APEC : Aussie Aussie Aussie, Baa Baa Baa

Posted on September 7, 2007 by @ndy

A man wanted in connection with [G20] violence was arrested in Sydney last night by APEC Investigation Squad detectives. Akin Sari, 29, is the subject of two outstanding warrants after failing to appear in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on 16 charges, including riot and affray, unlawful assembly, reckless conduct, criminal damage and theft. The Melbourne court has previously heard allegations Sari violently attacked and smashed the windows of a police brawler van outside the G20 venue. Mr Scipione said Sari had been on the police exclusion list and his arrest was “significant”. “This serves as a warning to anyone on that list, we are serious about your inclusion on that list because at the end of the day you are on there because we anticipate you will cause trouble,” Mr Scipione said.

Anti-APEC protests in Sydney today were largely peaceful, but Prime Minister John Howard late today scolded protesters for failing to see the positive social and economical benefits of APEC. In his closing address to the APEC business summit, Mr Howard said: “I’ve said on many occasions over the last week, that those who demonstrate at a gathering such as APEC, in the name of relieving world poverty, just pause for a moment and understand the contribution that economic growth makes to the relief of world poverty.”

Earlier, a man had been charged with assaulting police by squirting tomato sauce, about 200 demonstrators were yelled at by police when they surrounded cars near Hyde Park and members of The Chaser TV comedy team were detained but quickly released after another APEC stunt. The protester arrest followed a clash between supporters of US President George W Bush and No-To-APEC demonstrators in Hyde Park. About a dozen members of Aussies 4 ANZUS walked their pro-Bush banner through 500 protesters at the No-to-APEC rally, where they were quickly met by jeers and flying tomato sauce. Police swarmed and riot squad officers arrested a man who witnesses said had squirted tomato sauce at the pro-Bush banner. The 37-year-old Queensland man was later charged with assaulting police, who were allegedly squirted with the sauce.

Later, there were minor scuffles when a protest involving around 50 bare-bottomed activists spilled onto Sydney streets, stalling an APEC motorcade…

The Australian Legend looked at nationalism and the Australian character and sought to trace the development of what Ward called the “national mystique”. Dictionaries define “character” as the traits and qualities that distinguish individual nature and “identity” as the state of having unique identifying characteristics. The “national character” and the “national identity”, then, are much the same thing.

Ward wrote that national character was a people’s idea of itself. Although this was often romanticised or exaggerated, it connected with reality in that it sprang from people’s experiences and coloured their ideas of how they ought to behave. According to the myth, Ward said, the “typical Australian” was “a practical man, rough and ready in his manners and quick to decry any appearance of affectation in others. He is a great improviser, ever willing ‘to have a go’ at anything, but … content with a task done in a way that is ‘near enough’. Though capable of great exertion in an emergency, he normally feels no impulse to work hard without good cause. He swears hard and consistently, gambles heavily and often, and drinks deeply on occasion …

“He is a ‘hard case’, sceptical about the value of religion and of intellectual and cultural pursuits generally. He believes that Jack is not only as good as his master but … probably a good deal better … He is a fiercely independent person who hates officiousness and authority … Yet he is very hospitable and … will stick to his mates through thick and thin, even if he thinks they may be in the wrong.”

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APEC : Disaster narrowly averted by quick-thinking Justices

Posted on September 7, 2007 by @ndy

The Order of Australia has been preserved and the importance of individual citizens taking personal responsibility for their potentially dangerous character has been reaffirmed today:

APEC blacklisters lose court challenge
Sydney Morning Herald
September 6, 2007

Four men blacklisted by NSW police from attending any APEC protest have lost their appeal against the ban in an exceptional late-night court sitting in Sydney. The challenge was launched by the men – Dan Jones, Paddy Gibson, Dan Robbins and Tim Davis-Frank – who claimed the ban is unconstitutional… In the end the [three] justices [of the NSW Supreme Court] held that the banning of a limited number of potentially dangerous people from a protest, in a limited area, for a limited amount of time, served the legitimate end of responsible government.

Further words of wisdom…

1) It is to be remembered that the erosion of civil liberties occurred very gradually in South Africa. In 1948, before the Nationalist government took power, there was little difference in the laws and the attitudes of the people to those which you would find in most western countries. Changes in attitudes were gradually effected by propaganda (involving largely appeals to patriotism) and changes in the law. The fundamental proposition was that any person who did not agree with the changes to the laws was not a true patriot and an enemy of the people. Gradually, it became difficult to speak out without being faced with government and community opprobrium…

2) Almost every major reform in modern history – including the much vaunted Christian opposition to slavery – was opposed by both the organised churches and a majority of individual Christians…

3) Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress… Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others.

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

APEC : Return of the Son of Jonny Hammerlock

Posted on September 6, 2007 by @ndy

This is Jonny. He’ll be busy at Homebush today
Kara Lawrence (Police Reporter)
The Daily Telegraph
November 14, 2002

Police say it is an “appalling” image that proves anti-World Trade Organisation protesters have violence on their minds. This man — calling himself Jonny Hammerlock — volunteered to be photographed outside the disused cinema in Parrammatta Rd, Homebush Bay, that is being used as the headquarters for today’s anti-WTO protest…

Unprompted by The Daily Telegraph, “Jonny” donned a balaclava, removed his shirt, took a marijuana-smoking “bong” with water in it and stuffed a cloth into it — clearly imitating lighting a molotov cocktail…

As The Daily Telegraph yesterday approached the Midnight Star theatre [February to December 2002*] in Parramatta Rd, which acts as a base for protesters, few were willing to talk about the plans for the protest. When Jonny found out there was a media crew present, he said: “You’re all c…s.”

He denied us access into the building, shutting the security door and saying, “We have our orders.”

He later changed his mind, volunteering to be photographed, but would not be interviewed, saying, “I’m not a spokesperson.”

Fast forward almost five years:

‘I’ll be the one throwing rocks’
Lincoln Archer
Limited News
September 6, 2007

A MEMBER of a protest group involved in clashes with police around the world has said they are ready for violence at this week’s anti-APEC march through Sydney, as police issue dire warnings of the threat of crowd trouble.

The protester, whom NEWS.com.au will not name, is part of a group known as Black Bloc, whose members dress head to toe in black at anti-globalisation protests around the world. He has said he is prepared for violence to break out, but added the protesters also have a serious point to get across.

Similar groups include Arterial Bloc – whose members dress in white and are alleged to have been involved in violence at last year’s G20 protest in Melbourne – and Red Bloc, which is also planning to join the anti-APEC march.

He has said the bloc is not, as is widely reported, a single organisation but is instead a collection of smaller groups. He has said members block off streets, “un-arrest” people being taken away by police and give first aid to those injured in clashes – and can also engage in violence themselves.

“I know what to do in case of a riot, or police violence. If things turn rough and there’s a scuffle with the police, I can’t lie, I’d be one of the people throwing rocks,” he said.

“Most Black Bloc activity is peaceful, it’s just the few violent protests that gives Black Blocs a bad name. Black Bloc do dangerous things, yes, but in the struggle for a better world.”

Full-scale riot

The top riot squad officer in New South Wales, Chief Superintendent Stephen Cullen, told the state’s Supreme Court yesterday that a full-scale riot is “probable” and that he was braced for the worst violence of his career.

“Police lines will come under attack and a full-scale riot is probable,” he told the court during the hearing that has seen the protest march route moved away from the declared area in central Sydney.

The Black Bloc activist has said he is expecting the protest, planned for Saturday morning in central Sydney, to turn violent. And he has admitted part of him wants the rally to turn rough.

“A part of me does and a part of me doesn’t. There’s something in everyone that makes them want to riot.

“I’m worried about cops taking it too far. I’m worried about protesters taking it too far… But this is more important than just rioting. It’s about having our opinions heard.”

He has said the protesters have a right to show their dissent at what he called the “disgusting” policies of John Howard and George W. Bush.

“Everyone protesting is protesting because we have a sense of conscience and know that what people like Howard and Bush are doing is wrong. Wars for oil, keeping the poor poor, letting the world get more and more polluted until we’re pretty much screwed. It’s [disgusting.]”

But he has acknowledged that the strict security measures in place for the APEC summit will make it hard to be heard by those in power.

“World leaders will barely notice us because we’re being kept back so far, which is why we need try to our hardest to make a big noise and force them to listen. I’d settle for a peaceful protest resulting in protesters’ views being taken seriously.”

    Uh-huh. In other ‘news’:

Media Release
AC/DC condemns police action in court today that led to march ban
September 5, 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

In court today [Wednesday, September 5] police named the groups AC/DC, Mutiny, Arterial Bloc and the Socialist Party and said that they would be at the rally on Saturday and that this was a reason to refuse permission for Saturday’s planned protest route.

AC/DC condemns the linking of our name to threats of violence. The police are engaging in unfounded scare mongering and they are using this orchestrated smear campaign to undermine civil rights.

AC/DC is working with Stop Bush and Flare in the Void and other groups to enable a mobilisation on the basis of collective safety against police violence on Saturday.

“We have been working together to keep people safe from police violence,” said AC/DC spokesperson Liz Turner. She said “the police have a water cannon, they have erected massive concrete walls. These pose a major threat to public safety.”

Today Stop Bush said that they support civil disobedience. So does AC/DC. Liz Turner points out that “the result of the police actions today is that by simply participating in the march on Saturday everyone will be participating in civil disobedience”.

    Stop Bush organisers have apparently voted to accept teh police re-drafting the route of the march.

Liz Thompson went on to say that “Stop Bush has always maintained that the march will go ahead, whether it has a permit or not. We support this position.”

She went on to say that “as we have said all along, it is the police who have planned to use violence in the lead up to APEC. This stunt in court is the latest police action to deflect their own threat of violence onto the protesters and protest organisers. It won’t work. It is ridiculous to try and blame us for the broader violence of the policies of APEC and the NSW police.”

Liz Turner stated that “the NSW police are constructing urban militarism on the streets of Sydney and the people of Sydney won’t stand for it. People have the right to respond with anger.”

AC/DC would like journalists to note that police undermine the credibility of the evidence they presented to court today by naming Mutiny and Arterial Bloc.

AC/DC point out that Arterial Bloc only existed for a day in 2006 and [is] not an ongoing entity and that Mutiny are not involved in organising APEC protests. Either police are knowingly using these group’s names as paper tigers in an orchestrated smear campaign or they have a very poor quality of intelligence data.

We repeat, Arterial Bloc [does] not exist! Anyone who read their call-out in 2006 should know this.

    * A group in Sydney named ‘SquatSpace’ (“artists and activists engaged with the politics and pleasures of space in the city”) states with regards Social Centres in Australia:

    “The social centre movement in Australia is a new concept. The most visible display began in earnest with a push from a group of activists galvanised by the example of the Broadway squats, Sydney 2000. The Social Centre Autonomous Network (SCAN) formed as a collection of self organised groups who make decisions through the network to occupy and organise around squatted social centres. SCAN aim to liberate property from real estate loop-holes, where owners sit on their properties, letting them rot away. SCAN wants to make spaces outside the boredom of work and consumption — spaces for creativity and social change beyond standard protests, like petitions and rallies…”

    In reality, the practice of squatting buildings for ‘social’ as opposed to purely ‘private’ (residential) purposes has a long history. To cite one example, on January 1, 1987 (1987 having been designated International Year of Shelter for the Homeless) squatters occupied a disused cafe opposite Princess Pier in Port Melbourne. Subsequent activities included the usual array of meetings, workshops, benefit gigs, film screenings, performances, a cafe (needless to say!), etcetera.

    Perhaps the only thing missing was ‘art’.

    To cite another, more recent example: The Brown Warehouse in Wellington Street, Collingwood (now a yuppie apartment complex). First squatted in the late ’80s as a cafe and performance space, it was re-squatted in the mid- ’90s, and used for much the same purposes (Dropdead even played a gig there), at first providing temporary accommodation in the city for forest blockaders, later becoming a more permanent residential and social space.

    In a related case, during the 1980s and into the early- ’90s, the Squatters Union of Victoria: maintained an office and meeting space (in an abandoned fire station in North Fitzroy); produced a radio show; distributed a bi-monthly zine (Squat It!), conducted a weekly community cafe; operated a telephone advice service; produced leaflets, stickers and various other forms of propaganda (in addition to the bi-monthly zine); organised benefit gigs; resisted evictions; and engaged in various other activities in solidarity with others engaged in workplace (for example, the BLF) and community struggles.

Posted in !nataS, Anarchism, Collingwood, History, Media, Music, Poetry, State / Politics, War on Terror | Leave a comment

APEC : At last! Sock monkeys join the battle

Posted on September 6, 2007 by @ndy

A spectre is haunting APEC — the spectre of sock monkeys. All the powers of APEC have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: President and Prime Minister, Rice and Downer, wildly-overpaid TV personalities and incompetent Australian police-spies. Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as sock monkeyistic by its opponents in power? Where is the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of sock monkeyism, against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries?

Two things result from this fact:

I. Sock monkeys are already acknowledged by all APEC powers to be in themselves a power.

II. It is high time that sock monkeys should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the Spectre of Sock Monkeyism with a manifesto of the party party party itself…

‘Full-scale riot likely’ in Sydney
Andrea Petrie
The Age
September 6, 2007

POLICE are expecting up to 20,000 people to attend an anti-APEC protest in Sydney at the weekend and the state’s top riot officer told a NSW court yesterday there was likely to be a “full-scale riot”. Riot squad commander Steven Cullen told Sydney’s Supreme Court that officers were expecting large-scale violence. “Police lines will come under attack,” Chief Superintendent Cullen said. He said that while the organisers of the Saturday march, the Stop Bush Coalition, planned a peaceful protest, police believed sock monkeys were likely to incite violence as they had at Melbourne’s G20 riots last November…

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Spies : The more things change

Posted on September 6, 2007 by @ndy

Odd clothes and unorthodox views – why MI5 spied on Orwell for a decade
Stephen Bates
The Guardian
September 4, 2007

The extent to which Special Branch police monitored George Orwell as a suspected communist has been revealed in papers disclosed for the first time today at the National Archives in Kew. The documents, which include details of surveillance between the 1920s and 60s, indicate not only the wide range of groups and individuals being watched by police but also officers’ spectacular ability to misjudge what they saw. The obtuseness of some exasperated their superiors. A Sergeant Ewing of Special Branch, monitoring Orwell’s attempt to recruit Indians to work for the BBC’s India service in January 1942, noted: “This man has advanced communist views … He dresses in a bohemian fashion both at his office and in his leisure hours.”

…

A file from 1941 contains 13 pages of reports on a strike by dockyard apprentices in Chatham which followed a complaint about the standard of canteen food. It includes a report by Sergeant Ivan Smith of the Kent police, who hid himself in the gents’ toilet at a working men’s club in Gillingham to listen to the speakers at a union meeting: “I was unable to hear the majority of the proceedings owing to my obscure position in the lavatory and to the fact that a boy was standing in the cloakroom door the whole time,” it says. “I heard someone say that the best thing would be to have all the big fellows for that job [on the picket line]. The reply was that all present at the meeting should take their share and no shirking. The meeting closed at 1630 hours but I was unable to leave until 1655 as some of the apprentices were in the hall until that time.”

[Sergeant Ivan Smith of the Kent police sounds to have been about as competent as the two blokes from NSW who appeared at both the Forbes (April, 2005) protests in Sydney and the G20 (November, 2006) protests in Melbourne… But that’s another story.]

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Bush : “Sorry for the inconvenience”

Posted on September 5, 2007 by @ndy

Sorry for the inconvenience, says Bush
ABC
September 5, 2007

US President George W Bush has apologised for any inconvenience caused by his Presidency. A security clampdown all over the world has been dramatically increased since the US President ordered US armed forces to invade Iraq four years ago. President Bush says he is sorry to the world’s peoples but asked that they recognise the possible violent threat they constitute. “To the extent that I’ve caused this I apologise,” he said. “I don’t want to come to a country and [have people] say, ‘what a pain it is to have the American President‘. Unfortunately however, this is what the authorities thought was necessary to protect people and … you live in a free market, people feel like they want to protest, fine. They can, unfortunately. And, evidently, some people may want to try to be violent in their protests.”

See also : Joseph Wakim, A tale of two unpopular fences, The Courier-Mail, September 6, 2007, comparing and contrasting the wall in Sydney with the wall in Palestine, which an Israeli court has recently ruled must be re-directed in Bilin, the “Palestinian village that has come to symbolize opposition to the enclosure”. Bilin has been the site of weekly protests involving Israelis and Palestinians, local villagers and people from the other side of the planet, for almost three years. For further discussion, see Eileen Fleming, The Power of Nonviolent Persistent People, Dissident Voice, September 5, 2007; and more generally, International Solidarity Movement on Bilin | Anarchists Against The Wall.

Posted in !nataS | 5 Comments

Oh Crikey! it’s : APEC

Posted on September 5, 2007 by @ndy

Today Crikey! has published ‘Your cut out and keep APEC protest guide’ by Luke McKenna, a leftist trainspotters’ guide to who’s who in the anti-APEC Zoo. In it, Luke identifies ten main groups, to which I’ve added a little commentary.

1 ) Stop Bush Coalition (which “will return to being the Stop The War Coalition after APEC”): As Luke writes, this is a leftist coalition, dominated by the Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP)… or possibly Party (see below). The Coalition’s media go-to man is Alex Bainbridge, a 30-something veteran DSP member. The Coalition has organised a march for September 8, the route of which, incidentally, has just today been denied legal access by the courts (David Braithwaite / AAP, Police win protest action, The Age, September 5, 2007):

Protesters have been denied permission to march to the edge of police lines during an anti-APEC rally in Sydney on Saturday. The NSW Supreme Court today granted Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione’s application for an order preventing up to 20,000 people from marching to the corner of George and King streets… Chief Superintendent Cullen told the court he held “grave concerns” for public safety during the protests. “Based upon my research, experience, current intelligence and evidence from internationally similar events – more recently G20 in Melbourne – I have absolutely no doubt that minority groups will engage in a level of violence not previously experienced in Sydney,” he said.

2 ) The Democratic Socialist Perspective: The brains trust at the DSP changed its name from Party to Perspective just a few short years ago, as part of an overall strategy with regards that strange, misshapen creature known as the Socialist Alliance (see below). Prior to this, it was known as the Socialist Workers’ Party. It publishes Australia’s leading leftist weekly Green Left (sometimes also referred to as the Environmental Leninist in acknowledgement of the group’s Leninist political orientation). See Raiders of the Left Ark.

3 ) The Socialist Alliance: Less an “anti-capitalist group” — as Luke describes it — than an electoral platform for Marxists / Leninists and Trotskyists, SA was formed via a coalition of a number of Marxist parties, ranging from the small to the tiny, in the wake of the September 2000 protests against the World Economic Forum’s meeting in Melbourne, and in an explicit attempt to capitalise upon what was assumed to be a groundswell of opposition to neoliberalism in Australia. The two main forces in the SA were until recently the DSP and another Marxist party with its roots in the (post-)New Left of the 1970s, the International Socialist Organisation (ISO). The ISO recently left SA, having belatedly discovered its main use was as another feeder organisation for the DSP, which remains to run the show. Since its establishment, most of SA’s activity has been electoral-based, but the absolutely disastrous results of this activity has stripped it of whatever meagre credibility it may once have possessed among a broader progressive political community, and it appears at this stage that it will continue to eke out an existence for precisely as long as the DSP finds it useful as a means to contest and to lose council, state and federal elections. See NSW State Election : Results (March 24, 2007); Join in the chorus? Socialism vs. 2006 Victorian state election (November 26, 2006).

4 ) Resistance: Remarkably unacknowledged by Luke, Resistance is in fact the youth wing of the DSP, and like SA, acts as a feeder organisation. The APEC summit, and more specifically its attendant publicity, is sure to be a recruitment bonanza for Resistance, and from the hundreds who join will likely result in the eventual recruitment of several dozen militants for its adult partner the DSP.

5 ) Iraq Veterans Against the War: The IVAW is essentially a US project, one member of which, Matt Howard, has been flown to Australia by the Stop Bush Coalition in order to address rallies and meetings in Sydney and elsewhere. See Frank Walker, Marine urges APEC protests, Sydney Morning Herald, August 19, 2007. Howard sensibly advocates placing Bush on trial for war crimes: Mark Dodd, Try Bush for war crimes, urges US combat veteran, The Australian, September 5, 2007.

6 ) FLARE in the Void: As Luke notes, not an organisation but an event, a pre-APEC convergence space, organised by elements of the anarchist and libertarian left. Note that such events have become part of the standard retinue accompanying major anti-Summit protests the world over, and act as a vital means of allowing dissident ideas and practices to be communicated, reflected on and, hopefully, extended more deeply and widely among constituent communities.

7 ) Alliance for Civil Disobedience Co-ordination (AC/DC): contra Luke, it should be made clear that “AC/DC is [NOT] an anarchist group”, but rather an ad hoc collection of groups and individuals from Melbourne committed to confronting APEC. The idea that the group is committed to ‘violent’ confrontation is a furphy, although obviously an eminently useful one for the authorities. Thus according to Luke, AC/DC “has controversially announced its intention to ‘violently’ disrupt the summit (they told Crikey! that their definition of violent differs markedly from the media’s)”. Given the use of a non-standard definition of the term ‘violence’ by the corporate and state media, this may well be so. In any case, in reality AC/DC’s open letter — a statement of principles — make the group’s intent quite clear:

The Melbourne Alliance for Civil Disobedience Co-ordination (AC/DC) statement on APEC protests in September 2007, Sydney, Australia:

1. We recognise that APEC is an illegitimate institution in the eyes of the mass of the human population, and that its agenda is a threat to our welfare and environment. We are therefore in favour of the largest possible mass mobilisation and mass demonstrations against it

2. We aim to disrupt the functioning of any APEC-related activities in Sydney in September 2007

3. We defend our right to mass civil disobedience and mass direct action and we will attempt to use these tactics as part of our resistance to the agenda of APEC

4. We reject the police and the state’s attempts to define and control our protest and our resistance through the use of declared areas, protestor black lists and other forms of state intimidation

5. We want to convince other groups, individuals and communities to join us in resistance to APEC that is meaningful and empowering

Unfortunately, it appears that a hack called Sarah Elks, writing for Limited News, confused this statement with another called ‘Shared Intent’ (Protesters warn of violent challenge, The Australian, August 30, 2007). Ironically, this error has previously been highlighted on Crikey! by Cam Smith.

8 ) Mutiny: “Mutiny is one of the anarchist groups linked to violence at last year’s G20 summit” writes Luke, which is largely correct. Notably, this ‘link’ was originally made by Marcus Greville; like Alex Bainbridge, a DSP member, and the then media spokesperson for the Stop G20 coalition of leftists based in Melbourne (and, like Stop Bush, an organisation also dominated by this Party… er, ‘Perspective’). ‘Controversy’ surrounds the group’s attempts not to allow organising against the APEC summit to fall prey to attempts by the police / state and the gutter press to vilify protesters as ‘violent’ and to severely limit discussion of potential forms of protest and resistance to neoliberalism, war, social domination and economic exploitation generally to those which are hopelessly ineffectual.

9 ) Maritime Union of Australia: Outside of elements of the CFMEU, seemingly one of the last bastions of even vaguely ‘leftist’ or ‘progressive’ orientation in the trade union movement, one which exists in an industry in which the (re-)imposition of capitalist forms of economic ‘globalisation’ has seen wages and conditions spiral downwards across the globe. The Union generated massive popular support during industrial disputes in 1996, lost the ensuing battle, but won the right to being featured in a mediocre quasi-documentary. In more general terms, it should be noted that dockworkers and longeshoremen have an almost unequalled record of practices of global working class solidarity and political radicalism, continue to play a crucial role in the distribution of goods around the world, and hence be subject to almost constant attack by capital and state.

10 ) Latin American Solidarity Network: as Luke recounts, an “independent and inclusive group of people working in solidarity with Latin American grassroots movements and its struggles.” In Australia, LASNET aims to “raise awareness of the struggles of Latin American people and works to support these initiatives through local and national activism.”

For a spot of comic relief:

And then there’s the protest protest group, Aussies for ANZUS: Formed just last weekend by the “proudly Liberal member” John Ruddick, Aussies for ANZUS is a group designed to welcome the US President to APEC and promote the Australian-US alliance. Its creator boasts a five-by-three metre banner [that] announces, “We support Bush, we love America, aussies4anzus.com“, decorated with both countries’ flags. The group has been given police permission to position themselves within the APEC security zone.

Posted in Anarchism, History, State / Politics, Student movement, Trot Guide | 4 Comments

APEC : The more things change

Posted on September 5, 2007 by @ndy

Juliet Herd, Class War thugs prepare to bash police, The Sun, April 6, 1990:

Class War, Crowbar, Spartacus, Counter Information, Red and Black, The Hurricane… be afraid if ever you hear those names whispered on our city streets. Be very afraid, because evil follows their every move and they drag around with them the stench of anarchy. Last week, not for the first time, they brought bloodshed to the streets of London. Their kicking, punching, missile-hurling orgy ended in 370 police, 86 members of the public and 20 horses being injured in various degrees of severity… and they warn of more violence to come. At the forefront of the shameful rioting, under the guise of an anti-Poll Tax demonstration, were warriors of Class War. They had hijacked Britain’s biggest peaceful protests for at least two decades and proved beyond doubt they mean business. Under their black flag banners and wearing t-shirts showing a meat cleaver sinking into Prime Minister Mrs Thatcher, the anarchists fired the first shots in a full-scale war against capitalism, and democracy as we know it…

Bruce Tobin, Protest ‘totally over the top’, say police, The Age, January 4, 1992:

Baton-wielding police and hundreds of angry protesters clashed during President Bush’s whistle-stop visit to Melbourne yesterday. Protesters hurled rocks, bottles, cricket balls, horse shoes, metal-tipped sticks, mud and horse manure at police and tossed ball bearings on the road to unsettle police horses. The acting police chief commissioner, Mr John Frame, said last night the behaviour shown by many protesters was “totally over the top”. He said the wild protest had fallen to the levels of the Vietnam War and Springbok demonstrations. Mr Frame branded some of the protesters as “rock apes” and said police would have to review the way they responded during future protests…

Paul Molloy, A need for riot gear — police, The Sun, January 4, 1992:

…The head of police at the World Congress Centre, Chief Insp. Brendan Bannan, said protesters used “hit and run” tactics not seen since the Vietnam War demonstrations. And Insp. Paul Evans, who organised police on the streets, said it was the worst violence he had witnessed during 18 years on the force. Both Chief Insp Bannan and Mr Frame also expressed concern that violent demonstrations appeared to be becoming more frequent. Mr Frame said while the police administration did not want to see members donning riot gear, “I am not prepared to see our young members made human punching bags and subject to the sort of violence and nonsense they have had today.”

Bushwhackers, The Sun editorial, January 7, 1992:

Make no mistake — the organisers of the wild Melbourne demonstrations against the Bush visit were out to create chaos. We doubt that the wider conglomeration of ratbags and misfits who wrought havoc cared about the token issues invoked as justification by the leaders. For some rioters, cop-bashing relieved the monotony of life on the dole. So did invading a public building. But the International Socialist Organisation which orchestrated the melee knew precisely what it was about: it was following the age-old tactic of discrediting authority by provoking the police. Core of the protest was a collection of the same stirrers who created havoc at the AIDEX defence exhibition in Canberra recently… Who can blame the very young, inexperienced constables charged with protecting the world’s most powerful man, if they over-reacted at times? It can’t be pleasant to be pummelled by mindless hoons, or spat on by a mob containing AIDS activists. Australians have a right to protest. But this does not include licence to break the law. As the foreign-based organisation which masterminded Friday’s riot knows very well, that way anarchy lies.

Robyn Dixon, Bruce Tobin, David Bruce and Hugo Kelly, Students’ city brawl, The Age, March 28, 1992:

About 2000 students stormed the steps of State Parliament late yesterday during a violent demonstration in which 22 police were injured and the doors of Parliament locked… Police released four students they had arrested, to defuse the violence. The officer in charge of the operation, Inspector Doug Hocking, described the brawl as the worst violence he had experienced in 22 years…*

Gerard Ryle, Anarchists blamed for uni protest, The Age, March 30, 1992:

The deputy chief police commissioner, Mr John Frame, has started criminal investigations into what he called a “small core of anarchists” responsible for violence during a student protest outside Parliament last Thursday. He said yesterday that police might seize media video reports of the protest, which left 15 police injured, to help identify those responsible… “Police are sick and tired of not only being punching bags, but targets for hurled objects…”

Andrew Bolt, Our cops go girlie, Herald Sun, November 22, 2006:

Let’s first go through more pictures from the protest outside the G20 meeting of world finance ministers. Hey, there’s tutu woman again, this time monstering your riot police with her new baton, without a single officer daring to arrest her. And here’s one of your police standing meekly in a line, not defending themselves or their dignity, while some hooligan on the roof gives them a long, humiliating drenching with a hose. See how few risk lifting a baton with striking intent, even when being spat on, bitten, hit with rubbish bins, pelted with garbage and rammed with plastic barriers? I’ve seen punching bags with more fight…

AAP, Police not punching bags, Sydney Morning Herald, September 1, 2007:

New NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione says he will not tolerate having his officers used as punching bags by protesters during the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit. Addressing reporters on his first day as police commissioner, Mr Scipione said Sydney’s APEC meeting was his first priority and challenge and the force was ready. “The most important thing from my perspective is (officers) now have been given very clear directions … our police, particularly in APEC are not there to be punching bags, they are not there to be spat upon, they are not there to be assaulted and if people do that our police will act appropriately, but they will be very decisive, it will be very rapid,” Mr Scipione.

    *Students rally against loans scheme, Green Left Weekly, April Fools’ Day, 1992:

    In Melbourne, Dirk Welsford and Vannessa Hearman report a rally of 3000 in the City Square. Speakers included Rob Houghton of NUS, Chris Raab from Melbourne University, and representatives from the Public Sector Union and the Union of Academics. At the end of a march to Parliament House, four students were arrested as a handful of police tried to prevent the students occupying the steps in front of the building. When a crowd of about 200 surrounded the paddy wagon, police took the names of the four and released them, saying they would be charged on summons. A few protesters verbally abused the majority who wanted to concentrate on the education issue rather than the clash with police…

Posted in !nataS, Anarchism, History, Media | 1 Comment

The only good anarchist is a dead one…

Posted on September 4, 2007 by @ndy
    In the United States, whose CEO arrives in Sydney today, the first Monday in September is ‘Labor Day’. Supposedly a day of rest for US workers, one celebrated since the 1880s, and the subject of an Act of Congress in 1894 declaring this to be so, the institutionalisation of Labor Day sought to erase the memory of May Day, and to supplant it as a day of working class rebellion. 113 years later, The Boston Globe has an interesting editorial on ‘The labor day that wasn’t’:

“LABOR DAY has its origins in the worker-management strife [sic] stemming from the industrialization of the country after the Civil War, but it has never had the hard edge associated with International Workers’ Day, or May Day, celebrated in the rest of the world. Yet May Day became a labor holiday because of the suppression of a protest in the United States.

In the 1880s, American workers were trying to get their employers to adopt an eight-hour workday. In Chicago, a union alliance called a general strike for May 1, 1886, which generated intense opposition from business people [capital] and their allies in city government [state]. Protests continued throughout the week, climaxed on May 6 by a peaceful rally in Haymarket Square. But then 200 police officers marched in to disperse the crowd, someone threw a bomb, and seven officers died. Seven labor leaders were eventually convicted of “conspiracy to murder” on flimsy evidence, and four were executed. “There will be a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today,” the anarchist August Spies said before he was hanged.

Protests to save the condemned men galvanized the international labor movement, which coalesced around May 1 as a day of protest, remembrance, and solidarity. In the United States, however, state legislatures took up an idea proposed by labor leaders a few years earlier that the first Monday in September be designated Labor Day. In 1894, Congress made it a holiday in the District of Columbia and US territories. The September Labor Day, with its barbecues and ball games, has been an American tradition ever since.

Some harbor the suspicion that legislators acted so quickly to prevent American unions from looking to the Haymarket model as a reminder of the need for militancy and unity. That may be so, but the date of a holiday isn’t going to affect great social movements unless other factors are at work.

Despite many successes since the Haymarket violence (including the adoption of the eight-hour workday and the 40-hour week), American labor unions haven’t shown the cohesion and aggressiveness of their counterparts in Europe. Perhaps this spared [sic] the United States the class divisions that facilitated the rise of communism and fascism during the first half of the 20th century. It also denied American workers the benefits of the social-welfare state that became the norm in Western Europe after 1945.

Today there’ll be a few labor parades but it’s mostly a time for a visit to the beach and a traffic jam after a long weekend. Perhaps a thought could be spared for the Haymarket protesters and their fallen leaders, who braved the wrath of their city leaders and employers to make life better for themselves and the generations of workers who would succeed them.”

    63 Arrested in Copenhagen Clashes
    AP
    September 3, 2007

    COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A protest by hundreds of youth activists turned violent Sunday, with protesters setting fire to cars and smashing shop windows, police said. One officer was injured and 63 people were arrested as riot police clashed with the rock-throwing youths, police said. “Three or four people will be charged for violent behavior against police officers,” said police spokesman Flemming Steen Munch. “The others have been released.” The unrest started after a demonstration late Saturday commemorating the Youth House, a makeshift cultural center for the city’s anarchists and disaffected youth, which was demolished in March. “It’s six months since we cleared the house there, and they want to show they’ve not forgotten,” police spokesman Mads Firlings said. “Almost immediately they started building barricades and throwing rocks through the windows of shops and banks.”…

…But, if you think that by hanging us, you can stamp out the labor movement — the movement from which the downtrodden millions, the millions who toil and live in want and misery — the wage slaves… if this is your opinion, then hang us! Here you will tread upon a spark, but there, and there, and behind you and in front of you, and everywhere, flames will blaze up. It is a subterranean fire. You cannot put it out.

THE GROUND IS ON FIRE

upon which you stand. You can’t understand it. You don’t believe in magical arts, as your grandfathers did, who burned witches at the stake, but you do believe in conspiracies; you believe that all these occurrences of late are the work of conspirators! You resemble the child that is looking for his picture behind the mirror. What you see, and what you try to grasp is nothing but the deceptive reflex of the stings of your bad conscience. You want to “stamp out the conspirators” — the “agitators?” Ah, stamp out every factory lord who has grown wealthy upon the unpaid labor of his employees. Stamp out every landlord who has amassed fortunes from the rent of overburdened workingmen and farmers. Stamp out every machine that is revolutionizing industry and agriculture, that intensifies the production, ruins the producer, that increases the national wealth, while the creator of all these things stands amidst them, tantalized with hunger! Stamp out the railroads, the telegraph, the telephone, steam and yourselves — for

EVERYTHING BREATHES THE REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT.

Posted in Anarchism, History | Leave a comment

APEC : Media savages heads of state for war crimes, environmental destruction, and massive human rights abuses

Posted on September 3, 2007 by @ndy

Just kidding.

No, in terms of APEC reportage, while there have been scattered references to say, ‘climate change’ — and the possibility that some people in China may on occasion be prevented from fully exercising the entire spectrum of their civil and political rights under international law — the fact that a probable (US) war criminal is visiting these shores has been markedly overlooked. So too, the fact that another (Russian) war criminal has presided over a regime in which investigative journalists have been decimated. In a remarkable (or perhaps not) display of loyalty to their employers, however, no Australian journalist has raised these or any other difficult subjects in their writings on the upcoming Summit. Instead, the public is expected to take (frankly ludicrous) tales of anarchist malfeasance seriously. For example, the state-owned Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports — without attribution — that an:

Anarchist training manual ‘justifies’ APEC security

New South Wales Police Minister David Campbell says a training manual distributed by a protest group proves the need for the strong security presence in place for APEC.

An anarchist group calling itself the ‘Mutiny Collective’ is reportedly distributing the manual to would-be protesters.

Mr Campbell has labelled the manual as “disturbing”.

“The fact that this group called Mutiny have distributed a violent protests step-by-step guide I think demonstrates what police have known all along – that there were people intent on violent behaviour at APEC,” he said.

“It justifies this planning around a strong security presence that has been put in place.

“Any reasonable person in our community would be disturbed that there is a step-by-step guide on how to create mayhem, how to take part in a violent protest, how to hide your identity and even how to evade paying fares on the public transport system as you go about your violent protests.”

Oddly enough, by his own admission, New South Wales Police Minister David Campbell hasn’t even read the bloody thing! Thus: “Detectives are yet to see a copy of the document, but New South Wales Police Minister David Campbell says reports of its existence justify the heavy security presence in and around Sydney. “Police have known of the tactics of these groups through their preparation and through their training,” he said. “The fact that this manual is being distributed as widely as it is by this organisation is of concern” (an extract from another ABC report titled Rudd backs APEC crackdown; yet another one of the seemingly innumerable cases of Rudd’s me-tooism).

Taken literally, Campbell is claiming that the estimated $170 million cost of security at the conference may be justified by reference to reports of a manual which may or may not exist, but which is purportedly ‘violent’.

One might note at this point that it’s quite odd that a manual may be both ‘widely distributed’ and at the same time NSW Police be unable to obtain a copy in order to examine its contents for themselves. Either the Police are massively incompetent (possible, but unlikely), or simply lying (both possible and likely).

But where did all this nonsense about a violent manual come from anyway?

APEC ‘rioters’ plot to target Bush
EXCLUSIVE by Joe Hildebrand and Malcolm Farr
The Daily Telegraph
September 3, 2007

ONE group of militant APEC protesters is secretly plotting an outbreak of violence for US President George W. Bush’s arrival in Sydney tomorrow, distributing a rioter’s training manual on how to wear gas masks, confront police and even evade fares.

The clandestine anarchist action, six weeks in the making, has been dubbed “FLARE in the void” and is described as an “Anti-APEC counter convergence”…

Protest tips

The FLARE (For Liberation Autonomy Resistance Exodus) manual openly declares an prepardeness [sic] to commit violence.

It tells protesters engaging in “direct action” to form small groups of five to 15 people and to wear masks so they cannot be identified.

“It is important to defy police attempts to frighten us,” the so-called Mutiny Collective has written in one section.

The manual also tells protesters to wear gas masks, goggles, running shoes and full-body clothing to protect from tear gas and capsicum spray. It also advises carrying water and a bandanna soaked in vinegar to combat the effects of pepper spray.

    Joe: “Wow! How’d you track ’em down, Malcolm?”

    Malcolm: “Good question. On one of my frequent trips to the ground, I noticed Mutiny wore sneakers… for sneaking!”

Busloads of interstate activists expected to descend on Sydney are also told how to evade public transport fares, including forcing their way through railway station ticket barriers.

Threats

Mr Howard has acknowledged the threats of violence and the response of intrusive security precautions in Sydney’s CBD.

This morning the Prime Minister has made another YouTube appearance to spruik his APEC agenda.

But he has also said that if violence occurred people should not blame him or Mr Bush.

“Don’t blame the police, don’t blame the NSW Government, don’t blame any of our (heads of government) guests, don’t blame the Federal Government,” he said.

“Blame the people who threaten violence.”

Mr Howard said the APEC summit was an opportunity, despite the expected clashes, to present a positive image of Australia.

He said the nation’s largest city, “undeniably the most beautiful big city in the world”, would be seen as as a modern, sophisticated, tolerant, multi-racial society.

Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd said violence would be unacceptable and backed a zero-tolerance policy by police towards protests who were not peaceful.

“I would appeal to anyone who is thinking of protesting out there to protest in peaceful terms only,” he said…

For a corrupt old millionaire queen’s perspective on events, see also The Parrot, who joins John HoWARd on YouTube to provide all and sundry with deep insights into the meaning of ‘democracy’ in contemporary Australia. Choice quote, in reference to the 20 visiting heads of state: “I’d be down on bended knee, saying please spend a few more billion dollars [on] us. Instead, we’ve got the spectacle of what happened last year at the G20 summit in Melbourne. Frightening! Barricades burnt, police pelted with bottles and garbage; we’ve only got 14,000 police. Do we need the Army? There’s no reason these people should be allowed to march…” The Parrot then goes on to phantasise about the use of water cannons and tanks. “If there’s a 12,000 litre tank with shatterproof glass and a push bar in the front that can clear barricades and other obstacles, use it… Remember one thing: the rabble and the ferals are watching“.

Next: Punching bags!

    In a building of gold, with riches untold,
    lived the families on which the country was founded.
    And the merchants of style, with their vain velvet smiles,
    were there, for they also were hounded.
    And the soft middle class crowded in to the last,
    for the building was fully surrounded.
    And the noise outside was the ringing of revolution.

    Sadly they stared and sank in their chairs,
    and searched for a comforting notion.
    And the rich silver walls looked ready to fall,
    as they shook in doubtful devotion.
    The ice cubes would clink as they freshened their drinks,
    wet their minds in bitter emotion.
    And they talked about the ringing of revolution.

    We were hardly aware of the hardships they beared,
    for our time was taken with treasure.
    Oh, life was a game, and work was a shame,
    and pain was prevented by pleasure.
    The world, cold and grey, was so far away,
    in distance only money could measure.
    But their thoughts were broken by the ringing of revolution.

    And the clouds filled the room in darkening doom,
    as the crooked smoke rings were rising.
    How long will it take, how can we escape,
    someone asks, but no one’s advising.
    And the quivering floor responds to the roar,
    in a shake no longer surprising.
    As closer and closer comes the ringing of revolution.

    So softly they moan, please leave us alone,
    as back and forth they are pacing.
    And they cover their ears and try not to hear,
    with pillows of silk they’re embracing.
    The crackling crowd is laughing out loud,
    peeking in at the target they’re chasing.
    Now trembling inside the ringing of revolution.

    With compromise sway we gave it half away,
    when we saw that rebellion was growing.
    Now everything’s lost as they kneel by the cross,
    where the blood of Christ is still flowing.
    Too late for their sorrow they’ve reached their tomorrow,
    and reaped the seed they were sowing.
    Now harvested by the ringing of revolution.

    In tattered tuxedos they faced the new heroes,
    and crawled about in confusion.
    And they sheepishly grinned for their memories were dim,
    of the decades of dark execution.
    Hollow hands raised, they stood there amazed,
    in the shattering of their illusions.
    As the windows were smashed by the ringing of revolution.

    Down on our knees, we’re begging you please,
    we’re sorry for the way you were driven.
    There’s no need to taunt just take what you want,
    and we’ll make amends, if we’re living.
    But away from the grounds the flames told the town,
    that only the dead are forgiven.
    As they vanished inside the ringing of revolution.

    ~ Phil Ochs

Posted in !nataS, Media, State / Politics, War on Terror | 17 Comments