Yeah Nah Pasaran! #156 w Simon Hunt on Posie Parker, art, culture, activism : March 30, 2023

This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! we talk to Simon Hunt (Facebook /// Twitter /// YouTube). Sometimes AKA ‘Pauline Pantsdown’, Simon has a long history as an activist, artist and raconteur. We spoke to him about Posie Parker’s recent tour, anti-trans and homophobic sentiment, art and activism, and how humour can be utilised in order to subvert social prejudice, then and now.

See also : As George Pell departs, every ribbon tells a story the church tried to silence, Simon Hunt, The Sydney Morning Herald, February 1, 2023 | (I’m A) Back Door Man: Simon Hunt and the Slippery Humour of Pauline Pantsdown, Mitch L Ryan, Disclaimer, 2022 | Who were the neo-Nazis at Posie Parker’s rally in Melbourne? (March 27, 2023) | “Posie Parker, you can’t hide. You’ve got Nazis on your side.” (March 20, 2023) | Posie Parker’s 2023 Publicity Tour Down Under (March 12, 2023) | Fred Nihilist by Kol Dimond.

4.30pm, Thursday, March 30, 2023 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

• A longer version of this episode will be available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify and other platforms after broadcast.
• We also have a Facebook page for the show, which you’re invited to ‘Like’ and to ‘Follow’.
• I have a Patreon account which youse are also invited to support.

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Who were the neo-Nazis at Posie Parker’s rally in Melbourne?

As noted, Balywn Gauleiter Tom Sewell and some of his followers attended Posie Parker’s anti-trans rally in Melbourne on Saturday, March 18. While a number were known, some were not. Helpfully, the nazi geeks were more than willing to pose for some happy snaps outside their organising base at Tim Lutze’s Legacy Boxing Gym in West Sunshine and, somehow or other, these have made their way into the hands of the anti-fascist research group ‘White Rose Society’. WRS has since released the photos and is appealing to the public for assistance in identifying Lady Parker’s neo-Nazi allies (write : [email protected]).

In related news, ‘Paparoa’ (Aotearoa/New Zealand — [email protected]) has identified a number of the neo-Nazis who attended Lady Parker’s abortive attempt to make trouble for the trans- community in Auckland. This included Sam Brittenden, whose adventures in Ireland were documented as The Neo-Nazi and The Priest: An Extremist’s Journey To West Cork by the Far Right Observatory in March of last year.

See also : “The NSN is dead! Long live the NSN!” (September 9, 2021) | Senior neo-Nazi slips out of Australia to fight Russian army, Nick McKenzie and Anthony Galloway, The Age, March 2023 | Soldiers of hate: Army investigates neo-Nazis in its ranks, Nick McKenzie, The Age, March 18, 2023 (‘The Australian Army has discovered serving members are neo-Nazis, as a new generation of far-right leadership emerges with a declared interest in guns’).

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Yeah Nah Pasaran! #155 w Jayne Persian on Ustaše in Australia : March 23, 2023

This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! we talk to Jayne Persian [Twitter]. Jayne is an historian and the author of Beautiful Balts: From displaced persons to new Australians (NewSouth, 2017) and the co-editor — with Evan Smith and Vashti Jane Fox — of Histories of Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Australia (Routledge, 2023) to which she contributed (with Evan) a chapter on ‘European and Australian Fascisms: The Case of Ferenc Molnár and National Socialism in Cold War Australia’. We spoke to Jayne about how and why the Ustaše in Australia was to be, in the opinion of the Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood (Hrvatsko Revolucionarno Bratstvo, HRB), ‘the citadel of Croatian national consciousness abroad’.

See also : antifa notes (october 2, 2022) : nazis @ Australia Cup (Sydney) + Youth Fest (Melbourne) (October 2, 2022) | Melbourne Croatia/Knights ultras still being d*ckheads (February 22, 2015) | Croatian fascism in Australia (January 20, 2010) | “Scum” issue statement on 2007 ISD gig at Melbourne Croatia (November 7, 2007) | Neo-Nazis split Croat community (October 7, 2007) | Dr. Cam on Helen Coonan’s fascist flirtation (May 3, 2007).

4.30pm, Thursday, March 23, 2023 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

• A longer version of this episode will be available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify and other platforms after broadcast.
• We also have a Facebook page for the show, which you’re invited to ‘Like’ and to ‘Follow’.
• I have a Patreon account which youse are also invited to support.

BONUS! Spotting

THE “LEFT-WING” USTASHA OF THE HDP

The HDP (Croatian Movement for Statehood) never hid its admiration for the Ustasha puppet regime established after Hitler’s troops conquered Croatia and the rest of Yugoslavia in 1941. Like other Ustasha groups in the West, it celebrated April 10, the date the neo-Nazi regime was established. It glorified the Ustasha fuehrer Pavelic and General Luburic who were responsible for the massacres of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and anti-fascist Croats.

The HDP leader was Nicola Stedul, who left Yugoslavia in 1956 for West Germany to join the movement headed by Pavelic and later a rival one, the HNO (Croatian National Resistance) headed by Lubiric. He was an HNO representative in Australia from 1966 to 1971, a time when the HNO and other radical Ustasha groups carried out a series of bomb attacks. The then Liberal Government and ASIO outrageously covered up for those responsible for these bombings. The SWP at the time condemned these terrorist attacks.

The HNO, which later became the HDP, was also on record as carrying out numerous terrorist attacks in Western Europe. In one attack, HDP hero, Miro Baresic, assassinated the Yugoslav Ambassador in Sweden in 1971. He was released the following year when Ustasha terrorists hijacked a jet. He went to Spain, then Paraguay, where he joined the death squads of the dictator Stroesner. Baresic was arrested in the USA by the FBI and returned to prison in Sweden.

The neo-Nazi credentials of the HDP were as clear as a pike-staff. But they also tried to woo the left. Stedul formed the “Socialist Party of Croatia” in exile precisely for the purpose. In Australia, they approached Left Labor figures …and the SWP. Only the SWP welcomed them.

In 1982, the HDP tried to march on May Day in Melbourne and received a hostile reception. The SWP took up their cause and for the next few years campaigned vigorously on their behalf against every other section of the left and progressive movement who pointed out the HDP’s attitude to the Ustasha and its terrorist and neo-Nazi links. It was pointed out that in the early 1970s, war criminals here such as Srecko Rover tried to woo the Left and that early Ustasha and then the HDP had a well documented record of trying to woo the Soviets ever since the Tito split with Stalin in 1948.

What were the reasons for the SWP’s blind endorsement of these Ustasha? SWP leader David Holmes wrote in August 1983 that “the HDP leaders are revolutionaries…As a result of the collaboration between the HDP and the SWP and also through the development of the class struggle in this country, many more Croatians will come to see the need to build a revolutionary workers’ party here and fight to overthrow capitalism.”

It is easy to see the very special “entrism” involved here. It is into a whole community – there were then over 150 000 Croatian migrants in the Australian workforce. The HDP had some support among them. By “collaborating” with them, the SWP hoped to recruit among that community which would see the need for a “revolutionary workers’ party” (that is, naturally the SWP/DSP). It is a very big raiding party involved; a couple of hundred SWPers taking over the Croatian community… Such is the stuff of dreams!

Enough then to ignore what the HDP actually wrote about the Ustasha regime, enough to even lionise the terrorist neo-Nazi Baresic in the columns of Direct Action (now “Green Left Weekly”).

The SWP did recruit a few HDP members into their ranks, but after all their abject apologising for the HDP, its leaders here soon broke off links with the SWP, precisely because the SWP was trying to recruit its members. Even then, the SWP refused to criticise the HDP or admit its error, speaking of it following a “rightwing drift” in 1984, although its extreme-right credentials were available well before.

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“Posie Parker, you can’t hide. You’ve got Nazis on your side.”

Huh.

That was interesting.

Having previously blessed Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide with her presence, the fifth leg of Posie Parker’s publicity tour took place in Melbourne on the steps of the Victorian Parliament on Saturday. Along with a posse of fans, Parker was joined by two other groups. On the one hand, under the rubric of taking ‘A Stand To Protect The Children’ and ‘Against The Moral Decay of Australia’, there were a number of so-called ‘cookers’ (AKA the remnants of the anti-lockdown and anti-vaXX movements in Melbourne) and, on the other hand, neo-Nazis belonging to the National Socialist Network (NSN). The rally was also the subject of a counter-protest but — using tried and tested methods — Victoria Police was successful in preventing the malcontents from disrupting the anti-trans gathering.

I say therefore, it is by their fruit that you will know them.

The sight of several dozen neo-Nazis parading in front of Parliament has disturbed many, and various statements have been made in response, including by Victorian premier ‘Dictator Dan’, the federal member for Melbourne Adam Bandt, the Jewish Labor Bund and numerous others. It’s also meant that Parker and her entourage — which on this occasion included Liberal MP Moira Deeming and failed Liberal candidate Katherine Deves — have been forced to deny their association with far-right politics and, further, to distance themselves from the neo-Nazis who joined them (behind police lines) in the anti-trans chorus.

Curiously, the NSN is repeatedly described as the NSM in media reportage. For example, the Star Observer (Neo-Nazis, Far-Right Turn Up At UK Anti-Trans Activist Kellie-Jay Keen’s Melbourne Event, Shibu Thomas, March 18, 2023): ‘Neo-Nazi groups have increasingly targeted LGBTQI events. Last year, [n]eo-Nazi Thomas Sewell and his National Socialist Movement targeted a youth festival featuring drag performances. The group also protested outside the Victorian Pride Centre, which was scheduled to hold an event with drag performances.’ In this context it should also be noted that, while the NSN did indeed disrupt ‘a youth festival featuring drag performances’ in October last year, and while they promised to and promoted the rally, they did not in fact attend the Centre in December: a responsibility assumed on behalf of The Women of Australia by a handful of local Proud Boys. It’s also somewhat remarkable that, inre the NSN, none made reference to Nick McKenzie’s article ‘Soldiers of hate: Army investigates neo-Nazis in its ranks’, which was published on Saturday and which details links between the NSN, law enforcement and the armed forces. Inter alia, McKenzie writes:

In Victoria, highly active NSN member Nathan Bull, 21, is the son of a Victoria Police officer who is currently on extended leave and who failed to declare his son’s neo-Nazi activities.

The force declined to comment on the police officer, whom this masthead is not naming for legal reasons, but said in a statement: “While we know people can’t choose their family, the policy outlines what relationships must be declared to ensure any actual or perceived risks are managed.”

Bull is a frequent participant in NSN training events and has also posted NSN propaganda on encrypted platforms, recently encouraging neo-Nazis to disrupt a queer youth event at the Victorian Pride Centre.

Bull — along with his fuehrer Tom Sewell and Caulfield nazi sticker guy Jim Roberts — was maskless on Saturday (and failed to attend the Centre in December), but did more recently find the time to squawk at a Community Union Defence League stall in the city. Of course, the fact that Bull’s father is police raises a number of interesting questions, especially in light of some of the criticisms they’ve received for being too violent in preventing any interruption to the rally: say, by repeatedly kneeing a prone man in the head.

Be that as it may, the boys carried a big fat banner on the day reading ‘Destroy Paedo Freaks’. While the slogan may be crude, it’s also an honest expression of intent: given other, recent events, it’s important to appreciate this. Further, this violent rhetoric reflects (or rather repeats) the gendered and sexual anxieties expressed rather infamously by neo-Nazi organisation ‘Antipodean Resistance’ (AR) which, after its collapse in 2019, merged into the NSN (see : From Antipodean Resistance to the National Socialist Network, November 29, 2020). As well as being born on Iron March — the same forum that gave birth to the proscribed neo-Nazi terrorist organisations National Action, Atomwaffen and Sonnenkrieg Divisions — AR also produced Jacob Hersant: another middle-class prat who, in turn, produced the NSN manual (and has functioned brilliantly well as the NSN’s #OpSec Guy). Of the manual, Nick McKenzie and Joel Tozer (Inside Racism HQ: How home-grown neo-Nazis are plotting a white revolution, The Age, August 16, 2021) write:

A leaked copy of the network’s internal manual includes a chapter about “methods to maintain the anonymity of activists” which instructs members to “live a double life online”. It directs them to set up fake identities on encrypted platforms and warns against leaving any “little bits of information” for “journalist detectives”.

Discerning the difference between serious calls to violence and mere violent rhetoric and hate speech is almost impossible in this environment. When one member messages on Telegram about regional towns attracting migrants, another responds: “Where’s Tarrant when you need him?”

For his part, NSN member David Hiscox defends the group’s presence at the rally on his blog, XYZ, boasts of their role in helping Victoria Police ensure that Parker’s publicity stunt went smoothly, and argues that:

This highlights a key benefit of NSN’s attendance at today’s event as outlined by Sewell. At previous events, normies have quite rightly required police protection from extreme left terrorists. However, Thomas Sewell’s men can more than handle themselves. As demonstrated by an earlier video, 20 nationalists stood easily against 300 Antifa. The police were essentially protecting Antifa from themselves, knowing full well they would have fared second best had they initiated violence against the peaceful protestors. Thus NSN are reclaiming the public space from the far left. Ordinary people now hold the protestors’ veto, as demonstrated by the cancellation of a drag queen groomer show in St Kilda in December 2022.

While David’s phantasy of 20 neo-Nazis taking control of the streets of Melbourne is mildly amusing, he’s correct to note that, seemingly following police advice, the event at the Victorian Pride Centre was indeed cancelled at the mere threat of the NSN attending. Further, in conceiving of the NSN as a vanguard, tasked with protecting figures like Posie Parker (and whichever other ‘normies’ want to join the NSN in denouncing the transgender and other communities), the piano teacher is echoing the role that the ‘United Patriots Front’ assigned itself in 2015–2016. In this sense, the NSN can be interpreted as representing the culmination of many years of organising by the far-right: the formation of a militant, neo-Nazi cadre (for a useful summary, see : The Rise of the Fascist Cadre: Shifts in Far-Right Organising in Australia, Jordan McSwiney, C-REX: Center for Research on Extremism, May 18, 2021). However, one key difference between the UPF and the NSN is that, while for tactical reasons the UPF disavowed any ‘Nazism’, the NSN is out and proud. In other words, like David, they think that Australia, and especially Melbourne, now constitutes a ‘safe space’ for their public performances (even if, as on Saturday, the boys were reinforced by large numbers of police).

Finally, it’s also worthwhile recognising that, while The Boy From Balwyn and his gang have obtained some smol degree of notoriety in Australia for their antics (Tom Sewell’s conviction for assault and Patmore’s conviction for various offences are among some of the most recent), they’re part of an international neo-Nazi network which thrills to his and their performances. Further, Christian nationalists in the United States operating the GiveSendGo crowdfunding site have been eager to support their Antipodean kameraden in raising funds, and tens of thousands of dollars have been donated to the neo-Nazis as a result. Currently, some of these funds are being raised in order to financially support Tim Lutze’s Legacy Boxing Gym in West Sunshine, the chief operating base for the NSN in Melbourne.

Law & Order

It’s been suggested in some quarters that police may have been a little too vigorous in policing the event on behalf of Parker’s fans, cookers and the neo-Nazi mob. Given sufficient attention, this may even force police to initiate an investigation before eventually clearing themselves of wrong-doing. Certainly, images of police being naughty are an inconvenience, especially when they’re perceived to be undertaking such actions in order to ensure that, in the immortal words of Australia’s former attorney-general George Brandis, ‘people have the right to be bigots’. In fairness to Professor Brandis, I should add that it’s unclear if, in theory, his commitment encompasses ‘the right of neo-Nazi fans of the Christchurch killer to parade around a city home to the largest population of Holocaust survivors per capita outside of Israel while engaging in transphobic and homophobic abuse’ but, in practice, on Saturday police made their own answer to this question abundantly clear.

Of the policing of the neo-Nazi presence at the event, Melbourne Activist Legal Service (see : Statement of Concern: Policing of opposing anti-trans & trans rights rallies, March 20, 2023) writes:

At 11:40am, just prior to the CARF/NUS group arriving at the Parliament precinct, a group of approximately 20 people known to be members of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Network (NSN) had been permitted by police to enter Spring Street and made a formation facing north across the street, making a series of ‘Sieg Heil’ hand salutes and holding up a threatening and offensive banner. MALS has observed that chants of “kill paedo freaks” were simultaneously being yelled at the trans rights protestors. These actions were clearly intended to provoke and incite the group of arriving trans rights protesters. MALS did not observe any attempts by police to prevent, intervene in, or restrict the actions of this group.

Police instead focused their attention on the CARF/NUS group and established a cordon with multiple police members and the mounted unit facing them. It was at 12.03pm that the first use of OC spray was observed.

At approximately 12:17pm the neo-Nazi NSN group moved in formation up the Parliament House steps to stand in a highly visible and central location on the steps and continued to make ‘Sieg Heil’ salutes.

At 12:49pm, over an hour after they had first arrived, police arranged to escort the NSN group away from Parliament House, moving south along Spring St. However, in doing so, they allowed the group to march towards and along the perimeter of the trans rights protestors, while still making ‘Sieg Heil’ salutes and chanting obscenities at the trans rights group. This decision to escort the group towards and directly in front of the trans rights protestors predictably increased tensions and aggravated protestors. Legal observers noted multiple uses of force, including excessive force incidents against trans rights protesters directly related to this decision. OC spray was used at trans rights protesters again at this point.

Following last year’s swastika ban, noises have now been made about criminalising the use of the Nazi/’Roman’ salute. If this proceeds, neo-Nazis will presumably adopt some other gesture, while others — including those tasked with enforcing the law — will remain at liberty to employ the ‘OK’ symbol, whether at mining conferences or at anti-trans rallies.

Welcome to the Australian TERF Club

For so-called ‘trans-exclusionary radical feminists’ (TERFs), the public display of neo-Nazi support for Parker’s anti-trans crusade has the potential to create political difficulties but, with effort, these can likely be overcome. Leaving aside the fact that — in line with what radical feminist Andrea Dworkin termed ‘biological sex essentialism’ — Parker prefers to be known as a ‘femalist’ rather than a ‘feminist’, like other right-wing grifters, she’ll soon bugger off (in this case, back to her mansion in Blighty) and leave others to pick up the pieces. A ‘controversial’ figure, Saturday’s events have forced at least some, otherwise supportive feminist organisations, to distance themselves from her crass opportunism and idiotic self-promotion. Woman’s Place UK, for example, has felt compelled to issue a statement explaining that:

Women are not responsible for the actions of men or those who want to use the concerns women have for their own political ends. However, the presence of neo-Nazis at women’s rights events is a wake-up call to the need for explicit differentiation between women organising in defence of our rights and those far-right actors who seek to exploit this organising. As a political campaign we believe we have a responsibility to reaffirm our position.

Previously, another statement attributed to ‘Feminist Left Australia’ (an anonymous group that believes that ‘feminists should not work with the right’) and titled ‘Are you thinking of going to Kellie-Jay Keen’s events in Australia or NZ? Read this first’ noted that:

    • The Standing for Women Australian tour is sponsored by right-wing organisation CPAC (Conservative Political Action Coalition/Conference)
    • KJK is happy to be interviewed on right-wing media channels
    • People from across the far-right spectrum are increasingly attending and speaking at her rallies
    • KJK supported Trump in the US election
    • KJK says she is not a feminist. She opposes transgenderism from the position of someone who holds very traditional [sic] family values
    • KJK has made racist comments targeting Muslim communities
    • She has built a brand and a career out of this movement

In this context, it’s worth noting that, apart from conforming with the organisation’s Weltanschauung, CPAC’s involvement in Parker’s publicity tour is supplemented by the role of Christian nationalist David Pellowe, its operations manager.

You may remember Pellowe from such events as the 2018 Australasian tour of alt-right propagandists Stefan Molyneux and Lauren ‘The Great Replacement’ Southern. Southern’s promotion of the thesis — later adopted by the Christchurch killer to justify his mass murder of 51 Muslims — was no barrier to her permanently transitioning to Australia, or to being promoted to a role as a regular commentator on Sky News Australia. You may also remember that Pellowe hired members of the defunct neo-Nazi grouplet ‘The Lads Society’ to act as security on the tour. And, as I noted on Twitter:

Lie down with dogs …

In my view, even if, as seems likely, Moira Deeming is (somewhat cynically) expelled by Pesutto’s Liberals and a new law is introduced to criminalise pro-Nazi displays, the temporary embarrassment created by the spectacle of sieg heiling neo-Nazis joining with Parker & Co. will fade and — in the unlikely event she’s less active in future — another grifter will indubitably take her place. As Richard Cooke noted in 2017 of another right-wing troll, ‘In so many ways, Milo Yiannopoulos is unremarkable. He is just one of a long line of conservative grifters making hay in Australia’, Australia’s welcome mat for right-wing trolls is a permanent fixture on the political landscape, and Australians remain easy marks. Of more immediate relevance, perhaps, is the battle for control of the Victorian Liberals, to which large numbers of ‘Good Godly’ Christian nationalists and other, similar forces are being recruited and deployed in order to evict whatever remnants of liberalism remain within it.

See also : Anti-trans rally speakers are falsely claiming neo-Nazi supporters were undercover police, trans activists, Cam Wilson, Crikey, March 20, 2023 | Immigration reviews entry for anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, Chris Hipkins comments, Katie Harris, New Zealand Herald, March 20, 2023 | How Transphobic Moral Panics Fuel Authoritarian Politics, Fran Amery and Aurelien Mondon, Jacobin, March 13, 2023:

No one should therefore be surprised about the growing links of mainstream transphobes with far- and extreme-right groups, their collusion in certain conspiracy theories, or to see them participate in demonstrations together. This is not a bug, but a feature. The far- and extreme-right support of mainstream liberal transphobia is a logical step, for it not only builds on the same methods of exclusion, but legitimizes many of the Right’s own talking points and opens the field to further processes of exclusion, including eugenics.

Posted in Anti-fascism, Broken Windows, History, Media, Sex & Sexuality, State / Politics, That's Capitalism!, War on Terror | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Yeah Nah Pasaran! #154 w Byron Clark on Fear & the far-right in Aotearoa/NZ : March 16, 2023

This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! we talk to Byron Clark [Twitter/Mastodon]. Byron is the author of Fear: New Zealand’s hostile underworld of extremists (HarperCollins, 2023), which ‘maps New Zealand’s alt-right underworld and unearths the roots of the occupation that ended in a violent protest on the grounds of Parliament’ in early 2022. We spoke to Byron about the book and his experience monitoring the far-right in Aotearoa/New Zealand (Cam previously spoke to Byron about Kiwi conspiracists in August 2021).

See/hear also : Histories of Hate: The Radical Right in Aotearoa New Zealand, Matthew Cunningham, Marinus La Rooij and Paul Spoonley (eds), Otago University Press, 2023 | For victims and their families, there are still lingering questions about the Christchurch terrorist attack, Emily Clark, ABC, March 12, 2023 | Pandemic madness ‘just a rehearsal’, Byron Clark, newsroom, March 9, 2023 | Teen who planned terror attack in Auckland said he was ready for ‘martyrdom’, Catrin Owen, RNZ, March 8, 2023| Author Byron Clark talks to John about his new book on the alt-right in New Zealand, Real Life With John Cowan, NewstalkZB, February 23, 2023 | Fear and loathing in New Zealand: an overdue examination of our ‘underworld of extremists’ is valuable but flawed, Chris Wilson, The Conversation, February 15, 2023 | Fear: New Zealand’s hostile underworld of extremists, Byron Clark, Stuff, February 12, 2023 | Notes in the letterbox, being followed, and death threats: Life as a leading alt-right researcher, Stuff, February 12, 2023 | Far-right YouTuber films himself stalking and confronting anti-hate speech activist at his workplace, Nadine Porter, Stuff, July 22, 2022.

4.30pm, Thursday, March 16, 2023 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

• A longer version of this episode will be available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify and other platforms after broadcast.
• We also have a Facebook page for the show, which you’re invited to ‘Like’ and to ‘Follow’.
• I have a Patreon account which youse are also invited to support.

Posted in Anti-fascism, Broken Windows, Death, History, Media, Sex & Sexuality, State / Politics, Student movement, That's Capitalism!, War on Terror | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Posie Parker’s 2023 Publicity Tour Down Under

Above: Parker fan, Victoria Park, Sydney, March 11, 2023.

‘Posie Parker’ — AKA Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull — is currently pulling her anti-transgender bandwagon through this sunburnt country: sweeping plains, ragged mountain ranges, drought and flooding rains, the lot. But rather than undertake, say, ‘A provocative journey through the dark history of the creation of white Australia, exposing the hidden genocide of the Aboriginal people’, Keen-Minshull is instead busy drumming up support for something called ‘femalism’. As I understand it, this involves reinvigorating a concept otherwise termed ‘biological sex essentialism’ (or something).

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Keen-Minshull’s current publicity tour was preceded by similar ventures in the UK and US, which also witnessed protest. In Chapter 6, ‘Drag Queen Story Hour and the Anti-LGBT+ Backlash’, of Hope Not Hate’s State of Hate 2023: Rhetoric, Racism and Resentment report [PDF], they write:

In January 2023, at a demonstration in Newcastle, Lisa Morgan, a speaker at a rally organised by Keen referenced Adolf Hitler’s term “the big lie” and drew a parallel to those supporting trans rights today. Hitler’s use of the term helped spur on antisemitism in Germany. As the theme of transgender people’s rights will likely continue to be a salient topic in the mainstream media as well as among the far right, Keen is likely to have continued success and grow her platform.

Keen-Minshull’s tour kicked off in Sydney yesterday, was in Brisbane today, and carries on through Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Hobart and Canberra. In response, a number of different groups have organised protest activities:

Tuesday, March 14 : PERTH – Fight the Right: protest the speaking tour of right-wing UK transphobe Kellie-Jay Keen (National Union of Students Queer/LGBTI, United Against Bigotry & Racism and Rainbow Rebellion WA)
Thursday, March 16 : ADL: Protest Transphobia! Oppose anti-trans right wing bigot Kellie-Jay Keen (National Union of Students Queer/LGBTI, Rainbow Rights Adelaide and Adelaide Campaign Against Racism and Fascism)
Saturday, March 18 : MELB – Fight the Right: protest the speaking tour of right-wing UK transphobe Kellie-Jay Keen, (National Union of Students Queer/LGBTI and Campaign Against Racism and Fascism)
Tuesday, March 21 : Tasmania Supports the Trans and Gender Diverse Community (Equality Tasmania)
Thursday, March 23 : CBR: Fight the Right: protest the speaking tour of right-wing UK transphobe Kellie-Jay Keen (National Union of Students Queer/LGBTI, ANU Women’s Department, ANU Queer Department, Campaign Against Racism and Fascism – Canberra, Equal Love Canberra)

Keen-Minshull is also planning on popping over to Aotearoa too.

See also : Why we need to protest transphobic hate speech, Nova Sobieralski, Green Left, March 8, 2023 | Why we need to protest Posie Parker, Jacqueline Blackburn, Red Flag, March 5, 2023.

In Sydney yesterday there was reportedly a ‘clash’ between Parker fans and those who are not — see : Protesters clash at anti-trans rally in Sydney (Isabel McMillan, news dot com dot au/NCA, March 11, 2023) and Protesters clash with anti-trans groups in Victoria Park (Elliot Lawry, Honi Soit, March 12, 2023) — but this would seem to have been confined to members of the two rallies (each comprising one or two hundred people) shouting at one another across police lines. Notably, today’s event in Brisbane attracted the participation of fellow grifters Monica Smit and Kirralie Smith (also present in Sydney) along with a number of (radical) feminist speakers, who addressed an audience of around one hundred. As in Sydney, a larger crowd gathered to express opposition.

Finally, as is the case with every other right-wing grifter, Keen-Minshull’s publicity tour has harnessed support from important elements of the tabloid and right-wing media, along with attention from various PHONys, Tories (most notably Katherine Deves) and of course Ordinary Mums & Dads™. Otherwise, the tour will presumably continue to attract positive interest from right-wing media and modest support from fans (along with opposition).

File Under : Unusual Alliance in Bathroom Battle

A Room Of Their Own: How Anti-Trans Feminists Are Complicit in Christian Right Anti-Trans Advocacy, Heron Greenesmith, The Public Eye, July 14, 2020.
How a fight over transgender rights derailed environmentalists in Nevada, Jael Holzman, Politico, February 6, 2022.
Woman’s Place and Kellie-Jay Keen (aka Posie Parker), Woman’s Place UK, June 22, 2022.
Collaboration between transphobic feminists and the far right — some facts, Ben Tausz, Workers’ Liberty, September 13, 2022.
Policing Adult Human Females: Let Women Speak!, Heather Brunskell-Evans, Savage Minds, October 15, 2022 (‘High-profile left-wing feminists conclude that Let Women Speak is not fit for feminist purpose. I disagree.’).
How Transphobia Built a Coalition of Eco-Radicals, White Nationalists and Right-Wing Think Tanks, It’s Going Down, December 1, 2022.
Who is Posie Parker? The anti-trans founder of Standing for Women, Xander Elliards, The National, February 5, 2023.
Inside the Secret Working Group That Helped Push Anti-Trans Laws Across the Country, Madison Pauly, Mother Jones, March 8, 2023.

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Yeah Nah Pasaran! #153 w Kate Burns on Christofascism : March 9, 2023

This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! we talk to Kate Burns [Twitter]. Kate is an LA-based writer and anti-fascist researcher with a particular interest in Christian extremism. Recently, Kate wrote Preaching Fascism: Inside San Diego’s Awaken Megachurch (Left Coast Right Watch, February 21, 2023). We spoke to her about how ‘Awaken has become a hotbed for San Diego’s Christofascist scene. It’s a regular stop for some of America’s biggest right wing mouthpieces including Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Sean Feucht and Clay Clark’s “Reawaken America” tour featuring Michael Flynn, Roger Stone and Eric Trump. The church is also in bed with Charlie Kirk and TPUSA Faith.’

See/hear also : Christofascism Is Everyone’s Problem, Kit O’Connell, Texas Observer, November 3, 2022 | Most Republicans Support Declaring the United States a Christian Nation, Stella Rouse and Shibley Telhami, Politico, September 21, 2022 | “Christian Nationalism” Used to Be Taboo. Now It’s All the Rage., Molly Olmsted, Slate, August 5, 2022 | Yeah Nah Pasaran! #123 w Katherine Stewart on Christian Nationalism in the United States : July 7, 2022 | Yeah Nah Pasaran! #118 w Elle Hardy on Beyond Belief: How Pentecostal Christianity Is Taking Over the World : June 2, 2022 | Yeah Nah Pasaran! #087 w Sophie Bjork-James on White Evangelicalism : September 23, 2021.

4.30pm, Thursday, March 9, 2023 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

• A longer version of this episode will be available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify and other platforms after broadcast.
• We also have a Facebook page for the show, which you’re invited to ‘Like’ and to ‘Follow’.
• I have a Patreon account which youse are also invited to support.

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antifa notes (march 4, 2023) : Shermon Burgess The Muslim & Nazi Terror

Shermon Burgess : Pillar of the Community

Neil Erikson. Shermon Burgess. Ban Islam Party (2017).

Crikey!

Australian anti-Islamic activist Shermon Burgess becomes the latest far-right figure to convert to Islam, Scobie McKay, Crikey, March 3, 2023.

Apparently, ‘The Great Aussie Patriot’ (AKA the man who once sang the smash-hit ‘Shit On A Mosque’ by Eureka Brigade) ‘confirmed to Crikey that he and another former anti-Islamic activist had taken their Shahada, an Arabic term for an Islamic oath, had converted to the religion and had been welcomed by his local mosque’.

When I first encountered Burgess in 2014 he was an ‘atheist’ struggling valiantly with fellow right-wing loon Ralph Cerminara to establish an ‘Australian Defence League’. The ADL experienced limited success but Burgess rose to fame in 2015 as the face of ‘Reclaim Australia’ (2015–2016) and then the ‘United Patriots Front’ (2015–2017), a coalition of neo-Nazis and Christian fundamentalists. Then identifying as both a ‘patriot’ and a ‘Christian’, after Reclaim and the UPF imploded, Burgess became an ‘Odinist’, a ‘Viking’ and a ‘National Socialist’. Now, however, he’s a ‘Muslim’. As I remarked elsewhere, given his rapid transition from one personality and identity to the next, there’s really no guarantee that he won’t be a ‘Buddhist’ by this time next year; his various performances are mostly aimed at gaining attention (which he interprets as validation, ie: Actually Being Some Body Who Matters) and would be better read as symptomatic of a chronic, underlying personal instability. That’s also why everything he claims should be taken with a grain truck of salt.

Along with noting that ‘Weird Mike’ Cernovich has been making positive noises, Scobie identifies Andrew Tate, live-streamer and anti-LGBTQIA+ influencer “Sneako”, ‘Dutch politician Geert Wilders’ former right-hand man Joram van Klaveren’, ‘Arthur Wagner, a leading party official for the far-right German party Alternative for Germany’ and ‘Maxene Buttey, a local councillor for the far-right party Front National’ as recent high-profile right-wing converts to Islam. He notes that other ‘members of the far-right, such as self-proclaimed “theocratic-fascist” Matt Walsh and commentators Candace Owens and Jordan Peterson, have been capitalising on their new-found popularity amongst the Muslim community’.

Shermon Burgess.
(I called it on June 23, 2015.)

A convert unmentioned in the article is Devon Arthurs, the Atomwaffen Division member who, after discovering a new perspective on life, murdered his neo-Nazi housemates. At the time:

He told police he shot dead two of his roommates inside the apartment because they disrespected his new faith.

And the story kept growing stranger.

As the police and Arthurs reached the apartment, a man in military camouflage sat outside — in tears. He was the fourth roommate, Brandon Russell, 21. He’d just returned from his job as a private in the National Guard and had discovered his two dead roommates inside.

Poor Brandon.

Exposure to Radiation is Bad for Your Health

In any case, Russell was also a member of Atomwaffen (indeed its founder) and, after Arthurs was arrested and sent to prison/hospital for his crimes, Russell did five years for the unlawful storage of explosive materials, got out, and immediately set about getting the band back together (in order to help other things fall apart). That is, ‘Leaked chats, documents and online materials have revealed that Atomwaffen Division (AWD) founder Brandon Clint Russell was secretly but tirelessly active as a white-power propagandist and organizer between his release from prison in 2021 and his arrest on charges of plotting terror attacks’ (Leaked Chats, Documents Show Atomwaffen Founder’s Path to Terror Plot, Hannah Gais and Jason Wilson, Hatewatch, February 23, 2023).

See/hear also : 180: The Brief Return of Brandon Russell – Atomwaffen’s Latest Fail, The Empire Never Ended, February 23, 2023.

More recently, another neo-Nazi terror fangrrl has been Exposed: Dallas Humber, Narrator Of Neo-Nazi ‘Terrorgram,’ Promoter Of Mass Shootings (Christopher Mathias, Huffington Post, March 2, 2023):

The Terrorgram Collective is at the heart of the international neo-Nazi accelerationist movement, the most extreme and explicit iteration of white supremacism, which advocates deadly violence and other acts of destruction to hasten the collapse of society so that a whites-only world can be built in its place. The collective produces propaganda — audiobooks, videos and memes — that travels across the web in hopes of inspiring the next Christchurch shooter, who killed 51 Muslims in two mosques; the next El Paso shooter, who killed 22 Hispanic people in a Walmart; the next Pittsburgh shooter, who killed 11 Jews in a synagogue; and the next Buffalo shooter, who killed 10 Black Americans in a grocery store …

Despite the extreme nature of this propaganda, and its direct influence on the Bratislava shooter, the identities of the people behind the Terrorgram Collective, who use pseudonyms to post their bile, have remained unknown — until now.

Evidence compiled by a coalition of anonymous antifascist researchers — including from SoCal Research Club, @WizardAFA, @SunlightAFA and @FashFreeNW — and published this week on Left Coast Right Watch, an investigative news outlet, reveals that one of the Terrorgram Collective’s main propagandists is Dallas Erin Humber, a 33-year-old woman living in Sacramento, California.

Another aspiring mass murderer belonging to a closely-related group was yesterday ‘sentenced to 45 years in prison for his role in plotting to kill fellow service members at a US military base in Turkey. Part of a neo-Nazi, pro-jihadist group known as the Order of the Nine Angles (O9A), Ethan Melzer, now 24, provided sensitive details about his unit, including locations, security and troop movements, to the extremist group in connection with its plot to attack the base and kill his fellow soldiers, according to the Justice Department.’ For more on 09A, see : Yeah Nah Pasaran! #058 w H.E. Upchurch on Iron March & 09A : March 4, 2021 | Order of Nine Angles: What is this obscure Nazi Satanist group?, Daniel De Simone, BBC, June 23, 2020 | Order of Nine Angles, Nick Lowles, Hope Not Hate, February 16, 2019.

Kangaroo Reich

Locally, several members of Tom Sewell’s European Australian Movement/National Socialist Network — currently being hosted by Tim Lutze’s Legacy Boxing Gym @ Industrial Drive, West Sunshine — have been in the news after being in trouble with the law. In Adelaide, Cameron Brodie-Hall (AKA IronMarch user ‘Arthur Calwell’), who has been charged with ‘possessing both a document or record containing information likely to be used in a terrorism act, and extremist material’, has had another application for bail rejected and seems destined to remain behind bars until his trial (currently scheduled for January 2024). Curiously, ‘A bedroom filled with fascist propaganda is no more indicative of criminal intent than would be “reading up on” smoking cannabis’ Brodie-Hall told the court, and his lawyer has argued that:

it would be “impermissible” under law to take those matters into account when determining his client’s suitability for bail. “Simply because you have an interest in something – it might be cars, the Catholic faith or mysteries of the past – doesn’t mean you’re in possession of illegal items,” he said. “A person may have an interest in cannabis and have read up on all of that, but that doesn’t mean that the cannabis located in the common room is his cannabis.”

Previously (February 21), another Adelaide neo-Nazi, Patrick Patmore, escaped a prison sentence after being ‘found in possession of a small explosive, weapons and extremist material’ and ‘will serve at least 19 months on home detention’ instead. Further, ‘The court heard he remained a member of the National Socialist Network, but had engaged in programs designed to deradicalise extremists’.

So … yeah.

See also : Accused supporter of Adelaide neo-Nazi movement Cameron Brodie-Hall applies for home detention bail, Meaghan Dillon, ABC, August 30, 2022 | Mark joined a men’s fitness club. Now it’s become an armed neo-Nazi cell, Henry Zwartz, SBS, October 8, 2021.

Meanwhile, in sunny Queensland, ‘James Lachlan Morrison (Warrior Path Active Club), Zachary Mark Makkinga (National Socialist Network) and Christian Boyle (National Socialist Movement) were all in court last this week on charges including wilful damage and public nuisance. Morrison and Boyle are both ex-NSN.’ See also : Police seize neo-Nazi paraphernalia in series of raids across south-east Queensland, Eden Gillespie, The Guardian, January 19, 2023.

Let’s hope it all ends well eh?

Finally:

• Spencer Sunshine has reviewed Peter Staudenmeier’s Ecology Contested: Environmental Politics between Left and Right for It’s Going Down, describing it as a ‘timely reminder that ecofascism is not just not a new problem, but also one that provides a bridge between the far-Right and the Left and anarchists. His book is a call, in the best radical environmental style, to blockade that bridge and stop fascists from entering radical circles.’
• SunlightAFA have published ‘Fash Pack 2023: Over 1000 PDFs of Nazi Unmaskings and the Far-Right’ which is pretty much what it says on the tin and contains a great deal of infos on nazis, fascists and others on the far-right in the United States.

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Yeah Nah Pasaran! #152 w Hannah Gais on Atomwaffen, Terrorgram & international neo-Nazism : March 2, 2023

This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! we talk to Hannah Gais [Twitter]. Hannah is a senior researcher and journalist with the Southern Poverty Law Center and the co-author (with Jason Wilson) of Leaked Chats, Documents Show Atomwaffen Founder’s Path to Terror Plot, Hatewatch (SPLC), February 23, 2023:

Leaked chats, documents and online materials have revealed that Atomwaffen Division (AWD) founder Brandon Clint Russell was secretly but tirelessly active as a white-power propagandist and organizer between his release from prison in 2021 and his arrest on charges of plotting terror attacks.

The materials show Russell, 27, of Orlando, Florida, encouraging others to commit similar crimes to those he is now accused of, and advocating armed attacks on electricity, water and transport infrastructure.

Like other white-power accelerationists, Russell promoted the strategy of attacking public infrastructure in the belief that it would trigger a crisis that would cause the collapse of “The System” – a term that accelerationists use for the status quo political order.

The new charges were outlined in the criminal complaint filed by the FBI on Feb. 2 and unsealed on Feb. 6. The complaint accuses Russell and Sarah Beth Clendaniel – his alleged accomplice and apparent girlfriend – of planning and equipping themselves for attacks on electricity infrastructure in Maryland.

Their trial on these charges is ongoing in Maryland’s federal court.

We spoke to Hannah about Russell, AWD and accelerationism, Telegram and social media, neo-Nazi terrorism’s international links and more.

• As noted, ‘Russell’s chats were obtained and provided to Hatewatch by the White Rose Society, an Australian antifascist research collective’, so props to them.
• While Atomwaffen Division (National Socialist Order) is a proscribed terrorist organisation in Australia, it was born on defunct neo-Nazi online forum Iron March (IM), which also spawned Antipodean Resistance. Following its collapse, members of AR eventually joined Tom Sewell’s European Australian Movement (EAM)/National Socialist Network (NSN).
• Currently, the EAM/NSN operates out of Tim Lutze’s Legacy Boxing Gym in West Sunshine. On February 25, a protest against the nazi gym took place. See : Hundreds march against Nazi gym in Melbourne, Brendan Stanton, Red Flag, February 28, 2023.

See also : sitting ducks. easy prey., Hannah Gais, Posts from Underground, February 23, 2023 | Brandon Russell: Leader of neo-Nazi Atomwaffen group charged with Baltimore power grid plot, BBC, February 6, 2023 | Woman Accused of Stealing Nancy Pelosi’s Laptop Appears in Video Making Nazi Salute, Robert Evans, bellingcat, February 24, 2021 | Yeah Nah Pasaran! #041 w Hannah Gais on Russia & laundering fascism : October 22, 2020 (October 20, 2020).

4.30pm, Thursday, March 2, 2023 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

• A longer version of this episode will be available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify and other platforms after broadcast.
• We also have a Facebook page for the show, which you’re invited to ‘Like’ and to ‘Follow’.
• I have a Patreon account which youse are also invited to support.

Posted in Anti-fascism, Art, Broken Windows, Death, History, Media, Sex & Sexuality, State / Politics, Student movement, That's Capitalism!, War on Terror | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Yeah Nah Pasaran! #151 w Meghan Conroy on accelerationism & January 6th : February 23, 2023

We declare that the splendour of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed.

This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! we talk to Meghan Conroy [Twitter]. Meghan works at the Digital Forensic Research Lab and Accelerationism Research Consortium and was formerly a researcher for the January 6th Committee. We spoke to Meghan about their work with the Committee, accelerationism, banal fascism and more.

See also : Insiders’ View of the January 6th Committee’s Social Media Investigation, Dean Jackson, Meghan Conroy and Alex Newhouse, Just Security, January 5, 2023 | Understanding Accelerationist Narratives: The Great Replacement Theory, Meghan Conroy, G-Net, May 30, 2022 / Understanding Accelerationist Narratives: ‘There Is No Political Solution’, September 2, 2021 | Banal Fascism Online Weaponizing the Everyday for Extreme Ends: CFP:

Fascism is on the rise globally, and within Western nations there has been a marked increase in fascism as a decentralized and increasingly mainstream movement. We argue that research on fascism should not approach it as a top-down belief system, but should instead consider the ways fascism is embedded or “coded” within the mundane elements of everyday life. This phenomenon, which we have termed “banal fascism,” is drawn from Michael Billig’s concept of “banal nationalism,” which describes how nationalism is constantly reproduced in banal, but not necessarily benign ways. Our analysis of the inherent banality of fascism as it manifests today also draws from fourteen “eternal” traits, what Umberto Eco famously referred to as Ur-Fascism.

4.30pm, Thursday, February 23, 2023 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

• A longer version of this episode will be available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify and other platforms after broadcast.
• We also have a Facebook page for the show, which you’re invited to ‘Like’ and to ‘Follow’.
• I have a Patreon account which youse are also invited to support.

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