On Tuesday 23rd of February — coinciding with the 34th anniversary of ACDC’s famous film clip shoot down Swanston Street — S.L.A.M (Save Live Australian Music) is organising a protest in support and celebration of the music scene in Victoria where current liquor licensing laws threaten to pull the plug on live music.
We will meet at 4pm outside the State Library and make our way along Swanston and up Bourke St to Parliament House in Spring St where we will have guest speakers from 6-7.
We have organised the Rockwiz Orchestra with guest performers to lead the rally repeating the three chords from ‘It’s a Long Way to the Top’ in the back of a flat bed truck as we follow — ALL 10,000+ OF US — holding placards and instruments chanting down these ridiculous laws!
See also : Musos rally to SLAM state for lack of industry backing, Patrick Donovan, The Age, February 2, 2010: “THOUSANDS of musicians and fans will take to the streets on February 23 to protest against the state government’s lack of support for the industry. A group with the working title SLAM (Save Live Australian Music) is organising the rally to coincide with the 34th anniversary of the filming of AC/DC’s It’s a Long Way to the Top video clip along Swanston Street…” | Tote Last Drinks Live Broadcast Tonight on 3CR (January 18, 2010) | Last drinks at The Tote! (January 14, 2010).
Note that AC/DC were accompanied by the Rats of Tobruk Pipe Band as they rocked and rolled their way down Swanston Street. “The toughest but least disciplined troops in North Africa” ~ Lt General Erwin Rommel, GOC Deutsches Afrika Korps, on the 9th Division.
The year 1941 was a dark one for the Allies. The Germans conquered all before them but Tobruk held out against Rommel and stood in the way of his advance towards Egypt and the Suez Canal. The defiance of the defenders of Tobruk raised morale in the countries of the British Empire and Commonwealth. Those who served there became known as the ‘Rats of Tobruk’, so-called because the German radio propaganda broadcaster ‘Lord Haw Haw’ described them as rats living in the ground.
LET THERE BE ROCK!
Sue Maclellan [on sticking it to “The Man”] Yes! But, you can’t just say it, man. You’ve gotta feel it in your blood and guts! If you wanna rock, you gotta break the rules. You gotta get mad at The Man! And right now, I’m The Man. That’s right, I’m The Man, and who’s got the guts to tell me off? Huh? Who’s gonna tell me off?
Freddy: Shut the hell up, Maclellan! Sue Maclellan: That’s it Freddy, that’s it! Who can top him?
Alicia: Get outta here, stupidass. Sue Maclellan: Yes, Alicia!
Summer Hathaway: You’re a joke, you’re the worst bureaucrat we’ve ever had! Sue Maclellan: Summer, that is great! I like the delivery because I felt your anger!
Summer Hathaway: Thank you.
Lawrence: You’re a fat loser and you have body odor. Sue Maclellan: …All right, all right! Now, is everybody nice and pissed off?
…by way of three way fight, nomattimen: an algonquian (native american) word meaning ‘we are brothers’…
Serbia
Goran Davidović, Führer of Nacionalni Stroj (National Alignment/Formation), a Serbian neo-Nazi group, has been arrested in Germany, 10 months after a court in Novi Sad issued a warrant for his arrest and he fled to Italy (and his wife). AP:
Authorities say a Serbian neo-Nazi leader who fled his homeland after being convicted of inciting hatred has been arrested in Germany. Goran Davidovic was arrested Tuesday aboard a train near the Austrian border, said Alfons Obermeier, a spokesman for prosecutors in Munich. He said Davidovic was arrested under a Serbian warrant and now faces extradition. Davidovic was convicted in Serbia of inciting national, ethnic and religious hatred for infiltrating an anti-fascist rally in 2005. He was sentenced to one year in prison but fled to Italy.
A small group of Serbian pointyheads have previously drawn attention to the rather lax attitude of Serbian authorities towards fascist groups such as Nacionalni Stroj:
We live in a state where there is no guarantee that a person will be prosecuted for his or her promotion of racial, religious and national hatred. In all these years, members of the [clerico]-fascist organisation Obraz (operating without problems since 1993) and the Serbian nationalist movement 1389 (which presents itself as “patriotic” while maintaining close contacts with Russian fascist organizations) have not been held criminally responsible for their acts which involved threats against the LGBT population and numerous attacks and beatings of their members! The leader of a nazi organization “Nacionalni stroj”, Goran Davidović, (“Fuehrer”) was allowed to openly mock the legal system of Republic of Serbia, when he succeeded in his complaint against the guilty verdict in his case, basing it on the fact that documents of the trial were written in Latin letters.
Such attitudes may also be usefully contrasted with that adopted by the Serbian state towards its anarchist opposition. Thus The Anarchists Currently Known As The Belgrade Six face up to 15 years in prison if found guilty of the dastardly act of vandalising the Greek Embassy in Belgrade, aka “international terrorism”. Note that “According to the prosecution documents, the total amount of damage done to the Greek Embassy in the August vandalism incident amounted to 18 euros.”
Russia (For Dion)
Sky News, by way of Amanda Walker, has sit up and taken notice of the fact that there are neo-Nazis in Russia, and they’re killing people. Apparently, “The chilling face of extremism was revealed when another neo-nazi group calling themselves “the warriors of the white revolution” unveiled their video message of the attack on Ghanaian Solomon Attengo Gwa-jio in St Petersburg. They described the footage as “a new year gift” as they pledged further acts of terror. No one has been arrested for the December attack, during which the victim was stabbed 20 times.”
In conjunction with the routine murders committed by neo-Nazis and other racists, Russian authorities are also encouraging the destruction of alternative spaces, as Russians Rally Around a Falling Enclave (Michael Schwirtz, The New York Times, February 1, 2010). Chronic economic dysfunction, social barbarism, and widespread, and occasionally murderous, political repression may be generating stronger opposition, however. Thus ‘Kremlin shocked as Kaliningrad stages huge anti-government protest’: “Special envoy sent to Russia’s western exclave as thousands take to streets in biggest protest since Soviet Union fell” (Luke Harding, The Guardian, February 2, 2010).
“On average, two to three far-right-motivated violent crimes are committed in Germany each day. And there are around three to four anti-Semitic violent crimes each month,” says Jörg Ziercke, president of the BKA. “There’s a real danger to people’s lives because far-right attacks tend to be very spontaneous, brutal and violent.” Right-wing radicals have become increasingly brazen too, carrying out attacks in public places such as train stations, bus stops and outside bars and restaurants. In addition to el-Sherbini’s murder, Ziercke says, there were five politically or racially motivated attempted murders by the far right in 2009.
According to the latest statistics from Germany’s Federal Crime Office, the number of acts of violence perpetrated by far-left groupings in 2009 went up by almost 50 percent over the previous year.
Left-wing anarchist groups, which have been active particularly in Berlin and Hamburg, have recruited new members. Counter-intelligence agencies put the current total number of anarchists in Germany at around 6,600.
“What we’ve witnessed in Berlin and other big German cities is that young people’s readiness to use violence has increased dramatically”, said Claudia Schmid from Berlin’s counter-intelligence department. “We’ve seen that, since last year’s May Day riots and the 2009 NATO summit in Strasbourg and Kehl, the level of brutality in the left-wing scene has gone up steadily”, she added.
Worse yet, while weaning wankers away from licking swastikas is possible (if sometimes difficult):
Opinions divided over exit program proposals
Some conservative Bavarian lawmakers have suggested that exit programs should be developed for young people wanting to turn their backs on radical Islamism or far left anarchism, similar to exit programs already in place for former far-right activists.
But senior intelligence officials are not convinced that this would be effective..
“Left-wing anarchists are highly unlikely to respond to any sort of contact by authorities. It seems easier in the case of radicalized far-right extremists who want to opt out”, says the president of Germany’s Federal Counter-Intelligence Agency, Heinz Fromm.
Free Speech and Fascism
a bunch of revo ratbags Mutiny
No.46, January 2010
[PDF]
In October and November 2009, two community protests took place outside the Humanist House building in Shepherd St Chippendale. Local residents had recently discovered that a group calling themselves KN (Klub Naziya) were meeting there each month – holding an open discussion and social group. The group exists as a coming-together space for nationalists, white supremacists, fascists and neo-Nazis.
The community demonstrations sought to shut down the meetings, with the aim of having KN kicked out of the space, as well as to draw attention to their presence. The neighbourhood was letterboxed, and postered, and the local community turned out to let this group know that they were unwelcome. Passers-by joined in, as did folks from the local pub. The demonstrations were a success, and in December, KN were kicked out of Humanist House. (In the process it was discovered that many of the far-right had infiltrated the Humanist Society and attempted to sell the $3 million building in order to use the money for an “education fund”).
In the process of these actions questions were raised by some as to whether these demonstrations were in themselves a form of fascism – advocating that everyone is entitled to free speech, and that by shutting down their meetings we were denying them this.
What follows is a discussion of the ideas around these questions. It’s not exhaustive, and we are not experts, but it goes someway to addressing the argument.
Why can we shut down summit meetings without question, but fascists somehow deserve to meet unhindered, under the auspices of freedom of speech?
Protests in Seattle, where communities realised their collective power by shutting down the 1999 WTO conference, were celebrated by the radical left throughout the world. Even in Australia, the shut-down of the World Economic Forum in 2000 is seen as the largest victory of the left in recent years. Blockading businesses, occupying offices, and shutting down pulp mills and coal mines are seen as standard actions for the left the world over. But suddenly when it comes to shutting down meetings of neo-Nazis, folks start worrying about their rights to “freedom of speech”. Summit conferences, pulp-mills, coal mines etc are shut down because of the dangerous activities in which they are engaged. But neo-Nazi groups aren’t sitting around debating how they can raise the most funds for the local homeless shelter. Their ideologies are specifically focused on causing harm to people who are non-white, homosexual, transgender, Jewish, Romani. These are folks who wear swastikas; have “88” tattoos (H is the eighth letter in the alphabet – the numerical equivalent of HH, or “Heil Hitler”); use “Heil Hitler” salutes; and actively celebrate Hitler’s birthday. They don’t do this as part of some cute anachronism, but as expressions of their politics, which are part of a continuous trajectory from 1930s Europe.
It’s these politics that mean that even if KN were a group of fascists gathering in Chippendale in order to raise money for the local homeless shelter, their act of gathering would still itself be a violent one. Before even a word is spoken between them, to be seen together: a strong group of neo-Nazis, their presence threatens those in the community they see as their enemies: non-white people, trans-people, queers; and adds backbone to the people in the area who may subscribe to aspects of their ideology.
“Opposing fascism in all its forms”
Some folks have expressed concern with the approach of shutting down neo-Nazi meetings/activities as a form of fascism in itself. Bound up in this concern is the possibility that it could be them doing it to “us”. In essence this is a classic conundrum of anarchist tendencies. What happens when the advocacy of freedom for all comes up against those who would deprive others of lives, safety, homes? But it becomes ridiculously obtuse to suggest that communities should stand by idly in the face of violence against people because of skin colour, ethnicity or sexuality, in order that they should not interfere with the freedoms of the perpetrators. Similarly, to suggest that shutting down neo-Nazi meetings through community demonstrations is necessarily fascist, seems a gross misunderstanding of the nature and extent of fascism.
Is freedom of speech something we even want to defend?
Freedom of speech refers to the freedom to speak without limitation. An often synonymous term, freedom of expression, refers to the act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used. Under capitalism, freedom of speech and freedom of expression do not exist for all, despite the rhetoric used by the ruling class. Ideas of freedom of speech are clothed in those of ‘democracy’. It serves to legitimize and consolidate liberal democracy by creating the illusion of freedom. The existing hierarchical class society ensures that it is only a few who have access to the various forms of media and the planning of what is taught in our schools – these are controlled by the government and rich. It follows, that it is the institutionalised racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia that is apparent in both the media and education systems which guarantees that a completely unobstructed access to voicing of opinions on the radio or in the newspapers, for example, is limited to the ruling class.
The idea of freedom of speech has long been associated with impartiality from the government, and as being somewhat of a beacon of truth and justice. However, we only need to look to the historical examples from the civil rights movement to see how freedom of speech is, and always has been, state sanctioned and state controlled. Clearly freedom of speech is related to a person’s right to vote, yet Aborigines have only had that ‘right’ for just over 40 years. Freedom of expression also has clear links to a person’s sexuality, yet it was only in 1984 in Hobart, Tasmania that the last gay man was arrested for having sex with another man on the side of the road in car – he was jailed for 8 months.
A more current example is around the war on terror and the subsequent rise of racism and hate towards Muslim communities. The rhetoric surrounding the war on terror has also ‘justified’ the introduction of new laws that highlight the role that the state plays in determining who does and who does not have the right to free speech. It is now the case that if you are a white, Christian, middle class person, you apparently have more of a right to free speech than, for example a Middle Eastern born Muslim now living in Australia. In anti-terrorism trials in Melbourne and Sydney Muslim men have received jail time for ‘radical talk’; whereas Alan Jones, the radio host who incited the Cronulla riot, received a $10,000 fine (less than a day’s pay).
There are a multitude of examples throughout history that reveal the central role that the state plays in sanctioning who is afforded the right of free speech.
Freedom of speech is not an abstract value that can exist in a bubble separate from everyday life, and relations of power; it is something that only exists in practice, and only insofar as societal relationships work to create it. Rather than unthinkingly defending these so-called “freedoms”, we need to adopt a critical relationship to these notions, in order to develop spaces of genuine freedom.
…has recently been informed that he is persona non grata in the US, having found himself on the No-Fly List without explanation or meaningful opportunity for rebuttal. Because of this, he has had to cancel a speaking tour here, in which he was to visit universities and community centers around the country, discussing his three new books as well as topics including social movements and political theory. It means that he won’t be able to visit with friends and colleagues or to forge new connections here around his life’s work. It also places a potentially permanent constraint on his travel to the US, and an official taint on his character as well.
Gabriel blogs @ PM Press, where you can read his account of his recent tour Down Under (November/December 2009), as well as his rejection by the US repressive state apparatus. His three new books are:
Erich Mühsam: Liberating Society from the State and Other Writings (editor/translator, 2011) and; Soccer vs. The State: Tackling Football And Radical Politics (2011).
Gabriel’s case contains faint echoes of several other, more recent exclusions — from Australia — of US citizens: Scott Parkin (2005) and Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin (1997).
On a more positive note, authorities in Colorado have apparently dropped charges against Ojore Nuru Lutalo. P. Solomon Banda writes (No charges planned in Colorado train threat, AP/Washington Post, February 3, 2010): “Prosecutors in southeastern Colorado said they won’t pursue charges against an ex-convict accused of making a threat against an Amtrak train because further investigation revealed the man displayed no bizarre behavior or even made a threat.”
In Serbia, meanwhile, The Belgrade Six continue to languish in prison. Arrested in August 2009, the six have been charged with the crime of “international terrorism”, and their trial is expected to commence in two weeks or so; presumably, further protests in support of the Six will also be taking place at this time.
Trial date set for six anarchists
B92/Tanjug
January 27, 2010
BELGRADE — The trial of six persons charged with international terrorism should start on February 17 at the Higher Court in Belgrade.
Court spokeswoman Dušica Ristić confirmed this on Tuesday in Belgrade.
The suspects were arrested on August 31, 2009, for throwing two Molotov cocktails at the Greek embassy building in Belgrade on August 24, and have remained in custody since then, she said.
Charges against Ratibor Trivunac, Tadej Kurepa, Ivan Vulović, Sanja Đokić, Ivan Savić and Nikola Mitrovicem were filed on November 3.
A group of members and sympathizers of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Initiative said they had resorted to the act in solidarity with Theodoros Iliopoulos who was arrested in December 2008 in Greece during a riot and who went on hunger strike while in prison, Tanjug reports.
Note that the Anarcho-Syndicalist Initiative has not, in fact, said the Six had resorted to the act in solidarity with Theodoros Iliopoulos; rather, the Six continue to protest their innocence and the ASI continues to support them. The report has confused the fact that a communique in the name of a previously unheard-of group was issued claiming credit for the molotov cocktail party and justifying the action by reference to Theodoros Iliopoulos.
Poland: Arrest Warrant Issued in Auschwitz Sign Theft
AP
February 2, 2010
A Polish court issued a European arrest warrant on Tuesday for a former neo-Nazi leader suspected in the theft of the infamous “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign at Auschwitz. Rafal Lisak, spokesman for Krakow’s district court, said that Anders Hogstrom, 34, of Sweden, was suspected of incitement to commit theft of a cultural treasure. The sign, whose words are German for “Work Sets You Free,” was stolen in December from Auschwitz in southern Poland. The sign was found three days later, and five Polish men were charged with its theft.
“The Communist Party of Australia has endorsed Bob Briton as its candidate for Lee in the South Australian State Elections on March 20, 2010. Voters will have the opportunity to send the Rann Government a strong message about its pro-corporate priorities. The CPA is putting the working class alternative to the climate emergency, the collapse of manufacturing, the attacks on workers rights and the destruction of public services and enterprise that have flowed from the profits first agenda.”
Update : A commentator (‘Jesse’, Fri 05 Feb 10 (03:48pm)) on Andrew Bolt’s blog complains about another commentator’s (‘sasha of sydney’, Fri 05 Feb 10 (02:11pm)) linking to a previous blog entry (Robert Manne’s open letter to Andrew Bolt, July 3, 2006): “A link to a blog so far left that marxists think they’re a bit extreme? THAT is your counter argument? Why is it that reds quote other reds to try and prove that reds are right?” Take that, Spartacist League of Australia!
1. Communist Party of Australia (CPA) [guilty of] a particularly wretched example of … abject defence of the capitalist order
The January 27 edition of The Guardian notes that the Adelaide CPA is on the campaign trail, with State Secretary Bob Briton as the endorsed candidate for the western suburbs electorate of Lee. The poll is to take place on March 20. “[M]embers are confident their work will lift the profile of the CPA in the area considerably”.
2. Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) (CPA-ML)
The February edition of Vanguard contains Duncan B’s reflections on ‘Joseph Stalin on Party Organisation’ (PDF). According to B, among the six features Uncle Joseph identified as being key to those of a Party organised on Leninist lines is ‘The Party as the highest form of class organisation of the proletariat’… which I think means that the CPA-ML will be directing their preferences to HEMP in future.
3. Freedom Socialist Party (FSP) fake-revolutionary
Um… “For parties, receptions, banquets, weddings, meetings and seminars… Solidarity Salon, 580 Sydney Road, Brunswick. A welcoming shop front meeting space that can comfortably accommodate organising meetings, planning days, training sessions, public meetings, movie nights or cultural events for up to 50 people, depending on your format.”
4. Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) triumphant purveyors of historical falsehood and political cowardice
The always-outrageous (and sometimes disgusting) Van Thanh Rudd has thrown down the gauntlet to other communists with well-known relatives in the Australian political establishment by donning a white sheet with holes in it and standing outside the Australian Open. In other words, “Kevin Rudd’s nephew proved [Andrew Bolt’s] point when he stood outside the Rod Laver Area on Australia Day in his badly sewn Ku Klux Klan outfit… And so Australians generally are now being monstered in the Indian press as racists of the KKK kind, while at home we still refuse to discuss street violence – and the rise of the ethnic gangs behind some of the worst of it.”
Or something.
In other news, if you’d like to know more about Uncle Hugo’s plans for a firstsecondthirdfourth fifth International, a ‘Direct Action Forum’ on ‘The Venezuelan revolution & the call for a new Socialist International’ is taking place at 6:30pm on Thursday, February 25 @ the ‘Direct Action Centre’ (aka the Trades Hall Basement).
5. Democratic Socialist PerspectiveSocialist Alliance (SA) postures as a fighting alternative to the no-struggle ACTU union tops but in reality acts to buttress the Laborite political obstacles to waging class battle
“Formerly the Democratic Socialist Party. Leninist, but not Stalinist and not Trotskyist, the DSP is enthusiastic about Cuba and Third World revolutions”; it is now also better known as the Socialist Alliance. “Public transport activist” Margarita Windisch has thrown her hat into the ring for the February 13 Altona by-election. Windisch is one of seven candidates expected to lose to Labor anointed Jill Hennessy. Unusually, Hennessy is a law-talking gal.
6. Socialist Alternative (SAlt) cheerleaders for capitalist counterrevolution
When they’re not cheering on capitalist counterrevolution or looking over their shoulders for Kiwi anarchists and/or English football hooligans, SAlt are busy embiggening revolutionary socialism. Otherwise… um… someone or other has established a Facebook group for those who dislike SAlt; former SAlt member Alistair Hullett died last week; former SAlt member Jeff Sparrow is referenced in the article referenced below‘No criticism of Labor as Australia rejects Tamil refugees’ by Mike Head (January 20, 2010).
7. Socialist Equality Party (SEP) an organization of dubious political bandits
8. Socialist Party (SP) another left Laborite obstacle to workers revolution
In a madcap attempt to undermine the stranglehold bourgeois art and culture maintains over the hearts and minds of angry proletarian yoof, the Socialist Party is calling on the Victorian State government to Scrap all anti-graffiti laws! (February 1, 2010). In an ominous sign of the repression to come, Comments are closed.
9. Solidarity reformist opponents of revolutionary Marxism… crawling to the ALP
A member of the iSt, Solidarity are “for workers’ power and international socialism”. Beyond that, er…
10. Trotskyist Platform (TP) a casualty of the retrogression of consciousness following the counterrevolutionary destruction of the Soviet Union
Green Street Hooligans (2005) — aka Green Street aka Hooligans — was one of a rash of films — The Firm (1988), I.D. (1995), The Football Factory (2004) — exploiting the US fascination with football hooliganism. Based on the story of a fictional West Ham firm — drawn in turn upon the real life ‘Inter City Firm’ — the consensus among real life West Ham fans seems to have been that the film was poor, at least in terms of accuracy, if not drama. Green Street Hooligans 2 — aka Green Street 2 aka Green Street Hooligans 2: Stand Your Ground — is regarded as being worse than shit: a straight-to-DVD release. It also came with a soundtrack, featuring a local Melbourne band (Marching Orders) and — ironically — the song ‘Sometimes Anti Social But Always Anti Fascist’ by stupid fucking anarchist commie piece of shit German band Stage Bottles.
Two Greek anarchists are making molotov cocktails. One says to the other: "So who will we throw these at then?" The other replies: "What are you, some kind of fucking intellectual?"
