slackbastard

It takes a great person to get an idea
But don’t go public it’ll ruin the plan
Because no matter how clever and original you are
You’re only as good as your fans.

And in the case of The Chaser, never a truer word was spoken.

Or sung.

Which is interesting, ‘cos on their online Forum, The Chaser team state:

Welcome to the Chaser Fascist Regime, now featuring more moderators and admins. Please be abusive only in jest, and we take a fairly dim, PC view on sexism/homophobia/etc as well. Kind regards, Thought Police.

So when I stumbled onto a thread on ‘Redwatch’, I thought that because a) The Chaser is generally more than willing to take the piss out of various forms of bigotry that b) its fans (and Forum users) would be distinct from the bigots whose views The Chaser regularly lampoons.

I was wrong.

“Pertinax”:

I think the good people at Redwatch need to be commended for their actions in kerbing terrorist activity. Especially given the left’s desire to overturn the natural order of any capitalist society. Any group that advocates armed class struggle should [be] proscribed and hunted down for being the subversives that they are.

I don’t know why you’d need a website to list them anyway. All you’d need to do is follow the stench to their door. Dirty Commie Bastards.

Hmmm. Sounds like “Pertinax” has a pathological aversion to “communists”. Speaking of doctors, in reference to my enlightening readers of the Forum of a few facts inre Redwatch (prior to its forcible closure by US authorities yesterday), our anonymous anti-Communist writes in defence of the site:

You might need to see a doctor about that twist you’ve got your undergarments into there digger.
Redwatch out people for being communists, not gay, transgendered, black, Jewish, Romany, disabled, or for not being Polish or any other nationality. I think you need to make the distinction between Redwatch and other anti-communist organisations and ultra-fascist groups with an agenda of racial purity.
I am, however, entirely comfortable with the summary extra-judicial killing of as many anarchists and leftists as possible.

At first, I thought that “Pertinax” was a not very amusing parody of a wingnut… but no.

He’s serious!

Not that this keyboard hero has the slightest intention of carrying out such extra-judicial killings himself, of course.

Well… presumably.

Which is not to say that there aren’t others in Australia who would find such measures appropriate: Peter Campbell (White Pride Coalition Australia // Blood and Honour Australia), Welf Herfurth (Australia First Party // Blood and Honour Australia) and Blood and Honour Australia collectively being three obvious examples.

A second interlocutor, “fadeaway”, writes:

Either it’s Alek… himself, or his “friend”. Either way, this @ndy fellow is definitely gay. You can see it written all over his post. No wonder he thinks a little strangely…

Hurr hurr.

Not being able to contact them via their site, I addressed the following to The Chaser via the ABC:

I wish to declare war on The Chaser‘s non-enforcement of their stated policy inre participation in their online forums:

“Welcome to the Chaser Fascist Regime, now featuring more moderators and admins. Please be abusive only in jest, and we take a fairly dim, PC view on sexism/homophobia/etc as well. Kind regards, Thought Police.”

I do so after having commented on a thread concerning Redwatch — a neo-Nazi website which, until closed by Polish and US authorities, facilitated assaults upon feminists, homosexuals, non-Whites, anti-racists and antifa — and being met with homophobic abuse.

The Chaser is funny; this is not.

All joking aside, the situation in Poland is very serious. Jews and other ‘enemies of the White race’ are being subjected to threats, intimidation and even attempted murder. It’s not without reason that Redwatch Poland was closed by authorities, and the fact that some of your ‘fans’ regard this situation as being in some way ‘amusing’ or as representing an opportunity to engage in homophobic abuse is appalling.

Appalling too, that the attempt to draw attention to a number of (apparently inconvenient) facts inre a site which has targetted journalists — threatening them with death — should be subjected to ridicule; worse yet, the Redwatch site itself given lying, hypocritical support.

The Chaser‘s “Thought Police” take a fairly dim, PC view on racism, sexism and homophobia… except in this case.

Who knows why?

On July 4, 1998, two skinheads — Lin “Spit” Newborn, 24, and Dan Shersty, 20 — were murdered by boneheads in the rocky desert northwest of Las Vegas, USA. Their crime, like that of Maciek D., was to be effective in the fight against racism and fascism…

It pains [Dan’s father] that his son’s sacrifice is unheralded while the media obsesses on the cultural war between liberal and conservative values. It’s a war, he says, that demands no risk whatsoever from its TV-talking head combatants. “Dan died as a soldier who believed in his cause — anti-racism,” says Walter. His son’s ARA troops are still fighting for the cause, though police advised them to leave when rumors surfaced that the Nazis had created a hit list. The cause unites them with something valued in military custom: courage and a code of honor.

APPENDIX

The Wild Dog Howls
Killing King Abacus

“A story is told of Diogenes, probably the best known of the ancient greek cynics: It is said that one day, as he was sunning himself in the bathtub he called home, Alexander the “great” came to speak with him. This emperor of many nations said, “I am Alexander, prince of macedonia and the world. I have heard you are a great philosopher. Do you have any words of wisdom for me?” Annoyed at such a petty disturbance of his calm, Diogenes answered, “Yes, you’re standing in my sun. Get out of the way.” Though this story is most likely fictional, it reflects the scorn in which cynics held all authority and their boldness in expressing this scorn. These self-proclaimed “dogs” (wild dogs, of course) rejected hierarchy, social restraints and the alleged need for laws and greeted these with sarcastic mockery.

How utterly different this ancient cynicism was from what now goes by that name. Several years ago, a radical group in England called the Pleasure Tendency published a pamphlet entitled “Theses Against Cynicism”. In this pamphlet, they criticize an attitude of hip detachment, of shallow, sarcastic despair – and particularly the penetration of this attitude into anti-authoritarian and revolutionary circles.

The proponents of this present-day “cynicism” are everywhere. The hip, sarcastic comedy of Saturday Night Live or the Comedy Channel presents no real challenge to the ruling powers. In fact, this smirking know-it-all-ism is the yuppie attitude par excellence. It has nothing to do with a real understanding of what’s going on, but is rather a justification for conformity. “Yes, we know what the politicians and corporate executives are up to. We know it’s all a dirty game. But there’s nothing we can do about it, so we’re gonna get our piece of the action”. There’s nothing we can do about it: that is the message of this modern cynicism — not disdain for authority, but disdain for those who still dare to challenge it rather than joining in its game with a knowing smirk.

This attitude has entered the circles of so-called revolutionaries and anarchists through the back-door of post-modern philosophy in which ironic hyper-conformity is presented as a viable revolutionary strategy. With a straight face (or just the trace of a smirk), the most radical of the post-modern philosophers tell us that we need only push the logic of capitalism to its own “schizophrenic” extreme and it will break down on its own. For these present-day “radical” cynics, attempts to attack and destroy this society are foolish and ineffective, and attempts to create one’s own life in opposition to this society is attachment to an out-dated individualism. Of course, these mostly french philosophers are rarely read. Like mainstream “cynicism”, post-modern “cynicism” needs its hip popularizers — and they certainly have appeared. Sarcastically tearing down every significant insurgent idea or activity of the past century while promoting pathetic liberal eclecticism and ridiculous art or mystical movements as “revolutionary” or “iconoclastic”, these alternative yuppies — who often claim to reject individuality — mainly just to promote themselves and their own pathetic projects. One needs only to notice Stewart Home‘s Mona Lisa smirk to realize he is just Jay Leno with a shaved head and a pair of Docs.

Perhaps the worst effect of the post-modern penetration into anarchist circles is its reinforcement of a tendency to reject theory. Any attempts to understand society in its totality in order to fight it more effectively are either called dogmatic or are seen as proof that those who make such attempts are hopelessly naive with no understanding of the complexity of “post-modern” post-industrial society. Of course, the “understanding” these oh-so-wise(-ass) anti-theorists have is simply their faith in the impossibility of analysis, a faith which allows them to continue their ritual of piecemeal activism which has long since proven ineffective for anything other than occasionally pushing the social system into making changes necessary for its own continued reproduction. Those who continue to make insurgent theory are accused by the self-proclaimed activists of sitting in ivory towers, regardless of how much this insurgence is put into practice.

When one considers the original greek cycnics, one is averse to using the same term for their modern namesakes. Yet the present-day “cynics” are much more like the dogs we are familiar with — pathetic, dependent, domesticated pets. Like well-trained puppies, they rarely make it past the front yard gate before they run back cowering to the safety of their master’s house; then they learn to bark and snarl at the wild dogs who dare to live outside the fence and, in exchange for a milkbone, lick the hand that keeps them on the leash. I would rather be among the wild dogs howling out my scorn for every master, prepared to bite any hand that tries to tame. I reject the sarcastic despair that passes as cynicism today, in order to grasp as a weapon the untamed cynicism which dares to tell authority, “You’re standing in my sun. Get out of the way!”