TUC march: The militants behind the violence
A ragtag army of anarchists, jazz dancers, squatters, pastry chefs, student militants, nuclear technicians, environmental activists, trolley conductors and radical academics planned the spin-off protests that led to violence during Saturday’s march against cuts.
Oh noes!
The keyboard warriors of the Australian Defence League are really upset. This follows the decision by a whinging pommy bastard aka EDL fuehrer Tommy Robinson/Stephen Yaxley-Lennon to support some recent upstart Internet heroes over and above some virtual ADL veterans. The novices have a Facebook page titled ‘Australian Defence League (official)’ here while the ‘Australian Defence League (official ADL Est.2009)’ squawks away here.
Bald men fighting over a comb.
After his appearance on 60 Minutes (along with Aussie mentalist Ibrahim Siddiq-Conlon and British mentalist Anjem Choudary), former One Nation Party leader David Oldfield critically-savaged/lovingly stroked/interviewed Yaxley-Lennon on 2UE (owned by Fairfax Media).
Incredibly, the pair found themselves in almost total agreement.
Be that as it may, a drunken baker and Dexys Midnight Runners fan named Richard Coughlan dissects Yaxley-Lennon’s scholarship in the following:
Secondly, the Little John Bullshits of the E E E D L will be defending England from Muslamic Ray Guns/trashing the town of Blackburn on April 2.
Kenneth Stewart, 36, is a Hammerskin: a member of an international network of neo-Nazi skinheads with chapters in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. He’s also a mercenary, employed by various private sector companies to work in Afghanistan as an armed paramedic–and a pork-eating Viking.
Not bad, just misunderstood, apparently: The Age‘s article is re-posted below.
The Australian franchise of the Hammerskins was one of the first to open outside of the Jewnited States. In recent years the Hammerskins have begun recruiting a new crop of boneheads by way of the recently-established ‘Crew 38′: a process which brings the Hammerskins’ recruitment model more openly into line with that of the OMCs (from which, presumably, the boneheads drew their inspiration).
Originally established in Dallas, Texas (c.1987), the Hammerskins have run into a number of legal difficulties recently, especially in Portugal (2010) and Spain (2009), which have joined Germany in outlawing the association. The leader of the Portuguese Hammerskins, Mário Machado, is currently serving a seven-year sentence for coercion, robbery, kidnapping and illegal possession of weapons.
The leader of the Confederate Hammerskins in the US is Forrest Fogarty. He’s one of ‘A Few Bad Men’ to have joined the US military. “There are some dirty Arabs enjoying their 70 virgins because of my actions and that of my fire team,” Fogarty boasted in the Winter 2005 issue of Resistance.
The Age has published a photo of Kenneth wearing a ‘scooterhead sc’ t-shirt, so in addition to being a neo-Nazi and a mercenary, Stewart is also, presumably, a scooterist… although whether or not he’ll be riding his scooter to the Gold Coast for the Hammerskins’ next get-together is unknown at this stage.
Victorian neo-Nazi used as medic in Afghanistan
Staff Reporter
March 23, 2011A NEO-NAZI organiser from Victoria has been working as a private military contractor in Afghanistan, mocking locals and holding secret ceremonies commemorating the deaths of German soldiers in World War II.
Kenneth Stewart, 36, has worked as a military-trained paramedic, accompanying aid workers around Afghanistan. His Facebook page shows a swastika flag in his room in Kandahar, and another picture shows him surrounded by Afghans he refers to as ”my nignogs” with a friend adding the comment ”it’s lovely to see a white man back in control of the subhuman”. On Stewart’s Facebook page he regularly makes disparaging comments about Afghans, Aborigines, Jews and others.
He has worked as a medic for several aid groups based in Kandahar, including the United Nations Development Program.
The Age made several attempts to contact Mr Stewart, but received no reply.
In Melbourne, he helps recruit white supremacists to the local branch of the Southern Cross Hammerskins, an international neo-Nazi group. He described himself on one internet forum as a ”skinhead, mercenary, pork-eating viking; not bad just misunderstood”.
Anti-facist [sic] groups in the US say there are growing numbers of neo-Nazis working in the expanding private military sector, and that the Hammerskins are considered to be among the best organised and most violent neo-Nazi groups in America.
The beliefs and photos posted by Mr Stewart have been condemned by the United Nations and the contractor who hired him on their behalf.
Spokesman Brian Hansford said the UN was ”horrified by these … disturbing images”.
On Armistice Day last year, Mr Stewart posted on a white supremacist website that he and his colleagues in Kandahar had a service commemorating World War II soldiers, including Germans and Italians ”that did what they thought was right regardless of which side they were on”.
The Age has not been able to establish who Mr Stewart worked for in Afghanistan last year, but it is clear from photos on his Facebook page that he was doing similar work.
One Australian security company that has employed him said it repudiated any far-right views and said the images he posted on Facebook should be removed.
Security experts say any Nazi or racist references could risk endangering the Coalition troops fighting under the NATO banner, including personnel from the Australian Defence Forces.
In the US, an intercepted 2009 email purported to show Oregon fascist organiser Randy Krager warning his colleagues not to email him about his racist skinhead group while he was working in Afghanistan. The email read: ”All communications from the mid-east are monitored by dept. of defense and/or cia … so I will have some contact but will not be able to discuss any business, not even vaguely.”
The Southern Cross Hammerskins also organise music festivals where far-right bands perform in front of vetted audiences. Their next festival is on the Gold Coast next month.
You can read more about Randy Krager’s military excursions here. (Krager is the leader of another neo-Nazi international called Volksfront. They also have a chapter in Australia, and an uncomfortable rivalry with the Hammerskins.) Otherwise, the SPLC has published a number of reports of neo-Nazi involvement in the US military and private sector:
Extremism and the Military
Mark Potok
Intelligence Report
No.122, Summer 2006
‘Killing a Brown’: New Evidence of Extremists in the Military
David Holthouse
Intelligence Report
No.132, Winter 2008
SPLC Urges Congress to Investigate Extremism in the Military
July 10, 2009
See also : Nicole Hanley : For Blood & Honour, April 6, 2009.
RaHoWa! and Shazam!
Here’s a few more notes on some recent fascist shenanigans–brought to you by the letters W and P.
Good News
First, the good news. Well, for fans of MMA boneheads at least, as @ ‘KSW XV – Revenge’ in Warsaw on the weekend the two most famous (Finnish) (semi-)pro neo-Nazis beat their Polish opposition. Sherdog’s Tomasz Marciniak writes:
The vacant KSW lightweight title was claimed by Finland’s Niko Puhakka, who put Maciej Gorski to sleep with an arm-triangle choke at 3:20 of the second round.
Gorski looked spry in the standup, but was unable to put a stop to Puhakka’s takedowns. After a particularly flashy slam in the second stanza, Puhakka moved to side control and secured the winning hold. Gorski went out and referee Tomasz Bronder stopped the fight, though the Pole was unable to come to terms with the official’s decision for a few minutes after the fight.
Puhakka’s Espoon Kehahait teammate, Toni Valtonen, proved to be too much for Poland’s Lukasz Jurkowski to handle. The heavier and stronger Finn completed most of his takedowns and spent approximately eight minutes of the 10-minute bout on top of Jurkowski throwing strikes.
After the fight, Jurkowski took the microphone and announced to the crowd that, having lost his 10th fight, he was retiring from MMA. The 30-year-old thanked the hometown fans for their support and received a rousing ovation.
Puhakka once served as as a thug for the Finnish Blood & Honour franchise; Valtonen has put his neo-Nazi tattoos down to a reckless youth, but failed to have them removed as an adult.
Bad News
Leading Canadian bonehead Kyle McKee is in jail. Kyle “has been sentenced to 60 days in jail after pleading guilty Thursday to three criminal charges. McKee, 25, pleaded guilty to uttering threats and possession of a weapon dangerous to the public in connection with an incident on Feb. 13, and for assaulting a woman at a prior party” (White supremacist gets 60 days in jail for threats, Calgary Herald, March 19, 2011). The threats were made to anti-racist activist Jason Devine, who in November last year had his house broken into by five masked men who proceeded to assault Jason and another man. (The five remain at large.)
Because he’s in jail, the micro-fuehrer was sadly unable to lead the 12 or 15 neo-Nazis who gathered in Calgary on the weekend to celebrate WPWW Day by staging an abortive march. 100 police kept the neo-Nazis from jackbooting very much further than their assembly point and separate from the crowd of approximately 200 or so anti-racists who had gathered in opposition to the march. See : ‘Annual neo-Nazi march in Calgary fizzles’, Canadian Press and Globe Staff, Globe and Mail, March 19, 2011.
Elsewhere, Josh Wingrove has written an article on White nationalists/neo-Nazis in Calgary. It has its flaws (oi! is a musical genre, not another name for boneheads; Volksfront is a US-based ne0-Nazi network with franchises in several countries) but provides some insight into the kinds of losers attracted to the ideology and the yoof gangs which form around it. In the consolidation of a neo-Nazi milieu in Calgary, “Kyle McKee’s leadership has been key,” explained Paul Fromm, a stalwart and mentor of the extreme Canadian right (Calgary’s in-your-face neo-Nazis take to the streets, Globe and Mail, March 19, 2011).
A prominent Canadian Holocaust denialist, Fromm toured Australia and New Zealand in December last year at the invitation of the Australia First Party, meeting with and addressing small audiences of other racist cranks in Melbourne, Sydney and Christchurch. AF is standing two candidates in the upcoming NSW state election: Tony Pettitt in Riverstone and Tony Robinson in Mulgoa.
And You Decked Some Fucking Blackshirt Who Was Cursing All The Yids…
Patrick looked after sheep.
Snakes are alright.
So are the light of the sun,
The brightness of the moon,
The splendour of fire,
The flashing of lightning,
The swiftness of wind,
The depth of sea,
The stability of earth,
The compactness of rocks.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day.
Hear also : Freedom Denied: the St Patrick’s Battalion
During the two-year war between the United States and Mexico which began in 1846, a large contingent of conscripted soldiers, most of them Irish Catholic, deserted the American army to fight alongside the Mexicans. Known as the St Patrick’s Battalion, or Los San Patricios, the story of this rebel group, and their battle against the more powerful forces of the US army, has become part of national folklore in both Mexico and Ireland.
Writer and producer Colm McNaughton follows in the footsteps of Los San Patricios and, along the way, discovers the complex play between history, memory and identity in contemporary Mexico.
From March 1999 to December 2004, Dr Ziggy Switkowski was CEO of Telstra. He presided over the partial (and very unpopular) privatisation of the telco and after almost six years of back-breaking toil left the corporation with a measly payout of $2.1 million+. His successor, Sol Trujillo, slaved away for slightly more moolah: after almost four years on the job, Sol slipped out of the country with an estimated $31 million. (Last year Telstra paid its CEO, David Thodey, $3.1 million.)
Since leaving Telstra, Ziggy has been keeping busy doing nice things (like going to the opera) while also serving as a prominent advocate for the nuclear power industry. ‘Even in earthquake zones, nuclear power is still a safe option’ quipped Ziggy recently (or a sub-editor at The Australian acting on his behalf). Otherwise…
…Dr Switkowski served as chairman of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation from 2007 until last year. ANSTO runs Australia’s only nuclear reactor, for research, at Lucas Heights in Sydney’s south.
In 2006, he was appointed to chair an inquiry for the Howard government into the viability of a domestic nuclear power industry.
The inquiry concluded that Australia was well positioned to increase its production and export of uranium as well as adding nuclear power to its own energy mix.
~ Former Telstra boss and nuclear power advocate Ziggy Switkowski wants broader energy plan, Andrew Trounson, The Australian, March 1, 2011
img : mw
…Dr Switkowski said despite the incident, he believed Australians would use the clean energy source eventually.
“I remain convinced that in our future we will see nuclear power. We do need clean energy, we are an energy hungry nation,” he told ABC Television on [sic] today.
~ Australia will adopt nuclear power, says former ANSTO boss Ziggy Switkowski, AAP, The Australian, March 14, 2011
C’mon Australia…
Update : YouTube hosts thousands upon thousands of neo-Nazi propaganda vids but draws the line at… er… ‘violence’ (“This video has been removed because its content violated YouTube’s Terms of Service. Sorry about that.”). So Brad Cohen @ SportsGrid (among others) has uploaded a version, which replaces the one YouTube pulled… again… and again… and again… [and again… and again… and again…]
Cool, slightly disturbing new meme, coming to a corporate news site soon… [Shazam! msnbc.com and Fox are first.]
Original vid by way of Merlsification Videos (Tuffaz) and titled “See what happens when kids who are bullied have had enough!!!”
“The larger kid on the right, is my son’s friend Casey – thankfully they don’t go to the same school. Poor Casey has been bullied his whole high school life, and this is what happens when he snaps!! But guess who was suspended in this scenario – Casey!!”
Bully FAIL w/ Commentary from John Morgan on Vimeo.
zero
The area around the Fukushima nuclear power plant has been evacuated, but an expert at the US Nuclear Energy Institute says there is no immediate danger. ~AFP
The company at the centre of a nuclear reactor crisis following the biggest earthquake in Japan’s recorded history has had a rocky past in an industry plagued by scandal. ~ Scientific American
one
New Risks from Australia Russia Uranium Deal
James Norman
Online Opinion
November 19, 2010
Late last week on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in South Korea, Prime Minister Julia Gillard ratified a deal with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that should send shockwaves through the Australian electorate.
The ratification of the Australia Russia nuclear cooperation agreement [originally signed at the 2007 APEC conference in Sydney] will see Australia opening new uranium markets to a country with the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear weapons and largest stockpile of weapons-usable material, much of it inadequately secured. For the Gillard Labor government, it seems to be just another case of “business as usual” in Australian politics, in which our country’s resources are sold off to the highest bidder, regardless of the dangerous impacts such sales add to geo-regional security…
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Statement from survivors of fascist assault in Siberia
Indymedia / @-Infos
July 21, 2007
Last night we have lost our comrade: Ilya Borodaenko, an anarchist, a member of the Autonomous Action from Nakhodka has died because of a craniocerebral trauma (incompatible with life) and violent beating. That night he and two other participants of the camp were on duty and Ilya was the first who faced nazi scum. Some of our comrades were sent to the hospital in grave condition (with concussions of the brain and fractures of arms and legs). Our tents are cut and fired, flags are stolen.
However we will forget nothing and we won’t forgive Ilya Borodaenko’s death to his murderers (irrespective of successes or failures of the official repressive system investigating the crime). We won’t stop activity of our environmental protest camp, we won’t stop our struggle against fascist plague and nuclear mafia, against authoritarian ideas and racist dregs, against all that destroys both the nature and human life and dignity. Today we grieve. Tomorrow we will continue our struggle.
See also : Nuclear Now! How clean, green atomic energy can stop global warming, Peter Schwartz and Spencer Reiss, Wired, 13.02, February 2005 | Choose Nuclear Free | Read About It : Peter Garrett ♥s Uranium (July 16, 2009).
Oh, is it that time of year again already?
“What time of year is that?” you may ask.
Why, it’s White Pride World Wide Day!
“What’s White Pride World Wide Day?”
Why, White Pride World Wide (WPWW)–along with the stump jump plow–is one of Australia’s most important contributions to world agriculture culture…
Maybe.
WPWW Day takes place on March 21, coincidentally (sic) the ‘International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination’.
One of the drunken inventors of WPWW Day is Paul Innes, a plasterer from Perf, WA.
Until late last year, Paul was the moderator of convicted terrorist Don Black’s cash cow Stormfront (Down Under). For reasons unknown–word on the street is that his retirement may have been related to the difficulties he may have faced winning contracts to help construct Aboriginal housing–Paul was replaced, first by a Septic Tank, and most recently by two fellow Antipodean anti-Semites.
Stormfront Down Under may have lost some of its shine over the years, as other sites have been established catering for niche audiences, but it remains for many disgruntled White yoof a first port-of-call, and a happy home to the range of groups on the racist fringe: from Dr James Saleam‘s Australia First Party to openly neo-Nazi groups such as Blood & Honour and Volksfront, and even a few stray denizens from the Australian Protectionist Party.
Conceived in Perf, WPWW Day has spread–like some kind of unhealthy, not-terribly effective, virus–to a handful of nutzi groups overseas. Probably the most notorious event is held in Calgary. There, a tiny group of Canuckistan boneheads–occasionally joined by Holocaust denialist Paul Fromm and assorted other riff-raff–parade about town.
Or did.
The Byzantine affairs of the various nutzi crews in Calgary (and elsewhere in Canada) is covered in excruciating detail by the concerned citizens at The Anti-Racist Collective (ARC).
Still grappling with the basic principles of public relations, this week a handful of boneheads belonging to Blood & Honour (B&H) got themselves arrested for hitting unappreciative members of the general public (White power members held in attacks, Pamela Roth, Toronto Sun, March 9, 2011).
In New Zealand, married Mormon Kyle Chapman’s RWRNZ mob has in years previous also paraded in public. This year they’ll be having a picnic in a park (in Christchurch).
As for Australia?
*shrugs*
Steak… with a side of hate
In April, local boneheads will be gathering again on the Gold Coast to attend a gig titled ‘Hammered’, organised by the local B&H and Hammerskin franchises. Last year was the inaugural Hammered Festival. A few liberals wrung their hands in anguish, libertarian lawyer Terry O’Gorman correctly noted that espousing genocide (“white pride”) is not a crime in Queensland (if you’re sneaky), and local media provided some additional, occasionally bizarre publicity for the Aryan steak lovers (much to their amusement). Travelling up from Melbourne and Geelong to perform on April 16 will be the bands Deaths Head and Ravenous; local boys Open Season will also be on hand to wave the national socialist flag.
See also : WhItE pRiDe WoRlD wIdE dAy 2010! (March 21, 2010) | White Pride World Wide* (March 23, 2009).
[By way of Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement…]
On February 22nd at just before 1pm, a devastating earthquake, measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale, and just 10km deep, hit Christchurch, the second biggest city in New Zealand. So far over 160 people have been officially declared dead and that toll is expected to rise to over 200. The earthquake came less than 6 months after a destructive 7.1 magnitude shock, which claimed no lives but saw thousands of homes and buildings damaged or destroyed.
In the wake of the February quake, a number of grassroots groups and networks have sprung up across the city to help people access the resources and support they needed to survive. Beyond Resistance, an anarchist group, was heavily involved in providing support in the working class suburbs of Avonside and Linwood, while other members also got involved in the relief effort in other parts of the city.
Beyond Resistance need your help! Money is needed to buy resources, to print leaflets and flyers and to organise meetings. Any donations will be greatly appreciated, and can be made to:
Bank name Westpac
Branch name Queenstown
Account name Unite Fund
Account number 03 0675 0423909 017
Westpac swift code WPACNZ2W
For many residents in the hard hit working class Eastern suburbs of Christchurch, aid from the Government, City Council and large NGOs such as the Red Cross was sorely lacking. More than 2 weeks on from the quake, many still have no (or extremely limited) power supplies and no running water. State-provided portaloos and chemical toilets are still far from accessible for many residents.
In Linwood, Beyond Resistance members set up a community kitchen in the front yard of two members’ house within hours of the earthquake. From here they distributed meals, gas canisters, water, hand sanitiser, facemasks (huge amounts of pollution and dust were spread by high winds) and other much needed supplies. They engaged in door-knocking around Linwood and Avonside to assess people’s needs and organised bike deliveries of food, water and gas (many of the roads are still impassable by car). More details about the work they have been doing can be found on their website.
Over the coming days, weeks and months, Beyond Resistance members will continue to help provide resources to people who need them. Additionally, they are working to link up the various neighbourhood based support groups scattered across the city. They also plan to organise politically to try to ensure that the rebuilding of Christchurch is done in a way that meets the needs of residents, not business and the state. They will be active in organising against Government cuts to services around the country that use the earthquake as an excuse to further punish working class people (both employed and unemployed) for the benefit of the wealthy.
If you have any questions about this fundraising callout, please email the Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement, one of the organisations helping to coordinate support for Beyond Resistance from Wellington – info [ at ] awsm.org.nz.
