“Good luck with the future, gentlemen,” County Court Judge Kellie Blair said to the pair, as she stepped off the bench at the end of hearing.
Shit’s getting really bad. I mean I’m not sure what I think on the judgement, but the fact that there’s people here walking around with Nazi symbols and openly literally becoming members of the National Socialist Network. How has it all gone so wrong and so… Weird.
We’ve always had odd balls, arseholes, pointlessly angry people, racists, homophobes, all varieties of people out on the fringe of generally acceptable behaviours. Modern technology has allowed them to find community and sort of glob together much easier, be much louder and more visible, spread their particular brand of thought.
Just my musings anyway. They were always there, the regular people were just more numerous and those on the fringe couldn’t find each other so easily.
I think we surpassed the “finding community” part long ago.
These days white extremists are manufactured by other white extremists on social media – the closest thing we’ve ever built to mind control.
The underlying grooming strategies aren’t much different to the ones Islamic extremists have been using on budding young suicide bombers for decades, they just throw in a few more memes.
Oh and most importantly, profits. There’s a lot of ad impressions and user engagement on the path from human being to far-right terrorist, eventually culminating in gun-based mass murder that is like Christmas for the gun lobby and for-profit media.
The brain washing Nazi funnel starts at the main stream media especially the Murdoch media empire. Social media just finishes the job.
I think there’s also just good old poverty and hopelessness.
It seems like life is just getting harder for younger generations. No homes, shit jobs, fix the planet for us, etc etc.
Frustration and feelings of persecution breeds this kind of tribalism and manifests as some kind of hatred.
Targeting young, disillusioned men isn’t a new invention – Islamic extremists have been doing it in the Middle East for decades.
But America has brought modern convenience to the process. Fresh meat is easy to find and they only need a few hundred bucks to buy a gun for maximum damage and minimum risk.
deleted by creator
Social media. That is how.
It has gone so wrong because liberalism has failed. We need political movements which serve the people, not the corporations.
This:
“In both your cases your prospects of rehabilitation are good,” she said.
Does not really jive with this:
Sewell’s reprieve came nine months after he was also spared jail by a magistrate for a separate incident, when he repeatedly punched a Channel Nine security guard at the network’s Melbourne headquarters while on bail, as Hersant filmed.
They spouted homophobic and anti-Semitic slurs and walked off.
Chances of rehabilitation are good huh?
Victorian hikers
Hikers from the Victoria state of Australia :P
“I swear your honour, she came at me with her hat pin!”
This was my first thought as well before I put two and two together lol.
In 2017 Sewell attempted to recruit the perpetrator of the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings into the Lads Society.
That’s just openly endorsing terrorism.
The far-right do openly endorse terrorism. The funnel starts with people like Elon, Tucker, Peterson and Rogan and ends in Discord channels where mass shooters that hunt minorities are openly celebrated.
When they’re not doing that, they’re brainstorming ways to breed more far-right terrorists, which almost always involves memes and identifying vulnerable communities.
I’ve seen the dog-whistle memes and LGBTQ+ bashing but usually it’s not as blatantly unsubtle as this. (Well from what I’ve seen so far)
On Thursday, Sewell told the court that he would be “very happy with a fine” and asked the court not to impose a conviction.
It’s almost like the court is encouraging their violence
Sickening
Well, it is Australia.
They’ve made great strides recently but there’s a huge cross section of society that seem like angry, hot-headed and intolerant people.
But I’m a kiwi, so could just be projecting…
deleted by creator
Ha! The herald? No thanks, I’d rather lick the bathroom wall
Hey now Australia, I know we’re all in a race to the bottom, but give the rest of us a chance… 🙄
MURICA: “HOLD MA BEER!”
Yeah, in my mind it was implied that that’s who we were all racing to catch up to, but I could have been more clear lol
deleted by creator
Australia is already run by organized crime. I guess fascism isnt too much of a stretch after that.
These fucking idiots need to be kicked in the dick to death.
Remember what is a good Nazi!
This is lemmy, you can say it out loud.
Only good Nazi is a dead Nazi.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Thomas Sewell and Jacob Hersant were on Friday convicted of violent disorder, over their role in a 2021 incident where far-right extremists ambushed hikers in regional Victoria.
“Good luck with the future, gentlemen,” County Court Judge Kellie Blair said to the pair, as she stepped off the bench at the end of hearing.
Sewell previously spent about six months behind bars in the early stages of the case, after he was denied bail due to fears he would commit further offences and intimidate witnesses.
Hersant, who served three days of pre-sentence custody, was also allowed to walk free on Friday but will have to complete 200 hours of community work.
Sewell’s reprieve came nine months after he was also spared jail by a magistrate for a separate incident, when he repeatedly punched a Channel Nine security guard at the network’s Melbourne headquarters while on bail, as Hersant filmed.
On Friday, the court heard the pair were with about 25 other men from Nationalist Socialist Network and the European Australian Movement in the Cathedral Ranges State Park on May 8, 2021.
The original article contains 495 words, the summary contains 177 words. Saved 64%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
deleted by creator
And now one of them is reportedly under investigation for allegedly performing a Nazi salute after that court appearance: https://www.9news.com.au/national/victoria-news-first-person-to-be-charged-in-for-performing-nazi-salute-under-new-laws/accddf5a-d263-4a49-813c-3117adb674d1 (a law prohibiting Nazi salutes, displaying swastikas, etc… came into force in Victoria on the 21st October, 3 days prior to the court appearance).
Victorian hikers? Did they fucking travel back in time?
Victoria was a British queen. Sometimes places are named after famous people. This website has a .au adress. It’s Australian news. Australia was part of the British Empire when Victoria was queen.
Did they fucking travel back in time?
Yes. They travelled back in time from the 19th century/Victorian times to the 21st century.
Irony, people! It’s a fracking pun! And a funny one too 😤
deleted by creator
😂 have my upvote!
Neo-nazis[citation needed]
The article you didn’t read.
Except I did, the article is sourceless
As Hyperreality says, the article is a source.
But if you would like more sources, you should check out Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sewell_(Australian_neo-Nazi)
EDIT: You can also have a scroll through these image search results: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=thomas+sewell+nazi+salute&t=fpas&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images
I stand corrected.
The important part was that you got the far-right talking point out there.
Too often I see people being called neo-nazis just because they have different world views from the woke herd. I’d rather treat labels like this with caution as it’s far too easy to hurt someone’s image undeserved, especially when biased media starts echoing these claims.
Different world views like what?
You realise woke herd is just another label, right?
With that talking point expressed with that vocabulary, you should probably be more careful about whose opinions you adopt.
When they say “we need to start loading people onto trains”, that’s not just their “different world view” about the role of public transportation.
Fuck off. If you wanted a source, you would have asked for one
The article is reporting on a court case, the public court record is the obvious source.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
I stand corrected.