Koup Klutz Klan

 Koup Klutz Klan

By Ranting Panda, 13 June 2021

6 January 2021. The date that traitors stormed the US Capitol in an effort to usurp democracy and keep Donald Trump as President. Trump was resoundingly defeated in a valid election, but neither he nor his supporters could accept the truth. Even today, Trump still believes that he won the election. 

Trump's followers, gullible and gutless, refused to take responsibility for the insurrection, and instead blamed Antifa for it. The FBI, however, confirmed that it was Trump loyalists who staged this coup attempt (Anderson 2021, Sadeghi, 2021). Antifa isn't a threat to democracy. The real threat is the MAGA cult, with its inability to grasp truth, its willingness to rewrite 'facts' to suit its ignorance, its hatred of anyone who is different, its twisted religious fervour, and violent nationalism. They wanted to kill the Vice President during the coup attempt. They'd bought wrist ties & built a noose. These people are not right in the head.

There's no point arguing with MAGA cultists. It doesn't matter what facts are presented, they are so brainwashed that they can't accept truth, fact or reality. Just like cult-members, the MAGAs need de-programming, otherwise they stick with their self-pitying, paranoid, victimhood talking points that Trump cultivated and nourished. 

Trump deliberately attacks truth in order to create doubt about facts. He once admitted to a journalist that he attacks the media to, 'discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you' (Applebaum, 2020). This is one thing that Trump has been very successful at. His supporters lack the critical thinking skills to challenge Trump's blatant lies; they believe everything he says. The real danger of this is that despots are renowned for their propaganda, manipulation of media and use of falsehoods and fear to manipulate the populace. 

When Twitter purged its platform of Trump and many of his adherents because of their flagrant lies, conspiracy theories and hate speech, the MAGAs claimed it was an attack on their freedom of speech. However, freedom of speech doesn't mean that others have to listen to it. Twitter was cleaning house ... as anyone can if some racist fool comes into their house and starts spewing vitriol. MAGAs can get their own soapbox and head down to the local corner to spew their vile hate-speech, ridiculous conspiracy theories, and victim-mentality rubbish.  

Freedom of speech only goes one way for the MAGAs; the moment anyone has a contrary viewpoint, the MAGAs screech socialism and 'Reds under the bed' conspiracy theories. They believe that if someone challenges them, they are victims of 'cancel culture' ... yet, the MAGAS tried to cancel an election because they didn't get their own way. They only believe in freedom of speech for themselves, not for anyone else.

Stripe Inc ceased processing payments for the Trump election campaign because of the 6 January insurrection (Andriotis, Rudegeair, & Glazer, 2021). Ever portraying themselves as victims, the Pity Party MAGAs claimed it was yet another attack on their freedoms. However, the action by Stripe was similar to the action that financial institutions took in dealing with terrorism. And the Trump cult is a terrorist organisation, evidenced by their violent attack on the very heart of US government.

Trump was impeached for inciting the insurrection. It needs to be kept in mind, that he did nothing during this riot to quell it. He was hoping that the coup would succeed and install him for another term ... perhaps a perpetual term in which he never loses (Applebaum, 2020). Trump is anti-democratic and only interested in his own power. Despite significant evidence of Trump directly inciting the coup attempt, the Republican Party voted against convicting him at his second impeachment trial (Holpuch, 2021). This says a lot about how anti-democratic the Republican party is. They try to claim they are patriotic defenders of democracy, but they value power over free and fair elections. Republicans value authoritarianism over liberty.

During riots following Black Lives Matter protests, Trump big-noted himself by dog-whistling to his racist followers that 'when the looting starts, the shooting starts' (Burns, 2020). Trump incited violence with this tweet. A couple of months later, a gutless piece of shit named Kyle Rittenhouse, shot dead BLM protesters. Trump and his followers supported these killings (Wilson, 2021). Yet, when it came to the Capitol riots, Trump didn't threaten to shoot the protesters, instead, he supported them and even told them how much he loved them (Caldwell, 2021). Although he eventually told the rioters to go home, he did it under duress. Trump had an expletive-laced argument with House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, after McCarthy told Trump to call the rioters off because they were Trump supporters. Trump abused McCarthy, telling him that the rioters cared more about the election than McCarthy did (Gangel et al, 2021). Republican senator, Ben Passe, claimed that Trump was delighted that the Capitol was being stormed (Papenfuss, 2021). 

Prior to the riot, Trump gave a speech in which he told his supporters to 'fight like hell' or they would lose their country because, according to him (and in keeping with his admitted attacks on truth mentioned earlier), the election was corrupt. He then told his supporters to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol to 'try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country' (Blake, 2021). Trump directed conspiracy-theorist, Alex Jones, to lead the march that stormed the White House (Linge, 2021). It took six hours for the situation to be brought under control. This period revealed Trump's leadership to be paralysed, to be no more than a passive viewer who stood back as five people, including a police officer, were killed by his supporters (Parker, Dawsey & Rucker, 2021). 

Only weeks before the riot, Trump the Grand Traitor, directed the neo-Nazi Proud Boys to 'stand back and stand by' (Pilkington, 2021). Now we know what he was asking them to stand by for. 

This isn't the first time he has supported violence. In 2017, he condoned white supremacist violence that culminated in the killing of an innocent woman. He even went so far as to describe the white supremacists as 'very fine people' (Coaston, 2019). Throughout his presidency, he directly incited violence by white supremacist groups (Pilkington 2021). 

The traitors who stormed the Capitol included Nazis wearing shirts such as 'Camp Aushwitz - Work brings freedom' and '6MWE', which stands for Six Million Were Not Enough ... in reference to the number of Jews killed during the Holocaust. These are the extremist groups that Trump claims are 'very fine people' (Kessler, 2020).

Trump and his followers are white supremacists. They believe in fascism, not democracy. 

During the Covid-19 pandemic, there was a mass casualty event every single day of the final year of Trump's presidency, culminating in more than 420,000 deaths by the time he was finally removed from the White House. The deaths were directly caused by Trump's lies, inaction and incompetence. This puerile moron was more interested in shoring up his own power, while spreading lies, hatred and division, than in saving his fellow Americans. His incompetence was on a genocidal scale.

Republicans claim they are the 'law and order' party, yet they've let Trump get away with murder ... literally: around 420,000 deaths from his ineptitude in addressing Covid-19, five deaths during the insurrection he orchestrated, and several executions that he directed in the final days of his presidency (Honderich, 2021). They have let him get away with his threats and cheating over the election, such as when he rang the Secretary of State for Georgia and demanded more votes be found to overturn the election results (Morris, 2021). Does this seem like the leader of the free world, or the tyrannical dictatorship of a far-right murderous despot in a banana republic?

The Republican Party  condoned Trump's treason, by voting against holding an inquiry into the Capitol insurrection (Fandos, 2021). The Republicans are not defending democracy, they are defending the traitors within their own party. They are defending Nazism, white supremacy, and fascism. 

Nothing was done about the deadly 2017 white supremacist protests in Charlottesville ... and this culminated in the storming of the Capitol by Nazis. The Trump presidency wasn't the first time that white supremacists were incited to violence by a megalomaniac. Another leader also incited mobs to violence by using racist dog-whistling and bigoted fear-mongering ... and nothing was done to stop it! That leader was Hitler and we saw how that went. Many of the Capitol insurrectionists were Christians who believed they were doing God's will to keep Trump in power (Green, 2021). They claimed that God was telling them to 'let the church roar' (Posner, 2021). This has an eerie resemblance to Nazi Germany. Throughout his rambling manifesto, Mein Kampf, Hitler stated numerous times that he was doing the 'work of the Lord'. Not surprisingly, this galvanised Christians to support Hitler and incited them to violence and, ultimately, genocide. 

Today's United States faces the same threat of Nazism that Nazi Germany did (Brenner, 2021). The Republican Party has links to many far-right extremist groups, including the Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, Proud Boys, and QAnon (Broadwater & Rosenberg, 2021).

No leader has damaged the US as much as Trump has. All the efforts by the Soviet Union during the Cold War to bring down the US never undermined democracy as much as Trump. It's not surprising then, that Trump is alleged to have been cultivated by Russia to undermine US democracy. An ex-KGB spy claims that Trump was cultivated as a Russian asset for 40 years (Smith, 2021). A book by journalist, Craig Unger, entitled American Kompromat, states that the spy alleged there were celebrations in Moscow as Trump parroted anti-Western propaganda (Smith, 2021). 

Trump did significant damage to US democracy, however, what may have saved it was Trump's mental instability and his complete ineptitude as a leader. This ineptitude however, killed more Americans than World War 2. 

Meanwhile, Republicans continue supporting Trump. There's even talk that he will run for president in the 2024 elections. This is a clear indication of just how morally bankrupt the Republican Party is, and by extension, the Christians who continue supporting and defending Trump in the face of significant evidence of his genocide, treason and white supremacy. 

In 1993, musician Frank Zappa, made the prescient observation, 'There's been an incredible rise in racist and fascist attitude here, most of them being helped along by the Republican Party' (Ouellette, 1993). 

Nothing has yet been done to hold Trump to account for the Covid genocide in the US, that is directly attributable to him. Nothing has been done to stop Trump inciting Nazis and conservative Christians to violence, so we have not seen the end of extreme right-wing blood-shed, insurrection, and treason. Allowing Trump to continue empowering these extremists could signal the end of democracy and the rise of fascism in the United States. 

References

Anderson, M 2021, Antifa Didn't Storm The Capitol. Just Ask The Rioters, NPR, 2 March, viewed 6 June 2021, https://www.npr.org/2021/03/02/972564176/antifa-didnt-storm-the-capitol-just-ask-the-rioters.

Andriotis, A, Rudegeair, P, & Glazer, E, 2021, Stripe stops processing payments for Trump campaign website, The Wall Street Journal, 10 January, viewed 12 June 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/stripe-stops-processing-payments-for-trump-campaign-website-11610319116. 

Applebaum, A, 2020, Trump won't accept defeat. Ever., The Atlantic, 7 November, viewed 13 June 2021, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/trumps-forever-campaign-is-just-getting-started/617021/.

Blake, A 2021, What Trump said before his supporters stormed the Capitol, annotated, The Washington Post, 11 January, viewed 6 June 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/annotated-trump-speech-jan-6-capitol/.

Brenner, M 2021, Pre-Nazi Germany tells us the fight to save American democracy is just beginning, The Washington Post, 9 January, viewed 6 June 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/01/09/pre-nazi-germany-tells-us-fight-save-american-democracy-is-just-beginning/. 

Broadwater, L, & Rosenburg, M 2021, Republican ties to extremist groups under scrutiny, Hartford Courant, 29 January, viewed 6 June 2021, https://www.courant.com/nation-world/ct-nw-nyt-gop-extremist-groups-20210129-fstili3spvea7fss3mdsobu5eu-story.html.

Burns, K 2020, The racist history of Trump’s “When the looting starts, the shooting starts” tweet, Vox, 29 May, viewed 6 June 2021, https://www.vox.com/identities/2020/5/29/21274754/racist-history-trump-when-the-looting-starts-the-shooting-starts. 

Caldwell, T 2021, Trump's 'We love you' to Capitol rioters is more of the same, CNN, 7 January, viewed 6 June 2021, https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/07/politics/trump-history-comments-trnd/index.html.

Coaston, J 2019, Trump’s new defense of his Charlottesville comments is incredibly false, Vox, 26 April, viewed 6 June 2021, https://www.vox.com/2019/4/26/18517980/trump-unite-the-right-racism-defense-charlottesville.

Fandos, N 2021, Democrats failed to get enough votes for an independent inquiry into the Jan. 6 riot, The New York Times, 28 May, viewed 6 June 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/us/politics/capitol-riot-commission.html.

Gangel, J, Liptak, K, Warren, M, & Cohen, M 2021, New details about Trump-McCarthy shouting match show Trump refused to call off the rioters, CNN, 13 February, viewed 6 June 2021, https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/12/politics/trump-mccarthy-shouting-match-details/index.html. 

Green, E 2021, A Christian Insurrection, The Atlantic, 8 January, viewed 7 June 2021, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/01/evangelicals-catholics-jericho-march-capitol/617591/. 

Holpuch, A 2021, 'White supremacy won today': critics condemn Trump acquittal as racist vote, The Guardian, 14 February, viewed 6 June 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/14/trump-acquittal-white-supremacy-racist-vote. 

Honderich, H 2021, In Trump’s final days, a rush of federal executions, BBC News, 16 January, viewed 6 June 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55236260.

Kessler, G 2020, The ‘very fine people’ at Charlottesville: Who were they?, The Washington Post, 8 May, viewed 12 June 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/08/very-fine-people-charlottesville-who-were-they-2/.

Linge, M 2021, Alex Jones claims he funded rally that led to Capitol chaos, The New York Post, 9 January, viewed 12 June 2021, https://nypost.com/2021/01/09/alex-jones-claims-he-funded-rally-that-led-to-capitol-chaos/.

Morris, J 2021, Georgia secretary of state's office launches investigation into Trump's phone call, CNN, 16 March, viewed 6 June 2021, https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/08/politics/georgia-secretary-of-state-trump-investigation/index.html.

Ouellette, D 1993, Frank Zappa, Pulse!, August 1993, sourced from https://www.afka.net/Articles/1993-08_Pulse.htm.

Papenfuss, M 2021, Trump Was 'Delighted' His Supporters Stormed The Capitol, Says GOP Sen. Ben Sasse, Huffington Post, 9 January, viewed 6 June 2021, https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/ben-sasse-delighted-trump-capitol-attack_n_5ff93b1bc5b6c77d85e6df60.

Parker, A, Dawsey, J, & Rucker, P 2021, Six hours of paralysis: Inside Trump’s failure to act after a mob stormed the Capitol, The Washington Post, 12 January, viewed 6 June 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-mob-failure/2021/01/11/36a46e2e-542e-11eb-a817-e5e7f8a406d6_story.html.

Pilkington, E 2021, 'Stand back and stand by': how Trumpism led to the Capitol siege, The Guardian, 7 January, viewed 6 June 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/06/donald-trump-armed-protest-capitol.

Posner, S 2021, How the Christian right helped foment insurrection, Reveal News, 30 January, viewed 12 June 2021, https://revealnews.org/article/how-the-christian-right-helped-foment-insurrection/.

Sadeghi, M 2021, Fact check: What's true about the Capitol riot, from antifa to BLM to Chuck Norris, USA Today, 14 January, viewed 6 June 2021, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/01/14/fact-check-truth-capitol-riot-antifa-chuck-norris/6653343002/.

Smith, D 2021, 'The perfect target': Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years - ex-KGB spy, The Guardian, 29 January, viewed 12 June 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/29/trump-russia-asset-claims-former-kgb-spy-new-book.

Wilson, J 2021, US police and public officials donated to Kyle Rittenhouse, data breach reveals, The Guardian, 16 April, viewed 6 June 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/16/us-police-officers-public-officials-crowdfunding-website-data-breach.

Weaponising the flag, Islamophobia & white supremacy

Weaponising the flag, Islamophobia & white supremacy



Back in the 1990s, Prime Minister John Howard hit on a winning formula that ensured election success, guaranteeing he would be Australia's longest serving prime minister. The formula: weaponise xenophobia by wrapping it in Christianity and the Australian flag! Since then, the LNP has weaponised fear of refugees, Muslims, Asians, indigenous people, welfare, socialism ... kind of sounds like they've been reading Mein Kampf. Weaponised? They have used it to justify an illegal invasion in Iraq based on lies about weapons of mass destruction. This killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people and gave rise to ISIS. The LNP has used their weaponisation of xenophobia to justify the indefinite and illegal detention and torture of innocent people on remote islands.

Following the tragic massacre in Christchurch, where 50 innocent Muslims were gunned down by an Australian white-supremacist, many people pointed out just how weaponised hate-speech had become under the LNP and their fringe nutcase politicians, such as Fraser (Mr 19 votes) Anning, Pauline Hanson's One Nation and Cory Bernardi's whatever his party is called.

On 21 March 2019, Prime Minister Scott Morrison was interviewed on Network 10's The Project by Waleed Aly, amidst accusations that Morrison had suggested to the Liberal Party in a shadow cabinet meeting in 2011, that the party should use Islamophobic fears in the community to their political advantage. In other words, stoke fear and hatred of Muslims and appear like they are the only party who can protect Australia from Islam. Perennial deadshit racist, Pauline Hanson of the One Neuron Party, declared Islam to be a virus that needs to be vaccinated against. This is where Australian politics is at.

Morrison denied for years that he had ever mentioned Islamophobia in that shadow cabinet meeting, despite two people who were there confirming that he did suggest taking advantage of Islamophobia. In the interview with Waleed Aly, Morrison finally admitted that he had mentioned Islamophobia in the meeting, but only to ask the party to lower the temperature on it. Now, if this was true, then surely we would have seen fewer attacks on Muslims by LNP members. Instead, they ramped up the vitriole against refugees and Muslims.

Even during the interview with Waleed Aly, Morrison continued to make his claim that refugees on Manus Island and Nauru comprised of rapists and murderers. Waleed pressed him for numbers and Morrison said there were around 60 with 'character' concerns. Under further pressure from Waleed, Morrison admitted that not all with 'character' issues were murderers or rapists, but refused to give a number. Just like Trump declaring the refugees on the US southern border to be 'very bad people', Morrison is continuing to maintain this generalised rhetoric to label refugees on Manus and Nauru, who are predominantly Muslim, as murders and rapists. This is dehumanisation, it is racism, it is Islamophobia. In the interview, he stated that under Labor these people would be living in the general community. Fear-mongering at its most raw to position the LNP as the great saviours of Australia. This was during an interview when Morrison tried to claim he did not suggest the LNP should exploit Islamophobia. Morrison's actions speak far louder than his hollow and deceitful words!

This Islamophobia extended to demanding that Australian Muslims apologise for terrorist attacks across the globe. Australia's Grand Mufti was accused many times over the years since that shadow cabinet meeting, of not doing enough to combat terrorism or of expressing appropriate contrition. Following an Islamist terrorist attack in Paris in 2015, Morrison condemned the Grand Mufti for not being contrite enough and for daring to suggest that racism, Islamophobia and unwarranted military interventions in Muslim countries were to blame. Even though the Grand Mufti had been condemning terrorism for years, Morrison and others in the LNP forced him to issue a further statement directly condemning the Paris attacks (Donelly 2015, Jones 2016).

Then in 2018, when a Muslim man stabbed another man to death in Melbourne in an attempted terrorist attack originally aimed at a tram, the Grand Mufti was again called on by Morrison to condemn terrorism (Clench 2018).

Contrast this with the terrorist attack in Christchurch that killed 50 Muslims. No leading Muslims called on leading Christian or Australian figures to condemn it. Of course, many of those leaders did issue some sort of statement condemning the terrorist and offering condolences. Was this enough? Well, let's look at what followed. Morrison continued demonising refugees, he refused to rule out a preference deal with One Nation, he refused to rule out preferencing One Nation or Senator Fraser Anning below Labor and the Greens in the upcoming federal election, even though both have been extremely racist and Islamophobic. Anning in particular, continued his anti-Islam hate-speech after the Christchurch terrorist attack. It's almost like Morrison is trying not to offend his extreme right-wing base. One could be mistaken for thinking it is a type of right-wing political correctness, in which one dare not use the racism word ... or bigotry word or white supremacy words or Nazi word ... for fear of offending racists who don't like being called racists, or bigots who don't like being called bigots, or Nazis who don't like being called Nazis, or Islamophobes who don't like being called out for what they really are.

What did the community do following the Christchurch massacres? Thankfully, many Australians turned out in support of Muslims and attended vigils and rallies across the country condemning racism, Islamophobia, and right-wing extremism.

But there were those who felt it was a good time to misrepresent old stories of Islamist attacks or massacres. One such article regarded ISIS bombing a Catholic church in the Philippines, which was accompanied by the inflammatory comments that it happened a day after the Christchurch attack and was not covered by the media. Unfortunately, it is true that the bombing occurred. However, it happened in January, seven weeks before Christchurch, and received significant media attention (Evon 2019). The bombing is clearly horrendous, so what does it say about those who would exploit it and lie about it to whip up fear and hatred of innocent Muslims also killed by a terrorist?

Further to this, many Christians shared a report from Breitbart and the Christian Post that claimed Muslims had murdered 120 Christians in Nigeria. Again, this was a tragedy that did happen, but why share it now when it happened in mid-2018? Both Breitbart and the Christian Post failed to mention that the week before that attack, Christians had massacred 130 Muslims. Both these questionable journals also conveniently ignored the fact that these massacres had little to do with religion and a lot more to do with farmers and herdsmen (who just happened to be of different ethnic and religious backgrounds) clashing over access to natural resources, such as water (MacGuill 2019).

People are sharing these tragedies to distract from the Christchurch massacre and to dehumanise the victims, to paint them as possibly deserving of being massacred. They are terrorism-apologists, condoning by their words and actions, the terrorist attack in Christchurch. Where is their contrition and condemnation of the Christchurch terrorist attack when they express their sympathy one minute, and the next are sharing old and inaccurate news to dehumanise Muslims. Since the Christchurch massacre, there was an attack on a Mosque in Australia (Garcia 2019)  and a surge in attacks on Muslims in the UK (Dodd 2019).

 Why do people choose now to share months-old Islamist attacks? It's part of the dehumanisation of Muslims by terrorist-apologists raised on normalised language of hate by politicians who weaponise the flag purely for political point-scoring. If these people are so concerned about terrorism, why weren't they campaigning for an end to illegal wars and sponsoring of terrorism, for the protection of the victims of terrorism & persecution? Because they'd rather spread hate and fear than actually do something productive. They'd rather persecute the victims then help them. This is what happens when the government weaponises xenophobia for political power.

New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, showed true and heartfelt leadership by embracing the Muslim community following the Christchurch terrorist attack, and ensuring they knew that they were welcomed and loved and that her deepest sympathies were with them, while she stood bravely and staunchly against the hatred that drove the right-wing terrorist; the very hatred that many of Australia's right-wing politicians have been voicing for years. Ardern is a true leader, while Australia is left with Morrison, an incompetent and racist politician. Comparing Ardern and Morrison is like comparing Barack Obama to Donald Trump, or a highly intelligent PhD candidate to a petulant, six year old child chucking a temper tantrum for wetting his pants. Meanwhile, Ardern has received death threats from Islamophobes (Harvey 2019).

Australian politics has normalised and weaponised hate speech. It is so bad, that those who stand up for refugees, Islam, and who dare to question the malicious racism espoused by right-wing politicians and media, are considered to be traitors. In a country that fought Nazis in the war, those who now question hate-speech and neo-Nazi ideology are considered traitors. White supremacists think of themselves as patriots. Think about that. Take all the time you need.

When politicians and the media continue attacking Islam, continue demonising minorities, continue spreading fear and hate, and even employing Nazi enthusiasts (Hasham 2019), there's clearly no contrition over the role they've played in the radicalising of the Australian coward who massacred 50 unarmed, peaceful people (including a three year old child) because of the hatred & fear instilled in him by this xenophobic hate-speech.

This matters.

Why?

The Grand Mufti and other Islamic leaders have called out the abuse that Muslims have suffered in Australia, both physically and verbally. Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, Grand Mufti of Australia and New Zealand, has stated that he 'partly blamed the killings on the "hate that some media reflect in its handling of Muslims ... They always portray Muslims as violent terrorist".' (Baker 2019).

Check where these politicians and media deadbeats sit on the hierarchy of white supremacy. They are not in some periphery where they have no influence. Instead, they are well advanced on the path to white supremacy, they are enabling and empowering white supremacists and far-right extremists. As the pyramid shows, Australia is at the upper-end of normalising white supremacy through government policy, rhetoric and media reports falling easily within the 'Discrimination' field. Some people have crossed over into the 'Violence' field by attacking Muslims and Mosques. This should be a concern to most Australians. Instead, far too many will continue sharing inaccurate media reports to spread fear and hate to detract from the mass murder committed in Christchurch.

Source: Olsen (2019)

It should be kept in mind that people can change. In New Zealand, we've seen Ardern, various non-Muslim politicians, media identities and police, wearing hijabs, while Islamic prayers are recited in parliament and people have come together like never before. This is encouraging. In Australia, there are people who have realised that maybe the hate-speech here has also gone too far and they are finally seeing the bigotry behind the policies of federal LNP.





Tom Olsen, a former neo-Nazi, explains that his beliefs were turned around through an act of kindness by a black South African man. Since then, he has worked with police to combat right-wing extremism. He has met hundreds of former white supremacists and each one has a similar story, that they turned from their racist ways when they experienced kindness from those they hated (Olsen 2019).

Those who claim they are not racist or white-supremacist, but are quick to respond to the Christchurch massacre by sharing further hatred of Muslims, need to take a long hard look at their values. They are indicating that the victims deserved to be murdered because they're Muslim. How does that make them any better than the coward who perpetrated the Christchurch massacre? Those who portray Islam as a religion of violence, while themselves calling for violence against Muslims, are no better than the Islamist extremists that they claim to oppose.

If people really want to combat terrorism, then they can start by not blaming innocent people.

Australia's ingrained racism goes back centuries to white settlement which resulted in massacres and genocide of Australia's indigenous population. Through this time, many white Australians have lived in fear of those who are different, fearing a loss of their Caucasian culture. Yet, Australia is the most successful multi-cultural nation in the world, which provides so much opportunity to experience the enjoyment and beauty that every culture has. Rather than denouncing and rejecting multiculturalism, surely, it is to be celebrated and embraced!

References

Baker, N 2019, 'Muslims in Australia say there are lessons to be learnt after the New Zealand mosque attacks', SBS News, 15 March, viewed 22 March 2019, https://www.sbs.com.au/news/demonised-constantly-australian-muslims-slam-politicians-media-in-wake-of-nz-attacks.

Clench, S 2018, ''Making excuses': Scott Morrison doubles down in response to Bourke Street attack', News.com.au, 13 November, viewed 22 March 2019, https://www.news.com.au/national/making-excuses-scott-morrison-doubles-down-in-response-to-bourke-street-attack/news-story/2c49a431ce596ebb112ebc943a53dac1.

Dodd, V 2019, 'Anti-Muslim hate crimes soar in UK after Christchurch shootings', The Guardian, 23 March, viewed 23 March 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/mar/22/anti-muslim-hate-crimes-soar-in-uk-after-christchurch-shootings.

Donelly, B 2015, 'Paris attacks: Grand Mufti 'has condemned terrorism all his life'', The Sydney Morning Herald, 17 November, viewed 22 March 2019, https://www.smh.com.au/national/mufti-slammed-over-paris-attacks-comments-20151117-gl0x8e.html.

Evon, D 2019, 'Did Muslim Terrorists Bomb a Church in the Philippines “Yesterday,” Killing 30 Christians?', Snopes, 18 March, viewed 22 March 2019, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/muslim-terrorists-bomb-philippines/.

Garcia, J 2019, 'Man allegedly rams car into gates, shouts offensive words outside Queensland mosque', Brisbane Times, 17 March, viewed 17 March 2019, https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/man-rams-car-into-gates-and-shouts-offensive-words-outside-qld-mosque-20190317-p514vu.html. 

Harvey, M 2019, 'Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has received death threats on social media', New Zealand Herald, 22 March 2019, viewed 22 March 2019, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12215418.

Hasham, N 2019, 'Fraser Anning staffer and alleged Nazi enthusiast employed by Home Affairs', The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 March, viewed 22 March 2019, https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/fraser-anning-staffer-and-alleged-nazi-enthusiast-employed-by-home-affairs-20190321-p51698.html.

Jones, C 2016, 'Factcheck Q&A: has the Grand Mufti of Australia condemned terrorist attacks overseas?', The Conversation, 22 July, viewed 22 March 2019, http://theconversation.com/factcheck-qanda-has-the-grand-mufti-of-australia-condemned-terrorist-attacks-overseas-62688.

MacGuill, D 2019, 'Did ‘Muslim Militants’ Kill 120 Christians in Nigeria in February/March 2019?', Snopes, 19 March, viewed 20 March 2019, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nigeria-christians-muslims/.

Olsen, T 2019, 'How a simple act of kindness from a stranger ended my career as a neo-Nazi', SBS News, 21 March, viewed 22 March 2019, https://www.sbs.com.au/news/insight/how-a-simple-act-of-kindness-from-a-stranger-ended-my-career-as-a-neo-nazi.

The terrorism empowered by far-right politics, media and religion

The terrorism empowered by far-right politics, media and religion

On 15 March 2019, an Australian far-right, white supremacist massacred 50 innocent Muslims at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Prior to the massacre, this terrorist released a rambling manifesto that he called 'The Great Replacement'. To be frank, it sounds like the maiden speech of Pauline Hanson or Fraser Anning ... or a poor translation of Mein Kampf. It blamed Muslim migration for the woes of the western world. His manifesto acknowledged US President Donald Trump as a 'symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose'. 

That he was Australian is no surprise. Australia has become known globally for the hate-fuelled, fear-mongering, far-right rhetoric and actions of many of its politicians. Hence his manifesto sounded so similar to the garbage spouted by politicians such as current prime minister Scott Morrison, former prime ministers, Tony Abbott and John Howard, and a raft of front-, back- and cross-benchers, such as Petter Dutton, Pauline Hanson, Fraser Anning, Cory Bernardi, and George Christensen, to name but a few. It's not just rhetoric. Australia has imprisoned innocent asylum seekers and UN-declared refugees indefinitely without charge and tortured them, confining them to remote islands; out of sight, out of mind (Doherty and Hurst 2015). A generation forgotten and abused so conservatives can harvest the votes of xenophobes.

For years, conservative politicians, media and voters have been accusing Islam of being violent, of fomenting terrorism, of treating murder as a religious tenet, of condoning pedophilia and of trying to take over the world. While these right-wingers were apoplectic with rage over their perceptions of violence in Islam, they didn't see the extremism that they were fostering, that they were responsible for. Just like the poor crab being slowly boiled to death, Islamophobes have focused on Islam and not noticed just how radical they were becoming.

Until Christchurch, 15 March 2019! 

That day one of their own unleashed a murderous terrorist attack that killed 50 people and left dozens injured. Many of these Islamophobes expressed horror at the attack and even changed their profile pix to cute little koalas hugging a sad kiwi. How fucking rich is it that these arseholes have previously demanded the banning of Islam, halal, the burqa; they have praised people who have vandalised mosques and thrown pig's heads and blood into sacred areas, that have torn burqas or other head-coverings off women walking in the street, that have mocked Muslims from the floor of parliament, in the street, on TV and in social media. Some of these very same people are now hand-wringing and asking where such hatred could come from. Mind you, not all of them have expressed sympathy. There are some deadshits who think it great that this brain-dead racist would kill so many people. 

Australia's conservative media has long portrayed Islam as evil. The Murdoch rags, such as the Herald Sun and Daily Telegraph, published 2891 anti-Islam articles; almost eight articles per day attacking one religion - Islam (Brull 2018)! The world's media has noticed the radicalisation of Australia where right-wing political parties and media outlets blatantly target Muslims (Taylor and Noack 2019).

Anyone who dares defend Islam or criticise the main-stream media's inaccurate and racist reporting is treated as some lefty, politically-correct snowflake. Yet for all their brazen talk, the right-wing are driven by fear. They are running scared, seeing every Muslim as a terrorist, accusing them of trying to take over the world through halal easter eggs. Sensitive little petals, these conservatives. They issued rape and death threats against Sudanese-Australian engineer, Yassmin Abdel-Mageid for an innocuous tweet about Anzac Day (Zhou 2017). Yassmin eventually left Australia because she did not feel safe here. These right-wing snowflakes believe every lie told to them about Islam, about refugees, and then when one of their own goes on a murderous terrorist attack, rather than self-reflect about the role they played in his radicalisation, they blame the victims. Victim-blaming is pretty typical of the right-wing. As are extremely violent outbursts at the slightest insult, with Nobel-prize winning Paul Krugman detailing that these outbursts are predominantly occurring from the right-wing (Moran 2019).

Queensland Senator, Fraser Anning is most notable for a pathetic media release on the day of the Christchurch terrorist attack, in which he expressed his horror, then immediately blamed Islamic migration for it. In the context of such horror, this amounts to hate-speech. It was designed to justify the actions of the terrorist, not to express remorse or sympathy for the victims. The following day, 17 year old William Connolly casually walked up behind Anning and smashed an egg into the back of his head (Winter 2019). One of Anning's henchmen who wrestled the boy to the ground, was Neil Erikson, a white supremacist who attacked a church last year for daring to defend Muslims and refugees. There is a warrant out for his arrest in New South Wales. Disturbingly, many right-wingers are more upset about the egg being thrown, than they are about the Christchurch massacre or the radicalisation of everyday Australians. 

Fraser Anning gave a speech in parliament that called for a final solution against refugees (Murphy and Remeikis 2018), invoking memories of Hitler's final solution that resulted in the genocide of millions of Jews, socialists, dissidents, gypsies and anyone who didn't fit his idea of what a German citizen should look or act like. He also praised the White Australia policy and declared in his maiden speech that Muslims should be banned from migrating to Australia, while European migration should be encouraged. He is a white supremacist. He regularly attends neo-Nazi rallies with the likes of Blair Cottrell, who called for a photo of Hitler and a copy of Mein Kampf to adorn every Australian classroom. You still wondering why the Christchurch terrorist was Australian?

A petition was established calling for Anning to resign (Price 2019). Of course, he is too arrogant to do that, however, it is encouraging that more than one million people signed the petition in 48 hours ... keep in mind that Anning only received 19 votes at the last election: loser.

Fraser Anning's response to the Christchurch terrorism event on 15 March 2019

Fraser Anning's response to the Christchurch terrorism event on 15 March 2019

Australia's conservative political parties have drifted so far to the right, that they are in the realms of Nazism. They encourage white-supremacy through fear of the other, through propagating xenophobic messages that whip people into a frenzy.

This is driven by the mistaken belief that Australia is being taken over by Muslims. The Christchurch terrorist reflected about a takeover of western nations by Muslims. Pauline Hanson and other right-wing politicians have ruminated on the same thing. Is this really a threat? According to the Pew Research Centre, just 3% of the world's Muslims live in developed regions, such as Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand and Japan (Pew Research Centre 2011). This body of research identified that migration from Muslim majority countries has declined sharply over the last 25 years. In the mid-90s, Muslim-majority countries were losing population at a rate of 160 per 100,000 per annum (0.16%). By 2010, this had declined to 42 per 100,000 per annum (0.04%). The report identified that there would be further declines in migration from developing nations that have a Muslim-majority population as economic conditions improve. Migration in western nations is likely to increase by 180 per 100,000 per annum (0.18%). This is hardly a take-over. For Australia, Muslim growth was around 0.12% in 1990. Over the years this has been declining, and is predicted to only be (0.07%) by 2030. So why do they believe there is a Muslim takeover? In 2010, the Muslim population in Australia numbered 399,000, which is about 1.6% of the population. By 2030, it will likely be 714,000 based on net birth-rates and migration, while Australia's population is forecast to have grown to 30 million, so Muslims will account for 2.4% of the population. This is less than 1% growth in Muslim population in 20 years. Australia's population growth is currently forecast at 1.6% (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2018). Muslim population growth in Australia will be less than Australia's net population growth, so based on that, Muslims will never be a majority in Australia ... not what any critically thinking person would consider an invasion or take-over. 

Many of Australia's far-right politicians who exploit xenophobia and white supremacy also claim to be Christian. Many right-wing Christians are more than happy to attack Islam and take its scriptures out of context. Quote distasteful biblical scriptures and these same Christians will try to provide context. They will say that the Koran promotes violence, yet their own bible calls for the killing of every man, woman and child. They will say that Islam promotes paedophilia, yet the bible says to kill every man, male child and female who has slept with a man, but for the young girls (children) who have not been with a man to be taken into sexual slavery ... then there is the issue of God getting a pre-teenage and betrothed Mary pregnant with Christianity's namesake (Jesus, in case you missed the memo), which raises all sorts of questions about paedophilia, adultery, and consent given her age and the power imbalance. Oh, is there no context? Context is not a luxury that racists allow Muslims to provide.

These Christians will claim the Koran promotes violence and terrorism, yet Christianity has been responsible for most of the wars of the last 1,000, including some of the biggies that most of us are familiar with in recent times, such as World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam, Gulf Wars I and II, and Afghanistan. These wars killed hundreds of millions of people during the 20th and 21st centuries, far more than have been killed by Islamic terrorism - yet these Christians will ignore that and continue spreading hate and lies about Islam. 

Actually, the bible bangs on about hate-speech. It tells Christians not to do it! Scriptures like Proverbs 12:18 - 'There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing'. Proverbs 11:9 is one of my favourite, considering that Evangelical Christianity has proven itself redundant with the willingness of many of its leaders to embrace the lies and hate-speech of Donald Trump and the far-right. This scripture declares them to be godless: 'with his mouth the godless man would destroy his neighbour, but by knowledge the righteous are delivered'. All that white supremacists want to do is destroy anyone who is not white, European, Judeo-Christian ... and right-wing Christianity is going along for the ride, as it has done for some time. Nazi Germany is a case in point.

Hitler used Christian-speak to whip Christians into committing horrendous crimes against Jews. Read Mein Kampf and see the similarities between what Hitler said, what today's conservatives speak and what the Christchurch terrorist wrote in his idiotic manifesto.

Christians funded Islamic holy-war in Afghanistan under the Soviets during the 1980s (Cooley 2002), yet Muslims get the blame, while Christians conveniently ignore their role in terrorism. Out of this, we saw the rise of the Taliban, Al Qaeda and eventually ISIS. Christians then ignore and lie about the role that their own had in the rise of global terrorism - instead, they blame Islam. So much for the religion of peace and truth when many Christians are not interested in either peace or truth. Oh yeah, there is also the claim that Christianity is the religion of love, yet many Christians revel in sharing hate against Muslims.

The day after the Christchurch massacre, a Christian radio host named Bryan Fischer defended the attack as 'vigilante justice' because 'Islam has to be stopped'. (Stone 2019). Apparently, terrorism is fine as long as it is waged by Christians.

The radicalisation of the Australian terrorist responsible for the Christchurch killings, has been coming for a long time. Far too many Australians have been saying exactly what he said in his manifesto. Hanson rose to power in 1996 on a Mein Kampf-like platform (don't believe me? read the book). Her white supremacist platform was later comandeered by John Howard to win elections on fear-mongering of Muslim refugees. Australian hip-hop band, The Herd aggressively called out Australia's racism & hate-speech in 2003 with their brilliant song, 77%. Sadly, right-wing snowflakes were more offended by the song's strong language than they were by their own government's lies, demonisation, persecution and physical and mental abuse of innocent people. Australia needs to wake up to itself. Islam isn't a threat, right-wing extremism is.  

The Christchurch terrorist's rambling manifesto showed that he was emboldened by Donald Trump and it repeated much of the hate-speech spewing forth from Republicans in the United States Congress (Fuller 2019). It was telling that Trump condemned the terrorist attack, and then immediately condemned migration by using the same rhetoric the terrorist used to demonise migrants (Blumberg and Blumenthal 2019). Immediately, following the attack, Trump tweeted a link to an anti-Islam website (Vidal 2019). This is from a president who thinks neo-Nazis and Klansmen are 'very fine people' (Gray 2017). Trump claims there is no rise in white nationalism (Campbell 2019), even though 98% of terrorist attacks on US soil are by white nationalists(Kivel 2019). Meanwhile, globally, there has been a surge in deadly attacks on Muslims (Al Jazeera 2019a). With such a rise in Islamophobic attacks, one would expect a corresponding increase in reporting of these acts, but no! Islamist terrorism received 357% more coverage than terrorism by non-Muslims; there are an average of 105 headlines per Islamist attack, compared to 15 headlines when the perpetrators are non-Muslim (Chalabi 2018). 

The United States is on a downward spiral into far-right extremism. Three years ago, the US voted AGAINST a United Nations resolution condemning the glorification of Nazism over freedom of speech (CBS News 2016). Seventy-five years ago, the United States battled against Nazis, today it defends them.

The Christchurch terrorist's manifesto railed against Islamic immigration. For years, Australia's conservative politicians have lied about Muslim refugees, equating them with terrorists, even though they are often victims of terrorists. Only a few weeks ago, senior ministers of the government, including Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Home Affairs Minister, Peter Dutton, and the Finance Minister, Matthias Cormann, made the ludicrous claim that refugees (less than 1000 of them) would force Australians off hospital waiting lists; a claim which has been debunked as baseless (Das 2019). It is pure fear-mongering and evidence of the blatant lies the federal LNP has been ramming down the throats of Australians. Morrison has previously claimed there is a benefit in exploiting anti-Islamic sentiments to gain votes (Taylor 2011). No wonder, there is so much hatred of migrants and why someone became radicalised enough to murder 50 Muslims.

The Christchurch terrorist modelled his attack on that by Anders Breivik in Norway (Werleman 2019). In his manifesto, he declared support for other mass murderers, but emphasised his idolising of Breivik. Christian and far-right extremist Breivik, killed 77 socialist students to fulfil his hatred of leftists and migrants. Both elements that Australia's conservative politicians and media are constantly railing against. 

Interesting that the Christchurch terrorist wasn't on any terrorist watchlist and authorities said he was not known to them, even though he'd been planning this for some time and had travelled to North Korea, Pakistan, Bulgaria and Turkey as part of his preparations (O'Grady 2019). If it was a Muslim planning such an attack or travelling to those countries, Australian authorities would have been all over it and he would have been arrested immediately. But hey, white privilege.

Hard-right conservatives are running around upset that people are blaming them for the Christchurch attack. 'We're not all like that'. Oh the irony! They don't show such nuance when attacking Islam. 

Hours after the Christchurch terrorist attack, a Muslim man was assaulted with a hammer and batten in an Islamophobic attack in London (Al Jazeera 2019b). The following day, in a case exemplar of white privilege, a 23 year old moron deliberately drove into the gates of a Mosque near Brisbane, yelling anti-Islamic hate (Garcia 2019). The Queensland Police Commissioner excused him because he was drunk so therefore, it was not a hate-crime! Had a Muslim done that to a Christian church, he'd have been arrested and charged with terrorism. White privilege!

Thankfully, most Australians have expressed horror and revulsion at the attack. The Christchurch terrorist perpetrated the very act that he detests Muslims for. Clearly, not a very intelligent specimen. If anything, it is clear that he is projecting his own hatred, animosity and violence onto people who are actually peaceful and tolerant. He isn't the only one. 

While the Christchurch terrorist is apparently a 'lone-wolf' attacker, he should not be considered in isolation. White supremacy is a global issue that is on the increase (Anderson 2019). When the President of the United States defends Nazis and empowers white supremacist terrorists, there is a significant international problem. These extremists carry on about the danger of immigration, while exporting their terrorism to the world.

What can be done? Stop normalising hate-speech. Stand up against the fear-mongering, demonisation and racist rhetoric of these horrid politicians who pretend to be Christian but instead are driven by hate-filled agendas. Instead of Christians losing their collective shit over halal Easter eggs, how about they invite Muslims to their churches, their homes, into their lives and get to know them as friends and family, not as the enemy. 

Love your neighbour!

References

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