Dear OLO colleagues, I attended the Coburg protest rally this past Saturday in my capacity as roving reporter for an Australian Nationalist blog which few people actually read but which is a big deal for our small editorial group.
I made extensive notes, took photos and video and stayed with the most violent Anti Fascists and Muslim protestors for the whole day, while not a riot as suggested in the media it was an interesting day out for many reasons.
My report:
https://unitednationalistsaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/05/29/a-footloose-nationalist-at-a-patriot-bundle/

Link fixed: http://unitednationalistsaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/05/29/a-footloose-nationalist-at-a-patriot-bundle/

Dear Jay,

Thanks for your link.

From the photographs the entire protest appears somewhat
frightening. So many people. And I don't quite understand
what they were protesting against and what they hoped to
achieve and also why did some wear masks?

What was their aim. And in actual fact - did they succeed
what they had set out to do?

Hi Foxy,
The stated aim of Cr Sue Bolton's rally was to protest offshore processing of illegal migrants, the closure of Aboriginal communities and "Islamophobia", she was urged by Police and local traders to abandon the plan due to the potential for violence and disruption to Saturday shopping but she refused.

The United Patriots Front and their associates decided to counter protest the Bolton rally in order to draw violent Left wing groups to the event with a view to provoking the self styled "Anti Fascists" and local Muslim gangs into riotous behaviour, thus discrediting the many social justice groups who had signed on as sponsors or supporters of Sue Bolton.

As for the masks the two groups wear them for different reasons, the Leftists and Anarchists mask up to hide their identities from police, the right wingers claim that they do so to protect their identities from the Anti Fascists who have been known to track people down and attack them at their homes or places of work.

What was achieved? Well Sue Bolton's rally went ahead though the bulk of the attendees split off to run amok and start fights as described in the article. The patriots also achieved their aim of provoking the far Left into violence and as the news reports today show Sue Bolton and her supporters are in hot water with talk of legal action by local traders.
If anything the UPF were better behaved and showed more respect for the local community by holding their rally in a local park and obeying Police instructions as opposed to shutting down both Sydney road and Bell St as the Left did, ruining the day for locals and depriving businesses of their takings.

In fact only one of the fights involved UPF men, the Left and a gang of Lebanese Muslims rose to their provocation and crashed the police lines, resulting in a short, sharp fistfight which was subdued with OC spray. The other incidents were all a result of attacks on Police by Leftist and Muslim goons.

Dear Jay,

Thanks for explaining and answering my questions.

I have to admit that I don't understand people
resorting to violence and hate speech.

We are willing to label Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Idi Amin,
as sub-human zealots - why not those who preach hatred against
others who won't accept the fanatics "views?"

How do we solve these problems? Any ideas?

I dunno Foxy, politics is essentially a group activity and all political groups regardless of the message they are pushing will attract a lawless element who are too thick to be much use aside from punching on at the front of the crowd.
it's not all doom and gloom though.
I can only speak for the Nationalist side but we have some great young guys coming up, they're trying to revive the old Friendly Society and Mechanics Institute style of community organising starting with people under 25, good luck to them too.
I've also met some very intelligent young Marxist Leninists in my travels, good kids really who'll no doubt be open to better ideas as they mature.

Hey Jay of Melbourne,
Seems to me as though they are all useful idiots being played off against each other and I wonder what the bigger picture is.
Does the ongoing feud between these two groups actually serve to prevent any genuine 'reasonable nationalist pushback'?

Dear Jay,

Thanks again.

I must say I'm impressed.

I must say that to me the solution has to be to improve
the knoweldge of people across the board. But how to make
progress is the difficulty. Unless we can challenge the
next generation to higher standards of ethics - there doesn't
seem to be much hope.

You sound so passionate in what you post. That I admire.

Rallies protests, whatever you call them, are merely vehicles for hotheads to show themselves up as the idiots they are - even though most of us don't give a toss about them or what they are screeching and fighting about. I don't care whether they are left or right; all 'demonstrators' are morons. Nothing was ever gained through rowdy, violent protests

Armchair Critic,
The UPF at this point are not under the thumb of the Liberal party like Party for Freedom and Australian Liberty Alliance, they broke away from Reclaim Australia in May 2015 and ran off all their lunatics and troublemakers over the summer this year. What's left is a much smaller, more dynamic group who can be counted on to turn up to every rally and seminar, they're not Nationalists as we'd define the term but they're slowly coming around to our idea that the Australian radical tradition (the pre Whitlam Labor party, if you will) is the true "Aussie Spirit". That the Chifley (and more broadly the Attlee) model if it had run it's course would have provided a much fairer and more stable society than the one we have now.
Whats' taken we old school Nationalists by surprise is that these guys are so young, mostly under 25 and that we had nothing to do with starting their movements, the UPF are mainly active in Perth and in Melbourne but there are other groups in Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane.
So yes, there is a genuine revival of Nationalism building in Australia led by young men who rather than copying counterproductive sub-cultures from overseas are looking back to Spence, Lang, Chifley, Calwell and the way Australian society was actually structured before multiculturalism.
The power struggle between the mainstream Right and Nationalism is more pressing than the mopping up of what's left of the Socialist and Anarchist groups. there's an anti communist Left faction on our side, an activist Catholic faction and a neutral faction whose goal is to attract members who are primarily opposed to globalisation, regardless of their preferred economic theories.
The best part is that people are now throwing over the internet as the preferred means of communication and holding regular face to face meetings or talking by phone, that's a big step.

"The United Patriots Front and their associates decided to counter protest the Bolton rally in order to draw violent Left wing groups to the event with a view to provoking the self styled "Anti Fascists" and local Muslim gangs into riotous behaviour, thus discrediting the many social justice groups"

This could be re-written as

"'The "Anti Fascists" and their associates decided to protest in order to draw violent United Patriots Front people to the event with a view to provoking them into counter-protest with riotous behaviour, thus discrediting the many conservative groups'.

Both sides are equally responsible, playing a tit-for-tat game. The face masks and violence on both sides give it away. I don't want either in my country.

Why on earth emulate the sunni v shiite violence/counterviolence? (Or catholic v protestant, or any other faction v. faction) You know where that leads!

//Seems to me as though they are all useful idiots being played off against each other and I wonder what the bigger picture is.//

ttbn and Cossomby are right.

They are not useful idiots and there is no bigger picture. They are all useless idiots scrapping in the streets like stray cats. Pathetic savages from the shallow end of the gene pool with nothing better to do than brawl and carry on to get attention.

Hopefully they will soon realise that they are almost universally despised and that nobody will listen to them no matter how shrilly they screech, and crawl back under their rocks.

Cossomby,
Nope, the UPF have no ties whatsoever to the conservatives, the Liberals or any other group, they operate independently, as do Socialist Alternative and ANTIFA.
UPF activism ground to a halt at the end of January because the members had exhausted their personal savings and maxed their credit cards, they receive no funding or assistance from conservatives or anyone else.
I was there and the footage shown on all the news services validates my report, UPF were certainly ready for a fight but they were attacked first by a gang of Muslim men and ANTIFA who were definitely bent on doing them harm. The Muslims then attacked the UPF as they were trying to leave to go home via a laneway through the old Pentridge prison and the main reason these fights occurred was because the police in their riot gear couldn't run as fast as the protestors and the mounted units were stretched thin.
It's my personal view that if the police had had officers on bicycles as well, as they do in the U.S the situation might have been easier to control.
I saw half a dozen violent confrontations over the two hours or so of the rally, only two involved the UPF, the rest were the result of Muslims and ANTIFA attacking police.

Just as a further note these "flagpoles" seen being swung by brawlers in the news footage are actually lengths of plastic electrical conduit, wooden poles have been banned from rallies for years.

Jay: Actually it's irrelevant who has ties to what.

You were clear: one mob, the United Patriots Front set out 'to provoke' the other mob into 'riotous behaviour' in order to discredit 'the many social justice groups'.

Just one bunch of young thugs provoking another bunch of young thugs, both wearing masks. Each side trying to justify their anti-social behaviour with motherhood statements: nationalism / social justice.

Unacceptable.

Cosssomby,
Yes, That's about the size of it but the UPF, though thoroughly prepared for a fight followed Police instructions, it was the ANTIFA and Muslims gangs who broke the Police line and threw the first punches.
I've been to all the major rallies over the last 12 months bar the Melton one in November, about half the time on each side of the police lines, in 100% of cases the violence has been instigated by the Left, it's their long standing bad reputation which the UPF has been seeking to exploit.

"The United Patriots Front (UPF), otherwise known as Fortitude, is a populist far-right street protest movement and Facebook group based in Australia which opposes immigration, multiculturalism and Islam.[3][4] It is a splinter group from the anti-Islamic Reclaim Australia group, formed after a dispute between Shermon Burgess and Reclaim Australia organisers.[5][6] The group has been described as a hate group."
Wikipedia.

Yes Jay Of Melbourne belongs to this racist hate group who were responsible for the "Ban All Mosques" banners at two AFL matches that was roundly condemned by almost all groups in Australian society at the time.

Jay certainly comes across as a reasonable, personable contributor to this forum, and appears to be intelligent. This makes him even more dangerous, in my opinion, than the mindless thugs that do the dirty work for him and other good old boy members of that delightful group.

"The leader of the United Patriots Front, Blair Cottrell, said the rally was an "initial success" but then "the police happened".

"They prevented us from doing what we wanted to do, which was to move up that street to counter the opposition," he said.

He said he wanted to counter the opposing group "in the same way that they do, with force and terror"."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-28/coburg-anti-racism-rally-protesters-take-to-melbourne-streets/7455832

Well this Cottrell bloke sounds like a very peaceful and reasonable sort of fella (sarcasm).

As it turns out, he's a convicted arsonist and stalker as well as a neo-Nazi and woman beater. And this is the bloke they have leading the UPF, so presumably he's the one of best character... makes you wonder what the rest of the thugs have on their rap sheets.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/blair-cottrell-leader-of-aussie-patriots-upf-wanted-hitler-in-the-classroom-20151016-gkbbvz.html

//I can only speak for the Nationalist side but we have some great young guys coming up//

Yeah, your mates sound like top blokes Jay (more sarcasm).

Suse,
I may have expressed support for UPF in their early months (ie before they embraced some fundamental lies) but I'm not a member of their group, never have been and if you'd care to read through the articles on the UNA site you'll see a deep distrust, even contempt among Nationalists for their methods.
Here's our latest piece:
http://unitednationalistsaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/05/31/chris-shortiss-video-sorts-the-nationalists-from-the-zionists/

I gratefully accept your characterisation of myself as "intelligent" and "dangerous", it's exactly the effect we're looking for.

Toni, if you're not going to read the links I post kindly butt out, Blair Cottrell isn't a Nationalist, he's a self styled "Patriot" the distinction goes to the heart of the discussion.
As for his criminal record that's unlikely to worry the demographic to whom he's pitching his group now is it? Several people in my family have also been to jail in their teens, undergone rehabilitation and then made something of their lives, we "plebs" don't immediately die of shame every time someone brings up past mistakes.
But as we know your kind aren't big on the idea of the uneducated, marginalised White underclass having any sort of political representation or a vehicle for expressing their opinions.

Jay: It would be nice if they had any opinions other than 'let's go and bash someone up' or 'let's go and provoke some-one so we can have a punch-up'. Not a lot of difference between this lot (these lots) and the one-punch cowards, apart from picking up a few slogans and feeling entitled.

There have been many threads discussing the issue of 'entitlement'; this lot provides an example 'I'm white, male, uneducated - I'm ENTITLED!' Normally you and other posters would be saying: they should get off their back-sides and take some responsibility, get educated, get a job etc. (Not a lot of jobs around? be entrepreneurial, go out and make one)

Dear Foxy,

You wrote of JOM “I must say I'm impressed.” and “You sound so passionate in what you post. That I admire.”

From his article;

“After perhaps fifteen minutes, the Patriots moved from their position astride both lanes of Bell Street back into the park, save for a small contingent who mounted the porch of the nearby primary school to unfurl an Australian, and a stinking Israeli flag.”

Well 'stinking Israeli flag” certainly exhibits a passion, I'm not sure how admirable it really is.

Dear suseonline,

JOM mentions the Israeli flag a further two more times. It seems to me his brand of nationalism is a borrowed one that does not appear to speak to an intelligence of note at all. Perhaps you have seen something I haven't.

Has anyone tested the water in Melbourne.
Looking at it from Sydney, I think Melbourne is quite quickly going
stark raving mad !

We see all these weird ideas coming out of the southern metro and
appear to be centred on Latrobe University.

Perhaps someone needs to put a sedative into the water supply.