SMH on FDB! on EVIL! Google

Posted on October 26, 2006 by @ndy
    Google versus Evil

    Google 0
    Evil 1

Google owns Blogger, and has since its acquisition of Pyra Labs, the company behind Blogger, in February 2003. Google is a publicly-listed company, with a majority of shares owned by its founders, corporate executives, and other parasites. Two major shareholders are the company’s founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Forbes places them at #26 and #27 of ‘The World’s Richest People’. (Their net worth? $12.9 and $12.6 billion respectively.) Google famously employs the slogan ‘Don’t be evil’ as a kind of lame-brained advertising gimmick, but in practice is happy to censor information flows into (and out of) China, as well as host neo-Nazis — who, apparently, don’t merit the term ‘evil’. Perhaps two of the world’s richest people — (Sergey Mikhailovich) Brin (Russian: Сергей Михайлович Брин) and (Lawrence Edward “Larry”) Page — should take a break from counting their money, and instead consider what they might do to retard the growth in anti-Semitic and other racist violence in contemporary Russia? Or contemporary Europe? (Or even contemporary Australia and New Zealand/Aotearoa, for that matter!)

Then again, billionaires only act if ordered to do so by a court, apparently… and justice don’t come cheap. So, fuck ’em; and the new economy horse they rode in on!

Google harbouring ‘racists’
Sydney Morning Herald
October 26, 2006

Racist blogs targeting minority groups in Australia are springing up on the web, but Google’s Blogger, the service some are hosted on, refuses to take them offline, says an anti racism lobby group.

“Blogger is absolutely insensitive to complaints about racist and neo-Nazi content,” said Brian Stokes, co-founder of FightDemBack!, a group that monitors the activities of racists, fascists and other such offenders operating in Australia and New Zealand.

Blogger, owned by Google, enables anyone to create a blog or online journal, and publish their thoughts online using internet space provided by Blogger.

Mr Stokes said his group had reported numerous discriminatory Blogger journals to Google, both through the “flag” button that appears on each blog and through an email form that Mr Stokes said was “buried in their site, very hard to find”.

Mr Stokes said his appeals had fallen on deaf ears at Google.

“Most other outfits [that provide free web space] like Angelfire and Tripod actually do respond,” he said.

“We have probably knocked about 25 or 30 Nazi, white supremacist, racist in general websites off the web, in the two and a bit years [since the group (was) founded],” he said.

He refers specifically to two Blogger journals that Google has refused to remove from the web – Patriot Alliance Downunder and Red Watch NZ.

“Patriot Alliance Downunder comprises a number of patriots and nationalists alike from New Zealand and Australia,” its blog reads.

“We … hope to preserve and defend our heritage, culture, customs, traditions, morals, and values, as well as our blood itself, against hostile alien elements that are destructive to who we are and we as a race hold dear.”

The blog posts photographs and full names of anti-racism activists from Australia and New Zealand, in effect making this information available to those who wish to do these activists physical harm.

It also publicly endorses and links to the recent racist online board game based on last year’s Cronulla riots, but it denies that it’s a “hate” group.

Mr Stokes said that the owner of the Patriot Alliance Downunder blog was Ben Weerheym, convicted for being a getaway driver in a racist graffiti attack by neo-Nazi group [the] Australian Nationalist[s] Movement.

Patriot Alliance Downunder does not list Weerheym as the owner of the blog, but he has signed certain postings with his name.

While the Patriot Alliance Downunder blog says its musings are simply nationalistic, Red Watch NZ is more overtly racist.

[NB. Weerheym was threatened with legal action over his online rantings by the WA DPP in March, 2006; nothing came of it, and the DPP instead opted to (unsuccessfully) prosecute an Aboriginal teenager under newly-enacted anti-racial vilification laws. The ‘irony’ being that these laws were introduced following the violent antics of Weerheym’s mentor: the Australian Nationalists Movement! For more on Weerheym, see listing under Francis De Groot Brigade.]

“Red Watch NZ is here to combat Communism and Zionism within our borders,” reads the blog, which openly endorses the Nazi movement.

“Today is a sad day for National Socialists all over the world. Today in 1946, the Eternal Jew managed to swindle the Allied Nations into hanging 10 of our comrades at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial,” reads a post published on the anniversary of the Nuremberg trials written by author “We Hate The Jews!”.

Mr Stokes said Red Watch NZ was operated by Nic Miller, “famous for stunts like publishing a photo of FDB NZ activist Asher Goldman’s mother’s tombstone, leafleting Goldman’s neighbourhood with libellous material, publishing photos of activist’s parents’ homes and their street addresses, [and] much more”.

The tombstone post Mr Stokes mentions is still online, as are numerous posts that include photos, street addresses and even phone numbers of various activists.

Miller is not listed as the owner of Red Watch NZ, but some recent postings have been signed with his name.

“I think what Google intends is not to restrict people’s freedom of speech,” Mr Stokes said.

“But we’re talking about bashing up brown people and defaming them. This isn’t politics, this is terrorism.”

Both blogs appear to violate Blogger’s user agreement, particularly Red Watch NZ.

Blogger’s terms of service reads: “Member agrees not to transmit through the Service any unlawful, harassing, libelous, abusive, threatening, or harmful material of any kind or nature. Member further agrees not to transmit any material that encourages conduct that could constitute a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability or otherwise violate any applicable local, state, national or international law or regulation.”

Whether or not the blogs invite legal action under Australian law isn’t immediately clear, Simeon Beckett, president of the Australian Lawyers for Human Rights organisation said.

“The Racial Discrimination Act [federal legislation] and Anti-Discrimination Act [state legislation(s)] both prohibit racial vilification. It doesn’t make that a criminal offence, but it does make it unlawful for a person to do an act which is reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or group. As long as that act is done because of the person’s race,” he said.

Mr Beckett hasn’t visited Red Watch NZ or Patriot Alliance Downunder, but, based on our description of the blogs, he said their actions were probably in violation of Australian law.

Regardless, he said there might be difficulties in enforcing the law because it’s highly likely that Blogger’s servers are located overseas.

“Trying to enforce a right under Australian law in the US makes it complicated and cumbersome,” he said.

Google refused to divulge where its servers are located.

Mr Beckett also said that, since the authors of the blogs have only posted names, addresses and photos of anti-racism activists, and don’t appear to have explicitly incited violence against them (even if violence is implied), pursuing legal action would be difficult.

“I think there may be difficulties if all there was available was the name and address of the anti-racism activists,” he said.

In its terms of service, Pyra (the company that founded Blogger, now acquired by Google) says that it is not liable for the contents of user blogs, but Mr Beckett suggests that this might not legally be the case.

“If it’s an Australian server, and Google itself has listed a blog that’s racist in Australia, it may be acting unlawfully itself,” he said.

Google, whose corporate motto is “don’t be evil”, says it will take the blogs in question offline only if ordered to do so by a court.

“Blogger is a provider of content creation tools, not a mediator of that content,” a Google spokesman said.

“We allow our users to create blogs, but we don’t make any claims about the content of these pages. In cases where contact information for the author is listed on the page, we recommend working directly with this person to have this information removed or changed. We would only remove content from this blog if ordered to do so by a court order,” the spokesman said.

More commentary later… and props to Weezil.

Another Community Service Announcement brought to you by…

Posted in Anti-fascism, Media, State / Politics | 10 Comments

1930s Germany?

Posted on October 26, 2006 by @ndy

German Jewish Leader Says Right-wing Violence Recalls 1930s
Deutsche Welle
October 25, 2006

The president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany has said that the country was seeing a groundswell of right-wing violence which reminded her of the Nazi era.

“Anti-Semitic and far-right attacks have become so blatant and [aggressive] that it brings to mind the years after 1933” when Adolf Hitler come to power, Charlotte Knobloch told a conference on right-wing extremism in Berlin on Tuesday.

Knobloch, a Holocaust survivor, said authorities appeared “at a loss” to cope with the increasing popularity of neo-Nazi parties that have gained a following among the poor in the former Communist east of the country.

She urged police and the courts to take a “hard line” towards extremists, whose message, she said, has “become firmly entrenched in certain spheres of our society.”

Funny thing is, police have been taking a “hard line” — against militant antifa — and have been doing so for 20 years or more. Further, the mainstream parties are only “at a loss” because they’ve already abandoned the white working- and under- class to the fascists. And there is no more a ‘legal’ solution to the ‘crime’ of fascism now than there was in the 1930s: an historical epoch and experience of defeat which it would be worth examining in more detail.

Gahleitner has a theory about why far-right crimes and support for neo-Nazism are on the rise.

“There are sometimes opportunities offered only by these right-wing parties,” he said. “There are no other possibilities and other initiatives for the young generation.”

Uwe-Karsten Heye agrees that the mainstream parties need to involve younger people more.

“We need a long-term strategy to win back these regions that we’ve lost,” he said. “It’s not that we can’t muster up any support there because we’re idiots. It’s because we’re not represented well enough in these areas.”

“We as democrats have no presence there,” he added.

The mainstream parties abandon youth; the youth abandon mainstream parties.

For Godwin’s sake, it ain’t rocket science.

The international media pays little attention to the increasingly repressive and violent developments in “unified” Germany. But despite the silence, which is only occasionally broken by reports of seemingly single and isolated cases of neo-fascist rioting in Magdeburg in May and anti-Semitic attacks like the one on the memorial of the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald in July, German society is just shaping its new ugly face.

Although the government tries to give the opposite impression, neo-fascist terror against minorities and the racist and authoritarian transformation of the German State have increased over the last two years, following the [neo-]Nazi assault on the refugee home in Rostock-Lichtenhagen in August 1992 and the abolition of asylum for refugees on July 1, 1993. Police brutality against foreigners has dramatically increased; conditions for refugees worsened…

The process of social transformation within the capitalist German state is far from being at an end. Although it is hard to grasp all of the facets of the rapid political, material and conceptual changes which followed the breakdown of “actually-existing socialism”, the overall direction is evident: the restructuring of a unified Germany into an aggressively nationalistic, racist and imperialist state, forged through the scapegoating of foreigners and refugees. This finds reflection in both the general passivity towards or even support of fascist violence and the practical abolition of asylum. The complementary foundation of its authoritarian and politically repressive consolidation lies in the fact that almost no visible or noticeable opposition exists to radically confront and challenge what has become reality in Germany…

— Lars Rensmann, Confronting the New Germany: Neo-Nazi Violence and The State of Racism, Barricade Publishing, Melbourne, 1995

So far this year, over 2000 attacks on foreigners have been carried out by fascists and neo-Nazis in Germany, resulting in 15 deaths and countless injuries. Most recently, on November 20, a Berlin squatter was killed when a group of autonomists came upon a group of [neo-]Nazi youths who were beating a foreigner in a subway station. In the ensuing clash, three of the autonomists were stabbed, and one of them, Silvio Meier, a 27 year-old squatter, was killed. In the nights following Silvio’s death, there were constant clashes between autonomists and neo-Nazis. Autonomists also injured at least 37 police in a militant march through Berlin expressing their outrage at Silvio’s death. Later in the week, autonomists and Turkish youths fought against police in riots in the neighbourhood of Kreuzberg.

The situation in Germany became further escalated on Sunday, November 22, when [boneheads] firebombed the house of a Turkish family, killing two Turkish women and [an] 11 year-old Turkish girl. Enraged at this attack, Turkish youths vowed: “Ten Germans For Every Turk!” Nine other persons were wounded in this attack.

“Attack the Nazis Wherever They Are!”

The fact that neo-Nazi gangs have been on an organized offensive does not, however, mean that there has been no resistance. Church groups, citizens, and Greens have organized vigils in front of refugee centres – although it usually takes just a few [boneheads] with steel-toed boots and rocks and bottles to chase these folks away. In contrast to this approach, autonomist ANTIFA (anti-fascist action) groups expanded their approach of street-level confrontation with neo-Nazis.

One week after the outbreak of violence in Rostock, a large anti-fascist demonstration was held in that city. Whereas only a handful of police were deployed to deal with the neo-Nazis during their week of attacks, upon the arrival of the ANTIFA demonstrators, at least 2000 police were bussed into Rostock in order to “keep the peace”. In other cities as well, ANTIFA marches were held, often resulting in confrontations with police and gangs of neo-Nazis.

On November 8, German political and business leaders organized a massive “anti-racist” march in Berlin, mainly to improve Germany’s tarnished image in the international market. When Chancellor Kohl – who has threatened to declare a state of emergency in Germany so as to more easily deport refugees – tried to march at the head of this march, he was attacked with stones and rotting fruit and security forces had to rush him away. German president Weizaecker was similarly prevented from addressing the anti-racist rally when autonomists wrecked the sound system and bombarded him with eggs. Cowering behind a phalanx of riot police on live television, Germany’s political elite were effectively shown to be the hypocrites they really are…

The Potential Of The Far-Right

The German government has only minimally reacted to the recent upsurge in fascist violence. In the law courts, young [neo-]Nazis are usually given lenient sentences, since the judges usually rule that the attacks were not political, but were rather the result of the youths’ “poor, impoverished upbringing” or “too much alchohol”; the German courts have refused to criminalize the far-right. Many left-wing ANTIFA groups, however, have been criminalized for some time. The entire Autonome ANTIFA scene in the city of Gottingen has been criminalized under German law paragraph 129a. In fact, there have been 300 cases brought against the radical-left under paragraph 129a, while only 6 proceedings have been brought against fascists…

— Arm The Spirit, #14/15 (August-December 1992)

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

Uh-oh spaghetti-oh

Posted on October 25, 2006 by @ndy

Eurofascism on da move…

Far-right aims to form group in European Parliament
23.10.2006 – 17:42 CET | By Honor Mahony and Mark Beunderman

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – Far-right politicians in the European Parliament are trying to form a political group in the Brussels assembly, possibly by the end of this year.

Bruno Gollnisch, MEP and secretary general of France’s right wing National Front (FN), told EUobserver that his party has “reasonable hope” of forming a group in the parliament, whose rules require at least 19 members from five different member states.

“We are expecting to build such a political party at the end of this year or the beginning of the next,” said Mr Gollnisch.

Aside from the national front with seven MEPs, the Flemish Vlaams Belang (with three MEPs), the Austrian Freedom Party (1) and the Lega Nord (3) may also be involved, as well as some non-attached MEPs from other countries, including the UK.

A Polish contact also confirmed that three MEPs from Poland’s the League of Polish Families are being included in the talks.

Mr Gollnisch said that the head of the National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who is also an MEP, is planning to hold a rally from 10-12 November just outside Paris and is expecting many like-minded parties to join him from across Europe at the event.

“We should have a better idea of the situation in the middle of November,” said Mr Gollnish adding that his party is busy building contacts.

Part of this contact-building will take place in Strasbourg this week to try and hammer out a political platform that the diverse parties can agree on.

Frank Vanhecke, MEP and chairman of the Vlaams Belang party, told EUobserver that “This is something we’ve tried very hard for many years” adding “we have now succeeded to get everyone around the table.”

However, he was phlegmatic about the chances of the new group actually taking off.

“I’ve been in European circles long enough to be realistic and sceptical on the eventual outcome. We’ve tried this five times before and at those times it looked as good as it looks now,” he said.

In 2001, an agreement between the Lega Nord, Vlaams Belang and National Front was deemed illegal by the European Court of Justice because it had no political substance.

The programme

This time the generally anti-immigrant and far-right parties are to put this right by setting up what Mr Vanhecke called a “minimum political programme” for the would-be European group.

He said it would include “recognition of the cultural diversity of Europe as a factor of richness” as well as “resistance to Turkish EU accession”.

It is also likely to contain something on the “recognition of traditional values; based on the Judeo-Christian heritage of Europe” and the “conservation of our identity.”

At the moment MEPs from parties such as the National Front and the Vlaams Belang are all non-attached members of the European Parliament meaning they have no access to the committee chairs and other posts.

‘Europe’s bloody past’

Forming a group would give them a far greater say in the European Parliament, however, as well as certain legal entitlements – something likely to cause huge ripples of discontent among other mainstream groups in the EU assembly.

Reacting to the news of a possible far-right party, German conservative MEP and head of the parliament’s foreign affairs committee Elmar Brok said “these people have learned nothing and only preach hate. They can’t get anything off the ground together and can only agree on a negative programme.”

“Democrats in Europe have to expose these parties and show European citizens how piteously little they achieve in answering today’s questions and in solving the problems and worries of the people. They stand for Europe’s bloody past,” he added.

An earlier version of this article suggested that some MEPs from the UK Independence Party may join the group. This is not the case and we apologise for this error.

[By way of Leftist Trainspotters…]

Neo-Nazis March Amid Concern Over Growing Extremist Violence
Deutche-Welle
October 23, 2006

Right-wing violence on the rise
Spiegel Online
October 17, 2006

“This year has seen 20 percent more attacks by right-wing extremists than the same period last year — and more of those incidents were violent. Political pressure is growing to address right-wing extremism as a dangerous trend rather than isolated incidents.”

A popular uprising that turned into a pogrom
libcom.org
October 4, 2006

Web of hate
The Guardian
October 4, 2006

“On the rightwing website Redwatch, hundreds of photographs of anti-war and anti-fascist activists are posted – with the message that they will ‘pay for their crimes’. And now a number of those people have been attacked. So why hasn’t the site been closed down? Matthew Taylor investigates…”

‘”I feel a degree of anger against the authorities that they have done nothing about this site. They have said repeatedly that there is nothing that can be done, but I simply don’t believe them. We have quite rightly managed to close down paedophile sites and others that are deemed unacceptable, and I am sure that if Redwatch was targeting the richest 100 people in the country, it would be swiftly dealt with”.’

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

Upcoming events : Melbourne

Posted on October 24, 2006 by @ndy

::: Friday, October 27 :::

Creative Dissent
… come help us raise money for fines and court costs!

in the midst of gypsy punk madness and the deep dark depths of a squatted funeral parlour, we present …

CREATIVE DISSENT
fundraiser for ensuring continued activism in east gippsland

it’s back in melbourne town and hotter than bracksy’s jocks [and that’s hot!]. it’s gonna be an awesome night …

When : FRIDAY, 27th OCTOBER, FROM 7:30PM (FILMS/FOOD) ‘TIL WEE HOURS
Where : AT SECRET INNER CITY LOCATION — call 0419 849 691 on day for details
Tickets : $10 from FRIENDS OF THE EARTH [312 Smith Street, Collingwood] / $15
on DOOR
What : Activist films / animation, circus performances, Food Not Bombs dinner, KY Jelly Twister (yes — you read correctly), G20 [Alternative Futures] Quilt Project, roaming puppeteers, appearance by Queenie the Quoll … and more and more and more

HEAPSA BANDS & DJs, including …

THE ASSASSINATION COLLECTIVE [scratched!]
MASTER CARDINAL
CATGUT MARY
RACELESS (Curse ov Dialect)
JEMI WHITE (The State Express)
MC ARYZE
DJ FOE
ZANDOR AKA MC BOO
P.H. PHILLY

and heaps more acts still to be confirmed. come and support melbourne & east gippy activists, so they can pay their court fees and continue to save old growth forests and water catchments in victoria!

::: Saturday, October 28 :::

1) Rally / Clinic Defence : 10am, Fertility Control Clinic, 118 Wellington Parade, East Melbourne : Initiated by the Campaign for Women’s Reproductive Rights

NB. Five years ago, a security guard was shot dead at this clinic by an anti-choice militant.

2) Rally / Community Defence : 1pm, The Birmingham Hotel, 333 Smith Street, Fitzroy : Initiated by Punx Not Poseurs

NB. Boycott The Birmy!

3) Schifosi album launch / Such is Life Fest (DIY punk rock in rural Victoria) benefit gig : 8pm, The Arthouse, 616 Elizabeth St, City : New! album on Alerta Antifascista (Germany)

::: Tuesday, October 31 :::

The Zapatista Experience with Heriberto Salas from [People’s Front in Defense of Land (Frente del Pueblo en Defensa de La Tierra)]. An event organised together with the Mexico-Australia Solidarity Network.

7pm
Trades Hall (Cnr. Victoria and Lygon Sts, Carlton)
$8/$5
Food and drink available

    consolidated : butyric acid

    i want to talk about media distortion
    ad campaign telling lies about abortion
    standing there call yourself a good christian
    break your fucking sign ‘cos you’re causing me friction
    ignorant group operation rescue
    if you treat women then they might even kill you
    randall terry says they’re soldiers of god
    if you ask me i’d say they’re smoking much prod
    a little advice for the medical student
    they’re teaching cowardice not medical prudence
    lobbying pressure from the a.m.a. cracker
    don’t treat women and you call yourself a doctor
    standing in line slime with no sense
    two can play at that game start clinic defence
    yelling over me showing patients no respect
    break for the lane get an elbow in your neck

    if you don’t want a nazi in your house don’t let one
    don’t know a fundamentalist ’til you’ve met one
    if you’ve memorised your civil rights don’t forget one
    if you don’t want an abortion don’t get one

    marching with your cross and your dead fetus picture
    don’t let me see you or i’ll jam it up your sphincter
    lucky that i find violence so heinous
    but my wife and her friends’ll put a foot in your anus
    confused sad woman kill apologising
    sad fucking bible still memorising
    had to make a choice between god and her sisters
    you imitate your oppressor so you dissed her
    even though you told me you had the procedure
    just ‘cos you’re rich and you’re white that freed you
    from the consequence of a child out of wedlock
    from the family shame at the congregation potluck
    crazy pregnant woman citing her religion
    the baby’s going to die without cesarean section
    i won’t support scientific intervention
    give her the freedom to deal with her actions…

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Brief note to self

Posted on October 23, 2006 by @ndy

From Chiapas to the Zócalo: Popular Uprisings in Mexico
John Gibler
Toward Freedom
October 19, 2006

Jose Santiago sits in front of the radio station’s guarded door with a box of bread rolls in his lap. To his left, soda crates filled with Molotov cocktails line the wall. To his right two women with a club stretched between them block the door. A 62 year-old elementary school principal in Oaxaca City, Santiago was supposed to retire this year, but when state police brutally repressed a teachers’ strike on June 14, sparking an unprecedented civil uprising from all sectors of society, he thought, “I’d rather jump in.”

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Wellington treats neo-Nazi NZNF to warm welcome

Posted on October 23, 2006 by @ndy

The neo-Nazi New Zealand National Front [NZNF] attempted to hold a rally at the [cue Bolt Thrower] C e n o t a p h in Wellington this weekend, but local antifa had other plans. The NZNF — having arranged accomodation with a sympathetic local ‘holiday camp’ proprietor — had gathered in Wellington in order to hold its Annual General Meeting; if nothing else, a wonderful opportunity for NZNF Fuhrer Sid (‘The Squid’) Wilson to wax lyrical about the many virtues of “New Zealand”: to an audience embodying none of them. Plans to hold a rally at the Cenotaph earlier in the day were soon ditched when enterprising antifa staked out their own claim, forcing the twenty or so losers prepared to publically associate themselves with “The Squid” and his gang to meet at Parliament instead.

Asher provides an account of the protest at his blog; three NZ media reports are available below.

Extremists clash with protestors
tv.co.nz
October 21, 2006

Fairly standard. (Also video.)

Message to National Front: peace, love, spit and shove
Ruth Hill
stuff.co.nz
October 22, 2006

Wrong. Weirdly wrong.

“Anti-racism protesters demonstrated their message of peace and reconciliation by spitting, shoving and shouting at National Front members who marched on Parliament yesterday to mark the 137th anniversary of the New Zealand flag.”

Hmmm. A not-very-subtle juxtaposition of the supposed rhetoric of ‘peace and reconciliation’ versus ‘spitting, shoving and shouting’. Some limited awareness of the fact that anti-racists and anti-fascists have no desire for ‘peace’ or ‘reconciliation’ with racism and fascism renders this particular piece of slander slightly redundant.

On a lighter note, the following is very amusing:

“One day the National Front will be the government and we will be in that building and we will take the country back to where it should be: a place of peace and happiness,” The Squid is reported as having said.

National Front marchers clash
Keith Ng
NZ Herald
October 22, 2006

Also fairly standard reportage, but useful in terms of drawing further attention to:

“…the Hutt Park Holiday Park, where National Front members were staying. The park’s details were posted on the internet, and it is has received abusive phone calls about the National Front’s stay. Others at the park said that they were not told of the group’s presence and some were worried about safety.

Park management declined to comment.”

::::::

    Cenotaph

    Alone you stand – The final parody
    Destined to silence – A memorial to mortality

    Carved in stone – A tribute to the dead
    For nameless victims – Whose litany is unread

    Never forgotten – War’s memory lingers on
    A dark reminder – To mankind’s oblivion

    This solemn image – Constructed with resolution
    A monument – To war’s terminal conclusion

    Cenotaph

Posted in Anti-fascism | Leave a comment

‘We need to push and shove and throw things’

Posted on October 21, 2006 by @ndy

Ha ha ha! Oh Ian…

In the 80s he founded Class War, whose newspaper featured photos of beaten-up policemen. He went on Bash the Rich marches and was labelled Britain’s most dangerous man. Now a grandad with a dodgy brick-throwing arm, Ian Bone still believes in violent action to overthrow the state. Emine Saner meets him…

Friday October 20, 2006
The Guardian

I am not sure I have got the right house. A pleasant semi in a Bristol suburb, the recycling bin placed neatly outside the front door containing a few copies of the Guardian and an empty olive oil bottle. Surely an anarchist can’t live here. And when Ian Bone opens the door, he does not look much like an anarchist either. Wiry, balding, with little round glasses and wearing a shirt and slacks (slacks!), can this really be the man described by one tabloid newspaper as “the most dangerous man in Britain”?

He makes a cup of tea and I scour his kitchen for evidence. Magnetic words arranged on his fridge read: “those who shall not be ruled or governed”. He asks if Earl Grey is all right. I ask him if that is what anarchists drink. “I do,” he says. In his sunny sitting room, he places his cup on a Che Guevara coaster. Smashing the state is one thing, but presumably even anarchists don’t like rings on their coffee tables.

In the 80s, Bone founded Class War – a cobbled-together tabloid newspaper costing 20p that became a whole anarchist movement. Bone’s notoriety grew with the paper’s circulation. Well-known to the police and security service, it is a wonder he was never jailed. Through Class War’s support of striking miners, dockers and print workers, and at riots – Brixton, Toxteth and Stonehenge – in the 80s, the paper was, at its height, selling 15,000 copies every week (though once it had been passed around, its readers numbered many more thousands). Not bad for a group of anarchists who spent most of their time in the pub.

Memorable front pages included Margaret Thatcher with a hatchet buried in her head, a picture of gravestones, with the headline, “We have found new homes for the rich”, and to commemorate the birth of Prince William, the headline “Another fucking royal parasite”. One of the most popular pages was the “hospitalised copper” page – a picture of a policeman being beaten up or laid out. “We loved that,” says Bone. “But it was done with humour, so even though it was violent, it didn’t come across as psychotic violence.”

So what made Bone, now a 59-year-old father of five and grandfather, devote his entire life to anarchy? “I guess I’m the radical from 1968 who never grew up,” he says. “I feel just as strongly about politics and anarchism and injustice as I did then. I’m glad I’m still angry, there’s plenty to be angry about. I never thought about having a job or a career. Jobs and material possessions have never loomed large in my life.”

He lives with his partner Jane and manages a youth work project outside Bristol. “I’m not a full-time revolutionary,” he says. “Too many aches and pains.”

Having given up drinking, he has used his spare time over the past year to write his autobiography (reading it, you get an idea of how much he used to drink – in fact, it is a wonder he can remember any of it). Until last year, he wrote, published and sold the Bristolian, four mouthy sides of A4 costing 20p, exposing suspect council dealings (and for which he was runner-up for last year’s Paul Foot award for campaigning and investigative journalism) but he gave that up because it became too exhausting to produce every week.

Bone became an anarchist after reading about it in Punch magazine in a dentist’s waiting room. “It gave the address of Freedom, the anarchist paper, so I wrote off to them asking for information about anarchy,” he says. He was 15, the only anarchist in the village in Hampshire where he lived with his parents. His father, John Bone, was the butler for Sir Gerald Coke, grandson of the Earl of Leicester, and the family lived in a cottage on the estate. He remembers rich children addressing his father as “Bone” and the servitude that was required of him. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he grew up with a hatred of the upper classes.

The Bones had high hopes for their son, the first of the family to go to university. Instead of becoming a teacher, as his mother wanted, Bone became a full-time anarchist, supported, once he left university, by the dole. “I thought I might as well be unemployed so I could be a full-time radical revolutionary and the state would pay me to do it.”

That was the late 60s. Peace and love was over, replaced by student demonstrations, largely against the Vietnam war. In 1968, he thought anarchists would be able to overthrow the state and was cheered by reports of student demonstrations across the world. “One day we heard that anarchists had burned down the French stock exchange and we were like, ‘Yeah, we’ve got to do something.’ It was ridiculous – all we did was occupy the university. It’s funny now. ‘Anarchists in Swansea have seized control of the canteen building.'”

Then there is the cast of fellow anarchists: prostitutes, punks and my favourite, Brother Silas, an anarchist monk from an East End monastery who always wore the brown robes of his order and never carried money so other people would have to buy him pints in the pub. The agendas of their group meetings would include topics as diverse as class war, the miners’ strike and sexual politics (it was argued that everyone was bisexual and all comrades should be “forced to be free”; that is, they should all have sex with each other).

Bone had started his first anarchist paper, Alarm, in Swansea. It comprised handwritten sheets of paper with punchy graphics and funny headlines. “There was a lot of corruption in Swansea and we got a couple of council leaders sent to jail. That taught me you could do a working-class paper that people actually liked, as opposed to a leftie paper full of agitprop.”

When he moved to London in 1982, he was planning to replicate Alarm on a national level. Hadn’t he realised anarchy wasn’t going to work? “We were never bothered about anarchy working as a system. It was about fighting back in the here and now. Part of that was because of Thatcher. You can hate Blair quite a lot but Thatcher was clearly out to destroy the working class. Also, anarchism offered immediacy. You didn’t have to develop a 10-year programme, you could go out in the street and shout at people.”

What Bone did not – and does not – like are rich people [“BRW said the richest 100 people in Australia aged 40 and under were now worth $4 billion, up eight per cent from $3.7 billion last year.”]. Class War held two Bash the Rich marches in affluent areas of London – one in Holland Park, another in Hampstead – to intimidate the “ruling” class who lived there and also went to the Henley regatta. Did they actually bash any rich people? “No. A few got laid out at Henley but not on the Bash the Rich marches. But it felt good walking down there. We gave a lot of abuse and shouts and they did cower, a few of them, behind their curtains.”

He still thinks he, or rather the anarchist movement, can overthrow the state. “I’ve still got aspirations … the best is yet to come, without a doubt. I still think radical social revolution for social change is possible but the possibilities are very low at the moment. Since Blair got in, the belief that you can affect radical social change is way down the agenda.”

He dismisses the march against the Iraq war even though it was the largest ever peacetime demonstration. “So what? They had a million people and what did they do? What should have happened was direct action – blocking roads, attacking Downing Street, trying to seize half of London. It needs opposition on the streets to stop the Iraq war.”

Violence, he says, is key. “Not [attacking someone] individually, but if you’re fighting back as a mob against a particular thing like the poll tax or the Iraq war [then] yes. The police are there as the front line of the state so if you’re opposing the state, you have to have a go at the police. If the rich or the ruling class or the police are defending their interests, they deserve everything that’s coming to them.”

I spot his slippers (well-worn moccasins) by the sofa. Is he the most dangerous granddad in Britain? He laughs. His next big thing is a march on Downing Street next May. “Blair’s going to go sometime in May. We’re going to get people down as near as we can to Downing Street and we’re going to stay there until Blair goes. Hopefully, we’ll get tens of thousands of people, not just a few anarchists. If he was to go a day early because of us rather than his timetable then that hopefully will be a way of re-energising working-class politics.”

And if it turns nasty? Bone may be approaching 60 but he says he has still got a lot of fight. Is he still violent? “In the right circumstances, yes. If on May Day we need to push and shove and throw things and kick and fight to get to Blair, absolutely. We won’t be sitting in the road singing fucking peace songs. No music or jugglers – that’s the kiss of death.”

He seems genuinely excited about his plans for May, although one of his biggest concerns is his arthritis. “The old petrol-bomb arm, you know,” he explains. “It’s really going to affect my brick-throwing. I’m going to have to learn how to throw bricks left-handed.” And I like to think that when Bone is out by the pretty fish pond in his neat back garden, this is what he likes to practise.

— Bash the Rich, by Ian Bone, is published by Tangent Books, price £9.99; free to ‘proletarian shoppers’.

See also : ‘Death of a Paper Tiger… Reflections on Class War’

Posted in Anarchism, History, Media | Leave a comment

MSN = W&CF = ‘Direct Action’?

Posted on October 20, 2006 by @ndy

Bugger.

Leftwrites recently revealed the existence of what at first appeared to be a NEW! IMPROVED! far left groupuscule: the cheekily and highly-inappropriately named ‘Direct Action’. Only I now discover two things:

1) The six former DSP members who (very, very briefly) constituted the ‘Marxist Solidarity Network’ have since warped into ‘Workers & Community First’, an electoral platform for ‘Jorge Jorquera : Socialist Candidate in Derrimut’ and;

2) ‘Direct Action’ turns out to be… the ‘Marxist Solidarity Network’, re-branded.

Grrr. How can a slack bastard like me keep up? Should I add ‘Direct Action’ to the Trot Guide? Or wait a couple of months in anticipation of another re-branding? ‘Solidarity’ has already been taken, so maybe… ‘Self-Management’? Hmmm… Actually, ‘Solidarity’ doesn’t appear to be all that well at the moment — it’s been almost twelve months since they updated their site — so maybe if ‘Direct Action’ hangs around long enough, they can still claim the title ‘Solidarity’. After all, I enjoy a game of ‘pass the parcel’ as much as the next anarchist, and, as the ‘Militant Socialist Organisation’ waited patiently for the opportunity to claim the title ‘Socialist Party’ (after its abandonment by the ‘Socialist Party of Australia’ in 1996 — which, in turn, abandoned ship for the far more alluring title of ‘Communist Party of Australia’ after a twenty-five year wait — which, in turn, abandoned Eurocommunism for… the ALP) so too ‘Direct Action’ can wait at least another three months before re-branding themselves… can’t they?

Posted in !nataS, Trot Guide | 6 Comments

‘You flew here, we grew here’ : D’oh!

Posted on October 19, 2006 by @ndy

Yeah so the board game Cronulla 2230 — designed by an ‘anonymous’ supporter of the Australia First Party and its (largely now defunct) junior burger equivalent, the Patriotic Youth League — has been pulled (‘Cronulla game site gets zapped’, Asher Moses, The Age, October 17, 2006). This is not entirely unexpected, as the game’s host, Angelfire (Lycos), like most if not all other webhosting services, has ‘Terms of Service’, which — again, like most if not all other webhosting services — contains provisions regarding the company’s willingness to host material which is believed to contravene the law or which is believed to be ‘offensive’ [1].

Also not unexpectedly, ‘Cronulla 2230’ has popped up again: this time, on Martin Fletcher‘s blog, ‘Downunder Newslinks’.

Interestingly, this is not the first time that an Internet company has voluntarily withdrawn hosting services from racist and fascist groups and individuals. Redwatch Poland — a site maintained by members of Blood & Honour Poland and its allies in the Polish and international neo-Nazi milieu, and consisting of the names, addresses, photographs and other personal details of their political enemies — has twice had hosting services withdrawn from it; first by DreamHost, then by another, US-based, company. Currently, Redwatch UK (‘Redwatch’, Nick Lowles, Searchlight, November 2003) is the subject of legal enquiry by segments of the British Government, as well as a popular campaign by labour movement activists in the UK. Redwatch NZ, a project of a handful of neo-Nazis in New Zealand/Aotearoa — most prominently, Nic Miller — is hosted by Blogger; convicted race hate criminal — and former member of Jack van Tongeren‘s Australian Nationalists Movement — Ben Weerheym, also enjoys Blogger’s hosting of his blog, ‘A Voice of Dissent’, which also incorporates a ‘hit-list’ of political enemies (including yours truly).

As for the game itself, and media reportage of same:

Iemma moves to ban ‘riot game’ (ABC, October 17); ‘Cronulla game falls between legal cracks’ (The Age, October 17); ‘Cronulla riots ‘no game” (SBS, October 17); ‘Coonan to alert regulator over ‘Cronulla Monopoly” (ABC, October 17); ‘Govt examines a ban on Cronulla Monopoly’ (ninemsn.com, October 17); ‘Australian race-riot board game may be banned’ (Reuters, October 17); ‘Racist Australian game raises concerns’ (Aljazeera, October 17); ‘Canberra seeks to ban Cronulla riot game’ (The Australian, October 17); ‘Aust race riot game may be banned’ (TVNZ, October 17)…

More commentary later!

[1] Among a number of forms of Prohibited Conduct are included the following:

You agree that you will not use Lycos Network Products and Services to:

1. Upload, post, email, otherwise transmit, or post links to any Content, or select any member or user name or email address, that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, pornographic, libelous, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, hateful, or racially, sexually, ethnically or otherwise objectionable.
2. Upload, post, email, otherwise transmit, or post links to any Content that promotes illegal activity, including without limitation the provision of instructions for illegal activity.
3. Upload, post, email, otherwise transmit, or post links to any Content that exploits the images of children under 18 years of age, or that discloses personally identifying information belonging to children under 18 years of age.

‘The law’ is typically the law under which the company itself is operating; in the case of Angelfire/Lycos, US law.

Posted in Anti-fascism, Media, State / Politics | 1 Comment

FDB! Press Release : Top 10 Holiday Park hosts neo-Nazi NZNF

Posted on October 19, 2006 by @ndy
    Australasian anti-fascist campaigners Fight Dem Back! are appalled at the hospitality shown to the New Zealand National Front (NZNF) [pictured above, scaring children] by the Top 10 Hutt Park Holiday Park. The holiday park, part of a nationwide chain, is to host the fascist group for two nights, during which time they will hold their AGM and a rally at the Cenotaph.

    The NZNF are to stay at the park on Friday 20th and Saturday 21st October, with their AGM to be held on Saturday afternoon.

    “It is an absolute disgrace that this park is putting out the welcome mat for a group of organised racists. In recent years NZNF members have been linked to the theft of explosives [1], racist attacks on Somali youths, vandalism of Maori carvings [2] and attacks on Mosques and Jewish cemeteries” said Fight Dem Back! spokesperson Asher Goldman.

    “The NZNF have stayed at the same holiday park in previous years, and the owners of the park cannot be in any doubt as to their beliefs. With swastikas and other fascist symbolism tattooed onto many of their bodies, their abhorrent beliefs are there for all to see” said Goldman.

    “While the holiday park tries to project a family friendly image, its actions in hosting a violent group of racist thugs such as the NZNF show where its true sympathies lie,” said Goldman. “The NZNF do not deserve to be given a platform from which to spread their vile message of hate.”

    ======

    Take Action!

    Call or email the Top 10 Hutt Park Holiday Park and let them know how you feel about them hosting fascists.

    Freephone: 0800 488 872
    Email: [email protected], [email protected]

    Call the Top 10 chain head offices in Aotearoa / New Zealand or Australia and demand they take action against Hutt Park Holiday Park.

    0800 867 836 (Toll-free within NZ)
    1800 121 010 (Toll-free within Australia)

NB. Top 10 Holiday Parks in Aotearoa / New Zealand are allied with BIG4 Holiday Parks in Australia.

Posted in Anti-fascism, Media | Leave a comment