In Episode 111 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg explores the legacy of Francis Parker Yockey and other exponents of the now fast-growing current in the Western fascist tradition that has looked to Russia as a patron and ally. Under the leadership of Alexander Dugin, "Putin's Rasputin" and the theorist of a "Eurasian" bloc aganst the Western democratic powers, resurgent far-right Russo-nationalism is building ties to neo-fascist organizations across Europe—as well as to supposed "anti-war" leftists in the United States. The Putin propaganda machine's Nazi-baiting of the Ukrainians is yet another example of the sinister trend of fascist pseudo-anti-fascism. It is imperative that progressives in the West do not take the toxic bait of this "Red-Brown Aliiance." Any genuine anti-war position must begin with repudiating Putin's threats and aggression against Ukraine. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/countervortex Production by Chris Rywalt We ask listeners to donate just $1 per weekly podcast via Patreon -- or $2 for our new special offer! We now have 29 subscribers. If you appreciate our work, please become Number 30!

CounterVortex Podcast

CounterVortex Episode 111: Russia and the new fascism

In Episode 110 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg rants against the current greenwashing of nuclear power, and hype about a supposedly "safe" new generation of reactors. Every stage of the nuclear cycle is ecocidal and genocidal. Uranium mining has poisoned the lands of indigenous peoples from Navajo Country to Saskatchewan to West Africa. The ongoing functioning of nuclear plants entails routine emissions of radioactive gases, factored in by the bureaucrats in determining "acceptable" levels of cancer. Disposal of the waste, and the retired reactor sites themselves, is a problem that inherently defies solution. They will be deadly for exponentially longer into the future than biblical times stretch into the past. The Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) in New Mexico, hyped as secure for hundreds of millennia, leaked plutonium after only 13 years. And finally there is the "sexiest" issue, the one that actually gets some media play, at least—the risk of accident. It is a mark of capitalism's depravity that even after the nightmares of Fukushima and Chernobyl, we periodically get media capaigns about an imminent "nuclear renaissance." Nuclear versus fossil fuels is the false choice offered us by industry. The imperative is to get off the extraction economy and on to one based on sustainability and resource conservation. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/countervortex Production by Chris Rywalt We ask listeners to donate just $1 per weekly podcast via Patreon -- or $2 for our new special offer! We now have 27 subscribers. If you appreciate our work, please become Number 28!

CounterVortex Episode 110: Nuclear power? No thanks!

In Episode 109 of the CounterVortex podcast, of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg explores the under-reported conflict in India's northeastern state of Nagaland, which has seen a multi-generational pro-independence insurgency. Popular protest is rising there since an army massacre of coal-miners in December. The armed conflict began in 1956, when the Naga National Council declared independence from India in the face of Delhi's intransigence on recognizing local autonomy, and adopted a constitution emphasizing village self-rule. The traditional Naga territory is divided by the border with Burma, which has complicated their self-determination struggle. With Burma now going over the edge into civil war, there are growing fears that India's conflicted Northeast could be further enflamed. Erratum: The abbreviation for the National Socialist Council of Nagaland is of course NSCN (it is incorrectly rendered in the audio). Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/countervortex Production by Chris Rywalt We ask listeners to donate just $1 per weekly podcast via Patreon -- or $2 for our new special offer! We now have 27 subscribers. If you appreciate our work, please become Number 28!

CounterVortex Episode 109: Solidarity with Nagaland

In Episode 108 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes stock of the frightening East-West escalation over Ukraine. Beyond the front-line on that country's eastern borders, the forces of Russia and its allies and those of NATO are preparing for war from the Mediterranean to the Pacific. The "anti-war" (sic) left in the US is, with perfect predictability, lining up with Russia. Contrary to pseudo-left misconceptions, the post-Cold War promises to Russia that NATO would not expand east were never formalized. However, the promises made to Ukraine that its sovereignty and territory would be protected *were* formalized. The prevailing double standard on the Western "left" sensationalizes a "Nazi" threat in Ukraine while ignoring the actual consolidation of fascistic dictatorships in Russia and Belarus. Putin's propaganda, spread by the Kremlin media machine, is an exercise in fascist pseudo-anti-fascism. Meanwhile, Ukrainian socialists and democratic-left forces advance a "Neither East Nor West" position that demands solidarity against Russian aggression from the world anti-war forces. Erratum: The author ME Sarotte, whose work is discussed in this podcast, is misgendered. Her full name is Mary Elise Sarotte. We regret the error. Of course, contrary to what is said in the introduction, this was recorded on Jan. 27, 2022, not 2021. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/countervortex Production by Chris Rywalt We ask listeners to donate just $1 per weekly episode via Patreon. We now have 27 subscribers. If you appreciate our work, please become Number 28!

CounterVortex Episode 108: Ukraine between East and West

In Episode 107 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues his rant against the ubiquitous propaganda that normalizes the oppressive and dystopian pre-pandemic normality—or, as it is now incorrectly rendered, "normalcy" (sic). The opportunity for a crash conversion from fossil fuels that was posed by 2020's pandemic-induced economic paralysis is now being squandered. The fashionable COVID denialism of the anti-vaxxers is ironically complicit in the actual crimes of the pharmaceutical industry, such as the instating of a "vaccine apartheid"—failing to make the vaccine available to Africa and the much of the Global South. Just at the moment that socialist ideas are being legitimized in mainstream discourse again, the drum-beat for "normalcy" (sic) means less pressure for an urgently mandated public expropriation of corporate cyber-overlords such as Verizon, as well as Big Pharma and Big Oil. Meanwhile, consumerist and technocratc pseudo-solutions, such as the bogus notion of reducing one's personal "carbon footprint," obscure the systemic nature of the problem. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/countervortex Production by Chris Rywalt We ask listeners to donate just $1 per weekly podcast via Patreon—or $2 for our new special offer! We now have 27 subscribers. If you appreciate our work, please become Number 28!

CounterVortex Episode 107: Against 'normalcy' III

In Episode 106 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues his rant against the ubiquitous propaganda that normalizes the oppressive and dystopian pre-pandemic normality—or, as it is now incorrectly rendered, "normalcy" (sic). The opportunity for a crash conversion from fossil fuels that was posed by 2020's pandemic-induced economic paralysis is now being squandered. As fossil-fuel prices soar, the Biden administration is continuing a Trump-era policy to aggressively open public lands to coal mining, refusing to return to an Obama-era moratorium on new leases. US greenhouse gas emissions dramatically bounced back in 2021, which was one of the five hottest years on record. A record was made for highest temperature ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere. (The Northern Hemisphere record was reached in 2020.) The global mean sea level is rapidly rising, and will keep rising for centuries even if the Paris Agreement goals are met, as seems less likely each day. And all this as hospitals remain overwhelmed coast to coast, and the National Guard is being mobilized to keep them functioning. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/countervortex Production by Chris Rywalt We ask listeners to donate just per weekly episode via Patreon. We now have 28 subscribers. If you appreciate our work, please become Number 29!

CounterVortex Episode 106: Against 'normalcy' II

In Episode 105 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg rants against the ubiquitous propaganda that normalizes the oppressive and dystopian pre-pandemic normality. Amid the relentless COVID-19 denialism, even mainstream voices are calling for a return to "normalcy" (sic)—which is not even a word. The opportunity for a crash conversion from fossil fuels that was posed by 2020's pandemic-induced economic paralysis, when already depressed oil prices actually went negative, is now being squandered. President Biden just released oil from the Strategic Reserves to control soaring prices. Simultaneously, the administration is moving ahead with the largest offshore oil and gas lease sale in US history. While during the 2020 lockdown. the usually smog-obscured Himalayas became visible from northern India for first time in decades, Delhi is now choked with emergency levels of toxic smog. While during the 2020 lockdown, the total US death rate actually dropped because people were staying off the roads, US traffic deaths are now soaring. New York's new Mayor Eric Adams wants to stake the city's economic future to the cryptocurrency industry, even as China is cracking down on Bitcoin "mining" (sic) because of its "extremely harmful" carbon footprint. And even amid all the empty hand-wringing about climate change, airlines are flying thousands of empty "ghost flights" in order to keep their slots at congested airports. The much-vaunted "return to normalcy" must be urgently resisted. As Bruce Cockburn observed long ago, the trouble with normal is it always gets worse. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/countervortex Production by Chris Rywalt We ask listeners to donate just per weekly episode via Patreon. We now have 28 subscribers. If you appreciate our work, please become Number 29!

CounterVortex Episode 105: Against 'normalcy'

In Episode 104 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg, still suffering from possible COVID-19 symptoms, again notes how the radical right, including neo-Nazi elements, is in the vanguard of anti-vax protests, from Germany to Romania to England to Brooklyn. A vitual industry churns out relentless online disinformation that is easily refuted by anyone who makes the effort to break out of the confirmation-bias bubble. Contrary to the conspiranoid propaganda, COVID-19 deaths are actually being underestimated. The juvenile Nazi-baiting of the anti-vax machine is another example of the propaganda device of fascist pseudo-anti-fascism. Meanwhile, Tuskegee experiment survivors are encouraging vaccinations, and the Peoples Vaccine Alliance protests the actual crimes of Big Pharma—failing to make the vaccine available to Africa and the much of the Global South, in what has been decried as "vaccine apartheid." Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/countervortex Production by Chris Rywalt We ask listeners to donate just per weekly episode via Patreon. We now have 26 bsubscribers. If you appreciate our work, please become Number 27!

CounterVortex Episode 104: Antivax is fascist II

In Episode 103 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg, suffering from possible COVID-19 symptoms, rants against the mask and vaccine refusers who are not only threatening public health amid the worst pandemic in over a century, but also enabling the worldwide rise of the authoritarian radical right. As they relentlessly bait mask-wearers and vax-rationalists as succumbing to state propaganda, they themselves have swallowed the saturation propaganda from Fox News and the Trump campaign. Last year’s militia kidnapping plot against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer just had a reprise in an assassination conspiracy against the president of the German state of Saxony, similarly motivated by COVID-denialist reaction. Even Robert F. Kennedy Jr openly joined with German neo-Nazis at an anti-vax rally in Berlin. None of this is coincidental. The politics of the anti-vaxxers is actually redolent of Hitler’s “euthanasia” program, in which “useless eaters” (the disabled) were exterminated—the first step toward the Final Solution. Their juvenile Nazi-baiting is another example of the propaganda device of fascist pseudo-anti-fascism. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/countervortex Production by Chris Rywalt We ask listeners to donate just per weekly episode via Patreon. We now have 25 subscribers. If you appreciate our work, please become Number 26!

CounterVortex Episode 103: Antivax is fascist

In Episode 102 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg interviews Joanna Chiu, author of China Unbound: A New World Disorder, on the precipitous rise of the People's Republic as a world power, and the dilemmas this poses for human rights and democracy around the planet. How can we reconcile the imperative to resist the globalization of China's police state and to oppose the ugly Sinophobia which is rising in the West, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic? Some Chinese dissidents living in exile in the US have even been co-opted by Trumpism. Chiu argues that stigmatization and misinterpretation of diaspora ethnic Chinese plays into the hands of Beijing's propaganda. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/countervortex Production by Chris Rywalt We ask listeners to donate just per weekly episode via Patreon. We now have 23 subscribers. If you appreciate our work, please become Number 24!

CounterVortex Episode 102: China Unbound with Joanna Chiu

In Episode 101 of the CounterVortex podcast, we present the audio from a panel at the Ninth Biennial International Conference of the Herbert Marcuse Society, held in October at Arizona State University in Tempe. The panel, "The Responsibility to Protect in the Twenty-First Century," features two presentations. Javier Sethness speaks on "Realism, Egalitarianism, and Internationalism," providing a theoretical and historical framework for the question, including a discussion of Herbert Marcuse's work with US intelligence in World War II. Bill Weinberg, speaking via Zoom from New York, follows with "For Solidarity; Against Dictators and Campism," discussing contemporary examples, including Syria, Libya, Burma and Taiwan. A third presentation was to have been offered by Anner G. in Ethiopia, on "The Responsibility to Protect in Tigray," but she was unable to join. The work of her group, Horn Anarchists, is briefly discussed in Weinberg's presentation. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/countervortex Production by Chris Rywalt We ask listeners to donate just $1 per weekly podcast via Patreon—or $2 for our new special offer! We now have 23 subscribers. If you appreciate our work, please become Number 24!

CounterVortex Episode 101: R2P in the 21st Century

In Episode 100 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses recent uprisings in two disparate parts of the world—the South Pacific archipelago nation of the Solomon Islands and two of the states that have emerged from the former Yugoslavia. In both cases, people who were pissed off for damn good reason took to the streets to oppose foreign capital, and corrupt authoritarian leaders who do its bidding. But in the Solomon Islands, popular rage was deflected into campism and ethnic scapegoating, while in Serbia and Kosova the people on the ground actually overcame entrenched and bitter ethnic divisions to make common cause against common oppressors. The contrast holds lessons for global protest movements from Hong Kong to New York City. Music: Attitude!, featuring Rose Tang on vocals Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/countervortex Production by Chris Rywalt We ask listeners to donate just per weekly episode via Patreon. We now have 23 subscribers. If you appreciate our work, please become Number 24!

CounterVortex Episode 100: The countervortex of global resistance II

In Episode 099 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg interviews an old friend and colleague—legendary journalist, naturalist and adventurer Peter Gorman, who reflects on his long years collecting (and personally sampling) psychoactive and shamanic plants, from the Peruvian Amazon, to the Rif Mountains of Morocco, to the Palani Hills of southern India. Now approaching 71, Peter is about to head back down to the Amazon to revisit the remote Matsés indigeous people, who he first contacted in 1985. His latest collection of first-hand accounts is Magic Mushrooms in India & Other Fantastic Tales. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/countervortex Production by Chris Rywalt We ask listeners to donate just per weekly episode via Patreon. We now have 23 subscribers. If you appreciate our work, please become Number 24!

CounterVortex Episode 99: entheogenic adventures with Peter Gorman

In Episode 098 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses the book Thanksgiving: The Holiday at the Heart of the American Experience by Melanie Kirkpatrick. A work of Thanksgiving boosterism, it nonetheless recognizes the dissidents who reject the holiday as a celebration and sanitization of genocide, and even call for replacing it with a day of atonement. The idealized portrayal the first Thanksgiving in 1621 belies the bloody realities of the Pequot War and King Philip's War that shortly followed. Perversely, the Wampanoag indigenous people, who shared in that first Thanksgiving and were later defeated in King Philip's War, were the target of a new attempt at "termination" by the Trump administration, which sought to disestablish their reservation at Mashpee, on Cape Cod just 30 miles south of Plymouth Rock. Note: Please forgive audio interference from approximately 13 to 24 minutes. We are a shoestring operation. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/countervortex Production by Chris Rywalt We ask listeners to donate just per weekly episode via Patreon. We now have 28 subscribers. If you appreciate our work, please become Number 29!

CounterVortex Episode 98: Thanksgiving and Atonement

In Episode 097 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg dissects the geopolitics of the new James Bond movie, No Time to Die, and how the Daniel Craig reboot of the series has finessed the cultural icon's role in the New Cold War. Famously, the film was produced pre-pandemic, with its release postponed a year due to the lockdown—and its key plot device is a mass biological warfare attack, anticipating the conspiranoid theories about COVID-19. Yet it could also be prescient in warning of a superpower confrontation over the Kuril Islands—disputed by Russia and Japan, and an all too likely flashpoint for global conflict. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/countervortex Production by Chris Rywalt We ask listeners to donate just per weekly episode via Patreon. We now have 28 subscribers. If you appreciate our work, please become Number 29!

CounterVortex Episode 97: 007 in the New Cold War

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