Turnbull and Co announce they are taking their ideological razors to the Racial Discrimination Act and Human Rights Commission legislation

During this decade there have been three cases close to the hearts of the far right of the political spectrum in Australia.

The first was Pat Eatock v Andrew Bolt and the Herald and Weekly Times Pty Ltd in the Federal Court of Australia, the second the Cynthia Prior complaint to the Human Rights Commission and, the third was the complaint against Bill Leak lodged with the Human Rights Commission.

All involved the C’wealth Racial Discrimination Act 1975.

The Federal Court found against News Corp journalist Andrew Bolt, the Commission terminated the Prior complaint on the basis it was satisfied that there was no reasonable prospect of the matter being settled by conciliation (the complainant later commencing unsuccessful litigation) and, the complaint against cartoonist Bill Leak was eventually withdrawn by Ms. Dinnison.

The Racial Discrimination Act and the Australian Human Rights Commission Act appear to have operated as intended by the original law makers in all three instances.

Yet such was the angst in Liberal Party and ‘flying monkey’ circles that an attempt to significantly alter the Act and neuter the Commission is now underway.

Excerpts from Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Bligh Turnbull statements at a joint press conference on 21 March 2017:

Good afternoon. Today I am here with the Attorney and we are announcing changes to the Racial Discrimination Act and the Human Rights Commission legislation, which will strengthen the protection of Australians from racial vilification and strengthen the protection of free speech, one of the fundamental freedoms upon which our democracy depends.

We are defending the law by making it clearer. We are defending Australians from racial vilification, by replacing language which has been discredited and has lost credibility. It has lost the credibility that a good law needs.

So the changes we are proposing to section 18C will provide the right balance between defending Australians from racial vilification and defending and enabling their right of free speech upon which our democracy, our way of life, depends.

We are also amending the law so as to ensure that the Human Rights Commission will offer procedural fairness, will deal with cases promptly and swiftly and fairly. That's very important too.

We need to restore confidence to the Racial Discrimination Act and to the Human Rights Commissions' administration of it. The changes we're proposing have been supported from all sides of the political spectrum.

Granted, there will be many critics and opponents. But this is an issue of values. Free speech. Free speech is a value at the very core of our party. It should be at the core of every party.

Ensuring Australians are protected from racial vilification, likewise, is part of that mutual respect of which I often speak, which is the foundation of our success as the greatest and most successful multicultural society in the world.

We’ve struck the balance right. We've done this carefully. There's been a scrupulously careful examination of this matter by the Human Rights Committee and we thank the Chairman, Ian Goodenough, and the members for their work.

What we presented today strikes the right balance. Defending freedom of speech, so that cartoonists will not be hauled up and accused of racism. So that university students won't be dragged through the courts and had hundreds of thousands of dollars of legal costs imposed on them over spurious claims of racism.

The time has come to get the balance right, to get the language right, to defend our freedom of speech and defend Australians with effective laws, clear laws, against racial vilification. That's what we're doing today. We're defending Australians with a stronger, fairer law…..

The language, the new language will better and more clearly protect people from racial vilification, in a more generic term, from harassment or intimidation because the language is clearer.

The problem with the language at the moment - using the language insult and offend – the problem is that, of course, on its face, its natural and ordinary meaning, it includes very small slights. So people have said: “Oh, well, you know, there are court cases that say it only means really serious insults.” Well isn't it better that laws actually say what they mean? Isn't it better that laws are clear? Isn't it better when you’re dealing with freedom of speech and you're dealing with protecting people from racial vilification, that the law is clear and in language people can understand? That's what we're doing.

….. you have got to remember that if you have language that does not reflect the object, or the proper object of the legislation, it has a chilling effect on free speech. So let’s be very clear. Ask this question: “What is it we that we are seeking to prohibit”?

We believe that “harassment”, “intimidation” are the better terms. They are clearer and they clearly express the type of conduct that should be prohibited, not mere slights or the taking of offence or hurt feelings. That is not what the law should be about…..

….. We believe that the law has lost its credibility. I mean, all of you have seen the criticism that has come around recent cases, the QUT and the Bill Leak case being classic examples. When a law loses its credibility, it lacks its ability to achieve any of its objectives.

So this is why it’s important to restate the language in terms that better reflect the objects of the legislation. As the Attorney said, right from the outset, if you go back decades, it better reflects the object of the legislation then, and it clearly prohibits conduct of a kind that we condemn, that we abhor, that we do not accept.

We are the most successful multicultural society in the world. It’s built on a foundation of mutual respect, and that mutual respect - that foundation - is strengthened by stronger, clearer, fairer laws.

BACKGROUND

Excerpt from a paper by the Chair of Melbourne University Law School Professor Adrienne Stone in Melbourne University Law Review 926 on the judgment in Eatock v Bolt [2011] FCA 1103 (28 September 2011):

In a short judgment following his initial finding, Bromberg J granted two remedies: the Herald Sun (published by the Herald and Weekly Times) was required to publish a ‘corrective notice’ as specified in the judgment, and Bolt and the Herald and Weekly Times were restrained from further publishing or republishing the offending articles.^[67]

The remedies are notably insubstantial. They are considerably less onerous than damages, a fact which is especially notable given it seems entirely possible that Eatock could have successfully claimed damages in a defamation action.^[68] The lenity of the remedy becomes even clearer in light of an additional order which allowed the Herald Sun to continue to make the offending newspaper articles available ‘for historical or archival purposes’, provided that the publication was accompanied by the required corrective notice.^[69] The result of this latter order is that the offending articles remain available online.^[70] The ready availability of the offending articles considerably weakens claims that Bolt has been silenced by the action, and more general claims that freedom of speech has been chilled. The ideas in his articles continue to be communicated to those who seek them out.

Indeed, this claim of silencing is at once made and disproved by  Andrew Bolt  himself. In his response to the decision, Bolt wrote ‘Silencing Me Impedes Unity’, a commentary in which he argues that his ideas have been ‘banned’ and yet goes on to repeat, at quite some length, his argument that Aboriginal people of mixed heritage should not claim Aboriginal identity.^[71]

This irony deepens when one considers the common refrain amongst critics of 
s 18C (and the respondents in Eatock v Bolt in particular) that the complainants should have responded to the criticisms by defending themselves in public debate.^[72] This suggestion taps into an important idea in the political theory of freedom of speech that the victims of harms caused by speech ought to ‘speak back’, and that the ‘fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones’.^[73] The irony arises because, in effect, Bolt and the Herald and Weekly Times have themselves been subject to a certain kind of ‘speaking back’.^[74] They have not been required to apologise, to pay damages, or — crucially — to remove the material from the internet. The sum total in effect of the measure imposed on them is that the articles are labelled as having infringed the RDA.

In other words, the remedy imposed inEatock v Bolt was predominantly expressive  rather than coercive. It neither required compensation nor imposed any other sanction on the respondents. Rather, the state signals its disapproval of the message conveyed — labelling it as contrary to the RDA — but does not prevent its communication. The state’s action is akin to the ‘speaking back’ that the respondents and their defenders encourage. Moreover, just as the respondents and their defenders encouraged the complainants in this case, if the respondents are troubled by being labelled in this way, they are, of course, able themselves to ‘speak back’. Therefore, one way to understand the effect of Eatock v Bolt is that it makes a contribution to the public debate about racial identity (labelling the particular contribution of Bolt as discriminatory), but does not prevent Bolt’s message from being heard.

This argument will, no doubt, not satisfy those deeply committed to a strong libertarian vision of freedom of speech — in which the role of the state is to be minimised — and who will find even expressive remedies offensive to their underlying conception of liberty.^[75] The state is an especially powerful ‘speaker’ and its intervention through expressive remedies might be cast as dangerously distorting.

However, libertarian conceptions of freedom of speech are themselves contested both in theory^[76] and exceptional in practice.^[77] So those campaigning to amend s 18C cannot simply claim to be defending freedom of speech against those who disregard it or prefer other values or interests. They are defending a particular, rather unusual, and strongly contested version of freedom of speech and they are doing so in the face of alternative conceptions that powerfully defended in theory^[78] and widely adopted in practice.^[79] By neglecting even to notice the expressive nature of the remedy, the opponents of the law have thus failed to see that it may advance, rather than chill, free speech values.

Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, Freedom of speech in Australia, Inquiry into the operation of Part IIA of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) and related procedures under the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986 (Cth), 28 February 2017 Report, pp10-11:

Legal meaning of 'offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate'

2.21 The Federal Court in Jones v Scully explicitly set out the dictionary definitions of the terms 'offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate' in an attempt to establish the meaning to be given to each word individually.¹⁴ The ordinary meaning of the words provided in Jones v Scully provide some guidance, but must also be consistent with the threshold established by Kiefel J,¹⁵ in Creek v Cairns Post Pty Ltd,¹⁶ that section 18C only applies to conduct having 'profound and serious effects, not to be likened to mere slights'. This standard has been affirmed in the case law.¹⁷

2.22 It is worth noting, however, that the Court generally does not consider each term in isolation. Although in McGlade v Lightfoot the relevant conduct was found to be reasonably likely to 'offend' and 'insult', the Court made it very clear that it was not  reasonably likely to humiliate or intimidate.¹⁸ This means that the legal meaning of 'offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate' does not wholly correspond with the ordinary or 'common sense' meaning of the terms. In other words, as interpreted by the courts, conduct that is merely offensive or merely insulting will not be captured by section 18C of the RDA, but only more serious forms of conduct on the basis of race. While some submitters suggested that the words used in section 18C created uncertainty, the committee received evidence from other witnesses that the legal meaning and judicial interpretation of section 18C was well settled as applying only to conduct at the more serious end of the range.¹⁹

14 [2002] FCA 1080.

15 Kiefel J is now the Chief Justice of the High Court.

16 [2001] FCA 1007, [16].

17 Bropho v Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (2004) 135 FCR 105 at 131, [70]

(French J) (Bropho); Jones v Scully (2002) 120 FCR 243, [102]; Eatock v Bolt (2011) 197 FCR 261

at [267]-[268] (Justice Bromberg) (Eatock).

18 McGlade v Lightfoot (2002) 124 FCR 106, 120 at [61]-[62].

19 See, for example: Law Institute of Victoria, Submission 184, 4; Mr Iain Anderson, Deputy

Secretary, Attorney-General's Department, Committee Hansard, 17 February 2017, 21-22.

Oh, for heaven's sake! Australia is not being swamped by anyone

If I hear of one more idiot suggesting that Australia is being “swamped” and a Trump-style ban on “Muslim" immigration is needed or an “Australia First” policy is required along with a "Make Australia Great Again" slogan, I will scream in frustration.

On any given day it is estimated that just 2.2 per cent of the Australian population follow the Islam religion.

At the 2011 national census that percentage translated into only 475,562 people spread around the nation.

Whereas there were est. 13,150,078 professed Christians in Australia at the time, along with 4,796,432 people with no religion.

That’s over 13 million Christians to less than half a million Muslims.

Or to put it another way - there was 1 Christian for every  0.58² km of land compared to 1 Muslim for every 16.71² km.

That was over five years ago.

When the Australian Bureau of Statistics publishes the 2016 Census sometime this year, I suspect that the total number of people of the Islamic faith will be less than 700,000.

People living in much of rural and regional Australia would rarely come into contact with someone of that faith so it is hard to see how the country or its culture is being swamped.

Perhaps Pauline Hanson of One Nation and Cory Bernardi of Australian Conservatives might like to explain the basis for their fearmongering.

Matthew Lyons on Donald Trump and the Alt Right

Political Research Associates, 20 January 2017:

This report is excerpted from Matthew N. Lyons’s forthcoming book, Insurgent Supremacists: The U.S. Far Right’s Challenge to State and Empire, to be published by PM Press and Kersplebedeb Publishing. This report is also featured in Ctrl-Alt-Delete: An Antifascist Report on the Alternative Right….

Maybe you first heard about them in the summer of 2015, when they promoted the insult “cuckservative” to attack Trump’s opponents in the Republican primaries.1 Maybe it was in August 2016, when Hillary Clinton denounced them as “a fringe element” that had “effectively taken over the Republican party.”2 Or maybe it was a couple of weeks after Trump’s surprise defeat of Clinton, when a group of them were caught on camera giving the fascist salute in response to a speaker shouting “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!”3

The Alt Right helped Donald Trump get elected president, and Trump’s campaign put the Alt Right in the news. But the movement was active well before Trump announced his candidacy, and its relationship with Trump has been more complex and more qualified than many critics realize. The Alt Right is just one of multiple dangerous forces associated with Trump, but it’s the one that has attracted the greatest notoriety. However, it’s not accurate to argue, as many critics have, that “Alt Right” is just a deceptive code-phrase meant to hide the movement’s White supremacist or neonazi politics. This is a movement with its own story, and for those concerned about the seemingly sudden resurgence of far-right politics in the United States, it is a story worth exploring.

The Alt Right, short for “alternative right,” is a loosely organized far-right movement that shares a contempt for both liberal multiculturalism and mainstream conservatism; a belief that some people are inherently superior to others; a strong internet presence and embrace of specific elements of online culture; and a self-presentation as being new, hip, and irreverent.4 Based primarily in the United States, Alt Right ideology combines White nationalism, misogyny, antisemitism, and authoritarianism in various forms and in political styles ranging from intellectual argument to violent invective. White nationalism constitutes the movement’s center of gravity, but some Alt Rightists are more focused on reasserting male dominance or other forms of elitism rather than race. The Alt Right has little in the way of formal organization, but has used internet memes effectively to gain visibility, rally supporters, and target opponents. Most Alt Rightists have rallied behind Trump’s presidential bid, yet as a rule Alt Rightists regard the existing political system as hopeless and call for replacing the United States with one or more racially defined homelands.

This report offers an overview of the Alt Right’s history, beliefs, and relationship with other political forces. Part 1 traces the movement’s ideological origins in paleoconservatism and the European New Right, and its development since Richard Spencer launched the original AlternativeRight.com website in 2010. Part 2 surveys the major political currents that comprise or overlap with the Alt Right, which include in their ranks White nationalists, members of the antifeminist “manosphere,” male tribalists, right-wing anarchists, and neoreactionaries. Part 3 focuses on the Alt Right’s relationship with the Trump presidential campaign, including movement debates about political strategy, online political tactics, and its relationship to a network of conservative supporters and popularizers known as the “Alt Lite.” A concluding section offers preliminary thoughts on the Alt Right’s prospects and the potential challenges it will face under the incoming Trump administration.

PART 1 – ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT

IDEOLOGICAL ROOTS

Two intellectual currents played key roles in shaping the early Alternative Right: paleoconservatism and the European New Right.

Paleoconservatives can trace their lineage back to the “Old Right” of the 1930s, which opposed New Deal liberalism, and to the America First movement of the early 1940s, which opposed U.S. entry into World War II. To varying degrees, many of the America Firsters were sympathetic to fascism and fascist claims of a sinister Jewish-British conspiracy. In the early 1950s, this current supported Senator Joe McCarthy’s witch-hunting crusade, which extended red-baiting to target representatives of the centrist Eastern Establishment. After McCarthy, the America First/anti-New Deal Right was largely submerged in a broader “fusionist” conservative movement, in which Cold War anticommunism served as the glue holding different rightist currents together. But when the Soviet bloc collapsed between 1989 and 1991, this anticommunist alliance unraveled, and old debates reemerged.5

In the 1980s, devotees of the Old Right began calling themselves paleoconservatives as a reaction against neoconservatives, those often formerly liberal and leftist intellectuals who were then gaining influential positions in right-wing think-tanks and the Reagan administration. The first neocons were predominantly Jewish and Catholic, which put them outside the ranks of old-guard conservatism. Neocons promoted an aggressive foreign policy to spread U.S. “democracy” throughout the world and supported a close alliance with Israel, but they also favored nonrestrictive immigration policies and, to a limited extent, social welfare programs. Paleconservatives regarded the neocons as usurpers and closet leftists, and in the post-Soviet era they criticized military interventionism, free trade, immigration, globalization, and the welfare state. They also spoke out against Washington’s close alliance with Israel, often in terms that had anti-Jewish undertones. Paleoconservatives tended to be unapologetic champions of European Christian culture, and some of them gravitated toward White nationalism, advocating a society in which White people, their values, interests, and concerns would always be explicitly preeminent. To some extent they began to converge with more hardline White supremacists during this period.6

These positions attracted little elite support, and after Reagan paleocons were mostly frozen out of political power. But they attracted significant popular support. In 1992 and 1996, Patrick Buchanan won millions of votes in Republican presidential primaries by emphasizing paleocon themes. Paleocons also played key roles in building the anti-immigrant and neo-Confederate movements in the ‘90s, and influenced the Patriot movement, which exploded briefly in the mid-90s around fears that globalist elites were plotting to impose a tyrannical world government on the United States. Some self-described libertarians, such as former Congress member Ron Paul, embraced paleoconservative positions on culture and foreign policy.7 After the September 11th attacks in 2001, the resurgence of military interventionism and neoconservatives’ prominent roles in the George W. Bush administration solidified the paleocons’ position as political outsiders.8

The Alt Right’s other significant forerunner, the European New Right (ENR), developed along different lines. The ENR began in France in the late 1960s and then spread to other European countries as an initiative among far-right intellectuals to rework fascist ideology, largely by appropriating elements from other political traditions—including the Left—to mask their fundamental rejection of the principle of human equality.9 European New Rightists championed “biocultural diversity” against the homogenization supposedly brought by liberalism and globalization. They argued that true antiracism requires separating racial and ethnic groups to protect their unique cultures, and that true feminism defends natural gender differences, instead of supposedly forcing women to “divest themselves of their femininity.” ENR writers also rejected the principle of universal human rights as “a strategic weapon of Western ethnocentrism” that stifles cultural diversity.10

European New Rightists dissociated themselves from traditional fascism in various other ways as well. In the wake of France’s defeat by anticolonial forces in Algeria, they advocated anti-imperialism rather than expansionism and a federated “empire” of regionally based, ethnically homogeneous communities, rather than a big, centralized state. Instead of organizing a mass movement to seize state power, they advocated a “metapolitical” strategy that would gradually transform the political and intellectual culture as a precursor to transforming institutions and systems. In place of classical fascism’s familiar leaders and ideologues, European New Rightists championed more obscure far rightist intellectuals of the 1920s, ‘30s, and beyond, such Julius Evola of Italy, Ernst Jünger and Carl Schmitt of Germany, and Corneliu Codreanu of Romania.

ENR ideology began to get attention in the United States in the 1990s,11 resonating with paleoconservatism on various themes, notably opposition to multicultural societies, non-White immigration, and globalization. On other issues, the two movements tended to be at odds: reflecting their roots in classical fascism but in sharp contrast to paleocons, European New Rightists were hostile to liberal individualism and laissez faire capitalism, and many of them rejected Christianity in favor of paganism. Nonetheless, some kind of dialog between paleocon and ENR ideas held promise for Americans seeking to develop a White nationalist movement outside of traditional neonazi/Ku Klux Klan circles.

EARLY YEARS AND GROWTH

The term “Alternative Right” was introduced by Richard Spencer in 2008, when he was managing editor at the paleocon and libertarian Taki’s Magazine. At Taki’s Magazine the phrase was used as a catch-all for a variety of right-wing voices at odds with the conservative establishment, including paleocons, libertarians, and White nationalists.12 Two years later Spencer left to found a new publication, AlternativeRight.com, as “an online magazine of radical traditionalism.” Joining Spencer were two senior contributing editors, Peter Brimelow (whose anti-immigrant VDARE Foundation sponsored the project) and Paul Gottfried (one of paleoconservatism’s founders and one of its few Jews). AlternativeRight.com quickly became a popular forum among dissident rightist intellectuals, especially younger ones. The magazine published works of old-school “scientific” racism along with articles from or about the European New Right, Italian far right philosopher Julius Evola, and figures from Germany’s interwar Conservative Revolutionary movement. There were essays by National-Anarchist Andrew Yeoman, libertarian and Pat Buchanan supporter Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com, male tribalist Jack Donovan, and Black conservative Elizabeth Wright.13

AlternativeRight.com developed ties with a number of other White nationalist intellectual publications, which eventually became associated with the term Alternative Right. Some of its main partners included VDARE.com; Jared Taylor’s American Renaissance, whose conferences attracted both antisemites and right-wing Jews; The Occidental Quarterly and its online magazine, The Occidental Observer, currently edited by prominent antisemitic intellectual Kevin MacDonald; and Counter-Currents Publishing, which was founded in 2010 to “create an intellectual movement in North America that is analogous to the European New Right” and “lay the intellectual groundwork for a white ethnostate in North America.”14

Read further book chapter excerpts at: http://www.politicalresearch.org/2017/01/20/ctrl-alt-delete-report-on-the-alternative-right/#sthash.oATVBB5a.hKmyQJAL.dpuf

Where Australians stand when it comes to Trump's travel/immigration bans of 27 January 2017

At 30 June 2015, 28.2% of Australia's estimated resident population (ERP) (6.7 million people) was born overseas [Australian Bureau of Statistics, Estimated Resident Population by Country of Birth, 30 June 1992 to 2015]

Of these a total of 166,310 individuals born in the listed countries are potentially affected by the U.S. travel/immigration ban by presidential order on 27 January 2017 [PROTECTING THE NATION FROM FOREIGN TERRORIST ENTRY INTO THE UNITED STATES]:

Iran 53,510

Iraq 68,180

Libya 2,510

Sudan 23,380

South Sudan 4,410

Syria 13,660

Yemen 660

When one adds to this an unknown number of Australians who have travelled to these countries since 1 July 2011 and face the possibility of being denied a U.S. tourist or work visa on that basis, the number of Australia citizens and permanent residents potentially affected grows.

Smartraveller.gov.au:

Changes to entry requirements from 27 January 2017

The US State Department has advised visa issuance to nationals of Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen has been temporarily suspended following the signing of the Executive Order on Protecting the Nation from Terrorist Attacks by Foreign Nationals on 27 January 2017.

Australians who are dual citizens of Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria are no longer eligible to apply for an ESTA to enter the United States under the VWP. Any of these Australians who have previously been issued an ESTA are likely to have the ESTA revoked.

Australians who have travelled to Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen since 1 March 2011 will also no longer be eligible to apply for an ESTA to enter the United States under the VWP.

If you are affected by these changes and wish to travel to the United States, you will need to apply for a non-immigrant visa at a US Embassy or Consulate. Exceptions from these travel restrictions will be made for Australians who have travelled on official Australian Defence Force or Australian Government business. No exceptions will be made for government officials or ADF members who are dual citizens of Iran, Iraq, Syria or Sudan.

The Secretary of Homeland Security may waive these travel restrictions on a case by case basis for travellers from the following categories: Australians who have travelled on behalf on international organisations, regional organisations or State and Territory governments on official duty; Australians who have travelled on behalf of a humanitarian NGO; Australian journalists who have travelled for reporting purposes; Australians who have travelled to Iran for legitimate business-related purposes following the conclusion of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on 14 July 2015; or Australians who have travelled to Iraq for legitimate business-related purposes. Those travellers who are potentially eligible for waivers do not need to apply separately for this – an application will be automatically generated by the ESTA questionnaire.

For further information regarding the changes, visit the Embassy of the United States of America in Australia, the United States Department of State Visa Information or the United States Customs and Border Protection website. You should also speak to your nearest US Embassy or Consulate for further assistance on visa applications.

If you need to apply for a non-immigrant visa, the United States Visa Information Service for Australia encourages applicants to apply at least three months in advance of the intended date of travel.

The national shame of 2-4 August 2014 should never ever be repeated

"It is profoundly disturbing to witness the appalling treatment of this young woman at the Lock-Up on 4 August 2014. In her final hours she was unable to have the comfort of the presence of her loved ones, and was in the care of a number of police officers who disregarded her welfare and her right to humane and dignified treatment." [Excerpt from Western Australia State Coroner, coronial finding, 16 December 2016]

WA Coronial Inquest into the Death of Ms. Dhu, 16 December 2016 by clarencegirl on Scribd

An Australian Tale In Seven Tweets

From the keyboard of Blue Mountains resident @R_Chirgwin:

Scene: Katoomba Station, crowded with tourists. A skinny busker is singing “When the Droving’s Done” in an Irish lilt.

Enter: Nazi Skinhead.

Nazi Skinhead: [Spits on Asian tourist]

Busker: [Interrupting song] [In Irish accent] “Oi. You! Don’t bring that shit onto our patch!”

Backbacker: [Upbraids Skinhead for some minutes]

Crowd: Applause

Skinhead: [Raises fist}

Backpacker: [Raises guitar]

Backpacker: [Guitar raised] “You got more fookin’ reach than this, matey?”

Skinhead: “I’ll be back tomorrow!”

Backpacker: “Fookin’ go ahead”

Backpacker: “Cause even on a Monday, there’ll be more of us than there is of fookin’ you. And I see you spit again, ya fookin’ DONE.”

And the tourists and the locals gathered around the Asian who got spit on, and everybody crowded the skinhead so he missed the train.

And the backpacker remembered what bit of an awful song he’d quit at, and took up “Till the Droving’s Done” like no damn thing happened.

Trump's America: and so it begins.....

This is what that brutish, openly racist, divisive braggart, the U.S. president-elect Donald J. Trump, has unleashed........

Raw Story, 12 November 2016:

A Los Angeles area substitute teacher has been fired after a student recorded him taunting Latino sixth graders about the election of Donald Trump, telling them their parents were going to be deported, reports NBC4.

According to Jennifer Reynaga, she expected Latino students to be harassed after the election of Trump who made bashing immigrants,and Mexicans in particular, a cornerstone of his campaign.

“I would think the kids would do it, but I never thought a teacher would do it,” said Reynaga said in an interview.

The Reynaga family turned over the recording, captured with another student’s cellphone, to the school district where the unidentified substitute physical education teacher can be heard speaking to students at Bret Harte Middle School in South Los Angeles.

“If you were born here, then your parents got to go. Then they will leave you behind, and you will be in foster care,” the teacher can be heard telling Reynaga’s 11-year-old daughter.

When the sixth grader asked how Trump would find them, the teacher replied, “I have your phone numbers, your address, your mama’s address, your daddy’s address. It’s all in the system, sweetie.”

After being confronted with the audio tape, school officials fired the teacher, with LAUSD officials saying they had no further comment due to pending personnel matters.

Shaun King is Senior Justice Writer @NYDailyNews

Shaun King Verified account‏ @ShaunKing

White Students in DeWitt, Michigan formed a physical wall of students to block Latino kids from entering the school This is from a parent.

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5:52 AM - 11 Nov 2016

Student threatened and forced to remove hijab in downtown Ann Arbor

Shaun King Verified account‏ @ShaunKing

Parents at Shasta High School in Redding California just wrote me and said white kids brought "deportation letters" for Latino students.

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3:40 AM - 11 Nov 2016

Wilson ‏@WilsonsWorld  

@ShaunKing #Charlotte "@dakotainthecity I found this under my windshield wiper at my own house. I'm in disbelief"

More

11 November 2016

Shaun King ‏@ShaunKing 

The texts in the green come from a school admin in Bucks County, Pennsylvania outside of Philadelphia.

11 November 2016

YAHOO! News, 11 November 2016:

A 'victory' parade announced by the Loyal White Knights, a KKK chapter, will take place in North Carolina during December. "Trump's race united my people," read the announcement, according to the News Observer.

David Duke, a former Imperial Wizard of the KKK, hailed Trump's election "one of the most exciting nights of my life" and rejoiced in the fact that "our people" helped him keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House.

The KKK's official newspaper lent their backing to Trump during the election campaign, and the president elect was forced to distance himself from the hate group's support. Last week, the Trump campaign sent out a statement that the property billionaire "denounces hate in any form".

In 1927, Donald Trump's father was arrested after a KKK riot in Queens when over 1,000 white-robed Klansmen marched through the Jamaica neighbourhood.

A Daily Star article stated that Trump Senior was detained "on a charge of refusing to disperse from a parade when ordered to do so."….

Nyle DiMarco Verified account‏ @NyleDiMarco

"This is white America now. Take your retarded self and go somewhere else now," towards American Sign Language (ASL) user #TheTrumpEffect

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12:04 PM - 11 Nov 2016

Via http://usuncut.com/news/trump-supporters-brutally-attack-gay-man-california/

10 November 2016

Laura Keeney ‏@LauraKeeney  Nov 10

@ShaunKing This from my friend Nichole...

Anti-Trump rally - with comment from Trump supporter who believes that before becoming president-elect Donald Trump "travels the world feeding the kids"

I asked for her name, I got crazy cursed at. #TrumpTower pic.twitter.com/JOArxMqQnB

— Cal Perry (@calmsnbc) November 11, 2016

Shaun King ‏ Verified account‏ @ShaunKing  Nov 10

I'm so effin furious. This happened in Delaware. Mind you, this is Day 1 of Trump being elected. Media & police need to be on this.

 Donald J. Trump

Shaun King Verified account‏ @ShaunKing

Placed on their car in NC. "Can't wait until your 'marriage' is overturned by a real president. Gay families = burn in hell. Trump 2016"

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1:38 PM - 10 Nov 2016

Royal Oak Middle School, Royal Oak Michigan, 9 November 2016

‘Build That Wall!’ White Kids Caught On Video Terrorizing Crying Hispanic… https://t.co/yfmKu003ag pic.twitter.com/WiYVScTAOK

— Bipartisan Report (@Bipartisanism) November 11, 2016

STATEMENT, November 10, 2016

ROMS Incident

We are committed to providing a safe, secure, and supportive learning environment for all students.

R.O. Supt. Update Nov. 10 2016
Yesterday, November 9, 2016, there was an incident during one of the lunches at Royal Oak Middle School that was captured on video and posted to social media. In the incident a small group of students engaged in a brief “build the wall” chant. School personnel in the cafeteria responded when this occurred.

We are committed to providing a safe, secure, and supportive learning environment for all students. We addressed this incident when it occurred. We are addressing it today. We are working with our students to help them understand the impact of their words and actions on others in their school community. Our school district and each building in it works every day to be a welcoming community for all, inclusive and caring, where all students know they are valued, safe and supported.

Because of the strong emotions and intensity of rhetoric that the posting of this incident to social media has elicited, we have had families express concern regarding student safety. Know that we work with our partners in law enforcement on responding to any and all threats that have been or will be made involving our students or schools.

In responding to this incident – indeed in responding to this election – we need to hear each other’s stories, not slogans, we need to work towards understanding, not scoring points, and we need to find a way to move forward that respects and values each and every member of our community. We will be working on this in school today. Please work on this with us.

Sincerely,
Shawn Lewis-Lakin, Superintendent of Schools
Royal Oak Schools: A Community of Excellence

Jake ‏@__27K  

My first set of photos from tonight's Anti-Trump Protest in Chicago. Hate will never win.

10 November 2016

Anti-Trump rally San Francisco

Anti-Trump protest in downtown SF pic.twitter.com/h6La8QUomK

— 👻The Yoc 🎃 (@AntiochTweets) November 10, 2016

Via neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer, 9 November 2016:

Former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan

David Duke‏@DrDavidDuke

This is one of the most exciting nights of my life -> make no mistake about it, our people have played a HUGE role in electing Trump! #MAGA

         RETWEETS 3,883

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6:14 PM - 9 Nov 2016

Donald J. Trump Verified account‏ @realDonaldTrump

Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!

        RETWEETS 31,519

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1:19 PM - 11 Nov 2016

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has recorded over 200 incidents of intimidation and harassment since election day:

United States Senator for Nevada Harry Reid (DEM), press release, 11 November 2016:

Reid Statement on the Election of Donald Trump

Washington, D.C. – Nevada Senator Harry Reid released the following statement about the election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States: 

“I have personally been on the ballot in Nevada for 26 elections and I have never seen anything like the reaction to the election completed last Tuesday. The election of Donald Trump has emboldened the forces of hate and bigotry in America.

“White nationalists, Vladimir Putin and ISIS are celebrating Donald Trump’s victory, while innocent, law-abiding Americans are wracked with fear – especially African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Muslim Americans, LGBT Americans and Asian Americans. Watching white nationalists celebrate while innocent Americans cry tears of fear does not feel like America.

“I have heard more stories in the past 48 hours of Americans living in fear of their own government and their fellow Americans than I can remember hearing in five decades in politics.

Hispanic Americans who fear their families will be torn apart, African Americans being heckled on the street, Muslim Americans afraid to wear a headscarf, gay and lesbian couples having slurs hurled at them and feeling afraid to walk down the street holding hands. American children waking up in the middle of the night crying, terrified that Trump will take their parents away. Young girls unable to understand why a man who brags about sexually assaulting women has been elected president.

“I have a large family. I have one daughter and twelve granddaughters. The texts, emails and phone calls I have received from them have been filled with fear – fear for themselves, fear for their Hispanic and African American friends, for their Muslim and Jewish friends, for their LBGT friends, for their Asian friends. I’ve felt their tears and I’ve felt their fear.

“We as a nation must find a way to move forward without consigning those who Trump has threatened to the shadows. Their fear is entirely rational, because Donald Trump has talked openly about doing terrible things to them. Every news piece that breathlessly obsesses over inauguration preparations compounds their fear by normalizing a man who has threatened to tear families apart, who has bragged about sexually assaulting women and who has directed crowds of thousands to intimidate reporters and assault African Americans. Their fear is legitimate and we must refuse to let it fall through the cracks between the fluff pieces.

“If this is going to be a time of healing, we must first put the responsibility for healing where it belongs: at the feet of Donald Trump, a sexual predator who lost the popular vote and fueled his campaign with bigotry and hate. Winning the electoral college does not absolve Trump of the grave sins he committed against millions of Americans. Donald Trump may not possess the capacity to assuage those fears, but he owes it to this nation to try.

“If Trump wants to roll back the tide of hate he unleashed, he has a tremendous amount of work to do and he must begin immediately.”

Trump's frequently racist comments during the presidential election campaign would have come as no surprise to those who knew his background.

Here is a piece of Trump family history which Trump refuses to admit - his father appears to be one of seven robed men arrested in a 1,000 strong contingent of Klu Klux Klan members who attempted to enter a 1927 Memorial Day March.

Donald Trump’s childhood home at 175-24 Devonshire Road, Jamaica, New York where he lived with his parents Fred and Mary Trump according to media reports:

Images found at http://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/nyttrump.jpg & http://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/nyttrump.jpg

Vice, 10 March 2016:

But the particulars of the David Duke incident call to mind yet another news story, one that suggests that Trump's father, the late New York real estate titan Fred Trump, once wore the robe and hood of a Klansman……

In the decades following the 1927 rally, after Fred Trump had gone on to become a wealthy real estate developer and landlord to thousands of New Yorkers, he faced accusations of racism, some of which were relatively quiet and informal. In the 1950s, one of his tenants, folk icon Woody Guthrie, wrote in the lyrics of an unpublished song that Fred Trump had drawn a "color line" in his Brooklyn neighborhood. "I suppose / Old Man Trump knows / Just how much / Racial Hate / He stirred up," the lyrics go. According to Trump biographer Gwenda Blair, Fred Trump, who had close ties to the Federal Housing Administration in the 1950s, likely profited from racist practices that the government tacitly endorsed at the time.

Formal accusations of racial bias in Fred Trump's residential real estate business eventually materialized in 1973, around the time that his son Donald was taking over management of the company. In a lawsuit filed that year, the US Department of Justice alleged that Trump Management Corporation had violated the Fair Housing Act of 1968 by systematically denying people rentals "because of race and color." Fred Trump, testifying as company president, said he was "unfamiliar" with the Fair Housing Act, and that he hadn't changed his business practices after the federal law went into effect.

In 1975, the Trumps made a deal with the government to resolve the suit without an admission of guilt. According to a New York Times story from June 11, 1975, the Trump Management Corporation "promised not to discriminate against blacks, Puerto Ricans, and other minorities." But in 1978, the Justice Department filed another discrimination suit against the company, alleging that the Trumps weren't complying with the original terms of the 1975 settlement.

A 1979 story in the Village Voice chronicled the rise of Trump's real estate empire, including allegations of racial discrimination at properties managed by Trump. According to the Voice, when there were vacancies in a Trump housing block, rental applications were secretly marked with the applicant's race, and doormen were coached to discourage black people from renting. At times, Trump rental agents were allegedly told simply not to rent to black people. In 1983, the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal looked at two "Trump Village" residential properties, and found that they were 95 percent white.

In subsequent years, as Donald Trump morphed into a grandstanding tabloid celebrity, he developed a reputation for agitating the public about racially-charged issues. In 1989, he faced national criticism over full-page ads he took out in New York newspapers, warning of "roving bands of wild criminals" and calling for the return of the death penalty in a veiled reference to the Central Park Five. More recently, in the lead-up to the last presidential race, he reignited right-wing conspiracies over Barack Obama's birthplace, sending a team of investigators to Hawaii to uncover the president's true origins.

So the fact that race has become a central part of Trump's 2016 campaign should come as no surprise. Despite Trump's own insistence that he's the "least racist person that you have ever met," devoted racists like Duke are thrilled that The Donald has "sparked an insurgency." Trump may reject their endorsements, but that doesn't mean they've rejected him in return.

Some facts about Donald John Trump (born June 1946) – the self-proclaimed outsider and everyman - you may not know.

* Donald is not a self-made man. He was a ‘trust fund kid’.  His father was a wealthy builder and property developer who created million dollar trust funds while he was alive for each of his five children and a much larger one for his wife. Donald received regular dividends from his trust.

* By the time he was 31 years of age The 1976 Trust paid Trump $19,000 in 1977, $47,200 in 1978, $70,000 in 1979, $90,000 in 1980 and $214,605 in 1981. Trump also received about $12,000 a year from a 1949 trust set up by his father and nearly $2,000 a year from another 1949 trust created by his grandmother. He also received a $6,000 gift every December from his parents.

* On the death of his mother he also shared in the est. US$30 million trust that has been created for her.

* Donald did not establish the original Trump company, he took over the family real estate business E. Trump & Son in the early 1970s when his father retired, renaming it the Trump Organisation.

* Donald also borrowed a total of around US$26.5 million directly from his father whenever he found himself in financial difficulties and also relied on his father to guarantee business loans he organized with banks or act as silent partner in new projects.

* He also accessed trust money ‘loans’ on a number of occasions totalling at least US$9 million by the time he turned 50 years of age.

* After his father’s death in June 1999 a 53 year old Trump borrowed an est. US$30 million from the estate (est. to be worth around $200-300 million before taxes) to pay business debts and personal expenses.

* Trump’s three oldest children also inherited money from their grandfather’s estate.

* Donald declared businesses he owned bankrupt on six separate occasions – four times in the 1990s, once in 2004 and once in 2009.

* Trump has been called the King of Frivolous Lawsuit, suing a book author, a Miss USA contestant, a comedian, and global financial institutions.

* By the 1980s Forbes Magazine reportedly put Donald Trump’s personal wealth at est. US$200 million.

* Around 2000 Donald Trump and his surviving brother and sister cancelled a nephew’s medical insurance when the nephew challenged the terms of Fred Trump’s will – leaving a chronically ill infant without medical cover.

* In 2015 Donald was stating that his net worth was US$10 billion, although by 2016 Forbes was only placing his personal wealth at US$3.7 billion.

* Trump has an opulent lifestyle, with private residences in New York, Palm Beach, Bedford, Charlottesville and Beverly Hills. This posed photograph is of Donald, Melania and Barron in the penthouse at Trump Towers, Fifth Avenue, New York:

House Beautiful 9 May 2016: “The family at home”

These are some Australian's whose support of  Donald Trump may yet come back to haunt them.....

Janet Albrechtsen (foreground) Mark Latham (behind her left shoulder)

Malcolm Farr (seated fourth from left)

Pauline Hanson One Nation Party

Liberal Senator for South Australia Cory Bernardi

https://twitter.com/corybernardi/status/796333866256625664

Liberal Prime Minster Malcolm Bligh Turnbull

“I have had, earlier this morning, a very warm and constructive and practical discussion with President-elect Trump.

 We canvassed a number of issues. Most importantly, we absolutely agreed on the vital importance of our strong alliance. I suppose as both being businessmen who found our way into politics, somewhat later in life, we come to the problems of our own nations and indeed world problems with a pragmatic approach. Mr Trump is a deal maker. He is a businessman, a deal maker and he will, I have no doubt, view the world in a very practical and pragmatic way.” [news.com.au, 11 November 2016]