Volksfront Australia

Posted on December 21, 2008 by @ndy

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Volksfront Australia, like most local neo-Nazi groups, is a foreign import. Established in 1994 in the United States, and named in honour of a racist Afrikaaner mob, the group has recently embraced a few converts Down Under: chief among them (according to rival sect Blood & Honour / Southern Cross Hammerskins) the former German NPD and Australian One Nation Party member Welf Herfurth.

Did I happen to mention that Welf also considers himself an “anarchist”?

This is not the first time Volksfront has had an Australian franchise. In 2004, a young racist named Stuart McBeth (1981–), then the leader of the now defunct ‘Patriotic Youth League’ (PYL) — a risible attempt by Dr James Saleam to extend Australia First Party membership to the under-40s — threw his tinfoil helmet into the ring as an Australian organiser for the United States People’s Front. (Oddly enough, like Welf, Stuart was also a former member of ONP.) McBeth resigned as PYL President shortly after being fired, in late January 2005, from his job as a case officer for the Salvation Army. McBeth was replaced by Lachlan Black, also a former ONP member and, like McBeth, a former ONP candidate.

Like the PYL, Volksfront Mk I collapsed in a heap.

Last year, however, some hardy souls decided to revive the Front — presumably in order to provide yoof a boneheaded alternative to B&H and the SCHS. In the US, where the franchise is based, relations between Volksfront, B&H, and the Hammerskins have been frosty. Well, kinda. Actually there are two, rival B&H networks: in the US, B&H ~ American Division, is allied with Volksfront, while outside of the US, relations between different groups in different countries are more fractured. (‘Blood & Honour USA’, allied to the Australian mob, appears to be defunct.)

In any event, the corpse of Volksfront Australia has shown some signs of life. It also appears that at least some local boneheads aren’t all that happy about it. Thus on Stormfront, a local bonehead, ‘Pitbull38’, recently yap-yapped the following:

Re: Hammerskin Nation and Blood & Honour

HSN & B & H have worked well together for 15 odd years in Oz.

We have been here from the start & built things from the ground up.

VF’s been in Oz for about [a] year and managed to disrespect & piss off the 2 oldest bonehead crews in Australia (to put it very mildly)… certainly not the best way to start things.

Of their leaders, one [Welf Herfurth] runs National Anarchists & New Right (he goes to Asian countries a lot to live with and help the slopes… strange for a supposed WN to travel to Asia so much & without his wife… sure no hanky panky going on there??? Yeah right). He has his fingers in many different pies and is certainly no skinhead & never has been. His stated love for Asian culture, trying to be a politician & trying to appear everything to everyone & his twisted written works are proof of this.

The other guy ([Douglas Schott] singer of Blood Red Eagle) used to be [an] anti-racist/SHARP with his own anti-racist band to boot. A little big-mouthed midget with the ego of Napoleon.

VF leadership have been made aware of these facts & none seem to care, so yeah… sounds like a great NS [National Socialist: ie, Nazi] bonehead crew to me… lol!

VF are outcasts (akin to C18) in Australia as far as SCHS & B & H are concerned. So if you don’t want to be outcasts yourselves, avoid them like the plague.

Unfortunately for Poodle38, Stormfront moderator Lycia had to yank on his chain. Thus the above post now reads simply:

HSN & B & H have worked well together for 15 odd years in Oz.

We have been here from the start & built things from the ground up.

Hammers don’t forgive, but whether or not Poodle38 responds positively to his obedience training remains to be seen.

Incidentally, the next gig organised by Benson & Hedges is scheduled for ANZAC Day in Perf, WA, where a small assortment of boneheads will pay tribute to the ANZACs by celebrating the Nazi war-machine that killed them in their thousands.

Yes: they’re a weird mob.

Volksfront (United States)

As for Volksfront, it, like other bonehead groups, has a violent history. A few highlights:

Jacob Laskey, formerly Volksfront’s Prisoner Affairs Coordinator in Eugene, was arrested in 2005, along with his brother, Gabriel Doyle Laskey, Jesse Lee Baker and Gerald Anthony Poundstone, for throwing rocks engraved with swastikas at a synagogue in Eugene, Oregon, during a religious service in October 2002. They were indicted for conspiracy to violate civil rights and other related charges. Jacob Laskey also faced charges of attempting to intimidate a witness in the case. Jacob and Gabriel Laskey both pleaded guilty in August 2006. Poundstone received 15 months in prison in September 2006 after pleading guilty. Jacob Laskey was sentenced to 11 years and 3 months in prison in April 2007. (Laskey had previously been charged with battery and commission of a hate crime for allegedly beating and threatening an African-American man in December 2000 in Jacksonville, Florida.) Gabriel Doyle Laskey was sentenced to five years probation, as well as six months at the Lane County work release program followed by six months of home detention.

Kurtis Monschke, 20, a probationary unit leader for Volksfront, was sentenced to life in prison on June 4, 2004, for his role in the March 23, 2003, murder of Randall Mark Townsend, 42, in Tacoma, Washington. Prosecutors indicated that Monschke, who has the Volksfront emblem tattooed on his chest adjacent to a swastika that is similar to the one depicted on the main racist skinhead character in the film American History X (1998), instigated the brutal attack in an effort to establish his fledgling crew among higher-ranking members of Volksfront. Emulating a brutal scene in the film, Monschke and his three followers placed Townsend’s open mouth on a railroad tie and stomped several times on the back of his head. Each blow was accompanied with shouts of “white power.” Scotty James Butters, 20, David Nikos Pillatos, 19, and Tristain Lynn Frye, 22, all pleaded guilty and testified against Monschke.

On January 25, 2003, five boneheads attacked a 17-year-old black youth in the parking lot of his residence in Vancouver, Washington. Matthew R. Schmoyer, Carl D. Wolff, Brandon Webb, Jeremy R. Whitten and one other bonehead who was later acquitted had been partying at Schmoyer’s apartment before heading to a Volksfront-sponsored concert near Hillsboro, Oregon, called “Rock Against Communism.” The group was holding the concert to raise legal funds for a Volksfront “comrade” whom they felt was “wrongfully charged with assault.” Whitten was sentenced for misdemeanor assault after striking a plea agreement. Wolff, Webb and Schmoyer were convicted of malicious harassment.

According to the ADL: “The rivalry between Volksfront/Hammerskin Nation and the Vinlanders remains high. An Internet exchange at the racist online forum Stormfront indicated that a prominent Vinlander even cut off the ear of a Volksfront member in St. Louis.” (On the Vinlanders Social Club, see Burnout: Vinlanders Social Club on the Decline, David Holthouse and Laurie Wood, Intelligence Report, Winter 2008.)

Volksfront was founded in prison by a bonehead called Randal Lee (‘Randy’) Krager. In 1989, when he was 15, Krager was arrested along with several other boneheads and charged with racial intimidation for allegedly assaulting three teenagers near a park in Portland, Oregon. During the attack, assailants pummeled a Hispanic girl in the face while shouting, “Why aren’t you white?” Krager was sent to a juvenile detention center.

The next year, he attended the civil trial of White Aryan Resistance leader Tom Metzger — who was being sued by the Southern Poverty Law Center for his role in encouraging the bonehead murder of a black man in Portland — and told a reporter that Metzger was a “cool guy … one of the nicest guys you’d ever meet.”

By the time Krager turned 18, police had encountered him 28 times.

That year, 1992, Krager was sentenced to 27 months in prison for putting an African-American man into a coma with a single punch. During sentencing proceedings, Krager reportedly shouted “Fucking Jew pig!” at court officials.

Krager’s white supremacist beliefs were reinforced in prison. While inside, he networked with boneheads outside, laying the groundwork for his Volksfront neo-Nazi gang. Krager assumed leadership of Volksfront immediately upon his release in October 1994…

There’s been a few ups and downs for Krager and his kkkrew since then, obviously — mostly revolving around violent crime and bad muzak — with a few lives ended and many more ruined, but what Volksfront Australia will achieve is likely to be a lot less. Much will depend on the ability of the German-born yuppie Welf to put a leash on the boneheads belonging to B&H/SCHS — a task which will probably prove to be a good deal more difficult than convincing a handful of teenagers that his peculiar brand of neo-fascism is actually a form of ‘anarchism’.

    Above : Fredrick Töben (Adelaide Institute) and Welf Herfurth (ex-One Nation, ex-Australia First Party[?], mathaba.net) annexe Sydney using the MaGiCaL pOwErS invested in Horst Mahler‘s flag and on behalf of the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands, January 27, 2005. Unkle Fred was recently released from police custody in London; Herfurth, based in Sydney, has established a tiny fascist groupuscule called the ‘New Right’, consisting of various former members of Stormfront, and — following the lead of British and German fascists — espousing a doctrine he calls ‘national anarchism’. In the UK, the ‘New Right’, lead by Troy Southgate, specialises in Holocaust denial, various other forms of historical revisionism, and the promotion of racism and fascism.

    Above : Viking Power Rock &/Or Roll. Members of Blood Red Eagle — (L-R) Jeff, Doug, Kerry & James — on the piss.

Posted in Anti-fascism | 25 Comments

French youth fear police violence along Greek pattern

Posted on December 20, 2008 by @ndy

French youth fear police violence along Greek pattern
Celestine Bohlen (Bloomberg News)
International Herald Tribune
December 19, 2008

PARIS: A teenager murdered in cold blood, tear gas, arrests, clubbings and fascist provocations. The images from Greece this month were enough to put the hatred of and contempt for European elites into the hearts of European youth.

The dread this generated among ruling circles was palpable in France when President Nicolas Sarkozy abruptly delayed for one year a plan to overhaul France’s high schools, after students from Bordeaux to Brittany took to the streets in protest.

The police haven’t turned violent yet. But French and world history, and the example of Greece, suggests they will. At least that is what people like Laurent Fabius, a Socialist Party leader, are saying on French radio.

“What we see in Greece is not out of the realm of possibility in France,” Fabius said on Europe 1. “When you have such gross economic exploitation, such a depth of social and environmental disrepair, all it takes is a realistic demand to achieve the impossible.”

An editorial in the daily newspaper Libération said the decision to delay the education law — which would change schedules and academic requirements for the last three years of lycée, or high school — was largely tactical. “One senses among all the powers of old Europe a hesitation, a dread of riots, a fear of resistance,” wrote Didier Pourquery.

The rapid rise in wealth among a tiny elite, across the whole of Europe, is one concern, but not the only, or even the most important.

“All these events have at their core a sense among youth that their lives are not going anywhere that they really want them to, and that they have nothing to lose but their chains,” said Ken Dubin, a visiting associate professor at University Carlos III in Madrid.

But youth discontent alone doesn’t explain the restlessness in elite circles. Politicians and CEOs, after all, have no jobs to lose — merely their heads.

Experts speak of another worry, which is the seemingly increasing resistance to the highly class-conscious ideologies and political strategies, loosely called ‘neo-liberal’, which hark back to the destructive ideas of Friedrich August von Hayek, the 20th-century Austrian ideologue, and to the regressive government policies commencing in earnest, in the West, in the late 1970s.

Some of it isn’t that threatening, like recurring play of the nineteenth century song “Bump Me Into Parliament,” on every radio station for the last 50 years. “Oh yes I am a Labor man / And believe in revolution / The quickest way to bring it on / Is talking constitution,” goes the humourous refrain.

But the violence isn’t far behind the slogans. After almost six years of occupation, the estimated number of civilian casualties in Iraq was estimated at almost 100,000.

The riots in Greece began as spontaneous protests after Epaminondas Korkoneas, a police officer and a former member of the fascist Golden Dawn, murdered a 15-year-old student on December 6. The revolt soon spread to university centers around the country, quickly morphing into a wider contest between young people and the police and by extension, the government. Tens of thousands of people continued the protests on Thursday.

Greece has a history of violent state repression that dates, in the contemporary era, from the civil war, and, more recently, the colonels’ junta in the 1970s. The National Technical University in Athens, known as the Polytechnic, has been off-limits to police following the events of November 17, 1973, when the government launched an assault upon the occupied University — killing dozens, sending a tank crashing though the university gates, and igniting a popular uprising.

Now the streets are again occupied by police, who have attacked barricades made from broken marble and paving stones, and stockpiled various forms of tear gas, clubs, revolvers, shotguns, bullets, helmets, shields and other weapons, as well as obtained cars, trucks, helicopters and armoured personnel carriers.

The role of the police in the week-long protests is quite clear. And their message — pro-capitalist, pro-government and neo-liberal — is unmistakable. Also clear is their bent for violence.

“What they provide is a template that others with more ideological commitment can use,” said Stathis Kalyvas, a political science professor at Yale University. “If you have a demonstration where 10 of them start clubbing teenagers, soon the 500 others following them will join in, including fascist vigilantes.”

France isn’t the only country nervously watching the events in Greece. Students in Italy and Spain have also staged protests against proposed government vandalism of schools and universities recently. In Madrid, Barcelona and Seville, they took over administration offices this month in opposition to changes mandated by the EU that would further cement higher education’s role in producing satisfactory results for capital.

In Italy, hundreds of thousands of angry teachers, students and parents mobbed Rome on October 30 to protest the decimation of the education system, in what was described, in suitably horrified terms, as the largest student demonstration since 1968.

Each repressive state apparatus brings its own issues, and history, to these demonstrations; like Greece, France has a tradition of police turning ugly.

In October 1961, unarmed Algerian Muslims demonstrating in central Paris against a discriminatory curfew were beaten, shot, garotted and even drowned by police and special troops. Thousands were rounded up and taken to detention centers around the city and the prefecture of police, where there were more beatings and killings.

How many died? No one seems to know for sure, to care much, or to remember, even now. Probably around 200; perhaps as many as 400.

In October 2005, two teenagers were killed as they were being chased by police; youths in the suburban and largely Muslim ghettoes of Paris went on a rampage, causing €160 million in damage. In 2006, university students staged demonstrations that eventually generated intense police violence, as hundreds of thousands protested a proposed law that would create flexible work contracts for bosses. The government eventually withdrew the legislation.

This year’s “lycée” protests also carried hints of escalating police violence. A high school principals’ association in the Bouches-du-Rhône region warned on December 5 of “an unheard-of steadfastness and near-impossibility of hoodwinking” protesting students. Philippe Guittet, head of the association, told the newspaper Le Monde that he suspected taming the protests would require “militant forces” working behind the scenes.

France chose to defuse the antagonism by withdrawing the contested schools legislation. In Greece, the government, eager to restore social peace and ensure a return to ‘normality’, has decided for now to cede the Polytechnic to the protesters.

That might buy peace for now, but it won’t necessarily soothe the anger, and it certainly won’t resolve the underlying tensions that class society inevitably generates.

Posted in !nataS, Media, State / Politics | 6 Comments

“There must be some way out of here…”

Posted on December 20, 2008 by @ndy

While neo-Nazis belonging to Golden Dawn are exhibiting solidarity with their former comrade Epaminondas Korkoneas by lending Greek police a helping hand in Patras (and likely elsewhere), on Sunday (December 14) their German kameraden have upped the ante considerably by stabbing the Passau police chief, Alois Mannichl: politically significant in a way that their usual victims are not. Also of significance is the adoption by Russian neo-Nazis of a tactic usually associated with Islamic terrorists — the production and distribution of graphic accounts documenting the grisly executions of their victims. Following the release of a video titled Execution of a Tajik and a Dagestani in August last year, a second, similar project has been realised, this time photographic.

Then:

The three-minute video, titled “Execution of a Tajik and a Dagestani”, begins with two men kneeling before a masked extremist in combat fatigues. Apparently unprompted, they mumble that they have been taken hostage by “Russian Nationalist Socialists”. The masked man then uses a knife to decapitate one of his prisoners in a grim sequence lasting 90 seconds. The second captive is later forced to kneel in front of a grave before he is shot in the back of his head. The clip, which has a caption claiming to have been filmed by “The National Socialist Party of Rus”, ends with a still image of a red and white flag emblazoned with a swastika.

Now:

Salakhetdin Azizov was attacked as he walked across a stretch of wasteland in South Moscow. The 20-year-old Tajikistan market worker was stabbed and then decapitated. The Militant Organisation of Russian Nationalists claimed responsibility for the murder and demanded stricter immigration laws. A photograph of Azizov’s severed head was emailed to Sova.

At the same time, a small group of neo-Nazis in Russia have been convicted of a string of murders.

Russians sentenced for 19 hate killings
Paul Sonne
December 15, 2008

MOSCOW (AP) — A Moscow court sentenced seven men to prison Monday for involvement in the murder of 19 non-Slavic migrants in what prosecutors called a series of brutal hate crimes.

The group’s sentencing comes as fears about racism, xenophobia and neo-Nazi groups explodes Russia — fears that were stoked earlier this month with the gruesome beheading of a Tajik migrant worker near Moscow.

Moscow City Court spokeswoman Anna Usachyova said the court sentenced the group’s leaders, Artur Ryno and Pavel Skachevsky, to 10 years — the maximum possible term since they were minors at the time of the attacks in 2006 and 2007. Another man was sentenced to 20 years, and four others to between six to 12 years…

In the United States:

Neo-Nazi must now lie in bed he made
Shanna Flowers
The Roanoke Times
December 8, 2008

For White, one of those reckonings came Friday, when the judge decided to hold him without bail until his trial. Hibbler’s concern was not so much White’s actions if he were released, but what others might do at his suggestion. As for Bill White, he’s been making this bed for years. Now, he’s finally lying in it…

The FBI [!] via Faxts News [!], provides further details:

Leader of American National Socialist Workers Party Indicted
December 18, 2008

William A. White charged with Making Multiple Threats of Violence via the Internet

Roanoke, Virginia – Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Virginia, Julia C. Dudley and Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Grace Chung Becker announced today that William A. “Bill” White, the self-proclaimed Commander of the neo-Nazi group the American National Socialist Workers Party, was indicted by a federal grand jury for threatening five individuals and for attempting to intimidate litigants in a federal housing discrimination lawsuit.

The Grand Jury returned a seven-count indictment which charges White with five counts of making a threat to injure via e-mail, Internet or telephone communication, one count of making a threat to injure with the intent of extorting something of value and one count of making a threat to injure with the intent of intimidating a witness from testifying in an official court proceeding. All of these threats were made while White was a resident of Roanoke, Virginia.

“The Internet has proven to be a powerful force in our daily lives. It has made information from across the globe available at the click of a mouse,” Acting United States Attorney Julia C. Dudley said today. “The law enforcement community cannot allow individuals to unlawfully threaten anyone, in any manner. When violent threats are made, legal action must be taken and justice must be served.” …

“There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief,
“There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief.
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth,
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth.”

“No reason to get excited,” the thief, he kindly spoke,
“There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.”

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.

Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl,
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.

Posted in Anti-fascism, Media, State / Politics, War on Terror | 1 Comment

Athens, New York… Melbourne

Posted on December 19, 2008 by @ndy

In Athens, on Wednesday December 17, an assortment of groups and individuals — workers, immigrants and the unemployed — occupied the the main offices of the General Confederation of Labour (GSEE). The boss of the GSEE is Yiannis Panagopoulos: “I believe they have chosen the wrong target … The GSEE does not govern this country. So it’s wrong to undermine the labor unions,” GSEE leader Yiannis Panagopoulos said. Some anarchists wrote:

“Mister” Panagopoulos stated on state channel (NET), that “some youngsters occupied the building of GSEE (…) if they were manual workers, they’d be on building sites now (…)”. This unearthy subject, belonging to the managerial staff of National Bank of Greece, that “represents” the workers, where is he himself now, and what does he know about building sites? He has been a technocrat for his entire life, a manager in State Companies (DEKO), a party wrangler and a gravedigger of struggles. This spokesman of PASOK politics within the workers’ movement lives in the northern suburbs, smokes cigars and gets a fat paycheck, from National Bank and GSEE, while administering huge state and European Union funds.

Apparently, following the occupation, 50 bureaucrats attended the occupied building (General Assembly of Insurgent Workers). They were escorted by a number of “heavies”, but both groups disappeared after catching sight of anarchist reinforcements from the occupied University.

In New Yawk, the New School for Social Research is also currently under occupation. The Radical Student Union (SDS, SEAC, UFPJ) has issued a statement explaining its support; Infoshop has photos. At noon on Thursday (December 18) “Police attacked students and supporters at the New School University which has been occupied since last night. The students spread the occupation and were letting more occupiers into the building when the NYPD showed up attacked students and entered the school. One person was arrested but students were able to repel the police, barricading themselves inside the school. Word from the inside is that there are now many more students occupying and they are going strong!”

Locally:

On Thursday the occupiers of 272-278 Faraday St got served with notice that the University has gone to the supreme court to ‘recover the land’ at 272-278 Faraday St under order 53. The hearing will take place on Monday morning. Please come to a protest out the front of the court from 9.30am and then if you want come into the court for the hearing which will start at 10.30am. Bring banners, placards and colour. Also if the feeling takes you please dress up in drag. SHAC will be seeking an adjournment of this hearing so there is a chance it will be delayed. The protest will go ahead regardless.

Anyways, here’s a declaration from some of the people what cause unrest and occupied the private property of the largest union confederation in Greece:

Since 8 o’clock in the morning the building of GSEE (Patision and Alexandras) is occupied.

We declare the building a Liberated Workers’ Zone.

Open Workers’ Assembly at 18.00.

The Building is open to all workers all day long.

    —DECLARATION—

We will either determine our history ourselves or let it be determined without us.

We, manual workers, employees, jobless, temporary workers, local or migrants, are not passive tv-viewers. Since the murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos on Saturday night we participate in the demonstrations, the clashes with the police, the occupations of the centre or the neighborhoods. Time and again we had to leave work and our daily obligations to take the streets with the students, the university students and the other proletarians in struggle.

WE DECIDED TO OCCUPY THE BUILDING OF GSEE

— To turn it into a space of free expression and a meeting point of workers.

— To disperse the media-touted myth that the workers were and are absent from the clashes, and that the rage of these days was an affair of some 500 “mask-bearers”, “hooligans” or some other fairy tale, while on the tv-screens the workers were presented as victims of the clash, while the capitalist crisis in Greece and Worldwide leads to countless layoffs that the media and their managers deal as a “natural phenomenon”.

— To flay and uncover the role of the trade union bureaucracy in the undermining of the insurrection — and not only there. GSEE and the entire trade union mechanism that supports it for decades and decades, undermine the struggles, bargain our labor power for crumblings, perpetuate the system of exploitation and wage slavery. The stance of GSEE last Wednesday is quite telling: GSEE cancelled the programmed strikers’ demonstration, stopping short at the organization of a brief gathering in Syntagma Sq., making simultaneously sure that the people will be dispersed in a hurry from the Square, fearing that they might get infected by the virus of insurrection.

— To open up this space for the first time — as a continuation of the social opening created by the insurrection itself — a space that has been built by our contributions, a space from which we were excluded. For all these years we trusted our fate on saviours of every kind, and we end up losing our dignity. As workers we have to start assuming our responsibilities, and to stop assigning our hopes to wise leaders or “able” representatives. We have to acquire a voice of our own, to meet up, to talk, to decide, and to act. Against the generalized attack we endure. The creation of collective “grassroot” resistances is the only way.

— To propagate the idea of self-organization and solidarity in working places, struggle committees and collective grassroot procedures, abolishing the bureaucrat trade unionists.

All these years we gulp the misery, the pandering, the violence in work. We became accustomed to counting the crippled and our dead- the so-called “labor accidents”. We became accustomed to ignore the migrants — our class brothers — getting killed. We are tired living with the anxiety of securing a wage, revenue stamps, and a pension that now feels like a distant dream.

As we struggle not to abandon our life in the hands of the bosses and the trade union representatives, likewise we will not abandon no arrested insurgent in the hands of the state and the juridical mechanism.

IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF THE DETAINED
NO CHARGE TO THE ARRESTED
SELF-ORGANIZATION OF THE WORKERS
GENERAL STRIKE

WORKERS’ ASSEMBLY IN THE “LIBERATED” BUILDING OF GSEE
Wednesday, 17 December 2008, 18:00

General Assembly of Insurgent Workers

A weather forecast:

BOILING HOT ALL OVER THE COUNTRY

Today, the building of the General Confederation of Labour in Athens was occupied by unions of precarious workers, deliveries, stage etc. who are denouncing the bureaucracy of the unions and demanding general strike for wages, stable employment, social insurance for all, reduction of working hours against unemployment. A general assembly open to all is organised for tonight at 6 p.m.

The students and pupils continue everyday actions and demonstrations, closing of roads everywhere in the country, while a part of the peasants have their own protest with tractors in the North of the country. Demonstrations by progressive citizens in many cities. Many public buildings are occupied (municipal-prefecture mainly) all over the country. More than 500 high schools occupied and more to organise occupations. In the meantime, police everywhere, repression, beatings, arrests. This is the reply of the Rambos of the Police.

Tomorrow Thursday, national day of action, a big rally and march of the education community of all grades in Athens 12 n. Migrants rally in front of Parliament 5 p.m. (organised before the events, for the migrants week). The central news bulletin was interrupted yesterday, for one precious minute, when students entered the studio of public television (peacefully and without any violence) and set a banner in front of the camera, interrupting the transmission of the speech of the Prime Minister. The banner, carried by students, wrote STOP WATCHING – GO OUT IN THE STREETS. The president of public television denounced this “absolute offence against democracy”, while people are satisfied and consider this action to be appropriate and congratulations are coming from all over. (This president of public television, spends his time organising events like Eurovision, with patriotic and kitsch character, spending the money of the Greek taxpayers in expenses like, for example, the dress of this “national singer” Anna Visy last year, for which public television spent 135.000 Euro only for the dress of the singer. Otherwise, he defends “democracy”.)

For Saturday mobilisations are under preparation and the students assemblies mostly will decide about them. In Thessaloniki young people stole baby Jesus from the cot of the huge crib that was placed in the central square with figures of natural size and put a television in the place of Jesus. Christmas holidays may have a totally different colour this year, and the movement will continue.

Most urgent and most important is the solidarity from Europe, tomorrow a Greek youth organisation is calling for European day of action everywhere, in support of the Greek Uprising. We wish events are organised tomorrow. Of course, we have many more days…

See also : LOADSA SEXY PHOTOS of the 2008 Greek riots. | Not-quite-so-sexy-but-still-exciting map of solidarity events around the world.

It’s all Greek to me…

Posted in Anarchism, State / Politics, Student movement | 1 Comment

“Allahu akbar!” “Free the battery hens!” “Allahu akbar!”

Posted on December 19, 2008 by @ndy
    Gibson: From what I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.N.C.E has gathered, it would be 9/11 times 100.
    McCarten: 9/11 times a hundred? Jesus, that’s…
    Gibson: Yes, 91,100.
    Driver: Basically, all the worst parts of the Bible.

Sunrise is a TV show on 3news in New Zealand/Aotearoa. A recent episode pits an emerging stand-up comic (and editor of the National Business Review) Nevil Gibson up against straight man (and union thug) Matt McCarten on the subject of spying.

Police spying on unions condemned
Unite
December 19, 2008

Unite Union leader Matt McCarten today released emails from police informant Rob Gilchrist to the police spy unit detailing activities being organised by the union as part of their push to abolish youth pay rates and increase the minimum wage. “These emails give lie to the police claim that only potential criminal actions by individuals were being targeted. A wide range of legal actions by unions, political parties and peace and justice groups came under the evil eye of the police. There is no evidence that the actions of Gilchrist were in any way discouraged by the police. “We need a full public inquiry into the actions of the police spy unit whose actions have clearly gone way beyond any legal mandate,” said Mr McCarten.

See also : Moaron Rob Gilchrist (December 17, 2008) | Rob Gilchrist : Police Informant (December 14, 2008)

Posted in !nataS, Media, State / Politics, War on Terror | Leave a comment

December 20, 2008 : International Day of Action Against Murder by the State (Sydney)

Posted on December 19, 2008 by @ndy

Update : The uprising in Greece has spawned hundreds of solidarity actions around the world. Here’s a map.

International Day of Action Against Murder by the State
Saturday, December 20, 2008 : 11 am
Greek Consulate
223 Castlereagh St, Sydney

WE DON’T FORGET, WE DON’T FORGIVE: End State Murder
Solidarity With Uprising in Greece
Remember Those Killed by the State
No More Deaths in Custody
Free Lex Wotton

Also MELBOURNE.

Posted in History, State / Politics | 1 Comment

“Your heads are full of rubbish because you have read too many books.”

Posted on December 19, 2008 by @ndy

Cabbage-patch revolutionaries? The French ‘grocer terrorists’
The Independent
December 18, 2008

The villagers of Tarnac were charmed by the self-sufficient students who set up a commune in their midst. Little did they realise that their new neighbours were anarchists bent on overthrowing capitalism. Or so the police claimed. So what is the truth?

They are brilliant ex-students from bourgeois families who live in a farm commune in the green, empty, centre of France. To the delight of local people, they have revived the defunct village shop and bar. They are also, according to the French Interior Minister, “ultra-leftist-anarchist” subversives, members of an “invisible committee” plotting the violent downfall of capitalism.

Since nine of the alleged “terrorist grocers” were arrested one month ago, severe doubts have surfaced about the French government’s allegations. Villagers at Tarnac in Corrèze in south-west France and parents of the suspects have campaigned for the investigation against the so-called “Tarnac Nine” to be dropped. The whole notion of an “ultra-left” terrorist threat is an absurdity, they say: the convenient fantasy of an “authoritarian”, centre-right government.

Maybe…

Benjamin Rosoux, 30, the main “shopkeeper” at Tarnac, was among the seven people arrested and later released. He has since complained to the French press about the “surreal” questioning by police investigators. He said that they asked questions such as: “Do you have orgies in your commune?” or made accusations such as: “Your heads are full of rubbish because you have read too many books.”

He confesses to left-wing “militant” views but rejects the accusation that the Tarnac commune was a kind of terrorist base camp.

By using the word “terrorist” as “a kind of badge of infamy”, he said, the government was trying to undermine “anyone who opposes its policies, anyone who has a different vision of the world”. Both investigations – the Printemps toilet bomb and the “terrorist” grocers of Corrèze – continue…

See also : Bomb is found in Parisian department store, Katrin Bennhold and Basil Katz, International Herald Tribune, December 16, 2008 | Use of French terrorism law on railroad saboteurs draws criticism, Celestine Bohlen, International Herald Tribune (Bloomberg News), December 4, 2008 | Cheese-eating surrender monkeys vs. very fast trains : Free the Tarnac Nine! (November 25, 2008) | Support the Tarnac 9 : site of the US support committee for the Tarnac 9

Biba La Revolución!

Well yes, Biba’s boutique was blown up. On May Day (1971), no less. Hell, they even wrote a communiqué to commemorate the occasion:

IF YOU’RE NOT BUSY BEING BORN, YOU’RE BUSY BUYING.

All the sales girls in the flash boutiques are made to dress the same and have the same make-up, representing the 1940s. In fashion as in everything else, capitalism can only go backwards — they’ve nowhere to go — they’re dead.

The future is ours. Life is so boring there is nothing to do except spend all our wages on the latest skirt or shirt.

Brothers and Sisters, what are your real desires? Sit in the drugstore, look distant, empty, bored, drinking some tasteless coffee? Or perhaps BLOW IT UP or BURN IT DOWN. The only thing you can do with modern slave-houses — called boutiques — is WRECK THEM. You can’t reform profit capitalism and inhumanity. Just KICK IT TILL IT BREAKS.

REVOLUTION. COMMUNIQUE 8. THE ANGRY BRIGADE.

According to Biba, the “real desires” of the “Brothers and Sisters” revolve around wardrobes, cosmetics, soft furnishings, washing powder and food — for both themselves and their pets — “all presented in the distinctive Biba packaging”. Well, that’s what some reckon:

Biba remains the most evocative name in post-War British fashion.

Born as a small boutique in 1964 just as London started to swing, its upward mobility followed a path diametrically opposed to that of the society around it…

Drawing on Art Deco, Nouveau, Victoriana and the golden age of Hollywood, it was more than just fashion: it was a whole world, a lifestyle choice. At the height of the store’s glory, the committed shopper could buy not only a new wardrobe, fully co-ordinated from head to toe, but also a complete range of cosmetics and soft furnishings, together with the washing powder to care for her clothes, and food for both herself and her pets, all presented in the distinctive Biba packaging. Alternatively she could just hang out, either lounging in the shop-windows (Biba didn’t do window-displays), or sipping cocktails upstairs amongst the flamingos that lived in the Roof Garden, or in the Rainbow Room, where on a good night there might be a live performance by the likes of the New York Dolls, Liberace or the Manhattan Transfer.

It was not so much a department store as a theme park devoted to elegantly wasted decadence.

Brigitte Bardot, Raquel Welch and Princess Anne may have shopped there; Mick and Marianne, Sonny and Cher, David and Angie may have been regular visitors; but the store was never the exclusive preserve of the rich and famous: prices were kept deliberately low, and anyone who could tolerate the disdainful inefficiency of the staff was encouraged to soak up the glamour of an unforgettable shopping experience.

And then it crashed and burned.

Posted in !nataS, Anarchism, State / Politics, Student movement, War on Terror | 1 Comment

International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) on callous and brutal police

Posted on December 19, 2008 by @ndy

Australia: Police gun down 15-year-old boy
Katrina Morrison
wsws.org
December 17, 2008

Fifteen-year-old Tyler Cassidy was shot dead by police officers in Melbourne, Victoria last Thursday night in a callous and brutal act. Four officers surrounded the agitated youth at a skate park in the suburb of Northcote and killed him in a hail of at least six bullets. The shooting has sparked public outrage and recalled the filthy record of Victorian police, who have become notorious for opening fire on anyone perceived as a threat, including the young and mentally ill…

Tyler’s killing follows a similar incident in Greece, where the death of a 15-year-old boy at the hands of the police has sparked ongoing street clashes, demonstrations, and anti-government strikes. There is no doubt that this response has contributed to the extremely nervous reaction, in political and media circles, to Tyler’s tragic death. A central feature of the media coverage has been an outrageous attempt to limit public sympathy for the dead youth and his family by portraying him as a neo-fascist. A series of lurid stories has emerged detailing the activities of the “Southern Cross Soldiers”—a hitherto unknown racist and nationalist group of youth with whom Tyler reportedly had some contact.

Tyler’s mother denied he was a member of the group. “Accusations that he was involved in a nationalistic group are far-fetched,” she said. “He was 15-years-old. He attended a multi-cultural school. Many of Tyler’s friends came to the house in tears. They are from all different nationalities and they are also grieving.” …

Leaving aside the uses to which the corporate and state media have put this information, in reality, the allegation that Tyler was involved in “a nationalistic group” is not far-fetched, but correct. Tyler was indeed a member of the ‘Southern Cross Soldiers’, and proudly so, as a moment’s research would confirm. (His myspace page is titled TYLERS [S.C.S] P.T.B.A.] And by any standard definition, SCS are indeed ‘nationalistic’. Further, while Katrina may not have known of the existence of the SCS, others did; it even featured in an article in the Herald Sun in November. I first became aware of the boys in late 2007/early 2008, at which time I wrote to a friend:

Kids.

Nationalism and racism are often conjoined, so I don’t think it’s any surprise that a group such as this has emerged really. One of the only significant distinctions between this and previous incarnations of nationalist sentiment is the use of the Southern Cross as an emblem (as opposed to the Australian flag) and the fact that it’s Internet-based. I think the actual opinions of those involved, which aren’t especially well-articulated or based on a great deal of reflection, would be divided between those who have a passionate hatred of non-whites and those who don’t, with many positions in-between. In other words, the group membership is likely similar to that of the general public. Further, groups like this offer young white Australians a sense of identity and personal coherence, which is absent elsewhere. It’s also a product of a more general political dynamic which on its own terms makes sense, that is: I’m an Australian; being an Australian is Good; Good things should be celebrated; I’m celebrating being an Australian. Conversely, if being an Australian is Good, then not being an Australian — and living IN Australia — is Bad, or at least highly suspect. Therefore, living in Australia and proclaiming oneself to be something other than Australian — say, being ‘Lebanese’ — is Bad (or at least highly suspect), and to be denigrated. It’s also conceived of as being threatening, a challenge, and in the case of young people with a weak or still budding sense of identity, doubly so. The other important factor, I think, is sexual politics, and the challenge to masculinity which declarations of (cultural/ethnic/racial) difference tends to provoke in young males.

Blah blah blah.

A further moment’s investigation would also confirm that SCS take their inspiration, in part, from the December 11, 2005 Cronulla riot: “On that day, approximately 5,000 people, mostly young, gathered on Cronulla beach, many draped in the Australian flag. They launched a nationalistic, alcohol- and drug-fuelled pogrom against anyone of Middle Eastern appearance, injuring more than 20 people, two of whom were stabbed.”

Or so Fergus Michaels claimed; perhaps Katrina believes that they’re not racists, just patriotists.

Beyond this, Morrison’s point stands: if the authorities were fearful of a public backlash, one means of lessening its strength would be through portraying Tyler in an unsympathetic light. This tactic has very real limitations, however, as the most obvious feature of his tragic death is the age at which it occurred, and the manner of his killing.

Finally, Jill Singer. Online MySpace ‘mates’ let Tyler Cassidy down, Herald Sun, December 18, 2008 (“HE wrote: “I love Austrlia more than enythink.” It was Tyler Cassidy’s entry on Myspace, months before being killed by police in Northcote…”).

Posted in State / Politics, Trot Guide | 4 Comments

200K

Posted on December 18, 2008 by @ndy
    JOCK Palfreeman, the Sydney man accused of murdering a university student in Bulgaria last month, is enjoying cult-like status on the Internet. Palfreeman, 21, who bears a striking resemblance to actor Matt Damon, is now the subject of at least four websites and is receiving movie-star attention. Although two of the sites have been dedicated to his alleged victim, Andrei Monov, 20, they have been flooded with messages of support for Palfreeman, an old boy of St Ignatius’ College. Three of the four sites – The Trial Against Mr Jock Palfreeman – Guilty Or Not?, In Loving Memory Of Andrey (sic) Monov and the 356-member Jock Palfreeman Is Not Guilty – are powered by Facebook. The fourth, slackbastard, is run by Palfreeman’s close friends…

I began blogging in earnest in December 2005, originally at blogspot, then migrating to anarchobase on May Day, 2006. Over 1,500 (!) posts, 7,000 comments (in total) and — on anarchobase at least — two-and-a-half years later, the blog has received between over 200,000 (SiteMeter) and (since June 12, 2006, according to ClustrMaps) 280,000 visits — despite largely being ignored by others in the Australian blogosphere (in which anarchists are relatively rare). As such, while having a relatively tiny audience, slackbastard is probably the most popular source of information on anarchism and related subjects comin’ straight outta Compton Melbourne.

Whoopee!

(For hatemail and some plaudits, see : Who the hell reads this thing anyway? (November 21) | slackbastard : critical reflections (September 21, 2007))

On the anarchy bloggy front, the struggle for World Domination Global Liberation continues… Geeks Unite & Take Over!

¡Amor Y Resistencia!

Love and Resistance: documenting anarchist resistance in the americas * documentando la resistencia anarquista en las americas

Anarchoblogs

Nice one Charles!

Who are you?

Anarchoblogs is a collection of blogs from self-identified anarchists, anarcho-syndicalists, anarcha-feminists, anarchists without adjectives, libertarian-socialists, autonomists and other assorted anti-statists. We use free software to syndicate our weblogs, in order to raise awareness, bring together anarchist voices, promote cross-linking and discussion between anarchist bloggers, and to archive and index anarchist materials on the Internet, while we’re at it.

Anarchoblogs in English is a hub within the Anarchoblogs network for anarchist blogs from anywhere in the world which are written in English. There are similar hubs for anarchist blogs written in Spanish and German, and plans to add more as we grow.

Anarchoblogs began life in September 2004. It was founded by Evan “Rabble” Henshaw-Plath, and run with a Planet aggregator at anarchoblogs.protest.net. Technical difficulties caused anarchoblogs.protest.net to disappear from the web in late 2008, so Anarchoblogs contributor Charles “Rad Geek” Johnson contacted former contributors about establishing a new Anarchoblogs aggregator at anarchoblogs.org, with new software and some new features (including localized hubs, archiving and indexing of posts by date, tag, and author, and a updated, semantically-richer set of aggregated feeds). The new Anarchoblogs has been live since December 2008.

Fugitive Desire

“Please, come in. Welcome to our studio: A place for play, experimentation, and creation – only we’re not dealing with clay or oil paints, but with ideas. You will find here fragments of fugitive desire; lines-of-flight always proliferating and recombining, forging new paths outwards towards the event-horizon; the borderlands between reality and dreams where the world as it is kisses the world that might be. Why don’t you stay a while and let’s co-create something together? Here, let us make you a cup of tea.”

Open Anthropology

is an excellent site, among other things, being:

…in its most basic sense is a project of decolonization, growing out of a discipline with a long history and a deep epistemological connection to colonialism. The aim is to transform anthropology into something that is neither Eurocentric nor elitist. The inspiration behind this effort was the New World Movement (click this, that, and the other). It is an attempt to redefine the craft of anthropology into one guided and inspired by decolonization movements and by the struggles of indigenous peoples, Africans in the Americas, and various elements of anarchism. The preferred medium for this effort is the Internet and a mixture of media within the Internet…

See also : David Graeber, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, Prickly Paradigm Press, 2004 [PDF].

the anarchic tendency to run around in circles

“nothing, and nothing can be about something, where something is nothing in essence, as i write this up, i feel nothing, and nobody shall take a sense of something from nothing. it is about disappointment, it is about encouraging engagement, it is about it is about time a fucking collective effort take place, it is about please fucking wake up, [it is] about [getting] motivated, it is about why the lack of inspiration – express it, let us know. for we know nothing, and if we know nothing, nothing shall happen from something.”

Quite.

For other anarchist blogs, see anarchoblogs and links to the right under ‘Anarchist Blogs’.

Oh yeah…

Posted in Anarchism, Media | Leave a comment

December 20, 2008 : International Day of Action Against Murder by the State (Melbourne)

Posted on December 18, 2008 by @ndy

Update : Youth wounded by bullet in Athens, The Age, December 18, 2008: “A high school student has been slightly wounded by a bullet fired in front of a school in a western Athens suburb, police say, ahead of new protests over the killing of a teenager by a police bullet. The 16-year-old was hit in the hand as he talked with other students in the street on Wednesday night in the suburban town of Peristeri, according to a police source. It was not known who fired the bullet. Initial police investigations showed the student, the son of a trade unionist from the Greek Teachers Federation, had been hit by a bullet fired from a compressed-air rifle. Police said none of their officers were in the area at the time of the incident…”

International Day of Action Against Murder by the State
Saturday, December 20, 2008 : 1pm
Victorian State Parliament

Parliament House,
East Melbourne, Victoria, 3002
Phone: (+61 3) 9651 8911
Fax: (+61 3) 9654 5284
Email: [email protected]

“Remembering all state murders, particularly indigenous deaths in custody and in solidarity with the struggle in Greece. Bring photos of those killed, dress in old clothes if you wish to be part of the die-in…”

via Whenua Fenua Enua Vanua

“We don’t forget, we don’t forgive” – day of international action against state murders, 20 – 12 – 2008

“Today [Friday, December 12, 2008], the assembly of the occupied Athens Polytechnic decided to make a callout for European and global-wide actions of resistance in the memory of all assassinated youth, migrants and all those who were struggling against the lackeys of the state. Carlo Giuliani; the French suburb youths; Alexandros Grigoropoulos and the countless others, all around the world. Our lives do not belong to the states and their assassins! The memory of the assassinated brothers and sisters, friends and comrades stays alive through our struggles! We do not forget our brothers and sisters, we do not forgive their murderers. Please translate and spread around this message for a common day of coordinated actions of resistance in as many places around the world as possible…”

See also!

Police officer wins appeal in Palm Island case
The World Today
December 18, 2008

Mulrunji death case reopened
Peter Michael
The Courier-Mail
December 18, 2008

The Drones play Kev Carmody‘s ‘River of Tears’:

Ska-P, Banda de ska-hardcore española, ‘Solamente por pensar’:

Posted in History, State / Politics | 10 Comments