Do Not Disturb

Posted on June 18, 2007 by @ndy

Ssshhh. Bübi‘s sleeping…

Lest We Forget : June 18, 1999 [Melbourne] “An international day of action, protest and carnival aimed at the heart of the global economy.” Four and-a-half months later, the world discovers ‘anti-globalisation’…

Posted in Cats | 3 Comments

‘Home Sweet Squat’

Posted on June 18, 2007 by @ndy

Source : The Melbourne Times, May 9, 2007, pp.8–9

    The number of squatters in Melbourne may be growing, and new groups are forming to help them and fight for their rights. Brigid Enis discovers what it’s like to live without electricity or heat.

The dinner party is held in a room lit entirely by candles and filled with the scent of incense. Food is taken from a portable Esky and cooked on a camping stove. Guests sit on three op shop armchairs, and the decor consists of scattered environmental and political posters on the floor and walls. Music is limited to what the host and guests can sing and play, and conversation will doubtless touch on politics, social justice and the environment. This, according to Karen (not her real name), is life as a squatter.

Karen, 29, began squatting in January this year after the lease on her rental property expired and the owner decided to sell. Karen, a part-time PhD student and part-time union employee, has been renting in the inner suburbs of Melbourne since she was 18 years old. But after her lease expired she found she could not afford a new place in Melbourne’s very competitive rental market. “I just kept hitting brick walls when trying to find new rental properties or trying to find share houses,” Karen says. “It was totally insane. I went to rental property inspections and witnessed the rent auctions that are so infamous now and just decided that I would start squatting.”

Karen is one of a number of people who found squatting to be their only option, and evidence suggests that number is growing. The reinstatement of the Melbourne Squatters’ Union earlier this year may indicate squatting is on the rise. The group aims to support people affected by massive rent increases, low vacancy rates, a short supply of crisis housing and growing public-housing waiting lists.

The latest Office of Housing quarterly rent report released last month showed a median rent increase of 6.4 per cent, a fact that grates on Australians for Affordable Housing spokesman David Imber. “We are obviously very concerned that the housing crisis is so severe that some people feel that they have got no other option but to squat,” Mr Imber says. “People are really being forced out of legitimate rentals, but even rooming houses are becoming too expensive for some groups.”

People shut out of the rental market and public housing can find support in the re-established squatters’ union, which has a dotted history dating back to the Depression. Helping guide this new wave of squatters is the No Frills Melbourne Squatters’ Guide — a web-based tool that helps squatters find a squat — and a community radio show. Community radio station 3CR has broadcast the Squatters and Unwaged Workers’ Airwaves [SUWA] show for about 15 years. The show aims to support and promote squatters and acts as a hub for the union.

In 2001, the show distributed the [No Frills] Melbourne Squatter’s Handbook [February 2002], a predecessor to the squatters’ guide, which came out in the 1990s. The guide states that squatting is not illegal. “Legally, squatting could be a civil dispute between you and the owner. The police should not be involved unless there is the threat of violence or a breach of the peace.” The guide encourages squatters to fight challenges “because housing is a basic human right and sometimes you have to take action to assert your rights”.

Less than two months ago squatters’ rights were put to the test. For two months, a house of squatters existed peacefully in Baker Street, Richmond, just off Church Street. But one Sunday afternoon in March the house was filled with youths dressed in black playing what sounded like a death metal concert. The music was so loud the neighbours called the police. Police in seven squad cars attempted to evict the squatters, but the squatters were obviously prepared for them. They knew their rights, had a lawyer on call, managed to fend off the police and remain, but not for long. Less than a week after the party the squatters, who had managed to hook up the electricity, were evicted.

Carlton resident Finlo White had his own squatter experience after he lived for two years next door to about eight of them. Mr White said the squatters changed the locks on the house, constantly demanded money and used the backyard as a toilet. His most memorable interaction with them was when a squatter armed with a table leg full of nails knocked on his front door and demanded electricity earlier this year. Mr White, filled with Christmas cheer, had extended them a lead from his rental property a few weeks before and now the squatters wanted electricity all the time. Two months ago the house burnt down.

Mr Imber says squatters’ living conditions are often dangerous. “There are all sorts of arrangements and things that go on,” he said. “The reason why places are so often vacant is because they are derelict; they’ve got exposed wiring around and unsecured structures. “We are obviously incredibly concerned that those people are putting themselves at risk.”

Melbourne West Police Inspector Stephen Mutton said the police were also concerned about squatters’ safety, and set up the Inner City Squats Committee after a young girl died in a squat in 2004. Inspector Mutton said the purpose of the committee was to close down or secure potential squats before squatters found them. “We can get these places closed up before someone is exposed to danger,” Inspector Mutton said. “City of Melbourne engineers identify the squats and go around to see if they are unsafe and then get the authorities to fix them.” If squatters do manage to get into squats in the city the committee has a long list of referral services to help them relocate. “Kicking people out on the street creates a bigger problem, which is why we try and refer them to homeless services.”

Some squatters say squatting is a lifestyle choice and a community, rather than a problem to be solved. Four months ago Karen, and two of her mates, who were also fed up with renting, set up a squat in an inner suburb of Melbourne. They found furniture, cutlery and crockery on the street and at the back of op shops and quickly learnt to live without electricity or hot water. Some of Karen’s squatter friends don’t even have running water and rely on bucket flushing to use the toilet. Others camp in run-down properties using solar showers and camping stoves, and one even has his own garden planted in a shopping trolley in case of eviction.

Karen says not having a constant home does not bother her and the advantages of her lifestyle outweigh the disadvantages. “One of the challenges has been learning to think about security in a different way, and also learning to think about the idea of home in a different way,” Karen says. “Friendships would be the sense of home, not so much the roof over your head. “It’s not so much a materialist thing as it is about relationships and I think once you make that shift it’s fine.” She says she can’t imagine living any other way and feels that even when she gets her university qualifications she will continue to squat. “It’s something that I will get more skilled at and more comfortable doing,” she says. “There is certainly something different that shifts your mind.”

COMMENTS, CORRECTIONS, CLARIFICATIONS AND C*CKUPS

To follow…

Squatters invade city buildings
Fiona Hudson
Herald Sun
November 4, 2003

SQUATTERS are invading hundreds of suburban homes and city buildings to live rent-free. The organised rent cheats have published a guerilla guide on the internet offering takeover tips and tactics, and broadcast a weekly radio program. They told the Herald Sun more than 100 long-term squatters, including some families with young children, were living undetected in homes across the city. Many more homeless itinerants were squatting short-term in vacant commercial properties, often leaving a trail of damage behind. Police, the fire brigade and the Melbourne, Port Phillip and Yarra councils have banded together to deal with the growing squatting trend.

The No Frills Melbourne Squatters Guide includes chapters on finding empty properties, breaking in and securing the squat, and connecting essential services. “Once you are inside your new home, you will firstly need to change all the locks so that you can feel secure and safe and keep out anyone you don’t want coming in,” it says. It offers advice on avoiding eviction if police come, and sweet-talking the real owners if they turn up. It also gives specific details for secretly lodging a caveat on the title to prevent the owners selling or mortgaging the property.

KPMG partner and property law expert Genevieve Overell described the guide and advice network as appalling. Ms Overell said she’d seen properties where squatters had barbecues on the living room carpet, and pulled timber off the building to burn for warmth. Others set up a neat home and treated it as their own, “like a tenant, except they don’t pay rent,” she said. Ms Overell said in the worst cases she’d sought court orders on behalf of owners to remove the trespassers. “You have to go there with a team of security guards and a locksmith . . . and retake the property,” she said. The process was costly and upsetting for the rightful owners, she said.

Real estate agents said empty investment properties, holiday homes, deceased estates and houses awaiting development were at highest risk of invasion. Dixon Kestles property manager Justine Ashby has recently helped owners eject squatters from a St Kilda home left vacant after it was auctioned. The Melbourne Squatters Guide is published on the internet by an unidentified group called the No Frills Collective.

The Herald Sun was alerted to the guide by a spokesman for the Squatters and Unwaged Airwaves radio show broadcast weekly on 3CR. It broadcasts the location of sites ripe for occupation by squatters and interviews with “success stories”. One man interviewed recently boasted he’d lived in the same Footscray squat for nine months, and had only paid rent once in four years. The man told the station he’d chosen a council-owned building in a commercial zone to avoid eviction. “The neighbours know what’s going on, but it doesn’t seem to bother anybody too much,” he said.

A radio show spokesman, who called himself Chummy Fleming, said possibly thousands of houses and buildings across Melbourne were occupied by squatters. “I know some families who have been in the same place for five years,” he said. “Their kids go to school in the area and they end up paying rates and phone and electricity bills on the property . . . even though they don’t own it.” The full extent of the squatters’ invasion is difficult to detect because absent owners are usually unaware their property has been taken over. Social worker Les Twentyman said high rents were forcing people to squat.

Posted in Media, State / Politics, Student movement | 4 Comments

The Birmy: now six times less hardcore

Posted on June 18, 2007 by @ndy

The hardcore show scheduled for this Friday @ The Birmy has been cancelled according to Choppaz from Tenth Dan, one of the six bands scheduled to play. Tenth Dan will, however, be playing in Melbourne on Sunday, June 24th @ The Arty, along with Crosscheck, Flame the Fire, No Love Lost, Speartackle and Violent Abuse.

Kudos to the bands for making the right decision and displaying anti-fascist solidarity.

Fuck fascism.

Fuck The Birmy.

    You’re not hardcore
    (No you’re not hardcore)
    Unless you live hardcore
    (Unless you live hardcore)
Posted in Anti-fascism, Collingwood, Music | 9 Comments

A lesson in economics

Posted on June 16, 2007 by @ndy

Sheesh.

Closet pro-Situ and former ALP student political hack Darren Ray seems to lurch from one corrupt business to another. After overseeing the collapse of the Melbourne University Student Union in 2002 and 2003, Ray has most recently emerged in a new but possibly temporary role as a slumlord. According to Simon Kidd in the June 13 edition of The Melbourne Times (‘VCAT imposes fine for students’ filthy house’):

The appeals tribunal has ordered the former head of the failed [MUSU] to pay $6700 to landlords because clients of his rental service left a Hawthorn East house in a “disgustingly dirty” state.

[VCAT] member Ian Proctor ordered Darren Ray, trading as Victorian Student Housing (VSH), to compensate the property’s landlord for damage to the house’s kitchen and bathroom…

Previously, Chris Johnston referred to VSH in an article on living and working conditions for Melbourne’s population of approximately 18,000 Indian tertiary students (‘City’s new underclass forced to suffer in silence’, May 19, 2007):

The tenants’ union campaigned last year against a company called [VSH], run by former heads of the failed [MUSU], Benjamin Cass and Darren Ray. The tenants’ union claimed they were renting inferior properties to Indian students. The company is no longer operating.

It appears that the business plan for VSH was fairly simple, and aimed at taking commercial advantage of Indian student’s difficulties in finding rental accommodation. As VSH itself puts it:

For a newly arrived student, obtaining a rental property can be a very difficult task. Finding the right property that is within your budget, close to public transport and your campus is only a small part of the problem. The real issue is how do you get your application approved?

Real estate agents will always look for two things; good rental history and employment. Newly arrived students can provide neither which is why they find it so difficult to secure a property.

Consequently, keen-eyed entrepreneurs Cass and Ray, with “the support of key student organisations, education agents and community groups”, all of which remain unknown, signed leases on nine properties around town, and simply sub-let these to students (40 in total, according to VSH). Well… kinda. According to Deborah Gough (‘Ex-uni leaders accused of bullying students’, The Age, July 9, 2006) the leases were actually transferred to debt collectors:

Students claim, and documents show, that intimidatory tactics were used against them over visas, credit rating and debt collectors who sublease properties from VSH. Mr Ray denies the claims, and says VSH complies with the Residential Tenancy Act.

The promotional video on the VSH site claims that lowest prices are “guaranteed”, and even includes a list of names of current, presumably satisfied, VSH clients: Manoj Dharmaraj, Amit Timbrewal, Aseem Nangia, Gagan Gogia, Aman Bhandari, Karanuir Sadhra and 28 others.

In the short-term, such business schemes, competently-handled, would appear to be potentially quite lucrative, especially when focused on attracting customers from the lower end of the student market. (That is, students from India. Students from China and other Asian countries tend to be from wealthier backgrounds, and are quite capable of paying the high prices inner-city flats, a preferred form of accomodation, typically lease for.) On the other hand, exploitation of this kind, as well as that experienced by students in the workplace and at tertiary institutions, places longer-term strain on the viability of the foreign student market as a whole. Interestingly, evidence of student resistance to this exploitation is also beginning to surface, as a report from March this year indicates:

Student hunger strike over treatment as ‘cash cows’
Adam Morton
The Age
March 15, 2007

MORE than 60 overseas students went on hunger strike yesterday amid claims they would be forced to pay thousands of dollars extra to finish their degrees after being examined on material they were not taught.

It is the second time in a year that international students have protested about their treatment at the Lonsdale Street “shopfront” campus of Central Queensland University.

The students, mostly from India, started protesting last Friday and held an all night sit-in on Tuesday after learning they would have to sit a supplementary exam in June to pass their masters degree…

Students last year said the university was treating them as “cash cows” and was providing inadequate facilities.

Note that “About half of CQU’s 24,000 students are international, full-fee paying students — the biggest proportion of international students of any Australian university.” And in the sector as a whole, according to one ABC report (‘Foreign students inject $1.9b into universities’, January 6, 2006):

New Education Department figures show Australian universities collected more than $1.9 billion in fees from overseas students in 2004. The statistics show revenue from international students has increased by more than 140 per cent since 1999…

In a context of government deregulation, and subsequently loose oversight of educational standards, living and working conditions for foreign students, ‘over-exploitation’ emerges as a real issue. And to the extent that the education industry is dependent on foreign earnings, such over-exploitation places the future of the industry in real question, as rival markets emerge and students exercise their much-vaunted ‘choice’ to study elsewhere. The consequences this has for local students — and the financing of the tertiary education sector as a whole — is obvious… unlike, say, the reasons Benjamin Cass and Darren Ray can continue to engage in highly questionable business practices — with apparent impunity.

    See also : The State of the Union, “The State of the Union is a documentary capturing the bloodiest [sic] election in the history of student unionism [that is, Melbourne University Student Union, 2003]. The film provides an illuminating and often humorous insight into the microcosm that is university politics.”

PS. Cass and Ray appear to have laid the groundwork for their business in 2004 (‘Towards a chequered career abroad’, The Hindu, August 12, 2004): “The Career Guidance Cell of the Yadava College organised a programme on August 9 on ‘student progression to higher education in Australia’ for undergraduate and postgraduate students. Students were enlightened on an overview of study life in Australia by Benjamin Cass, Director of Students Services Inter-National, Australia, and Darren Ray, Chief Operations Officer. Mr. Cass said Indian students were being given freedom to live and lead in Australia without any compromise on their likes, culture and customs. They also had the freedom of selecting their own subject modules and the country offered good courses on information technology and management at affordable cost…”

Posted in !nataS, State / Politics, Student movement | 10 Comments

Yes, we have no oil!

Posted on June 15, 2007 by @ndy

June 14, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

EXXON PROPOSES BURNING HUMANITY FOR FUEL IF CLIMATE CALAMITY HITS

Conference organizer fails to have Yes Men arrested

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2007 Sydney Forum : Phantasy vs. Reality

Posted on June 15, 2007 by @ndy

Uh-oh, spaghetti-o.

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

Well, that and the thermos.

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

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

The Establishment

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

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

‘A woman scorned’ and all that.

East Coast vs. West Coast

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

    ~ MC Jamahl

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

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

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

Extras

We Are… the League

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

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

Free snags, no tabouli

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

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

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

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

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

Green Scare Update

Posted on June 14, 2007 by @ndy

So, as I was saying: the Green Scare.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    – 60 Minutes (May 12, 1996)

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

scha·den·freu·de (shäd’n-froi’d?)

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

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

Posted on June 13, 2007 by @ndy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that’s on a good day.

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

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

Bloggy stuff…

Posted on June 12, 2007 by @ndy

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

Editorial: Reality bites the psychotic Left

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

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

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

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

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