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In other news, a 43-year-old self-described white nationalist has made himself the talk of Daisy Hill by flying a Nazi flag at his home (Swastika spurs war of words, Mark Flack, Albert & Logan News, March 17, 2010). Neo-Nazis are usually loathe to go public, so big ups to the anonymous Logan resident for agreeing to be photographed. For those interested, further copies of the Nazi battle flag are obtainable locally from neo-Nazi distro 9percent productions, where you can also purchase the book that inspired Timothy McVeigh to blow up the FBI building in Oklahoma City and the album Freezer Full of Nigger Heads by Grinded Nig. If you’d rather buy direct, you can do so at the gig to celebrate Adolf Hitler’s being organised for the Gold Coast on April 17. Oh, anybody wanting a tattoo from a bona fideneo-Nazi business should visit Hold Fast Body Art in Burwood.
FTR.
The murky politics of the Right
John McCrone
The Press (Christchurch)
[December 2009]
The country’s hardcore Right-wing factions look like they mean business. It’s just that their business never gets off the ground. JOHN McCRONE reports.
With a slightly self-conscious smile, the tattooed skinhead, New Zealand flag draped over his shoulder, places a flyer in my hand. Then he and [...]
For four years, Officer A lived a secret life among anti-racist activists as they fought brutal battles with the police and the BNP. Here he tells of the terrifying life he led, the psychological burden it placed on him and his growing fears that the work of his unit could threaten legitimate protest.
The “violent activists” Officer A infiltrated were the ‘Youth Against Racism in Europe’, a front group for the Trotskyist political party now known as the Socialist Party of England & Wales (a member of the Committee for a Workers’ international). They’ve responded to the story with a press release: Youth Against Racism in Europe answers disgraceful Observer ‘expose’, March 14, 2010. They don’t identify Officer A.
Tony Thompson writes that “During his tour of duty, the man – known only as Officer A – also had sexual relations with at least two of his female targets as a way of obtaining intelligence” — which is very naughty, but also naturally brings to mind Rob Gilchrist, the police informant exposed as such in Kiwi in late 2008. Gilchrist had a decade-long career as a paid informant, but was only exposed when his then-girlfriend (a political activist) happened to stumbleupon some information on his computer. In Australia, Setha Sann deserves a guernsey, as does Mehmet Ersoy/Osman. Funnily enough, despite claiming that in Europe, anarchist ranks “have been riddled by police agents and fascists”, Mick Armstrong failed to detect Setha Sann’s tricksy ways while a member of Socialist Alternative, although the possibility that this stick will be used by the International Students for Socialist Equality to beat SAlt over the head with is unlikely. To find out, attend ‘The revolutionary perspective of Trotskyism: A political exposure of Socialist Alternative’ [Clenched fist salute: Fatal Paradox].
Use of police infiltrators and informants is of course routine practice, and has been employed by police forces, in one form or another, since their origins (See : The International Campaign Against Anarchist Terrorism, 1880-1930s (Richard Bach Jensen) | Frank Cain’s The Origins of Political Surveillance in Australia (Angus & Robertson, 1983)). Indeed, some of the greatest works of late nineteenth century fiction were written by former police detectives. For example, Captain Michael Schaack’s Anarchy and Anarchists (1889) is a priceless document, and has formed the basis for tabloid accounts of anarchist activity ever since:
In many of the smaller [anarchist] meetings held on Milwaukee Avenue or in that vicinity, a lot of crazy women were usually present, and whenever a proposition arose to kill some one or to blow up the city with dynamite. these “squaws” proved the most bloodthirsty. In fact, if any man laid out a plan to perpetrate mischief, they would show themselves much more eager to carry it out than the men, and it always seemed a pleasure to the Anarchists to have them present. They were always invited to the “war dances.”
Judge Gary, Mr. Grinnell, Mr. Bonfield and myself were usually remembered at these gatherings, and they fairly went wild whenever bloodthirsty sentiments were uttered against us. The reporters and the so-called capitalistic press also shared in the general denunciations.
At one meeting, held on North Halsted Street, there were thirteen of these creatures in petticoats present, the most hideous-looking females that could possibly be found. If a reward of money had been offered for an uglier set, no one could have profited upon the collection. Some of them were pockmarked, others freckle-faced and red-haired, and others again held their snuff-boxes in their hands while the congress was in session. One female appeared at one of these meetings with her husband’s boots on, and there was another one about six feet tall. She was a beauty. She was raw-boned, had a turn-up nose, and looked as though she might have carried the red flag in Paris during the reign of the Commune…
[Describing another anarchist:] He was a large man with a black beard and large eyes, and very shabbily dressed. He looked as though he had been driving a coal cart for a year without washing or combing. He also had the appearance of being on the verge of hydrophobia…
Bonus! Leader of 40 Kiwi Anarchists Revealed!
In a sensational and completely unexpected twist, the leader of The-40-Kiwi-Anarchists What-Have-Been-Criss-Crossing-The-Globe Causing-Heap-’Em-Big-Trouble-Wherever-They-Go has been inadvertently exposed by social networking site Facebook and the journalistic efforts of Fairfax’s Europe correspondent Paola Totaro. According to sources at Fairfax, Totaro’s exposé on the eerie yoof cult that has developed around the mysterious dog — whose followers have formed inside the Global Justice Movement an anarchist faction with himself as leader — will be published later in the week.
Für FelS ist die gelungene Behinderung des zentralen Events der deutschen wie der europäischen Nazi-Szene durch die von einem breiten Bündnis getragenen Massenblockaden eine Bestätigung der langjährigen Bemühungen in diesem Politikfeld. Unser Ziel ist die Überwindung der (Selbst-)Isolation der zum Teil stark subkulturell orientierten Antifa und eine stärker politische-strategisch ausgerichtete Bestimmung von Aktionen wie Aktionsformen. Brennende Mülltonnen und Auseiandersetzungen mit der Polizei können natürlich zum Scheitern eines Nazi-Aufmarschs beitragen, sind aber nicht geeignet, um ein breiteres Spektrum zum Mitmachen zu bewegen. So schön auch die Bilder vehementen und kompromisslosen Protests sind, die solche Aktionen vermitteln, so wenig helfen sie in der alltäglichen politischen Arbeit mit Bündnispartnern. Antifa als Jugendkultur braucht einen Antifaschismus als breite politische Bewegung. Militantes Vorgehen gegen Nazis kann bei aller Legitimität nicht Ersatz so einer Bewegung sein.
Die Anziehungskraft des Bündnisses bestand aber nicht allein aus dessen Breite. Die klare Ankündigung, in Dresden Massenblockaden durchzuführen, von denen keine Eskalation ausgeht, hat entscheidend zu der grandiosen Mobilisierung im Vorfeld beigetragen. Dieser Aktionskonsens ist keine staatstragende Feigheit – im Gegenteil: Die BlockiererInnen nahmen ohne die Chance, rechtzeitig abhauen zu können, Polizeigewalt und Verfahren in Kauf, weil sie an den gemeinsamen Erfolg glaubten. Die Form des Protests war klar definiert und über den engen Rahmen organisierter Antifas hinaus öffentlich kommuniziert worden – im Unterschied zu vielen anderen Mobilisierungen wussten die TeilnehmerInnen worauf sie sich einlassen.
Fascist bookseller Pedro Varela may be in trouble in Spain, but books for sale through the Australian neo-Nazi mail order 9 percent productions include autographed copies of Jewish Supremacism and My Awakening by former Klansman David Duke; The Turner Diaries by dead nutzi William Pierce; Imperium by dead nutzi Francis Parker Yockey and — of [...]
OK. After several weeks of bitterly hard-fought campaigning, I finally gots me 180 fans on Facebook… so I’m gonna start posting again. About what? Nazis, of course. In the United States, in Spain, in Russia (for Dion, of course!), in Canada, in Austria, and even in Australia.
Sheeeeee-it.
United States
The far right in the United States is [...]
“As I stated on the Bombshell forum Andy, you are a liar, a hypocrite and no better than the trash that you fight against.” ~ Dion, December, 2007.
The trash I fight against and in relation to which I’m no better are in trouble in Russia. (But who gives a shit about Russia?Faggots like me I guess.) Anyway, “A court in Moscow has sentenced nine members of a neo-Nazi skinhead gang to prison terms of up to 23 years” (Neo-Nazi skinheads jailed in Russia for racist killings, Artyom Liss, BBC News, February 25, 2010). In other news, the murders of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova in January 2009 have been declared to be ‘political’: “Last November, Nikolai Tikhonov, 29, and Yevgenia Khasis, 24, members of a radical neo-Nazi nationalist group, were charged with a “murder committed by previous concert by a group of individuals”. The case made headlines all over the world and once again highlighted the dangers faced by journalists and human rights activists in Russia, which has one of the poorest journalist safety records in the world.”
Closer to home, neo-Nazi network Blood & Honour have announced their production of some more t-shirts, which are “Ours not theirs”, apparently. The t-shirts are exclusive to 9percent productions and numbers are limited, so “if you want to be the best dressed White Nationalist/Patriot at your next BBQ or get together, get in quick!” Anyone wanting to sport a new tattoo as well as a new t-shirt when they attend the celebration of Hitler’s birthday that B&H is organising on the Gold Coast in a few months time should pop in to Hold Fast Body Art in Burwood. Proprietor Justin O’Brien, who is the Victorian organiser for B&H, is giving a 10% discount to anyone mentioning this ad (and who manages to avoid being pepper-sprayed by him as they run to the door).
In the UK, the Centre for Social Cohesion is recommending that the Home Office consider proscribing O’Brien’s comrades in B&H (and C18) under Terrorism Act 2000 and 2006 legislation. Until the next time a B&H member commits an atrocity however, and notwithstanding the fact that the organisation is banned in Germany (and only last week had one of its gigs in Croatia closed down by police), it would seem an unlikely outcome. Further, what impact it would have on the far right as a whole is questionable — although it would make the snazzy new t-shirts 9percent is selling unlawful to wear or display, and not only as a crime against fashion.
Meanwhile, over the water and on the other side of the pond…
The man charged with murdering young mum Vanessa Pickering was a founding member of a skinhead gang.
Today Sunday News can reveal Malcolm George Chaston co-founded South Island-based gang the Fourth Reich with another man – a convicted murderer – in the 1990s.
Chaston appeared in the Christchurch District Court on Wednesday charged with Pickering’s murder, the same day she was farewelled at Christchurch Cathedral.
Pickering’s body was found by police searching at Godley Head, on Banks Peninsula, a few days after her disappearance on Monday last week.
Her daughter was found wandering alone in a paddock on the night her mother went missing. Pickering is believed to have died of stab wounds.
Chaston, 40 – who is in custody and will reappear in the Christchurch District Court on Wednesday – had earlier been charged with assault with intent to commit sexual violation, and separate counts of abduction, assault and sexual violation of a child last week.
The detective in charge of the Pickering homicide, detective senior sergeant Virginia Le Bas, told Sunday News she “didn’t really know” if Chaston was linked with Neo-Nazi gang the Fourth Reich.
But a gang source and police intelligence officers confirmed Chaston’s involvement with the gang, which is now largely based in Nelson and along the West Coast.
Chaston is no longer an active member.
Meanwhile, a gang source said white-supremacist gangs like the Fourth Reich and new gang Nazi Skins were again on the rise and their numbers inside Christchurch Men’s Prison were swelling.
The Fourth Reich was formed in 1994, and has a very bloody history. Convicted murderer Hayden Brent McKenzie is another (former) member, who came to notoriety following his killing of South Korean backpacker Jae Hyeon Kim in 2003. See : OMG!Violence is real!LOL! Neo-Nazi beliefs blamed for murders! And attempted murders!ROFLMAO! (December 5, 2008) | Reign of the Fourth Reich, The Press, June 25, 2005: “The Fourth Reich tortured its enemies and forced a police officer into hiding. What chance did an eccentric West Coast drifter have? Matt Conway delves into the strange life and brutal death of James ‘Janis’ Bambrough.”
(Fourth Reich is also the name of an Australian OMC; apart from an apparent, shared appreciation for Hitler’s Germany, it has no relationship to the New Zealand boneheads.)
See also : casey kasem.
Someone calling themselves Brian has posted a comment regarding an account by Gordon Crawford (SDL World Pub Tour Continues, Though Cowards Flinch, February 20, 2010) of the recent SDL rally in Edinburgh, describing it — and, presumably, some of the other commentary prompted by Crawford’s post — as “a familiar piece [...]
I bring to your attention two reports from the UK on ‘Blood & Honour’, the neo-Nazi network of ‘patriotic musicians of a right-wing persuasion what organises musical performances for younger persons’ (Dr James Saleam, Australia First Party). Born in 1987, “rather like football hooliganism, Blood & Honour originated in England, but has gone on to bigger and better things elsewhere” (Antifa UK), spreading like some kinda… I dunno… virus or something, first to Australia, and then the world.
Which is News… of the World.
*boom-tish*
Crush them Reich now
Anti-terror chiefs have warned against the growing threat from Nazi fanatics hell-bent on unleashing a new wave of bloody mayhem on Britain’s streets. The hardcore racists have vowed to WIPE OUT non-whites and set up a FOURTH REICH, echoing Hitler’s evil empire.
This ARTICLE in NEWS OF THE WORLD is CONTINUED at NORFOLK UNITY. Its publication was occasioned by a new report on B&H released by a mob called the Centre for Social Cohesion:
New report released today by the Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC) and Nothing British exposes violent ideology of white supremacism. Featured in yesterday’s News of the World, ‘Blood & Honour: Britain’s Far-Right Militants’ analyses the threat posed by white supremacist militant network, Blood & Honour (B&H).
I haven’t read the report yet, but when I do I’ll add some commentary (if I think it necessary). Otherwise, White Noise: inside the international nazi skinhead scene, edited by Nick Lowles and Steve Silver (Searchlight, 1998) provides some good background material, while the ‘Turn It Down’ site in the US has recently published a nice White Power Band Map, “To assist anyone and everyone who cares enough about music and wants to keep hate groups from hijacking our scenes”.
Adolf Adolf Adolf! Oi oi oi!
In Australia, B&H has been around for over 20 years, and works in close collaboration with another neo-Nazi skinhead group called the Hammerskins. (The Hammerskins originated in Texas; the Australian franchise is known as the Southern Cross Hammerskins.) B&H Australia is tiny, but does manage to organise an annual gig in Melbourne to commemorate the death in 1993 of B&H co-founder Ian Stuart Donaldson, as well as other, occasional events in Adelaide, Perth, Sydney and elsewhere. Otherwise, the group produces an occasional (Internet) radio show (episodes appearing in January, April, July, September and December 2009), and distributes neo-Nazi muzak and propaganda through its merchandising arm, 9% Percent Productions.
Beyond this, the network receives some small degree of support from others involved in the local music industry, a fact which, given its longevity, is unsurprising. Thus individuals involved with or on the periphery of the minuscule white power muzak industry have established generally cordial relations with others uncommitted and generally uninterested in furthering White racial supremacy. Of course, given broader public contempt for neo-Nazism and related doctrines, this support is generally covert rather than open, and tolerating the presence or even actively cooperating with racist, right-wing elements is usually justified on other grounds. For example, when, in 2006, an inner-city Melbourne pub was exposed as hosting the annual B&H memorial gig, a relatively large number of punk bands rallied around the pub’s manager. (The worst of the scabs still gigging are Marching Orders, Slick 46 and (ironically) The Worst.) While for the most part arising from a sense of loyalty to the pub manager, the ‘apolitical’ approach of many in the milieu may also be attributable to the more general yuppification of the subculture (although it should be noted that even yuppies are generally capable of recognising Nazism as being, like, Bad!).
In any case, despite this support, after a community boycott was initiated — one which gained the support of a range of local groups and individuals, including many other, more politically-aware punks — the racist, neo-Nazi sympathising management was removed, and a new, non-fascist friendly crew took over. Ironically, the main threat to its continued existence is now not the stench of neo-Nazism but draconian legislation ostensibly aimed at stemming violence at live music venues!
White Noise Productions
Outside of local, neo-conservative and reactionary 100% Two Fingers In the Air Punk Rawk™ circles, there’s a small audience for racist and fascist ideas within the heavy metal milieu — although again, most assume a fairly apathetic approach to politics, and/or extol the virtues of racism simply for its transgressive appeal.
A recent entrant into the field of heavy metal promotion is White Noise Productions, which maintains — at best — what might be termed an ambivalent approach to groups such as Blood & Honour. Thus WNP arranged for a brief tour Down Under by the fascist-sympathising Deströyer 666 in January 2010, is friends with the openly neo-Nazi band Ravenous, as well as B&H’s merchandising arm 9% Productions, and until recently (early 2010) proclaimed the promotion’s allegiance to ‘Blood & Honour’ and the network’s FREE! “Interactive Media Promotion’: like Panzerfaust’s 2004 ‘Operation Schoolyard’ (albeit on a much tinier scale), an attempt to provide FREE! neo-Nazi propaganda to White yoof.
ACAB!
Like that adopted towards other groups and projects deemed to be potential sources of ‘politically-motivated violence’, the attitude of police and state authorities towards B&H and allied groups is generally one of watchful tolerance. (The obvious exception to that rule currently being the Muslim population; see : Kevin Rudd says Australia faces major terror threat, BBC, February 23, 2010.) Thus, providing the boys break no laws, they may carry on their activities more or less unmolested.
The only possible, slightly complicating factor is the existence of laws prohibiting ‘racial vilification’, which theoretically provide citizens the opportunity to file complaints for such things as the publication of enjoinders to racial violence. However, the use of such laws is extremely rare, their employment generally expensive to those concerned, and, moreover, of questionable legal bearing when brought to bear on private performances and the ah, Internets. (See also : More powers to nab net racists, Josh Gordon, The Sydney Morning Herald, February 21, 2010.) And while there have been a handful of murders, assaults, shootings and stabbings in recent decades (largely the result of internal bickering), given also the relative absence of violence on the far right — and its chronic inability to establish stable and even semi-popular structures — B&H and other neo-Nazi associations have only very occasionally been able to generate sensational headlines of the sort to be found in the News of The World.
Note that since the CSH report was published, police in Croatia have closed down a nutzi gig and arrested a number of organisers (for what crime(s) remains unknown); in a few weeks time, on March 6, Hungarian neo-Nazis will be holding a rally in the capital Budapest, while in the evening B&H are organising a pop concert. On February 22, the Hungarian Parliament voted “in favour of making Holocaust denial a criminal offence, punishable by up to three years imprisonment. The law was passed in a final vote with 197 in favour, 1 against, and 142 abstentions. It had been proposed by Attila Mesterhazy, prime ministerial candidate of the governing Hungarian Socialist Party. A motion by the centre-right opposition party Fidesz to extend the law to cover the denial of other crimes committed under the Communist regime was rejected by 178 votes to 146, with seven abstentions.”
I’ve just received news that Jock Palfreeman, the Australian anti-fascist who is currently serving a 20 year prison term in Sofia, Bulgaria (for murder and attempted murder: seefreejock.net for details on his case) has been placed in isolation. Isolation means Jock is in solitary confinement, and has no contact with fellow prisoners. He also has no access to books, radio or television. He is unable to work, to study, or to attend the prison gymnasium. All his meals are eaten inside his cell. The only opportunity he has to leave his cell is for the 90 minute period each day in which he is allowed to exercise, on his own, in the prison courtyard.
Jock’s placement in isolation is the result of a law introduced in June 2009. This law states, in essence, that any foreign prisoner facing a possible sentence of more than 15 years has to remain in isolation until such time as they’ve received a final verdict on their case. Thus far, Jock has been convicted by the City Court (December 2009), but his conviction is subject to appeal: first, in a case to be heard by the High Court and then, potentially, by the Supreme Court. In other words if, as expected, the appeals process takes a further two years, Jock may be kept in isolation for this period.
It should be noted that, at the time the law was introduced until now, Jock was and is the only prisoner to be affected by the new law; further, that while Jock has previously been informed that, as a result of the new law, he would be placed in isolation, this is the first occasion upon which prison authorities have actually done so. Previous proclamations that he would be placed in isolation — of which there were several — were eventually ended when prison authorities were informed by legal advocates that such treatment was contrary to the terms and provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights.
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.
