Category Archives: Transhuman News

Jackie Mason holds up a copy of his comedy album The World According to Me at the Carnegie Deli in 1987. Photo: Robert R. McElroy/Getty Images

Did you ever notice that Gentiles on vacation are always running and jumping and leaping around? A Jew on a vacation is looking for a place to sit. A Jew sees a chair, its a successful vacation.

Jackie Mason was born Yacov Moshe Maza on June 9, 1928. It was his destiny to become a rabbi, just like his three older brothers, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. He studied at a yeshiva, was ordained, and even led small congregations in Weldon, North Carolina, and Latrobe, Pennsylvania. But Rabbi Maza had another calling: stand-up comedy. He went back and forth between the two disciplines for several years, but after his fathers death in 1959, he left the rabbinate for good. Maza changed his name to Jackie Mason and headed to the Catskill Mountains to become, as he liked to put it, a sensation.

Mason had a distinctive performance style: staccato cadence, jabbing hand gestures, and a thick Yiddish accent. He did well in the Borscht Belt but was repeatedly told that his act was too Jewish for mainstream clubs. So Mason offered a deal to the booker of a small Los Angeles nightclub called the Slate Brothers: He said hed work their room for free in exchange for a tryout.

So in March 1960, Mason came out to the West Coast, immediately impressed the clubs owners, and, after his first show, was signed up for a two-week run. Around this time, The Hollywood Reporter caught his act and declared that Mason was on the verge of crashing the big time. This was prophetic. The Steve Allen Plymouth Show, then a prime-time NBC-TV variety show, decided to put the young comic on the air. Mason made his television debut on April 11, 1960, just one month after trying his luck in L.A.

After Steve Allen, Mason moved easily to late-night comedy on NBCs Tonight Show, then hosted by Jack Paar. Mason did a dozen spots for Paar over the next ten months. Other variety and talk shows followed, including The Ed Sullivan Show.

The Ed Sullivan Show was the premiere TV showcase for comedians and singers of that era. Successful shots on Sullivans 8 p.m. Sunday-night variety show could lead to high-paying gigs at clubs and maybe even film and television roles. Sullivan adored Mason and contributed some of the liner notes for Masons second comedy album, 1963s I Want to Leave You With the Words of a Great Comedian.

Masons agents begged him to get speech and elocution lessons to help mitigate his thick Yiddish accent. He refused. Mason had a stubborn cultural pride and thought that Jewish comics ran away from their Lower East Side ethnic markers. Luckily for Mason, in the early 1960s, the public was embracing Americanized Jewishness as never before. Mel Brooks released his 2000 Year Old Man album, Harry Belafonte recorded Hava Nagila, and the nebbishy Allan Sherman would soon dominate the pop charts with a string of comedy-parody albums beginning with My Son, the Folk Singer. Masons act was a nice fit for the time. He soon was playing club dates all across the country.

Mason recording his album I Want To Leave You With the Words of a Great Comedian in New York on February 20, 1963. Photo: PoPsie Randolph/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

By the summer of 1964, Mason had appeared on Sullivan ten times and signed on to do six more spots at an impressive $7,500 a pop. The first of these shows, under the new contract, was on the night of October 18, 1964. Unfortunately, two events conspired to nearly derail Masons ascending career.

First, the studio audience was populated with teenagers excited to see the U.S. television debut of a new British band, the Animals (they were riding the popularity of their No. 1 hit, House of the Rising Sun). Earlier that year, The Ed Sullivan Show had triggered a cultural tidal wave when another British band, the Beatles, made their stunning U.S. TV debut. Teenage rock-and-roll fans were notoriously difficult crowds for stand-ups and comedy teams.

Second, the show was interrupted by a nationwide television address by President Lyndon Johnson (it was just 16 days before Election Day). Johnsons foreign-policy speech centered on Red China successfully detonating an atomic device and thus becoming the fifth member of the nuclear club. The show cut away to the presidents somber speech at 8:30 p.m.

Johnsons address was supposed to run 30 minutes, but it ran short, so CBS News cut back to The Ed Sullivan Show. This is where the trouble began. It wasnt clear when the feed was picked up, so Sullivan walked over to Mason, in full view of the crowd, and started waving two fingers, indicating to wrap up in two minutes. Mason was already struggling to connect with the teenagers, so in a split-second decision, he decided to incorporate Sullivans hand gestures into his act. Mason playfully improvised around that moment, mimicking Sullivan and saying, Getting lots of fingers tonight. Heres a finger for you and a finger for you and a finger for you. Mason finally got some nice laughs and left the stage.

Unfortunately for Mason, Sullivan believed he had just been flipped off by the 36-year-old comic.

Sullivan wasnt exactly sure when the CBS News feed had ceased. But after the show wrapped, Sullivan learned that Masons finger-jabbing improvisation had indeed gone out live on the air, and he lost it. He berated Mason, cursed him a blue streak, threatened to ruin his career, withheld the money for the performance, and canceled the rest of the contract. Comic and impressionist John Byner, also on the show that night, heard the obscenity-laced barrage through Sullivans office door.

This was a comedians nightmare. In less than one minute, Mason was banned from the most influential variety show in America and his reputation torpedoed. In addition to being too Jewish, Mason was now too dirty.

As powerful as Sullivan was, he couldnt completely blackball Mason. Following the event, Mason performed on other shows (Hollywood Palace, Dean Martin, Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin) but felt that his career trajectory had taken a hit. So in early 1965, Mason fought back. He sued Sullivan (and the shows producer) for libel and defamation. He claimed that he was just trying to have fun and didnt even know that the finger could be construed as an obscene gesture. Mason wanted his $45,000 plus about $3 million more in damages.

Both sides lawyered up. Sullivans legal team tried to have the case dismissed but was rebuffed when a Brooklyn judge ruled, after viewing a 16-mm. kinescope of the show, that there was no visual evidence that Mason had flipped off Sullivan with an obscene gesture. To the chagrin of Sullivans lawyers, the judge revealed that he was very familiar with Masons jabby hand-gesture style since he and his wife had seen the comedian perform in the Catskill Mountains years earlier.

Sullivan eventually apologized to Mason and invited him back on the show two years after the incident. In return, Mason dropped the lawsuit. Mason made another seven appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, between 1966 and 1969, at $7,500 per shot.

But Masons career had somewhat stalled. Whether this was owed to fallout from the Sullivan incident, the one-dimensional aspect of his act, the rise of other comics (George Carlin, Joan Rivers, Rodney Dangerfield, and Bill Cosby), or Mason getting in feuds with other performers (including Frank Sinatra), the answer is unknowable. Then, to add insult to injury, Mason helped finance, co-write, and star in one of Broadways most notorious flops: a play called A Teaspoon Every Four Hours. The show had 97 previews. It opened on June 14, 1969. It closed June 14, 1969. There was one performance. The reviews were brutal.

In the 1970s, Mason toiled in the wilderness. He went from headlining Vegas casinos like the Aladdin to playing second-rate clubs in Miami and New Jersey. Along with most of the Borscht Belt generation of comics, he now seemed like a relic from another time, an act permanently suspended in amber. Mason still found occasional supporting, cameo, and voice-over work in other comedians films like Woody Allens Sleeper (1973), Steve Martins The Jerk (1979), and Mel Brookss The History of The World, Part One (1981), but the pickings were slim.

In 1983, Mason declared bankruptcy.

Then, just three years later, he engineered one of the most spectacular rebounds in stand-up comedy history.

With the encouragement of his manager Jyll Rosenfeld (they would eventually marry), Mason decided to repurpose his old nightclub act into a one-man show. He was inspired by another comic, Dick Shawn, who had successfully done that trick. In the mid-1970s, Shawn created a show called The Second Greatest Entertainer in the Whole Wide World. An Off Broadway run gave the comedian some theatrical legitimacy, especially after it scored a Drama Desk Award nomination in 1978. Shawn was able to tour small theaters and colleges for the rest of his life, and Mason and Rosenfeld hoped to repeat that model.

They succeeded in the most spectacular fashion. And it all happened in just six months.

In June 1986, Mason rented out the Las Palmas Theatre in Hollywood and debuted The World According to Me! The show was not a success out of the gate but quickly generated positive word-of-mouth. Three months later, the production migrated to the Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills, where it began selling out. Neil Simon called it the funniest single night Ive spent in the theater in the last ten years. Mel Brooks added, Nobody makes me laugh harder.

Veteran TV producer Nick Vanoff believed in the shows potential beyond small theaters and decided to underwrite its move to Broadway. Mason was extremely dubious; after all, he had suffered his most crushing and public humiliation back in 1969 at the hands of New York City theater critics. But this time, it would be entirely different.

On December 21, 1986, the New York Times wrote these career-changing words: In his one-man show, The World According to Me!, which opened last night at the Brooks Atkinson, Mr. Mason gives hilarious testimony to the art of the stand-up comic.

Heady stuff for a 58-year-old washed-up mountain comic. And it didnt stop there. During awards season, Walter Matthau presented Mason with a special Tony Award. He called Mason a profound and hilarious chronicler of our life and times.

Over the next 20 years, Mason rode the juice of his unlikely Broadway triumph. He successfully toured the U.S., Canada, England, Israel, and South Africa. Hollywood threw him leading roles in a sitcom (Chicken Soup) and a movie (Caddyshack II) they both fizzled. Not for nothing, Mason did get cast as Krusty the Clowns father (Rabbi Hyman Krustofsky), first seen in season three of The Simpsons. He took home an Emmy Award in 1992 for his voice work on the show.

But Masons home was the Broadway stage, and he kept returning until he ran out of jokes. Every two years or so, Mason would create a new show with names like Much Ado About Everything, Brand New, Politically Incorrect, Love Thy Neighbor, and Prune Danish. The last installment, in 2005, was called Jackie Mason: Freshly Squeezed Just One Jew Talking.

When it was all done, Mason had performed stand-up comedy, alone on a Broadway stage, more than 1,700 times by far the most in the history of the American theater. A lot of his routines were sharpened during decades of sweating it out in dead-end nightclubs. Only now, instead of audiences sitting at tables and holding a drink, they were seated in rows of cushy seats and holding a program. Perhaps no one summed up Masons wild and improbable career like the man himself. As he explained to the New York Times in late 1986, In the clubs I was just another character from Brooklyn. And now Im art.

Follow this link:
The Wild Career of Jackie Mason - Vulture

Ferrari is working on yet another exclusive one-off through its Special Projects division and it will reportedly be dubbed the SP48 Unica.

An image of a Ferrari badge that reads SP48 Unica was recently shared to the Ferrari Chat forum. It is claimed that the car will be based on the F8 Tributo but as with other SP models from Ferrari, it can be expected to undergo a plethora of significant modifications.

Read Also: Is This Bold-Looking Ferrari An F12tdf-Based One-Off?

The alleged owner of the SP48 Unica claimed on the Ferrari Chat forum last year that he had requested the car to be dubbed Project Speciale XLVIII, with the Roman numerals designed as a nod to the tradition of Super Bowls using Roman numerals. However, he later claimed that he request was knocked back by the Italian car manufacturer with claims that it is politically incorrect in Italy.

Regardless of the cars name, the F8 Tributo underpinnings mean that it will feature a 3.9-liter twin-turbocharged V8. Ferrari could extract some extra grunt from this engine but even if it doesnt, the SP48 Unica can be expected to pump out at least 710 hp and 568 lb-ft (770 Nm) of torque, the same figures as the F8 Tributo.

Significant exterior modifications are also expected to ensure that the car stands out from the F8 and is just as special as Maranellos other SP models.

Ferrari has unveiled a host of Special Projects vehicles in recent years but many are never unveiled to the public. A few months ago, a single image of an F12tdf-based one-off surfaced online. This model is allegedly dubbed the F125 TDE (Tour de Espaa) and has a design from Touring Superleggera but, so far, has not been officially unveiled nor acknowledged by Ferrari.

See the rest here:
Ferraris Next One-Off Will Be Named The SP48 Unica - CarScoops

Frame grab of Fred Sharp in a scene from Cliff, a short film about an executive caught up in stock fraud, directed by his son Alexander.

Sharp Art Pictures

If there is such a thing as a spokesperson for the shadowy offshore finance industry, Canadian businessman Frederick Sharp is it.

For years, Mr. Sharp unabashedly operated a Vancouver business that helped create companies in far flung jurisdictions for those who wanted to conceal their wealth. He was linked to more than 1,000 offshore companies through the Panama Papers scandal in 2016. At that time, he decried all of the negative coverage, complaining to a reporter that the affair had unfairly made it politically incorrect to be offshore.

The 69-year-olds passion for moving money abroad has even inspired artistic side projects: He wrote a novel that includes a fictional character who uses offshore companies to perform masterful stock manipulations, and once acted in the lead role in a short film about an executive caught up in a massive securities fraud.

Story continues below advertisement

Last week, United States prosecutors alleged in court that these works are not entirely fictional.

In a criminal complaint unsealed on Aug. 9, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation contended that Mr. Sharp and one of his Vancouver-based employees were part of a sophisticated and lucrative securities fraud scheme that generated illicit proceeds of tens of millions of dollars. He has been charged with securities fraud and a warrant for his arrest has been issued.

Investigators allege that Mr. Sharp, and one of his B.C.-based staffers, Courtney Kelln, 41, used a network of offshore companies to help company insiders which includes directors and substantial shareholders at various companies sell large amounts of stock without disclosing the sale, as required by securities law. One example cited by the FBI saw Mr. Sharps system allegedly help a majority shareholder sell millions of dollars of stock in Garmatex Holdings Ltd., which purported to be developing scientifically engineered fabric technologies.

Mr. Sharp allegedly outfitted these insiders with special encrypted Blackberry phones that communicated through a computer server housed in the Caribbean island of Curacao. In one electronic exchange of messages, Mr. Sharp allegedly assured a client that the services he offers are comprehensive and include keeping clients out of jail.

None of the allegations have been proven in court. Mr. Sharp could not be reached for comment.

The FBIs complaint offers insight into the murky world of penny stock promotion and reveals how company insiders can take advantage of various jurisdictions, and technology, to dispose of millions of dollars of stock without informing regulators.

Canada and the United States have rigorous disclosure requirements for company insiders, as well as individual shareholders that hold large amounts of shares. This is so the investing public can see whether unscrupulous company executives, or other large stockholders, are selling their stakes while, simultaneously, proclaiming their long-term commitment to the companies they control. This transparency is supposed to act as a safeguard against insiders getting an upper hand and unloading overvalued shares on unsuspecting retail investors.

Story continues below advertisement

According to the FBI, Mr. Sharps system offered a complete workaround, one that likely would have gone undetected had investigators not seized four computer servers from Curacao containing, they say, hundreds of thousands of messages from his companys phone network.

Large shareholders in various penny stocks who are supposed to file forms with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission disclosing ownership of more than 5 per cent of a companys registered shares would divvy up their holdings among scores of offshore corporations with the help of Mr. Sharp and his staff, the FBI alleges. The distribution of these shares across so many companies which the FBI refers to as sham entities gave the false appearance of broad ownership, the criminal complaint alleges.

Court exhibit of a book written by Fred Sharp about a fictional swindler who uses offshore corporations to execute stock manipulations.

Handout

Mr. Sharp, the FBI alleges, provided holders of such stock with Blackberry phones that he referred to as xPhones. Mr. Sharp and Ms. Kelln also employed code names to refer to each other and their clients, investigators contend. Mr. Sharp, who allegedly had an affinity for James Bond spy movies, used the code name Bond, the criminal complaint states. That wasnt the only 007 reference. Mr. Sharps proprietary accounting system, which tracked clients stock holdings and sales, was allegedly called Q the same name as the fictional British spy who outfits James Bond with high-tech gadgets and vehicles.

Whenever these insiders secretly disposed of their shares, the FBI alleges, the trades usually coincided with a major promotional campaign designed to inflate the price of the stock what is often referred to as a pump and dump.

One of the clients of Mr. Sharp, and who has also been charged criminally, is a former U.S. lawyer, Luis Carrillo.

According to investigators, Mr. Carrillo sold millions of dollars worth of shares in various penny stocks through Mr. Sharps offshore companies, without disclosing that he was the beneficial owner and seller of those shares.

Story continues below advertisement

One of the companies Mr. Carrillo allegedly targeted was B.C.-based Garmatex Holdings Ltd. According to the complaint, in 2017 Mr. Carrillo messaged two individuals who worked for a Switzerland-based based asset management company both of whom have since become co-operating witnesses for the government about a large sale of Garmatex stock. Those two witnesses also used the xPhone system allegedly offered by Mr. Sharp.

The FBI alleges that the witnesses helped Mr. Carrillo sell 7.2 million shares in Garmatex, or 50 per cent of the total amount of unrestricted securities, in less than two months without any disclosure of his beneficial ownership.

The authorities also allege that this sell-off, which resulted in proceeds of US$5-million, took place shortly after Mr. Carrillo launched a multifaceted promotional campaign designed to attract retail investors. This included the distribution of press releases highlighting Garmatex and its technology, as well as phone calls touting the stock to unsuspecting investors from an office in Medellin, Colombia an operation often referred to as a boiler room. In fact, the FBI alleges, Mr. Carrillo messaged the co-operating witnesses in advance of the sell off, instructing them to have his shares ready at the open because he was gonna drop that s---.

The scope of Mr. Sharps alleged operation is unclear. The Q accounting records seized by the FBI show that from 2014 to 2018, Mr. Sharps offshore companies traded stock in 70 different issuers through the Swiss asset management firm, resulting in total proceeds of US$140-million.

As for how much Mr. Sharp profited, the FBI alleges that he directed his proceeds from the scheme to an offshore company called Cortona Equity Inc. One of the co-operating witnesses described this as Mr. Sharps retirement fund, and records seized by authorities show that between 2017 and 2018, US$6.8-million flowed to Cortona. On paper, Cortona is registered to an individual who investigators allege is the tennis coach of Mr. Sharps wife.

In a parallel civil court action, the Securities and Exchange Commission is suing Mr. Sharp. That lawsuit alleges that an Indian-Canadian doctor, Avtar Dhillon, used Mr. Sharps offshore system to illegally sell the stock of two publicly traded companies, Vitality Biopharma Inc. and Arch Therapeutics, Inc., while he was serving as the companies chairman.

Story continues below advertisement

Mr. Dhillon could not be reached for comment.

Your time is valuable. Have the Top Business Headlines newsletter conveniently delivered to your inbox in the morning or evening. Sign up today.

Read the original:
Canadian helped arrange securities fraud with offshore sales, U.S. alleges - The Globe and Mail

Faudas creators, Lior Raz and Avi Issacharoff, have hit it big again with their Netflix series, Hit & Run, which is one of the top-rated Netflix original series around the world. They truly seem to know what audiences enjoy and that is a great talent.

Hit & Run is more international in scope than Fauda, set in Israel and New York. It tells the story of Segev (Raz), a former special forces operative turned tour guide whose wife, Danielle (Kaelen Ohm), a dancer, is killed by a speeding car in Tel Aviv just as she is heading to New York for an audition. But of course it isnt really an accident and Segev heads to New York to discover the truth about the wife he thought he knew.

cnxps.cmd.push(function () { cnxps({ playerId: '36af7c51-0caf-4741-9824-2c941fc6c17b' }).render('4c4d856e0e6f4e3d808bbc1715e132f6'); });

But the script hits one false note after another. Its hard to accept that an Israeli who was once involved in some kind of undercover military work never looked up one thing about his wifes past, if not out of suspicion, then out of curiosity. When Naomi (Sanaa Lathan), a reporter for New York magazine and a former flame of Segevs, is introduced, he compliments her on her profile of Avigdor Liberman, noting, You were tough on him.

Somebody had to be, she responds. This exchange is just one example of how unconvincing so much of the series is. Why would she speak as if this controversial Israeli politician were the subject of dozens of puff pieces, when he is barely on the American radar and he is rarely written about uncritically by the Israeli press? Yes, this is just one exchange, but it shows how slipshod the writing is, in spite of the multimillion-dollar budget. The scenes featuring the New York City police and various other officials no spoilers here seem similarly inauthentic. For me, there is a certain policy regarding TV series that is much like the three-strikes-and-youre-out rule in baseball. I can accept one line that takes me out of the story (like Somebody had to be) or two, but when it gets to be three or more, its hard to stay invested in the plot. Nevertheless, the car chases have won over many viewers, and the series ends on a cliffhanger and is set for a second season.

JEAN SMART is one of the best actresses whose name you may not know and she finally has a starring role worthy of her in Hacks, which is showing on Hot 3 on Sundays at 8:45 p.m. and on Next TV and Hot VOD. You may remember her from such series as 24, Frasier, Dirty John, Fargo and Watchmen and she recently portrayed Kate Winslets mother on Mare of Easttown.

In Hacks, she plays Deborah Vance, a comedian in Las Vegas who is popular with older audiences. When the owner of the casino/hotel where she performs wants to start cutting back her shows, her agent convinces her to hire a young writer, Ava (newcomer Hannah Einbinder, whose mother, Laraine Newman, was a beloved member of Saturday Night Lives original cast). Ava was a hot young comedy writer who was canceled after she tweeted a politically incorrect joke and is persona non grata everywhere in Hollywood.

Of course, you know that these two women will bond and all that, but they are well-drawn characters and its fun to watch it happen. The show has a similar vibe to GLOW, in that it takes very real women and lets them be funny together. Smart is (very deservedly) the favorite to win an Emmy this year in the comedy category.

GRACE AND FRANKIE, the always funny and sometimes touching series in which Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin play the title characters who get thrown together when their husbands (Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston) leave them to marry each other, is back with the beginning of its seventh and last season.

Four episodes of what will be a 16-episode season are now streaming and it picks up where the previous season left off. Robert (Sheen) and Sol (Waterston) their now-married ex-husbands move back in after Grace and Frankies latest invention for oldsters a toilet that rises blows up while it is being stored in their house. If you are not familiar with this series, it is not a subtle show. It can get pretty silly, but it mixes au courant jokes about gay marriage and New Age trends with the sitcom staple of control freak Grace being roommates with crunchy slob Frankie. With this quartet of amazing stars, it almost always manages to be more than the sum of its parts.

Previous seasons have featured much Jewish humor and this one is no exception. As Sol and Frankies son Bud (Baron Vaughn) brings both families together to air their beefs, a series of secrets are revealed, one of them involving a made-up Jewish holiday that Sol and Frankie use to get out of boring events (a good idea that wont work in Israel). Due to a medical problem, Bud discovers he must get circumcised and there is a good joke about the bad jokes spouted by the mohel he hires to do the job.

These four episodes go by too fast and leave you with a taste for the rest of the season, which will be released in 2022.

FOR THOSE who have a fondness for those corny Hallmark movies and many of us indulge in this genre from time to time Yes is now offering a VOD library of these films and it will include new Hallmark releases that will become available as soon as they are shown in the US. Among the movies are the recent The Bakers Son, about a bread maker who lives on an island and who loses his zest for life and yeast, which can only be restored by his childhood friend and true love. You know how it turns out, but many of us will still want to tune in. The press release promises Hanukkah movies as well as Christmas films.

More:
Hit, Hacks, Grace: What to watch in Israel - The Jerusalem Post

Some are blaming President Biden for the humanitarian blunder we see unfolding this week, and hell certainly receive no sympathy from me. After all, if Americans can spend billions of dollars occupying a foreign country for 20 years under the guise that it was in our national interest, then the Commander in Chief certainly could have waited to withdraw all our troops until all the Afghans who helped us with said interests received safe passage.

Embed from Getty Images

Stabilizing regions in order that oil continues to flow? Rescuing people from their way of life and invading their countries in order to convince them our way of life is better? And does our superior way of life also include cutting and running when we fail?

Either way, President Biden will likely never escape how this link will be forever linked to his legacy. (This video shows in graphic detail terrified Afghans clinging to a departing military transport plane, some of which moments later fell to their death.)

And this according to VICE: QAnon and other conspiracy theorists have already jumped into the blame game. Surprise! The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan is a hoax. QAnons logic? The hoax is being perpetuated to distract Americans from the election audit in Arizona.

Other than this conspiracy being sheer absurdity, it reveals the role self-interest plays in controlling the rationale of QAnon disciples. Because claiming that all the video footage involving the unfolding events in Afghanistan are staged is similar to claiming the video footage of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon was staged. Its pathetic. It reveals the kind of narcissist thoughts that run through the mind of a person who thinks everything in life revolves around them, along with the paranoid delusion that everyone is out to get them.

As for how citizens in other countries might be thinking about America or Americans in general these days because of our failures in Afghanistan . . . well, at least Americans are trying to build a better world. Historically speaking, Americans have spent the most by way of our tax dollars, and our soldiers have shed the most blood to help others experience a better way of life.

(This is not to say that other countries and its people have not sacrificed. Only that if people are keeping score Americans have probably sacrificed the most in recent history. And any country that tries this hard to change the world is bound to fail at some point or another.

While nobody in the mass media really wants to talk about it, (because its politically incorrect to bring up the subject), the real reason the Taliban are seizing control of Afghanistan is because of religion. The Taliban are religious zealots. They are inspired by religious beliefs to act in ways that we can now all watch come to fruition on YouTube. So, whatever horrors they committed leading up to the events of this week, and whatever atrocities they will commit against their own people in the years to come is on them and their religion.

Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities. Voltare

See the original post here:
What's to Blame for the Situation in Afghanistan? Religion - Patheos

One Kenya Alliance has insisted it will field a presidential candidate in next year's election, but has not settled on the flagbearer.

This is part of the declarations reached by the highest organ of the One Kenya Alliance - Principals' Summit and Joint Parliamentary Group - after convening in Naivasha on Tuesday.

As the Great Rift Valley declaration, we hereby unequivocally state that One Kenya Alliance will field a presidential candidate in next years general elections, OKA's statement reads.

They also expressed satisfaction with the progress they are making as OKA, reaffirming that their commitment to building a just, inclusive and prosperous nation under the auspices of OKA is solidly on course.

As an Alliance anchored on shared ideals of individual freedom, national unity, equal economic and social opportunities for all, we recognise that we carry the aspirations of millions of Kenyans who yearn for a responsive and reliable leadership bound by the rule of law.

The principals said their main vision and mission is to resuscitate Kenya's economy.

What we require as a country is to intensify the war against graft in order to salvage public resources diverted for personal gains and channel them to spur our economy.

As an Alliance that firmly believes in zero tolerance to corruption, we call on President Uhuru Kenyatta to unleash the full wrath of the law and rid our national leadership of people with a strong affinity for plunder.

Additionally, they have urged Kenyans to shun leaders who castigate violence, and who have made it their personal endeavours leaders and jealously guard our country against brinkmanship, and constant threats of senseless violence.

Further, the team has dismissed the calls to dismiss IEBC chairperson Wafula Chebukati.

In this regard, we support the independence of the electoral commission and we cannot afford to destabilise the IEBC a year to the elections.

The alliance has also said that it will accept the match-awaited Court of Appeal ruling on BBI.

As an alliance that believes in the rule of law, we shall accept and respect the verdict of the courts. Irrespective of the outcome, we wish to restate that our resolve to be the leadership committed to seeing a one united Kenya.

The court is expected to make its ruling on Friday.

More:
Naivasha declaration: OKA insists it will field presidential candidate - The Star, Kenya

The announcement that James Gunn will be responsible for the unofficial sequel to David Ayers highly unsuccessful Suicide Squad has intrigued audiences around the world, not just those with glowing faces after Marvels endless battle with DC. Born in St. The American Lewis has long been seen as one of the most creative entertainment creators who, in addition, enjoys the creative handling of standard superhero themes, which he has already demonstrated in his previous films, prior to the first Guardians of the Galaxy. However, the task he faced was very difficult, as evidenced by, for example, the winding fate of the new production.

Originally, work on the second film in the series was planned for 2017, which, however, was prevented by several factors, the most important of which was probably the complete flop of David Ayers production, which is generally considered very unsuccessful. It lacks both a coherent theme and a bit of craziness, which should characterize the story of a group of comedic outcasts who are fighting an evil greater than they are. The failure of this film made Warner Bros. I decided to look for a new manager, and on the list of interviewees there was a paid one. Mel Gibson, Daniel Espinosa, Robin Fleischer, and David Goyer.

For a long time, Jaume Collet-Serra seemed to be the favorite to take the lead in the production of the new film, but in the end he decided to do Journey to the Jungle and in the future he will work on the new DC movie Black Adam. At the end of 2018, the name Gunn finally appeared, who was appointed as a potential screenwriter and director. As befits him, he immediately began active work on a complete rewriting of the script for the second film, which, interestingly, the producers could not clearly describe as a sequel or reboot (he simply called James Gunn Suicide Legion). What we finally saw is in fact a very specific creativity, consisting of various elements, however, above all, carrying the pleasure of playing with cinema, which has characterized James Gunn from the early stages of his interest in filmmaking.

Born in 1966 to an Irish immigrant family with five siblings, James has been interested in taking pictures from an early age. As his first and most important cinematic experience, Jan mentions the childhood films Night of the Living Dead and Friday the 13th, but without emphasizing the overwhelming sense of awe that everyone who has seen a horrible movie knows from a very young age. . The artist mentioned above all the feeling that arose after the above-mentioned product offerings that their realization did not have to be expensive, and therefore was not beyond the reach of a young man with great imagination. So the next step was to try to produce their own amateur work, which includes the first cheap zombie movies filmed by 12-year-old James and his brother with his brother, during which they used all the tips on creating suitable or cheap makeup. Special Effects, read in Fangorias cult magazine.

Thus, he was not far from collaborating on semi-professional filming groups, although the future director first graduated from the local university, and then also studied at the prestigious Columbia University. He described his stay there as an expensive waste of time, referring, of course, to the huge amount of money he had to pay for said studies, which in fact he did not prepare for his future work. It is clear that the representatives of his university did not like these words, because to this day they hardly admit that Gann studied there. In general, it is not surprising if we take into account that the future director spoke much more warmly about a completely different place, which, as it turned out, formed him as a mature artist.

We are talking about the famous (in) independent brand Troma, which became popular at the turn of the 80s and 90s thanks to very specific productions, including the legendary Toxic Avenger. Jean devoted himself to a book for this period of his career with the comprehensive title: Everything I Want to Know About Filmmaking I Learned From The Toxic Avenger, which he wrote with the companys legendary founder, Lloyd Kaufman, in many places calling him his godfather and the man to whom he owes his career. . Jean made his debut in the 1996 movie Tromeo and Juliet, about which he wrote the script for the film. The disengagement with which William Shakespeares legacy is treated is perfectly expressed not even by the title itself, but also in the paraphrase of another work of the aforementioned artist, which appears in the film itself, i.e. Many Rods for Nothing.

Work on the set of subsequent films allowed the still young artist not only to earn good money up to $ 400 a week, which, according to John himself, was a huge sum for Troma, but also to slowly learn a craft that included not only writing scripts, but also preparing The special effects, the choice of shooting locations, the main cast, thats all we can call the knowledge of the film for someone who wants to become a director responsible for all the elements of the action of the film in the future. The hero himself admits in interviews that he has his dark sides; This type of approach results in the desire for absolute control over every aspect of production. However, he undoubtedly influenced the most, we can say adult, projects of Gunn that made him famous.

There was a strong sense of humor coupled with the many experiments in executing mediocre but effective productions that already appeared in the later works of Gunn, who nonetheless began writing scripts. The first was the unusual superhero movie The Specials, then Scooby-Doo in 2002, and two years later, the very young screenwriter was able to fulfill his childhood dreams by working on Dawn of the Living Dead, which was one of the most his fans. George Romero himself spoke about the film, claiming that it is a very good action movie, which, of course, can be understood in two ways, but the screenwriter of the remake took it as a compliment.

The breakthrough was, of course, his first full-fledged directorial debut with Slither, which was the best-acclaimed horror movie actor in a decade. It is noteworthy that the usual session of journalists was not originally planned, because the label decided that it was meaningless in this case, because after that there would be a lot of negative opinions. However, Jean himself insisted on this offer, which he eventually won. However, while the vast majority of reviews praised the film, it did not translate into box office revenue. With a budget of about $15 million, Slither made just over $12, a loss that wasnt a big deal for Universal Pictures. It should be noted that Nathan Fillion and Michael Rooker, two actors who will appear in many of the most famous works of our hero, played in this horror game with various references to the history of the genre.

The next important stop on the way to the top was, of course, the movie Super, which fully demonstrated the talent for creating unusual superhero stories. The main character, played by Ryan Wilson, Frank Darbo, despite not having superpowers, decides to become a superhero after being abandoned by his wife to a drug dealer. This niche film, which did not earn even a million dollars, grew louder for a moment, and to this day it is considered one of the most important representatives of subversive entertainment cinema and a harbinger of similar images in the future.

Perhaps the original vision and a very specific sense of humor, along with the attention to detail and effective combination of different functions on the set of the film were Gunns main strengths during negotiations to take on the role of the next MCU project manager, which Kevin Feige himself described as undefined or even vague. In fact, the Guardians of the Galaxy could not be called the main dish of the universe from the very beginning, and initially viewers knew very little about them, which eventually turned out to be their origins. Compared to other MCU productions, Guardians of the Galaxy were distinguished by their original approach, aesthetics that combined various elements such as Flash Gordon, games from the Mass Effect or Escape to Space series, and at times it was a complete journey without a steering wheel. And of course the presence of the shed, about which he himself had already warned from his colleague, Joss Whedon. He is absolutely insane, insane, but at the same time a very wise and skilled craftsman who creates his works straight from the heart. He loves raccoons, he needs them! Which turns out to be a very accurate summary of what he created in the first two parts of this series.

Both parts of Guardians of the Galaxy are very different from previous MCU films, grossed a total of more than $1.5 billion, and among many fans of the universe, they have the status of Marvels favorite work, mainly due to their extraordinary aesthetic and vision, In addition to the original humor and the way the main characters are depicted. Thus, James Gunn himself came a long way from being an assistant in the plans for subsequent Troma productions to the absolute pinnacle of cinematic entertainment, and no one doubted that he was the one who made the third film in the series. Here, however, some problems arose

After a political controversy on Twitter, the commentators, who clearly describe themselves as right-wing, decided to extract the directors old comments from the lack of the Internet, in which he presented an unusual feel and, whats worse, far from political correctness. From humor and banter, among others, from 9/11, AIDS, the Holocaust and even pedophilia. A scandal erupted, to which Disney representatives can respond in the only way they know: by simply severing all ties with the creator, which has been praised by almost everyone so far. Gunn did not help the statements in which he defended himself quite reasonably without making any efforts to whiten himself. And he explained specific statements with an old attitude, the basis of which was the desire to provoke at all costs, which, of course, he no longer needed as a very successful director.

Todays jokes with Tromas previous work, in which Gunn made his first professional touches, are interesting today. Its authors even liked the sharp and politically incorrect mood, which was not a bad thing for the mainstream, because it remained in place. The same would likely be the case with Gunns mentioned tweets, if someone didnt want to use them as a weapon in a private battle for words. The situation also emphasizes the peculiarity of current times, when almost everyone should be careful, because nothing is lost on the Internet, as it has already been discovered, among other things, many journalists or athletes who are often retroactively punished for their old statements.

Fortunately, Gunns case is completely different, because he immediately received support not only from his partners, like almost all the actors of the Guardians of the Galaxy or the aforementioned Lloyd Kaufman, but also a significant part of the audience, realizing that this issue concerns only a crisis PR, which a large company like Disney has handled on average at best. Thus, no one had any objections to hiring the creator of Suicide Legion, and in addition, Gunn would also return to create the next installment of Guardians of the Galaxy, which is undoubtedly good news, and not only for the MCU, but also for viewers. The original approach to superhero cinema and sharpened humor are actually standards nowadays in the genre, and the director from St. Lewis almost assures us that we might see something unusual in this case, too.

See more here:
The scandalous James Jean. About the man who fixed the suicide squad - MoviesOnline

Normal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text size

On an unseasonably warm autumn afternoon in Melbourne, a leader of Australias neo-Nazi movement prepares an urgent encrypted message he believes cant be intercepted by ASIO or police.

As he types, heavily armed counter-terrorism officers are searching houses across Adelaide.

Pretty much all the boys in South Australia were raided. I want everyone in Melbourne to completely square their shit away, writes Jacob Hersant, a tall, lean unemployed 22-year-old. Get rid of anything that would not reflect well on our organisation should the police find it.

Hersant posts the message on an encrypted chatroom occupied by vetted members of Australias largest white supremacist group, the National Socialist Network.

He is the networks chief propagandist but his role also includes op-sec or operational security. Its a job he takes seriously.

Neo-Nazis from the National Socialist Network from their encrypted online sites.Credit:

The people in this network know that a series of events counter-terror operations in Australia, the Christchurch terror attack in 2019 and the Capitol riots in Washington DC in January have increased the media, police and spy agency scrutiny on suspected white supremacist terrorists. The National Socialist Network has countered by embracing encrypted communications online and strict security protocols in person.

Hersant has already been doxed or exposed online by anti-fascist groups. But he fears anything that compromises the anonymity of other recruits or exposes their activities could prompt more police raids and imperil their jobs and social standing, eroding their commitment to the groups cause.

They could also put in danger the government-approved gun and security licences that some members hold.

What Hersant doesnt know is that his efforts at op-sec are for nought.

Hidden inside the National Socialist Network is a mole, a pretend neo-Nazi who has become so trusted that hes among those on the receiving end of Hersants encrypted plea.

This insider has already managed something Hersant and the network have long feared: he has smuggled covert cameras and audio recording equipment into their headquarters and is weeks into an unprecedented information-gathering exercise to expose Australias secretive and violent white supremacist movement.

The information he is gathering will reshape Australias understanding of a national security threat that ASIO chief Mike Burgess has told The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes is now preoccupying half the attention of his most important domestic counter-terror probes. What some neo-Nazis are prepared to do to realise their political ambitions should be of grave concern to all Australians, he says.

The hours of undercover video and audio recordings show why Burgess is so worried. They reveal a cult-like breeding ground for extremists who are training in hope of bringing about societal collapse or a white revolution.

Neo-Nazi leaders are taped advising members to hang onto their guns and raise funds to buy up rural property to form the genesis of a new, racist state. Theyre also involved in prolific networking with other violent cells across Australia and overseas.

Some of this growing group of white men are still in their teens or are linked to outlaw bikie groups or skinhead jail gangs, while others are ex-military or work for governments or major companies. One is a childrens piano teacher.

Despite the networks public claims to disavow violence, behind the scenes some in the group laud terrorist mass murderer Brenton Tarrant as an inspiration whose unjust jailing has put the group on a timeline to revolution.

The evidence painstakingly gathered shows many of these men believe their most important duty is to prepare for a looming race war. As one says on hidden camera: Its coming dude. Its not a matter of if, its when.

Its late afternoon when the phone rings and a confidential source passes on word of a sighting of a group of men, maybe two dozen or more, dressed in black T-shirts adorned with neo-Nazi logos. The black-clad group is trudging through the Grampians, the source says, a rugged mountainous national park three hours west of Melbourne.

Its cold and past midnight when we pull into a motel in Halls Gap, a small town at the base of the mountains. It feels even darker and colder when we wake a few hours later and drive towards the walking circuit where the men were last seen. A light rain falls in the dawn light.

Our rough aim is to catch up with the men, observe them, take some photos and, if it feels safe, introduce ourselves as reporters. The chance of finding them and observing a potential training exercise is a long shot worth taking.

With the help of sources in law enforcement and anti-fascist groups including the White Rose Society, we have been tracking the growth of the National Socialist Network, which launched in February 2020 with a social media campaign and an initial cohort of members drawn from a loose coalition of defunct extremist groups, including predecessors The Lads Society and the United Patriots Front.

It portrays itself as a group of outdoorsmen reviving the imagined traditions of a white Australia that have been economically and politically marginalised by immigration and multiculturalism. Its self-appointed leader Tom Sewell initially the only member of the group whose identity was known occasionally does media interviews claiming to oppose violence and terrorism.

Image from the National Socialist Network from the Grampians camping trip.Credit:

But this groups real activities, aims and membership lists, like those of most neo-Nazi groups in Australia, are cloaked in secrecy. The trip to the Grampians is a strand of an investigation aimed at finding out what this group is doing, who is attracted to its aims and whether it poses a serious threat.

But it becomes clear we are hours behind the quarry. Instead of neo-Nazis, we find hikers who describe encounters with the group, ranging from the unsettling to the terrifying. One of few prepared to go on the record is Nathan Hart, who heard the group before he saw them. They were singing Waltzing Matilda in a cave known as the cool chamber.

When Hart looked inside, he saw a chubby-faced teenager performing a Nazi salute.

Two days later, the network and Sewell take to encrypted messaging app Telegram and release their propaganda of the Grampians event: pictures of masked men singing, saluting and posing on a mountain ridge in front of a burning cross.

Sewell is a short, fit, army dropout whose receding hairline makes him look older than his 28 years. Hes spent the past five years moving up the ranks of neo-Nazi groups, starting as an underling in the United Patriots Front to leader Blair Cottrell and helping to found The Lads Society in 2017.

He publicly disavows violence but was charged after allegedly being captured on film punching to the ground a security guard at the Channel Nine building in Melbourne before it aired an A Current Affair program about neo-Nazis. He denies the assault and the case is before the courts.

Tom Sewell leading boxing training at Racism HQ.Credit:

He is also mentioned in the royal commission report into the Christchurch terror attacks, with investigators concluding that Australian terrorist mass murderer Brenton Tarrant was an online follower and contributor to the United Patriots and that Sewell had later contacted Tarrant and invited him to join The Lads Society. Tarrant, an online member, declined Sewells offer so he could pursue his New Zealand plot.

There is no suggestion Sewell ever knew of Tarrants murderous plans. But the report into his mosque attacks highlights how neo-Nazi groups can help provide the ideological inspiration for lone-wolf attackers with access to weapons and knowledge of how to use them.

Photos taken surreptitiously by Halls Gap locals capture National Socialist Network members in army-issued clothes, suggesting previous military training. Police sources also reveal that some of the number plates of network hikers link to Victorians with active gun licences. Locals describe multiple members who look no older than 18.

Later, ASIO chief Mike Burgess says in an interview that his agency is seeing neo-Nazis as young as 16 and 17 and that the number of Australians involved in these groups is growing, as is the number engaging in activities that raise terrorism red flags.

They look like everyday Australians and theyre not openly showing their true ideology and not openly showing their violent beliefs or their use of violence, which they believe is justified, says Burgess. It is a big deal if you truly understand [what] some of them are prepared to do.

Not so, says Sewell. In his online account, the Grampians trip is simply us marching around the bush, having a nice little camping trip. A bunch of white guys out in the bush spending time under the stars.

The neo-Nazis described the Grampians trip as an innocent camping expedition. Credit:

A story in The Age about the Grampians camping trip generates a critical lead. A wary neo-Nazi insider gets in contact, claiming the networks leaders across Australia are far more dangerous than they appear. He offers intelligence on its internal activities on condition his identity is protected so that I am not targeted. What hes worried about is peoples access to weapons and the networks plans for a white ethno-state.

Multiple sources, including officials in law enforcement agencies and researchers, raise similar concerns. They suspect the network secretly endorses the ideology of international neo-Nazi terror groups, including Combat 18, which has been banned as a terror group overseas and which instructs members to prepare for a coming race war. Members of Combat 18 have been arrested for violent hate crimes, including the murder of a German politician in 2019 and, nine years earlier, shooting up a Perth mosque.

A few days later, the neo-Nazi insider tells us Sewell is off to NSW and then Queensland to hold in-person meetings in pubs with other leaders and new recruits. And so, as Sewell travels up Australias east coast in February, meeting dozens of people in NSW and Queensland, we arrange for several sets of eyes to observe him and take photos.

The men he meets range from budding neo-Nazis to veteran white supremacists. Some have gun licences or are ex-military. Others are known or suspected members of Combat18.

The Age, the Herald and 60 Minutes are not the only ones interested in these east coast meetings, though. Counter-terror police later contact our team, having spotted them secretly taking photos. They, too, have been watching.

In-person recruiting sessions might take place one-on-one in pubs, but online, the National Socialist Network uses the protection of encrypted anonymity to let it all hang out. Their chat rooms are a living, growing example of what Burgess describes as an online force multiplier for extremism.

There is currently a nationwide recruiting effort going on, the neo-Nazi insider explains during a brief tour of the groups online presence, so there are two vetting servers up and running ... This chatroom consists of major white nationalist groups in Australia. It has 12,000 followers.

A different room on the encrypted messenger app Telegram is available in each Australian state for recruits who have only been partially vetted. Fully vetted members communicate on a different encrypted app called Element which is considered even more secure.

Gaining access to the Telegram rooms requires answering a brief Q and A: Are you a national socialist? Do you believe Australias political system is collapsing? Can you fight? Use weapons? Have you read Hitlers Mein Kampf? Do you have any traces of Jewish or Muslim heritage?

Once in, members post streams of memes, messages and videos glorifying extreme racism and violence into a digital sea of anonymous hate. They use online aliases such as klansman-fetch-the-rope and truth-viking.

A leaked copy of the networks internal manual includes a chapter about methods to maintain the anonymity of activists which instructs members to live a double life online. It directs them to set up fake identities on encrypted platforms and warns against leaving any little bits of information for journalist detectives.

Basically everyones partner thinks that their husband comes to a Nazi meeting where we just straight up preach race war, which we do.

Discerning the difference between serious calls to violence and mere violent rhetoric and hate speech is almost impossible in this environment. When one member messages on Telegram about regional towns attracting migrants, another responds: Wheres Tarrant when you need him?

In another Telegram chat, a network member appears to encourage violence, as we all know talk only gets ya so far.

ASIO director general Burgess warns that while some online neo-Nazis are just talking a good game, it could unfortunately spur someone on whos on the fringe of that group.

To get clarity, we will need to move offline and into the real world.

Enter Insider No.2, whose identity must be protected for his own safety. He is considering a dangerous assignment: to infiltrate the National Socialist Network. As he is assessing the prospect he is contacted by an anonymous network figure with the Telegram handle Race War Pete and invited to undergo an interview. After obtaining comprehensive legal and security advice and reviewing the journalistic ethics of receiving information from an undercover agent, The Age, the Herald and 60 Minutes approve the mission.

Insider No.2 is aware that the vetting process will be designed to sniff out any potential law enforcement or media informers, but he says hes confident. He has a cover story whose virtue is its simplicity. He will pose not as a well-read neo-Nazi, but as a simple, politically incorrect racist eager to learn and to meet other anti-woke men.

There is less for me to remember, he says.

A few days later, he is contacted again by Race War Pete, this time via an encrypted call. Pete first questions the moles knowledge of Nazism. Our insider professes ignorance and the vetter changes tack. What are your views on the Jews? What are your views on homosexuals? What do you want Australia to be like in the future? So youd describe yourself first and foremost as a racist?

You sound like you would be well suited to our organisation, Race War Pete finally tells Insider No.2. You dont have any views that turn us off.

A quick check links Race War Petes handle to an online alias leaked in a massive hack of an online neo-Nazi forum in the US. Race War Pete is the National Socialist Networks propaganda man: Jacob Hersant.

Jacob HersantCredit:

Insider No.2 sits in his car, psyching himself up to walk into the ordinary suburban home the National Socialist Network calls Racism HQ. Dressed, as ordered, for a training exercise, he is carrying no recording equipment for fear of being searched.

Then he calls his safety contact, turns off his phone and walks alone into the brown brick duplex opposite a sporting oval in the outer Melbourne suburb of Rowville.

Sewell and Hersant are already there, boxing with a dozen or so young men at the end of the cement driveway. Behind a white roller door, theres a basic gym set up with weights, boxing gloves and pads. In the centre of the wall is a framed portrait of Adolf Hitler with printed quotes hung beside it. Insider No.2 scans them quickly: those who dont want to fight do not deserve to live; carry on the racial struggle without mercy.

A portrait of Adolf Hitler at the breakfast table inside Racism HQ.

He shakes a few hands, trades wary introductions. He says later he is struck by the eclectic mix; hardened criminal types next to chubby, nervous teens. All are wary of the newcomer. Today, he will box, stay quiet, and watch.

In addition to Hersant and Sewell, there are two or three fit men who act like leaders. They live in a four-bedroom unit at the back of the property, with the living spaces open for any members to use. The only place thats off limits is Sewells bedroom and office on the ground floor.

The fridge is packed with meat and beer: Sewell has a strict rule that no bread is allowed in the house. The backyard is for bonfires and BBQs, where network members celebrate key events on the neo-Nazi calendar.

Hersants girlfriend, Samantha, offers further details: this room is being converted into a full-time propaganda hub; fighting training is twice weekly, led by Sewell. Insider No.2 decides he will use training to become a regular presence at Racism HQ.

When video starts to arrive from the insider a few weeks later, shot on hidden cameras, we start piecing together first names, snippets of biography. We search for them and share with others for confirmation. If Insider No.2 can collect a phone number or job description, it takes us a step closer to identifying a member of the network.

Fighting training is the main group event, but there are also ideology workshops. On weekends, most of the young members huddle in the Racism HQ lounge room, scanning their encrypted chat rooms and watching racist videos on a laptop hooked up to the TV.

Its also where they gather to watch the Senate inquiry into far-right extremism.

The recordings make clear almost immediately that the National Socialists public repudiation of violence is itself propaganda. When Insider No.2 discloses to a committed neo-Nazi in his early 50s, Brendan, that he is struggling to make sense of talk about the coming race war, Brendan explains that all he needs to know is that Jews are a parasite.

I f---ing hate them with a passion mate and I think ... its got to the point, theres two options, one is sterilising and the other one is not so kind, he says. Pity we havent got guns. Would be a lot easier.

In training, neo-Nazis as young as 16 are exhorted to attack non-whites.

Sewell laments that some of the groups younger members are too soft. In the 80s and 90s maybe you had young white guys going out and beating up people, beating up faggots, beating up Viets, whatever it was, skinheads or not skinheads, he says. But these days there is no fight in them.

But there are harder types in the mix as well.

One is Danny, a man we later identify as Daniel Newman. Hes a senior Australian member of the ultra-violent and secretive international neo-Nazi terror group Combat 18, which has been banned in both Canada and the UK. Sewell tells Insider No.2 that Newman is the National Socialists link to skinhead gangs in Victorian jails. Any network member who found themselves inside had been promised protection.

Danny said dont stress, we have got Excalibur, Sewell says, referring to a shank [makeshift knife] apparently, like, this long.

They called Danny recently and I am the most loved and hated man in Barwon prison, a grinning Sewell boasts on another covert recording. Danny said they have got the coconuts [dark-skinned people] under control.

The National Socialists also use Newman to recruit those fresh out of jail, including a fresh-faced young man who confides to Insider No.2 that hes spent years in youth detention.

Ive done burgs [burglaries], dumb childish shit, then armed robs, like dealers, kidnappings and that, he says after one training session.

Two regulars at Racism HQ are affiliated with outlaw bikie gangs. One says his name is Paul, but his arm tattoo allows us to confirm he is Ryan Ulf Lindfors-Beswick, a veteran neo-Nazi and bikie associated with the violent gang the Finks. Victoria Police records also reveal that, inexplicably, he holds a police approved and vetted security licence.

A second bikie, who we identify via his LinkedIn profile as a federal government agency employee, discloses he is drawn to the National Socialist Network because outlaw bikie gangs have begun to allow any colour to join their branch.

The Hells Angels used to be white only, he explains.

Around the neo-Nazis Rowville house, which they dubbed Racism HQ.

The video shows tattooed skinheads and bikies mixing with two young men who have barely started shaving and who work in disability care. In the confines of Racism HQ, they too boast about inflicting violence, including on the vulnerable in their care.

You do get to kick a bit of arse, jokes one.

As the weeks pass, more neo-Nazis come into our frame. One is a security manager for Crown Casino, Daniel Todisco, a former special forces soldier who also has a Victoria Police vetted security licence and says he carries a baton in his boot. He boasts of bossing around the f---g n----rs who are his subordinates at Crown.

I just get them to do the shit jobs to be honest with you.

Michael Edwards, an older member, travels to HQ from regional Victoria where he is trying to set up a neo-Nazi cell in Bendigo. He is a full-time carer for his elderly father but, in a taped conversation, he proposes videoing the network bashing a black person.

I mean the publicity would be through the roof.

The secret recordings from Racism HQ reveal a deep sense of anger. David Hiscox is a 50-something who despises his casual work as a piano teacher; Vinnie ONeill cant afford a house; even Tom Sewell cant find regular work.

Among them are men, young and old, angry at being left behind by economic and social forces beyond their control. The National Socialist Network urges them to channel their anger against Jews, liberal multicultural democracy, black people, migrants, Muslims. And it offers the promise of a coming race war to restore their lost status and superiority.

Sewell presides over it all, delivering rhetoric about the coming clash of systems in the tone of an angry suburban footy coach.

We have a different vision of the future ... And for that we are called extreme There is nothing, nothing, that our enemies can truly do to stop us, Sewell says at one monthly meeting. We do not kneel and die. We stand and fight and live.

One of the groups plans is to buy a country property to begin a kind of neo-Nazi alternative lifestyle. One night in a Shepparton pub, the Peppermill Inn, Insider No.2 meets three followers including Ty, an overweight, bearded information technology consultant for federal government agencies who has brought along his wife and child.

Ty confides that the three of them are scouting for a rural property to help realise Sewells plan to become a white ethnostate, a Balkanised parallel nation.

Another, Steve, talks of owning several guns and reveals he has scoped out a place just out of Benalla, not bad, 60 acres where they would run some goats, run some sheep, run some chooks, run some cattle and put some greenhouses up.

Read the rest here:
Inside Racism HQ: How home-grown neo-Nazis are plotting a white revolution - The Age

Nearly a year and a half before the Taliban swept through Afghanistan, seizing control of the country for the first time since 2001, it reached a peace deal with the United States in Doha, Qatar.

That process gave the ideologically strident Islamist militant group a public venue to appear as very well-dressed people, with smartphones, speaking very diplomatically in front of the international media, said Sher Jan Ahmadzai, director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies at the University of Nebraska Omaha. For the Taliban, it offered a glimpse of international legitimacy, something that it lacked when the group took over Afghanistan in the late 1990s.

But in recent weeks, the Taliban completed a rout through Afghanistan, taking districts without so much as a bullet fired and entering the capital of Kabul Sunday, culminating with the group declaring the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. As the Taliban advanced, reports began to trickle out: of executions, of women and teenage girls being forced into marriages with Taliban fighters, of female students being turned away from school. It harks back to the Talibans repressive rule of the 1990s and raises the question of exactly who the Taliban are today, seizing power 20 years after they were driven from it.

Experts said the Taliban have changed, in that the leadership has learned from the past decades its rise, fall, and rise again. The group has become more pragmatic, and it has become much better at public relations. But that does not mean the Taliban have altered their worldview, or their goals, and their victory this week may reinforce that.

At its core its ideology, the way it sees Islam, the way that it sees the imposition of religious law on society [the Taliban] has not fundamentally changed as a movement, said Vali R. Nasr, the Majid Khadduri professor of Middle East studies and international affairs at Johns Hopkins University.

In many ways, the Taliban remain opaque, and there are likely divides between their leadership and the soldiers on the battlefield. That makes it hard to predict exactly what Afghanistans future might look like under Taliban rule. But there is also a reason Afghans are clinging to US military planes, desperate to get out of the country at any cost.

The Taliban have adapted, politically and militarily, since they were ousted in December 2001.

During their preceding five years of running Afghanistan, the group, led by Mullah Muhammad Omar, never had full control over all of the country. But where it did, it imposed strict Sunni fundamentalism that brutally oppressed many in Afghanistan, especially women, who were barred from attending school or working. The Taliban persecuted minorities, particularly Shia minorities in Afghanistan. The group also gave sanctuary to al-Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden, who planned the 9/11 attacks within the countrys borders. That, ultimately, would lead to a US- and NATO-backed force toppling their regime months later.

The Talibans leaders fled after their defeat, but the group did not disband; instead, it regrouped to wage a decades-long insurgency against the US-backed government in Kabul. In that time, the Taliban did change. They became more battle-tested, and so they began to wage a more successful insurgency, with carefully plotted attacks and better coordination and intelligence-gathering. They got richer. They got a bit more pragmatic: As Nasr pointed out, part of the reason the Taliban so swiftly retook Afghanistan in recent weeks in a way they hadnt even in the 1990s is because they cut deals with lots of local officials; they were willing to wheel and deal.

A lot of this came from the Taliban reflecting on the failures and humiliations of the past. Asfandyar Mir, an analyst on Afghanistan, told me that much of the political echelon of the Taliban is still dominated by people who were instrumental to the Talibans movement in the 1990s. The sting of the 9/11 aftermath has not faded for them.

They had a really strong sense of humiliation that we had the government and this was our right and this right was taken away from us forcefully, and so we have to assert ourselves, we have to restore our credibility, which was forcibly taken away, Mir said. Its those scars of the post-9/11 months, which I think continues to really guide and shape the overall calculus of organization. It explains, in part, the unrelenting march toward Kabul, as the Taliban reclaimed the country by force.

At the same time, experts said, the Taliban also deeply understand the need for international legitimacy and recognition. Not only because of its normative value, but also because of access to foreign funds which, for a larger part of its history, Afghanistans state has been dependent on, Kaweh Kerami, a researcher at SOAS University of London, said in an email.

This meant going beyond Pakistan. The Taliban, in recent years, have built ties with Iran and regional neighbors, along with countries like Russia and China. The United States has said it will continue to isolate a Taliban government, but the Taliban cultivated other possible partners. They know they cannot go it alone if they want to retain power in Afghanistan.

As part of this strategy, the Talibans political leadership has tried to present itself as a much more rational entity. It is somewhat more cautious in its rhetoric, an attempt at a rebrand of the backward, brutal force it had been portrayed as. The Taliban sat down not just for peace talks but peace talks that women participated in.

Afghanistans possible new leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, embodies this tension. The Talibans current supreme leader is Haibatullah Akhundzada, but he hasnt been seen in years and he may or may not be dead. Baradar, though, is the political leader and a co-founder of the Taliban movement, a close associate of the deceased Omar. In 2010, Baradar was captured in Pakistan by a joint US-Pakistani intelligence operation and imprisoned. He was released from prison in 2018, around the time the Trump administration began peace talks in earnest with the Taliban. (There are reports that his release was negotiated as a condition for the talks.) Baradar, ultimately, led those peace talks in Doha.

Kerami told me that because Baradar understands that the Talibans survival as a government depends on diplomacy and regional aid, he appears to be comparatively less strict on social issues, including womens issues.

But Kerami and other experts remain skeptical. There are a lot of reasons to doubt that Baradar and the Talibans political leadership are suddenly open to, say, allowing women to work or hold office. In June, Baradar said that women and minorities would be protected based on the glorious religion of Islam.

They never really clarified what that means, Mona Tajali, an associate professor at Agnes Scott College and executive board member with Women Living Under Muslim Laws, said. And if youre someone who works on gender, and womens rights within the Muslim world, you know that thats basically a warning sign.

Tajali said most womens rights activists she works with in Afghanistan never believed the Taliban moderated their views, no matter how good theyve gotten at public relations.

Reports from Kabul and elsewhere in Afghanistan suggest that people and organizations are changing behaviors for example, reports that media organizations are taking female anchors off-air over the expectation that the Taliban will begin to implement its repressive policies once again. As the AP reported, some directives are more explicit, with women again being told they cant work or study or leave the house without a male escort.

Many experts said the Taliban political leadership ultimately may make some overtures to appease the international community like leave some media organizations open, or allow younger girls to attend schools but there is reason to question how serious this commitment is. And, again, some reports from Kabul and elsewhere in Afghanistan suggest the commitment is chillingly shallow.

Theres a gap between what they say and what they do, Mir said. Its a political attribute of sorts that theyre able to engage the international community with polite words, by creating the impression that they are open to politics. But in the end, they remain a strident military machine, unwilling to compromise.

And in a lot of ways, they have very little incentive to compromise after all, they just rolled through Afghanistan and retook Kabul, as the United States, the occupying force they set out to defeat, scrambled to burn paperwork and evacuate staff at its embassy.

But for the Taliban, it may be a lot easier to retake the country than govern it. Which is why Afghanistans future under Taliban rule is still so uncertain.

There are still a lot of unanswered questions about whether and how the Taliban can run Afghanistan. Even before the US invasion, they struggled to be a government in the 1990s to control all the territory and, most important, to deliver services to people. Whether they can do better this time will depend a lot on whether their efforts for international legitimacy pay off.

Another outstanding question is how well this political leadership particularly those involved in international negotiations will work with the militants on the ground. To what extent [is] this new quote-unquote, Taliban statesman that we sat across from in Doha able to influence and discipline and control the local people? Nasr, of Johns Hopkins, said.

The political leaders of the Taliban have schooled themselves in world affairs. They recognize they need to talk about respecting rights, because they want that international recognition. But there are thousands and thousands of Taliban commanders and foot soldiers on the ground, who may not necessarily share that view. As Ahmadzai, of the University of Omaha, said, these different layers of the Taliban have different priorities, and it will be difficult to predict if they will stand in line. There are Taliban who claim that we are victorious, we defeated the great power, we have the right to do whatever we want, because we have given sacrifice.

Its yet to be seen, he added. There will be ideological splits.

Other divisions might emerge as well. A lot about the Talibans organization remains opaque, but there are different factions, many with a lot of power and potentially competing interests. As experts pointed out, the US has tried to create wedges between these different Taliban factions in the later years of the insurgency some of these youve probably heard of before, like the infamous Haqqani network. But ultimately, the Taliban have stayed, at least on the battlefield, a pretty cohesive group.

The question now is whether the absence of the US will succeed where US government policy failed. In other words, once the Taliban lose the external threat of the US, will possible power struggles or competing factions emerge?

That also leads to another gap about this Taliban, which is to what extent they will grant terrorist organizations safe haven within their borders. In the US-Taliban peace deal, the primary condition for US withdrawal was the Talibans pledge not to harbor terrorists that might stage attacks against the US. Despite this, there is a lot of evidence and reporting, including from the United Nations, that Taliban leadership has kept close ties with al-Qaeda.

Experts told me there are likely splits within the Taliban here, too, ones that may generate tensions as the Taliban take a foothold. Many fighters, especially younger generations, may believe in an international jihadist movement and want to lend support. But others in the movement might see those ties as too risky, as those ties ultimately dislodged the Taliban from power.

Still, the Talibans victory, and the symbolism of the group retaking power, could offer a boost to terror groups everywhere, whether in Afghanistan or elsewhere. When [the Taliban] can topple a government supported by the whole international community what kind of message does that send to the rest of the extremist groups for the world? Ahmadzai said.

The Taliban took Afghanistan by force. The organization is not democratic, and never will be, but experts said whether Afghans see the government as legitimate will depend on how it governs.

The Afghan government and US intervention ultimately failed, and built up a lot of resentment during its two decades. A whole generation of Afghans, born after 2001, lived under the threat of ongoing war. But that same generation, at least in major urban areas, did not live under the Talibans oppression.

The 20 years has meant more journalists, activists, artists, educators, and politicians, many of them women. Millions of girls and women have gone to school. Many of them are fleeing right now, and particularly those that have the opportunity are fleeing right now, Tajali said. But theres just so many of them. Thats basically the main force that were thinking, How will the Taliban try to repress at such an extensive level? I dont know if it can.

Even if the Taliban, in a quest for international standing, rolls back some of its harshest policies, there is little hope that it will truly moderate. Theyre going to govern exactly as they did before, said Ayesha Siddiqa, an expert on civil-military relations in South Asia whos written extensively on the region. Their ideology defines them. The idea of thinking that the Taliban has changed is so incorrect, Siddiqa added.

The reports coming out of Afghanistan, so far, have been ominous. There are reports of the Taliban going door to door in Kabul, seeking out women who worked for the government and media. In Kabul, store owners reportedly took down signs with women models. Some TV channels changed from soap operas to Islamic programming. Afghans who worked with US or international forces are terrified, and in hiding, for fear of reprisal.

The Taliban may have attempted to remake their image. But many in Afghanistan have no illusions about who they really are.

Original post:
Who is the Taliban? The Islamist militant group's rise to power in Afghanistan? - Vox.com