self-promotion

CounterVortex meta-podcast: our special offer!

In Episode 84 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg unveils a special offer for new Patreon subscribers. Become a Supporter for two dollars per weekly podcast, and you get to choose a topic for Bill to rant about for an episode. Any conflict anywhere on the planet, any hot political issue, any aspect of Bill's far-ranging interests and work: human rights, indigenous peoples, drug policy, ecology, pro-autonomy and anti-militarist movements worldwide. Choose a book to review, ask Bill any question about his life, research, activism or analysis. We want to make CounterVortex a more interactive and participatory project, and we need your support to sustain us! Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

Keep CounterVortex alive with a year-end donation

We at CounterVortex understand that we have a niche audience. Our ultra-dissident perspective as well as the fact the we cover "obscure" wars, conflicts and social struggles outside the media spotlight, means that we will never have a mass readership that can raise thousands of dollars (as do our frankly rival websites that successfully play to the crowd). We accept this, and indeed wear it as a badge of pride. But we need to know that we have, at least, a small and dedicated readership that can raise hundreds of dollars once a year. Our modest goal for our year-end fund-drive is just $500—less than half of our annual operating costs (web-hosting, domain registration, site maintenance & development, etc). With multiple crises now converging—preparations for a domestic coup d'etat, war moves against Iran, the political weaponizing of a pandemic—the world situation is actually far more desperate now than when we first launched our website, long ago, in the immediate aftermath of 9-11. We are convinced that our voice, marginal as it may be, is at this moment more imperative than ever. We need your support. Please come through for us.

Fifth Estate Live with Bill Weinberg

Portland-based musician and vlogger David Rovics interviews CounterVortex editor Bill Weinberg for Fifth Estate Live. The two discuss Weinberg's upcoming story for the anarchist journal Fifth Estate on the "two faces of fascism" the US confronts at this moment—a Trumpian dictatorship or a post-pandemic "new normality" of complete surveillance and social control. But the moment is also pregnant with possibility, witnessing the mainstreaming of anarchist ideas such as abolishing the police. Initiatives such as cannabis legalization as a first step toward this aim are gaining ground nationally. Looking back, they draw lessons for the current revolutionary moment from the Tompkins Square Park uprising on Manhattan's Lower East Side in the 1980s, and the rebellion of the Zapatistas in Mexico in the 1990s—who continue to hold liberated territory in the southern state of Chiapas even today. Watch the video archive on YouTube or listen to the audio version on SoundCloud

CounterVortex unveils new website

At long last, our new image-heavy mobile-friendly website has been unveiled. Without compromising our characteristic seriousness, comprehension and rigor, we have finally caught up with the smartphone zeitgeist. It was overdue and inevitable, and our developer has generously donated his services pro bono. HOWEVER: Our hosting costs are going up considerably to accommodate this change, effective immediately. Please help us close this gap. So far, six of you have responded to our year-end donation request, for a total of $413. And we salute these six loyal readers! But this is about half of our annual operating costs. And we only ask you for money once a year. So the time is NOW. Please come through for us. In the age of online media, it is critical that you put your money where your reading eyes are, to assure the survival and growth of the voices you support. We're depending on you.

Podcast: Against the Left-Fascist Convergence

In Episode 36 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg reads the full text of his presentation at the Left Forum, on the panel "Confronting the Resurgence of Authoritarianism, Right and 'Left'," held by the Marxist-Humanist Initiative. Weinberg argues the intentionally provocative but nonetheless entirely accurate thesis that the consensus position of the contemporary "left" is now pro-fascist. Sounds illogical? That's because you haven't thought it through. Listen before you judge. Some choice words for Amy Goodman, Noam Chomsky, Sy Hersh, Stephen Cohen, Jill Stein, Tulsi Gabbard, ANSWER, etc. Listen on SoundCloud, and support our podcast via Patreon.

Bill Weinberg to speak on left-fascist convergence

CounterVortex editor and chief blogger Bill Weinberg will speak at the Left Forum in Brooklyn, New York, on Sunday, June 30, at the panel "Confronting the Resurgence of Authoritarianism, Right and 'Left.'" Weinberg's talk will be entitled "The Consensus Position of the American 'Left' is Now Pro-Fascist: What Do We Do About It?" Other panelists include Anne Jaclard and Andrew Kliman of the Marxist-Humanist Initiative, and Jason Stanley, author of How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them.

CounterVortex on one-week hiatus

CounterVortex will be on one-week hiatus June 10-17, while producer and main blogger Bill Weinberg is traveling. Both our Daily Report and weekly headlines mailing (subscribe here) will resume upon his return. As always, we need your support. If you appreciate our rigorous coverage and dissident views, please show it with a small donation. This is an especially critical time for us, as we are preparing a new, upgraded, mobile-friendly and more visually exciting website—and the transition is a rather arduous process. We hope to unveil the upgraded site within the coming weeks. Please stay tuned.

Please support CounterVortex!

CounterVortex needs your support! This is the first time we have asked our readers for money in a year, and three of you have responded for a total of $55—just over one-tenth of the way to our modest goal of $500. We think we have more than three readers. And $500 is just a quarter of our annual operating costs. Last year, we were able to raise $500, and we are depending on you again. As most of the American left succumbs to abject glorification of reactionary dictators, we think it is more vital than ever to keep alive an intransigently dissident voice that still has fundamental anti-fascist principles intact—CounterVortex. If you don't think the pro-dictatorship position has become hegemonic on the "left," the latest example comes from the holiday statement just issued by Veterans for Peace (sic!), hailing the genocidal regime of Bashar Assad as the "secular, multi-religious Syrian state." Somebody needs to forthrightly repudiate this repugnant jive, and  that responsibility falls to us. We are also the only website on the American left that provides ongoing, serious coverage of under-reported or downright forgotten wars in places like Chechnya, Mali, the Philippines and Colombia. Please give what you can to sustain our efforts.

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