Some patriots are willing to die for their country – but it seems the lads at Australia’s eternally splintering far-right group United Patriots Front (UPF) have taken their devotion to a whole new level. They’re willing to die just for a good laugh.
The UPF is geeing up for a series of new rallies and demonstrations around the country in the new year and keeping up the regular social media posts; videos of leaders in tank tops, articles about Muslims and leftist groups, etc.
Unfortunately, in their haste to promote the revolution, somebody forgot to check their news source. Earlier in the week the UPF shared this article from their Facebook page, which boasts an impressive 32,000 followers. The piece reported that Aboriginal and Muslim groups had teamed up with republican and Fairfax columnist Peter FitzSimons, among others, to promote a new national flag. If that doesn’t seem a bit odd, you would have thought a quick look at the supposed design might have set off some alarm bells about the authenticity of the article.
But not for the boys of the UPF, who posted it to their page with the following comment:
“Islamic and Aboriginal rights groups (most of which are not even lead [sic]by Aboriginal people) working together to pitch a new flag, one that they feel represents “Australian minorities first, white Australians second”.
You’ll have to kill us first 🙂 Good luck!”
Thankfully, however, no one is going to be killing for this flag in a hurry. As some UPF fans quickly pointed out, The Betoota Advocate is a satirical newspaper and the piece was entirely fictional, much as its January 18 story ‘Inside the United Patriots Front annual ‘white party’’ yarn was. Others were not quite so sharp, leaving comments underneath the post calling for genocide.
“If the UPF continue to use the Australian bush as an expression of their Australian-ness, we will continue to ridicule them,” pseudonymous Betoota editor Clancy Overell told New Matilda. “The Australian bush does not belong to cape-wearing bogans, it is not a tool for them to differentiate their movement from the rest of this country.”
It’s not the first time UPF and affiliates have fallen for the fallen for the outlet’s hijinks. Let’s hope it’s not the last.
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