Yes, we have no oil!

Posted on June 15, 2007 by @ndy

June 14, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

EXXON PROPOSES BURNING HUMANITY FOR FUEL IF CLIMATE CALAMITY HITS

Conference organizer fails to have Yes Men arrested

Imposters posing as ExxonMobil and National Petroleum Council (NPC) representatives delivered an outrageous keynote speech to 300 oilmen at GO-EXPO, Canada’s largest oil conference, held at Stampede Park in Calgary, Alberta, today.

The speech was billed beforehand by the GO-EXPO organizers as the major highlight of this year’s conference, which had 20,000 attendees. In it, the “NPC rep” was expected to deliver the long-awaited conclusions of a study commissioned by US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. The NPC is headed by former ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond, who is also the chair of the study. (See link at end.)

In the actual speech, the “NPC rep” announced that current U.S. and Canadian energy policies (notably the massive, carbon-intensive exploitation of Alberta’s oil sands, and the development of liquid coal) are increasing the chances of huge global calamities. But he reassured the audience that in the worst case scenario, the oil industry could “keep fuel flowing” by transforming the billions of people who die into oil.

“We need something like whales, but infinitely more abundant,” said “NPC rep” “Shepard Wolff” (actually Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men), before describing the technology used to render human flesh into a new Exxon oil product called Vivoleum. 3-D animations of the process brought it to life.

“Vivoleum works in perfect synergy with the continued expansion of fossil fuel production,” noted “Exxon rep” “Florian Osenberg” (Yes Man Mike Bonanno). “With more fossil fuels comes a greater chance of disaster, but that means more feedstock for Vivoleum. Fuel will continue to flow for those of us left.”

The oilmen listened to the lecture with attention, and then lit “commemorative candles” supposedly made of Vivoleum obtained from the flesh of an “Exxon janitor” who died as a result of cleaning up a toxic spill. The audience only reacted when the janitor, in a video tribute, announced that he wished to be transformed into candles after his death, and all became crystal-clear.

At that point, Simon Mellor, Commercial & Business Development Director for the company putting on the event, strode up and physically forced the Yes Men from the stage. As Mellor escorted Bonanno out the door, a dozen journalists surrounded Bichlbaum, who, still in character as “Shepard Wolff,” explained to them the rationale for Vivoleum.

“We’ve got to get ready. After all, fossil fuel development like that of my company is increasing the chances of catastrophic climate change, which could lead to massive calamities, causing migration and conflicts that would likely disable the pipelines and oil wells. Without oil we could no longer produce or transport food, and most of humanity would starve. That would be a tragedy, but at least all those bodies could be turned into fuel for the rest of us.”

“We’re not talking about killing anyone,” added the “NPC rep.” “We’re talking about using them after nature has done the hard work. After all, 150,000 people already die from climate-change related effects every year. That’s only going to go up – maybe way, way up. Will it all go to waste? That would be cruel.”

Security guards then dragged Bichlbaum away from the reporters, and he and Bonanno were detained until Calgary Police Service officers could arrive. The policemen, determining that no major infractions had been committed, permitted the Yes Men to leave.

Canada’s oil sands, along with “liquid coal,” are keystones of Bush’s Energy Security plan. Mining the oil sands is one of the dirtiest forms of oil production and has turned Canada into one of the world’s worst carbon emitters. The production of “liquid coal” has twice the carbon footprint as that of ordinary gasoline. Such technologies increase the likelihood of massive climate catastrophes that will condemn to death untold millions of people, mainly poor.

“If our idea of energy security is to increase the chances of climate calamity, we have a very funny sense of what security really is,” Bonanno said. “While ExxonMobil continues to post record profits, they use their money to persuade governments to do nothing about climate change. This is a crime against humanity.”

“Putting the former Exxon CEO in charge of the NPC, and soliciting his advice on our energy future, is like putting the wolf in charge of the flock,” said “Shepard Wolff” (Bichlbaum). “Exxon has done more damage to the environment and to our chances of survival than any other company on earth. Why should we let them determine our future?”

Posted in !nataS, Media, Poetry | Leave a comment

2007 Sydney Forum : Phantasy vs. Reality

Posted on June 15, 2007 by @ndy

Uh-oh, spaghetti-o.

This year’s Sydney Forum — Australia’s premiere gathering of teenaged fascists, middle-aged white supremacists, elderly neo-Nazi pensioners, anti-Semitic lunatics, conspiracists, cranks and “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” racists of all ages — is shaping up to be a corker, a ding-dong battle between the various mobs that comprise the far right milieu, all of whose beady eyes will be fixed on the one, glittering prize: control of the Australia First Party!

Well, that and the thermos.

Founded in 1996, the Australia First Party functions as a political refuge for those on the racist fringe who want to go ‘straight’; that is, to contest, and perhaps even win, an election to public office. Thus far, however, the results have not been terribly encouraging: only one member of the party, Bruce Preece, has won an election — and then only to a local council, in Adelaide, and all the while maintaining silence over his membership of and support for a racist party.

A further complicating factor for the party has been the sudden emergence of Pauline Hanson, the rise of her party One Nation, and the equally rapid decline of both. The effective demise of One Nation, then, has opened up some small space in the political market for Australia First. Moreover, the explosion of racist sentiment in Cronulla in December 2005 was widely expected to trigger at least some resurgence in the party’s ranks, however modest that surge might be. The fact that no such resurgence has taken place has put a great deal of pressure on the leadership of the party, and tensions within it, and among the far right generally, have been building since then. This year’s seventh annual Sydney Forum — planned for the last weekend in August — is therefore widely tipped to experience a blowout.

The Establishment

Control of the Australia First Party is concentrated in the hands of the National Council, and the incumbents are centred around the Old Man of fascist politics in Australia, Dr. James Saleam. Saleam has had a political stranglehold on the party for some years now, one which commenced after Graeme Campbell ditched it upon its creation in 1996. Since then, while Diane Teasdale, the racist country bumpkin from Shepparton, Victoria, has been President — and hence the formal leader of the party — Saleam has functioned as the de facto Fuehrer from his bunker in Tempe, Sydney (the same location from which, prior to his imprisonment in 1991, Saleam controlled the precursor to Australia First, National Action).

Saleam’s closest ally, at this stage, appears to be his old mate Ross ‘The Skull’ May, another jailbird — one without a doctorate — but, unlike Herr Doktor, one still happy to prance about Sydney town dressed in swastikas. Indeed, it’s partly as a result of May’s continuing close association with Saleam that many Australia First members — who aren’t exactly the sharpest tools in the shed — have begun to question the wisdom of having Saleam continue to function as de facto leader and spokesperson. Adding weight to the bid to unseat Saleam is the ongoing saga surrounding his ethnicity (one occasioning his banishment from Stormfront for being not-quite-white), and, most recently, President Teasdale’s decision to re-assert her control over the party’s Internet presence.

‘A woman scorned’ and all that.

East Coast vs. West Coast

    Yes I rips up the West, I’m the best, I’m no jokin’
    I run up shit creek and freak the backstroke
    So Baron freak it, provide the funk alligator
    Yo I’m out but “I’ll be back” like Schwarzenegger

    ~ MC Jamahl

The other drunken fool directly competing with Saleam for possession of the bag of shit that is Australia First is David Innes, known on Stormfront as ‘Baron Von Hund’. He’s from the West Coast and, given the recent incarceration of leading figures from the Australian Nationalists Movement — and the retirement from political activism of other, lesser figures such as Ben Weerheym — Innes, together with his partner (and Stormfront moderator) Lilith Peterson and brother Paul (‘Steelcap Boot’), as well as a small circle of others, have become the public face of White supremacy in West Australia. The group gathered around the Innes brothers base their ideology on the teachings of David Duke, and are the chief proselytizers of Don Black‘s model of racist organising, a model of organising which seeks to ‘mainstream’ white supremacy and shed the neo-Nazi imagery long associated with it. In this endeavour, Innes has also formed an alliance with members of the party in Newcastle.

Not everyone is happy with this development, of course. For example, according to Jim Perren, Innes is responsible for alienating a large number of boneheads from online forums such as Stormfront, and — especially given the short-lived White Pride Coalition of Australia‘s supposed coinage of the term — to have done so in the name of ‘White nationalism’ is an even worse crime. Perren also alleges that Innes has acted as an informant, providing information on the membership and activities of far right groups and individuals to the anti-racist network FightDemBack! In fact, Perren draws an explicit comparison between Innes and FightDemBack!, arguing that they should be regarded as roughly equivalent threats to the cause of ‘White nationalism’.

It is unclear, at this stage, to what extent Perren’s problems with Innes are shared by his kameraden, especially those clustered around groups such as Australian New Nation (a kind of successor to the WPCA). So too, the success of Innes’ attempts to establish a willing coterie of followers in Australia; his attempts to milk some of them of their money — ostensibly so that he and the missus might travel from Perth to Sydney for the Forum — met with some degree of success, but merely sparked derision in others. The monthly BBQs he holds at his house in the Perth foothills gather together a small number of the willing, but even these events, it should be noted, were — according to Perren anyway — originally the result of the efforts of members of the WPCA, a coalition Innes derided.

Extras

We Are… the League

Oddball Queensland racist, Wagnerite and tennis player John Drew is all that remains of the ‘Patriotic Youth League’, an abortive attempt by Australia First to establish a youth wing. Drew has declared his hostility towards the Victorian grandmother, as well as his desire to help unseat her from her Presidency, but whether this means he’ll throw his meagre weight behind Saleam or Innes is unknown at this stage. Success at establishing a branch of the party in Brisbane before the gathering in August would add to his puny muscle, but being widely regarded as something of a crackpot — even among racists — does little to instill confidence.

    Note that one of the casualties of Innes’ purges of the more openly neo-Nazi elements has been the Brisbane bonehead contingent, who have withdrawn en masse (well, all three(?) of them) from Stormfront. Whether this is truly a loss for von Hund’s tendency is uncertain, however, as what the small group contributed in terms of militancy was perhaps cancelled out by its general incompetence, quasi-criminal status, and — not coincidentally — very limited appeal to the masses.

Free snags, no tabouli

Cronulla videographer Martin Fletcher, one of the younger, Sydney-based members of the party, has also denounced Saleam’s involvement in Australia First, and shares the seemingly widespread opinion that it would be far preferable for the party to continue to wander in the political wilderness unburdened by his peculiar form of guidance. Also wandering in the wilderness is Darrin Hodges, or the ‘Anglo-Australian National Community Council’ as he prefers to be known. In news that has rocked fascist trainspotters, Hodges has recently been expelled from the party — according to him, because some posts on his blog ‘may bring the party into disrepute’. Which just goes to show that even fascists have a sense of humour.

Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Gestapo.
Gestapo who?
Ve vill ask ze questions!

One of the wildcards at The Forum will be MC Welf Herfurth. Herfurth has enjoyed strictly disciplining these sometimes slightly haphazard annual gatherings of Australian fascists for six years now, and during this period has developed a close relationship with Herr Doktor, the principal organiser. On the other hand, Herfurth is also a close acquaintance of Innes, and together the two are struggling, in a manner befitting Aryan Übermensch, to establish a New Reich in Australia and New Zealand (Aotearoa). And which way the Holocaust-denying German jumps may have a crucial impact on the final outcome.

See also : A Neo-Nazi Field Trip to the Met, “White supremacists from across the country gather in New Jersey and New York for barbecue and culture”, Maria Luisa Tucker, Village Voice, June 12, 2007

    Hitler visits a lunatic asylum. The patients give the Hitler salute. As he passes down the line he comes across a man who isn’t saluting.
    “Why aren’t you saluting like the others?” Hitler barks.
    “Mein Führer, I’m the nurse,” comes the answer. “I’m not crazy!”
Posted in !nataS, Anti-fascism, State / Politics | 26 Comments

Green Scare Update

Posted on June 14, 2007 by @ndy

So, as I was saying: the Green Scare.

At the bottom of my blog’s frontpage (is that what you call it?) there’s a list of names, websites and calls for support, many of which relate to the ‘Green Scare’, and which appear under the general rubric of ‘War On Dissent’. In addition to ‘Free Jeff Luers’, these names and sites are Free Darren (Thurston), Support Briana (Waters) / Chelsea (Gerlach) / Daniel (McGowan) / Eric (McDavid) / Rod (Coronado) and Zach (Jensen). Over the course of the last year or so, many of these folks have been sentenced for ‘eco-terrorism’, the trials of others are ongoing, and, while some have defied the US state, others have collaborated with prosecutors and turned against their erstwhile comrades.

    The term ‘Green Scare’ refers to a recent series of US Government prosecutions of environmental activists, and is intended to evoke memories of previous Government witchhunts against anarchist and left-wing political activists in the 1910s and 1950s — the ‘Red Scares’.

Most of the above-named individuals — Darren Thurston, Briana Waters, Chelsea Gerlach and Daniel McGowan — were prosecuted as a result of Operation Backfire: “the name given by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to the ten year old investigation and indictment of fifteen individuals accused of several arsons in the Pacific Northwest between 1996 and 2001 claimed by the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) or the Animal Liberation Front (ALF)”; the FBI announcing the first indictments of 11 people for ‘domestic terrorism’ in January, 2006.

Eric McDavid and Zach Jensen, on the other hand, were two of three people (the other being Lauren Weiner) “arrested on January 13, 2006… and… accused of “conspiring to damage or destroy by explosive or fire” cell phone towers, power plants and US Forest Service facilities”. Zach and Lauren have both since agreed to testify against Eric, whose trial is ongoing. (Note that Zach’s site has since been deleted.)

Finally, Rod Coronado, like the subjects of Operation Backfire and the ‘Sacramento Three’, another victim of the Green Scare, goes to trial this September for a speech he gave in San Diego in 2003:

Agranoff says about 100 people were at the San Diego talk, and he was thrilled. “Usually, we’d get about 15 people. We’d publicized the hell out of this.” It was a public event, and he didn’t know most of the attendees. Finally, someone asked a question: How did you build the incendiary device you used in Michigan?

Coronado never missed a beat. He’d answered this before. Trying to recall his wording, he says now: “I was like, ‘Oh, well, I did this: I made a crude incendiary device’—and I walked over to a table where we had the food set up, grabbed an apple-juice jug, saying, “a device like this,” and then I turned around, there was a chalkboard behind me, and I made a really brief line drawing of how an electronic circuit works: here’s the battery, here’s the timer, here’s the igniter. And then you create a circuit, and that ignites underneath this [the jug, which would have been full of a mix of gasoline and motor oil] and—boom! Just like that.” ~ Dean Kuipers, ‘The Green Scare’, Los Angeles CityBeat, May 3, 2007

This, in extremely brief detail, is the story of the Green Scare, and that of ten or so of the approximately 28 individuals targeted by the US state for alleged crimes committed in the name of saving animals, plants and their habitats from destruction. And irrespective of the truth of the allegations, or their tactical advisability, what’s interesting about this latest wave of repression in the US is that it is being done in the name of fighting ‘terrorism’. Further, this fight not only involves the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars by state agencies such as the FBI, but takes advantage of the raft of highly repressive ‘anti-terrorist’ legislation enacted in the US since 9/11, both in terms of utilising highly questionable, and previously unlawful, information-gathering techniques (including the use of government agents and paid informants), but also in terms of the spectre of massively-increased punishments, especially by way of sentencing guidelines augmented by ‘terrorism enhancement’ (TE).

An example of US Government spying is the case of ‘Anna’, and the recent revelation that state authorities in Aotearoa / New Zealand are also employing spies, as well as referring to the ‘anarchist threat’ (Spies exposed in local activist groups, Anarchia, May 27, 2007), suggests that it’s highly likely that the Australian public too, will again soon be reading of spies (the anarchist threat having already been covered):

In January 2006, with the arrest of three suspected eco-saboteurs in Auburn, California (Sacramento County), the FBI revealed that it is investigating the “anarchist movement”, writ large. Special Agent Nasson Walker disclosed in an affidavit that the FBI had embedded a paid informant with the suspects, recruited when she was only 18 or 19. The FBI had dressed her up as a medic and dispatched her to participate in numerous peaceful, large-scale protests against, e.g., free trade and its concomitant race to the bottom in wages, human rights, and environmental standards. Needless to say, most if not all of the people she interacted with (politically organized with, treated medically, and lived with) were not plotting crimes of violence or sabotage. Yet the FBI can claim — with a whiff of legitimacy, even — that it has the right to engage in such intimate espionage and dragnet-style policing because ex-General John Ashcroft relaxed the Attorney General Guidelines to permit widespread snooping. Originally created to protect the public from FBI-KGB tactics after the exposure of its COINTELPRO operations in the 70s, the A.G. Guidelines now permit the FBI “to go anywhere the public can go” in Ashcroft’s words, without any foundation of suspicion that a crime is afoot. Undoubtedly, the FBI did not blow “Anna” the informant’s cover without leaving other agents in the field and in political meetings, in decision-making positions in groups, and in people’s homes.

Agent Walker’s affidavit is further revealing of the FBI’s backslide into politically motivated investigations. It references “anarchist” or “anarchism” 26 times in its mere 14 pages. In it, the FBI seems obsessed with the anarchist “lifestyle”, anarchist literature, and anarchist gatherings. These invocations of dread anarchism add nothing more to the scales of probable cause than if all the terms were replaced by the word “Christian”, and no one can gainsay that Christians have committed more atrocities in history than anarchists. It is elemental that a person is not guilty by association to an unpopular (or popular) cause in this country. But as a PR move — in seeking more constitutionally suspect laws, higher bails, more warrants, longer sentences, and a bigger chilling effect on progressive activists — the government’s projection of a giant anarchist menace is highly effective… ~ ‘War on the First Amendment: The Great Green Scare and the Fed’s “Case” Against Rod Coronado’, Ben Rosenfeld, Counterpunch, March 10, 2006

A great deal more information regarding Operation Backfire and the Green Scare in general may be found via GreenScare.org, journalist Will Potter’s GreenIsTheNewRed.com, the Civil Liberties Defence Centre in Eugene, Oregon and the FBIwitchhunt.com site. At present, the state-of-play for the 15 individuals charged as a result of Government repression as embodied in Operation Backfire may be summarised as follows:

· Cooperating Defendant Stanislas Meyerhoff – 13 years (+TE)
· Cooperating Defendant Kevin Tubbs – 12 years 7 months (+TE)
· Cooperating Defendant Chelsea Gerlach – 9 years (+TE)
· Cooperating Defendant Kendall Tankersley [a/k/a Sarah Kendall Harvey] – 3 years 10 months
· Cooperating Defendant Suzanne Savoie – 4 years 3 months (+TE)
· Cooperating Defendant Darren Thurston – 3 years 1 month
· Non-Cooperating Defendant Daniel McGowan – 7 years (+TE)
· Non-Cooperating Defendant Jonathan Paul – Sentencing in abeyance
· Non-Cooperating Defendant Joyanna Zacher – 7 years 8 months (+TE)
· Non-Cooperating Defendant Nathan Block – 7 years 8 months (+TE)

Lacey Phillabaum and Jennifer Kolar have also been indicted and pled guilty after turning police informant in both the Oregon and Washington cases. They have not been sentenced yet and will most likely be sentenced in Washington after Brianna Waters’ trial. The first informant, Jacob Ferguson — a self-professed serial arsonist and longtime heroin addict — is as yet unindicted, and according to his own admission has been granted immunity and has been paid at least $50,000 for his cooperation from federal prosecutors despite playing an aggravating role in nearly every indicted arson.

In addition to the years long sentences with Terrorism Enhancements, there has also been one casualty of “Operation Backfire.” Bill Rodgers of Prescott, Arizona, was found dead in his cell two weeks after his arrest in an apparent suicide.

Finally, to the best of my knowledge, and in a manner similar to the non-reportage of the case of Josh Wolf, little if anything has been reported in the Australian state/corporate media regarding any of these cases.

    Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
    Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it.

    – 60 Minutes (May 12, 1996)

Posted in Anarchism, State / Politics, War on Terror | 5 Comments

scha·den·freu·de (shäd’n-froi’d?)

Posted on June 13, 2007 by @ndy
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

German police surprisingly slow at tackling boneheads; cite Melbourne working class punks as inspiration

Posted on June 13, 2007 by @ndy

German police have further cemented their reputation for tackling fascism… very, very s l o w l y. Worse, German punks appear not to be taking their political cues from Melbourne working class punks™ and, consequently, German boneheads continue to view punks as being in some way objectionable; possibly even as constituting some form of potential “opposition” to their violent and murderous assaults upon blacks, Asians, non-whites, and foreigners generally. Apparently, the boneheads in question simply fail to understand, as Melbourne working class punks™ do, that punk has nothing to do with icky things like ‘politics’, and is simply about “having a laugh and having a say”…

Neo-Nazis Attack Theater Group in Eastern German Town
Spiegel Online
June 12, 2007

A group of actors were beaten up by neo-Nazis in the eastern German city of Halberstadt and have accused the police of being slow to respond. The region’s premier says he is appalled by the attack.

Far-right extremists attacked the actors because one of them had a punk hairstyle, newspaper reports said.

A group of actors who were attacked and injured by neo-Nazis in the eastern city of Halberstadt on Friday night have accused the police of handling their case too hesitantly.

The theater group of 14 actors were on their way to a pub after a debut performance on Friday when they were attacked and beaten up by eight far-right youths. Several of the victims had teeth knocked out and required medical treatment for broken noses, injured ribs and jaws and eye injuries.

Police failed to arrest the 22-year-old main assailant even though he returned to the scene while the victims were being questioned, a regional government official said. “The man was checked by police but released before they found out about his prior convictions,” Rüdiger Erben, interior ministry secretary for the state of Saxony-Anhalt, told Mitteldeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

The man, a known neo-Nazi, was arrested again on Sunday evening. Police are still searching for seven other assailants.

A number of people witnessed the attack and did nothing to help. The theater group had just finished a performance of the Rocky Horror Picture Show and one of the actors had a punk hairstyle in keeping with his role. That appears to have been enough to provoke the neo-Nazis they came across, newspaper reports said.

The premier of Saxony-Anhalt, Wolfgang Böhmer, said he was appalled by the case.

“It’s a sad fact that far-right extremists are becoming increasingly brutal. If people are attacked and injured just because of their appearance it’s an appalling crime,” Böhmer said.

Melbourne working class punks™ agree. And wish to give money to those responsible for promoting such crimes. In this endeavour, on Friday June 22, they’ll be joined by hardcore punks from Geelong (Speartackle, Tenth Dan), Newcastle (Crosscheck), Sydney (No Love Lost, Violent Abuse) and Toongabbie (Flame the Fire).

In other news, Kyle Chapman, another boneheaded patriot and former Fuehrer of the New Zealand National Front, wants to be Mayor of Christchurch (Former bonehead wants to run the city, John Henzell, The Press, June 13, 2007): ‘Chapman, a former marae-firebombing bonehead, defined his patriotism and nationalism as “looking after New Zealand and making our cities something that we’re proud of so that tourists and visitors can look anywhere and see nice things”.’ I wonder if that will include swastikas?

See also : Right of Reply: Anarchy in the Holy Land!, Uri Gordon, Jerusalem Post, June 12, 2007…

“It’s pretty rough being an Israeli anarchist these days. On a good day you are dismissed as irresponsible and naive, ignorant of history and blind to reality while your dedicated, life-risking activities are, at best, an easily-absorbed tantrum in the Nanny State.

And that’s on a good day.

The normal treatment is a bit less savory. You are violently despised, branded a fifth column for Iran and al-Qaida, and all the beatings, tear-gassings and shootings you and your comrades endure are gleefully cheered on, alongside the usual calls to put the anarchists up against the wall…”

Posted in !nataS, Anarchism, Anti-fascism, State / Politics, War on Terror | 6 Comments

Bloggy stuff…

Posted on June 12, 2007 by @ndy

AnonymousLefty has drawn my attention to yesterday’s editorial in The Australian. And I don’t care what he thinks: I think it’s brilliant.*

Editorial: Reality bites the psychotic Left

By refusing to face modern realities, the Australian Left has dealt itself out of the national debate

FOR evidence, if any more were needed, that the intellectual Left has become completely divorced from reality, turn to page 14 of the latest edition of The Monthly, where Clive Hamilton describes the therapeutic effect of bushfires at Christmas. “As the orgy of spending reaches a climax we begin to wonder whether we have become decadent,” the [social democratic] Australia Institute executive director writes. “The firies who battle the elements on our behalf remind us of our ‘true’ selves.” …

Intriguingly, a commentator claims that it’s “No coincidence that Teh Australian picks out The Monthly magazine for criticism, given that this month’s issue features the Eric Ellis profile of Murdoch’s sexy young Chinese-born wife, Wendi Deng. For anyone not up to date with the background story here, Murdoch forced Fairfax to spike the Ellis story (even though they had commissioned it at considerable price), but The Monthly bravely picked it up. Murdoch sold his minority share in Fairfax shortly afterwards, suggesting a deal may have been made.”

Oh, and I’ve also run across a new (February ’07) blog called The Partisan, authored by The Happy Revolutionary. It’s neat. As is The Australian Index: Exploring Australian Blogs.

    *That is, as a demonstration of The Australian‘s witless polemicising at its very best/worst, it is of surpassing excellence.
Posted in Media | 4 Comments

Reading, watching, books, films, television…

Posted on June 12, 2007 by @ndy

Ha!

Dazzling Darrin Hodges‘ blog Anglo-Australian National Community Council — er, that is, Hodges and his dog, who together maintain a watching brief on the Muslim menace threatening Orstraya — made a special guest appearance on Media Watch tonight, as evidence of the manner in which, when they take wing, media falsehoods have a tendency to land in some fairly bizarre nests. Dazza’s blog entry is titled ‘How you are made to pay Jizya‘, while the story itself concerns a report in the Herald Sun of May 9 regarding the supposed expenditure of close to $500 million by the Federal Government on ‘Muslim assimilation’. Two weeks later, the same story was mirrored in one of Uncle Rupert’s other quality papers, the Courier Mail:

Muslim millions missing
Michael Madigan
May 24, 2007

NEARLY half a billion dollars may have been spent on a… national plan to help assimilate Muslims into Australian society — but it is not clear exactly where the money has gone…

D’oh!

As reported on Media Watch, the actual amount of filthy lucre put aside for some kinda cultural assimilation program (which apparently forms part of a National Action Plan), was more like $461,000 — and it wasn’t dedicated to ‘assimilating’ Muslims in any case. Nevertheless, on the basis of the Herald Sun‘s reportage, boofhead Neil Mitchell, a local Melbourne shock-jock (today honoured by Queen Betty by being made an ‘Officer of the Order of Australia’ — “The award is a recognition of the things for which I am a funnel”, he said) then picked up the ball and went running; the story has also been the subject of bigoted fuckwittery on Scumfront, unsurprisingly. The White Man’s fury was sparked despite the fact that the Herald Sun buried a retraction regarding their, ah, slight over-estimation of the costs (but not nature) of the program the following day; typically, a correction published at the bottom of another column complaining about how much refugees cost the long-suffering Aussie taxpayer (Refugee problems tackled, May 10, 2007):

The Herald Sun wrongly reported yesterday that $461 million was allocated in the Budget to help Muslim communities integrate into the Australian community. The package, to build social cohesion, harmony and security, is in fact worth $461,000 in funding to the states and territories in 2007-08, and $513,000 in federal programs.

Wankers.

In other news:

Well well, bloody hell. My blog’s been undergoing a transition recently, and like other transitions, unfortunately, it hasn’t been all beer and skittles. Thus, while I’ve been meaning to blog about a number of subjects — the G8 summit in Germany (hello insultadarity), and the conclusion to the recent series of prosecutions of eco-radicals in the US, in particular — for technical reasons, I really haven’t been able to. I’ve also been wanting to work through the pile of unpublished posts I’ve been accumulating, on subjects such as hatred for the rich; an amusing episode of fraud involving a number of Trotskyist groups in Eastern Europe a few years ago; musings on Andrew Bolt’s unique contribution to current affairs journalism; definitions of ‘globalisation’; a review of the Second Latin America and Asia Pacific Gathering(!); the Cronulla pogrom and its political aftermath; an analysis of the role of The Australian newspaper in articulating a ruling class consensus on industrial relations; anarchism and Christianity; and more besides.

Another day, maybe.

In the meantime, I thought I may as well write a few words regarding a few words I’ve been reading… if only because I occasionally need reminding… that as each day bleeds into the next… as the weeks, months and years pass… and as I inch slowly towards the grave… the reasons why my mind is so often full of such happy, life-affirming thoughts also occasionally requires explaining.

Ahem.

In a rare excursion into the world of fiction, I actually went and bought myself a crime novel: Ian Rankin‘s The Naming of the Dead. The front cover blurb declares that Rankin is “unmatched in the field of British crime fiction” (The Times), which really doesn’t say much for the current state of the genre, as the novel is fairly tedious. Of course, the reason I bought it is ‘cos this particular episode in the continuing adventures of Detective Inspector John Rebus is set in July 2005, during the G8 meeting in Gleneagles. (And the reason I read it is ‘cos I bought it.) Despite Rebus being touted as being something of an ‘anarchist’ (that is, he sometimes bends or breaks the rules), however, Rankin relies on the usual tropes to describe the summit and its opposition — which, like the novel as a whole, is simply tiresome. It does have at least one funny line in it but:

In the corridor, she leaned against the wall and let her head drop.
‘Long day?’ Rebus guessed.
‘You ever tried questioning a German anarcho-syndicalist?’

On a more serious note, Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International by Kevin Coogan (Autonomedia, New York, 1999) is an interesting read, and Loren Goldner’s written a worthwhile review of it too, available here. Of that, more later. In the meantime, here’s another review, stolen from antifa.org.uk, of a film I haven’t seen called This Is England, one which prompted a recent, similarly-flawed article about skinhead in The Observer. As Roddy says: “Keep on keeping on against the Bonehead scum that stand for nothing but cowardice… Always stand firm against this threat. FUCK FASCISM.”

Another film about skins, fascism and ‘personal journeys’ that does nobody any favours (except the fash).

As always we have a protagonist who is too young, stupid, and ‘in pain’ to resist the charms of the evil, yet hugely charismatic — and curiously articulate — nazi. There are other players in the story, of course, all of whom are either dull, flimsy or annoying.

After being treated to the usual bonding, having-a-larf, shit-racist-behaviour, written to a formula and similar to Ritchie’s style-over-reality approach to violence (and therefore quite entertaining), we are treated to the de rigeur diatribe by [a National Front] leader that is delivered with clarity and conviction. (For previous examples of this sort of lazy, “they’re so fascinating” shit see Romper Stomper, American History X or The Believer).

This is England falls into the same trap as all of the above films in that the nazi always self-destructs / is eaten by his own hatred or just sees the light ‘cos he’d forgotten about his black mate. There is shamefully little counter-political argument in all these films.

If you didn’t know better you could come away from this film as you could with the others thinking “Yeah he might have been a nutter, but what he said still makes sense”, and if you’re not as squeamish about violence as the makers of these films are you might not even think the ‘baddies’ were that ‘bad’. Another missed opportunity, and a crying fucking shame because Meadows has made some brilliant films (see Small Time).

But there is some hope. According to the formula, the hatred and pain of a thousand injustices done to him will eventually lead Nick Griffin to kill his family and die in a hail of bullets delivered by his jilted sidekick Collett.

Posted in !nataS, Anarchism, Film, Media, State / Politics, Television | 15 Comments

Upcoming Shows @ The Birmy

Posted on June 10, 2007 by @ndy

[Update : June 18 : The gig as a whole has since been CANCELLED.]

On Friday June 22, Sydney-based hardcore/punk label Snapshot Records is organising a gig by some of its bands. They are:

    Crosscheck
    Flame the Fire
    No Love Lost
    Speartackle [CANCELLED]
    Tenth Dan [CANCELLED]
    Violent Abuse

On Friday July 6, CMYK Love, Hey, That’s My Bike and The Dank are performing.

In addition to releasing albums, Snapshot Records also sells music by the sea shore, including, notably, neo-Nazi muzak, by the likes of Blood Red Eagle (AUS), Bound For Glory (UK not US), Fortress (AUS), Legion of St. George* (UK), Retaliator (UK), Skrewdriver (UK) and the incomparable Southern Storm (“Niggers, Jews and Communists / Look out scum, you’re on our list!”). This renders Snapshot, along with Melbourne-based Deadset Music and Sydney-based Scythian Services, among the most prominent of RAC online distros Down Under.

    Deadshit Muzak stocks an even larger range of fascist / neo-Nazi / RAC and white power music, including but not limited to Antagon, Battle Scarred, Condemned 84, Combat 84, Crashed Out, D.A., Get Out, The Gits, Hateful, Kampfzone, Knockdown, Marching On, Retaliator, Tattooed Motherfuckers and Unit Lost.

Well, that’s Sydney hardcore for you. What’s especially odd about Jay’s flogging fascist shit, however, is Snapshot’s claimed affiliation to Class War(!). And while I kinda doubt Darren has experienced a radical shift in his politics, the London-based group makes its opinion regarding Blood & Honour and other such filth very clear, I think, by including the image below on their site. And a picture is worth a thousand words. Or in this case, just eight: ‘Someone forgot, I’m one of the ‘master-race’.

*The original Legion of St. George, later known as the British Free Corps (Britisches Freikorps), was formed by the German SS from several dozen British POW volunteers in 1943, and was as successful as it was appealing, disbanding not long after. The inspiration for the unit came from an upper class twit called John Amery, who was hanged for treason after the war ended. Oddly enough, the only British officer to have joined the Corps, Douglas Berneville-Claye, pissed off to Australia at its conclusion, joining hundreds of other former Nazis in Pig Iron Bob‘s safe-haven in the Pacific. Speaking of which, one of the accused, Perth resident Charles Zentai, 84, who allegedly tortured and murdered a Jewish teenager in Budapest, is one step closer to Hungary after having had his appeal against an extradition order dismissed in court on May 29 (‘Alleged Hungarian war criminal moving closer to extradition from Australia’, The Associated Press, International Herald Tribune, May 30, 2007). And while many Nazis were warmly welcomed to this Great Southern Land, many anti-fascists were not so fortunate. Among them was the Italian anarchist Francesco Fantin (1901–1942). He was assassinated by Fascists inside Loveday prison camp in South Australia on November 16, 1942.

…Too late is understood all the evil which fascism, squadrists of a hundred armed men against one, was doing, that immense decimation within that native land, step-mother who denies bread and liberty to her children.

That decimation which they have continued in the country-sides of other people who were friends.

How many huge herds of corpses today are stretched under the light shelter of the red earth.

And what if all these dead were no more than a first installment of the universal destruction, they go on to kill and be killed.

I ask myself! What is the bottom of the wicked nature of these dictators?

Patched and bastard stuff, unstable and, passing leaves, ill-come abortions who lie down in evil as a suckling child involved in his urine, as a drunkard falling senseless in his own vomit, as one ulcerous lying in his pus.

When one says fascism one says horror, its crimes are known. Its infamies do not allow of attenuation. It is a tyranny which tries not without success in many parts of the world — to annul the civilised conquests which were attained during centuries of struggles and of progress in order to push back the human race into a state of shameful barbarism…

~ Francesco Fantin, Pensieri a Ricordi, Loveday Camp, Barmera, 1942.

Posted in Anti-fascism, Collingwood, Music | 55 Comments

normal service will resume shortly… i hope

Posted on June 10, 2007 by @ndy

blog go. make new home on new server. also post gone. comments too…

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Anarchists confirm expert opinion: expect police violence @ APEC

Posted on June 4, 2007 by @ndy

Updated June 5 : See below…

Anarchists ready for APEC violence
Shaun Davies
ninemsn
June 4, 2007

An anarchist group linked to violence at last year’s G20 summit has rejected the idea of “peaceful protests” at September’s APEC summit in Sydney.

The group, called Mutiny, has reportedly convinced the group organising the main APEC protest, the Stop Bush Coalition, to remove a reference to “peaceful protest” from its advertising materials.

Organisers of the G20 protests in November last year identified Mutiny members as perpetrators of violence at the summit, along with another anarchist group, Arterial Bloc.

    JOSIE TAYLOR: Who were the people responsible for that violence?

    MARCUS GREVILLE     [DSP/Socialist Alliance]: The names of the groups are Arterial Bloc and a group called Mutiny. Above and beyond that, we don’t have any information, because they organised externally to us.

    ~ Josie Taylor, ‘Police hunt for violent G20 protesters’, ABC Radio’s PM, November 20, 2006

Sydney’s streets will be locked down and police given increased powers during September’s APEC summit, which will be attended by world leaders including George Bush and Vladimir Putin.

The Stop Bush Coalition has organised a major APEC protest for September 8, which thousands of people are expected to attend.

Mutiny has issued an open letter that opposes billing the protest as “peaceful”. “To insist on a ‘peaceful protest’ seems to be either naive or dangerously cynical — and it aligns with the repression of dissent,” the letter says.

The letter blames police for violence at G20, saying protesters there were “terrorised” by “unfounded arrests”. It argues for a “diversity of tactics” at APEC, which could include violent action.

“Our fear is that an assertion made now that the protests will be explicitly ‘peaceful’ will shut down the discussions that need to be had; that people will argue only that the protests should be ‘peaceful’ instead of accepting that people will organise in diverse ways,” the letter says.

The group says it has not yet planned violent protests for APEC, but has not ruled out organising such actions at a later date.

“We write in the hope that we or groups with politics similar to ours would be able to organise for APEC alongside others, in the hope that a diversity of tactics will be possible,” the group’s letter says.

A report in radical newspaper Green Left Weekly says Mutiny won a motion at a meeting of the Stop Bush Coalition to remove the words “peaceful protest” from advertising material.

    The article referred to here is ‘What tactics for the Stop Bush protest at APEC?’ by Simon Cunich, which appeared in the May 11, 2007 edition of the paper (a publication of the neo-Leninist Democratic Socialist Perspective). Davis deliberately omits the fact that members of Mutiny were reportedly joined by two other groups in supporting the motion: “At the April 30 Stop Bush Coalition meeting, members of the anarchist group Mutiny, the student-based Solidarity group and the International Socialist Organisation argued for, and won, a motion to remove the line “Join the peaceful protest against these warmongers” from a poster advertising the rally. The same meeting also reaffirmed that the Stop Bush Coalition was organising a peaceful mass rally.

Stop Bush Coalition media spokesman Alex Bainbridge [DSP] would not comment on Mutiny’s involvement in his group’s planning meetings.

He said the Stop Bush Coalition was still planning a peaceful protest.

“We are worried if anything about the possibility of violence from police,” Mr Bainbridge said.

“It’s important that people come out on the streets and make their views heard.”

He could not say if overseas protesters were planning to come to Australia for APEC, or what specific measures the group would take to prevent violent groups from hijacking the protests.

Eleven people were arrested at the G20 protests in September last year, after rioters in white hooded suits and bandanas smashed a police car and injured a number of officers. Police officers have since been accused of responding to the protesters with excessive force.

Organisers of the G20 protest told the media that members of Mutiny and Arterial Bloc were responsible for the violence.

Violent protests have also erupted at this week’s G8 summit in Germany, where masked rioters throwing rocks and beer bottles injured almost 150 police.

Update : The ideological state apparatus, as part of the massive public relations campaign surrounding the upcoming APEC Summit in Sydney, has neatly side-stepped the ‘issue’ of 30,000 Children Dying In Extreme Poverty Every Day™ (which fact naturally occasions much hand-wringing by priests and pop stars), to narrow its focus on the threat to Western Civilization represented by a mob called ‘Mutiny’. Sensing, perhaps, a small degree of success in the campaign to focus public concern over the possibility of ‘violence’ directed at, and not inflicted by, the thousands of police guarding the APEC Summit — nicely augmented, of course, by the recent, typically garbled, accounts of ‘anarchist violence’ in Rostock — as well as the need to respond to the same public’s antipathy towards evacuating a major city simply for the sake of allowing an outgoing PM to realise some photo opportunities with an outgoing President, the usual suspects have decided to re-focus attention on the possibility of more militant forms of dissent embodied, apparently, by an anarchist group. As indicated above, Mutiny — in conjunction with the ad hoc formation known as ‘Arterial Bloc’ — was publically blamed by G20 ‘protest organiser’ and DSP member / ‘anti-capitalist revolutionary’ Marcus Greville for the ‘violence’ at last November’s G20 protests in Melbourne. “Several people were arrested and 10 police officers treated for injuries following violent clashes in Melbourne during the G20 summit last November”, according to today’s Herald Sun (‘Violent APEC protests not tolerated – police chief’, June 5). Unmentioned in the report is the fact that the only serious injury sustained by police was a suspected broken wrist; the main offence, of course, lying not in the injuries sustained to police bodies but rather that inflicted upon police authority. That — and the spectacle of a police van with broken windows — added up to an embarrassing public relations failure for State and Federal Governments regarding their joint capacity to ensure social pacification.

Aside from the inevitable denunciations, especially from the ‘left’, which the fallout this relatively minor event produced — of which the most vulgarly spectacular was vomited forth by Mick Armstrong of the student-based Trotskyist groupuscule Socialist Alternative; one which revealed a bizarre preoccupation with tracing the heroic activities of Forty Kiwi Anarchists (most recently spotted directing traffic in Rostock) — a spooked state has decided to up the ante by introducing new, highly repressive legislation explicitly justified as constituting a necessary (if slightly regrettable) measure intended to prevent Bad People like Mutiny from doing Bad Things (like throwing empty plastic bottles at police lines). In particular: “Of the many temporary powers, police will have special provisions when using police animals, including horses and dogs. Certain individuals predetermined by police to be a serious threat to security will be prevented from entering declared security zones under the proposed legislation. And anyone found assaulting police or causing damage can be refused bail during the APEC summit. The proposed legislation will apply from August 30 to September 12 only.”

Police will thus be protected from having to justify in a court of law actions such as the following:

Picture this. You’re in the city. There’s a fair bit of commotion because of the [APEC] summit, but you’re not interested in that. You’re in town with a friend. You stop at a small supermarket on [X Street] to pick up a drink. As you walk to the counter, three to six big men approach. Suddenly, and without warning, they surround you and say threateningly, “We’ve been looking for you”. You say you haven’t done anything, but they grab you and drag you outside. You start calling for help. There is a white van outside. Your friend runs out and asks what’s going on. The men tell him, “Get the f— out of here.” They throw you in the van and close the doors. The men are not wearing uniforms and their van is unmarked. They force you to the floor of the van, hold your legs behind your back, handcuff you and sit on your head. You can hardly breathe. They cut your backpack off your back. They are swearing at you and abusing you. They refuse to answer your questions about who they are. The van drives for about 10 minutes before it stops and someone tells you that they are police officers…

APPENDIX

“A letter attributed to Mutiny appears on the website A-Infos, which claims to be “a multi-lingual news service by, for, and about anarchists”. The letter said Mutiny does not want a repeat of what happened at the G20 in Melbourne but favours less-than-peaceful protests at APEC…”

(en) Australia, Sydney, An open letter from Mutiny* to people thinking about organising protests at APEC
Date : Sun, 06 May 2007 20:45:29 +0300

Some people have said that they don’t want APEC to be another G20. Neither do we. We don’t want to see ‘protest organisers’ publicly denouncing other protesters. We don’t want to see groups responding to a climate of police aggression by distancing themselves from those being targeted. We don’t want to see groups so busy scrambling for crumbs of media ‘legitimacy’ that they willingly play into media hysteria about ‘violence’ and false and dangerous dichotomies between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ protesters. We believe that in this climate it would be all too easy for any of us to find ourselves classed as ‘bad protesters’. So we’re concerned to hear that the Sydney Stop Bush Coalition has decided to produce posters saying ‘join the peaceful protest.’

This text itself is minor, but it suggests worrying tendencies (which are not confined to a particular group.) To insist on ‘peaceful protest’ seems to be either naïve or dangerously cynical — and it aligns with the repression of dissent.

It’s naïve if anyone who was at the recent demonstrations against Cheney didn’t learn from them. No protester went there planning ‘violence’ — but the assembly decided to defy police and tried to push through police lines. This choice meant that it was not a ‘peaceful protest’ by many definitions (and certainly not by that of the corporate media.) Yet, the course of action taken was how the group felt it had to be done. To try to march, people chose to confront the police — and it was a confrontation in which many of us suffered violence and arrest.

The next day was equally instructive: an entirely passive crowd was terrorised by police snatch squads making utterly unfounded arrests. If people believe that negotiating with police will ensure a ‘peaceful protest’ then they don’t seem to be living in the same city as us.

Obviously it’s important to encourage large-scale defiance in which people can feel safe and brave whatever their level of involvement. The cops are clearly trying to make anyone who might think about protesting feel scared and we have to fight that. But insisting on the image of ‘peaceful protest’ only amplifies the wedge politics of the police and media: and it doesn’t stop police violence. It seems downright irresponsible to promise — or demand — peace. Obedience will not make us safer.

In this context, it seems likely that, whatever the desire of the organisers, people will choose to attend the protest prepared for self-defence or other disobedient actions. Is the call for ‘peaceful protest’ an attempt by the small group producing the poster to say that such tactics and politics are not welcome at the protest? Of course anyone taking any action must take responsibility for it and the effects they might have on others. However, those who call a protest are not the boss or police of everyone who attends and cannot assume to control it. Is this group a coalition through which diverse events can be organised, or is it a collective planning a single march? (We assume it’s the former; if not there is clearly a need for a broader group as well.)

If any groups were planning confrontational actions it would of course be essential that they worked with respect alongside others so that those who did not want to be involved wouldn’t be drawn in against their will, and so that other actions were not interfered with. While communication was imperfect, this seemed to be fairly well done at the G20 – many people went on a march and went home, while those who overturned barricades etc were streets away. It’s important to continue to improve communication, not shut it down.

Our fear is that an assertion made now that the protests will be explicitly ‘peaceful’ will shut down the discussions that need to be had; that people will argue only that the protests should be ‘peaceful’ instead of accepting that people will organise in diverse ways; that a small group will attempt to define what is ‘legitimate’ for the entire protest rather than working to ensure mutual autonomy, safety and effectiveness.

This letter was not written because we’re planning so-called ‘violent protest’ or know of some secret plans. We have no idea. Preparing for APEC protests has not been a priority for us as a group. The police preparations seem to strengthen the arguments against summit protest, especially doubts about the value of challenging the state on their terrain and when they are most prepared. On the other hand, they also strengthen feelings that it is important to defy police attempts to frighten us. This ambivalence is why we haven’t been at meetings making these arguments; we hope this will [not serve] as reason to dismiss our thoughts. We write in the hope that we or groups with politics similar to ours would be able to organise for APEC alongside others – in the hope that a diversity of tactics will be possible and the spaces for discussion and action will not be shut down.

In solidarity,
The Mutiny collective
(mutineers at graffiti dot net)

================================================

* Mutiny is an anarchist collective from sydney, smeared by the corporate media and much of the left for action at the g20 summit last november

Posted in Anarchism, Media, State / Politics, War on Terror | 8 Comments