never have known who made the phone call because he was asleep and not involved.

[snip]

I have a statement from Michael John Payne of Albany. He rang my office about a month or so ago and told me that he thought I should be given evidence about this matter that had been troubling him for a while. I asked him to see a lawyer. He said that he would speak to his family about it and get back to me. He has sent me a signed statement, which I am happy to tender. Rupert Gerritsen tells me that he has been trying to raise this. I have asked the Premier in this House to look into this matter and refer it to the appropriate authorities. Part of the statement by Michael Payne states –

On Wednesday 23 August 1972 Rupert Gerritsen planted his bomb in the Department of Labour and National Service. That night there was a party. I think it was held somewhere in Leederville. I was told that we would definitely be able to hear the explosion . . . from this location.
During the party I believe that I remember that Julian said he had to go to bed early as he had to get up for work the next morning. The time fixed for the explosion passed and it became apparent that the bomb had not gone off. I remember saying that someone would have to ring the authorities to give warning in case the device was in an unstable condition and therefore liable to go off when the office was open for business. I had to walk home so I offered to ring the police and my offer was accepted.

This is the statement of a grown man living in Albany. He says that he made that phone call. The statement continues –

I suggested that I claim the action for Unit C 10 of the Peoples Liberation Army or some such name. There was of course no group but Unit C 10 had been claimed for actions in the past.
. . .
I remember making the telephone call. I made it from a public telephone box. There was a certain amount of adrenalin involved as I thought that telephone calls could be traced quite easily. Although I cannot remember the exact words I did mention Unit C 10. Briefly I told them of the situation.

This man has come forward.

I raise another issue. I have received correspondence from Rupert Gerritsen, which I am happy to table so that the Premier can send it to the appropriate authorities. He used to be the Premier’s neighbour. I put on record that Mr Gerritsen has told me that the members on the other side of the House are his friends and that he has tried to tell them that an innocent man was convicted, but they have done nothing about it. That is why I raise this, and why I think that matters relating to the responsibility of the Attorney General for certain actions should be given to the Solicitor General or another such person. I will not go into Rupert Gerritsen’s comments because I do not have time; however, the statement he gave me states that Ripley was not involved in the incident and did not leave any fingerprints. Gerritsen was the only person who left fingerprints on the bomb, and he said that was because he believed that the bomb would go off.

A compelling document landed on my desk. It is a matter of public record. It is an oral history from the Battye Library of Western Australia. In 1992 Rupert Gerritsen sat down with people from the library, not knowing who would be the Minister for Health today. They wanted to find out how a person reacted when he went to Fremantle Prison. This powerful document was created in January 1992 and I want to read some of what was said. The question was asked –

What was it then that led you into the actions that finally led to you going to gaol?

Gerritsen replied –

It was a bit more complicated than that because the other guy who’d been arrested with me (a Canadian guy named Julian Ripley) in actual fact had nothing to do with the whole bombing thing, and they contrived to basically frame him up. When they were in Russell Street they threatened to throw him out of the fourth storey window unless he signed a statement which they prepared for him and that sort of stuff, and told him to do certain things on it.

Posted in !nataS, Anarchism, Anti-fascism, State / Politics, Student movement, That's Capitalism!, War on Terror | Tagged , | 4 Comments

“What hasn’t been broadcast is Downer’s role with corporate intelligence company Hakluyt…”

Posted on March 31, 2012 by @ndy

From the Department of Alexander Downer:

Ian Verender, business columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald, has written an interesting column (Be careful of the company you keep, March 31, 2012) on some of the issues confronting politicians when they exchange Parliamentary Cabinet meetings for those in corporate boardrooms. Apparently, the access to the networks of power and influence which retired politicians bring to their role as consultants and directors can sometimes generate difficulties when business scandals arise. A case in point relates to A Death in China and one of my favourite former Tories, The Honourable Alexander Downer:

What hasn’t been broadcast in the past few weeks is Downer’s role with a corporate intelligence firm called Hakluyt, founded by former officers at MI6, Britain’s secret service. Downer, along with other political and business luminaries, is on the Hakluyt International Advisory Board, but claims he has never done any work for the company in China.

It has since transpired that the British businessman Neil Heywood, who was found dead in his hotel room in China in November, was an adviser to Hakluyt although he apparently was not working on any specific project for the company at the time of his death.

The mysterious circumstances surrounding Heywood’s death have sparked a diplomatic rift between Britain and China and played a yet-to-be-defined part in what is shaping to be one of the most serious internal political crises in China in the past 20 years.

An internal crisis among ruling elites which is, perhaps, both a response to and a reflection of more serious political problems confronting the Chinese state, including, notably, a seeming increase in the last few years in expressions of popular discontent; expressions which find little, if any, outlet along formal avenues (see below).

As for the former Foreign Minister, his appointment to Hakluyt in May 2008 (five months after his retirement from Parliament) became NEWS! in October 2008. See : The Downer Age : Hakluyt & Co (October 14, 2008) | Hakluyt dons fishnet stockings! (October 13, 2008). Along with not-spying in China, Hakluyt has an undeserved reputation for not-spying on environmental and political activists, where it is not-joined by dozens of other companies in a sector of the economy that is not-growing and not-being awarded government contracts to monitor blogs like mine and not-employing local neo-Nazis like Kenneth Stewart as mercenaries…

As also noted previously (February 3, 2009), Alexander Downer spoke at an ‘Australian League of Rights’ (ALOR) event in 1987, but this fact was only publicly exposed in 1994. Typically, Downer relied upon his reputation as an idiot to escape criticism, claiming that — despite being filmed ‘looking on as SA ALOR director Frank Bawden urges the audience to read the literature “explaining the aims of the League” on their seats’ — he didn’t know who he was addressing, who organised the event and — for all I know — why he was even there (perhaps he tripped and fell?). In any case, no harm was done to the witless Adelaide private schoolboy’s career: twenty years later, he became Foreign Minister; after the Tories lost the 2007 Federal election, he was appointed vewy special envoy to Cyprus, and joined the spooky Hakluyt.

See also : The Explosion Point of Ideology in China (1967) | China in Crisis: Reason to Panic?, prol-position/wildcat, 2009 | Will China Save Global Capitalism?, Sander, Mute, July 27, 2011 | China’s Industrial Unrest, Freedom, February 13, 2012.

Posted in !nataS, Broken Windows, Death, History, Media, State / Politics, That's Capitalism! | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Yeah, Yeah, Blah, Blah, Blah. Whatever: On Women’s Rights.

Posted on March 28, 2012 by @ndy

The following is written in response to a brief discussion on Facebook regarding the article ‘On Women’s Rights: Yeah, Yeah, Blah, Blah, Blah. Whatever’ by Yashar Ali, originally published at The Current Conscience (March 19, 2012). It’s the second time I’ve been sucked in to doing something like this (or possibly the third if you count this anarchist stoopid). Ah well…

D:

The reason I published the link on Facebook is because a Facebook friend did, and the reply I posted on their page was mis-read (which is another story). Leaving that aside, my reluctance to develop a more considered response is based on two main factors. One, to do so requires a good deal of time and energy. Two, in my experience, this expenditure of time and effort is generally wasted. That is, I’m not convinced I have anything especially novel or terribly useful to add, and it’s unlikely to have any real effect in any case. (Of course, the same observation could be made in regard to everything I write.) Further, while Yashar’s article has some general relevance, it’s probably of greatest relevance to a particular audience in the US. Thus, there may well be better articles — addressing concerns closer to home, or conveyed in a more critical manner, and perhaps emanating from a more radical quarter — which it would be more fruitful to address (for example: Not all feminists are worth supporting). In addition, the commentary which accompanies the article on ‘The Huffington Post’ is simply painful. That said…

I think we can agree that, regardless of its specific merits, the issues raised in the article are worthy of further discussion, in particular the central question of why it is that men, especially ‘progressive men’ (that is, men-who-should-know-better), pay insufficient attention to the struggle for gender equality. In essence, the article reads to me like a plea to men-of-good-conscience to take women’s rights seriously. The implicit assumption that men should care is made explicit by Yashar when he explores the concept of empathy: if men care about women — and they do — then they must also care about their struggles, and a central part of those struggles is for women’s rights/against gender inequality; gender inequality, in turn, should be understood as a key feature of contemporary (in this case US) society.

On the surface, this seems a reasonable enough argument, and yet it seems to me that it ignores some obvious facts. First, individual men have individual interests. These may be gendered, but however else they are conceptualised or enacted, they are on some level always and everywhere in potential conflict with others’ interests, whether men, or women, or both. In other words, reconciling the interests of individual men with women’s collective struggle for equality is not straightforward and how this proceeds depends very much more, I think, on the historical and social context in which it takes place than it does, say, on (mere) good will. Yashar writes that “[t]he men who dismiss these women treat their desire for equality as if it were a hobby or a pet project”; the same could be said of men who dismiss other sectoral struggles, or who ignore or treat with disdain emancipatory struggles as a whole. (Of course, a political lacuna on the part of ‘progressive’ men when it comes to women’s desires for equality is a different proposition, but also begs the question of what genuinely distinguishes one from the other.)

Secondly, ‘gender equality’ and ‘women’s rights’ can be interpreted in both quite narrow and very broad terms. I may be wrogn, but the structural framework within which Yashar articulates his argument appears to me to be what’s usually termed a ‘liberal’ one. For example: a concern over gender ratios in management (corporate), or political representation (state) rather than, say, the liberation of women from the shackles of the military-industrial-entertainment complex (and the reconstitution of society on the basis of subsistence economies). On one level, then, such concerns as Yashar identifies are legitimate and worthy; on another level — which is to say one closer to my own — they are largely irrelevant, useful largely as one of a number of social barometers by which gender relations may be measured.

Thirdly, if I’m concerned about the burdens women face, it’s largely those of the women closest to me. Obviously, these burdens have a political dimension, but it seems to me that as one moves from the macro-political to the micro-social, the nature of these burdens becomes, inevitably, more specific. And here again I think there is something of a gulf between my concerns and those of Yashar, tho’ true or false, an exploration of this question isn’t really possible in this context.

Fourthly, this concern, it seems to me, is dependent just as much, if not more, on a sense of justice as it is empathy, a sense of justice which is in turn based on some more general ethical principles. This is important both because it is true but also because it places a concern for ‘gender equality’ within a broader political and social framework, one which allows for the articulation of a politics rooted both in concern and critique. When Yashar asks “do we, as men, have to care about women enough to notice what they are facing, or do we first have to notice what they are dealing with in order to care about their burdens?” I think the emphasis is misplaced. In my view, men cannot help but care; the question is one of understanding, of locating these hurdles in a political context.

Regarding hurdles, I think resistance on the part of men to considering feminist perspectives is double-edged. On the one hand, it makes a good deal of sense. That is, as referred to previously, men benefit from patriarchy, and insofar as men’s interests lie in the continued domination of women, it would seem foolish to appeal to our better natures. On the other hand, such benefits as do accrue to men in a patriarchal society are hardly distributed evenly, gender inequality is intimately connected to other forms of domination and exploitation, and creating a free and equal society brings benefits to all. Further, a ‘good’ feminist analysis is not just one that embodies a particular, ‘foreign’ interest, but is (by definition) one that is actually revealing, and as such enriches the understanding of both men and women. Insofar as knowledge can be joyful, it may even be said to be a pleasurable experience.

A few further questions which have been prompted by the above but which I’ll leave aside (for the sake of brevity if nothing else) include: what do men and women seek in theory; what is gender other than the relations between men and women and; why do so many ‘pro-feminist’ men give me the creeps? Another subject which surfaced in the blancmange of my mind while writing the above is: what is it about the complex interplay between men’s conscious and unconscious motivations that is so compellingly absent from this discussion?

Like, whatever.

Posted in Media, Sex & Sexuality, State / Politics | Tagged | 4 Comments

White Pride Christchurch Wide

Posted on March 26, 2012 by @ndy

Pot-bellied Mormon Kyle Chapman led some 100 or so neo-Nazis and White nationalist liquorice all-sorts (mostly boneheads) in a march in Christchurch on Saturday, March 24 as part of ‘White Pride World Wide Day’ celebrations. Much smaller groups assembled in Canada for the occasion tho’ nowhere else it seems. Stuff:

More than 100 Right-wing supremacists, bearing the message “White pride worldwide”, marched through Riccarton at the weekend.

Kyle Chapman, who fronts the group Right Wing Resistance, said it was the “most successful” Right-wing protest staged in New Zealand.

“It was very successful because of the amount of people we had, the sunshine and the lack of drama and disruption from Left-wing activists,” he said.

Most of the group were wearing matching black T-shirts, camouflage pants and black boots.

Some carried signs that read, “It’s alright to be white”, as they walked down Deans Ave on Saturday.

Chapman said the march attracted about 115 people.

For the past four years Right Wing Resistance has lead an opposition rally as close as possible to Racial Harmony Day, which was on March 21.

Chapman said the group publicly oppose the day because “it’s a load of crap”.

Riccarton seems like a neat place for a ‘White Pride’ march. Last September, 20-year-old bonehead Jared Levi Peck was sentenced to two years and four months jail for a series of racially-motivated assaults; for his part, 17-year-old co-offender Michael Holme got six months home detention, while on March 5, 2012 another man, 25-year-old David Alan Dooley, was found guilty of assault charges and is awaiting sentencing. And while the police/state hatesss the nasssty Tūhoe & Co, Chapman’s kameraden in the Survive Club are free to play wargames to their hearts’ content.

RaHoWa!

Posted in Anti-fascism | Tagged , , | 1 Comment