The New Right in The Public Eye

Posted on December 18, 2008 by @ndy

For reasons best known to themselves, augmented by their relatively limited appeal, the fascist groupuscule New Right (Australia/New Zealand) — aka the ‘national anarchists’ — has been fairly quiet of late. Given that their principal activities revolve around chattering on teh Intertubes, and tailing — or attempting to tail — ‘left-wing’ rallies, this is perhaps not surprising. Still, they persist: albeit feebly.

Despised and ridiculed by anarchists, and regarded skeptically by their racist counterparts in the mainstream of the ‘white nationalist’ movement, they have nevertheless come to the attention of anti-fascist researchers in the US, including Spencer Sunshine, who writes on the subject of ‘Rebranding Fascism: National-Anarchists’ for the latest issue of Public Eye magazine (Vol.23, No.4, Winter 2008).

Desperate for attention, from any political quarter, the New Right in Australia (and er, New Zealand), will no doubt be flattered to be the subjects of another critical examination (of which, outside of Graham D. Macklin’s essay, I’m aware of the existence of very little). Whether or not anarchists pay any attention to it is another matter; they should, especially in Australia, as while the appearance of the fascists-in drag at the APEC summit took almost all of those present by surprise, the New Right had certainly declared their intention to attend months prior to this, and have repeatedly announced their attention to attend ‘leftist’ meetings, protests and rallies in the future.

    As an aside, four serious young fascist insects from the local national anarchist groupuscule attended a protest on Saturday, December 13, concerning the Government’s bogus new legislation censoring access to teh Intertubes. They stood around for a while before being informed that a fascist presence at such a rally was inappropriate, and were then instructed to leave — much to their obvious displeasure.

    The most vocal local fascist belonging to this tiny mob is is a teenage boy called Scott, who maintains a blog called ‘National Anarchist! (http://anarchonation.blogspot.com/). (For a very short period prior to this, Scott had a blog called aussie4aussies.blogspot.com.) Like most of his racist comrades, Scott is a refugee from Stormfront Down Under, where he posted under the pseudonym ‘NoCrusties’ (joining in November 2006). There, Scott demonstrated that he has a terrific sense of humour:


    Re: New photos of Nazis having fun in the sun

    They are celebrating the girl’s graduation from Jewish strangulation school?

    Haha, jokes, haha!

    Regards
    NoCrusties.

After having briefly outlined some of the national anarchists’ recent activities, Spencer proceeds to suggest why, despite their numerical insignificance and quite nutty beliefs, the national anarchists may be worth paying attention to. Essentially, this may be summarised in terms of the opportunities recent movements in opposition to ‘globalisation’ have provided for a rapprochement between ‘left’ and ‘right’. In the context of anarchist activism, Spencer notes a recent debate in the pages of the Canadian anti-authoritarian journal Upping the Anti (see Rami El-Amine, ‘Islam and the Left: A Reply to Staudenmaier’ and threewayfight). Following this discussion, he locates the emergence of ‘national anarchism’ within the fascist milieu and in particular developments on the far right in the UK, (fascist) ‘Third Positionism’, the European ‘New Right’, and certain strands of thinking in ecological thought (cf. Richard Hunt and Green Anarchist).

Spencer’s conclusion:

Recently new groups of National-Anarchists, recruited through Southgate’s internet activism, have made the leap from contemplating their idiosyncratic ideas on the internet into making them the basis of really-existing politics, by joining demonstrations in Australia and San Francisco. Web pages and blogs continue to pop up in different countries and languages.

The danger National-Anarchists represent is not in their marginal political strength, but in their potential to show an innovative way that fascist groups can rebrand themselves and reset their project on a new footing. They have abandoned many traditional fascist practices—including the use of overt neo-Nazi references, and recruiting from the violent skinhead culture. In its place they offer a more toned down, sophisticated approach… Their cultural references are the neo-folk and gothic music scene, which puts on an air of sophistication, as opposed to the crude skinhead subculture. National Anarchists abandon any obvious references to the Hitler or Mussolini’s fascist regimes, often claiming not to be “fascist” at all.

Like the European New Right, the National-Anarchists adapt a sophisticated left-wing critique of problems with contemporary society, and draw their symbols and cultural orientation from the Left; then they offer racial separatism as the answer to these problems. They are attempting to use this new form to avoid the stigma of the old discredited fascism, and if they are successful like the National Bolsheviks have been in Russia, they will breathe new life into their movement. Even if the results are modest, this can disrupt left-wing social movements and their focus on social justice and egalitarianism; and instead spread elitist ideas based on racism, homophobia, antisemitism and anti-feminism amongst grassroots activists.

In Australia, the response of anarchists to the emergence of this new trend in fascist thinking was fairly immediate, the ‘New Right’ having been identified from moments of their arrival at APEC as another bunch of nutzis (the immediately-recognisable presence of Australian Protectionist Party NSW spokesman Darrin Hodges, and the lurking figure of Andrew Fraser, being two of the more amusing). A few weeks later, a small number of anarchist groups issued a statement denouncing these ‘fascists in anarchist drag’, and word soon spread regarding the fascists’ origins, composition and perspectives.

One of the less-positive, but perhaps predictable, consequences of opposing the New Right has been, on the one hand, attempted censorship, and (more comical) identification, on the other. Thus Scott has been entrusted with the vewy important mission of obtaining my photograph; in April of this year, mathaba.net — supposedly acting in collaboration with the New Right in Australia (or at least according to some of their online writings on Stormfront) — seeking a spurious legal injunction against my publishing this blog and to obtain my name and address. Neither attempt has been successful.

On the whole then, despite sometimes manic online boasting, the New Right / ‘national anarchist’ presence in Australia has been less-than-entirely successful or productive for those involved. A few fascist pipsqueaks does not constitute a movement, and the ideology is plainly incoherent. At the same time, like other fascist movements and projects, the ‘national anarchists’ do not aim for the head so much as they do the heart, and the younger and more naive, the better. There is, in fact, a large market for racist opinion — 10% of the Australian population, according to one recent study, holding views which might be described as ‘racially supremacist’ — and the ability of nationalistic and xenophobic sentiment to attract the young is evident in the appeal of the ‘Southern Cross Soldiers’ to perhaps as many as a few thousand white teenagers and twenty-somethings.

TO BE CONTINUED…

See also :

2007

APEC : New Reich / “National Anarchists” (September 8, 2007)
All Heil the New Reich* (September 18, 2007)
Anarchist statement on the New Right (October 21, 2007)
Anarchist statement on New Right (cont.) (October 29, 2007)
APEC : Notional Anarchists (November 20, 2007)

2008

The BNP’s German pals face their own troubles (Searchlight, March 2008) (March 10, 2008)
mathaba.net : last words (May 1, 2008)
Troy Southgate as state asset? (May 23, 2008)
White nationalism v national anarchism (June 3, 2008)
Neo-Nazi ‘national anarchists’ in Germany in the headlines (June 4, 2008)
Vote 1 Darrin Hodges the National Anarchist Protectionist (and er, Saleam’s Lot) (September 7, 2008)
Seig Heil! Boneheads, NPD, APP, Darrin Hodges… (August 25, 2008)

    APPENDIX : SCOTT ON STORMFRONT

    Introduction

    November 11, 2006
    Hello all,

    I am a fifteen year old from Australia. I am currently a student and a lover of history, which brought me to a love of European culture and a desire to protect it. I am pro-White but I am not a follower of any particular ideology, I am not a National Socialist or anything like that.

    The most simply [sic] expression of what I believe is following what comes Natural to Humans, I believe we should all follow our Natural instincts and preserve ourselves and our own kind. I believe any ideology that denies the Laws of Nature is obviously false. I am very anti-Communist, this ideology sickens me and anybody that follows it makes me ill, hence my name “NoCrusties.”

    I am just an average teenager, I spend a lot of my time on the streets with my friends, mostly Skinheads or Punks. I like mostly Oi!, Punk, Rockabilly and Old Rock music. My favourite bands are Cockney Rejects and Condemned 84.

    I hope to learn a lot more while I am here and talk with some educated people with similar beliefs and morals.
    http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showpost.php?p=3606570&postcount=1

    November 13, 2006
    Ah, sorry if I have given anybody a suspicious vibe, I understand all of your points and will explain them all now.

    Firstly, as I said in another post, Crusties are the Communist Punks that get around mostly in AntiFa circles and what not, they usually wear black and camouflage and a lot of them have dreadlocks and are generally derelict looking, that is why they are called Crusties.

    My avatar is the Crass symbol crossed out. Crass is a Communist Hippie/Punk band, they were one of the first to be politically Communist in the Punk scene. I wasn’t aware that their symbol was also a National Socialist symbol. Crass is [to] Crusty as Skrewdriver is [to] Skinhead, if you catch my drift.

    I hope that explains everything.
    http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showpost.php?p=3611821&postcount=6

    Nazism

    December 21, 2006
    [Re: Which Army would you have joined?]
    So, let me elaborate on the choices:

    1. The side that is against Marxism and Jewish control. The side that has the interests of White people before all. The side that is against decadence and usury. The side that didn’t lie to its people about the goings on of the state.

    OR

    2. The side that allied with the Marxists and [was] controlled by Jews. The side that has the best interests of the Jew at heart. The side that after the war, promoted decadence and multiculturalism and has enforced capitalist usury ever since. The side that lies daily and bans the people from saying what they believe on pain of humiliation in the media.
    http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showpost.php?p=3714620&postcount=2

    Marxism is bad, mmmkay?

    March 28, 2007
    I have organised a small front of young nationalists (skinheads) to attend the meeting. There will be stricly NO violence from my group but if the commies decide to attack us, reasonable LEGAL self-defence will be taken.

    We will have placards and a digital camera for commie shooting. The more people we can get there the better, if anybody would like to meet myself and the small but growing nationalist force in Melbourne this is the place to do it.

    After looking at their website, I’ve found that Friday is only a 7pm speech by some international reds, Saturday and Sunday will be the best days to do it as most of the action will be on these days. The Saturday and Sunday meetings begin at about 10am and finish at about 8pm so I’ll be there most of the day.

    If anybody wishes to contact me about this, send me a PM and if you aren’t a troll I’ll give a contact number and an email.
    http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showpost.php?p=4046114&postcount=31

    [A few days later…]

    Sadly, the whole event didn’t go to plan, because of the short notice, none of the people I invited were able to attend so we had no flags, no cameras, only a placard saying “Nationalists Against Marxism.”

    It wasn’t all bad news though, Motaboy11 and I met up, my first Stormfront meeting in person, we went and bought some lunch and then went to a local pub and talked a bit of politics. Now that like minded Melbournians have met, it is only a matter of time before the Melbourne scene grows.

    Motaboy11 and I spoke of organising Melbourne barbeques, I think this is a terrific idea. I’ll be speaking to Motaboy11 much more frequently and hopefully we can get some more support from fellow Melbournian SFers.
    http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showpost.php?p=4055880&postcount=40

    Stoopid commies

    April 15, 2007
    Buddy, I am underage as well and the commies already have photos of me, not one of them has done a thing about it. The commies are all talk, lies and garbage – never action.

    If you are afraid of commies, I assure you they aren’t a thing to worry about. Perhaps a few crusties are violent and would do what they can to promote their anti-White Anarchist ideals but your average Socialist Alliance red is not going to do anything to you.

    Plus, if cops get your photo that won’t matter either, it’s not illegal to attend a meeting or gathering, just don’t break the racial villification laws and you are sweet.
    http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showpost.php?p=4104087&postcount=18

    Chicks dig it!

    July 14, 2007
    Well, I’ve got all the evidence I need in a friend that was offered a sexual act in return for information regarding a story. I’m not attacking women, I’m attacking those women in the media that care more about getting their story, than investigating the truth.
    http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showpost.php?p=4389630&postcount=6

    NOT ONE GOOD THING!

    August 28, 2007
    …I couldn’t give a rats arse if the Muslims killed every Red on the planet, or every Black, Asian or Oak Tree on the planet… If the White race dies, nothing else will matter!

    There is not ONE good thing about the White race losing our ability to survive, NOT ONE GOOD THING!
    http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showpost.php?p=4526558&postcount=3

    Pauline Hanson : Mother of the Nation

    October 10, 2007
    She is a smart woman, the problem is, she is a good person. She is too caring and understanding, any other politician would kick their grandmother on the street to avoid bad publicity.
    http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showpost.php?p=4720174&postcount=4

    ANTIFA HAHAHA!

    November 5, 2007
    Thanks mate.

    I’ll get around to converting it now. The Australian movement is working on getting an Australian Anti-Antifa action band going in the near future.

    ANTIFA HAHAHA!
    http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showpost.php?p=4781300&postcount=3

    AIDS HAHAHA!

    November 26, 2007
    [Re: Older White women travel to Kenya for sex]
    Well, [let’s] hope they all die from AIDS!
    http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showpost.php?p=4853999&postcount=3

    Justice for dogs

    November 30, 2007
    Just as White Nationalists want the best for our own race, the miscegenation of dog breeds is a tyranny against all dogs and irresponsible dog ownership is an injustice to man’s best friend.
    http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showpost.php?p=4868079&postcount=2

Bonus!

Still no love for the boneheads / Holocaust no less / Racist mess on the floor / Grotesque…

Posted in Anti-fascism, State / Politics | 6 Comments

Liberalsh are *hic* the besht… What are YOU *hic* lookin’ *hic* at?

Posted on December 18, 2008 by @ndy

NOW…

Young Libs arrested at conference
David Rood
The Age
December 18, 2008

TWO Liberal students, including a member of Victorian senator Helen Kroger’s staff, have been arrested for public drunkenness at a student conference. Gideon Rozner and Francesco Cambria were arrested early on Monday morning at Ballarat University, where the National Union of Students was meeting…

THEN…

Top VCE honours for Jewish students
Australian Jewish News
May 3, 2006

…Bialik graduate Gideon Rozner, 18, took out the rare honour of a double award for political and legal studies. An arts/law student at the University of Melbourne, Rozner said that his political background – he has been a member of the Liberal Party for a number of years – helped him achieve scores of 50 in both subjects. “Law has always been an ambition of mine and I’m also very passionate and interested in politics,” he said. He puts his success down to “hard work, good teachers, a very supportive family and one of the best schools in the state. I couldn’t have done it alone. I had a lot of help and support,” he said…

Gideon is ‘a fierce opponent of the ‘nanny state’ policies of both state and federal governments’, according to the ALSF. He is also, presumably, a strong advocate of law and order, and will be asking the magistrate for the maximum penalty to be imposed upon him for his allegedly drunk and disorderly behaviour: imprisonment for three days.

And while drinking kills brain cells, according to the Marvellous Miss Miranda Devine, Monoculture is killing thought (The Sydney Morning Herald, December 4, 2008):

…Gideon Rozner, president of the University of Melbourne’s Liberal Club, told the inquiry about a course on “contemporary ideologies”, comprising 12 lectures, 11 “dedicated to different variations of socialism”. The solitary lecture about liberalism and conservatism had as its compulsory reading an article from the left-wing Monthly magazine titled “Young Liberals in the chocolate factory”. “The entire liberal or conservative tradition [was] summed up by that article … When students enrol in a contemporary ideology subject and finish it not knowing any of the works of Adam Smith or John Stuart Mill or Milton Friedman or any of the great thinkers of our time, that is a significant quality issue.” A month after Rozner’s testimony, on November 4, the inquiry committee received a letter from a “disappointed” University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Glyn Davis, who defended the subject. But he said it was to be replaced next year with a “broader introduction to political ideas subject [with readings from such] liberal authors such as John Stuart Mill and Milton Friedman”. Chalk up a victory to the Young Liberals, even if no one will ever admit it.

Dirty lousy stinking communist Jeff Sparrow has his own thoughts on the subject, but in the absence of a position as Commissar of Education, has had to content himself with the editorship of the notoriously un-Australian publication Overland, from which vantage point he writes, contra Miranda, Young Liberals’ senate inquiry fails (December 9, 2008):

Last week, the Young Liberal-inspired Senate Inquiry into academic bias dribbled to a predictable close.

The Age reported:

    The committee found Liberal student organisations were the main agitators for the inquiry and their submissions had a strongly “undergraduate” tone.

    “Indeed, the committee believes that the case that Make Australia Fair [the Young Liberal group] makes for the existence of a leftist conspiracy in education faculties and schools borders on the farcical,” it said.

Well, quite. The Young Liberals produced a three-hundred page condemnation, great swathes of which consists of course guides, in which supposedly incriminating phrases have been highlighted in scary red. Our youthful McCarthyists reveal, for instance, that subjects on gender mention “gender” quite a lot, a discovery akin to denouncing the zoology department for an unhealthy fascination with animals.

But the Young Libs are, at least, authentically undergraduate. Miranda Devine, on the other hand, is old enough to know better. Yet she too threw her weight behind Make Australia Fair – and with accusations that were even more risible. Why, there’s a Brisbane school, don’t you know, that celebrates Mao Zedong as a “freedom fighter”, right next to George Washington and Mahatma Gandhi – Liberal Senator Brett Mason popped in once and caught them in the act…

Posted in Student movement | 2 Comments

Moaron Rob Gilchrist

Posted on December 17, 2008 by @ndy

Police informants are go!

Last weekend, Rob Gilchrist was exposed as a paid police informant, a role he’d fulfilled for the last 10 years. Recently, Rob has also — and unsurprisingly — been exposed as a provocateur, and as someone whose information was utilised by police in pursuing convictions against the people arrested in October last year on trumped-up charges.

On Monday, October 15th 2007, more than 300 police carried out dawn raids on dozens of houses all over Aotearoa / New Zealand. Police claim the raids were in response to ‘concrete terrorist threats’ from indigenous activists. 20 people are facing charges under the Arms Act, in a trial that could take several years.

The Greens have called for some kinda investigation into Rob’s tricksy pursuit of the preciousss information. In another unsurprising development, the NZ Government has supported the NZ Police Minister has supported the NZ Police Commissioner has supported the NZ police has supported Rob Gilchrist.

Legal Update – December 2008

In November, the crown brought new charges of ‘participation in a criminal group’ against five people arrested in the nation-wide State Terror raids of 15 October 2007. These five people are Tame Iti, Rangi Kemara, Tuhoe Lambert, Emily Bailey and Urs Signer. These five and the remaining 13 other defendants are all charged with possession of weapons and possession of restricted weapons (molotov cocktails).

On 18 November, the Crown made an application to the Auckland High Court to have all of the proceedings transferred there, instead of heard in the district court. The application was opposed by all but one of the defendants’ lawyers and has been adjourned until March 2009.

There are a number of legal matters that need to be addressed over the coming months including applications of ‘no case to answer’ for particular charges (in essence that there is no evidence) and an application relating to inadmissibility of evidence.

At present, all such applications are on hold until a decision on where the case will be heard is made. Stay tuned to the website www.October15thSolidarity.info for updates on the legal situation. In the meantime, organise a solidarity action or fundraiser in your neighborhood! ~ October 15th Solidarity Newsletter, No.9, December 2008 [PDF]

See also : Police spying target claim disputed, Martin Kay, The Dominion Post, December 26, 2008 “An activist spied on by police has hit out at police claims they only spied on individuals, releasing excerpts from police emails with detailed questions about the activities of protest groups… In one, police sought details of planned action across an entire category of protest activity. It said: “Climate Change Groups: What is happening with climate change groups in Auckland? Who is involved? What actions might they be considering for the future? What specific plans are in place for Climate Day of Action 07/07?”” | The idiotorial staff at The Timaru Herald show their support for police (Editorial: Surveillance part of policing, December 16, 2008) | On a brighter note, The limits to tolerance of the police, The Standard, December 16, 2008

Posted in State / Politics, War on Terror | 2 Comments

“Stop watching, get out onto the streets” // “Free everyone who has been arrested”

Posted on December 17, 2008 by @ndy

ROFLMAO!

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Protesters forced their way into Greece’s state NET television news studio Tuesday and interrupted a news broadcast featuring the prime minister so they could urge viewers to join mass anti-government demonstrations.

For more than a minute, about 10 youths blocked a broadcast showing a speech by Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis. Instead, they displayed banners reading: “Stop watching, get out onto the streets,” and “Free everyone who has been arrested.” No one was hurt, and no arrests were reported.

NET chairman Christos Panagopoulos claimed the protesters violently forced their way into the studio. “This goes beyond any limit,” he said…

While rioting has subsided, hundreds of high schools and dozens of universities in Greece continue to be under occupation, and much activity is still going on, both on- and off-campus. For a neat-o summary of recent events (December 6–13) in Athens “from the perspective of some proletarian participants”, see ‘Greece unrest: the story so far – TPTG’ (December 14).

“…These days belong to all the marginalised, the excluded, the people with the difficult names and the unknown stories. They belong to all those who die every day in the Aegean sea and Evros river, to all those murdered at the border or at a central Athens street; they belong to the Roma in Zefyri, to the drug addicts in Eksarhia. These days belong to the kids of Mesollogiou street, to the unintegrated, the uncontrollable students. Thanks to Alexis, these days belong to us all.” ~ Extract from text distributed at the student picket outside the police headquarters by individuals from Athens’ Haunt of Albanian Migrants, December 15, 2008.

V for Vendetta, December 16, 2008:

The tragic incident that led to the death of 15 year old Alexis Grigoropoulos was seen by at least 60 eyewitnesses and recorded on video (you can look it up on a multitude of sites and blogs. It’s not very clear but still it shows that cops were under no threat at all. Instead they were shouting to the boy and his friends “Come here and we’ll show you”. One of the two “officers” was grabbing his balls showing them to the boys as proof of his “manhood”…). The cop aimed with his hands extended straight in front [of him]. A friend of mine (who is a lawyer) was there and accompanied the dead boy in the ambulance together with a doctor. He told us that when the people around started screaming “help, he’s got no pulse!”, both cops turned their backs and left walking with their guns still [in their] hands.

All this was witnessed by many as 6th December was a name day (“Nicholas Day”) and the street was very crowded by people going in and out to parties and celebrations.

Mainstream media is, as always, getting their news directly from the police headquarters. Although, this time, many well known Greek journalists differentiated their personal position and reported the true facts. This only happened during the first days when everyone here was surprised by the massive rage of the people’s reaction. Afterward, all the main news channels returned to their usual order… they repeat again and again the irrationality of violence and the financial cost of the burned bank branches…

Occupations of schools, universities and city halls are still going here in Athens and in several cities all around Greece.

The truth always comes out, but not in TV screens… in the streets, where life is real and vibrant. They have tried so hard for decades to lock us up in our homes, to make us afraid of the imaginary “danger out there” by intimidating reports in the news. There is nothing to be afraid of… but indoor death.

We call you to talk about it with your comrades, friends and families. To take it to the streets with public discussions and solidarity movements.

It’s not only the political cause, it’s also the personal sentimental change that comes when we get together and live out of our daily routine.

I was pretty much locked up home for more than a couple of years, with my girlfriend and 2 or 3 friends. Work home work home work home…

Last 2 weeks have been the longest and most truly alive I can remember for a very long time. It’s like being 15 again!

Epaminondas Korkoneas, the 37-year-old cop accused of killing 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos, is currently in prison awaiting trial. Contrary to the account given above, in his plea before the courts, Korkoneas claims he and his partner were attacked by a group of 30 youths, “who yelled vulgarities and threw rocks, sticks, bottles, metal ashtrays, and firecrackers at them”, which forced the pair to leave. Upon returning — for reasons which are not entirely made clear — they were attacked with molotovs; his partner fired a flash grenade, and Korkoneas fired two or possibly three warning shots into the air. One of these bullets somehow ricocheted into the chest of Alexis, killing him. The two cops were unaware of Alexis being shot, and at that point simply left to return to the local cop shop.

    “Everybody knows this is a big lie,” taxi driver Spiros Papadopolos said with disgust. “But this is how things are in Greece. For sure, the policeman won’t be jailed. It has happened many times before.”

Korkoneas is a ‘Special Guard’, a former soldier, and a former member of the neo-Nazi group Chrysi Avyi (Χρυσή Αυγή) / Golden Dawn (a group which is occasionally recruited by Greek police in order to help repress public protests, including those following Alexis’ murder). From Kalamata, Korkoneas has impeccable fascist credentials. During the German occupation of Greece in WWII, his family participated in various pro-Nazi gangs (known by the derisive term Germanotsoliades or Tagmatasfalites). During the Greek civil war, members of his family joined the criminal gangs of “Maganas” and “Katsarea”, which took part in massacres in the Kalamata region following the Várkiza agreement (February 1945).

    November 1980. New Democracy in power. Mass demonstrations. Stamatina Kanellopoulou, aged 21, is bludgeoned to death by a policeman’s baton. Cypriot student Iakovos Koumis, 26, is killed by a bullet. The promised “exhaustive investigation” and “exemplary punishment of the guilty parties” were nothing but empty words. The guilty parties were never found, and the country’s security forces got the message that they enjoyed impunity.

    November 1985. PASOK in power. Exarchia. Police officer Athanasios Melistas kills Michalis Kaltezas, shooting the 15-year-old in the back of the head. Minister Menios Koutsogiorgas submits his resignation, as a formality, but it is not accepted by Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou. Melistas is convicted by the first instance court to two-and-a-half years in prison with the possibility of parole and is subsequently found innocent on appeal. Once again, impunity is the message that is conveyed.

In the late ’80s and early ’90s, Korkoneas was himself a member of the Golden Dawn’s ‘action group’ in Kalamata. That is, a fascist street thug. Following this, he joined the Special Army Forces (LOK), and in 1999 was one of the first to be recruited into the newly-established police ‘Special Guard’. As a Specialist, he served in Exarchia, and was well-known for his aggressive policing.

Posted in Anarchism, Anti-fascism, Media, Poetry, Student movement | 1 Comment

Poison Idea : ‘You’re Next’

Posted on December 17, 2008 by @ndy

Dedicated to The Homicides and ‘Poofter’s Paradise’…

Posted in Music, Sex & Sexuality | Leave a comment

Southern Cross Soldiers, Tyler Cassidy and the far right

Posted on December 16, 2008 by @ndy

The (racist) far right has reacted fairly predictably to the shooting death of 15-year-old Tyler Cassidy in the Melbourne suburb of Northcote last Thursday (December 11). For those for whom The Jew is Public Enimy #1, the fault lies, of course, at the feet of The Jew.

Clouds

Stormfront, Dr. David Duke‘s online, Florida-based Mental Hospital for Racist Cranks, abounds with penetrating insights. Ten of the best:

    brude: “I hope karma comes back to these rotton [sic] barstard [sic] PIGS like it did in the 1980’s.”
    Spinosus: “Police officers in the west are ZOG enforcers, that[‘]s why I don’t like them.”
    303pugs: “It looks very much like an anti white manouver [sic] by our new order gov.”
    Sam: “As much of a tragedy [as] it is, there is also a lesson to be learnt: Don’t touch drugs.”
    Silverfern (CHURCH OF THE NATIONAL KNIGHTS OF THE KU KLUX KLAN): “I believe the cops were justified, if I was me [sic] the little toerag wouldn’t of made it two steps.”
    Cup-of-Ruin: “If that had been a Muslim or an Abbo [sic] they blasted there would be an uproar…”
    Patriot08: “I love that Brutal Attack song on his myspace page too.”
    Etain: “Tyler Cassidy, another white victim of the final solution… Tyler Cassidy is quickly becoming a Ned Kelly. An Australian “outlaw”, fighting to defend what it meant to be an Australian, who tried to survive in a place where he was a MINORITY, and was constantly reminded of his white man’s burden.”
    sixtytwo [SCS Sydney]: “The [SCS] are vowing revenge they are vowing to get together.”
    firestone: “So SCS: stay strong and hold your ground. Know that your cause is a noble one, as is ours, and the enemies [sic] main weapons are lies and manipulation. Only the weaker-minded guys will fall away for good because they fear criticism too much. This incident will no doubt attract more attention from your/our enemies, so learn as much about who they are and why they do what they do as you can. They will try to manipulate public opinion against you, but understand that these antis are a bunch of pussies who only do such things safely hidden away behind their [computer]. The only time you may catch a glimpse is if they venture out for the latest anti-Nike or G20 protests.”

    http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?t=550686

Latrines

Also on the anti-Semitic far right, in typically florid prose, Dr James Saleam, Fuehrer of the Australia First Party (NSW), asks, If The Victorian Police Wrongfully Shot A Boy, Why Does The Media Now Wish To Dig A Latrine As His Grave? (Statement By The Australia First Party, December 14.) Herr Doktor — sentenced to three and a half years jail in 1991 for organising a shotgun attack on the home of Eddie Funde, Australasian representative of the African National Congress — blames The (Jew) Controlled Media for plunging headlong down a Super Fun “slippery-slope of untruth, building up a shadowy Internet discussion board, the Southern Cross Soldiers, into a racist, extremist, activist and criminal circle.” Further: “Australia First Party denounces the media line that the Southern Cross Soldiers, an ostensible “nationalist” group, existed outside of the Internet site – MySpace.”

Obviously, Dr. Jim doesn’t leave The Bunker often enough to understand basic Internet terminology, and apparently exhibits a profound Failure of the Will when it comes to actually reading its Pandora’s Box of mal-contents. If he bothered to read their numerous pages (Bebo / Facebook / Myspace / 4chan), he’d know that highly-trained units of the elite division of the volunteer army known as the Southern Cross Soldiers frequently met in meatspace ~ look it up Jim ~ to drink piss and talk shit. Most recently, and just a few days prior to Tyler’s tragic death, the Marvellous mob in Melbourne met to celebrate the White Civil Uprising at Cronulla.

Meaning AF and SCS have something else in common.

http://ausfirst.alphalink.com.au/vicpolice.html

Further out on the fringe, Nathan Clarke (AF, Hunter Valley) and Jim Perren (AF, Toowoomba) are also prepared to put their necks out: nafe blames The Jew, while Jim blames The Jew, The Media, and THE CRIMINAL, ANTI-WHITE, PRO-ZIONIST GROUP FIGHT DEM BACK for Tyler’s death. “Did The Criminal Anti-White Pro-Zionist Group Fight Dem Back! and The Media kill a 15-year-old Boy?” Jim asks himself. “Probably”, is his answer.

Mind you, Jim also thinks Hitler was a TOP BLOKE; on the OTHER HAND, his USE OF CAPITAL LETTERS makes for HIGHLY-ENTERTAINING if not COMPELLING arguments.

http://whitelawtowers.blogspot.com

Above the clouds

Self-described ‘transcendental fascist’ and notoriously bad filmmaker* Richard Wolstencroft writes: “Apparently Tyler was a member of the proto-fascist Nationalist group Southern Cross Soldiers… [SCS Myspace] pages lack ideological sophistication and use unfortunate language, but are still heart felt attempts at some form of political expression”.

Quite.

Much more interesting, however, is his claim to have discovered an SCS Melbourne leaflet. One in which, according to Richard, “the SCS accuse the Herald Sun of doing a beat up on their group. They claim Tyler’s death was uncalled for [and] that earlier that day Tyler Cassidy was attacked at a train station by a Lebanese gang, and that this is the cause for his crazed agitation, and subsequent death that evening at the hands of Police”. The leaflet itself reads: “Barely 15 minutes before Tyler’s death, he had been the victim of a racially motivated knife attack on a train by a Lebanese Muslim gang. This was not the first time. The attack left him traumatised and agitated.”

As Richard notes, this is an apparently novel claim. It would also appear to contradict such facts as are known. After catching a bus at Alphington station at about 7.30pm, according to his family, Tyler arrived home “bruised and scratched, and with his shirt torn… at 8pm… [Tyler was] without his backpack, which he’d lost in the fracas aboard a Hurstbridge line train”. He left home 15 minutes later, and re-appeared at the Northcote Shopping Plaza at 9.25pm. In other words, it’s possible that Tyler had some kind of confrontation on a Hurstbridge line train with a ‘Lebanese Muslim’ gang as alleged, but if it did occur, it must have happened several hours — not 15 minutes — prior to his death. (See also : Witness lament for teen, Andrea Petrie, The Age, December 16, 2008; Police pursue ‘suicide by cop’ angle in teen shooting death, Geesche Jacobsen, The Sydney Morning Herald, December 13, 2008.)

*”Pearls Before Swine—I’ve kind of always distrusted Richard Wolstencroft, filmmaker, Melbourne Underground Film Festival director, and tedious bore, partly because of his avowed fascist tendencies. Now that I’ve paid money for and sat through his fucking film, I just want to beat the cunt senseless.”

http://ideafix7.wordpress.com/

Boomerangs and woomeras

Finally, nutty Intertubes forum mathaba.net provides a detailed study and acute analysis of Tyler’s shooting:

Meanwhile, the assistant state police commissioner, clearly a deserving accomplish [sic] of his liar boss, has defended the police assassination of the youngster claiming the assassins “had only seconds to react” when evidently 3 grown men have many options to react to a youngster carrying 2 knives, including, but not limited to:

* Run away
* While backing off take off jacket and wrap around arm
* While backing off take off shoes and put on hand
* Attempt to calm the distressed teenager by maintaining a non-confrontational posture
* Seek to maintain a distance, while waiting for the arrival of a net to be cast upon the target
* Throw (chilli) pepper mixed with water into the face of the knife-holding target
* Countless other options including boomerangs

Meanwhile the incident is being used by many misguided ‘experts’ to call for the use of tasers – electrical stun guns – as a solution, instead of better training and a reassessment of the role of police in Australian society. Mathaba has many times in the past highlighted the danger of the use of tasers in the hands of police. A far better option would be for Australian police to seek training in the use of boomerangs and woomeras.

http://www.mathaba.net/related.shtml?x=613543

Posted in Anti-fascism | 32 Comments

Vents : ‘Class War’

Posted on December 16, 2008 by @ndy

Vents: “I was going to save this for the next album but I figured I will dedicate this to the folks in Greece before they run out of steam. RIP Alexis and all the best to you kids in Greece looking for a better quality of life. Trials on the boards and turnies of course.” December 15, 2008.

See also : Vents : ‘NBC’ (November 20, 2008).

Posted in Anarchism, Music | 6 Comments

Racism on teh Intertubes! Corporate sector reluctant to act! Earth revolves around Sun!

Posted on December 15, 2008 by @ndy

Call to overhaul cyber-racism laws
Asher Moses
The Age
December 15, 2008

The Federal Government is under pressure to take urgent action to combat widespread racial vilification on social networking sites such as Facebook… The comments follow stories published on this website last week revealing that there are scores of racist groups on Facebook, many of them based in Australia, but the site has done little to eradicate them even after complaints. Anti-racism groups have begun using this inaction to their advantage, mining social networking sites for valuable intel…

Mat Henderson-Hau, from the anti-racism group Fight dem back!, said he had also been targeted and complained to Facebook several times but, as with Gollan’s case, the site did not respond.

“I know that these sites won’t do anything to act on their TOS [terms of service] unless pressured by the media or by police, courts or lawyers within the relevant jurisdiction (invariably, the US),” he said.

Henderson-Hau added that the will was building to run a “serious lawsuit against these guys on the simple premise that they are not enforcing the terms of service”.

In the meantime, Henderson-Hau has decided to use the proliferation of racist groups on Facebook and MySpace to his advantage, mining the sites for valuable information on the far-right such as photographs and the connections between individuals and groups across national borders.

He said Fight dem back! stored this data until it became useful.

“For example, Johnny X may have pics on his Facebook or MySpace of him doing a Heil Hitler salute in his boots and braces,” Henderson-Hau said.

“Johnny X might one day wind up pitching for a government contract for his plumbing business. That is when those pictures would be sent to the relevant authorities.”

Blogger/Google. Facebook. Myspace. Youtube. The corporations which own these sites (and others) are extremely reluctant to act with regards to complaints of racist content, not only in the case of straightforwardly racist abuse, but even openly neo-Nazi propaganda. As Mat notes, the only circumstances in which they may be compelled to act is as a result of negative media attention, police request, or legal mandate.

A few examples:

Myspace

Myspace provides a happy home to many nutzis. Kill Baby, Kill!, a neo-Nazi band from Belgium, is just one of them. Friends with Sydney band T.H.U.G. (which includes members of late ’80s/early ’90s bonehead band White Lightning), KBK! came to Australia in September to play the annual Ian Stuart Donaldson memorial gig in beautiful Beaconsfield, Melbourne, organised by local bonehead (neo-Nazi ‘skinhead’) groups Blood & Honour Australia and the Southern Cross Hammerskins. The vocalist, Dieter Samoy, is currently facing charges for racial assault.

YouTube

genocidal88’s channel, maintained by neo-Nazi activist Jesse (Blood & Honour Australia/Southern Cross Hammerskins). NB. 88 = HH = Heil Hitler. Jesse has played in a range of local neo-Nazi bands, and uses his channel to promote these and the neo-Nazi groups he helps to organise. (Of these bands, ‘Deaths Head’ featured the recording talents of Joel. Joel now plays drums with local band Bulldog Spirit.)

14Rob88: Rob’s channel includes a video for the smash pop hit ‘We’re Southern Storm’ by local neo-Nazi band Southern Storm. Sample lyric: “Niggers Jews and Communists / Look out scum you’re on our list!”

Posted in Media, State / Politics | 1 Comment

Melbourne protest at killing of Alexandros [Andreas] Grigoropoulos, December 13, 2008

Posted on December 15, 2008 by @ndy

chllptr writes:

People in Melbourne joined in world-wide expressions of outrage at the police killing of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos with a rally outside the Greek Consulate-General. The protest was lent an added dimension by the police killing of another 15-year-old in the innner-Melbourne suburb of Northcote only two nights previously.

Speakers at the rally drew parallels also with the case of Lex Wotton on Palm Island, sentenced to six years imprisonment for allegedly leading a riot following the death in custody of an Aboriginal man, whose police killer went on to receive a promotion.

As part of the event people were invited to add messages to a board addressed to comrades in Greece.

The rally took place in foul weather, which had an effect especially on the quality of the sound in this video.

One speaker read from a statement issued in Greece: ‘Communique of Occupied School of Theatre in Thessaloniki’. The document can be found here.

Andreas (Alexandros) Grigoropoulos (December 8, 2008)
Latuff on the murder of Andreas [Alexandros] Grigoropoulos (December 9, 2008)
The police murder of Andreas [Alexandros] Grigoropoulos (December 10, 2008)
Failure to communicate : Epaminondas Korkoneas in court (December 12, 2008)

*A fun(d)-raising disco for Lex Wotton & Family was held on Saturday night at the International Workers’ Club (home to Barricade Infoshop and a number of other @ groups and projects). Something like $500 was raised, and a number of local @ groups are making further donations. These funds will be deposited in a bank account at Melbourne University Credit Union, and others are encouraged to also donate.

    Melbourne University Credit Union Limited
    Account name: Free Lex Wotton
    A/C number: 13441
    BSB 803-143

What will this money be used for?

This money will be used for supporting both Lex and his family until he is free. This includes things such as money for Lex to make phone calls, write letters etc (all these things like phone cards and stamps and envelopes must be paid for in prison), money for his family to visit him in Townsville in the prison (the family live on Palm Island and will need money for travel and accommodation in Townsville), etc. These are the immediate needs that will be prioritised. All spending from this account will be with the permission and direction of Lex and his family. If everyone contributed a little (or a lot!), Lex would be able to do everything he needs to properly organise his appeal, and to keep up that all-important contact with his family, including his four children, his wife, his sisters, his mother. He gets strength from them, and we can give them strength by making sure they don’t need to go hungry to finance their visits to Lex…

*Messages of support can be sent to Lex via freelexwotton[at]gmail[dot]com.
*Over 3,000 people have joined the Free Lex Wotton NOW Facebook group. You can too!

Cam Smith (Crikey, December 15, 2008) writes:

Teenage deaths in Athens and Melbourne: A comparison

“Police murdered a 15 year-old kid in Northcote last night,” read the text message, “Come to Northcote police station. Crew heading there now. Demand justice. F–k the bastards.” In the carpark outside the police station, a group of young radical types stood in a huddle, discussing the events of the previous night. Spread throughout the carpark, the media were identifiable by their obscure gang patches, 7, 9, 10.

“Do you think it’ll go Greek?” one anarchist asked me. “I don’t think so,” I replied, “This is Northcote, not Exarchia.”

And yet, despite my pithy response in the damp patch of ashphalt between Northcote Plaza and All Nations Park, the question persisted throughout the day — on radio, on blogs, on the newspaper websites… even my mum asked me: Why does nobody listen to me?

The similarity was striking, I suppose. Only five days after Athenian police had gunned down a 15-year-old boy, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, police in the third-largest Greek city in the world had shot dead another 15-year-old boy, Tyler Cassidy. The key is in the contrast:

* In Northcote, the police [claim to have] had no choice.
* In Athens, eyewitnesses describe the police initiating conflict by provoking the youths.
* In Northcote, the police tried to negotiate, before turning to capsicum foam, then resorting to their sidearms.
* In Athens, eyewitnesses describe the police officer who fired the shots as having exposed his genitals just prior to executing Alexandros.
* In Athens, the police officer was a member of a neo-Nazi gang.

There is contrast in the response too: While anarchists in Greece reported on goings-on there in an almost poetic manner, on 4Chan, Anonymous amused itself by photoshopping pictures of knives into Cassidy’s hands and bombarding a tribute MySpace with abuse (it has since been taken down).

While Greece burned, hundreds of people around the world expressed solidarity (some then had riots of their own). In Melbourne, Cassidy was mentioned at a solidarity vigil attended by 30 well-soaked bleeding hearts outside the Greek consulate on Saturday. On Sunday afternoon, two dodgy looking blokes in a car tried to organise a rally outside the Northcote police station. Nobody showed up.

Cassidy’s juvenile politics makes him easy to hate, but while the Southern Cross Soldiers are a bit of a nasty bunch, being a d-ckhead is not yet a capital crime. Alexandros Grigoropoulos’ death will be long remembered for the actions it initiated.

Cassidy’s death will fall down the memory hole — a stupid, messed-up kid on a suicide mission. He deserves better — he should be remembered as the kid whose death prompted increased funding to Crisis Assessment Teams and improvements to police training. He should be remembered as the last needless police death in Victoria. He won’t be, but he should.

Posted in Anarchism | 3 Comments

Greece : You. can’t. stop. the music.

Posted on December 15, 2008 by @ndy

A week on, protesters still on Greece’s streets
Rioters in Greece attack police station, banks
Demetris Nellas and Menelaos Hadjicostis
AP
December 14, 2008
Greek violence reignites after vigils over boy’s death
AFP
December 14, 2008
Greek concessions fail to stop the riots: “Anarchist groups blamed for exploiting shooting of teenager”
Peter Popham and Nikolas Zirganos in Athens
The Independent
December 14, 2008
Greek government under fire over handling of riots
Reuters
December 14, 2008

Fresh riots in Athens as protests in Greece enter eighth day
Jenny Percival and agencies
guardian.co.uk
December 14, 2008

~ versus ~

Athens calm after night of violence
The Age
December 15, 2008

======

Greek left condemns police murder of youth
December 12, 2008
We, the organizations of the anticapitalist Left that sign this text, want to condemn the murder, in cold blood, of 16 year old Alexis Grigoropoulos by a police special guard in the evening of December 6th…
Interview with a libertarian syndicalist
December 14, 2008
From ESE (Greece) An interview by the CNT-F with the International Secretary of the ESE (union of libertarian syndicalists), discussing the death of Alexis Grigoropoulos and the events that have followed. Interview with Yannis, international secretary of the ESE (Eleftheriaki Sindikalistiki Enosi)…

The longest week of our lives
Saturday, December 13, 2008

Last night, I met a friend of Alexandros’ who was sitting close to him when he was assassinated. Standing there silently, listening to him describe the moments of the assassination (for the n-th time I imagine) I couldn’t help but think: How many years did this kid grow over these seven days? Listening to him explain exactly how the cop is now attempting to cover up the story, how the ricocheting scenario can’t possibly stand… Seeing him argue how we need to change our tactics to take our struggle forward. Joking with us about the incapacity of the indymedia servers to hold the incoming traffic in the first days of the revolt. How many years did he grow? I can’t help but think; they took 15 years from Alexandros, but years and years of life were transplanted into all of us who are here now. In these days of revolt, normalilty and normal time have been suspended – finally giving us ample time in which to live and grow. For this reason, as for a million others, there is simply no way back now: time can’t move backward, what we have lived cannot be unlived. “Remember this”, I heard the old man telling his grandson at the spontaneous mural for Alexandros at the spot of his assassination. “Remember that it is always authority killing the people, it is always the powerful who kill the powerless”. The kid will never forget this week, none of us will. This is the longest week of our lives.

Saturday, 5 pm. Four hours before a full week from the assassination. We are preparing to take the streets again. This night, too, is your night Alexandros.

Live without dead time.

======

bloggy goodness

NEA από όλο τον Κόσμο : “The objectivity of the presentation of news is almost impossible. So I simply reproduce what others say, and that seems to be quite effective. A continuous «collage» of news or “arpakola / paste-copy” .. with a few comments of mine .. ”
Center for Strategic Anarchy : “The Center is a syndicate of strategically-minded anarchist soldiers of fortune—psychotic individuals pitilessly destroying post-modern civilization at every available opportunity, living like debonair criminals, the kind of people who use stolen limousines as getaway cars, who build infernal machines that sow chaos and confusion, who obliterate golden calves and stone tablets alike, who eat gods. We are the lords of our Company, the enemies of God, pity, and mercy…”
Greece is the word on | infoshop.org
greece-unrest | libcom.org
occupied london : on the greek riots
tapes gone loose : fiery the angels fell from the spires of my fortress of youth
Teacher Dude’s Grill and BBQ: Random thoughts on teaching EFL/ESL and living in Greece : monkey business in thessaloniki

Posted in Anarchism | Leave a comment