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Nah he’s taking the piss (ie sardonic/ironic) given his whole angle (see below).
Doesn’t mean he’s always right (though his irony here in this is example is just generally correct) or even a scientific socialist given his anti-russian and anti-chinese rhetoric echoing imperial talking points (even anti-maduro stuff in the past regarding elections, from what I recall).
But he is otherwise quite anti-west including holding most westerners (especially USAmericans) accountable for the crimes of their countries. Which is why he sometimes comes off sounding correct because even if you don’t know a thing about socialism or imperialism, being anti-western can sometimes be not too bad an heuristic on politics given how awful the West is and the commanding heights of imperialism being the US.
He openly admits that his viewers have a parasocial relationship with youtubers, that his channel isn’t some revolutionary avenue, and that he is happy to make money making easy dunks such as on pro-zionists. Some of the videos on his main channel can be educational (such as on Nazi Germany’s inspiration from the US with manifest Destiny and Lebensraum).
But he is also a good example that if one wants to extend their political educstion beyond BE level of anti-western imperialism then self claimed marxists better get to grips of prodhounism, dialectical materialism and start reading broadly beyond Settlers*.
*= has no real grounded theory of political economy on why the global labour aristocracy / bourgoisie proleteriat also includes people of colour, especially in the West. It’s great book to introduce someone how bad the history of white western proleteriat is but then hits its limitations quickly.
5·4 days agoThanks for the share!
I have yet to read the full paper but that abstract and a cursory purview is not promising of the validity of the conclusions the paper is implying regarding Covid-19 vaccinations; there appears to be no meaty analysis of:
- how the populations studied aren’t reflecting increasingly diminished access to healthcare,
- that confirming a vaccination is so much easier than a recent or historical covid-19 infection
- there are no known pathognomic symptoms of COVID-19 other than maybe anosmia that distinguish from other viral illnesses, and there is no method of diagnosing a subclinical covid-19 infection noted in each of those patients that got a vaccine and then a subsequent cancer
- and all of the above is on the background of known effects of COVID-19 pathophysiology on the immune system, especially T-cell mediated pathways
I was interested initially because of potential analysis on mRNA vaccines. The most curious thing for me on the paper is potential site injection cancers and I have to read it in more detail but superificially the way they seem to explain it appears to be a bit shoddily done and therefore gets me questioning its validity.
4·7 days agoDidn’t have the energy in me to reframe it so it sounded more constructive than combative. “Being right” ain’t good enough; I have to hold myself to a better standard.
As a rule of thumb, when considering “outside” interference alone as opposed to willing collaboration with an oppurtunist intelligence service what characteristics of a given social group lends itself to align with the paradigms of US empire. The reason the CIA was so prevalent and effective is not just the brute force approach of the US but also the litany of collaborationist forces of non-western bourgoisie/petty-bourgoisie and their labour aristocrats with their class preferences.
The Catholic Church as a central institution has a similar strength of record in defending Liberation Theology as Chomsky does against imperialism.
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Second one I am familiar with but the first I am not; thanks for the recommendation
For What Is To Be Done: I don’t think we collectively we have an answer that does not end up being waiting for Global South spearheaded accelerationism but the latter is not good enough from a Westerner perspective - a materialist political movement also has to come from within as well. But as marxists we should make/stake claims in theory, even with the risk of being “wrong”, and feel the response/heat we get from it to fine tune our practice (ie dialectics).
Lemmygrad is still susceptible to westernism (despite it being arugable one of, if not the best, reddit-like forums on the anglosphere. And I too am guilty of this) and comments like yours are excellent analyses of symptoms.
There are broadly two recurring styles in my view. One is the riot: spontaneous, emotionally charged, sometimes violent, often met with sharp repression, but lacking durable organization, coherent leadership, concrete demands, or any capacity to sustain itself beyond the moment. The other is the parade: non-violent, usually permitted or tolerated, more organized on the surface, but structurally hollow, no leverage, no escalation strategy, no consequences for being ignored. I focus on the “parade” not because riots don’t happen, but because parades are culturally and politically dominant in the West. They are normalized, celebrated, taught as the legitimate form of dissent, and elevated in the cultural zeitgeist as the model of “good protest.” That makes them far more analytically significant. They shape how people understand politics, what kinds of action are deemed acceptable, and crucially what kinds are ruled out in advance. Neither form, however, really qualifies as protest in a meaningful political sense. Both lack what actually matters: mass organization, enforceable demands, and a credible threat of escalation if ignored or repressed. One burns hot and collapses; the other marches safely and dissipates. The state can absorb both without fear. That’s the core issue. The problem isn’t tone or terminology, it’s that Western protest culture is seemingly structurally incapable of converting mass discontent into anything other than showmanship.
This is such a banger of a comment that if you ever get the chance please flesh it out into a post/substack/essay series etc and also with what you propose should happen from a dialectical materialist perspective (with citations etc). Only if you ever get the chance/time.
(If the person you’re replying to reads this: please don’t take this personally from me against you. I too am still learning and your posts are always an interesting read.)
First paragraph is correct.
Second paragraph concedes at some level that material conditions informs the idea but then backtracks to criticism of a lack of a type of metaphysical conception of change. This latter is just the other side of the coin of those who are firmly in the camp of brainwashing as an explanation for lack of persuasion of westerners towards more significant anti-imperialism (it is not).
- https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/
- https://redsails.org/false-witnesses/
- https://redsails.org/dont-work-that-way/
(Everyone should also read that last link on how advertisements work)
5·9 days agoColourism and anti-black/anti-indigenous racism helps with the reaction; in fact the material conditions enforcing these maybe the primary component here.
No they will have to cultivate one; the material conditions of settler colonialism and imperialism are obstructions for which those benefits need to be impeded (and currently increasingly being done so by successive US governments as the Global South resists).
Even where one may be able to find it in immigrants from the Global South, it is not a given because there is a tendancy to resolve the contradiction of your homeland having its people and resources plundered by becoming/collaborating with the plunderer (ie extends beyond gusanoism)
===
I would also add progressiveness found in Westerners often hits a wall when challenging imperialism sufficiently because it is the improvement of material conditions from Global South exploitation that afforded this; any western “rights” for children/women/LGBTQ/non-white westerners/anti-ableism though maybe hard fought for domestically was ulitmately won due to the above imperialist subsidy - and the reaction and deterioration of the above is directly proportional to the changes in those international relarionships with the global proleteriat.
Western protests don’t “fail” in some tragic way, they’re never structured to succeed in the first place: no durable mass organization, no discipline, no concrete enforceable demands, no escalation strategy, and crucially no mechanism that makes the state fear consequences if it ignores them.
💯 ^This. So much this. Very well said.
For those still lurking:
- How Gene Sharp’s Neoliberal Nonviolence Shaped the Left https://redsails.org/marcie-smith-gene-sharp/
13·10 days agothis was a very logical move by her. the sanctions were still very new (started by Obama in 2015-16), and Trump seemed very bribe-able right then. it would have been a dereliction of her duty to the people of Venezuela to not give it a shot. if it had worked, it would have prevented a lot of pain for Venezuelans, and likely much less of the social instability that Maduro is getting blamed for.
^This.
Absolutely; this paper has been my go to reference countless times. Lancet also have done a more realistic estimate on the genocide as well (which you may already know).
Do you think it’s part of the manufacturing of consent to give the idea that Venezuela is all alone and their allies will abandon them in hopes of weakening morale within Venezuela?
I thought about your question more. It may well be a signifier to embolden right wing parties and media in the Americas about the isolation of the left in the western hemisphere. I saw Prashad’s interview on Breakthrough News which echoed the above and talks about the Angry Tide vs Pink Tide.
I suspect its the faction of western capital who feel the faction of capital supporting Trump’s administration is not belligerent enough against Russia; the latter who feel collectively they should cut their losses against perceived competing capitalist countries and focus on socialist countries and the pro-social projects that make up the Pink Tide of the Americas.
I no longer believe in manufacturing consent as I feel it starts with the ideal of convincing other people through ideas rather than their material conditions that then form peoples’ beliefs. (Dialectical materialism: the material is always before the idea). In essence, I believe what is considered manufacturing consent is in reality a narrative for license of imperial bigotry (which is why people aren’t keep “falling” for new lies; they are instead intelligently looking for new lies that backup their imperial relations as a class).
What we consider as “manufacturing consent” is actually a social advertisement of the current spectrum of acceptable ideas to publically believe that will not ruin one’s social standing in society (ie the chance to become a capitalist or maintain being a capitalist, or the chance for a worker to find paid work or keep paid work). Though this may be seen as the “stick” remember the real “carrot” of the average westerners’ lives being subsided by the explitation of the global south.
Manufacturing Consent (Chomsky) < Inventing Reality (Parenti) < “Brainwashing” is not real (Day):
15·10 days agoLiberalism = please give deference to our preferred “oligarchy”; the “elite” aren’t just the richest but the bulk of the reactionary masses that make up the west. Their legalism is their justice; it’s their magic paper:
Russia is willing to “give US free rein in Venezuela in exchange for Ukraine
I don’t buy it. What would this even mean in practice? It just really goes to show the condescending perspective these “journalists” have against the global south. It’s another one on the tally for Trump=bad because he didn’t do it the “right way”.
Attempt to bolster the security of the Bourgoisie Proleteriat and petty-bourgoisie by reducing the pool of eligible candidates, using perceived lack of allegiance to Whiteness as a filtering mechanism.