antifa notes (july 18, 2010) : elections, forums and muzak

August

A handful of white nationalists, namely Tony Pettitt in Greenway and Mick Saunders in Lindsay, will be losing at the upcoming Federal election, yesterday announced as taking place on Saturday, August 21. Both Pettitt and Saunders are members of veteran fascist militant Dr James Saleam‘s ‘Australia First Party’. According to AF, the pair will be bravely battling the combined forces of “big money, Chinese imperialism, Zionism and so on”, but as the final list of candidates is yet to be confirmed, I’m unable to confirm if these rather unusual names will also be on the ballot. Otherwise, AF’s arch-rivals in the ‘Australian Protectionist Party’ earlier made some noises about standing a candidate — a rather cranky racist named Nicholas Hunter Folkes — for the seat of Sydney, but this is also yet to be confirmed. Finally, the botched abortion that is (or rather was) Pauline Hanson‘s ‘One Nation Party’ will presumably be wheeling out a few dozen more losing candidates in various seats across the country — moaron ON later. Given major party commitment to Fortress Australia, the already-existing political marginality of the far right is unlikely to be remedied at the ballot box; on the other hand, xenophobic elements within the micro-parties, and among the population in general, can only find encouragement in the race to demonstrate who’s toughest on asylum seekers / ‘illegal non-citizens’.

But that’s another story.

September

In September, there are two major scheduled events on the fascist calendar: the Sydney Forum in Sydney on the weekend of September 18/19 and the Ian Stuart Donaldson memorial gig in Melbourne on September 25. The Forum is being organised by AF and a small number of allies (including local neo-Nazis Nicole Hanley and Welf Herfurth), while the gig is being organised by ‘Blood & Honour Australia’ and the ‘Southern Cross Hammerskins’. This year’s special guest at the Sydney Forum is Canadian Holocaust denialist Paul Fromm; last year, the US white supremacist Andrew Yeoman spoke, while local neo-Nazi skinheads have promised two foreign bands will be appearing at this year’s memorial. As for location, last year’s Forum was held at the Petersham RSL; the memorial gig was held at an undisclosed venue.