Killdozer was notable for its slow, grinding song structures and blackly, humorous lyrics, growled ominously by singer/guitarist Michael Gerald at the top of his lungs. Many of their songs were disturbing narratives of small-town life gone awry, and later had a jaded, left wing political perspective. Killdozer is regarded by many to have set the foundation for grunge music, despite that genre’s association with the city of Seattle…
Killdozer. the. best. band. ever.
Dennis [MacThomas] is batshit ace. [Derrick McCormack doesn’t like immigrants either.]
[Dennis McCormack is] A former member of the now-defunct group ‘Australians Against Further Immigration’ (on whose behalf he contested the Bonython by-election in 1994 and the Victorian Senate in the 1996 Federal election), then a member of Graeme Campbell’s staff (Campbell being the founder of the ‘Australia First Party’), [Derrick MacThomas] is […] Internet broadcasting on behalf of the US-based nutzi groupuscule the ‘National Socialist Movement’. His hour-long show is titled ‘Australia Calling’, and recalls the wartime broadcasts of William Joyce, aka ‘Lord Haw-Haw’:
Lord Haw-Haw was the name British listeners gave to William Joyce, a German radio propaganda broadcaster during World War II. Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1906, Joyce moved with his English mother and Irish-American father to England in 1921. He joined the Nazi movement in England in the mid-’30s and fled to Germany just before war broke in 1939. He immediately became a broadcaster for Joseph Goebbel’s Propaganda Ministry. His radio program reached England weekly from 1939 to 1945.
On the night of April 30, 1945, a drunken Joyce made his last broadcast from Hamburg as British troops entered the city. With his adopted world crashing down around him, but still committed to the Nazi cause, Joyce rambled on through his farewell speech. In Berlin, Hitler was simultaneously saying good-bye to his entourage in anticipation of ending his life a few hours later.
Captured by the British, Joyce stood trial for treason. The court denied his claim of American citizenship because he held a British passport. He was found guilty and hanged on January 3, 1946.
Apart from being hung (after a controversial trial), Lord Haw-Haw’s other enduring legacy is the term ‘Rats of Tobruk’:
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.
Having survived WWII, the Rats are almost all gone now: of approximately 15,000 Rats, in June 2008, “about 1600 Rats were still alive, including about 80 in Victoria” (Rats of Tobruk may get permanent memorial, Jason Dowling, The Age, June 17, 2008). On a rockin’ side-note:
The music video for “It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll)”, was filmed on 23 February 1976 for the Australian music television program Countdown. It featured the band’s then-current lineup, along with members of the Rats of Tobruk Pipe Band, on the back of a flat-bed truck traveling on Swanston Street in Melbourne, Australia. The Young brothers, Evans, Rudd and the Rats of Tobruk Pipe Band all mimed playing their instruments, while Scott mimed his vocal and bagpipes. Known members of the Rats of Tobruk Pipe Band at the time of the video’s filming include: Alan Butterworth, Les Kenfield and Kevin Conlon. The video was dubbed with the studio track from the T.N.T. album.
[MacThomas]’s first broadcast was made on May 25, 2006. (The NSM also broadcasts ‘Nazi America’.) Among the many highlights of his show, an interview with Ben Weerheym (former ANM/ANWU member) is one (January 8, 2007); the hugely successful Great Australian Bikini March (December 10, 2006) is another. The muzak of the Taswegian anti-Semite ‘Morbicae’ (‘Chris Gard’) — who joined SF in November 2005 — features in a number of shows (for example, May 6, 2007); on May 28, 2007, “We discuss the biggest event on Australia’s White calendar–the Sydney Forum on August 25th and 26th–Be there!”); on August 1, 2007, Derrick notes that “The self-proclaimed white nationalist leader in Western Australia, David Innes, has been accused of handing information about white patriots to the Marxist organisation Fight Dem Back” (David’s brother Paul Innes, who could never be accused of passing info on to FDB!, has now taken over the reins of SFDU); and Derrick even conducts an interview with Dr, James Saleam’s Sydney-based nemesis (and former member of the ‘White Pride Coalition of Australia’ (WPCA)) Daevid Palmer (August 20, 2007).
More recent broadcasts include:
RACE MIXING MARXIST IS NOW OUR PRIME MINISTER!!!
(November 27, 2007) On Saturday 55 per cent of the Australian public voted for the Fabian Socialist Labor Party and its leader Kevin Rudd, who is married to a Jew, whose daughter is married to a Chinese and whose brother is married to a negro. Are you ready to fight yet, white man?
WHITE NATIONALIST LEADER SPEAKS ON ZIONIST THREAT
(January 13, 2009) Derrick interviews Australia First political party leader Dr James Saleam about Zionist infiltration of white organisations. Also, two cases of Muslim immigrants pack raping white girls . . . again. Seems to be a culturally acceptable team sport for Muslim men and boys.
AUSTRALIA: PRISON, AND THOUGHT CRIMES
(May 16, 2009) Telling the truth and speaking your mind are illegal in Australia and you will go to prison for it. During this past week a prominent Adelaide historian has been sentenced to three months in prison because he said that the Holocaust was a lie. In Perth, a fundamentalist Christian has been charged with a thought crime because he quoted the Jewish scriptures that taught race hate and murder. He faces 14 years in prison for quoting scripture. Australia. Perfect one day, a gulag the next.
RED TERRORISTS ATTACK AUSTRALIA FIRST OFFICE
(July 17, 2009) Marxist terrorists, believed to be associated with the Jewish front race mixing group Fight Dem Back, have attacked the headquarters of the Australia First political party in Sydney. Also, the latest on the plight of our American white brother Hal Turner.
Note: Hal Turner, like Dennis, is batshit ace. He is certainly not an FBI informant either.
Hal Turner’s Connecticut Case transferred
Hudson Reporter
July 19, 2009Harold ‘Hal’ Turner, a North Bergen-based white supremacist and hate blogger who has gained recent notoriety for allegedly urging his followers to take up arms against law makers, was not present at his most recent Connecticut court hearing last week.
According to his Connecticut lawyer, Matthew Potter, Turner was not present in court because he is still being held on federal charges in Chicago. Turner had posted names, photos, and addresses of two U.S. District judges in Chicago after they refused to appeal a local law that banned gun ownership in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs.
Potter said that Turner’s case was transferred from “Part B” of the Connecticut Superior Court’s division, to “Part A,” where more serious matters are heard.
Potter said that Turner is due back in court on Aug. 4.
On a much brighter, whiter note, everyone’s favourite US nutzi Bill White — former fuehrer of the NSM, then the ‘American National Socialist Workers Party’ — is a very rude boy outta jail, after a US judge ruled that his nutzi rants were protected by the First Amendment.
Charge against Roanoke neo-Nazi leader Bill White dismissed
Laurence Hammack
Roanoke Times
July 22, 2009Long known for dancing along the line between free speech and illegal threats, Roanoke neo-Nazi leader William A. White has won the first round of his bout with the federal government.
In an opinion issued Tuesday in Chicago, U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Adelman dismissed a charge that White used his Web site to encourage violence, ruling that his actions were protected by the First Amendment.
White had been charged with posting the name, address and telephone number of the foreman of a Chicago jury that convicted a fellow white supremacist in 2004.
Although the post made no direct threats against the juror, federal prosecutors had argued that White published the information with the hope it would prompt readers of his racist Web site, overthrow.com, to threaten or harm the man. In an attempt to prove that intent, authorities filled the indictment against White with examples of other, more hateful and inflammatory posts.
But White broke no laws in obtaining information about the juror, Adelman wrote in a 35-page opinion. As for using passages from overthrow.com to interpret White’s motives, “an intimidating context alone does not remove the protection of the First Amendment,” the judge ruled…
See also : White’s ‘jokes’ are unfunny, but still protected, Dan Casey, Roanoke Times, July 23, 2009.
Ark Tribe is a construction worker from South Australia facing six months in jail. He has been charged with not attending an interview with the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).
Ark was working on the Flinders University site in Adelaide. Conditions were so bad that workers drew up a petition calling for safety improvements, on a handtowel.
It took an intervention by the union and the state government safety regulator to get the most pressing problems fixed and finally, after several days, things began to get back on track.
One by one workers from the site were called before the ABCC.
The penalties for those who don’t cooperate with ABCC investigations are frightening – fines of up to $22,000 for things like stopping work to make sure workers are safe and jail for up to 6 months if you don’t answer their questions. Even the police don’t have the powers the ABCC have.
In Ark’s words, “If I’ve done something wrong, I’m prepared to cop it, but I won’t be treated unfairly.”
Ark will be appearing in Elizabeth Magistrates Court (15 Frobisher Road, Elizabeth) in Radelaide on August 11, 2009. Ark has a blog — Ark’s Tribe — and more deets on the ABCC may be found @ the Rights On Site… site. Ark’s Tribe is gathering @ Twitter.
See also : ABCC, John Holland, West Gate Bridge (May 10, 2009) | International Day of Mourning (April 29, 2009)…
…What would Jesus do? Jesuit Social Services ♥s WorkChoices (December 10, 2008) | Global Day of Action Against Starbucks : July 5, 2008 (July 2, 2008) | Eureka Flag Banned?!? Time To Rebel! (November 19, 2007).
Hear the drums… they come from the sea
Bring the tribal spirit on me
Cause my pride and my roots I believe
No, this tribe you can’t take it from me
Huh.
A new blog has spung up: The Mad Arab — Dr Jim Saleam.
Monday, July 20, 2009
The genetic disposition of Dr. James Saleam
Jim Saleam has always claimed his family came from Turkey and they were of Greek [O]rthodox descent, but note the Islamic symbols and Arabic script in the letter head used by his grand father in the following document. What person of Greek heritage would use such symbols? None.
Weirdnessabounds.
See also : Sjef ‘Jack’ Van Tongeren: “Van Tongeren is a classic example of the type of twisted personality drawn to fascism. A drifter and a Vietnam veteran with a grudge, he is also consumed with self-hatred: his father was half-Dutch, half-Indonesian and the family suffered racial persecution because of it as he grew up in 1950s Melbourne”; “Stella van Tongeren, ‘The making of a racist’, The Age, 20 October 1990. We should also remember that top Nazi Rudolf Heydrich was part Jewish and there are persistent stories that Hitler himself was part Jewish and part Czech: ethnic groups the Nazis consider ‘subhuman’. Nazi psychology is bizarre, to say the least.”
Upon his release from prison in 2002 (having served 13 years 1 month and 6 days in prison from 1989-2002 for his involvement in a series of arson attacks against Asian-owned businesses in Perth) ‘Java Jack’ immediately re-launched his ‘Australian Nationalists Movement’ and its sidekick the ‘Australian Nationalist Workers Union’. Jack was welcomed with open arms by his kameraden in the now-defunct ‘White Pride Coalition of Australia’ (WPCA). In addition to the ANM, the WPCA included among its ranks a wonderful assortment of fascist oddballs from ‘The Nationalist’, ‘Australian Patriots’, the ‘World Church of the Creator’ (WCOTC), ‘Imperial Klans of Australia’ (IKA), the ‘New Zealand National Front’ (NZNF) and the ‘National Socialist Party of Australia’ (NSPA).
One of the WPCA’s principal spokesmen was Jim Perren; Perren is now a member of Dr. Jim’s ‘Australia First Party’.
The nutzis involved in the WPCA may have been shooed into that overflowing rubbish bin known as history, but for shits and giggles, “White Pride Coalition Australia was selected for preservation by the National Library of Australia. This title is not scheduled for re-archiving. This original publisher’s version may no longer be available.”
See also : Some films what I have seen recently (March 1, 2009) | Valkyries & Pirates: Resistance to Nazism (December 27, 2008).
Contemporary Australian neo-Nazis will be gathering “throwing a gala premiere” in Melbourne on September 12. The gathering galah is being organised by ‘Blood & Honour Australia’ (NB. B&H is Verboten! in the birthplace of Nazism) and the ‘Southern Cross Hammerskins’. (The two bonehead groups have worked together hand-in-glove over the last 15 years.) This year, B&H have resurrected a nutzi band of yesteryear called ‘Open Season’ to play; they will be joined by (Melbourne-based) ‘Ravenous’ and a cover band. Foreign neo-Nazis have also played in previous years: Kill Baby Kill (Belgium, 2008); Final War (United States, 2007); Bully Boys (United States, 2004).
A badly-accented Brad Pitt — who played former SS member Heinrich Harrer in Seven Years in Tibet (1997) — is not expected to be in attendance.
o n e
The Slackbastard blog features the political and social musings of Andy, an anarchist living in Melbourne. Slackbastard offers an informed view on political issues that are relevant to Melbourne and also the world at large. ~ OnlyMelbourne
t w o
Honestly, I am going to fucking kill you. I hope it was worth it. ~ “Joel”, December 10, 2007
t h r e e
The one barrier me and my buddies have regarding beating the shit out of you is your anonymity… Give me your name, address, daytime and night time contact phone numbers, and I promise you I will beat the fucking shit out of you and then make a black man take a shit in your face / @ndy you’re a fucking idiot mate and you better watch your back because when me and my mates are out and about, if we see you, ur dead / @ndy im still going to bash you, fukn gooknigger scum ~ “Mark Bastard” (Doug Smith‘s mate) on the totally punk rawking Bombshell site, December 2007
f o u r
…I find it a little strange that someone with as good a theoretical background as you obviously have spends their time focusing on these little side-issues, and only occasionally discusses real resistance, whether it be socialist, anarchist, union-based, whatever.
For example, one question that has been burning me for a while: why do you continue to spend so much time discussing neo-nazis? Obviously that’s a horrible movement, but at the same time we know that we can’t eliminate such tendencies without eliminating capitalism, and so I see THAT as our #1 fight… Spending significant amounts of time attacking a tiny reactionary movement within the system just seems like you’re allowing yourself to be sidetracked. The hours you’ve spent writing blogs about the latest nazi trend results in very little development in revolutionary ideas, movements, or actions. Best-case scenario, your readers are more aware than before that the horrors of fascist ideologies are not finished yet.
I think with your knowledge you have much more you could achieve.
Solidarity. ~ “juancastro”, February 3, 2008
f i v e
Andy from slackbastard is just a loudmouth leftie keyboard warrior and nothing to worry about. ~ Nicole Hanley
s i x
This is the frontpage of the slackbastard archives. Currently the archives are spanning 1,940 posts and 9,728 comments, contained within the meager confines of [20?] categories. Through here, you will be able to move down into the archives by way of time or category. If you are looking for something specific, perhaps you should try the search on the sidebar.
72 posts!
That’s a dirty dozen. 60 more posts on Keef Windschuttle, TISM, dead Gazans, SHAC, squatting, police murder, crazy Maoists, cats, The Heretical Two, Chairman Gonzalo (see crazy Maoists), muzak, crackademics discuss anarchism and/as terrorism, the Tarnac Nine, anarchism ~versus~ God/The Church, anarchism in Australia, moar leftist trainspotting, Jeff Monson, Jew-hatin’ Brendon O’Connell, moar hilarious stories from Russia [For Dion], Barack Hussein O’Bama, “global financial crisis”, Andrew Giles-Peters, Kyle Chapman, rape, Marxism, Aboriginal genocide and resistance, Anastasiya Baburova, the ALP… and nutzis.
51 posts!
“Six of one, half-dozen of the other”. 45 more posts on the Tarnac Nine, Kerry Bolton 1 University of Waikato 0, (a) kidnapping in Mexico, British Jobs For British Workers, Bill Hicks, child abuse, Paul Innes the Plasterer says PLEase, RCP bizarros, film, Andrew Bolt, Peter Costello & Danny Nalliah & God & Bushfires & Faggots Are to Blame, the ALP, anarchism and the Spanish Revolution, Venezuela for Uncle Hugo, Russia for the Russians, Switzerland for the Swiss, more peace in the Middle East, antifa, crazy Greeks, Durban II, Dear Leader, Brendan Sokaluk, Kenny Glenn, stoopid Greens, stoopid Indian students, Ward Churchill, Joel Kovel, P.J. O’Rourke, Pierre Bourdieu, Society of Jesus, (Defend!) Sue Morphet, muzak… and nutzis.
67 posts!
Three is, um, a crowd. 64 more posts on anarchism in Melbourne, Warwick Capper, Timmeh!, Bolshevism and the Russian Revolution, Queensland state election, “global financial crisis”, police butality, muzak, Peter Costello, Melbourne Dumb Punx, prisons, condoms, Prodos, Michael Jackson and Spartacism, Father Peter Kennedy, Bishop Richard Williamson, Holocaust denial, Dear Leader, fun and games in Russia [For Dion], Varg Vikernes, Van Thanh Rudd, Connex, The Yartz, Emma Goldman, leftist trainspotting, Durban II, G20 London, crazy Greeks, Southern Cross Soldiers, censorship, Fighting Fantasy, Bill White, WPWW, Blood & Honour, bikies, Marie Mason… and nutzis. (And muzak.)
54 posts!
Two good! 52 more posts on such divers subjects as Kiwis & anarchy in London / G20, strikes, occupations, NATO, Nicole Hanley, Murray Holmes, Perf nutzis, White Australia, racism, nasssty critics, Ian Tomlinson (& Timmeh! & Paola Totaro… & Colin Roach & Liddle Towers & Gurdip Singh Chaggar & Kevin Gately & …), bossnapping, Anarchists Against the Wall, police kick (green) arse, May Day, Jeff Monson, Black Flag: Bulletin of the Anarchist Black Cross, Franklin Rosemont, Leon Trotsky, Cookie Monster, Abel Paz, books, Durban II, David Duke, Uncle Fred (Töben)… and nutzis.
53 posts!
One is the loneliest number. 52 more posts on May Day, stuff, moar crackademics discuss anarchism and/as terrorism, anarchism in Australia (Bob James), work, alcohol, apes, Facebook, free speech, hate speech, racism / Lazy drunken boongs, terrorist Muslims, Asian boat people, avaricious Jews, violent Lebos, AIDS-infested faggots, (crazy) anarchists / anarcholocos, ABCC, John Holland, West Gate Bridge, anarchism &/Or Marxism, Jock Palfreeman, Brendon O’Connell, Lee Lin Chin (the right-wing anarchist), John Kinsella on Neo-Luddism, back problems, KKK, Homage to Catalonia, Mauricio Morales Duarte, Uncle Hugo, punk/muzak, Uncle Fred (Töben), uranium (is ace)… and nutzis. (And muzak.)
78 posts!
Total number of posts January–June, 2009 = 375!
In 1924 a forty-two-year-old North Carolina lawyer named Bascom Lamar Lunsford recorded a traditional ballad called “I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground” — how traditional, no one knows. A reference to “the Bend,” a turn-of-the-century Tennessee prison, might fix the piece in a given time and place, but the reference could have been added long after the piece came into being; all that was certain was the measured count of Lunsford’s banjo, the inexorable cadence of his voice. The song, the music said, predated whoever might sing it, and would outlast whoever heard it.
“I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground” wasn’t an animal song, like “Froggy Went A-Courtin”‘ or “The Leatherwing Bat.” It was an account of everyday mysticism, a man dropping his plow, settling onto the ground, pulling off his boots, and summoning wishes he will never fulfill. He lies on his back in the sun:
Now what the singer wants is obvious, and almost impossible to comprehend. He wants to be delivered from his life and to be changed into a creature insignificant and despised. He wants to see nothing and to be seen by no one. He wants to destroy the world and to survive it. That’s all he wants. The performance is quiet, steady, and the quiet lets you in: you can listen, and you can contemplate what you are listening to. You can lie back and imagine what it would be like to want what the singer wants. It is an almost absolute negation, at the edge of pure nihilism, a demand to prove that the world is nothing, a demand to be next to nothing, and yet it is comforting. ~ Greil Marcus, Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century (Harvard University Press, 1990), pp.15–16.
As the world of the spectacle extends its reign it approaches the climax of its offensive, provoking new resistances everywhere. These resistances are very little known precisely because the reigning spectacle is designed to present an omnipresent hypnotic image of unanimous submission. But they do exist and are spreading.
Everyone talks about the youth rebellion in the advanced industrial countries, though without understanding much about it (see “Unconditional Defense” in issue #6 of this journal). Militant publications such as Socialisme ou Barbarie (Paris) and Correspondence (Detroit) have published well-documented articles on workers’ continual on-the-job resistance to the whole organization of work and on their depoliticization and their disillusionment with the unions, which have become a mechanism for integrating workers into the society and a supplementary weapon in the economic arsenal of bureaucratized capitalism. As the old forms of opposition reveal their ineffectiveness, or more often their complete inversion into complicity with the existing order, an irreducible dissatisfaction spreads subterraneanly, undermining the edifice of the affluent society. The “old mole” that Marx evoked in his “Toast to the Proletarians of Europe” is still digging away; the specter is reappearing in all the nooks and crannies of our televised Elsinore Castle, whose political mists are dissipated as soon as workers councils come into existence and for as long as they continue to reign. ~ ‘The Bad Days Will End’ (the title of a nineteenth-century popular song), SITUATIONIST INTERNATIONAL, 1962. “Les mauvais jours finiront” originally appeared in Internationale Situationniste #7 (Paris, April 1962). This translation by Ken Knabb is from the Situationist International Anthology (Revised and Expanded Edition, 2006). No copyright.
“In the signs that bewilder the middle class, the aristocracy and the poor prophets of regression, we do recognise our brave friend Robin Goodfellow, the old mole that can work in the earth so fast, that worthy pioneer — the Revolution” (Marx, speech at a dinner celebrating the founding of The People’s Paper, London, 14 April 1856). Cf. “And when it [the revolution] has accomplished the second half of it preliminary work, Europe will leap up from its seat and exult: ‘Well burrowed, old mole!’” (Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, chapter 7). In both places Marx is alluding to Shakespeare’s Hamlet (Act 1, Scene 5): “Well said, old mole! canst work i’ the earth so fast?” Robin Goodfellow is a mischievous prankster in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Elsinore Castle is the haunted locale where Hamlet takes place.
Brutal Neonazi Attack in Berlin
schalom libertad
libcom.org
Jul 20 2009
Q: On Sunday [July 12] in the Berlin-Friedrichshain neighborhood [a formerly East Berlin district with a strong left, antifascist, punk, alternative, international, and hipster scene] there was a brutal attack from Neo-Nazis. What happened precisely?
A: Sunday morning around 6 o´clock, near the Frankfurter Allee subway station, Neo-Nazis first attacked leftists and then also randomly a group of passerby, who luckily were able to flee. As an uninvolved person crossed by, the Neo-Nazis attacked him until he lost consciousness. One of the Nazis dragged him onto the sidewalk, laid his face on the curb and kicked him in the back of the head with all of his might.
The victim is in the hospital in the intensive care unit with major injuries including cerebral bleeding. The Berlin police, who are not known for their sensibility to Right-wing attacks, said it is a wonder that the victim even survived. The four Nazis who were still at the crime scene, were arrested and remain in police custody.
Q: In which context do you see the attack?
A: The attack makes us first of all furious and shows us how important antifascist defense is precisely on these focal points like the subway station Frankfurter Allee. We´re reminded of the attempted murder there in March of last year, as a racist shoved a black person in front of the subway train. Also, guests of the club “Jeton” have for years been attacking alternative people, migrants, as well as gays and lesbians. The attacks occur mostly spontaneously and with very serious brutality. Also with the opening of the Thor-Steinar-Laden [a neo-Nazi clothing store and hub] in the Petersburger Straße [also in Friedrichshain] there is an ever-increasing number of Neo-Nazis strolling through the neighborhood.
Q: Berlins Senator Erhart Körting (Social Democratic Party) condemned the act. He said, it shows, where it can lead, when violence is brought to a political dispute…
A: With his statement, Körting tried to relativize the Neo-Nazi attack and to equate it with antifascist engagement. With it, he suggested and constructed a peaceful societal middle, which simply doesn´t exist. The fact is, if the leftists, who were attacked first by the Nazis, had rendered the latter unable to act, this grave attack would have been prevented.
Antifascist Protest: Saturday, July 18, 2009, 6:00 pm, Bersarin-Platz, www.antifa.de and www.antifa-fh.de.vu
schalom libertad notes that “The title of this blog is lifted from Arno Lustiger’s book “Schalom Libertad!: Juden im spanischen Bürgerkrieg” (Hello Freedom! Jews in the Spanish Civil War).”
Speaking of Spain, the 73rd anniversary of the outbreak of civil war and social revolution in that country has been noted by some bloke from Boston called Julius Purcell. He writes (‘The Memory That Will Not Die: Exhuming the Spanish Civil War’, Boston Review, July/August 2009):
I live in Barcelona, whose leftist regional government is one of the few in Spain to have enthusiastically embraced historical memory. Payne’s warning note strikes a chord here, in a city with its own historical taboos. As Catalan separatism grows, and with it the tendency to lay all blame at the door of reactionary Spain, certain things are best not mentioned. The brutality of Barcelona’s anarchist mobs during the Republican era itself, for example, is rarely discussed in liberal dinner party conversations. Likewise, the violent anti-clericalism and church-burnings.
The ‘liberal’ account of those years was famously dissected by Uncle Noam in ‘Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship’, parts of which were originally “delivered as a lecture at New York University in March 1968 as part of the Albert Schweitzer Lecture Series”, and published in the collection American Power and the New Mandarins, Penguin, 1969.
With the crowd of commonplace chatterers, we are already past praying for: no reproach is too bitter for us, no epithet too insulting. Public speakers on social and political subjects find that abuse of anarchists is an unfailing passport to popular favour. Every conceivable crime is laid to our charge, and opinion, too indolent to learn the truth, is easily persuaded that anarchy is but another name for wickedness and chaos. Overwhelmed with opprobrium and held up to hatred, we are treated on the principle that the surest way of hanging a dog is to give it a bad name. ~ Élisée Reclus (March 15, 1830–July 4, 1905)
In Oh Canaduh:
White supremacist had ‘lethal’ weapons cache in his Bay Street condo: police
Rob Roberts / Michael McKiernan [?]
National Post
July 20, 2009
…The search of his home turned up the weapons and an array of white-supremacist paraphernalia, including a neo-Nazi style flag with a swastika and skull and a number of white power publications. One of the pamphlets, entitled “Did six million really die” was signed by the notorious Holocaust-denier Ernst Zundel…
‘Did Six Million Really Die?’ and a tonne of other anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi material is available for download from Holocaust denialist and ‘Australian Protectionist Party’ member Martin Fletcher’s site ‘Australian Nationalist Resource’ (nee ‘Downunder Newslinks’). Given that there is a ding-dong battle going on between Darrin Hodge’s APP and arch-rivals Dr. James Saleam’s ‘Australia First Party’ as to which Party can save White Australia from drowning in a cesspool of muds and Third World filth, it is reassuring to this White Man that there still remains some common ground between the two Parties with regards the perils of not only chinks, dagos, slopes and wops, but Blood-suckers, Christ-killers, Heebs, Jew-boys, Kikes, Kosher-vampires, Shylocks and Yids.
Sieg heil!
And finally, in the UK: Anyone for tennis?
White supremacist planned racist bombings, court told
Press Association
The Guardian
June 30, 2009
“Old Bailey told Neil “I’M HEAD OF WAFFEN SS UK AND I WILL BLOW UP ALL NON BRITS” Lewington had ‘unhealthy interest’ in bombers Timothy McVeigh, David Copeland and Ted Kaczynski”!
…He said he was a member of the National Front and wanted the Ku Klux Klan brought back, it was alleged.
Another woman said he bought a child’s chemistry set from Toys R Us and told her he could make explosives using it and household items, said Altman. “He said he had made tennis ball bombs and taken them to the woods to explode them. Lewington was found in possession of three tennis balls and a diagram showing how to convert them into shrapnel bombs.”
Another girlfriend said he spoke of making bombs and asked at which house in her street an Asian family lived.
“He explained how he could throw a tennis ball bomb or place it somewhere and then run away,” Altman said.
See also : Guilty… neo-Nazi ‘twit’ who plotted deadly campaign, Belfast Telegraph, July 16, 2009 | Know your enemy, Mehdi Hasan, New Statesman, July 9, 2009: “Why isn’t the trial of a man charged with preparing for terror attacks using tennis-ball bombs being reported? He’s not a bearded Muslim.” | Bomb seizures spark far-right terror plot fear, July 6, 2009 | Martyn Gilleard : RAHOWA!, June 26, 2008.
Nando’s is not just about chicken. It’s never been just about chicken. It’s about pride, passion, courage, integrity and most of all, family…
Nando’s is famous for its Portuguese flame-grilled, butterfly-cut chicken, which is marinated for 24-hours before being basted and cooked in Nando’s famous PERi-PERi sauce!
We all know the best things in life are FREE, so rest assured that our chicken is Hormone FREE, Steroid FREE, Cage FREE, Artificial colour FREE, Freezer FREE, Artificial flavour FREE, Excess fat FREE, Fryer FREE & Added MSG FREE.
Uh-huh. Death FREE, Pain FREE & Suffering FREE too I expect. And Nando’s supplier is… Bartter-Steggles? Inghams? Chickadee? Golden Cockerel…?
In any case…
OMG. Pole-dancing MILFs. Nando-fix gum. WTF.
The woman what appeared in the Nando-fix ad — remember her? — is now appearing in a new TV ad campaign for some other product or service, the name of which I have now inconveniently forgotten. Point being, the Nando’s ad (Nando’s — nee ‘Chickenland’ — is a South African-based restaurant chain which specialises in selling meats derived from chickens and covered in sauce) was criticised partly on the basis that it was sexy, partly because it devalued family values. The new, very chaste ad featuring the not-so-old stripper/model/actor, on the other hand, is entirely wholesome, and ends with her kissing her pretend children outside pretend skool gates.
Order has been restored.
Cold shoulder for aliens
Kelly Burke, Consumer Affairs Reporter
The Sydney Morning Herald
June 27, 2007
…Defending multiple complaints against its ad, another fast-food chain successfully argued the level of nudity used “was essential to ensuring authenticity”. The ad shows a topless pole-dancing mother using fictitious “Nando-fix” skin patches and gum to control her craving for Nando’s chicken.
“The concept is to show somebody who, for professional reasons, can’t wear the Nando-fix patch,” the company reasoned, disputing the ad was degrading to women.
Pole dancing had become mainstream, Nando’s argued, citing the example of Martha, a character in Home and Away, who works as a pole dancer.
[Jodi Gordon, the actor what played the role of ‘Martha Jane Mackenzie Holden (née Stewart)’ aka ‘Martha the pole dancer’ in Home And Away, got into heap ’em big trouble recently for paying for a lap dance. Or so says Uncle Rupert’s The Sun newspaper anyways: Soap star’s stripper scandal, Cara Lee, July 6, 2009.]
The board of the Advertising Standards Bureau agreed, ruling that pole dancing was “… a popular form of exercise” and “was not incompatible with family values”. The ad “depicted a strong in-control woman who went about her work in a professional manner”, because it showed her travelling to work wearing a suit, the board concluded, while the ad had not broken any rules regarding permissible levels of nudity.
See also : Advertising Standards Bureau ‘Case Report’, June 12, 2007 [PDF] | Australian Chicken Meat Federation Inc. | Consolidated / Carol Adams : ‘The Sexual Politics of Meat’ (June 6, 2009).
You can imagine the delight of the culinary-adventurous Portuguese mama’s [sic], who were already in heaven with their fresh vegetable gardens and the abundance of wild meat, when they discovered the secret powers of PERi-PERi and it’s effects on their cooking. PERi-PERi added flavour and fire to all their food making them feel alive. The women were also delighted with the effect that PERi-PERi had on the libidos of their men and it was no wonder that they were constantly smiling. The settlers were amazed that something so small could be so satisfying.
[Hurr hurr.]
Asylum seekers’ plight used to peddle chickens
Peter Gotting
The Age
July 29, 2002In a campaign designed to create controversy, fast-food chain Nando’s is using the sensitive issue of asylum seekers in its latest advertisements.
In a radio commercial to be launched today, Nando’s advertises that detainees at Woomera detention centre have “decided to unsew their lips after hearing the news that with every Nando’s quarter chicken combo, Nando’s are giving away an extra quarter chicken free”.
Nando’s said the campaign, which had a limited budget, was deliberately designed to attract media attention. It also includes print and in-store ads.
“We know there’s a section of our audience that’s going to be uncomfortable,” said Nando’s national marketing manager Carlos Antonius. “But we want to evoke response.
“We do not wish to offend anyone, and least of all the detainees, but we challenge the public to debate the issue.”
The fast food chain’s advertising has caused controversy before. A campaign which featured different coloured chickens and the line “We’re all the same on the inside, Pauline”, had some people throwing stones at its stores, Mr Antonius said.
The Advertising Federation of Australia says the campaign breaches the industry’s voluntary code of ethics, but the agency concerned, Melbourne’s Sphere Advertising, is not a member.
“Advertising needs to be bold, innovative and cheeky to cut through to consumers,” federation chairman Matthew Melhuish said. “However, it also needs to gauge the temperature of consumers about sensitive community issues. To use the refugee issue is appalling and it’s nothing more than a cheap shot.”
Controversy is regularly used by small advertisers to attract attention. One shoe company, which continues to create controversial ads, has said the publicity is worth millions in brand awareness and sales.
Australia was invaded by the English in 1788.
In 2009, English weather robbed Australia of victory in the First Test.
Fact.
Speaking of cricket, a crazy cat called Hak Mao writes:
BBC cricket commentator Jonathan Agnew tried to get a bite out of his co-commentator (and former Australian captain) Ian Chappell today. Agnew mentioned that John — One Australia Policy — Howard was watching the cricket and asked Chappell if he had ticked the box next to Howard’s name*. Chappell pointedly talked about the action on field. Agnew tried again. Again Chappell pointedly ignored him. Chappell loathes Howard…
Goodonya Ian!
Another Critical Animal maintains a blog here: “I’m Scu, this blog is devoted mostly to a discussion of critical animal studies, with a strong emphasis on poststructuralist and decolonial philosophy combined with a strong theoretical analysis of veganism/vegetarianism.” Like a banana, carrot, (honey) and tahini sandwich, it’s much better than it sounds.
A few more crazy peeps are worried about BLACKHELICOPTERS. They want to ambushworldgovernment. Crazy! (But nice.)
Left Luggage is a semi-interesting blog, one of umpteen sites devoted to asking “where next?” for Teh Left (in this case in the UK).
Some crazy person claiming to be a ‘movementresearcher’ (but more than likely simply being someone who hates our freedumbs) has uploaded a rather large number (279!) of ‘Global Justice Movement Posters’ @ Picasa. None are from ‘The Arse End Of The Earth’ (Keating) known as Australia but.
Speaking of Australia, The Australian Heroin Diaries is a blog by Terry Wright, a heroin addict. From Australia. The crazy Unaustralian bastard reckons drugs oughta be decriminalised. All I knows is that Terry is wrogn rwong wrong. And anyways, where would the CIA be without heroin?
Michael Barker is another crazy Unaustralian bastard.
For real.
d00d submitted his PhD thesis… then rejected it, writing that:
Sustaining useful autonomous activist research within universities requires that radical scholars who choose to remain within the system fight to retain vital connections with one another and with activists working outside of the university environs. However, in my view, undertaking such scholarship only lends a fig leaf of respectability to what are at root capitalist enterprises; consequently a purist and more sustainable solution requires that radical intellectuals step out of the university world and work to create alternative, people-powered institutions that can seriously challenge the status quo.
Good luck!
Actually, I was gonna cite Michael’s Swans essay during the course of some concluding remarks on “the intervention”, but nobody else gives a fuck what I think, so fuck it 1 2 3. Instead, read Michael’s essay ‘Dreams Of Social Responsibility: Rio Tinto, Capitalism, and Indigenous Rights’, June 15, 2009.
Finally, Teh Evil Doktor Cam Sexenheimer has some choice words for one particular Aunty:
…is devolved from the Bluebird of Happiness.
FDB’s immensely overworked Cam Sexenheimer writes:
Dear God, you made many, many hippies.
I realize, of course, that it’s no shame to be a hippie.
But it’s no great honour either!
So, what would have been so terrible if lying hippies didn’t email me?
Durruti, Buenaventura, 1896-1936
Durruti in the Spanish Revolution
Abel Paz
(trans Chuck Morse)
(afterword by Jose Luis Gutierrez Molina).
AK Press, Edinburgh, Scotland and Oakland CA, USA.
Pbk. Xiv, 795pp. Illus, maps, notes, index.
£20.00 / $29.95
ISBN 978-1904859505
Barcelona, 1936
from Homage to Catalonia, by George Orwell.
This was in late December 1936…
