When it comes to jokes about swarthy foreigners, Etwell can’t hold a candle to David Oldfield, former political adviser to Pauline Hanson, and now midnight to dawn presenter on Sydney’s 2GB…
Basically, David the squawking hack got pwn3d by some kids on the Bored of Studies site, who rang David’s show and ranted and raved about teh-Muslim-terrorist-who-now-sits-in-the-Blackhouse — and other such matters.
Just another night on talkback radio really.
Uncle John, for one, was not amused — mmmkay? — and castigated the smartarses responsible: “The silly kids who called in ought to feel ashamed of themselves.”
Dunno John — I doubt it. Bored of Studies certainly appears to be ashamed, however, having pulled the thread in question (“Invalid Thread specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator”).
Closed after just 48 pages.
A few highlights:
‘David Oldfield One nation dude’
Ben.Civiletti : David oldfield (the dude that failed the lie detector test about sleeping with Hanson) has his own radio show on 2gb 873am. (midnight to 5am)
And since its the eve of the election his gone all spazo he can’t believe a black man winning the election. I dare (mainly cos im not brave enough to) any left wing boser to talk about the US election with him and how Obama is better over mccain etc. Likewise, any right wing boser to talk about mccain>obama.
He also calls any non anglo race extremely primitive, calls for the bali bombers [to] be burned (slowly), and hates immigrants… he also hates anyone with degrees cant stand them… and don’t get him started on muslims
Also anyone that has the balls to question him on failing the lie detecter test gets extra points
zstar : hahaha I remember him, The guy who looks like Milhouse and hates Asian people
Miles Edgeworth : them kids with them inter-nets
Iron : Srsly, what was Pauline like as a lover
Ben.Civiletti : DO NOT MENTION BOS DUDES WTH
Scissors : man! i was gonna troll dave so much more if he didn’t cut me off. i was gonna tell him a story about a cat that died at my house once and we just simply chopped it up to save some room in the garbage bin
Speaking of Obama Osama, in 2003, Pauline Hanson’s best mate helped set up a website called muslimterrorists.com. “Not all Muslims are terrorists but nearly all terrorists are Muslims” quoth the website (David Oldfield defends website over vilification allegations, PM, August 28, 2003).
Having surfed into the NSW Parliament courtesy of the short wave of popularity Pauline Dancin’ Hanson also rode, David’s other claim to fame was (allegedly) having sex with the Wicked Witch from Ipswich, an (alleged) act(s) for which he was even subjected to a lie detector test. Subsequently: “David Oldfield … publicly apologised to his wife after failing a lie detector test on the question of whether or not he had sex” with the flame-haired temptress (Oldfield apologises to wife after failing lie detector test, The West Australian, March 29, 2007).
A former waterboy for the Mad Monk, son of Ernest Radcliffe Oldfield and June Emma Oldfield, educated at Balgowlah Boys High School, married to Lisa Michelle Johnston on October 13, 2001, contestant on Celebrity Survivor in 2006, David sat on his arse in the NSW Parliament for eight years, from 1999–2007.
Now he talks shit on talkback radio.
Here endeth the lesson.
Established July 8th 2002, Bored of Studies was pioneered by 4 ex-HSC students who finished their HSC in 2001. Being the first to sit the newly revised HSC syllabus, the lack of information for current HSC students became apparent and hence developed into the sole inspiration for the development of this website.
Created by students, for students, Bored of Studies strives to provide current year 12 and year 11 students with all the resources and support they need to succeed during the 2 years that form the most important part of their education and subsequently, their futures.
Along with the help of countless user submitted notes and documents, and the users who spend endless hours helping out those in need in the student forums, Bored of Studies endeavours to become the single most influential, resourceful and helpful service available to students all over Australia.
“Mr. Block is legion,” wrote Walker C. Smith in 1913. “He is representative of that host of slaves who think in terms of their masters. Mr. Block owns nothing, yet he speaks from the standpoint of the millionaire; he is patriotic without patrimony; he is a law-abiding outlaw … [who] licks the hand that smites him and kisses the boot that kicks him … the personification of all that a worker should not be.”
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. ~ Samuel Johnson, 1775
“This troop song was not popular with the officer class, who thought it bad for morale, though attempts to suppress it were unsuccessful.”
Almost a century ago, 8,141 Australians died trying to keep Turkey British. Last week, Simon Darby of the BNP announced that the BNP invasion of Australia has met a glitch: Nick Griffin’s ‘planned speaking tour of Australia has met a predictable obstacle, he recently received notification from the authorities down under that his visa application, “has been blocked and referred to a higher authority”.’
On October 30, ex-PM Paul Keating launchedChurchill and Australia by Graham Freudenberg (Pan MacMillan, 2008). In doing so, he created a storm in a teacup on the subject of ‘Gallipoli’:
[Asquith, Kitchener, Fisher, and Churchill] did produce Gallipoli. But with the Western Front in a quagmire and standstill and given Australian loyalties to ‘king and country’, it was entirely explicable that we would be there to help, including at Gallipoli.
So our motivations were, as Graham notes, divided by nationalism and imperialism; between loyalties to the empire and a desire for a more independent Australia. Importantly, he suggests that ‘Churchill’s ambivalence about Australia was a mirror image of Australia’s ambivalence about itself.’
On the one hand we were out to prove that ‘the British race in the antipodes had not degenerated’ yet we resented being dragooned into a war which did not threaten our own country or its people.
As Graham says ‘in an almost theological sense Australian Britons had been born again into the baptism of fire at Anzac Cove’, questioning, somewhat tongue in cheek, whether we needed being reborn at all.
The ‘reborn’ part went to a lack of confidence and ambivalence about ourselves. Who we were and what we had become. If our sons suffered and died valiantly in a European war, such sacrifice was testament to the nation’s self worth.
In some respects we are still at it; not at the suffering and the dying, but still turning up at Gallipoli, the place where Australia was needily redeemed.
The truth is that Gallipoli was shocking for us. Dragged into service by the imperial government in an ill conceived and poorly executed campaign, we were cut to ribbons and dispatched.
And none of it in the defence of Australia. Without seeking to simplify the then bonds of empire and the implicit sense of obligation, or to diminish the bravery of our own men, we still go on as though the nation was born again or even, was redeemed there. An utter and complete nonsense.
For these reasons I have never been to Gallipoli and I never will.
“He’s a witch!”
“Burn him!”
That said… nation-states are invariably built on blood sacrifice, and mass death is a seemingly necessary part of the national mythos. In the context of the modern nation-state, Fredy Perlman remarks:
World War I marked the end of one phase of the nationalizing process, the phase that had begun with the American and French revolutions, the phase that had been announced much earlier by the declaration of Aguirre and the revolt of the Dutch grandees. The conflicting claims of old and newly-constituted nations were in fact the causes of that war. Germany, Italy and Japan, as well as Greece, Serbia and colonial Latin America, had already taken on most of the attributes of their nationalistic predecessors, had become national empires, monarchies and republics, and the more powerful of the new arrivals aspired to take on the main missing attribute, the colonial empire. During that war, all the mobilizable components of the two remaining dynastic empires, the Ottoman and the Hapsburg, constituted themselves into nations. When bourgeoisies with different languages and religions, such as Turks and Armenians, claimed the same territory, the weaker were treated like so-called American Indians; they were exterminated. National Sovereignty and Genocide were – and still are – corollaries.
Common language and religion appear to be corollaries of nationhood, but only because of an optical illusion. As welding materials, languages and religions were used when they served their purpose, discarded when they did not. Neither multi-lingual Switzerland nor multi-religious Yugoslavia were banned from the family of nations. The shapes of noses and the color of hair could also have been used to mobilize patriots – and later were. The shared heritages, roots and commonalities had to satisfy only one criterion, the criterion of American-style pragmatic reason: did they work? Whatever worked was used. The shared traits were important, not because of their cultural, historical or philosophical content, but because they were useful for organizing a police to protect the national property and for mobilizing an army to plunder the colonies.
Once a nation was constituted, human beings who lived on the national territory but did not possess the national traits could be transformed into internal colonies, namely into sources of preliminary capital. Without preliminary capital, no nation could become a great nation, and nations that aspired to greatness but lacked adequate overseas colonies could resort to plundering, exterminating and expropriating those of their countrymen who did not possess the national traits.
Another former PM, John “If I was running Al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008, and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats” HoWARd had the following to remark upon the subject of Gallipoli:
Ninety years ago, as dawn began to break, the first sons of a young nation assailed these shores. These young Australians, with their New Zealand comrades, had come to do their bit in a maelstromnot of their making.
‘I don’t want to join the Army’
(Tune: ‘On Sunday I walk out with a soldier’)
I don’t want to join the army
I don’t want to go to war
I’d rather hang around Piccadilly Underground
Living off the earnings of a high class lady
I don’t want a bayonet up me arsehole
I don’t want me bollocks shot away
I’d rather be in England
Merry merry England
And fornicate my fuckin’ life away (cor blimey)
Over eight impossible months, they forged a legend whose grip on us grows tighter with each passing year. In the hills, ridges and gullies above us the Anzacs fought, died, dug in and hung on. Here they won a compelling place in the Australian story. Today we remember the 50,000 Australians who served in the Gallipoli campaign. And the more than 26,000 who fell or were wounded here. We remember, too, the sons of New Zealand who died and suffered. And let us not forget the sons of Britain, France, India, Newfoundland and of course Turkey, who died in their countless thousands on this peninsula…
Those who fought here in places like Quinn’s Post, Pope’s Hill and the Nek changed forever the way we saw our world and ourselves. They bequeathed Australia a lasting sense of national identity. They sharpened our democratic temper and our questioning eye towards authority. We used to say that the ranks of the original Anzacs were thinning with each passing year. They are all gone now. Now what swells with each Anzac season is a hunger for their stories. Now we remember them not as old soldiers but as young Australians, often from the same suburbs, streets, districts and towns that we come from. Just as many of you have come here today with your brothers and your mates, so it was 90 years ago that the young of Australia surged forward to enlist along with their brothers and their mates…
History helps us to remember but the spirit of Anzac is greater than a debt to past deeds. It lives on in the valour and the sacrifice of young men and women that ennoble Australia in our time, in scrub in the Solomons, in the villages of Timor, in the deserts of Iraq and the coast of Nias. It lives on through a nation’s easy familiarity, through Australians looking out for each other, through courage and compassion in the face of adversity…
‘When this lousy war is over’
Tune: ‘What a friend we have in Jesus’ When this lousy war is over no more soldiering for me,
When I get my civvy clothes on, oh how happy I shall be.
No more church parades on Sunday, no more begging for a pass.
You can tell the sergeant-major to stick his passes up his arse.
(Repeat first two lines of first verse)
No more NCOs to curse me, no more rotten army stew.
You can tell the old cook-sergeant, to stick his stew right up his flue.
(Repeat first two lines of first verse)
No more sergeants bawling, ‘Pick it up’ and ‘Put it down’.
If I meet the ugly bastard I’ll kick his arse all over town.
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER THE HON JOHN HOWARD MP ADDRESS AT ANZAC DAY DAWN SERVICE GALLIPOLI [APRIL 25, 2005, PDF]
Then as now, war and state-sponsored terrorism had its opponents as well as its supporters, and during WWI in Australia, one of the more vigorous voices belonged to the revolutionary industrial unionists of the International Workers of the World. It was in no small measure due to the efforts of the IWW, but also the labour movement more generally — in addtion to the influence of what was then known as ‘The Irish Church in Australia’ (the Catholic Church under Archbishop Daniel Mannix) — that the Little Digger‘s attempts to conscript more bodies for the imperialistic slaughterhouses in Europe were defeated. Twice. One of the more famous expressions of opposition to conscription and the creation of more dead heroes was the following poster, produced by the IWW in 1916:
On the Australian IWW and opposition to WWI see Frank Cain, The Wobblies at War: A History of the IWW and the Great War in Australia, Spectrum, Melbourne, 1993 (‘Scaring hell out of the ruling class’, review by Phil Shannon, Green Left Weekly, #135, March 16, 1994); Verity Burgmann, Revolutionary Industrial Unionism: The Industrial Workers of the World in Australia, Cambridge University Press, 1995; and finally the fabulously titled ‘AUSTRALIAN STRIKE STARTED BY I.W.W.; Ex-Minister of Parkways Hoyle Tells How Agitators Used German Money. MENACE MET BY PEOPLE Organization Declared Illegal and Leaders Convicted of Crimes and Sentenced. Then I.W.W. Appeared. Leaders Found Guilty’, The New York Times, September 10, 1917.
And finally, a cautionary message from The Blairite Foundation for Troop Respect & Matter Investigation:
Saturday, November 15, 2008 (Over-18) The Arthouse
616 Elizabeth St, Melbourne
w/-
Occult Blood
Outta Control
Pathetic Human
Rankwaste
Sunday, November 16, 2008 (All Ages) Barricade Infoshop (International Workers’ Club)
62 St Georges Rd, Northcote
w/-
Lanesplitter (Punk rock and/or roll with “mad” geetar solos)
Nuclear Sex Addict (Featuring dismembers of Pisschrist, Schifosi and Workshy) Straightjacket Nation
Court orders neo-Nazi suspects extradited
October 23, 2008
COPENHAGEN: Two men accused of distributing neo-Nazi music and inciting racial hatred should be extradited to Germany, a Danish court ruled yesterday. The judgment was made after the two men [German Stephan G., 33, and Dane Flemming C, 32], who were granted anonymity by the court, appealed an October 7 decision by the Danish Ministry of Justice to approve their extradition to face charges of distributing banned neo-Nazi material. Danish authorities arrested a 33-year-old German man and a 32-year-old Danish man at the end of August as part of an international crackdown by federal German police to break up a production and distribution network of neo-Nazi recordings. Frankfurt prosecutors allege they distributed the music in Germany through the Denmark-based record label Celtic Moon. A police raid uncovered thousands of CDs and DVDs at the Danish suspect’s house – many of which contained inflammatory lyrics towards Jews and denying the Holocaust, contrary to German law on incitement to racial hatred. The Danish suspect appeared in court on Tuesday and told judges that he had only been looking after the CDs for his German friend and had never listened to them. He claimed he abandoned right-wing extremism following the birth of his daughter in 2002. The German suspect said he was in contact with British neo-Nazi organisation Blood and Honour, but told the court he had “done nothing illegal”. – AFP
According to earlier reports (August), a True Blue Dinky-Di (Nutzi) Aussie — whose identity has yet to be established — co-operated with the dynamic Danish and German duo by providing them with True Blue Dinky-Di (Nutzi) muzak. Coincidentally, ‘Celtic Moon’ has close ties to ‘Werwolf Records’: it distributes Douglas Schott’s Newcastle-based band Blood Red Eagle.
On a related note, Douglas’s band has recently been adopted by the US-based Nutzi Volksfront groupuscule. A photographic survey of the True Blue Dinky-Di Aussie’s kameraden has recently been published by Rose City Antifa, who are:
…pleased to bring you this album containing photos of local members of Volksfront, the most significant neo-Nazi organization in our state. The vast majority of these photos are from 2008 events in Oregon which occurred after the release of Volksfront prospect “Red” (AKA “Big Red”) from prison.
Those who have been following the Volksfront organization will see plenty of familiar faces in this collection. It should be noted that Randal and Abbie Krager [nee Chelf]—pictured in many of these photos—no longer seem to live in Portland [PDF]. Our deep condolences go out to the state of Florida, especially those people living near Lakeland…
Reasons to be Cheerful : One | Two | Three. Volksfront apparently has a chapter in Australia, but it appears that the volk in Australia (most likely some very short-haired bloke and his dog) are still on their training wheels (that is, constitute a ‘probationary’ chapter).
Nowadays, Volksfront helps little old (white) ladies cross the road — or so it says. In the past — which is, after all, another country (a place people like me belong, according to some) — they also helped homeless white men to their deaths:
The hunt began with a trip to a couple of local businesses. They needed more beer, of course, an armload of 22-ounce tallboys and an 18-pack of Budweiser. That would be the fuel. But they didn’t forget to buy the baseball bats.
The foursome headed out as the cool of the evening set in. Sucking down beer and carrying their two new bats, they made their way to an area they knew well, a secret world of street people who congregated under a highway bridge in Tacoma, Wash.
They knew what they were looking for, as several of them told police later — a drug dealer, preferably a black one. But the first black man they saw, walking by with a white woman, drew a machete when the menacing group of boneheads approached. The brave young warriors dropped that plan fast.
Then they spotted Randy Townsend.
David Nikos Pillatos, 19, dealt the first blow, smashing the homeless white man with one of the bats as Scotty James Butters, 20, began to punch him. With Pillatos’ second swing, the bat splintered across Townsend’s face. Then Tristain Lynn Frye, 22 and the only female present, began to kick the fallen man. Pillatos found a 40-pound rock and dropped it on Townsend’s head.
It was then, according to statements later given by the three to police, that Kurtis William Monschke, 19, joined in. Noticing that Townsend was breathing, Monschke laid into his victim with the second bat before lifting and smashing his head onto a railroad track.
Randall Mark Townsend, a gentle, 42-year-old man afflicted with paranoid schizophrenia, never opened his eyes again. He lingered in a coma for 20 days after the March 23, 2003, attack, but in the end his battered body succumbed…
On the terraces in Germany, eight Nutzis have been told by fans and officials to fuck off after the dummkopf‘s unveiled a Nazi flag at a game last weekend: “Werder fans prevented the neo-Nazis from unfolding the sign and they were led away by police. The incident took place one day before Germany observed the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Nazi-incited riots against Jews” (Werder Bremen bans neo-Nazi fans, The Associated Press, November 10, 2008). The scum are also facing having bans placed on their attendance at future games.
The eight Hitler fetishists aren’t alone, however, at least not according to electoral results, the NPD’s boasts, or The Jew:
BERLIN (AFP) — A prominent Jewish group said Monday it was reviewing legal options against a German neo-Nazi party for “racist” remarks calling Barack Obama’s election a “declaration of war” on non-white America… In a statement from his office entitled “Africa conquers the White House,” [Juergen] Gansel said multicultural America sought the destruction of “pure” national cultures and that Obama aimed to destroy the United States’ “white identity.” “A non-white America is a declaration of war on all people who believe an organically grown social order based on language and culture, history and heritage to be the essence of humanity,” he said. “Barack Obama hides this declaration of war behind his pushy sunshine smile.” …
Finally, Melbourne dumb punx have shrugged their shoulders at news that ‘Neo-Nazis Stab Fourteen Year Old in Izhevsk’ (November 10, 2008), and called upon the lying, hypocritical members of the Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union to go back to Russia.
A neo-Nazi gang stabbed a 14-year-old boy from Azerbaijan in Izhevsk, Russia (Republic of Udmurtiya), according to a November 10, 2008 report by the Sova Information-Analytical Center. On October 12, the gang ambushed Nadirli Nadira Shakin-oglu outside a store, stabbing him twice in the back and six times in the chest. Doctors saved the child’s life in the hospital and police have detained suspects, who were charged with attempted murder. So far, no hate crimes charges have been filed.
…both appeared on the AK Press/G7 Welcoming Committee CD Return of the Read Menace, released in 1999. Robb contributed ‘Permanent Free Zone’ while Ron played ‘Small Victories’.
As you can see, we were not joking when we said we were not releasing any more music. We are, in fact, not. Just to reiterate — G7 has entered an indefinite stage of hibernation during which we will release no new music, but simply maintain our existing back-catalogue in high-quality, DRM-free, downloadable form.
CDs which we currently have in stock continue to be available for sale in our online store until that stock runs out. We will not be manufacturing any more CDs in the future.
Now that that clarification is out of the way, I may as well update the curious on the latest with G7-affiliated peoples…
One last note to American readers — Barack Obama is just the figurehead of one of two pro-war, big-business parties in your country. He will not save the world. Unicorns will not frolic in the streets upon his (likely) inauguration.
He will, however, probably write a really great memoir after his time as president is done, in which he will reflect on — and maybe even apologize for — all the mistakes he made in bombing innocent civilians in his new, amped-up war in Afghanistan (and wherever else his administration takes the U.S. war machine in the years ahead.)
The fascist twat is vice-president of the ‘Jobbik’ party in Hungary. In an absolutely extraordinary turn of events which has no previous historical parallel, he himself denies any racist intention. “My party is radical but it is patriotic, not nationalist. Millions in Hungary support us. Those who call us Nazi are just Communists.” Zoltan’s party is also known as Jobbik Magyarországért Mozgalom, or ‘The Movement for a Better Hungary’. A better Hungary being one without Gypsies (Roma).
Whether or not Hungary is better off without Zoltan is unknown, but the foreign troublemaker has been happily living in England for several years now. In May 2006, he even lodged a complaint with the local council for refusing to allow him to extend the driveway at his home in Windmill Street. By the same token, whether or not patriotic Britishers should support Zoltan’s battle with the local branch of ZOG is a quandary I’ll happily let them decide upon. In the meantime, while the Hungarian remains in England, the Englishman Nick Griffin is coming to Australia in December, and bringing with him all the joys of Christmas.
“a refugee is a person who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.”
By this definition Jesus was a refugee. There is no question of this, despite the fact that some Christians are clearly embarrassed by the fact.
What would happen if Jesus had fled to Australia instead of Egypt?
…
If we judge what Australia would do to Jesus by biblical standards, this is what the bible says:
Deuteronomy 10:17-19 For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Strangers is one of the biblical word for refugees. Can it be said that we love the stranger in Australia?
To really live the Christian Faith is to have concern for justice for all people, including “the strangers and widows and orphans” the Old Testament called the oppressed and nobodies of the time.
In Matthew 9:13 Jesus told people to go and learn the meaning of the word compassion. Compassion is the modern word for mercy. It means to walk in the shoes of someone, or to feel how a situation feels to them.
Jesus quoted the scripture where God says “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Keeping the law and making sacrifices in the temple was the “right thing” a good Jew of Jesus’ time did to keep the law. But, says Jesus, God desires mercy or compassion, not rigid keeping of the law. He was alluding to the words of the Old Testament Prophet Hosea who says as God’s word, “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
The Old Testament prophets were damming of those who kept religious observance and yet did not live out justice. Amos 5:21 has God saying, “I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.” Jesus was damning of those who kept religious observance hard heartedly and had no compassion. He called them “whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth.” Matthew 23:27
The law of Moses was to be interpreted through compassion. Compassion, then the law. Let us be compassionate first and then worry about the law, if you like.
The Residents’ Action Movement has been growing rapidly in the last month (with around 100-300 people joining per week) as a result of the popularity of their key campaign — to remove the 12.5% goods and services tax on food… How did such a party that has the mainstream parties ducking for cover grow so quickly and achieve such success in so short a time?
Et cetera.
In Australia, Aoteraoa/New Zealand and the UK, the last few years has witnessed the emergence of left-wing electoral coalitions. In each case, after some initial success, they have largely collapsed. In each case, the coalition has dwindled to a front group for one of the ‘revolutionary’ socialist (neo-Trotskyist) parties who played a key role in their initiation.
Australia
“An historic moment for the left in Australia” was the most common comment made by participants in the founding conference of the Socialist Alliance in Melbourne over the August 4-5 weekend.
As for the bad news: SAlt (wisely) left the Alliance in its initial stages; SD disbanded in December 2005; WP left in April 2006 (and has also since disbanded); the ISO withdrew in January 2007 (and has since re-emerged as Solidarity); while the FSP left the Alliance just two months later. The status of several other groups affiliated to SA remains somewhat in doubt — thus the Alliance for Workers Liberty (AWL) were there at the beginning, and have yet to formally announce their retirement, although nothing has been heard from them since 2004 — while the Workers League and the Worker Communist Party of Iraq (Australia) have been keeping mum.
SA has contested a number of elections over the intervening period, and a number of SA candidates will be contesting the upcoming Victorian local council elections (November 29). To date, however, none have experienced any degree of real success, and nobody — outside of, perhaps, SA — believes that they will any time soon. Indeed, such has been the controversy surrounding SA, that the question of its utility as a vehicle for the promotion of socialist politics led earlier this year to a split in the DSP (its only remaining power). Thus while the decision by the DSP to submerge itself in SA — celebrated by its re-nomination in December 2003 as the Democratic Socialist Perspective, “a Marxist tendency in the Socialist Alliance” — has had its benefits (the decimation of the ISO) it has also had its costs (currently known as the Revolutionary Socialist Party).
In Aotearoa/New Zealand, as in Australia, there have been a number of attempts at left re-groupment in recent years. One of these was centred around the development of a Workers’ Charter in 2005. Workers’ Charter has since gone the way of all things, and been replaced by the Residents’ Action Movement (RAM). RAM was formed in 2003, and has been described as a “broad left coalition, stretching from social liberals, community activists and former National Party members to social democrats, democratic socialists and left-wing radicals”. Its chairperson is currently Grant Morgan, who is also a leading member of Socialist Worker (Aotearoa).
SW-NZ is one of a bewildering number of Trotskyist parties descended from or (formerly) claiming allegiance to the UK’s Socialist Workers Party and its International: the International Socialist Tendency (iSt): in Aotearoa, SW-NZ remains the iSt affiliate; in Australia, the franchise is owned by Solidarity (and before it, the ISO). Confusingly:
SW-NZ produces a quarterly journal titled UNITY which is Aotearoa’s premier Marxist publication. We have our own website called UNITYblogNZ.com. We publish a monthly Operational E-Zine for SW-NZ members. We hold branch meetings and national conferences to debate Marxist strategies and tactics, and to elect people to positions of local and national responsibility. We are a Marxist group which can act independently for specific political reasons. Such things will continue in the aftermath of the unanimous decision by the February 2008 SW-NZ national conference to support RAM’s plan to go nationwide.
Confusing, as Unity was originally a publication of the Workers’ Charter (under the editorship of the delightfully subversive John Minto); the Workers’ Charter website has since disappeared; Unity appears to have ceased publication; and UNITYblogNZ.com now resolves to Unity Aotearoa, a ‘broad left’ blog (and seemingly a publication of SW-NZ).
Disappointing (for SW-NZ), as, despite a good deal of hype, RAM’s result at the recent election has been farcical. Thus, despite claiming a membership of 3000, RAM received just over 400 votes across the country. By contrast, with 824 votes, the ‘hard’ left in the Workers Party — its “ideology is pro-Mao, Marxism-Leninism [and] based on the teachings and practice of the great revolutionaries from Marx to Mao” — fared a good deal better (as did the social-democratic Alliance, with 1,721 votes).
WPNZ was formed in 2002 as an amalgamation of the (seminal) Workers Party and a Trotskyist groupuscule called Revolution (see Philip Ferguson, ‘Fusion forms new group – Revolutionary Workers League’, The Spark, June 15, 2004). Well, kinda… actually, it emerged out of the ‘Anti-Capitalist Alliance’ as the ‘Revolutionary Workers League’, before settling for the name Workers Party (again).
The first Socialist Alliance was set up in Coventry in 1992 and the first national meeting held in 1996 with eight local alliances represented. Within two years 20 local alliances and twelve left groups had joined. During the next two years the project took off with 58 local SA’s across the country.
In 2001 the SA adopted a new programme and constitution and now involved all the main tendencies and groupings on the left, including the AWL, CPGB, International Socialist Group, Revolutionary Democratic Group, Socialist Party, SWP and Workers Power. The SA stood 98 candidates in the 2001 general election, making the biggest left challenge to the Labour Party for 50 years. [Gaining 57,553 votes.]
After the Bush-Blair war in Iraq, the SWP majority abandoned the SA for Respect and closed the SA down. However a significant minority did not accept this. In November 2005 the SA was relaunched at the London conference. The need for non-sectarian socialist unity remains central to the struggle for socialism. The Socialist Alliance is coming back.
Maybe so — although given that it had just 30 ‘national’ members in 2007, and just 20 in 2008 (supplemented, presumably, by members of a dozen or so affiliates/branches), it certainly has an extremely long road to travel. As for Respect — Respect, Equality, Socialism, Peace, Environmentalism, Community, and Trade Unionism — it was formally founded in January 2004, and split into two in 2007, with one faction dominated by the SWP, and the other comprising most of the remainder.
Respect won its first local council election a few months after its founding, in July, 2004. It contested the general election of 2005, and gained 68,094 votes. Moreover, it gained Parliamentary representation in the form of ‘Gorgeous’ George Galloway (a former Laborite, expelled from the party in October 2003 on account of his opposition to the war in/on Iraq).
The turning point for Respect came in late 2007, when the party split into two: one faction labelled Respect Renewal (Galloway), the other Respect — The Unity Coalition (SWP). Renewal accused the SWP of control freakery; the SWP accused Galloway & Co. of shifting to the right. In any event, the SWP-dominated Respect soon transmogrified into the ‘Left List’, and it was under this title that the SWP contested the London council elections in May, 2008. In the contest for Mayor, the BNP’s Richard Barnbrook received 69,710 votes, while Lindsay German (Left List/SWP) got a mere 16,796 (less than 1%). (As the Respect candidate in 2004, German got 61,731 votes.)
In the ding-dong battle between the SWP (Left List) and Respect in City & East, Respect (George Galloway) got 26,760 votes (14.28%) while the Left candidate got just 2,274 votes (1.21%), less even than the National Front with 2,350 votes (1.25%). In general, of fourteen constituencies, Left List (SWP) candidates managed to avoid coming last in nine, comfortably seeing off Veritas in Barnet & Camden, the English Democrats in seven seats (although being outpolled in seven others), the UK Independence Party in two seats (losing in the remaining twelve), and seeing off challenges from two Independents, Socialist Alternative (Chris Flood), Animals Count and the Socialist Party (David Lambert), and even managed to defeat a Christian in one seat (losing all others) in the race to the bottom.
Following these disastrous results, the ‘Left List’ became the ‘Left Alternative’ (June 2008), and under this name will continue to eke out an existence as the SWP’s electoral front — minus Lindsey German and John Rees.
The fortunes of the SWP in the UK are in many ways mirrored by those of the DSP in Australia and SW-NZ in er, New Zealand. All three parties are (or perhaps were, in the case of SW-NZ) major forces on the Leninist left, and all decided, in their wisdom, to try and hitch their wagons to the ‘anti-capitalist’ movement in the early noughties by way of joining/forming an electoral alliance. In the case of the SWP this meant, first, joining/forming the Socialist Alliance (1999–2003), then Respect (2003–2007), then Respect Coalition (2007–2008), then the Left List (2008), and now the Left Alternative. In the case of the DSP, they comprised one of the founding members of the Socialist Alliance (2001) and — while every single other member of the ‘alliance’ has since departed — have remained there. As indicated, this has come at a cost to the DSP, with the recent departure of a large minority to form the RSP. The SWP, on the other hand, has (also) witnessed a declining membership, one which — and in reaction to the popularity of the BNP — it would appear it is attempting to bolster through rejuvenating its ‘anti-fascist’ organising.
…So the LA is going to be a parked front, much like Globalise Resistance, kept just about ticking over in case there’s a need to dust it off again. This makes sense. Since the election debacle, practically all the SWP’s allies – who weren’t too numerous to begin with – have flaked off. The four Tower Hamlets councillors have gone, three to New Labour and one to the Tories. Kumar Murshid has gone. The very able Sait Akgul seems to have dropped off the face of the earth. And the SWP itself doesn’t have the membership or the money to keep a halfway serious electoral intervention going under its own steam…
See also : Socialist Renewal: “We wish to provide a site for the publication of ideas about how the socialist left with the renewed Respect can begin to offer their socialist perspective, in a non-sectarian way within a more plural and outward-looking Respect.”
Nausea play Discharge. Intro / Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing / Ain’t No Feeble Bastard. Discharged, Allied Recordings, 1994.
Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing
Lied to threatened cheated and deceived
Hear nothing see nothing say nothing
Led up garden paths and into blind alleys
Hear nothing see nothing say nothing
Ain’t No Feeble Bastard
Ain’t no feeble bastard that obeys their every say
They say do this they say do that
No I’m no dogsbody
Ain’t no feeble bastard
No fucking scapegoat
Ain’t no feeble bastard that has no say
I say what I think, not what they want me to think
NZ employs the Mixed Member Proportional representation (MMP) voting system. The NZ Parliament has a total of 122 seats, 7 of which are reserved for Maori candidates. The Nationals won 59 (gaining 11), Labour 43 (losing 7), Greens 8 (gaining 2), ACT New Zealand 5 (gaining 3), Maori 5 (gaining 1), Progressives 1 (no change) and UnitedFuture 1 (losing 2). The election marked a generational sea change, with 47-year-old millionaire former currency trader John Key (National) taking power from Helen Clark (Labour) a long-serving veteran of the Left of New Zealand politics… such as it is, and such as it may be found within the ranks of Labour.
On the whole, and leaving aside the Greens and Progressives, it was a fairly dismal result for the (Socialist) Left. On October 10, RAM boasted that “RAM’s ‘Protect Our People’ campaign has been swinging into action nationwide – and our election campaign has been going from strength to strength!” In reality, it received an extremely meagre total of just 405 votes. What’s especially odd about this result is that in April, RAM claimed a membership of 500. RAM ‘co-organiser’ Oliver Woods stated “I’m from RAM, New Zealand’s fastest growing political party with more than 3000 members in only a few months!” Further, “RAM won 87,000 votes in the 2004 ARC election, and over 100,000 votes in the 2007 council elections which saw a slightly higher average vote for our ARC candidates as compared with 2004.”
Where did they all go? Did RAM forget to remind its (incredibly absent-minded) 3000 members to vote for their party?
For the bizarros of the Workers Party, the results are a little more pleasing. After all, it was only a few years ago that its Leader, Daphna Whitmore, was singing the praises of Marx, Lenin, Mao, and even Presidente Gonzalo.
“If I was running Al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008, and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats.” ~ John HoWARd, February 11, 2007
We All Earned the Puppy
(“On Faith” panelist) Starhawk Washington Post (Blog)
November 5, 2008
On election night, after Barack Obama made his acceptance speech, I was filled with too much excitement and elation to stay indoors. I headed out to the streets, and eventually found the party in my neighborhood, the Mission district of San Francisco. A crowd filled the streets, drumming and dancing and hooting and high on sheer elation. It was mostly young, but with a sprinkling of us older folks. And it was incredibly diverse, reflecting just about every race and color and ancestry of people on the planet: black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American. Not in separated knots of friends, but grinning and hugging and riding on each others’ shoulders, all mixed together, like the way you mix up flour and sugar and cut in the butter for a pie crust to hold a good old American apple pie.
Very few of us are immune to the exhilaration of this time. My friends on the left write to me that they feel something akin to “redemption” or that “the country has been returned to us” or that “we finally have one of us in the White House.” Of course, like them, I discover myself feeling overwhelmed with disbelief and excitement throughout the day, since the thought of having the regime of George W. Bush over and gone is an enormous relief. And the thought of Obama, a thoughtful and progressive black candidate, shifts the historical ground, and we feel that cataclysm as it produces a new terrain. But let us try to think carefully about the shifted terrain, although we cannot fully know its contours at this time. The election of Barack Obama is historically significant in ways that are yet to be gauged, but it is not, and cannot be, a redemption, and if we subscribe to the heightened modes of identification that he proposes (“we are all united”) or that we propose (“he is one of us”), we risk believing that this political moment can overcome the antagonisms that are constitutive of political life, especially political life in these times. There have always been good reasons not to embrace “national unity” as an ideal, and to nurse suspicions toward absolute and seamless identification with any political leader. After all, fascism relied in part on that seamless identification with the leader, and Republicans engage this same effort to organize political affect when, for instance, Elizabeth Dole looks out on her audience and says, “I love each and every one of you.”
WASHINGTON—African-American man Barack Obama, 47, was given the least-desirable job in the entire country Tuesday when he was elected president of the United States of America. In his new high-stress, low-reward position, Obama will be charged with such tasks as completely overhauling the nation’s broken-down economy, repairing the crumbling infrastructure, and generally having to please more than 300 million Americans and cater to their every whim on a daily basis. As part of his duties, the black man will have to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind. The job comes with such intense scrutiny and so certain a guarantee of failure that only one other person even bothered applying for it. Said scholar and activist Mark L. Denton, “It just goes to show you that, in this country, a black man still can’t catch a break.”
Two Greek anarchists are making molotov cocktails. One says to the other: "So who will we throw these at then?" The other replies: "What are you, some kind of fucking intellectual?"
