I figure Brace Belden is the biggest name around these parts, but I can only listen to TrueAnon for so long. Any others with more of an academic background who are still entertaining?
Breht O'Shea of Revolutionary Left Radio is probably one of the most principled people I've listened to.
He is so consistently good at explaining difficult subjects and always has great guests on. OP if you read this, Red Menace is great too
Is Angela Davis still an ML? In the US, I would think she would be up there. She doesn't do videos or podcasts, but she has written a lot of good stuff on the prison/police abolition movement and intersectional feminism.
No, her experiences with the new communist movements was bad enough that in their and the ussr's collapse she started a group in cpusa, Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS), to turn away from orthodox Marxism Leninism, and when those proposals were rejected she left the party. She has not been an ml most likely since the late 1980s.
Personally I'm an anarchist, but I see Slavoj Zizek and Richard Wolff recommended by Marxist comrades often, I suppose Matt Christman's cushvlogs may scratch the 'academic but still entertaining' itch
I could be wrong about zizek and wolff in that their simply marxists rather than MLs, but I'm sure I've heard matt refer to himself as an marxist-leninist for what it's worth
Matt is absolutely not an ML. Neither is zizek or Wolff, both are just Marxists, though very different Marxists from each other.
Fair enough, re matt not being an ML, has he said otherwise? Or are you inferring because some of his takes don't align with ML thought?
Matt is definitely a Marxist in the sense that Marx's view of history is how Matt interprets things, but I don't think he believes in a vanguard party form as MLs do or in a theory of socialism in one country. As far as statements he's made, he's explicitly said on stream I think that he adherer's to no tendency as they are more often than not aesthetic choices, which is for most of the online left fair.
I do know Matt used to be an active DSA member however he has not been since the pod took off. I don't know if he's still a dues paying member. He still I think overall supports the org compared to any other in the United States, as do all the other hosts. Amber is still an active member.
Zizek was an anti-Tito tool of regime change in Yugoslavia when he was younger, he isn't a Marxist-Leninist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavoj_%C5%BDi%C5%BEek#Politics
I think he barely even calls himself a communist. He's among the sort of left-wing 'thinkers' who is allowed a space in media, alongside Chomsky and others. Not that they're bad necessarily, but I don't think their views about other countries or history at least should be taken too seriously.
