IMARC Rioters Attack Police, Horses, and Conference Attendees
IMARC rioters attacked police, attendees and even a horse in their bid to shut down the mining conference being held in central Melbourne. They pushed and spat on conference-goers, forcing one man to the ground,and blocked a disability access entrance including a wheelchair ramp. Four police have so far been treated for dislocated fingers and minor head wounds.
Since early August, the revolutionary Marxist group Socialist Alternative and other associated far-left extremist groups have been planning what they have repeatedly described as “S11, but for climate”. This was a reference to the September 2000 blockade of Crown Casino, Melbourne’s worst left-wing riot this century, where up to 10,000 violent leftist thugs attempted to shut down the World Economic Forum.
Their attempt to relive the glory days of the anti-globalisation movement failed. Even their friends at the ABC admit that on Tuesday, there were at most 250 IMARC rioters, nowhere near the numbers of S11 and not even close to the amount required to blockade the dozens of conference centre entrances. In contrast, the total IMARC delegate over the four days will be somewhere in the realm of 7,000 people. Many more people want to hear about mining than to riot about it.
In the small crowd of IMARC rioters were members of almost every extremist group in Melbourne. Activists from Socialist Alternative, Socialist Alliance, Socialist Party, the International Workers of the World (IWW) all rubbed shoulders with Greens and anarchists. Despite pooling their efforts, they still couldn’t come close to the numbers they had hoped for.
Partially, this may be due to Socialist Alternative alienating some of the organisers of the Extinction Rebellion protests by trying to take over their movement. Extinction Rebellion types have grown increasingly wary of the Trotskyists, who seem intent on redirecting their protests towards campaigning for open borders and greater hostility to the police. Many of the usual Extinction Rebellion types were notable by their absence from the ranks of the IMARC rioters. The Socialist Alternative spokeswoman for the IMARC rioters, Emma Black, has distanced her group from Extinction Rebellion, perhaps indicating how unpopular the latter group’s tactics have become.
Police arrested 47 of the rioters including Socialist Alternative boss Jerome Small and Melbourne anarchist Edward Plowman. Two thugs were even arrested for animal cruelty in regards to an attack on a police horse. Sadly, nearly all the IMARC rioters detained were immediately released.
As predicted by The Unshackled numerous times over the past few months, despite almost the entire blockade consisting of far-left extremists and their associates, the courageous journalists of the fourth estate have jumped in to defend their extremist fellow travellers. Despite the fact that those organising the blockade are members of groups that want to overthrow the government and implement a totalitarian state, and despite the fact that, for months, organisers have been boasting about recreating the largest riot in recent memory, reporters from numerous outlets have jumped in to attack Victoria Police for trying to break up an illegal blockade.
Much like the IMARC rioters themselves, it appears Australian journalists don’t quite seem to understand that the law applies to everyone (even left-wingers) and that you are not allowed to try and blockade a building simply because you don’t like the event happening inside.
This, of course, is unsurprising. Most of the extremist groups and individuals involved in organising the IMARC riot and other similar events are never named and identified for what they are by the press. When journalists can’t even point out that notorious Socialist Alternative activist and Safe Schools designer Roz Ward is amongst the Marxist throng attacking police, it helps to create the atmosphere of impunity that lets these violent fanatical zealots believe that they can get away with more or less anything. When extremists start rioting on the street and large sections of the media immediately start blaming the police for trying to stop them, it bolsters the cause of the nutjobs and encourages them to try again.
Journalists must be held to account for their coddling of extremists, if scenes such as those created by the IMARC rioters are to be placed in the past where they belong.
