The Far Right's Love of the Kremlin’s Policies

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Re: The Far Right's Love of the Kremlin’s Policies

Postby Elvis » Wed Jul 18, 2018 10:41 pm

American Dream wrote:There is surely a more appropriate thread where you could make a definitive argument about the points you want to argue and then support them with specific evidence.


I've made my definitive argument at length, with evidence, elsewhere on the board. I spared us all a rehash.

Since you posted the article here (in a thread about the Far Right and the Kremlin?), this thread seemed like the logical place to respond to it. :shrug:
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Re: The Far Right's Love of the Kremlin’s Policies

Postby Jerky » Wed Jul 18, 2018 10:52 pm

Elvis » 19 Jul 2018 01:27 wrote:
I don't know whether the writer is deliberately disingenuous or just woefully blindered, but if nothing else, articles equating the foreign proxy armies in Syria with "the Syrian people" leave me cold. Just my take on it.


Did you read the entire article? Because from this reaction, it seems as though you probably haven't.

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Re: The Far Right's Love of the Kremlin’s Policies

Postby Elvis » Wed Jul 18, 2018 11:09 pm

Yes, I read it, and on reflection, I agree, it's the latter.
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Re: The Far Right's Love of the Kremlin’s Policies

Postby American Dream » Thu Jul 19, 2018 12:31 pm

Russian senator and right-wing media agree: Trump is just trying to avoid a war with Russia

Russian Sen. Alexei Pushkov: “I am amazed at the desire of the US media and a large part of Congress to portray Moscow as an enemy of the US. What do they want? Do they want a war with a nuclear power?”

NICK FERNANDEZ

Right-wing media and at least one Russian official are singing from the same song sheet after President Donald Trump’s humiliating press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland. As condemnation for Trump’s absurd performance builds, right-wing pundits, administration officials and, now, representatives of the Russian government are suggesting critics of the president are trying to foment war with Russia.

In an attempt to provide cover for a president of the United States slandering American law enforcement and intelligence agencies while standing on foreign soil next to a despotic kleptocrat who has repeatedly attempted to destabilize western democracies and American allies, some in right-wing media suggested that the president was simply attempting to “avoid war with” the world’s largest nuclear power. Some have even argued that “Democrats” and “establishment media [want] war with Russia,” an argument that was presented by prominent Putin apologist Stephen Cohen (who has regularly been featured on Fox host Tucker Carlson’s show to discuss the relationship between the U.S. and Russia) on the state-run outlet, RT.


Continues: https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/ ... sia/220729
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Re: The Far Right's Love of the Kremlin’s Policies

Postby BenDhyan » Thu Jul 19, 2018 11:11 pm

Senator Rand Paul Discusses Comrade Trump Derangement Syndrome...

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Re: The Far Right's Love of the Kremlin’s Policies

Postby American Dream » Fri Jul 20, 2018 8:56 am

Helsinki: Was it “excellent”? Should we care?

BY OAKLANDSOCIALIST ON JULY 19, 2018

So, what would they have to discuss in private? Why the secrecy?

Collusion among criminals
The answer is so obvious that even Stevie Wonder could see it: They were meeting to discuss how to hide the fact of Putin’s interference and the collusion between these two reactionaries!

After their private two-hour chat they held the press conference at which Putin put out the cover story (while his subordinate, Trump, stood meekly by). Among other things, Putin claimed they discussed cybersecurity and Syria. Even if that were true, what does it mean?

Take the issue of joint cyber security: That means cooperation in figuring out how to increase their spying on everybody in the world, including you and me. Or take their supposed discussion on Syria. Given that Russia has participated in absolutely massive crimes against humanity,

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The Putin/Assad attack on the Syrian people

bombing everything in sight there, and that the US has done the same on a somewhat more limited scale (Raqqa), who in Syria would have the slightest reason to hope this is a good sign? In fact, given that they are both close to Netanyahu, who in the entire Middle East should be hopeful?


Nature of Putin Regime
Some people still have a lingering affection for Russia, associating it with the old Soviet regime. The more accurate model is something like apartheid South Africa or Argentina under Galtieri. Or Tsarist Russia. It is one of the most reactionary regimes in all of Europe. Putin and his cronies – especially the fascist Aleksander Dugin – are working to gather together and boost almost all the far right, racist and chauvinist forces throughout Europe and beyond.

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A Russian Orthodox priest. The church is a bastion of reaction, and harkens back to the “glory days” of Tsarism. It’s also closely aligned with the Russian military.

Putin rules in part through the Russian Orthodox Church. (See this pamphlet for a more in-depth analysis.) This church hierarchy openly stokes the flames of islamophobia, sexism, anti-gay bigotry and Great Russian chauvinism. Politically, they are no different from the worst of the far right Christian evangelicals here in the United States. There is a reason why that woman who is accused of espionage in the US, Maria Butina, went to the Evangelicals here. They and the Russian regime have a real affinity for each other.

And workers “shouldn’t care” if they are involved in the US elections? US elections are bad enough as it is. It’s like a house is on fire and you want to bring in a major arsonist to help out. “Not caring” is hardly any better. US elections are rigged enough as it is, as are all elections in capitalist countries. Why shouldn’t we care that one of the leaders of reaction world wide is directly involving himself in further rigging them?


Image


https://oaklandsocialist.com/2018/07/19 ... d-we-care/
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Re: The Far Right's Love of the Kremlin’s Policies

Postby American Dream » Mon Jul 23, 2018 9:21 am

Russia Insider Mixes Pro-Putin And White Nationalist Propaganda

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As news broke that 12 Russian agents had been indicted pursuant to Robert Mueller’s probe of interference in the 2016 election, one pro-Russian “citizen journalist” appeared on a popular white supremacist podcast. In the 132nd episode of Fash the Nation, Russia Insider founder Charles Bausman sat down for an interview with hosts Jazzhands McFeels and Marcus Halberstram.

McFeels, who routinely slurs immigrants, African-Americans, and sexual assault victims, said they’ve “been wanting to have” Bausman as a guest for some time now. Bausman, in turn, complimented McFeels and Halberstram, saying “we’re big fans of what you do, so I’m very happy to be here.” In fact, Bausman said, “your show was very, very helpful to us in 2016 when we were trying to dissect and figure out what was going on with Trump, and why was he talking about Russia so much.”

While most pundits from both sides of the aisle criticized Trump for showing too much deference to Putin during their Helsinki summit — effectively siding with him over U.S. intelligence on the question of Russia’s election meddling — McFeels, Halberstram, and Bausman were thrilled that the U.S. was forming a friendship with the “other largest white country on the planet”:

McFeels: And you can only call everyone who counters their narrative a crazy, right-wing conspiracy theorist for so long before all the facts and data and evidence start to conform to the counter-narrative. And that’s what’s happening, and the more that happens the harder they have to censor, the harder they have to step down on the truth, and you read some of these articles this week that are published about Russia. They’re trying so hard to hone this narrative: Trump’s embrace of a longtime U.S. enemy.

I mean they’re just, they’re trying so hard to do this and you have the MSNBC contributor who referred to Trump’s comments as being tantamount to Kristallnacht. They called it Pearl Harbor. I mean the rhetoric, the level of rhetoric that they have stepped up to describe this historic event is just insane. And the question I’ve been asking myself all week is, “Where does it go from here?” I mean you have people calling for coups as Halberstram said at the beginning. And over what? A friendship with the other largest white country on the planet? I can see why they might have a problem with that, right?

Halberstram: Yeah.

Bausman: Yeah.

Halberstram: Yeah, that’s exactly the problem. And you — I think I maybe saw this on your [Jazzhands’] Twitter timeline, but some people are starting to comprehend what potentially this is really about: the nature of Russia, nationalism, the affinity that perhaps Trump and certainly people like us have for Eastern Europe. They’re starting to figure out that this is really a natural alliance in the face of their machine.

Bausman: Yeah, and you know the fact of the matter is is that the U.S. and Russia really need each other, need to cooperate on some very important things. And Trump recognizes that and he knows he’s not gonna get a lot of the things he wants unless he’s able to negotiate with Russia. So he’s gotta be able to sit down and talk with them. It’s just basic.


Later on in the episode McFeels said, “Well our American media’s referring to this great uprising as ‘global white supremacy’ and ‘solidaristic white nationalism,’ so by all means let’s proceed as planned, right?”

It wasn’t the first time Bausman appeared on a white supremacist media outlet. In March, Bausman appeared on Radio 3Fourteen, a show hosted by white nationalist Lana Lokteff. Bausman boasted that “Russia is the only major European country whose media is not controlled by Jewish interests.” And Lokteff praised Vladimir Putin’s “family policy,” which is designed to increase Russian birthrates.

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Radio 3Fourteen, March 13, 2018

She also lauded the nation’s racial homogeneity, claiming that in Russia “they don’t get the propaganda of like, ‘Oh, mix yourself out! Have Asian babies!’ or something,” and that “in Sweden, in Germany they’re being encouraged to have babies that aren’t Swedish and German anymore.” Bausman smiled and said that’s “definitely not happening” in Russia, and “it’s not gonna happen.” He said Russians are “very nationalistic about Russians as a race and as an ethnicity.”

Of course Bausman’s racism and anti-Semitism aren’t limited to these few media appearances. In an article he authored for Russia Insider early this year, Bausman argued that people ought to be able to criticize the Jews as a racial group, without the need for euphemisms like “neocons,” “globalists,” the “deep state,” etc. “[N]one of these terms work, do they?” he lamented. “They all obscure the issue, actually enhancing the taboo’s inherent deceit.”


Continues: https://angrywhitemen.org/2018/07/22/ru ... ropaganda/
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Re: The Far Right's Love of the Kremlin’s Policies

Postby American Dream » Mon Jul 23, 2018 9:37 pm

Comrade Hill: League of the South reaching out to Russia

July 23, 2018 Brett Barrouquere

​As Russia tries to insinuate itself more and more into the fabric of the American political right wing, it may be getting an unusual ally.

The Alabama-based League of the South and the group’s founder, Michael Hill, are putting together a Russian language page in an attempt to forge an alliance with activists in the Eastern European nation.

“A firm and resolute understanding and commitment to cooperation between the Russian people and the people of the South could indeed be the foundation for a better world in which our peoples thrive and prosper far into the future,” Hill wrote in a July 17 blog post.

The outreach comes just days after President Donald Trump’s much-maligned meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland and as there are more criminal charges and public revelations about how Russian intelligence used operatives to try and impact American political life.

Bradley Dean Griffin, a League of the South spokesman posting as “Hunter Wallace” on the Occidental Dissent website, said the alliance is necessary after United States-based tech firms have cracked down on racist groups and hate speech on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

“Why wouldn’t the League of the South open a Russian language section on its website?,” Griffin asked. “We have to rely on a Russian based social media and fundraising platform due to political censorship in the United States.”

In the blog post, Hill, whose neo-Confederate group envisions a predominantly white country in the southern United States, outlines what he believes are the natural ties between Russians and the American South including ancestors that “come from the same general gene pool.” Among those potential ties are a belief in societies based on “real, organic factors such as shared blood, culture, and religion” and as well as a joint antipathy toward globalism.

“But should we fail to take advantage of the climate of increasing trust and friendship between us, there are forces that would like to pit us against one another, ever as far as open war,” Hill wrote. “We must oppose those forces with a combined will and commitment to peace and cooperation between our two peoples.”

Trump echoed that last comment on July 19, when discussing the coverage of the meeting with Putin.

“The Fake News Media wants so badly to see a major confrontation with Russia, even a confrontation that could lead to war,” the president wrote on Twitter.

The comments marked the latest example of Trump using language similar to or exactly the same as neo-Nazis, white supremacists and white nationalists. Previously, Trump had referred to how immigrants “infest” America and Trump has talked about how Europe is “losing your culture” to immigration. Both comments are popular among the alt-right and anti-immigration movements.

The League of the South in particular and the racist "alt-right" generally have long been seen as potential collaborators with Russian activists.

Hill, a former history professor at historically black Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, has made overtures to Russian activists before. In 2014, Hill spoke by Skype at the Anti-Globalist Movement’s international conference in Moscow.

In 2015, the World National-Conservative Movement invited the League of the South to a conference in St. Petersburg, Russia. The plan never took off, but the move was more evidence of ties between the alt-right, American racist movement and Russian activists.

Alt-right speaker and self-described “dissident intellectual” Richard B. Spencer and former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard and godfather of the modern racist movement David Duke have both expressed admiration for Putin.

Duke spent several years in Russia and eastern Europe while avoiding a charge of filing a false tax return in the United States (he later pleaded guilty and spent 15 months in federal prison). Duke received a ph.D in history from Ukrainian private university Interregional Academy of Personnel Management (MAUP), an institution that has been described by the Anti-Defamation League as a "University of Hate." He has repeatedly praised Russia in public and on social media.

Spencer has praised Russia as the “sole white power in the world.” He also helped lead the chant “Russia Is Our Friend!” during the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017.

And, after the 2016 presidential election, it became public that Russia’s army of media influencers, trolls and social media bots promoted and pushed far-right narratives in the United States as part of Russia’s influence campaign aimed at hurting Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and aiding Trump.

For Hill, the Russian language section will be "first step." But, whether it is a step in the right direction remains to be seen.


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Re: The Far Right's Love of the Kremlin’s Policies

Postby American Dream » Tue Jul 24, 2018 9:32 am

RED-BROWN POLITICS: DON'T TAKE THE BAIT!

Image

by Bill Weinberg, Fifth Estate

After April's gas attack at the Syrian city of Douma, and Trump's retaliatory air-strikes, the poorly-named "anti-war" protest held in Los Angeles actually featured placards with the portrait of Bashar Assad and expressions of open support for genocidal dictator. Slogans like "Assad is protecting civilians, he is not bombing his own people."

Now, where else have we seen such open support for the dictator? At the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that saw deadly violence last August. One figure on the scene was David Duke, who proclaimed on Twitter, "Civilized world stands with Assad." Video clips from Charlottesville showed the "alt-right" mouthpiece called Baked Alaska saying to the camera with his buddies, "Assad’s the man, brother! Two chemical bombs would have solved this whole ISIS business!" A sentiment less hypocritical than that of the supposed peaceniks in L.A.

Not too surprisingly, there was even overlap between the two rallies. Baked Alaska (real name Tim Gionet) appeared in a selfie-video at the anti-war march in L.A. Eventually, some marchers got wise to him and chased him off. But they do not appear to have been from the organizers of the march, the ANSWER Coalition.

There is a definite convergence underway between the anti-war left and alt-right (or fascist right to be less euphemistic) around support for Assad—part of a phenomenon termed Red-Brown politics. That is the phrase actually used by its advocates in Europe: the notion of an alliance between the left and fascism against the liberal order and the West. You do not have to be any supporter of the liberal order and the West to recognize this as an incredibly dangerous idea.


More: https://countervortex.org/node/16036
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Re: The Far Right's Love of the Kremlin’s Policies

Postby Elvis » Wed Jul 25, 2018 4:03 pm

American Dream wrote:by Bill Weinberg, Fifth Estate

After April's gas attack at the Syrian city of Douma,


Bill Weinberg must be in possession of some "alternative facts" to keep repeating this spook mantra. :lol:

Doesn't he read the papers?

Then Weinberg uses this false premise to tell us that anyone who questions the narrative is a Nazi. It's a foul cheap shot.

Repeat a lie often enough....and even the person telling it starts to believe it.



edited to correct spelling
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Re: The Far Right's Love of the Kremlin’s Policies

Postby American Dream » Wed Jul 25, 2018 5:19 pm

I just had a very interesting idea: If we could get Bill Weinberg to participate, would you do a dialogue/debate with him?
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Re: The Far Right's Love of the Kremlin’s Policies

Postby Sounder » Wed Jul 25, 2018 5:51 pm

The gaslighting never ends.

I just had a very interesting idea: If we could get AD to participate, would you do a dialogue/debate with him?
All these things will continue as long as coercion remains a central element of our mentality.
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Re: The Far Right's Love of the Kremlin’s Policies

Postby Elvis » Wed Jul 25, 2018 7:37 pm

American Dream wrote:I just had a very interesting idea: If we could get Bill Weinberg to participate, would you do a dialogue/debate with him?


If Bill wants to join the board, I'd chat with him, sure, just like with anyone else. I don't have time lately to prepare for any big debate on this, but if he wants to argue with the OPCW report and specifically explain the other evidence, I'm glad to listen.

Sounder wrote:If we could get AD to participate, would you do a dialogue/debate with him?


But, AD, since you, not Bill Weinberg, uncritically post a glut of articles here repeating the White Helmet narrative and still blaming Assad for a "gas attack" that the best evidence says didn't occur, I would rather see you take some responsibility in your own words for defending their claims.


Anyway, it's mostly academic by now; interestingly, in Syria the plan to use proxy armies to achieve American strategic goals—outlined in numerous PNAC and other 'think tank' papers—seems to have failed. I say mostly academic because we still need to be alert to the unceasing, all too well-known propaganda of the CIA, State Dept. and the other usual groups and institutions.
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Re: The Far Right's Love of the Kremlin’s Policies

Postby American Dream » Thu Jul 26, 2018 8:59 am

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American Racists Look for Allies in Russia

Pro-Trump hate groups are praising Russia and its ‘macho’ leader after the president’s summit with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki.

In the run-up to Trump’s election, other white nationalists took the Putin praise to Russia. White nationalist writer Jared Taylor and former Ku Klux Klan lawyer Sam Dickson attended the white nationalist International Russian Conservative Forum in St. Petersburg in March 2015. Speaking alongside members of Greek neo-Nazi parties and French extremists, Dickson hailed Putin as having “[done] a lot” for Americans, as opposed to Obama whose “policies are directed against whites and Christians.” Dickson ended his speech on a broken Russian salute of “God save the Tsar!”

Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and former leader of the white nationalist Traditionalist Worker Party Matthew Heimbach have also promoted Putin, with Heimbach telling Business Insider in 2016 that "I really believe that Russia is the leader of the free world right now.”

And as Trump sides increasingly with Putin over his own intelligence agencies, the racist right has begun openly advertising for Russian allies.

During a joint press conference with Putin last week, Trump refused to denounce Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, contradicting U.S. intelligence agencies to claim Russia had not been behind a hack on the Democratic National Committee. The following day, Hill, the League of the South president who praised Putin in 2014, published the group’s outreach “to our Russian friends”.


Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/american- ... -in-russia
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Re: The Far Right's Love of the Kremlin’s Policies

Postby American Dream » Thu Jul 26, 2018 2:34 pm

Pro-Confederate Birther Introduced Maria Butina’s Handler to NRA Chief

The unlikely union of the American gun-rights movement and Moscow starts with G. Kline Preston IV, a Tennessee attorney who says he’d like Vladimir Putin to run the U.S government.

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Preston’s offline activities mirror his social-media habits. He’s occasionally worked as a freelance elections observer for Russia, testifying about the fidelity and freedom of various Russian elections and bringing Moscow an American voice it can point to for legitimacy. And he’s brought officials to his home state of Tennessee to witness an American presidential election up close. Preston is also tied to Marsha Blackburn, a conservative congresswoman running for Senate in Tennessee.

It’s just a small indicator of Preston’s longstanding ties to Russia, and in particular to Alexander Torshin.

Torshin, a former Russian parliamentarian now under Treasury Department sanctions, is a friend and confidant of Preston, who has described Torshin as a client. In 2011, according to multiple accounts, Preston introduced Torshin to David Keene, then the president of the National Rifle Association. (Torshin “was interested in the NRA so I hooked him up,” Preston told The Tennessean earlier this year.) It’s the first known contact between the NRA and the Russians, and it wouldn’t be the last.

Preston’s ties to Torshin are particularly significant now that a Torshin protégé is accused of infiltrating the NRA to tilt the supremely influential lobby group in a pro-Russian direction—and with it, the Republican Party.

Last week, federal prosecutors charged Maria Butina, a Russian national who made inroads to the U.S. right through a stated love of guns, with being an unregistered Russian agent, tight with Russian intelligence, who traded sex for influence in American right-of-center circles. A figure matching Torshin’s description is listed in court documents only as a “Russian Official.”


https://www.thedailybeast.com/pro-confe ... -nra-chief
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