Folk the Po-lice : G20 benefit gig, June 14, 2009

Posted on May 25, 2009 by @ndy

Over June and July, 2009, three people will finally go to trial for their role in the G20 protests in Melbourne in November, 2006. These people — Sina Brown-Davis, Tim Davis Frank, and Sunil Menon — are facing charges ranging from ‘Riot’ to ‘Unlawful Assembly’, with ‘Aggravated Burglary’ and ‘Assault Police’ playing the role of Malcolm in the Middle. Note that ‘Aggravated Burglary’ is an unusually serious charge — the maximum sentence for which is 25 years gaol — & arises from brief occupations of a Defence Force recruitment centre and the offices of Tenix, a military contractor; occupations which involved nothing more serious than the use of red glitter & water pistols. (Akin Sari remains in jail serving a 28 month sentence. Other accused pleaded guilty to reduced charges & received fines &/or compensation orders &/or suspended sentences &/or bonds.)

On the day of rest – Sunday the 14th of June – there will be a fundraiser to help pay for the legal defence of these people & keep them out of gaol. All proceeds from this gig will go to the G20 Defence Fund.

    Bands playing are:

    WIM
    WINTER PEOPLE
    EMMA DAVIS
    SUI ZHEN
    ANARCHIST DUCK
    PLUTO GONSKY
    and friends…

Ticket prices: $10 (shirkers) – $15 (workers)

PLEASE PASS THIS INFORMATION ON AND HELP KEEP GOOD PEOPLE OUT OF BAD PLACES!

Bonus!

o n e

…While the main focus of [the “war on terror”] 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… ~ Diane Fieldes, The lessons of the anti-APEC protests, Socialist Alternative, No. 121, October 2008

t w o

On some occasions antiquated or infrequently used laws are pressed into service or old laws are used in new ways. At least 200 people were arrested at AIDEX 1991 (an international defence equipment exhibition supported by the Australian government) on the unusual basis of ‘an ancient common law procedure which enables [police] to arrest a person when they have a reasonable apprehension that a breach of the peace is imminent’… The ‘Austudy 5’ were charged with rescue and unlawful assembly after a 1992 demonstration about Austudy in Melbourne on the basis of their presence at the rally rather than acts they were alleged to have committed…

The potential for new law to be created and novel applications of existing law to be found is not limited to public protest. However, the extensive catalogue of potentially applicable offences and the range of circumstances in which they may be applied suggest that the unregulated space available for public protest is limited. The supposedly stable border between lawful and unlawful protest also emerges as a fiction.

If this is the case, it also raises a paradox centred on the relationship between dissent and the community. If dissent is defined as both essential to community but also criminal conduct, and community is defined partly by the exclusion of criminal conduct, then dissenters find themselves encouraged on the one hand and yet excluded on the other. ~ Mary Heath, ‘Policing and Self-Policing in the Shadow of the Law: Negotiating Space for Public Dissent’, Criminal Justice in Diverse Communities, a special issue (Vol.17, No.1) of the journal Law in Context, Federation Press, 2000

t h r e e

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… 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, Socialist Alternative / Austudy 5), November 19, 2006

f o u r

In March 1992, a protest was held in Melbourne regarding a Government proposal to cut Austudy. Supposedly, 22 police officers were injured during the subsequent ‘riot’, two of whom required hospitalisation. “Professional protesters” were blamed for the “ultraviolence” which resulted both in these injuries and, more significantly, in the fact that police were forced to release from custody (the back of a divvy van) four individuals they’d arrested during the course of their (and hundred of others’) successful efforts to break through a police line in front of Parliament House.

According to one report (Students’ city brawl, Robyn Dixon, Bruce Tobin, David Bruce and Hugo Kelly, The Age, March 28, 1992):

    …The officer in charge of the operation, Inspector Doug Hocking, described the brawl as the worst violence he had experienced in 22 years.

    Last night two police constables were in St Vincent’s Hospital — one with broken ribs and the other with severe bruising to his groin — and 20 other officers had been treated for minor injuries.

During the confrontation:

    One mounted policeman was pulled from his horse and attacked with pipes and poles. His horse bolted down Lonsdale Street before being stopped.
    Bottles and sticks were thrown.
    The four students who were arrested were put in a police van but as the van drove off, students overtook it and blocked its path at the corner of Lonsdale and Spring streets.
    Protesters scribbled graffiti on the side of the van and vandalised some of its electrical fittings…

    [NUS official] Brendan Darcy [later adviser to Kevin Andrews] blamed habitual student agitators from groups such as the International Socialist Organisation, the Spartacists, Resistance and Left Alliance members…

    Students grabbed metal barricades from nearby construction sites and put up a barricade. The mounted police were jabbed with the three-metre long bars and thrashed with placrads and other objects. bottles and cans were also thrown…

In another account (Sally Morrell, Get-tough vow on riots, Herald-Sun, March 28, 1992):

    …Deputy Commissioner (Operations) Mr John Frame said there was clear evidence of the International Socialists organising and carrying out the violence… Mr Frame said the International Socialists’ tactics were to latch themselves on to planned demonstrations and turn a peaceful protest violent…

Best of all:

    “The deputy chief police commissioner, Mr John Frame, has started criminal investigations into what he called a “small core of anarchists” responsible for violence during a student protest outside Parliament last Thursday…” (Gerard Ryle, Anarchists blamed for uni protest, The Age, March 30, 1992)

– and –

    THE ANARCHISTS

    It is time to expose the International Socialists for what they are: anarchists out to disrupt public order by manipulating people with genuine grievances. This week these parasitical wreckers were at it again, this time outside Victoria’s Parliament House.

    They hijacked a rally of students protesting against a proposal to replace the Austudy allowance with a loan scheme. The students had every right to join their colleagues across Australia to put forward their point of view. But the International Socialists turned the rally into a riot in which 22 police were hurt and the Premier had her office window broken.

    The same old faces were there at the barricades. The same ones prominent during the Bush visit, the Hoechst dispute, the AIDEX turmoil in Canberra and, closer to home, the violence that erupted during an industrial dispute at the office from which this newspaper is published.

    The police will lay charges over Thursday’s events if they can. But this is not enough. The International Socialists organisation is, by definition, imported. The immigration authorities should find out whether any of its members who are not Australian born are, through their actions, in breach of the permits under which they remain here. If so, let’s send them home. They are not welcome!

Exactly the same statements were trotted out then as are being trotted out now, only whereas in 1992 it was senior police claiming that this was “the worst violence… seen in Melbourne for 20 years”, now it’s Mick Armstrong. And whereas now Akin Sari has been sent down for 28 months (and dozens of others still face charges), then it was Mick himself who was up on charges, along with four of his comrades: Jeff Sparrow, Jill Sparrow, Marcus Banks and Johnathan Sherlock. And finally, whereas then ‘the left’ was expected to rally ’round Mick and the other members of the ISO, now…

Posted in Broken Windows, Music, State / Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

Dear President Chávez

Posted on May 25, 2009 by @ndy

Dear President Chávez,

I, an impoverished citizen/captive of Australia, would like to extend a warm invitation for you to visit “my” country — and to answer some questions. I have watched developments in Venezuela with great interest, frequently by reference to the writings of my anarchist comrades. I have been impressed by the great efforts that the Venezuelan people have taken — in standard bourgeois phraseology — to “improve their living standards”, as well as the efforts of anarchists in that part of the world to develop a critique of the ‘Bolivarian Revolution’. Like them, I have also noted with some concern the moves that your government has made to use popular discontent to establish a government based on authoritarian rule in all spheres of society — from the workplace up to the national government.

Although I am already on the opposite side of the globe I feel that my desire for the abolition of work, total subversion, and a permanent worldwide proletarian revolution with “unrestrained pleasure” as its only goal further entrenches the gulf that lies between us. Every country — and one should remember in this context that a) all nations are hallucinations and b) Paul Keating’s memorable description of Australia as being ‘The Arse End Of The Earth’ — has its own traditions and culture and has to find its own solutions, but what “Venezuela” has been able to achieve in so little time will be a source of inspiration and ideas for many in Australia (having already provided new t-shirt designs and an alternative holiday destination to Cuba for Environmental Leninists of one sort or another).

In this light I believe that a visit to my-country-right-or-wrong by yourself (but more likely yourself in the company of a large and rather intimidating security presence) would not only help to improve the awareness of the Australian people of developments in Venezuela, but also be an unparalleled opportunity a) to strengthen the ties of friendship and solidarity between our two peoples and b) for an autonomous cell of the Biotic Baking Brigade to smear vegan cream in your face in tribute to your status as President and Great Leader.

Sincerely,

________________________

All signatures will be posted to Nelson Davila, Venezuela’s charge d’affaires in Australia, Canberra. (Todas las firmas de invitación serán enviadas a Nelson Dávila, Encargado de Negocios de Venezuela en Australia, Canberra.)

If you would like to confirm the signature of yourself or your organisation for identification and for promotion of President Chavez’ visit please contact: Jody Betzien 0425 887 078 or email info[at]venezuelasolidarity[dot]org

Venezuela: El Libertario warns of possible sentence to the 14 SIDOR workers
El Libertario, Śro, 2009-04-29 17:03 English

“After taking part in a demonstration for lack of job security in 2006, 14 workers of contractor “Transportes Camila de SIDOR” could be sentenced to 5 to 10 years in jail…”

See also :

Chavez re-nationalises SIDOR – historic victory for the workers, Jorge Martin (www.marxist.com), April 9, 2008 | Venezuelan Steel Co. Contract Workers Incorporated, Company To Be a Socialist Enterprise, James Suggett (Venezuelanalysis.com), June 13, 2008 | Human Rights Watch report on Venezuela: An echo of US propaganda, A statement by the AVSN, September 30, 2008 | Is Hugo Chavez cracking down on dissent?, Marcus Pabian, Direct Action, No.11, May 2009…

Uncle Hugo & the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, February 12, 2009 | Resistance is Utile: Critchley responds to Zizek (Harper’s Review, May 2008), May 16, 2008 | Don’t know what i want, But i know how to get it, March 6, 2008 | Uh-oh… troubled times ahead for anarchists in Venezuela // Bombings in Caracas, February 26, 2008 | No Todos Somos Chávez: Venezuela says ‘No’, December 4, 2007 | Viva Chávez? WSJ on the student opposition…, November 26, 2007 | anarchy is a (Venezuelan) fag!, October 2, 2007 | Venezuelan Anarchists on Chavez, WSF, January 7, 2006 |

The Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network AVSN

Posted in State / Politics, Trot Guide | Tagged | 23 Comments

Bloggy Monday

Posted on May 25, 2009 by @ndy

I’ve been reading some blogs!

First, fitzroyalty. By Brian. It’s like, totally about my old stompem ground Fitzroy. In one post — broccoli is a political weapon — Brian examines the largely imaginary group ‘Yarra National Anarchists’, and their world-historical battles with the FASCIST Steve Jolly. To wit, the fact that some council workers apparently sabotaged their attempt to grow some vegetables in a patch of dirt on Smith Street.

Seriously.

Note to Brian: the reason this particular handful of little twerps are

vewy

angwy

with Steve is because he is an

Evil

Communist.

Further, on two separate occasions — May Day in 2008 and a later public rally in opposition to Government-sponsored censorhip of the Intertubes — EVIL COMMUNIST FASCIST members of Steve’s party elected to inform the handful of ‘national anarchists’ who rocked up to shoo! — which they duly did. Final word to Rick: “I always get a bit of comic relief from the National “Anarchist” sites. If you don’t want people to read your site and leave comments close it down. We would just get our gardening news from elsewhere.”

Boom-tish.

Secondly, the lurid Fugitive Desire, produced in an underground bunker somewhere by “a clandestine, grassroots collective of autonomous revolutionaries, cultural saboteurs and radical ecologists”. A brief post on the concept of autonomy reminds me that in an interview Mario Tronti (are you there grumpy?) argues that ‘The Anti-G20 Protests Lacked Politics’. Which, in turn, brings to mind the fact that: “Local members of the provincial anarchist organization Common Cause fear Hamilton police are seeking to criminalize local organizers after a Hamilton police report identified the 2nd annual Hamilton Anarchist Book Fair as a potential source of hate crime…”

Which just goes to show that Andrew Bolt is read far and wide.

Thirdly, a plug for Unity News. Currently, Diane Denise (D’oh!) is documenting the campaign to keep the British National Party from invading Europe.

Fourthly, Ariel Salleh. Not a blog, actually, but a website dedicated to Ariel’s writings exploring the relationship between ecology and feminism. “Her most recent book – Eco-Sufficiency and Global Justice [Spinifex Press, 2009] – is a collection of essays written with a team of internationally distinguished women, addressing the deficit of sex/gender awareness as it affects the conceptualisation of political economy, ecological economics, and sustainability studies.” Good stuff.

Finally, check out caitlin ate‘s Cat Friendly House. Fucking a w e s o m e. (NB. The new design is very very difficult to read for an old cat like me, what with my sore back, partial deafness, deteriorating eyesight, gammy leg… I mean, I can’t bust heads like I used to, but I have my ways. One trick is to tell ’em stories that don’t go anywhere – like the time I caught the tram to Collingwood. I needed a new needle for my turntable, so, I decided to go to Carringbush, which is what they called Collingwood in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to catch the tram cost ½d, and in those days, pence had pictures of bumblebees on ’em. “Give me 12 pence for a shilling,” you’d say. Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn’t have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones…)

Anyway…

It’s A Wonderful Life

Posted in Media, State / Politics | Tagged | 3 Comments

A is for Anarchy. B is for Bullshit.

Posted on May 24, 2009 by @ndy

Will the Global Economic Crisis (GEC) facilitate social change? And do the recent ‘Group of 20’ (G20) protests reflect a rise in anarchism? Donna Yan and Bonita Silva investigate. ~ ‘A is for Anarchy’, Vertigo, Bonita Silva and Donna Yan, May 19, 2009.

Ah… student journalism. This particular example has covered all four bases:

1) Hacks: Paola Totaro. Tom Whipple.
2) Crackademics: Stewart Davidson. Benjamin Franks. George Crowder. Lawrence Davis.
3) Slacktivists: Karen Kennedy. Katrina Byrne.
4) One-and-a-half teenage fascists: Alex. Scott.

1) Hacks

Paola’s sterling contribution to G20 reportage I’ve already discussed; Tom Whipple is Tom Whipple.

2) Crackademics

Stewart lectures the world from Glasgow. A member of the Anarchist Studies Network, Disco(ntented) Stu makes the obvious point that not all G20 protesters in London were anarchists; further, that the term is applied by hacks without regard for its accuracy; and finally that “[t]he inaccuracy of this portrayal is beside the point from a propagandist’s point of view”.

Like Stu, Benjamin is a member of the ASN (as is Lawrence). Ben agrees with Stu, and adds that:

Some aspects of the protests were consistent with anarchism… These include attempts to contest hierarchical power, open, participatory planning, and finding co-operative links between different political groups. However, [Ben] is not convinced the economy determines social change… “It should be remembered that many of those taking part in the protests, indeed those actors who provided the most memorable images of the protests, were not protestors but state officials – mainly the police. And of course other important participants were the largely conservative/economic liberal journalists, columnists and broadcasters, who were pivotal in framing the events in particular ways.”

And how.

George is quoted as follows: “The idea that the current crisis – or anything else – will lead to ‘a rise in anarchism’ strikes me as absurd”; while Lawrence “believes the opportunity for meaningful social change will depend on our future actions, or the opportunity will arise for global elites to convey the appearance of structural change. He says: ‘If people the world over are content to give their power away to elites in exchange for promises of reform, if in other words they try to achieve democracy by waiting for it, then they will wait forever’.”

So much for the crackademics.

3) Slacktivists

“Non-violent anarchist activist” Karen notes that many do not understand ‘anarchy’, and it is associated with ‘violent rebellion’. Violent (presumably) anarchist activist Katrina, on the other hand, a member of the Jura Books collective in Sydney, agrees that ‘anarchy’ and ‘anarchism’ are widely misunderstood, and stresses the fundamentally co-operative nature of the anarchist vision.

4) One-and-a-half teenage fascists

Bonita and Donna also sought comment from bloggers. First, Alex: author of “a popular blog site detailing anarchist issues in Australia”.

I’ve no idea who ‘Alex’ is, but his or her blog is not popular; nor does Alex have any association with any existing anarchist group. Finally, Alex is hardly prolific: their only post for 2009 (May 1) notes the invitation from B&D to submit an opinion for their article. In December 2008, Alex complains about internet censorshit; in October, s/he notes that Victoria Police has spied on activists; in September (and there are 24 other entries for the year 2008) Alex complains that a now-deleted blog singled him/her out for criticism.

Apparently, an entry on this blog identified Alex as a ‘national anarchist’ and the blogger requested personal information about Alex to be sent to myself; someone Alex “believed to be a true Anarchist and comrade (with whom I did not necessary [sic] agree with on everything, but supported on my blog anyway)”.

Which is all very odd.

In any case, as far as I’m aware, and based on his/her own writing, Alex is a Christian who would like to live in a segregated, Christian, community, and understands ‘national anarchism’ (see below) to allow for this possibility. Hence, s/he is sympathetic to ‘national anarchism’. His/her understanding of ‘anarchism’, in other words, is highly idiosyncratic, and bears little relation to either its contemporary or historical forms.

So much for Alex.

The second oddball is Scott, a teenage ‘national anarchist’ from Geelong:

Some anarchists believe that although the turnout at the G20 protests was due to the economic instability, protests are not reason enough to prove a rise in anarchism has occurred. Scott, a representative of the Victorian National-Anarchist network says: “A lot of those involved in the G20 protests around the world are more often than not interested more in expressing their anger toward an exploitative establishment than being involved in positive grassroots activism. What happens at a G20 protest may be an example of how angry people are with world leaders but it’s hardly an example of anarchism in action.”

Hmmm.

A know-nothing, Scott is indeed a representative of the “Victorian National-Anarchist network”, a network which consists of a handful of teens and one or two adults, all of whom have gravitated to ‘national anarchism’ by way of the far right. Scott himself is a refugee from the white supremacist website Stormfront, and a continuing supporter of the neo-Nazi network ‘Blood & Honour’, having attended at least one of its annual events, and being chums with the representative of the “Victorian Blood & Honour network”. This particular group of neo-Nazis recently came to media attention by way of organising a gig in Perth (April 25) to celebrate the deaths of Australian soldiers in WWII and, prior to this, by way of the public exposure of the membership of this network of Canberra-based neo-Nazi Nicole Hanley, a senior manager for Thales, a major arms manufacturer and military supplier (Hanley was subsequently suspended from her position).

While the fascist teenybopper was a member of Stormfront, he produced what is probably one of my favourite comments. Thus:

For the record, NoCrusties is a teenage fascist from Melbourne. By his own admission, he travelled to Sydney to take part in the ‘anarchist’ ‘black bloc’ organised by Welf Herfurth. On Stormfront, he makes the following comment regarding the photo below, which I think explains why the New Right should be opposed better than I ever could:

Today, 05:35 AM
NoCrusties
Australian Nationalist

Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Australia
Posts: 460

Re: New photos of Nazis having fun in the sun

They are celebrating the girls graduation from Jewish strangulation school?

Haha, jokes, haha!

Regards
NoCrusties.

In the shadow of horror, SS guardians frolic
International Herald Tribune
September 18, 2007

“…The photos provide a stunning counterpoint to what up until now has been the only major source of preliberation Auschwitz photos, the so-called Auschwitz Album, a compilation of pictures taken by SS photographers in the spring of 1944 and discovered by a survivor in another camp. Those photos depict the arrival at the camp of a transport of Hungarian Jews, who at the time made up the last remaining sizable Jewish community in Europe. The Auschwitz Album, owned by Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust museum, depicts the railside selection process at Birkenau, the area where trains arrived at the camp, as SS men herded new prisoners into lines.

The comparisons between the albums are both poignant and obvious, as they juxtapose the comfortable daily lives of the guards with the horrific reality within the camp, where thousands were starving and 1.1 million died…”

That a teenager who has celebrated the Holocaust, attended neo-Nazi events, is being tutored in politics by a Sydney-based neo-Nazi named Welf Herfurth (originator of both the ‘New Right’ and the ‘national anarchists’ — and co-founder, most recently, of another fascist groupuscule named ‘Volksfront Australia’) — and is and has continued to be involved with a range of fascist projects — should be selected by two student journalists from Sydney to re-present ‘anarchist’ opinion on the ‘global economic crisis’ may be unfortunate, but the possibility still exists for this oversight to be corrected.

Either way, my feeling is that it will end in tears.

    SKARPRETTER : NAZISCUM

    Another black man loses his life on the street
    A young punk goes down by knife in the east
    The worst of vermin are on the rise
    A little kid is beaten down outside her home
    Onlookers don’t help, she takes the beating alone
    They look away and ignore her cries

    Chorus
    We’ve got an enemy to beat
    We’ve got to meet them in the street
    There’s a time to fight and that time has come
    We’re coming for you, naziscum!

    While another easy victim is left to die
    The authorities they turn a blind eye
    Reports are filed and nothing is done
    ‘Cause these are the killers they themselves create
    Ugly symptoms of a racist state
    Like the father, so the son

    Chorus

    And now they’re marching under the black flag
    Stolen to replace a swastika filth rag
    It seems they are too stupid to understand
    That it represents the opposite of their ideology
    The antifascist black flag of anarchy
    Is not for their filthy hands

    Chorus

See also : APEC : New Reich / “National Anarchists” (September 8, 2007) | All Heil the New Reich* (September 18, 2007) | Anarchist statement on the New Right (October 21, 2007) | Anarchist statement on New Right (cont.) (October 29, 2007) | APEC : Notional Anarchists (November 20, 2007) | The BNP’s German pals face their own troubles (Searchlight, March 2008) (March 10, 2008) | mathaba.net : last words (May 1, 2008) | Troy Southgate as state asset? (May 23, 2008) | White nationalism v national anarchism (June 3, 2008) | Neo-Nazi ‘national anarchists’ in Germany in the headlines (June 4, 2008) | Seig Heil! Boneheads, NPD, APP, Darrin Hodges… (August 25, 2008) | Vote 1 Darrin Hodges the National Anarchist Protectionist (and er, Saleam’s Lot) (September 7, 2008) | The New Right in The Public Eye (December 18, 2008)

Posted in Anarchism, Media, Student movement | Tagged | Leave a comment

Mauricio Morales Duarte

Posted on May 24, 2009 by @ndy
    CHILE: FUNERAL HELD FOR ANARCHIST KILLED BY OWN BOMB, The Santiago Times, May 25, 2009

    Anarchist Attempted To Plant Bomb At Police Training School

    Mauricio Andrés Morales Duarte, 27, was cycling near the Police Training School in San Bernardo on Friday morning with a companion when a homemade bomb he was carrying in his backpack exploded, killing him instantly. His companion, who is yet to be identified, was not killed, and a security camera showed him fleeing the scene on a bike immediately following the explosion…

    See also : Anarchist in Chile Dies From Explosive Device, APOC, May 24, 2009 [w additional trans from the bourgeois press]

Anarchist in Chile dies from explosive device
Saturday, May 23 2009 @ 01:35 AM CDT
Contributed by: Anonymous

Comrades,

We bear tragic news from here in Chile.

During the early morning of May 22, we lost our beloved comrade Mauricio Morales Duarte. According to the bourgeois press, Mauricio was transporting an explosive device in downtown Santiago. The device exploded unexpectedly, and our comrade died in combat.

Long live comrade Mauricio Morales! Mauricio joins the list of fallen combatants under the democratic regime in Chile. He was a dedicated and militant anarchist. We remember Mauricio as a youth combatant like so many before him…

See also : Compañero anticapitalista muere al detonar bomba que llevaba en su mochila. En desarrollo y actualizandose [Más Comunicado y Video]

Posted in Anarchism, Death | Tagged | 1 Comment

Homage to Catalonia: You’ve read the book. Now see the film!

Posted on May 24, 2009 by @ndy

Oh fuck.

From The Brains That Brought You Battle in Seattle // This Revolution…

In 1995, Ken Loach directed Land and Freedom (written by James “Jim” Allen: 1926–1999), a bastardised version of Homage in which the ‘anarchists’ were lumped in together with the POUM. (See the review ‘Land & Freedom (or: I Couldn’t Afford the Rights to Homage to Catalonia)’, Black Flag, No.207: “I feel sorry for poor old Ken Loach, it must be terrible being a working class hero trying to make a film about the Spanish civil war when the enemy has all the best tunes. Thankfully he can sleep at night ‘cos he nicked them. I’m not talking about the fascists, of course, but the anarchists. In fact it would have been impossible to make a film about the POUM without extensively nicking from anarchist heritage because the POUM had none of their own…”)

And now, for your viewing pleasure:

Firth, Spacey to star in ‘Catalonia’
Pamela McClintock and John Hopewell
Variety
May 19, 2009

Hugh Hudson will direct the bigscreen adaptation of George Orwell’s “Catalonia,” with Colin Firth and Kevin Spacey attached to star. Arclight Films is repping the film at the Cannes market.

Hudson (“I Dreamed of Africa,” “Chariots of Fire”) will direct from a script by Bob Ellis…

Bob Motherhugging Ellis “has had a long and close involvement with politics, covering as a journalist twenty-four [electoral] campaigns in Australia, the UK and the USA, and writing speeches or slogans for Kim Beazley, Bob Carr, Mike Rann, Jim Bacon, John Faulkner, Cheryl Kernot, Bob Brown and Mark Latham.”

Fuck.

Note that something like 57 Australian citizens went to Spain to fight as part of the Communist ‘International Brigades’. One who did not was the Englishman Harvey Buttonshaw, who settled in Australia after WWII. Harvey, “went to Spain to fight with the Syndicalists in 1936, and told George Orwell to pull his head in, or he’d get shot, just before exactly that happened. He is among the group shown on the front cover of [one particular edition of] Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia.”

Further:

The scale of Franco’s post-Civil War pogrom against his opponents and “enemies of the church” may never be known. The most conservative figure for executions between 1939 and 1946 is around 50,000; others estimate the number as high as 370,000. All that can be said is that local authorities in Spain are still [2004] excavating the mass graves of Franco’s victims, the Republican desaparecidos [disappeared], sixty-three years after the end of the war. There was also the still unanswered question of the fate of the 10,000 children of anti-Francoists taken away by the regime’s social services, priests and nuns and never heard of again… ~ Stuart Christie, Granny Made Me An Anarchist: General Franco, The Angry Brigade and Me, AK Press, 2007 (2004)

One of my own, initial introductions to anarchist thought came by way of the local, Melbourne Spanish anarchist community in exile, members of which re-published Noam Chomsky’s essay ‘Notes on Anarchism’ in 1991. In this context, see also : General Strike : ‘Federation’, November 28, 2008.

See also : ‘George Orwell and the Language of Spin’, Bob Ellis, The Australian Worker, October 2004 | ‘Reviewing the 1937 Spanish Civil War debate at the University of Melbourne 70 years on’, Fay Woodhouse (Paper presented @ ‘Labour Traditions: The tenth national labour history conference’, July 4–6, 2007 @ the University of Melbourne) | ‘Spanish Civil War and Cinema – Selected Bibliography’, David Archibald, (University of Glasgow, March 2009, PDF) | And of course the totally neat-o Poumista blog (even if I’m not cool enuff to make it on to his/her blogroll).

The Guardian on the reign in Spain, July 30, 2006 | Barcelona, 1936, July 21, 2006 | The Spanish Revolution and the English Literati, July 16, 2006.

We have always lived in slums and holes in the wall. We will know how to accommodate ourselves for a time. For, you must not forget, that we can also build palaces and cities, here in Spain and in America and everywhere. We, the workers. We can build others to take their place. And better ones. We are not in the least bit afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth. There is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world, here, in our hearts. That world is growing this minute.

Posted in Anarchism, Film, History | Tagged , | 8 Comments

The world needs Klowns?

Posted on May 24, 2009 by @ndy

Former KKK Grand Poobah-turned-fundamentalist Xtian Johnny Lee Clary has declared that there are some bedsheet-wearers in WA. Correction: the KKK has “infiltrated” Perth.

Whether by boat or plane is unknown.

“I know that the Ku Klux Klan is in Western Australia. I know that they’re in the Perth area”, he said in Perth this week.

“The National Front is here, I know that the Nazi Party is here. I’ve talked to people here and they’ve said to me ‘I know so and so, that belongs to the Klan'”.

~ Racist US organistation Ku Klux Klan ‘in Perth’, news.com.au. May 23, 2009

In reality, there’s been a KKK presence in Australia for many years; it has never attracted widespread support; what little support it has generated has been mostly restricted to a small number of rural towns (Cairns, Toowoomba, Townsville); there is little evidence of any violent activity on the part of the Klan(s); the Klan is split into numerous rival factions; of late, there has been no upsurge in Klan activity either in Perth, in WA, or in Australia as a whole. Further, there is no ‘National Front’ or ‘Nazi Party’ in Perth, in WA, or anywhere else in Australia; rather, there is a loose assortment of neo-Nazi cranks, some of whom are members of formal organisations, most of whom are not.

In terms of the KKK’s appeal, it is extremely limited. Moreover:

Ethnic Communities Council of WA president Ramdas Sankaran said racist elements in Australia had been strengthened “thanks to the demonisation of religious and ethnic minorities” by former [P]rime [M]inister John HoWARd and his senior colleagues.

This ‘demonisation’ has paid political dividends. First, in combination with a Tory dirty tricks campaign against it, by eclipsing the appeal of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party. Secondly, by shoring up support for the Tories by way of capitalising on continuing racist residues in a country with an explicitly and formally-endorsed history of racism and continuing colonial dispossession.

That said, a lone KKK supporter did rock up to the Invasion Day celebrations conducted by the ‘Southern Cross Soldiers’ in Melbourne this year, and a handful of keyboard warriors have done their best to embiggen the Klowns on Stormfront Down Under in the last few years.

Wankers all.

See also : Jew-hatin’ Duke arrested in Prague (April 25, 2009) | nutzis are W E I R D : David Lane’s Ashes (February 13, 2009) | KKK & Violence : Who knew? (November 12, 2008) | David Duke: Gentleman and Scholar (February 15, 2008) | Aussie KKK “not sorry”… yet… (February 7, 2008) | Benny the Butcher from Bennelong (November 16, 2007) | I Googled for something completely different! (August 5, 2007) | The Most Dangerous Men In Australia (August 1, 2007) | Ku Klux Klowns in Townsville (July 5, 2007) | The KKK took my perspective away (March 14, 2007) | White Loser Knights and Australia First (March 6, 2007) | KKK is the Australian Way?!? (February 5, 2007) |

Posted in !nataS, Anti-fascism | Tagged | 29 Comments

Argentina Open Forum // ASF Conference

Posted on May 22, 2009 by @ndy

Wednesday, June 3, 7pm

Argentina Open Forum

A visitor from Patagonia, Argentina, Elio Brat, will speak about workers’ self-management in factories (Zanon) and indigenous struggles (Mapuche) in Argentina.

WHEN : 7pm
WHERE : Old Council Chambers, Trades Hall (corner of Lygon and Victoria Streets, Carlton)

For more information, please call : Rodrigo 0414 970 418 or Lucho 0400 914 944.
Write to: lasnet[at]latinlasnet[dot]org.
Visit: Latin American Solidarity Network (LASNET).

Sunday, June 7, 10am

Boiling the Billy

The Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation Melbourne is hosting a conference: ‘Boiling the Billy: Opportunities and Challenges of Radical Unionising’.

WHEN : 10am–4pm
WHERE : Melbourne Anarchist Resource Centre, 62 St Georges Rd, Northcote

Speakers include Gary Foley.
Entry by gold coin donation.
Food available.
For more info call 0404 105 403 or email asfsec[at]gmail[dot]com.

IWA Secretary Arrested

Ratibor Trivunac, a member of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Initiative and General Secretary of the International Workers’ Association, was convicted yesterday evening to ten days prison for burning the US flag in the centre of Belgrade. A group of anarchists organized an illegal protest yesterday as a reaction to the visit of the US Vice President Joseph Biden to Belgrade. During the protest Trivunac burned the US flag and read a statement condemning the role of the USA in reproduction of capitalist relations, wars, exploitation and discrimination in the world.

Belgrade district judge Goran Milutinović sentenced Ratibor and ordered him to be immediately sent to prison without giving him a chance for appeal. Other comrades that have been arrested were released without charges. Our lawyer will try to appeal the sentence today.

Burning of the flag is a symbolic act of protest and we find the actions of judge Milutinović to be scandalous. We refuse to obey orders, we refuse to keep quiet! We will always burn the symbols of exploitation and oppression!

We would like to call for international actions of solidarity if Ratibor is not released by Saturday morning. We will keep informing you of developments.

The IWA Secretariat can be contacted, as usual, by telephone number +381-63-263-XXX or email (we would prefer by telephone as we may not check the email regularly during the following days).

Freedom for Ratibor!
Long live the IWA!

On behalf of the IWA Secretariat,
Nikola Pavlović

—
Secretariat of the International Workers Association // Secretariado de la Asociación International de los Trabajadores

secretariado[at]iwa-ait]dot]org
http://iwa-ait.org

Posted in State / Politics | Leave a comment

Aaarrrggghhh!!!

Posted on May 21, 2009 by @ndy

My back!

Posted in Uncategorized | 12 Comments

European Jobs For British Fascists

Posted on May 17, 2009 by @ndy

The poster demands “British jobs for British workers” and it shows three smiling men in hard-hats urging people to vote BNP. But the “building workers” in the ad – which is being driven up and down the country on a BNP vehicle called the “Truth Truck” – are not even British. They are American models who posed for a general photo agency shoot in Portland, Oregon, in the United States. Another shot in the same set shows a black man working alongside white colleagues – but the racist BNP didn’t use that one… ~ Exclusive: BNP poster campaign for British workers uses American actors, Gary Anderson, Mirror, May 16, 2009 [Tip of the hard-hat to Sina]

‘British Jobs For British Workers’ (Gordon Brown) is soon expected to become ‘European Jobs For British Fascists’ following the June 2009 elections to the European Parliament. Elections will be held in the 27 member states of the European Union (EU) between June 4–7; 736 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) will be elected by proportional representation to represent some 500,000,000 Europeans — “making these the biggest trans-national elections in history”.

Shazam!

If the British National Party can gain at least four seats at the talking shop in Brussels, the European far right would also likely be in a position to initiate a formal voting bloc in the Parliament — a situation briefly realised in early 2007, before it disintegrated (BNP could be at heart of far-right EU group: “Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party, is poised to become a key figure in the creation of a new far-right group in the European Parliament”, Bruno Waterfield, Telegraph, May 15, 2009).

Searchlight zine has launched a campaign against the BNP called ‘Hope Not Hate’. As part of this campaign, a video has been released:

The video resurrects Griffin’s polemics from the mid-90s, and prior to efforts to mainstream his and the BNP’s message (Griffin became leader in 1999).

Antifa England has responded to the Hope Not Hate campaign by pointing out the perils of electoralism, and rejecting ‘New Labour’ as an alternative to the BNP. Both the BNP and New Labour are accused of using racism and xenophobia to attract support — the attraction of the BNP among working class whites a product of New Labour’s record of anti-working class policies, corruption, and pandering to xenophobia. In summary:

Antifa are not calling on people to vote Labour or ‘Respect’ to stop the BNP, we are calling on people to boycott the whole election charade, and to get out onto the streets and combat the rise of the BNP in the only way that matters – by Direct Action.

We can understand the contempt people rightly have for the mainstream political parties. We can understand why white working-class communities feel abandoned and alienated. But a vote for the BNP is NOT a so-called ‘protest vote’, it is a vote for FASCISM.

Don’t believe ANY of their lies.
Don’t play the politicians’ games.
Don’t vote – Organize!

Independent Working Class Association

In some respects, this debate recalls that of an earlier era, and one which accompanied the dissolution of ‘Anti-Fascist Action’ (AFA: 1985–2001). In fact, this ‘debate’ had further precedents among anti-fascists in the UK: see ‘Filling the Vacuum’, Fighting Talk, No.12, November 1995; ‘The Acid Test’, Fighting Talk, No.10, January 1995; and elsewhere in the pages of FT.

One of the principal contributors to AFA was ‘Red Action’, a small Marxist party segments of which evolved into the International Wing Chun Academy International Window Cleaning Association International Writing Centers Association ‘Independent Working Class Association’ (IWCA), initially formed in October 1995 and registered with the state in September 2001.

Some years ago I started blogging about RA… actually: “Trawling the web for information on the split in Workers Power — yes, I’m a Trainspotter; how many members did they have in Australia? 4? 5? 6? — I somehow or other stumbled onto Red Action. Their site declares that it was suspended in 2004 — but gives little explanation”:

As of Friday 24th 2004 this forum (as part of [a] general site re-vamp) will no longer be updated.

In due course, it is intended that a substantial amount of fresh material will be added to the site and a search-friendly archive will be created containing some of the more informative and memorable threads.

I found the following on a blog: Working class?!, Mike’s Little Red Page, July 25, 2005:

I’m posting rather a lot about the Oxford branch of the Independent Working Class Association at the moment, but they seem to want to force themselves on the public’s attention. Their latest smart idea is to sue Labour Councillor Bill Baker for defamation for suggesting they are associated with extremists…

In reality:

Leaflet slur costs £15,000, thisisoxfordshire, January 5, 2006:

…Part of an apology to the IWCA said: “In this article Bill Baker wrongly alleged the Independent Working Class Association has links to extremist anarchist groups and violent Irish nationalist groups, and that the organisation has tried to hide those links behind legitimate political activities.

“The Labour Party and Bill Baker accept that these statements are incorrect and without foundation and would like to apologise for the distress and embarrassment which the article has caused.”

After some initial success, at least in electoral terms — successes which no doubt worried Labour — the IWCA’s star has dimmed somewhat. In its place — that is, in part, competing for the same working class political loyalties — arose first the ‘Socialist Alliance’ (1992/2001/2005), then ‘Respect’ (2004).

The short-lived socialist electoral ‘alliance’ underwent various splits, with the role of the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP) being key, just as it was in the SA’s replacement Respect. Respect too split, with one branch continuing to campaign under that brand, while the other — dominated by the SWP — became first the ‘Left List’ and now the ‘Left Alternative’. A sense of the fortunes of this last in the series of the SWP’s front groups may be gained by a quick glance at its empty website. LA’s last hurrah — see Victory for Dick in Londinium, May 4, 2008 — appears to have been failing miserably at council elections last year; a failure which may be usefully contrasted by the BNP’s (relative) success.

Respect has decided not to compete with the BNP in the North West, directing its support to the Greens candidate (Euro Elections: Respect in the North West says unite red and green to stop the BNP, Dr Kay Phillips, National Chair, Respect, May 4, 2009). On a spotters’ note, other parties standing candidates include No2EU and the Socialist Labour Party.

With Labour having more or less purged the ‘left’ / the ‘left’ having abandoned Labour (while at the same time Labour has embraced neo-liberal / neo-conservative policies deeply injurious to working class interests), in the absence of a clear working class alternative the BNP looks set to make hay in Europe. See : A ‘perfect storm’ for the BNP to make gains in the European elections?, Nigel Farndale, Telegraph, May 17, 2009:

…There are no protesters today, thanks presumably to the secrecy. Councillor Robert Bailey, an ex-Royal Marine, is the BNP candidate for London. “Most of us are ex-Labour,” he tells me. “The Labour Party used to stand for what we believe in. Now, no way. It’s not just immigration that has changed; it’s our way of life. We’re becoming a Third World country in Europe with no influence, no power and the people not knowing anything about their own history.”

…It is predicted that the BNP may win not only its first seat in the European Parliament but, because of the proportional representation system of voting, as many as seven. To win in the North-West it needs just 8 per cent of the vote, barely 1.5 per cent more than it got in 2004. Griffin is calling it a “perfect storm”. He believes that the combined effects of the credit crunch, the perceived lack of control over immigration and, most significantly, the perception that all of the mainstream parties are corrupt – thanks to the MPs’ expenses scandal – will mean a big turn-out for the BNP. “Journalists are going to say it was a protest vote: well, that is fine with us,” he tells me later in the day. “The British public have a lot to protest about.”

…[The BNP] is also, fundamentally, Old Labour. It would take the railways back into public ownership. It rejects globalisation. It believes in strong trade unions and that as much of industry as possible should be owned by those who work in it. In these respects it reminds you that Oswald Mosley left the Labour Party in 1931 to form the party that ultimately became the British Union of Fascists because Labour had rejected his plan to defeat mass unemployment with a programme of public investment. It is no coincidence that campaign leaflets in white working-class areas describe the BNP as “the Labour Party your grandfathers voted for”.

…I’ve been trying to work out how the BNP is different from the National Front of the Seventies and the British Union of Fascists in the Thirties and the answer is that it is now playing the victim. The white working class it represents felt superior before. Now they feel inferior and victimised…

Posted in Anti-fascism, State / Politics | 20 Comments