October 13 Update: Crypto Radicalism; Welcome to the Pyrocene; Bibi Baffles Befuddled Biden; Oligarchs Outwit UK Regulators; Bannon Against Empire; The Patriot Wing

Aura Borealis over Yosemite National Park's High Country this week (source - Carter Murphy)

Autumn or Fall? The latter term feels a lot more appropriate this year, with Israel not only pursuing a genocide but a broader regional war where United Nations peacekeepers in Lebanon are apparently fair game, Kamala doing precisely what Californians became so familiar during her terms in office and refusing to take a stance on the stuff that matters, and the far right gearing up to fuck with voters. Get some exercise, get outside, try to rest up: it's real stressful out there. The Northern Lights making a surprise appearance this week in very unusual latitudes was a lovely respite. After all, it is Purple October.

The November issue of Vanity Fair is finally in print, and includes a long feature of mine on the trajectory of young American Neo-Fascists as they cycle in and out of prisons, which have long been finishing schools for criminals and extremists of all stripes. For reasons beyond my knowledge or control, the web version has yet to go up, but I've posted the pages here for paid subscribers. Some of the protagonists will be familiar to regular readers of Bleeding Edge, and once again, your support gives me bandwidth to work on these deeper investigations.

There's plenty of other terrific reporting out there this week. Let's get to it.

BLEEDING EDGE JOURNALISM

-The cryptocurrency industry is now one of the most lucrative industries for American political campaigns, as Silicon Valley's latest libertarian pyramid scheme seeks to buy influence and impunity from federal regulators no matters who wins November's presidential election. Gil Duran over at the New Republic took a shot not only at the lobbying and donations of this sector, but the cultish 'Network State' ideology that drives many of crypto's executives and boosters, in particular Brian Armstrong of Coinbase. Bay Area folks will be familiar with the Network State ideology from general pieces of shit like Garry Tan who are working overtime to buy San Francisco's government wholesale, but there are real national ramifications here.

-While we're traditionally in the heart of wildfire season in the Western United States (and it has been a bad one), human-caused global warming and drought are wreaking similar havoc in other reasons. South America is suffering from mega fires caused not only by drought and degraded forests (thanks, Bolsonaro), but also intentionally-sparked blazes to clear land for agribusiness in Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru Brazil and elsewhere. Those fires are not only devastating in the short term, but inject massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, consuming chunks of humanity's remaining 'carbon budget', or the amount of carbon dioxide we can put into the atmosphere before climate change hits a catastrophic tipping point. All the more reason to stop tossing money into insane wars and towards environmental protection and mitigation.

-Speaking of insanity and governance, the FT's US politics editor Ed Luce wrote a cutting feature on Bibi Netanyahu's cunning manipulation of President Joe Biden that laid out some hard truths visible to anyone paying a modicum of attention over the past year. Not only has Israel secured a record $18 billion in American military aid since the October 7th attacks (which the State Department surreptitiously steered past pesky legal restriction), but Bibi and the IDF have repeatedly run circles around the Biden Administration's cautions and admonishments about civilian casualties, carried out a blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza, and are perpetuating a genocide with the intent of assisting the return of a friendlier Trump Administration. Lovely people.

-Tom Burgis' reporting for the FT and now the Guardian is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how oligarchs move stolen wealth around the world, hide it from regulators, and carry out corporate fraud on an industrial scale. His feature this month focuses on a mining multinational founded by a group of ex-Soviet billionaires and an investigation by United Kingdom's Serious Fraud Office into a fraudulent $295 million mineral concession in South Africa. It's a remarkable narrative of regulatory capture and unchecked white collar criminality that readers of Burgis' recent book Kleptocracy will immediately recognize.

-I was pleased to see my friend James Pogue's name on the table of contents for the November Vanity Fair issue. He's long focused on the intellectual peregrinations of the American right wing (not quite as far out as the SIEGE/accelerationist crowd I mostly deal with), and his latest feature examines the influence of Steven Bannon's planned assault on America's military and financial empire. It's a fascinating look at how a Traditionalist follower of Evola and Guenon views the current Pax Americana, and a reminder that critiques of Neoliberalism and imperialism do not always come from the Left.

-Lastly, Tess Owen's New York feature on the January 6 perpetrators housed in the 'Patriot Wing' of Washington D.C.'s municipal jail is a good companion to my deeper feature on prison radicalization. As often happens when carceral institutions clump inmates from a particular gang or political tendency together, the ideology and resolve of that group hardens. There are hundreds of J6 defendants in the federal prison system, with hundreds more yet to hit the mainline. As my VF piece makes clear, there is currently no coherent strategy for preventing further radicalization, or giving these inmates potential off-ramps out of their extremist beliefs.

BOOK OF THE WEEK - To take some of the edge off the past few weeks, I've been delving back into some classics on my shelf. Norman Mailer's The Fight (1975) a slim, gorgeously-written account of Muhammad Ali's 'Rumble in the Jungle' bout against George Forman in Kinshasa, Zaire.

Ali's career was on the downslope, with years in the ring taking their toll on his body and seeking to win back his title belt. However, he was as voluble as ever, entirely unrepentant about his refusal to participate in the draft for the Vietnam War, and adored by the locals as he trained in the streets of Kinshasa. Foreman was more taciturn, apolitical, and focused on the bout rather than the spectacle. Even if boxing is not your cup of tea, the sheer magnetism of Muhammad Ali makes this a page turner of the first order.

FILM - Al Jazeera's coverage of the Israeli assault on Gaza and the West Bank is second to none. Unlike Western outlets they have people on the ground in Gaza, their reporters put themselves in harm's way, and have been murdered, raided and censored by Israeli authorities. The network's investigative unit released an exhaustive documentary this week that compiled videos detailing what appear to be dozens of potential war crimes committed by Israeli soldiers over the past year. It's infuriating to watch, particularly when you witness the glee with which IDF personnel celebrate the shelling and razing of entire neighborhoods. There's been a bit of a panic on social media since the film was released, with IDF soldiers rushing to delete the very videos they uploaded for public consumption. Here's hoping that prosecutors in the Hague are taking notes.

MUSIC - Ambient makes for good music to work or read to, and as the demands of an end-of-year workrate pick up, I've been searching for alternatives to my old standbys of Brian Eno, Autechre, Aphex Twin and the like. Thanks much to Jake Hanrahan for putting me onto Total Blue's debut release, which has helped me work late through the night in recent weeks.