LIGHT READING FOR HEAVY TIMES

MORE FORMER TRUMP-RUSSIA "SKEPTICS" ARE ACCEPTING THE OBVIOUS

The latest to come around? Renowned investigative journalist James Risen. And he's done so in the pages of infamously and unreasonably Russo-skeptic online journal The Intercept, no less, in an ongoing series entitled Trump and Russia, in which "James Risen weighs the evidence for accusations of Russian election interference, collusion, and obstruction of justice."

So far, two parts have been released. First came "Is Donald Trump A Traitor?" The second part is "The Absent Professor"

I can recommend this series both to those who already have a good handle on why the rest of us see red when ostensibly intelligent people try to claim "there's no evidence of Trump colluding with Russia" and also to those who are laboring under the idiotic, propaganda-implanted assumption that there's no evidence of Trump colluding with Russia.

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WE'RE DOOMED:

THE CLIMATE REALITY NOBODY IS ADDRESSING.

Are you in a good mood? Then maybe DON'T read this Guardian interview with social scientist Mayer Hillman, in which you'll encounter such cheery and enlightening paragraphs as:

Although Hillman has not flown for more than 20 years as part of a personal commitment to reducing carbon emissions, he is now scornful of individual action which he describes as “as good as futile”. By the same logic, says Hillman, national action is also irrelevant “because Britain’s contribution is minute. Even if the government were to go to zero carbon it would make almost no difference.” 

Instead, says Hillman, the world’s population must globally move to zero emissions across agriculture, air travel, shipping, heating homes – every aspect of our economy – and reduce our human population too. Can it be done without a collapse of civilisation? “I don’t think so,” says Hillman. “Can you see everyone in a democracy volunteering to give up flying? Can you see the majority of the population becoming vegan? Can you see the majority agreeing to restrict the size of their families?” 

Hillman doubts that human ingenuity can find a fix and says there is no evidence that greenhouse gases can be safely buried. But if we adapt to a future with less – focusing on Hillman’s love and music – it might be good for us. “And who is ‘we’?” asks Hillman with a typically impish smile. “Wealthy people will be better able to adapt but the world’s population will head to regions of the planet such as northern Europe which will be temporarily spared the extreme effects of climate change. How are these regions going to respond? We see it now. Migrants will be prevented from arriving. We will let them drown.”

But don't worry... the news isn't ALL bad! Here's Hillman trying to accentuate the positive:

...optimism about the future is wishful thinking, says Hillman. He believes that accepting that our civilisation is doomed could make humanity rather like an individual who recognises he is terminally ill. Such people rarely go on a disastrous binge; instead, they do all they can to prolong their lives.

Um... Hooray?

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RED ICE CREATIONS AND THE FASCIST TAKEOVER

OF THE CONSPIRACY WEB

One of yer old pal Jerky's long-standing projects has been to explore and uncover the facts surrounding the New Fascist International's very deliberate takeover of the conspiracy web, so when I see an article like Anti-Fascist News' Red Ice Creations and the New Fascist Media, I experience a strange combination of gratitude that they've done the work, and shame that I didn't get to it first. In any case, this article is a must-read, even if it doesn't go as far as I would like it to in exposing the NFI's strategy of taking over an entire new media ecosystem for their propagandistic purposes. It begins...

The world of the pseudo-intellectual far right used to be relatively isolated. There was a small network of blogs and then a few that peaked above the others, namely Alternative Right, American Renaissance, Occidental Observer, Counter-Currents Publishing, and a few others. Alternative Right morphed over to the National Policy Institute and the Radix Journal, where they continued their use of meta-politics to introduce white nationalism and used podcasts as a primary means of media communication. In only the last five years this network of online “Alt Right” spaces has expanded exponentially, starting largely with Human Biological Diversity blogs that continued “race and IQ” arguments. They began creating a generalized subculture of trolls, social media warriors, and those who have taken the jargon and influences of the more academic Alt Right and brought them down to the level of the average racist. 

Today, podcasts and videos are commonplace for Alt Right commentators who are trying to jump into the fast Internet media cycle, and attempting to create a fascist version of what we see on the left. Through this, the Daily Shoah and the Right Stuff radio network have become incredibly popular for their crass racist audio tracks, and places like Radix have continued to pump out their interview focused episodes with fascist “celebrities of the week.” While all of these have maintained an increasing popularity as Donald Trump mainstreams white nationalism, all of their work combined still pales when compared to a relative newcomer in the fascist Internet scene. 

Red Ice Creations, which jumps between Sweden and the U.S., has created a media infrastructure that is more formal and has more socio-political crossover points than you see in other racist media. They have taken up the mantle started by people like Richard Spencer, now doing a regular feed of audio and video programs.

What follows is an excellent breakdown of Red Ice's modus operendi, as well as their evolution since launching operations, and their increasingly obvious, not-so-hidden agendas. In a world where, in the short term, it's becoming more and more important to "know thy enemy", you could do a lot worse than this article. Read it. Share it. Clip and save it for future reference.