Right Wing Anglosphere – White Nativist Demographic Talking Points – Population – Immigration – International Education

Disjointed analysis in Murdoch’s NewsCorp media across multiple (often seemingly unrelated) factors, bypassing data analysis principles according to Statistics 101 and ABS Australian Bureau of Statistics advice on using the NOM net overseas migration formula, that feeds into estimated resident population headline data; misdescribed as undefined ‘immigration’.

However… 2006, the NOM was inflated, follows the fossil fuel climate science denial techniques used to misrepresent and denigrate climate science research by misinterpreting data, claiming non existent correlations etc. and in the media shooting messengers or centrist government. 

Using a right wing ‘wedge’ and foil to the criticism directed at fossil fuels in Anglosphere, plus parts of Europe, informed by former ZPG Zero Population Growth white nativist Tanton Network. In the US it shares donors with Koch Network think tanks behind the GOP Republican Party and Trump, Bannon, Miller and FoxNews border obsessions including climate science denial; ditto the same networks in the U.K. Tories, UKIP/Reform, Farage, Anderson and GB News for Brexit.

Unvoiced or silent objective? Corrupt white nativist authoritarian autarky like 1930s Italy and Germany, or 19th century America of planters, master servant relationships and ‘segregation economics’, informed by the eugenics movement and the Mont Pelerin Society?

‘From NewsCom:

‘Simply too high’: Australia nearing crucial immigration ‘peak

Aussies have been warned that a current crisis plaguing the country could become “permanent”.

Leith van Onselen

‘ANALYSIS’

Last week, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the official population statistics for the September quarter of 2023, which revealed that Australia’s population grew by an unprecedented 660,000 people over the year, driven by record net overseas migration (NOM) of 549,000.

In percentage terms, Australia’s population grew by 2.5 per cent, the nation’s fastest growth rate since 1952, during the post-war migration boom.

(No, this defies both direct ABS advice and Statistics 101, NOM definition changed in 2006, cannot compare before and after

Graph from MacroBusiness misrepresents data by ignoring the 2006 expansion and running NOM (red line) uninterrupted from 1900 through 2006 to focus on present and temporary ‘data noise’, described as ‘immigration’.

‘23 Estimates of NOM based on the previous methods and those based on the ‘12/16 month rule’ methodology are not comparable. The key change is the introduction of the ‘12/16 month rule’ for measuring a person’s residency in Australia, replacing the previous ‘12/12 month rule’.’ ABS Explanatory Notes.)

Meanwhile, Australia’s natural population increase was a historically low 111,000 in the year to September 2023, courtesy of a jump in deaths, most likely related to the Baby Boomers beginning to die off and the impacts of the pandemic.

As a result, NOM as a share of Australia’s population increase remained at a record high of 83 per cent in the September quarter of 2023.

Separate annual data released by the ABS for the 2022-23 financial year showed that Australia’s capital cities grew by an unprecedented 517,000 in the year to 30 June 2023.

Melbourne (167,500) led the nation’s population growth last year, followed by Sydney (146,700).

The ABS’ monthly permanent and long-term arrivals data provide a useful proxy for the official quarterly NOM.

Annual net permanent and long-term arrivals hit a record high in January, suggesting that Australia’s official NOM and population growth would have increased further in the December quarter of 2023.

In its December Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Update (MYEFO), the Albanese government forecast that Australia’s NOM would fall to 375,000 this financial year, which would represent the second-highest annual NOM in Australia’s history.

However, given the acceleration of NOM in the September quarter and the stronger-than-anticipated net permanent and long-term arrivals numbers to January, Australia should expect significantly higher NOM this financial year than the government’s forecast.

The good news is that visa data suggests that NOM is at or near its peak.

According to the ABS, there were 402,000 net visa arrivals (excluding visitors) in the year to February 2024, down from a recent peak of 503,000.

This decline in visa arrivals has been driven by foreign students, which fell to 221,000 in the year to February, down from a recent peak of 294,000.

Australian renters are being smashed (source or evidence?)

The migration surge’s impact on the nation’s rental market has been particularly severe since the population boom occurred alongside the collapse in dwelling construction to decade-lows.

According to the ABS, Australia added only 155,600 homes (net of demolitions) to the nation’s dwelling stock in the year to September 2023, against a population increase of 660,000.

Therefore, Australia added only one new home for every 4.24 new residents. This explains why the nation’s rental vacancy rate has collapsed to a record low of around one per cent.

(No evidence simply talking points while ignoring the more unique housing types and requirements of international students and diversity of supply versus first home buyer and families)

Reflecting this demand-supply imbalance, median asking rents across Australia have soared by 38 per cent since the beginning of the pandemic, according to PropTrack, with almost all of this growth occurring after the federal government opened the international border to migration in late 2021.

With Australia’s net overseas migration and population growth to remain historically high for the foreseeable future, and the rate of dwelling construction expected to continue falling, the housing situation will remain fraught.

As a result, Australian tenants should prepare for further tightening of the rental market and ongoing strong rental inflation.

Australia needs a smaller and better-targeted immigration system

Few people would disagree that Australia’s immigration numbers are too high.

While migrants undoubtedly fill important labour market gaps across the economy, the sheer volume of arrivals has placed chronic pressure on the housing market and the nation’s infrastructure.

(No evidence, infrastructure requires healthy budgets from taxes plus skilled personnel and especially skilled migrants; clear issue in regions with population ageing and decline)  

A report released this month by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) showed that “recent migrants earn significantly less than Australian-born workers” (because they are not ‘migrants’ but international student, on low income?) and that “migrants have become increasingly likely to work in lower productivity firms”, earning more than 10 per cent less than Australian-born workers on average.

The CEDA report also showed that the unemployment rates of recent skilled migrants are higher than Australian-born workers.

CEDA’s findings are supported by the latest Graduate Outcomes Survey, which shows that international graduate employment rates, participation rates, and median salaries are well below those of domestic graduates.

(What if the other way round, then there would be complaints that domestic graduates are being usurped by international students in graduate employment?)

Research released in November 2023 by independent economist Gerard Minack showed that Australia’s 8.2 million population increase this century has outpaced the provision of business investment, infrastructure and housing, resulting in what economists call “capital shallowing” and reduced productivity growth.

“Australia’s economic performance in the decade before the pandemic was, on many measures, the worst in 60 years”, Minack wrote in his November report.

“Per capita GDP growth was low, productivity growth tepid, real wages were stagnant, and housing increasingly unaffordable. There were many reasons for the mess, but the most important was a giant capital-to-labour switch: Australia relied on increasing labour supply, rather than increasing investment, to drive growth.

“Australia’s population-led growth model was a demonstrable failure in the 15 years prior to the pandemic. Remarkably, the country now seems to be doubling down on the same strategy. The result, unsurprisingly, is likely to be more of the same.”

(No, wrong as our population was inflated by the NOM expansion in 2006 sweeping up international students who study and work part time, i.e. low income, hence, averaging or per capita does not reflect this).

To add further insult to injury, data compiled by the Grattan Institute shows that a significantly smaller share of migrants work in the construction sector than their Australian-born counterparts.

“About 32 per cent of Australian workers were foreign born, but only about 24 per cent of workers in building and construction were born overseas”, the Grattan Institute wrote in January.

“And very few recent migrants work in construction. Migrants who arrived in Australia less than five years ago account for just 2.8 per cent of the construction workforce, but account for 4.4 per cent of all workers in Australia”.

Therefore, Australia’s immigration system is directly adding to Australia’s housing and productivity problems in two ways.

First, immigration volumes are simply too high, overwhelming the supply side of the economy. 

(No, there is no optimum number but demographic balance for a youngish population, while international students spike data via the NOM, but described as ‘immigrants’ vs. far larger ageing baby boomer bomb)

Second, the migration system is poorly targeted and does not provide the skills the economy needs.

(Evidence?)

The fact that the nation’s population has ballooned by 8.2 million people (44 per cent) this century alone, yet Australia’s skills shortages are worse than ever, is empirical evidence of these facts.

(No, it’s higher churn over as many of those originals were temporary, and are no longer resident in Australia; where is the evidence of skills shortages being worse due to immigrants?)

Australia, therefore, needs a migration system that is much smaller in size and better targeted towards the skills we need.

(Opinion or motherhood statement lacking specifics)

Australia’s migration system must be calibrated to a level below the nation’s ability to supply homes, infrastructure, and business investment while safeguarding the natural environment (including water supplies).

(Opinion or Motherhood statement lacking specifics) 

Otherwise, Australia’s housing shortage will become permanent, and productivity growth and living standards will flounder.

(No, if a shortage why have Sydney house values stagnated for past decade i.e. price only doubled?)’

Leith van Onselen is co-founder of MacroBusiness.com.au and Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.

For more blogs and articles on Australian Immigration News, Australian Politics, Demography, International Education, Media, Tanton Network and White Nationalism click through:

Australian Bureau of Statistics – UNPD NOM Net Overseas Migration Formula – Inflating Immigration and Population Growth

Posted on March 25, 2024

One has written previously on the wilful confusion around immigration and population data used for demographic analysis in the Anglosphere, also to dog whistle refugees, immigrants and population growth.

However, requires the misrepresenting of data and research using climate science denial techniques used by entities linked to both Tanton Network and Koch Network, deflecting from carbon or fossil fuels and promoting eugenics; in Australia and US using proxies to replicate previous race based immigration restrictions.

Anglosphere Antipathy To Refugees, Immigrants and Sovereign Nations – White Nativism, Autocracy and Eugenics

Posted on March 11, 2024

Late news is that the former Labour MP, then Conservative MP and now Reform, Lee Anderson, has quite xenophobic views on both foreigners and fellow citizens, the new normal that is being actively promoted?

Repost from ByLine Times of AC Grayling article on Anglo, western and other nations negative attitudes that lack empathy, shared experience or understanding of refugees, asylum seekers and immigration history.

Nowadays with above median age voter dominated by less educated, less diverse, low info and more often regional voter, they are targeted by right wing nativist or white nationalist talking points for suboptimal outcomes e.g. Brexit, Trump, The Voice and those demanding no support for Ukraine vs. Russia’s invasion or ‘special operation’.

Mainstreaming of the Far Right

Posted on January 2, 2024

The far right did not emerge from a vacuum, but ignorance of the history of eugenics, authority, slavery, colonialism, Nazi Germany and post WWII, white nativists, especially in the US, and nowadays ageing democracies and right wing media which adopt the same.

Both Malthus and Galton are central to narratives around population control, identity and eugenics, with strong undercurrent of socio-Darwinism. By post WWI eugenics became a major area of research, not just in Germany via Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes, but the US too with slavery, Madison Grant and AES American Eugenics Society.

Due to the holocaust and Nazis treatment of Jews, Gypsies and minorities, including the ‘left’ i.e. being exterminated, eugenics had to be rebranded post WWII as a quasi ‘environmental’ movement, with strong support of same fossil fuel Rockefellers (Standard Oil & Exxon) and auto oligarchs (Fiat & VW) via Club of Rome and ZPG Zero Population Growth. 

Environment – Fossil Fuels – Climate Science Denial – Populationism – Anti-Immigration – Far Right – Tanton Network

Posted on November 30, 2023

Jeff Sparrow in Overland rebuts a counter critique of his book ‘Crimes Against Nature’ by a faux expert Edward Smith who appears to be au faire with faux environmental and anti-immigrant arguments promoted by the US Tanton Network linked NGO Sustainable Population Australia.

One would not bother using high level analysis to rebut low level faux science nativist agitprop inspired by former ZPG Zero Population Growth types, namely deceased white nationalist John ‘passive eugenics’ Tanton whose colleague was Paul ‘Population Bomb’ Ehrlich, with support from the Rockefeller Bros., ‘limits to growth’ PR constructs promoted by Club of Rome and drawing on Malthus, Galton and Madison Grant.

However, it does show some of the influence that proponents aspire to, whether in media, NGOs, think tanks or politics, constantly reinforce old nativist and white Australia policy tropes masquerading as environmental science, greenwashing both fossil fuels or carbon emissions and eugenics; targets old white Australia sentiments and younger mistaking the movement and proponents as experts.

Australian Migration Review 2023 – For Immigrants and Nation or a Nativist Trap?

Posted on May 10, 2023

The Australian Migration Review Report has been published, based on narratives and submissions, but little meaningful grass roots feedback or data to support any grounded analysis for good future reforms?

This post will focus on NOM Net Overseas Migration and major source or factor i.e. international education and students, but for now, not the other main factors including WHV Working Holiday Visas (2nd year) and temporary workers.

There are generic review report issues e.g. lack of direct support for many narratives and recommendations, does not explain budget issues of ageing i.e. more low or no tax payers in retirement as baby boomer bubble transitions vs. decline in working age cohort of PAYE taxpayers, to support more Australian retirees.

Immigration to Australia – More Opportunities for Temporary Residents?

Posted on March 7, 202

Interesting analysis from Grattan Institute in Melbourne on how to improve Australia’s migration system, especially for temporary entrants. 

However, although one agrees with the broad argument and sentiments, many assumptions and factors cited including the need to make more temporary residents permanent, would require raising, for now, the modest permanent cap, guaranteed to kick off a negative media campaign.

Further, one thinks it overestimates the desire for ‘temporary migrants’, caught under the ‘nebulous’ (Ian Dunt UK) NOM net overseas migration, to remain in Australia permanently after studies, travel, work etc.?

Tanton Network Migration Watch UK criticised for misleading UK immigration reports.

How Conservatives Admire Corrupt Dictators and Authoritarians – Trump and Putin

Article from Michel in TNR The New Republic on the right’s obsession with, respect and desire for authoritarians and dictators, even if corrupt and nativist including Trump and Putin.

While ‘free market’ think tanks, especially US fossil fuel Atlas or Koch Network promote right wing policies for the 1%, and related white nativist Tanton Network entities promote eugenics and the great replacement.

Further, two other central elements include media and ageing citizens; hollowed out legacy media including ‘news deserts’ and now social media being colonised or flooded with far right nativist agitprop to increasing numbers of ageing and/or disadvantaged voters who are less urban, less diverse, less educated and less informed.

Right wing parties, nativists and populists are being used to support both eugenics and corporate friendly policies for the 1% versus 99%, even if against the latter’s interests; see Brexit, Trump and Putin.

From TNR The New Republic:

How the American Right Fell in Love With Dictators, Over and Over Again Trump and Putin are nothing new.

By Casey Michel

For years, an imperialistic, hard-right European dictator unleashing bloodshed across the Continent cultivated supporters across the U.S. This despot claimed he was leading a “unique, anti-Western culture,” and, in so doing, cultivated allies and fellow travelers among conservatives across America, all of whom were disgusted by “corrupt Western liberal values” and who “scorned Western liberalism as a bankrupt ideology.” Nor was this appeal just rhetorical; as investigators later discovered, this right-wing revanchist bankrolled both propaganda efforts and agents on the ground, successfully turning Americans, especially on the right, to his cause.

To modern readers, the story is a familiar one — not least as it pertains to Donald Trump’s affections for Vladimir Putin, to say nothing of how Russian forces have cultivated conservative Americans from Tucker Carlson to the National Rifle Association and beyond. But the aforementioned case has nothing to do with Putin or with Trump. Instead, it took place a century ago, when conservatives across the U.S. flocked to the cause of Germany’s militarist tyrant, Kaiser Wilhelm II.

In so doing, as Jacob Heilbrunn successfully argues in his new book, America Last: The Right’s Century-Long Romance With Foreign Dictators, they created a blueprint for how foreign dictators even decades later could cultivate conservative communities to their cause — and could, by the early 21st century, help propel one as far as the presidency. The story of the Americans who worshipped Wilhelm is just one of a range of pro-dictatorship efforts that Heilbrunn excavates, threading a century-long conservative infatuation with right-wing dictators. It’s not only a corrective to the voluminous (if also accurate) investigations on how communist tyrannies fostered leftist supporters in the U.S., but also an able — and wildly timely — effort to stitch together nominally disparate views, from different epochs and eras. 

It all adds up to a convincing conclusion: that Trump, in “lavishing praise on Putin and other dictators … wasn’t creating a new style of right-wing politics,” Heilbrunn, editor of The National Interest and author of a previously acclaimed book on the history of neoconservatives, writes. “Instead, he was building on a long-standing tradition.”

It’s a tradition that has seen surprisingly little scrutiny, allowing Trump’s treacly fealty to Putin to seem like an aberration. To be sure, there are elements unique to Trump’s personal predilections — not least his history as a luxury real-estate developer, an industry that profited arguably more than any other from the illicit, kleptocratic flows linked to foreign dictators, laundering untold millions of dollars (and potentially more) in the process. Never before could foreign despots so easily, and so effectively, patronize the company of a sitting American president.

But in other far more conspicuous ways, Trump is simply building on a legacy long predating his rise. There were, for instance, the early devotions to the Ur-Fascist himself, Benito Mussolini. Il Duce presented himself not only as a guarantor of order and stability — and a bastion against left-wing forces in Italy and beyond — but as someone who posed “as a defender of whites,” Heilbrunn notes, who prioritized “family values” and who, “in stark contrast to hedonistic America, cherished manliness.” (He also cherished Wall Street with JP Morgan organizing a loan for the Fascist government worth nearly $2 billion in modern currency.) Conservatives in America lapped it up, fêting not only Mussolini but salivating for a similar leader in the U.S. One conservative writer, Irving Babbitt, bleated that circumstances “may arrive when we may esteem ourselves fortunate if we get the American equivalent of a Mussolini; he may be needed to save us from the American equivalent of a Lenin.”

So, too, did plenty of conservative Americans view the rise of Mussolini’s younger brother, ideologically, in Berlin. While the organization of pro-Nazi sympathizers in America has seen more detailed treatments elsewhere, Heilbrunn ropes in other conservatives who freely platformed Adolf Hitler. Germany’s dictator was freely supported by conservatives such as William Randolph Hearst, who “not only admired the Fuhrer, but commissioned him and Mussolini to write for his newspapers for handsome fees.” Later investigations revealed that Hitler’s regime picked up on the kaiser’s previous model, not only covertly funding agents in the U.S. but even slipping pro-Nazi propaganda into official congressional mailings, recruiting some of the U.S.’s most conservative representatives of the time.

The postwar smothering of fascism didn’t seem to slow conservatives’ lust for right-wing strongmen. By the 1960s, the primary home for such reverence was found not necessarily in Washington but in the pages of National Review, where founder William F. Buckley and his claque of writers apparently never found a hard-right despot they couldn’t support. There was Spain’s Francisco Franco, whom Buckley dubbed an “authentic national hero,” Heilbrunn writes. There was Portugal’s Antonio Salazar, who wrote in the magazine that he was “fighting for Western civilization and Christian values.” There was Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, whom Buckley viewed as a “bona fide leader who knew how to exercise power.” (After Pinochet used a car bomb to assassinate a political opponent in Washington, D.C., Chilean officials turned directly to Buckley for advice on how to “sanitize Pinochet’s reputation,” for which Buckley happily obliged.)

Soon, though, such sentiments swelled back into the White House. By the Reagan era, American affections for right-wing despots during the late Cold War blossomed into official policy. The architect for such fondness was Reagan’s foreign-policy adviser, Jeane Kirkpatrick, who served as an “unabashed defender” of right-wing regimes throughout her tenure. Nor was she picky about the form. Militarists in Argentina, those running death squads in El Salvador, the authors of apartheid in South Africa: Kirkpatrick, with Reagan in tow, succored them all.

But then, in 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, and a few years later, the Soviet Union shattered. America — and liberalism — stood triumphant. Supporting such regimes was suddenly gauche, out of step with this American moment. And the patterns and preferences that propped up American backing of right-wing dictators slunk back into the shadows.

But it never disappeared entirely. As with so much of the paleoconservative architecture of Trumpism — the nativism and the racism, the suspicion of the federal government and the amorality undergirding it all — Heilbrunn identified Pat Buchanan as the figure who kept the flames of such fawning for right-wing dictators alive. Not only did Buchanan refer to leaders like Hitler as “an individual of great courage,” but Buchanan whipped up opposition to American intervention in the Balkans, calling time and again to let Serbian tyrant Slobodan Milosevic have his way and commit genocide.

As Heilbrunn writes, Buchanan — who would later turn his affections toward figures like Putin, even before Trump entered the White House — “longed for a kind of internationalism rooted in those small towns and conservative values and in whiteness, whether in the U.S. or in Serbia or Russia or South Africa or elsewhere.” For years, Buchanan “seemed like a Cassandra,” but as Heilbrunn added, “One prospective candidate for the presidency who picked up on … Buchanan’s unusual history lessons was a loudmouthed Manhattan real estate mogul” — a figure who gave Buchanan’s views the biggest platform yet, carving an entire political movement out of a conservative tradition few Americans had any idea existed.

Thanks to Heilbrunn’s book, however, that confusion is no more. And while the book’s actual writing verges on the overwrought — words like oneiric and pursuivant belong in spelling bees, not mainstream political analysis — Heilbrunn correctly identifies the core of this conservative strain. Trumpists, and those who came before, “are advocating ethno-nationalism in the guise of a set of principles.” Just as the white supremacist Redeemers before them claimed they were simply advocating a restoration of democracy, so, too, do the Herrenvolk reactionaries of the MAGA world claim they’re simply restoring supposed American greatness — and that right-wing despots abroad should be allies in the fight.

If there’s a fault in Heilbrunn’s writing, it’s that there might be too much emphasis on such ideological affinity. After all, dictatorships’ abilities to inflame and inflate American conservative support can’t operate without a latticework of supporters. And as we’ve learned in recent years, those operatives — the lobbyists and the PR specialists, the law firms and the consultancies, the former congressional officials who leave office and immediately transform into mouthpieces for foreign regimes — don’t require any ideological overlap with their despotic clients. All they need is to get paid, and they’ll be happy to transform into foot-soldiers for tyranny.

Just look, for instance, at the network that serviced Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian thug who ruled Ukraine until Kyiv’s democratic revolution a decade ago. There was Paul Manafort, who later became Trump’s 2016 campaign manager. But there was also Tony Podesta, who until the mid-2010s oversaw arguably the leading Democratic lobbying shop in Washington. There was even Tad Devine, who helped Yanukovych grab power in 2010 — and who then steered Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign. It was an ideological potpourri, all working at the behest of an autocrat who tried to cement pro-Russian rule in Kyiv — and whose ouster lit a fuse that detonated stability in Europe and that now risks far more devastation.

But that’s all the subject for another book (mine, called Foreign Agents, will be hitting bookshelves in August). In the meantime, Heilbrunn’s analysis of this glorification of right-wing dictatorships is a warning — as if more were needed — of what a potential Trump second term could look like. Whether it’s Putin’s Russia or Orbán’s Hungary, or even the echoes of Wilhelmine Germany, the conclusion is clear: “Aggrieved … by what they perceived as their own society’s failings — its liberalism, its tolerance, its increasing secularism — conservatives have searched for a paradise abroad that can serve as a model of home.” The kaiser would be proud.

For more articles and blogs on Ageing Democracy, Conservative, Demography, Eugenics, Evangelical Christianity, Media, Political Strategy, Radical Right Libertarian, Russia and Younger Generations click through:

Collective Narcissism, Ageing Electorates, Pensioner Populism, White Nativism and Autocracy

Posted on November 5, 2021

Plato noted more than 2000 years ago, one of the greatest dangers for democracy is that ordinary people are all too easily swayed by the emotional and deceptive rhetoric of ambitious politicians. We have observed the Anglosphere including the U.K., Australia and U.S., becoming more nativist, conservative, libertarian, extreme and conspiracy minded.  This is not organic.

Narcissistic Political Leaders – NPD Narcissistic Personality Disorder – Collective Narcissism – Cognitive Dissonance – Conspiracy Theories – Populism

Posted on April 13, 2022

We have observed the rise of neo authoritarian conservative leaders using nativism and sociocultural issues with media PR support to inform the public, especially voters, suboptimally, including east and west.

However, there are pitfalls for democracy in manipulating access to information by the public or electorate, not just feeding the needs of narcissistic leaders (see article ‘Narcissistic Leaders: The Incredible Pros, the Inevitable Cons’), but developing societal collective narcissism for populism and electoral advantage aka Brexit, also observed in Hungary, Turkey and Russia.

Nationalist Conservative Political Parties in the Anglosphere – Radical Right Libertarian Ideology and Populism for Votes

Posted on May 31, 2021

Interesting article from CARR reflecting conservative parties across the world dealing with demographic change, and especially the Anglosphere of the UK, US and Australia where they have been beholden to corporate supporters from the old economy i.e. fossil fuels, agriculture and industry including assembly lines and construction.  Nowadays the new economy of Big Tech, innovation, services and government with more educated and empowered citizens is problematic for the Kochs, Murdochs, DeVos, Scaife et al.

Ageing Democracy, Nativism and Populism

Posted on January 18, 2019

Liberal democracies in western world need to make sure they do not become populist gerontocracies with changing demographics creating elderly ‘Gerrymandering’ where influence and numbers of older voters (with short term horizons) increasing proportionally over younger generations with longer term interests but less voice and influence.

AC Grayling on the Need for more Educated and Informed Citizens

Posted on September 1, 2023

When people question seemingly uninformed voter choices averting their gaze from politicians of the right, right wing media and related who are desperate to keep or put right wing parties in power, by attacking the centre and sensible legislation, why or how?

Across the Anglosphere and Europe many mostly ageing dominant voters, politicians, media and influencers, who are less educated and less diverse than younger generations, backed up by ‘collective narcissism’ and ‘pensioner populism’; see Brexit, Trump, Meloni, Orban et al.

British Young People Thrown Under a Bus for Votes in Ageing Demographics

Posted on September 21, 2023

Relevant article from John Curtice of the University of Strathclyde on how age determines divides in British politics, and not class in Conversation article ‘Age, not class, is now the biggest divide in British politics, new research confirms’.

CPAC Conservative Political Action Conference and the John Birch Society

CPAC US has been in the news for falling audiences and fallings out between different groups and players, while CPAC Hungary will be held 25-26th April in Budapest.  

Recently both The Atlantic and SPLC Southern Poverty Law Center have highlighted the links between CPAC and the anti-communist John Birch Society, founded by Robert Welch, with assistance from others including Fred Koch.

Fred Koch was the father of Charles Koch who in turn helped create the Atlas – Koch Network of global think tanks, along with Tanton Network nativism or eugenics from the old Rockefeller supported ZPG Zero Population Growth; underpins the threat of the ‘great replacement’ of the WASP 1% by lower orders and ‘other types’.

An interesting metaphor, allegory or comparison where the John Birch Society apparently saw itself in the same ecosystem as the KKK Ku Klux Klan competing for members, while nowadays Koch Network shares donors with the nativist or eugenics based Tanton Network, obsessing over borders and immigrants. 

From The Atlantic

‘The Return of the John Birch Society

The organization, once relegated to the outermost edges of the conservative movement, now fits neatly into its mainstream.

By Elaina Plott Calabro

Michael Smart chuckled as he thought back to their banishment.

Truthfully he couldn’t say for sure what the problem had been, why it was that in 2012, the John Birch Society—the far-right organization historically steeped in conspiracism and opposition to civil rights—had found itself blacklisted by the Conservative Political Action Conference. “Nobody knows the official reason, because they don’t tell you that,” Smart, a field coordinator for the group, told me.

He has theories, of course. Perhaps the Birchers’ unapologetic crusade against “globalism” had started to hit too close to home for the Republican Party of 12 years ago; perhaps their warnings about, of all people, Newt Gingrich—a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” whose onetime membership on the Council on Foreign Relations, as Smart saw it, revealed his “globalist” vision for conservatism—had rankled the Republican powers that be.

In any event, the ouster had made the news, coming as it had after a change in leadership at the American Conservative Union, the host of CPAC, the annual gathering of conservative politicians, commentators, and activists. “When they applied, I said, ‘I don’t want any segregationist groups at CPAC; it sends the wrong message,’” Al Cárdenas, the ACU chair from 2011 to 2014, told me recently. “And that was that.” For some optimistic observers, the decision had signified a small but symbolic effort to purge the movement of its most “highly offensive” elements, as one report put it…..’

From SPLC Southern Poverty Law Center

‘FOR CPAC ATTENDEES, ‘AMERICA IS UNDER ATTACK’

March 08, 2024

Hannah Gais and Cassie Miller

National Harbor, Maryland – Activists at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this past month presented their movement as locked in an irrevocable, existential conflict with their perceived political enemies.

In recent years, the far right has used the event to integrate themselves into the greater political establishment and influence a coherent identity for their movement. The conference focuses on elections as one of the key strategies for advancing their agenda further to the right.

Between Feb. 21-24, right-wing activists gathered in National Harbor, Maryland, where one speaker called for overthrowing democracy and others presented former President Donald Trump as the sole politician capable of rescuing America from crisis. One sponsor, an antigovernment organization called Moms for America, whose self-proclaimed goal is “to raise patriots and promote liberty,” ran an advertisement between speeches that described America as “under attack.”

CPAC featured an array of speakers and prominent attendees from international far-right organizations in El Salvador, Germany, Hungary, Argentina, Spain, Japan and the United Kingdom, in addition to Trump and other figures from the American far right. In a sparsely occupied exhibition hall in the Gaylord Convention Center, the venue that hosts CPAC, Hatewatch observed organizers from the far-right, conspiratorial John Birch Society handing out publications and membership applications.

Another vendor permitted attendees to play a pinball machine promoting various conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and attack on the U.S. Capitol. Multiple anti-abortion activists promoted their work. At different booth, one man attempted to sell Hatewatch reporters colloidal silver toothpaste, a fraudulent health product pushed by conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones.

“Welcome to the overthrow of democracy,” Jack Posobiec, a political operative and Turning Point USA (TPUSA) affiliate who has collaborated with a range of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and other extremists throughout his political career, told a crowd on Wednesday, Feb. 21.

“We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get there all the way on Jan. 6. But we will endeavor to get rid of it, and replace it with this right here,” he said, before holding up what appeared to be a cross.

Amid a slew of sexual assault allegations against Matt Schlapp, who heads the American Conservative Union that oversees and organizes CPAC, the conference has struggled to maintain relevance and attract attendees. On Thursday and Friday, a Hatewatch reporter observed dozens of rows of empty seats throughout the conference hall. Even during Trump’s speech on Saturday, a small, standing-room-only overflow area in the main hall appeared only partially full.

‘IT WILL BE THEIR JUDGMENT DAY’

Throughout the conference, speakers described the United States as a “captive nation” that is under siege from a myriad of perceived threats, including from the political left.

“For hardworking Americans, Nov. 5 will be our new liberation day. But for the liars and cheaters and fraudsters and censors and imposters who have commandeered our government, it will be their judgment day,” Trump said during his speech on the afternoon of Feb. 24, which began one hour after its scheduled start time.

In the end, he said, “Our country is being destroyed and the only thing standing between you and its obliteration is me.”….

FEAR MONGERING ABOUT THE BORDER, IMMIGRANTS

Multiple speakers at CPAC focused heavily on immigration and anti-immigrant rhetoric, presenting immigrants from non-white countries as a destructive force.

“All of a sudden we’re starting to like our prisoners and our horrible violent criminals because they’re nicer than the people that are flowing in,” Trump said on Feb. 24, warning that immigrants from Asia, the Middle East and Africa were “destroying the country.”

Stephen Miller, once a senior adviser to Trump whose affinity for white nationalist literature Hatewatch revealed in 2019, emphasized that a second Trump administration would build on the anti-immigrant policies that he enacted during his previous time in office. Miller reiterated a plan to deputize the National Guard to act as immigration enforcement. The administration, he said, would establish large-scale staging grounds where immigrants would be brought before being flown out of the country by federal law enforcement.

FLOUNDERING ATTENDANCE AND EXTREMISTS

The continued presence of once-fringe conspiracy-minded groups such as the John Birch Society, which was also listed as a sponsor for this year’s CPAC, is a “symbolic ratification of where CPAC has been the past decade,” Matthew Dallek, the author of Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right, told Hatewatch in a phone call.

Arguably, so too is the presence of several known white nationalists and neo-Nazis who attended CPAC or mingled around the outskirts of the official event.

Hatewatch observed Jared Taylor, wearing an official CPAC badge, at multiple events over the course of the Feb. 22-24 conference. Taylor runs the white nationalist outlet American Renaissance, which portrays Black people as inferior and biologically prone to criminality. Multiple conferencegoers posted photos with Taylor on “X,” formerly Twitter, with him over the course of the event….

…..Greg Conte, the former director of operations for the now-defunct white nationalist think tank the National Policy Institute, as well as a former chairman for the now-defunct pro-Hitler political party the National Justice Party, appeared at multiple venues near the conference with other white nationalists. The Nation, NBC News and The New York Times reported seeing Conte on Friday night at a bar near the venue. On Saturday afternoon, a Hatewatch reporter also witnessed Conte and a handful of friends, who were not wearing CPAC badges and confirmed they were not there as conference attendees, drinking at a bar in the Gaylord lobby.

On Feb. 25, Schlapp responded to the NBC News report regarding Conte, Sanchez and others’ presence at the event on “X,” formerly Twitter, falsely accusing supporters of a ceasefire in the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict in Gaza of being neo-Nazis.’

For more blogs and articles related to Conservatives, Eugenics, Koch Network, Libertarian Economics, Radical Right Libertarians and Tanton Network click through:

Adam Smith – Classical Liberal Economics or Conservative Calvinist Christianity or White Christian Nationalism?

Posted on June 21, 2021

We observe many governments, especially Anglosphere and conservative, following the ideology of Adam Smith, promoted through Koch linked think tanks, assiduously. The outcomes include less Keynesian influence on government policy and more Smith, or Hayek, Friedman and Buchanan.

The latter cite ‘freedom and liberty’ for society, and economic policies based round ‘public choice theory’, monetarism and small government. Related there is also much emphasis or attention paid to elections, taxes, government budgets and many sociocultural issues including impairment of workers and unions rights, interfering on university campuses, demanding immigration restrictions, ‘freedom of speech’ and using Christianity as a divisive issue to create an ageing conservative voter coalition, especially in the USA.

Anglosphere Nativist Libertarian Social Economic Policies or Return of Eugenics?

Posted on October 28, 2022

In the past decade we have witnessed a political shift to the nativist and libertarian right in the Anglosphere, but described as ‘conservative’, appealing to the important above median age voter, less educated, more socially conservative, obedient and monocultural, but e.g. in UK leading to austerity measures?

Most of these ideas come from the classical or liberal economists of the past including Calvin, Smith, Ricardo et al. and also includes old eugenics based ideas of dour Christian men like Malthus on population, Galton on social Darwinism or eugenics, and worse, Madison Grant in the US who influenced Hitler.

James Buchanan – Economist – Koch Influencer – Radical Right Libertarian – Anglo Conservatives

Posted on October 10, 2022

5

We hear much about the influence of right wing or conservative economic ideology in political policies whether GOP Republicans, UK Tories, Australian Liberal conservatives etc., think tanks and related media calling for lower taxes or cuts, smaller government, fewer services, immigration restrictions, white nativism, climate science denial, less red tape and moving the Overton window to the far right. 

However, as witnessed recently in the UK, with ‘Trussonomics’, these policies are presumed to be native and grounded through good policy development, but are they? 

No, they represent the work of one ‘the most influential but unknown men in America’, segregation economist James Buchanan allied with Hayek, von Mises, Friedman and Rand, while being supportive of Pinochet’s coup in Chile; ‘radical right libertarian policies’ presented as economic but appear to be more social engineering, with eugenics (of class and race) in the background? 

Anglosphere Oligarchs – Koch Atlas Network Think Tanks

Posted on March 27, 2023

We have heard much of supposed ‘libertarian’ think tanks or PR outfits in the Anglosphere influencing policy, especially of the right, via media and lobbying, euphemistically known as ‘Koch Network’ or the ‘Kochtopus’ with a fondness for fossil fuels and climate science denial.

New Yorker journalist Jane Mayer investigated several years ago for her book ‘Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right’ (2017) which included insight into oligarch donors Mellon-Scaife, Olin, Bradley, DeVos and Coors.

Conservative CPAC Event – Hungary – Who Pays for Influence?

Posted on June 2, 2022

Recently the infamous US GOP Conservative CPAC event was held in Budapest, Hungary, with a conference and meeting of minds whether related to the far right, Fox News, ‘the great replacement’, anti-semitism, anti-immigration, Christian nationalism and rights etc.

Putin’s Russian Led Corruption of Anglosphere and European Radical Right, Conservatives and Christians

Posted on March 4, 2024

Some years ago Putin and Russia attracted much attention and sympathy from Anglo and European ultra conservative Christians, radical right and free market libertarians for Russia’s corrupt nativist authoritarianism with antipathy towards liberal democracy, the EU and open society.

These phenomena can be observed through visitors and liaisons, but more so by shared talking points and values.  These include family values, pro-life, Christianity, patriarchy, misogyny, white supremacy, traditionalism, dominionism, Evangelicals, anti-LGBT, anti-woke,  anti-elite, anti-gay marriage, traditional wives etc. and corruption, promoted by right wing parties, media, ultra conservative influencers, think tanks and NGOs.

Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch – Fox News and Ultra Conservative Grifters – Putin, Brexit, Trump, GOP and Orban

Repost of article about Rupert Murdoch in Australia by Sean Kelly in Mother Jones January 2024.

‘Australia vs. Rupert Murdoch 

What’s the future of the aging mogul’s global empire? Look to the place where it all began.

SEAN KELLY

JANUARY 29, 2024

When the US targeted Russia’s oligarchs after the invasion of Ukraine, the trail of assets kept leading to our own backyard. Not only had our nation become a haven for shady foreign money, but we were also incubating a familiar class of yacht-owning, industry-dominating, resource-extracting billionaires. In the January + February 2024 issue of our magazine, we investigate the rise of American Oligarchy—and what it means for the rest of us. You can read all the pieces here.

Six years ago, Australia held a nationwide vote on gay marriage. During the brutal campaign, Sydney-based author Benjamin Law published a long essay accusing Rupert Murdoch’s media empire of stoking a “moral panic” over a program safeguarding queer kids from bullying. Then he waited for the blowback. He knew it was not a question of whether the operation would retaliate but how. Soon after, he got an email from a journalist at one of Murdoch’s papers, asking for his reaction to a story they were writing about him. He felt dread. “You know that things are going to get really hairy.”

Around the world, Murdoch’s publications are known for maliciously pursuing their enemies. The technique is known as “monstering,” and the British journalist Nick Davies has likened it to the way “muggers in back alleys use their boots, to kick a victim to pulp.” Sometimes, these targets have earned attention by doing something egregious. Just as often they have simply picked the wrong side of a culture war. The simplest, most reliable way to signal you have made this regrettable mistake is by publicly criticizing Murdoch or his outlets….

…..This is a time of transition for Rupert Murdoch. In September, the 92-year-old announced that he was standing down as chair of both Fox and News Corp. His eldest son, Lachlan, will take over. Within the Australian wing of the organization, this is viewed as formalizing arrangements that have been in place for several years; it is nonetheless an historic moment. The assets Rupert is handing to Lachlan are spread across the large English-speaking nations: His companies own TV stations, a book publisher, and some of the most famous newspapers in the world, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and British papers The Sun and The Times. For a half-century, Murdoch’s influence has been most obvious in Australia, where News Corp controls more than 100 newspapers—including The Australian and several tabloids—that command more than half of the country’s readership, and a cable TV station called Sky News, modeled on Fox News.

Over the past 13 years, that influence has become steadily more controversial. In that time, Australia has endured political turmoil. Six people have led the country, one of them twice. 

Among the causes of this melodrama you might list ambition, cowardice, revenge—and the Murdoch press, which has been a constant force. As with the rise of Trump and the events of January 6, much of this mess seems unthinkable, almost inexplicable, until you remember: Murdoch’s operation was involved. Public frustration with the outlets has grown. They are criticized in other parts of the press and vilified on social media. Stickers telling people not to read Murdoch tabloids can be seen stuck to utility poles across the country……

……“For most of my life,” veteran journalist Margaret Simons tells me, “it’s been assumed that you couldn’t win government in Australia without the backing or at least the consent of Murdoch.” Now, she says, this is changing. In 2022, after nine years out of power, Labor won the national election without the backing of the Murdoch outlets. Labor holds power, too, in all but one of the country’s eight states and territories. The era of News Corp seeming to select prime ministers may be finished.

Suggestions that the Murdoch empire is declining in the place that Rupert first built it are tantalizing to his critics. That this alleged decline coincides with such a delicate handover—from all-powerful father to relatively untested son—may raise these hopes still higher: Perhaps this is the moment those terrified of Murdoch have been waiting for all these years. After all, if it can happen there, surely it could happen anywhere—perhaps even everywhere.

“This is a thing a lot of people don’t understand about power,” a former prime minister of Australia, the Liberal Party’s Malcolm Turnbull, tells me. “For me, power without purpose is pointless, right? But for a lot of people, and Rupert’s one of them, power is a goal in itself. If you said to him, ‘why do you like power?’ it would be like saying to someone ‘why do you like sex? Or chocolate?’ The answer is, ‘I don’t know why I like it but it’s great.’”…

…..The most common reason offered for the decline in Murdoch’s power over elections is that newspapers are dying. Margaret Simons—who has both worked for The Australian and been monstered by it—believes all media has lost influence, but says Murdoch’s papers have lost more influence than others. Other competitors have come along, too. Simons sits on the Scott Trust, the owner of the Guardian, which just celebrated its 10th birthday in Australia. The facts are far from clear. Media analyst Denis Muller reminds me the Murdoch papers are still among the most read in Australia. Because the shift to digital has made figures hard to track, he is not even willing to say readership has fallen. In late 2022, News Corp Australia announced that for the first time it had 1 million digital subscribers.

Simons told me that, during her own monstering, she felt “besieged” and was unable to sleep. Another victim told a journalist for the Australian news site Crikey, “I could spend half a weekend in agony.” When the Australian writer Robert Manne asked an Indigenous Australian woman about the impact a Murdoch campaign had had on her life, “She could not speak.” The power of the Murdoch outlets in Australia has never rested only with elections. The other element is primal: fear of what they can do to you….

…..What had happened in those 12 months was dramatic: Murdoch and his newspapers were rocked by revelations of illegal phone-hacking conducted by journalists at News of the World, one of Murdoch’s British papers. The public was particularly outraged to discover that in 2002 a phone belonging to Milly Dowler—a 13-year-old who had disappeared and was later found murdered—had been hacked. Massive scandal followed. Murdoch shuttered the 150-year-old paper. Rupert and his son James were called to answer questions before a parliamentary committee. Manne would later write that the “struggle to expose the criminal behaviour of News International was successful” because a “handful of individuals…behaved as if they were not frightened.” Lawyers and journalists—as well as politicians and celebrities victimized by Murdoch’s tabloids—had refused to “capitulate.” Of all the political virtues, he wrote, “courage” was the most consequential. It seems this was on Manne’s mind as he penned the conclusion to his essay, where he wrote that he could see only one solution to The Australian’s pernicious influence: “courageous external and internal criticism.” Other news organizations had largely avoided focusing on Murdoch, preferring not to risk battle with the ferocious billionaire. Meanwhile, journalists inside The Australian stayed mutely acquiescent, despite concern at what Manne called the paper’s “frequent irrationalism.” If those both outside and inside the empire began to speak up, perhaps there was hope….

….Five years later, it was Malcolm Turnbull, from the conservative Liberal Party, who got a kicking. This time, Rupert himself flew to Australia. This was an annual trip to oversee his companies—but as one of Turnbull’s staff later told The Guardian, “There was no doubt there was a marked shift in the tone and content of the News Corp publications once Rupert arrived.” Within two weeks, Turnbull, who had been pushing for more action on climate change, was replaced as prime minister by a more right-wing colleague who had once brought a black lump of coal into the parliament, bellowing, “This is coal! Don’t be afraid, don’t be scared, it won’t hurt you!” Stories about Rupert Murdoch in pitched battle with a prime minister were too juicy to ignore, even for a risk-averse press. Two apparent interventions in five years? Undeniably sensational. The issue of Murdoch’s influence was finally getting the debate it deserved…..

…..Then, in August 2022, Lachlan Murdoch threatened to sue Crikey, a small Australian news website, after it published an article calling the Murdoch family an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Rather than backing down, Crikey took out an ad in the New York Times, effectively daring Lachlan to sue. The next day, he did—but eight months later, after Fox reached a $787.5 million settlement with Dominion, he backed down.

The line between perceived power and actual power can be thin. People believe you have influence—to win elections, to destroy lives—and so you do. Your authority becomes a perpetual motion machine of dominance. “Murdoch works by frightening,” David Marr says. If Murdoch’s power was not working in quite the way it used to, it was because too many people had refused to be frightened.

The machinery was breaking down.

Some Americans may want to take comfort from the idea they are heading in Australia’s direction, toward a time when the Murdochs are less relevant. But what if it’s the other way around, and Australia is on its way to becoming America? “For those concerned about the cumulative impact of Fox News in America on the radicalization of US politics,” Kevin Rudd advised the Australian Senate in 2021, “the same template is being followed with Sky News in Australia. We will see its full impact in a decade’s time.”….

….Ferocity has long been at the heart of Murdoch’s power in both countries. The experience in Australia—so far at least—suggests the effectiveness of ferocity may have a limit: At some point, people might stop taking you seriously. David Marr insists The Australian remains in many respects an excellent paper with excellent journalists, but says other outlets now ignore even its best stories. He mentions one recent scandal: “It’s a big, big story, but in the rest of the press there’s a deep reluctance to follow it because it’s from The Australian.”

A similar limit may exist for major political parties. Turnbull, who “really admired” Murdoch when they first met almost 50 years ago, does not underestimate the older man’s influence to date: “It’s hard to think of one person that has made a bigger contribution to delaying action on climate in the world…And, of course, Trump and January 6: wow. There isn’t a person alive today who has done more damage to the United States.” At what point, though, do the parties backed by the Murdoch media become so extreme—so fanatically obsessed with fringe issues—that they stop attracting mainstream support?…

.

…..Unless detachment from reality is the point. In Australia, Sky is often dismissed for its relatively small TV audience. In recent years, though, it has turned increasingly to the production of short videos designed for distribution on social media, feeding off right-wing talking points and conspiracy theories. The success of these videos has been staggering—on YouTube, they have received over 3 billion views. Nor is their success only in Australia—in fact, it is possible Australians are not the target market, with one recent report finding Sky News’ digital audience across platforms was 38 percent American and only 26 percent Australian. A striking number of the comments on the YouTube videos seem to come from Americans (“Thank you Sky News for reporting the truth about what really goes on here in America,” reads one, fairly typical). The “QAnon Shaman”—the January 6 rioter wearing a fur hat, face paint, and horns—had posted links to Sky videos. Australians host many of the clips, but Megyn Kelly—previously of Fox News—stars in several of the most recent.

Sky must have published hundreds of videos about Joe Biden and cognitive decline, says Cameron Wilson—one of the journalists who first noticed Sky’s strategy—because the topic “always does incredibly well.” He says the site makes little sense if you think of it as playing to an Australian audience. “It makes much more sense when you realize they’re trying to go viral online.” Stories about China covering up the origins of coronavirus are popular. Viewers have been warned about the “Great Reset” conspiracy (“You will own nothing, and you will be happy”) and reassured by the global cooling soon to set in. There is a mildly aggressive tone—videos where someone is “mocked” or “slammed” do well. New revenue deals with tech giants like Google and Facebook mean the content receives prominent online billing, as though it is mainstream news……

…..This does not mean Murdoch’s influence is declining. Rather, it has shape-shifted, becoming something at once more pervasive and better hidden—which also makes it near-impossible to fight. The challenges to Murdoch in Australia have so far taken different forms: the teasing humor of Benjamin Law; the courage of Rashna Farrukh; the brazen public campaign of Rudd and Turnbull. In each case, it was clear who and what they were standing up to. So long as the tabloid formula was contained in a TV broadcast, or the pages of a newspaper, it was possible to recognize it, name it, and refuse it…..

….To believe that News Corp’s influence is fading based on old, increasingly outdated metrics may be a catastrophic misreading of the ways in which power is developing in our century.  This could mean that Lachlan is taking over at exactly the right time. So long as the success and influence of the Murdoch empire was tied to fear of his father, there remained a question: Lachlan could inherit the assets, but what about the terrifying myth? This turns out not to matter as much as it once did. Rupert has already stepped back, and one day he will be gone—but the machine he began building so many years ago will continue to do its work.’

For more blogs and articles on Ageing Democracy, Australian Politics, Conservative, COVID-19, Demography, Eugenics, Evangelical Christianity, Immigration, Media, Populist Politics, Russia and White Nationalism click through:

The Secret Jewish History Of The Greatest General You’ve Never Heard Of

This anti-Semitic backlash versus General Sir John Monash was spearheaded by Charles Bean and Keith Murdoch, who conspired amongst themselves to see to the dismissal of Monash. Bean was the official Australian war historian at the time. Keith Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s father, was a journalist. The two of them began a campaign to try and convince the upper echelons of Australia’s military that Monash was at best incompetent; at worst, a German spy.

Bean wrote, of Monash, “We do not want Australia represented by men mainly because of the ability, natural and inborn in Jews, to push themselves forward.” Eventually, their hate-filled lies reached the ears of Prime Minister Billy Hughes, who became convinced that Monash should be relieved of command. Hughes personally traveled to Monash’s camp before the Battle of Hamel, to relieve him of duty. Upon arriving at the camp, and speaking directly with the officers, he realized that Monash was not at fault, and changed his mind. By then, the damage had already been done. The slander thrown out by Murdoch and Bean is largely credited with why Monash never attained the rank of Field Marshal during the war, despite his many accolades and accomplishments during and after it.

Radical Right in the West – Fossil Fuel Atlas Koch Network – Nativist Tanton Network – Murdoch Media – Putin’s Russia – Brexit – Trump

Radical right in Anglosphere and Europe is cited here by Scott in Politico, including the ‘great replacement’ and Renaud Camus, climate science and Covid 19 scepticism. 

Symptoms of fossil fuels, oligarchs and <1% supporting corrupt nativist authoritarianism found around (mostly) right wing parties with ageing and low info constituents, informed by talking points prompted by mainstream media, social media and influencers.

Murdochs, FoxNews, Tucker Carlson, Anglo Conservatives and Hungary

Fox owner Rupert Murdoch allegedly fired FoxNews’ Tucker Carlson which may be plausible, but not credible if one observes other allegations apart from Christian beliefs that have emerged?

Australia – Indigenous Voice Referendum – Atlas – Koch Network – CIS – IPA – Murdoch

Australia has had its Brexit or Trump moment on the indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum, being usurped by a proxy election campaign, with outcomes being divided society, communities and no real solutions.

US or UK Sanctions on Murdoch’s Fox News Support for Putin’s Russia?

Interesting article by Nick Cohen suggesting sanctions for Murdoch’s Fox News, and highlighting influence through to the left in the Anglosphere, where there is support for Putin’s Russia and his interests.  

Seems to be shared white Christian nationalist interests and issues between Putin’s Russia, the GOP representing business, libertarian ideology of Koch Network think tanks and also the left, not to forget many Conservative and some Labour MPs compromised by Russian influence, like many of the far right in Europe.

Trump January 6 Insurrection, Conspiracy and Project 25 for Autocracy

Thom Hartmann in Alternet has written a prescient article, ‘What if Trump’s conspiracy was way bigger than we know?’ that both infers from the noise around Trump and also asks, is there something deeper occurring around the GOP, US and transnational politics?

Interesting overview and thesis, withstanding Hartmann has not included related machinations in the Anglosphere, especially U.K., Australia, Russia, Central Eastern Europe and Hungary whether Brexit or Russian influence.

Russia Report – Anglo Conservatives Compromised by Russian Interference on EU and Brexit

Return to questions over the U.K. Russia Report, former PM Johnson, Brexit, Conservative government, Russian oligarchs and influence on elections including the EU referendum..

Written by Peter Jukes and originally published January 2023 by ByLine Times, asking questions that are not only unresolved, but actively avoided by the Tories, media and supporters for the advantage of Putin’s Russia and oligarchs, both east and west?

Radical Right in the West – Fossil Fuel Atlas Koch Network – Nativist Tanton Network – Murdoch Media – Putin’s Russia – Brexit – Trump

Radical right in Anglosphere and Europe is cited here by Scott in Politico, including the ‘great replacement’ and Renaud Camus, climate science and Covid 19 scepticism. 

Symptoms of fossil fuels, oligarchs and <1% supporting corrupt nativist authoritarianism found around (mostly) right wing parties with ageing and low info constituents, informed by talking points prompted by mainstream media, social media and influencers.

Overarching have been the Atlas or Koch Network of ‘free market’ think tanks found at Tufton Street London behind Brexit, via IPA, CIS etc. in Australia and led by the Heritage Foundation ‘mothership’ informing the GOP by lobbying and the public by Murdoch led, and Russian influenced, right wing media ‘talking points’ and platforming to mainstream radicalism.

Further, the racism, bigotry or nativism of the Tanton Network is promoted alongside as environmental science when it’s deep seated eugenics masquerading as demography influenced by Malthus, Galton and Grant.

Covid-19 was an opportunity for Koch Network and Murdoch related media, like climate science, to promote denialism, avoidance of science process, health mandates, sensible regulation and centrist liberal democratic governance.

‘From Politico Digital Bridge

‘How the West was radicalized

BY MARK SCOTT

FEBRUARY 1, 2024 

For the last three years, I’ve been tracking a global online movement, borne from the Covid-19 pandemic, that has radicalized millions. It has led to repeated offline violence supported by widespread conspiracy theories, growing distrust of Western democracy and a failure from politicians and officials to respond. I’m not going to lie; it’s become a weird fascination for me.

This is my effort to unpack what’s going on:

— A loosely affiliated network of increasingly radicalized online users has created sophisticated global connections via social media that have repeatedly spilled into the real world.

— The Covid-19 pandemic was the perfect crucible to jumpstart ties between disaffected people eager to find a greater meaning for how the world was changing around them.

— National security agencies across the West have struggled to respond, fearful of overstepping their mandate, unsure of how best to track online radicalization, and limited in what resources they have available.

WELCOME TO THE NEW WORLD ORDER

PRAISE FOR FARMERS’ PROTESTS IN FRANCE. Claims the Israel-Hamas conflict is an attempt by global elites to start World War III. Graphic attacks on Taylor Swift for her alleged role in keeping Donald Trump from regaining the White House. Three different events, three different countries. But behind each one lies a loose network of Covid-19 conspiracy theorists, hundreds of thousands of disgruntled social media users, and a smattering of ultra-violent extremist groups who have joined forces to create a global movement with one clear goal: to overturn the established order.

“It’s like a nuclear bomb,” Imran Ahmed, chief executive at the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit organization that tracks such online activity and who has consulted with Western governments about how to combat violence resulting from online conspiracy theories, told me. “This is the creation of unlimited amounts of communication and the potential for it to go super viral and reach billions of people for zero cost. We have a limited window for getting people aware of the problem.”

I first came across this movement in the early days of Covid-19 (more on that below). At first, the groups — spread across Telegram, Facebook, TikTok, Discord and Reddit — felt different. They spoke multiple languages. They focused on domestic grievances. They included QAnon followers, far-right political operatives, and everyday social media users. Yet as the months turned into years, strange connections began to pop up. So-called Proud Boy American white nationalists started to talk about local Swedish politics. French left-leaning Yellow Vests activists quickly became experts in the American so-called deep state conspiracy against Trump.

What happened, based on Digital Bridge’s tracking of millions of social media posts across seven social networks primarily in North America, Europe, Australia and Latin America over the last three years, was the epitome of what the internet does best: bring people together. Often isolated online users found like-minded people who shared a similar worldview. One where Bill Gates is a worldwide enemy seeking to use the global public health crisis to enrich himself. One where “elites” want to suppress the little man (and it’s almost always a man). One where Vladimir Putin is heralded for his fight against Pizzagate-style “pedophiles” in Ukraine.

Not everyone involved in this bottom-up digital movement holds radicalized views. But extremist groups — the so-called Proud Boys white nationalist group in the United States, the Querdenken anti-lockdown brigade in Germany, and the English Defense League, an Islamophobic political group, in the United Kingdom — have embedded themselves into Telegram channels, Facebook groups and Discord online messaging communities to recruit would-be followers to their cause. Picture an online atmosphere like the “Star Wars” Mos Eisley cantina, where white nationalists routinely rub shoulders with “red-pilled” soccer moms who believe Covid-19 is an attempt to sterilize children.

This isn’t just an online phenomenon. As the ties between these disparate groups became stronger — fueled by multilingual influencers and auto-translation plug-ins for social media — they have used the digital movement to organize offline protests. That includes jumping on global political events like last year’s political violence in Brazil or skyrocketing energy prices in Germany to mount like-minded protests elsewhere. This is directed, primarily, by Telegram channels, where more active members of the radicalized movement share viral memes to galvanize support, suggest how to frame potential protests, and promote similar offline activities in other countries to demonstrate that people’s concerns are widespread.

Tragically, this can also end in violence. Repeated shootings — in Germany, the U.S., New Zealand and Slovakia — have all shown signs of the assailants having become radicalized, in part because of their involvement in this global movement. Many posted online manifestos — still readily accessible within this digital community and reviewed by Digital Bridge — that are riddled with references to the so-called Great Replacement Theory, a popularly held racist belief the West is being overrun by migrants; antisemitic tirades also prevalent within this movement; and calls-to-arms for others to follow their example. Sadly, these shooters are viewed by many as heroes for the cause.

THE ROLE OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

JAKUB, A 23-YEAR-OLD STUDENT FROM COLOGNE, did not have a good pandemic. Stuck at home with little to do, the German, whose last name Digital Bridge is withholding to protect his identity, turned to social media for comfort. Within months, Jakub, who has now left the movement, was engrossed in a conspiracy-laden online world where falsehoods like the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” project — aimed at reinventing the global economy for a post-Covid world — was, in fact, a ruse by global elites to use vaccines to enslave the wider population.  “It was addictive,” he told me. “The way people talked with each other, it felt like a community that spoke directly to me.” 

As countries scrambled to counter a staggering public health crisis, existing conspiracy groups — some, like those associated with the anti-vaccine movement, dated back to the early days of the internet — seized on Covid-19 as a means to recruit new converts. White nationalists quickly blamed immigrants for spreading the disease and accused governments of prolonging the crisis for their own gain. Right-wing politicians, including France’s Marine Le Pen and former U.S. President Donald Trump, accused Muslims and other minority groups of profiting from the pandemic. 

“The impact the Covid pandemic had on global extremist mobilization, I really do think, was a total game changer,” said Milo Comerford, head of counter-extremism policy and research at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based think tank. “It provided people with a compelling and elaborate worldview that made it clear who the enemy was, that gave a clear focus for whom to blame and, at its most extreme, provided justification for violence and attacks on minorities and harassment of officials and public health workers.”

While Covid-19 has, thankfully, regressed in people’s minds, its effects in fast-tracking connections between once-separate online communities cannot be overstated. It represented a perfect storm for mass digital mobilization. Almost all of us were stuck at home, and often — like Jakub — turned to social media for meaning. The once-in-a-lifetime moment fostered simmering discontent about government overreach and the perception of those in power seeking to control people’s lives. Faced with such global uncertainty, many became isolated, depressed and eager for simple answers — prime territory for potential radicalization.

Into this void, social media offered a solution. In Germany, online influencers like Oliver Janich and Evan Herman garnered audiences in the hundreds of thousands via Telegram after repeatedly sharing Covid-19 conspiracy theories that the country’s politicians were to blame for the pandemic. In the U.S., gun-toting protesters descended on local school board meetings in opposition to mask mandates, and then uploaded these videos onto TikTok. In the U.K., the so-called White Rose anti-Covid group — named after a similar movement created in opposition to Nazi Germany — became intertwined with the country’s far right, routinely sharing conspiracy theories including, for example, Covid-19 vaccines harming children.

“It is a war. And it is war on our children. So Fight!!” said a British Telegram user within a White Rose group after sharing a video of an anti-lockdown protest organized by Tommy Robinson, a local far-right activist. These messages no longer stay local. German Telegram users regularly cheer American acts of resistance against alleged government control. 

British far-right extremists on Facebook spread obscure anti-vax theories from Australia. French-speaking Canadian Twitter users translate anti-lockdown propaganda from America and repost it widely with counterparts in France.

What the pandemic did more than anything was cement ties between like-minded people across the West — bonds that have continued despite the waning of the pandemic. It built a coherent worldview for those seeking to explain the unexplainable. It also cemented well-defined communication channels that, on a dime, can jump on world events to flood the zone with conspiracy-laden material. That’s what happened in 2022, when an obscure Covid-related truckers’ protest in Canada garnered global attention. Within days, social media users, in multiple languages, had banded together in support of this protest, using coordinated messaging developed via online platforms, to rally global backing, including similar offline protests in other major Western capitals. That pattern has repeated ever since.

NATIONAL SECURITY (LACK OF) RESPONSE

NATIONAL SECURITY OFFICIALS KNOW THIS IS A PROBLEM. My discussions with many of these Western policymakers, who were granted anonymity to describe governments’ responses, have tracked the rise of this bottom-up online community since the Covid-19 pandemic. There is a realization that many aren’t truly radicalized — but that, buried within this movement, there are lone-wolf actors or coordinated groups that do represent a direct threat to public safety.

But how to find that needle in a haystack? Officials acknowledge it’s a difficult balance between legitimately tracking extremist groups and overreaching on surveilling citizens who, while often sharing distasteful views, have done nothing illegal. Many national security agencies have limited ability to monitor domestic groups, and therefore have turned to tracking those outside their borders. Germany has gone the furthest with its domestic surveillance of would-be extremists, though that’s an outlier because of that country’s own history of radicalization.

For now, the Western national security apparatus is not set up to keep tabs on this cross-border movement in ways that don’t undermine people’s fundamental rights of free speech and privacy. So far, there’s a reliance on platforms to do the heavy lifting. Yet over the past two years, that has become harder than ever, since many in this radicalized movement have left more mainstream platforms like Facebook and YouTube for fringe alternatives like Telegram and Rumble with little, if any, content-moderation oversight.

WONK OF THE WEEK

THE PHILOSOPHICAL UNDERPINNING FOR THIS MOVEMENT, in large part, comes from French far-right thinker Renaud Camus and his so-called Great Replacement theory, a belief that Western “white” civilization is slowly being replaced by “non-white” populations.

His treaty — in French known as Grand Replacement — was published in 2011, and focuses on the deconstruction of primarily French culture and civilization predominantly by Muslims living in the country. His racist beliefs subsequently have become the calling card for those within this online movement who attack outsiders — almost exclusively migrants — for allegedly denigrating Western society.

“The destruction of Europe’s Europeans and their civilization is the crime against humanity of the 21st Century,” he wrote on X this week.

THEY SAID WHAT, NOW?

“The pandemic created a set of conditions that seems almost tailor-made for violent extremists seeking to advance their work,” Nicholas Rasmussen, former head of Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, told U.S. lawmakers. “Between health restrictions, economic impacts, social isolation, and increased political polarization, it is clear that the pandemic has exacerbated existing cleavages and anxieties across society.“

For more related blogs and article on Ageing Democracy, Climate Change, COVID-19, Environment, EU European Union, Eugenics, Fossil Fuel Pollution, Koch Network, Libertarian Economics, Media, Populist Politics and Tanton Network click through:

French Farmers, Truckers and Covid Freedom Rallies Astroturfing vs. Science, Environment and EU European Union?

Posted on March 5, 2024

Farmers protesting in France and probably elsewhere are more about astroturfing by Big Ag to oppose the EU European’s Union Green Agenda, threats to CAP Common Agricultural Policy, pesticides and fossil fuels; does not seem to be a genuine issue of small farmers especially with indirect support of Le Pen?

Further, not only have similar protests occurred on the border of Poland and Ukraine, and other points, with allegations of Russian influence, there seems to be resonance with the US fossil fuel Koch Network ‘freedom rallies’ globally against Covid science, vaccinations and health mandates vs. centrist governments.

Conspiracy of Denial – COVID-19 and Climate Science

Posted on August 24, 2020

Some would not be surprised with the doubts and confusion being created round the COVID-19 crisis, especially by those wanting all economic activity to continue and ignore the human costs. 

However, much of this agitprop, astro-turfing and junk science used by non experts has much in common with the information, media and political techniques used by radical right libertarian think tanks funded by the fossil fuel sector and related media, to influence society on climate science to avoid constraints and preserve income streams, with some eugenics in the background

Anglosphere Oligarchs – Koch Atlas Network Think Tanks

Posted on March 27, 2023

We have heard much of supposed ‘libertarian’ think tanks or PR outfits in the Anglosphere influencing policy, especially of the right, via media and lobbying, euphemistically known as ‘Koch Network’ or the ‘Kochtopus’ with a fondness for fossil fuels and climate science denial.

New Yorker journalist Jane Mayer investigated several years ago for her book ‘Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right’ (2017) which included insight into oligarch donors Mellon-Scaife, Olin, Bradley, DeVos and Coors.

Radical Libertarian Disinformation Machine – Koch Network by Nancy MacLean

Posted on October 19, 2022

Many nations, at least in the Anglosphere, have experienced disinformation whether related to climate science or fossil fuels, Covid science, education or democracy, and of late witnessed ‘Trussonomics’ in the UK, another version of Buchanan’s ‘Kochonomics’ or ‘radical right libertarian’ ideology.

However, where does this disinformation come from?

According to historian Nancy Maclean it’s a ‘deny and delay’ strategy of Koch Bros. or Koch Network which includes astroturfing, ‘Dark Money’, creating research, gerrymandering, SLAPPs, universities, Christians and conservatives.

Monbiot – Radical Right Libertarians – Fossil Fuel Think Tanks – Koch & Tanton Networks

Posted on January 14, 2024

Good overview via Argentina by George Monbiot in The Guardian ‘What links Rishi Sunak, Javier Milei and Donald Trump? The shadowy network behind their policies’ and concerning dynamics around national politics, media, think tanks and governance.

The ‘junk tanks’ he talks of, observed in Anglosphere and globally are Atlas – Koch Network and another that shares donors in the US, Tanton Network. The former does low tax, low regulation and small government while the latter is faux environmental via demographics, population and migration ‘research’.

Immigration Restriction – Population Control – Tanton Network

Posted on September 1, 2022

Below are excerpts from an article by Brooke Binkowski in Unicorn Riot outlining the history of the population control movement of Tanton Network which informs immigration in the Anglosphere and parts of Europe.

Eugenics, Border Wars & Population Control: The Tanton Network

By Brooke Binkowski, Contributor  August 22, 2022

Nearly everything Americans hear about the U.S.-Mexico border is wrong, and it’s very likely because of one relatively small but extremely well-funded and influential group of American racists.

On July 5, 2022, a group of officials in Texas held a curious press conference. It consisted of a handful of politicians from across the state praying and insisting, using openly white supremacist rhetoric about immigrant “hordes” and “invasions”, making terrifying claims, without a shred of evidence, that the United States was living through a disastrous attack on its very integrity at the hands of refugees and asylum seekers attempting to cross into the country.

Misleading statements about the security of the border have been escalating for years.

Madison Grant – Eugenics, Heredity, Class, Immigration, Great Replacement, Conservation and Nazis

Posted on May 3, 2022

In recent years we have observed the rise of white nationalism, alt &/or far right, nativism, eugenics, neo-Nazis etc. in the Anglosphere and Europe, often underpinned by divisive dog whistle politics through legacy media. For one to understand modern Anglo &/or European nativism, the past of eugenics and conservation in the US especially, the history of Madison Grant starting over a century ago, needs to be scrutinised. Following is a brief but incomplete overview from relevant literature, including Grant’s own writings.