This is not a commie analysis, it’s sloppy complaining / finger pointing:
This is a funny statement coming from the podcaster left that tends to do little more than pontificate.
It’s not going to suddenly “wake up” the Yankee left for them to be told by a podcaster that they are doing a shitty job and that others did more with worse conditions. That’s getting into shitty individualist-style “tough love” dialogue.
The fact that other places had way worse conditions is part of the reason why they did a better job. Of course it’s easier to turn people’s disenfranchisement with conditions into education and organized revolutionaries when their conditions are godawful. Harder when their conditions are good enough that they still feel like they have a lot to lose and risk by opposing.
This does not mean people don’t have any agency or blame, but vague finger pointing among “the left” doesn’t elucidate anything or improve organization tactics. And putting the successes of the empire on the failures of the left in the imperial core is asinine. It completely removes the responsibility of the neocons and neolibs who have actively tried to organize for a more barbaric, exploitative world; who for decades have used imperial power to violently crush any chance at another commie project they can.
Can podcasters please at least try to set a good example instead of using their platform to voice whatever random thought pops into their head?
Edit for an addendum: “easier” is probably a poor way to put it on my part; what I’m trying to get at there is something like “more strategically feasible than otherwise.” Not suggesting that living through hellish conditions and having to organize a revolution is in any way easy.
Maybe this would be a worthwhile view if American leftists didn’t keep on falling for dead-end entryist demsoc candidates (i.e Mamdani, AOC, Sanders, etc). No shame in falling for it once, but to learn nothing from those experiences and to continue letting momentum be subsumed into dead-end reformism for decades on end is most certainly a failure.
American leftists denounce Venezuala, Cuba, China, USSR, and Iran but get very defensive when it comes to criticism toward their domestic collaboration with imperialist organisations such as the DNC and DSA. More principled solidarity with anti-imperialist forces, no more dead-end moralist socdem entryism.
I think the comment by @Marat is an appropriate response. The “left” is a vague and ambiguous term that seems to often just mean liberals on social media.
Because in my experience the comrades in the core that do subscribe to revolutionary ideologies and are involved in organizing seem to have a clear-eyed view of figures like Mamdani and AOC. They understand pretty clearly that the goal of participating in elections is to disrupt and educate, not to funnel energy back into the Democratic wing of the corporate American uniparty.
The problem is the failure to build real political power in the imperial core due to a variety of variables. We can talk about accountability for these failures with the revolutionary left, but imo it would help to stop concentrating so much on how liberals are behaving. Lumping communists and anarchists in with liberals in these critiques is also just giving into the same framing that fascists set up anyway.
Nothing you said refutes anything that I said. What you are bringing up is a worthwhile criticism (and notably, a specific criticism). However, it is also not the entirety of the Yankee “left’s” history and present, and it still needs somewhere to go with it if it’s going to be more than venting: For example, why do people keep getting caught up in soc dem politics instead of going further? Is it a strategic failure of commies? Are the material conditions driving people very strongly toward reform instead of revolution? What are the causes? Pointing fingers is easy. Figuring out why things are happening often takes more effort.
In the podcaster clip, there isn’t even an attempt to do specific criticism. You took two short paragraphs to already elucidate more than this podcaster did in two minutes of rambling.
I’m not here to refute anything personally. I am not disputing the idea that Americans aren’t living in conditions that would make them as revolutionary as people in Algeria during the French occupation.
As for what Americans should do? Uh, gee maybe rally behind a principally anti-imperialist third party that doesn’t focus exclusively on entryism. Despite my criticism of the PSL, it at least contests elections as an actual party instead of being a glorified caucus for the democrats in the way the DSA is. Either that, or Americans would have to loose a sufficient level of economic advantage before even considering alternatives.
that’s what I was referring to when I said it doesn’t refute what I said. You seemed to be saying that what I said was not a worthwhile view.
As for what Americans should do? Uh, gee maybe rally behind a principally anti-imperialist third party that doesn’t focus exclusively on entryism. Despite my criticism of the PSL, it at least contests elections as an actual party instead of being a glorified caucus for the democrats in the way the DSA is. Either that, or Americans would have to loose a sufficient level of economic advantage before even considering alternatives.
I would think most on here are already in agreement on that. That the soc dem imperialist stuff does not move the needle anywhere (or, not anywhere good). The how is more what I’m asking about. I don’t expect you to have the answers, but it is a real problem to solve, not a magic fix.
I respectfully disagree. The issue is correctly identified, it’s up to my fellow USians to identify and try remedies other than signs with funny slogans. And maybe not everyone who wants to participate in a more meaningful way can participate in larger ways; but that in no way negates recalcitrant children indignantly slapping away the hands offering the medicine that would save their own lives.
By who? I hope you don’t mean the podcast clip. Because I listened to it again, thinking maybe I had missed something. No. It is virtually identical to someone doing a bootstraps scolding “tough love” speech about a person’s progress in life. It doesn’t get into strategy or anything like that, at most vaguely alludes to doing an economic blockade in passing. He literally says that the bombs are the fault of the “american left” for not being effective! As if they are the ones pulling the trigger. How is this helpful?
My compatriots aren’t even willing to investigate beyond what Bernie and AOC say, and rage at people who suggest they do. So yeah, while we’re not personally pulling triggers and pushing buttons, we’re all pretty complicit. And until that happens, we continue to be complicit.
No, I’m not going to victim blame myself and say I’m complicit for something I have no control over because I haven’t bootstraps rallied the US to be otherwise. If you want to say people who know better and bury their heads in the sand are complicit, that’s one thing. To imply people who do know better and haven’t yet lifted the world on their shoulders are complicit is nonsense and I’m not going to put up with it on here or anywhere else. The west is never going to be moved by scolding. It just absorbs it as hair shirt penitential state of mind and keeps on doing what it’s doing.
I am being defensive and am not ashamed to say that, and it’s very much meant like that as a whole from my end rather than offensive. If there is anyone I’m going on the offensive about, it’s the podcaster class, in order to defend from shitty takes levied by them. This thread is premised on a podcaster scolding an entire region’s liberation movements, under the same broad brush, as if it’s some message they need to hear that no one has ever said to them (surely this time telling them they suck will move the needle, no one has ever done that before). And it is a great example of the problems with taking these type of commentators seriously as “thought leaders”. He can just mouth off and we are left with the fallout of whatever friction it brings up, while he doesn’t even have to be here to defend what he said.
This is not a commie analysis, it’s sloppy complaining / finger pointing:
This is a funny statement coming from the podcaster left that tends to do little more than pontificate.
It’s not going to suddenly “wake up” the Yankee left for them to be told by a podcaster that they are doing a shitty job and that others did more with worse conditions. That’s getting into shitty individualist-style “tough love” dialogue.
The fact that other places had way worse conditions is part of the reason why they did a better job. Of course it’s easier to turn people’s disenfranchisement with conditions into education and organized revolutionaries when their conditions are godawful. Harder when their conditions are good enough that they still feel like they have a lot to lose and risk by opposing.
This does not mean people don’t have any agency or blame, but vague finger pointing among “the left” doesn’t elucidate anything or improve organization tactics. And putting the successes of the empire on the failures of the left in the imperial core is asinine. It completely removes the responsibility of the neocons and neolibs who have actively tried to organize for a more barbaric, exploitative world; who for decades have used imperial power to violently crush any chance at another commie project they can.
Can podcasters please at least try to set a good example instead of using their platform to voice whatever random thought pops into their head?
Edit for an addendum: “easier” is probably a poor way to put it on my part; what I’m trying to get at there is something like “more strategically feasible than otherwise.” Not suggesting that living through hellish conditions and having to organize a revolution is in any way easy.
Maybe this would be a worthwhile view if American leftists didn’t keep on falling for dead-end entryist demsoc candidates (i.e Mamdani, AOC, Sanders, etc). No shame in falling for it once, but to learn nothing from those experiences and to continue letting momentum be subsumed into dead-end reformism for decades on end is most certainly a failure.
American leftists denounce Venezuala, Cuba, China, USSR, and Iran but get very defensive when it comes to criticism toward their domestic collaboration with imperialist organisations such as the DNC and DSA. More principled solidarity with anti-imperialist forces, no more dead-end moralist socdem entryism.
I think the comment by @Marat is an appropriate response. The “left” is a vague and ambiguous term that seems to often just mean liberals on social media.
Because in my experience the comrades in the core that do subscribe to revolutionary ideologies and are involved in organizing seem to have a clear-eyed view of figures like Mamdani and AOC. They understand pretty clearly that the goal of participating in elections is to disrupt and educate, not to funnel energy back into the Democratic wing of the corporate American uniparty.
The problem is the failure to build real political power in the imperial core due to a variety of variables. We can talk about accountability for these failures with the revolutionary left, but imo it would help to stop concentrating so much on how liberals are behaving. Lumping communists and anarchists in with liberals in these critiques is also just giving into the same framing that fascists set up anyway.
Nothing you said refutes anything that I said. What you are bringing up is a worthwhile criticism (and notably, a specific criticism). However, it is also not the entirety of the Yankee “left’s” history and present, and it still needs somewhere to go with it if it’s going to be more than venting: For example, why do people keep getting caught up in soc dem politics instead of going further? Is it a strategic failure of commies? Are the material conditions driving people very strongly toward reform instead of revolution? What are the causes? Pointing fingers is easy. Figuring out why things are happening often takes more effort.
In the podcaster clip, there isn’t even an attempt to do specific criticism. You took two short paragraphs to already elucidate more than this podcaster did in two minutes of rambling.
I’m not here to refute anything personally. I am not disputing the idea that Americans aren’t living in conditions that would make them as revolutionary as people in Algeria during the French occupation.
As for what Americans should do? Uh, gee maybe rally behind a principally anti-imperialist third party that doesn’t focus exclusively on entryism. Despite my criticism of the PSL, it at least contests elections as an actual party instead of being a glorified caucus for the democrats in the way the DSA is. Either that, or Americans would have to loose a sufficient level of economic advantage before even considering alternatives.
You said
that’s what I was referring to when I said it doesn’t refute what I said. You seemed to be saying that what I said was not a worthwhile view.
I would think most on here are already in agreement on that. That the soc dem imperialist stuff does not move the needle anywhere (or, not anywhere good). The how is more what I’m asking about. I don’t expect you to have the answers, but it is a real problem to solve, not a magic fix.
I respectfully disagree. The issue is correctly identified, it’s up to my fellow USians to identify and try remedies other than signs with funny slogans. And maybe not everyone who wants to participate in a more meaningful way can participate in larger ways; but that in no way negates recalcitrant children indignantly slapping away the hands offering the medicine that would save their own lives.
By who? I hope you don’t mean the podcast clip. Because I listened to it again, thinking maybe I had missed something. No. It is virtually identical to someone doing a bootstraps scolding “tough love” speech about a person’s progress in life. It doesn’t get into strategy or anything like that, at most vaguely alludes to doing an economic blockade in passing. He literally says that the bombs are the fault of the “american left” for not being effective! As if they are the ones pulling the trigger. How is this helpful?
My compatriots aren’t even willing to investigate beyond what Bernie and AOC say, and rage at people who suggest they do. So yeah, while we’re not personally pulling triggers and pushing buttons, we’re all pretty complicit. And until that happens, we continue to be complicit.
No, I’m not going to victim blame myself and say I’m complicit for something I have no control over because I haven’t bootstraps rallied the US to be otherwise. If you want to say people who know better and bury their heads in the sand are complicit, that’s one thing. To imply people who do know better and haven’t yet lifted the world on their shoulders are complicit is nonsense and I’m not going to put up with it on here or anywhere else. The west is never going to be moved by scolding. It just absorbs it as hair shirt penitential state of mind and keeps on doing what it’s doing.
I’m glad you read all my comments and took them as a whole, rather than being defensive.
I am being defensive and am not ashamed to say that, and it’s very much meant like that as a whole from my end rather than offensive. If there is anyone I’m going on the offensive about, it’s the podcaster class, in order to defend from shitty takes levied by them. This thread is premised on a podcaster scolding an entire region’s liberation movements, under the same broad brush, as if it’s some message they need to hear that no one has ever said to them (surely this time telling them they suck will move the needle, no one has ever done that before). And it is a great example of the problems with taking these type of commentators seriously as “thought leaders”. He can just mouth off and we are left with the fallout of whatever friction it brings up, while he doesn’t even have to be here to defend what he said.