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[artismyhammer]

Progressives, Watch Out For Leftist “News Sites” and Accounts Riddled With Misinformation

So. I decided to actually make a roundup of left-specific disinformation sites because this is getting BAD.

This is of course partially provoked by genuine issues with media bias and censorship which are coming to a head with the IDF’s attacks on Palestine, where a lot of people’s impulse is to platform anyone who is speaking out against it.

Unfortunately there are a lot of bad actors out there who are using the immense human suffering in Palestine caused by the bombing and siege warfare to promote themselves when much of what they post is actually backing and apologism for authoritarian regimes on the basis of “anyone who opposes the US is good”, denial or justification of atrocities against those nations’ people; straight up conspiracy theories; and deliberate disincentivization for Americans to vote/opposition to the Democratic Party to the point of making excuses for and even tacitly supporting the Republican Party.

Here are some ones I’ve been seeing doing a LOT of disinfo on Ukraine/Putin in general, as well as denialism of a bunch of historical atrocities, and or the “heroic legacies” of violent dictatorships who’ve also been releasing a bunch of content ostensibly centered on Palestinian liberation which has been going viral. Any claims coming from these sources should be SERIOUSLY fact checked, and please don’t just reblog/link them out of hand without checking!

NEWS SITES/ORGANIZATIONS:

- The Grayzone: These articles sum up pretty well, but in addition to denying that much of the violence and killings (including sexual violence) which took place on 10/7 actually occurred, they have for years been supporting such characters as Assad, Maduro and Putin, and justifying their crimes against their own people.

- BreakThrough News (which you may see marked with just “BTn” in the corner) keeps using Palestine as an excuse to conflate Ukraine defending itself against Russia’s genocide (which BTn calls a “US proxy war”) with Israel bombing Gaza (Ukraine = Israel apparently). They also post a bunch of disingenuous & counterfactual things about how Xi and Putin are “saviors” of the third world, and have defenses of Maduro and a “historical explainer” lauding the GDR (East Germany). The source is literally just browsing their YT channel.

- BTn Segments which look less obviously related are Africa In Revolt, Rania Khalek’s Dispatches and The Freedom Side (source: see above)

- Seattle Red & Green’s tumblr blog (seattleredandgreen) is full of similar bullshit in addition to taking “anti-identity politics” stances to bigoted extremes.

- Black Hammer is a Black separatist party which used to be nominally socialist but now is a conservative extremist group, which is anti-vax/COVID conspiracists, election deniers, and has also been called a cult by ex-members (CW for kidnapping, sexual assault and bigotry). They don’t have a formal news organization, but there is a Twitter and website; they got popular around BLM.

- Liberation News, ANSWER Coalition, and the Party For Socialism and Liberation (PSL): a fringe socialist party which has all of the official genocide-denial-happy stances listed above, in addition to former members describing it as an abusive political cult and being backed up by a cult expert. Documentation here, (CW for stalking, doxxing, and sexual assault)

- RT, Sputnik Radio, and Going Underground are all subdivisions of Russian state-sponsored media whose English-language press basically exists to be disinformation to demoralize English-speaking leftists and cover for Putin’s crimes (again, not trustworthy!)

- Struggle-La Lucha: Is a Cuban/American socialist site which is chock full of Syrian and Russian genocide & war crimes apologism (their Ukraine tag is “US/NATO war,”…) buried under reams of articles about Gaza (many of the early ones are explicitly celebrating 10/7, calling Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis an “axis of resistance”)

- World Socialist Web Site (publication of the International Committee of the Fourth International): Another “NATO-Russia War” publication, plus pages upon pages of Assadism (top story: denying chemical weapons for 10+ years!). Oh and don’t forget their #MeToo witch hunt tag, because feminists are distracting from class struggle.

Popular think-piece authors & YouTubers who are purported “experts” who are also deep into shilling for dictators and are currently gaining way bigger following off of claiming to support Palestinians:

- Brian Becker: You’ll see him cited as an “anti-war activist” often. He is high up in PSL, is in charge of ANSWER Coalition, and the “20 years of activism” they’re talking about means “defending Saddam Hussein in 2003 and Bashar Al Assad in 2023”. Another atrocity denier too. Writes for Liberation News a lot but also elsewhere. I think it’s probably best to just link his Liberation News writing page to get a sense of his shit views.

- Gloria La Riva: Founding PSL member, same views to a tee; see above for all of the related bullshit. Not posting anything meaningfully different than the organization she runs.

- Caitlin Johnstone: Wrote op-eds for RT (Russian state media) for years; now has her own blog where she posts similar crap about how Ukraine defending itself is Nazi imperialism, somehow. Qualifications are: she’s an astrologist?

- Jackson Hinkle: A fascist. OK, he calls himself a “MAGA Communist” but he’s had interviews with fucking. Piers Morgan. and thinks Tucker Carlson is a genius. Avowed, gleeful antisemite too

- Calla Walsh: Twitter-based atrocity denier, but best known for doing BDS Boston’s “mapping project”, which publicly posted the locations of pretty much every Jewish institution in Boston as ~Israel-affiliated~ or ~Zionist~ including synagogues and elementary schools. Scroll a ways in this article for more info on that, she recently got arrested but the relevant bits are a ways down. National BDS disavowed the project and said it had no part in it.

- Aaron Maté: Grayzone host, prolific defender of Assad and disseminator of conspiracy theories that the White Helmets are terrorists and no chemical weapons were ever used in Syria.

- Max Blumenthal: regular Grayzone contributor who also write/tweet independently but hold the same rancid genocide-denying views, even if they don’t happen to be denying crimes against Palestinians. Blumenthal specifically used to be a more mainstream journalist, but has since worked for RT, Sputnik Radio and CGTN, and has gone full atrocity-denier & conspiracist

- Hasan Piker (aka HasanAbi on YouTube & Twitch): A contributor to The Young Turks* (iirc who’s its founder) with a regular segment, who’s also been an Assad apologist in the name of anti-imperialismTM.

*Totally neutral name not related to the people who led the Armenian & Greek genocides in the 1910s! They promise (sarcasm)

[artismyhammer]

Stella Lunardy

[artismyhammer]

if you care about palestinians, then i am begging you to not be antisemitic in your activism on their behalf. it does not help them. by making the diaspora less safe for jews, you support the argument that israel is the only guarantee for jewish safety. if anything it is a boon to the israeli right.

you should aim to make the world a better place and not a worse one. you should be strategic.

[artismyhammer]

Anti-semitism is alive and well on social media, and some pro-Palestine supporters are endorsing it.

MASSIVE TW for anti-semitism and n&zi propaganda…

[ID: Germany 1945 with a sign that says “No Jews Allowed.” Compared to a sign in Turkiye in 2023 that also says “No Jews Allowed.]

And the comments…

“It’s not like this is happening for no reason.”

“Maybe because of what they’re doing to Palestine.”

“So are we just gonna ignore what the Jews are doing to Palestine?”

“W everywhere.”

“Nice.”

“Good.

“I’ve been waiting for this.”

“70 years…finally.”

What do these commentators have in common?

They’re antisemites who are using the war in Palestine to justify their beliefs.

If you support Palestine, please be weary of N&zi rhetoric.

[artismyhammer]

Back in the bad old days, colonialism was easy to justify; you just had to say, "Well, they're heathens! Time to introduce Christianity until just about everyone is dead and incidentally become fantastically rich." But then, when liberalism displaced Christianity as the dominant ideology of the West, you needed to get a bit more creative: "Wow, look at how these savages treat their women. Better civilize them for their own good in a way that, rather counterintuitively, involves murdering them (including women) by the millions and, incidentally, also becoming fantastically rich." And that's basically where we've stood ever since, except we now also say "look at how they treat The Gays! Better flatten some residential neighbourhoods over it!" And people just accept this as a perfectly reasonable line of argument, even when they themselves don't particularly like women or gay people.

[artismyhammer]

[artismyhammer]

An interesting perspective to consider

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…

Excuse me, my queer ass needs to go cool off

This moment was Caitlyn's own personal Progress Day

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So apparently if you try to make an all egg white quiche it just turns into a soufflé…

[artismyhammer]

unfriendly reminder: this is a sex worker positive space. I will not tolerate the disrespect of sex workers here, and if you cant agree with that without a doubt then you're not welcome here.

[artismyhammer]

[artismyhammer]

i love you pride & prejudice 2005 i love you sense and sensibility 1995 i love you emma 2020 i love you bride & prejudice 2004 i love you fire island 2022 i love you clueless 1995 i love you emma 1996 i love you bridget jones's diary 2001 i love you persuasion 2007 i love you mansfield park 1983 i hate you persuasion 2022 i hate you persuasion 2022 i hate you persuasion 2022 i hate you persuasion 2022 i hate you persuasion 2022 i hate you persuasion 2022 i hate you persuasion 2022 i hate you persuasion 2022 i hate you persuasion 2022 i hate you persuasion 2022

[artismyhammer]

how anyone can hate fanny price is so beyond me because how can you not relate to being left out and simultaneously wishing to be included but also knowing that's not what you really want, you just want to be understood and loved by those who actually know you

[artismyhammer]

Dream houses

[artismyhammer]

Conservatives love oppression and overreach when it serves their patriarchal white power.

[artismyhammer]

love 2 learn new things