KKKourageous KKKiwi Boneheads on Trial

In Bad News for Boneheads, three brave souls allegedly responsible for bashing, kidnapping and robbing a Canadian tourist have been committed to trial. According to an earlier report:

The charges stem from an alleged attack on Jeremie Kawerninski, 25, on April 18 [2006] after he was befriended in Wellington and offered a place to stay.

Later, the badly beaten tourist was dumped on a Naenae roadside half-naked with his feet bound and a pillowcase tied over his head after being set upon in a Lower Hutt house and robbed of $40.

He was in hospital for 10 days with a fractured nose, broken ribs, punctured lung and severe bruising.

$40.

Meanwhile, in Melbourne, scores of boneheads from across the country are gathering this weekend to celebrate the untimely death in 1993 of racist loser — and founder of Blood & HonourIan Stuart, on Saturday, September 23rd. The location of the gig — featuring Bail Up! (Melbourne), Blood Red Eagle (Newcastle) and Ultraviolence (?) — is being kept a closely-guarded secret: testimony to the contempt with which neo-Nazi scum are regarded by the general public.

In any event, let’s hope that the boys don’t go on a rampage (as has happened following other gigs)… and may Godwin help you if you’re identifiably Asian, black, brown, Jewish, Muslim, gay, lesbian, queer, left-wing, homeless or a person with a disability, and you happen to stumble across a mob of them, pissed, and looking for easy prey.

‘Men accused of bashing Canadian tourist to face trial’
[NZPA]
September 19, 2006

Three men accused of bashing, kidnapping and robbing a Canadian tourist have been committed to trial.

Mark Alexander Gage, 30, Jaydon Russell Borland, 30, and Jason George Gregory, 19, are jointly accused of aggravated robbery, kidnapping and wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm to Jeremie Kawerninski on April 18 this year.

At a depositions hearing today Justices of the Peace in the Lower Hutt District Court ruled there was enough evidence for the three to stand trial.

The Crown alleges Mr Kawerninski met Borland, Gage, Gregory and two women at an internet cafe in central Wellington and went drinking with them.

He went with the group to the home of Benjamin Peter McPadden in Naenae, Lower Hutt, and while he was asleep the defendants discussed how much money they thought he had on him.

He was attacked, tied up with tape and a belt, had a pillow slip put over his head, and bundled into the boot of a car.

He was later dumped by the roadside.

A statement by Mr Kawerninski – who has left the country – has been suppressed until the trial judge could rule on its admissibility.

Defence lawyers for the three men argued there was insufficient evidence for a trial and there was no link between the men and the assault on Mr Kawerninski.

Borland’s lawyer Steve Gill said there was no proof to link the assault to his client.

“He didn’t even get in the car.”

Borland had heard the “thumping” going on but had walked in afterwards, he said.

Crown prosecutor Cameron Mander said there was a strong circumstantial case against the accused.

Mr Mander argued Borland had returned to the house prior to the banging being heard.

A text message from Borland to Gregory sent just before 9pm that evening had been retrieved which read: “That c*** has money, search him hard”, Mr Mander said.

The three men had returned to the house with muddy clothing and at least one had blood on their trousers, he said.

Some of Mr Kawerninski’s possessions had been found in a muddy field.

Mr Mander said a witness had a conversation several days after the assault with Gregory, who allegedly said: “Did we tell you we smashed up some Canadian guy?”

Defence lawyers had previously told the court Mr Kawerninski had “gone to ground” in Canada and was refusing to return to New Zealand.

In his ruling Mr Withy said the court had also heard Mr Kawerninski was willing to return.

The three men were remanded to appear in the High Court at Wellington on October 30.

McPadden, who faced joint charges, had conceded he had a case to answer and his evidence remained suppressed.

He was remanded on bail for a High Court callover on October 30.

Gage was also scheduled to appear in the Lower Hutt District Court on October 12 for a status hearing regarding a protection order.

The coward threatens when he is safe. — Goethe

See also : Fightdemback : Fighting Race-Hate in Australia & New Zealand/Aotearoa

Meanwhile, in Russia:

In the wake of racist pogroms in Kondologa, Karelia, local fascists attempted to capitalise on the events by seeking to ignite a movement in the Karelian capital, Petrozhavodsk. The fascist front organisation DPNI (Movement Against Illegal Migration), together with Zhirinovsky‘s pro-Kremlin puppet party LDPR, called a meeting for the 5th of September, but with little success – the number of active anti-fascists surpassing the number of fascists present. Of up to 300 people at the Mayor’s office in Petrozhavodsk, only 30 were active neo-Nazis, up to 50 were active anti-fascists*, 30 were journalists and 50 were cops. Neo-Nazis claim that 100 people signed their resolution, which demanded the expulsion of all immigrants from the city.

Weak shouts of “Long live Russia” were answered with loud shouts of “Death to fascism of all flavors, from bottom to the powers!” and other anti-fascist slogans. Anti-fascist Initiative of Petrozhavodsk carried a black flag and banners reading “Power gives birth to parasites” and “Oligarchy = new fascism”.

Anti-fascists gave interviews to the assembled media, pointing out that the main enemy of a common human being is an alliance of power, bourgeois and criminal. Whereas elites are internationalists — with accounts in the same banks and villas in the same islands — we are being encouraged to fight one another. So, we need an international as well – peace between races, war between classes!

On the 9th of September, the DPNI and LDPR attempted to have another, even less successful demonstration in Petrozhavodsk. It is obvious that the authorities are attempting to use the LDPR to provoke events around Russia, similar to Kondologa, but more under their control. On this occasion, 5-10 neo-Nazis were escorted by 40 cops and 15 journalists. 4 anti-fascists came and unrolled a banner “Death to fascism” and a black flag. Soon the neo-Nazis sent the cops against the anti-fascists, who were arrested: two were given a fine of 500 rubles (15 euros) in a court for “not fulfilling police orders”.

*Including, but not limited to, anarchists.

Source : antifa-ptz via @-Infos

Posted in Anti-fascism, State / Politics | Leave a comment

Spartacism… the continuing obsession…

…with a shake of the balaclava in the general direction of Asher:

The Communist Workers’ Group

CWG originated as the New Zealand Spartacist League (NZSL) [of which the only remnant trace I can find online is here] in 1970 under the influence of the Spartacist League-US (SL-US) “Declaration of Principles” [1998]. The NZSL split in 1972 in a dispute between Owen Gager and Bill Logan and Adaire Hannah essentially over joining the SL-US. Gager argued that the SL-US had not broken completely with the SWP-US, nor did he think that the SL-US represented any programmatic continuity with Trotsky. The theoretical basis for this position is argued in “James P Cannonism”

Gager went on to form the Communist Left of Australia (CLA) [huh?] in 1974 while Logan and Hannah set up a Spartacist group also in Australia. In 1981 Dave Bedggood then a member of the British RCP formed the Communist Left in NZ [huh?] in solidarity with CLA. The CLA split over a tactical difference with Gager in the mid 1980’s. Gager left and moved towards anarcho-communism. CLNZ had fusion talks with the Bolshevik Tendency (now IBT) in the late 1980’s and with Workers Power (LRCI) in the early 1990’s. CLNZ fused with the LRCI in 1992 as its NZ section, Workers Power (NZ) [which appears to have disappeared in the intervening years] and ceased fraternal relations with CLA.

Some members of WPNZ had differences within the LRCI’s over its movement away from Trotskyism in forming a united front with Yeltsin in August 1991, and its characterisation of the first period of the overthrow of the bureaucracy as a ‘political revolution’. The catalyst for the split was the LRCI’s refusal to defend Serbia from the NATO bombs of 1995. Half of WPNZ left to form the CWGNZ, along with the Bolivian and Peruvian sections of the LRCI who were either suspended or expelled.

These comrades formed [in a stroke of acronymic genius] the Liaison Committee of Militants for a Revolutionary Communist International (LCMRCI) in late 1995… See Declaration of the Proletarian Faction. Essentially, these fusions and splits were attempts to apply the original position of the NZSL and CLNZ on the defense of dialectics against post-war degenerate Trotskyism [aka Trotskyism with a pronounced limp]. Today the CWG fights inside the LCMRCI and in discussions with other tendencies for a 5th International understood to mean the return to the pre-war method and programme of the 4th International.

See also : an angry denuciation of one of the newest additions (2005) to the Trot Guide, Trotskyist Platform or “Opportunism in Action”.

Apparently, the bloke what left is Trotskyist Platform. Further:

Contrary to his assertions, key to the political dispute with Balasubramaniam was our struggle to organise a proletarian-centred demonstration in defence of the Redfern militants that would be exemplary and a concretisation of our revolutionary program. A motion from our last National Conference, passed with the support of Balasubramaniam, stated in part: “We understand that holding a protest on the streets of Sydney in defence of the Redfern militants is conditional on several key union endorsements.”

    Down With Neocolonial Exploitation and Plunder!

    Australian/UN Imperialist Troops/Cops Out of East Timor and Solomons Now!

    Read Australasian Spartacist!

Posted in History, Trot Guide | Leave a comment

Fair dinkum Aussie values

Song Australia

Aussie Aussie Aussie
I am a fair dinkum Aussie
We all are fair dinkum Aussie

Oi, Oi, Oi

Captain Cook’s Aboriginal trace
Changed the whole continent’s face
Black, brown, white, human race
Buddies, mates, our southern place
Harbour Bridge, Opera, face to face
Nation stops on Melbourne Cup race

Oi, Oi, Oi

G’day, Yassou, Konichiwa, Namaste
Buon giorno, Ni hao, Salaam, Cómo estás
Kebab, Pasta, Sushi, Chicken Masala
Every taste of multicultural gala
Positive thoughts, no ill-will rumour
Understand Aussie sense of humour

Oi, Oi, Oi

Gums, grevillea, foxtail palm land
Our kangaroo, koala, cockatoo’s land
All round ocean, Uluru’s red land
Wild flower corals, golden beachy sand
Didgeridoo, dragon, Scottish band
Proudly walking hand in hand

Oi, Oi, Oi

Open heart, compassion, foreign aid
Salute Anzacs, Australia Day parade
Enjoy barby, freedom, not afraid
Our footy, swimmers, cricket brigade
All the champions of every Olympiad
Boparai, we are nation A-grade

Oi, Oi, Oi

‘Manjit (the singing cabbie) goes international’
Stefan Armbruster
[ABC]
August 7, 2006

Brisbane’s famous singing taxi driver has hit the international stage with an appearance on the BBC World Service‘s Outlook program.

Many taxi users in Brisbane have already had the pleasure of a live performance by Indian-Australian Manjit Boparai, who is not afraid to belt out a few numbers to his captive audience.

Top of his hit parade is the patriotic, Punjabi-flavoured Song Australia in which he reveals his passion for his adopted country…

He emigrated from India in 1988 and took up taxi driving after moving to Brisbane in the mid-1990s.

Manjit’s hours behind the wheel have already paid off with an SBS Inside Australia feature and appearances on ABC radio in Brisbane.

He is also the subject of an Australian Film Commission-funded documentary due to go into production soon.

If you happen to pull Manjit for a ride, also check out his photo collection – including one of him with the PM – and just try and get away without buying a CD.

Keep your eyes peeled for the SBS-funded, Bollywood-style video which he says will feature Cathy Freeman.

He told the BBC that he hopes to get out of cabbing by the end of the year.

Posted in Film, Music, Television | 1 Comment

Pride. Integrity. Guts.

Tonight’s the night that we got the truck
We’re goin’ downtown gonna beat up drunks
Your turn to drive I’ll bring the beer
It’s the late, late shift no one to fear
And ride, ride how we ride
We ride, lowride

It’s roundup time where the good whores meet
Gonna drag one screaming off the street

And ride, ride how we ride

Got a [blue] uniform and a silver badge
Playin’ cops for real/playin’ cops for pay

Let’s ride, lowride

Pull down your dress here’s a kick in the ass
Let’s beat you blue ’til you shit in your pants
Don’t move, child got a big black stick
There’s six of us babe, so suck on my dick

And ride, ride how we ride
Let’s ride, lowride

The left newspapers might whine a bit
But the guys at the station they don’t give a shit
Dispatch calls are you doin’ something wicked?
No siree, jack, we’re just givin’ tickets

As we ride, ride, how we ride
Let’s ride, lowride

‘Beatings by police caught on secret film’
Jamie Berry
The Age
September 20, 2006

GRAPHIC video images of detectives beating and kicking a suspect in an interview room have rocked the inquiry into the Victoria Police’s disbanded armed offenders squad.

One of three detectives accused over the bashing collapsed in the County Court witness box yesterday after being shown the secretly filmed footage.

Another officer was warned against perjuring himself as he denied taking part in the bashing on the 11th floor of St Kilda Road police headquarters on May 10.

    We all protected each other. When I arrived at St Kilda police station in 1985, no one spoke to me for months. It was explained to me that I was an unknown. I had not proven myself in battle (the streets). Could I be trusted? The brotherhood was at its thickest at St Kilda. The culture was such that you would not even think of blowing your nose, let alone any whistle.

The video, taken by a hidden camera installed in the interview room for the Office of Police Integrity, includes the voice of an officer threatening to remove the suspect’s ear.

The video was revealed on the second day of open public hearings into the squad, which was disbanded this month.

Three officers who appeared yesterday — Robert Lachlan Dabb, Mark Harrison Butterfield and Matthew Franc — all denied assaulting the suspect, identified only as A100.

The hearing was told that a bungled search for the suspect’s sawn-off shotgun and his stash from a jewellery store robbery sparked a two-hour interrogation in which he was beaten with a telephone after asking to make a call, slapped repeatedly about the face and kicked while being held on the ground.

At one stage, the suspect is allegedly struck four times in time with the words “F—— … armed … robbery … squad.”

The video shows detectives telling A100 to decide whether to be “all friendly and co-operative” or whether he will do it the “f—— hard, hard, hard way”.

When he does not answer, A100 appears to be pushed to the floor and one of the officers says: “Welcome to the armed robbery squad.”

The video shows one officer, alleged to be Detective Senior Constable Butterfield, repeatedly hitting A100, whose ear was bleeding, before telling him: “That ear’s coming off by the end of the day.”

The former head of the squad, Detective Inspector Bernie Rankin, also allegedly enters the room and tells A100 it’s going to be “a long old day for you, pal” and that “it might be a lot less painful and a lot easier for you” if he listens to advice.

Detective Senior Constable Dabb told the hearing he was unaware that a recording device had been placed in the room. He collapsed in the witness box after being shown some footage.

A group of men in the public gallery rushed to assist, lifting him back to his feet.

Senior Constable Dabb pulled at his tie and collar as the men led him from the room, and resisted attempts by security staff to usher him back in, telling them: “Get your hands off me.”

Senior Constable Dabb’s lawyer, Rowan Skinner, later said a doctor had issued a certificate saying he was medically unfit to give evidence until Thursday.

Earlier, Senior Constable Dabb said accusations by the OPI against the squad, revealed on Monday, were scurrilous.

The other accused officer, Sergeant Matthew Franc, denied kicking A100 while another officer pinned him to the ground.

Hartog Berkeley, QC, who is conducting the hearing, told Sergeant Franc to consider his options overnight and to “talk it over with a good friend” before “perjuring” himself further.

Mr Berkeley refused applications by media outlets for access to the video images.

Sean Cash, for Sergeant Franc, said the images — which he likened to the notorious police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles — could “overwhelmingly prejudice” any potential trial.

Police Association secretary Paul Mullett said the officers were still entitled to a presumption of innocence. He labelled the hearing and the OPI’s use of hidden cameras in squad offices as “questionable”.

The hearing continues this morning at the County Court.

Meanwhile, Premier Steve Bracks has defended the OPI’s decision to make the inquiry open to the public. He said a closed hearing would be “an usual circumstance” and the OPI had the discretion to hold open hearings under state legislation.

Ronald Reagan, October 3rd, 1972 : “I am very proud to be called a pig. It stands for pride, integrity, and guts.” Speech in Oroville, CA.

Posted in State / Politics | 1 Comment

Uncle Adolf : The Incestuous Coprophiliac

Come home tired, what a day I’ve had
News ain’t good from Stalingrad
I’ve been busy protecting the German race
So come on baby, defecate on my face

(Chorus) : So, come on baby, send it on down
Bend over Braun and gimme your brown
There’s trouble brewing in the Warsaw Pact
So hurry up Eva and move your digestive tract
Defecate on my face (x8)

Get to the bunker, looks like a stye
Turn on the TV, it’s all one big lie
Here, Eva, have these prunes to chew
We have ways of making you poo

(Chorus)

Here come the Russians, it’s near the end
Proud to say that my girl, never used an S-bend
What’s that, Eva? Your bowel is on strike?
Then it’s all over, for my Third Reich

(Chorus)

It was a relationship built on kinky sex that ended with a bullet 75 years ago. Police decided Geli Raubal had committed suicide. But evidence suggests she was…

‘SHOT BY UNCLE ADOLF’
Murray Davies
The Mirror
September 16, 2006

THEY found her face-down in a pool of blood, her red-stained nightdress pierced by a single bullet through the heart.

It is 75 years this week since the body of Hitler’s niece Angela “Geli” Raubal was discovered by servants at the Fuhrer’s Munich apartment.

Her death, by a bullet from the Nazi leader’s own pistol, was recorded as suicide. But there is compelling evidence to suggest the pretty 19-year-old – with whom Hitler was having a secret affair – was the first victim of the tyrant who would be responsible for the deaths of more than 50 million people.

Pro-Nazi police closed the case without an inquest or autopsy, while Geli’s body was quickly taken out of the country and buried in Vienna.

But the young woman who had captured the Fuhrer’s heart was seemingly in no mind to end her life on the night of September 18, 1931.

In fact the normally bubbly Geli was in the middle of writing a cheerful letter to a friend when, according to the official version of events, she put a gun to her chest and pulled the trigger.

Sixteen months later, Hitler became supreme ruler of Germany, and no one was allowed to breathe Geli’s name ever again.

The affair began after Hitler asked his destitute half-sister, Angela, to be his housekeeper at his mountain retreat in Bavaria.

She brought her two daughters and within months Hitler had fallen in love with the elder girl, a spirited, flirtatious 19-year-old brunette who called him “Uncle Alf” and became his constant companion.

To get Geli away from her mother’s watchful eye, Hitler moved her to his Munich apartment under the pretext of Geli studying medicine.

Hitler was madly jealous and and gave her no privacy or freedom but, while he was away, Geli still managed to spend nights with men, including Hitler’s chauffeur, Emil Maurice.

Geli confided to men she slept with, including Nazi boss Otto Strasser, that Hitler was frequently incapable of sexually satisfying her. He would make her undress and then he’d lie down on the floor so he could examine her closely, before demanding that she urinated on him.

She once confided to a friend: “You’d never believe the things he makes me do.”

By 1931 Nazi party chiefs were growing increasingly uneasy about Hitler’s relationship with his niece. The party was on the verge of a major breakthrough and a scandal would have wrecked Hitler’s chance of supreme victory. At the same time, Geli, now 23, was becoming increasingly frustrated after Hitler had refused to let her go to Vienna to study music.

On Friday September 18, 1931, Hitler was due to leave Munich, where the Nazis had their headquarters, for a rally in Hamburg.

Neighbours claimed to have heard Geli shouting to Hitler from their second-floor balcony as he was getting into his car. Hitler shouted back: “No. For the last time, no.” Geli shut herself away in her bedroom.

Next morning servants broke open the door and found her body. No one knows what they found or what they did before they called the police, but they settled on the story that Geli had committed suicide because she was worried her voice was not good enough to be a singer.

When the Nazis came to power 18 months later, they were able to doctor police records to fit the story. Detectives found Geli in a blue nightdress, lying face-down on the floor. Her arm was stretched towards Hitler’s Walther pistol on the couch. She had bled from a bullet hole over the heart which had pierced her lung.

On the table was a letter to a girlfriend which ended in the middle of the word “und” – German for “and”: “When I come to Vienna – hopefully soon – we’ll drive together to Semmering an…”

From the rigor mortis, the police doctor placed time of death as the previous evening but there was no inquest.

The bullet had entered above the heart and lodged in her lower back at hip level, meaning the gun had to be pointing downwards and the hand holding it higher than her heart – a strange way to commit suicide. None of Hitler’s servants admitted hearing a shot but they soon began to contradict themselves. Three different people claimed to have broken down Geli’s door.

At the time, the anti-Nazi Munchener Post reported that Geli’s nose had been broken and there were other injuries. There were also stories that Geli was pregnant.

The first detective on the scene, Heinrich Muller, rose to become head of the Gestapo while the Bavarian Minister of Justice, who hurriedly called off the investigation, became Reich Minister of Justice.

Geli was given a Catholic burial, even though to bury a suicide in hallowed ground was against church rules. The priest, Father Johann Pant, wrote to a French newspaper in 1939: “They pretended she committed suicide. From the fact I gave her a Christian burial you can draw your own conclusions.”

Hitler said he was 100 miles away in Nuremburg when he heard the news of Geli’s death, but at least one police investigator believed he was in the flat when the fatal shot was fired.

He wanted to charge Hitler with Geli’s death but was overruled by pro-Nazi officials.

FRITZ Gerlich, a German journalist, claimed that, instead of leaving that Friday, Hitler had dined with Geli in a restaurant and that Hitler, who seldom touched alcohol, drank beer.

When they went back to the apartment, there was a row and he shot her.

Gregor Strasser, once Hitler’s confidant, claimed he had to stop Hitler committing suicide after he’d shot Geli. Gerlich, Strasser and Strasser’s lawyer, who held his private papers, were killed when the Nazis settled political and personal scores in the infamous Night of the Long Knives in 1933. So too was the owner of the restaurant where Hitler and Geli may have had their last meal.

Two years earlier Hitler had written to Geli, explicitly detailing his sado-masochist perversions, which fell into the wrong hands.

Father Bernhard Stempfle, a friend of the Fuhrer who managed to buy it back and return it to him, was also murdered in the Night of the Long Knives.

Whether or not Hitler shot Geli, he came close to a nervous breakdown after her death. “Geli’s death had such a devastating effect on Hitler it changed his relationship to everyone else,” said his deputy, Hermann Goering.

By the time he had become Germany’s supreme leader Adolf Hitler was married, but Eva Braun would never take Geli’s place in his heart.

On a table beside the body was a letter to a girlfriend, ending in the middle of the word “and”

…you can read more about Hitler: History’s Aryan Potty Mouth here:

On a spring afternoon in 1930, Hitler wore his favorite uniform when Geli Raubal came for a visit: black trousers and a khaki military lounge jacket without insignia. Geli dished him up his favorite meal, a porridge soup made of flour, butter and caraway seeds seasoned lightly with salt and vinegar. When finished with his soup, Hitler gazed longingly at Geli, a pretty blonde 17-year-old, his half-niece. (Geli’s mother was Hitler’s half-sister.)

Hitler, who had been involved with Geli for about a year, moved next to her, put his arm around her and asked her to do something. “Oh, Uncle Alfy, I don’t know, that’s so disgusting.”

But Hitler always got his way. Geli complied. Hitler took off his uniform and stretched out naked on the floor. Geli squatted over him, pissed on his chest and then took a dump on the face of the Fuehrer.

Millions would have loved to do the same.

Did this happen? Historical evidence suggests Geli and some other frauleins treated Hitler to golden showers, and maybe a brown out or two…

“There’s today a really spiritual quality in the willingness of Germans to devote themselves to the well-being of the state.”

Robert Menzies, 1938

See also : Kanishka Jayasuriya, ‘Howard, Tampa, and the politics of reactionary modernisation’ (2003)

Posted in !nataS, Anti-fascism, History, Sex & Sexuality | 14 Comments

Neo-Nazis on the march in Germany

‘Far-right party wins seats in German election’
Mark Landler
The New York Times
September 17, 2006

FRANKFURT A far-right party made further inroads in Germany’s economically fragile east on Sunday, winning seats in a state election in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, a lonely land of farms and fishing villages that is the home constituency of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The National Democratic Party, which openly espouses xenophobic and neo-Nazi views, was projected to win slightly more than 7 percent of the vote, according to preliminary results. That was less than analysts here had feared, but enough to clear the threshold of 5 percent for seats in the state legislature.

Extreme-right parties will now be represented in three of Germany’s six eastern states – a trend that worries officials and underlines the divide between the country’s eastern and western halves. Far-right parties have negligible support in more-prosperous western Germany.

“This shows the extreme right is a stable and growing force in the east, but it is not an earthquake,” said Hajo Funke, a political scientist at the Free University of Berlin. “It’s not a danger for our democracy.”

The result, however, is a rebuke for Merkel and her conservative party, the Christian Democratic Union, which lost votes in Mecklenburg and fared even worse in the second of the two state legislative elections on Sunday, in Berlin. There, the popular mayor, Klaus Wowereit, led his Social Democratic Party to a comfortable victory.

Voters appeared to be punishing Merkel’s party, 10 months after it squeaked into power in an unwieldy “grand coalition” with the Social Democrats. The Social Democrats, who govern Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, lost ground there, too, and it was not clear whether they could salvage their coalition with the Party of Democratic Socialism, the former East German Communist party.

Merkel, who began her political career in Mecklenburg 15 years ago, has tried to focus attention on the region, inviting President Bush in July for a visit. But the state has one of the highest unemployment rates in Germany, which makes it a breeding ground for extremism, analysts say.

The National Democratic Party, which the German government once tried to ban, won seats in Saxony, a similarly depressed eastern state, in 2004. Another far-right party is represented in Brandenburg, the state that surrounds Berlin.

“The grand coalition hasn’t presented a forceful program to tackle Germany’s problems,” Funke said. “These parties take advantage of the frustration of those who have no chance of a social or economic future.”

One of the few winners on Sunday was Wowereit, who was given a strong mandate as mayor of Berlin, with the choice of renewing his coalition with the Party of Democratic Socialism or forming a new one with the Greens, the largest vote-gainer since the last election, in 2001.

The victory may foretell a greater national role for Wowereit, a 52-year-old lawyer who has become a star in Berlin. His party-going style seems to suit his late-night town, and his disclosure before the last election that he is gay only added to his appeal. On Sunday, Wowereit appeared on stage with his partner, Jörn Kubicki, a neurosurgeon.

With the departure of Social Democratic leaders like Gerhard Schröder, and a lack of other rising stars, Wowereit has made his ambitions plain. “I would like to have more say that I have had in the last five years, when we had to clean up the city,” he said in a recent interview with the German magazine Stern.

Whether he has done so is a matter of debate. Berlin is strangled by debt, a jobless rate of nearly 20 percent and a shrinking commercial base. Wowereit, who is known as Wowi, prefers to focus on its role as a cultural center and tourist magnet. Berlin, he said last year, is “poor but sexy” – a line that has become a tongue-in-cheek slogan for the city.

His opponent, Friedbert Pflüger, a Christian Democratic member of Parliament, tried to portray the mayor as a lightweight. But in a city that rewards flamboyance, Pflüger, an establishment politician originally from the western city of Hanover, never stood a chance.

“Up until now, he hasn’t been a strong voice in politics on the national level,” Uwe Andersen, a political scientist at Ruhr University, said of Wowereit. “He may think this result strengthens his position.”

See also : antifa.de (German) | Deutsche Welle | The Guardian

Posted in Anti-fascism, State / Politics | Leave a comment

When Boneheads Attack : Fightdemback

    Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

Across the world, boneheads are on the march: some into court; some into jail; others into parliament. Locally, boneheads will be jackbooting their way to Melbourne on September 23rd for the Ian Stuart is Dead celebration.

Among the fascists who’ve indicated that they’ll be joining their Kameraden already in Melbourne will be boneheads from Brisbane and Perth-based convicted neo-Nazi criminal — and former member of the ANM and White Devils gang — Ben Weerheym. Locals attending the gig include Patriotic Youth League spokesperson Luke Connors (whose racist diatribes on Scumfront are posted under the pseudonym ‘young_soldier’) and Bulldog Spirit fan and Wasted Festival attendee Damien Ovchynik — vocalist with Bail Up! (one of the three bands scheduled to perform on the night: the others being Blood Red Eagle (Newcastle) and Ultraviolence).

Sydney-based Blood & Honour Australia organisers Welf Herfurth and James Newman — both members of James Saleam‘s Australia First Party — are also expected to be in attendance.

Possible topics for discussion include the recent electoral successes of the neo-Nazi NPD in Germany (see below) and the BNP in the UK, and the many legal difficulties of other branches of Blood & Honour in Belgium (following a murderous shooting spree by one of its members in May) and Poland (following a series of attacks on anarchists, Jews — including Poland’s chief rabbi — and Holocaust educators).

Happily for the neo-Nazis in question, in Australia Blood & Honour is able to operate with impunity. And — given the Federal Government’s obsessive (and highly popular) focus on the local Muslim population as a possible source of terrorist outrages — this situation is unlikely to change anytime soon.

That said — well, unless your name happens to be Richard Ross, and the neo-Nazi in question happens to be one of your employees — few people appreciate the espousal of neo-Nazism: precisely why the location for the gig is kept a secret. Still, a sense of the general mood of the crowd is given in the following account of the 2004 celebration:

Next was the band that we had all been waiting to see and we weren’t disappointed!! The Bully Boys!! They played an awesome set, with tunes like Jigrun and Fire Up the Ovens. A few of the lads had gotten hold of some Jew[’]s yarmulke and took a light to it and handed it to Scott while he was singing Six Million More! Seeing that burn to the tune of that song was brilliant. What a showman!

[Bully Boys: A two decades old North Texas hate band. Founded in Florida in 1983, it was turned by band members into a racist band shortly thereafter. The Bully Boys are closely linked to the racist Hammerskins [bonehead] group. In 1990, drummer Sean Tarrant was one of several Confederate Hammerskins sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to civil rights convictions for involvement in the vandalization of a mosque and a Jewish community center in Dallas, and chasing and assaulting minorities in a park. Their current lead vocalist has also spent time in jail on assault charges. In their various incarnations, the Bully Boys have concentrated on playing at venues rather than recording albums.]

The Southern Cross Hammerskins are, along with Blood & Honour Australia, co-sponsors of the celebration:

In the 1980 animated film adaptation of The Wall, Pink Floyd’s rock anthem for angry youth, a little fascist character struts across a stage and rouses his followers to violence against minorities. The fans are portrayed in the film as a mass of marching twin claw hammers.

Today, these crossed hammers signify the best organized, most widely dispersed and most dangerous [Bonehead] group known: Hammerskin Nation (HN)…

The Hammerskins first appeared in the late ’80s as the Dallas-based Confederate Hammerskins and spread to Georgia, Tennessee and Florida. More namesakes followed: the Northern Hammerskins in the Great Lakes region, the Eastern Hammerskins in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and the Western Hammerskins in Arizona and California.

By 1989, HN emerged as the unifying organization for these dispersed groups. Within a few years, HN had become global, jumping from North America across the Atlantic to the east and the Pacific to the west. Today, HN has viable chapters in Australia, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Serbia, Slovenia and Russia…

With the number of European Hammerskins now exceeding 2,000 and the frequent trans-Atlantic travel of U.S. and European Hammerskin contingents, HN cannot be viewed as a provincial problem. British neo-Nazi fugitive Del Connor lived safely among his fellow Dallas Hammerskins for almost a year until he made an ill-advised return to England in June, where he was promptly arrested by British law enforcement.

While in Texas, Connor, a former leader of the British neofascist group Combat 18, ran from afar an underground faction in the United Kingdom called the White Wolves. It is this group that claimed credit for three nail-bomb attacks in London this spring (1999).

The international connections go further. Over the past year, law enforcement agents in Arizona, Florida and Texas have reported the presence of British and German Hammerskins among the ranks of their local Hammerskin units. What’s more, the European skins seem to be learning essential lessons from their U.S. counterparts…

Speaking of the US, boneheads, and cowardly acts of violence…

‘Man gets 80 months on weapons offenses’
Renee Winkler
Courier-Post
September 10, 2006

Gabriel Carafa of Pennsville, a member of a neo-Nazi skinhead [read: bonehead] group, was sentenced Friday to 80 months in federal prison for his role in the sale of a dozen rifles, shotguns and handguns.

Carafa, 25, was ordered to pay a $2,000 fine by U.S. District Judge Robert B. Kugler.

Carafa and his housemate, Craig Orler, 29, also of Pennsville, were arrested in April 2005 on the weapons charges. Some of the firearms were stolen during a house burglary. The serial number on one was obliterated.

Orler was sentenced earlier this month to 130 months in federal prison.

When Carafa pleaded guilty to the illegal sale of the weapons, he said Orler had shown him the weapons and offered them for sale.

When Carafa refused, Orler asked if he would help sell the weapons.

Carafa was identified at the time of his arrest as a member of the Church of the Creator and The Hated, both white supremacy groups. He has been detained since his arrest.

New Zealand / Aotearoa :

‘Victim’s absence delays hearing’
via stuff.co.nz
September 12, 2006

A heavily tattooed [bonehead] wearing a T-shirt with “revenge” emblazoned across the front has appeared in court amid tight security, accused of bashing a Canadian tourist.

But the depositions hearing has been adjourned because the Canadian did not board his flight to New Zealand to give evidence.

Jaydon Russell Borland, 31, of Taranaki – who has the words “Nazi” and “skin” tattooed above each eye – smirked from the dock and made hand signals to a [bonehead] friend yesterday in Lower Hutt District Court.

Justice of the peace Laurence Withy said Borland’s friend would be thrown out of court if he disrupted proceedings as six police officers guarded the four accused.

Borland, Mark Alexander Gage, 30, of no fixed abode, Jason George Gregory, 20, of Wainuiomata, and Benjamin Peter McPadden, 18, of Lower Hutt, face joint charges of kidnapping, aggravated robbery and causing grievous bodily harm.

The charges stem from an alleged attack on Jeremie Kawerninski, 25, on April 18 after he was befriended in Wellington and offered a place to stay.

Later, the badly beaten tourist was dumped on a Naenae roadside half-naked with his feet bound and a pillowcase tied over his head after being set upon in a Lower Hutt house and robbed of $40.

He was in hospital for 10 days with a fractured nose, broken ribs, punctured lung and severe bruising.

Mr Kawerninski was to have been the Crown’s star witness. Police had arranged for him to return to New Zealand and stay in a hotel for the week-long hearing at their expense. But the case was adjourned after crown prosecutor Cameron Mander told the court Mr Kawerninski had not arrived.

Gage’s lawyer, Greg King, said Mr Kawerninski’s statement of evidence ran to 75 pages. Defence lawyers wanted to cross-examine him.

Mr Kawerninski had been reluctant to return to New Zealand, and his non-attendance had important ramifications for the case, Mr King said. However, because he had not been summoned, he could not be forced to attend.

The hearing was adjourned 48 hours for police to contact him.

Borland, Gage and Gregory were remanded in custody. McPadden was freed on bail and his image suppressed from publication.

Russia :

‘Aide to Extremist Parliament Member Implicated in [Bonehead] Attack’
via UCSJ
September 12, 2006

An aide to Nikolai Kuryanovich — a member of the State Duma from the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia — was accused by witnesses of participating in a [bonehead] attack on demonstrators in Moscow, according to a September 6, 2006 report by the Sova Information-Analytical Center. Evgeny Valyaev and his brother Mikhail were allegedly seen by witnesses taking part in a neo-Nazi attack on a small demonstration in Moscow against the introduction of compulsory Christian theology classes in several Russian regions starting this school year. The September 4 demonstration by the Russian Radicals was disrupted by a counter-protest of Russian Orthodox fundamentalists and neo-Nazis, some of whom attacked the demonstrators. One of the [boneheads] was detained by police.

‘Petersburg Uzbeks May Have Been Stabbed By [Boneheads]’
via UCSJ
September 13, 2006

A September 2, 2006 attack on two Uzbeks in St. Petersburg may be the work of [boneheads], according to a September 5, 2006 report by the local news web site Fontanka.ru. Although nobody has been arrested for the non-fatal stabbings, which took place in the Krasnoarmeysk district, local anti-fascists and neo-Nazi web forums are filled with information about a neo-Nazi attack on punk rock fans at a nightclub near where the Uzbeks were stabbed, leading to speculation that the attacks could have been the work of the same [bonehead] gang. [Boneheads] sometimes attack fans of punk rock music, since it is often associated with anti-fascist youth groups [while others associate it with corporate control and chickenshit conformism]. Police sources told Fontanka.ru that they have no information about the attack on the nightclub and there is no indication that they are treating the stabbings of the two Uzbeks as hate crimes.

Germany :

‘Neo-Nazis join quiet march to poll victory’
Roger Boyes in Anklam
The Times
September 15, 2006

THERE was not a [bonehead] to be seen in this Baltic town at the heart of Germany’s neo-Nazi revival. No thugs with steel-tipped paratroop boots, no ranting xenophobes.

Yet the signs are clear: the far Right is on the march in Eastern Germany.

The neo-Nazis, picking up an astonishing level of support on the home turf of Angela Merkel, the Chancellor, look set to win a big chunk of seats in regional elections on Sunday. And to make sure that middle-class voters do not panic ahead of the ballot, they have donned camouflage.

“What did you expect,” asked Michael Andrejewski, the new face of the extreme Right. “That I would beat your brains out with a baseball bat?” Blinking from behind gold-framed glasses, Herr Andrejewski looked as threatening as a maths teacher — unlike the five young men who formed a protective semi-circle around their leader. “You’ll be wanting to move along,” said one of them with menacing politeness. One quickly got the point. The slogan on his T-shirt read: “Granddad was right”.

According to the latest opinion polls the NPD, the National Party of Germany, is poised to win between 4.8 per cent and 7 per cent of the vote this weekend in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the lush flatland that borders the Baltic Sea.

Since most Germans are afraid of admitting that they intend to vote for neo-Nazis, the betting is that the party will easily win the 5 per cent needed to capture parliamentary seats. It will be the second region, after Saxony, to have neo-Nazi members of parliament — a slap in the face for Frau Merkel, whose political constituency is in Mecklenburg.

Young Germans are leaving the area in droves in search of work. In East German days there were more than 20,000 people in Anklam, mainly fishermen and factory workers. Now there are barely 15,000. “It was the Leftists that got out,” says Herr Andrejewski, 47, who is likely to become a regional MP. “But our people stayed.”

That is only part of an extraordinary story — the economic transformation of the far Right. In Anklam and neighbouring Baltic villages ultra-nationalists own internet cafes and drink delivery services. They run music shops that are stacked with far Right rock bands. “There is a whole network of right-wing-run companies, above all in the local building business,” says Günther Hoffmann, who set up an association in Anklam to monitor the rise of the neo-Nazis. Small hotels are being bought up. A giveaway paper called The Island Messenger is edited and published by the extreme Right and is widely read.

This economic power — in a region where unemployment is more than 20 per cent — has translated into political clout. Firms in right-wing hands hire right-wing sympathisers as apprentices. Slowly but surely, neo-Nazis have become an indispensable part of society in northeast Germany. They sponsor sports competitions and dance evenings. The baker offers loaves with smooth brown crusts called glatze, the German for [bonehead]. There is no niche of society here that has not been infiltrated.

“It began with Blood & Honour rock concerts in the 1990s,” says Benedikt, a middle-aged computer specialist who did not want to be photographed, “and we thought it would go away when the teenagers grew up. But now they bring their children [to meetings] and marry each other.”

One proud neo-Nazi father gave his daughter a black doll for her third birthday — and a bat to beat it with.

The structural change came when the [boneheads] from the so-called Kameradschaften — disciplined, potentially violent gangs — decided to go mainstream and join the NPD about five years ago.

The posters that deck out every street corner say things like “Tourists welcome — asylum seekers out,” or depict a fist under the slogan “Enough!”

The NPD, which had been shipping tonnes of pamphlets in from its publishing houses across the country, is squeezing out the other parties. The Christian Democrats of Chancellor Merkel — in power in Berlin but not in Mecklenburg, have become almost invisible.

It is the likes of Herr Andrejewski who understand the mechanics of turning public frustration into a political weapon. He is not a maths teacher but a lawyer, and is using his legal skills to set up an advisory office for those on social welfare — the NPD intends to flood employment offices with official complaints and paralyse their work. The worse it gets for Mecklenburg, the better the far Right can present itself as the answer for those seeking social justice.

As for Hitler and the Nazi era, Herr Andrejewski would rather not comment. “Statements on this subject can drop you in legal hot water,” he said with just the flicker of a smile.

From Russia with hate :

RACIST VIOLENCE UP IN RUSSIA. So far this year, 33 people have died and about 300 have been injured as a result of racially motivated attacks, as opposed to last year’s total of 35 people killed and 393 injured, according to the tally maintained by the Moscow-based Sova Information-Analytical Center. This year’s racially motivated attacks, mostly carried out by [boneheads], have been reported in 32 out [of] Russia’s 89 regions. The figures were cited on September 8 by Ekho Moskvy radio, a popular station.

Sova’s deputy director, Galina Kozhevnikova, specified that this year in Moscow 27 people died and 147 were injured in racially motivated attacks, while the figures for St. Petersburg are four deaths and 25 injured. She added that on Runet, a Russian Internet portal, there are currently about 150 active radical nationalist sites.

For more, see the indispensable Bigotry Monitor. Latest: Volume 6, Number 32 (September 15, 2006). See also The Providence Journal (September 16, 2006) for further commentary on the sentencing of the blueblood bonehead Josiah Spaulding III:

Changes of heart come from within. Sometimes they begin when a criminal realizes that he has hit bottom. We’d have more confidence in Judge Spurlock’s sentence, and in Mr. Spaulding’s future good conduct, if one of the multicultural institutions he will see the inside of — for a spell at least — were a jail.

See also : www.ANTIRASIZM.Ru, especially ‘Nazi skinheads in modern Russia [compiled by Alexander Tarasov]’:

Skinheads made their appearance in Russia in early 90s. In 1992 there was about a dozen skinheads in Moscow. They were keeping a low profile, were mostly busy with self-admiration and showing off in downtown Moscow. Original skinheads have come from apery [?] practiced by teenagers as they were trying hard to imitate Western ways. They first became aware of Western skinheads at the time of perestroyka: during 1989-1991 the Soviet media had a vogue to write about British, German and later — Czech skinheads.

::::::

Style Council, Ghosts of Dachau :

    I close my eyes — I reach out my hand
    And there you are — beautiful in scabs
    Caressing my scalp — under the mounts of the gun towers

    I shout your name — I kick out in dreams
    And here we are — the searchlight beams
    The siren squeals — and hopeless shuffle to certainty

    The crab lice bite — the typhoid smells
    And I still here — handsome in rags
    A trouserless man — waiting helpless for dignity

    Come to me angel — don’t go to the showers
    Beg, steal or borrow — now there’s nothing left to take
    Except eternity

    And who will come — to flower our graves?
    With us still here — covered with dust
    Remembered by few but forgotten by the majority

    Stay with me angel — don’t get lost in history
    Don’t let all we suffered lose its meaning in the dark
    That we call memory

Posted in Anarchism, Anti-fascism, Art, History, Music, State / Politics, War on Terror | 19 Comments

Rapping in Aymara: Bolivian Hip Hop as an Instrument of Struggle

Rapping in Aymara: Bolivian Hip Hop as an Instrument of Struggle
Benjamin Dangl
September 14, 2006

At 13,000 feet, the hip hop movement in El Alto, Bolivia is probably the highest in the world. The music blends ancient Andean folk styles and new hip hop beats with lyrics about revolution and social change. As the sun set over the nearby snow capped mountains, I sat down with Abraham Bojorquez, a well known El Alto hip hop artist. We opened up a bag of coca leaves and began to talk about what he calls a new “instrument of struggle.”

Fuckin’ A! (More…)

See also : ¡Cochabamba! | Latin American Solidarity Network | Mujeres Creando | Upside Down Blog

Posted in Music | Leave a comment

Stage one : Denial

‘White patriot’ denies violence
Andrew Fraser and Greg Roberts
The Australian
September 16, 2006

SELF-PROCLAIMED “white nationalist” Peter Campbell says he is ready to co-operate with any police investigation of his activities, but denies violence is involved with the group of people he calls “white patriots”.

The Australian reported yesterday that the Victoria Police security intelligence group was investigating written material that had allegedly been distributed by Mr Campbell detailing how to make a bomb.

Victoria Police confirmed the investigation was under way, but Mr Campbell said he had not been contacted by police in Victoria or NSW, or by ASIO.

“I contacted NSW and Victorian police myself and I had a colleague with a contact in ASIO call them, but no one knew anything about it,” he said.

“Some people say a few stupid things when they’re drunk, but we’re not out to kill people or indulge in terrorism.”

Mr Campbell, who was head of the White Pride Coalition, which openly promotes violence against blacks, Jews and other minorities, said the group had folded a year ago when its US-based website was hacked into “by a group of violent anarchists from Canada”.

The material given to the police includes bomb-making instructions published in an article titled “How to build a David Copeland special”.

Copeland, a white supremacist dubbed the Soho bomber, was responsible for a series of bombs in London in the late 1990s.

Mr Campbell said the article had come from a magazine called The Stormer. This was produced by a group called Combat 18, which he described as a “very militant white-power group”.

At this end of politics you get a lot of material, and at some time or another I may have had some publication which had something like that in it,” Mr Campbell said.

“But we are not a violent group of people. We don’t have AK47s, we’re not the IRA or anything like that.

“We’re a group of people who want to return Australia to the days when European people were dominant and before multiculturalism came in – the sort of things that Pauline Hanson was saying openly.”

Mr Campbell is a senior sales representative with electrical parts company Heinemann Electric, which was told three months ago about his neo-Nazi activities.

However, the company said it was not convinced the information it was given about Mr Campbell was important [at which fact ETU members evince no surprise].

The printed material given to police included detailed bomb-making instructions. And Mr Campbell has access to items listed in the instructions in his job selling installation products made by Heinemann Electric subsidiary Slegers.

South African-owned Heinemann Electric is at the centre of a dispute over the HoWARd Government’s industrial relations laws after it docked a week’s pay from 46 Melbourne workers who stopped working overtime.

The Australian has revealed that WorkSafe Victoria has issued eight notices instructing Heinemann to improve health and safety standards.

Earlier this week, Heinemann Electric general manager Richard Ross said he knew nothing in Mr Campbell’s background that suggested he should not have been hired.

See also : ETU: Proud to be Union

Ask a worker at Heinemann and you’ll be told the management is arrogant and behaves in an intimidating way. ‘It’s not unusual to see one of the managers shouting at workers or intimidating them,’ an ETU member told the ETU. An average worker at Heinemann takes home about $32 000, before tax. The general manager Richard Ross drives a $72 000 Peugeot sports car.

Posted in Anti-fascism, War on Terror | Leave a comment

Coming soon from the desk of Kevin Andrews

Italy: Nazi slogan used to promote work

President of southern Chieti province uses ‘work makes you free’ slogan that topped gates at Auschwitz in brochure to promote local job centers, saying he could not remember source but was impressed by quote

Reuters

Italian politician has used the “work makes you free” slogan that topped the gates at Auschwitz in a brochure to promote local job centers, saying he could not remember the source but was impressed by the quote.

News agency Ansa reported the vice-president of the Jewish community in Rome had sharply criticised Tommaso Coletti, president of Italy’s southern Chieti province and member of the center-left “Daisy” party, for using the quote.

Countless photographs have focused on the “Arbeit macht Frei” sign at Auschwitz to encapsulate the horror of the Nazi death camps.

“Work makes you free. I don’t remember where I read this phrase but it was one of those quotes that have an instant impact on you because they tell an immense truth,” Coletti wrote in the pamphlet, Ansa reported.

Coletti could not be reached for comment and the regional job centres were also unavailable. Ansa said the governor of the Abruzzo region, which includes Coletti’s province, had apologised to Italy’s Jewish community.

[Hat tip : Leigh / Myshmash]

Posted in !nataS, State / Politics | Leave a comment