Sydney Forum 2006 : Saleam strikes back!

Posted on August 25, 2006 by @ndy

With just one day remaining to the beginning of the Australia First Party conference in Sydney, the main organiser — Dr. James Saleam — has finally responded to the withdrawal of David Bradbury from the conference, announcing that a vewy special speaker — ‘Nigel Jackson’, perhaps? — will be eulogising two recently deceased local fascists:

Special Speaker: Tribute To Eric Butler And Geoff Muirden

A short eulogy to two patriotic Australians who died recently and who have contributed in varying ways to Australian patriotic politics…

And how!

Unfortunately for James, perhaps, obituaries have already been written for Eric Butler. And the best, by far, is Phillip Adams’ tribute:

‘The most lunatic of fringes’
The Australian
August 5, 2006

When Eric Butler died recently I was not among his mourners, regarding it as calamitous that he was ever born.

For more than 60 years this most repulsive of creatures spread his poison in our political life.

Beginning on the most lunatic of fringes he camouflaged his pornographic politics sufficiently to infiltrate and influence the mainstream. Turn over any rock from Hitlerism in the 1930s to Hansonism in the 1990s and there you’ll find Butler and his League of Rights. As I frequently wrote during his squalid and toxic lifetime, he was a traitor to his country, to his professed Christian faith and to human decency. I’m proud that we were enemies for decades. But some very surprising people were his friends.

Sir Raphael Cilento was a leading Butler groupie, as was Jim Killen MHR, later Sir James.

Perhaps we can forgive Jim’s dalliance with Butler in the 60s, when he accompanied him to London to protest Britain’s intention to join the Common Market. Perhaps he hadn’t read Butler’s ravings on race. When pressured to distance himself from the League of Rights and shown Butler’s Jew-hating writings, Killen expressed shock.

Yet he declined to go public.

Describing the scene, Jewish leader Isi Leibler says Killen felt he’d “look foolish if he suddenly announced the discovery of what appeared so obvious”.

But what excuse has Alexander Downer for sharing a League of Rights lectern 30 years later?

[Downer spoke at an ALOR event in 1987, but this fact was only publically exposed in 1994. Typically, Downer relied upon his reputation as an idiot to escape criticism, claiming that — despite being filmed ‘looking on as SA ALOR director Frank Bawden urges the audience to read the literature “explaining the aims of the League” on their seats’ — he didn’t know who he was addressing, who organised the event and — for all I know — why he was even there (perhaps he tripped and fell?). In any case, no harm was done to the witless Adelaide private schoolboy’s career: twenty years later, he’s Foreign Minister!]

Butler’s treasons and anti-Semitism were on the record before Downer was born.

But perhaps ASIO hadn’t told him. They’d been so busy looking under beds for reds.

Norman Banks was Australia’s first shock jock and pushed the Butler barrow on 3AW in Melbourne and TV, rejoicing in his surreal anti-communism and support of apartheid. But Butler had his own medium, The New Times, a rag launched in 1934 when Butler was a young man.

From the beginning it was rancid with anti-Semitism, claiming that Jesus-killing Jews were not only the authors of Bolshevism but, in some bizarre way, the promoters of Nazism.

Insisting that Jesus wasn’t a Jew, Butler would spend his worthless life peddling the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion, still the textbook for pogroms. Neo-Nazis still swear by it as do Muslim fanatics. I’d see it on the shelves of his Melbourne bookshop, alongside tracts carrying anti-Jewish material as depraved as Der Sturmer, Hitler’s favourite rag.

On the eve of World War II The New Times was still pro-Axis, supporting Japanese aggression against China and Oswald Mosley’s fascists in Britain.

Much praise, too, for Italy and Germany, and for the invasion of Poland. This line was softpedalled after the declaration of war, having opposed Australian involvement. And, yes, the Jews were running Churchill and Roosevelt, along with Sir Charles Moses, then head of the ABC, and Sir Keith Murdoch.

Butler’s madness knew no bounds. The Jews were behind everything from the Spanish Inquisition to Nazism. Hitler was of Jewish descent and “Hitler’s policy was a Jewish policy” – Yes, folks, the Fuhrer was “a man who helped advance Jewish aims”.

Nazi policies were financed by Jews with the intention of having Jews arrive as refugees all over the world to spread their anti-Christian evil and political subversion. He spelled it out after the war in his book The International Jew, Australia ’s home-grown Mein Kampf. Oh, almost forgot. Holocaust was a hoax, six million dead Jews a joke.

Butler would turn his attention to the UN, “merely a cloak for Jewish policies”, and make common cause with the John Birch Society in the US and individual anti-Semites such as British Nazi Arnold Leese.

Billed as “an Australian patriot” he’d preach to rabid racists overseas and return home to talk to the Adelaide Junior Chamber of Commerce, Maitland Rotary, Apex gatherings and Young Liberals. Conservative clergy made their pulpits available.

He had a regular column in the Melbourne Argus. And this appalling creature became a member of the Melbourne Synod of the Anglican Church and was elected President of the Shire of Eltham in Victoria.

Its fortunes revived by the internet, the League would play its role in the rise of One Nation.

For Butler, Pauline Hanson was a dream come true. As was the long list of geese in the National Party who were happy to associate with this goose-stepping menace.

To his dying day many saw Butler as heroic. I got glowing tributes about this “great patriot” after announcing his death, and denouncing the man, on radio.

The last time I actually saw him was when he took me to the Press Council for calling him our most virulent anti-Semite.

Apologising for my understatement I promised to be harsher in future. When the Council showed Butler the door I told him to sue me. For flattery.

As for Geoff Muirden, the second dead Holocaust-denier…

Richard Neville, Consolidated Press executive, Bulletin columnist and eternal 60’s counter culture flower child must have freaked out when he saw the Herald Sun review of his latest book, Out of My Mind. The reviewer is no less a figure than Geoff Muirden. Now Geoffrey is the second half of the John Bennett/Geoff Muirden Holocaust denying, white supremacist super crank duo. Geoff lectured the Australian League of Rights last year on “the threat to white survival and the scam of racism used selectively against the white race”. Other truisms from Mr Muirden include his belief in the “Demographic impossibility and lie of the Holocaust”, “Washington’s complicity in the gas chamber myth”, “the farce of the Nuremberg Trials” and that the “Final solution meant the deportation not the extermination of the Jews”.

Muirden often parades as the Secretary of the Australian Civil Liberties Union, a bogus outfit whose only other member is President John Bennett. Bennett writes in the organisation’s manifesto Your Rights that “There was no plan to exterminate Jews in World War II, there were no mass gassings and fewer than one million Jews died of all causes”. The genuine civil liberties group is the Victorian Council of Civil Liberties [now known as ‘Liberty Victoria’].

One would have expected Helen Elliot, Literary Editor of the Herald Sun to be more discerning in her selection of the stranger literary types lurking in Melbourne’s seamy under side. Muirden, for all his bile, found encouragement from Richard Neville, citing Neville’s belief that “as a voice from the wings, my role is to keep pumping alternatives into the public imagination”. Don’t get too excited, Geoff. Richard Neville is no fellow traveller. He may have tripped on LSD in the 1960’s but at least he doesn’t claim that the decade never happened.

For more on the wankers from The Adelaide Institute see B’nai Brith’s Briefing Paper, (November 1999); more recently, Muirden described himself as the “Research Officer” for the fraudulent ACLU (PO Box 1137, Carlton, 3053, VIC).

Posted in Anti-fascism, History | 3 Comments

Taking a punt with Josh Wolf

Posted on August 24, 2006 by @ndy

‘The SFPD’s punt’
Sarah Phelan
San Francisco Bay Guardian

Freelance reporter Josh Wolf is sitting in jail while a federal grand jury, the FBI, and the Joint Terrorism Taskforce (JTTF) demand that he hand over his video outtakes of a July 8, 2005, anarchist anti-G8 protest. Is this really all because of a broken taillight on an SFPD patrol car, as the investigators claim? Or was that just a pretext for federalizing the local investigation?

The stated subject of the federal grand jury investigation was “alleged vandalism to a San Francisco Police Department patrol vehicle,” so the Guardian checked the SFPD’s chronological report of the protest. At 10:45 p.m. that night, the SFPD reported that “there was a police vehicle facing eastbound on 23rd St., almost at Bartlett St…. There were big pieces of concrete, shaped rocks under the vehicle. The right rear taillight was broken with a piece of concrete rock embedded inside the light panel.”

Wolf’s mother, Liz Wolf Spada, told the Guardian, “If the police are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep Josh in jail and have a grand jury investigation, I’d be happy to pay to fix the taillight out of my own pocket. I believe this investigation is really just a fishing expedition, but the police are not willing to cop to the fact that they just want to be able to identify and name the names of the people involved in the protest.”

A confidential SFPD memo obtained by the Guardian shows that it was SFPD inspector Lea Militello who requested “assistance from the FBI/JTTF regarding investigation of a serious assault against a San Francisco police officer.”

According to Wolf, three days after the protest — and after his video was broadcast without his consent by at least three major TV networks — JTTF and FBI special agents Scott Merriam and Suzanne Solomon showed up at his residence and asked if it was his “habit to document anarchist protests.”

“They wanted information on Anarchist Action (which organized the July 8, 2005 protest), such as who they are and what their mission is,” Wolf stated in a declaration filed with the US District Court. “In seeking my testimony and unpublished material, the federal government is turning me into their de facto investigator.”

Wolf also noted that at a March hearing on his case, he heard “the government’s arguments that they are seeking the identities of individuals participating in” the protest.

Asked why she decided to seek federal assistance, Militello told the Guardian, “I’m not commenting.” Police spokesperson Sgt. Neville Gittens denied that federalizing the investigation was a deliberate effort to circumvent California’s shield law, which protects journalists from having to disclose unpublished material, and that the Police Department used the broken taillight as a pretext for getting help investigating the assault. He told the Guardian, “We were trying to move this along very quickly and the feds were able to do that for us.”

In a six-page Aug. 14 letter from federal prison in Dublin, where he’s been jailed since Aug. 1, Wolf told the Guardian that the laceration that SFPD officer Peter Shields sustained during the demonstration was “a sad and unfortunate incident, and I do not condone violence against any living creatures.”

Reasserting that he “neither witnessed nor filmed the alleged assault on the officer,” Wolf notes that “the subject of the grand jury investigation, or the reason that I am in jail, is the alleged attempt to destroy property that the federal government may have a fiscal interest in — the SFPD patrol car.”

Posted in Anarchism, Media, State / Politics, War on Terror | Leave a comment

The Sydney Forum // Australia First Party Conference

Posted on August 22, 2006 by @ndy

Oh dear.

David Bradbury, the award-winning Australian documentary filmmaker, has decided to withdraw from the neo-fascist 2006 Sydney Forum (August 26/27).

That makes Bradbury the second speaker (or possibly third, if one includes that “bloody funny sheila” — and vulgar racist — Sandy Thorne) to withdraw from the event, and means that the Forum will be addressed by almost nobody outside of Saleam’s small — and rapidly dwindling — circle of racist friends.

How sad.

Perhaps Welf Herfurth, the MC, can lift the mood by making a few cracks about the Holohoax?

BEFORE :

    David Bradbury is internationally and nationally known as a film producer. His latest film, Blowin’ In The Wind, documents the appalling truth about depleted uranium shells used by the U.S. war machine in [t]he Middle East since 1991. He will speak and illustrate his talk from the film. This will be an important address for those keen to understand the immoral predatory conduct of the masters of war.

AFTER :

    [?]

Intriguigingly, given the fact that at least one ex-member of the ANM, Ben Weerheym, will be in attendance at the Forum, Saleam failed to note some of Bradbury’s other film projects, notably Nazi Supergrass (1993):

This chilling story of terrorism in suburbia explores the dark underworld of neo-Nazis in Australia today.

There are exclusive, riveting interviews with Jack van Tongeren, jailed leader of the neo-Nazi Australian Nationalist[s] Movement [ANM], and the man who betrayed him, police informer Russell Dean Willey.

Supergrass Willey emerged from deep cover and a new legal identity overseas to tell his extraordinary story on camera for the first time. Returning to Australia in disguise, he met the film crew at a secret rendezvous and spoke frankly about his years of crime, firebombing Asian restaurants and looting warehouses to finance a campaign of racial terror in Perth – once famous mainly for flashy millionaires and beautiful beaches.

In this rare insight into the making of a racist, Willey explains his fascination with the Nazi philosophy he learned from Van Tongeren. He tells how Nazism gave him the excuse he needed to vent his anger against the Asian migrants he resented so bitterly in his home town.

As the film shows the Australian Nationalist[s] Movement was brought down by chance and clever police tactics that persuaded Russell Willey to “roll over” and turn police informer.

Ooops.

In fact, as of this date — just four days before the racist losers gather in Sydney — aside from Andrew Fraser, Greg Clancy, James Saleam (AFP) and Neil Baird (AFP), there are only two other speakers listed. One, a “Syria patriot”; the other:

    A Historian And Author [who will speak on] ‘The Ancient European Contact With Australia And The Pacific’:

    Our speaker is a historian and archaeologist who has investigated the contacts between the peoples of Euopean racial origin from the Near East and Old-Europe – with Australia. There are startling discoveries popularised now by a variety of authors. This speaker will present evidence that shows a plethora of contact over the millenia. There will be maps, slides and other specialised material. He has asked for anonymity pending the Forum.

As well he might: the Australia First Party is not a group any serious academic or scholar would normally be willing to voluntarily associate with. And — given the Party’s deeply racist and authoritarian politics — quite rightly so. (Which fact also explains Andrew Fraser’s presence.) Then again, it’s not like our anonymous ‘historian’ and ‘author’ will remain so for long.

And remember folks:

To get the venue details: you will have to telephone either of the two numbers here after 7.30 am on the Saturday morning, August 26… It is our promise that plenty of time will be available for any Sydney resident to reach the venue by 9.15 am for a ‘start’ [sic] at 9.30 am. Phone [Jim] 0407 732 868 or [Welf] 0411 669 181…

In related news, Nic Miller of redwatchnz may be facing charges, of an as-yet unspecified nature, as a result of some of his online writings. The latest issue of the AJN reports:

Kiwi cops to charge avowed anti-Semite

Police in New Zealand are likely to charge a self-confessed anti-Semite who posted four Jewish addresses on a website filled with anti-Jewish invective.

Nic Miller, 22, of Wellington, was reported in the Kiwi press this week as saying, “I do not like the Jews, not one bit. They should have been exterminated … Jews being in New Zealand is harrassment to me. They do not belong here.”

Professor Peter Muntz, 85, a German-born Holocaust survivor was one of the Jews whose addresses were posted on the site. “I find it deeply disturbing a fellow like this should be allowed to walk free in New Zealand,” he said.

I can only agree with Rosemary McLeod’s assessment: ‘A loser, just like the Nazis’ (Dominion Post, August 17, 2006).

Posted in Anti-fascism, Film | 3 Comments

Race! War! Deep! Divisions! Dramatic! Surges! (The Daily Terror)

Posted on August 22, 2006 by @ndy

‘City’s new race wars’
Gemma Jones
The Daily Terror
August 21, 2006

AN outbreak of racial violence is deeply dividing Sydney, with authorities alarmed by a dramatic surge in attacks.

The worst have been directed at Jewish Australians in the wake of the Middle East war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, with the slogan “Kill Jews” spray-painted around Sydney.

The Daily Telegraph has learned attacks at Sydney University have forced Jewish students to hide religious skullcaps under baseball caps after several were spat on and assaulted.

There is evidence tensions have increased since last December’s Cronulla race riots.

Reports to the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board have jumped and interest in groups supporting a return to a White Australia policy has skyrocketed.

“It is quite significant that we are getting more reports,” Anti-Discrimination Board president Stepan Kerkyasharian said.

Police have confirmed they are patrolling synagogues and mosques in Sydney’s hot spots to contain the tension caused by the Middle East war.

Officers are closely watching a Parramatta synagogue after two attacks, including one in which cement was thrown through windows near a house where the rabbi’s wife was giving birth.

The fire brigade has issued an alert to send twice as many fire trucks as usual to fires at synagogues and Jewish schools.

Greg Weinstein, from the Australian Union of Jewish Students, said the attacks on Sydney University students were particularly worrying.

[AUJS “provide[s] a wide variety of political, social and educational activities based on our four pillars – Judaism, activism, pluralism and Zionism: the last pillar defined as being “the national liberation movement of the Jewish people”. Weinstein is the AUJS President.]

He said he believed left-wing groups on campus were responsible.

“Jewish students who previously would have walked around campus comfortably are having to wear baseball caps because they don’t feel safe.

“That should never be acceptable – not just for Jewish students, but for students of any faith.”

Mr Kerkyasharian said there had been an alarming trend with people of Arabic background who were Muslims being branded terrorists.

“There is this idea now that anyone who is of Arabic background is associated with terrorists,” he said.

Sydney Muslim leaders say they are also coming under attack.

Community leader Keysar Trad said he had been bombarded with race-hate emails.

Mr Trad acknowledged the attacks against Jews and synagogues, saying it was worrying that people had been unable to separate the religion from Israel’s actions.

The nationalist party Australia First has had 22,000 hits on its website since the Cronulla riots – a tenfold increase.

1) A tenfold increase means that, prior to the Cronulla riots (December 11, 2005), the Australia First Party (AFP) site was receiving 2,200 hits… I think? I mean, the Cronulla riots took place over nine months ago now, so that means — I think — that the AFP site has been receiving approximately a little over 2,400 hits, on average, per month, since then.

Which is not very popular, actually.

And if Jones is suggesting that, on this basis alone — and she provides absolutely no other evidence whatsoever to support her contention that “interest in groups supporting a return to a White Australia policy has skyrocketed” — then her case falls outrageously flat. It should also be noted that if the AFP site has experienced an extremely modest spike in hits following the Cronulla riot, then describing the party as simply “nationalist” means that either a) Jones provides absolutely no evidence whatsoever that “interest in groups supporting a return to a White Australia policy has skyrocketed” or b) this description is misleading, and the AFP is, at best, a racist, White supremacist groupuscle.

Which is not very popular either, actually.

2) Greg Weinstein, in accusing left wing groups of responsibility for racist attacks upon Jewish students at Sydney University, is possibly responding to previous accounts of minor clashes between left- and right-wing students on a number of campuses, clashes generated by the war in the Middle East. Still, it’s a serious accusation, and a pity that Weinstein provides no further details, as I can find no other source for anything related to these alleged cases other than this.

3) See also ‘Jewish students abused’ (The Daily Terror, August 21, 2006).

Posted in Anti-fascism, Media, State / Politics, Student movement, Trot Guide, War on Terror | 1 Comment

Small Town AmeriKKKa versus Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows

Posted on August 20, 2006 by @ndy

Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows,
Everything that’s wonderful is what I feel when we’re together,
Brighter than a lucky penny,
When you’re near the rain cloud disappears, dear,
And I feel so fine just to know that you are mine.

Boo!

Rainbows are bad.

‘Rainbow flag creates controversy’
Tucker Jankosky
KWCH 12 Eyewitness News
Thursday, July 20, 2006

For J.R. and Robin Knight, owning a bed and breakfast is everything they’ve always wanted. “We came here in search of our dreams, my wife always wanted a bed and breakfast and I always wanted a restaurant,” says California native J.R. Knight.

But recently their dream has turned into a nightmare, all because of a flag they’re flying outside. “It’s a rainbow flag – to some people it means friendship to some people it means gay pride,” says Knight. But for Knight, it was just a souvenir from his 12-year-old son.

Knight says the local Meade newspaper is trying to put him out of business and was frustrated when it ran an article about the flag and did not even bother to contact him regarding why he put it up. In fact, most people we spoke to in Meade said they didn’t even know what the flag meant until the article ran. But once word got around, the reaction was harsh.

Knight says the radio station has called him threatening to remove the restaurant’s commercials if he does not remove the flag. A local pastor stopped by said it was equivalent to hanging women’s panties on a flag pole. When Knight jokingly said he might consider that – the preacher said he would have him arrested.

His business has suffered – down to only a few local customers. The folks in Meade who’ve boycotted say it’s too offensive for them to eat there.

Local resident, Keith Klassen says the flag is a slap in the face to the conservative community of Meade. “To me it’s just like running up a Nazi flag in a Jewish neighborhood. I can’t walk into that establishment with that flag flying because to me that’s saying that I support what the flag stands for and I don’t,” says Klassen.

Knight says it’s not meant to be a gay pride symbol but he doesn’t mind if that’s how it’s taken.

“Any gay or lesbian people that do stop by will be treated with the best service I can give you,” says Knight.

But despite the local ridicule and loss of business, Knight is determined to stand his ground. “When this rainbow flag shreds, I will buy another one, and another one, and another one – just like my American flag, I’ll buy another one.”

Knight says his son gave him the flag after a trip to Dorothy’s house, a museum about the Wizard of Oz. The flag reminded the boy of “somewhere over the rainbow.”

The story was soon picked up by AP, and syndicated all over the place. The choicest quote is from waitress Vicky Best of Meade: “It’s hard enough to keep your kids on the straight and narrow without outside influences like that. We stay in a small town to stay away from the crap like that that’s happening in big cities.”

Yeah right: one look at a rainbow flag and the next thing you know Jack’s dumped Jill for John…

Notwithstanding the desire of some for a quiet life of homophobic desperation, as a result of the surrounding weirdness, the story has become bigger and bigger, and the “tiny town” of Meade, Kansas has become an “unlikely hotbed of gay rights debate” (Deb Gruver and Dion Lefler, The Wichita Eagle, August 15, 2006).

In a recent development, the two cowardly, homophobic brothers arrested for stealing the rainbow flag from the Knights have apologised for their action, stating that ‘”Even though we may not agree with what our neighbor is doing, we cannot impose our beliefs on someone else, and we certainly cannot step on their rights,” Todd and Joshua Postlewait said in a letter this week to the editor of the Meade County News‘.

Closer to home, Daylesford council’s decision to disallow the raising of the rainbow flag during an annual celebration has gone largely unremarked; the extent of the council’s concern reflected in the fact that the denial has been issued despite the festival ‘injecting several million dollars into the local economy’!

‘No gay flags for Daylesford’ (Doug Pollard, Melbourne Star, August 3, 2006); ‘Against all flags [Ha! That’s anarchy!], Daylesford sparks a flap somewhere over the rainbow’, (Orietta Guerrera, The Age, July 26, 2006).

I say:

Let’s rock!

    Boys in bikinis
    Girls on surfboards
    Everybody’s rockin’
    Everybody’s fruggin’

    Twistin’ round the fire
    Havin’ fun
    Bakin’ potatoes
    Bakin’ in the sun

    Put on your noseguard
    Put on the lifeguard
    Pass the tanning butter

    Here comes a stringray
    There goes a manta ray
    In walked a jelly fish
    There goes a dogfish
    Chased by a catfish
    In flew a sea robin
    Watch out for that pirahna
    There goes a narwhal
    Here comes a bikini whale!

See also the Wikipedia page on the Rainbow flag — apparently the homophobic editor of the Meade newspaper referred to it in the original article attacking the Knights.

Posted in !nataS, Anti-fascism, Sex & Sexuality, State / Politics | Leave a comment

Collingwood & Jack : Outta Jail!

Posted on August 20, 2006 by @ndy

Pies snatch thrilling win over Port!
ABC Online

Collingwood kicked two goals to none in the final term to escape with a narrow two-point win over [The Pretenders to the Magpie Throne] Port Adelaide in the round 20 AFL match-up at Football Park [duh] on Friday evening. The 12.17 (89) to 12.15 (87) win has kept the Magpies’ hopes of a top four spot alive, the black and whites joining five sides on 12 wins for the season.

From Villain to Hero!

Magpies forward Alan Didak was the hero, slotting his first goal of the game with just 20 seconds left to turn a three-point deficit into a three-point lead and hand Collingwood the four competition points.

Yes!

Didak kicks Pies to victory in thriller (The Age); Didak haunts Port as Magpie scrape home (Sports Australia); Magpies steal win (The Age); Last gasp goal ruins Port’s night (Advertiser); Malthouse praises effort (The Australian); Didak brings Magpies to life (The Australian)…

From Fears to Tears!

Plenty of tears in the Port Adelaide rooms after the match, so many that they probably spoilt RubberMan’s commemorations.

Has there ever been such a mob of poor sore losers as Port Adelaide and its stupid, ugly, mean-spirited fans?

No!

In fact, such is the extent of Port Adelaide’s loserdom, their reaction to their deserved loss at the hands of Good Old Collingwood rivals the Federal Government’s reaction to Jack Thomas’ release from prison.

Hit the Road, Jack

Less than a month ago, Jack Thomas, the first [?] person to be convicted under Australia’s new terror laws, was facing the prospect of possibly having the mandatory serving of his sentence increased from forty to seventy-five per cent of the five years he received when originally sentenced. Now, however, he has been released on appeal.

‘Australian terror convictions quashed’
The Australian
August 18, 2006

AN appeal court has quashed the convictions of the first man jailed under Australia’s new anti-terror laws.

Joseph Terrence Thomas was arrested in Pakistan in January 2003 and convicted in Australia in February this year of receiving funds from al-Qaeda and holding a false passport.

He was sentenced to five years’ jail with a minimum term of two years.

But today, Victorian Court of Appeal Justices Chris Maxwell, Frank Vincent and Peter Buchanan quashed the convictions, saying the evidence used to find Mr Thomas guilty was inadmissable.

The SMH reports that the fact that Thomas was interviewed in Pakistan by AFP officials without being accompanied by a lawyer was the key to the Justices’ decision. Read commentary by Ian Munro (The Age, August 18).

In the meantime, ‘Rights groups fear tougher terror laws’ (The Australian, August 18, 2006) as a result of the success of Thomas’ appeal; Another Liberal Party attempts to score some cheap points by accusing (The Australian, August 18) the Government of bungling the prosecution; while Jack’s brother Les (The Australian, August 20) has objected to the demonisation of both his brother and the 13 men currently being held in Barwon jail on terrorist charges…

Jack’s father, Ian Thomas is reported to have said: “Hallelujah, that’s all I’ve got to say. Hallelujah.”

See also : Against Terror, Against the State | Australia: terrorism trial of Jack Thomas to rely on coerced evidence

Posted in Collingwood, Music, Poetry, State / Politics, War on Terror | 2 Comments

A life cut tragically short…

Posted on August 18, 2006 by @ndy

Alfredo Stroessner, Paraguay’s former dictator, died August 16, aged 93, but you’ll have to travel to Brazil to join me in pissing on his grave: Stroessner left Paraguay for that country in 1989, after his 35-year-old dictatorship was finally ended, in stereo-typical South American fashion, with a military coup. Besides amassing a huge personal fortune, Stroessner also oversaw the murder, torture and imprisonment of thousands of his regime’s opponents, as well as the provision of a safe haven for Nazi war criminals such as Josef Mengele and even poor old Anastasio Somoza, the Nicaraguan dictator ousted in 1979 by the Sandinistas. (Anastasio was given his just desserts when he was shot to death behind the wheel of his Mercedes-Benz in Asuncion, just one year after fleeing the scene of his many, untold crimes.)

‘CONDOR archives unearthed in Paraguay expose U.S. allies’ abuses’
Diana Jean Schemo
New York Times
August 11, 1999

ASUNCION, Paraguay—When Martin Almada asked a judge for records of his arrest under the dictatorship of Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, he hoped merely to learn more about his own private tragedy: nearly four years of captivity, during which the police telephoned his wife so she would hear his screams under torture.

Instead, the one-time schoolteacher unearthed a mountain of records detailing repression among United States-backed military regimes throughout South America during the cold war. From floor to ceiling, five tons of reports and photos detailed the arrest, interrogation and disappearance of thousands of political prisoners during General Stroessner’s 35-year dictatorship.

The documents trace the creation and work of Operation Condor, a secret plan among security forces in six countries to crush left-wing political dissent [ = hunting down, torturing and often killing leftists and other opponents in the 1970s and 1980s] …

Two of the thousands of cases contained in the archives are those of Gladys Sannemann and Agustin Goiburu, physicians in Asuncion who refused to falsify an autopsy to show that a man beaten to death under police custody in 1958 had died of natural causes. Instead, Dr. Sannemann took the cadaver to her medical school in Asuncion and performed a proper autopsy before her students.

Practically from that moment it began, said Dr. Sannemann, an immunologist who is now 69 and practicing here in Asuncion. The challenge marked her out for the Stroessner regime.

Seeking safety, Dr. Sannemann and her husband, Rodolfo Jorge, fled to Brazil in 1963, a year before the military seized power there, and then moved to Argentina. But in March 1976, the military took power in Argentina as well.

Hours after the coup, the Argentine police abducted Dr. Sannemann and tortured her at the Escuela Mecanica in Buenos Aires. Dr. Sannemann said she was bound and plunged into a bathtub of vomit and excrement.

They accused me of killing a patient in my office, Dr. Sannemann said, calling the charge a total lie. Then the police falsely accused her of selling drugs, she said. A week later, Dr. Sannemann’s husband was abducted and tortured as well.

Stoessner was one of half-a-dozen rulers who — along with dictators from Argentina (Videla), Bolivia (Banzer), Brazil, Chile (Pinochet) and Uruguay — implemented the Condor Plan on behalf of the US state, helping the US to destroy progressive social movements throughout the Americas. This policy was partly based on the construction of ‘National Security States’, a policy developed in the 1950s and 1960s.

Today they might call it ‘Homeland Security’.

Posted in Anti-fascism, History, Media, State / Politics | 4 Comments

“Would you accept a racist flyer from this Klan?” (Part 2)

Posted on August 18, 2006 by @ndy

Almost two months ago now, I posted on the subject of Australia First Party member Darrin Hodges‘ attempt to further entrench his reputation as a racist loser, describing in some small detail his campaign to distribute racist propaganda to disinterested commuters and irate public transport workers. Just recently, similar (if not identical) flyers have appeared in Port Macquarie:

‘Racism outrage: Pamphlet condemns Muslims’
Lynn Hord
Port Macquarie News
Wednesday, August 16, 2006

A LETTER drop of pamphlets denouncing Islam and multi-culturalism has left some Port Macquarie residents incensed…

The materials that have elicited such strong reaction are anti-multicultural pamphlets from the Free Australia Movement and the Australia First Party.

The former is a six-page booklet about Islam, claiming it is an ideology that if ignored, could orchestrate the end of the Australian way of life.

The latter equates multiculturalism with genocide, stating that it is “an extremist anti-Western political ideology … that wishes to snuff out the existence of all white-populated countries”.

Member of the national council of the Australia First Party Dr Jim Saleam stands behind the content of his party’s publications.

While he has no knowledge of who made the letter drop in Port Macquarie, he has no problem with Australia First material being disseminated as long as it is in an “appropriate manner” and bears the Australia First mark.

Dr Saleam said his party did not have an affiliation with Free Australia Movement…

Interestingly, similar pamphlets appear to have been distributed in March 2005 in the electorate of Prospect. According to the Federal Member, Chris Bowen, in a speech to the House (March 9):

I would like to bring the House’s attention this morning to a pamphlet which is circulating in the community, and I think may have been circulated to other honourable members, by the group called the Free Australia Movement. I read this pamphlet, which arrived in my electorate office late last year. It says: This is not a hate session against Muslims, but rather about a system and an ideology, nor is it a conspiracy theory unsupported by fact. This pamphlet then goes on to prove that those statements are incorrect; it is a conspiracy theory unsupported by fact and it is a hate session against Muslims.

My first reaction was to throw this in the garbage bin and treat it with the contempt it deserves, but then I thought that some of the statements in this pamphlet, which is being circulated in the community, should be responded to in the House and be recorded in Hansard. It is a diatribe of unsupported facts, of prejudice, of bias, of racism and of religious bigotry. It quotes selectively from the Koran and quotes out of context. It talks about all Muslims in gross generalisations, saying, Muslims, on their own admission, have world rule as their goal. It says — and this is perhaps the most offensive — It is as much a political system as was Nazism and Communism. More repressive of those who don’t accept its rule, more repressive than the Nazi regime and the Communist regimes, which have imprisoned, tortured and killed thousands of people.

Going further back, one can find mention of the text in question at the racist website (Sydney Orange Net) — which gives the FAM address as being PO Box 9091, Wyee, NSW, 2259 — while another, Queensland-based, Christian right-wing site claims to have received a copy in November / December 2004.

Next week, Australia’s leading bigots will assemble at the Sydney Forum, a conference organised by the Australia First Party. Dr. James Saleam will be one of the key speakers while the German-born neo-Nazi Welf Herfurth — a former member of One Nation, now a member of Australia First — will act as MC.

Not appearing will be His Excellency Tamman Sulaiman, Ambassador of the Syrian Arab Republic, a development which has Saleam (‘radnat’ on the White supremacist site Scumfront) most upset.

Who’s next to withdraw, I wonder?

Posted in Anti-fascism, Media | 2 Comments

Homophobic wankers in Estonia

Posted on August 16, 2006 by @ndy

12 Injured as Gay Pride Marchers Attacked in Estonia
Sunday, August 13, 2006

Boneheads and anti-gay protesters armed with stones and sticks attacked a march for homosexual rights in Estonia, injuring around a dozen people in a country that prides itself on its tolerance, organizers said.

Around 20 young men attacked the parade as some 500 gay-rights supporters with rainbow-coloured flags made their way through the winding streets of the capital, Tallinn, in Estonia’s third such annual event, according to march officials quoted by AFP.

Parade spokeswoman Lisette Kampus said about 12 people were injured, including a Frenchman who needed to be hospitalized with a head injury.

Gay rights activists said they were “in shock at this absolutely unacceptable behavior.”

“It’s particularly revolting that the gang, calling themselves Estonian patriots, attacked women demonstrators first. Then they started throwing stones and sticks at everyone,” Kampus told AFP.

She also criticized police. “There were too few police present so they could not really handle the violent attack.”

Police said they detained six people for violating public order.

Only one person had so far officially complained of being attacked, police spokeswoman Julia Garanzha told AFP.

The colorful gay parade set off 20 minutes late after police received a call warning that bombs would explode in Tallinn’s Old Town shortly before the event was to begin. No explosive devices were found.

Marchers carrying rainbow-colored flags, the international banner of gay and lesbian movements, were earlier pelted with eggs as they began making their way through the cobblestoned streets, said Maali Kabin, another spokeswoman for the parade.

Dancing to music that blared from loudspeakers, demonstrators carried placards with messages such as “Love Doesn’t Ask About Gender,” “Right to Be What We Are,” “Children of Gays Need Protection Too,” “We Heteros Support Gays.” Anarchists from the local movement PunaMust, organized an autonomous bloc, giving out leaflets and holding a big banner saying “Anarchists Against Homophobia.”

“The aim of our parade is to show that we exist,” Kabin said. “We don’t promote a certain kind of sexual orientation, but we remind people of our right to be equal with everybody else.”

Despite calls from some critics to ban the march — the culmination of a week-long gay cultural festival called Tallinn Pride — authorities gave permission for the parade.

Two earlier gay pride events held here over the past two years passed without violence.

Estonia’s lesbian and gay community has become more visible after the country regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and became a member of the European Union in 2004.

In the run-up to the Tallinn Pride week, organizers said Estonia had proved the most tolerant to homosexuals of the three Baltic states, which include Latvia and Lithuania.

“Unfortunately, Estonia is now in line with Latvia and Poland, where gay and lesbian parades have been viciously attacked,” Kampus said.

A poll conducted in June showed that one in four Estonians would not want to live next door to a homosexual.

The survey was commissioned by the Postimees newspaper after the Dutch ambassador to Estonia, Hans Glaubitz, asked to be transferred to another posting, saying his partner — a black, gay male — had been harassed.

A gay parade in neighboring Latvia was banned last month. Alternative gay pride events ended violently with homosexuals, journalists and tourists assaulted and 14 people arrested.

Hundreds of protesters blockaded gay-rights activists including a Dutch European lawmaker inside a church in central Riga and pelted them with excrement as they left.

Posted in Anarchism, Anti-fascism, Sex & Sexuality, State / Politics | 4 Comments

The Sydney Forum, 2006 : Re-Setting the Agenda

Posted on August 16, 2006 by @ndy

Dr. James Saleam has done it again. Re-set the agenda for the 2006 Sydney Forum (August 26-27), that is.

For some reason, Sandy Thorne is no longer being advertised as a speaker, and the Syrian Ambassador has also seemingly withdrawn from the event, only to be replaced by ‘A Surprise Syrian Speaker’ who, much like the Ambassador, ‘Will Address On The Middle East Crisis’: although s/he will hopefully have a better grasp of diction than Dr. Saleam…

BEFORE :

FLASH: SYRIAN AMBASSADOR WILL ADDRESS SYDNEY FORUM

His Excellency Tamman Sulaiman, Ambassador of the Syrian Arab Republic

“The Ambassador will speak on the Syrian position on the war in Lebanon, the resolution of the Palestine question, Israel and related issues. This is a special opportunity for Australians to obtain a direct view on the crisis of the region. The Embassy of the Syrian Arab Republic will provide useful materials for the audience. Questions will be answered. It is the view of the Sydney Forum that no Australian soldiers should be employed in the Middle East in roles that inevitably serve Zionism and the American agenda. Perhaps the views of Syria deserve real consideration in defining these issues.”

AFTER :

FLASH: SURPRISE SYRIAN SPEAKER WILL ADDRESS ON MIDDLE EAST CRISIS

“The Syrian position on the war in Lebanon, the resolution of the Palestine question, Israel and related issues needs to be explained. This is a special opportunity for Australians to obtain a direct view on the crisis of the region. Useful materials for the audience. [“Useful materials for the audience.” Huh?] Questions will be answered. It is the view of the Sydney Forum that no Australian soldiers should be employed in the Middle East in roles that inevitably serve Zionism and the American agenda. Perhaps the views of Syria patriots [?] deserve real consideration in defining these issues.”

Yeah well, maybe just those ‘Syria patriots’ (sic) who manage to remain unaware of the role of the Australia First Party, the Patriotic Youth League and other neo-Nazi elements in first encouraging and then attempting to profit from the racist mob violence at Cronulla in December last year.

And maybe His Excellency Tammam Sulaiman has avoided a diplomatic nightmare.

Take it away Sheik :

    “I am disgusted that a white supremacist website (sponsored by Ben Weerheym) based in Australia profiled my picture and linked to my website. I refuse to be used for such nefarious purposes as white, Christian chauvinism, which is the enemy of the message I spread. I also unambiguously reject their anti-Jewish agenda, as well as their clear antagonism to people of color. To think that Palestinians fighting for their liberation have common cause with them shows their own desperation and irrelevence. Such fringe groups, we have to remember, are just as anti-Arab as they are anti- any other group. Though they are fringe, as the beatings near Sydney last year show, anti-Arab racism is far too prevalent to take such hate groups lightly.

    I applaud those opposing fascist, ultra-nationalist groups — whether in the form of Australian hate groups, South American cartels, Arab dictators, American Neo-Cons, or Israeli leadership. Keep up the good work.”

Posted in !nataS, Anti-fascism | Leave a comment