March 17 (Bloomberg) — A study funded by Germany’s Interior Ministry showed that more than twice as many German boys belong to anti-immigrant or neo-Nazi groups than claim membership of the major political parties’ youth organizations.
Out of more than 26,000 youths surveyed in 2007 and 2008, 4.9 percent of boys said they belonged to a “right-wing group or ‘Kameradschaft’,” the study by Hanover-based research institute KFN showed. That compares with as many as 2 percent that belong to youth organizations for established parties.
“It’s shocking that these right-wing groups can be more successful at mobilizing our youth than the established parties,” KFN Director Christian Pfeiffer told reporters today in Berlin. While a comparison between such groups is inexact, since many established party youth clubs charge membership fees, Pfeiffer said it was instructive.
Last month, about 6,000 German boneheads and neo-Nazi groups in the eastern city of Dresden staged one of their biggest demonstrations since German reunification in 1990. The groups, mostly made up of youths tied to the anti-immigrant National Democratic Party, used the 64th anniversary of the 1945 firebombing of Dresden on Feb. 14 to hold a “mourning march.”
Speaking alongside German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble at a press conference, Pfeiffer said he didn’t know whether the 4.9 percent figure had increased, since a comparable number wasn’t available from previous studies. Some 2.6 percent of girls said they belonged to anti-immigrant and neo-Nazi organizations.
Kamaradschaften are clubs that offer a forum for symbols and songs that often recall Germany’s Nazi past. The display of Nazi symbols is prohibited in Germany.
The study also revealed that 29.7 percent of youths agreed with the statement that there are “too many foreigners in Germany;” another 34.8 percent tended toward that position, according to the study, Youth in Germany as Victims and Perpetrators of Violence.
See also : Anti-German Translation: “A blog about the anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, anti-fascist and anti-globalization movements, analysing the convergences between right-wing thought and false forms of anti-capitalism, drawing on the German “anti-German” communist current.” | ‘Anti-Nationalist Nationalism: The Anti-German Critique and Its All-Too-German Adherents’, Rolling Thunder, No.3, Summer 2006, pp.24–28 [PDF] | Antifa.de
Nick Dyrenfurth has a bone to pick. Several, in fact. With Socialist Alternative; anti-Semitism; opposition to Zionism; and “the UN-sponsored anti-Israel hate-fest dubbed Durban II” (Rudd must shun UN anti-Semitism, The Australian, March 16, 2009).
Socialist Alternative
Socialist Alternative is a leftist political party, a neo-Trotskyist organisation with several hundred members, mostly University students. According to Nick, SAlt panders to anti-Semitism in its propaganda. The message on one of its posters advertising a meeting on “War: Why capitalism is to blame” at the University of Sydney during ‘O’ Week:
…was clear. Israel, the US’s proxy in the Middle East, is to blame for all the problems of the Middle East, if not the woes of the world. Get rid of Israel and we’ll all live happily ever after, presumably on a strict diet of lentils and tofu. The more serious and indeed frightening symbolism at play was the clearly racist, anti-Semitic linkage of Israel, and by association Jews, with the machinations of “evil” capitalism.
A strict diet of lentils and tofu? Er… in reality, espousal of a strict diet of lentils and tofu is understood by SAlt to be a symptom of the social disease known as ‘lifestylism’. Thus, while Nick believes that the left should offer no comfort to these crazies, and do whatever it can to isolate them, he needn’t worry about dietary restrictions.
Of course, one might argue that the SAlt crazies involved in the postering are in no serious sense part of mainstream public discourse, and that just like their mates in Europe, they simply exploit tensions in the Middle East for their own purposes. In which case, Nick is indeed “giving the largely irrelevant hatemongers of the extreme Left far too much credit. Nevertheless, as has been well-documented, anti-Semitism is on the rise worldwide.”
Nick may like to consider that Australia, fortunately, has not previously been blighted by the sort of anti-Semitic activities which have had such a disastrous impact on political debate in Europe. As such, SAlt are simply provocateurs that open up legitimate debate to public ridicule. (In Europe their ranks have been riddled by police agents and fascists.)
Because of the behaviour of these provocateurs, racists and anti-Semites are having a field day.
Combating anti-Semitism is a difficult and, sadly, perhaps an eternally vigilant task. Governments can pass all the legislation they like, launch countless educative programs, but somewhere out there will lurk the anti-Semite convinced that Jews run the world and that Adolf Hitler ought to have finished them off. Yet individuals ought to take some personal responsibility.
Nick is likely correct in assessing the fortunes of The Eternal Jew Hater. However, it’s worth noting that on the far right, The Eternal Jew is competing with The Forever Muslim for first place in The Racist Stakes.
Somewhere in the middle is the Australian Protectionist Party.
On the one hand, the APP has abandoned public expressions of anti-Semitism; on the other, its webmaster, Martin Fletcher, makes no attempt to conceal his hatred and contempt for Jews, making available on his website an array of anti-Semitic propaganda, both contemporary and historical. Linking the two — the contemporary and the historical — is David Lane.
A leading figure in the modern US neo-Nazi movement, Lane died in March 2007 in a federal prison in Terre Haute at the age of 68. He was serving a 190-year sentence for racketeering, conspiracy and violating the civil rights of Denver radio talk show host Alan Berg, who was murdered in his driveway in 1984 by Lane and other members of the Bruders Schweigen, or Silent Brotherhood. The terrorist group was also known as The Order. Lane, a onetime member of the John Birch Society and the Ku Klux Klan, was a founding member of the group and served as the getaway driver in the Berg murder.
Currently, some of Lane’s ashes are in Perth. Local nutzis are planning on holding a private ceremony to honour Lane, and to dispose of his ashes. Unfortunately for them, a dispute has emerged regarding ownership of his remains. On the one side is Victoria “Vickie” Cahill, an Irish nutzi, US resident, and a member of ‘Women for Aryan Unity’. On the other side is the Australian division of the bonehead group ‘Combat 18’ (18=AH=Adolf Hitler) and their comrade Paul Innes (‘Steelcap Boot’), the Yanqui-appointed moderator of ‘Stormfront Down Under’.
Lane & Co. were inspired by The Turner Diaries, authored by the dead nutzi Dr William Pierce. The Diaries — along with My Awakening by ex-KKK Grand Poobah David Duke, The Myth of the Six Million by David Hoggan, In Defense of Anti-Semitism by Edgar J. Steele, The International Jew by Henry Ford, Did Six Million Really Die?, The Leuchter Report by Fred Leuchter and the video game Muslim Massacre — are all available for FREE! download on Australian Protectionist Party member Martin Fletcher’s website, Down Under Newslinks. There you can also find a gallery of ‘Anti-Jew posters’ produced by Serbian fascists during WWII, and cartoons produced by Tom Metzger’s White Aryan Resistance.
Sample poster:
Sample cartoon:
Martin Fletcher:
The UN-sponsored anti-Israel hate-fest dubbed Durban II
The campaign to boycott the UN-sponsored anti-Israel hate-fest dubbed Durban II has been waged for some time now. In July last year, Anne Bayefsky wrote ‘Australia must boycott the next racist hatefest’ (Sydney Morning Herald, July 22, 2008). In December, The Australian editorialised against ‘Durban II’, characterising the 2001 conference as “a festival of anti-Semitism”. In February of this year, senior Israeli diplomat Dan Gillerman warned KRudd against sending an Australian delegation.
The campaign has been joined by a variety of figures, from professional chatterer Andrew Bolt to a vast number of amateur right-wing bloggers. Most recently, Tory Party leader Malcolm Turnbull ‘said the conference would again cast a poor light on the United Nations. “It will be an appalling example of anti-Semitism and Israel bashing, tragically under the auspices of the UN”‘; and has urged KRudd to join the governments of Israel, the United States, Canada and Italy in boycotting the event (Turnbull urges immediate Durban withdrawal, Ashley Browne, Australian Jewish News, March 13, 2009). Dyrenfurth agrees with Turnbull: “Rudd should follow the lead of the Obama administration, Canada and Italy and declare his Government’s intention to boycott the UN-sponsored anti-Israel hate-fest dubbed Durban II, planned for April 27.”
BRUSSELS: The European Union said Monday it could boycott a U.N. conference on racism next month unless Muslim nations end attempts to strongly criticize Israel in the meeting’s final document.
Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, whose country holds the EU presidency, said EU nations were “very skeptical” over the direction of negotiations on a declaration being drafted for the so-called Durban II conference. He adds the 27-nation bloc will attempt to push for changes but “there is a strong call to withdraw” if they are not successful…
…Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen said a draft backed by the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference “limits itself to Israel-bashing, anti-Semitism, limiting freedom of speech and other dubious texts.”
So intense has been the criticism that Rupert Colville, Spokesperson of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, chose to issue a Press Release : Distortions plague anti-racism conference (December 12, 2008). It responds, in part, to the kinds of criticisms offered by Dyrenfurth. For example, “…the small matter of a trio of dictatorships, Libya, Iran and Cuba, leading negotiations towards a statement of principle”. Colville:
…a widely repeated allegation [is] that control of the Review Conference’s preparatory process, steered by an organizational body of 20 states, has been seized by a group of three countries, namely Libya (whose representative is the Chair), Cuba (Rapporteur/Vice Chair), and Iran (Vice-Chair). Such reports imply that these three states have an enormous amount of executive power. They do not. Chairpersons of bodies of this type fulfill an essentially functional role and are not in a position to push their own country’s agenda.
Such reports also routinely – and in some cases deliberately – omit to mention that, along with Iran and Cuba, there are 17 other Vice-Chairs including Belgium, Greece, Norway, Turkey, Armenia, Croatia, Estonia, Senegal, South Africa, India, Indonesia, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. The role of the Rapporteur/Vice-Chair is to oversee reports on proceedings produced by UN staff. If those reports were in any way distorted, the other Vice Chairs could – and would – intervene.
The real bone of contention, however, is criticism of Israeli state policy. Speaking of which, 38-year-old Tristan Anderson, a US citizen — goddammit — has become one of its latest beneficiaries. Anderson was critically injured on Friday, March 13, by Israeli troops during protests against Israel’s Wall in the West Bank village of Ni’lin. He was hit in the forehead by a new type of high velocity, extended range teargas projectile, and has been transferred to Tel Hashomer hospital, near Tel Aviv. See: American citizen critically injured after being shot in the head by Israeli forces in Ni’lin, ISM, March 13, 2009. Note that:
In the past six months, four of Ni’lin’s residents have been shot dead during demonstrations against the wall on their land. Ahmed Mousa, 10, was shot in the forehead with live ammunition on July 29, 2008. The following day, Yousef Amira, 17, was shot twice with rubber-coated steel bullets, leaving him brain dead. He died a week later on August 4, 2008. Arafat Rateb Khawaje, 22, was the third Ni’lin resident to be killed by Israeli forces. He was shot in the back with live ammunition on December 28, 2008. That same day, Mohammed Khawaje, 20, was shot in the head with live ammunition, leaving him brain dead. He died three days later in a Ramallah hospital. ~ Anderson now breathing independently, International Middle East Media Center, March 17, 2009
On March 16, a demo in solidarity with Anderson in front of the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco was attacked by police.
JOE HOCKEY: I have had a lifetime career involvement in financial services, both as a finance and banking lawyer, as Financial Services Minister, as an advisor on privatisation, a whole range of different jobs, and as Minister for Employment. Everything will come down to jobs over the next two, three years. Jobs, jobs, jobs. It is also a case about being prudent. I have been prudent in my own way with my own finances.
The new hurdles placed on Gunns’ $2.2 billion pulp mill show a similar disconnect between policy and actions. While Rudd ministers declare their primary focus on “jobs, jobs, jobs”, Environment Minister Peter Garrett wants Gunns to do new work on effluent, spinning out any final approval until after the next election.
Like Christ, the doleful personification of ancient slavery, the men, the women and the children of the proletariat have been climbing painfully for a century up the hard Calvary of pain; for a century compulsory toil has broken their bones, bruised their flesh, tortured their nerves; for a century hunger has torn their entrails and their brains. O Laziness, have pity on our long misery! O Laziness, mother of the arts and noble virtues, be thou the balm of human anguish!
I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached… Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish forever.
People don’t just work, they have “jobs.” One person does one productive task all the time on an or-else basis. Even if the task has a quantum of intrinsic interest (as increasingly many jobs don’t) the monotony of its obligatory exclusivity drains its ludic potential. A “job” that might engage the energies of some people, for a reasonably limited time, for the fun of it, is just a burden on those who have to do it for forty hours a week with no say in how it should be done, for the profit of owners who contribute nothing to the project, and with no opportunity for sharing tasks or spreading the work among those who actually have to do it. This is the real world of work: a world of bureaucratic blundering, of sexual harassment and discrimination, of bonehead bosses exploiting and scapegoating their subordinates who — by any rational-technical criteria — should be calling the shots. But capitalism in the real world subordinates the rational maximization of productivity and profit to the exigencies of organizational control.
In this major new book, Sharon Beder unearths the origins and the practices of a triumphant culture of work in which the wealthy are respected and inequality is justified. Dr Beder shows that these values are neither natural nor inevitable. They have been actively promoted – through religious preaching, corporate propaganda, the education system, and socialisation – by those who benefit most from them.
Selling The Work Ethic provides an absorbing account and critique of this central aspect of modern capitalist society. Prompted by her conviction that humanity needs to unlearn and change these powerfully held but now pathological values if we are to reverse the declining quality of life in industrial society, Dr Beder illuminates the impasse we are now in.
“A lack of morality is at the heart of executive salaries, which no legislation can fix” says Shaun (Greed without end, The Age, March 4, 2009). “DESPITE global economic calamity and enormous cost-cutting to his famously profligate sport, formula one supremo Bernie Ecclestone will take home a record fee from Victoria for the Australian Grand Prix in a fortnight. The Age can reveal that this year Victorian taxpayers will part with $47 million, simply for the privilege of hosting his car race. Formula one is the platform on which Mr Ecclestone has built his personal fortune, recently estimated at $5.2 billion…” notes Ben Doherty (The Age, $47m fee a formula for easy profits, March 14, 2009).
Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi oi oi!
According to Forbes, which has just published its list of ‘The World’s Billionaires 2009’, James Packer is ranked No.261 among the world’s wealthiest men and women, with a fortune estimated at US$2,500,000,000. Other Australian citizens in the Top 1,000 are:
234 Frank Lowy & family (2.7 billion); 376 Gina Rinehart (1.9); 376 Andrew Forrest (1.9); 468 Harry Triguboff (1.5); 468 Richard Pratt (1.5); 647 Kerr Neilson (1.1); 647 John Gandel (1.1); 701 Kerry Stokes (1.0); and 701 Lindsay Fox (1.0).
So what? According to Shaun, the wealth gap between rich and poor “Above all, this is a moral issue. Executives and boards worked out some years ago just how much they can get away with. Legislation cannot, and will not, work. Unless and until these people know for certain that their greed appals society, they’ll keep their racket going.”
“If life were a thing that money could buy, the rich would live and the poor would die”
And how.
In reality, inequality is an economic, social and political issue, not a moral one. The accumulation of wealth is the core principle of capitalist society, and the division between capital and labour its principal contradiction. Or as ‘Big’ Bill Haywood put it: “For every dollar the boss has and didn’t work for, one of us worked for a dollar and didn’t get it”.
Of course, The World’s Richest and their numerous lackeys are worried: there is a financial ‘crisis’; a crisis of neo-liberalism, and possibly even capitalism. David Harvey (Is This Really the End of Neoliberalism? The Crisis and the Consolidation of Class Power, Counterpunch, March 13/15, 2009) asks:
Does this crisis signal the end of neo-liberalism? My answer is that it depends what you mean by neo-liberalism. My interpretation is that it’s a class project, masked by a lot of neo-liberal rhetoric about individual freedom, liberty, personal responsibility, privatisation and the free market. These were means, however, towards the restoration and consolidation of class power, and that neo-liberal project has been fairly successful.
Harvey, a Marxist, makes brief reference to anarchists in his article, with one of their principal and distinguishing features — opposition to state power — forming an obstacle to the kinds of social reforms required in order to safeguard working class interests:
There is also a big problem on the left that many think the capturing of state power has no role to play in political transformations and I think they’re crazy. Incredible power is located there and you can’t walk away from it as though it doesn’t matter. I am profoundly skeptical of the belief that NGOs and civil society organisations are going to change the world, not because NGOs can’t do anything at all, but it takes a different kind of political movement and conception if we are going to do anything about the main crisis which is going on. In the United States the political instinct is very anarchist, and while I am very sympathetic to a lot of anarchist views their perpetual complaints about and refusal to command the state also gets in the way.
“Time to go Greek on this shit”
Otherwise, anarchists in Europe, especially in Greece, have been busy little bees of late.
ATHENS, Greece: Masked arsonists forced passengers off an Athens subway train and then set it alight, police said Tuesday. Several carriages of two trains were destroyed, but nobody was injured. The attack occurred at a subway station that is above ground in the northern suburb of Kifissia shortly after 1 a.m. (6 p.m. EST). Police said a group of people wearing carnival masks forced the handful of passengers on one train to leave, and then doused the carriages with gasoline before using Molotov cocktails to set them alight. They also attacked a second, empty train…
Greece: Youths with sledgehammers smash stores
The Associated Press
March 13, 2009
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Dozens of youths carrying sledgehammers and iron bars have smashed cars, banks and storefronts in an upscale district of central Athens in the latest outbreak of violence in Greece. Several dozen stores and cars were damaged in the daytime attack, which sent shoppers and bystanders in the city’s Kolonaki area fleeing in panic. Leaflets scattered at the scene Friday identified the attackers as members of local anarchist groups. A similar attack also occurred Friday in the northern city of Thessaloniki, leaving three banks damaged. Violence involving anarchist youths has escalated following riots last December that were sparked by the fatal police shooting of a teenage boy.
Athens – Experts from the British police organization Scotland Yard are to aid Greece in battling an ongoing wave of violence and crack down on radical leftwing underground organizations, the Kathimerini newspaper reported Sunday. The help from Scotland Yard, the first of which is to arrive in Greece on Monday, comes after contacts at the highest level between the governments in Athens and London, the report said. Greece has been plagued by political violence since December 2008, including automatic weapons attacks on police, and almost daily bombings and arson attacks on banks and multinational businesses. On Friday, around 40 masked rioters ran through central Athens with axes and iron rods, destroying shop windows of more than 50 businesses and damaging dozens of cars. According to the Greek press, the police were taken completely unawares and had no plan on how to react with such actions. In mid-December, the worst riots Greece had seen in decades were triggered by the fatal shooting of a teenager by police in central Athens. The Greek capital and dozens of other cities around the country were crippled for days by arson and looting.
Scotland Yard is also concerned about protests at the upcoming G20 summit, scheduled to take place in London in early April. Police generally are concerned, and to help allay their fears, Gordon Brown has declared ‘No Photos, British Or Otherwise, of British Police’ (On Financial Fools Day, Michael Dickinson, Counterpunch, March 6-8, 2009):
The new amendment [to Section 76 of the United Kingdom’s Counter Terrorism Act], which came into law on February 16th makes it an offence to ‘collect or make a record of information about members of the armed forces, intelligence services and the police force, of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.’ ‘Record’ includes a ‘photographic or electronic record.’ Prime Minister Gordon Brown supports the police in their right to restrict photography if the need arises. “The law applies to photographers as it does to anybody else in a public place,” he said. “There may be situations in which the taking of photographs may cause or lead to public order situations or raise security considerations.”
…Intimidation by police in Britain of photojournalists has been on the increase with surveillance cameras turned on them at political demonstrations; the demanding of name and address from photographers despite their showing of presscards, and innumerable occasions when police officers have demanded photographs to be deleted. Under the new law officers may allow photographers to keep taking pictures in some cases, or ask them to stop and threaten them with arrest in others. Those who refuse to stop after a warning face arrest and the possibility of detention for several days without charge, followed by unspecified fines or up to 10 years in prison.
Can we oust the bankers from power?
Can we get rid of the corrupt politicians in their pay?
Can we guarantee everyone a job, a home, a future?
Can we establish government by the people, for the people, of the people?
Can we abolish all borders and be patriots for our planet?
Can we all live sustainably and stop climate chaos?
Can we make capitalism history?
YES WE CAN!
Closer to home:
Greens protesters promoting rising tide of crime
According to Joe Hildebrand writing in The Daily Telegraph (March 14, 2009) anyway. EXCLUSIVELY. Joe refers to the fact that, since December 29, 2006, the Rising Tide Australia website has contained a list, described as “a dynamic and growing list of the actions you can take to stop climate chaos. It was inspired by Rising Tide UK’s 50 things you can do list. If you have any suggested additions, leave a comment at the bottom of this page. If it’s genuine, we’ll probably add it. Let it never be said that “there’s nothing I can do to fight climate change!”
The list has been removed from the site since Joe drew the world’s attention to it. However, the invitation to participate in an action on Caturday, March 21, still stands:
Violence broke out in Leigh where a BNP event was being held
A British National Party (BNP) member was attacked with a hammer when protesters arrived at a campaign event in Greater Manchester.
Violence broke out as 30 people surrounded a BNP vehicle outside the Ellesmere Pub in St Helens Road in Leigh on Friday evening, said police.
Tony Ward, 48, was hit with a hammer and later treated in hospital.
A 25-year-old man arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm has since been given police bail.
Officers arrived at the pub to discover the BNP’s trailer had been overturned, said a police spokesman.
A traffic diversion was put in place on St Helen’s Road, while the trailer was removed and the road was closed. It has since reopened.
One witness told BBC News: “They had hammers and they smacked the vehicle to pieces, smashed all the windows and tore off the bumper, completely decimated it.
“I was shocked at what I saw.”
A BNP fundraising event had been due to take place at Pure nightclub in Leigh, but it was cancelled at the last minute.
Simon Darby, the party’s deputy leader said: “This was a violent attack by a group of thugs in which one of our members was badly injured.
“But we will not be put off.”
The BNP’s Nick Griffin has been in the area to host the event, said Mr Darby.
The attack has been blamed on a “racially mixed group of Labour Party thugs” (BNP); “a group of Searchlight and UAF inspired thugs”; “SWP thugs” and who-knows what-else. (I suspect the involvement of 20–40 Kiwi anarchists.) Antifa England provide the following headline: “BNP’s Tony Ward Gets The Message Hammered Home–Fuck Off BNP!”
Hammer horror
Chris Wilkinson Wigan Today
March 16, 2009
Violence erupted when BNP supporters and protesters clashed outside a Wigan pub.
One man – BNP member Tony Ward, 48, – was hit on the head with a hammer during the incident outside the Bridgewater Arms in St Helens Road, Leigh.
Eyewitnesses claim that BNP supporters and anti-BNP activists fought during what had begun as a peaceful protest against the party’s plan to hold a meeting at a town centre nightclub.
Community Action Party founder Peter Franzen joined the protesters who were chanting anti-BNP slogans shortly after the violence erupted.
He said: “The peaceful demonstrators were terrified. There were some youngsters and women among the group, some of them were clearly scared and fled.”
Accounts differ but eyewitness reports suggest that a number of BNP activists, travelling in a four-wheel-drive and towing a trailer, confronted the protesters who had gathered on St Helens Road.
It is believed that they were, in turn, confronted by anti-BNP activists, some of whom were armed, and who were apparently separate from the protest group.
Police were called to the scene shortly before 6.30pm following reports of a fight and discovered a trailer had been overturned.
During the incident Mr Ward was hit with a hammer. He attended hospital for treatment, but was not seriously injured.
A 25-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm and bailed until May 26.
The protesters had gathered in Leigh after it emerged towards the end of last week that party members intended to hold a meeting at the Pure Club in West Bridgewater Street.
It is believed some were students and others were members of various political parties, including Respect and the Socialist Workers Party.
BNP leader Nick Griffin had been scheduled to speak at the Battle for Britain road show meeting.
But it was cancelled at the last minute when, according to police, the venue’s owner changed his mind, fearing negative publicity and public order trouble for him and other businesses. Mr Franzen, who joined the protesters just after the incident erupted, said the BNP are not welcome in Wigan.
He said: “They are not welcome anywhere. We know who they are and what they stand for and we know that their new found respectability is just a façade.”
In the article about Lady Renouf you’ve mixed Frank Renouf’s wives together, the Holocaust denier is his third wife Michelle, his second wife, Susan Peacock Sangster Renouf, has nothing to do with denying the Holocaust.
Wendy READ | 02.15.09 – 4:08 pm | #
I think you will find that Susan Sangster/Renouf and Michele Mainwairing/Renouf are different people who happen to have been married briefly to the same individual – Sir Frank Renouf.
Frank | 03.01.09 – 8:11 am | #
An event widely recognised as being pivotal in shaping Anglo-Australian relations occurred in 1882, when an Australian cricket team beat England on an English ground for the first time. The following day, on August 30, 1882, the Sporting Times carried a mock obituary to English cricket which concluded that: “The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia”.
Hence: The Ashes.
(The first team to tour England, in 1868, was composed of Australian Aborigines, and coached by Tom Wills, who was instrumental in developing the game of Australian Rules football. Wills is honoured with a sculpture at the MCG by Louis Laumen, erected in 2002. The sculpture reads that Wills: “Did more than any other person – as footballer and umpire, co-writer of the rules and promoter of the game – to develop Australian Football during its first decade”; a contribution based — arguably — on his knowledge of and familiarity with the game of marngrook.)
2) The Nutzi Version
As noted several weeks ago, Perth nutzis have some ashes of their own: dead nutzi David Lane’s ashes. Upon announcing that the handful of dust would be scattered in Perth, on Stormfront Down Under, a Victorian Creator asked (February 11): “Sounds good. Who is hosting the event?” To which the ever-helpful Stormfront Down Under moderator Paul Innes (‘Steelcap Boot’) replied:
Mr David Lane.
I have just returned from witness to the package that contained the ashes.
All those White Nationalists who wish to attend and show their respects during this overdue service for David [L]ane here in Western Australia will need to contact [email protected]
Combat 18 Accused Of Purloining David Lane’s Ashes
Larry Keller
March 11, 2009
He’s been dead nearly two years, but there’s a fight brewing in the white nationalist movement over one of its heroes, David Lane.
Actually, the brouhaha is over only a part of Lane. About one-fourteenth of him. That portion of his ashes is reportedly in Perth, Western Australia, more than 9,000 miles from where he died in Indiana. The last time a dead man’s ashes traveled this far may be when the cremains of LSD devotee Timothy Leary and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry were blasted into orbit in 1997.
How Lane’s ashes got all the way to Perth is a matter of controversy. Women for Aryan Unity activist Victoria “Vickie” Cahill is accusing members of the Australian division of the violent neo-Nazi skinhead group Combat 18 of misappropriating the ashes “through lies” and then “sending rape threats, threats of beatings” to Cahill and other WAU members when they protested.
“We want those ashes back,” Cahill posted to Stormfront and her MySpace page March 9.
Some background:
Lane died in March 2007 in a federal prison in Terre Haute at the age of 68. He was serving a 190-year sentence for racketeering, conspiracy and violating the civil rights of Denver radio talk show host Alan Berg, who was murdered in his driveway in 1984 by Lane and other members of the Bruders Schweigen, or Silent Brotherhood. The terrorist group was also known as The Order. Lane, a onetime member of the John Birch Society and the Ku Klux Klan, was a founding member of the group and served as the getaway driver in the Berg murder.
While in prison, Lane wrote screeds about race and became revered among white nationalists. He is perhaps best known for coining the “14 Words,” “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White Children.” He co-founded 14 Word Press in Idaho to publish his writings. After his death, neo-Nazi stage mom April Gaede announced that she “and the gals from WAU [Women for Aryan Unity]” had created a memorial fund to have Lane’s ashes stored in the capstone of a pyramid monument to be erected in a white homeland, per Lane’s wishes.
But the gals couldn’t raise enough money for a full-sized pyramid, Gaede later revealed, and so they decided to apportion Lane’s ashes among 14 miniature pyramids – one for each of the 14 Words. Each of the puny pyramids was to be enshrined in the homes of 14 white nationalist women, including Cahill.
It wasn’t long before Gaede and Cahill and other members of Women for Aryan Unity were feuding over Lane-related matters, with Gaede accusing the WAU coven of “showing off” Lane’s remains at white nationalist events.
Now Cahill is urging a boycott of a proposed “ash spreading memorial service” for Lane in Perth. An invitation to “pro-White concious [sic] people” to attend the big event was posted last month on Stormfront. “Date will be finalized when attending numbers have been estimated,” it read. “Civil and neat attire is expected for the proceedings.”
Cahill is vowing to reclaim the ashes before said proceedings can proceed. “If I have to make my way to Australia to get these ashes I will,” she wrote. Cahill then added, ominously, “I will be contacting the bruders about this.”
Hmmm. The bruders ~ versus ~ the Innes brothers. I’d pay to see that.
ACHTUNG!
Jake is the man with the plan. And access to David Lane’s ashes. He’s also desperate for a drummer. His band, Indigenous Hate, will be playing a gig in Perth to celebrate the deaths of Australian soldiers in WWII. Scheduled to take place on ANZAC Day (April 25), it is being organised by Blood & Honour Australia and the Southern Cross Hammerskins, with Murray Holme’s band The Quick & the Dead and Melbourne band Ravenous. Jake (February 11, 2009):
Perth band Indigenous Hate are in desperate need of a new drummer. With weeks to go until some gigs, and half way through recording our album, our drummer has done the dodgy on us and left us in the dark. I am willing to pay for someone, anyone, across Australia, to come over to Perth and live for a couple of months so we can play the gigs and record the rest of the album. I can email a couple of songs that we have done in the studio to see what we sound like, but if you like hard, skinhead music, you wont be disap[p]ointed. Please contact me, Jake, A.S.A.P [at] [email protected].
Yeah: blasphemy. According to CNN’s Lou Dobbs, the Drink-Soaked Ex-Trotskyite Popinjay for War Christopher Hitchens and assorted others, ‘freedom of speech’ in the West is being imperilled by the United Nations, which as I write these words is seeking to criminalise the act of ‘defaming’ Islam.
Don’t believe me?
Think I exaggerate?
Actually, I don’t blame you.
It’s not true.
I’ve watched the CNN report, which is introduced by Dobbs as follows:
Lou Dobbs: There is a major effort taking place to curb free speech in this country irrespective of our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, and free-speech advocates say the United Nations has come down on precisely the wrong side. The United Nations has adopted what it calls a resolution combatting defamation of religions. The United Nations now wants to make that anti-blasphemy resolution binding on member nations, including of course our own. That would make it a crime in the United States — if the United Nations were to have its way — to criticise religion. In particular Islam. Kitty Pilgrim has our report.
Kitty Pilgrim: The UN General Assembly is considering a binding resolution urging member states to make it a crime to criticise Islam…
Blah blah blah.
Kitty quotes from a number of sources. First, UN Resolution No.62/154, titled ‘Combating defamation of religions’ [PDF]. The 19-point resolution was adopted by the General Assembly at its 76th plenary meeting. This meeting took place on December 18, 2007. The passage quoted by CNN [italics] is taken from a paragraph which reads as follows:
12. Also urges States to provide, within their respective legal and constitutional systems, adequate protection against acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion resulting from defamation of religions, to take all possible measures to promote tolerance and respect for all religions and beliefs and the understanding of their value systems and to complement legal systems with intellectual and moral strategies to combat religious hatred and intolerance;
While appearing in name to promote tolerance, [the] implementation of this concept actually fosters intolerance and has served to justify restrictions on human rights and fundamental freedoms such as the freedoms of religion and expression for all persons, including those who may or may not belong to a particular faith. Accordingly, the United States considers this concept to be inherently flawed.
Kitty then quotes a document produced by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) on ‘Combating defamation of religions’, presented at the Octopus Interface Conference 2007, Cooperation against Cybercrime, Strasbourg, on June 11/12, 2007 [PDF]:
OIC supports the resolution on ‘Combating Defamation of Religions’ (A/HRC/4/L.12) adopted at the Fourth Session of the UN Human Rights Council held in Geneva. This resolution is a major step towards sensitizing the international community on the serious impact of defamation of religions and the urgent need for cooperation of all to address the issue.
Although not mentioned in Kitty’s report, an article published by UN Watch is also relevant:
Geneva, March 11, 2009 — A new U.N. resolution circulated today by Islamic states would define any questioning of Islamic dogma as a human rights violation, intimidate dissenting voices, and encourage the forced imposition of Sharia law. (See full U.N. text below.)
UN Watch obtained a copy of the Pakistani-authored proposal after it was distributed today among Geneva diplomats attending the current session of the UN Human Rights Council. Entitled “Combating defamation of religions,” it mentions only Islam.
While non-binding, the resolution constitutes a dangerous threat to free speech everywhere. It would ban any perceived offense to Islamic sensitivities as a “serious affront to human dignity” and a violation of religious freedom, and would pressure U.N. member states — at the “local, national, regional and international levels” — to erode free speech guarantees in their “legal and constitutional systems.”
Pakistan and the Organization of the Islamic Conference introduced the measure to the U.N. Human Rights Council in 1999. It was amended to include religions other than Islam, and it has passed every year since. In 2005, Yemen successfully brought a similar resolution before the General Assembly. Now the 192-nation Assembly is set to vote on it again.
It’s important to note, in this context, that this is a non-binding resolution. In other words, member states are free to ignore it. In fact, the UN General Assembly is institutionally incapable of passing binding resolutions: these are the exclusive domain of the UN Security Council. Further, the five permanent members of the Council — China, France, Russian Federation, United Kingdom and United States — have the power to veto any resolution.
According to UN Watch, the Pakistani proposal may be tabled at a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council. The UNHRC has no authority except to make recommendations to the General Assembly; the GA has no authority except to advise the Security Council.
“The greatness of Lenin is that he WASN’T AFRAID TO SUCCEED.” ~ Slavoj Žižek
“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom; for we never know what is enough until we know what is more than enough.” ~ William Blake
Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) is a Marxist party in the United States. Actually, two Marxist parties in the United States; the party split in 1999, with both factions seeking to retain the title. Ten years later, they’re still at it.
One distinct advantage that the FRSO has over the FRSO is the provision of a terrific Family Tree outlining the development of various Marxist groups from the 1960s through to the year 2000.
‘Love and Rage’ was also the name adopted by a leftist student grouping in Australia. L&R was originally titled the ‘Libertarian Communist Collective’, and emerged in 1998 as a tendency within the ‘Left Alliance’ student group. Based largely in NSW, L&R eventually dissolved c.2003, but before doing so was responsible for introducing autonomist Marxism to a number of students, having a small number of its members elected to various student union bodies, and taking part in the usual gamut of leftist student activism.
Another organisational by-product of the dissolution of L&R was the ‘Bring the Ruckus’ (BTR) collective. Like FbN, it formally abandoned anarchism, and placed a central emphasis upon fighting white supremacy.
BTR emerged in the wake of the death of ‘Love and Rage’ and the “Seattle” protests. When L&R was splitting, BTR was a logical outcome of one of the positions on race within Love and Rage. A few former L&R members are currently members in BTR. The Sojourner Truth Organization (STO) was also important to both BTR and Race Traitor. Former STO members are in both BTR and Race Traitor. STO, which was one of the tendencies in [the] “New Communist Movement” of the 1970s, also focused on importance of fighting the color line. These different organizations and journal also belong to a certain common tendency among revolutionaries.
One of the groups from which L&R drew members was the Marxist ‘Revolutionary Socialist League’ (1973–1989). Upon L&R’s disbandment, a number of these former Marxists proceeded into groups which formed the ‘Northeastern Federation of Anarcho-Communists’ (NEFAC) in 2002. One who did not is Ron Tabor. Instead, Tabor became involved in the publication of another zine, ‘The Utopian’. Prior to this, in 1987, Tabor authored a series of articles for the RSL’s zine ‘Torch’/La Antorcha. These were later published as a pamphlet titled ‘A Look At Leninism’ (and then as a series of articles in the L&R newspaper). In a recent, 2008 issue of The Utopian, Gustavo Rodríguez returns to a similar theme in ‘Leninism without Lenin’/‘Aproximaciones al Leninismo sin Lenin’ (PDF); the essay critiques the re-emergence of a neo-‘Platfomist’ tendency within anarchism.
On the bus to oblivion, ideological fashions, like political organisations, come and go.
WorldNetDaily is one of umpteen kooky right-wing websites dedicated to Truth, Justice and The American Way. However, to its credit — and in its high-minded pursuit of such lofty aims — WND has produced some truly awesome reportage. For example, did you know that US President Barack HUSSEIN Obama is a Soviet mole?
That was February. This week, one of its contributors, Aaron Klein, was caught out by ConWebWatch for (er) using a sockpuppet to edit President Barack HUSSEIN Obama’s entry on Wikipedia: Obama Wiki fiddler caught red-handed, Asher Moses, The Age, March 12, 2009.
Well, sort of. Actually, Klein denies claims he used a sockpuppet, blaming someone else with access to his account for the mischief-making on Wiki:
Eventually, in response to emailed questions from Wired News, Klein admitted he had a hand in engineering the facts used to stand up his scandal. But he blamed the Jerusalem21 edits on his researcher. “I am not ‘Jerusalem21’, but I do know the Wikipedia user (he works with me and does research for me), and I worked with him on this story,” Klein said.
(See : Klein Claims He’s Not Jerusalem21 — And Scrubs His Story, ConWebBlog, March 11, 2009. “The focus of ConWebWatch is what I [Terry Krepel, editor] collectively call the ConWeb — large, well-funded, Internet-based conservative “news” organizations NewsMax, WorldNetDaily and CNSNews.com. I also look at conservative media “watchdogs” Media Research Center and Accuracy in Media, as well as the MRC’s NewsBusters blog.”)
Sadly, Klein is not the first neo-con scribbler to have had his account hijacked by malevolent forces; local hack Tim Blair has also come under assault in this fashion. In Blair’s case, the (er) sockpuppet was named ‘WB’, and the stage for the puppet show was the media monitoring blog Poison Pen. Note that, after having aired the allegation that ‘WB’ was in fact Blair (that is, Blair with his socks on), Poison Pen subsequently posted an apology, noting that “Tim denies this flatly, and notes that people in the same house would share an IP”.
Which just goes to show: It’s so hard to get good help these days.
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?"
