After much soul searching, Jeff Kennett has ruled out a tilt for the Melbourne Lord Mayor’s job. Former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett has ruled out running for the position of Melbourne’s Lord Mayor… Serving Lord Mayor John So is yet to declare whether he will stand for re-election. Nominations close on October 28 and the City of Melbourne elections will be held via postal ballot in November.
A SPOOF campaign nominating underworld identity Mick Gatto to be Melbourne’s mayor has jumped the tracks.
Yarra Trams seized half a dozen “Mick for mayor” postcards from a route 86 tram on Friday.
The cards purport to be distributed by the “Committee to Elect Domenic (sic) Gatto” and to be “authorised by D Hinch”.
But neither Gatto nor his 3AW critic are laughing.
“I don’t know anything about it,” Gatto said yesterday.
“Maybe I would (run) if they asked me, but I’ve never heard about it before.
“It’s a joke. Why else would it have Derryn Hinch’s name on it?” he said.
Hinch was also in the dark about the postcards, which ask Melburnians to send suggestions for a Gatto campaign to replace Mayor John So in November’s council elections to 3AW’s mailing address.
“I’d say it’s somebody with a sick sense of humour. What can you say? There are some fruit loops out there,” he said.
“I would just hope, if he were elected as lord mayor, he’d be an absent one.”
The card, bearing a council logo with a pair of guns inserted into the image, describes Gatto’s “dedication to law and order” and bears a bogus endorsement from a former policeman who was investigated in relation to a murder.
“In all the years I have known Mr Gatto, I have always found him to be a man of great honesty and integrity,” it reads.
The cards also take a swipe at council, saying Gatto’s “first act as lord mayor will be to reform Melbourne City Council’s electoral laws in order to bring an end to the corruption that plagues them so”.
Griffin plans visit to Australia
Matthew Collins Searchlight
September 14, 2008
The BNP has announced that its leader Nick Griffin intends to visit Australia in the “very near future” at the invitation of the miniscule far-right Australian Protectionist Party.
The APP is a tiny, minority party (led by a former BNP leading light) that seeks to drag Australia back to the dark ages of the “White Australia policy”, a policy that prohibited non-white immigration until 1973.
The proposed December visit by the leader of Britain’s premier racist party would help a tiny minority there in their attempts to drag Australia back into the dark ages of unapologetic imperialism and racism. It would also give Griffin the opportunity to act like some kind of spokesperson for ex-patriots, damaging Britain’s tolerant reputation while at the same time attempting to raise funds for his party’s coffers.
This year, the Australian parliament’s first order of business was to make an apology on behalf of the nation to the “stolen generation”, Aborigines who were removed from their families and ancestral lands to be “anglicised” (made to behave more like white people) for over one hundred years, until 1969. Only a tiny minority of Australians were opposed to this long overdue sentiment.
As a modern nation, Australia celebrates its new, modern and diverse culture with great pride. A visit by the BNP, a party notorious for sewing the seeds of intolerance, hate and mistrust, is likely to only be attractive and beneficial to the sort of Neanderthals who took pleasure from race-related rioting against Muslims in Cronulla New South Wales in 2006. Since those riots, described as a “pogrom” by some Australian journalists, the Australian far-right has gone to great lengths to recruit and galvanise support for their policies.
The BNP and its Australian supporters will attempt to use Griffin’s controversial visit to garner support to their campaign against the new Australia. In a time of sweeping economic turmoil, the APP will be hoping to learn from Griffin how to make local gains on the back of world-wide difficulties. This weekend (September 13th) the APP is standing in local elections as a litmus test for its policies.
Britain has strong historic, cultural and sporting ties with Australia. In 1998, Griffin was refused entry to the country as was Holocaust denier David Irving before him. The Australian government is being urged once more not to soil those positive ties by allowing Australia to take in another one of our criminal undesirables.
Jeremy Jones, a spokesman for Australia’s Jewish community said: ”A visit by Griffin ought to be a matter of concern for Australia’s Muslim community, indeed by all communities here who have found that tolerance and engagement is a better path than division and hatred.”
To add your voice to the campaign, send a ‘He’s not fair dinkum’ postcard to the High Commissioner. Click here.
[vid removed]
Comments, corrections, clarifications, and c*ckups
The APP is indeed a “tiny, minority party”, with a very short history: it announced its formation last year as a splinter from the Australia First Party, lead by veteran fascist militant Dr James Saleam. (AF split three ways: a third splinter claims to be the original — and er, the best.) Thus far, only three individuals have gone public as APP members: Darrin Hodges, Andrew Phillips, and Mark Wilson. Mark Wilson is the “BNP former leading light” whom Searchlight claims leads the party, and is also the person who attended the BNP’s recent Red White & Blue festival. As noted elsewhere ‘Australian Friends of the BNP’ was set up (in 1999/2000) by Wilson, a former BNP organiser from Hertfordshire.
Nick Griffin has indeed previously attempted to enter Australia, in 1998, under the auspices of the now defunct far right organisation ‘National Action’. NA was lead at one point by Saleam, but upon his imprisonment for organising a shotgun attack on the ANC representative to Australasia, his place was taken by Michael (de) Brander, who has most recently been embraced by Quadrant magazine.
[Previously] the main support for the BNP in Australia has come from the group, Australian Friends of Europe (AFE), formerly known as Australian Friends of the BNP, based in Petersham, NSW.
The AFE’s principal organisers are Welf Herfurth and Mark Wilson. Wilson migrated to Australia in the 1980s from Britain where he had been the BNP local organiser in Essex. He has previously spoken to Australia’s oldest racist group, the Australian League of Rights, which has touted him as an expert on “the effects of multiculturalism in Britain”.
A resident of Riverstone, NSW, Herfurth is a former executive member of the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD) in Bavaria, Germany. He has previously spoken to the Australian League of Rights and is next scheduled to speak at its AGM on 28 August 2001 on “The threat to freedom and democracy in Germany today”. He has also contributed to far-right forums, including the now-defunct Australian National News of the Day website and The News Report email list. Amongst the views Herfurth espouses is that Hitler “achieved some remarkable things”.
Welf Herfurth has since become Saleam’s right-hand man, the pair being the principal organisers of the annual Sydney Forum, a far right gathering in — you guessed it — Sydney. Herfurth is also the leader of another tiny fascist grouping called the New Right/’national anarchists’. Modelled on similar developments on the fascist fringe in Germany and the UK, they, like the APP, are also a very new formation, making their first public appearance in Sydney last year at the APEC protests. Included among the 20 or 30 or so members of the fascist ‘black bloc’ was Darrin Hodges.
A former member of the NPD, and a street militant, Herfurth maintains very close relations with his fellows in Germany (as well as Australia’s leading Holocaust denialist Frederick Toben of the Adelaide Institute), and has twice attempted to arrange tours by “leading lights” of the NPD to Australia.
There is no love lost between Hodges/APP and Saleam/AF, Hodges having described Saleam as being a “criminal lunatic”, an “oily spiv”, a pathological liar, a “political gold digger” and in many other, less flattering terms. One of the principal dividing lines between the two is on The Jewish Question. Thus Hodges has abandoned his former anti-Semitism for the greener fields of ‘Islamophobia’, while Saleam contends that Zionism remains a principal enimy of The White Man, retains his membership on Stormfront (as ‘radnat’), and AF even announced its recent electoral campaign on the rancid, Florida, US-based site. (On the electoral results for AF and APP (that is, Hodges), see: NSW local council election results : far left and far right, slackbastard, September 14, 2008; also“Nazi rubbish”: James Saleam is unamused, slackbastard, September 15, 2008.)
Most recently, Saleam has announced AF’s desire to get warm and cuddly with a range of European fascist parties forming the ‘European National Front’, a manouevre preceded by AF’s establishment of a formal alliance with some racist kooks in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The Front consists of five parties: the Falange (Spain), Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (National Democratic Party of Germany/Gerrmany), Forza Nuova (New Force/Italy), Noua Dreaptă (New Right/Romania) and Πατριωτική Συμμαχία ΠΑΤΡΙ.Σ/Patriotiki Symmachia PATRI.S (Patriotic Alliance/Greece). Note that the ‘Alliance’ supposedly folded in January 2007 — although reports of its death may have been exaggerated… Note also that numerous other fascist parties have been members of or allied with the ENF: in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, England, France, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and elsewhere. Finally, it appears likely that the ‘Alliance’ was in reality a brief evolution in the history of Χρυσή Αυγή/Chrysi Avyi (Golden Dawn), a fascist formation which apparently has a habit of collaborating with Greek police in repressing antifa protest.
Cronulla
“Race-related rioting against Muslims in Cronulla New South Wales in 2006” took place in December 2005, and was fairly indiscriminate in terms of its targets. That is, any person not deemed white enough who happened to be in the area was at risk of coming under assault, and many did. (The ‘rioting’ was also followed by reprisals on residents in Cronulla and neighbouring suburbs.)
Strong ties
The “strong ties” between Australia and Britain date back to 1788, in which year British authorities established a penal colony in what formally, in 1901, become the nation-state of Australia. Approximately 3/4 of the population is native-born, the bulk of the remainder of British ancestry. In 2006, more than 270 ancestries were separately identified by Australia’s population. The most commonly stated were Australian (37%) and English (32%), while other main ancestries included Irish (9%), Scottish (8%), Italian (4%), German (4%), and Chinese (3%).
Anyway, lots happened between 1788 and 1901, but one event widely recognised as being pivotal in shaping subsequent 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”.
NB. 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…
Finally, as for the BNP, and one of the keys to its modest success:
Meir resident Alan Hough, 62, angrily asks why the police cars parked nearby, clearly keeping an eye on the BNP leader, “aren’t out catching criminals”.
Mr Hough says he has voted for Labour all his life, but says he will vote for the BNP in future.
“My father will be turning in his grave, he fought the fascists for six years,” he says.
“But Labour aren’t doing their job, and that’s why people are voting for the BNP, they’re desperate.
“There’s no alternative, people won’t vote Tory and they’re fed up with Labour.”
The “Anti-Islamification” conference organised by a far right group in Cologne (Köln), Germany appears to have come a cropper. Tony Paterson in Berlin reckons “No British participants were scheduled”, which may be the case, but it appears certain that members of the BNP have gone anyway: Richard Barnbrook, a member of the Greater London Assembly, is one. “The Islamo-Marxists have been up to their usual tricks here in Cologne. Just like they did at the recent BNP RWB festival back home in Derbyshire” moans Richard on his blog. One rather obvious difference is the fact that tens of thousands, not many hundreds, are anti-Pro-Cologne, and Weyman Bennett isn’t the one giving orders. Thus a planned rally in the city centre has been cancelled by police in order to avoid further clashes with counter-protesters, while the poor old rightists are being harassed at every opportunity:
…Police said 40,000 people protested against the rally. It had been expected to attract 1,500 people but only dozens made it.
Most of the protesters were peaceful, although roads and rail lines leading to the centre of Cologne were blocked by demonstrators in sit-down strikes.
But a Friday evening gathering of Pro-Cologne participants on a Rhine River pleasure boat turned violent when stones hurled by leftist protesters from the shore broke windows. There were further clashes between small numbers on both sides on Saturday.
Left-wing demonstrators blocked a rail line which a group of 150 right-wing activists were using to travel into the city centre from the airport, police said…
Meanwhile, around 150 bars in Cologne stopped selling Pro-Koeln members the local Kolsch beer with some taxi and bus drivers also refusing to transport delegates to the congress.
One hotel even cancelled bookings made by “undesirables.”
The Rudd Government has announced a three-year pilot seasonal worker scheme in the horticulture industry, where there is a lack of workers to harvest the nation’s fruit and vegetables. Under the trial, up to 2,500 visas will be available over three years for workers from Kiribati, Tonga, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea to work in Australia for up to seven months in any 12 month period. Small groups of workers are expected to start to arrive late this year. Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Tony Burke announced the pilot, saying it would help Australian horticulture industries and could also meet the development needs of our Pacific island neighbours…
The scheme has the support of the Australian Workers Union boss Paul Howe: like Tony Burke, a member of the NSW Labor Right; unlike Tony, a former Trot.
The Australian guest worker scheme is apparently modelled on The Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) Work Policy, announced by the lesbian witch Helen Clark in 2006 and formally introduced in April, 2007. Nic McLellan has published a research paper on the subject of the RSE: ‘Workers for all seasons? Issues from New Zealand’s Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) program’, May 2008. “By April 2008 after a year of operation, 92 companies had been approved as Recognised Seasonal Employers and 4,070 workers from the Pacific and South East Asia had RSE visa applications approved. Of RSE visas issued, 3,923 have been used (as at 23 April 2008).” McLellan’s study concludes:
There are significant dangers in regarding seasonal workers as commodities to be traded between countries, and the heritage of the blackbirding era should be warning enough for policy makers – seasonal labour programs in Australia will only work if they take account of the rights and interests of the workers from the Pacific. The New Zealand experience has raised crucial issues about the need for consultation with unions, churches, welfare and support services and local islander communities in the Pacifica diaspora before any program starts in Australia.
One of the most obvious questions that occurs in this context is: why don’t Australian farmers employ Australian workers? The National Farmers’ Federation released its report ‘Workforce from Abroad Employment Scheme’ (PDF) on April 7, 2008, calling for filling 22,000 entry-level job vacancies through a reciprocal “mutual benefit” arrangement with Pacific Island nations.
But still: what about the roughly 481,700 (July 2008) unemployed? Surely these idle hands could be put to work picking fruit? And what about the indigenous unemployed?
Recently, Noel Pearson, Director of the Cape York Institute (For Policy and Leadership), has raised just this question. He’s also floated the idea of scrapping the dole for young Aborigines, on the basis that the dole is often a more attractive proposition than finding a (low- or lower-paying) job. Thus:
INDIGENOUS leader Noel Pearson has urged the Rudd Government to scrap the dole to Aborigines under the age of 21, saying the generous payments trapped people in a cycle of welfare. He said anyone thinking of leaving school should be confronted with a choice: earn or learn…
His call to scrap the dole was proceeded by a similar one voiced by ALP President Warren Mundine:
WELFARE laws should be overhauled to force Aborigines to take jobs or face immediate cuts to their dole payments – even if it requires moving away from their homelands. Labor powerbroker and indigenous leader Warren Mundine told The Australian yesterday the Rudd Government should introduce hardline welfare reforms that forced Aborigines to take work all over the country, with consequences for those who refused…
Such policy prescriptions stems from a more general analysis of the needs of Aboriginal communities, one which Pearson recently articulated in an address at a forum in Brisbane organised by eidos, “an independent research institute and think tank [whose] objective is to generate new ideas and dialogue on good education, labour market and social public policy.”
“Attack!”
According to Pearson, the mass of Aboriginal Australians now constitute a semi-permanent underclass, whose meagre job prospects — and wider social dysfunction — prevents them from entering the working class proper. Pearson argues that this is the result, in large part, of a failure in the modern welfare state. In this context, Pearson makes a distinction between the traditional (good) welfare state and the contemporary (bad) model.
The ‘traditional’ welfare state emerged, he argues, in the early part of the twentieth century, and — in one of its major, if not only functions — was geared towards providing income and other forms of support to those otherwise unable to secure jobs — in particular, children and the elderly — and gain entry to the labour market. This model was also based on a notion of reciprocity: that is, ordinarily, adults could be expected to gain jobs, pay taxes, and to make financial and other, non-financial contributions to the social order, in return for which they could expect their children to be educated, to be provided with a pension, if required, upon obtaining retirement age, and to otherwise be provided with essential social services.
In contrast to this model, Pearson argues that a form of ‘passive’ welfare consumption has evolved, one which imposes no such obligations upon the citizen-consumer. This is a failure of both economy and morality. Within Aboriginal Australia, welfare provision, once marginal, is now an entrenched mode of living, one which leads to various forms of moral, social, and spiritual corruption. Linked to this economic poverty is economic passivity; hence the need to introduce tougher measures
to compel young Aborigines in particular to enter the labour market, even — or especially — if this is via the bottom rungs of the occupational ladder. Further reinforcing this work-shyness is the absence of a model of economic participation; that is, many Aboriginal children have parents who are similarly unemployed, and in many families a breadwinner is absent.
Pearson uses the metaphor of the staircase (as opposed to the ladder, for example) to describe the situation facing indigenous peoples. This staircase has three dimensions. The first is the foundations, which are the social norms governing acceptable forms of behaviour. In his analysis, these norms have disintegrated over time. One dramatic example of this is the use of drugs by Aboriginal peoples, in particular, alcohol and cannabis. In addition to the other social problems associated with the use of such drugs, they tend to render young people unfit for labour (work). There is thus a need to re-establish these social norms, and to limit, as much as possible, the extent of drug use by Aboriginal communities.
The second element of the staircase Pearson describes as forming a combination of supportive networks and productive capabilities. According to this model (developed by the economist Amartya Sen), opportunities for social (education) and economic (employment) opportunities, when combined with personal responsibility (internalised value system), produce the magic potion marked ‘capability’. On the basis of imbibing this potion, members of the Aboriginal underclass (passive welfare recipients) are provided with the opportunity of joining the ranks of the (largely non-indigenous) working class. (Sen’s concepts of capability, and related notions of positive or substantial freedom, negative freedom and happiness, are summarised by Jan Garrett in the online paper ‘Amartya Sen’s Ethics of Substantial Freedom’ [January 2005] and given fuller expression in his book Development as Freedom [Random House, 1999].) Crucial to the provision of this capability is the role of parents in socialising their children into accepting the social norms which form the moral foundations of this model.
The third and final element comprising Pearson’s staircase metaphor is the notion of choice. That is, the social construction of rational incentives to ascend the staircase of opportunity.
Carrots.
At present, insofar as Pearson is concerned, carrots are being dangled by government at the bottom of the staircase, not the top. Subsequently, many choose to remain somewhere near the bottom, passively consuming welfare, rather than attempting to ascend the staircase — and experiencing temporary privation as a result — in order to reach its dizzying heights. Social welfare, in other words, acts to distort the otherwise rational operations of the labour market, and this distortion must be abolished.
On the basis of this model of economic and social development, Pearson also articulates a political and social agenda. First, welfare reform, and the (re-)introduction of moral and social obligations on the part of those in (temporary) receipt of social welfare. Secondly, and closely related to the first aim, is the need to address the price distortions which social welfare introduces into the labour market. In addition to unemployment benefits, Pearson identifies family tax benefits as a key area requiring re-formation: according to Pearson, for those Aboriginal people who have children, the generous nature of such benefits makes it irrational to not rely upon the state for their sustenance (rather than income derived from employment).
The second aspect of Pearson’s agenda concerns, on the one hand, the need to sustain primary supports networks: those required to deal with crises, especially those concerned with addressing family collapse and dysfunction and which aim at family sustenance and reconstruction. On the other hand, the need to abolish secondary forms of intervention — which consist, apparently, of innumerable programs geared towards addressing the failures of primary forms of state intervention.
Pearson elaborates on what an appropriate form of social welfare might and should consist of, one based on achieving four essential aims. First, proper financial management: the rational allocation of resources by the family unit. Secondly, the provision of effective forms of health care. Thirdly, education and parental stewardship. Finally, housing. In this area, Pearson stresses the importance of devolving property ownership from the community to the individual (family). (This is based on the implicit recognition of what is elsewhere referred to as the ‘tragedy’ of the commons. See: ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’, Garrett Hardin, Science, Vol.162. No.3859, December 13, 1968. Also ‘The Myth of the Tragedy of the Commons’, Ian Angus, Monthly Review (zine), August 25, 2008.)
With regards the tertiary… Pearson has nothing to say.
The final stage of Pearson’s struggle is directed squarely at what he identifies as the social welfare industry and its lobbyists and representatives (ACOSS, among others) and their apparent reluctance to adopt Pearson’s crusade against passive welfare. He identifies the reasons for the existence of this reluctance/resistance as being partly the result of ideological and political conflict, but — primarily I think — in terms of the real, material interests the lobby and industry has in its own economic and social reproduction, and therefore the maintenance of a dependent underclass. In his concluding remarks, Pearson quotes Theodore Dalrymple (Anthony Daniels) approvingly: “Misery rises to the level and means available for its amelioration”.
In essence, Pearson’s thesis boils down to the claim that the poor need discipline, not handouts.
Speaking of handouts, the Cape York Institute is sucking on the government teat to the tune of $1 million per annum ($4,028,489 budget total / $ 2,423,694 salary).
To be continued…
On Theodore Dalrymple, see‘Why Intellectuals Like Genocide’, New English Review, July 2007, where the British psychiatrist has some interesting things to say about contemporary Australia, and in particular the reception by the ‘intelligentsia’ of Keith Windschuttle‘s pioneering work of historical revisionism, The Fabrication of Aboriginal History (2002) which successfully (according to Dalrymple/Daniels) “set… out to destroy the idea that there had been a genocide of Tasmanian [A]borigines carried out by the early European settlers of the island”. On Australia, Dalrymple/Daniels observes:
“Australia is known, not without reason, as the Lucky Country. It has virtually every resource known to man. It is a liberal democracy and has been for most of its existence. No one in Australia has ever feared the midnight knock on the door. To live well there requires a good deal less effort than in most places, perhaps anywhere else. The climate in much of the country (the current drought notwithstanding) is very pleasant. Overall, it is probably the best place, certainly among the best places, on earth to live. The fact that it is lucky is not, of course, a consequence of its natural endowments alone, but of what human beings have made of those endowments. Australia is a triumphant success…
The fact is, however, that political reforms in Australia, whatever they might be, are very unlikely to add much to the sum of human welfare there. Australia confronts human beings with their existential responsibility to make happiness for themselves, and this is sometimes a hard responsibility to face up to. For if you are unhappy in a country like Australia, you have to consider the possibility that the problem lies with you rather than with the conditions that surround you.”
Of further interest : ‘White guilt, victimhood and the quest for a radical centre’, Noel Pearson, Griffith REVIEW, No.16: Unintended Consequences, 2007 (PDF) | Anarchism and Aboriginal sovereignty, slackbastard, July 16, 2008
Dion, December 12, 2007: “As I stated on the Bombshell forum Andy, you are a liar, a hypocrite and no better than the trash that you fight against.”
A Hammerskin named ‘Bucket’ announced the death of his brother ‘Longer’ (Stephen Patrick Long) on Stormfront Canada on April 16, 2006. (Long joined SF in January 2004.) Long was allegedly killed by a fellow bonehead named Christopher Broughton, just days before Long was due to celebrate Adolf Hitler’s 117th birthday.
Now Broughton is on trial for murder (see below).
Boneheads appear to make a habit out of killing one another at parties, especially ones called to celebrate the birthday of their (other) dead hero, the incestuous coprophiliac Adolf Hitler.
In September 2007, John Pakulski was convicted of the manslaughter of a fellow member of the UK-based ‘Wolf’s Hook White Brotherhood’: “Pakulski, 55, stabbed Michael [‘Belsen’] Sanderson with a kitchen knife on 26th November [2006], after he found his partner Catherine Parker-Brown, 37, ‘in a state of undress’ with friend Sanderson”.
Locally, Dane Sweetman served 15 years behind bars (1990–2005) for killing David Noble with an axe… at a party… to celebrate Adolf Hitler’s birthday.
Sweetman’s freedom ended when he and Martin Darren Bayston attacked the English-born Mr Noble at the Hitler birthday celebrations at a Pascoe Vale South house. Things got out of hand when Mr Noble said that they didn’t make women like Sweetman’s girlfriend in England, and asked if he could borrow her for the night. Sweetman, on bail [over a previous assault in Thornbury], responded by embedding an axe in Mr Noble’s head. Mr Noble apparently pulled the weapon out and said: “I’ve got a hammer in my head.” Bayston then got a boning knife from the kitchen and stabbed Mr Noble 18 times. His body was left in the backyard until morning when his legs were severed and the remains stuffed in a car boot and dumped near the Yarra River at Kew.
On April 20, 1991, National Action (NA) member Perry Whitehouse murdered another NA member, Wayne ‘Bovver’ Smith, at the organisation’s inner-Sydney headquarters after an argument. John Birmingham:
The final slide into ignoble collapse [for NA] was marked by the gunshot murder of Wayne ‘Bovver’ Smith in [NA’s] headquarters at Tempe… It was an almost perfect example of the hapless farce which so often attended the adventures of Sydney’s neo-Nazi elite in the 1980s. Bovver, twenty-five years old and already weighing 108 kilos thanks to the three or four stubbies of beer he’d consume for breakfast each morning, was shot eight times with a sawn-off .22 rifle by Perry Whitehouse, ten years his senior but less than half his size, during a drunken, confused and basically pointless argument. When Whitehouse blew him away, Bovver was wearing a singlet bearing the message: Say No To The New Gun Control Laws.
In May 1991, the former leader of NA, and current leader of the Australia First Party (NSW) Dr James Saleam (who still resides in the NA HQ in Tempe), was sentenced to three and a half years jail for his role in organising a shotgun assault upon the home of African National Congress representative Eddie Funde. This was Dr. Jim’s second time inside — in April 1989 he’d been sentenced to two years’ hard labour for fraud and receiving stolen property. ‘Ironically, Saleam received his sentence on the same day as the centenary of Hitler’s birth’, the Sydney Morning Herald noted.
Somewhat perilously, the parties do continue, however. Thus last year, Douglas Schott’s band Blood Red Eagle travelled to Wellington to celebrate Uncle Adolf’s birthday by performing for a handful of other boneheads at the HQ of Satan’s Slaves. From birth until death, last weekend the boys played Beaconsfield in memory of Ian Stuart. The heady aroma of violence wasn’t too far away, however, as the vocalist for the Belgian band Kill Baby Kill — which shared the bill baby bill — is currently facing charges for beating two men in Bruges; one of them into a coma.
The Hammerskins are a happy mob; so too, B&H. “Two members of Tampa Blood and Honour, a chapter of a particularly violent international white supremacist organization, were indicted in Florida for beating two homeless men to death in 1998. Two other members had already pleaded guilty to the crimes. Federal officials say the men planned to participate in a race war and killed the homeless men because they were deemed inferior.”
Rowdy party ends in murder: Borden soldier testifies at trial
Tracy McLaughlin The Barrie Examiner
September 17, 2008
Christopher Broughton “had it coming to him” when after a night of being drunk and obnoxious he ended up taking a beating from one of his [bonehead] friends, a jury heard yesterday.
Broughton, 29, of Hamilton, is now on trial for the murder of his friend, Stephen Long, an alleged member of the white supremacist [Hammerskins].
He was beaten to death with a baseball bat after a night of partying at a Collingwood home, April 16, 2006.
So far, the jury has heard how Long, 22, of Ottawa, and Broughton went to the Collingwood home where Vaughn Newman lived and spent the night drinking with several friends. But Broughton reportedly began to annoy his friends with his drunkenness, the jury heard, chugging whiskey from the bottle and picking fights.
“Steve (Long) told Chris he was embarrassed of him in front of his friends and that he wouldn’t hang around with him anymore,” said Ryan Hummel, 32, a CFB Borden soldier who was also at the party.
Hummel said Long ended up punching Broughton several times in the face when Broughton got rowdy and refused to leave the house in the early hours of the morning.
Hummel testified he left the party after the fight, and Long and two other friends went to sleep in the living room. A short time later, one of the friends, Brad Genno, said he suddenly awakened to see Broughton standing in the living room with a baseball bat, and he fled, not realizing Long already lay bloodied on the floor.
In court, defence lawyer Michael Lacy noted both witnesses had strong connections to [bonehead] groups, and that they lied to police about the true details of the murder to protect each other.
“I’m not a racist,” Hummel insisted. “I never considered myself a white nationalist.”
But Lacy pointed out postings on white supremacist websites where someone regularly posted comments using Hummel’s e-mail address. But Hummel suggested it was someone else posing as him.
The trial continues today.
Denying membership of SF is an old trick, one also attempted by Sutherland Shire candidate Darrin ‘Proud to be an Infidel’ Hodges, as well as One Nation Party member (and candidate) Sue ‘Suebdoo2’ Bateman.
The parents of an Ottawa man slain at a Collingwood house party approached the Ottawa police hate crime unit nearly 18 months ago out of fear their son had become a white supremacist.
It was after sitting down with detectives that Stephen Long’s father, Murray Long, and stepmother Peggy Land learned police were already well aware of their son’s racist beliefs and involvement in the “movement.”
“They met with us and told us our fears were well-founded,” Mr. Long said yesterday, describing how he never realized how active his 22-year-old son had become in the “evil power” of the white supremacist movement until after his death Sunday at the hands of a bat-wielding attacker.
Christopher Broughton, 27, of Hamilton has been charged with first-degree murder.
Yesterday, three OPP officers and an Ottawa police hate crime section visited Mr. Long’s bedroom at his grandmother’s house and seized his computer and address books as well as photographs of white supremacist gatherings, posters and other hate literature.
“I was shocked by some of the stuff we found in there,” said the elder Mr. Long.
With clearly visible white power tattoos on his hands and neck — or “mitts” and “necklace” as his son used to call them — Mr. Long and Ms. Land said they knew their son held strong beliefs and was not afraid to tell others.
What they didn’t realize until yesterday was how well he had kept hidden his “double life” on the Internet as a regular visitor to the Canadian section of the [Stormfront] message boards.
Under the user name “Longer” and sometimes signing off messages with “White Power,” Mr. Long wrote about topics ranging from U.S. civil rights matriarch Rosa Parks’ death, to the movie American History X, and whether the Ku Klux Klan was active in Ontario.
He expressed an interest in organizing group meetings for other white supremacists in Ottawa. In the days leading to his death, Mr. Long planned to attend a gathering of as many as 40 other area white supremacists, scheduled for today to coincide with Adolf Hitler’s birthday, at a Byward Market bar. According to message boards at stormfront.org, the event has been postponed.
“He was very much involved in trying to organize things,” said his father. “He was sucked into this vortex of hatred.”
…
Oh, and as further evidence that neo-Nazis just love to party:
Neo-Nazis draw swastikas on handicapped man’s face
DPA
September 9, 2008
Berlin – Attackers believed to be neo-Nazis drew swastikas with felt-tip pens on the face and back of a 21-year-old handicapped man in Germany, police said Tuesday. Police said relatives had helped the man clean the ink off after the August 26 attack, but did not report it to police. Last week, a welfare worker told police, who have begun a hunt for two assailants. Neo-Nazi slogans were also scrawled on the victim’s T-shirt, said police in the northern city of Schwerin. In a second part of former East Germany, police said Tuesday they had prevented a rampage by 150 threatening far-right youths the previous evening in the town of Eilenburg, near Leipzig. The youths had disrupted a town hall meeting, chanted neo-Nazi-style slogans and attacked 30 Eilenburg residents who were tearing down posters pasted up illegally by the rightists. A large force of police dispersed the youths.
Future ALP politicians and current trade union officials are reportedly “furious” at former trade union officials and current ALP politicians for doing what pundits have expected: introducing “business-friendly” industrial relations laws. “Furious” trade union leaders are widely tipped to remain furious for some time, before becoming “angry”, “upset”, “bitter”, and then merely “resigned”.
The broad structure of the coal-powered fluorescent bulb on the hill was explained by Gillard in her speech to The National Press Club on Wednesday titled ‘Introducing Australia’s New Workplace Relations System’. Gillard also took this opportunity to burn her bra black armband, declaring in her opening remarks that “The signature values of nations are often defined by the circumstances of their birth… And for us there’s one value above all others that we identify with as truly our own. It’s the value that emerged out of the circumstances of Federation, which coincided with the industrial turbulence of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. That value is fairness. Or as we like to put it: ‘the fair go’.”
Which is all rather odd, especially given that — as angry White men across the country know — one of the first Acts of Federal Parliament was the Immigration Restriction Act. This Act (together with the Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901) formed the legal cornerstone of the White Australia policy; the Conciliation and Arbitration Act — which in Labor Party mythology has ensured a ‘fair go’ for ‘working families’ for the bulk of the country’s history — was only assented to by Edward VII in 1904. Further, while 100 years ago the Gub’mint couldn’t get rid of the Pacific Islanders quick enough, they now wanna import them — albeit if only for a coupla years…
“SMALL business operators will be in a position to sack workers after giving them just one verbal warning and complying with a short check-list, under new business-friendly employment rules to be introduced by the Rudd Government” reckons Ben Schneiders. “The rules would allow small business to get on with running their operations, making a profit and giving people jobs, Ms Gillard said” (Union fury at Gillard’s IR changes, Ben Schneiders, The Age, September 18, 2008). A former factory worker lawyer, Gillard is not only a partisan of the petit-bourgeoisie, she’s also — as Bill Heffernan helpfully pointed out — shamelessly childless.
Where does that leave working families Ms Gillard?
Victorian Trades Hall Council secretary (and former fan of Chairman Miaow) Brian Boyd attacked the unfair-dismissal rules and said workers in smaller enterprises deserved equal treatment, and were crying out for working class discipline. “Most workers in Australia are employed by small employers. We are talking about the majority of workers,” Mr Boyd said. “They deserve equal rights. And to be disciplined.”
Industrial action
An important feature of the new legislation will be tough rules on industrial action.
Our new laws will distinguish between good industrial action which may legitimately occur during the bargaining and bad industrial action taken outside of bargaining.
Good industrial action will be allowed in the course of bargaining, in accordance with strict rules, including a secret ballot of employees and three days’ notice of intention to take the action.
But bad industrial action will not be tolerated under any circumstances.
Even short unplanned stop work actions can have devastating effects on employers with time-critical processes. For this reason, employees who engage in “wild-cat” snap strikes or bans instead of following proper dispute resolution processes will face significant consequences.
Employees will face a mandatory minimum deduction of four hours’ pay for any incident of bad industrial action and it will be unlawful to pay or demand to be paid for this period.
In the case of good industrial action, our system will provide proportional, sensible and workable options for employers to respond.
Employers will not be permitted to pay strike pay, as is the case at present. If an employee stops work and the action is good, their pay must be deducted, but only for the actual period of time the employee stopped work, not for any mandatory minimum period – as under Work Choices. It will still be unlawful to claim or pay strike pay.
But in the case of partial work bans, employers will be able to use their discretion to either: tolerate the bans; stand down or lock out employees; or issue a ‘partial work notice’ and make deductions proportional to any work not performed. Fair Work Australia will be able to review whether the amount deducted is proportional if required.
As the ultimate response to industrial action, employers will be able to lock out employees. But offensive, pre-emptive lockouts – taken by the employer when employees haven’t taken any industrial action – will no longer be permitted.
Labor said in Forward with Fairness that we’d return the emphasis to enterprise-level collective bargaining whilst keeping clear, tough rules for industrial action; and we have…
“These are feral, low-life people that want society to be in a state of near anarchy for their own perverse pleasure. Let’s not mince words here. People who say they are anti-war but resort to violence and destruction to put their case are clearly a bunch of people who are dangerous to society. These are just anarchists that enjoy disrupting civil society. They do not have one fig of credibility.” ~ SA Deputy Premier, Treasurer, Minister for Industry and Trade, Minister for Federal/State Relations Kevin Foley, September 6, 2008
Emerging barefooted from the rainforests, and stumbling through the haze of bong smoke that permanently fills their filthy student hovels, the feral low lifes of the ultra-militant and ultra-radical group Mutiny — after single-handedly closing down the arms fair planned for Adelaide in November — have achieved another milestone: the publication of the 30th issue of their zine.
Penetrating the numerous layers of trust and complex systems of information management s/he has installed is no easy task, but for reasons best known to him/herself, the leader of Mutiny has made a major security faux pas, and the latest # has escaped prison and been made available for public viewing on teh Interwebs (possibly by a rival faction keen to undermine the leader’s authority). In a pathetic attempt to acquire some precious figs of credibility, the September 2008 edition contains:
* A day-by-day account of the actions at the Climate and Anti-Racism Camps in Hamburg.
* ‘Feral anarchists’ respond to claims that they are responsible for the cancellation of the Adelaide War Fair.
* FYI, a report on the release of the police files about the APEC excluded persons list through an F.O.I. request.
* The Student Housing Action Cooperative in Melbourne squat a building as part of a campaign towards accessible housing for all.
* News from Melbourne, Aotearoa, Peru, USA and Greece.
* Review of ‘Boundary Songs’, an audio walk around Redfern, by Duncan Speakman.
The publication of this new tract considerably ups the ante for local, Melbourne anarchists. Their best efforts to date were documented by the Walkley Award-winning Investigative Unit at the Sunday Herald Sun, spearheaded by veteran gumshoe Chris Tinkler (‘Out of control’, March 18, 2007):
DRUG use and under-age drinking have been exposed at a wild “all-ages” benefit gig for rioters charged over Melbourne’s G20 protests. Children as young as 10 slugged beer in front of their dazed parents, a mother smoked cannabis beside a pram containing her baby and youths openly snorted powder off a table at Friday night’s event… anti-capitalist chanting and police-baiting that characterised the G20 riot were absent — replaced by drunken and drug-fuelled debauchery…
Concerned citizens are being urged by authorities to continue posting critical comments on Andrew Bolt’s and Tim Blair’s blogs. To augment their efforts, Hill & Knowlton have released this documentary-style video, featuring a re-enactment of a recent meeting organised by the editorial staff at Mutiny at their Top Secret HQ somewhere in Sydney:
Finally, some cautionary words from veteran Marxist revolutionary Mick Armstrong: “The anarchist crazies involved in the production of this ultra-violent publication are in no serious sense part of any social movement. Just like their black bloc mates in Europe, they simply exploit teh Interwebs for their own purposes. The left should offer no comfort to these crazies. We should do whatever we can to isolate them. They are wreckers. If they grow in Australia it will simply make it harder to build future protests, movements and paper sales.”
Questions Emerge Over Police Conduct in St. Paul
Colin Moynihan The New York Times
September 16, 2008
It has been more than a week since the Republican National Convention ended, and in many ways life in St. Paul is back to normal. Tear gas no longer clouds the streets, windows shattered by protesters have been replaced, and the thousands of visitors have left town.
But questions are now emerging about the tactics that the police used to control the many rallies and marches that took place. Last Wednesday city officials appointed two former federal prosecutors to review the planning and strategies used by the police before and during the convention.
Tom Walsh, a spokesman for the St. Paul police department, said Monday that the officers had performed well in unusual conditions, sometimes facing hundreds who he said were intent on disrupting the convention or damaging property.
“No one was treated for a serious injury,” Mr. Walsh said. “You’re going to see that the amount of force used, in my view, matched the need.”
Mayor Chris Coleman said in an interview last week that the two former prosecutors looking into the incidents would conduct a broad overview without looking into specific complaints.
“Were going to look at the planning and implementation of security and public safety measures during the convention,” Mayor Coleman said. “I think we did have a safe and successful convention.”
For many St. Paul residents, the four days of the convention were turbulent ones for their tranquil and stately city overlooking the Mississippi River. There were nonviolent rallies, acts of vandalism and sporadic confusion and disorder, all taking place against the unfamiliar backdrop of streets lined with tall metal fences and patrolled by officers from more than 100 agencies, including some in riot gear or on horseback .
Although most of the demonstrations were peaceful, small groups of masked figures smashed windows, attacked a police car and knocked an officer to the ground on the first day of the convention. Ultimately, more than 800 people, including about two dozen credentialed journalists, were arrested. Dozens more were handcuffed and photographed without being accused of any crime. And police officers in some instances used pepper spray, tear gas, bullets made of plastic and foam and flash grenades that exploded with a burst of light and a sharp bang.
In a city with a history of good relations with its police, some people have found the strategies employed during the convention discomfiting, said Dave Thune, a St. Paul city councilman, who received complaints from residents arrested in police sweeps or engulfed by clouds of gas.
As a result, Mr. Thune is organizing a meeting to discuss just what took place.
“When clearly the bulk of the peaceful people weren’t joining in a riot, why did we have to go to the extent of using tear gas and percussion grenades?” he said. “People weren’t supposed to get trapped by police or forced into situations where they could be arrested.”
The last two Republican conventions, held in Philadelphia and New York, were also marked by arrests and recriminations. New York City still faces more than 500 federal court claims stemming from police tactics.
While 1,800 people were arrested at that 2004 convention, there were a proportionately high number of arrests in St. Paul, where the protests were much smaller. In addition, critics say, the use of chemicals have set this convention apart.
“It was an unprecedented show of police presence and display of force,” said Bruce Nestor, the president of the Minnesota chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, which is defending many of those arrested. “Minnesota has never seen this level of militarization of local police.”
Law enforcement officials raided homes and made arrests even before the convention began. The Ramsey County Sheriff’s office, which is based in St. Paul, said the homes it searched were inhabited by people connected to an anarchist organization called the R.N.C. Welcoming Committee.
Eight people described by the authorities as members of the group were accused of conspiracy to commit riot in furtherance of terrorism based on statements by confidential informants who told investigators that the group had discussed kidnapping delegates and sabotaging an airport.
Lawyers for the defendants say the charges are baseless and have questioned the reliability of statements made by the informants, including one who the authorities say was paid by law enforcement.
Pigs in St Paul, Minnesota, after having raided a convergence space and a number of other buildings, have charged eight anarchists, allegedly members of the RNC Welcoming Committee, with being unpatriotic and conspiring to commit terrorism:
On Wednesday eight members of the anarchist protest group the Republican National Convention Welcoming Committee (RNCWC) were charged under provisions of the Minnesota state version of the Patriot Act [The USA PATRIOT Act, commonly known as the Patriot Act — an Act of Congress signed into law on October 26, 2001 by George II. The contrived acronym stands for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001″] with “Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism.” The eight charged are all young, and could face up to seven-and-a-half years in prison under a provision that allows the enhancement of charges related to terrorism by 50 percent. They are: Monica Bicking, Eryn Trimmer, Luce Guillen Givins, Erik Oseland, Nathanael Secor, Robert Czernik, Garrett Fitzgerald and Max Spector…
According to the Los Angeles Times (Terrorism charges filed in alleged plot to disrupt GOP convention, P.J. Huffstutter, September 4, 2008): “The arrests follow a nearly yearlong investigation by the sheriff’s office and federal law enforcement agencies. An undercover investigator and informants were used to monitor the group, according to court documents. The inquiry found that the group had connected with sympathetic factions in dozens of cities to recruit volunteers and raise funds, according to the documents”.
During the convention, hundreds of officers wearing helmets with visors and armored vests and carrying long wooden sticks monitored large marches, some of which took place without a city permit. On at least three occasions the police fired 40-millimeter projectiles while dispersing or arresting the groups. Tear gas and pepper spray were used more frequently.
Some of those arrested said they were not participating in demonstrations, but were simply onlookers or journalists.
On the final night of the convention, as Senator John McCain was preparing to address delegates inside the Xcel Energy Center, the police prevented marchers who did not have a permit from crossing two bridges that led to the convention center. Later, as demonstrators took to the streets near the state capitol, the police lobbed flash grenades into the crowd while thick plumes of tear gas clouded the air. Then, several hundred demonstrators and more than a dozen journalists were directed onto a third bridge, where they were ordered to sit and place their hands on their heads.
Those trapped on the bridge included two reporters for The Associated Press, a photographer for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and two Fox News editors.
“At some point even a journalist has to recognize that they are in violation of the law,” Tom Walsh, a St. Paul Police spokesman, said as the arrests were taking place. “Are they going to get arrested or are they going to cover it from a distance?”
See also : Keith McHenry, ‘Food Not Bombs, Surveillance and Disruption: America’s Dirty Little Secret, Domestic Surveillance’, for a potted history of over twenty of government harassment. In Russia, FNB is subject to both government harassment and neo-Naziattack.
The FBI and other security forces are waging a national campaign against Food Not Bombs. Even though Food Not Bombs is dedicated to nonviolent social change our movement has been listed as a terrorist group by U.S. federal authorities. Volunteers arrested during raid of the Minnesota Food Not Bombs houses in the Twin Cities have been charged with “Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism.” In California the East Bay Food Not Bombs office at Long Haul was raided and 13 computers were taken. Elle Magazine reports that the Sacremento California office of the FBI paid a college student $75,000 to disrupt Food Not Bombs. The FBI provided her with blasting caps, plans to build a bombs and a car and house wired to record audio and video. As many as 20 volunteers are in U.S. prison accused of terrorism. The FBI claims they have infiltrated our movement disrupting our work to feed the hungry and work for peace.
The police raid on the Long Haul infoshop in Berkeley took place on August 27. Police “broke down every door, and confiscated all computers on the property. Computers taken included those used by the Slingshot Collective and East Bay Prisoner Support. Police also broke into cabinets, cut locks, and went through mail.” Police in Denver have also raided the DNC convergence space; another standard police tactic intended to maximise disruption.
“Behind you!” Anarchism and Terrorism
“I would rather kill chickens than kill kings. Chickens are good to eat. But a king, of what use is he?” ~ Errico Malatesta
Bourgeois assertions regarding the relationship between anarchism and political violence are routine. These assertions, while unsupported — and almost always unexamined — are brought back into mainstream circulation as often as they are required. (See, for example, Mary Evans, ‘For jihadist, read anarchist’, The Economist, August 18, 2005.) Most recently, the emergence in the West of movements against neo-liberalism — and, following that brief episode, the sudden irruption into public consciousness of Islamic fundamentalist terror — has rekindled bourgeois interest in this topic. According to some, this supposed reliance of anarchism on the commission of individual acts of terror is the inevitable result of its underlying ‘elitism’; for which reason, “rather than attempting to organise the mass of workers to fight for their own self-emancipation, [anarchists] rely on the actions of a self-chosen minority”.
Both contentions are radically false.
To begin with, the extent of anarchist terrorism has long been exaggerated, in fact massively so. The reasons for this are not that difficult to fathom, and are closely intertwined with the role of the anarchist monster as the bringer of ‘chaos’ and ‘destruction’ in the bourgeois imagination; in reality, the overthrow of bourgeois rule. Further, anarchism is not the only political tendency which has produced ‘terrorists’. For example, if one compares the nature and extent of anarchist acts of violence, even during their peak, anarchism emerges as one of the least violent of political traditions. And of those whom the anarchists did murder, the great majority were kings and presidents. Thus the years 1892 to 1901 are sometimes referred to as The Decade of Regicide. Those who kicked their gold-plated buckets at this time included President Sadi Carnot of France in 1894, Prime Minister Antonio Cánovas of Spain in 1897, the Empress Elizabeth of Austria in 1898, King Humbert of Italy in 1900, and President William McKinley of the United States in 1901.
In summary, Richard Bach Jensen writes:
While the number of assassinated heads of state and government, and of monarchs of major countries was unprecedented, the anarchists, outside of Spain, killed relatively few people. Nonetheless, the anarchists’ desire for dramatic signs of vindication, the authorities’ and the public’s fears of a vast anarchist conspiracy and the media’s hunger for sensational news combined to create the mirage of a powerful terrorist movement sweeping through nations and across the world. ~ ‘Daggers, Rifles and Dynamite: Anarchist Terrorism In Nineteenth Century Europe’, Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol.16, No.1, Spring 2004, pp.116-153
In fact, according to Jensen’s calculations, in 1890s France, Spain and Italy — the three countries in which the majority of dastardly anarchist outrages such as these took place — “real or alleged anarchists killed more than sixty and injured over 200 people with bombs, pistols and daggers”. Further, while “No one has yet attempted to calculate the total number of European and world victims of anarchist terrorism… [f]or the period 1880-1914 (excluding Russia) about 150 people died and over 470 were injured as a result of real or alleged anarchist attacks”.
By way of comparison, one might consider the many casualties that wars produced during the period 1880-1914. For example, four times as many Australians (606) died helping to keep South Africa British in the Anglo-Boer war of 1899-1902 than anarchists allegedly killed during this entire period; casualties in the Herero War in German Southwest Africa (1904-07) totalled 75,000; while Mike Davis (Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World) argues that the business policies of the imperial European landlords, merchants and bureaucrats in the face of the El Niño drought intensified these famines and thereby caused millions of deaths during the period 1876-1900. One might also compare these acts of terror with that unleashed by the Bolsheviks against their revolutionary — and often anarchist — opposition following their coup d’état in 1917…
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?"
