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A Marxist-organised blockade of a mining conference in Perth on Wednesday failed miserably, with the two hundred or so protesters being unable to “blockade” anything much at all.

The “Blockade” arrives at the Perth mining conference under a sea of red communist flags.

More remarkably, Australian Associated Press (AAP), in an article republished across Australia, actually named the revolutionary Trotskyist group Socialist Alternative as the organiser.

Richard Birchall of the Trotskyist group Socialist Alternative

Sadly (and typically), both WA today and The West Australian reported on the couple-hundred-strong “blockade” without ever bothering to figure out who actually organised it. Emma Young of WA today even interviewed Kobe Dadd as one of the voices of the protest organisers, without pointing out that he’s a member of the left-wing extremist group Socialist Alternative. Perhaps Emma’s coverage was influenced by the fact that the protest organisers have been promoting her articles online.

The West Australian printed a piece which insinuated that “School Strike 4 Climate” was behind the attempted blockade (despite the obvious fact that very few of the protesters were of school age). Only a single AAP article (thankfully widely distributed) pointed out that the protest spokesman, Richard Birchall, was from Socialist Alternative. Mr Birchall stood under the banner of the Socialist Alternative electoral front “Left Action” in this year’s Curtin Student Guild elections (he finished last).

Look out, Trotskyists! Those Grim reaper scythes look like ice picks!

Socialist Alternative is, of course, a revolutionary Marxist organisation that wants to overthrow the government and implement a totalitarian socialist state. We know this because the first words in the first sentence of the Socialist Alternative statement of principles (freely available on its website) say: “Socialist Alternative is a revolutionary Marxist organisation”. They aren’t exactly shy or subtle about it.

Members of UABAR. Apparently, climate change has something to do with West Papua and Aboriginal land rights.

A brief perusal of the “Blockade RTS for climate justice” Facebook page shows that the blockade proudly supported last month’s IMARC riot (also organised by Socialist Alternative) and used language similar to the rioters, about attacking “climate criminals”.

Less than ten days before the failed blockade, the event was endorsed by “United Against Bigotry and Racism” (UABAR), a Socialist Alternative front group founded in 2015 by Socialist Alternative activists Miranda Wood, Alexis Vassiley and Sam Cavallaro. UABAR first made news after it threatened to shut down any venue that tried to host Dutch politician Geert Wilders on his Australian visit (causing several venues to cancel).

UABAR also organised the attempted blockade of a Pauline Hanson pub event during the WA state elections (and another Hanson event late last year), the attempted shut-down of the Perth speaking event of Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux, the attempted blockade of a Perth speaking event by “Mr Brexit” Nigel Farage, as well as organising the mobs who tried to shut down the Reclaim Australia rallies. Alexis Vassiley even appeared on one of the earliest posts of the “Blockade RTS for climate justice” event page, holding a poster advertising the protest.

Blockade organiser Alexis
Alexis Vassiley of Socialist Alternative and founder of UABAR
Blockade organiser jacqueline blackburn
“Jacqueline” Blackburn, Socialist Alternative activist and rally organiser.

Despite all those events by UABAR (some of which ended in violent confrontation), not a single mass-media outlet reported that it was a group led by, organised by and made up almost entirely of people who want to overthrow the government and transform Australia into a version of the early Soviet Union. That’s a little bit of an oversight.

It’s also likely that the only reason Richard Birchall was named as a member of the extremist group this week was because he told the AAP reporter that was who he was with. As a fairly new activist in Socialist Alternative, he probably didn’t realise he was supposed to give a front name rather than the real one. And why wouldn’t he? Despite being the largest political extremist group in Australia, responsible for almost every violent political protest in the last decade, Socialist Alternative is almost never named by the press, despite rarely even trying to cover up its affiliations.

One hopes that this article, along with a few other recent articles exposing the extremist affiliations of this group and their many fronts, will help to break that trend.

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