Bob From Brockley 🥤 Profile picture
Aug 23, 2023 16 tweets 9 min read Read on X
On Friday, a California storekeeper, Laura Ann Carlton, was shot dead for flying a Pride flag. The killer has been named as Travis Ikeguchi. The son of a Florida state trooper, he was a Christian fascist radicalised online...

amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/a…

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He was a prolific re/tweeter: I just looked through 3 months of his output. As well as Christian fundamentalism and a tsunami of homophobia + transphobia, there’s a wide range of conspiracy theories, linking mainstream conservative anti-LGBT culture wars with fascist terror…
At the heart of his cosmology is a set of hate figures he identified as the globalist elite or the Illuminati — Gates, Soros, Schwab, Fauci, the World Economic Forum. These are shared obsessions with QAnon, anti-vaxxers and those who follow the “Great Reset” conspiracy theory.


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Many of the influencers Ikeguchi amplified – such as Dinesh D’Souza, Jordan Peterson, or Project Veritas’ James O’Keefe – are major entrepreneurs of hate selling to the mainstream American conservative base. A lot of these accounts get reposted by Elon Musk for example.


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One example: The UK’s Daily Telegraph published a completely fake story about a kid who identified as a cat, taken up by US right-wing influencers such as Peterson, thus helping to radicalise this guy who shot someone for flying a Pride flag. bylinetimes.com/2023/06/20/fak…
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We’ve also got anti-migrant fake news from Britain First’s Paul Golding, and Kanye West’s comments helping to normalise antisemitism on Twitter.
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Conspiracy theory always leads to antisemitism. Whether you hate Zionists or Communists or both, you can blame Jews. Antisemitism often binds disparate ideological elements together, making a coherent package where you wouldn’t expect one, an explanation for every setback. Image
This is exactly it. When bigotries intersect they multiply, and a cosmology based on absolute demons calls for radical action.
Unsurprisingly, Ikeguchi supported Russia and opposed US support for Ukraine. Russia has completely captured this conspiracist scene.


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For example, Ukraine is often identified as “Nazi” (a trope which comes from Russian media).

This post (claiming Ukrainian Nazis harvest kids for adrenochrome labs for pedophile elites) combines several QAnon, anti-globalist and anti-vaxx themes with demonisation of Ukraine. Image
There’s also a lot of intense anti-Zionist content, sometimes from Israel-focused influencers and sometimes from right-wing sites (such as TruNews) that on this issue at first glance look left-wing. (Anti-Zionism isn’t itself antisemitic, but it can be a vector for antisemitism.)

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(Ikeguchi thought Zionists control Hollywood, work for Satan to create a new world order… and are the reason he couldn’t get laid.) Image
(Although feminism also shared the blame for him being an involuntary celibate, of course.) Image
Ukraine and Israel are two of the topics where we can see some convergence between the far right + a fringe part of the left. Lots of his content wouldn’t look out of place on some “anti-imperialist” timelines: a Cornel West supporter praising Assange, RFK promoting antiwar[.]com
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Final point: social media companies need to take responsibility for this. Musk’s site (then still called Twitter) judged that Ikeguchi’s bigoted threats were legitimate and not hate speech.
In conclusion, while we can laugh at someone who believes insane conspiracy theories (he thought Michelle Obama is secretly male) these theories – and the grifters mainstreaming them – are ultimately deadly.

In memory of Laura Ann Carleton, we need to resist this poison. Image

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More from @bobfrombrockley

Aug 10
1/x A thread on “Tommy Robinson”, the riots and “Zionism”, covering Yaxley-Lennon’s funding, his relationship to Zionism and his role in the riots. I’ll try not to make it too long this time…

A. Who funds “Tommy Robinson”?

Some fringe anti-Zionist influencers (many of whom work for Iranian state media and/or are deeply antisemitic), such as David Miller, Lowkey, Richard Medhurst, Nick Fuentes, Anas Altikriti, have blamed the riots on Israel/Zionism…


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…It’s true that in the 2010s Robinson was connected to and funded (in the 10s of $1000s) by a US-centred network of counter-jihadi donors and thinktanks who were aggressively pro-Israel and linked to the Israeli right… theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/d…
timesofisrael.com/why-are-us-pro…
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Read 23 tweets
Nov 15, 2023
So, "Tommy Robinson" (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) has called for his followers to join a march against antisemitism, to a resoundingly negative response from the organisers and the mainstream Jewish community. Quick thread on him and his supporters... Image
"Tommy Robinson" (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) joined the fascist British National Party (BNP) in 2004 age 20, stayed for a year. In this pic he's with Holocaust denier Richard Edmonds (convicted of racist violence in the 1990s). But was this just some youthful thing? Image
In 2012, Yaxley-Lennon became the deputy leader of the British Freedom Party, which was led by disgruntled BNP members and advocated "cultural nationalism". Its logo echoes (L) echoes that of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists (R)
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Read 23 tweets
Oct 23, 2023
I only just realised this “#OctoberDeclaration” against antisemitism comes from Allison Pearson and Laura Dodsworth. IMHO those two are racists conspiracy-mongers nobody should go near. Some examples:
1/ Laura Dodsworth’s book _State of Fear_ (endorsed by the likes of GBNews presenter Neil Oliver) draws heavily on the discredited work of 911 truther and full-time atrocity denialist Piers Robinson. See @DAaronovitch: archive.is/https://www.th…
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2/ Dodsworth is also close to Max Blumenthal, another professional atrocity denier and disinfo entrepreneur.

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Read 9 tweets
Sep 16, 2023
Unsurprisingly, all the worst people are defending Russell Brand. For posterity, here’s a few:

[1/2] Lozza Fox, Ian Miles Cheong, Calvin Robinson, Bev Turner (GBNews)…


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2/2 “SyriaGirl”, Anya Pamparil (Grayzone), Aseem Malhotra, Media Lens…


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Read 20 tweets
Aug 17, 2023
Inspiring general strike in Al-Suwayda, Syria, including by shopkeepers and public sector workers. Slogans call for dignity and reject the house of Assad.
In an effort to contain protest, yesterday Syria’s dictator Assad doubled state salaries (they’re now just 8% of an average family’s cost of living). Seven minutes later he raised the price of diesel by 300% and gasoline by 170%.
Mass protests across southern Syria, especially Daraa, after Friday prayers last night, demanding the fall of the House of Assad and decent living conditions. (Political liberty and social struggles are intertwined under a warlord kleptocracy.)
Read 19 tweets
Mar 29, 2023
As I’ve finally got a minute, I’ll post some of my pics of the fash that came to shout at drag queens and children at the Honor Oak pub in SE London on Saturday…

Cc @London_AFA @LondonAFA_South @hopenothate @AmarDeepSinghD @TransActionBloc @redflareinfo @LadsLasses @lowles_nick
The guy in the sunglasses here is Philip Curson from Essex, a veteran of several fascist organisations, who has served time for a really horrific racist attack.

amp.theguardian.com/society/2003/a…

hopenothate.org.uk/2012/12/24/bnp… ImageImageImage
(See stills from 2018 via @libcom and article link above from @hopenothate)

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Read 23 tweets

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