[A rather funny post, stolen from Lancaster UAF blog, and authored by Denise G. Cheers Denise!]
Darrin Hodges is hardly the prettiest individual on the Australian far-Right. His appearance suggesting, as one of our colleagues has mooted, a close relationship with the rat family, we suspect that Darrin’s fascist friends are given to making sudden embarrassed winces whenever the unlovely visage of the Sutherland Shire’s least popular son pops up in the Australian media.
Darrin is something of a thinker – or so he would like to believe. And Darrin has a plan. A Very Cunning Plan.
At its most complicated, Darrin’s Plan is to copy the BNP, lock, stock and lies.
That’s it.
And so it is that – just like the BNP – Darrin has put his Jew-hating, anti-black credentials in his back pocket and now sports those of the born-again anti-Muslim persuasion, because – as the BNP and Darrin will have it – Moslems comprise a religion, not an ethnicity. And, if you’re attacking a religion and not an ethnicity, how ever can you be called a racist?
Darrin is one of those far-Rightists who, having for years peddled the white supremacist line, has grown increasingly frustrated by the lack of any tangible success. On the factional and turbulent Australian far-Right scene this lack of success is hardly surprising, since – much as their British counterparts – Australian fascists seem to hate one another more than they hate anybody else.
Darrin’s overarching hatred is for Australian Nazi and sometime Australia First Party big-wig Jim Saleam, who he refers to in one of his many incriminating but judiciously terminated blogs as “a criminal lunatic” and an “oily spiv”. You’d never know that Darrin was once his loyal lieutenant. Darrin believes that racist hard-liner Saleam was in harness with Australia First leader Diane Teasdale, the pair conspiring to expel the newly-coined “moderate” on charges that certain of his internet postings did not reflect well on Australia First.
Disproving the hypersensitive Hodges’s theory, shortly after his own expulsion Teasdale sent Saleam packing, and this latter pair now run rival versions of the same organisation. For his part, Darrin contented himself with denouncing the “Australia Faggot Party”, basing his denunciation on the recollections of the AFP’s John Drew, who recalled sharing a flat with a noisily sexually active homosexual in the 1960s.
Darrin spent many happy years posting on the Nazi Stormfront Down Under forum, as well as maintaining his multifarious blogs. He felt that the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion were essential reading for all Nutzis, and opined: “I’m more interested in the purer form of fascism… and while I don’t subscribe to the whole ‘worship Hitler’ thing, his comments on multiculturalism and politics in general are still just as relevant today as they were 70 years ago”.
Not subscribing to “the whole ‘Hitler worship’ thing” is what marks you out as a moderate on the far-Right, even if you are “interested in the purer form of fascism” – whatever that is – and believe that “… he [Hitler] laid a foundation that we should build on”.
Perhaps Darrin believes that the “purer form of fascism” is something close to anarchism?
Just a few weeks after Diane Teasdale tore up his Australia First membership card, the ubiquitous Darrin turned up with fifteen of his young male friends at Sydney Town Hall to protest against the APEC summit, taking place elsewhere in the city. Dressed in black clothing, and wearing dark glasses and scarves to obscure their faces, they carried, according to Antipodean anti-fascist @ndy Slackbastard, “three long banners — with slogans reading ‘Australia: Free Nation – Or Sheep Station?’, ‘Globalisation is Genocide’ and ‘Power to the People, Not Political Parties’ – which were joined together to form a three-sided bloc, within which those gathered assembled to form a ‘black bloc’. The group also distributed a leaflet, and claimed to belong to a group known as the ‘New Right’, one which — as other statements on the banners and on the leaflet stated — consists of ‘National Anarchists’ espousing a ‘Traditional-European Revolutionary’ philosophy”.
Darrin’s flirtation with “national” anarchism – and, along the way, a group of Tibetan monks – was short-lived as the moderate fascist-racist cast about for ideas – any ideas – that would bring salvation for the Australian lunatic fringe, and so he jumped aboard the brand spanking new Australian Protectionist Party, made up largely of expellees from Australia First. Darrin is now its New South Wales chairman.
From the beginning, the APP sought to jettison the political baggage carried by Australia First, claiming to represent a “new expression on an Australian Nationalist perspective”. Exactly how “new” can be seen on Darrin the moderate’s personal website, where the oversized rodent gives full vent to his vicious Islamophobia in post after predictable post, and in his statement to the Canberra Times that “if you’re an Asian, you are an Asian” – and most emphatically not a white Australian, or any kind of Australian, for the matter of that.
Long an admirer of Nick Griffin, with whom he says he corresponds, Darrin has swallowed the Griffin = Success fairy-tale hook, line and sinker, saying: “The BNP is a successful nationalist party … Griffin rescued the BNP from the murky depths of right-wing extremism”, and: “We look to the BNP as it is one of, if not the most successful nationalist party in the anglosphere and see no reason why we cannot draw ideas from them.”
Perhaps Darrin and his comrades took this drawing on the ideas of the BNP a little too literally, as an early disgruntled would-be member sourly informed Stormfront Down Under that the APP was a “scam ripping money off White Australians hoping to protect the future of this country and the heritage that is theirs”.
Recently Darrin was presented with an opportunity to shine in council elections held in south Sydney’s Sutherland Shire, which also happens to include Cronulla, the 2005 scene of vicious racial conflicts enthusiastically fanned by the Australian far-Right – almost certainly the origin of an anonymous text message received by hundreds of Australians exhorting whites to gather on Cronulla beach to attack the “wogs and lebs”.
Extolling “traditional and family values” (while neglecting to mention that he was once contracted to maintain the servers of a company dealing in decidedly non-traditional adult products and pornographic material), and railing against the “Asianisation” of Sutherland Shire, Darrin found himself treading on some very stony ground, achieving a thumping 2% and last place, and thoroughly demoralising the go-ahead Australian Protectionist Party’s tiny following. To add insult to injury, in a nearby division of Sutherland Shire, Darrin’s former friends in Australia First obtained double the APP vote share, even though they also came last, with 4% of the vote.
Rather than send for the Flying Doctor to cure their ills, the APP has sent for the Flying Führer, as detailed elsewhere on this blog.
Exactly what Darrin and the APP brethren hope to learn at the feet of Nick Griffin isn’t clear to us. They have already toned down their public expressions of racism, never mention The Jews, won’t talk about the Holocaust, and rant against everybody’s favourite punch-bag, the Muslims.
Maybe Darrin will come away thinking what a whizz it would be to set up a record label or a fake trade union? Perhaps Nick will impart the dark arts of BNP accounting to a spell-bound audience all dreaming of retiring as quickly as possible to their own pig farms in the Outback? Or he could do several sessions on the fine art of purging, for having so much experience in that regard.
Oh, Darrin!
The truth of it is that Nick hasn’t taken the BNP anywhere – rather, as we have previously noticed (posts passim), what little success came the BNP’s way happened despite Nick Griffin and his tantrums and his purges. Didn’t you notice May’s abysmal election results? Or those of the May before it? Hasn’t it occurred to you that in a climate never more condusive to the electoral prospects of the BNP that Nick Griffin has signally failed to advance the party in the one arena that matters? Why do you think Nick got his redundancy package sorted out when he did – could it be because he knows his members will one day make contact with the reality of his sham “success” and turn him out?
Oh, deluded Darrin! Nick Griffin can only teach you how to fail – and since you already enjoy failure, frustration and factionalism in great and unending abundance, you really do have nothing at all to learn from the Flying Führer.
Oh @ndy you silly little boy/girl? You haven’t learnt a thing from your failed comrades at FDB. Since you guys started Australian Far Right groups have put away the differences they may have to concentrate on fighting our common enemy. FDB and you @ndy have helped heal the wounds between groups and people.
Attacking the APP will only help them. Something I’m sure they appreciate. I note how you try and play down the work that is going on with the BNP. FYI @ndy far right groups around the world are on the rise. You are losing the battle. But what do you expect when your whole battle plan is nothing but lies and BS?
You are a fake and I doubt you will be around much longer when your mates figure it all out.
hehe well said Denise
“His appearance suggesting, as one of our colleagues has mooted, a close relationship with the rat family”
KKKomedy gold!
G’day Jim!
Whatever ya reckon mate.
Fightdemback! was established in late 2004 by a number of anti-racist activists from Australia and Aotearoa / New Zealand, and officially launched on ANZAC Day, April 25, 2005.
Since then, among other things:
the ‘White Pride Coalition of Australia’ has dissolved;
Peter Campbell of the WPCA, and the distribution of a text — “How to build a David Copeland special” — has been exposed in national media;
the ‘Patriotic Youth League’ has dissolved (and its desultory handful of rallies routed);
the ‘Australian National Front’ was aborted;
the ‘Australia First Party’ has split into three, with one splinter retreating into inactivity in Shepparton, the other retreating into a bunker in Tempe, and the third forming the equally ineffective ‘Australian Protectionist Party’, the NSW Chairman of which, Darrin Hodges, describes the leader of the second faction, Dr James Saleam, as a pathological liar and an oily spiv (among other things);
the functioning of the annual fascist gathering known as the Sydney Forum has been disrupted, and the 2008 gathering cancelled;
the Birmingham Hotel — previously the venue for the annual Ian Stuart Donaldson memorial gig — has undergone a change of management (“It’s not shit any more!”);
the venue for the ISD gig has been exposed and publicised three years running, with its audience dwindling and its costs increasing;
the ‘Great Australian Bikini March’ was cancelled;
the ‘Stormfront Down Under’ site has gone from bad to worse (and two moderators — David Innes and Rhys McLean — have retired, leaving it in the capable hands of David’s brother Paul);
Sue Bateman of One Nation in WA has been exposed as a (former) member of SF;
and so on and so forth.
A real triumph for the far right. In fact, if this accords with your definition of success, I honestly wish you all the best in your future endeavours.
Obviously, such groups and individuals — or the remnant of such groups and individuals — are now concentrating on attempting to respond to FDB!. This is to be expected, and is valuable in the sense that the more time is wasted by such elements on FDB!, the less time is spent harassing members of particular cultural, ethnic, national, political, racial and/or sexual minorities.
Regarding the above entry, it was written by Denise G, not I.
Duh.
Regarding the situation of the far right ‘around the world’, it has experienced a resurgence in parts of Europe, but its fate in other parts of the world — for example, South America — is — outside of, perhaps, the recent (alleged) fascist coup in Bolivia — less than satisfactory for its exponents. In any case, I live in Australia, so my principal focus is here (in fact, Melbourne). And I haven’t detected a resurgent far right in this city.
‘You are a fake and I doubt you will be around much longer when your mates figure it all out.”
How sweet, to be an idiot.
Far right groups are on the rise? What planet are you living on Jim? Time for you to go back to hospital methinks.
Wow look at me, an international man of mystery.
[Fly away Peter.]
Would that be the same Peter as Peter Watson from the Stalinist League of Australia?
Please @ndy allow his posts, they’re hilarious and give me a good laugh after a horrible night’s work.
Swallowed the Garside line Andy?
Did you know she’s a dyke who called for BNP women and children to be attacked?
All she ever does is hatchet jobs on nationalists full of bullshit and heresay.
She’ll get hers one day.
Verminater: It’s spelled “hearsay”.
I fully expect Denise to sit up and take notice of your comments.
Never mind the spelling howler, @ndy, I’m rather taken with the syntactical admission that nationalists are full of “bullshit and heresay” – “bullshit” as in, she “called for BNP women and children to be attacked”.
It is an indisputable fact that nationalists in general, and the BNP sub-species in particular, endure long and as yet unresolved struggles with the English language, and it is necessary (for those of us laying claim to no better than an ordinary intelligance) to mentally take two or three steps backward on the evolutionary ladder in an effort to comprehend the loose collection of malformed phrases and random fibs which constitute their attempts at communication.
Or, to put it another way, they cant rite English like wot we can.
Jim: “FYI @ndy far right groups around the world are on the rise.”
While there are obviously a number of provisos, in a number of countries in Europe — Austria, England, Germany and Italy (or parts thereof) for example — that’s true.
Far right rising
In order to defeat the BNP, we have to tackle the disillusionment and disaffection the party feeds off
Nick Lowles
guardian.co.uk
October 3, 2008
Change appears to be political buzzword of the times. Labour MP Jon Cruddas ran on the slogan “Choose Change”; Barack Obama went with “The Change we Need”, while this week even David Cameron finished his conference speech on the theme of change.
But there is another “change” taking place, at present below the mainstream political radar, but it is a change that could sweep through the political establishment if not quickly addressed. This change is reactionary – it is the rise of the British National party.
The BNP is a growing force in Britain. In May’s local elections it averaged 13.9% in the 612 wards it contested across the country, while in London it polled 130,714 votes in the London assembly elections. Locally, its results have been even more startling. It averaged 41% in the wards it contested in Barking and Dagenham in 2006, and this year it averaged 28% in Rotherham and 27% in Stoke-on-Trent.
Next year the BNP could win the Stoke-on-Trent mayoral election and has a strong chance of gaining several MEPs in the European elections, particularly in the North West, West Midlands and Yorkshire and Humber constituencies. Victory here, with the respectability and finances the job carries, will transform the BNP into a major political force.
Why is this happening? The BNP is growing for several reasons, including the poor quality of some existing councillors and political parties taking voters for granted. Then there is concern among some over rising immigration and the changing face of Britain. The BNP itself has had a facelift. It has publicly diluted its policies to appear more moderate and mainstream and it has adopted increasingly sophisticated campaign techniques and in its internet operation it has the most visited party political website in Britain.
However, the BNP’s growing appeal is more than simply a product of rising racism, though of course this remains at the heart of its politics. The BNP is tapping into political alienation and economic deprivation. It is providing a voice for those who increasingly feel ignored and cast aside by Labour as it chases the mythical “middle England”. It is a consequence of a political system that concentrates resources and activism to a few key swing marginals.
The BNP is articulating the concerns, grievances and even prejudices of these forgotten voters. It provides them with a sense of belonging, an articulation of their own frustration – even a new white identity.
The emergence of the BNP is just one consequence of the change under way, and it is a change far more fundamental than many political commentators and politicians appear to register. It is also primarily an issue affecting the Labour party.
This is a phenomenon occurring across Europe and North America. In the United States, middle-American nationalism has emerged over the past 30 years, which despises the corporate elites above and the “undeserving” poor below. Across western Europe we have seen working-class voters turn towards far-right and populist parties at the expense of centre-left parties. Only a few days ago, two far right parties polled a combined 29% in the Austrian elections.
Antifascism has to change to meet this new threat. Unless we understand why the BNP is growing – and that entails accepting that its appeal is built on more than simple racism – we have little chance of defeating it.
A simple “Don’t vote Nazi” slogan is no longer enough. Of course we need to expose the true politics of the BNP leaders but we also need to address the issues on which the BNP campaign.
There is a limit to what traditional antifascism can deliver. We can certainly organise a turnout campaign to defeat the BNP in an election and through focused and localised leaflets we can undermine and expose the racism and ineffectiveness of BNP councillors and candidates. We must also get involved in the very communities where the BNP is most active, something progressives have increasingly failed to do over recent years.
However, if we accept the BNP is filling a void in British politics then it is a political response to these underlying issues of disengagement and disillusionment that ultimately needs addressing.
The political climate is certainly changing, but unless we act now then the change might not be to our liking.
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Still one of my favourite posts!