Friends of Tortuga!

If you’re friends of T, then you’re friends with me / If you’re down with T, then you’re down with me…

Friends of Tortuga

On October 1st, 2009, at 6:00am, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (a union of local police departments and the FBI), kicked out the front door to our home—an anarchist collective house in Queens, NY, affectionately known as Tortuga.

The FBI spent 16 hours ransacking our house before carting off boxes of our personal belongings, everything from computers, passports and even stuffed animals.

The apparent reason for this predawn raid was the arrest of two members of our household a week earlier in Pennsylvania. Our two friends were arrested and charged with several felonies for sending twitter messages during protests against the G20 in Pittsburgh.

See also : Fuck the FBI! Free Elliot Madison! (And other stuff…) (October 15, 2009) | Twitter Revolution.

Bonus!

Posted in Anarchism, War on Terror | Tagged | Leave a comment

You Nazty Spy!


Watch You Nazty spy.divx in Entertainment  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

The Three Stooges vs. Hitler | Moe, Larry and Curly: Premature Anti-Fascists

Posted in Anti-fascism, Film | Tagged | Leave a comment

“I worked myself up from nothing” (Et cetera)

Why I left the lefties
Kevin Donnelly
The Australian
October 16, 2009

In summary:

Kevin Donnelly had a working-class upbringing. He lived in a working-class suburb. His father was a Communist. As a student, he took part in protests against the Vietnam War. He went to University. He got a job as a teacher. He joined a union.

Then he joined the Liberal Party.

Why did Kevin join the Liberal Party?

Because he realised his father was a dreamer. Because socialism is driven by “class bitterness and the politics of envy”. Because Edmund Burke was right when he emphasised the need to conserve, not revolutionise, social institutions. Because evolution is better than revolution, and “[a]s Burke predicted, the French Revolution descended into terror and brutality. Since then, history is littered with tyrants such as Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot who killed and enslaved billions in the name of socialism.”

In addition to Burke, Kevin blames the work of George Orwell, especially Animal Farm.

As for Marxism, there is “something soulless and reductionist about” it: “To say that great literature, art and music are simply the results of power relationships denies the creative urge driven by moral and spiritual forces”.

After abandoning his job as a teacher, Kevin got a gig with Kevin Andrews as his Chief of Staff.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Still, I have a few minor quibbles with Kevin.

To begin with, ‘the left’ is rather more extensive than the CPA (or the ALP). Thus Orwell, whom Kevin cites with approval, was a ‘leftist’, and his parable was intended to debunk the myth of ‘Soviet Russia’, not ‘socialism’, something to which he remained committed until his death. Further, while there are economistic, mechanistic and reductionist interpretations of Marx’s thought, his writings have been proven to be rather more fecund than Stalin’s Russia, Mao’s China or Pol Pot’s Cambodia might otherwise suggest.

A movement of the left should distinguish with clarity between its long-range revolutionary aims and certain more immediate effects it can hope to achieve…

But in the long run, a movement of the left has no chance of success, and deserves none, unless it develops an understanding of contemporary society and a vision of a future social order that is persuasive to a large majority of the population. Its goals and organisational forms must take shape through their active participation in political struggle [in its widest sense] and social reconstruction. A genuine radical culture can be created only through the spiritual transformation of great masses of people — the essential feature of any social revolution that is to extend the possibilities for human creativity and freedom… The cultural and intellectual level of any serious radical movement will have to be far higher than in the past… It will not be able to satisfy itself with a litany of forms of oppression and injustice. It will need to provide compelling answers to the question of how these evils can be overcome by revolution or large-scale reform. To accomplish this aim, the left will have to achieve and maintain a position of honesty and commitment to libertarian values.

~ Noam Chomsky, Radical Priorities, pp. 189-90

See also : Kevin Donnelly, John McIntrye, and the right to indoctrinate while sucking on the taxpayer teat…, loon pond, September 29, 2009.

ALSO!

Posted in History, State / Politics | Tagged | 8 Comments

The Ideological Evolution of Horst Mahler: The Far Left-Extreme Right Synthesis

    Yeah. Thought I may as well throw this up, if only ’cause I reckon Anti-German Translation will link to it, and every time they link to my blog, I get a free bagel from Glick’s (but ssshhh, don’t tell anyone — it’ll like, totally blow my cover!).

    It’s the story of a quack who’s gone to the dogs.

    Or to put it another way: it’s the story of a nice middle class German boy who went to University, read too many books, joined a Marxist urban guerilla group, went to jail, left jail, became a right-wing ideologue, and is now back.

    In jail.

    As an historical curio, Sydney-based neo-Nazi Welf Herfurth, along with Adelaide-based Holocaust denialist Uncle Fred Töben, flew Mister Mahler’s flag in Sydney a few years ago. Note that Uncle Fred is also in jail at present, having been sentenced in mid-August to three months’ imprisonment for contempt of court (Toben jailed as appeal fails, ABC, August 13, 2009). Finally, Herfurth’s kamerad Dr James Saleam has kindly made available some of Mahler’s writings in English, which are available here: http://home.alphalink.com.au/~radnat/mahler/index.html.

The Ideological Evolution of Horst Mahler: The Far Left-Extreme Right Synthesis
George Michael
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism
Volume 32, Issue 4, April 2009

In the late 1990s, Horst Mahler, a former leader of the Red Army Faction and scion of the radical left, announced his affinity for the extreme right and joined the NPD—Germany’s principal far right party. Later distancing himself from party politics, he founded the Deutsches Kolleg, a far right think tank that promotes German nationalism. Although ostensibly now a rightist, Mahler has synthesized much of his original left-wing ideology into a far right Weltanschauung that features nationalism, anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism, with a strident critique of capitalism. As such, it has the potential to appeal to some segments of the contemporary anti-globalization movement, the international extreme right, and even Islamists.

Introduction

Horst Mahler has emerged as one of the leading far right ideologists in Germany. During the 1970s, he attained international notoriety as a left-wing terrorist, but in the late 1990s, he made a political volte-face declaring his unabashed support for German nationalism. Although identified as part of the far right, he nevertheless retains a Marxian critique of capitalism, which he has interestingly syncretized with rightist themes, including extreme nationalism, anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia.

This article examines the ideological evolution of Horst Mahler. First, his early life is sketched. Next, his involvement with the Red Army Faction is examined, followed by discussion on the genesis of his political reversal while in prison. After that, his participation in the NPD is reviewed. Breaking away from traditional party politics, Mahler founded a nationalist think tank—the Deutsches Kolleg—whose major themes are discussed in the next section. His controversial pronouncements did not go unnoticed by German authorities and led to legal troubles which are covered in the following section. Finally, the conclusion explains how Mahler’s syncretic ideology is indicative of a broader trend in which various dissident movements are increasingly converging on a similar critique of certain aspects of globalization.

Continue reading

Posted in Anti-fascism, History, Media, State / Politics, Trot Guide, War on Terror | Tagged | 15 Comments

A.3.I.

B.N.P.

BNP forced to close membership over race bias, NU, October 15th, 2009.

Following a court battle staged by the liberal Marxist establishment for the benefit of its Bolshevik benefactor in Brockley, the British National Party looks set to change its Constitution so as to allow any non-White silly enough to actually want to do so to join the party party party.

Well, either that, or to join en masse, and stage a party take-over.

The effects of this decision upon the current membership is unknown, but while one or two might be expected to leave as a result, the majority seem happy to leave it up to the one-eyed Welshman — currently condemned to be paid large sums of money (€7000) at regular monthly intervals to sit in a Parliament he wants to abolish — to call all the shots.

Of course, the White nationalist movement in Australia is way ahead of the British in this regard, the largest party of its kind — Australia First — being under the command of a Lebanese-Australian, Dr James Saleam. Saleam’s previous arch-rival, Jack van Tongeren, was, by of his father, of Javenese dissent.

Who said non-Whites can’t assimilate our (White nationalist) values?

    “Saleam [Saa-leem],” I say, “isn’t a very European-sounding name.”

    “It’s pronounced Saleam [Sail-’em],” he says, correcting me. “Saleam.”

E.D.L.

Businessman bankrolls ‘street army’, Nick Lowles, hopenothate.org.uk.

Those bloody football hooligans are at it again.

Having obliterated Melbourne from the map in November 2006, English football hooligans have ditched their black hoodies and been seen running amok in Manchester recently (October 10). By way of that powerful notion known as the Hegelian dialectic, The Street Performers Formerly Known As Anarchists have become Zionists, as clearly evidenced by their waving of a flag — and because Nick Gri££in said so.

Anywhere from 200 (Socialist Party) to 500 (SWP) to 1000 (EDL) Little Englanders defended Manchester from imminent Islamisation, while several thousand others defended Manchester from the EDL.

By most accounts, the EDL is still in a process of ideological and political formation, with the one unifying theme being opposition to the Islamic presence in England. Thus it has attempted to distance itself from Gri££in’s cash-cow the BNP — and vice versa. The relationship between the two seems close in some localities (and by way of some firms) and more distant in others.

…The organisation is about seven months old and only started gathering any kind of momentum after 10 Muslim extremists staged an anti-war demo at a Royal Anglian Regiment parade in Luton in March this year. The big divisions are in Luton, Birmingham, Bristol and Cardiff. They are a rag tag group of about 400 self-styled English patriots, loosely affiliated with football hooligan firms…

~ Under the skin of English Defence League, Paraic O’Brien, BBC, October 12, 2009.

The next match on the EDL fixture is scheduled for Leeds on Walpurgisnacht (October 31) — which side the witches are on remains to be seen. In the meantime, Islamic mentalists are planning a march from Parliament to Trafalgar Square on the same date. Mentalist spokesman Anjem Choudary is a one-man anti-PR band, having supposedly called, inter alia, for the assassination of the Pope. Ironically, like any good Catholic, Choudary seems to be driven by guilt, having as a student indulged in sex, drugs and alcohol.

…It’s a long way from his days as a medical student at Southampton University, where, friends say, he drank, indulged in casual sex, smoked cannabis and even took LSD. He called himself ‘Andy’ and was famed for his ability to drink a pint of cider in a few seconds.

One former acquaintance said: “At parties, like the rest of us, he was rarely without a joint. The morning after one party, I can remember him getting all the roaches (butts) from the spliffs we had smoked the night before out of the ashtrays, cutting them up and making a new one out of the leftovers.

“He would say he was a Muslim and was proud of his Pakistani heritage, but he didn’t seem to attend any of the mosques in Southampton, and I only knew of him having white girlfriends. He certainly shared a bed with them.”

On one occasion, ‘Andy’ and a friend took LSD together. The friend said: “We took far too much and were hallucinating for 20 hours.”

The only sign of religious fervour came in flashes of anger over Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. A friend from that time said: “You didn’t want to get him started on that. He would go on and on about the fatwa and he supported calls for the book to be banned. But he would have a glass of cider in his hand when he was carrying on about it.”

Islam4UK OK?

G.O.D.

Posted in !nataS, Anti-fascism, State / Politics, War on Terror | Tagged , | 4 Comments

White Power!

From the Department of Whatever Happened To That Bloke From Alice Springs What Was Selling Silly Tee Shirts comes:

Man pleads guilty to ‘White Power’ T-shirts
Eric Tlozek
ABC
October 12, 2009

A man has pleaded guilty to offensive behaviour for displaying “white power” merchandise in Alice Springs.

The man cannot be named because the Alice Springs Magistrates Court has allowed an application suppressing his identity.

His defence counsel, Dara Read, submitted an affidavit saying the man had received threats since being publicly outed as the person responsible for the merchandise.

The man admitted having T-shirts and baseball caps made with the slogan “White Power Alice Springs” and displaying them for sale in the main street last month.

He also admitted removing his personalised car number plates because he feared reprisals if spotted.

He falsely claimed the number plates had been stolen.

Magistrate John Birch adjourned the case for sentencing on October 14.

‘White power’ T-shirt seller sentenced
Eric Tlozek
ABC
October 15, 2009

An Alice Springs man who offered “white power” merchandise for sale has been ordered to complete 120 hours of community work.

The man cannot be named because the Alice Springs Magistrates Court has suppressed his identity.

He pleaded guilty to offensive behaviour for having t-shirts and hats made with the slogan “white power Alice Springs” and offering them for sale from his car last month.

The man, fearing attacks, then removed his personalised number plates and falsely reported them stolen.

For that he was fined $1,500 and ordered to pay $2,100 restitution for wasting police time.

Magistrate John Birch says the man received a lighter sentence for offensive behaviour because he had pleaded guilty and was obviously remorseful.

This obviously comes as a blow to The White Man & His Eternal Struggle To Keep Australia Clean. For every cloud there’s a silver lining, however, and White Racial Patriots can still find a whole range of White Power and neo-Nazi music, clothing, key rings and other kitsch from the proudly Australian online retailer 9percent productions. I think my personal favourite is Grinded Nig’s album Freezer Full Of Nigger Heads: ha ha ha! But for the true patriot, albums by Australian boys Axis, Deaths Head, Fortress, Kilgore, Open Season, Ravenous and White Devils are essential purchases.

In even better news, Open Season will be playing on the Gold Coast next year, just a few days prior to Hitler’s birthday!

Perhaps the bestest news for White Australia, however, is the decision by KRudd to keep Tamil trash out of the country — a decision which, just like the sadly-abandoned White Australia policy, enjoys bi-partisan support from the Liberal Party.

Huzzah!

(See : Tamil boat people fleeing ‘genocide’, Tom Allard, The Sydney Morning Herald, October 15, 2009: “Distraught Sri Lankan asylum seekers said they were fleeing ”genocide” against ethnic Tamils in their country, and expressed shock that the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, had personally intervened to interrupt their journey to Australian shores…”)

Of course, students from the Indian sub-continent — well, their $ anyway — are still welcome. Very welcome. Especially as patriots in Melbourne and Sydney are doing their best to make sure the foreigners know their place in Australia’s racial hierarchy.

Finally, while I’m not given to allowing emotion to override reason when it comes to determining Government policy, working families should spare a thought for KRudd and his multi-millionaire wife when the pair attend church every Sunday, and a wry smile crosses their faces as they listen to what some dead Jew supposedly said 2000 years ago:

    And they brought to him young children on his TV screen, that he might rebuke them for their emotional appeals. And the loyal Labor apparatchiks also rebuked them that brought him such images. 14 Whom when Jesus saw, he was much dis-pleased and saith to them: Don’t suffer the little children to come unto me, forbid them: for we won’t allow such in the kingdom of Australia. 15 Amen I say to you, whosoever shall keep Australia’s borders protected shall receive the kingdom of God – especially from little brown-skinned children fleeing war and persecution. 16 And embracing his Army, his Navy and his Air Force, and further boosting their budgets, he told them to to tell the world: Fuck Off, We’re Full.

At least, I think that’s what he said…

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

Drink-Soaked Ex-Trotskyite Popinjay For War ~versus~ GOD

See also : Authors@Google: Christopher Hitchens (October 4, 2009) | The Long Strange Posthumous Life of Leon Trotsky (September 1, 2009) | Drink-Soaked Ex-Trotskyite Popinjay For War Undergoes Waterboarding For Vanity (July 7, 2008).

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

Coming Soon : Annual ‘Nazi Wave A Flag Day’ in Wellington

RRTAA!

In exilent and exciting news, former ‘National Front New Zealand’ Fuehrer Kyle ‘The Pieman’ Chapman is further reinforcing his retirement from racist, right-wing politics by organising a contingent belonging to ‘Right Wing Resistance New Zealand’ (RWRNZ) to march on Wellington next weekend (October 24/25), armed only with flags and the false promise of a new dawn for angry Aryans. It promises to be the biggest Nationalist event EVER!!! I look forward to seeing all his comraids, including several from Australia.

In related news…

Threat Assessment Unit visits activists in Wellington

Aotearoa IMC
October 16, 2009

A Wellington police officer has had a busy morning already. He has visited at least one house and one workplace enquiring if a protest was planned at the National Front flag raising ceremony. He identified himself as Detective Richard Grover from Wellington Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB). He said he was in the Threat Assessment Unit (TAU). Richard Grover was caught photographing a small animal rights protest against a restaurant serving foie gras (force-fed goose/duck liver) on 5th August 2009. When questioned by local cameraman Daryl Hunt about what he was doing, Grover initially denied any knowledge of the situation before admitting to taking photographs and hiding his camera in a grocery bag. Later that day when he was contacted at the Wellington Central Police Station and the realisation that his cover had been blown set in, he changed tac[k] once again, this time denying even being at the protest.

According to the NZ Police website, “the Threat Assessment Unit investigates threats against police staff, judges and court staff and other investigative agency staff. They respond to counter-terrorist threats or situations. The unit also collects and analyses potential threats to New Zealand and visiting government politicians and officials.”

The TAU has harassed and surveilled activists for years. The story of animal rights activist Jesse Duffield is most chilling. Nicky Hager writes: “On October 2, 2003 World Farm Animal Day a group of young Aucklanders held a protest at the Tegel Foods offices about treatment of chickens. They scattered some hay on the floor of the reception area and 23-year-old school teacher Jesse Duffield delivered a protest letter. Police documents estimate the cost of cleaning up the hay was $111 plus GST. However, early the next morning, detectives raided Duffield’s home. He was arrested roughly and charged with home invasion (maximum 10 years’ prison) and intentional damage (maximum seven years’ prison). Police opposed him getting bail and later imposed a 9pm-6am curfew. Meanwhile his car was impounded for a week and his house searched by detectives. They seized his computer and mobile phone, plus 100 floppy disks, posters off the walls and a T-shirt saying “GE, you are what you eat.” These possessions were not returned for nine months.”

“The only rational explanation for their actions was intelligence collecting. The police eventually dropped their absurd charges but they’d got hundreds of thousands of emails and texts to build a profile of the animal rights groups. The detective who led the raid, Mike Paki, was not a normal CIB officer, but a police intelligence officer from the Auckland Threat Assessment Unit who was surprise, surprise studying animal rights and other protest groups. It appears police were working their way through activist groups looking for security threats. It’s not hard to see where such ideas would come from.”

Since Operation 8, the state-terror raids of 15th October 2007, we know how closely the TAU and the Special Investigation Groups (SIG) of Aaron Pascoe work together. Richard Grover had involvement in Operation 8 too (and so did Mike Paki who is mentioned above).

If you want to contact Richard Grover: (04) 496 3415, 0274 946 332, [email protected].

Posted in !nataS, Anti-fascism | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Anarchists claim Northcote Neo-Nazi attack

Anarchists claim Northcote Neo-Nazi attack
Tessa Hoffman
Preston Leader
October 14, 2009

NEO-NAZI skinheads allegedly staged a pay-back attack on Melbourne’s anarchist headquarters in Northcote recently.

Anarchists claim the four men, one armed with pepper spray, stormed into an activists’ meeting at the Melbourne Anarchist Resource Centre, [home to] Barricade Books on St Georges Rd on [Monday], September 28, knocking over bookshelves and demanding the group end its anti-fascist activities.

No one was hurt in the incident.

A spokesperson for the anarchist collective said during the attack, the group’s ringleader accused the meeting of graffiting anti-fascist slogans on a Burwood tattoo parlour and warned of violent repercussions if it continued these activities.

“They screamed and shouted, pushed over book shelves, crowded individuals, and threatened physical violence,” said the spokesperson.

“No-one was hurt…we were all a bit shaken.”

The spokesperson said the centre would stay open and the Melbourne Anarchist Club remained “committed to continuing to facilitate anarchist activity in Melbourne”.

Northcote Police said they had no record of the incident.

The Melbourne Anarchist Club has released a statement on the incident, which has been published on Melbourne Indymedia (and elsewhere).

A little history

In general, neo-Nazi and fascist activity is subject to the same peaks and troughs as any other form of political activism.

In the 1980s, the two dominant forces on the far right were Jack van Tongeren’s ‘Australian Nationalists Movement’ (ANM), principally confined to WA, and James Saleam’s ‘National Action’ (NA), which largely confined itself to NSW.

Australian Nationalists Movement

The ANM came to notoriety through its conduct of an arson campaign against Asian-owned businesses in Perth, a campaign intended to drive Asian-Australians from the state and to create a ‘Whites Only’ Western Australia (with van Tongeren as its führer). The plan came unstuck when police arrested those responsible, with van Tongeren himself — a former member of NA — sentenced to a lengthy prison term (1989-2002) for his role as the chief architect. The campaign was murderous as well as violent: ANM member David Locke was killed by two associates after he was suspected of being a police informer.

    In 1993, the ANM was the subject of a documentary, Nazi Supergrass, by David Bradbury:

    “A film that reveals the extraordinary race war waged by the neo-Nazi Australian Nationalist Movement (ANM) in the late eighties in Western Australia.

    This is the chilling story of neo Nazi terrorism under the Southern Cross in suburbia. It explores the dark underworld of neo-Nazis in Australia. Ex-Vietnam vet Jack van Tongeren modelled himself on Hitler and was convinced he was the modern day Fuhrer destined to lead Australia out of a corrupt world where Jews, Asians and Aborigines defiled the majority Anglo Saxon race. Van Tongeren and his Aryan army of malcontent criminals and teenage skinheads lead a terrifying ‘war’ in Perth of the late 80’s firebombing Asian restaurants and defacing Jewish synagogues…”

Released in 2002, van Tongeren launched another campaign, this time to promote his manifesto and a further attempt to enter Parliament. Like his previous campaign, it was not a roaring success (see : White supremacist Wallys: Weerheym in The West Australian, July 9, 2007; Racist jailed for ‘stunt bomb plot’, The Sydney Morning Herald, May 24, 2007; WA police say “You’re under arrest!”; Billing and van Tongeren say “Huh?”, April 5, 2006).

National Action

National Action was formally launched on ANZAC Day (April 25) in 1982. It was at about this time that Saleam bought his property in Tempe (a suburb of Sydney), which became NA’s HQ (and which now forms the HQ of the ‘Australia First Party’). Of this period, David Greason writes:

From 1984 onwards National Action was regularly in the newspapers, accused of terrorism against leftists and anti-racist activists. Saleam would always be there, denying it all, and claiming a set-up by the political police of the NSW Special Branch, hoping no doubt that he could become the new Tim Anderson.

Both the roll-call of violence and harassment against National Action’s critics was damning. Journalist Denis Freney received phoned death threats and had his windows shot through. Bronwyn Ridgway of the NSW Nurses Association had her car firebombed. Meredith Burgmann, now a NSW Labor MP, had the windows of her house bricked. Anti-apartheid activist John Brink had a Molotov cocktail thrown through his bedroom window. Three masked men necklaced an effigy outside the home of Reverend Dorothy McMahon of the Pitt Street Uniting Church. National Action members stormed a dinner, shouting death threats at NSW Liberal Helen Sham-Ho. A meeting of the Gay and Lesbian Immigration Task Force was disrupted. Conservative commentator Dr Gerard Henderson received death threats after criticising National Action in a newspaper column. The Federal Race Discrimination Commissioner, Irene Moss, had racist slogans daubed on her garage.

The case that brought National Action undone, however, came in January 1989, when Eddie Funde, Australian representative of the African National Congress, had his front door shot through. Shotgun pellets were found near his child’s cradle. National Action members Jason Frost and Michael White were arrested. They both implicated Saleam, telling the court that he had given them a balaclava, a shotgun and eight dollars each for a drink to steady their nerves. That had to be Jim, I thought on reading their story. Anyone else would have given them a fifty each.

Saleam claimed it was the political police again, trying to wreck the nationalist cause. The jury was not so persuaded and, in May 1991, Saleam was sentenced to three and a half years jail. This was his second time inside — in April 1989 he’d been sentenced to two years’ hard labour for fraud and receiving stolen property. ‘Ironically, Saleam received his sentence on the same day as the centenary of Hitler’s birth’, the Sydney Morning Herald noted.

Further, on April 20, 1991, National Action member Perry Whitehouse murdered another NA member, Wayne “Bovver” Smith, at the organisation’s inner-Sydney headquarters after an argument.

With the departure of Saleam and the collapse of its Sydney base, control of National Action fell into the lap of Adelaide NA führer Michael Brander. Brander carried on the struggle for several more years, attempting to (further) extend NA’s influence to Melbourne by way of establishing a shopfront in Fawkner in January 1997; the shop was closed in April 1998; barely 15 months after it was opened.

As for Brander, he enrolled at LaTrobe University and, having completed his MA in history, has since been welcomed with open arms by the ‘neo-conservative’ / reactionary Quadrant magazine, which re-published his MA thesis on ‘Alexander Solzhenitsyn and the West’ in its March 2005 edition. Brander also addressed a post-graduate conference organised by the University of Sydney in July 2005, and is currently alleged to be publishing a zine called Australian Resurgence. (For further details, see : Anti-fascism in Melbourne: 1990s, March 20, 2007).

    “National Action,” a former member of the group tells me, “was like a model aircraft club with the occasional murder. There were the skinheads and the thugs and the nutters on the fringes, but basically, apart from that, it was a bunch of blokes without girlfriends.”

Australia First Party

Having abandoned NA, after his release from prison Saleam eventually made his way to Graeme Campbell’s Australia First Party (AF), established in June 1996. Following Campbell’s resignation in June 2001, Diane Teasdale became its national president. In 2002, a new AFP branch was formed in Sydney, under Saleam’s control (and which has become the new centre of gravity for the party).

Having contested numerous elections since its formation, its only electoral success thus far has been the election of Bruce Preece to local council in Adelaide in November 2006.

In 2007, AF underwent a split, leading to the creation of two rival groups named AF — one based in Sydney and the other in Shepparton (Victoria) — and a new group titled the ‘Australian Protectionist Party’.

Since 2001, AF, along with others on the far right, has organised an annual conference titled the ‘Sydney Forum’. It has enjoyed the support of various RSL Clubs in Sydney (Bexley, Eastwood and Petersham) and has also been hosted at The Bunker in Tempe. This year’s Forum took place on the weekend of September 26/27, and participants were drawn from a range of far right groups, including the New Right Australia, Australia First Party, One Nation, “National Anarchists”, and the neo-Nazi muzak networks Volksfront and Blood and Honour.

On September 28, the day following the Forum, four neo-Nazis belonging to Blood and Honour and the Hammerskins attacked the Melbourne Anarchist Resource Centre.

Melbourne Anarchist Resource Centre

The Melbourne Anarchist Resource Centre hosts a number of different groups, including the Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation and Barricade Books. Since opening to the public late last year, MARC has hosted film screenings (including a festival of Spanish-language films organised by the Latin American Solidarity Network or LASNET), gigs, parties, workshops and a range of other events, in solidarity and co-operation with a wide range of other community groups.

Barricade Books

Barricade opened its doors for the first time at 115 Sydney Road, Brunswick on February 4, 1995; the outcome of several years preparation by a loose association of local anarchists. Notably, Barricade is the fourth such shop to open in Melbourne since the beginning of the 1970s.

Barricade’s opening didn’t go unnoticed, as just five months later, on July 11, neo-Nazis smashed the shop’s windows. As a result, for almost two years, the infoshop looked like a real live barricade, with ‘temporary’ iron sheets placed over the front windows. Still, the infoshop continued to function.

The smashing of the shop’s windows, and their replacement with temporary hoardings, was followed by various forms of low-level harassment, including the painting of swastikas on the shop’s front door on Invasion Day, January 26, 1996. An anti-fascist demonstration was held in Brunswick soon after, and marched to Barricade in solidarity. Finally, in June 1997, at the end of a long but eventually successful battle with the local council, the shop was fitted with bullet proof plexi-glass.

Since the attack on September 28 of this year, the roller door on the front of MARC has been repeatedly daubed with swastikas and slogans.

In August 2009, the SMH reported that “GRAFFITI daubed on the home of the NSW Treasurer, Eric Roozendaal, is believed to have been done by a group that has links to neo-Nazis. An unknown group painted ”88” on his eastern suburbs home, on the footpath and on the house of a neighbour at the weekend. Among far right-wing groups, the number 88 is taken to represent HH, shorthand for Heil Hitler…” (Neo-Nazi graffiti on Roozendaal home, Brian Robins, August 17, 2009).

A VIP, the neo-Nazi graffiti on Roozendaal’s house gained the attention of national media; not being VIPs, the attack on MARC, despite being of a more threatening nature, has been thus far ignored by all but a local newspaper. It did, however, come to the attention of current AF and former ‘White Pride Coalition Australia’ member Jim Perren, who wrote the following in response to the attack on his blog, ‘Whitelaw Towers’ (a blog which is recommended reading material for AF, and whose main author uses the email address ‘[email protected]’):

Strangely, bizarrely even, it appears @ndy, following months of sustained and concentrated provocation against White Nationalists, has proven to lack the intestinal fortitude for an actual confrontation.

After orchestrating a series of cowardly attacks including (alleged) actual vandalism, he has ‘bottled’ at the first signs of any form of response, let alone real retaliation, and gone running to his handlers in the Government and their attack dogs in the Law Enforcement Agencies.

Oh, what a guy!

Oh, what an “Anarchist”.

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

That last comment from ‘bad idea’ is an absolute hoot. Folks, just pinch yourselves and bear in mind we are supposedly talking about ‘Anarchists’ here.

Authoritarian, law abiding, state collaborating ‘Anarchists’ quoting [l]aws, regulations and statutes?

Have we missed something here?

Whatever happened to the Revolution @ndy?

For reasons best known to Jim, the post has since been deleted from his blog.

Bonus!

‘Fear of Nazi revival’, Northcote Leader, Monday, July 17, 1995:

The Friends of Barricade Bookshop group fears a resurgence of neo-Nazi activity in Brunswick after two attacks on its bookshop in as many months. The group claims neo-Nazis smashed its windows at Barricade Bookshop in Sydney Road last Tuesday. “We believe the attack was buoyed by [an earlier] police raid because the news had gone out on the streets and the neo-Nazis acted in response to that”, group member [SS] said. Mr S said members feared a resurgence of neo-Nazi activity similar to that in March last year. Mr S said two witnesses saw three young men, who looked like [boneheads], smash the windows about 1am.

‘Nazi attack on Brunswick shop’, The Melbourne Times, February 7, 1996:

The front of [DG]’s house and the Barricade book shop in Sydney Road, Brunswick, have something in common — they are swathed in swastikas. Barricade Books has a distinctly war-zone ambience, with its smashed windows and semi-permanent shutters… The response from the Brunswick community was a rally at the traditional battleground — Brunswick Town Hall — followed by a march to Barricade Books. The protesters mostly matched the ambience of the any-and-all cause bookshop — shaved heads, coloured hair, overalls, work boots and politics ranging from the local Radical Women group to anarchists to mainstream politicians making election speeches… Speeches were made about “scum” who only come out in the dead of night — in 1993 a group of young National Action members did rally at the town hall, where they were pelted with eggs and abuse… Eventually, after mutual congratulations on a fine rally, the crowd went home — or popped into Barricade for a fresh supply of stickers and PC t-shirts. One member of Barricade’s collective organising committee said the steel shutters would remain while the bookshop tried to get permission to put up proper night security shutters to protect the windows.”

Added Bonus!

Posted in Anti-fascism, Media | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Fuck the FBI! Free Elliot Madison! (And other stuff…)

The wascally wabbits at CrimethInc. have two neat-o reports on the G20 shenanigans in Pittsburgh:

Breaking News from the Pittsburgh G20 Protests &
G20 Mobilization: Preliminary Assessment

In Battening Down the Hatches: Secret State Monitors Protest, Represses Dissent (Antifascist Calling…, October 11, 2009), Tom Burghardt rudely sticks his big nose in where it’s not wanted, drawing further unwanted attention to the case of “Elliot Madison, the 41-year-old anarchist arrested in Pittsburgh September 24 at the height of G20 protests”.


Twitter Revolution: when anarchists tweet, the state twembles!

“It appears Twitter is playing an important role at a crucial time…”
— P.J. Crowley, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs

We believe that now is a “crucial time”.

We believe that resistance is important.

We believe that new communications modes can have an “important role” to play.

And we believe that this applies as much in the rest of the world as in Iran.

Elliot Madison appeared to believe many of the same things. And the FBI believed that he should be stopped.

You turned your twitter avatar green to show solidarity with the people of Iran.

Now turn it red and black to show solidarity with the resistance movement in the USA.

NOT BORED! done published an interview with cheese-eating surrender monkey Claude Guillon on his hot new book Democratic Terrorization.

I hope his publisher remembers to send a copy to Glenn Beck.

Speaking of books…

How to Make Trouble and Influence People

is a wonderful new book by some trouble-making bloke called Iain McIntyre, and is published by the redoubtable and not-at-all nervous Breakdown Press.

Launched in Newcastle at TINA — where L kindly grabbed me a copy — it will be launched again, kicking and screaming, in Melbourne on THURSDAY the 5th NOVEMBER at the BELLA UNION BAR (Victorian Trades Hall, cnr Victoria and Lygon Streets) between the hours of 6 and 8pm.

The book compiles tales of unconventional political dissent included in three previously-published pamphlets — How To Make Trouble And Influence People (1996), How to Stop Whining and Start Living (1998) and Revenge Of The Troublemaker (2003) — and, as an EXTRA! ADDED! BONUS!, interviews with a number of pranksters, photos galore, and er, other stuff.

See also : How To Make Trouble & Influence People (March 19, 2008).

Posted in Anarchism, Anti-fascism, Broken Windows, History, Media, State / Politics, War on Terror | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments