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Agrifirm animal feed factory in Veghel, the Netherlands (Brabants Dagblad/Domien van der Meijden)

The international alt-right has picked the wrong side in the Netherlands farm crisis.

Former American president Donald Trump, French National Rally leader Marine Le Pen, Danish climate-change sceptic Bjrn Lomborg and media like Breitbart, The Federalist, Fox News and The Spectator may think theyre backing the little guy against out-of-touch political elites; theyre doing the bidding of Big Ag.

In Areo Magazine, I point out the farmers protests against the Dutch government are funded by three of the largest animal feed companies in the world as well as dairy and meat processors. They stand to lose the most from a reduction in livestock farming.

The Netherlands is the largest meat exporter in Europe and the fifth-largest dairy exporter in the world. To produce so much meat, milk and cheese, it needs almost as many cows and pigs as people: 16 million. The country also has 100 million chickens and with it the highest livestock density in the world.

Animal manure is the Netherlands main source of ammonia pollution. In the EU, only Malta has higher emissions per hectare.

Manure can be used as fertilizer, but too much of it kills the very microbes in the soil that make it fertile. It also seeps into the groundwater, which farmers use to irrigate their crops and which Dutch people drink, causing eye and nose irritation and lung damage in people and animals.

Ammonia is especially dangerous to plants, insects and birds in conservation areas. The Netherlands has lost 70 percent of its insect population in the last thirty years. It has been in constant violation of EU protections for birds and habitats since regulations were introduced in the 1990s.

Piecemeal reforms and technologies like air purifiers have reduced emissions by 65 percent from a peak in the 1990s.

To cut emissions further, the government has proposed to buy out or relocate one in three livestock farmers, or 11,000. Another 17,000 would need to downsize.

Farmers argue thats impossible as long as they dont fetch a better price for dairy and meat. In previous years, one in three didnt even earn a minimum wage.

Farms have grown as profit margins have narrowed. The average Dutch dairy farmer has gone from 62 to 108 cows in two decades, the average pig farmer from 900 to 3,400 pigs.

Many farmers werent able to scale up: 45,000 out of 97,000 quit in the same period.

Farmers have little bargaining power. Only a few companies sell animal feed, pesticides and milking robots. Five wholesalers have 80 percent of the market. Three in four dairy farmers work for FrieslandCampina.

The agro conglomerates make big profits. The companies that fund the farmers protests Agrifirm, De Heus and ForFarmers (animal feed), Royal A-ware (dairy) and Vandrie Group (beef and veal) had a combined turnover of 8.7 billion (1 percent of Dutch GDP) last year, when they made a profit of 212 million. Little wonder they dont want to change.

Its not just farmers who feel exploited: 64 percent say factory farming is a dead end. Cows and pigs live short and brutal lives. (Conditions for chickens have improved with an EU ban on battery cages and an increase in the sale of free-range eggs.)

A third never see daylight until they are transported to slaughter. The average pig lives on one square meter, the legal minimum. Boredom and overcrowding cause some pigs to become aggressive. Many farmers cut off the tails of piglets, so that they cannot be bitten off by adult pigs later in life. Dairy cows expire after six or seven years, when their natural life expectancy is fifteen to twenty years. 27 percent develop udder inflammation from overmilking. Falls and lameness are common among cows and pigs who sleep and walk on concrete floors, which is nearly all of them.

If thats how Trump, Le Pen, Lomborg, Breitbart, The Federalist, Fox News and The Spectator think farming should be done, let them say it. But stop it with the nonsense about plucky Dutch farmers standing up to a nefarious green agenda that was drafted in Brussels or Davos. (It wasnt.)

Click here to read the rest of my story in Areo.

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Alt-Right Picks Wrong Side in Dutch Farm Crisis

The smirk that almost inevitably accompanies the OK sign, that simplest of hand signals, is the dead giveaway in the shroud of internet-age befuddlement: Does the sign, the thumb and forefinger joined together in a circle, the remaining three fingers splayed out behind, mean alls good? Or does it mean white power instead?

The smirk gives away the proper answer: Youre being trolled.

The social-media-driven controversy over the meaning of the well-known hand sign has arisen in part as the result of a deliberate hoax concocted on the internet message board 4chan, which in addition to its well-earned reputation as a gateway to the racist alt-right is perhaps more broadly known as the home of trolling culture.

So when it gets flashed during a national broadcast, or during a video being shot to promote the Coast Guard, or by a cluster of Proud Boys and Patriots, what its about most of the time is a deliberate attempt to trigger liberals into overreacting to a gesture so widely used that virtually anyone has plausible deniability built into their use of it in the first place.

The problem, of course, is that there are white nationalists, neo-Nazis and Klansmen who have increasingly begun using the use of the symbol both to signal their presence to the like-minded, as well as to identify potentially sympathetic recruits among young trolling artists flashing it. To them, the configuration means WP, for white power.

This use of the signal preceded the 4chan hoax that made it go viral. A number of alt-right figures, notably white-nationalist guru Richard Spencer, published photographsof themselves using the symbol as early as 2016. Milo Yiannopoulos adopted the symbol on social media as early as 2015.

But by then, the alt-right had already long weaponized the trolling culture and its use of irony to create a hall of mirrors surrounding such memes. These can easily be found in other alt-right ironic constructs, such as the hoax religion of Kek(and its home country, Kekistan), or its adoption of Pepe the Frogas a mascot.

The original "Operation O-KKK" post at 4chan.

In early 2017, after a controversy aroseover whether Gateway Pundit publisher Jim Hoft and a writer for his site flashed the white power sign at the White House Press Briefing Room, the trolls at 4chan responded with a hoax they titled Operation O-KKK. The plan? We must flood twitter and other social media websites with spam, claiming that the OK hand signal is a symbol of white supremacy. Make fake accounts with basic white girl names and type shit like: OMG thats so truuuuu

The intent: Leftists have dug so deep down into their lunacy. We must force [them] to dig more, until the rest of society aint going anywhere near that shit.

A number of media outlets bit, running credulous pieceswarning that the old OK sign now had a darker connotation as an alt-right symbol. Somewhat in reaction, the Anti-Defamation League published a piece dismissing the whole question as a product of the 4chan hoax. (The piece has since been updatedwith a more nuanced analysis.)

This became the preferred narrative about the hand signals meaning. When White House aide Stephen Miller was photographed appearing to pose while making W and P hand signals, and social-media accusations flew claiming it proved his affiliation with white nationalism, the fact-checking site Snopes.com flattened such talkby determining that was false, based mainly on the claims ostensible origins as a hoax.

Patriot Prayer and Proud Boys flash the OK sign in Portland.

Since then, the hand signals use has nonetheless spread. Its used ironically by a number of Trump supporters at far-right rallies. Its been particularly prominent among far-right street protesters such as the Proud Boys and the Northwest-based Patriot Prayer, whose members have prominently displayed the sign in group photos and during street protests.

Roger Stone and the Proud Boys in Salem, OR. From Twitter.

At a gathering of Proud Boys in Salem, Oregon, that hosted former Trump adviser Roger Stone, the entire group was photographed making the sign.

So when a former White House aide named Zina Bash was accused of flashing the signduring confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh while seated directly behind him on September 4, an uproar arose on social media led by Twitter users claiming that she was making a surreptitious white power signal to knowing viewers.

Just as quickly, however, mainstream mediaaccounts shut down discussionof the matter by referring to the established narrative, explaining the signals spread entirely as a 4chan hoax. Eventually the whole matter was dismissed as liberal silliness.

However, that narrative obscures the reality of the darker undercurrents behind the spread of the OK sign as a far-right signal. In addition to being adopted by Trump-friendly young people who mostly see it as a way to trigger liberals, its also been adopted by militiaman Patriots (though it should be noted that III% militiamenuse a reverse form of the OK sign as a way to signal membership in their mythical 3 percent of the populace ready for a revolution).

Overt neo-Nazis such as Andrew Anglin mostly make fun of the whole concept of hand signals (he even ran a vulgar cartoon on theDaily Stormer weighing in on the controversy). Yet its use keeps popping up in group photos of far-right hate-group members enjoying like-minded company. Its ubiquity seems to make its use by racists and trolls alike irresistible.

Dismissing the spread of the hand signal as a hoax overlooks two hard realities: first, that its increasing use gives open license to actual racist ideologues to operate and recruit under the cover of the plausible deniability established by less ideological young trolls; and second, that any kind of wink-and-nudge interaction with the racist right is a direct route to its normalization.

While the people who flash the sign can always readily claim innocence of any racist intent by attesting that they only meant it ironically and that their real purpose was to anger liberals, minorities and social justice warriors (SJWs), they cant so readily escape ethical culpability for their role in the spread of hateful ideologies and their effects, including a global spike in hate crimes. Nor can they blame members of the minority groups who reasonably find such hand signals potentially threatening for being upset.

Radical fascists have, after all, historically taken advantage of the marketplace of ideas as a useful platform for spreading their toxic ideology the outcome of which always entails the utter destruction of that marketplace and its replacement with authoritarian propaganda. When far-right ideologues retreat to a free speech defense amid claims of left-wing persecution which is what memes like the OK sign are designed to do this is always their long-term goal.

Natalie Wynn, a popular YouTube star who posts under the nom de plume ContraPoints, explained this dynamic vividly in a 2017 video titled Decrypting the Alt-Right:

More obscure symbols can be useful as a kind of secret handshake that lets Nazis recognize each other without normies taking notice. The best symbols to use for this purpose are ones that are not primarily associated with fascism, or at least have some other meaning, such as the othala rune, or the iron cross. Better still are symbols that, until adoption by fascists, are completely innocuous. Modern fascists have taken to using almost arbitrary emoji as a way to wink and nod at each other, notably the frog, after Pepe, the milk, and the OK sign.

Another advantage of using innocuous symbols is that when leftists try to point those symbols out, the fascists can always say, These gullible SJWs now think that even the OK sign is racist. Is there anything they *dont* think is racist?

Emily Pothast observes at Medium: Its ambiguity is precisely why its such an effective trolling tactic. When successful, this kind of trolling makes otherwise credible journalists and public intellectuals look like buffoons, either by overreacting to an ambiguous stimulus or by missing the whole context of the gesture.

Salon writer Amanda Marcotte delved this point further on Twitter: Part of the problem is that if, hypothetically, someone flashed white supremacist symbols at the camera, the point of the stunt would be to get liberals wound up, so they can then claim that liberals are just imagining things, she wrote. That was what the OK symbol was literally invented to do: Both serve as a white supremacist symbol and also one that is just ordinary-enough looking that when liberals expressed outrage, the white supremacist could play the victim of liberal hysteria.

So what does it mean when someone flashes the OK sign? In the end, it can mean almost anything, but primarily its one of three things:

The first of these (and its most common, but also most declining, use) is harmless. But it cant credibly be claimed by anyone who has a record of involvement with the many far-right elements that swirl both around the Trump White House and outside it as well. Nor can it be claimed by street-protesting Proud Boys chanting far-right slogans.

The second is less directly harmful, but hardly innocent of wreaking havoc. The normalization of the radical right under the rhetorical protection of self-proclaimed centrists and libertarians, particularly those who spread conspiracy theories and are often labeled the alt-lite, is a legacy that could last a generation or longer.

The third is, of course, reflective of a toxic worldview and authoritarian politics, bent primarily on the destruction of liberal democracy. At the moment, it remains the smallest bloc of the three.

Yet trolling culture, the ethos that fuels the second motivation, has proven a direct gateway not just to the alt-right, but also to even more poisonous cultures such as that of woman-hating incels. Its one thing to shrug off misbehavior by embracing the troll label, but it still means youre a participant in a toxic subculture. It's easy for the second motivation to morph into the third.

So when someone flashes the OK sign with that knowing smirk, its not just a harmless act that can be dismissed. It may or may not mean that they are a white nationalist attempting a sly signal. But the sign unquestionably identifies the user as one thing: a troll.

Photo from Facebook.

Editor's Note: This post was updated for clarity.

Originally posted here:
Is that an OK sign? A white power symbol? Or just a right-wing troll?

Anti-democratic, reactionary philosophy founded by Curtis Yarvin in 2007

The Dark Enlightenment, also called the neo-reactionary movement (sometimes abbreviated to NRx), is an anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian, reactionary philosophical and political movement. In 2007 and 2008, Curtis Yarvin, writing under the pen name Mencius Moldbug, articulated what would develop into Dark Enlightenment thinking. Yarvin's theories were elaborated and expanded by Nick Land, who first coined the term Dark Enlightenment in his essay of the same name. The term "Dark Enlightenment" is a reaction to the Age of Enlightenment.[1][2]

The ideology generally rejects Whig historiography[3]the concept that history shows an inevitable progression towards greater liberty and enlightenment, culminating in liberal democracy and constitutional monarchy[3]in favor of a return to traditional societal constructs and forms of government, including absolute monarchism and other archaic forms of leadership such as cameralism.[4]

In July 2010, Arnold Kling, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, coined the term "neo-reactionaries" to describe Yarvin and his followers.[1]

Neo-reactionaries are an informal community of bloggers and political theorists who have been active since the 2000s. Steve Sailer and Hans-Hermann Hoppe are contemporary forerunners of the ideology, which also draws influence from philosophers such as Thomas Carlyle and Julius Evola.[1]

Central to Land's ideas is a belief in freedom's incompatibility with democracy. Land drew inspiration from libertarians such as Peter Thiel, as indicated in his essay The Dark Enlightenment.[5][non-primary source needed] The Dark Enlightenment has been described by journalists and commentators as alt-right and neo-fascist.[3][6] A 2016 article in New York magazine notes that "Neoreaction has a number of different strains, but perhaps the most important is a form of post-libertarian futurism that, realizing that libertarians aren't likely to win any elections, argues against democracy in favor of authoritarian forms of government."[7]

According to criminal justice professor, George Michael, neoreaction seeks to save its ideal of Western civilization through adoption of a monarchical, or CEO model of government to replace democracy. And it embraces the notion of "acceleration", first articulated by Vladimir Lenin, but in the neoreaction version, the creation and promotion of ever more societal crises hastens the adoption of the neoreactive state.[8]

Other focuses of neoreaction often include an idealization of physical fitness, a rationalist or utilitarian justification for social stratification based on intelligence based on either heredity or meritocracy, an embrace of Classical philosophy, and traditional gender roles.[citation needed]

Neo-reactionaries sometimes decline to speak to reporters. When approached by The Atlantic political affairs reporter Rosie Gray, Yarvin attempted to troll her on Twitter, and blogger Nick B. Steves said that her IQ was inadequate to the task of interviewing him and that, as a journalist, she was "the enemy".[4]

By mid-2017, NRx had moved to forums such as the Social Matter online forum, the Hestia Society, and Thermidor Magazine.

In 2021, Yarvin appeared on Fox News' "Tucker Carlson Today", where he discussed the United States' withdrawal from Afghanistan and his concept of the "Cathedral", which he claims to be the aggregation of political power and influential institutions.[9]

Journalist Andrew Sullivan notes that neoreaction's pessimistic appraisal of democracy dismisses many advances that have been made and that global manufacturing patterns also limit the economic independence that sovereign states can have from one another.[10]

In an article for The Sociological Review, after an examination of neoreaction's core tenets, Roger Burrows deplores the ideology as "hyper-neoliberal, technologically deterministic, anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian, pro-eugenicist, racist and, likely, fascist", and ridicules the entire accelerationist framework as a faulty attempt at "mainstreaming... misogynist, racist and fascist discourses."[11] Moreover, he criticizes neoreaction's racial principles for their brazen "disavowal of any discourses" advocating for socio-economic equality and, accordingly, considers it a "eugenic philosophy" in favor of what Land deems 'hyper-racism'.[11]

Some consider the Dark Enlightenment part of the alt-right, representing its theoretical branch.[3][12] The Dark Enlightenment has been labelled by some as neo-fascist,[3] and by University of Chichester professor Benjamin Noys[3] as "an acceleration of capitalism to a fascist point." Land disputes the similarity between his ideas and fascism, claiming that "Fascism is a mass anti-capitalist movement,"[3] whereas he prefers that "[capitalist] corporate power should become the organizing force in society."[3]

Journalist and pundit James Kirchick states that "although neo-reactionary thinkers disdain the masses and claim to despise populism and people more generally, what ties them to the rest of the alt-right is their unapologetically racist element, their shared misanthropy and their resentment of mismanagement by the ruling elites."[13]

Scholar Andrew Jones, in a 2019 article, postulated that the Dark Enlightenment (i.e. the NeoReactionary Movement) is "key to understanding the Alt-Right" political ideology.[14] "The use of affect theory, postmodern critiques of modernity, and a fixation on critiquing regimes of truth," Jones remarks, "are fundamental to NeoReaction (NRx) and what separates it from other Far-Right theory".[14] Moreover, Jones argues that Dark Enlightenment's fixation on aesthetics, history, and philosophy, as opposed to the traditional empirical approach, distinguishes it from related far-right ideologies.

Historian Joe Mulhall, writing for The Guardian, described Nick Land as "propagating very far-right ideas."[15] Despite neoreaction's limited online audience, Mulhall considers the ideology to have "acted as both a tributary into the alt-right and as a key constituent part [of the alt-right]."[15]

Original post:
Dark Enlightenment - Wikipedia

The campaign for Pennsylvania governor between far-right Republican nominee Doug Mastriano and Democrat Josh Shapiro, the states current attorney general, has been one of contrasts.

The fundraising race has been no exception.

On track to shatter the record for campaign spending in a Pennsylvania governors race, Shapiros campaign received more than $25 million in contributions since June, according to his campaign finance report released Tuesday.

Mastriano, who has been largely ghosted by deep-pocketed Republican donors, raised only $3.2 million in the same period, according to records filed with the Department of State..

But in a race where Mastriano has overcome long odds before, Shapiros 8-to-1 fundraising advantage over the last three months doesnt mean the election is a foregone conclusion.

One Republican poll of more than 1,000 likely voters put Mastriano within 2 points of Shapiro. A Marist College poll, however, put Shapiros lead at 13 points.

Mastriano, a state senator from Franklin County, won a crowded primary over members of his party distancing themselves from his call for a total ban on abortion and his involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

On the campaign trail, Mastriano has called for a rollback of same-sex marriage and transgender rights, the elimination of gender and race theory from public school curricula, cuts in public education funding, and a transition to school choice vouchers, and a rollback of environmental regulations to support fossil fuel production.

Meanwhile, Shapiro, of Montgomery County, and running mate Austin Davis, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor from Allegheny County, have promised improvements in education and job creation, measures to curb gun crime, protection of civil rights including access to abortion, and policies to foster business growth.

Campaign finance reports show Shapiro spent nearly $28 million since June, including $17 million on advertising, for a total of $38 million since the start of the campaign. Former Gov. Ed Rendell holds the longstanding record of $40 million for the largest sum spent in a Pennsylvania governors race.

Shapiro rolled into the final seven weeks of the campaign with nearly $11 million in cash on hand, according to the report which includes transactions through Sept. 19.

Mastriano spent just less than $1 million during the same period, and less than $2.4 million overall since January. Mastriano had nearly $2.6 million on hand as of Sept. 19, according to his report.

While Shapiro is saturating the airwaves, Mastriano has favored social media livestreams of his campaign stops and speaking to voters via Facebook. Many of Mastrianos largest campaign expenses are for campaign consulting, including $18,000 to $37,500, records showed.

Shapiros largest contributions came from the Democratic Governors Association in three payments totaling $5.1 million; Shapiro received $500,000 each from labor unions AFSCME, Laborers International Union, and Service Employees International Union; former New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg; and the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Associations political action committee.

Mastrianos largest individual contributions came from the founders of shipping and business supply company Uline, Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, who contributed a total of $1 million.

Among the individual donations Mastriano received is $500 from Andrew Torba, the founder of the alt-right social media site Gab, which has been criticized as a haven for bigoted and anti-semetic speech. It was the platform where the gunman accused of killing 11 people at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018 posted about his plan minutes before the shooting.

Mastriano came under fire earlier in the campaign for paying $5,000 to Gab to engage with potential voters.

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Shapiro poised to break spending record in governor's race after raising $25M this summer - Pennsylvania Capital-Star

Jack Posobiec, an alt-right conspiracy theorist who promoted the false "Pizzagate" child sex ring in 2016 and promoted the "Stop the Steal" movement over the 2020 election, is scheduled to speak on the UL campus in October.

Posobiec's appearance is at the request of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette chapter of Turning Point USA, whose mission, according to its website is "to identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of freedom, free markets, and limited government."

Michael Lunsford, executive director of the conservative government watchdog Citizens for a New Louisiana based in Lafayette, approached the university group with the suggestion they bring Posobiec in as a speaker, he said Friday.

Lunsford said his group is always trying to encourage "good conservative folks" from across the nation to speak in the Lafayette area. The COVID pandemic put a halt to that, but he thought Posobiec was a good fit.

Anthony Algeciras, president of the UL chapter of Turning Point USA, did not respond to messages Friday requesting comment for this story.

Posobiec worked for former Trump adviser Roger Stone, who he described as a mentor, rising to prominence on Twitter and through appearances on alt-right platforms such as Steve Bannon's "War Room" podcast, the anti-government conspiracy network Infowars and One America News Network.

Since Donald Trumps 2016 presidential campaign, the Southern Poverty Law Center writes, "Posobiec has emerged as arguably the most active spreader of disinformation among all internet performers in the far-right social media ecosystem.

"He pushed the 'Pizzagate' lie in 2016, suggesting that Democratic politicians frequented a nonexistent pedophile dungeon below a Washington, D.C., pizzeria," the SPLC wrote.

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Posobiec has associated with authoritarians and neo-Nazis, has promoted anti-Jewish hate and said he associates with Oath Keepers.

The UL chapter of Turning Point USA "has taken the initial steps to host this event and is in the process of completing the necessary paperwork to do so," Eric Maron, UL senior communications representative, said in an email response to The Acadiana Advocate's inquiry Thursday.

The university, Maron said, "is committed to the free, safe and lawful expression of ideas. Open dialogue is fundamental to the Universitys academic mission and its role in advancing the public interest."

UL's Campus Free Speech Policy, he said, "is designed to ensure that events that involve the free exchange of ideas are orderly, safe and respectful.

"Maintaining an environment of rational and critical inquiry requires hearing a multitude of opinions," Maron added, "even those that may differ from each other and that may differ from our own as individuals."

A UL alum who goes by the handle BongWizarrd posted on the social media platform Reddit a letter he wrote to UL President Joseph Savoie, lobbying against the Oct. 24 Posobiec event, which he called "deplorable". He encouraged other UL alumni to do the same.

Contacted by The Acadiana Advocate on Friday, he requested to remain anonymous, citing heated exchanges and pushback he has received because of the Reddit post.

"If Posobiec is allowed to speak in October, it will greatly damage the racial relations of the students and faculty on campus," BongWizarrd wrote. "If Posobiec is allowed to speak, it will forever go down as a stain on the University's reputation."

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Alt-right conspiracy theorist, Stop the Steal and Pizzagate pusher ...