The Daily Stormer’s neo-Nazi Nathan Sykes : ‘one of Australia’s worst online trolls’ (also: Jewish!)

Posted on April 16, 2017 by @ndy

Below : Nathaniel Jacob Sassoon Sykes (L) and Dr Jim Saleam (R), attending a Reclaim Australia rally in Sydney, 2015 (see also : The rise of the Australian far right, Late Night Live, Radio National, November 26, 2015).

File Under : TOP KEK.

Sydney resident and Australia First Party (AFP) member Nathan Sykes — AKA ‘Hamish Patton’, ‘Stanley Dangerfield’, ‘Michael Slay’, ‘Great Australian Bite’ et. al. — has been revealed as both ‘one of Australia’s worst online trolls’ … and as being of Jewish descent:

In a ramshackle inner Sydney boarding house, surrounded by his collection of Adolf Hitler dolls, a 48-year-old unemployed neo-Nazi plies his trade as one of Australia’s most aggressive online trolls.

Nathan Sykes – a former journalist and bankrupt – has spent much of the past few years under various pseudonyms harassing and baiting left-wingers and Muslim activists through social media, and writing anti-Semitic articles on neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer …

But what makes Nathaniel Jacob Sassoon Sykes particularly unusual is that, despite his neo-Nazi persona, he himself is a Jew.

Sykes was born in December 1968. Virtually everything else about his upbringing is shrouded in mystery and he has gone out of his way through pseudonyms to obscure his identity.

But Fairfax Media can now reveal that Sykes is part of an international network of trolls, and has been crucial in the campaigns to vilify a number of high-profile Australians, including Racial Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane, Muslim activist Mariam Veiszadeh and Guardian journalist and left-wing commentator Van Badham …

See : Revealing the secrets of one of Australia’s worst online trolls, Luke McMahon, The Age, April 16, 2017.

A few additional notes:

• As noted, this is not the first time that a Jewish man has been revealed as being a major contributor to Andrew Anglin‘s Daily Stormer website, ‘the best-read English language neo-Nazi website in the world’, which fact is rather … odd.

• As well as contributing articles to the Daily Stormer, Sykes was also a contributor to the now defunct neo-Nazi Whitelaw Towers (WLT) blog. The WLT blog was established over ten years ago by neo-Nazis Peter Campbell (NSW) and Jim Perren (QLD), both formerly members of the ‘White Pride Coalition of Australia’ (WPCA : 2002–2004), an online forum for neo-Nazis, Klan members, and assorted other White supremacists. Campbell deaded in August 2013, with Sykes seemingly joining Perren at some point thereafter; all three have been fulsome supporters of Dr Jim Saleam’s White nationalist AFP. In February 2016, Perren was also responsible for helping to organise the United Patriots Front (UPF) tour of Toowoomba in Queensland.

• Sykes has also been active on the neo-Nazi/White supremacist website Stormfront since December 2011 as ‘Great Australian Bite’, posting over 12,000 comments. His contributions to Daily Stormer number well over one-hundred-and-fifty separate articles.

• Sykes wrote a piece about me for Daily Stormer back in March 2015 (slackbastard ~versus~ Australia First Party, Daily Stormer, Reclaim Australia (etc.).) I could be wrogn, but I don’t believe he’s much of a fan.

• Sykes is a big fan of fellow AFP member Chris Shortis, one of three men currently facing charges as the result of a UPF stunt in Bendigo in October 2015. Sykes attended court last month in Melbourne, along with Dr Jim Saleam, to express support for Shortis. Looking rather stylish in his blue suit, Sykes was also sporting several rings, including one with a Golden Dawn symbol. Prior to this, in December 2016 in Sydney, Sykes attended a rally outside the Russian consulate, where he was joined by other AFP members (including Saleam), Golden Dawn members, and assorted other far-right elements. Oh, and University of Sydney academic Tim Anderson.

But that’s another story …

Above : (L to R) : Sykes (w camera); Tim Anderson, Simeon Boikov (Zabaikal Cossack Society of Australia), Dr Jim Saleam (AFP), Iggy Gavrilidis (Golden Dawn Australia).

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antifa notes (april 5, 2017) : trolls & goons & masks & moar

Posted on April 5, 2017 by @ndy

The last few months has witnessed the emergence of a number of fake antifa accounts on Facebook and Twitter. Most are fairly obviously fake, some less so. In any event, blogger b9AcE has compiled a list of fake antifa accounts, around 40 or so, and notes that:

After those and other fake antifa-accounts were made well known, they and other newly created ones now use extremely obvious sarcasm, whereas many previously even copied the entire content of genuine antifa-accounts to seem legitimate.
In the cases of accounts that clearly pretended to be legitimate, they seem to now in many cases have deleted the content that was obviously meant to mislead.
Considering this change, the purpose of the original post has been fulfilled… by them.
On those grounds, it does not seem beneficial to post further updates to the previous list here.
If the behavior changes again, that stance might change and this revision’s notification be replaced by other content.

Note also that a silly ‘Antifa Australia’ Facebook page has popped up here, ‘Boston Antifa’ have been revealed as two right-wing nerds called Alexis Esteb and Brandon Krebs, while snopes ponders a fake antifa flyer here. My personal favourite fake is the Antifa Squad YouTube channel and this comment (posted on or about November, 2013):

Elsewhere, Lucy Battersby (Government suspends its YouTube advertising, amid concerns about where revenue goes, The Age, April 1, 2017) writes of some problems Google has in adhering to the corporate commandment ‘Don’t Be Evil’:

The global Google boycott keeps on rolling, with the Australian government the latest big spender to suspend advertising on Google’s YouTube platform.

The move comes at the end of a week when several advertisers have pulled out of the platform causing massive brand damage to Google …

Some YouTubers like Millennial Woes – a Scotland-based video blogger who posts bigoted monologues – claim to be able to make a living from their posts, according to one expert on far right groups.

And in Australia groups like the far-right United Patriots Front use social media to reach out to supporters.

“Blair Cottrell and the United Patriots Front use Facebook as their main platform, not YouTube. And while they have a real large audience and some of their Facebook videos reach millions, these are not monetised by them but rather by Facebook,” another expert said.

The UPF has tried to use crowd funding to raise money, but these are usually shut down by appeals to the platform for breaches of terms of service, he added.

Otherwise:

• Shermon Burgess and Neil Erikson have re-badged their Facebook page. Previously known as ARSE (Australian Settlers Rebellion), it’s now known as ‘Nationalist Uprising’. By my count, the boys have now burned through: 1) Aussie Patriot Army; 2) Australian Defence League; 3) Australian Settlers Rebellion; 4) Ban Islam Party; 5) European Australian Civil Rights League; 6) Generation Identity Australia; 7) Nationalist Alternative; 8) Nationalist Republican Guard; 9) Neil Erikson Media; 10) NRG Media; 11) OzConspiracy; 12) Pauline Hanson’s Guardian Angels; 13) Reclaim Australia; 14) United Patriots Front; 15) United Patriots Front — Originals and who knows, maybe more. In other words, the pair have had more Facebook pages than they have friends.

• Speaking of Neil Erikson’s (former) friends: ‘Michael James Holt, 26, has pleaded guilty to a string of firearm manufacture and possession charges, including manufacturing a gun without a licence, after police found a large stash of guns and weapons across three properties in 2015 … [Holt] remains in custody and is due to be sentenced on April 12.’ Previously, Erikson had enthusiastically agreed with Holt about the desirability of arranging for the mass execution of ‘mudbloods’ at Federation Square — while selling fairy floss, popcorn and showbags.

Top Blokes.

• Another Top Bloke to have attached himself to the neo-Nazis in the UPF is Canberra’s most impressive cement renderer, Nathan Davidson. Davidson, who while the subject of a suspended sentence for a conviction of assault occasioning actual bodily harm in 2013 and on bail for traffic matters, got busted in early 2016 with drugs and guns and stuff. Word on the street is that the naughty naziboy got a slap on the wrist and is currently serving a community order.

• Not serving a community order — but very much wanting to serve the white community of Manly — is Australia First Party (AFP) member Victor Waterson, who’ll be losing the Manly by-election on April 8. Waterson had fifteen seconds of fame back in October 2014 when he played dress-ups with Nick Folkes (Party For Freedom) and Sergio Redegalli. Previously, Waterson was the losing One Nation candidate for Bennelong at the 2010 Federal election (0.8%), the losing ‘independent’ candidate for Epping at the 2011 state election (2.6%), and the losing AFP candidate for Bennelong in 2013 (0.6%). He was also the losing AFP candidate for McMahon at the 2016 Federal election (2.1%) and for Penrith at the 2015 NSW election (0.7%).

• The Victorian state government has introduced legislation — the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Public Order) Bill 2017 — intended to provide Victorian police with greater powers to control and repress public protest. These powers include, inter alia, greater scope to influence local council’s capacity to grant permits for public protests and to prevent persons from shielding themselves from the effects of chemical weapons (capsicum spray) or to conceal their face at public events. The Bill also re-defines and increases criminal penalties for ‘riotous’ behavior. See : Anti-mask laws proposed in Victoria, Melbourne Activist Legal Support, March 14, 2017.

• Josh Dukes, the antifa who got shot by a Milo Y fan in Seattle in January, has been interviewed by Teh Grauniad: ‘I refuse to be like them’: why the man shot while protesting Milo Yiannopoulos doesn’t want revenge (Julia Carrie Wong, April 4, 2017).

• Finally, ABC’s 4 Corners has profiled Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party. In a mildly amusing episode (Please Explain), PHONy is revealed as a political plaything for Our Pauline, her gormless followers rich pickings for the chancers that assemble under her banner, and otherwise rather similar to PHONy of the 1990s, with Muslims now replacing Asians as the boogeyman of choice — and the Tories much happier to play along. (Of passing interest is the financial support given the party by multi-millionaire property developer Bill McNee, who has also donated fat sums to the Tories.) See also : antifa notes (march 14, 2017) : One Nation Party too sophisticated for WA; UPF Go To Court; boneheads; ‘Alt-wrong: The Australian right is startling for its incoherence’, Richard Cooke, The Monthly, April 2017:

There is a pat explanation available, where Pauline Hanson is simply the antipodean franchise of a global movement of right-wing populism. Like Nigel Farage in the United Kingdom, or Marine Le Pen in France, or Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, she has been a chronic presence. Like them she has undergone decades of gestation, from a larval stage on the fringes of discourse to a resplendent full expression in the mainstream of politics. But, so far, this rise of the right has proved abortive for Hanson. Unlike them, she is unlikely to contest anything as monumental as Brexit, or challenge for the leadership of her country. Unlike them, she is also one of the least coherent politicians of her era.

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The SUWA Show : March 2017 edition w Dr Jason Wilson on Trump, Gorka & #TheResistance

Posted on March 25, 2017 by @ndy

Our guest on the March edition of Floating Anarchy (4th Friday of the month on The SUWA Show on 3CR) is Dr Jason Wilson.

On Gorka, see : Gorka Hedges, Evades on Vitezi Rend Tie, Eli Clifton and Jim Lobe, LobeLog, March 21, 2017 | Sebastian Gorka, Uphold Your Oath To The American People, Jane Eisner, Forward, March 21, 2017 | Sebastian Gorka’s association with far-right, pro-Iranian political figures in Hungary, Hungarian Free Press, March 18, 2017 | Sebastian Gorka May Be a Far-Right Nativist, But for Sure He’s a Terrible Scholar, Foreign Policy, March 17, 2017 | The husband-and-wife team driving Trump’s national security policy, Eli Stokols, Bryan Bender and Michael Crowley, Politico, February 13, 2017 (‘Before they became a Trump administration power couple, Sebastian and Katharine Gorka were prolific collaborators on research about the threat of Islamist terrorism.’).

Posted in Anti-fascism, History, Media, State / Politics, That's Capitalism!, War on Terror | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

antifa notes (march 14, 2017) : One Nation Party too sophisticated for WA; UPF Go To Court; boneheads

Posted on March 14, 2017 by @ndy

sophistication

The One Nation Party proved to be a bit too sophisticated for the electorate in Western Australia on Saturday, March 11, averaging just under 5% of the vote in the legislative assembly (about 8% in the seats the party ran candidates in). While vote-counting is ongoing, of the 30+ candidates ONP ran, the best performing (10%+) were in Central Wheatbelt, Kalgoorlie, Mandurah, Moore, Murray-Wellington, North West Central*, Pilbara, Swan Hills and Warnbro (*Dane Sorensen was kicked outta ONP after his nomination). The party fared much better in the legislative council, however, where it appears that Our Pauline will have anywhere from one to three allies once the final votes have been tallied. (Note that the gerrymander in WA means that the 3/4 of the WA population what live in the Perth area elect 18 MLCs, while the other 1/4 what live outside Perth elect the same number, giving the Nationals and rural constituencies a disproportionate influence in the legislative council.)

Despite these rather meagre results (preceded by a shambolic election campaign), ‘Liberal puppet’ and party ‘dictator’ Pauline Hanson has declared that the election results ‘fantastic’, and Malcolm Turnbull has refused to rule out the Tories once again directing preferences to their parliamentary allies in ONP.

legislation

On Monday, March 6, Blair Cottrell, Neil Erikson and Chris Shortis appeared in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court for a mentions hearing. While all three were members of the United Patriots Front (UPF) at the time of their alleged offences (October 2015), in late 2015/early 2016 Erikson departed the UPF (but continued to be a Facebook warrior under various labels) while Shortis joined the Australia First Party in early- to mid-2016. Currently, the UPF is reduced to Cottrell and Thomas (Tom) Sewell in Melbourne and Dennis Huts and Kevin Coombes (‘Elijah Jacobson’) in Perth, along with a smattering of fanboys and fangirls across the country and a small army of Facebook fans.

The Campaign Against Racism & Fascism organised a small rally outside the court, which Erikson attended dressed in Muslim drag alongside George Jameson of the Party For Freedom. The boys were joined by several dozen supporters of AFP and UPF; the next scheduled court hearing has been set for May 23. Also attending court were the Million Flag Patriots, the most prestigious, unbashable & patrioty neo-patriot group in Australia. (See : United Patriots Front members’ court appearance sparks rally in Melbourne, Cameron Best, ABC, March 6, 2017.)

This week, the Victorian government has announced the introduction of a bill meaning that Rioters who wear face coverings while taking part in violent protests could face up to 15 years behind bars (ABC, March 13, 2017).

The proposal follows State Government talks with Victoria Police after violent clashes between anti-racism and anti-Islamic activists in Coburg last year.

Attorney-General Martin Pakula said the legislation, which will introduce a new offence of violent disorder, will be introduced to Parliament next week.

“Too often we see at these events people turning up with masks and face coverings to try and hide their identity or to shield themselves from the effects of capsicum spray,” he said.

So: protecting your identity and shielding yourself from capsicum spray are now to be criminal offences.

bonehead

This bonehead was spotted in Ballarat Daylesford on the weekend: chill out, bro.


Posted in Anti-fascism, History, Media, State / Politics, That's Capitalism! | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Prepare & Repair : taking action & keeping safe at rallies, protests & direct actions

Posted on March 3, 2017 by @ndy

Prepare & Repair is a new zine published by a local gang of ne’er-do-wells, intended to help YOU take collective action. You can download a copy for online reading /// for printing and distribution as an A5 zine below …

From the Introduction:

The first question you probably have is who the fuck are we to be saying any of this? That’s a fair question. The simple answer is, nobody in particular. We are ordinary, unremarkable people in the sense that most of our lives are consumed with the same tedium as yours, or most other’s. Work, study, fight centrelink, struggle to pay bills, laugh at the absurdity, rage at the brutality, cry, feel crushed under the unbearable sadness of it all, wish for better days.

What unites our disparate life experiences enough to have slapped together this flying-by-the-seat-of-our-collective-pants project is the simple fact we have ‘picked a side’.

What do we mean by this? At the risk of writing a laundry list, here are a few examples: It seems self-evident to us that the political entity ‘Australia’ is an inherently violent, despotic settler state that will continue to act, with total impunity, in a genocidal fashion against its First Nations people. That is, until it is dragged kicking & screaming towards a process of reparations, treaty, decolonisation & the abolition of its British Imperial institutions, starting with its prisons.

Everything around us is the product of theft, it’s that simple. Theft of lives, of histories, of wisdom & traditions, of lands, of resources, of wages. We know almost nothing of the actual history of the country we live on, even though this continent is home to the oldest continuing cultures on the planet. Where once there were songlines, we have open-cut coalmines, clearcut rainforests & highways clogged forever with commuter traffic.

In less than 300 years on this continent, white fellas have almost completely fucked this place up beyond repair & yet all the government or well-paid media hot-takers can do is blame Aboriginal people for their disadvantage. That’s not just disgusting & wrong, it’s a threat to justice for all sorts of other kinds of people as well including, ultimately, most of the rest of us.

Where other people may see ‘pride’ or ‘patriotism’, we see systems of exclusion, dehumanisation & attempts to hide uncountable abuses of the most fundamental universal human rights. We refuse to be drawn into ‘discourse’ with those who would assault, incarcerate, deport or exterminate our fellow human beings. If they want to try any of these things, they’ll have to go through us.

We similarly reject the idea that there is anything defensible or positive about the incarceration of migrants & refugees: onshore, offshore, wherever, & remind the Labor Party that even a ‘nice’ concentration camp guard is still a concentration camp guard. Where others see people crossing borders, we see borders crossing people.

We think that anyone sleeping rough or hungry amidst so much obvious wealth horded by so few is an act of violence &, frankly, we don’t give a single fuck about what the business community has to say in trying to justify this situation. Our leaders acknowledge through their choice of priorities what the lives of humans, whether here or abroad, are actually worth to them & we think they’re depraved. Every missile that is fired as part of our forever wars in the Middle East not only steals civilian life so callously, it represents thousands upon thousands of poor people denied healthcare, housing & a decent life at home …

Contents
An Introduction
Beyond The Toothless Demand: Taking Action Like The Future Matters
Prep, Pack, Wear
Buddying, Affinity Groups & RIVAL
Picket Lines: A Way To Be Strong, Together
Security & Privacy For Actions
ZOMG It’s An Emergency! And Here’s How You Can Help
What To Do If You’re Having A Shitty Time At An Action
Legal Stuff
Don’t Let Pepper Spray Ruin Your Day!
Pepper Spray After-Care
Radical Self Care

Useful Contacts & Further Reading
• Can’t Stand By Manual • Can’t Stand By Video • Black Cross Resilience • Melbourne Activist Legal Service (MALS) • Accomplices Not Allies – Abolishing The Ally Industrial Complex: An Indigenous Perspective (PDF) • This Is Not A Dialogue (CrimethInc) • Love Trumps Hate? Liberalism’s False Opposition to Trump (It’s Going Down).

Download
DIGITAL READER A4 – Prepare and repair version 1 (online version)
A5 BOOKLET – Prepare and repair version 1 (printable version — set printer to ‘flip on short edge’ /// ‘bind on short edge’)

Posted in Anarchism, Anti-fascism, Art, Broken Windows, Media, Poetry, State / Politics, That's Capitalism! | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

antifascism on film

Posted on February 21, 2017 by @ndy

Fighting Talk [1993]

*On Anti-Fascist Action, see libcom’s archive of the group’s journal Fighting Talk, published between September 1991 and April 1999, in PDF format.

Antifascist Attitude [2008]

ANTIFA : Chasseurs De Skins [2008]

161 > 88 [2012]

The Moscow Mutiny [2012]

The Rise Of Sweden’s Far-Left Militants [VICE, 2014]

Burning From The Inside [2015]

SAD BUT TRUE : IVAN. IN MEMORY OF OUR FRIEND. [2015]

BBC Our World : Crushing Dissent [2016]

The Antifascists [2017]

See also : Antifa Worldwide: A Brief History of International Antifascism, Alexander Reid Ross, It’s Going Down, February 14, 2017 | Read the Introduction to Militant Anti-Fascism!, revolution by the book (AK Press), April 21, 2015.

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Arthur Sinodinos & The Sophisticated One Nation Party

Posted on February 16, 2017 by @ndy

Barrie, the One Nation of today is a very different beast to what it was 20 years ago. They are a lot more sophisticated, they have clearly resonated with a lot of people.
~ Senator Arthur Sinodinos, Insiders (ABC), February 12, 2017

With the WA state election less than a month away, the Tories are shitting bricks over the prospect of hemorrhaging votes to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party, and have stitched up a deal to preference Our Pauline above their coalition partners in the Nationals. (See : Liberal Party to direct preferences to One Nation above Nationals in WA, Matthew Doran and Chris Uhlmann, ABC, February 13, 2017.) Two ONP candidates, Dane Sorensen (North West Central) and David Miller (Collie Preston), have made some squawking noises in protest at the deal — they apparently didn’t get the memo that Our Pauline runs the show — and it’s a reversal of previous Tory policy, but it comes with John HoWARd’s blessing, so s’all good.

As for Sindonis’ allegation of sophistication, it’s laughable, but presumably intended to make (liberal) Tories feel less bad about supporting openly racist, homophobic and xenophobic candidates. And as Stewart Lee has observed, ‘if political correctness has achieved one thing, it’s to make the Conservative Party cloak its inherent racism behind more creative language’.

Anyway, here’s to sophistication.

QUEENSLAND

• One Nation Queensland candidate Andy Semple withdraws after inappropriate tweets, Melinda Howells, ABC, December 20, 2016
Undeterred, poor old Andy continues to tweet words of wisdom.

• Shan Ju Lin dumped as One Nation loses another Queensland candidate, Gareth Hutchens, The Guardian, January 8, 2017; Dumped candidate Lin claims Ashby threat, SBS (AAP), January 30, 2017
Shan Ju Lin remains Founder and President of World Harmony Society Inc..

• One Nation candidates push anti-gay messages and Port Arthur conspiracy theory, Joshua Robertson, The Guardian, January 13, 2017
Tracey Bell-Henselin was the Rise Up Australia Party candidate for the federal seat of Fisher at the 2016 federal election. She received 2,210 votes (2.64%).

• One Nation candidate Peter Rogers dumped over blog, warns of revolt against Pauline Hanson, Francis Tapim, ABC, January 28, 2017
This One Nation Candidate Suggested The 9/11 Terror Attacks Were Faked, Alice Workman, Buzzfeed, February 2, 2017
Peter Rogers was the ONP candidate for the federal seat of Leichhardt, Queensland in 2016, where he received 6,775 votes (7.63%).
John Cox stood for the Mature Australia Party in Wright at the 2016 federal election, gaining 902 votes (1.0%).

• One Nation disendorses candidate for not paying $2,400 upfront fee, Paul Karp, The Guardian, February 10, 2017
Elise Cottam ran as the ONP candidate in the Queensland seat of Wide Bay at the 2016 federal election, gaining 14,022 votes (15.60%).

WESTERN AUSTRALIA


Above : United Patriots Front’s Perth leader Dennis Huts with Our Pauline.

The 2017 Western Australian state election is scheduled for Saturday, March 11, 2017.

Polling indicates the Turnbull government’s fortunes have slipped since the election, and the Senate success of One Nation has seen the party re-emerge as a real player for the WA state election. For several decades there has been a clear trend for federal governments to damage their state brethren’s election prospects, and the Barnett government will be contemplating the role played by Federal politics in the [defeat] of state conservative governments in Victoria in 2014 and Queensland in 2015.

See the ABC guide for further details.

ENDORSED WA STATE ELECTION CANDIDATES
LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY
Anthony Griffiths (Albany); John Zurakowski (Baldivis); Michelle Meyers (Bateman); Julie Mitchell (Belmont); Sam Brown (Bunbury); Susan Hoddinott (Butler); Rozane Bezuidenhout (Cannington); Terry Popham (Carine); Shaun Reid (Central Wheat Belt); David Miller (Collie Preston); Sharon Polgar (Darling Range); Lawrence Shave (Dawesville); Jenny Bennett (Forrestfield); Warren Duffy (Fremantle); Wayne Martin (Geraldton); John Murphy (Jandakot); Ray Gould (Kalamunda); Richard Bolton (Kalgoorlie); Keith Wright (Kimberley); Tim Taylor (Kwinana); Doug Shaw (Mandurah); Tony D’Angelo (Midland); Jim Kelly (Moore); Ross Slater (Murray Wellington); Dane Sorensen (North West Central); David Archibald (Pilbara); Tshung Chang (Riverton); James O’Malley (Rockingham); Eketerina Zacklova (Roe); Margaret Dodd (Scarborough); Sandra Old (Swan Hills); Sandy Baraiolo (Thornlie); Joe Darcy (Wanneroo); Alex Scholz (Warnbro); Greg Moroney (Warren Blackwood).
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
AGRICULTURE: Rod Caddies, Craig McKinley, Emma McKinley; EAST METRO: Charles Smith, Christopher Fernandez, Lloyd McIntosh; MINING/PASTORAL: Robin Scott, Justin Keating, Janine Varley; NORTH METRO: John Bombak, Ian Hamilton; SOUTH METRO: Philip Scott, Richard (James) Eldridge, Ekaterina Viktorovna Andreeva; SOUTH WEST: Colin Tincknell, Sean Butler, Cameron Bartkowski.

• Here’s WA’s Federal election candidate who received just 37 votes, Phoebe Wearne, The West Australian, July 14, 2016
A big swing towards maverick Queenslander Bob Katter has failed to translate into electoral success in WA, where his party’s candidate battled to win even 40 votes. The wooden spoon for the least votes won in WA at this month’s Federal poll is expected to go to the sole WA Senate candidate for Katter’s Australian Party, Susan Hoddinott, who attracted 37 of a possible 1.5 million votes to date.

• One Nation: a party that knows how to pick ‘em, Gary Adshead, Natalie Richards and Daniel Emerson, The West Australian, January 22, 2017
Christian Pastor Lawrence Shave, ONP candidate for Dawesville, digs chicks in bikinis: What might have taken One Nation by surprise was a recruitment advertisement the pastor placed on a backpacker website in 2015. “Now hiring bikini baristas in Perth,” it read. “Wanted for a coffee/tea drive-through shop establishment. Uniform is a one or two-piece bathing suit and shorts. Must be 18 years or older! No exceptions!”

• Dumped One Nation candidate plans to send ice addicts to ‘uninhabited island’, Catherine Healey, Yahoo7 News, January 24, 2017
Brian Brightman was dumped by ONP as the party’s candidate for Joondalup not because of his ice plan but on account of the fact that he ‘confessed to a 23-year-old conviction for [the] theft of $1100 worth of departure tax stamps when he was a customs officer at Perth Airport’.

• WA election 2017: Pilbara One Nation candidate says taxpayers should not fund ‘lazy’ single mums, Joseph Dunstan, ABC, January 31, 2017
David Archibald has authored dozens of articles for neo-con zine Quadrant, all along the lines you’d expect (climate change denialism, racism, advocacy of genocide, etc.). At the 2016 federal election he was the Australian Liberty Alliance candidate in Curtin, where he received 1,544 votes (1.8%).

• WA One Nation candidate under fire over ‘sexually explicit interests’, Brendan Foster, WA Today, February 3, 2017
Cameron Bartkowski liked some sexually-explicit pages on Facebook … which is apparently A Big Deal.

• One Nation candidate is a South African model and TV presenter who wants a ‘separate state for white people’, Stephen Johnson, The Daily Mail, February 6, 2017
Rozane Bezuidenhout migrated to Australia from South Africa in 2008.

• One Nation candidate linked gay marriage to polygamy, Kylar Loussikian, The Australian, February 14, 2017
Ross Slater writes (August 31, 2016) : Legalising same sex marriage will open the door to compulsory homosexual teachings in homes, schools and churches, thereby confusing children, students and congregation because heterosexuality will not be recognised as normal. Eventually legalising polygamy, multitudinous marriages, sibling marriage and reducing the age of consent will follow because identical, naïve arguments used for legalising same sex marriage will be used for legalising the others.

• One Nation candidate says gay activists are using ‘Nazi mind control’, Michaela Morgan, SBS, February 15, 2017
Michelle Meyers is a … brilliant candidate with lots of well thought-out, practical, ideas. She is ensuring the financial security of this country for years to come.

• One Nation candidate advocated killing Indonesian journalists, attacked gays, Muslims and blacks, Michael Koziol, The Sydney Morning Herald, February 16, 2017; One Nation deal defended by WA Premier despite candidate’s homophobic, anti-Muslim tweets, Andrew O’Connor, ABC, February 17, 2017
Real estate agent Richard Eldridge was previously a candidate for Bob Katter’s party in the WA seat of Canning in 2013. He got 776 votes (0.88%).

See also : Dear Arthur, please explain One Nation’s sophistication, Bernard Keane, Crikey, February 15, 2017 | Making sense of Hanson, Bernardi and the New Right, Karen Middleton, The Saturday Paper, February 11, 2017.

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The Q Society @ Victoria University : February 10, 2017

Posted on February 11, 2017 by @ndy

Update (February 14 2017) :

1) Kirralie Smith got a bit angwy:

2) Otherwise:

• On Monday the media pimps eventually reported the fact that Victoria University did indeed host The Q Society. See : Victoria University under fire for hosting Q Society fundraiser, Benjamin Millar, Star Weekly, February 13, 2017 | Q Society meeting: Victoria University apologises for ‘inadvertently’ hosting controversial group, Ben Knight, ABC, February 13, 2017 | Cory Bernardi and George Christensen’s Q Society event stirs anger at Victoria University, Tom McIlroy, The Sydney Morning Herald, February 13, 2017. Note that the SMH report incorrectly states that the ‘Q Society event attracted more than 100 anti-racism protesters outside Victoria University’s city convention centre’; the protest was actually in St Kilda (see below).

• Overland has published an open letter in which ‘We demand an apology from Victoria University’.

• The event attracted a glittering array of stars, from too-cray-cray-even-for-the-IPA Alan Moran to trollumnist for The Australian Jennifer Oriel to Kane ‘Smash cunts!’ Miller (below), putative leader of the now largely-defunct gang the ‘True Blue Crew’. See : How Reclaim Australia hid a ‘terrorist’, Martin McKenzie-Murray, The Saturday Paper, August 16, 2016.

Update (February 12, 2017) :

1) After being the subject of numerous complaints, VIC Uni has finally copped to having hosted The Q Society on Friday. It will be interesting to see what the response is from this point …

2) The Campaign Against Racism & Fascism (CARF) has published an open letter to Victoria University, republished below, detailing its concerns over VU’s decision to grant The Q Society use of its facilities to host the fund-raising dinner, and is urging concerned staff and students to add their names to it.

======

SIGN ON TO THE OPEN LETTER BELOW – CONDEMN VICTORIA UNIVERSITY FOR ALLOWING THE RACIST Q SOCIETY TO MEET ON VU PROPERTY.

CARF urges both VU staff and other university students to sign onto the letter below. If you would like to – please Private Message the campaign group and we can organise to have your name added to the letter.

Melbourne, February 11, 2017

“Victory” not for VU students but far-right hate group Q Society

To Vice Chancellor Peter Dawkins and the Victoria University Council

It is with alarm and disappointment that we protest Victoria University’s decision to provide a platform to the far right anti Islam organisation Q Society.

On Friday February 10, the Q Society, hosted a fundraising dinner at Victoria University‘s city convention centre in Melbourne. The event, deceptively titled “defend freedom of speech”, was to raise funds for legal fees related to a defamation law suit by Mohamed El-Mouelhy, a Halal certifier. The Q Society is well known for associating Islam with terrorism and lobbying parliament to ban Halal certification.

In 2014 the Q Society toured far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders, who advocates a total ban on Muslim migration. At the Q Society fundraising dinner held in Sydney on Thursday night, Larry Pickering, cartoonist and VIP guest said “Let’s be honest, I can’t stand Muslims.” Cory Bernardi, former Liberal Party senator, was a key note speaker at Friday night’s event in Melbourne. Bernardi has been a vocal opponent of Islam, opposes reproductive freedom for women and has linked same sex marriage to bestiality.

Victoria University has a very diverse student and staff population whose human rights and freedom to go about their daily lives are threatened by the repressive and reprehensible ideas of the Q Society.

Providing a venue for the Q Society contradicts the university’s vision of being “…open and excellent, creating exceptional value for any student from any background and uplifting the communities in which we operate.”

It also threatens Victoria University Safer Community strategy which is designed to foster an inclusive and safe environment for staff, students and the broader community.

Hosting the Q Society contravenes the University’s policy that clearly states that facilities will NOT be made available for:

a. Unlawful activities or activities that may be a breach of University policies.

b. Activities that are in conflict with or deemed incompatible with the University’s values or strategic direction.

We demand the university issue an apology and donate any money received from the Q Society or any affiliated institution to the Islamic Society of Victoria University or other related student and/or staff bodies.

======

On Friday, February 10, 2017, Victoria University’s City Convention Centre played host to a fund-raising dinner, dubbed ‘Defending Freedom of Speech’, organised by The Q Society. According to reports, around 150 people attended the event, paying $150 each for the privilege. The event was intended to raise money to help Kirralie Smith of ‘Halal Choices’ and the Australian Liberty Alliance fight a defamation action brought against her by Mohamed El-Mouelhy of the Halal Certification Authority. The Society is reportedly hoping to raise $1 million to fund the defence — a gofundme campaign has to date raised over $75,000.

Speakers lending their support to the cause on this occasion were LNP MP George Christensen, former Tory now doublelplusConservative MP Cory Bernardi and Christian theologian Mark Durie. Christensen is a supporter of Reclaim Australia while in 2015 Bernardi spearheaded a rather farcical inquiry into food certification (see : Cory Bernardi’s anti-halal crusade unleashes torrent of hate, Adam Gartrell, The Sydney Morning Herald, June 20, 2015; Cory Bernardi And The Little Halal Truther Campaign That Couldn’t, Michael Brull, New Matilda, December 3, 2015).

The decision by VU to host The Q Society is a questionable one, not least because some of its staff have identified the risks associated with granting legitimacy to the far-right, and in particular to fringe discourses propounded by the likes of Q. Indeed, the article below explicitly identifies Reclaim Australia, the Australian Liberty Alliance and United Patriots Front as fringe actors whose ‘radical’ messages have received direct and indirect support from more ‘mainstream’ sources; a category which now includes their employer:

Anti-Muslim agenda drags discourse to political right
Mario Peucker and Debra Smith
June 16, 2016

Fringe parties that spread racist or anti-Muslim propaganda are subtly shifting public discourse to the political right in the lead up to the federal election, say two Victoria University researchers.

Dr Mario Peucker and Dr Debra Smith say the process of ‘mainstreaming’ the far-right agenda is reaching new dimensions as a growing number of local and national politicians, directly or indirectly endorse the messages of groups such as Reclaim Australia, the Australian Liberty Alliance or even the United Patriot[s] Front.

“Most people disregard these groups as extremists who represent only a small and electorally marginal minority of Australians, but their radical messages are not as disconnected from some mainstream politicians and opinion leaders as we’d like to think,” says Dr Peucker.

He says the process of shifting discourse and moving social norms to the political right is most palpable in the public discourse around the place of Islam and Muslims in Australia.

Dr Peucker points to a recent Senate inquiry set up to investigate links between halal food certification as a conduit for funding terrorism.

Although the link was completely unfounded by the inquiry, Dr Peucker says it remains part of the “Islamaphobia tool kit” used not only by unelected extremist groups but also by elected politicians such as Cory Bernardi and Jacqui Lambi[e].

Recent conflicts about mosque-building in Bendigo and Narre Warren that involved local councillors taking up the cause of anti-Islam movements reflect a logic, according to the researchers, that Islam has an inherent problem that needs fixing to fit into Australia’s liberal society.

A very similar message was sent by former Prime Minister Tony Abbott when he called for “a Reformation, an Enlightenment” within Islam.

Fringe groups can gain a certain degree of legitimacy through these public statements of leading politicians, and by protesting in support of government policies such as off-shore detention centres, as evidenced by recent protests in Coburg, Dr Peucker points out.

“A dangerously self-reinforcing circle allows electorally marginal movements into a space from where their agenda around equality, multiculturalism and religious freedom doesn’t look so extreme anymore.”

As it happens, the dinner didn’t go very smoothly for the Society …

While the venue for the event was kept secret — or at least, the Society did its best to ensure this was the case — a number of attendees, around 40, were instructed to meet at St Kilda Marina at 5.30pm in order to catch a bus to the Convention Centre. As a result of obtaining this information, which was relayed to the public by the Campaign Against Racism & Fascism, a group of around 100 or so anti-racists assembled at the rendezvous point to protest Q. As the bus was elsewhere, the group marched the brief distance to where it was parked, on Marine Parade, a hundred or so metres away from the Marina entrance. The bus, chartered by Bayside Coaches, was then surrounded, and effectively prevented from leaving at its scheduled departure time (6pm).

In the end, the bus was delayed from leaving St Kilda for an hour, before being allowed to go on its way at 7pm: kick-off time for the fund-raiser. There was some minor argy-bargy when a handful of younger patrons tried and failed to make their way onto the bus, but the picket was otherwise uneventful, with many passing motorists expressing support for the action.

St Kilda is indeed a long way from Mackay.

See : Anti-Islam group Q Society dinner disrupted by protesters in Melbourne, ABC, February 10, 2017; Protesters obstruct people going to anti-Islam event attended by Bernardi, Christensen, SBS (AAP), February 10, 2017; Anti-racism protesters clash with far-right Q Society supporters at St Kilda Marina, Marika Dobbin Thomas, Bianca Hall, The Age, February 10, 2017.

The Q Society dinner in Melbourne on Friday was preceded by another in Sydney on Thursday night, at which the very special guest speakers included cartoonist Larry Pickering and former Tory MP Ross Cameron, now the host of a batshit show on Uncle Rupert’s Sky. Hosted by North Ryde RSL, The Sydney Morning Herald published an account of the speechifying which made a lot of people angry, as well as mildly embarrassed some of Cameron’s colleagues at Sky. Larry Pickering’s hilarious quip that, while he hatesss the nasssty Muslims, ‘They are not all bad, they do chuck pillow-biters off buildings’, both badly-tarnished the respectable face that Q hopes to present to the world but also brought to mind Australia’s history of murderous homophobia.

See : Inside the far-right Q Society’s explosive dinner, where Muslims are fair game, Jacqueline Maley, February 10, 2017; Ross Cameron defends claim New South Wales Liberal party is ‘basically a gay club’, Chistopher Knaus, The Guardian, February 10, 2017; Transcript: Ross Cameron’s full remarks at controversial Q Society dinner, Georgina Mitchell, The Sydney Morning Herald, February 10, 2017.

Bonus Latham!

In The Guardian, Jason Wilson writes (Australians are worried about Trump. But there’s a lot to be worried about at home, February 10, 2017):

Last week, for the second time, former Labor leader Mark Latham appeared on The Convict Report, aka The Dingoes, an Australian “alt-right” podcast. It’s part of the network of podcasts hosted by The Right Stuff, a major international far right hub. That’s the same website whose major players have been recently doxxed by the left, and whose unmasking as promoters of fascist ideology has, in some cases brought suitably ruinous consequences.

In previous episodes, the pseudonymous hosts of the show have aligned themselves with Richard Spencer and other alt-right figures.

The Dingoes attempt to produce the same edgy fare as The Right Stuff flagships like The Daily Shoah, but they sound a little too much like chinless Young Liberal nerds to bring any real menace.

It’s significant, though, that Latham is prepared to go on their show more than once. Apparently, a show with previous episode titles like “I never want to see your race again”, which regularly spouts casual antisemitism and undergraduate race theory, and which has open fascist links, is not beyond the pale for a Sky News commentator. Despite the fact that disclaimers were offered about opinions not necessarily aligning, Latham was happy to be there.

As a former Labor leader turned trollumnist, Latham is obviously a bit of a wanker, but appearing on a neo-Nazi podcast suggests that he may have well and truly jumped the shark by this stage. As noted above, a number of podcast hosts on The Right Stuff (TRS) were recently doxed — seemingly in collaboration with some of the site’s critics on the far-right. (See : Meet Mike Enoch &/Or Mike Peinovich : They’ve got ‘The Right Stuff’, January 14, 2017.) Note that TRS obtained its semi-popularity on the AltRight, in part, by its willingness to address The Jewish Question, ie, to Name The Jew as being responsible for All The (Bad) Things. In any case, the revelation that the founder of TRS and host of The Daily Shoah, Mike Peinovich, was married to a Jewish woman caused some turmoil among its audience, with some podcasts — for example, Fash The Nation — being abandoned. (See : Pool Party’s Closed: A Timeline of The Right Stuff’s Meltdown, Eyes on the Right, January 18, 2017.) One neo-Nazi who did come out in defence of Peinovich was Andrew Anglin, founder of the Daily Stormer website. The latest issue of the SPLC’s Intelligence Report contains an essay on Anglin, and names his site as now being ‘the top hate site in America’, having recently eclipsed the veteran Stormfront:

On July 4, 2013, Anglin started what would become his main project, The Daily Stormer. The site took its name from Der Stürmer, an astoundingly vile and pornographic Nazi newspaper started by Julius Streicher and specializing in attacking Jews. Streicher was later hanged for war crimes at Nuremberg.

The new site, created from the ashes of Total Fascism, specialized in punchy, image-heavy stories that often rely heavily on quoted material. It used hyperbolic headlines — “All Intelligent People in History Disliked the Jews,” for instance, or “SS Auschwitz Guard Dies Days Before Scheduled Lynching by Kikes” — to grab readers’ attention, build up participation and shift people’s thinking.

Anglin relied heavily on the daily news, although it was news poisoned by his particular views, to drive his message home. “You make a very simple message, where you hit the same points over and over and over again and you repeat them,” he explained in a podcast on his site last year. “That’s been my style. That’s why I do the news. Because it can be new information all the time while still repeating the same points over and over again. … It’s about creating a gigantic spectacle — a media spectacle, which desensitizes people to these ideas.”

One of those who seems to have been “desensitized” to ideas like genocide and race war was Dylann Storm Roof, the young man who murdered nine black churchgoers in South Carolina in 2015 in a bid to start a race war. Posting under the moniker of AryanBlood1488 (the numbers are references to white supremacist slogans), Roof wrote about black-on-white crime — a central topic on The Daily Stormer and Roof’s self-described motive for mass murder.

See : Eye of the Stormer, February 9, 2017.

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antifa notes (february 8, 2017) : Milo Yiannopoulos, Daddy, STRAYA (AFP, PFF, UPF) … & anTEEfa!

Posted on February 8, 2017 by @ndy

1)

There’s been a significant amount of media coverage in Trumpland about anTEEfa recently, especially regarding the disruption of a speech @ UC Berkeley by AltLite figurehead and professional troll Milo Yiannopoulos. Below are a few relevant articles:

• Eyewitness accounts by participants — Rubber Bullets and MAGA Hats: My Account of #MiloatCal, It’s Going Down, February 3, 2017 & Beating Milo: How Berkeley Defeated the Alt-Right’s Biggest Troll, It’s Going Down, February 7, 2017;
• An interesting account of the uses to which a young AltRight troll put his bloodied face — Amid the Chaos in Berkeley, a Grinning Face, Covered in Blood, Robert Mackey, The Intercept, February 5, 2017;
• Three articles reflecting on the sudden prominence of antifa in the United States — Anti-fascist activists take on Trump and the far right: ‘Resistance is our only shot’, Julia Carrie Wong and Sam Levin, The Guardian, February 3, 2017 (‘For a small but growing band of activists, any public appearance by a member of white-supremacist movement is met with resistance by any means’) & Neo-Nazis Face a New Foe Online and IRL: the Far-Left Antifa, Emma Grey Ellis, Wired, February 4, 2017; Meet Antifa, the Most Reasonable People in America, Malcolm Harris, Pacific Standard, February 7, 2017 (‘As fascists have snuck their jackboot into the curved door of the Oval Office, the radical struggle against them is reaching the mainstream’).

The disruption of Yiannopoulos’ appearance @ Berkeley and the Columbus-like discovery of anTEEfa has caused a whole lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth, not least of all by (Milo’s) Daddy:

In a nod and a wink to his base, Trump has recently made noises about removing white supremacists from the US government shit-list:

The Trump administration’s reported new plan to change a federal program which combats violent “extremism” into a project focused exclusively on “radical Islam” looks like another step toward demonizing Muslims — while adding to concerns that the administration will actively empower open white supremacist groups. Reuters reports that multiple inside sources say the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) grant program will be being renamed either “Countering Islamic Extremism” or “Countering Radical Islamic Extremism.”

See : Trump’s Proposed Change Would Give Green Light to White Supremacist Violence, Spencer Sunshine, Truthout, February 3, 2017. See also : From Quebec to Melbourne, we need to stop ignoring the radicalisation of white men, Celeste Liddle, The Age, February 7, 2017.

Finally, various alleged ‘anti-fascist’ accounts and sites have been springing up recently. In general, be wary of new ‘antifa’ and ‘anarchist’ social media accounts, especially if they simply re-post information 24/7 (as opposed to, say, reporting what is happening in their area or generating original content). On Twitter, look to see if they’re followed back by other respected accounts as well as who actually follows them.

2)

In #STRAYA, the media coverage of the events in Berkeley and protests at Daddy’s inauguration has prompted local fascists to put on their thinking caps, including the bRanes trust @ the United Patriots Front (UPF):

In which context, a few minor points:

• Milo’s performance @ Berkeley was scheduled to take place on February 1; his speech at the University of Washington took place almost two weeks earlier, on January 20. The ‘hero Trump supporter’ who shot the ‘antifa scum’, reportedly a 29yo student and Milo fanboy, was later arrested and released by police. The ‘antifa scum’ who got shot is a 34yo Wobbly.
• Several online petitions have been launched calling upon Daddy to declare ‘ANTIFA’ a ‘terrorist organisation’. One slight problem with this is that ‘ANTIFA’ is not an organisation but a political tendency.
• No ‘antifa’ websites have been hacked. Rather, on February 3, a lapsed domain — antifascism dot org — was squatted by an AltRight guy called Alexander Beck. For teh lulz.
• On February 2, an anonymous shitposting Twitter account — ‘AZ Antifa Front’///@azantifa — tweeted @ AltRight writer Cassandra Fairbanks (@CassandraRules): ‘Some of us know u very personally cass, and know just how afraid u can really get. Be careful doll, for ur duaghters sake’. Soon after, the account — which was only a few weeks old — was suspended by Twitter.
• As noted above, a large number of very dubious anTEEfa accounts have sprung up in the last few months. A few actually worth following are @NYCAntifa, @RoseCityAntifa and @TORCHAntifa.
• The image which accompanies the above post by UPF is of uncertain origin but has been circulating for many years. I first viewed it on the now defunct neo-Nazi ‘Whitelaw Towers’ blog in 2010.

Speaking of which …

The ding-dong battle between Dr Jim Saleam’s Australia First Party (AFP) and Nick Folkes’ Party for Freedom (PFF) for dominance of the (white) nationalist and patriotik milieu in Sydney goes and goes — it just goes. On the one hand, AFP can boast of being federally registered, while in almost five years of campaigning, PFF has yet to achieve the same status. On the other hand, the racist buffoon Folkes has a well-developed knack of courting the media through publicity stunts (some recent examples include ‘The Battle of Eltham’, Gosford Church invasion and Cronulla Riots re-enactment), and has successfully established himself as the go-to guy for media organisations wanting to portray the ‘typical’ Aussie racist. Folkes’ most recent publicity coup is his appearance in the upcoming SBS doco Is Australia Racist?. In this context, Dr Jim’s serious commitment to resurrecting White Australia is simply no match for Folkes’ cartoonish, provocative, and mediagenic presence.

The most recent stoush between the two sides appears to have been triggered, in part, by the appearance of a young woman named Penny Louise in a shitastic article for The Daily Mail, variously titled ‘Mother explains why she joined United Patriots Front’ and ‘I’ll make Australia great again’: Bikini-wearing mother, 20, explains why she supports anti-immigrant Party for Freedom’ (February 2, 2017). Like other patriotik volk, Louise hearts White Australia, and while Folkes’ sidekick Toby Cook sports a Celtic cross tattoo, Louise prefers to fly the flag:

So how did Louise get her face in the Mail? On January 31, Louise posted a brief video to the UPF page, describing herself as a patriot and member of the PFF. Her embrace of the UPF was of course warmly received and she received a (virtual) pat on the head for her efforts. Somewhat incongruously, her action also prompted Shermon Burgess and Neil Erikson of ARSE (‘Australian Settlers Rebellion’ Facebook page) to express support for this alleged alignment of PFF and UPF:

Of course, Last Thursday, ARSE was denouncing the UPF as a ‘Nazi’ organisation. In fact, the boys spent several months castigating ‘patriots’ for continuing to support the UPF after their departure in early 2016, and ARSE was ostensibly established in order to represent the interests of a de-Nazified patriotik movement. But that was Last Thursday, and now one half of ARSE, Neil Erikson, is due in court on March 6, charged with religious vilification. Also facing charges are UPF lvl boss Blair Cottrell, along with former UPF turned AFP member Chris Shortis. The charge arose from a publicity stunt performed by the UPF — comprising Erikson, Cottrell, Shortis, Linden Watson and ‘Farma john’ Wilkinson — in Bendigo in October 2015.

The Days of Our Patriotik Lives — perhaps best-documented (and humourously-subverted) by Peter Grace in hundreds of videos on his Facebook page and YouTube channel — are full of such shenanigans, with Yesterday’s Hero becoming Today’s Villain and vice versa. This is nowhere more apparent than in the case of valour thief and serial pest Ralph Cerminara. One minute, Burgess was writing Walph love songs; nek minnit — after Cerminara ditched ARSE for the UPF — he was accusing Cerminara of not only being a liar and a coward, but of some very serious crimes.

Given to harassing strangers in the street, on the weekend Cerminara picked a fight with Some Old Guy at a PFF event in Sydney — and ended up on his ARSE.

3)

Inspired by Daddy, and following a three-month taxpayer-funded gig to the USA, reactionary Senator Cory Bernardi has quit the Tories to establish a new party, the Australian Conservatives. Cory Cory Cory enters a crowded field on the parliamentary far right, and it’s an open question if he can successfully prise support away from both the Tories and One Nation Party while he sucks on the government teat for the next five years. Bernardi is #BFFs with billionaire Gina Reinhart, and her investment in the Conservatives would surely make this feasible. So too if the Senator can attract the support of micro-parties such as the Australian Liberty Alliance.

See also : Cory Bernardi Crashes His Own Party, Exits, Stage Far Right, Ben Eltham, New Matilda, February 7, 2017.

On Friday in Melbourne, Bernardi will be joining rural idiot and Nationals MP George ‘Reclaim Australia’ Christensen at a $150 a head fund-raising dinner for The Q Society. The money raised by the event will apparently be used to help fund the legal defence of Kirralie Smith, who is being sued for defamation by Mohamed El-Mouelhy, president of the Halal Certification Authority.

For its part, the Campaign Against Racism & Fascism has organised an event to Protest the Q society’s Islamophobia.

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The “UPF” Goes To Dimboola

Posted on February 4, 2017 by @ndy

tl;dr : A handful of radical right-wingers, including the United Patriot Front’s John Wilkinson (‘Farma john’), organised an event in Dimboola on Australia/Invasion/Survival Day in order, inter alia, to promote a new right-wing party, the ‘Australian Country Party’. This article — Utes, BBQ, local pub and right wing politics, The Dimboola Banner, February 1, 2017 — provides details. Otherwise:

On Australia/Invasion/Survival Day, a fund-raising event was held at the Victoria Hotel in Dimboola. The event included a ute muster and a performance by a comedian, Dave Ivkovic, and was promoted by an organisation called the Australian Horizons Foundation (AHF).

The marketing and fundraising chairperson for AHF is a woman called Anita Donlon.

Donlon has been involved in a range of fund-raising activities over the last few years, on behalf and in the name of numerous other projects, including ‘Friends of Small Towns’ and ‘Shout A Mate’, but is perhaps best known for her roles in a community campaign to halt the construction of a mosque in Bendigo and as one of the organisers of the ‘convoy of no confidence’ in the Gillard Labor government. [1]

According to the Banner, among those who attended the Dimboola event was ‘Farma john’ Wilkinson.

‘Farma john’ is best known for his participation in the Melbourne-based fascist groupuscule ‘United Patriots Front’ (UPF). [2] In May 2016, for example, he joined the UPF contingent and spoke at a dairy farmers’ rally on the steps of the Victorian State Parliament. [3]

The leader of the UPF is neo-Nazi from Frankston called Blair Cottrell. Cottrell has expressed a desire to see a portrait of Adolf Hitler hung in Australian classrooms and for copies of Mein Kampf to be issued annually to students. [4] He also has criminal convictions for arson, drug trafficking, stalking and other offences. [5] Cottrell, along with others, is currently facing charges of religious vilification as a result of a promotional stunt by the UPF in Bendigo in October 2015. [6] While Farma john also took part in the stunt, he is not one of those being charged.

Apart from fundraising, the AHF event was also used to help promote the Australian Country Party, with its propaganda being distributed among those who attended. Attendees, including ‘Farma john’, also flew UPF flags.


[Above : ‘Farma john’ Wilkinson in Bendigo with UPF supporter Nicholas Edward Abbott; in December 2016, Abbott got a slap on the wrist for being naughty at the ‘True Blue Crew’ anti-leftist and anti-Muslim rally in Coburg in May 2016.]

NOTES

[1] Donlon’s participation in the ‘convoy of no confidence’ is noted in The number of drivers joining the ‘convoy of no-confidence’ has failed to meet organisers’ expectations, James Massola, The Australian, August 22, 2011. A former Liberal Party candidate for Bendigo West, Donlon was also ‘the spokeswoman for the Australian Consumers and Taxpayers Association, a group that is leading a vocal campaign against the carbon tax’ (Three Liberals seek Bendigo pre-selection, Brett Worthington, The Bendigo Advertiser, June 26, 2012). In March 2013, an article in The Advertiser states that ‘Deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop inadvertently posed for photos with CATA organiser Anita Donlon outside Parliament House after the group were ejected’; the same article notes that CATA ‘is the group responsible for the “Ditch the Witch” and “Bob Brown’s bitch” protests at Parliament House in 2011’ (Day one and the insults resume for Julia Gillard, Lanai Scarr and Tory Shepherd, The Advertiser, March 12, 2013).

At the 2013 federal election, Donlon ran as a candidate for the Palmer United Party, gaining 2,336 votes (2.5%). In 2016 she had another tilt at the seat as an independent, receiving 1,922 votes (2.0%). In 2016, Donlon was also busy ‘shouting a mate’ (Crowd-funding project aims to supply grain to Tasmanian farmers, Roger Hanson, The Mercury, January 20, 2016); according to The Weekly Times (Farm charities are helping landholders in need, Sarah Hudson, March 30, 2016): ‘Bendigo’s Anita Donlon started Shout A Mate in 2011, educating about rural issues through its online radio show (shoutamate.com), as well as campaigns such as the current Grains for Tassie Farmers, which aims to buy 10 container loads of grain, at $10,000 per container, to send to drought-affected Tasmanian farmers. The campaign is crowd-funding through OzCrowd but will also see a series of music events which included their first at the Bush Pig Inn in Bendigo on Easter Saturday.’ The Bush Pig Inn was also the venue for a UPF event in June 2016.

[2] When formed in early 2015, membership of the UPF was a loose network of radical right-wing activists with a largely informal membership. After Blair Cottrell declared himself to be its leader, in late 2015 and early 2016 — and especially after the group published a website — nominated members (have) included Cottrell, Shermon Burgess, Kevin Coombes (‘Elijah Jacobson’), Neil Erikson, Dennis Huts, Kris0 Richardson, Thomas Sewell and Chris Shortis. ‘Farma john’ has been an active participant in most if not all of the events organised by the UPF.

In November 2015, Wilkinson was a speaker at the Reclaim Australia/UPF rally in Melton. According to Shakira Hussein (Anti-Muslim rally reveals a racism both shocking and commonplace, Crikey, November 23, 2015):

… the next speaker, “Farmer John”, deviated from the approved script by telling the crowd at his anger with “dirty Arabs” who think they’re entitled to get priority over our disabled children. “Do we want an Islamic school? NO! Stick it up your arse!”

[Rosalie] Crestani moved hastily to cover up that faux pas once she took back the microphone. “I do know a few Arabs and there’s a few good ones out there, so I just thought I’d clear that one up. This isn’t about ethnicity.”

Yeah, right. Some of your best friends are Arabs. Stick it up your arse, as Farmer John would say.

According to another report (Anti-Islam, anti-racism protesters clash at violent Melton rallies, Cassie Zervos, Andrew Jefferson, Kara Irving, Herald Sun, November 23, 2015): ‘Farmer John, from United Patriots [Front], spoke to the crowd while it chanted “No Muslims in Melton”, and threatened more violent action. “We’re going to burn every mosque down if they build them … Let’s stick it up them,” he said.’

Wilkinson also had a close relationship with alleged ‘terrorist’ Phillip Galea. In January 2016, the Herald Sun (Police on the hunt for missing stun guns amid fears of use by extremists, Angus Thompson, January 13, 2016) reported that:

POLICE are on the hunt for several missing stun guns they fear will be used by anti-Islamic extremists in increasingly ­violent rallies.

United Patriots Front member Phillip Galea has been bailed for the second time in weeks, despite the Arson Squad’s concerns that he is providing weapons to other Right-wing activists.

Explosives and Arson Squad Detective Sergeant Paul Tierney this week told a magistrate that detectives began monitoring Mr Galea after his involvement in a public clash over the proposed Bendigo Mosque last August.

“He’s been at most rallies that have resulted in violence.

“Our concern is that Mr Galea is bringing violence to these meetings and weapons to these meetings,” Det Sgt Tierney told Bendigo Magistrates’ Court on Monday.

Mr Galea was found with five stun guns, a jar full of mercury and bomb-making guides on his computer when investigators searched his Braybrook home in November.

He was jailed for a month and fined $5000 but was bailed on November 24 after appealing against his sentence.

He was rearrested this month when police accused him of breaching the terms of his bail by associating with UPF associates at a Sandringham pub.

Det Sgt Tierney said Mr Galea met anti-immigration ­activist “[Farma john]” Wilkinson, as well as other UPF members, across the road from a UPF barbecue at Sandringham Beach on January 3.

The court heard that Mr Wilkinson told police on January 7 that he had bought up to 22 stun guns, and that police were still searching for seven of these.

The court also heard that police had arrested Mr Galea on October 10, after receiving intelligence that he intended to use flares in clashes with anti-racism activists.

But defence lawyer Bill Grimshaw said Mr Galea had arrived at the Sandringham pub under the impression that the UPF event had concluded, and that he had “stuck to the letter” of his bail conditions.

Despite this, Mr Grimshaw said his client “should have been more prudent.”

Magistrate John Murphy granted Mr Galea bail after raising concerns that he would serve the term of the original sentence he was appealing against while on remand.

The matter has been ­adjourned to January 27.

In February 2016, another Herald Sun report stated that ‘Galea said “[Farma john]” Wilkinson, a man alleged to have supplied him with cattle prods, had since turned himself in to police’ (Accused anti-Islam stun gun extremist granted social media access, Angus Thompson, February 19, 2016).

[3] In May 2016, a handful of UPF members, including Wilkinson and UPF leader Blair Cottrell, attended a rally by dairy farmers in Melbourne (Cottrell was booed off stage).

[4] On Cottrell, Hitler and Mein Kampf, see : Blair Cottrell, rising anti-Islam movement leader, wanted Hitler in the classroom, Michael Bachelard, Luke McMahon, The Sydney Morning Herald, October 17 2015.

[5] Cottrell’s criminal record is detailed in a report by Geir O’Rourke and Angus Thompson in the Herald Sun (June 11, 2016). Of his offending, they write: ‘Cottrell, 26, was sentenced to four months in prison in May 2012 after being convicted of 13 charges, including seven counts of intentionally damaging property. County Court Judge Michael Tinney convicted the then-22-year-old of throwing a missile, stalking, failing to comply with a community-based order, and two counts of recklessly causing serious injury. In December 2013 he was fined $1000 and sentenced to seven days in jail by a County Court judge for aggravated burglary, property damage, arson, trafficking testosterone, possessing a controlled weapon and breaching court orders.’ Cottrell, as ‘Bruce’, appeared in a documentary about youth in the maximum-security Youth Unit at Port Phillip Prison in Truganina, in which he describes how he abused steroids, stalked his former partner and her boyfriend, tried to kill him, set fire to their house, and eventually got arrested, convicted, and sent to prison.

[6] Charges, including religious vilification, have been laid against Cottrell and former UPF members Neil Erikson and Chris Shortis. Their first court hearing is scheduled for March 6, 2017.

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