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For The Record  

FTR #1103 Fascism, 2019 World Tour, Part 13: Goose-Hopping in Hong Kong with Pepe the Frog and the Azov Battalion

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This pro­gram was record­ed in one, 60-minute seg­ment.

Intro­duc­tion: We have been high­light­ing the role of Ukraine as a “piv­ot point” for the Earth Island or World Island, and the evo­lu­tion of the Inter­mar­i­um con­cept in the appli­ca­tion of fas­cist con­trol of that unfor­tu­nate coun­try. 

Stretch­ing from the Straits of Gibral­tar, all across Europe, most of the Mid­dle East, Eura­sia, Rus­sia, Chi­na and India, that stretch of land: com­pris­es most of the world’s land mass; con­tains most of the world’s pop­u­la­tion and most of the world’s nat­ur­al resources (includ­ing oil and nat­ur­al gas.) Geopoliti­cians have long seen con­trol­ling that land mass as the key to world dom­i­na­tion.

Key to ana­lyz­ing the real­iza­tion of con­trol of the Ukrain­ian “piv­ot point” is the OUN milieu and its man­i­fes­ta­tion through the bet­ter part of the last cen­tu­ry: 

  1. The Army’s Counter Intel­li­gence Corps (CIC) con­firmed the pri­ma­cy of the OUN/B with­in the ABN: ” . . . . CIC con­firmed that by 1948 both the ‘Inter­mar­i­um’ and the UPA (Ukrain­ian par­ti­san com­mand) report­ed to the ABN pres­i­dent, Yaroslav Stet­sko. The UPA in turn had con­sol­i­dat­ed all the anti-Sovi­et par­ti­sans under its umbrel­la. Yaroslav Stet­sko was also Sec­re­tary of OUN/B and sec­ond in com­mand to Ban­dera, who had the largest remain­ing par­ti­san group behind Sovi­et lines under his direct com­mand. Thus, OUN/B had achieved the lead­er­ship role among the anti-Com­mu­nist exiles and was ascen­dant by 1950 . . . .”
  2. Con­tem­po­rary Ukraine is the focal point of the rein­car­nat­ed Inter­mar­i­um con­cept. ” . . . . The most recent rein­car­na­tion of the Inter­mar­i­um has tak­en form in Ukraine, espe­cial­ly among the Ukrain­ian far right, which has re-appro­pri­at­ed the con­cept by cap­i­tal­iz­ing on the sol­id ide­o­log­i­cal and per­son­al con­ti­nu­ity between actors of the Ukrain­ian far right in the inter­war and Cold War peri­ods and their heirs today. . . .”
  3. The con­ti­nu­ity of the Inter­mar­i­um con­cept as man­i­fest­ed in con­tem­po­rary Ukraine is epit­o­mized by the role of Yarosla­va Stet­sko (Yaroslav’s wid­ow and suc­ces­sor as a deci­sive ABN and OUN leader). Note the net­work­ing between her Con­gress of Ukrain­ian Nation­al­ists and Svo­bo­da. “. . . . This con­ti­nu­ity is exem­pli­fied by the wife of long-time ABN leader Yaroslav Stet­sko, Yarosla­va Stet­sko (1920–2003), a promi­nent fig­ure in the Ukrain­ian post-Sec­ond World War émi­gré com­mu­ni­ty who became direct­ly involved in post-Sovi­et Ukrain­ian pol­i­tics. Hav­ing joined the OUN at the age of 18, she became an indis­pens­able sup­port­er of the ABN after the war . . . . In July 1991, she returned to Ukraine, and in the fol­low­ing year formed the Con­gress of Ukrain­ian Nation­al­ists (CUN), a new polit­i­cal par­ty estab­lished on the basis of the OUN, pre­sid­ing over both.[129] Although the CUN nev­er achieved high elec­tion results, it coop­er­at­ed with the Social-Nation­al Par­ty of Ukraine (SNPU), which lat­er changed its name to Svo­bo­da, the far-right Ukrain­ian par­ty that con­tin­ues to exist. . . .”
  4. Yarosla­va Stet­sko’s CUN was co-found­ed by her hus­band’s for­mer sec­re­tary in the 1980s, Roman Svarych. Min­is­ter of Jus­tice in the Vik­tor Yuschenko gov­ern­ment (as well as both Tim­o­shenko gov­ern­ments), Svarych became the spokesman and a major recruiter for the Azov Bat­tal­ion. ” . . . . The co-founder of the CUN and for­mer­ly Yaroslav Stetsko’s pri­vate sec­re­tary, the U.S.-born Roman Zvarych (1953), rep­re­sents a younger gen­er­a­tion of the Ukrain­ian émi­gré com­mu­ni­ty active dur­ing the Cold War and a direct link from the ABN to the Azov Bat­tal­ion. . . . Zvarych par­tic­i­pat­ed in the activ­i­ties of the Anti-Bol­she­vik Bloc of Nations in the 1980s. . . . In Feb­ru­ary 2005, after Vik­tor Yushchenko’s elec­tion, Zvarych was appoint­ed Min­is­ter of Jus­tice. . . . Accord­ing to Andriy Bilet­sky, the first com­man­der of the Azov bat­tal­ion, a civ­il para­mil­i­tary unit cre­at­ed in the wake of the Euro­maid­an, Zvarych was head of the head­quar­ters of the Azov Cen­tral Com­mit­tee in 2015 and sup­port­ed the Azov bat­tal­ion with ‘vol­un­teers’ and polit­i­cal advice through his Zvarych Foun­da­tion. . . .”
  5. The “Inter­mar­i­um Con­ti­nu­ity” is inex­tri­ca­ble with the his­tor­i­cal revi­sion­ism about the roles of the OUN and UPA in World War II. That revi­sion­ism is insti­tion­al­ized in the Insti­tute of Nation­al Remem­brance. ” . . . .The rein­tro­duc­tion of the Inter­mar­i­um notion in Ukraine is close­ly con­nect­ed to the broad reha­bil­i­ta­tion of the OUN and UPA, as well as of their main hero, Stepan Ban­dera. . . . Dur­ing his pres­i­den­cy (2005–2010), and par­tic­u­lar­ly through the cre­ation of the Insti­tute for Nation­al Remem­brance,  Vik­tor Yushchenko built the image of Ban­dera as a sim­ple Ukrain­ian nation­al­ist fight­ing for his country’s inde­pen­dence . . . .”
  6. As dis­cussed in numer­ous pro­grams, anoth­er key ele­ment in the “Inter­mar­i­um Con­ti­nu­ity” is Katery­na Chu­machenko, an OUN oper­a­tive who served in the State Depart­ment and Ronald Rea­gan’s admin­is­tra­tion. She mar­ried Vik­tor Yuschenko. ” . . . . It is not unlike­ly Yushchenko’s readi­ness dur­ing his pres­i­den­cy (2005–2010) to open up to right-wing ten­den­cies of the Ukrain­ian exile leads back to his wife, who had con­nec­tions to the ABN. Katery­na Chu­machenko [Yushchenko], born 1961 in Chica­go, was socialised there in the Ukrain­ian exile youth organ­i­sa­tion SUM (Spilka Ukra­jin­sko­ji Molo­di, Ukrain­ian Youth Organ­i­sa­tion) in the spir­it of the OUN. Via the lob­by asso­ci­a­tion Ukrain­ian Con­gress Com­mit­tee of Amer­i­ca (UCCA) she obtained a post as  ‘spe­cial assis­tant’ in the U.S. State Depart­ment in 1986, and was from 1988 to 1989 employed by the Office of Pub­lic Liai­son in the White House. . . .”
  7. Embody­ing the “Inter­mar­i­um Con­ti­nu­ity” are the lus­tra­tion laws, which make it a crim­i­nal offense to tell the truth about the OUN and UPA’s roles in World War II. Note Volodymyr Via­tro­vy­ch’s posi­tion as min­is­ter of edu­ca­tion. ” . . . . This reha­bil­i­ta­tion trend accel­er­at­ed after the Euro­Maid­an. In 2015, just before the sev­en­ti­eth anniver­sary of Vic­to­ry Day, Volodymyr Via­tro­vych, min­is­ter of edu­ca­tion and long-time direc­tor of the Insti­tute for the Study of the Lib­er­a­tion Move­ment, an orga­ni­za­tion found­ed to pro­mote the hero­ic nar­ra­tive of the OUN–UPA, called on the par­lia­ment to vote for a set of four laws that cod­i­fied the new, post-Maid­an his­to­ri­og­ra­phy. Two of them are par­tic­u­lar­ly influ­en­tial in the ongo­ing mem­o­ry war with Rus­sia. One decrees that OUN and UPA mem­bers are to be con­sid­ered ‘fight­ers for Ukrain­ian inde­pen­dence in the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry,’ mak­ing pub­lic denial of this unlaw­ful. . . .”
  8. As dis­cussed dis­cussed in FTR #‘s 1096 and 1097, the Azov Bat­tal­ion is in the lead­er­ship of the revival of the Inter­mar­i­um con­cept.” . . . . In this con­text of reha­bil­i­ta­tion of inter­war heroes, ten­sions with Rus­sia, and dis­il­lu­sion with Europe over its per­ceived lack of sup­port against Moscow, the geopo­lit­i­cal con­cept of Inter­mar­i­um could only pros­per. It has found its most active pro­mot­ers on the far right of the polit­i­cal spec­trum, among the lead­er­ship of the Azov Bat­tal­ion. . . .”
  9. Azov’s Inter­mar­i­um Sup­port Group has held three net­work­ing con­fer­ences to date, bring­ing togeth­er key fig­ures of what are euphem­ized as “nation­al­ist” orga­ni­za­tions. In addi­tion to focus­ing on the devel­op­ment of what are euphem­ized as “nation­al­ist” youth orga­ni­za­tions, the con­fer­ence is stress­ing mil­i­tary orga­ni­za­tion and pre­pared­ness: ” . . . . In 2016, Bilet­sky cre­at­ed the Inter­mar­i­um Sup­port Group (ISG),[152] intro­duc­ing the con­cept to poten­tial com­rades-in-arms from the Baltic-Black Sea region.[153] The first day of the found­ing con­fer­ence was reserved for lec­tures and dis­cus­sions by senior rep­re­sen­ta­tives of var­i­ous sym­pa­thet­ic orga­ni­za­tions, the sec­ond day to ‘the lead­ers of youth branch­es of polit­i­cal par­ties and nation­al­ist move­ments of the Baltic-Black Sea area.’ . . . . It also includ­ed ‘mil­i­tary attach­es of diplo­mat­ic mis­sions from the key coun­tries in the region (Poland, Hun­gary, Roma­nia and Lithua­nia). . . .”

On our Fas­cism: 2019 World Tour, we have cov­ered the desta­bi­liza­tion of Chi­na and Hong Kong, as well as the oper­a­tions of the Ukrain­ian Nazi Azov milieu. Now, there has been some­thing of a con­ver­gence.

Aug­ment­ing the right-wing and fas­cist pres­ence in Hong Kong are vet­er­ans of the Azov Bat­tal­ion and Pravy Sek­tor. ” . . . . The lat­est col­lec­tion of extreme-right activists to rein­force the ranks of the Hong Kong sep­a­ratists are from Ukraine. They call them­selves Gonor and have tat­toos on their upper tor­sos with unde­ni­able sym­bols of white suprema­cy and neo-Nazism. These extrem­ists pre­vi­ous­ly fought in a noto­ri­ous­ly bru­tal neo-Nazi mili­tia called the Azov Bat­tal­ion, in Ukraine’s war against pro-Russ­ian mil­i­tants. . . .”

The Gonor con­tin­gent includes a for­mer leader of Pravy Sek­tor (Right Sec­tor). ” . . . . Jour­nal­ist Mor­gan Artyukhi­na iden­ti­fied anoth­er mem­ber of the far-right Ukrain­ian con­tin­gent in Hong Kong as Ser­hii Ster­nenko. Artyukhi­na not­ed that Ster­nenko is a for­mer leader of the Ukrain­ian fas­cist group Right Sec­tor, which burned down a trade union build­ing in Odessa dur­ing the 2014 coup, killing 42 peo­ple. . . .”

The broad­cast reviews the evo­lu­tion of Pravy Sek­tor from the UPA and its activ­i­ties in the Cau­ca­sus. The UPA/Pravy Sek­tor/U­NA-UNSO evo­lu­tion is the embod­i­ment of the Inter­mar­i­um con­ti­nu­ity.

Of par­tic­u­lar sig­nif­i­cance is the fact that the Ukrain­ian fas­cists are in Hong Kong under the aus­pices of an EU-financed NGO. ” . . . . The Free Hong Kong Cen­ter is a project of an NGO called the Lib­er­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic League of Ukraine. In addi­tion to build­ing links with anti-Bei­jing forces in Hong Kong, the project says its mis­sion is to ‘counter Chi­nese threats to Ukraine.’ The Lib­er­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic League of Ukraine is a pro-Euro­pean Union advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tion which is a mem­ber of the Euro­pean Lib­er­al Youth and the Inter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of Lib­er­al Youth, both of which are fund­ed by the EU. . . .”

Key points of dis­cus­sion and analy­sis include:

  1. The Azov and Pravy Sek­tor vet­er­ans call them­selves Gonor and the NGO that facil­i­tat­ed their entry into Hong Kong white­washed the Nazi/fascist nature of the group.
  2. Mem­bers of the group sport­ed a vari­ety of Nazi and fas­cist tat­toos, includ­ing the “Vic­to­ry or Val­hal­la” slo­gan that was the title of a book by David Lane. Lane drove the get­away car for the mur­der of talk-show host Alan Berg and mint­ed the 14 Words—emblematic for the inter­na­tion­al Nazi move­ment. Svoboda’s C14 mili­tia takes its name from the 14 words.  ” . . . . Sev­er­al pho­tos show that at least two of the Ukrain­ian fas­cists in Hong Kong have tat­toos read­ing “Vic­to­ry or Val­hal­la,” the title of a com­pi­la­tion of writ­ings by the noto­ri­ous Amer­i­can white suprema­cist David Lane, whose neo-fas­cist ter­ror­ist group The Order mur­dered a lib­er­al Jew­ish radio host and planned more assas­si­na­tions of left-wing Jews. Lane, who was con­vict­ed to 190 years in a US prison for numer­ous crimes, cre­at­ed the most famous white suprema­cist slo­gan, known as the 14 Words — which inspired the name of anoth­er Ukrain­ian neo-Nazi group called C14. . . .”
  3. Gonor has embraced the slo­gan “Stand with Hong Kong.” ” . . . .  Stand With Hong Kong is also the name of a West­ern-backed orga­ni­za­tion that has been lob­by­ing the gov­ern­ments of the US, Britain, Ger­many, Cana­da, and Aus­tralia to impose sanc­tions and take puni­tive action against Chi­na. . . .”
  4. Gonor’s Telegram chan­nel has high­light­ed acts of vio­lence by the “pro-Democ­ra­cy” demon­stra­tors. ” . . . . Gonor’s Telegram chan­nel offers mem­bers a front row seat to an orgy of vio­lence. It has pub­lished dozens of videos of Hong Kong insur­gents, hero­iz­ing them for shoot­ing arrows and car­ry­ing out bru­tal attacks on state secu­ri­ty forces. . . .”
  5. The NGO—The Free Hong Kong Cen­ter (a sub­sidiary of the Lib­er­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic League of Ukraine) also white­washed the Nazi char­ac­ter of the Azov Bat­tal­ion.
  6. The Ukrain­ian Nazis had obtained press pass­es for their pres­ence in Hong Kong.
  7. The Ukrain­ian Nazis were emphat­ic about their pres­ence in Hong Kong being an exten­sion of the Maid­an coup.
  8. The pres­ence of the Ukrain­ian fas­cists in Hong Kong appears to be an exten­sion of Amer­i­can and EU Earth Island geo-polit­i­cal activism.
  9. Are the Azov and Pravy Sek­tor vet­er­ans in Hong Kong to pro­vide a vio­lent, mil­i­tary pres­ence as part of the Hong Kong desta­bi­liza­tion effort? Are we wit­ness­ing a “Hong Kong” Maid­an?

In FTR #1089we not­ed the pres­ence of Pepe the Frog as an icon­ic pres­ence in the Hong Kong tur­moil. 

Steve Bannon–one of the lumi­nar­ies of the “Alt-Right,” and a for­mer key Trump aide is cen­tral­ly involved in the anti-Chi­na effort. This sug­gests that the pres­ence of Pepe the Frog’s image in Hong Kong might have some­thing to do with the “Alt-Right” after all.

Note Ban­non and com­pa­ny’s net­work­ing with the Falun Gong cult and “Chi­nese Mus­lim Free­dom Fighters”–read “Uighurs.’

As dis­cussed in–among oth­er pro­grams–FTR #‘s 946 and 1077, Ban­non was at the epi­cen­ter of the Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca cyber-psy-op dur­ing the 2016 elec­tion. One of the prin­ci­pal oper­a­tors of Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca was Christo­pher Wylie. 

We won­der if the tech­niques used by Ban­non, Wylie, Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca, SCL et al might have been used in Hong Kong? The the lais­sez-faire econ­o­my of Hong Kong has seen a 300 per­cent increase in rents while income has stag­nat­ed, thus impov­er­ish­ing 20% of Hong Kong’s pop­u­la­tion. Many young peo­ple in Hong Kong might well be vul­ner­a­ble to the type of social media psy-op that Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca spe­cial­ized in.

Was such a tech­nique employed to help gen­er­ate the unrest in Hong Kong?

In our next pro­gram, we will review the rebirth of Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca, with a Hong Kong-based financier and busi­ness part­ner of Erik Prince (of Black­wa­ter fame and the broth­er of Trump Sec­re­tary of Edu­ca­tion Bet­sy DeVos) on the board of direc­tors.

Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca is rebrand­ing under a new com­pa­ny, Emer­da­ta. Intrigu­ing­ly, Cam­bridge Analytica’s trans­for­ma­tion into Emer­da­ta is note­wor­thy because  the fir­m’s direc­tors include John­son Ko Chun Shun, a Hong Kong financier and busi­ness part­ner of Erik Prince: ” . . . . But the company’s announce­ment left sev­er­al ques­tions unan­swered, includ­ing who would retain the company’s intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty — the so-called psy­cho­graph­ic vot­er pro­files built in part with data from Face­book — and whether Cam­bridge Analytica’s data-min­ing busi­ness would return under new aus­pices. . . . In recent months, exec­u­tives at Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca and SCL Group, along with the Mer­cer fam­i­ly, have moved to cre­at­ed a new firm, Emer­da­ta, based in Britain, accord­ing to British records. The new company’s direc­tors include John­son Ko Chun Shun, a Hong Kong financier and busi­ness part­ner of Erik Prince. . . . An exec­u­tive and a part own­er of SCL Group, Nigel Oakes, has pub­licly described Emer­da­ta as a way of rolling up the two com­pa­nies under one new ban­ner. . . . 

The pro­gram con­cludes with dis­cus­sion of Wik­iLeaks’ links to Chi­nese and Tibetan dis­si­dent activists and spec­u­la­tion about the CIA’s Edward Snow­den’s activ­i­ties in Hong Kong–the first stop on his inter­na­tion­al odyssey. In Hong Kong, he net­worked with Wik­iLeaks, who then facil­i­tat­ed his decamp­ment to Moscow. That trip was the open­ing gam­bit in the New Cold War.

In our next pro­gram, we will fur­ther dis­cuss Chi­na’s role as an inter­na­tion­al leader in Green tech­nol­o­gy and the impli­ca­tions of this for the Lithi­um Coup in Bolivia.

1a.  On our Fas­cism: 2019 World Tour, we have cov­ered the desta­bi­liza­tion of Chi­na and Hong Kong, as well as the oper­a­tions of the Ukrain­ian Nazi Azov milieu. Now, there has been some­thing of a con­ver­gence.

Aug­ment­ing the right-wing and fas­cist pres­ence in Hong Kong are vet­er­ans of the Azov Bat­tal­ion and Pravy Sek­tor. ” . . . . The lat­est col­lec­tion of extreme-right activists to rein­force the ranks of the Hong Kong sep­a­ratists are from Ukraine. They call them­selves Gonor and have tat­toos on their upper tor­sos with unde­ni­able sym­bols of white suprema­cy and neo-Nazism. These extrem­ists pre­vi­ous­ly fought in a noto­ri­ous­ly bru­tal neo-Nazi mili­tia called the Azov Bat­tal­ion, in Ukraine’s war against pro-Russ­ian mil­i­tants. . . .”

The Gonor con­tin­gent includes a for­mer leader of Pravy Sek­tor (Right Sec­tor). ” . . . . Jour­nal­ist Mor­gan Artyukhi­na iden­ti­fied anoth­er mem­ber of the far-right Ukrain­ian con­tin­gent in Hong Kong as Ser­hii Ster­nenko. Artyukhi­na not­ed that Ster­nenko is a for­mer leader of the Ukrain­ian fas­cist group Right Sec­tor, which burned down a trade union build­ing in Odessa dur­ing the 2014 coup, killing 42 peo­ple. . . .”

Of par­tic­u­lar sig­nif­i­cance is the fact that the Ukrain­ian fas­cists are in Hong Kong under the aus­pices of an EU-financed NGO. ” . . . . The Free Hong Kong Cen­ter is a project of an NGO called the Lib­er­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic League of Ukraine. In addi­tion to build­ing links with anti-Bei­jing forces in Hong Kong, the project says its mis­sion is to ‘counter Chi­nese threats to Ukraine.’ The Lib­er­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic League of Ukraine is a pro-Euro­pean Union advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tion which is a mem­ber of the Euro­pean Lib­er­al Youth and the Inter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of Lib­er­al Youth, both of which are fund­ed by the EU. . . .”

In the arti­cle below, be sure to view the pho­tographs of the Azov/Pravy Sektor/Gonor con­tin­gent.

Key points of dis­cus­sion and analy­sis include:

  1. The Azov and Pravy Sek­tor vet­er­ans call them­selves Gonor and the NGO that facil­i­tat­ed their entry into Hong Kong white­washed the Nazi/fascist nature of the group.
  2. Mem­bers of the group sport­ed a vari­ety of Nazi and fas­cist tat­toos, includ­ing the “Vic­to­ry or Val­hal­la” slo­gan that was the title of a book by David Lane. Lane drove the get­away car for the mur­der of talk-show host Alan Berg and mint­ed the 14 Words—emblematic for the inter­na­tion­al Nazi move­ment. Svoboda’s C14 mili­tia takes its name from the 14 words.  ” . . . . Sev­er­al pho­tos show that at least two of the Ukrain­ian fas­cists in Hong Kong have tat­toos read­ing “Vic­to­ry or Val­hal­la,” the title of a com­pi­la­tion of writ­ings by the noto­ri­ous Amer­i­can white suprema­cist David Lane, whose neo-fas­cist ter­ror­ist group The Order mur­dered a lib­er­al Jew­ish radio host and planned more assas­si­na­tions of left-wing Jews. Lane, who was con­vict­ed to 190 years in a US prison for numer­ous crimes, cre­at­ed the most famous white suprema­cist slo­gan, known as the 14 Words — which inspired the name of anoth­er Ukrain­ian neo-Nazi group called C14. . . .”
  3. Gonor has embraced the slo­gan “Stand with Hong Kong.” ” . . . .  Stand With Hong Kong is also the name of a West­ern-backed orga­ni­za­tion that has been lob­by­ing the gov­ern­ments of the US, Britain, Ger­many, Cana­da, and Aus­tralia to impose sanc­tions and take puni­tive action against Chi­na. . . .”
  4. Gonor’s Telegram chan­nel has high­light­ed acts of vio­lence by the “pro-Democ­ra­cy” demon­stra­tors. ” . . . . Gonor’s Telegram chan­nel offers mem­bers a front row seat to an orgy of vio­lence. It has pub­lished dozens of videos of Hong Kong insur­gents, hero­iz­ing them for shoot­ing arrows and car­ry­ing out bru­tal attacks on state secu­ri­ty forces. . . .”
  5. The NGO—The Free Hong Kong Cen­ter (a sub­sidiary of the Lib­er­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic League of Ukraine) also white­washed the Nazi char­ac­ter of the Azov Bat­tal­ion.
  6. The Ukrain­ian Nazis had obtained press pass­es for their pres­ence in Hong Kong.
  7. The Ukrain­ian Nazis were emphat­ic about their pres­ence in Hong Kong being an exten­sion of the Maid­an coup.
  8. The pres­ence of the Ukrain­ian fas­cists in Hong Kong appears to be an exten­sion of Amer­i­can and EU Earth Island geo-polit­i­cal activism.
  9. Are the Azov and Pravy Sek­tor vet­er­ans in Hong Kong to pro­vide a vio­lent, mil­i­tary pres­ence as part of the Hong Kong desta­bi­liza­tion effort? Are we wit­ness­ing a “Hong Kong” Maid­an?

“Ukrain­ian neo-Nazis flock to the Hong Kong protest move­ment” by Ben Nor­ton; The Gray Zone; 12/04/2019.

Neo-Nazis from Ukraine have flown to Hong Kong to par­tic­i­pate in the anti-Chi­nese insur­gency, which has been wide­ly praised by West­ern cor­po­rate media and por­trayed as a peace­ful pro-democ­ra­cy move­ment.

Since March 2019, Hong Kong has been the site of often-vio­lent protests and riots that have run the city’s econ­o­my into the ground. The US gov­ern­ment has fund­ed many of the groups lead­ing the pro-West­ern and anti-Bei­jing move­ment, and oppo­si­tion lead­ers have coor­di­nat­ed close­ly with con­ser­v­a­tive polit­i­cal fig­ures in Wash­ing­ton like Mar­co Rubio and Steve Ban­non, lob­by­ing for sanc­tions and oth­er puni­tive mea­sures against Chi­na.

Numer­ous del­e­ga­tions of far-right groups from across the world have trav­eled to Hong Kong to join the vio­lent insur­gency against Bei­jing, in which seces­sion­ists have attacked police with bows and arrows, shot gaso­line bombs out of cat­a­pults, and burned numer­ous peo­ple alive.

With their flam­boy­ant wav­ing of US and British colo­nial flags and ten­den­cy to belt out the Amer­i­can nation­al anthem on mega­phones, anti-Chi­na sep­a­ratists in Hong Kong have made them­selves a mag­net for the US far-right. Staff of the web­site InfoWars, right-wing social media per­son­al­i­ty Paul Joseph Wat­son, and the ultra-con­ser­v­a­tive group Patri­ot Prayer are among those who have made pil­grim­ages to the protests.

The lat­est col­lec­tion of extreme-right activists to rein­force the ranks of the Hong Kong sep­a­ratists are from Ukraine. They call them­selves Gonor and have tat­toos on their upper tor­sos with unde­ni­able sym­bols of white suprema­cy and neo-Nazism.

These extrem­ists pre­vi­ous­ly fought in a noto­ri­ous­ly bru­tal neo-Nazi mili­tia called the Azov Bat­tal­ion, in Ukraine’s war against pro-Russ­ian mil­i­tants.

The Azov Bat­tal­ion is an explic­it­ly fas­cist para­mil­i­tary group that orga­nizes around neo-Nazi ide­ol­o­gy. After a West­ern-backed 2014 coup against Ukraine’s demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed gov­ern­ment, Azov was incor­po­rat­ed into the Ukrain­ian nation­al guard. It has received sup­port from the US gov­ern­ment, which has armed and advised the neo-Nazis in their fight against Moscow.

Azov has also helped train Amer­i­can white suprema­cists, who have plot­ted ter­ror­ist attacks back at home in the Unit­ed States.

The pres­ence of Ukrain­ian regime-change activists in the Hong Kong protests is fur­ther evi­dence of the alliances that anti-Chi­nese activists in Hong Kong are build­ing with oth­er right-wing, US-backed move­ments around the world, shar­ing tac­tics to weak­en and desta­bi­lize coun­tries tar­get­ed by NATO.

[see image of Ukrain­ian fas­cist stand­ing with Hong Kong pro­tes­tors]

Ukrain­ian fas­cists join Hong Kong insur­gency

On Decem­ber 1, the far-right activist Ser­hii Fil­imonov post­ed pho­tos on Face­book show­ing him­self and three Ukrain­ian friends upon their arrival in Hong Kong. The images were accom­pa­nied by the anti-Beijing’s unof­fi­cial slo­gan: “Fight for Free­dom. Stand with Hong Kong!!”

Stand With Hong Kong is also the name of a West­ern-backed orga­ni­za­tion that has been lob­by­ing the gov­ern­ments of the US, Britain, Ger­many, Cana­da, and Aus­tralia to impose sanc­tions and take puni­tive action against Chi­na.

In a video they post­ed on social media, the Ukrain­ian white suprema­cists revealed that they had obtained a press pass, mis­lead­ing­ly por­tray­ing them­selves as jour­nal­ists.

[see image of Ukrain­ian fas­cist show­ing image of the press pass they obtained]

Join­ing Fil­imonov on the trip to Hong Kong was a noto­ri­ous extreme-right Ukrain­ian activist who goes by the name Maliar. Maliar is pop­u­lar on Insta­gram, under the name xgadzil­lax, where he has more than 23,000 fol­low­ers. (Maliar has a dis­tinc­tive scar on the left side of the neck, which makes him easy to rec­og­nize in pho­tos.)

[see image of Ukrain­ian fascist’s dis­tinc­tive head tat­toos and scar]

Besides the swastikas inked into his skull, Maliar had the Nazi sym­bols tat­tooed on his right leg, next to an algiz rune, anoth­er com­mon white suprema­cist emblem.

[see image of Ukrain­ian fascist’s dis­tinc­tive leg tat­toos]

Sev­er­al pho­tos show that at least two of the Ukrain­ian fas­cists in Hong Kong have tat­toos read­ing “Vic­to­ry or Val­hal­la,” the title of a com­pi­la­tion of writ­ings by the noto­ri­ous Amer­i­can white suprema­cist David Lane, whose neo-fas­cist ter­ror­ist group The Order mur­dered a lib­er­al Jew­ish radio host and planned more assas­si­na­tions of left-wing Jews.

Lane, who was con­vict­ed to 190 years in a US prison for numer­ous crimes, cre­at­ed the most famous white suprema­cist slo­gan, known as the 14 Words — which inspired the name of anoth­er Ukrain­ian neo-Nazi group called C14.

Fil­imonov, who also has a large fol­low­ing on Insta­gram, where he uses the name Sun­pe­runa, pub­lished a pho­to show­ing the phrase “Vic­to­ry or Vala­hal­la” embla­zoned on his chest.

[see image of Ukrain­ian fas­cist with “Vic­to­ry or Vala­hal­la” tat­too]

The book “Vic­to­ry or Val­hal­la” is ded­i­cat­ed to “Aryankind.” In its pages, its author says he is com­mit­ted to pre­vent­ing the “immi­nent extinc­tion fac­ing the White Race” and the “Judeo-Amer­i­can/Judeo-Chris­t­ian mur­der of the White race.” The screed is replete with homages to Nazis, and the back cov­er shows a pho­to of Lane’s body in his cof­fin, wrapped in a Con­fed­er­ate flag.

These Ukrain­ian fas­cists were such fans of the book that they per­ma­nent­ly tat­tooed its title on their bod­ies.

Maliar, the oth­er mem­ber of Gonor who joined the Hong Kong protests, has “Vic­to­ry or Val­hal­la” inscribed con­spic­u­ous­ly on his neck.

[see image of Ukrain­ian fas­cist with “Vic­to­ry or Vala­hal­la” on his neck]

Jour­nal­ist Mor­gan Artyukhi­na iden­ti­fied anoth­er mem­ber of the far-right Ukrain­ian con­tin­gent in Hong Kong as Ser­hii Ster­nenko. Artyukhi­na not­ed that Ster­nenko is a for­mer leader of the Ukrain­ian fas­cist group Right Sec­tor, which burned down a trade union build­ing in Odessa dur­ing the 2014 coup, killing 42 peo­ple.

Neo-Nazis take cam­pus

On Decem­ber 2, the Ukrain­ian fas­cist vis­i­tors post­ed pho­tos of them­selves on the cam­pus of Hong Kong Poly­tech­nic Uni­ver­si­ty (PolyU), a site of vio­lent protests.

PolyU has been a cru­cial base of oper­a­tion for the sep­a­ratist upris­ing. A total of 3,989 petrol bombs, 1,339 pieces of explo­sives, and 601 bot­tles of cor­ro­sive liq­uid were recov­ered at the school, as of Decem­ber 2, accord­ing to reports.

[see image of Ukrain­ian fas­cists, includ­ing Ser­hii Fil­imonov]

Ser­hii Fil­imonov (the first on the left in the pho­to above) has faced legal trou­bles in the past, appear­ing in court for alleged­ly brawl­ing with police.

The pho­tos Fil­imonov posts on social media make two things abun­dant­ly clear: He is a Nazi and wants as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble to see him shirt­less while bear­ing weapons..

[see image of Ukrain­ian fas­cist Ser­hii Fil­imonov hold­ing a rifle]

Oth­er mem­bers of Gonor have pub­lished pho­tos on Insta­gram hold­ing guns.

[see image of Ukrain­ian fas­cists pos­ing with guns]

A video post­ed on Insta­gram in 2015 shows Maliar and a friend in a “White Rebel” Con­fed­er­ate flag t‑shirt sur­round­ed by guns and tasers.

Gonor’s sym­bol draws on many of the same far-right ultra-nation­al­ist themes, with three white knives cen­tered on a black flag.

Gonor’s Telegram chan­nel offers mem­bers a front row seat to an orgy of vio­lence. It has pub­lished dozens of videos of Hong Kong insur­gents, hero­iz­ing them for shoot­ing arrows and car­ry­ing out bru­tal attacks on state secu­ri­ty forces.

Both Fil­imonov and Maliar pre­vi­ous­ly fought in the US-backed neo-Nazi Azov Bat­tal­ion. Maliar has post­ed pho­tos on Insta­gram show­ing the two armed and in mil­i­tary uni­form, wear­ing Azov patch­es.

[see image of Ukrain­ian fas­cist, Maliar, pos­ing with guns in a mil­i­tary uni­form with Azov patch­es]

And Fil­imonov has pub­lished sev­er­al show­ing him and his friends wear­ing Azov t‑shirts.

[see image of Ukrain­ian fas­cist Ser­hii Fil­imonov pos­ing with friends in Azov shirts]

Ukrain­ian regime-chang­ers build net­works with Hong Kong seces­sion­ists

Despite all of this pub­licly avail­able evi­dence demon­strat­ing the open fas­cism of the Ukrain­ian hooli­gans in Hong Kong, the Kiev-based Free Hong Kong Cen­ter pub­lished a state­ment on Face­book defend­ing and white­wash­ing Gonor.

The orga­ni­za­tion con­firmed that the extrem­ists did indeed fight with Azov “dur­ing the first peri­od of the war” against pro-Russ­ian sep­a­ratists, but claimed that they have been unaf­fil­i­at­ed since 2015.

The Free Hong Kong Cen­ter described the neo-fas­cists as “activists of the Rev­o­lu­tion of Dig­ni­ty and as well as vet­er­ans of the defend­ing war with Rus­sia.” Absurd­ly, the cen­ter declared that they “assured us they are real­ly against nazism and anoth­er kind of alt-right ide­ol­o­gy.”

“A lot of peo­ple were dis­ap­point­ed by the tat­toos of these guys,” the Free Hong Kong Cen­ter con­ced­ed. But they insist­ed “that all sym­bols are from Slav­ic pagan­ism.”

The Free Hong Kong Cen­ter is a project of an NGO called the Lib­er­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic League of Ukraine. In addi­tion to build­ing links with anti-Bei­jing forces in Hong Kong, the project says its mis­sion is to “counter Chi­nese threats to Ukraine.”

The Lib­er­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic League of Ukraine is a pro-Euro­pean Union advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tion which is a mem­ber of the Euro­pean Lib­er­al Youth and the Inter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of Lib­er­al Youth, both of which are fund­ed by the EU.

The main coor­di­na­tor of the Free Hong Kong Cen­ter is a Ukrain­ian activist named Arthur Kharytonov, who is also the pres­i­dent of the Lib­er­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic League of Ukraine. Kharytonov was deeply involved in the Euro­maid­an protests in Ukraine, which led to the 2014 US-backed coup. He then set up the league in 2015.

Kharytonov and his orga­ni­za­tion have been fre­quent­ly ampli­fied in US gov­ern­ment-fund­ed Ukrain­ian media out­lets such as Hro­madske. In these soft­ball inter­views with a high­ly sym­pa­thet­ic press, Kharytonov likens the anti-Rus­sia protests in Ukraine to the anti-Chi­na protests in Hong Kong, and calls for clos­er bonds between them.

On 6th year anniver­sary of #Euro­maid­an rev­o­lu­tion, Ukraini­ans showed sol­i­dar­i­ty with pro­test­ers in Hong Kong. We invit­ed main coor­di­na­tor of Kyiv-based Free Hong Kong Cen­ter, Arthur Kharytonov to draw par­al­lels between the events in #Ukraine & #HongKong.https://t.co/MMJkPLmeQC

— Hro­madske Int. (@Hromadske) Novem­ber 25, 2019

Kharytonov and these West­ern gov­ern­ment-backed orga­ni­za­tions are part of a grow­ing net­work of Ukrain­ian regime-change activists who are orga­niz­ing with seces­sion­ists in Hong Kong, hold­ing and shar­ing insur­gency tac­tics.

As the US and NATO-led unipo­lar hege­mon­ic order that has dom­i­nat­ed the world since the end of the Cold War begins to crum­ble, and as a ris­ing Chi­na and Rus­sia seek to restore a mul­ti­po­lar glob­al sys­tem, Wash­ing­ton and Euro­pean nations are con­struct­ing a lat­tice­work of move­ments to under­mine their adver­saries on their fron­tiers.

This glob­al net­work is mar­ket­ed as the advance guard of glob­al lib­er­al­ism, but as events from Ukraine to Hong Kong have revealed, fas­cism is fes­ter­ing at its base.

1b. The pres­ence of a for­mer leader of Pravy Sek­tor in Hong Kong is note­wor­thy. Pravy Sek­tor evolved direct­ly from the UPA–the OUN/B’s mil­i­tary wing and a fun­da­men­tal ele­ment of the Inter­matium con­ti­nu­ity.

“The Dura­bil­i­ty of Ukrain­ian Fas­cism” by Peter Lee; Strate­gic Cul­ture; 6/9/2014.

. . . . Yuriy Shukhevych’s role in mod­ern Ukrain­ian fas­cism is not sim­ply that of an inspi­ra­tional fig­ure­head and reminder of his father’s anti-Sovi­et hero­ics for proud Ukrain­ian nation­al­ists.  He is a core fig­ure in the emer­gence of the key Ukrain­ian fas­cist for­ma­tion, Pravy Sek­tor and its para­mil­i­tary.

And Pravy Sektor’s para­mil­i­tary, the UNA-UNSO, is not an “unruly” col­lec­tion of week­end-war­rior-wannabes, as Mr. Hig­gins might believe.

UNA-UNSO was formed dur­ing the tur­moil of the ear­ly 1990s, large­ly by eth­nic Ukrain­ian vet­er­ans of the Sovi­et Union’s bit­ter war in Afghanistan.  From the first, the UNA-UNSO has shown a taste for for­eign adven­tures, send­ing detach­ments to Moscow in 1990 to oppose the Com­mu­nist coup against Yeltsin, and to Lithua­nia in 1991.  With appar­ent­ly very good rea­son, the Rus­sians have also accused UNA-UNSO fight­ers of par­tic­i­pat­ing on the anti-Russ­ian side in Geor­gia and Chech­nya.

After for­mal Ukrain­ian inde­pen­dence, the mili­tia elect­ed Yuriy Shukhevych—the son of OUN‑B com­man­der Roman Shukhevych– as its leader and set up a polit­i­cal arm, which lat­er became Pravy Sek­tor. . . .”

1c. Steve Bannon–one of the lumi­nar­ies of the “Alt-Right,” and a for­mer key Trump aide is cen­tral­ly involved in the anti-Chi­na effort. This sug­gests that the pres­ence of Pepe the Frog’s image in Hong Kong might have some­thing to do with the “Alt-Right” after all.

Note Ban­non and com­pa­ny’s net­work­ing with the Falun Gong cult and “Chi­nese Mus­lim Free­dom Fighters”–read “Uighurs.’

“A New Red Scare Is Reshap­ing Wash­ing­ton” by Ana Swan­son; The New York Times; 7/20/2019.

In a ball­room across from the Capi­tol build­ing, an unlike­ly group of mil­i­tary hawks, pop­ulist cru­saders, Chi­nese Mus­lim free­dom fight­ers [Uighurs–D.E.] and fol­low­ers of the Falun Gong has been meet­ing to warn any­one who will lis­ten that Chi­na pos­es an exis­ten­tial threat to the Unit­ed States that will not end until the Com­mu­nist Par­ty is over­thrown.

If the warn­ings sound straight out of the Cold War, they are. The Com­mit­tee on the Present Dan­ger, a long-defunct group that cam­paigned against the dan­gers of the Sovi­et Union in the 1970s and 1980s, has recent­ly been revived with the help of Stephen K. Ban­non, the president’s for­mer chief strate­gist, to warn against the dan­gers of Chi­na.

Once dis­missed as xeno­phobes and fringe ele­ments, the group’s mem­bers are find­ing their views increas­ing­ly embraced in Pres­i­dent Trump’s Wash­ing­ton, where skep­ti­cism and mis­trust of Chi­na have tak­en hold. Fear of Chi­na has spread across the gov­ern­ment, from the White House to Con­gress to fed­er­al agen­cies, where Beijing’s rise is unques­tion­ing­ly viewed as an eco­nom­ic and nation­al secu­ri­ty threat and the defin­ing chal­lenge of the 21st cen­tu­ry.

“These are two sys­tems that are incom­pat­i­ble,” Mr. Ban­non said of the Unit­ed States and Chi­na. “One side is going to win, and one side is going to lose.” . . . .

1c. As dis­cussed in–among oth­er pro­grams–FTR #‘s 946 and 1077, Ban­non was at the epi­cen­ter of the Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca cyber-psy-op dur­ing the 2016 elec­tion. One of the prin­ci­pal oper­a­tors of Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca was Christo­pher Wylie. 

We won­der if the tech­niques used by Ban­non, Wylie, Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca, SCL et al might have been used in Hong Kong? The the lais­sez-faire econ­o­my of Hong Kong has seen a 300 per­cent increase in rents while income has stag­nat­ed, thus impov­er­ish­ing 20% of Hong Kong’s pop­u­la­tion. Many young peo­ple in Hong Kong might well be vul­ner­a­ble to the type of social media psy-op that Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca spe­cial­ized in.

Was such a tech­nique employed to help gen­er­ate the unrest in Hong Kong?

In our next pro­gram, we will review the rebirth of Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca, with a Hong Kong-based financier and busi­ness part­ner of Erik Prince (of Black­wa­ter fame and the broth­er of Trump Sec­re­tary of Edu­ca­tion Bet­sy DeVos) on the board of direc­tors.

Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca is rebrand­ing under a new com­pa­ny, Emer­da­ta. Intrigu­ing­ly, Cam­bridge Analytica’s trans­for­ma­tion into Emer­da­ta is note­wor­thy because  the fir­m’s direc­tors include John­son Ko Chun Shun, a Hong Kong financier and busi­ness part­ner of Erik Prince: ” . . . . But the company’s announce­ment left sev­er­al ques­tions unan­swered, includ­ing who would retain the company’s intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty — the so-called psy­cho­graph­ic vot­er pro­files built in part with data from Face­book — and whether Cam­bridge Analytica’s data-min­ing busi­ness would return under new aus­pices. . . . In recent months, exec­u­tives at Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca and SCL Group, along with the Mer­cer fam­i­ly, have moved to cre­at­ed a new firm, Emer­da­ta, based in Britain, accord­ing to British records. The new company’s direc­tors include John­son Ko Chun Shun, a Hong Kong financier and busi­ness part­ner of Erik Prince. . . . An exec­u­tive and a part own­er of SCL Group, Nigel Oakes, has pub­licly described Emer­da­ta as a way of rolling up the two com­pa­nies under one new ban­ner. . . . 

“Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca whistle­blow­er Christo­pher Wylie: It’s time to save cre­ativ­i­ty” by Kate Magee; Cam­paign; 11/05/2018.

  1. The par­ent com­pa­ny of Cam­bridge Analytica–SCL–was deeply involved with coun­tert­er­ror­ism “psy-ops” in Afghanistan, embody­ing the essence of the coun­terin­sur­gency dynam­ic at the root of the devel­op­ment of the Inter­net. The use of online data to sub­vert democ­ra­cy recalls Hitler’s speech to the Indus­try Club of Dus­sel­dorf, in which he equat­ed democ­ra­cy with com­mu­nism: ” . . . .  Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca was a com­pa­ny spun out of SCL Group, a British mil­i­tary con­trac­tor that worked in infor­ma­tion oper­a­tions for armed forces around the world. It was con­duct­ing research on how to scale and digi­tise infor­ma­tion war­fare – the use of infor­ma­tion to con­fuse or degrade the effi­ca­cy of an ene­my. . . . As direc­tor of research, Wylie’s orig­i­nal role was to map out how the com­pa­ny would take tra­di­tion­al infor­ma­tion oper­a­tions tac­tics into the online space – in par­tic­u­lar, by pro­fil­ing peo­ple who would be sus­cep­ti­ble to cer­tain mes­sag­ing. This mor­phed into the polit­i­cal are­na. After Wylie left, the com­pa­ny worked on Don­ald Trump’s US pres­i­den­tial cam­paign . . . .”
  2. Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca whistle­blow­er Christo­pher Wylie’s obser­va­tions on the anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic nature of the fir­m’s work: ” . . . . It was this shift from the bat­tle­field to pol­i­tics that made Wylie uncom­fort­able. ‘When you are work­ing in infor­ma­tion oper­a­tions projects, where your tar­get is a com­bat­ant, the auton­o­my or agency of your tar­gets is not your pri­ma­ry con­sid­er­a­tion. It is fair game to deny and manip­u­late infor­ma­tion, coerce and exploit any men­tal vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties a per­son has, and to bring out the very worst char­ac­ter­is­tics in that per­son because they are an ene­my,’ he says. ‘But if you port that over to a demo­c­ra­t­ic sys­tem, if you run cam­paigns designed to under­mine people’s abil­i­ty to make free choic­es and to under­stand what is real and not real, you are under­min­ing democ­ra­cy and treat­ing vot­ers in the same way as you are treat­ing ter­ror­ists.’ . . . .”
  3. Wylie’s obser­va­tions on how Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca’s method­ol­o­gy can be used to build a fas­cist polit­i­cal move­ment: ” . . . . One of the rea­sons these tech­niques are so insid­i­ous is that being a tar­get of a dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign is ‘usu­al­ly a plea­sur­able expe­ri­ence’, because you are being fed con­tent with which you are like­ly to agree. ‘You are being guid­ed through some­thing that you want to be true,’ Wylie says. To build an insur­gency, he explains, you first tar­get peo­ple who are more prone to hav­ing errat­ic traits, para­noia or con­spir­a­to­r­i­al think­ing, and get them to ‘like’ a group on social media. They start engag­ing with the con­tent, which may or may not be true; either way ‘it feels good to see that infor­ma­tion’. When the group reach­es 1,000 or 2,000 mem­bers, an event is set up in the local area. Even if only 5% show up, ‘that’s 50 to 100 peo­ple flood­ing a local cof­fee shop’, Wylie says. This, he adds, val­i­dates their opin­ion because oth­er peo­ple there are also talk­ing about ‘all these things that you’ve been see­ing online in the depths of your den and get­ting angry about’. Peo­ple then start to believe the rea­son it’s not shown on main­stream news chan­nels is because ‘they don’t want you to know what the truth is’. As Wylie sums it up: ‘What start­ed out as a fan­ta­sy online gets port­ed into the tem­po­ral world and becomes real to you because you see all these peo­ple around you.’ . . . .”
  4. Wylie’s obser­va­tion that Face­book was “All In” on the Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca machi­na­tions: ” . . . . ‘Face­book has known about what Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca was up to from the very begin­ning of those projects,” Wylie claims. “They were noti­fied, they autho­rised the appli­ca­tions, they were giv­en the terms and con­di­tions of the app that said explic­it­ly what it was doing. They hired peo­ple who worked on build­ing the app. I had legal cor­re­spon­dence with their lawyers where they acknowl­edged it hap­pened as far back as 2016.’ . . . .”
  5. The deci­sive par­tic­i­pa­tion of “Spy Tech” firm Palan­tir in the Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca oper­a­tion: Peter Thiel’s sur­veil­lance firm Palan­tir was appar­ent­ly deeply involved with Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca’s gam­ing of per­son­al data har­vest­ed from Face­book in order to engi­neer an elec­toral vic­to­ry for Trump. Thiel was an ear­ly investor in Face­book, at one point was its largest share­hold­er and is still one of its largest share­hold­ers. In addi­tion to his oppo­si­tion to democ­ra­cy because it alleged­ly is inim­i­cal to wealth cre­ation, Thiel does­n’t think women should be allowed to vote and holds Nazi legal the­o­reti­cian Carl Schmitt in high regard. ” . . . . It was a Palan­tir employ­ee in Lon­don, work­ing close­ly with the data sci­en­tists build­ing Cambridge’s psy­cho­log­i­cal pro­fil­ing tech­nol­o­gy, who sug­gest­ed the sci­en­tists cre­ate their own app — a mobile-phone-based per­son­al­i­ty quiz — to gain access to Face­book users’ friend net­works, accord­ing to doc­u­ments obtained by The New York Times. The rev­e­la­tions pulled Palan­tir — co-found­ed by the wealthy lib­er­tar­i­an Peter Thiel — into the furor sur­round­ing Cam­bridge, which improp­er­ly obtained Face­book data to build ana­lyt­i­cal tools it deployed on behalf of Don­ald J. Trump and oth­er Repub­li­can can­di­dates in 2016. Mr. Thiel, a sup­port­er of Pres­i­dent Trump, serves on the board at Face­book. ‘There were senior Palan­tir employ­ees that were also work­ing on the Face­book data,’ said Christo­pher Wylie, a data expert and Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca co-founder, in tes­ti­mo­ny before British law­mak­ers on Tues­day. . . . The con­nec­tions between Palan­tir and Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca were thrust into the spot­light by Mr. Wylie’s tes­ti­mo­ny on Tues­day. Both com­pa­nies are linked to tech-dri­ven bil­lion­aires who backed Mr. Trump’s cam­paign: Cam­bridge is chiefly owned by Robert Mer­cer, the com­put­er sci­en­tist and hedge fund mag­nate, while Palan­tir was co-found­ed in 2003 by Mr. Thiel, who was an ini­tial investor in Face­book. . . .”
  6. The use of “dark posts” by the Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca team. (We have not­ed that Brad Parscale has reassem­bled the old Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca team for Trump’s 2020 elec­tion cam­paign. It seems prob­a­ble that AOC’s mil­lions of online fol­low­ers, as well as the “Bernie Bots,” will be get­ting “dark posts” craft­ed by AI’s scan­ning their online efforts.) ” . . . . One recent adver­tis­ing prod­uct on Face­book is the so-called ‘dark post’: A news­feed mes­sage seen by no one aside from the users being tar­get­ed. With the help of Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca, Mr. Trump’s dig­i­tal team used dark posts to serve dif­fer­ent ads to dif­fer­ent poten­tial vot­ers, aim­ing to push the exact right but­tons for the exact right peo­ple at the exact right times. . . .”

1d. Next, we review mate­r­i­al from FTR #725

[Wik­ileaks co-founder John] Young leaked Wik­iLeaks e‑mails, which indi­cate that dis­si­dent exiles from Chi­na, Rus­sia and else­where found­ed the group. From this description–again, derived from Wik­iLeaks’ own e‑mails, it sounds like the group is asso­ci­at­ed with a right-wing intel­li­gence network–one that is also will­ing to work against U.S. inter­ests. Among the ele­ments that should be con­sid­ered in this regard are the UNPO and the Safari Club. It appears that Assange imag­ined that he would be able to fleece CIA and West­ern intel­li­gence ser­vices.

Note the presence–according to Assange–of Chi­nese, Russ­ian and Tibetan dis­si­dents in the gen­e­sis of Wik­iLeaks.

As not­ed in numer­ous broad­casts, the Snow­den “op” and the Wik­iLeaks “op” are two sides of a Janus-faced oper­a­tion. Assist­ed by BBG (read “CIA”)-funded Jacob Appel­baum, Snow­den began his trek by tran­sit­ing from Hawaii to Hong Kong. We won­der if his pres­ence there, before decamp­ing for Moscow, may have had any­thing to do with the tur­moil unfold­ing there?

http://cryptome.org/wikileaks/wikileaks-leak.htm

“1. WL was found­ed by Chi­nese dis­si­dents, math­e­mati­cians and start­up com­pa­ny tech­nol­o­gists, from the US, Tai­wan, Europe, Aus­tralia and South Africa.

2. Our advi­so­ry board, which is still form­ing, includes rep­re­sen­ta­tives from expat Russ­ian and Tibetan refugee com­mu­ni­ties, reporters, a for­mer US intel­li­gence ana­lyst and cryp­tog­ra­phers.

3. There are cur­rent­ly 22 peo­ple direct­ly involved in the project.

4. We haven’t sought pub­lic feed­back so far, but dis­si­dent com­mu­ni­ties have been been very gra­cious with their assis­tance.”

To: John Young
From: Wik­ileaks
Sub­ject: martha stu­art pgp
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 12:20:25 ‑0500

J. We are going to fuck them all. Chi­nese most­ly, but not entire­ly a feint. Inven­tion abounds. Lies, twists and dis­torts every­where need­ed for pro­tec­tion. Hack­ers mon­i­tor Chi­nese and oth­er intel as they bur­row into their tar­gets, when they pull, so do we.

1e. An ele­ment of dis­cus­sion that will loom larg­er in our next broad­cast con­cerns Chi­na’s lead­er­ship in pro-envi­ron­men­t/­green­house gas-reduc­ing tech­nolo­gies. Note the alarmist tone of the New York Times op-ed. It would be great if the U.S. would put a major effort into devel­op­ing green tech­nolo­gies.

The U.S. is going in the oppo­site direc­tion, how­ev­er.

Note Chi­na’s lead­er­ship in elec­tric car tech­nol­o­gy, a sub­ject to which we will return in our upcom­ing dis­cus­sion of the “Lithi­um Coup” in Bolivia.

“Our Green Ener­gy Chal­lenge” by John Ker­ry and Ro Khan­na; The New York Times; 12/10/2019.

. . . . We should pledge that by the end of the next decade, Amer­i­ca will sur­pass Chi­na and win the clean ener­gy race.

We aren’t win­ning the clean ener­gy race today. In many ways, we aren’t even try­ing. Chi­na is becom­ing an ener­gy super­pow­er. Ear­li­er this year, the Glob­al Com­mis­sion on the Geopol­i­tics of the Ener­gy Trans­for­ma­tion report­ed that Chi­na became the world’s largest pro­duc­er, exporter and installer of solar pan­els, wind tur­bines, bat­ter­ies and elec­tric vehi­cles, fol­lowed by Japan and Ger­many. The Unit­ed States ranks fourth.

Chi­na sur­passed us for the lead in renew­able ener­gy tech­nol­o­gy, too, with 150,000 patents — mak­ing up 30 per­cent of the world’s total. We are sec­ond with just over 100,000 patents, while Japan and the Euro­pean Union fol­low with about 75,000 each.

In 2015, Chi­na sur­passed us to become the largest elec­tric vehi­cle mar­ket and is on pace to dom­i­nate pro­duc­tion for the next 20 years. Chi­nese elec­tric vehi­cles account for 60 per­cent of glob­al sales: 876,000 vehi­cles were pro­duced last year com­pared with 361,000 in Amer­i­ca.

Chi­na is doing things we are afraid to do. They offer cit­i­zens large sub­si­dies for pur­chas­ing elec­tric vehi­cles from state-owned com­pa­nies. Munic­i­pal­i­ties waive fees for elec­tric vehi­cle own­ers. The city of Shen­zhen, which has a pop­u­la­tion of 12.5 mil­lion peo­ple, runs a 100 per­cent elec­tric vehi­cle bus fleet and is, by fiat, con­vert­ing 22,000 taxis to elec­tric vehi­cles.

High-speed rail also is inte­gral to China’s strat­e­gy. It has the largest high-speed rail­way in the world, with 19,000 miles of track and most major cities con­nect­ed by the net­work. The Unit­ed States has less than 500 miles. Our fastest train takes 19 to 22 hours from New York to Chica­go, where­as the same dis­tance in Chi­na takes four-and-a-half hours. . . .

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Discussion

2 comments for “FTR #1103 Fascism, 2019 World Tour, Part 13: Goose-Hopping in Hong Kong with Pepe the Frog and the Azov Battalion”

  1. About 27 min­utes into the broad­cast, Dave men­tioned the burn­ing down of the Odessa House of Trades. “House of Trades” is Stal­in-speak for “Trade(s) Union Cen­ter”. The Pravy Sek­tor mob attacked the Cen­ter on May 2nd of 2014. May 2nd of 1933 was the date when the Berlin Trade Union Cen­ter was attacked by Hitler’s SA and the Ger­man Nation­al Labor Front declared the only legal labor orga­ni­za­tion in Ger­many. The Odessa event was a cel­e­bra­tion of the impor­tant date of May 2nd in the Nazi cal­en­dar.

    Posted by Atlanta Bill | December 29, 2019, 5:53 am
  2. With reports of plum­met­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty for Brazil’s Jair Bol­sonaro as COVID-19 sweeps the coun­try in the face of Bol­sonaro’s non-response, here’s a tweet from Brasil Wire that hints at some­thing that could become increas­ing­ly impor­tant if Bol­sonaro’s popoular­i­ty con­tin­ues to plum­met and he decides to for­mal­ly end Brazil’s democ­ra­cy in order to hold onto pow­er:

    Brasil Wire tweet­ed out a pic­ture of a sound truck seen at a far right pro-Bol­sonaro ral­ly in São Paulo on May 24. The Brazil­ian flag was on the truck but it was­n’t the only flag draped across the top. It turns out the flag for Ukraine’s neo-Nazi “Right Sec­tor” group was also promi­nent­ly draped across the top of the truck:

    Sound truck at a minor protest in São Paulo today flew the flag of Ukrain­ian Neon­azis “Right Sec­tor”. Mem­bers of the Brazil­ian extreme-right have been trained in Ukraine, as report­ed by the @FT in Jan­u­ary 2017. https://t.co/RXkigSOSba pic.twitter.com/zWyWtvTOsQ— Brasil Wire (@BrasilWire) May 24, 2020

    So the Brazil­ian far right is now open­ly adver­tis­ing Right Sec­tor dur­ing pro-Bol­sonaro ral­lies. And that’s why the 2017 Finan­cial Times arti­cle ref­er­enced in the tweet is so dis­turbing­ly rel­e­vant today: Putting that flag on on promi­nent dis­play is the kind of sig­nal­ing that indi­cates that if Brazil’s far right ends up falling back on neo-Nazi ter­ror­ists to help sub­due Brazil’s pop­u­lace they won’t nec­es­sar­i­ly be domes­tic ter­ror­ists and the domes­tic neo-Nazi just might have had actu­al bat­tle­field train­ing in Ukraine:

    The Finan­cial Times

    Brazil neo-Nazi claim chal­lenges myth of nation’s racial har­mo­ny
    Alleged Ukraine plot rais­es fears ultra­na­tion­al­ists are seek­ing com­bat expe­ri­ence

    Joe Leahy in São Paulo Jan­u­ary 9 2017

    When Brazil­ian police inves­ti­ga­tor Paulo César Jardim launched a series of raids on the homes of alleged neo-Nazis in the south­ern state of Rio Grande do Sul, he unveiled a bizarre plot.

    The country’s sim­mer­ing neo-Nazi move­ment, with its secret world of swastikas, hate pro­pa­gan­da and street vio­lence, was being recruit­ed by rightwing extrem­ists in Ukraine to fight against pro-Russ­ian rebels in the Euro­pean country’s civ­il war.

    Ukraine’s Mis­an­throp­ic Divi­sion, an extreme right group aligned with the Azov Bat­tal­ion, an ultra­na­tion­al­ist para­mil­i­tary group aligned with Kiev, was behind the recruit­ment dri­ve, Mr Jardim, Brazil’s fore­most neo-Nazi hunter, alleged.

    One per­son was detained along with 47 9mm pis­tol shells in the Decem­ber raids. He was lat­er released. Police were still inves­ti­gat­ing whether any Brazil­ians had already joined the fight­ing in Ukraine, he said, declin­ing to elab­o­rate fur­ther on the probe. A spokesman for the Azov Bat­tal­ion — now incor­po­rat­ed into the Nation­al Guard — said no Brazil­ians had fought for it.

    “We became aware that some­one had come from Europe...an Italian...had come to Brazil to recruit peo­ple for Ukraine,” Mr Jardim told the FT.

    The rev­e­la­tion, if proven, that Brazil’s under­ground ultra­na­tion­al­ist move­ments are seek­ing com­bat expe­ri­ence over­seas is a wor­ry­ing devel­op­ment in a phe­nom­e­non that has shocked a coun­try that con­sid­ers itself a racial melt­ing pot.

    The rise of neo-Nazis in Brazil has chal­lenged a pop­u­lar myth that racism, at least the overt vari­ety on dis­play in the US and oth­er west­ern coun­tries, does not exist there. With more than half the pop­u­la­tion claim­ing at least some African her­itage, Brazil­ians pride them­selves on the relaxed rela­tions between the country’s dif­fer­ent racial groups. But there has been a steady stream of attacks in recent years. Just last year, neo-Nazis attacked a punk band that cham­pi­oned gay and equal rights with knives and tom­a­hawks.

    While the far-right is still regard­ed as the fringe of pol­i­tics in a coun­try that freed itself from two decades of mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship only in the mid-1980s, ultra-con­ser­v­a­tive politi­cians and their sup­port­ers are keen to fill a polit­i­cal vac­u­um that has devel­oped after the August impeach­ment of for­mer pres­i­dent Dil­ma Rouss­eff, ana­lysts say.

    Jair Bol­sonaro, a far-right con­gress­man and for­mer Brazil­ian army cap­tain, grabbed head­lines last year for prais­ing a known tor­tur­er from the dic­ta­tor­ship era. Also last year, a group of ultra­con­ser­v­a­tives invad­ed Con­gress and unveiled ban­ners call­ing for the return of mil­i­tary rule.

    Mr Bol­sonaro has denied he is a neo-Nazi but crit­ics accuse him of shar­ing many of the movement’s views, such as racism and intol­er­ance.

    ....

    The strong­hold of neo-Nazism in Brazil is the country’s south and south-east, from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo to Rio Grande do Sul, the regions that received the bulk of Brazil’s Ger­man, Ital­ian and Pol­ish immi­grants.

    While South Amer­i­ca was also known for receiv­ing Nazis flee­ing from the defeat of Hitler’s Ger­many in the sec­ond world war, the neo-Nazi move­ments are unre­lat­ed to these indi­vid­u­als and most­ly grew out of hate sites on the inter­net, experts say.

    Brazil, with a pop­u­la­tion of 200m, has 150,000 “sym­pa­this­ers” involved in neo-Nazi move­ments, accord­ing to a paper by anthro­pol­o­gist Andri­ana Dias of Uni­camp, a uni­ver­si­ty.

    “The vio­lence expressed by these groups, whether in phys­i­cal attacks on blacks, Jews or homo­sex­u­als, or the dis­sem­i­na­tion of their hate literature...has in recent years demand­ed a lot of work...in terms of inves­ti­ga­tion and con­vic­tions,” she wrote.

    One of the land­mark cas­es occurred in Por­to Ale­gre in 2005 on the 60th anniver­sary of the end of the Holo­caust when a group of neo-Nazis armed with knives attacked Jews com­mem­o­rat­ing the event, seri­ous­ly injur­ing sev­er­al of their vic­tims.

    In more recent cas­es, skin­heads have tar­get­ed gays on Aveni­da Paulista, the main thor­ough­fare in São Paulo. In 2011, three skin­heads were con­vict­ed for try­ing to kill four peo­ple, includ­ing a black per­son with a pros­thet­ic limb, with clubs and knives.

    Since the 2005 attack in Por­to Ale­gre, police in Rio Grande do Sul had adopt­ed a more pre­ven­tive approach, arrest­ing and ques­tion­ing sus­pects before they could hatch their plots, Mr Jardim said. There had been up to 50 indict­ments over the past 15 years, he added.

    This was the approach used in the Ukraine inves­ti­ga­tion — called Oper­a­tion Azov after the alleged involve­ment of the east­ern Euro­pean para­mil­i­tary group.

    Mr Jardim said that when he brought sus­pects in for ques­tion­ing, as he did dur­ing Oper­a­tion Azov, he often tried to con­vince them that their creed was out of place in a coun­try whose heroes includ­ed World Cup foot­ballers Ronald­in­ho, Ronal­do and Romário — all of them black. But they rarely changed their minds.

    “These are not com­mon crim­i­nals or rob­bers, they have an ide­ol­o­gy. They are peo­ple who believe in eth­nic cleans­ing, in racial puri­ty,” he said.

    ———–

    “Brazil neo-Nazi claim chal­lenges myth of nation’s racial har­mo­ny” by Joe Leahy; The Finan­cial Times; 01/09/2017

    Ukraine’s Mis­an­throp­ic Divi­sion, an extreme right group aligned with the Azov Bat­tal­ion, an ultra­na­tion­al­ist para­mil­i­tary group aligned with Kiev, was behind the recruit­ment dri­ve, Mr Jardim, Brazil’s fore­most neo-Nazi hunter, alleged.”

    It’s not par­tic­u­lar­ly sur­pris­ing to learn that the Azov-aligned Mis­an­throp­ic Divi­sion was recruit­ing in Brazil but it’s cer­tain­ly notable. And it’s a lot more notable now fol­low­ing the 2018 elec­tion of an open fas­cist like Jair Bol­sonaro with a his­to­ry of prais­ing the tor­ture of dis­si­dents by Brazil’s mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship:

    ...
    Jair Bol­sonaro, a far-right con­gress­man and for­mer Brazil­ian army cap­tain, grabbed head­lines last year for prais­ing a known tor­tur­er from the dic­ta­tor­ship era. Also last year, a group of ultra­con­ser­v­a­tives invad­ed Con­gress and unveiled ban­ners call­ing for the return of mil­i­tary rule.

    Mr Bol­sonaro has denied he is a neo-Nazi but crit­ics accuse him of shar­ing many of the movement’s views, such as racism and intol­er­ance.
    ...

    And now we have pro-Bol­sonaro groups open­ly dis­play­ing Right Sec­tor flags dur­ing pro-Bol­sonaro street protests. What does it say that they chose that spe­cif­ic sig­nal to send? Does this mean Right Sec­tor is now oper­at­ing inside Brazil? Or has the Right Sec­tor flag become some sort of sym­bol of glob­al far right sol­i­dar­i­ty? Both per­haps?

    It’s also worth not­ing the com­ment in the arti­cle about how the domes­tic neo-Nazi move­ments are unre­lat­ed to the post-War Nazi Under­ground:

    ...
    The strong­hold of neo-Nazism in Brazil is the country’s south and south-east, from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo to Rio Grande do Sul, the regions that received the bulk of Brazil’s Ger­man, Ital­ian and Pol­ish immi­grants.

    While South Amer­i­ca was also known for receiv­ing Nazis flee­ing from the defeat of Hitler’s Ger­many in the sec­ond world war, the neo-Nazi move­ments are unre­lat­ed to these indi­vid­u­als and most­ly grew out of hate sites on the inter­net, experts say.
    ...

    That would­n’t be sur­pris­ing to learn that the bulk of today’s young Brazil­ian neo-Nazis became rad­i­cal­ized from inter­net hate sites and not direct con­tact with the Under­ground Reich’s remain­ing oper­a­tions in South Amer­i­ca. It’s a glob­al trend.

    But it rais­es the ques­tion: So what kind of domes­tic recruit­ment has the Under­ground Reich done in South Amer­i­ca over the past decades? Have they kept it ‘in the fam­i­ly’ or are there locals invit­ed into the under­ground? There would be enor­mous oppor­tu­ni­ties for that kind of net­work­ing and recruit­ment but also obvi­ous secu­ri­ty risks. The biggest thing pro­tect­ing the Under­ground Reich is the col­lec­tive refusal to even acknowl­edge it and local recruit­ment would obvi­ous­ly pose a mas­sive risk on that front. Either way, the fact that we have to ask whether or not Bol­sonaro would get sup­port for the con­tem­po­rary iter­a­tion of South America’s post-War Nazi net­works is a reminder that if the Bol­sonaro gov­ern­ment ends up imple­ment­ing the kind of fas­cist domes­tic ter­ror cam­paign, the inter­na­tion­al far right net­works that might par­tic­i­pate in that prob­a­bly won’t be lim­it­ed to Ukraini­ans and may have been oper­at­ing in Brazil for quite a few decades now.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | May 29, 2020, 1:32 pm

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