I’m not really seeing any climate change skepticism in the article linked (although “even if one does not believe in mainstream notions of ‘climate change,’” is likely trying to cater to such people), and being suspicious of Western pharmaceutical companies’ experimental vaccines (especially when China already had a functioning vaccine using familiar technology) is not an inherently anti-vaccine position. He’s certainly no socialist but I wouldn’t call him hard-right based on those articles
Just to completely put the argument to bed, I’ll find the most egragious example from his website, :
Global warming is in fact a scam perpetrated by globalists to control every aspect of human industry, population, consumption and demographics, as declared in the United Nation’s Agenda 21 report and conclusions drawn at the globalist Club of Rome forum. After decades of uncontested propagandizing, the globalist agenda began to slow under the scrutiny of skeptics able to propose their objections en-mass via the Internet.
Under increasing pressure, exposing inconsistencies and bold faced lies, globalists themselves have literally conceded that their “irrefutable research” on all fronts is “flawed,” (read: lies). [link ]
Another article:
t’s not entirely accurate to call the Belfer Center merely a big oil representative that forms the spearhead of promoting the theory of anthropogenic global warming and the resulting Ponzi-scheme environmental policies proposed to deal with it. [link ]
On his page, although written by Paul Joseph Watson:
As we have previously documented, the manufactured threat of man-made global warming is being used as a tool of neo-colonialism in the third world, not only through the seizure of land and infrastructure, thereby preventing poor nations from using their resources to develop, but by literally starving poverty-stricken people to death. [link]
these are all very bad takes; although, as you mentioned in your post, they’re over a decade old and may not reflect his current views
with that said, he’s featured people who made transphobic remarks on his streams without challenging them, which is certainly reactionary even if he doesn’t share their opinions
Brian Berletic use to write for Infowars, and is a current antivax and climate change skeptic. Fuck him.
Does this invalidate all his analysis? I’m sure it’s helpful to have that context, but it’s possible to be informed by people whose ideological program doesn’t perfectly align with our own.
I’ve learned a lot over the past few years from people like mearscheimer, Alexander mercouris, Jeff Sachs, even Andrew Nepolitano, all of whom have varying levels of bad positions.
Liberals analyze the world on vibes, which tends to mean they need complete ideological alignment with their information sources, which is obviously limiting. But having a philosophical framework orienting our analysis frees us from that limitation because it allows us to read widely, including sources with major problems, without risk of falling for their bad takes.
You absolutely avoided my point that he has tremendously bad takes, including ones that have left possibly millions dead (antivax), and probably billions future dead (climate change skepticism). The guy is a hard right reactionary that sometimes critiques US foreign policy, something that the far right does regularly.
