Australian anarchist blogs…

Posted on June 5, 2008 by @ndy

Having recently completed a whirlwind tour of anarchism in Australia, I thought I’d turn to anarchism in the Australian blogosphere. Unfortunately, this would appear to be an even briefer excursion into the political wilderness, as aside from yours truly, there appears to be relatively few Australian anarchist bloggers. Here’s an A-Z — presumably incomplete — of the ones I’ve been able to discover thus far:

1) An Australian Anarchist Weblog : Established by Chris in August 2004, its most recent entry is dated February 14, 2008.

2) Brisbane Anarchists Sabotaging the Australian Representative Democracy (B.A.S.T.A.R.D) : Has a blog, with entries by cuzzicatiche, Communard, DaveK, Gerald Keaney and kimk. Created September 18, 2005; most recent entry March 25, 2008.

3) Dole Diary : Never work. Don’t blog. Not since February 5, 2008, anyway. Since June 4, 2003.

4) insultadarity : Meaning. Since some point in the past. Kreator of insults and imgs, like the one gracing this post, since January 8, 2007.

5) Jura : One of two anarchist infoshops in Sydney, Jura’s bloggy goodness was opened for business on December 31, 2007.

6) Radical Cross Stitch : “Ladies, there is no neutral position for us to assume.” Forget Marx, get set, knit!

7) run amok : Go on. You know you should. Since January 22, 2005.

Posted in Anarchism, Media | 5 Comments

Funny sad life…

Posted on June 5, 2008 by @ndy

Funny:

Er, thanks for your support …
Marieke Hardy
The Age
June 5, 2008

Sometimes, speaking up for a belief can inflict more harm than good.

‘I WOULD like to keep our place like it is and I guess (joining the) Liberals would be natural.” This was the important announcement this week from a colourful and in no way unhinged Sydney resident, Kate McCulloch of Camden, after she had successfully prodded at her local council to reject a proposed building site for an Islamic school.

This, of course, was after she’d appeared on television wearing an oversized Akubra hat that had Australian flag postcards stapled to it like a misguidedly patriotic entrant in a primary school parade, blithely referred to our general Muslim population as “the ones that come here”, and then rounded off by declaring that famous colonials John and Elizabeth Macarthur would no doubt be on Team McCulloch were they a) alive and b) remotely concerned with local education-based planning issues. She certainly couldn’t be accused of being dull…

In terms of conservative comedians you’ve got the inherently amusing Ann Coulter, creator of such outstanding zingers as “My only regret with (Oklahoma bomber) Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to The New York Times building” and, “It would be a much better country if women did not vote.” Last I heard she had a sold-out run at the Hammersmith Apollo with her one-woman stand-up show AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted. Or wait, maybe that was Ice Cube. Anyway, she’s no doubt doing wonders for the cause.

The same can’t be said of the vast majority of Stormfront members who appear to have trouble with spelling, no doubt sadly setting the cause of white supremacists back a couple of decades or so, and I don’t know whose side serial pest Peter Hore is on, but if he ever professes a love for literature and the Tote Hotel in Collingwood, I’m switching teams.

Sorta funny:


Australia Watch

Not-that-funny, but possibly useful:
Bubblepedia

More sad than funny:
Wilfred Burchett. Burchett is the subject of an article, Cut to size by the force of history, in The Australian (June 4, 2008) by Mark Aarons, some reflections by Bob Gould on Ozleft, and is also subjected to critical scrutiny by Robert Manne in The Monthly (June 2008), ‘Agent of Influence: Reassessing Wilfred Burchett’. Bob Watson, a corporate law-talking guy, also has a few things to say about Burchett in The Sydney Institute Quarterly, March 2008 (PDF).

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Neo-Nazi ‘national anarchists’ in Germany in the headlines

Posted on June 4, 2008 by @ndy

For Welf Herfurth, the German-born former member of the NPD and current leader of the New Right/national anarchists in Australia, there’s good news and there’s bad news coming out of the Fatherland. The good news is that German neo-Nazis have been reasonably successful in rendering parts of the country — largely confined to the East — into no-go zones for their enemies. Further, the presence and activities of the neo-Nazi schmucks has reportedly become normalised and — outside of small groups (the usual suspects) — largely, and passively, accepted by the general public. Which is not to suggest that there remains no resistance, of course.

On May Day, thousands of police prevented perhaps as many as 10,000 antifa from meeting and greeting 700 participants in a neo-Nazi march in Hamburg and at a similar event in Nuremberg. “In Hamburg and Nuremberg, the NPD marched between cordons of riot police ordered to enforce the NPD’s right of free assembly. Anti-NPD protesters far outnumbered boot-wearing rightists in both cities.” According to Deutsche-Welle, “Bavaria state’s premier, Guenther Beckstein, who comes from the city, told a peaceful anti-NPD rally in another part of town that his government would use undercover agents, court challenges and youth education programmes to undercut the NPD wherever it could”, which suggests he may like to brush up a little on his history.

The bad news is that, while the German state has for many years been seeking to crush the anarchist and leftist opposition, Köpi, a Berlin squat, appears to have been saved from eviction.

NEO-NAZI SCENE IN GERMANY

Extremist Violence the Norm in Parts of the Country
Stefan Berg, Markus Deggerich and Sven Röbel
Spiegel Online
June 3, 2008

Arson attacks and racist assaults by right-wing extremists are part of everyday life in parts of Germany. Authorities are concerned that the country’s neo-Nazi scene is becoming increasingly violent.

The arsonists came on the night before Adolf Hitler’s birthday. After attempting to burn down an Asian fast-food stand on a square in front of the train station in Blankenfelde, a town in the eastern German state of Brandenburg, they turned their attention to the adjacent doner kebab stand owned by Haci D., 39. The fire quickly burned through the wooden side wall and engulfed the entire stand. By daybreak on April 20, Haci D. had lost his livelihood.

Haci D. had tried repeatedly to get insurance to cover his business but hadn’t managed to find a company that would take him on. Fire insurance for a Turkish doner kebab stand in Brandenburg? Officially, says Haci D., the insurance companies cited “construction risks” as their reason for rejecting his applications.

These “construction risks” now affect the very foundation of a society in which right-wing extremist violence has become normal. “Right-wing extremism is part of everyday life and only attracts attention when the crimes are especially horrific,” says Wolfgang Thierse, the Social Democrat vice-president of the lower house of the German parliament, the Bundestag.

The statistics are alarming. In 2007, the number of reported arson attacks committed by right-wing extremists climbed to 24 from 18 in the previous year. The targets are foreigners, including immigrants’ mosques, cars and cafés.

“These are crimes that pose a threat to public safety and that could lead to people getting killed,” warns Heinz Fromm, president of Germany’s domestic intelligence service. The upward trend seems to be continuing this year. The numbers in March were higher than they had been in years. Throughout Germany, the police documented a total of 1,311 right-wing extremist and racist crimes, an increase of 458 over the year-earlier month. The incidents included 72 acts of violence, the government said in response to an inquiry from the Left Party vice president of the Bundestag, Petra Pau.

New Trend of “Anarchist Nationalists”

Intelligence agents have identified a new, right-wing extremist phenomenon: so-called anarchist nationalists who are “significantly more likely to commit acts of violence against political rivals and the police.” After the May riots in Hamburg, the police are keenly aware of the threat posed by this new group of extremist thugs. In Hamburg, they joined in the fray wearing the same black outfits and showing a similar level of aggression as leftist anarchists. It took a massive police effort to prevent the situation from spinning out of control. What happened in Hamburg, says Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, a Christian Democrat, attests to a “new quality.”

The anarchist nationalists number about 400 people, or roughly 10 percent of Germany’s neo-Nazi community. They constitute the advance guard of a broader violent movement which is making inroads into western Germany. The movement has long since established itself in the east where it feels unassailable and in some areas has come to dominate everyday life.

Last year the highest number of arson attacks by neo-Nazis were committed in the eastern state of Brandenburg, especially in the vicinity of the city of Cottbus, where four foreign-owned businesses were attacked in October of 2007 alone. Investigators speculate that an organized structure was behind the apparently concerted series of attacks.

But while the risk of such attacks is growing, the public is paying less attention to them. “Right-wing extremists haven’t become more harmless,” says Anetta Kahane of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation Against Right-Wing Extremism, “it’s just that our perception or the problem has changed.” Kahane has noticed a growing “culture of becoming accustomed and of fatigue” which is enabling right-wing extremists to become openly aggressive.

Frankfurt an der Oder, an eastern city on the German-Polish border, is a place where right-wing violence has developed into an everyday phenomenon. Paradoxically, the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) failed to capture a single seat in recent municipal elections. Nevertheless, the city administration and police are aware of the local far-right scene’s potential for violence. The “Sportlerklause,” a local sports bar catering to neo-Nazi thugs, was shut down. The city is home to precisely the kind of environment that worries the authorities: a dangerous hooligan scene surrounding the local football club, FFC Viktoria.

Police estimate that the group counts 40 to 50 violence-prone right-wing extremists, and they have struck repeatedly. In the past, the NPD recruited its bodyguards from among these football fans — now, however, the group seems to be organizing on its own. There are even photos showing the radical football fans giving the Hitler salute with SS skull-and-crossbones patches on their clothing.

    See also : The BNP’s German pals face their own troubles (Searchlight, March 2008):

    “GERMANY’S MAIN NAZI organisation, the National Democratic Party (NPD), set itself the objective for 2008 of entering both the Hessen and Niedersachsen regional parliaments. But despite an unprecedented campaign, especially in Niedersachsen, the party failed badly in both regions. The result was a serious setback for the NPD, which has seats in two east German regions but none in the west.

    This was only the latest in a series of problems confronting the NPD. Since last summer the party has had to grapple with the so-called Autonomous Nationalists (ANs) who belong to the wider spectrum of militant nazism that goes under the name Freie Kameradschaften.

    The ANs notably try to copy the radical left Autonomen, both in their dress style and by skirmishing with the police on demonstrations in an effort to look militant. This behaviour irritates the more sedate law-and-order enthusiasts of the NPD which declared in August 2007 that it did not want people who look like “left anarchists” and frighten the public on its demonstrations…”

    When Nazis go Pop… New strategies of the extreme right in Germany, Raggacore, LFO DEMON, November 12, 2004

Assaults and Intimidation

A few days ago, masked men attacked yet again, assaulting students in front of a club in Frankfurt an der Oder. The doormen at the club alerted the police and managed to prevent the incident from escalating beyond kicks and blows. Seven suspects were arrested, all of them part of the far-right community. But because no one displayed the Hitler salute or shouted slogans like “Leftists Out!” during the nighttime incident, it is unlikely to be documented as a far-right attack.

Christof Winter, a 25-year-old student, has documented countless incidents in Frankfurt, including attacks in broad daylight and fights in discotheques, as well as the omnipresent slogans and symbols in graffiti painted onto buildings. Winter knows many of the right-wing extremists by name. He prefers to ride his bicycle through the city instead of taking the streetcar. He also avoids discotheques. The neo-Nazis know him, just as they keep an eye on Katja Herrlich, 34, an attorney who has collaborated with Winter in his research. Herrlich says that she has felt threatened many times. She is already accustomed to local neo-Nazis addressing her by her first name on the street, saying innocuous-sounding things like, “Hey there, Katja.” The message they seek to convey, she says, is that they know where to find her.

Uwe Adler, 36, of a citizens’ alliance against right-wing extremism in Weimar in the eastern state of Thuringia, reports similar experiences. He belongs to the city’s committee on youth affairs and once noticed two neo-Nazis known to local authorities sitting in the back of the room during a public meeting. They appeared to be taking copious notes on a discussion of problems among Weimar youth. “Right-wing extremists have embarked on a process of normalization in the country’s cities and towns,” says Adler. Some groups have even sponsored waste pickup campaigns in local forests, under the guise of “protecting the environment to protect the homeland.”

The far-right is trying to reinvent itself as champion of ordinary citizens. “Social awareness can only be national awareness” is the new slogan devised by right-wing anti-capitalists. By laying claim to social issues, the neo-Nazis are trying to make violence against “freeloaders” and dissenters socially acceptable. “Wherever the state and civil society are retreating, right-wing extremists are filling the void,” says Anetta Kahane of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation.

Part 2: Brass Knuckles and Ski Masks

The strategy of intimidation is working. In cities like Weimar, people like activist Uwe Adler are still able to find supporters for their citizens’ alliance, “although the numbers have declined.” In April, the group managed to block a neo-Nazi march in Weimar, the city of German poets Goethe and Schiller. But, says Adler, when he recently visited the nearby town of Apolda, “the fear was almost palpable.” Boneheads who knew him by name stood in front of the assembly hall where Adler had gone to launch a citizens’ alliance, and they filmed people as they entered the building.

The outcome of the meeting was sobering. According to Adler, it is difficult to find “any ordinary citizens who are willing to occasionally man an information booth on right-wing extremism in the downtown area.” Some, he says, “are afraid, while others are either indifferent or secretly sympathize with the neo-Nazis.” His parents became concerned when right-wing extremist Web sites began featuring his photo, along with his name and address, as if he were a wanted criminal.

The testimony in a trial currently underway in the eastern city of Dresden has shed light on some of the neo-Nazis’ intimidation tactics. The defendants are members of “Sturm 34,” a gang that has since been banned. Peter E., 24, a former “driver” with the group, provided horrifying insights into the thugs’ modus operandi. According to his testimony, roughly 50 youths gathered under an old German imperial war flag, a symbol for neo-Nazis, in the town of Mittweida in 2006 to mark the founding of the group. Then one of the defendants, Alexander G., nicknamed “Stormer,” climbed onto a table and loudly proclaimed the establishment of Sturm 34. The gang’s gear included gloves filled with sand to increase the impact of blows and, according to Peter E., brass knuckles and ski masks.

Hunt Down Its Victims

Sturm 34 soon put its preparations into practice. In one instance, the gang attacked a camping site in Mittweida, and in another they targeted a pavilion where a local festival was underway. According to investigators, up to 30 members would arrive in cars, arrange themselves in a military formation and attack. The group would also systematically hunt down its victims in car chases.

Although Sturm 34 is now officially disbanded, far-right violence is alive and kicking in the region. Early this year, boneheads in four cars attacked five young men from a town called Geringswalde as they were driving home. When they were forced to stop their car, several masked men jumped out of the cars and attacked them with baseball bats and clubs.

The right-wing extremists have been especially effective at spreading fear among Turks, says Kenan Kolat of the Turkish Community in Germany, a group which campaigns for immigrant rights. Doner kebab stands are seen as an especially easy target. This, in turn, has created a market niche in the insurance business. Because German insurance companies are refusing to provide fire insurance for people like Haci D., small, specialized providers have contacted the Turkish community association to offer fire protection and alarm systems. The representatives sell their services to local Turkish businesses by maintaining that an alarm system will ensure that “the same thing doesn’t happen to you.”

On a visit to the western city of Solingen last week to commemorate the 15th anniversary of a deadly arson attack on a Turkish family, Kolat was able to get a firsthand look at what life can be like for Turkish immigrants threatened by right-wing extremist violence. On May 29, 1993, four men from the local bonehead community set a fire in the entrance of a house owned by the Turkish Genç family. Two women and three girls died in the incident.

The survivors remained in Solingen, where they built a new house — surrounded by a fence and protected by 24-hour video surveillance.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

In Italy:

Rome Diary: Italy’s leap into the dark: Smells, signals and symptoms of fascism
Gaither Stewart
Online Journal
June 2, 2008

“The more powerful a state and hence the more political a nation, the less inclined it is to explain the general principle governing social ills and to seek out their causes by looking at the principle of the state. . . .” –Karl Marx, Critical Notes on ‘The King of Prussia and Social Reform’

As a premise to this diary of events, notes and comments covering a period of one month following the whimsical and perverse electoral choice of this country of 60 million people, I remind readers that since the time of Machiavelli, Italy has often been a political guidepost in Europe. Therefore, Italy’s peculiar preference today for an updated form of fascism that once cost them so dearly and, furthermore, is headed by an accused crook is worth a close look…

In the United States, a new edition (#130, Summer 2008) of Intelligence Report, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s monthly zine, including a feature on the Armenian genocide and Turkish state denial; the stalking of twin brothers by boneheads after one of the twins killed one of the short-haired neo-Nazis during a gang assault on the pair; and a short piece on Oswald Mosley’s son and FIA boss (today winning a confidence vote conducted by the organisation’s governing body) Max, caught with his pants down and on film, in a “sick Nazi orgy with 5 hookers”!

Finally, in Australia, ‘national anarchist’ activity has been fairly minimal. In fact, the few dozen fascist fellas who call themselves ‘anarchists’ have made exactly three public appearances thus far, most recently, in Melbourne. On May 4, 2008, a half-dozen of the dickheads tried to join the Victorian Trades Hall Council rally, and were told to piss off (which they duly did). That said, the group, though tiny, has expressed its intention to attend future rallies, so it’s possible that the police will assume the same role here as they have in Germany — and at the APEC rally in September last year, at which the New Right/’national anarchists’ made their debut — and form a protective guard. Which is probably unnecessary, as bugger all ‘Reds’ have been paying them any attention in any case. I suppose time will tell if they’re anything more than a flash in the pan or not. In the meantime, watch this space…

    I’ve got to give it to Welf and his cadre for having the restraint from braining these fools. New Right/New Reich!? That’s not even original! ~ “Ean Frick”, attackthesystem, September 14, 2007

    @ndy… you think you’re getting to me… but you’re clearly not… I find it amusing that you are the Melbourne Punk Stalker! You know everything that’s going on! Your shitty little website there is probably better off being a gig website. You know when ALL the shows are on! … Anyway… anarchy is a fag… that’s all I have to say to you Mr Moran… ~ Chunga, chungacunt, September 23, 2007

    Honestly, I am going to fucking kill you. I hope it was worth it. ~ Joel, December 10, 2007

    Bombshell Punk R o c k Forum, December 2007:

    Top guy. ~ Doug Smith

    @ndy you’re a fucking idiot mate and you better watch your back because when me and my mates are out and about, if we see you, ur dead / @ndy im still going to bash you, fukn gooknigger scum ~ Anonymous

    i dont think u have the right to fucking breath[e] u piece of [shit]. if you like gooks so much why dont you fuck off to some gook country and see how much they tolerate mouthy cunts such as yourself. then you may see why we dont want the scum to do the same here / and reading earlier you were very concerned about some of us hassling a negroid girl, well did you stop to think there may have been a reason? she was foul, spitting on people, drinking goon, making a fool of herself and she had what was coming. anyway mate youre a goose and i think you should put your money where your mouth is ~ BirmyHammerSkinz

    As I stated on the previous forum Andy, you are a liar, a hypocrite and no better than the trash that you fight against. ~ Dion

Ah… teh Interwebs!

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

White nationalism v national anarchism

Posted on June 3, 2008 by @ndy

RAHOWA!

An awesome! discussion has been taking place on Stormfront Down Under recently on the subject of the New Right/national anarchism, and its rather strained relationship with ‘White nationalism’. On the one side, there’s the Jew-hating ‘anarchists’: such as White_Australian, PanEuropeanAnglo, Power&Pride, Sydney Sinner, Prometheus and Paladin89; and on the other, there’s the Jew-hating ‘White nationalists’: au§§ie_lad, AussieSS, SQUADRISTA1488 [Italy], Spirit of 1776 [Canada], Hobbit, Rev.Patrick.-WCOTC, Lincolnshiretruth and Pitbull38. The cast and crew are tying themselves in knots trying to articulate their views while simultaneously battling the English language and their own political incoherency, and it makes for an awful and awfully compelling spectacle.

Well, kinda.

Actually, my attention was initially attracted to the thread because one of the brains trust referred to slackbastard; a reference which Paul Innes has since removed, suggesting that — like FightDemBack! and Nazi swastikas — I’ve been placed on a permanent ban.

Sensitive mob, this lot.

Anyways, the main bone of contention is the proclaimed desire of the ‘national anarchists’ to destroy the Australian state and create little White villages — alongside, presumably, little black villages, little yellow villages, and however many other little villages of however many colours they believe the species actually consists of. For those committed to a White Australian nation-state, this peculiar little phantasy is obviously unacceptable.

    A few choice quotes:

    AryanQueen2000 (White nationalist): “I love the idea of living the life of a stockman.”

    PanEuropeanAnglo (‘Anarchist’): “I was at the checkout line tonight and a typical “Aussie” bloke was calling the checkout chick “mate” several times. She was of mongoloid extraction. Superficially, they had nothing in common and it was doubtful that he had met her before tonight.”

    “The symbol on this forum has the writing ‘White Pride World Wide”. Think about what this means – if ALL Europeans make us less than 10%, what percentage do you think Anglo-Saxons make up in Australia?”

    Duhhh… Well, according to the Year Book Australia, 2008, in 2006, more than 270 ancestries were separately identified by Australia’s population. The most commonly stated were Australian (37%) and English (32%), while other main ancestries included Irish (9%), Scottish (8%), Italian (4%), German (4%), and Chinese (3%)… The proportion of the population who reported more than one ancestry increased from 22% in 2001 to 35% in 2006. For those who reported Australian ancestry, the second ancestries reported were mainly English (17% of the total Australian ancestry group), Scottish (4%) and Irish (3%).

Un-Australian?

PanEuropeanAnglo — the Jew and ‘mongrel’-hating ‘anarchist’ — nevertheless declares her ‘support’ for ‘indigenous rights’. au§§ie_lad, not unreasonably, from a White nationalist perspective, declares this to be un-Australian. However, to be un-Australian is not necessarily a bad thing, according to Power&Pride. What’s an Aussie, after all? “aussie is now asians and middle eastern people, it[‘]s indian chefs and drug deals, it[‘]s perverts and criminals, it[‘]s black gangs and graffiti, it[‘]s people who don[‘]t care and people who care and don[‘]t try, [it’s] Leb night club stabbings and people breeding like [rabbits]”.

I see.

Asianisation

Be that as it may, proponents of ‘national anarchism’ and the New Right are convinced of the righteousness of their cause. And in the name of this cause, New Right fuehrer Welf Herfurth is arranging for some of his followers to accompany him on one of his semi-regular jaunts to Asia. There, Herfurth & Co. intend to help the Hmong (who live in Laos, China, Thailand, and Vietnam) help themselves, and thereby avoid having to create space for a little Hmong village in Australia alongside the little white ones. Or as White_Australian delicately phrases it: “If helping to build a few mud-huts, some dams, dikes and ponds to keep Asians in Asia rather than having them migrate to Australia and other White/Western countries actually works th[e]n that[‘]s indeed a good thing”.

Awww.

The NR/NA — or should that be NA/NR? — also demonstrated their views on Asian politics by attending a rally in Canberra, proclaiming on their banner ‘We Are All Tibetans!’. Thus proving that, unlike their critics, they aren’t keyboard commandos but, um, Tibetans.

Or something.

Actually, the boys of the New Right, by their own admittance, don’t care for Asians (“There is no support for Tibet” says Sydney Sinner), but gathering in silence for an hour or so in Canberra in a vain attempt to garner media attention was, rather, a way of tripping up the tricksy Reds. Prometheus opines that the half-dozen fascists in the nation’s capital is all about “Nationalists supporting nationalist movements”; which, even if true, has nothing to do with White (Australian) nationalism, which is, after all, a racial movement. Or as the token Italian Nazi SQUADRISTA1488 puts it: “WHY NEW RIGHT NATIONAL ANARCHISTS ARE LINKED [WITH] THE WORST ANTI-WHITE SCUM OF THE [EARTH]????!!!!”.

Quite.

Power&Pride, never slow on the uptake, responds “it[‘]s only about race with you guys”.

Duh.

In pursuit of their nutty agenda, the NR/NA have taken to aping anarchists. Thus Paladin89 asks of the Aryan Supermen on SFDU: “Are you aware of the developments in Nationalism in Germany, Holland and Sweden? They have taken on the look of the antifa there and have taken hold of the streets[.] I am of course oversimplifying the new developments, but this is what has basically happened. Perhaps you should do a little more research…” Mind you, our knight in shining White armour is also a devotee of Norman Lowell and Imperium Europa, which promotes “A Europid bond, forged through Spirituality closely followed by Race, nurtured through High Culture, protected by High Politics, enforced by the The Elite”.

Madder than a cut snake.

Pibull38 isn’t convinced, comparing the NR/NA to C18, a supposed government ‘honey-trap’.

Surely not.

Posted in !nataS, Anti-fascism, State / Politics | 6 Comments

Anarchism 3 Socialist Alternative 0

Posted on June 3, 2008 by @ndy

…for juan and liz…

one

Ah-ah-ah, ha-ha, ho-ho!

Fly into the streets! All who are still fresh and young and not dehumanized — to the streets! The pot-bellied mortar of laughter stands in a square drunk with joy. Laughter and Love, copulating with Melancholy and Hate, pressed together in the mighty, convulsive passion of bestial lust. Long live the psychology of contrasts! Intoxicated, burning spirits have raised the flaming banner of intellectual revolution. Death to the creatures of routine, the philistines, the sufferers from gout! Smash with a deafening noise the cup of vengeful storms! Tear down the churches and their allies the museums! Blast to smithereens the fragile idols of Civilization! Hey, you decadent architects of the sarcophagi of thought, you watchmen of the universal cemetery of books — stand aside! We have come to remove you! The old must be buried, the dusty archives burned by the Vulcan’s torch of creative genius. Past the flaky ashes of world-wide destruction, past the charred canvases of bulky paintings, past the burned, fat, pot-bellied volumes of classics we march, we Anarcho-Futurists! Above the vast expanse of devastation covering our land the banner of anarchy will be proudly unfurled. Writing has no value! There is no market for literature! There are no prisons, no limits for subjective creativity! Everything is permitted! Everything is unrestricted! ~ ‘Shturmovoi, opustoshaiushchii manifest anarkho-futuristive’, K Svetu (Kharkov), March 14, 1919, p.1, in The Anarchists in the Russian Revolution, Paul Avrich (editor), Thames and Hudson, 1973, pp.52–53 [extract]

two

The accused have never denied the charge of misappropriating the funds of the Strasbourg Student Union. Indeed, they openly admit to having made the union pay some 5000 francs for the printing of 10,000 pamphlets, not to mention the cost of other literature inspired by the “Situationist International.” These publications express aims and ideas which, to put it mildly, have nothing to do with the purposes of a student union. One need only read what the accused have written for it to be obvious that these five students, scarcely more than adolescents, lacking any experience of real life, their minds confused by ill-digested philosophical, social, political and economic theories and bored by the drab monotony of their everyday life, have the pathetic arrogance to make sweeping denunciations of their fellow students, their professors, God, religion, the clergy, and the governments and political and social systems of the entire world. Rejecting all morality and legal restraint, these cynics do not shrink from advocating theft, the destruction of scholarship, the abolition of work, total subversion and a permanent worldwide proletarian revolution with “unrestrained pleasure” as its only goal. ~ Judge Llabador, Strasbourg District Court, December 13, 1966

three

I was one of the organisers of the G20 demo from the Stop the War Coalition and I am also in Socialist Alternative.

The anarchist crazies involved in the ultra-violence were in no serious sense part of the demo. Just like their black bloc mates in Europe they simply exploited the demo for their own purposes.

Right throughout the lead-up to the demo they made clear their hostility to and contempt for other protestors. On the day they did all they could to disrupt the demonstration and were hostile, abusive, threatening and ultra-sectarian towards people on the demo.

Australia, fortunately, has not previously been blighted by the sort of black bloc anarchist activities which have had such a disastrous impact on demonstrations in Europe. These people are simply provocateurs that open up protests to police repression. In Europe their ranks have been riddled by police agents and fascists.

What gave them a certain critical mass at the G20 was the presence of considerable numbers of anarchists from overseas. One of our members from New Zealand said he recognised at least 40 NZ anarchists. He knew at least 20 of them by name. There were also a considerable number of black bloc anarchists from Europe. We know of people from Sweden, Germany and England. These people are like football hooligans who travel the world looking for violence.

On top of that there were also a considerable number of anarchists from interstate.

Because of the behaviour of these provocateurs the media and the law and order brigade are having a field day.

The left should offer no comfort to these crazies. We should do whatever we can to isolate them. They are wreckers. If they grow in Australia it will simply make it harder to build future protests and movements. ~ Mick Armstrong, Leftwrites, November 19, 2006

A Trotskyist groupuscule which formed in 1995 as a split from the International Social Organisation (ISO), Socialist Alternative (SAlt) is almost certainly the largest group on the student left. On the subject of anarchism, it provides a fairly orthodox Trotskyist appraisal, albeit one given a slightly demented twist by the likes of its chief ideologue Mick Armstrong. (This is most in evidence in Mick’s response to the events at G20, but is also evident in his article ‘Is there anything radical about anarchism?’, which appeared in the June 2007 edition of SAlt’s monthly.) Thus ‘anarchism’ is understood on roughly the same terms as ‘Marxism’. In this schematic, ‘Marxism’ is the body of theory based on the productions of the mind of nineteenth century bourgeois philosopher Karl Marx (along with other notables — Engels, Lenin, Trotsky et al); while ‘Anarchism’ may be understood similarly as having issued forth from other nineteenth century figures (Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Mikhail Bakunin in particular: one or the other, depending on the source, being bestowed with the title “the father of anarchism”).

And so on and so forth.

G20

I’ve already replied to Mick’s diatribe on anarchism — in essence, he argues that it’s a form of ‘bourgeois individualism’ — so I won’t do so again here. I will note, however, that SAlt did issue a statement on G20 two days after Armstrong’s initial outburst, on November 21, which constituted a less crazed attack on the actions of ‘the anarchists’ at G20, but which otherwise served as a recapitulation of Mick’s basic argument. (Note that the now seemingly defunct Melbourne Stop the War Coalition issued a near-identical statement.) It concluded:

That’s why the left who want to reach out to masses of people need to:

1. Politically oppose anyone coming to protest rallies wearing masks or other forms of disguise. We need openness and accountability in the movement. Such dress creates a sinister atmosphere, breeds distrust, and makes police infiltration more likely.

2. Make it clear that there is a sharp dividing line between those involved in the violent provocations at G20 and the genuine left who want to relate to masses of people in order to change the world.

3. Make no concessions to the idea that this is just a form of “diversity”, just another difference of opinion. These tactics are completely counterproductive and the left will pay the price if we make concessions to them.

These questions are urgently in need of discussion as we are about to begin organising for the APEC forum next September in Sydney which Bush is expected to attend. If we are to maximise our ability to mobilise significant numbers, we have to take this clear stand and prepare to organise on the basis of genuine mass protest with no role for the kind of violent provocation we saw at G20.

I think comment on the above is superfluous.

Curiously, in the interim, the statement has been removed from the SAlt site, and its most recent, and only, statement regarding G20, dated March 8, 2008, condemns the “outrageous” sentencing meted out to Akin Sari, one of the anarchist crazies involved in the ultra-violence who was in no serious sense part of the demo and who simply exploited it for his own purposes (and a foreigner to boot).

“However that is not the main issue now”, as they say.

Instead, two things.

First, Shazam! ‘New facts explode an anarchist myth’ (Daniel Lopez and Corey Oakley, March 2006).

Secondly, SAlt claims possession of ‘Ideas to challenge capitalism’. That is, it’s organising a series of conferences in August on ‘Socialism’: in Melbourne on Saturday, August 16; in Brisbane on Sunday, August 17; in Sydney on Saturday, August 23; and in Perth on Sunday, August 24.

As a general rule of thumb, when groups such as SAlt address the subject of anarchism, it’s to warn off their members from expressing too close an interest. As such, it’s interesting to note that as a part of conference proceedings in Melbourne and Sydney — but not Brisbane or Perth — SAlt is organising a presentation on ‘Anarchism Put to the Test: the Spanish Revolution of 1936’ (I wonder if it passed?).

Now, call me crazy, ultra-violent, silly, exploitative, hostile, contemptuous, abusive, threatening, ultra-sectarian, a provocateur, possibly a foreigner, a hooligan, and a wrecker best isolated from those who genuinely seek radical social change, but I would suggest that a better, more accurate account of the role of the anarchists in the Spanish Revolution will be found in the documentary film Vivir La Utopia — recently screened as part of the La Mirada Spanish Film Festival, but also, happily, available for viewing on YouTube. Here’s Part One:

Hue & Cry and Lopez, Oakley & Kramer on Kronstadt

As for Kronstadt and the earth-shaking revelations breathlessly reported by Daniel and Corey, their reportage is a trifle odd, not least because when they reported their discovery of them, these ‘explosive new facts’ were in reality several years old. Further, in terms of ‘new facts’, their article (dated March 2006), merely refers to another article, ‘Kronstadt: Trotsky was right!’ by ‘A Kramer’, published on the International Viewpoint site in December 2003.

    As near as I can figure, Kramer is an Israeli Marxist and one-time editor of Iskra, the possibly defunct publication of the International Marxist Tendency in that country. As an aside, Kramer also wrote an article for the IMT on the subject of the Black Panthers in Israel: “The Black Panthers usually used the so-called tactic of “direct action”. For example in March 1972 they stole all the milk destined for the wealthy Jerusalem Rechavia district and transferred it to the poor suburb of Kirjat-Uvel. In every bottle was a short letter, explaining that milk was more important for poor children than for rich people’s cats.” In Sydney, Australia, the same stunt was conducted by anarchists at around the same time. The leaflet they left at bourgeois homes read: “Dear Householder, This is to inform you that it was not your milkman who failed you this morning. Your milk was delivered but has been redirected. While you were snoring in your cosy beds, Sydney members of the Dairy Liberation Front have struck! This activity is in conjunction with simultaneous action interstate. The material comfort we have seen here is in sharp contrast to the lives of the people to whom we are redelivering this milk. We pay the cost of your wealth in poverty and alienated labour. Today your milk, tomorrow your “bread”! Dairy Liberation Front.”

Kramer’s article re-capitulates the standard line on Kronstadt, the one first articulated by Trotsky. However, it also refers to two books, The Unknown Trotsky and Kronstadt 1921, published in Moscow — presumably in Russian — in 2000 and 2001. I’ve looked, but unfortunately can find no online reference to them anywhere but in Kramer’s essay. Moreover, in terms of astonishing revelations, there appear to be — to be precise, there are claimed to be — two: one is a quote from a document apparently produced by some sailors, viz, “The men of the White guards that are leading the rebels can do a lot of damage to the Republic, and they may not even hesitate to bomb Petrograd“. That is, an indeterminate number of sailors, loyal to the Bolsheviks, wrote a letter to the Kremlin supporting its view.

The second, according to Kramer, concerns “what happened in the town around Kronstadt. During the attack on Kronstadt, the workers of the town moved against the putschists and liberated the town even before the main forces of the Red Army arrived. So in reality what we had was not a workers’ and sailors’ rebellion against Bolshevism, but a workers’ and sailors’ Bolshevik uprising against the “rebels”!”.

Uh-huh.

This is a kinda kooky take on Kronstadt, in my opinion, especially given the existence of considerable evidence to the contrary, and, moreover, the fact that the documents — as, presumably, they are to be found in the Russian publications of 2000 and 2001 referred to by Kramer — are drawn from the Communist archives; while Kramer’s article provides no other details, it appears reasonable to assume that these are likely to have reflected State opinion. As such, this is a very weak basis upon which to conclude, as Daniel and Corey do, that while anarchists view the Kronstadt uprising and its suppression by the Bolshevik regime as evidence of its counter-revolutionary nature, “new evidence revealed from the USSR’s archives proves beyond doubt the falsity of these claims.” They further conclude that the Kronstadt rebels were:

A sorry collection of anti-Semitic peasants, led by pro-Tsarist Generals who openly admit that their adherence to “soviet” power was nothing but a device to take it themselves. These heroic “rebels”, when faced with a workers’ uprising in support of Bolshevism, which was also backed by many sailors, used terror and repression to maintain their hold on power. An interesting bunch of facts on which to hang a theory denouncing Bolshevism!

Those silly anarchists! Will they ever learn?

To which the answer is, of course, ‘yes’. One of the lessons to be learned is to treat such pronouncements with extreme caution. With regards the accusation that the Kronstadt rebels were “a sorry collection of anti-Semitic peasants”, for example, one might ask the question: What evidence is there of anti-Semitism among the sailors, soldiers and workers of Kronstadt? Daniel and Corey cite the following: “a sailor[,] Dmitry Urin, wrote [March 5, 1921] to his father in the Ukraine: “We in Kronstadt made a resolution to send all the Jews to Palestine, in order not to have in Russia such filth, all sailors shouted: ‘Jews Out’.”

Given the title of their piece, it might be assumed that this letter is a startling new discovery unearthed in the Soviet archives. In fact, it is not, and is merely a reiteration of a claim made many years earlier by fellow Trotskyist Abbie Bakan (“A Tragic Necessity”, Socialist Worker Review, No.136, November 1990). To which the authors of the anarchistfaq have already responded:

Bakan asserts that anti-semitism “was vicious and rampant” yet fails to provide any official Kronstadt proclamations expressing this perspective. Rather, we are to generalise from the memoirs of one sailor and the anti-semitic remark of Vershinin, a member of the Revolutionary Committee. Let us not forget that the opinions of these sailors and others like them were irrelevant to the Bolsheviks when they drafted them in the first place. And, more importantly, this “vicious and rampant” anti-semitism failed to mark the demands raised nor the Kronstadt rebels’ newspaper or radio broadcasts. Nor did the Bolsheviks mention it at the time.

Moreover, it is true that the “worse venom of the Kronstadt rebels was levelled against Trotsky and Zinoviev” but it was not because, as Bakan asserts, they were “treated as Jewish scapegoats.” Their ethnic background was not mentioned by the Kronstadt sailors. Rather, there were strong political reasons for attacking them. As Paul Avrich argues, “Trotsky in particular was the living symbol of War Communism, of everything the sailors had rebelled against. His name was associated with centralisation and militarisation, with iron discipline and regimentation.” As for Zinoviev, he had “incurred the sailors’ loathing as the party boss who had suppressed the striking workers and who had stooped to taking their own families as hostages.” Good reasons to attack them and nothing to do with them being Jewish. [Kronstadt 1921, p. 178 and p. 176]

Given that something like 16,000 sailors, workers and soldiers attended the mass meeting on March 1, 1921 that adopted the 15-point program of the Kronstadt rebellion, it would appear a little bit silly to claim that, because one sailor expressed his hatred of Jews in a private letter to his father, that the Kronstadt rebels were therefore “A sorry collection of anti-Semitic peasants”. Nevertheless, this is the claim being made. And this rather odd conjecture is reinforced by Kramer in another article (The Makhno anarchists, Kronstadt and the position of the Russian peasants in post-revolutionary Russia, In Defence of Marxism, November 17, 2004).

The rather pathetic nature of the Trotskyist claim that anti-Semitism was rife among the rebels, and can partly explain their rebellion, applies equally to the rhetoric regarding the political and social composition of the rebels (they were backward peasants), as well as the lie that the rebellion was led by “White Generals” (first mooted by the Bolshevik state apparatus in March 1921).

Note that the day after the surrender of Kronstadt, March 19, the Bolsheviks celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the Paris Commune. And while on the one hand the lies and distortions continue unabated, on the other hand the political monstrosity that the Bolsheviks created — and in the defence of which the rebellion was crushed — now lies in the dustbin of history.

Anyone seriously interested in examining the real nature of the Kronstadt upising could do a lot worse than the Anarchist FAQ (Appendix 4.2: What was the Kronstadt Rebellion?) or the libcom archive.

Next on the chopping block:

Isn’t the concept of a revolutionary party elitist?
Tom Bramble
February 2007

…So anarchists or people who consider themselves “movement activists” declare that they too want to see revolutionary change, but that a party is either unnecessary or is a barrier to radical change. Commonly such critics argue that a revolutionary party is “elitist”, by which they mean that a revolutionary party seeks to lead, and that this is by definition a Bad Thing. They have in mind a Stalinised bastardisation of the party – one which seeks to stand “above” the working class (and social movements), dictating to the class what it should and should not think. And when the time is right, it will opportunistically seize power and establish a new dictatorship…

The lessons of the anti-APEC protests
Diane Fieldes
October 2008

Behind all of this was the domestic agenda of the “war on terror”. While the main focus of this has been fear-mongering about Muslims, Howard, Iemma, the cops and the media were not going to miss the opportunity to try to equate demonstrations with terrorism, in order to intimidate people out of protesting.

In this they were assisted by the actions of a small number – the so-called “Arterial Bloc” – at the demonstration against the G20 leaders in Melbourne last November. In a totally elitist fashion, these people decided to throw themselves at the police lines without reference to the thousands of demonstrators who had come to the rally.

It is not accidental that the NSW police constantly referred to these events as the “justification” for their massive militarised presence at the APEC protest, nor that it was G20 footage of small groups of masked idiots in white chemical suits that the media ran to “prove” the protest at APEC was going to be violent…

Bonus! Trotskyism Explained!

Posted in Anarchism, Trot Guide | 8 Comments

Bill Henson : Video response

Posted on June 2, 2008 by @ndy

For Andrew Bolt & Timmeh Blair & Paul Sheehan & So On & So Forth:

Evidently Chickentown!



Posted in Art, Media, Sex & Sexuality, State / Politics | 3 Comments

Kevin Andrews : Tool of the Week

Posted on June 2, 2008 by @ndy

Former Minister for Immigration Kevin Andrews is a scumbag — and that’s official. In July 2007, Andrews, struck down with an advanced and seemingly incurable case of PotKettleBlack, conspired to keep Gold Coast doctor Mohammed Haneef locked up because of his alleged ‘poor character’. In October — just a few weeks prior to the Federal election — Andrews announced that the reason he was forced to reduce the intake to Australia of African refugees was because of the reasons they were seeking asylum in the first place. He even stooped to using the beating to death of a young Sudanese refugee to — somehow, bizarrely — ‘bolster’ his case. Naturally, Andrews’ unadorned bigotry attracted the support of the Wicked Witch of Ipswich; it didn’t seem to help HoWARd retain Gub’mint however.

MP ‘stirred up racial hostility’
Jewel Topsfield
The Age
May 31, 2008

RACIAL harassment of Africans increased following former immigration minister Kevin Andrews’ claims they were engaged in crime and failing to integrate, according to a confidential Immigration Department report…

The Age reported earlier this month that Mr Andrews had been acting contrary to advice from his department when he cited the failure of the Sudanese to integrate as a reason for cutting African refugee numbers.

In 2007-08, Australia allocated 30% of refugee places to Africans, down from 70% in 2004-05.

The Immigration Department maintained this was because of an improvement in some African countries and the need to help Iraqis displaced by war and Burmese refugees living in camps on the Thai-Burma border.

But Mr Andrews appeared to contradict this when he claimed, after the fatal bashing of Sudanese refugee Liep Gony, that the refugee intake from places such as Sudan had been cut amid fears that “some groups don’t seem to be settling and adjusting into the Australian life as quickly as we would hope”.

…

The chairman of the Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria, Sam Afra, said the documents obtained by The Age confirmed the group’s worst fears. “Some might consider polarising society to be a clever political tactic in the lead-up to an election, but these alarming findings reveal such ploys do not come without a cost,” Mr Afra said.

A cost not borne by Kevin, however, who remains in the seat named after HoWARd’s hero, aka Pig-Iron Bob.

Posted in State / Politics | Leave a comment

Monday Anarchist Bloggy

Posted on June 2, 2008 by @ndy

Cool. A new (April 2008) blog by anarchist historian Robert Graham.

Robert Graham’s Anarchism Weblog | Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas “is intended to provide additional commentary and selections to accompany my anthology of anarchist writings, Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas. Volume 1, subtitled From Anarchy to Anarchism (300CE-1939), was published in 2005 by Black Rose Books. Volume 2, tentatively subtitled The Anarchist Current (1939-2007), should be out sometime in 2008. It’s possible that Volume 2 will be split into two volumes, Between Apocalypse and Utopia and The Anarchist Current, with Volume 2 covering the period from the beginning of the Second World War to the 1970s, and Volume 3 going from there to the present day.”

Kick arse.

For those of you who came in late, anarchism wasn’t borne out of the overflowing brains of Proudhon, Bakunin, Stirner, Kropotkin or Makhno; nor is it bourgeois grrls (like Goldman) gone wild, or a recipe for making bombs.

Preface to Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, Volume One: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300CE-1939)

Anarchy, a society without government, has existed since time immemorial. Anarchism, the doctrine that such a society is desirable, is a much more recent development.

For tens of thousands of years, human beings lived in societies without any formal political institutions or constituted authority. About 6,000 years ago, around the time of the so-called dawn of civilization, the first societies with formal structures of hierarchy, command, control and obedience began to develop. At first, these hierarchical societies were relatively rare and isolated primarily to what is now Asia and the Middle East. Slowly they increased in size and influence, encroaching upon, sometimes conquering and enslaving, the surrounding anarchic tribal societies in which most humans continued to live. Sometimes independently, sometimes in response to pressures from without, other tribal societies also developed hierarchical forms of social and political organization. Still, before the era of European colonization, much of the world remained essentially anarchic, with people in various parts of the world continuing to live without formal institutions of government well into the 19th century. It was only in the 20th century that the globe was definitively divided up between competing nation states which now claim sovereignty over virtually the entire planet…

It was only after hierarchical societies arose that people within them began to conceive of anarchy as a positive alternative. Some, such as the early Daoist philosophers in China, looked back to an age without government, when people lived in peace with themselves and the world. Various Christian sects looked forward to the second coming, when the egalitarian brotherly love of Christ and his disciples would triumph over evil. Rationalists, such as Zeno, the founder of Stoicism in ancient Greece, and later Renaissance and Enlightenment thinkers, envisaged a new era of enlightenment, when reason would replace coercion as the guiding force in human affairs.

Although none of these early advocates of anarchy described themselves as anarchists, what they all share is opposition to coercive authority and hierarchical relationships based on power, wealth or privilege. In contrast to other radicals, they also reject any authoritarian or privileged role for themselves in the struggle against authority and in the creation of a free society.

We find similar attitudes among some of the revolutionaries in the modern era. During the French Revolution, the enragés and the radical egalitarians opposed revolutionary dictatorship and government as a contradiction in terms, and sought to abolish all hierarchical distinctions, including that between the governed and the governors.

But it was not until around the time of the 1848 Revolutions in Europe that anarchism began to emerge as a distinct doctrine. It was Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in France who was the first to describe himself as an anarchist in 1840. Anarchist ideas soon spread to Germany, Spain and Italy. Following the failure of the 1848 Revolutions some expatriates, disillusioned by politics, adopted an anarchist position.

As the political reaction in Europe began to ebb in the 1860s, anarchist ideas re-emerged, ultimately leading to the creation of an avowedly anarchist movement from out of the anti-authoritarian sections of the socialist First International. The Paris Commune, despite being drowned in blood, gave renewed inspiration to the anarchists and helped persuade many of them to adopt an anarchist communist position. The anarchist communists championed the Commune, but insisted that within the revolutionary commune there should be no ruling authority and no private property, but rather free federation and distribution according to need.

Although anarchist communism was perhaps the most influential anarchist doctrine, soon spreading throughout Europe, Latin America and later Asia, the First International had bequeathed to the anarchist movement another doctrine of comparable significance, anarcho-syndicalism, a combination of anarchism and revolutionary trade unionism based on direct action and anti-parliamentarianism.

Of lesser significance were anarchist collectivism, where distribution of wealth was to be based on labour, and individualist anarchism, which for the most part was but a footnote to Max Stirner.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a new era of revolutions began, first in Mexico, then in Russia, culminating, at least for the anarchists, in Spain. At the same time, anarchists had to deal with a devastating war in Europe and the rise of totalitarianism.

Anarchist ideas spread throughout Latin America, China, and Japan and Korea. I was fortunate to obtain for this volume translations of considerable material from these areas and from Europe that has never before appeared in English. I have also included several translations from now out of print sources that would otherwise be unavailable. Generally, I have organized the selections chronologically, but with a specific theme for each chapter, to try to convey the scope of anarchist ideas, as well as their historical development.

This is the first of a two volume documentary history of anarchist ideas. The final chapter of this volume, with selections from Emma Goldman, Herbert Read and Errico Malatesta, constitutes both an epilogue to volume one, and a prologue to volume two, which will cover the period from 1939 to the present day. I regard all three as important figures in the transition from “classical anarchism,” covering the period from Proudhon to the Spanish Revolution, to modern anarchism as it developed after the Second World War.

A review of the material in this volume alone demonstrates how remarkable was the breadth and depth of anarchist thinking for its time. Anarchists and their precursors, such as Fourier, were among the first to criticize the combined effects of the organization of work, the division of labour and technological innovation under capitalism. Anarchists recognized the importance of education as both a means of social control and as a potential means of liberation. They had important things to say about art and free expression, law and morality. They championed sexual freedom but also criticized the commodification of sex under capitalism. They were critical of all hierarchical relationships, whether between father and children, husband and wife, teacher and student, professionals and workers, or leaders and led, throughout society and even within their own organizations. They emphasized the importance of maintaining consistency between means and ends, and in acting in accordance with their ideals now, in the process of transforming society, not in the distant future. They opposed war and militarism in the face of widespread repression, and did not hesitate to criticize the orthodox Left for its authoritarianism and opportunism. They developed an original conception of an all-encompassing social revolution, rejecting state terrorism and seeking to reduce violence to a minimum.

And they paid dearly for it. Several of the contributors to this volume were executed, murdered or killed fighting for their ideals (Pisacane, Landauer, the Haymarket Martyrs, Ferrer, Guerrero, Kôtoku Shûsui, Ôsugi Sakae, Itô Noe, Arshinov, Isaac Puente), as were countless of their comrades. Others died in prison or prematurely as a result of imprisonment (Bakunin, Most, Wilde, Flores Magón, Makhno, Shin Chaeho). Others were the objects of attempted assassinations (Michel, de Cleyre, Malatesta). Still others died in tragic circumstances (Déjacque, Gross, Berkman). Virtually every one of them was imprisoned at various times for advocating anarchy. Anyone honestly assessing the impact of anarchist ideas, or the lack thereof, cannot fail to take this pervasive repression into account. The “competition of ideas” has never been a fair one.

Speaking of authors and historians, there’s a new edition of Peter Marshall‘s Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism available. Along with George Woodcock’s (1912–1995) Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements (First edition 1962; Second edition 1986), a standard text on anarchist history.

Speaking of anarchic academics, I stumbled upon a groovy-sounding thesis, ‘Australian Anarcha-punk zines: Poststructuralism in contemporary anarchist and gender politics’ by Lucy Katherine Nicholas (2005, PDF). Also:

    The smog of academic consensus
    A ‘conservative studies’ professor is exactly what calcified universities need.
    Crispin Sartwell
    The Los Angeles Times
    May 29, 2008

Like Robert, Crispin also gotta blog: eye of the storm.

While Crispin thinks a ‘conservative’ on campus may be cool, the sentencing of Briana Waters has come a cropper courtesy of Jennifer Kolar, a co-defendant turned co-operating witness.

Sentencing delayed for UW arsonist
Gene Johnson
AP
May 30, 2008

SEATTLE — Sentencing has been indefinitely delayed for a woman convicted in an arson at the University of Washington, following new developments about evidence that was presented at her trial.

Briana Waters was convicted this year of two counts of arson for her role as a lookout in the 2001 Earth Liberation Front fire that destroyed the university’s Center for Urban Horticulture. Her sentencing was set for Monday at U.S. District Court in Tacoma, with prosecutors requesting 10 years in prison.

But that sentencing was stricken from the court calendar today after the U.S. attorney’s office learned new information about a small piece of evidence used at the trial: anarchist articles that Waters supposedly gave to Jennifer Kolar, a witness who had pleaded guilty to arson and related charges in the UW fire and then testified against Waters.

Kolar identified Waters as a participant, and while on the stand she testified that Waters had given her the anarchist articles in a folder — supposed evidence of Waters’ mind-set around the time of the fire. Kolar testified she never read the articles, and she put them in a plastic tub that she stored at her house until she turned them over to her lawyer.

Kolar’s lawyer contacted the U.S. attorney’s office on Tuesday to say her testimony was misleading: In reality, after Kolar was contacted by the FBI about the arson, she asked a friend to remove the tub from her home. Eventually the tub was returned to Kolar and her lawyer, who turned it over to investigators.

The identity of the friend was redacted in court papers, but defense lawyers identified the person as someone Kolar used as a “secret intermediary” when dealing with others in the radical environmentalist movement. That another person had custody of the documents raised questions about the integrity of the evidence.

Prosecutors called the development insignificant, and they said much more substantial evidence proved Waters’ role, but they acknowledged defense attorneys should have two or three weeks to investigate.

Waters’ lawyers told U.S. District Judge Franklin Burgess they planned to ask for a new trial. They argued in a court filing that the materials in the folder were a “centerpiece of the government’s case.”

“Had Ms. Kolar told the full story in her testimony … the defense challenge to Ms. Kolar’s general credibility would have been stronger,” they wrote. “Not only was it clear that Ms. Kolar was deceptive to the government when talking about the tub, but the fact that she had secretive communications with the third party to hide the tub, the fact that she failed to disclose these communications for years, and the fact that she had the ability to access the tub after her lawyer retrieved it would have been quite useful to show her lack of credibility on other points.”

They also asked that in light of the new developments Waters be released pending sentencing; previous requests to that effect have all been rejected.

The fire, which destroyed the plant research center, was one of at least 17 fires set from 1996 to 2001 by an Olympia and Eugene, Ore., cell of the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front. In all, more than a dozen people were arrested in connection with the 17-plus arsons around the West, and four remain at large. Waters was the only one of those arrested who went to trial rather than plead guilty.

Kolar was one of two convicts who testified against Waters, and rental-car records suggested Waters obtained a vehicle used in the crime.

In March, during Waters’ trial, arsonists attacked a luxury-home development northeast of Seattle, causing $7 million in damage. Those fires remain under investigation.

The university rebuilt the horticulture center at a cost of $7 million. It was targeted because the ELF activists mistakenly believed researchers there were genetically engineering poplar trees.

Water’s conviction was based on circumstantial evidence — such as that referred to above — and the testimony of two of her co-defendants, Jennifer Kolar and Lacey Phillabaum. At present, Kolar awaits sentencing for her crimes; Phillabaum is awaiting sentence on June 6. June 14 is a day of solidarity with Jeff ‘Free’ Luers, currently serving a 10-year sentence (recently reduced on appeal from 23) for torching a couple of SUVs (estimated damage: about $40K). Having been incarcerated since June 2001, all going well, Jeff could be released as early as December 2009. You can watch a documentary film about Jeff’s case, 22/8, on YouTube.

Posted in Anarchism, History, Media | Leave a comment

Attack of the Anarchoids from Neptune!

Posted on June 1, 2008 by @ndy

As promised, a guide to/review of contemporary anarchist organisations in Orstralia.

Introduction

Like the numerous Marxist organisations — Miaowists, Stalinists & Trotskyites — anarchism in contemporary Australia is a fringe movement, and in terms of its organisational framework and popularity, even more so. Anarchism also has far fewer allies in the academy and the media, no regular journals of any standing, and fewer historical roots. To the extent that ‘anarchism’ has influence within contemporary Australia, therefore, it’s largely through culture, and the adoption of broadly ‘anti-authoritarian’ ideas and practices within other social movements — the environmental, peace and women’s movements in particular, but also on the fringes of the labour movement.

Having said this, there are a small number of formal, self-consciously ‘anarchist’ groups and projects currently in existence, almost all concentrated in the two major cities of Melbourne (Pop. 3,850,000) and Sydney (Pop. 4,300,000). Further, individual anarchists are involved in a broad range of campaigns, groups and projects: animal liberation/rights, anti-racist and anti-fascist, ecological/environmental, feminist, media, queer, indigenous and prisoner solidarity, squatting, student, and union, among others.

Affinity Groups

Anarchist Direct Action | ADA is based in Melbourne, and formed very recently.
Mutiny | Based in Sydney, Mutiny evolved from a libertarian, direct-action oriented anti-war campaigning group to a more explicitly anarchist organisation. Since April 2006, it has published a regular monthly zine (unfortunately no longer available online).

    NB. The term ‘affinity group’ also applies more generally to a number of ad-hoc formations created for particular events and projects, and operating within a defined and fairly limited time-frame. Often, these are associated with major protest events. Numerous affinity groups of one sort or another have existed during the last few decades.

Distros/Infoshops

Anarres | Established in 1990, Anarres is an anarchist mail-order service based in Melbourne. It has a reasonably large catalogue, with many titles from overseas publishers, principally AK and Freedom Press, and New Society Publishers.
Barricade | Established in 1995, Barricade is an infoshop, which for its first eight years operated out of premises on Sydney Road before moving, in January 2003, to Irene Warehouse, where it closed in August 2006. The infoshop is soon to reopen in a new space in Northcote.
Beating Hearts | Another anarchist mail-order service, Beating Hearts is based in Brisbane.
Black Rose | Based in Sydney, Black Rose was established in 1982 as the result of a split in the Jura collective.
Jura | The longest-established infoshop in Australia, Jura opened in 1977.

Syndicalist Organisations

Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation | Based in Melbourne, the ASF has been in existence, in one form or another, since 1986.
Anarcho-Syndicalist Network | A Sydney-based group, with a representative in Melbourne, the ASN produces a bi-monthly zine titled Rebel Worker. The ASN was founded in 1992 after splitting from the ASF. RW began publication in 1982 as the paper of the IWW, and has been consistently produced since then.
IWW | The modern IWW was (re-)established in Sydney in 1976, disbanding in 1983 to form the ‘Rebel Worker Group’, which later (1986) became the Sydney ASF. The contemporary IWW was revived in the early ’90s.

Other

Alarm Collective | An online forum for anarchist yoof.
Anarchist Black Cross (Melbourne) | Prisoner solidarity.
Melbourne Anarchist Club | Historically, the MAC was the first formal anarchist organisation in Australia, announcing its formation on May 1, 1886. It ceased functioning in 1889. The contemporary MAC is a local organising project, responsible for establishing a social centre, the International Workers’ Club, in Northcote.
Melbourne Anarchist-Communist Group | Formed in 2005, the MAC-G has to date published four issues of its newsletter, The Anvil, and a number of leaflets.
*Sydney Anarchist Communist Trajectory (SACT) | Formed in mid-2008. “Open to all people interested in class struggle, workers’ control, direct democracy, and the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist system.” Oi oi! Contact: sydneyanarchistcommunistgroup[at]gmail[dot]com.

    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Individual anarchists are involved in a number of other projects. These include:

Black Dove | Based in Perth, Black Dove is a libertarian organising project.
EngageMedia | “A video sharing site focusing on social justice and environmental issues in South East Asia, Australia and the Pacific. It is a space for critical documentary, fiction, artistic and experimental works that challenge the dominance of the mainstream media.”
Food Not Bombs | Melbourne | Sydney | FNB began life in Melbourne in 1996. It provides free vegan meals at regular street stalls and caters at various community gatherings.
Indymedia (Oceania) | First developed in 1999 to record anti-WTO Seattle summit activity (in part employing technology developed by Sydney activists), Indymedia has since become a global phenomenon. Anarchists have had extensive involvement in this process.
Loophole | A recently (2007) established community activist space in Melbourne’s north.

Anarchist Media Institute / ‘Anarchist World This Week’ / Defend & Extend Medicare Group / Direct Democracy Not Parliamentary Rule (nee Vote Informal Today, Direct Democracy Tomorrow) / Friends of our ABC / Libertarian Workers For A Self-Managed Society / People for Constitutional Human Rights / Reclaim the Radical Spirit of the Eureka Rebellion / Sedition Charter / Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner Commemoration Committee / Joseph Toscano | A one-man anarchist band, the indefatigable Doctor Toscano has been declaiming anarchy for over thirty years.

In addition to the above, as an aside, here’s a list of what I believe to have been the major anarchist(ic) — but not necessarily explicitly anarchist — convergences of the last few years:

2001 : No Gods, No Masters, April 27–30, Melbourne | Media Circus* & Red & Black Forum, July 12–15 & 28–29, Melbourne & Sydney | Liberty, Autonomy, Solidarity, August 25–26, Wollongong
2002 : From Resurgence to Insurgence, April 27–28, Sydney
2003 : Anarchy For Life, May 2–4, Brisbane | Belladonna DIY Fest, November 27–29, Wollongong
2004 : Anarcon ‘04, January 23–27, Perth | State of Emergency, May 21–24, Melbourne | Belladonna DIY Fest, December 3–5, Wollongong
2005 : Queeruption7, February 16–23, Sydney | Anarcon ‘05, February 26–27, Melbourne | Subplot (Sydney Social Forum), August 27–30, Sydney | Belladonna DIY Fest, November 9–11, Wollongong
2006 : A Space Outside, November 13–15, Melbourne | Live and Let DIY, December 1–3, Brisbane
2007 : Camp Betty, June 7–11, Melbourne | F.L.A.R.E. in the Void, September 4–9, Sydney
2008 : Live and Let DIY, February 1–3, Brisbane

Note that a further gathering of anarchists took place in Melbourne this year over the Easter weekend, to discuss the possibility of establishing an anarchist federation and other, attendant issues. Some discussion of what transpired is available on the Australian Anarchy Bulletin Board.

Posted in Anarchism | 54 Comments

The Stormfront Down Under Circus : 2004–2008

Posted on May 31, 2008 by @ndy

It’s been a while since I cast a weary eye over Stormfront Down Under, so recently I thought I’d take a peek to see how things are faring for our racist friends, especially since former Yanqui Co-Moderator jack_boot let go of Paul Innes’ hand, and let him have the Forum to himself. For the benefit of those of you arriving late, here, briefly(?), is a little recent history:

2004/5


Above : Dr James ‘Jim’ Saleam

Insofar as anti-racist activity is concerned, the story of Stormfront Down Under really only begins in August 2004 (Stormfront as a whole was established by former KKK Wizard and international terrorist Don Black in 1995). In that year, the now-defunct Patriotic Youth League — an organisation for young friends of the white supremacist Australia First Party under Dr James Saleam — came to some small degree of public prominence (it was formed towards the end of 2002). In 2004, it had begun a campaign of placing racist posters and stickers on University campuses, which appeared in both NSW (University of Newcastle, Macquarie University) and Victoria (LaTrobe University, RMIT and the University of Melbourne). At around the same time, a number of African and Asian students at the University of Newcastle were verbally abused and physically assaulted (Campus racism rises, Sarah Price, Sun-Herald, August 29, 2004). These events took place against a background of heightened xenophobia; fuelled by the public hysteria over the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, the bombings in Bali in 2002, and further reinforced by the then HoWARd Government’s highly repressive policies on refugees (cf. the Tampa crisis).

The League’s principal spokesman was Stuart McBeth, a then-23-year-old Novocastrian and Salvation Army employee. McBeth and his group were linked to a range of far right organisations, including the US-based Volksfront (with which the group shared a PO Box), Blood & Honour, and, of course, Stormfront, on which a number of its members happily paraded their racist hatred and ignorance (Neo-Nazi link to campus anti-foreigner campaign, Matthew Thompson, The Sydney Morning Herald, August 31, 2004). For example, McBeth joined the Forum in September 2003 as ‘Eureka Spirit’, while Luke Connors posted as ‘young soldier’, joining in November 2004. During this period, Andrew Wilson functioned as the PYL’s representative in Sydney, while Connors did the same for Victoria.

The PYL was largely an Internet phantasy for those involved, but it did make some attempts to hold public rallies. In January 2005, for example, the PYL decided it would be a good idea to protest outside the HQ of a Sydney trade union. Upon being confronted by 50–60 counter-protesters, however, including a large number of unionists, the massed ranks of the PYL — all four of them, including Andrew Wilson — fled (Nazi Encounter, Port of call [Maritime Union of Australia: Workers Journal], March/April 2005). One person who didn’t attend the abortive Sydney rally — aside, of course, from its leader, Stuart McBeth — was Andrew Fraser. Fraser was shortly to come to notoriety for his concerns regarding the alleged criminality and low intelligence of blacks, but at the time he, along with Saleam, were on the ‘National Executive’ of the PYL. Or at least, that’s what the meat-headed Luke Connors claimed in an interview with a local “documentary filmmaker”.

Of course, the PYL weren’t the only members of Stormfront Down Under in its heyday. Others included Carl D. Thompson (posting as ‘Wodensvolk’). Thompson subsequently lost his job as editor of the One Nation Party publication The Nation after making some rather dubious assertions regarding his and Stormfront’s Public Enemy #1: The Jew. Also to feature on the site were Sue Bateman, posting as ‘Suebdoo2’, One Nation’s east metropolitan regional president in Perth and 2005 State election candidate (see Storm for One Nation poster girl, Gary Adshead, The West Australian, September 22, 2005), Sydney residents Peter Campbell (‘Kromlek of Asgard’/’ZyklonB’) and Darrin Hodges (‘Proud to be an Infidel’), and rural Queensland-based Jim Perren (‘Stug111’/’303SMLE’).

During 2005, SFDU was the subject of a few articles — Joe Hildebrand’s ‘Life as an uber fraud – the one race I won’ (The Daily Telegraph, October 29, 2005) being one of the more amusing — and also an equally amusing expose by FightDemBack! of a botched attempt by locals in Melbourne to hold a ‘Strictly Members Only’ BBQ. Needless to add, there have been very few such gatherings since. What really gave local white supremacists a shot in the arm, however, was the Cronulla pogrom in December 2005.

This episode was greeted with unabashed joy by the upright citizens on SFDU, and touted as heralding a new era for their scattered and tiny movement. Darrin Hodges (then a member of Saleam’s AF), AF and the PYL as a whole, for example, proudly trumpeted the affair as a ‘civil uprising’ against the multicultural tide. Luke Connors complained in the wake of the pogrom, “Mate, I’m going to get brain cancer from having the mobile phone pressed to me ear all day and all night. Answering membership and media inquiries.” Another member, James Newman (‘JN’), produced a video of the ‘uprising’, coupling captured images of the events with a soundtrack by neo-Nazi band Skrewdriver. It was also at this time that Darrin Hodges was first publicly exposed as being the SF user ‘Proud to be an Infidel’:

One active local member, who goes by the moniker “Proud to be an Infidel”, has been a regular contributor to international white supremacist organisation Stormfront.

Via a series of electronic footprints, anti-Nazi campaigner Mat Henderson-Hau has linked “Infidel” to Engadine local Darrin Hodges.

Hodges, who runs a website for a sex toy distributor, yesterday admitted to being a member of the racist Australia First Party but denied being a member of any white nationalist groups or a contributor to Stormfront.

His alleged alter ego is not so shy.

“Friends, today was an historic day, the day Australians stood up against state-imposed multiculturalism,” he wrote on the night of the Cronulla riots.

Accompanying his posting is a series of photographs he took at Cronulla that day, including one of a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “wog free zone” and another of a sign offering free sausages to the crowd, with “no tabouli”.

Infidel also speaks of footage he filmed on the day which Henderson-Hau believes was used in a video released over the weekend that glorifies a mob of rioters bashing various non-whites at Cronulla…

~ Joe Hildebrand, White supremacists casting a black cloud, The Daily Telegraph, December 20, 2005

The events and attempts to politically capitalise on them by white supremacists triggered a predictable reaction on the part of the NSW Government: White supremacist crackdown call (The Sydney Morning Herald (AAP), December 20, 2005). Also implicated at this time in racist fun and games were Andrew Sanders (‘blue8eyed8devil’ on SF) — who authored a website, Fightback [now belonging to others], dedicated to encouraging locals to take action against the Lebanese hordes — and his comrade-in-arms and fellow ‘Tunnel Rat’, Andrew Roach (Friend of accused’s vile words of hatred, Joe Hildebrand, The Daily Telegraph, December 22, 2005). The author of one of the Cronulla videos, James Newman, was also exposed at this time (Video man is security guard in city, Joe Hildebrand, The Daily Telegraph, December 22, 2005).

2006


Above : Darrin Hodges

The year 2006 naturally began with high hopes for the racists, fascists and bizarros on SFDU. After all, hadn’t the Australian masses just engaged in a civil uprising — “revolution” even — against ZOG and the symptoms of its multicultural machinations (see Nadav Shlezinger, “Victory in Cronulla”: What the neo-Nazis are saying, AIJAC Review, January 2006)? Unfortunately, it was at this point that the ethnic origins of one of the leaders of the forthcoming White Revolution was again exposed as being… well… not exactly ‘white’. And while Darrin Hodges first left and then later re-joined SF, another SF veteran, Peter Campbell, also chose this moment to retire from online battle. Further, just three months earlier (October 2005), the internet forum he helped to establish via the White Pride Coalition of Australia also collapsed.

In March 2006, Saleam’s party was subjected to no small degree of public ridicule by Dan Box, writing in The Australian (White supremacy in our backyard, March 4, 2006). As a result of the ensuing kerfuffle, Luke Connors, the meat-headed spokesman for the Melbourne branch of the PYL, resigned from what remained of the organisation. His main complaint, at the time, was the involvement of AF member Welf Herfurth in helping to organise the local, Australian franchise of the international neo-Nazi network Blood & Honour. (Replacing Connors — who had in turn replaced Stuart McBeth — as spokesman for the dwindling ranks of young patriots, was Lachlan Black of Canberra, a former ONP member. Note further that Connors and Herfurth have since kissed and made-up, the two of them declaring themselves to be ‘national anarchists’.)

In Brisbane, meanwhile, having failed to learn the lesson of their white brothers in Melbourne, a number of odds and sods on SFDU attempted to organise their very own BBQ. These were less than completely successful. (See also : Scumfront Brisbane : Comedy Central, September 7, 2006.) Racist dingbats in Adelaide, however, struck back on behalf of their Brisbane brothers, and distributed some SF posters and stickers in the City of Churches. Unfortunately, “A lot of them were taken down by the public”, said a local MP (aka ZOG stooge).

Otherwise, 2006 was a fairly quiet year for SFDU members. The much-anticipated one-year anniversary of the Cronulla pogrom turned out to be a bit of a fizzer — ‘Cronulla all quiet one year on’ read one headline (NEWS.com.au/AAP, December 10, 2006) — and was possibly even less exciting than the celebrations AF organised for Australia Day way back in January (and less than two months after the ‘uprising’ itself).

2007


Above : Rhys McLean

2007 was a truly bewildering year for SFDU. In January, a racist storm in the Tamworth teapot got the tosspots talking. A few months later, in March, SFDU habitué David Innes (‘Baron von Hund’) decided to hang up his tinfoil helmet — another victim of ‘white nationalist’ intrigue. Innes and his partner Lilith — appointed SFDU Moderator in December 2005, the first Aussie to be granted the privilege by the SF Yanqui overlords — had for several years played a key role in popularising (destroying according to their critics) Stormfront in the land Down Under, even hosting monthly BBQs at their home for a handful of locals, similarly dedicated to getting pissed and dementedly discussing destroying ZOG’s nefarious hold over White Australia.

The person deemed chiefly responsible for David’s temporary demise? Doctor James Saleam, of course, whom David had denounced on SFDU on account of his Middle Eastern ancestry.

Naturally, like a dog after a bone, Innes was back only a few months later. That is, before once again leaving, this time (June) taking the missus with him. (Those left behind subsequently accused David and Lilith of being FDB! stooges.) Not surprisingly, there was stiff competition among the manly Aryan hordes for the vacant Crown, and eventually — for reasons best known to themselves — the Yanquis picked one ’AustralianEuro’, a teenaged Novocastrian named Rhys McLean. In a show of gratitude for their two years of hard work, David and Lilith went Down the Memory Hole.

Rhys’s reign as King of SFDU was, sadly, to be a short one. An organiser for AF, Rhys made the horrible mistake of being photographed wearing a swastika armband and giving the fascist salute. What’s worse, these photographs mysteriously made their way into the hands of local ZOG agents FightDemBack!. Bad, yes, but worse was yet to come when in January 2008 Rhys starred in an article in The Daily Telegraph concerning plans hatched on SFDU to have a neo-Nazi knees-up on Australia Day (RSL slams Australia Day hijack, Joe Hildebrand, January 10, 2008). Within the space of a few days of its publication, Rhys too, was gone.

2008


Above : Sue Bateman and Paul Innes

Having lost first Lilith (Emma) and then Rhys (dummkopf), the American management team at SF was again forced to find a willing volunteer among the proud Aussies deemed worthy of the job. In an online poll, the two favourites nominated by locals were Carl D. Thompson — an unashamed neo-Nazi — and David Innes’ brother, Paul (‘Steelcap Boot’). And while the faces may have been changing, the sounds coming from SFDU remained very much the same. For a sample, see Australia, IMPORTED FKN SIMIAN PIECE OF NEGRESS CRAP, and lets get the ovens raised in melbourne.

On a lighter, non-genocidal note, the departure of John Drew from SFDU was probably one of the queerest moments in the Forum’s brief history. Queerer still, that at the time of his departure, Drew was the sole remaining member of the PYL. At well over 50-years-old, quite an achievement! (The PYL has since quietly folded, while Drew functions as AF in Queensland.)

Having been appointed Moderator, Paul Innes has overseen the rather precipitous decline in popularity of SFDU. The reasons for this are not, like those who post there, all that complicated. To begin with, its recent history is of one PR disaster after another. Secondly, those who post there are dimly aware — to the extent that they’re aware of anything much outside of their rank prejudices — that the Forum is crammed full of all kinds of fruits and nuts, traumatised teenagers, and creepy old neo-Nazis. As such, there’s always the risk that a fellow crank, angry at some slight, will let the cat out of the bag. This happened most recently in March, to Newcastle real estate agent and determined bigot Nathan Clarke (‘Nafe’ — also associated with AF in Newcastle).


Above : Nathan Clarke

A few final points.

SF is trying to clean up its act. For this reason, Mister Black has announced a new ‘no Nazi swastikas’ policy. Not unexpectedly, this hasn’t gone down too well with the locals who, like everyone else who examines the Forum, frankly don’t see the point. Consequently, a number of members have either left or been banned for protesting too loudly. (Carl D. Thompson is one example, but there are others.)

Secondly, Doctor James Saleam (‘radnat’) has made a heartfelt (or batshit crazy, depending on your perspective) appeal for information regarding the identities of some old Sydney-based boneheads in order to help him overturn his 1991 conviction for ordering a shotgun attack upon the then-ANC representative to Australia. What’s odd about the appeal is both its nature — why on Earth would anyone on SF have any knowledge of these individuals? And why couldn’t Herr Doktor simply alert his contacts in the English fascist movement instead? — but also its timing. Saleam is, apparently, intending to contest upcoming council elections in NSW on behalf of AF.

Best of luck.

Despite the removal of Nazi imagery on SF, the enimy remains — in keeping with the bizarro phantasies of chief ideologue David Duke — the Eternal Jew. How much longer SFDU will continue fumbling its way along is anyone’s guess, but it’s likely that as long as the cash keeps flowing, so will Mister Black and Mister Duke reserve a spot for the boys and girls Down Under to continue to spread their online filth.

Bonus! Jamie Kelso Loses His Mind!

Posted in !nataS, Anti-fascism, History, Media | 16 Comments