Who is organising the protests against Southern and Molyneux?
On Friday night Lauren Southern and Stefan Molynuex will begin their Australian speaking tour at a yet to be disclosed location in Melbourne.
The reason the location is yet to be disclosed is because protesters have threatened to shut down the event. The initial venue for the Auckland leg of the tour has already pulled out stating that they could not guarantee the safety of their staff.
Who are these protesters who inspire such fear?
In New Zealand the credit was claimed by a group calling itself Auckland Peace Action. One of the first images you see if you visit their website is the Antifa logo. This is the logo that consists almost entirely of a stylised image of the black flag of Anarchism paired with the red flag of Communism.
As usual not a single news outlet either in New Zealand or here thought this association with two of the most radical of extremist ideologies worthy of comment.
In Australia the protests in Melbourne are being organised by a group that calls itself the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism or “CARF” for short. CARF was begun in 2015 by members of the Freedom Socialist Party and the Socialist Alternative as a competitor to the then predominant “No Room For Racism” group controlled by Socialist Party Councillor Stephen Jolly. All of the above organisations openly profess a revolutionary Marxist ideology in the Trotskyist tradition. Their ultimate aim is a violent overthrow of the Australian state and the imposition of a totalitarian regime.
All of this is public record. There is no conspiracy or cover up. No shadowy hand shrouded in darkness. No secret cabal meeting in dimly lit rooms.
Recently the Melbourne Anarchist scene (the black flag on the Antifa logo) has cleaved even more closely to their Communist brethren under the CARF banner.
At the recent small CARF organised protest held outside the Melbourne magistrate’s court in support of the three extremists charged with violently attacking attendees at the Milo Yiannopoulos event last year in the small crowd was long time Melbourne Anarchist activist Kieran Bennett of the group “Collective Action”. Kieran was the rather tubby fellow in the unfortunate sweater who confronted the camera crew from The Unshackled as they filmed the dozen or so attendees who bothered to show up.
Small weekday protests held in the morning are usually a good place to spot who is a part of the rock-ribbed hard core of the extreme left. Most hangers on are not quite so committed as to take a day off work (haha) or in some cases get out of bed before noon.
This particular protest promoted and organised by CARF last month in Melbourne’s CBD was addressed (perhaps unnecessarily through a megaphone) by Debbie Brennan of the Freedom Socialist Party, Anneke Demanuele of the Socialist Alternative and Chris Di Pasquale of Socialist Alternative. Also present were the Socialist Alternative Industrial Relations organiser Jerome Small (fat, bald with glasses) and the great granddaddy commie himself Socialist Alternative founder Mick Armstrong (white hair with the Palestinian scarf), a man who commenced his history of violent political activism at La Trobe university in 1975.
This is more significant than it may appear. Recently Melbourne’s Anarchists and Communists have joined together in a group called the “Solidarity and Defence Fund” specifically to raise money for leftists charged with violently attacking their political opponents or venues that dare host them. The fund has already raised over $10,000 and has a monthly Patreon of over $650 adding to the pile.
Their first donation was to the Tasmanian Anarchist who head-butted Tony Abbott and their main current cause is funding the legal costs of those arrested during the anti-Milo riots. The fund is supported by the Collective Action Anarchist group, the Socialist Alternative Melbourne branch and (unsurprisingly) the publicly funded Melbourne community radio station 3CR.
All of this is publicly available. None of it has been reported by a mainstream news source.
CARF aims to bring together supporters of all of Melbourne’s other far left extremist groups under their leadership to try and start a riot at the Southern/Molyneux event just as they did outside the Milo event in Flemington last year. In furtherance to this end they’ve been holding regular organising events in Melbourne’s Trades Hall during which they’ve attempted to bring together all the other factions of the sometimes fractious Victorian extreme left. Chris Di Pasquale of Socialist Alternative has been leading postering runs all over Melbourne trying to publicise the event, fly-papering telephone poles and power boxes like some sort of demented four armed interior decorator on an ice binge.
CARF are involved in a clear conspiracy to breach the peace. They’ve assembled a coalition of the most ideologically extreme groups responsible for almost all the politically related violence in Victoria over the last decade to do so. They’ve even established a legal fund to help them escape the consequences of the mayhem they are intending to inflict.
The Victoria Police hierarchy don’t care. As was made clear with the Milo event last year they find it far easier to not only blame the victims of political violence but even to attempt to charge them money for the privilege of being defended when attacked on the street.
The media don’t care. Some commentators such as the Guardian’s Jason Wilson have shown clear support for the ideologies professed by the violent extremist thugs. Others in newsrooms across the spectrum from the ABC to Newscorp are either quietly sympathetic to those who would shut down the events of those with whom they disagree or are simply too lazy to bother with the most simple of research.
It’s up to those of us online to spread the word. These “anti-fascism” protests are not organised by nice little mums and dads who just want to have their voices heard. They are deliberately staged violent confrontations organised by the most radical political extremist groups our society has to offer.
The silence of the media and police only helps them. It’s up to us to break that silence.
photo credit: alisdare1 Danger – Trump and the Far Right. via photopin (license)
