And I will never tell you what I really think about Ukraine or China, because I would lose subscriber.
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It’s the YouTube uploaded on podcast apps w/o the video. I don’t like it much, but I’ve listened at times.
my understanding is that the TrueAnon party line at least regarding China was that they (and by they I mean like, Brace, because he's the most outspoken on this) explicitly identify as Maoists but in a 'fundamentally ambivalent to Dengism and would prefer a Maoist track' way instead of a 'china has fallen, billions must die' way, but I may be over/misanalyzing some things. I half-remember a bit where Brace was talking about "if China starts the turnaround and we can see it in like 20 years then call me a Dengist when those 20 years have passed", might be misremembering.
I mean, that’s basically my position too.
I don’t think China is the perfect state and the majority of economic relationships within China are in the capitalist mode and billionaires are on a leash but there are still many power billionaires.
I like China because it is the closest to being able to push the button and has leadership that seems to at least aspire to pushing the button maybe even within my lifetime.
Which is A LOT and hugely preferable to whatever the fuck kind of feudalism the west is evolving towards but I won’t stan them as being actually very communist right now. They’re dialectically evolving towards some better form of socialism and they look after their people a lot better than the west, and there’s a lot to like but damn I wish they would push that dang button.
Yeah, but that's much more than any US podcaster would ever say lmao
He also said he thinks the West needs to accept a peace deal that lets Russia keep Donbas and that it's delusional to keep this bloody conflict going thinking that Zelensky will be marching on Moscow if only we keep sending him more missiles. So yeah, he's been pretty blatant about his stances.
Brace Belden must be made to read The Governance of China and understand the Two Centenary Goals.
The dragon rises [gong sound]
It's a great bit, but come on Jack!
I don't think so at all, both brace and liz are pretty outspoken about their opinions. What do you think they believe but aren't saying about ukraine or china?
Add : Umm labor aristocracy doesn't exist and saying it does is just to score morality points. No people in the imperial core don't benefit from imperialism.
I'm definitely not disagreeing with you. But like, The Deprogram boys have been OK with this? (sincere question)
No I think they do a lot of fencesitting. They will acknowledge that NATO created the conditions for Ukraine's invasion but seems like they need to always make it clear that Russia is a capitalist country and they don't like that aspect of Russia. The truth is that the latter is irrelevant for the former, but if they don't say the latter they probably think they might be seen as Putin stans which will scare away radlib paypigs.
I don’t see how it’s irrelevant. You have to beat people on the head with no subtlety on some things or else they’ll run around spreading random rumors or interpretations that hurt you for no reason
I don't know what to tell you. It's the equivalent of saying "but he is not angel" about a country that is a direct product of an American war against USSR, when it is now engaged in a proxy war against America. I don't find it relevant or helpful to understanding why the war took place.
They also say this to their largely western audience. It's just my opinion but I don't think this tendency to divide the world in good and bad camps then voicing support for good ones is a helpful strategy especially when Americans and other westerners do this. God knows how many bad countries are bad because of western colonialism and imperialism. People are aghast that the Taliban is rescinding what little women's rights there were in Afghanistan. There is a very long chain of events that puts western involvement directly as the culprit of Afghanistan's current situation. What is point of a westerner supporting or not supporting Afghanistan or Taliban? I doesn't make sense to me. It's more reasonable to oppose western involvement wholesale rather than trying to sieve the good from bad in an imperialised world.
The truth is that the latter is irrelevant for the former
I don't think it's irrelevant if you're looking at it from the standpoint of whether it helps the world get closer to communism.
i agree with the anarchist, the difference between the RSFSR and the parasitic corpse of it are two very different things
The truth is that the latter is irrelevant for the former
I swear to God this is a sincere question and not concern trolling. You saying the invasion is justified? (I'm not gonna jump on you if the answer is yes)
I think so. I think one could say that Russia could have held off on a military response and I don't have any strong feelings about that because there is a lot of specifics that I don't know. But NATO has been prepping up Ukraine to be its proxy in its goal to contain Russia for a decade. This starts off with the Maidan coup and then NATO's empowerment of Ukraine's Banderite neo-nazis by the way of providing them arms and training. The neo-nazis had been waging a war against their Russian speaking border regions for about a decade. NATO then blocked any diplomatic solutions to the ensuing tension between Russia and Ukraine. Merkel straight up said that the Minsk Accords that were agreed upon and signed were meant to buy Ukraine time rather than be honoured.
Given this Russia had the options of doing nothing and endure the containment or stymie NATO's expansion through a pre-emptive invasion. I would have liked if there was no need for a war. But this is just the continuation of USA's cold war that never ended even after USSR's dissolution. The fact is that Russia's mere existence as a sovereign country is something that USA and NATO find deeply offensive. A war like this was bound to happen at one point or another.
I'm thinking it's less "the invasion was justifed" and more "turns out actions have consequenses"
More justified than the US invading Vietnam or Cuba. In all three instances, a smaller country has declared its alignment to a certain ideology and wishes to become closer to superpowers with said ideology. The difference is that North Vietnam was prevented from even holding elections because the west knew that their government wasn’t corrupt and that they’d win legitimately against the cucks in the south. Cuba also had a popular revolution that tortured the souls of multiple administrations. Cuba (and Vietnam) didn’t have desires to be pushed around by the USSR just because they supported their causes, and because they have sympathy for the west whereas the USSR had a more militant mentality. The fucking Cubans cooperated with the FBI because they earnestly believed that they would help arrest Cuban exile terrorists, only for their spies and informants to get arrested and realize the US was helping said terrorists. Honestly you can add just about every fucking non-Warsaw Pact socialist country and non-aligned countries that got invaded or couped to this list.
Compare to modern Ukraine where westerners have declared it to be near the top of corruption indexes until after they got invaded, then magically they were democratic. Or how westerners were reporting on the huge Nazi influence in modern Ukraine until it got invaded, then suddenly it was a wholesome, pro LGBT, pro democracy imperfect nation. Ukraine, like most NATO members, have shown that they’re willing to do whatever the US wants, and the US has shown that it only seeks hostilities and suffering whether they pursue it themselves or with the alliance or with select members. Adding Ukraine as a member, right on the border of Russia, is a much more hostile move than most countries aligning with socialism and the USSR because Ukraine and NATO countries are willing to be a lap dog. And it’s funny because Russia and Putin were literally willing to be NATO lapdogs after the USSR fell, and yet the west rejected them because Russia as a concept needed to be punished for even daring to challenge the west.
Also, Putin keeps rattling his saber and warning the west and Ukraine if they cross XYZ line, and when they do, Putin just condemns them and maybe shoot a missile or two lol. He understands the existential stakes of nuclear warfare. The US, and Ukraine, do not care. To them, eternal damnation in nuclear holocaust is a small price to defeat Putin and Russia. They have a child’s mindset, whereas Cuba only escalated nuclear tensions because it was a non-hostile country that kept getting invaded and terrorized by the US.
In all three instances, a smaller country has declared its alignment to a certain ideology and wishes to become closer to superpowers with said ideology.
I think you basically said this, but: The revolutions in Cuba and Vietnam were primarily focused on national liberation. Their Marxist ideology and affinity with the USSR was secondary to their actual, material liberation.
The recent history in Ukraine is essentially different in that the current government is largely a creation of external (mainly US) influences. It’s really hard to frame the push for Ukrainian NATO membership as a democratic ideological stance in the same way as the nationalist anti-imperialism of Cuba and Vietnam.
No I think they do a lot of fencesitting.
You can personally think they're a bit cowardly for not getting off the fence, but I have to ask, would them doing so do any good? Frankly I think the whole mini-industry of western leftist influencers, even the ones with actually good takes, is totally pointless for anything besides entertainment. They're not reaching anyone new, not to any meaningful degree, since the population of people in the west with any potential to become actual principled leftists is tiny as fuck. Every ideology has consolidated and locked in, 99% of people who are currently a Lib/Chud/Succ/"Tankie" right now is going to remain one till the gave. Our ranks right now are about as big as they're ever gonna be so all we really have is posting for each others amusement and the smug satisfaction of "I told you so"-ing unreachable Libs.
Why do you believe people can't change? I believe life experience + propaganda + material conditions will move people left.
I used to be a lib that phone banked for Obama
Individuals can change, there's no social basis for more broader change. We are just a subculture of hobbyists with nothing we can build an actual movement on.
Most westerns I meet who end up in our general corner of the left seem to be here more cuz they're nerds who are into history and economics, not out of any real social drive to support the revolution. The population of people who are nerdy the exact same way we are is fucking tiny. There's no material basis of an actual major mass movement, just a niche community or nerds. Most people are fixed where they are because there is no larger force compelling them to change, the forces encouraging them to either stay where they're at or double down are much more compelling.
The challenge we face is showing people the connection between their eroding material conditions and our politics. You're right that we aren't at the point where we can convince people en masse, but I have to believe we can get there.
I agree that there's a "type" that ends up here. We sure love a lot of metal and/or electronic music, computers, and other nerd-coded things. We are a pretty white group, all sorts of queer, and not really into "traditional" man interests like trucks or riding horses or sportsball. We'd rather see Amon Amarth than Taylor Swift.
And we think most people are dumber than us. Call it carry over from the lib mindset.
I think we have less traction than similar movements because a) the Capitalist propaganda is much better than in the past, b) the "treats" are basically mind Crack at this point (we all know people addicted to some online game or engrossed in their hobby of choice, and it's all designed like a slot machine these days aka Engineered to create addiction), c) We haven't gone out of our way to organize the public as well as we can, d) Socialism isn't a "new shiny thing".
I don't have the answers but where I am starting is collecting propaganda that is hopefully more effective than telling people to read dense 200-year-old books.
I think your view of the world is a bit static and deterministic. There are a lot of people just on hexbear who used to be chuds and liberals and they talk about their transition.
I don't mean to imply that those three guys could spark a revolution by following the line that I view as correct. But voices that break the echo chamber that propagates the West's destructive ontology are very valuable in my opinion precisely because there are so few of them. Subreddits like ChapoTrapHouse and GenZedong had to be booted off Reddit because of how influential they had become. No one could have seen this coming a couple of months after they were created.
In the end I sympathise with their desire to maximise their income as opposed to being the no. 1 enemy of the state. But it does not mean they should be spared criticism at least when its honest.
There are a lot of people just on hexbear who used to be chuds and liberals and they talk about their transition.
When you actually ask them for more detailed deets, you'll usually hear the same story, they grew up in a conservative household, drifted Lib in college and then only ended up here due to a falling down the right weird Internet forum holes. Most people don't really evolve past the college Lib phase and I really don't think a handful of podcasted who are already too left for most, them going that last mile that will actually make them untouchable will effect anything.
I'm static and deterministic because that is the reality in the west, our geopolitical and economic position, combined with just how damn good our propaganda is, means that there's really not much you can do, because there's not mass movement to build. Do what you can, start a soup kitchen, help migrants, do some pro-Palestine stuff cuz that's the one anti-imperialist cause that actually has enough popular support in the US to actually have some effect. But there's really not much else, with a lot of stuff going too hard on if anything will just force people to defensively double down. I straight up don't talk about Ukraine to my Lib friends at all because I'm sure if I did it'd just make them even more "Slava Ukraine". You might as well just keep you head low and hand bagels out to the homeless.
It's almost entirely because of second thought, Deprogram, and leftist YouTube that I developed the language I needed to understand the way things are, and was able to find books that I should read.
And even more important, have been doing praxis with local comrades.
A dissenting voice is incredibly important, and to believe that any positive change can come from a few thousand principled people in the west is absurd.
People watch idiot lib shit all the time, look how many of those exist.
Well they've hosted an ultra TWICE. And they did not push back on his anti-china bullshit.
Fair enough. I don't really listen to them anymore. Most of their guests were fine, but a few were sus.
lol basically the deprogram.
maybe a lib thought of mine but i still see them as valuable members of the pipeline.
I'll only contribute as long as you never explicitly call out the extreme liberalism in your audience and take great care to remain "neutral" on all things. I'd hate to support someone who actually stands for what they believe in.
good effort post
