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Part II: Grayzone News & the Rise of Left Conspiratism
I left off discussing how American Affairs helped fuel RW tendencies in Dirtbag & DSA circles thru their useful idiots. Now I'll discuss how Grayzone, helped normalize fash conspiracies in the scene https://twitter.com/Marusya_1312/status/1305213384258920453
I left off discussing how American Affairs helped fuel RW tendencies in Dirtbag & DSA circles thru their useful idiots. Now I'll discuss how Grayzone, helped normalize fash conspiracies in the scene https://twitter.com/Marusya_1312/status/1305213384258920453
The Grayzone Project is an alt new site founded by Max Blumenthal, son of Clinton operative Sidney Blumenthal, covering US foreign policy thru a purported anti-imperialist lens. Yet, they often parrot Russian state FP views & host a rogue's gallery of conspiracy & RW voices
For background, Max used to have normal intl anti-imp views covering the Syrian refugee crisis & criticizing the Assad regime. This changed 180° after a Dec. 2015 gala hosted by RT, the same gala that included Mike Flynn & Jill Stein. https://pulsemedia.org/2017/08/22/did-a-kremlin-pilgrimage-cause-alternet-bloggers-damascene-conversion/
After this, he founded the Grayzone Project originally hosted thru Alternet, now independent. The first big sign of a flip was his series on Syrian rescue workers, the White Helmets, claiming they were Al-Qaeda's "MASH unit." https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/10/16/why-assad-and-russia-target-the-white-helmets/
This drew the ire of the foreign journalist community, many who were previous friends of Max's. He recruited a series of loyal lackies including Rania Khalek, Aaron Mate, & Ben Norton to name of few. All had previously normal views on the Syrian conflict & all flipped to join GZ
He & his cadre began making appearances on RT, going on Sputnik Radio & cross publishing in Russian state funded outlets. It was clear he was being compensated or otherwise built a relationship with the Rossiya Segodnya network
Other than this aspect, RT has a history of platforming rightwing white supremacists alongside leftwing voices & has drawn growing scrutiny from antifascists over the years because of this
And like Greenwald, Max has also used Tucker Carlson's platform. Similarly, these appearances were cordial & framed to discredit the left. Max did not challenge Tucker's white supremacist views during any of these appearences
It seems strange that a US nationalist network like Fox would so openly paltform sources from a perceived rival like Russia, but there's been a growing revolving door between Russian media & US RW media for years. So this actually tracks perfectly https://archive.thinkprogress.org/why-do-all-these-daily-caller-reporters-keep-appearing-on-russian-propaganda-channels-d93bb3871dab/
Its thru this syncretic network Max & co gained access to RW conspiracy theorists. For his White Helmets articles, Max cited former infowars reporters Vanessa Beeley & Eva Bartlett. Both Beeley & Bartlett have contributed to conspiracy site Global Research which has pushed
9/11 & COVID conspiracies alongside denial of CW attacks & anti-semitic conspiracies. 21st Century Wire & Veterans Today are also part of this same network. Further reading on them here https://www.radicalrightanalysis.com/2020/09/09/spectrum/
Grayzone has also boosted Syrian refugee & AfD supporter Korvak Almassian as well as Maram Susli, a Syrian-Australian YouTuber who's platformed David Duke & pushed anti-semitic ZOG conspiracies
In 2018, the shared a platform with Alfred de Zayas, a holocaust denier, great replacement theorist & blackface wearer
The collusion with far right personalities is disturbing enough, but Max & co's most dangerous activities have been badjacketing opposition figures in Syria & Nicaragua as well as mocking their deaths. Incl: Anas al-Basha, Bana al-Abed, & Raed Fares
In 2018, Grayzone published a story by a fake author that cited a false confession from a Nicaraguan student. This confession was extracted thru torture by Ortega's security forces https://www.thedailybeast.com/in-nicaragua-torture-is-used-to-feed-fake-news
And of course, there's Aaron Mate's never ending 300+ article series trying to debunk OPCW findings, & obsession with Russiagate as well as Ben Norton's obsession with discrediting just about every uprising abroad https://twitter.com/TitusMichaeleus/status/1293324287353511937
Now how does this relate to the current struggles under the Trump Regime? Well, Tucker, Fox, & co have adopted these very same disinfo tactics used abroad and brought them home.
Fmr Trump speechwriter Darren Beattie has been using Grayzone's "color revolution" line about Belarus & using to spin a conspiratorial web linking George Soros, BLM, antifa, & the Dems to a supposed regime change attempt against Trump [WARNING RW Source] https://www.revolver.news/2020/08/george-kent-never-trump-state-department/
Both RW media & Ben Norton have boosted the "pallets of bricks" & "cops setting fireworks" conspiracies to discredit BLM protests, robbing them of agency as to suggest the righteous resistance was orchestrated by the police
During protests in DC, Max Blumenthal copjacketed two CNN reporters https://twitter.com/DGisSERIOUS/status/1266759878686760960
Grayzone affiliate Alex Rubinstein has pushed the "white anarchist" lie to also rob agency from the protesters
And most infamously, Ben Norton fedjacketed antifascist reporter & former Syria/Iraq correspondent Robert Evans
So what is the goal to all of this? Well, lemme take the rest of this thread to demystify some things.
First, this is not a "Russian op." The hysteria around Russiagate leads to folks approaching anything Russia related with a level of anxiety that obscures syncretic trends
First, this is not a "Russian op." The hysteria around Russiagate leads to folks approaching anything Russia related with a level of anxiety that obscures syncretic trends
What folks should know about Russian media is that it's incredibly rightwing. This is why they find common ground with Fox News, OANN & favor the Trump regime. Max & GZ's relationship with RT should not be seen as "selling out to a foreign adversary" as much as it is selling out
to a rightwing outlet, that albeit runs a different FP line than USian media. Hence, Fox News & GZ fall on opposite sides of China stories as well as coup mongering in Latin America. Still, all classic RW views from Soros conspiracies to anti-antifascism are the same
Whereas the American Affairs/Spiked to DSA/Dirtbag influence network focused on discrediting & dividing the socialist movement, Grayzone's purpose is to wreck the antiwar mvmnt. These two factions have begun to fuse into the same redbrown tendency https://medium.com/@areidross/from-exile-to-dirtbag-edgelord-geopolitics-and-the-rise-of-national-bolshevism-in-the-u-s-84822021b0e8
The lack of FP expertise by the left podcast circuit led them to platforming Grayzoners so campist takes propagated within those circles. Rania Khalek, Aaron Mate, & Max have all made the rounds on various Dirtbag podcasts
Katie Halper has actually been a key player in introducing Grayzone to the Dirtbag podcast circuit whether the podcasters are aware of or even agree with Max's views on various issues
To be clear, not everyone I'm naming here is genuinely aware of what's going on. Honeslty, I think Halper is dumb as rocks. Hence why she let Reed say his piece about AA & Nagle but has a blindspot for how Max is the Nagle of the anti-imperialist crowd.
Max, Ben, Aaron & friends definitely know what they're doing & thus bare more responsibility. To this day, Grayzone's funding remains ambiguous. A donation link on the website leads directly to Max's paypal. While people suggest the obvious source of Russian funding, this doesnt
explain the whole story. Greenwald, for example, is not paid by Russia yet has many of the same takes. The friendliness with Tucker Carlson, the revolving door with Fox News & the platforming of RWers suggest some big money fascist funder, the same people behind Julius Krein & AA
This is speculation of course, but with the growing authoritarianism of the Trump regime, the proliferation of these narratives all coalesce at a single point of delegitimizing resistance, invoking an anarchist boogeyman, & making anti-antifascism the https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1308903171658579970
dominant normalcy of the country. I'll end by talking about Michael Reinoehl. Many people, even some good comrades, spread a Grayzone style conspiracy that this man was a fed or an op upon his assassination by the POTUS. This tracks right along with what GZ did to pple in Syria.
The reason many antifa journalists cut their teeth in the conflict was that they saw how disinfo narratives were used to socially kill an entire population, how to hypnotize the world into rejecting solidarity. We're now at a point were "2nd US Civil War" is on the tips of
everyone's lips. As things escalate in this country, the disinfo machine will be in full force to similar kill us & isolate us from allies abroad. We've already got a taste of that this summer. So please, as we go forward be aware of the narratives being pushed. Seek info from
local sources & remember to NEVER deny the agency of a rebellion, no matter the contradictions or the ugliness. We need to do better comrades. Thank you for taking the time to read this, now y'all now why I put off writing this for so long. Solidarity 
#ACAB #ToppleTheRegime
#ACAB #ToppleTheRegime
