“The Labour party is dying, and fascism is on the rise. Where does the working class go from here?”
Whatever its flaws, the IWCA typically provides some of the better analyses of British politics from an unashamedly working class perspective. It concludes:
…Crucially, what has been lost in the whirlwind of liberal hysteria about the ‘Nazis’ is that a substantial part of the BNP appeal within working class communities comes from its depiction of its policies as ‘socialism of the old school’. Former Tory party chairman Norman Tebbit has said [Letter to the Daily Telegraph, April 21, 2006] ‘I have carefully re-read the BNP manifesto of 2005 and am unable to find evidence of Right-wing tendencies. On the other hand, there is plenty of anti-capitalism, opposition to free trade, commitments to “use all non-destructive means to reduce income inequality”, to institute worker ownership, to favour workers’ co-operatives, to return parts of the railways to state ownership, to nationalise the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and to withdraw from NATO. That sounds pretty Left-wing to me.’
At the moment this is something the BNP take particular delight in admitting. But this is also their Achilles heel. Currently they are effortlessly riding two horses. Alongside their work in former Labour heartlands they are equally at home in tapping into a sort of ‘hang ‘em and flog ‘em’ time-honoured conservatism in the more upmarket neighbourhoods.
Therefore, either as a result of achieving greater national prominence or as a consequence of being faced with an authentic working class challenge down the line, the contradictions in their philosophical underpinning must be revealed, forcing them at critical moments to bend in one direction or the other. Historically, when given the choice between opting for the nationalist or ‘socialist’ fork, the gravitational pull for fascism is nearly always toward the former.
When that time comes, if a progressive working class party were in a position to do so, rather than advance piecemeal on a ward-by-ward basis it could very well mop up across entire boroughs where previously Labour and then the BNP had once ruled the roost. Why such a possibility exists is because as Searchlightadmits ‘in some places such as Barking and Dagenham, one of the fundamental problems is the absence of any mainstream alternative to Labour, so the BNP is the sole beneficiary of the anti-Labour protest vote.’ As the big three continue to shed activists (according to one report the Tories have shed 40,000 members since Cameron took over) and atrophy in terms of popular support, it is a trend that can only become more widespread.
But how to get from the present to there is the tricky bit. One factor is certain. A long-term strategy is now required. It is unlikely there will be any short cuts. So it is the long game or nothing. A daunting prospect. But on the plus side the opportunities unfolding before our eyes do have an undeniable once-in-a-century feel about them.
Crazies. Lone nut jobs. Isolated loonies. Those are frequent descriptions of people like James von Brunn, the 88-year-old white supremacist accused of opening fire at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and killing a black guard.
Others believe he represents something more dangerous: a growing racist movement motivated by a number of converging factors, including the first black president.
The potential for an increase in violence from whites who feel they are slipping from power is high, people from across the ideological spectrum say.
“I believe we are headed for an unprecedented level of conflict and racial turmoil,” said Carol Swain, author of the 2002 book The New White Nationalism in America and a professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University.
Swain cited anger over immigration, growing minority populations, racial preferences, high minority crime rates, the economy and multiculturalism as forces driving white people toward nationalism.
“It seems like the tables have turned for some white people, and they have no recourse except desperation,” Swain said…
AUSTRALIA is a racist society. There, I’ve said it. I’ve wanted to say this for the past 24 years — from the time I arrived here. Within my first week on Aussie soil a well meaning young man offered to introduce me to “boongs” — I thought he meant an Australian kind of dope-smoking pipe. When I expressed my shock on discovering that it referred to an Australian form of racism, he assured me that I would agree with him once I knew the truth. Anyway, I was a Yank and a foreigner so what did I know?
Bloody Feminists!
The Dawn Chorus — by Australian feminists, for Australian feminists. Fresh, feminist commentary on pretty much anything and everything.
The West Australian Coroner has given his findings in the case of a man who was effectively cooked to death in the back of a prison van.
Last January an Aboriginal elder known as Mr Ward was being driven in the back of the van through the searing temperatures of The Goldfields.
The air-conditioning unit was not working and the temperature inside reached 50 degrees Celsius.
Before he died, the 46-year-old from Warburton suffered third-degree burns where his body touched the hot metal floor.
Coroner Alistair Hope handed down his long-awaited findings today.
Mr Hope said Mr Ward died as a result of heat stroke which was caused by grossly excessive heat in the pod in the transit van taking him from Laverton to Kalgoorlie.
He said Mr Ward suffered a “terrible death” that was “wholly unnecessary and avoidable” and he died as a result of a “litany of errors”…
Aboriginal Rights Solidarity Rally & Public Meeting: Self Determination Not Invasion, Stand Up for Indigenous Rights Date: Saturday, June 20, 2009 Time: 12:00pm – 5:00pm Location: State Library of Victoria Street: 328 Swanston Street City/Town: Melbourne, Australia Phone: 0413597315 Email: freelexwotton[at]gmail[dot]com
A public meeting also on Saturday will be at 3pm at Trades Hall Meeting Room 1.
Lab Rat Productions present: Transfer of Knowledge Project Film Night Date: Thursday, June 18, 2009 Time: 7:30pm Location: Melbourne Anarchist Resource Centre Street: 62 St. Georges Road, Northcote City/Town: Melbourne, Australia Email: monkeymarc[at]hotmail[dot]com // izzybrown[at]live[dot]com
Bonus!
RIP: The Black Mick Jagger (June 27, 2007). If you haven’t already, do yourself a favour and garb a copy of the Warumpi Band’s classic 1987 album ‘Go Bush’. I’m gonna upload some Tiddas to YouTube later too. One of their first performances was a benefit gig in Melbourne for the ‘International Workers’ Club’ — which, through various twists and turns of history, has now become known as the ‘Melbourne Anarchist Resource Centre’, the venue for Thursday night’s benefit gig. (An aged sober slackbastard remembers that a younger drunken slackbastard had a great time that night — I may even have the flyer lying around somewhere…)
June 2009 marks the 9th and final year that Jeff ‘Free’ Luers will spend in prison. Jeff was originally sentenced to 22 years and eight months in gaol for setting fire to 3 SUVs at the car dealership Romania Chevrolet (in Eugene, Oregon in the United States) in an attempt to draw greater attention to global warming. Since then, in early 2008, Jeff won an appeal against the severity of his sentence, and was re-sentenced to 10 years. As a result, Jeff will be released this December 2009.
In Melbourne Tonight Barricade Infoshop & Friends arranged a screening of some films on radical environmentalism in the United States to raise some funds for imprisoned comrades. Other upcoming events for June include ‘Transfer of Knowledge’ (story, music and culture from Palm Island) on Thursday, June 18 and on Friday, June 26 another film night featuring Living Utopia (on anarchists in the Spanish Revolution) and The Potentiality of Storming Heaven (on the social revolt in Greece in December 2008).
Unfortunately, Jeff — arrested along with Craig ‘Critter’ Marshall in 2000, and sentenced on June 11, 2001 — is merely one of the first casualties in the US state’s war on the radical ecological movement, a war spearheaded by the FBI and given further impetus by George II’s regime declaring a bogus ‘War on Terror’ following 9/11. One of the most recent casualties of the ‘Green Scare’ is Marie Mason, sentenced in March 2009 to 21 years and 10 months for her role in a December, 1999 arson at a Michigan State University genetics laboratory at Agriculture Hall and a January, 2000 arson of logging equipment in Mesick, Michigan. Both arsons were claimed by the Earth Liberation Front.
Above : Jessica Alba pictured in her Earth Liberation Front starter kit (minus the black mask).
Who are Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War?
There are over 150 political prisoners and prisoners of war in the United States at this time as well as countless politicized individuals and social prisoners resisting their captors. Jeff Luers is a political prisoner and has been granted this status because of his excessive sentence, politically motivated actions and his resistance on the inside.
Support for Jeff does not exist within a vacuum. We encourage people to work on political prisoner support and against the growing incarceration of people across [the United States — and the world]. You can find many groups that work with political prisoners, prisoners of war, detainees as well as prison abolitonists on our links page.
The most up to date [?] listing of political prisoners and prisoners of war in the United States is on the Prison Activist Resource Center.
Nature! Sitting in the green grass watching the strange world of ants. Nature! At the beach watching rocks smash into pebbles and whisper into sand.
People often ask me “Michael, if you love nature so much, why is it that you live in the city, where the only green grass and crushed rock is being smoked through a pipe?”
Well I look at ’em, and I tell ’em, “Cause people live in the city. And people are the best part of nature.”
So the next time you go to a shecky club, put on your shecky hairspray, put on your shecky make-up, remember that people still eat, people still think, and people still defecate!
No matter how hard, we try to
dehumanize
and
demoralize
and
deanimalize
with
ID numbers
credit card numbers
Social Security numbers
People are the best part of nature.
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – Like chocolate and mustard, or orange juice and toothpaste, the various flavours of far right in the new European Parliament just don’t seem to go together and are already having trouble cooking up a united bloc in the chamber, despite the gains the extremists made in the European elections on the weekend…
[Vlaams Belang’s] ‘dream team’, [spokesperson Philip Claeys] said, would involve a core of themselves and Italy’s Northern League, the Danish People’s Party, the Austrian Freedom Party and the Freedom Party of Geert Wilders. This core would deliver only 19 seats from five countries, short of the 25 MEPs from seven member states that the parliament’s rules require.
“So we would have to add some other parties as well,” he said, such as Greece’s Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS), the Slovak National Party or the For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK from Latvia.
The Flemish separatists are reluctant to work with parties further to the right, the Greater Romania Party in particular…
In 2007, 23 MEPs clubbed together to form the Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty political grouping in the parliament. It only lasted a few months before it exploded as a result of remarks by member Alessandra Mussolini about Romanian ‘criminals’ in Italy that the Romanian members of the group found insulting.
“There were major set-backs in the elections for the Front National in France and the Vlaams Belang in Belgium, the two slickest, most professional of the far-right outfits,” Graeme Atkinson said.
The Front National dropped from seven seats won in 2004 to just three on Sunday. The VB dropped from three to two.
“Without them forming a backbone, I don’t know whether they’ll be able to co-ordinate much in the parliament.”
“Nick Griffin supposedly has influence amongst some of the European far right groups, but he’s just not very smart. It’ll be very hard to glue anything together.”
He explained that the Front National has been riven with faction fighting, notably over the issue of succession following the presumed departure of the ageing Jean-Marie Le Pen, and is virtually bankrupt, having been forced to sell their headquarters…
Secondly, in the UK, a few fellow Trots have responded to the SWP’s appeal to form a new party: the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty has welcomed their ‘letter calling for a united left and for “a conference of all those committed to presenting candidates representing working-class interests”. This is in line with our call for a new Socialist Alliance’. This could be a reference to the Alliance for Green Socialism, or perhaps the remnants of a ‘revivified’ SA, I’m unsure:
The first Socialist Alliance was set up in Coventry in 1992 and the first national meeting held in 1996 with eight local alliances represented. Within two years 20 local alliances and twelve left groups had joined. During the next two years the project took off with 58 local SA’s across the country.
In 2001 the SA adopted a new programme and constitution and now involved all the main tendencies and groupings on the left, including the AWL, CPGB, International Socialist Group, Revolutionary Democratic Group, Socialist Party, SWP and Workers Power. The SA stood 98 candidates in the 2001 general election, making the biggest left challenge to the Labour Party for 50 years.
After the Bush-Blair war in Iraq, the SWP majority abandoned the SA for Respect and closed the SA down. However a significant minority did not accept this. In November 2005 the SA was relaunched at the London conference. The need for non-sectarian socialist unity remains central to the struggle for socialism. The Socialist Alliance is coming back.
And how!
The mighty Workers’ Power of Fifth International fame has also responded — IN CAPITALS — to the call: ‘IT’S TIME TO CREATE A NEW WORKING CLASS PARTY’, A response from Workers Power to the Socialist Workers Party’s ‘Open Letter to the Left’, 10 June 2009.
As far as I’m aware, these are the only formal responses to the SWP’s proposition thus far: no doubt the rest of the alphabet soup will respond eventually. However, one difficulty facing the SWP — apart from its own dismal record within ‘alliances’ — is the existence of several already existing projects of a (seemingly) very similar nature. The first is (Gorgeous George Galloway‘s) R E S P E C T. Councillor Salma Yaqoob, Respect Party Leader, shares these thoughts on the ‘Euro election results’ (June 9, 2009). The second is the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party. A project of the Socialist Party, it (that is, the SP) supported no2eu in the Euro election (as did the AWL and the CPB). Head cheese (Socialist Party general secretary) Peter Taaffe wants to ‘Step up the fight for a workers’ party’, but whether or not the SP can be made to see eye-to-eye with their comrades in the SWP remains to be seen.
Finally, the International Committee of the Fourth International has some interesting observations:
The British National Party: the roots of its appeal, Peter John, Helen Margetts, David Rowland and Stuart Weir, Democratic Audit, [PDF]: “This report offers a comprehensive and objective analysis of the rise of support for the British National Party in the UK, using a range of data sources to understand the reasons behind it.” (Cheers Robert.)
Unfortunately, von Brunn failed to truly become An hero.
In response to the shootings, the USHMM has published a brief statement on its frontpage:
There are no words to express our grief and shock over today’s events at the Museum, which took the life of Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns. Officer Johns, who died heroically in the line of duty, served on the Museum’s security staff for six years. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Officer Johns’s family. We have made the decision to close the Museum Thursday, June 11, in honor of Officer Johns and our flags will be flown at half mast in his memory.
Locally, Queensland-based nutzi (and member of the Australia First Party) Jim Perren smells a rat, asking cui bono?
Yet another nail in the coffin for White Nationalism
Whitelaw Towers
June 10, 2009
Oh boy this stinks to high heaven. Ramp up the hate laws. Shut down the Web Sites. Round up the Nazis.
Who benefits from this type of Criminal Insanity[?] It has everything. Nazi’s [sic], Nazi web sites, Anti Government [sic], 88, Hitler. Very bloody convenient. The JDL will be screaming NEVER AGAIN. Jews around the world will be calling for extra protection from Evil Nazi’s [sic]. The Media will forget about everything else that has happened in the world for the next 3 days and subject us all to re-runs of Schindler[‘]s List.
Obama is disgusted, that[‘]s a good little Goyim.
Damn Jews!
Note that Jim’s email address is [email protected], and he is a close follower of the dispassionate political analyses of ‘Curt Maynard’, a US-based neo-Nazi blogger. Curt writes: “Big fucking deal – the guy [James von Brunn] was getting old and decided to lash out at those that had been persecuting him, before dying of old age. I commend him.”
Indeed.
In any case, following Jim’s advice, I thought I’d take this opportunity to highlight some recent and upcoming events on the Australian neo-Nazi calendar.
To begin with, it should be noted that I’m unsure of the outcome of the gig organised by local neo-Nazi networks ‘Blood & Honour Australia’ and the ‘Southern Cross Hammerskins’ for April 25 in Perth, WA. Given the apparent absence of boasting from these quarters, it’s possible that the gig failed to go ahead. In any event, whatever the actual outcome, the balls-up (one Perth-based reich ‘n’ roll band, ‘Indigenous Hate’, being kicked off the bill “for being lying scum”) has not prevented the boneheads from announcing yet another ‘Ian Stuart Donaldson’ memorial gig in Melbourne, scheduled to take place on September 12 and to feature the prodigious talents of Ravenous, Open Season and The Commieknockers.
Marvellous multicultural Melbourne has been the venue for the boneheads’ annual gig for many years. Of late, the gig has occurred at the following venues:
2008 : Beaconsfield Hotel, Beaconsfield 2007 : Melbourne Croatia Social Club, Sunshine 2006 : Birmingham Hotel, Fitzroy
2005 : Birmingham Hotel, Fitzroy
2004 : The Jam Tin, Cheltenham
Having some inkling that most regard neo-Nazis as being on a par with paedophiles, B&H/SCHS naturally keep the venue for their nutzi prancing vewy secwet, only releasing details at the last moment.
This year will be no exception.
Of course, not all regard the nutzis with such contempt. In fact, many in the local punk rock music industry defend the nutzis’ right to spew filth, and instead reserve their anger for those actively opposed to the nutzis’ presence at ‘punk rawk’ venues. Thus Ben, the bassist for leading local ‘Skin Heads Neither For Nor Against Racial Prejudice’ band Bulldog Spirit (and Marching Orders and Napalm Hearts and so on) — sneakily posting as ‘Commie Killer’ — felt moved to comment on September 13, 2007 “…fuck you commies and fuck you stupid fucking anarchist pieces of shit. Fucking die already. We would all be better off.”
The Birmingham Hotel, proud host of the gig in 2006 and 2005, also found many other allies in its brave quest to provide neo-Nazism a platform, with literally dozens of bands (including of course Bulldog Spirit, Marching Orders and Napalm Hearts) scabbing on a boycott of the venue.
Despite their best efforts, however, the venue did undergo a change in management and ownership, and the pub celebrates its first anniversary under non-dickheaded management on June 27 (with Bonus! free entry). (“The venue held its last gigs on February 9 & 16, 2008 (featuring The Beefeaters, Bulldog Spirit, Napalm Hearts and The Worst) and closed its doors in late March/early April.”) As Doug Smith (Bulldog Spirit / Marching Orders) commented: “You would have to call that a pretty unsuccessful boycott.”
As for subsequent venues: the gig held at the Melbourne Croatia Social Club in 2007 (organised with the support of sympathetic Croatian/Australian fascists) actually made it into the ‘mainstream’ media, causing the management of the Melbourne Knights to denounce the boneheads as being what they are: “scum”. (Read the amusing response by Benson & Hedges here.) The 2008 gig at the Beaconsfield Hotel, on the other hand, was booked under a more determined pretext — as a compromise, B&H/SCHS were unable to hang swastika flags and other Nazi regalia inside the venue.
In summary: for the boneheads, publicity regarding their annual shindigs has proved irritating, but hardly stopped them from organising — nor will it. As for members of the local punk rock music industry, they are divided: a majority simply do not care, a minority oppose fascist organising, while the remainder are openly hostile to what they claim is an attack upon the right to assembly and speech. Thus:
“Anarchy is a fag. Thanx to the people who have supported us… and to the random people letting us know about this anarchist knobjockey Mr Moran” (Chunga, The Worst, September 2007); “As I stated on the Bombshell forum Andy, you are a liar, a hypocrite and no better than the trash that you fight against” (Dion, December, 2007); “Honestly, I am going to fucking kill you. I hope it was worth it” (Joel, December, 2007); “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” (Doug Smith’s mate Mark Bastard, December 2007).
While I take note that anti-fascism is a sensitive subject for the delicate little flowers that nestle among the local punk rocks, for some further disco on why neo-/Nazism might be a bad idea, and why it might be worth considering opposing — or at the very least, not supporting — neo-Nazi organising in its contemporary manifestations, seeGhosts of Dachau, April 12, 2009 (which includes videotaped testimonials from the USHMM).
“We call ourselves Homo sapiens — the ‘wise man’ — but I sometimes wonder whether we should call ourselves Homo stultissimus — the ‘most foolish’ one. I think we haven’t learned and things can happen, can happen everywhere. You have to be on guard.” ~ Fritz Gluckstein (1927–), ‘Survivors Remember Kristallnacht’ (USHMM).
In terms of political skirmishes with local nutzis, what should be borne in mind is that, to this point, B&H/SCHS have, in reality, faced relatively little active opposition (hence the focus upon myself as a nasty howwible man). This is principally because a concerted campaign to shut ’em down depends upon the existence of a much broader political constituency — which, given the de-politicisation/yuppification of the punk sub-culture, on the one hand, and the relative obscurity of B&H/SCHS (and allied groups), on the other, means that their chief ‘obstacle’ (sic) is the state (via such agencies as the ‘Protective Security Intelligence Group’). Barring the occurrence of some such tragedy as has happened in the US, this situation is extremely unlikely to change over the course of the next three months, and the 2009 ISD gig will go ahead in relative safety and security. That said, it’s heartening what can be accomplished by a tiny handful of individuals: something which brings me back to the schmucks scheduled to perform at this year’s event.
In the UK, the cheeky buggers belonging to the SWP have started talking about creating a left-wing electoral alternative: this comes after the shambles that was the ‘Left Alternative’, ‘Left List’, ‘Respect’ and ‘Socialist Alliance’.
Labour’s vote collapsed to a historic low in last week’s elections as the right made gains. The Tories under David Cameron are now set to win the next general election.
The British National Party (BNP) secured two seats in the European parliament. Never before have fascists achieved such a success in Britain.
The result has sent a shockwave across the labour and anti-fascist movements, and the left.
The meltdown of the Labour vote and the civil war engulfing the party poses a question – where do we go from here?
…
The fact that there is no single, united left alternative to Labour means there was no clear answer available.
The European election results demonstrate that the left of Labour vote was small, fragmented and dispersed.
The Greens did not make significant gains either. The mass of Labour voters simply did not vote. We cannot afford a repeat of that.
The SWP is all too aware of the differences and difficulties involved in constructing such an alternative.
We do not believe we have all the answers or a perfect prescription for a left wing alternative.
But we do believe we have to urgently start a debate and begin planning to come together to offer such an alternative at the next election, with the awareness that Gordon Brown might not survive his full term.
One simple step would be to convene a conference of all those committed to presenting candidates representing working class interests at the next election.
The SWP is prepared to help initiate such a gathering and to commit its forces to such a project.
We look forward to your response.
First, the Greens in the UK did actually manage to increase their total share of votes, from 1,028,283 (6.3%) to 1,303,745 (8.6%); in the North West region, winning BNP candidate Nick Griffin received 132,094 votes (8.0%, a gain of 1.6%), while the Greens candidate, Peter Cranie, received only a few thousand less — 127,133 (7.7%, a gain of 2.1%): ‘Nationally, the Greens increased their share of the vote to 8.7% but leader Caroline Lucas blamed the electoral system for her party’s failure to gain more than its current two MEPs. “In the South East we have increased our vote by 50% and we are disappointed it has not translated into a second seat,” Ms Lucas said.’
Secondly, the Greens fared tolerably well in other states, doubling its vote in Belgium (ECOLO and Groen! securing 6 of a possible 44 seats); gaining 15.4% of the vote in Denmark (2 of 13 seats); 12% of the vote in Finland Finland the country where I want to be (2 of 13 seats); 16% in France (placing third, gaining only marginally less votes than the Parti Socialiste and the same number of seats — 14); in Greece, securing a seat for the first time; placing third in Latvia (just under 10% of the vote translating into 1 of 8 possible seats); securing just under 17% in Luxemburg (1 of 6 seats); 8.9% (3 of 25 seats) in the Netherlands — a similar (8.92%) result in Romania translating into 1 seat (of 33); gaining 2 seats in Spain while, finally, in Sweden, the Greens doubled their support to about 11% (2 seats) — “But the Pirate Party won the most spectacular victory — by earning its first seat in Brussels with an 8 percent share of the vote”.
Thirdly, former anarchist turned realo / “leading European politician Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a dual citizen of Germany and France, argues in an interview [Spiegel, June 10] that national political leaders are responsible for the miserable turnout in last week’s election. The Green Party veteran says its time to create a real European election.”
The old social democratic model has played itself out. And you don’t only see that in Germany. The Socialist Party in France, the Partito Democratico in Italy — today they are lifeless structures that have no perspectives in society. They have no future. The socialists and social democrats in Europe who are still lively must finally start thinking and talking openly about society — and not about themselves. They need to suggest alternatives, take risks. It’s high time. Otherwise they will lose their party base.
Note that Cohn-Bendit also looks forward to an increasingly centralised EU.
(I wonder if he’s still having problems with his orgasm?)
Bonus!
“In all of the societies in which modern conditions of production prevail, the impossibility of living takes individually the form of death, of madness, or of character. With the intrepid Dr. Reich, and against his horrified recuperators and vilifiers, we postulate the pathological nature of all character traits, that is to say of all chronicity in human behavior. What is important to us is not the individual structure of our character, nor the explanation of it’s formulation, but the impossibility of its application in the construction of situations. Character is therefore not simply an unhealthy excrescence which could be treated separately, but at the same time an individual remedy in a globally ill society, a remedy which enables us to bear the illness while aggravating it. We hold that people can only dissolve their character in contesting the entire society (this is in opposition to Reich insofar as he envisages character analysis from a specialized point of view); where, on the other hand, the function of character being accommodation to the state of things, its dissolution is preliminary to the global critique of society. We must destroy this vicious cycle.”
See also : Interview with Julien Coupat, Support the Tarnac 9 / LeMonde, May 25, 2009 (Translated by NOT BORED!, May 27, 2009):
Q. How do you analyze what has happened to you?
A. Enlighten yourself: what has happened to us, to my comrades and I, will also happen to you. This is the first mystification by power: nine people are prosecuted in the framework of a judicial proceeding against an “association of evil-doers in connection with a terrorist enterprise,” and they must be particularly concerned by these grave accusations. But there is no “Tarnac Affair,” no “Coupat Affair,” no “Hazan Affair” (Hazan published “The Coming Insurrection”). What there is, is an oligarchy that is very wobbly and becomes ferocious like any power when it feels itself to be really threatened. When his views no longer elicit anything among the people other than hatred and scorn, the prince has no other support than the fear that he inspires.
What there is before us is a bifurcation that is both historical and metaphysical: either we pass from a paradigm of government to a paradigm of living, at the price of a cruel but deeply moving revolt, or we allow the instauration at the planetary level of an air-conditioned disaster in which — under the yoke of a “simplified” management — an imperial elite of citizens and marginalized plebeian classes coexist. Thus there surely is a war, a war between the beneficiaries of the catastrophe and those who are accustomed to a less skeletal idea of life. One has never seen a dominant class commit suicide willingly.
The revolt has conditions, but not causes. How many Ministries of National Identity, lay-offs, raids of those without proper papers or those who are political opponents, young people beaten up by the police in the banlieus, and ministers threatening to deprive diplomas from those who dare to occupy their schools are necessary before one decides that such a regime — even if installed in power by an apparently democratic plebiscite — has no reason to exist and only merits being brought down? It is a matter of sensitivity.
Servitude is the intolerable thing that can be tolerated indefinitely. Because this is a matter of sensitivity and this sensitivity is immediately political — not that it wonders “Who should I vote for?” but “Is this incompatible with my existence?” — it is, for power, a question of anesthetizing the response [to the second question] through the administration of ever more massively distracting doses of fear and stupidity. And there where the anesthesia no longer works, this order, which has united against it all the reasons for revolt, tries to dissuade us by stuffing us into a small, tight-fitting [ajustee] terror.
My comrades and I are only a variable in this adjustment. One suspects us like so many others, so many “youths,” so many “gangs,” of having no solidarity with a world that is collapsing. On this one point, one doesn’t lie. Fortunately, this heap of swindlers, impostors, industrialists, financiers and prostitutes; this entire Mazarin’s court full of neuroleptics, Disney versions of Louis Napoleon, and Sunday shows that grip the country for an hour lack an elementary sense of dialectics.
Each step that they take towards total control brings them closer to their fear. Each new “victory” with which they flatter themselves spreads a little further the desire to see them defeated in their turn. Each maneuver that they figure comforts their power ends up rendering it detestable. In other words: the situation is excellent. This isn’t the moment to lose courage.
Reading about the Facebook group ‘Fuck Off We’re Full’ reminded me that I should finishuploading an article what appeared in the May 2009 edition of Rolling Stone (‘White With Fear: Flagging A New Hate’, John Bastick, Rolling Stone, No.690, May 2009). So here ’tis!
Are we in the midst of a new national pride or is it something more sinister dressed-up in the Australian flag these days?
If this is God’s country, then it’s clear God has a predilection towards fair-haired folk. Pulling into Cronulla station, an hour’s sweaty slog south of Sydney’s Central, the train is packed solid. Nothing all that unusual there — it is N.S.W. public transport after all. In this case, though, it’s packed with sun-bleached locals, kissed with a glow that only comes from seaside living.
Cronulla is a proud suburb — one that, rightly or wrongly, has become inextricably linked to a new kind of national fervour, a fervour that for the last couple of years has been mustering itself in an overkill of flag-waving, chest-beating and Southern Cross tattoos. A pride that shocked the world in the riots of late 2005, and reared its head again at another Sydney seaside suburb, Manly, last Australia Day.
I’m in Cronulla to interview three members of the pro-white, anti-immigration political group the Australian Protectionist Party. That it happens to be in Cronulla is nothing more than fate, delicious irony. The interview’s planned for one of the pubs by the sea. Unfortunately two of the APP guys baulk at the media attention and are a no-show — the third, a 24-year-old postal worker, Ben Smith, is sent instead as the solitary spokesman.
Smith is boyish, svelte with cobalt-blue eyes, hoary skin and short-cut blond hair. He’s nervous and reads from crib notes when stumped by questions. I’m guessing he’s been sent to parrot the APP’s mantra and the notes are to ensure he doesn’t stray off course.
Smith tells me he’s a nationalist and that I’m wrong to call the APP a right-wing party. “I’m a normal Aussie patriot,” he says. He’s adamant, too, that he’s not some “white supremacist Nazi nut”.
“We disagree with this idea of multiculturalism,” he says. “Australia has a pure ethnic core and that’s white European and there’s a culture, a way of life that sprang from that and something we want to preserve. That’s the thing about immigration in this country: Immigration good, concern about immigration bad.”
Smith, a Cronulla local, says he wasn’t involved in the riots back in 2005, but empathises with how and why it happened.
“Those people,” he says, his eyes watering with anger, “those Lebos have been coming down here for years to harass people, harass girls in bikinis, to intimidate. They don’t know anything else but violence. The riots were a case of a community boiling up, boiling up, boiling up — people were saying “We’ve had enough; we’re taking a stand against this.”
It’s Smith’s view that the Cronulla area is uniquely Anglo with its brick homes, utes on lawns, surf culture and Christian churches. “Yes it is a white area,” he says. “That’s its strength, but people are threatened by it, they want that destroyed. It has old-fashioned Australian values and people want that protected.”
Recently Sudanese refugees have been resettled in the area, something Smith believes smacks of a conspiracy. “I think politicians seriously believe we are too white down here,” he says. “But I sympathise with them (the refugees) — they’re not welcome, they’re not going to fit in, it’s a recipe for disaster.
“I almost feel sorry for these migrants, the Muslims. They come here, they can’t speak the language, they can’t assimilate; it’s too much of an upheaval for them to come to this country. That’s where multiculturalism has failed, it’s created this friction, this tension and violence.”
It therefore comes as no surprise that Smith is wary of the recent bridge building measures to incorporate Lebanese kids into the local surf life saving club. “These people would rather see an Australian drown than save them,” he says seriously. “They won’t be happy until Australia becomes a Muslim country.”
A rapidly expanding social networking site has been slammed for its racist taunts against immigrants to Australia.
The Facebook Group, F*** Off, We’re Full, has nearly 65,000 members and believes any immigrants coming to Australia must adapt to what it calls the ‘Aussie lifestyle.’
“This idea of Australia being a multicultural community has served only to dilute our sovereignty and our national identity,” the site states.
“As Australians, we have our own culture, our own society, our own language and our own lifestyle.”
Well then you better tell me again — ‘cos I just might forget!
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?"
