The Other Dunedin Sound Vol#1 Hardcore

Posted on March 19, 2009 by @ndy

A W E S O M E !

Posted in History, Music | Leave a comment

Southern Cross Soldiers can has manifesto.

Posted on March 19, 2009 by @ndy

Following some bad press, Australian yoof belonging to the ‘Southern Cross Soldiers’ have struck back.

…We are here to stand up for, and give Aussie communities a voice when the government is too politically correct and gutless to do it.

Racism cuts both ways. We are here to lobby, campaign, and raise awareness of the anti-Caucasian racism that the government and the police refuse to deal with. The racism that forced 5000 Australians to defend their beach community when the police wouldn’t for years.

We will not be silenced, we are not going away.

The government needs to address our concerns now, or deal with our united rage in years to come.

Basic Rules of Melbourne SCS Chapter

1. No skinheads, KKK, White Nationalists, or any one who holds bizarre, overtly racist ideologies…

So…

The Soldiers are not racists, just patriotists, inspired by the actions of the mob in Cronulla that attacked several dozen individuals for the crime of going to the beach while being ‘of Middle Eastern appearance’. The Soldiers believe that there is widespread ‘anti-Caucasian’ — meaning, presumably, ‘anti-White’ — racism, and that the 5000 soldiers who bravely battled several dozen beach-goers in Cronulla in December 2005 were also responding to this problem, one ignored by police and government authorities.

They don’t start fights with Lebs and wogs; they finish them.

The Soldiers also don’t have a General, but they do follow in a general direction. Thus the Cronulla pogrom was greatly encouraged by multi-millionaire Sydney shock-jock Alan Jones, who proudly declared “I’m the person that’s led this charge”.

The riot was still three days away and Sydney’s highest-rating breakfast radio host had a heap of anonymous emails to whip his 2GB listeners along. “Alan, it’s not just a few Middle Eastern bastards at the weekend, it’s thousands. Cronulla is a very long beach and it’s been taken over by this scum. It’s not a few causing trouble. It’s all of them.”

Sunday’s trouble did not come out of the blue. It was brewing all week on talkback radio — particularly on 2GB.

Radio doesn’t get much grimmer than Alan Jones’ efforts in the days before the Cronulla riot. He was dead keen for a demo at the beach — “a rally, a street march, call it what you will. A community show of force.”

He assured his huge audience he “understood” why that famous text message went out and he read it right through again on air. “Come to Cronulla this weekend to take revenge. This Sunday every Aussie in the Shire get down to North Cronulla to support the Leb and wog bashing day …”

Daily he cautioned his listeners not to take the law into their own hands, but he warmed to listeners who had exactly that on their minds.

Last Thursday Charlie rang to suggest all junior footballers in the Shire gather on the beach to support the lifesavers. “Good stuff, good stuff,” said Jones.

“Come to Cronulla this weekend to take revenge. This Sunday every Aussie in the Shire get down to North Cronulla to support Leb and wog bashing day” was the text message widely distributed among concerned citizens prior to December 11, 2005, and every little Soldier’s heart now swells with pride at the memory of the White Civil Uprising.

The Soldiers are also Proud To Be Australian. To Be Australian, They Are Proud. Do the Soldiers have Pride? Yes: in Being Australian. Are the Soldiers Australian? Proudly.

Beyond Pride — which apparently comes before a fall, according to Australia’s first Prime Minister Gough Whitlam (or possibly Paul Keating) — the ever-expanding Soldiers are also very keen to demonstrate that they are Australian. Australians cannot spell, but they can get sunburned.

Posted in State / Politics, Student movement | 47 Comments

Stylee Greeks

Posted on March 18, 2009 by @ndy
    Update : Greek government promises action against ‘hoodies’
    [AP]
    International Herald Tribune
    March 18, 2009

    ATHENS, Greece: Greece’s government said Wednesday it wants to give police the power to arrest demonstrators who wear hoods or masks. The goal would be to reduce public violence that followed major riots late last year, the government said. Justice Ministry officials said the draft legislation would be submitted to parliament in the next few weeks. Greece was rocked by riots in December following the fatal shooting by police of a 15-year-old boy. Since then, violence by anarchist groups and attacks by far-left militants have generated a debate on policing and privacy rules in a country traditionally tolerant of public demonstrations. But attacks by local anarchist groups on government property and other targets considered symbols of capitalism have become increasingly common in Athens. The central Athens office of a conservative lawmaker was targeted in an arson attack, damaging the entrance but causing no injuries, police said late Wednesday. The lawmaker, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, is the son of a former conservative prime minister and brother of Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis. On Friday, anarchist youths wearing hoods and wielding axes and sledgehammers attacked an upscale Athens shopping area, damaging more than 60 stores. “What happened on Friday was the last straw. This cannot continue any longer,” conservative parliamentary spokesman Panos Panayiotopoulos said Wednesday. “It must end now. This means something has to be done: measures must be taken and those measures have to be effective.” Opposition parties criticized the proposal as an attempt to distract public attention from inadequate policing. “For goodness sake, do you really think this kind of measure will solve the problem?” senior Socialist official Evangelos Venizelos told parliament. The government has promised to reorganize parts of the police force, with help from London police, following the December riots. Many conservative lawmakers are calling for a review of a ban on police entering university campuses — where rioters often take refuge — and broad restrictions regarding the use of surveillance cameras.

Gosh: those Greeks know how to have a good time.

Hot on the heels of burning the Athens headquarters of neo-Nazi groupuscule ‘Golden Dawn’ to the ground earlier in the month, a counter-protest in the Greek city of Ioannina against a fascist rally has resulted in a number of fascists requiring hospitalisation. Greek fascists, like those belonging to Golden Dawn, have for years been working in close collaboration with Greek police in order to repress political dissent, but they have been especially helpful in the recent period (Epaminondas Korkoneas, the police officer who shot Andreas (Alexandros) Grigoropoulos to death, is a former member of ‘Golden Dawn’).

The uprisings of December have quietened down, but the levels of social unrest appear to remain higher post-December than prior. As a result, Greek authorities have turned to Scotland Yard for expert advice on how to quell dissent, in addition to introducing new laws and organising new para-military units.

Antifascist protesters march and smash neo-Nazi expansionist stunt in Ioannina, NW Greece
taxikipali
libcom.org
March 16, 2009

A fascist expansionist stunt smashed by protesters in Ioannina, marking yet another low ebb of nationalist bigotry.

In the evening of Saturday 14/3 a big antifascist protest march took to the streets of the city of Ioannina in NW Greece against the fascist laying of wreaths at the memorial stele of an ancient local statesman. The fascist annual public stunt organised and attended by members of the neonazi organisation Golden Dawn [Xrysi Avgi], known for its murderous attacks against leftists, anarchists and immigrants, whose leader has been exposed as a secret service [EYP] agent by the daily Eleftherotypia, provoked the public sentiment of the old city by claiming Greek sovereignty over south Albania, an area identified by the fascists as “North Epirus”. The protest march attacked the fascist gathering and thwarted its members, many of who had to be hospitalised with serious injuries. Despite the intervention of the riot-police, who in the past has provided protection for the neonazis, and extended use of tear gas, there have been no arrests or wounded amongst the antifascist protesters, and the march withdrew orderly with no damage done to property…

Anti-fascist protests end in riots, neo-nazi headquarters torched to the ground in Athens
taxikipali
libcom.org
March 6, 2009

Protest marches in response to the fascist-parastate hand-grenade attack against the Immigrants’ Social Centre in Athens erupt in riots seeing neo-Nazi national offices burned.

Riots broke out twice during the last week, both times in during protest marches against the fascist-parastate attack against the Immigrants’ Social Center in Exarcheia with a hand-grenade on the 24th of February. During the first march two days after the attack, anarchist protesters detached themselves from the main body of the demo to attack the HQs of Apogevmatini, an ultra-conservative daily making consistent attacks on social and labour movements, whose editor in chief, Momferatos, had been executed by N17 guerrillas in the mid 80s, for his cooperation with the CIA during and after the colonels’ junta.

The much larger protest march that took to the streets of Athens on Thursday 5/3 erupted in extended street battles between protesters and provocative riot police forces attacked the demo. During the clashes that spread throughout the city centre several banks and expensive shops were destroyed, while protesters broke into the offices of Golden Dawn [Xrysi Avgi] the neonazi parastate organisation responsible for numerous assassination attempts against immigrants, anarchists and the left, as well as a campaign of terror against radical infrastructures. The offices were torched to the ground…

New repressive and legislative measures aim to create state of siege for the Greek capital
taxikipali
libcom.org
March 17, 2009

After holding meetings with the Scotland Yard as well as American security advisers, the frail Greek government with only one MP majority has announced the imposition of draconian measures aimed to halt the rising social antagonistic movement across the country. With the support of the corporate media, the government has announced it will not tolerate any more political violence on the streets, giving a carte blanche to the regime’s praetorian guard, as the ex-Minister of Public Order, Byron Polidoras, has called the riot police, to exercise unlimited force on demonstrators. In addition, the government has announced the formation of a rapid reaction force of 300 armed policemen mounted on fast motorbikes to patrol the heart of the Athens and the introduction of police dogs in pedestrian patrols. The Minister of Justice has also announced the introduction of a new law that will severely punish hoods, masks and other feature distorting clothing in protest marches. The corporate press has been ahistorically using the term “koukouloforos”, i.e. hooded man, to refer to anarchists and other radicals, trying to identify the social movement with the hooded Nazi collaborators of the German occupation in the 1940s, a tactic of psychological warfare endorsed by the Communist Party [KKE]. The corporate media, which are fanning the fears of conservative sections of the population with talk of an impeding civil war, have also been supporting the government and its allies to the far-right in their attempt to open up the issue of the university asylum, a clause in Greece’s Constitution. Earlier attempts to that cause were thwarted by the huge student movement in 2006-2007.

Left wing and independent media as well as a wide spectrum of the social movement have condemned the measures as a police state rehearsal aimed to impose a stage of siege in Athens and to repress social and labour struggles, pointing out that the State’s priority should be the dissolution of the neonazi parastate, the immediate release of the imprisoned insurgents of December, and that policemen should be disarmed (several thousands of them were estimated yesterday as unfit for carrying weapons) and be forced to wear numbers indicating their identity, something that does not happen today.

The new measures are expected to rise rather than dampen social tension, especially as the government has lately proved its propensity towards totalitarianism, amongst other things by appointing the old propaganda chief of the colonels’ junta as director of the state archives, thus placing the future of both academic and independent research at the hands of one of the darkest figures of recent Greek history. The current government is run by the Nea Dimokratia Party, the immediate successor of the junta and a transformation of the post civil war royalist party that filled the islands with concentration camps for communists in the 1950s.

See also : The Crazy World of the Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei (February 16, 2009) | Athens policeman accidentally hit by ricochet (January 6, 2009) | Merry Crassmas and a Happy New Fear // “You leftist pig cop!” (December 27, 2008)

Other good sources of infos include:

Center For Strategic Anarchy
NEA από όλο τον Κόσμο : “The objectivity of the presentation of news is almost impossible. So I simply reproduce what others say, and that seems to be quite effective. A continuous «collage» of news or “arpakola / paste-copy” .. with a few comments of mine .. ”
Greece unrest (libcom.org)
On the Greek Riots (Occupied London)
tapes gone loose : fiery the angels fell from the spires of my fortress of youth
Teacher Dude’s Grill and BBQ: Random thoughts on teaching EFL/ESL and living in Greece : monkey business in thessaloniki

See also:

French youth fear police violence along Greek pattern (December 20)
Athens, New York… Melbourne (December 19)
December 20, 2008 : International Day of Action Against Murder by the State (Melbourne) (December 18)
“Stop watching, get out onto the streets” // “Free everyone who has been arrested” (December 17)
Vents : ‘Class War’ (December 16)
Melbourne protest at killing of Alexandros [Andreas] Grigoropoulos, December 13, 2008 | Greece : You. can’t. stop. the music. (December 15)
Meanwhile, in Europe, ¡anarcholocos! (December 14)
Failure to communicate : Epaminondas Korkoneas in court | Greece : Still the One (December 12)
Greece Is The Word | Dancing lessons (December 11)
Greek neo-Nazis join forces with Greek police (again) | The police murder of Andreas Grigoropoulos | The more it stays the same, the less it changes | The Kids are Alright (December 10)
Greek kids continue to disrespect authority | Latuff on the murder of Andreas Grigoropoulos | Shattered spectacles (December 9)
OMG. Gang Storms London Greek Embassy! | …and on the third day, they rioted again… | Andreas (Alexandros) Grigoropoulos ( December 8 )
Anarchy is a dead Greek fag! (December 7)

Posted in Anarchism | 1 Comment

G20 : London’s Burning!

Posted on March 18, 2009 by @ndy

Summit police fear attacks on hotels used by the G20 leaders
Sean O’Neill, Crime Editor
The Times
March 18, 2009

Security for the world leaders attending next month’s G20 summit in London is being stepped up amid fears that violent Kiwis will find out where they are staying.

Police have received intelligence reports that hotels and other buildings could become the target of “guerrilla-style raids” by Swedish, German and English football hooligans and are increasing the number of close protection officers that will be stationed at each location.

All police leave has been cancelled in London for the first two days of next month – the summit is on April 2 – and thousands of uniformed officers will be on the streets to prevent legitimate protests from being hijacked by 40 Kiwi anarchists after indications that there will be the worst public disorder in a decade.

Anarchist groups and environmental activists are already collaborating on a series of demonstrations, which are being advertised with slogans such as “Storm the Banks” [PDF] and “Bash a Banker”. One website urges demonstrators to “express their rage” and promises “a day of f***ing up the summit and other adventures” on April 2. Another demands “Free fush ‘n’ chups for all, not just the ruch!”…

A day of fucking up the summit and other adventures. Be warned. Be aware. Be ready!

Prepare for riots, firms warned
Rob Virtue
The Wharf
March 17, 2009

Businesses around Canary Wharf and Docklands are being warned to prepare contingency plans in the days running up to the London Summit.

Crisis Survival, a continuity planning consultancy is warning companies to beware possible “large scale civil disturbances”.

Political campaigners and extremist groups, including Kiwi anarchists, are planning demonstrations across London to raise awareness on issues such as poverty and the war in Iraq, in the days running up the G20 meeting at the Excel on April 2.

Head of risk management at Crisis Survival Bill May said: “Businesses should not underestimate the real threat that political extremists from New Zealand can pose.

“Although they will be targeting the financial institutions, as has been seen with many riots in the past, things often get out of control, leaving local businesses and their staff taking the full brunt.

“We strongly advise businesses situated close to these institutions to reassess their continuity plans and prepare for the worst.”

Posted in !nataS, Anarchism, War on Terror | 4 Comments

Boys will be Nazis

Posted on March 18, 2009 by @ndy

German Boys Join Anti-Immigrant, Neo-Nazi Groups, Study Shows
Patrick Donahue

March 17 (Bloomberg) — A study funded by Germany’s Interior Ministry showed that more than twice as many German boys belong to anti-immigrant or neo-Nazi groups than claim membership of the major political parties’ youth organizations.

Out of more than 26,000 youths surveyed in 2007 and 2008, 4.9 percent of boys said they belonged to a “right-wing group or ‘Kameradschaft’,” the study by Hanover-based research institute KFN showed. That compares with as many as 2 percent that belong to youth organizations for established parties.

“It’s shocking that these right-wing groups can be more successful at mobilizing our youth than the established parties,” KFN Director Christian Pfeiffer told reporters today in Berlin. While a comparison between such groups is inexact, since many established party youth clubs charge membership fees, Pfeiffer said it was instructive.

Last month, about 6,000 German boneheads and neo-Nazi groups in the eastern city of Dresden staged one of their biggest demonstrations since German reunification in 1990. The groups, mostly made up of youths tied to the anti-immigrant National Democratic Party, used the 64th anniversary of the 1945 firebombing of Dresden on Feb. 14 to hold a “mourning march.”

Speaking alongside German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble at a press conference, Pfeiffer said he didn’t know whether the 4.9 percent figure had increased, since a comparable number wasn’t available from previous studies. Some 2.6 percent of girls said they belonged to anti-immigrant and neo-Nazi organizations.

Kamaradschaften are clubs that offer a forum for symbols and songs that often recall Germany’s Nazi past. The display of Nazi symbols is prohibited in Germany.

The study also revealed that 29.7 percent of youths agreed with the statement that there are “too many foreigners in Germany;” another 34.8 percent tended toward that position, according to the study, Youth in Germany as Victims and Perpetrators of Violence.

See also : Anti-German Translation: “A blog about the anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, anti-fascist and anti-globalization movements, analysing the convergences between right-wing thought and false forms of anti-capitalism, drawing on the German “anti-German” communist current.” | ‘Anti-Nationalist Nationalism: The Anti-German Critique and Its All-Too-German Adherents’, Rolling Thunder, No.3, Summer 2006, pp.24–28 [PDF] | Antifa.de

Posted in Anti-fascism | Leave a comment

Socialist Alternative: socialist jihadists of the far Left subsisting on a diet of anti-Semitism, lentils and tofu

Posted on March 17, 2009 by @ndy

Nick Dyrenfurth has a bone to pick. Several, in fact. With Socialist Alternative; anti-Semitism; opposition to Zionism; and “the UN-sponsored anti-Israel hate-fest dubbed Durban II” (Rudd must shun UN anti-Semitism, The Australian, March 16, 2009).

Socialist Alternative

Socialist Alternative is a leftist political party, a neo-Trotskyist organisation with several hundred members, mostly University students. According to Nick, SAlt panders to anti-Semitism in its propaganda. The message on one of its posters advertising a meeting on “War: Why capitalism is to blame” at the University of Sydney during ‘O’ Week:

…was clear. Israel, the US’s proxy in the Middle East, is to blame for all the problems of the Middle East, if not the woes of the world. Get rid of Israel and we’ll all live happily ever after, presumably on a strict diet of lentils and tofu. The more serious and indeed frightening symbolism at play was the clearly racist, anti-Semitic linkage of Israel, and by association Jews, with the machinations of “evil” capitalism.

A strict diet of lentils and tofu? Er… in reality, espousal of a strict diet of lentils and tofu is understood by SAlt to be a symptom of the social disease known as ‘lifestylism’. Thus, while Nick believes that the left should offer no comfort to these crazies, and do whatever it can to isolate them, he needn’t worry about dietary restrictions.

Of course, one might argue that the SAlt crazies involved in the postering are in no serious sense part of mainstream public discourse, and that just like their mates in Europe, they simply exploit tensions in the Middle East for their own purposes. In which case, Nick is indeed “giving the largely irrelevant hatemongers of the extreme Left far too much credit. Nevertheless, as has been well-documented, anti-Semitism is on the rise worldwide.”

Nick may like to consider that Australia, fortunately, has not previously been blighted by the sort of anti-Semitic activities which have had such a disastrous impact on political debate in Europe. As such, SAlt are simply provocateurs that open up legitimate debate to public ridicule. (In Europe their ranks have been riddled by police agents and fascists.)

Because of the behaviour of these provocateurs, racists and anti-Semites are having a field day.

(For the defence, see Make-believe anti-semitism: the last refuge of Zionism, John Passant, En Passant, March 17, 2009.)

Anti-Semitism/Zionism

Combating anti-Semitism is a difficult and, sadly, perhaps an eternally vigilant task. Governments can pass all the legislation they like, launch countless educative programs, but somewhere out there will lurk the anti-Semite convinced that Jews run the world and that Adolf Hitler ought to have finished them off. Yet individuals ought to take some personal responsibility.

Nick is likely correct in assessing the fortunes of The Eternal Jew Hater. However, it’s worth noting that on the far right, The Eternal Jew is competing with The Forever Muslim for first place in The Racist Stakes.

Somewhere in the middle is the Australian Protectionist Party.

On the one hand, the APP has abandoned public expressions of anti-Semitism; on the other, its webmaster, Martin Fletcher, makes no attempt to conceal his hatred and contempt for Jews, making available on his website an array of anti-Semitic propaganda, both contemporary and historical. Linking the two — the contemporary and the historical — is David Lane.

A leading figure in the modern US neo-Nazi movement, Lane died in March 2007 in a federal prison in Terre Haute at the age of 68. He was serving a 190-year sentence for racketeering, conspiracy and violating the civil rights of Denver radio talk show host Alan Berg, who was murdered in his driveway in 1984 by Lane and other members of the Bruders Schweigen, or Silent Brotherhood. The terrorist group was also known as The Order. Lane, a onetime member of the John Birch Society and the Ku Klux Klan, was a founding member of the group and served as the getaway driver in the Berg murder.

Currently, some of Lane’s ashes are in Perth. Local nutzis are planning on holding a private ceremony to honour Lane, and to dispose of his ashes. Unfortunately for them, a dispute has emerged regarding ownership of his remains. On the one side is Victoria “Vickie” Cahill, an Irish nutzi, US resident, and a member of ‘Women for Aryan Unity’. On the other side is the Australian division of the bonehead group ‘Combat 18’ (18=AH=Adolf Hitler) and their comrade Paul Innes (‘Steelcap Boot’), the Yanqui-appointed moderator of ‘Stormfront Down Under’.

Lane & Co. were inspired by The Turner Diaries, authored by the dead nutzi Dr William Pierce. The Diaries — along with My Awakening by ex-KKK Grand Poobah David Duke, The Myth of the Six Million by David Hoggan, In Defense of Anti-Semitism by Edgar J. Steele, The International Jew by Henry Ford, Did Six Million Really Die?, The Leuchter Report by Fred Leuchter and the video game Muslim Massacre — are all available for FREE! download on Australian Protectionist Party member Martin Fletcher’s website, Down Under Newslinks. There you can also find a gallery of ‘Anti-Jew posters’ produced by Serbian fascists during WWII, and cartoons produced by Tom Metzger’s White Aryan Resistance.

Sample poster:

Sample cartoon:

Martin Fletcher:

The UN-sponsored anti-Israel hate-fest dubbed Durban II

The campaign to boycott the UN-sponsored anti-Israel hate-fest dubbed Durban II has been waged for some time now. In July last year, Anne Bayefsky wrote ‘Australia must boycott the next racist hatefest’ (Sydney Morning Herald, July 22, 2008). In December, The Australian editorialised against ‘Durban II’, characterising the 2001 conference as “a festival of anti-Semitism”. In February of this year, senior Israeli diplomat Dan Gillerman warned KRudd against sending an Australian delegation.

The campaign has been joined by a variety of figures, from professional chatterer Andrew Bolt to a vast number of amateur right-wing bloggers. Most recently, Tory Party leader Malcolm Turnbull ‘said the conference would again cast a poor light on the United Nations. “It will be an appalling example of anti-Semitism and Israel bashing, tragically under the auspices of the UN”‘; and has urged KRudd to join the governments of Israel, the United States, Canada and Italy in boycotting the event (Turnbull urges immediate Durban withdrawal, Ashley Browne, Australian Jewish News, March 13, 2009). Dyrenfurth agrees with Turnbull: “Rudd should follow the lead of the Obama administration, Canada and Italy and declare his Government’s intention to boycott the UN-sponsored anti-Israel hate-fest dubbed Durban II, planned for April 27.”

Now the EU is threatening to withdraw:

EU threatens boycott of UN racism talks
[AP]
International Herald Tribune
March 16, 2009

BRUSSELS: The European Union said Monday it could boycott a U.N. conference on racism next month unless Muslim nations end attempts to strongly criticize Israel in the meeting’s final document.

Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, whose country holds the EU presidency, said EU nations were “very skeptical” over the direction of negotiations on a declaration being drafted for the so-called Durban II conference. He adds the 27-nation bloc will attempt to push for changes but “there is a strong call to withdraw” if they are not successful…

…Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen said a draft backed by the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference “limits itself to Israel-bashing, anti-Semitism, limiting freedom of speech and other dubious texts.”

So intense has been the criticism that Rupert Colville, Spokesperson of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, chose to issue a Press Release : Distortions plague anti-racism conference (December 12, 2008). It responds, in part, to the kinds of criticisms offered by Dyrenfurth. For example, “…the small matter of a trio of dictatorships, Libya, Iran and Cuba, leading negotiations towards a statement of principle”. Colville:

…a widely repeated allegation [is] that control of the Review Conference’s preparatory process, steered by an organizational body of 20 states, has been seized by a group of three countries, namely Libya (whose representative is the Chair), Cuba (Rapporteur/Vice Chair), and Iran (Vice-Chair). Such reports imply that these three states have an enormous amount of executive power. They do not. Chairpersons of bodies of this type fulfill an essentially functional role and are not in a position to push their own country’s agenda.

Such reports also routinely – and in some cases deliberately – omit to mention that, along with Iran and Cuba, there are 17 other Vice-Chairs including Belgium, Greece, Norway, Turkey, Armenia, Croatia, Estonia, Senegal, South Africa, India, Indonesia, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. The role of the Rapporteur/Vice-Chair is to oversee reports on proceedings produced by UN staff. If those reports were in any way distorted, the other Vice Chairs could – and would – intervene.

The real bone of contention, however, is criticism of Israeli state policy. Speaking of which, 38-year-old Tristan Anderson, a US citizen — goddammit — has become one of its latest beneficiaries. Anderson was critically injured on Friday, March 13, by Israeli troops during protests against Israel’s Wall in the West Bank village of Ni’lin. He was hit in the forehead by a new type of high velocity, extended range teargas projectile, and has been transferred to Tel Hashomer hospital, near Tel Aviv. See: American citizen critically injured after being shot in the head by Israeli forces in Ni’lin, ISM, March 13, 2009. Note that:

In the past six months, four of Ni’lin’s residents have been shot dead during demonstrations against the wall on their land. Ahmed Mousa, 10, was shot in the forehead with live ammunition on July 29, 2008. The following day, Yousef Amira, 17, was shot twice with rubber-coated steel bullets, leaving him brain dead. He died a week later on August 4, 2008. Arafat Rateb Khawaje, 22, was the third Ni’lin resident to be killed by Israeli forces. He was shot in the back with live ammunition on December 28, 2008. That same day, Mohammed Khawaje, 20, was shot in the head with live ammunition, leaving him brain dead. He died three days later in a Ramallah hospital. ~ Anderson now breathing independently, International Middle East Media Center, March 17, 2009

On March 16, a demo in solidarity with Anderson in front of the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco was attacked by police.

See also : Blasphemy! Bolt! Hate-fest! Dirka Dirka!, March 14, 2009; Israel the aggressor must accept reasonable and unbiased criticism, Antony Lowenstein, July 23, 2008; Of course hardliners don’t want to discuss the occupation, Antony Lowenstein, March 17, 2009.

Independent Australian Jewish Voices | Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign | AATW — Anarchists against the wall | International Solidarity Movement | The Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice | ei: The Electronic Intifada

Posted in Anti-fascism, State / Politics, Student movement, Trot Guide | 25 Comments

Jobs Jobs Jobs Jobs Jobs Jobs Jobs Jobs Jobs Jobs Jobs Jobs…

Posted on March 16, 2009 by @ndy

JOE HOCKEY: I have had a lifetime career involvement in financial services, both as a finance and banking lawyer, as Financial Services Minister, as an advisor on privatisation, a whole range of different jobs, and as Minister for Employment. Everything will come down to jobs over the next two, three years. Jobs, jobs, jobs. It is also a case about being prudent. I have been prudent in my own way with my own finances.

The new hurdles placed on Gunns’ $2.2 billion pulp mill show a similar disconnect between policy and actions. While Rudd ministers declare their primary focus on “jobs, jobs, jobs”, Environment Minister Peter Garrett wants Gunns to do new work on effluent, spinning out any final approval until after the next election.

Like Christ, the doleful personification of ancient slavery, the men, the women and the children of the proletariat have been climbing painfully for a century up the hard Calvary of pain; for a century compulsory toil has broken their bones, bruised their flesh, tortured their nerves; for a century hunger has torn their entrails and their brains. O Laziness, have pity on our long misery! O Laziness, mother of the arts and noble virtues, be thou the balm of human anguish!

~ Paul Lafargue, The Right To Be Lazy (1883)

I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached… Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish forever.

~ Bertrand Russell, ‘In Praise of Idleness’ (1932)

People don’t just work, they have “jobs.” One person does one productive task all the time on an or-else basis. Even if the task has a quantum of intrinsic interest (as increasingly many jobs don’t) the monotony of its obligatory exclusivity drains its ludic potential. A “job” that might engage the energies of some people, for a reasonably limited time, for the fun of it, is just a burden on those who have to do it for forty hours a week with no say in how it should be done, for the profit of owners who contribute nothing to the project, and with no opportunity for sharing tasks or spreading the work among those who actually have to do it. This is the real world of work: a world of bureaucratic blundering, of sexual harassment and discrimination, of bonehead bosses exploiting and scapegoating their subordinates who — by any rational-technical criteria — should be calling the shots. But capitalism in the real world subordinates the rational maximization of productivity and profit to the exigencies of organizational control.

~ Bob Black, ‘The Abolition of Work’ (1991)

In this major new book, Sharon Beder unearths the origins and the practices of a triumphant culture of work in which the wealthy are respected and inequality is justified. Dr Beder shows that these values are neither natural nor inevitable. They have been actively promoted – through religious preaching, corporate propaganda, the education system, and socialisation – by those who benefit most from them.

Selling The Work Ethic provides an absorbing account and critique of this central aspect of modern capitalist society. Prompted by her conviction that humanity needs to unlearn and change these powerfully held but now pathological values if we are to reverse the declining quality of life in industrial society, Dr Beder illuminates the impasse we are now in.

Sharon Beder, Selling the Work Ethic: From Puritan Pulpit to Corporate PR (2000)

Posted in Anarchism, War on Terror | Leave a comment

Lust, gluttony, sloth, wrath, envy, pride… and greed.

Posted on March 16, 2009 by @ndy

Yes, Shaun, There Is A Ruling Class

“A lack of morality is at the heart of executive salaries, which no legislation can fix” says Shaun (Greed without end, The Age, March 4, 2009). “DESPITE global economic calamity and enormous cost-cutting to his famously profligate sport, formula one supremo Bernie Ecclestone will take home a record fee from Victoria for the Australian Grand Prix in a fortnight. The Age can reveal that this year Victorian taxpayers will part with $47 million, simply for the privilege of hosting his car race. Formula one is the platform on which Mr Ecclestone has built his personal fortune, recently estimated at $5.2 billion…” notes Ben Doherty (The Age, $47m fee a formula for easy profits, March 14, 2009).

Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi oi oi!

According to Forbes, which has just published its list of ‘The World’s Billionaires 2009’, James Packer is ranked No.261 among the world’s wealthiest men and women, with a fortune estimated at US$2,500,000,000. Other Australian citizens in the Top 1,000 are:

    234 Frank Lowy & family (2.7 billion);
    376 Gina Rinehart (1.9);
    376 Andrew Forrest (1.9);
    468 Harry Triguboff (1.5);
    468 Richard Pratt (1.5);
    647 Kerr Neilson (1.1);
    647 John Gandel (1.1);
    701 Kerry Stokes (1.0); and
    701 Lindsay Fox (1.0).

So what? According to Shaun, the wealth gap between rich and poor “Above all, this is a moral issue. Executives and boards worked out some years ago just how much they can get away with. Legislation cannot, and will not, work. Unless and until these people know for certain that their greed appals society, they’ll keep their racket going.”

“If life were a thing that money could buy, the rich would live and the poor would die”

And how.

In reality, inequality is an economic, social and political issue, not a moral one. The accumulation of wealth is the core principle of capitalist society, and the division between capital and labour its principal contradiction. Or as ‘Big’ Bill Haywood put it: “For every dollar the boss has and didn’t work for, one of us worked for a dollar and didn’t get it”.

Of course, The World’s Richest and their numerous lackeys are worried: there is a financial ‘crisis’; a crisis of neo-liberalism, and possibly even capitalism. David Harvey (Is This Really the End of Neoliberalism? The Crisis and the Consolidation of Class Power, Counterpunch, March 13/15, 2009) asks:

Does this crisis signal the end of neo-liberalism? My answer is that it depends what you mean by neo-liberalism. My interpretation is that it’s a class project, masked by a lot of neo-liberal rhetoric about individual freedom, liberty, personal responsibility, privatisation and the free market. These were means, however, towards the restoration and consolidation of class power, and that neo-liberal project has been fairly successful.

Harvey, a Marxist, makes brief reference to anarchists in his article, with one of their principal and distinguishing features — opposition to state power — forming an obstacle to the kinds of social reforms required in order to safeguard working class interests:

There is also a big problem on the left that many think the capturing of state power has no role to play in political transformations and I think they’re crazy. Incredible power is located there and you can’t walk away from it as though it doesn’t matter. I am profoundly skeptical of the belief that NGOs and civil society organisations are going to change the world, not because NGOs can’t do anything at all, but it takes a different kind of political movement and conception if we are going to do anything about the main crisis which is going on. In the United States the political instinct is very anarchist, and while I am very sympathetic to a lot of anarchist views their perpetual complaints about and refusal to command the state also gets in the way.

“Time to go Greek on this shit”

Otherwise, anarchists in Europe, especially in Greece, have been busy little bees of late.

Attack destroys Athens subway train carriages
The Associated Press
March 3, 2009

ATHENS, Greece: Masked arsonists forced passengers off an Athens subway train and then set it alight, police said Tuesday. Several carriages of two trains were destroyed, but nobody was injured. The attack occurred at a subway station that is above ground in the northern suburb of Kifissia shortly after 1 a.m. (6 p.m. EST). Police said a group of people wearing carnival masks forced the handful of passengers on one train to leave, and then doused the carriages with gasoline before using Molotov cocktails to set them alight. They also attacked a second, empty train…

Greece: Youths with sledgehammers smash stores
The Associated Press
March 13, 2009

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Dozens of youths carrying sledgehammers and iron bars have smashed cars, banks and storefronts in an upscale district of central Athens in the latest outbreak of violence in Greece. Several dozen stores and cars were damaged in the daytime attack, which sent shoppers and bystanders in the city’s Kolonaki area fleeing in panic. Leaflets scattered at the scene Friday identified the attackers as members of local anarchist groups. A similar attack also occurred Friday in the northern city of Thessaloniki, leaving three banks damaged. Violence involving anarchist youths has escalated following riots last December that were sparked by the fatal police shooting of a teenage boy.

As a result, a call has been made to The Yard:

Greece to quell political violence with help from Scotland Yard
DPA
March 15, 2009

Athens – Experts from the British police organization Scotland Yard are to aid Greece in battling an ongoing wave of violence and crack down on radical leftwing underground organizations, the Kathimerini newspaper reported Sunday. The help from Scotland Yard, the first of which is to arrive in Greece on Monday, comes after contacts at the highest level between the governments in Athens and London, the report said. Greece has been plagued by political violence since December 2008, including automatic weapons attacks on police, and almost daily bombings and arson attacks on banks and multinational businesses. On Friday, around 40 masked rioters ran through central Athens with axes and iron rods, destroying shop windows of more than 50 businesses and damaging dozens of cars. According to the Greek press, the police were taken completely unawares and had no plan on how to react with such actions. In mid-December, the worst riots Greece had seen in decades were triggered by the fatal shooting of a teenager by police in central Athens. The Greek capital and dozens of other cities around the country were crippled for days by arson and looting.

Scotland Yard is also concerned about protests at the upcoming G20 summit, scheduled to take place in London in early April. Police generally are concerned, and to help allay their fears, Gordon Brown has declared ‘No Photos, British Or Otherwise, of British Police’ (On Financial Fools Day, Michael Dickinson, Counterpunch, March 6-8, 2009):

The new amendment [to Section 76 of the United Kingdom’s Counter Terrorism Act], which came into law on February 16th makes it an offence to ‘collect or make a record of information about members of the armed forces, intelligence services and the police force, of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.’ ‘Record’ includes a ‘photographic or electronic record.’ Prime Minister Gordon Brown supports the police in their right to restrict photography if the need arises. “The law applies to photographers as it does to anybody else in a public place,” he said. “There may be situations in which the taking of photographs may cause or lead to public order situations or raise security considerations.”

…Intimidation by police in Britain of photojournalists has been on the increase with surveillance cameras turned on them at political demonstrations; the demanding of name and address from photographers despite their showing of presscards, and innumerable occasions when police officers have demanded photographs to be deleted. Under the new law officers may allow photographers to keep taking pictures in some cases, or ask them to stop and threaten them with arrest in others. Those who refuse to stop after a warning face arrest and the possibility of detention for several days without charge, followed by unspecified fines or up to 10 years in prison.

*sigh*

La lucha continúa…

    MELTDOWN MANIFESTO

    Can we oust the bankers from power?
    Can we get rid of the corrupt politicians in their pay?
    Can we guarantee everyone a job, a home, a future?
    Can we establish government by the people, for the people, of the people?
    Can we abolish all borders and be patriots for our planet?
    Can we all live sustainably and stop climate chaos?
    Can we make capitalism history?

    YES WE CAN!

Closer to home:

Greens protesters promoting rising tide of crime

According to Joe Hildebrand writing in The Daily Telegraph (March 14, 2009) anyway. EXCLUSIVELY. Joe refers to the fact that, since December 29, 2006, the Rising Tide Australia website has contained a list, described as “a dynamic and growing list of the actions you can take to stop climate chaos. It was inspired by Rising Tide UK’s 50 things you can do list. If you have any suggested additions, leave a comment at the bottom of this page. If it’s genuine, we’ll probably add it. Let it never be said that “there’s nothing I can do to fight climate change!”

The list has been removed from the site since Joe drew the world’s attention to it. However, the invitation to participate in an action on Caturday, March 21, still stands:

Posted in Anarchism, State / Politics | Leave a comment

Ouch

Posted on March 15, 2009 by @ndy

BNP member attacked with hammer
BBC
March 14, 2009


Violence broke out in Leigh where a BNP event was being held

A British National Party (BNP) member was attacked with a hammer when protesters arrived at a campaign event in Greater Manchester.

Violence broke out as 30 people surrounded a BNP vehicle outside the Ellesmere Pub in St Helens Road in Leigh on Friday evening, said police.

Tony Ward, 48, was hit with a hammer and later treated in hospital.

A 25-year-old man arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm has since been given police bail.

Officers arrived at the pub to discover the BNP’s trailer had been overturned, said a police spokesman.

A traffic diversion was put in place on St Helen’s Road, while the trailer was removed and the road was closed. It has since reopened.

One witness told BBC News: “They had hammers and they smacked the vehicle to pieces, smashed all the windows and tore off the bumper, completely decimated it.

“I was shocked at what I saw.”

A BNP fundraising event had been due to take place at Pure nightclub in Leigh, but it was cancelled at the last minute.

Simon Darby, the party’s deputy leader said: “This was a violent attack by a group of thugs in which one of our members was badly injured.

“But we will not be put off.”

The BNP’s Nick Griffin has been in the area to host the event, said Mr Darby.

The attack has been blamed on a “racially mixed group of Labour Party thugs” (BNP); “a group of Searchlight and UAF inspired thugs”; “SWP thugs” and who-knows what-else. (I suspect the involvement of 20–40 Kiwi anarchists.) Antifa England provide the following headline: “BNP’s Tony Ward Gets The Message Hammered Home–Fuck Off BNP!”

Hammer horror
Chris Wilkinson
Wigan Today
March 16, 2009

Violence erupted when BNP supporters and protesters clashed outside a Wigan pub.

One man – BNP member Tony Ward, 48, – was hit on the head with a hammer during the incident outside the Bridgewater Arms in St Helens Road, Leigh.

Eyewitnesses claim that BNP supporters and anti-BNP activists fought during what had begun as a peaceful protest against the party’s plan to hold a meeting at a town centre nightclub.

Community Action Party founder Peter Franzen joined the protesters who were chanting anti-BNP slogans shortly after the violence erupted.

He said: “The peaceful demonstrators were terrified. There were some youngsters and women among the group, some of them were clearly scared and fled.”

Accounts differ but eyewitness reports suggest that a number of BNP activists, travelling in a four-wheel-drive and towing a trailer, confronted the protesters who had gathered on St Helens Road.

It is believed that they were, in turn, confronted by anti-BNP activists, some of whom were armed, and who were apparently separate from the protest group.

Police were called to the scene shortly before 6.30pm following reports of a fight and discovered a trailer had been overturned.

During the incident Mr Ward was hit with a hammer. He attended hospital for treatment, but was not seriously injured.

A 25-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm and bailed until May 26.

The protesters had gathered in Leigh after it emerged towards the end of last week that party members intended to hold a meeting at the Pure Club in West Bridgewater Street.

It is believed some were students and others were members of various political parties, including Respect and the Socialist Workers Party.

BNP leader Nick Griffin had been scheduled to speak at the Battle for Britain road show meeting.

But it was cancelled at the last minute when, according to police, the venue’s owner changed his mind, fearing negative publicity and public order trouble for him and other businesses. Mr Franzen, who joined the protesters just after the incident erupted, said the BNP are not welcome in Wigan.

He said: “They are not welcome anywhere. We know who they are and what they stand for and we know that their new found respectability is just a façade.”

Posted in Anti-fascism | 23 Comments

Oops

Posted on March 15, 2009 by @ndy

In the article about Lady Renouf you’ve mixed Frank Renouf’s wives together, the Holocaust denier is his third wife Michelle, his second wife, Susan Peacock Sangster Renouf, has nothing to do with denying the Holocaust.
Wendy READ | 02.15.09 – 4:08 pm | #

I think you will find that Susan Sangster/Renouf and Michele Mainwairing/Renouf are different people who happen to have been married briefly to the same individual – Sir Frank Renouf.
Frank | 03.01.09 – 8:11 am | #

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment