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!!! Part 1 in my controversial series overviews the concept of #redbrown and introduces how sometimes the far right will use leftist aesthetics. Part 2 next week is a very WILD read about the pure red-brown outlets. P3 in two weeks will be about how they spread into the left. https://twitter.com/C4ARR/status/1303588955879735296
This series focuses on how Syria and #COVID19 conspiracies seem to be ubiquitous if differently flavored among the broader #redbrown media ecosystem. The degree of similarity, even wholesale syndication, of content and authors suggests a semi-coordinated attack on truthful info.
For part 1 I focus on the connections between the far-right @/RussiaInsider and Daily Stormer and how they network with and lift content from the left. This starts to get into how short-term shared values against things like liberal 'democracy' can create some bizarre bedfellows.
This series advocates for a profoundly modernized and complex internationalism as the only path through the twin existential threats of information warfare and fascism. New fascism does not look like old fascism. So our analyses and resistance must evolve similarly.
The image in the original post here tells the story. A collection of RU gov accounts and "alt-imperialists" (h/t @joeyayoub ) follow this Holocaust denial website that syndicates SYR/covid conspiracy.
I will include each of the three parts of the series in a mega thread here : )
I will include each of the three parts of the series in a mega thread here : )
!! Part 2 of red-brown series is now out! I promise this part is weirdly a fun and wild read. Both people familiar with or new to the phenomena will get stuff from this. This looks at the weird beating heart of conspiracy spread between the left and right https://twitter.com/C4ARR/status/1306850443776200707?s=20
21st Century Wire, Veterans Today, Duginist Websites, and New Horizon oh my! These networks are shocking and confusing but nonetheless it is part of an explicitly fascist blend of left and right populist alliance against liberalism. COVID and Syria conspiracy are key pillars.
@/veteranstoday appeals to veterans and the "clandestine community" but works openly with RU and Syrian intelligence agencies and was co-founded by a member of the National Socialist Movement. Their paypal shows that they also run an veteran hiring service and an app!
They spread ample conspiracies from the believable to satanic illuminati plots but they always return to anti Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) content and COVID conspiracies. They were also recently connected indirectly to the IED incident in Portland.
What's mainly interesting is the chaotic ways in which they blend leftist style "anti-imperialist" content with their other far-right content like "Free David Duke".
The second website is @/21WIRE is run by someone who got his start on a bigfoot radio show and on infowars, Patrick Henningsen. After that he founded his own outlet, took a junket mokhabarat tour of Damascus, and decided he was an expert on things like Syria and COVID.
This is the same man who was a repeated guest on white supremacist podcasts but yet is often seen as a leftist source on things like chemical weapons investigations in Syria. https://twitter.com/emmibevensee/status/1229449994287140864?s=20
He is a rapid lockdown critic and COVID denialist but as the image chosen by CARR shows has trouble with concepts like compound interest.
The next section is more of a place holder for the beating heart theoretical center of red-brownism which is a wide range of pro-Kremlin Duginist websites. These guys are fascists and they know it. They cite "super fascists" like Evola as guides in meetings w gov officials.
They operate an elaborate network of sketchy blogs, fake think tanks and journals, and conferences that weirdo 'leftists' like Pepe Escobar frequent. Of course they're all pro Assad and anti-OPCW and spread COVID conspiracies like that 5G caused it or that it's a US bioweapon.
The final thing covered is a series of conferences not an outlet per se but it connects all of the orgs mentioned above as either "Friends" or regular guests. This section is mostly covered by @areidross here but there are some other important bits. https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium-russia-s-role-in-an-anti-semitism-fest-for-fascists-feminists-spies-and-neo-nazi-1.7003563
This Iranian conference is wild. It's filled to the brim with hardcore Holocaust denialists, far-right figures such as an AfD false flag arson suspect (or David Duke!), and leftists alongside hardcore Duginists like the man himself.
Some of the 'anti-imperialists' who have attended this are: Caleb Maupin, Ajamu Baraka, Pepe Escobar, Gareth Porter, Cynthia McKinney, and Medea Benjamin. Gareth expressed regret while others like Pepe are just regular attendees.
Interestingly, Cynthia's recent idea via Maram Susli (partisan girl of SSNP, David Duke, and Richard Spencer infamy) that Black Lives Matter is a color revolution has seemingly made it's way all the way to Glenn Beck! It's getting weird folks! https://twitter.com/jaredlholt/status/1306996178303754240
This conference shows the way that strange bedfellows can spread dangerous conspiracies such as genocide denial in a short-sighted alliance against shared enemies. True internationalism asks us to reject this devils bargain in favor of complex solidarity and critical thought.
PART 2 article here: https://www.radicalrightanalysis.com/2020/09/18/how-covid-and-syria-conspiracy-theories-introduce-fascism-to-the-left-part-2-the-red-brown-media-spectrum/
There's a really weird version of this going on in Brazil right now as well through the infiltration of the PDT by neointegralist movements. I understand less about it but from what I've heard it seems exactly the same. https://twitter.com/bicicreta/status/1306731350104440839
!!! Part 3 (final part) in my red brown series is now live. This is the most controversial part of the series because i try to delicately look at the ways that things like genocide denial are becoming revitalized in the left through this media ecosystem. https://twitter.com/C4ARR/status/1309387162966781964?s=20
"Left leaning red-brown ideology invisibilizes not just the possibility of holding complex multi-leveled analyses but also those movements on the ground fighting fascism + imperialism from nested cores and peripheries who are often asking explicitly for international solidarity"
The most recent big example of this is the idea that BLM is a color revolution moving from fascist Engdahl via left identified Global Research all the way to Glenn Beck and Tucker Carlson w/ stops at Cynthia McKinney and PartisanGirl. On Fox it's possible that Trump saw it.
This obviously opens the door to wide swaths of repression against the left. Our lack of immunity to red-brown conspiracy sites literally contributes to our vulnerability as movements in pipelines like these. https://twitter.com/jaredlholt/status/1306996178303754240?s=20
I'm not the only one raising red alarms on the false logic of "The US says that this genocide is happening, so therefore it is not happening and we must cover up any evidence of it to resist imperialism" and how this opens the door to Holocaust denial. https://twitter.com/LeilaShami/status/1306564821308112897?s=20
I also discuss the impact of blogs like Grayzone and their cluster on the left more broadly and how comments like this open the door from Chinese state crimes denial to Holocaust denialists posing as leftists (user 2 loves Norton): https://archive.vn/wao5V https://archive.vn/VmXWY
When outlets fail to distinguish their views from near-conspiratorial/far-right/syncretic fascist alliances through dissociation, it normalizes their corrosive influence into movements that would otherwise be ideologically opposed to the creep of fascist entryism.
So when the Christchurch attacker identifies as an anti-imperialist that is obviously completely incoherent but also we bear some responsibility for not more clearly drawing the lines between leftist internationalism and genocidal red-brown populism.
But there are many movements and outlets that are doing their best to create nuanced internationalism amidst threats from every side. Resisting both western imperialism and local fascist movements in or outside the state. It's a hard line to draw but many are bravely trying.
But remember that those pushing these corrosive lies also have powerful friends. Aside from genocide denial, they are also bullies and use smears and legal threats to silence political opponents, seemingly especially those most directly affected.
We must do better or the future will reflect the weight of these shortsighted alliances. But every step towards a complex radical internationalism builds the foundation for powerfully resisting the interconnected enemies of liberation. They cross borders, our resistance must too.
(as kind of an aside but an interesting small fact from this article, USAGM - radio free asia etc. - has repeatedly failed to respond to my FOIA requests about their involvement with Trumpian/CIA director Pompeo)
Also @Vorkoz is someone who helped with a lot of the details in this piece and knows the history well.
