Victoria Police warn of extremists infiltrating Extinction Rebellion; media close eyes
Victoria Police North West Metro Region Commander Tim Hansen warned in a public statement recently that extremist groups may have infiltrated Extinction Rebellion events.
The Herald Sun reported this warning and then quoted
Extinction Rebellion “group leader” Liz Walsh for her response.
Ms Walsh was highly critical of Victoria Police, stating: “Victoria Police are not always respectful of our right to protest… The more people are here, the less able they are to trample on our rights. There will be probably a few arrests tonight.”
The Herald Sun of course, while quoting Ms Walsh, didn’t mention that she is a member of the National Executive of Socialist Alternative. Socialist Alternative, of course, being a Revolutionary Marxist group that wants to overthrow the government and implement a totalitarian socialist state.
How do I know Socialist Alternative is a Revolutionary Marxist organisation? Because the first line of the first paragraph of its Statement of Principles (publicly available on its website) states: “Socialist Alternative is a Revolutionary Marxist organisation”.
This Herald Sun story had seven journalists in the byline: Aneeka Simonis, Josh Fagan, John Masanauskas, Alex White, Tamsin Rose, Angelica Snowden and Grace McKinnon. Not one of them bothered to check if the person they were quoting in an article about extremists infiltrating Extinction Rebellion protests was an extremist infiltrating an Extinction Rebellion protest.
Socialist Alternative is the largest, best organised and most violent political extremist group in Australia today. When Commander Hansen of Victoria Police was talking about receiving intelligence that extremist groups with “a long history of demonstrating tactics in public protest that jeopardise the safety of those involved” were joining Extinction Rebellion events, Socialist Alternative was of course one of the groups he meant.
Seven journalists being paid by the biggest newspaper in Australia and not one of them bothered to do a Google search on the people they were quoting in an article on extremist infiltrators, to see if they were extremist infiltrators.
Liz Walsh is hardly a marginal figure. She has been an activist with Socialist Alternative since at least as far back as 2001. She has been a public member of a Trotskyist extremist group for almost 20 years, has been involved in numerous campaigns, has written articles for Socialist Alternative magazine, its successor magazine Red Flag and for the Socialist Alternative theoretical journal, Marxist Left Review. She is the Assistant Secretary and a member of the governing council for the Socialist Alternative electoral front “Victorian Socialists”. Walsh was involved in both the state and federal campaigns for the party and has written a lengthy essay on how the group was built around the foundation of the Socialist Alternative activist base. Hers was even the contact phone number for activists during the campaign. Liz has spoken at numerous Socialist Alternative events including its recent “Socialism2019” conference where she presented the opening panel: “A planet to save, a world to win” focussing on “the revolutionary solution to climate change and capitalism”.
Liz even wrote an article earlier this year explaining: “Why Karl Marx was right about capitalism”.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think Ms Walsh were somewhat of a Marxist.
This is all publicly available information. Just like the Socialist Alternative links of Extinction Rebellion and “Uni Students for Climate Justice” organisers in Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, Adelaide and Perth are also publicly available information. Yet all over the country, mainstream journalists refuse to report it.
Liz Walsh is, like most of the Socialist Alternative hierarchy, currently preparing for the “Blockade IMARC” event being held at the end of this month. Yet again, the fact that Socialist Alternative are the main organisers of this blockade of a mining conference in Melbourne is publicly available information. Yet again, one would think that the fact that the largest extremist group in Australia is publicly declaring that it is going to recreate the S11 riots would be something the press would want to cover.
But we all know that when Liz and her friends run riot outside the Melbourne Convention Centre, the fabulous Australian Fourth Estate will stand around scratching its head, wondering how a peaceful protest could “descend into violence”. And then they’ll probably blame Victoria Police for “starting it”.
These people genuinely do not have a clue.
