Do Not Disturb

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Whatever happened to Andrew Sanders?

RRTAA!

Andrew Sanders is an odd fellow.

In December 2005, Andrew came to the attention of anti-racist activists, and subsequently state authorities, after authoring a website titled Fightback. (Funnily enough, that site is now home to a Trotskyist groupuscule.) The site gave detailed instructions on how to prepare for the second Cronulla civil uprising — one scheduled, in the minds of the perhaps few dozen phantasists who masturbated online over its commencement, for the following weekend. Arrested by police / ZOG agents in the days following the Cronulla pogrom / civil uprising, Andrew was charged with a number of offences. Trial commenced in October 2006, and Andrew was eventually exonerated.

As a white supremacist, Sanders had form, joining the Stormfront site in October 2003 as ‘blue-eyed-devil’ and again in May 2004, when he employed the pseudonym ‘blue8eyed8devil’. (For those of you joining us late, the number ‘8’ is used by white supremacists to represent ‘H’, the eighth letter of the alphabet. ’88’ is ‘HH’, where ‘HH’ = ‘Heil Hitler’.) The main point of agreement uniting the various racist and fascist crackpots on SF is their hatred of Jews — a message to be “forged in titanium” according to the Amerikkkans who administer the site — and Sanders was no exception:

At risk of getting flamed and offending people, I must say, very few White Nationalists I know would be moved by the American dead during this farcical ‘war on terror’ as we all see them as futile masses working for ZOG. Whilst there is some innocence in ignorance, following their Zionist overlords without question to their death is their own choice.

They did not die for us, they did not die for the White Cause, they died for greater Israel. I can not mourn their deaths or I will be, as most judaeic [sic] brainwashed folk, a hypocrit [sic] blinded by hollywood inspired patriotism. ~ January 30, 2005

And just in case anybody missed it the first time around:

The jewish power base is in America like a cancer, I do not think in my lifetime or as long as my Race exists we will see a White America. ~ February 1, 2005

At one point, Sanders even expressed interest in attending a meeting of ‘Klub Naziya’, arranged by Australia’s Most Loved Neo-Nazi, Dävid Palmer. As for his website, posing as an interested — to be precise: enraptured — third party, Sanders had this to say (prior to his arrest):

A fantastic organisation has been setup for this express purpose, a combination of various groups I believe, they can be found at [Fightback] … they featured on the front page of the news papers today, I recommend you read through their guerilla handbook of this Sunday[‘]s protests, some awesome -awesome- ideas there.

We need to stand united this Sunday, every one of you needs to attend, no excuses should be made as no excuses will be tolerated when the stormfront breaks.

So one day when your kids ask “Where were you when the revolution started daddy?” you can reply, “In the vanguard.” ~ December 17, 2005

Eerily prophetic words, as just a few days later Sanders was indeed in the vanguard: the police vanguard.

“STALIN IS COOL HAHAHA I R B JEWISH FJEER MEH!”

Prior to his Cronulla-inspired shenanigans, Sanders spent some time on Stormfront outlining his views.

My biggest problem with most self declared White Nationalists is the fact they have bollocks like mice attached to them. Most will not stand up in public because that would be suicide, but alot [sic] draw the line when in a semi-closed group also.

Your problem from this post and from your other post really sounds as though it could be resolved if you were to network and get together a select group of friends. I don’t mean start a cult or group of psychotic whites spouting hail [sic] hitler at every given opportunity as that severely ruins our image.

Just a clean cut group of White youths who influence the world around them to match their political views and agendas.

Remember, to all those reading this post, you don’t see Jews marching through Time Square screaming “STALIN IS COOL HAHAHA I R B JEWISH FJEER MEH!”. Neither should we. ~ May 15, 2004

Sanders is a few stubbies short of a six-pack, obviously, but the above does conform to his subsequent behaviour, not only with regards Fightback, but also the Tunnel Rats and most recently ‘The Law Society of the University of Western Sydney’.

There are many great ideas in this thread, there are some which would be twisted into our backs as knives too. The ultimate fact is, we cannot change the world. The jews have spent the last three thousands [sic] years infiltrating us, they have spent since the begining [sic] of the presses taking control of them and other niche industries (gold, diamonds, power in general).

What you men and I do in our lifetimes will never counter that, at risk of a reich to match the past reichs, a revolution. Revolutions however are not easy wins, and once you lose you can expect your countries and people to be opressed [sic] with severe dogma from the still controlled media.

The only solution is to inhabit someplace [sic] small and logistically sound (like Tasmania), begin swinging votes by making circumcision illegal (bam, there goes the jewish population), which isn’t a hard thing as most parents and doctors refuse to do it anymore as mutilating one’s children serves no purpose. It’s 2005, we can all wash our genitals quite well now.

Secondly you make kosher and hallal [sic] slaughter and meat illegal due to the fact it is cruel to animals. Already we’ve got the majority of voters on side as these are concientious [sic] moral issues most people agree with. You could even go as far as swinging with the advanced scientific beliefs of the third reich of a vegetarian state, which was a very strong idea put forth by Mr H…

[Sanders then proceeds to expound on The Wonders of Tasmania.]

Once the three legislative changes above have been made you will have a relatively core group of society remaining. A coup d’etat wouldn’t be neccesary, with 10,000 people alone assisting the masses in accepting our idea the social economic change itself would be like starting a boulder rolling down a hill to freedom. ~ February 2, 2005

Uh-huh. To create the perfect White Nation, just follow this simple recipe:

1) Move to Tasmania.
2) With 10,000 others, assist the masses in understanding and accepting the White Nationalist cause.
3) Take over the Government.
4) Introduce legislation outlawing male circumcision, kosher and halal butchering.
5) Watch the boulder rolling down the hill to freedom.

And voilà!

Coincidentally, when Sanders received bail, one of the conditions for his release was that his mother keep him on a very short leash while in public.

But hey, Andrew, what about Jude? As it happens, in his first post on SF, Sanders made available to the melanin-deficient world a mighty -mighty- manifesto. After advising against the use of the term ‘Jewnited States of America’, Andrew writes:

The Jude organises himself through his church, through his social gatherings. Whilst their churches are unlike ours, they discuss matters directly affecting their people.

We on the other hand, as white nationalists, the men and women in the vanguard of our race, rattle chains, and throw stones at Israeli tanks, al [sic] la Palestinians.

This is NOT the way to win a war.

The implications in the post about the ADL that it was from a ‘goyyim’ [sic] defeated the purpose of the post and will bring their attention to the frame-up and is contra our efforts.

I live in Sydney, Australia. We too are infested with yids in power who are inbreeding our civilisation with asians and arabs in an attempt to water out our blood and prevent us from rising against tyranny.

Flyers are relatively pointless as they are merely white nationalists rattling chains and whinging. They will not help us.

The end game is approaching rapidly, coming closer every year, yet we let ourselves fall into this decay and disrepair as a species, and I’m sure that our overseers are quite pleased with this.

YOU MUST MAKE A CHOICE: — As a white nationalist you have two choices, you can either organise and strike clandestinely, or you can follow the path of destruction that many do, scream the odd ‘fsck the system’, rattle chains, and throw stones at tanks.

Our weakness is our lack of central communication, our lack of recruiting tactics, our lack of organisation and working as a team. We are seperated [sic]. Divided we are bound to fall.

We need SOLIDARITY, we need UNITY, we need each other.

What I ask of you men and women is that you simply think to yourselves for a moment, who do you know around you who shares your ideals? Your views? Your beliefs? Are they awakened to the cause that you are persuing [sic]? And if so, why aren’t you discussing or organising things with them specifically?

If you attend a church, is it one with a pulpit prostitute in the position of attention, or are they perhaps sympathisers to our cause?

If you attend a social group of any kind, do you know people there who are fed up with the persecution of our fellow men?

Why are you not contacting these people? Just a simple tap on the elbow, a wink, and a “I know how you feel.” will mean the world to most of us at any given time, to know there is that circle of brotherhood, or support amongst our own kind.

Whilst the governments of the world supress us, the ever present undereducated white nationalist (aka, red neck, skin head, what not) who are primarily our foot soldiers are defeating our entire purpose. What point is infantry when your officers are too busy sitting on their arses in an office killing time waiting for their next pay cheque?

We are too comfortable, and in comfort one finds laziness and lack of motivation. Because we are not directly being hurt, more often than not alot [sic] of us don’t SEE, don’t FEEL the damage that is being done to us.

I would like to make a motion, provided the administrators of this board are willing to allow it, that we organise a segment of this forum specifically to orchestrate communications between white nationalists. Whilst it is difficult to avoid detection of governmental bodies who will use the guise of us being ‘racists’ and ‘terrorists’ and attempt to track us down and find our dossiers, it is the only thing we have left.

I recommend that you do go to work and speak to fellow sympathisers for our cause, I suggest at church or at your social groups you speak to the leaders who have similar views and see how you can affect the thought pattern of millions of warriors amongst us who have yet to open their eyes to the truth.

Awaken those around you. If only 5,000 of us across the world were to speak with one person per day and let them KNOW that we are here, that it is okay to speak freely, and that we need to organise, in a week alone we would have 160,000 in one WEEK who are rallying to our cause.

We MUST unite, or we must accept our fate and fade away under the boot of the Jude. The choice, my brothers and sisters, is up to you. Do you want to be a part of the problem, or a part of the solution?

On reading this post, if you haven’t yet thought of one person you can speak with, I suggest you move to another country. I welcome you to come to Australia, and will give you any assistance you need, god only knows we need the numbers here.

Once you have your small networth [sic] of brethren together, register a hotmail account or another pseudo-anonymous web based email account and contact me via: –

[email protected]

Under the proviso we can get a working network of activists together I welcome the communication and will quite glady [sic] assist in orchestrating movements that will assist our cause.

If you are unable to get a single person on side with you, or do the little required to create some unity amongst us, then you may as well forget calling yourself a white nationalist and accept your fate under the boot of the Zionist occupational government of choice in the area you live.

Yours in brotherhood,

The Blue Eyed Devil. ~ October 27, 2003

A subsequent posting (October 30, 2003) from The Blue Eyed Tasmanian Devil (“Heil Hitler!”) reports progress on the above, and expresses his hope that “we can open up an entire new realm and hopefully manage to bring alot [sic] of groups that really damage our image into the frame with more avante gard [sic] WN cells”.

Almost five years later, it doesn’t appear that Sanders has given up on his efforts to confront The Yids in Power. Carefully avoiding the potentially damaging sight of Nazi uniform fetishists, and substituting this image for one of “a clean cut group of White youths who influence the world around them to match their political views and agendas” has taken a rather peculiar turn, however, with his establishment of something calling itself ‘The Law Society of the University of Western Sydney’.

So, what’s ‘The Law Society of the University of Western Sydney’? Apart from a figment of Sander’s imagination, the Society has a website; funnily enough, a Google search for it — lawsociety.org.au — results in not only a link to the Society but Andrew’s previous club, The Tunnel Rats. In any case, according to Andrew:

The Law Society of the University of Western Sydney was constituted on the 11th of September, 2007 at the Marsden Building (EZ) of Rydalmere campus. Operating across all campuses it’s main location of commencement, Rydalmere, draws upon a history dating back to the first settlement of the Rose Hill region by colonial British settlers on land once owned by the Darug nation.

From these eclectic roots the Law Society has taken into account its social responsibilities to the prestige of its forbearers [sic] and has sought to provide niche assistance in an area where a void has formed in relation to procedural aid, advocacy and assistance to those unable to obtain legal assistance through other means.

Building strong ties and relationships with the NSW Law Society, the Young Lawyers Association and Blacktown and Parramatta councils, the Law Society of the University of Western Sydney commenced an immediate rollout servicing all UWS campuses and communities nearby.

The Society began as a small project, when the current president who had been working and studying at the University of Western Sydney since 1999 found himself in a position where he was helping many students, staff and other community members with often minor procedural matters and directing them to already available resources that the general populace may not know is in place. In late 2005 due to an inability to assist all of the people seeking assistance he turned to the University to examine the apparatus in place to provide support in these regards…

That final sentence is a superb turn of phrase by Sanders: late 2005 being, of course, the beginnings of his troubles with ZOG.

The rest is simply badly-worded phantasy.

And who knows what other monkey business Andrew has been up to?

Posted in !nataS, Anti-fascism, History | Tagged | 154 Comments

egg benedict dot org

LOL!

Talk back to the Police-Pope state!

World Youth Day in July 2008, costing taxpayers $86 million, is a city-stopping, Sydney-wide recruiting fair for the Catholic church with its own anti-democratic police powers legislation. What’s not to love?

Pope Benedict XVI is a zealous anti-gay extremist, in 2006 leading the Vatican’s successful campaign against legal recognition of same-sex relationships in Italy. He has used his popeship as a platform to insult queer parents, to demean same-sex relationships, and to fight civil rights for GBLT people in the church and in secular society. This continues an obsession of long standing. And just recently he reiterated the church’s absolute opposition to contraception of all kinds: keep this in mind when you discover who in government promotes the Catholic agenda.

Inspired to talk back? The NSW government’s new laws allow police to arrest and fine people for “causing annoyance or inconvenience” to World Youth Day participants and permit partial strip searches at hundreds of Sydney sites, starting July 4.

So this collection of artwork for free download and distribution is designed to help you stand and fight. The artworks are made to be downloaded, printed, passed on, emailed, plastered about, and ironed onto tshirts… or undies, in case you’re strip-searched.

It’s all FREE. You’re welcome, though, to give a donation to support art production. Any amount is wonderful. Thank you!

egg benedict dot org

Ratso is funny… Pell… less so | Alas for you George!

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Alas for you George!

Whoops!

George Pell is a man who believes in transubstantiation (in Latin, transsubstantiatio): “the change of the substance of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ occurring in the Eucharist… while all that is accessible to the senses remain as before. In Greek it is called μετουσίωσις (see Metousiosis)”.

On this, I think, we can be fairly clear.

On matters less spiritual — which is to say, potentially costly, in terms of filthy lucre — George is less clear. Thus while a Church-sponsored investigation into claims of abuse concluded that the complainants’ allegations “be sustained without qualification”, George’s pen slipped when it came time for him to communicate this finding to the man in question: “In the 2003 letter, obtained by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Pell told Jones [the complainant] an internal report did not support his accusation of attempted aggravated sexual assault.”

George’s explanation?

He has today admitted that the letter to Mr Jones was badly worded. He says he made the mistake because he understood aggravated sexual assault to be synonymous with rape.

The letter said: “No other complaint of attempted sexual assault has been received against Father Goodall and he categorically denies the accusation.”

“Mr Murray was of the opinion that the complaint of attempted aggravated sexual assault cannot be considered to have been substantiated,” the Archbishop wrote.

So, two untruths. First, when George wrote that no other complaint regarding the priest in question had been received. In reality, on the very same day George wrote this, he also wrote another letter to another man, a former altar boy, acknowledging that the priest, Goodall, had assaulted him. Secondly, when George wrote that the Church investigator, Mr Murray, had found Jones’ complaint to be unsubstantiated. In reality, Murray concluded that Jones’ allegations “be sustained without qualification”.

Unmentioned thus far in media accounts of George’s innocent mistake has been the fact that he’s got form.

Pell’s man helped pedophile priests
Fia Cumming
The Sun-Herald
June 2, 2002

A new row broke out yesterday over the way Catholic Archbishop George Pell handled child-sex abuse cases, with claims his appointment of a psychiatry professor to deal with victims was “insensitive”.

Dr Pell, when he was archbishop of Melbourne in 1996, set up Carelink, a free counselling and support service for victims of clergy, in response to scandals plaguing the Catholic Church.

The man he chose to chair Carelink was Richard Ball, the former chair of psychiatry at St Vincents Hospital, Melbourne.

Professor Ball provided independent expert psychiatric reports which have been used in court for the defence of Catholic clergy. He had also helped treat priests accused of sexual abuse…

Among the trials at which Professor Ball gave independent expert evidence was that of one of Australia’s most notorious serial pedophiles, Father Gerald Ridsdale – a long-term associate of George Pell and the priest at the centre of a controversy over claims that Dr Pell tried to buy the silence of one of Ridsdale’s victims…

The criticism of Professor Ball’s role is likely to add to public disquiet over Dr Pell’s association with and treatment of sexual offenders within the church.

Several of the pedophiles for whom Professor Ball provided expert defence were well known to the Archbishop.

Dr Pell was a priest in Ballarat from 1971 and vicar in charge of the Catholic education system in the Ballarat Diocese, covering western Victoria, from 1973 to 1984.

Three Christian Brothers teachers from that era – Edward Dowlan, Robert Best and Stephen Farrell – have been convicted of sex offences against students at St Alipius Primary and St Patrick’s College in the early 1970s.

At the same time, the school chaplain and parish priest was Gerald Ridsdale.

For a year from early 1973, Ridsdale shared a house with Dr Pell at the St Alipius Presbytery, next door to the primary school.

When Ridsdale faced pedophile charges in May 1993, Dr Pell accompanied him to court to give him moral support.

Dr Pell, then an auxiliary bishop of Melbourne, said at the time that Ridsdale “had made terrible mistakes“. He said: “It was simply a gesture on my part.”

Three years later, on the eve of his swearing-in as archbishop of Melbourne, Dr Pell said he had had “no idea” about Ridsdale’s activities when they lived together.

“I lived there with him and there was not even a whisper,” Dr Pell said then. “It was a different age, it was never mentioned.”

…Shortly before being sworn in as archbishop of Melbourne in August 1996 – after Ridsdale and Best had been convicted – Dr Pell said his first priority was to restore the credibility of the church after the sex scandals.

Further:

…Ridsdale’s last parish appointment came in 1986 when he was posted to the town of Horsham, in Victoria’s Wimmera. He is reported to have told a colleague there that his past was catching up with him. And it was. In 1988, one of the Edenhope victims made a complaint, as did a Horsham woman whose son had been molested. But still the church protected him. In 1990, the year that Pell, by now an auxiliary bishop of Melbourne diocese, was made a member of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog – Ridsdale was packed off to New Mexico, where he was supposedly going to be reformed. In fact, he had a nine-month holiday, during which he did “locums” for the local diocese, and sexually abused children, some of whom have confronted the American church.

Time was, however, running out. In 1992, after being appointed chaplain at St John of God hospital in Richmond, NSW, a victim phoned Operation Paradox, a Victorian police child sex abuse phone-in. Three months later he was charged.

When he made his first court appearance in 1993, Pell was by his side. “My sympathies were always with the victims,” Pell said last week, adding that he “had little idea of the full extent and gravity of his (Ridsdale’s) crimes”. Pell now says his accompanying Ridsdale was a mistake, as it misled people about his position.

Just before the trial, Ridsdale travelled home to Ballarat to tell his family about his crimes. They were deeply shocked. He had, unbeknown to them, sexually abused some of his nephews, including David Ridsdale. David has claimed that Pell tried to silence him when he phoned him about the abuse in 1993. Pell denies this, and says, “David’s claims are inconsistent, discredited and wrong”.

What is not in dispute is the breadth of Ridsdale’s crimes. When he told his family, one asked: “How many, Gerald. Four, or five?”. He paused. “Hundreds,” was his reply.

“Please God we’ll be over this before World Youth Day.”

1) Australia cardinal denies cover-up of sex abuse
Tanalee Smith
AP
July 9, 2008

“SYDNEY, Australia (AP) — Australia’s top Roman Catholic cleric has denied trying to cover up a sexual abuse case involving clergy, attempting Tuesday to fight off an embarrassing scandal just days before Pope Benedict XVI arrives for a visit…”

2) Australian Catholic leader in sex abuse row before Pope’s visit
AFP
July 8, 2008

3) Church sex abuse row ahead of Pope’s Sydney visit
Michael Perry
The Washington Post (Reuters)
July 7, 2008

4) Pell denies sex abuse cover-up
Joel Gibson
Sydney Morning Herald
July 8, 2008

[img deleted]

5) Gospel of Matthew (Chapter 23)
‘Matthew’
New Jerusalem Bible
c.70–100CE

23 ‘Alas for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You pay your tithe of mint and dill and cummin and have neglected the weightier matters of the Law-justice, mercy, good faith! These you should have practised, those not neglected.

24 You blind guides, straining out gnats and swallowing camels!

25 ‘Alas for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of cup and dish and leave the inside full of extortion and intemperance.

26 Blind Pharisee! Clean the inside of cup and dish first so that it and the outside are both clean.

27 ‘Alas for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs that look handsome on the outside, but inside are full of the bones of the dead and every kind of corruption.

28 In just the same way, from the outside you look upright, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

29 ‘Alas for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build the sepulchres of the prophets and decorate the tombs of the upright,

30 saying, “We would never have joined in shedding the blood of the prophets, had we lived in our ancestors’ day.”

31 So! Your own evidence tells against you! You are the children of those who murdered the prophets!

32 Very well then, finish off the work that your ancestors began.

33 ‘You serpents, brood of vipers, how can you escape being condemned to hell?

Posted in !nataS | 2 Comments

Anarchism: Then & Now

Now

Anarchists and anti-authoritarians belonging to the RNC Welcoming Committee — an organising body preparing for the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota — have come to the attention of Faux News:

The Raw Story has the story:

Fox: Anarchists planning to ‘crash’ RNC convention
David Edwards and Muriel Kane
July 7, 2008

Since last summer, an anarchist group calling itself the RNC Welcoming Committee has been advertising its intention to be present at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN this September, even releasing a video showing black-clad figures cheerfully spreading the word…

The Bad News is that The Man appears to have succeeded in closing down the RNC Welcoming Committee websiteboth of them.

Then (& Now)

Meeting Spain’s last anarchist
Alfonso Daniels
BBC
July 8, 2008

Hours after flying on a rickety 19-seater propeller plane and landing on a dirt strip, you get to the village of San Buenaventura in the heart of the Bolivian Amazon.

Here, in a simple one-storey brick house next to a row of wooden shacks, is the home of Antonio Garcia Baron.

He is the only survivor still alive of the anarchist Durruti column which held Francoist forces at bay in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and the founder of an anarchist community in the heart of the jungle.

Mr Baron, 87, was wearing a hat and heavy dark glasses. He later explained that they were to protect his eyes, which were damaged when he drank a cup of coffee containing poison nine years ago.

It was, he said, the last of more than 100 attempts on his life, which began in Paris, where he moved in 1945 after five years in the Mauthausen Nazi concentration camp,* and continued in Bolivia, his home since the early 1950s.

Stateless

He was keen to share his views on 20th Century Spanish history with a wider audience.

“The Spanish press has covered up that the (Catholic) Church masterminded the death of two million Republicans during the civil war, not one million as they maintain,” Mr Baron said before launching into one of his many anecdotes.

    THE DURRUTI COLUMN

    Column of anarchist fighters during Spanish Civil War

    Led by Buenaventura Durruti until his death fighting Franco’s forces on outskirts of Madrid in November 1936

    After defeat of Republican forces in 1939, many surviving members fled to France. Many interned in French prison camps

    After Nazis invaded, many imprisoned in concentration camps, others joined resistance

“I told Himmler (the head of the Nazi SS) when he visited the Mauthausen quarry on 27 April, 1941, what a great couple the (Nazis) made with the Church.

“He replied that it was true, but that after the war I would see all the cardinals with the Pope marching there, pointing at the chimney of the crematorium.”

On the walls of Mr Baron’s house is a picture of him taken in the camp. Next to it is a blue triangle with the number 3422 and letter S inside, marking the prisoners considered stateless.

“Spain took away my nationality when I entered Mauthausen, they wanted the Nazis to exterminate us in silence. The Spanish government has offered to return my nationality but why should I request something that was stolen from me and 150,000 others?” he said angrily.

Mr Baron arrived in Bolivia on the advice of his friend, the French anarchist writer Gaston Leval.

“I asked him for a sparsely populated place, without services like water and electricity, where people lived like 100 years ago – because where you have civilisation you’ll find priests.”

Some 400 people, mostly Guarani Indians, lived there at the time, but in fact also a German priest.

“He was a tough nut to crack. He learnt of my arrival and told everyone that I was a criminal. They fled and made the sign of the cross whenever they saw me, but two months later I started speaking and they realised I was a good person, so it backfired on him.”

Convinced that the priest still spied on him, a few years later he decided to leave and create a mini-anarchist state in the middle of the jungle, 60km (37 miles) and three hours by boat from San Buenaventura along the Quiquibey River.

With him was his Bolivian wife Irma, now 71.

They raised chicken, ducks and pigs and grew corn and rice which they took twice a year to the village in exchange for other products, always rejecting money.

Dunkirk

Life was tough and a few years ago Mr Baron lost his right hand while hunting a jaguar.

For the first five years, until they began having children, they were alone. Later a group of some 30 nomadic Indians arrived and decided to stay, hunting and fishing for a living, also never using money.

“We enjoyed freedom in all of its senses, no-one asked us for anything or told us not to do this or that,” he recounted as his wife smiled, sitting in a chair at the back of the room.

Recently they moved back to the village for health reasons and to be closer to their children. They live with a daughter, 47, while their other three children, Violeta, 52, Iris, 31, and 27-year-old Marco Antonio work in Spain.

They also share the few simple rooms arranged around an internal patio with three Cuban doctors who are part of a contingent sent to help provide medical care in Bolivia.

The hours passed and it was time to take the small plane back to La Paz before the torrential rain isolated the area again.

Only then, as time was running out, did Mr Baron begin speaking in detail about Mauthausen and the war – as if wishing to fulfil a promise to fallen comrades.

How the Nazis threw prisoners from a cliff, how some of them clung to the mesh wire to avoid their inevitable death, how the Jews were targeted for harsh treatment and did not survive long.

His memory also took him to Dunkirk where he had arrived in 1940, before he was caught and imprisoned in Mauthausen.

“I arrived in the morning but the British fleet was some 6km from the coast. I asked a young English soldier if it would return.

“I saw that he was eating with a spoon in one hand and firing an anti-aircraft gun with the other,” he laughed.

“‘Eat if you wish’, I told him. ‘Do you know how to use it?’ he asked since I didn’t have military uniform and was very young.

“‘Don’t worry,’ I said. I grabbed the gun and shot down two planes. He was dumbstruck.

“I’ll never forget the determination of the British fighting stranded on the beach.”

*”On August 8, 1938, just a few weeks after the Nazi occupation of Austria, prisoners from the Dachau, concentration camp near Munich, were transferred to the Austrian town of Mauthausen, near Linz.

They were brought to the rock quarry there, known as the “Wiener Graben”, where they began to build the granite fortress-prison of the main camp, mostly with their blood, bodies, bare hands and backs. It was known as the “mother camp” for all of Austria, comprising some 49 sub-camps. Between Aug. 8, 1938 and May 5, 1945, about 195,000 persons, men and women, were forced into these camps. Most of the people were imprisoned under the Nazi “protective custody” laws, that is, they were consider dangerous to the Third Reich of Germany and Austria, and therefore, these two nations, now joined, had to be “protected” from these people because of their racial origin, nationality, political affiliation or religious belief. It should be noted that Austria contributed more volunteers for the SS, per capita, than did Germany.

The Mauthausen camp was one of the most infamous in the entire Nazi alternate universe of human destruction. Many people, most of whom were innocent of any crimes, were tortured to death in its rock quarry, and in the tunnels of Mauthausen-Gusen, the most infamous of the sub-camps. The policy of death through work was instituted by Chief of SS, Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler. Prisoners were to be given only the most primitive tools, and also, whenever possible, they were to work with their bare hands. This policy was known as “Primitivbauweise”. In Mauthausen it resulted in a harsh, stone world, deprived of any human kindness and compassion. It is there today still… sitting on a small mountain-top in the astonishingly beautiful and bucolic Austrian countryside, maintained by the Austrian government.”

See also : Jewish human rights group hunts Nazi ‘Doctor Death’ in Chile, Argentina, AP, International Herald Tribune, July 7, 2008: “The center says [Aribert] Heim’s sadism as a doctor at the Mauthausen concentration camp earned him the nickname “Doctor Death.” If alive, Heim would be 94…”

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Dad’s bid to free murder charge son Jock Palfreeman

Dad’s bid to free murder charge son Jock Palfreeman
Charles Miranda
The Daily Telegraph
July 8, 2008

A SYDNEY doctor will make a desperate bid to free his son from a possible life sentence in a Bulgarian jail by acting as a cross-examining de facto lawyer.

Dr Simon Palfreeman has watched from the public gallery as a court in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia raised the prospect of a life sentence for his son Jock for allegedly stabbing to death a student and wounding another.

However, the Sydney pathologist has been granted special dispensation to sit at the front bench today and assist defence lawyers in cross examining witnesses.

The move comes as doubts have been raised about what happened on the night of December 28 last year and the father-and-son team push for a self-defence plea.

Jock Palfreeman, a 21-year-old former St Ignatius College, Riverview, student, has been charged with the murder of Andrei Monov and wounding of Antoan Zahariev in a bloody brawl.

Palfreeman claimed he was going to the aid of a gypsy when he was set upon and had to defend himself against “drunken football hooligans”.

There is now evidence there had been a verbal argument between the group of university students and two locals.

It only lasted a few moments with the two fleeing the scene when they realised the group was up to 25 strong.

The group continued walking toward a nightclub when Palfreeman suddenly appeared allegedly waving a knife and yelling, “no to fascism, no to racism”.

Mr Zahariev gave evidence that the group tried to run from the man wielding the knife but he could not escape. He said he recalled bleeding on the ground with Palfreeman standing over him with the knife.

“I am 100 per cent sure that the guy that made the stabbing is the defendant,” he said.

When asked how he could be sure, he replied: “Just looking him in the eyes I am sure.”

Another witness, Tony Yordanov, claimed he heard the knife-wielding Palfreeman yelling in Bulgarian “aide, aide” – which means “come on” – in a challenging manner.

See also…

Jock Palfreeman in court (May 2, 2008)
Jock Palfreeman : Update (February 26, 2008)
‘Murder accused has star status’ (Er… Marnie? Um…) (January 20, 2008)
Palfreeman not scared, did duty (says Mister Miranda) (January 7, 2008)
Happy New Year, Suckers! // Justice 4 Jock (January 1, 2008)

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Ratso is funny… Pell… less so

That wascally wodent Ratso is soon to arrive on our shores, although his good friend (Blessed) Pier Giorgio Frassati — despite being dead — has beaten him to the punch, arriving on June 27. Sydney Archbishop George Pell has gone to some trouble to arrange for the dead Italian to holiday Down Under, but his care for the living — well, some minor segment of his flock, anyway — leaves a great deal to be desired, it seems.

Like: honesty.

In fact, apologies appear to be in order from George, following the revelation (“It’s A Miracle!”) that he, ah, ‘misled’ the victim of sexual abuse by a Catholic priest:

Pell letter misled sex abuse victim
ABC

New evidence has been revealed showing how its most senior figure, Cardinal George Pell, misled a man who complained of being abused by a Sydney priest. ABC1’s Lateline has documents that show Cardinal Pell wrote to the man telling him his sex assault allegation was not being upheld because the church had received no other complaints of sexual assault by the priest. But on the very same day, the Archbishop signed a letter to another man, upholding his claim that the same priest had sexually assaulted him when he was a young altar boy. The new documents also show that Cardinal Pell ignored the recommendations of the church’s own investigation. While many in the church are anticipating that the Pope will shortly apologise for the Australian church’s role in sexual abuse, the victim in this case says Cardinal Pell destroyed his faith and damaged his life. A letter from the Church’s lawyers suggested that for legal reasons the ABC should not reveal the documents.

This reaction from the Church is, of course, to be expected: these Men of God know that Law-Talking Guys are the first port-of-call in a storm. The second, perhaps, being Men With Guns; such, at least, appears to be the case in reference to the Church’s efforts to ensure Australia is a Paradise for Fellow Worker Ratso. Well, that’s what some hack reckons:

Church’s power request
Michael Pelly
The Australian
July 2, 2008

THE Catholic Church asked the NSW Government to give police extraordinary powers for World Youth Day and to protect more than 500 sites from ambush marketing. While Premier Morris Iemma said no “special deal” had been done for this month’s event, regulations passed last week go beyond last year’s APEC forum. The Australian understands the Government acted after a meeting of the Local Organising Committee of the Catholic Church on May 23. The committee, chaired by Cardinal George Pell, was concerned not only with quarantining protesters but also with protecting revenues from merchandise sales and advertising. The Government gazetted the regulations, which carry fines up to $5500, without their detail being discussed in parliament…

Poor old Pell’s troubles are further detailed in the Sydney Morning Herald (Pell accused of sex abuse cover-up, Erik Jensen and Alex Tibbitts, July 8, 2008) and in more general terms in the International Herald Tribune (Australian Catholic abuse victims want apology from Pope, Michael Perry (Reuters), July 7, 2008). See also : Kevin? Rude! Really, really rude! | Fuck the evil nazi pope! Only $5500.

Deliver Us From Evil:

Vows Of Silence:

    Suffer the Children

    Your unflappable conceptions
    Moralistic views
    Never open to criticism
    Your overpowering ruse

    Promises of sanctuary
    In eternal bliss
    With starry eyes and cash in hand
    Pledge all to the master plan

    Just face the truth or fund the farce

    At one with your god
    Your sole intent
    Your treasured place assured
    For a substantial rent

    Global lunacy
    Death threats for supposed blasphemy
    No room for free thought
    All non-believers pushed to the floor

    Aggressive tyrants
    Supposed saints for the cause
    Judgement through force
    Faith a fuel for pointless wars

    When all is done
    Who shall benefit? Who is the one?
    Not to those who pass on
    But those dictators divine waving their deceitful wands

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The Yartz vs. Carlin, KRudd & Nelson

Just when you thought it was safe… yeah yeah: the July edition of Art Monthly Australia has a ‘controversial’ cover, one featuring a photograph of a young child, taken in 2003 by Melbourne photographer Polixeni Papapetrou of her daughter Olympia. Unsurprisingly, KRudd has condemned the magazine; the photograph has soon-to-be ex-Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson hollering for a marshal. Curiously, unlike Bill Henson’s photographic productions, The Age (Fairfax Corporation) has declared the image of this particular person of interest to be deserving of publication. Funnily:

THE girl at the centre of the latest storm over child nudity in art yesterday defended the pictures, while Federal Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson called for a police investigation. Olympia Nelson, 11, appears naked on the cover of Art Monthly magazine in a photo taken when she was six years old by her mother, Melbourne photographer Polixeni Papapetrou. Speaking to the media outside her home yesterday alongside her father, Age art critic Robert Nelson, Olympia said she was “really, really offended” at Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s comments that he cannot stand the image…

See also : Bill Henson : Video response (June 2, 2008) | Bill Henson Again (Again) (May 29, 2008) | 2020 Open Letter in Support of Bill Henson; Bill Henson … Again (May 27, 2008) | Bill Henson : Crikey! says Clive (May 26, 2008) | Bill Henson : Art or Pornography? (May 25, 2008) | mgk / suki has an opinion down after complaint by local white supremacists to MD Webhosting (May 24, 2008)

Posted in Art, Sex & Sexuality, State / Politics | 6 Comments

Anarchy, Zimbabwe, Democracy, Torture

Long live Comrade Fatso!

The Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF) has published interviews with two libertarian activists from Zimbabwe: Biko Mutsaurwa, an anarcho-communist from the Uhuru Network and facilitator for the Toyi Toyi Artz Kollektive in Harare; and Comrade Fatso, AKA Samm Farai Monro, a cultural activist and artistic facilitator for Magamba! The Cultural Activist Network.

Torture? Democracy!

Here is the most chilling way I can find of stating the matter. Until recently, “torture” was something that the democratic state did only to the deserving. It was inflicted, and endured, by those members of the underclass who underwent the advanced form of training known as the CJS (Criminal Justice System). In these harsh exercises, poor men and women were introduced to the sorts of barbarism that they might expect to meet at the hands of a lawless foe who disregarded the Geneva Conventions. But it was something that Amerikkkans were being trained to ignore, not to ponder

One man who has done thunk on the subject is Darius Rejali, interviewed by Robin Lindley: “Water boarding. Hypothermia. Stress positions. Prolonged isolation. Sensory deprivation. These “clean” tortures leave deep psychological wounds but few physical scars—and they have been used for decades not only by dictatorships, but by democratic governments, including the United States.”

Knock me down with a feather.

Rejali makes a number of interesting observations in his interview. For example:

My great grandfather was a prince and wanted to be feared, so he wasn’t afraid to torture and kill people who he thought were terrorists and anarchists. His enemies all said his values [were not] worth it because he defended them using barbaric methods. And nobody really misses him. So I tell Americans don’t make the same mistake of my great-grandfather—don’t defend the values you have using barbaric methods because nobody will miss you either.

See also : The George Bush Presidential Library | The Clinton Presidential Library and Museum | Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Foundation | Et cetera

Note that during its most recent (and still ongoing) military occupation of Northern Ireland / the Six Counties, the British state conducted some path-breaking experiments in sensory deprivation on Republican prisoners, often on those held without trial. Prisoners were subjected to hooding, wall-standing, white noise, sleep deprivation and various other techniques designed to destroy their sense of self, and hence their ability and willingness to resist British authority. This form of state terrorism is also intended to have instructional value, the lesson being that those who defy state impositions will be destroyed, and so joining in any kind of collective resistance is rendered that much less attractive useless.

One of the obvious advantages of such techniques, over and above cruder forms of torture, is legalistic: it allows the people authorising such uses of force to do so while claiming that they do not support ‘torture’ (while at the same time, as in the case of US Vice President Dick Cheney, seeking legal approval to do just that).

Writing in The Guinea Pigs (Penguin, 1974, Minuteman Press, 1981), John McGuffin (1942–2002) defines sensory deprivation as follows:

Sensory deprivation (SD) refers literally to the artificial deprivation of the senses – auditory, visual, tactile and kinesthetic. In connection with the Northern Ireland ‘guineapigs’ it meant (1) hooding prisoners prior to their interrogation; (2) constant use of a sound machine which produces ‘white noise’, a high pitched hissing, mushy sound; (3) long periods of immobilization, being forced to lean against a wall, legs wide apart with only the fingertips touching the wall; (4) little or no food or drink; and (5) being forced to wear loose overalls, several sizes too big. In addition, (6) prisoners were deprived of sleep for days on end; while not technically SD this accentuates the process. There is a purpose behind all these actions. Measures (1), (2), (3) and (5) cause visual, auditory, kinesthetic and tactile deprivation while measures (4) and (6) deprive the brain of oxygen and sugar necessary for normal functioning. In addition, measures (1), (4) and (6) may disturb the normal body metabolism.

No doubt US authorities have learned a great deal from their British counterparts in this exciting field, and sensory deprivation also no doubt continues to prove to be a technique of great utility in the never-ending War on Terror™.

Believe me, it’s democracy.

Robin Lindley : You recount the torture of prisoners with electricity by Seattle police in the 1920s.

Darius Rejali : In the 1910s and 1920s, when electricity was new, several police forces used electric devices to get confessions from prisoners. In Seattle from about 1922 to 1925 there was a cell in the downtown prison with an electrified mat. The [prisoners] would be forced to walk on it, then the electricity would be turned on, and the prisoners would hop and skip and sparks would fly until [they] confessed. The great thing about that was that electricity didn’t leave marks.

And that was one of several cases. In Dallas, they attached prisoners to a battery. In Arkansas, they had a portable electric chair in a sheriff’s office that didn’t kill [but] shocked during interrogations. The oldest is “the hummingbird,” the first electrical device used in 1908 in prisons in New York, as documented by the anarchist and writer Emma Goldman. She had a long-term correspondence with prisoners [who] described the hummingbird. It was probably an electrical device that hummed with current like an early cattle prod. That was the first electric torture device used on helpless individuals by state officials for the purpose of intimidation.

Most forget that America is the place where electro-torture began—not Nazi Germany. And it began for important reasons: a socialist opposition, press who followed the police, church groups. The police wanted to avoid bad publicity when they could, so they used these [devices]. It’s similar to the way stun guns and tasers are used today on populations that generally aren’t cared about in conditions that are hard to document.

Posted in Anarchism, State / Politics, War on Terror | Leave a comment

Arrests and Detentions of Activists and Independent Journalists in Japan

Japan July 7th-9th – In the lead up to the G8 Summit in Japan from July 7th through 9th, Japanese authorities have arrested domestic activists and have detained numerous foreign independent media journalists and anti-G8 protesters. At least six independent journalists and ten academics have been detained by Japanese immigration officials in the past weeks, including Andrej Grubacic, professor of sociology at the University of San Francisco. Police arrested eight protesters on June 29, as 1,500 people marched against the G8 Summit in Tokyo’s fashionable fashionable Shibuya and Shinjuku districts. Earlier this month, workers in Kamagasaki clashed with police and security in the face of violent repression and brutality against at least one worker.

Japan’s security budget for the G8 Summit is at least 30 billion yen ($283 million), topping the 113 million euros ($186 million) Germany spent to host the summit of the world’s most powerful “democratic” nations.

[FCUK the G8!]

The G8 Summit will be held in the resort town of Toyako on the northern island of Hokkaido. Japanese activists opposing the summit call it an “arbitrary meeting of governments dominating the global financial market with the World Trade Organization and Free Trade Agreeements”. They object to the fact that developing nations are forced to accept agreements like NAFTA in exchange for ODA (Official Developmental Assistance).

At the local level, they are concerned that in recent years Japanese social welfare has been reduced and the working poor have suffered. Agribusiness, a favorite topic of G8 discussion, runs counter to Japanese tradition of respect for individual farmers. At the same time, the US is urging Japan to re-arm despite having a constitution imposed by US Occupation Forces that calls for Japan to forever remain a peaceful nation.

The US led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are also targets of the G8 protests, and caricatures of President Bush with the theme “Wanted for Murder” were seen in internet video of the demonstrations.

On June 30th, the Counter-G8 International Forum opened in Hokkaido and will conclude on July 1st. Media G8way reports that anti-G8 activists from Japan and across the world came together to strategize on how to resist the G8 and construct alternatives to a system in which “financial crises, food crises and ecological destruction are inherent.”

Meanwhile, organizers continue to prepare protests and demonstrations against the summit. Daily six hour marches are planned from one of the main camps, Toyoura camp, into town, and a major demonstration estimated at 10,000 people is scheduled for July 5 in Sapporo.

No-G8! | Protests ahead of G8 summit in Japan, Julian Ryall, Telegraph.co.uk, July 6, 2008 | G8 summit: Breathtaking venue with no protesters to spoil the view, Justin McCurry, The Guardian, July 5, 2008 (“Huge Japanese security operation to keep anti-globalisation activists far from leaders”) | G-8 summit draws grab-bag of activists, causes / G-8 summit invokes use of journalistic cliches, tropes, Joseph Coleman, AP, July 7, 2008

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