Source.

On Nathan J. Robinson. I learnt yesterday that he didn’t do any union-busting, and the departing writers/editors who stirred up so much drama on left-Twitter were lying all along. This article by Yasmin Nair gives the full breakdown with a lot of receipts.

I was linked this article by @HarryLime@hexbear.net in his post yesterday, where NJR was vindicated on calling out Fetterman being terrible back in 2022. The replies to that tweet are filled with people dunking on Nathan, while the quote tweets, almost all from the past couple days, are filled with everyone apologizing.

It’s pretty interesting to see.

I’m currently going through his other tweets. So far, NJR seems like a pretty decent guy with a lot of good analysis', completely different from the caricature I made up in my mind from memes and tweets.

It’s quite strange. I used to read Current Affairs before the “incident” and even listened to the podcast. I liked everyone there, including Nathan. I guess that’s why when I heard what happened, and saw in real time all the people I liked fighting with each other (well, all the people I recognised from the articles and the podcast dunking Nathan), I felt betrayed in a sense. I remember writing an email or filling out a form or something similar that the writers who’d been “fired” had set up. Maybe I donated money too, but I don’t remember that. If I did, it would be a small amount.

And I stopped my subscription to Current Affairs, changing it to Jacobin instead.

There was a lot of trolling that went on. I don’t think I ever tweeted at him personally, but that doesn’t matter. I know I consumed the tweets and posts (even here and on the subreddit back when it existed!)

Why? For me, I guess, it was a sense of justice mixed with betrayal: here was a man who headed an org I respected who had betrayed these principals we all hold dear, and in doing so hurt these other people who I also like. And the only power I have in enacting “justice” is in ridiculing him a little bit.

But even then, that never achieved anything. I won’t say “dunking” as a whole is useless. It can be useful in bringing people together and giving us a sense of camaraderie, but only when it’s against deserving subjects - billionaires and the like. It’s like part of forming an identity around common things we hate.

But… completely divorced from any other forms of unification, any other ways to group and coalesce, all that left is a weak identity that does nothing but dunk for no other purpose. Thats, I guess, what happened to me.

None of us here became leftists for the purpose of trolling others. Using it to hurt and bully others is what people on the right do, even if they consider themselves apolitical sometimes.

But dunking on Nathan…became that. Didn’t it? In the article, Yasmin Nair points to real world examples of people bullying him. I imagine they did so out of a similar feeling of “betrayal”, and sought “justice” too. But how would that achieve it? It wouldn’t. It can’t.

This happened because we separated our actual politics - leftism - from our online activities. Maybe not all of us, but I’d wage at least quite a few. If Current Affairs had failed in the years between the Incident and the start of Jan, 2024, I would’ve thought “sad this happened, but serves him right” with no thought to the actual damage that would’ve done to the real world impacts of losing a magazine like that to left politics.

That’s a failing on my part. It’s a failing that I let my personal grievances with Nathan (Ill-informed as I now know) shut me off completely from Current Affairs as a whole, with all the great writers who work and publish there, then and now.

I remember there was an effort, early on in this site’s history, of making this place more than just a place to shitpost online - to actually be used to organise. It failed, partly because we were small and partly because we were too resistant. There were also onboarding efforts to allow us to grow to mitigate that first problem, but it ran into the second one, our resistance to change, and, well, here we are today. Is there anyone here who remembers those days? What a mess. Since then, a lot of original people who created and did the heavy lifting of maintaining this site, including creatively, left.

I remember enquiring sometime ago, maybe 2022, maybe 2023, about what happened to the writers who left Current Affairs. Have they found other jobs? Where are they working, publishing, podcasting? I wanted to support them. I didn’t figure it out. Some have now deleted their Twitter, others have privated their accounts. Maybe it’s for the best.

Maybe things could’ve been different if we could’ve grown and changed and been the place for atleast left-adjacent people to come by the time Reddit exploded and people started to migrate to Lemmy. Who knows? That’s a different world, and probably also a different post. But at least we could learn something from our mistakes. I am trying to from mine. —

This went in directions I wasn’t expecting. I just typed out my thoughts as they came to me. You don’t really have to read it.

TLDR: “I’m sorry, Nathan” and maybe dunking, without any thing else, is not good.

  • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    Weirdness exists on spectrum.

    Eccentric - Plain Weird - Creepy

    I think leftism would be better served in the long run if we hung out on the Eccentric part of that continuum like Our Beautiful Velvet Boy as opposed to the plain weird verging on creepy that a lot of leftists seem to prefer.

    • voight [he/him, any]
      ·
      10 months ago

      I like how this won't even get removed due to sectarianism because you're blanketly trashing "a lot of leftists" as creepy

      • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
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        edit-2
        10 months ago

        Should posts making fun of NJR for dressing like a cross between Colonel Sanders and the Joker be banned for sectarianism?

        Sectarianism would be favoring one ideology over another. I'm making a point about messaging and aesthetics, which transcends ideological lines.

        • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          10 months ago

          Should posts making fun of NJR for dressing like a cross between Colonel Sanders and the Joker be banned for sectarianism?

          No, because social democrats aren't leftists so NJR is fair game

          I'm making a point about messaging and aesthetics, which transcends ideological lines.

          Hilarious you say this here and other comments in this thread defending NJR are mad that we criticized him "based on his vibe". Like which is it? Are we allowed to call obvious bad vibe dorks what they are, or are we supposed to never be mean to your dork parasocial friends?

          • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
            ·
            10 months ago

            Are we allowed to call obvious bad vibe dorks what they are, or are we supposed to never be mean to your dork parasocial friends?

            You can do whatever you want, but don't whinge at me when no one gives you the deference you inexplicably think you deserve for your "trenchant analysis".

        • voight [he/him, any]
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          edit-2
          10 months ago

          the plain weird verging on creepy that a lot of leftists seem to prefer

          This is just a self-own framed as some kind of tastemaking observation. I think it would be really cool to somehow be able to unpack the whole population online and offline that gave you this impression.

          I think of a sexy ass dude with a hammer, or a guy in the jungle with a gun who can transcend death. Sorry you have to think of Twitter or NJR.

          • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
            ·
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            I didn't say "marxists seem to prefer" or "demSocs seem to prefer" or "anarchists seem to prefer". That would have been sectarianism.

            I'm making a criticism of a broad movement I'm a part of (leftism) for conisdering it more 'acceptable' to engage in weird/creepy things like post-revolution revenge fantasies ( "wall" "gulag" etc) than it is to do eccentric things like wear an cravat.

            • voight [he/him, any]
              ·
              10 months ago

              Maybe, just maybe, we need people who want to put Jeff Bezos into a cage with a malfunctioning Fulfillment Center robot arm more than we need your cravat? You ever think of that?

              • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
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                edit-2
                10 months ago

                Talking a big game on twitter about wanting to put Jeff Bezos in a cage and wearing a cravat are both individual aesthetic decisions with no material impact. So I'm not sure why the former is 'based' and the second is 'cringe'. Maybe latent homophobia? Beats me.

                • voight [he/him, any]
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                  edit-2
                  10 months ago

                  The reason you think people need your advice about dropping the adventurism for the cravat is because those are the only two elements of your environment. The world may never recover from the creation of social democracy

                  • 420blazeit69 [he/him]
                    ·
                    10 months ago

                    Dude you wrote three responses to the same comment in three minutes and posted them all

                    logout

                    • voight [he/him, any]
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                      10 months ago

                      I know a coliseum thread when I see one! Get in here you coward!

                      • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
                        ·
                        edit-2
                        10 months ago

                        Ever notice how many users of this site are totally fine with chauvinist social democrats who attack the USSR, attack China, attack DPRK and want free healthcare? These users don't outright claim these positions (they know they'll get jumped on) they instead just come out of the woodwork once a fortnight to defend people who hold them and play word games and use emotional/aesthetic appeals instead of outright defending the succ dem worldview. They did this for "the squad". They did this for Bernie. They do this for NJR. They do this for "the Iron Front" anti-communists, 3-arrow types. They do it for "Rojava" American airbase. They do it for Chomsky. They literally cannot stop themselves from defending social imperialists while claiming they aren't social imperialists themselves, but that we are just "creepy" for disagreeing.

                        Ew violent revolution? What are you, Creepies? You want revenge on the rich? You are a serial killer!

                          • voight [he/him, any]
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                            edit-2
                            10 months ago

                            This is generally the point at which I pivot into screaming about the development of the 2africa cable, how western telecoms are likely sabotaging other african cables, & how the periphery getting better internet will change everything, but Zuck will control how if we let him. How we need to get Hexbear into Somali twitter (just kidding)

                          • voight [he/him, any]
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                            edit-2
                            10 months ago

                            I mean this shit is widespread, nobody's saying this originated with the site or you. Aren't you also talking about the left at large when it suits you? Mix it up, go to lots of apps with western online socdems and lets the sameyness sink in. The horror! The whole fixation on "ideology salad" is stapled over milquetoast status quo-reinforcing ideas but not-so-secretly they believe it makes them the most radical, the Goldilocks solution, not too radical, not too online, not too reactionary, not too based.

                            Left unity spaces are generally meant to reinforce this dynamic. Although if I could make any website it would be a decoy soviet site that gently guides people into Samir Amin thought & a true comprehension of their tragic downfall rather than blind nostalgia. I can see how it could be done right. (BY ME flowey-smug )

                          • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
                            ·
                            10 months ago

                            I’m a social imperialist but it’s ok cause I’m ironic and smug about it

                            You have neoliberal redditor energy and vibes right now

                            • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                              ·
                              10 months ago

                              Look you can't have your cake and eat it too by getting pissy that no one will own up to being critical of the ussr or China and by getting pissy when someone does point out that they've been critical of both on here.

                              • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
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                                edit-2
                                10 months ago

                                huh? That doesn't make any sense. I can be mad at social chauvinists and mad at social chauvinists. There's no contradiction here

                                • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                  ·
                                  10 months ago

                                  Yeah I you've got plenty legitimate reasons to be mad from your perspective so it's not apparent why you had to start just making some up earlier.

                                  • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
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                                    edit-2
                                    10 months ago

                                    Myers says that the DPRK’s governing ideology has been misunderstood by the United States. We think of it as “authoritarian communist,” thanks to its all-powerful state and various Stalinist trappings. But Myers says this is misleading: The regime is closer in character to fascism, because of its racism and nationalism (Stalinists have many unappealing qualities, but they do not build their ideology around race and nation). The communist elements, Myers says, are window dressing. Even Kim Il-Sung himself knew little about Marxism, and he dismayed the Russians when they quizzed him on it. And strictly speaking, the regime operates as a monarchy. Myers says that “socialism” is not the right term, because it doesn’t describe the self-image we see in the state’s propaganda, which heavily emphasizes the purity of North Koreans and their need for a protective parent-leader. Demick acknowledges that Kim Il-Sung “rejected traditional Communist teachings about universalism” and “was a Korean nationalist in the extreme” who treated Koreans almost as a “chosen people.”

                                    For example, personally, I find Myers’ explanation appealing. If I’m being honest, though, that’s probably partly because it lumps Kim Jong Un in with right-wing fascists, and distances him from the left. I’ve always felt that “socialists” have no more responsibility for dictatorships that call themselves socialist than democratic republicans have for, well, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Since I oppose dictatorships universally, pointing out that there have been “leftist” dictatorships poses no actual challenge to my politics. Instinctively, though, I confess that I’d feel relieved if Kim Jong Un was lumped in with the right rather than the left.

                                    https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/04/attempting-to-understand-north-korea

                                    NJR has broken "left unity" by attacking a socialist nation his country is at war with and genocided, killing millions of people in. He repeats the lies of WSJ, NYT and the Atlantic contributors here uncritically. He is utter scum and your smug shtick is pathetic. You both fail your revolutionary duty

                                    • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                      ·
                                      10 months ago

                                      You both fail your revolutionary duty

                                      I'm honestly baffled you can write this on shit posting website and convince yourself that the other party is the one being smug.

                                      • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
                                        ·
                                        10 months ago

                                        why have you never directly engaged my points, only dodged them as glancing blows? Why can you not respond without smug misdirection?

                                        • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                          ·
                                          10 months ago

                                          We inhabit such radically different and incommesurable worldviews that I don't see you as having any points. You think I'm a smug social fascist and I think your bloodlusting radicalism is an affectation and the notion that we can hash this out on the battlefield of ideas is what you might descibre as "reddit debatebro cringe".

                                          • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
                                            ·
                                            edit-2
                                            10 months ago

                                            I'm an Egyptian-American communist who has done extreme violence in the past and fled my home country during civil war. I am the one that will be doing the revolution, not you. You will be complaining the whole time about how mean it is. Yes we have totally different worldview, mine is revolutionary and yours is Liberal reformist and nihilistic.

                                              • voight [he/him, any]
                                                ·
                                                10 months ago

                                                Smug over literally nothing just because you can't say "okay fair point" you have to undermine the conversation in every way possible.

                                              • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
                                                ·
                                                edit-2
                                                10 months ago

                                                It will be badass. You are literally just a neoliberal at this point, you don't even want a revolution or believe there will ever be one. You're just a checked out post-leftist, go be a normie Liberal and stop boring us

                                                • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                                  ·
                                                  10 months ago

                                                  Except neoliberal has actual meaning beyond "someone who disagrees with me online."

                                                  Those guys hate me even more than you do, back from the subreddit days.

                                                  • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
                                                    ·
                                                    10 months ago

                                                    Why? Both of you believe Marxism is incorrect, that there's not going to be any revolution to ever worry about, that we should be polite and care about optics, that imperialism isn't a big deal really it's fine & we should do some slight reforms to capitalism to keep it stable.

                                                    You are very, very similar in all the ways that matter at this point. Perhaps you've changed, you maybe used to give a shit about something and that pissed off your fellow traveler neolibs. You could reconcile now though now that you're both nihilist capitalists.

                                                    • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                                      ·
                                                      edit-2
                                                      10 months ago

                                                      Except I don't believe any of those things attributed to me, apart from maybe "[some of] Marxism is incorrect", which is not even a statement that I think makes sense within a Marxist perspective, and that my issues with Marxism are about methodology and epistemology, not conclusions.

                                                      • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
                                                        ·
                                                        10 months ago

                                                        you seem to have a real problem with the conclusions of "revolutionary defeatism" seeing as you openly scoff at it and feel no need whatsoever to avoid imperialism, even for widely circulated "socialist" publications

                                                        • voight [he/him, any]
                                                          ·
                                                          10 months ago

                                                          Revolutionary defeatism is only for Russians, who should know better than to support a government violating international law.

                                                        • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                                          ·
                                                          10 months ago

                                                          Once again, this is an issue of world views. I don't view idle criticism on a shit posting forum, or even a socialist magazine as "imperialism". Imperialism is something engaged in by state actors, not schmucks on the Internet.

                                                          Obviously an individual can defend imperialism, but criticism of US opponents isn't that. I don't have to pretend to enjoy Irans homosexuality jurisprudence to state affirmatively that we have no right or cause to interfere with their internal affairs.

                                                          • voight [he/him, any]
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                                                            edit-2
                                                            10 months ago

                                                            Simply by virtue of being a socialist magazine Current Affairs escapes all the criticisms of imperialist media. That's pretty convenient considering this thread started with their links to The Atlantic.

                                                            You know, that's quite a few degrees of Kevin Bacon fewer between us and Current Affairs when it comes to sucking up to people like David Frum.

                                                            EDIT: wrong thread I'm literally just seeing these in all comments now lmao

                                                            • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                                              ·
                                                              edit-2
                                                              10 months ago

                                                              Look when you can point to Current Affairs calling for sanctions or no fly zones and humanitarian bombing campaigns, I'll take anti-imperialist criticisms against them seriously.

                                                                • voight [he/him, any]
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                                                                  edit-2
                                                                  10 months ago

                                                                  No, he won't. He'll act cute and then drop "free Iran!" to try to waste more of people's time.

                                                                    • voight [he/him, any]
                                                                      ·
                                                                      10 months ago

                                                                      Do you really expect people to listen to you explain why Current Affairs would not be prosecuted at hypothetical Maoist Nuremberg Trials of the US media class but Tucker would, and this is the bar we need to meet.

                                                                  • voight [he/him, any]
                                                                    ·
                                                                    edit-2
                                                                    10 months ago

                                                                    Do you really expect people to listen to you explain why Current Affairs would not be prosecuted at hypothetical Maoist Nuremberg Trials of the US media class but Tucker would, and this is the bar we need to meet.

                                                                    • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                                                      ·
                                                                      10 months ago

                                                                      Things would look a lot different if maoists were in position to do a Media Class Nuremberg trial in the US, that's for sure.

                                                                      • voight [he/him, any]
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                                                                        edit-2
                                                                        10 months ago

                                                                        You literally expect me to listen to it.

                                                                        But when Zed talks about how you're rehashing absolute trash "socialism = ressentiment" you literally type out "charlie brown adult noises"

                                                                        • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                                                          ·
                                                                          edit-2
                                                                          10 months ago

                                                                          I don't expect you to listen to it, because said article doesn't exist. You're free to call that bluff though.

                                                                          And I certainly wasn't equating socialism and ressentiment anywhere.

                                                                          • voight [he/him, any]
                                                                            ·
                                                                            edit-2
                                                                            10 months ago

                                                                            So if you review the conversation instead of devoting all your energy to coming up with gotchas, you will discover it was a hypothetical where if you were presented with said article you would still not be a serious person. The bluff exists entirely in your head, out of your desire to own others online. We have been painstakingly explaining shit to you as if you are acting in good faith.

                                                                            Current Affairs can repeat everything The Atlantic & the rest of the US media class says about North Korea without saying "WE MUST BOMB MORE OF THESE CHINESE PEOPLE" and you are satisfied they aren't imperialist media.

                                                                            This is exactly what people mean when they talk about democrats getting deluded that they were radical during Bush years and never letting it go.

                                                                            • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                                                              ·
                                                                              edit-2
                                                                              10 months ago

                                                                              if you review the conversation instead of devoting all your energy to coming up with gotchas

                                                                              Am I hallucinating or were you the one who sent the moldy cheese fake reddit award?

                                                                              Current Affairs can repeat everything The Atlantic & the rest of the US media class says about North Korea without saying "I want to kill those goddamn chinese down to the last hut" and you are satisfied they aren't imperialist media.

                                                                              No, but it can certainly cite The Atlantic and other sources when criticizing NK from a leftist perspective. I'm satisfied they're anti-imperialist media basd on their consistent track record of opposing Western interventions and calling out US hypocrisys when it comes to flouting of international law.

                                                                              You don't get to pretend every criticism is imperialism. Or more correctly, you can, but I'm not going to take it seriously.

                                                                              So once again, stop trying to contort a criticism of North Korean government into something that would fit what seemed to me to be the pretty clear criteria of advocating for Western intervention in another countries internal affairs and find an actual example of that.

                                                                              • voight [he/him, any]
                                                                                ·
                                                                                10 months ago

                                                                                The moldy cheese is not a gotcha. That is an emote dude.

                                                                                I am personally satisfied with Current Affairs standing up for the North Korean working class against the dictatorship

                                                                                Okay. Noted. Have a great night man. Glad I managed to clarify something to you. I saw you do this with the Bolsheviks committing unspeakably based acts against the Romanovs, you'll just keep going forever, patting yourself on the back.

                                                                              • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
                                                                                ·
                                                                                10 months ago

                                                                                every criticism

                                                                                not every criticism, but certainly every one parroted from the mouth of a contributing editor of The Atlantic

                        • voight [he/him, any]
                          ·
                          10 months ago

                          When I realize how bad it is, I go back to viewing whatever segment of the internet as a series of text input fields that produce names of books I can pirate. 😶‍🌫️ I guess I've gone back and forth with western online socdems.

                          • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
                            ·
                            10 months ago

                            Right, hexbear is probably one of the better places on the English speaking internet and it's still infested with these types. Nowhere is safe. Westernism is a disease.

                            • voight [he/him, any]
                              ·
                              10 months ago

                              Sometimes I wonder if anyone else "gets into" https://wallstreetonparade.com/ from my posts and gets the nasty surprise their only prescription for action based on their epic whistleblower analysis is voting for Liz Warren.

                  • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    10 months ago

                    The reason you think people need your advice about dropping the adventurism for the cravat

                    What adventurism? We haven't got any adventurism. The closest we've got to adventurism is a adventurism facade on shitposting.

                • voight [he/him, any]
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  10 months ago

                  Like I mean that ecologically. The creation of neoclassical economics combined with social democracy has completely obliterated class consciousness to the point people are being scolded for supporting "indiscriminate pirate attacks" because they could be raising big mac prices

                • voight [he/him, any]
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  10 months ago

                  No we're talking about people mimicking posh aristocratic culture lmfao you don't get to turn this into homophobia

                  • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    10 months ago

                    The problem with aristocrats isn't that they drop their r's or wear cravats, so who cares if NJR wants to dress as a caricature of one? He's not making us look any more ridiculous than the people posting arcane drilbits on twitter in the Chris Hayes mentions.

                    • voight [he/him, any]
                      ·
                      edit-2
                      10 months ago

                      Well maybe I missed that being the crux of this thread, because it sure looks a whole lot like people directly quoting him and the claims against him. There was passing mention of the outfits. I have been defending NJR's takes for actually BEING BETTER THAN SOME OF THE "PRO-PALESTINE PEOPLE" WHO RUN WITH THE "HOUTHI PIRATES" NARRATIVE BUT ADD "IT'S GOOD ACTUALLY" I don't care about the cravat. He also sucks and is a socdem and the twitter people who like him severely overestimate how funny they are.

                      I care about you thinking people wanting to kill their boss is creepy. It's a sign you have several senses and breathe oxygen, in most cases, like food service. Especially if you have a slappable ass like I do!

                      • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                        ·
                        edit-2
                        10 months ago

                        care about you thinking people wanting to kill their boss is creepy.

                        That is creepy. Hating your boss isn't creepy. Working for a system where they aren't in a position to make your life miserable constantly isn't creepy. But if immediately jumping to "this sucks, wish I could kill him" and harboring consistent, violent thoughts directed at another person isn't creepy, what exactly is creepy supposed to mean?

                        • voight [he/him, any]
                          ·
                          edit-2
                          10 months ago

                          What is creepy is turning the chair around and engaging in this concern trolling because you saw people make adventurist comments. Talking like "my fellow leftists, we have a problem with guillotine jokes. stop making fun of people who wear bow ties" and then explaining you mean tucker carlson when someone is like "what"

                          If you've never heard anyone talk like that and think it's a sign of being a serial killer who harbors actual plans of killing their boss, I can reassure you it is quite common.

                          Joking about pushing the boss into the trash compactor is in fact funny even if it misses the forest for the trees. (Forest being upper management & finance, etcetera.)

                          • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                            ·
                            edit-2
                            10 months ago

                            Joking about pushing the boss into the trash compactor

                            You do know the humor in the joke only works when everyone is on the same page about no one actually wanting to push them into the trash compactor? Obviously occasionally joking about killing your boss isn't creepy. Actually wanting to kill your boss is creepy.

                            If I joke about wanting to jump in traffic to get out of a meeting, it's funny because everyone knows I don't actually want to jump in traffic. If I tell my coworker about wanting to go jump in traffic and they think I mean it, it's somewhat less funny.

                              • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                ·
                                edit-2
                                10 months ago

                                Look, you and I both know the person saying "liberals get the bullet too" on twitter is actually as harmless as Dr. Cravat P. Fancylad, but not everyone does. And I don't appreciate having to repeatedly explain to my brainwormed parents that actually communism doesn't involve lining them up against a wall and shooting them.

                                • voight [he/him, any]
                                  ·
                                  edit-2
                                  10 months ago

                                  Your parents probably won redlining. You will be making shocked posts about how they betrayed your effort to "pill them" (I use pill in a derogatory fashion) likely until the bitter end! Sorry! Other people are easier to pill than them, and matter more!

                                  I know the secret of everyone posting about how their parents or their uber driver almost "got it" this time. They likely won't matter in time either. Not at this rate.

                                • voight [he/him, any]
                                  ·
                                  edit-2
                                  10 months ago

                                  I've had limited conversations like this with clients' employees once we get them drunk, with people like you or your parents. Talking about how leftists saying they all just want to smash up the cities are scaring their neighbors. I don't care about them. If amazon lays them off, they'll have a reason to get it. They will then maybe understand optics work the way PFLP, Hamas, Ansar Allah understand they work. The way that successful revolutionary movements understand optics work.

                                  Not the way all the people "cautioning their fellow leftists" think it works.

                                  • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                    ·
                                    10 months ago

                                    Talking about how leftists saying they all just want to smash up the cities are scaring their neighbors. I don't care about them. If amazon lays them off, they'll have a reason to get it.

                                    Oh yeah, if there's one thing history has shown us conclusively it's that economically anxious and un/underemployed people are immune demonization of the left. We can just wait for their life to get worse and then they'll flock to us.

                                    • voight [he/him, any]
                                      ·
                                      edit-2
                                      10 months ago

                                      And your solution to this is to take people like your parents' conservative concern trolling seriously? Lol? If you stopped thinking wishfully around these people, they will happily start saying shit straight out of literal Stormfront, city subreddits, Sinclair media. And you think you've got your finger on the pulse of the working class.

                                      • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                        ·
                                        10 months ago

                                        And your solution to this is to take people like your parents' conservative concern trolling

                                        I have no idea what concern trolling is even supposed to mean anymore. People views are often incoherent and reactionary, but the notion that their intrinsticly and immutably terrible and pretextual is some weird proto-Christian original sin nonsense that I don't buy.

                                        • voight [he/him, any]
                                          ·
                                          10 months ago

                                          There is a middle path between Calvinist predestination to hell, KKKilling all KKKraKKKers, and viewing everyone as a blob-no-thoughts who betray their class interests + a life of propaganda because they realized the suffering of homeless people and peripheral countries is wrong. They generally need to be told there's nothing in it for them, and how they can change it.

                                          If people can convince themselves there's something in it for them because of a lifetime of xenophobic programming, or dumb ideas about finances, that makes them scared enough there is just not enough time or luck to fix that.

                                    • voight [he/him, any]
                                      ·
                                      10 months ago

                                      If you think BlackRedGuard or the Austin maoists or whatever are the left it would explain so much of this exchange tbqh

                                      • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                        ·
                                        10 months ago

                                        They're a part of it! And so is Our Beautiful Velvet Boy. And my original post was, given the choice between the two, I think the latter is less cringe.

                                        • voight [he/him, any]
                                          ·
                                          edit-2
                                          10 months ago

                                          Fuck the DSA. Fuck nathan j robin$on. Fuck D$A stooge black red guard. LONG LIVE THE BOLIVARIAN REVOLUTION. LONG LIVE ERITREA. LONG LIVE THE DPRK. LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

                                          Note: treating this comment like a reflection of how I speak to others outside Hexbear will be held against you as an example of being silly

                                          I will report my own comment for sectarianism don't worry

                                        • voight [he/him, any]
                                          ·
                                          10 months ago

                                          Also sorry for the exuberance bordering on hostility I'm like venting gases from firing at twitter. I am never going back I got three people to lock their account. It's time to end thjs

                                            • voight [he/him, any]
                                              ·
                                              10 months ago

                                              Thanks the other people deserve it (they are no spring chickens) and I'm chilling now. Remain silly

                        • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
                          ·
                          edit-2
                          10 months ago

                          That is creepy.

                          I've got bad news for you about the revolution.

                          You are just repeating conservative/Nietzchean critiques of socialism as "Ressentiment" that have been used against socialists for hundreds of years.

                          Guess what, actual real revolutionaries that seize power around the world are children of desperation who ARE fulfilling their revenge fantasy and that's GOOD. Infinite revenge on the western world. The Yemenis and North Koreans are constantly fantasizing about killing American troops, and that's what makes them the best people on Earth. Your lack of anger is an indictment of you, the underclasses of the world have legitimate anger and will only prevail when they embrace it fully as a class.

                          I fall asleep every night thinking warm thoughts how to best fuck up and sabotage this imperialist monster. That's the energy we need in everyone.

                          You are obsessed with bourgeois optics, you've internalized them when you think violent revolution is "creepy"

                          • voight [he/him, any]
                            ·
                            10 months ago

                            You are just repeating conservative/Nietzchean critiques of socialism as "Ressentiment" that have been used against socialists for hundreds of years.

                            TALK TO EM

                            • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
                              ·
                              10 months ago

                              Ressentiment is good, and it is my friend. Kill the masters. Drink their fucking blood.

                              • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                ·
                                10 months ago

                                I'm certainly not going to take a guy laundering his revenge fantasies through movements he's never interacted with and has no insight into beyond their public pronouncements seriously. Hamas has video of there fighters saying "we will not harm civilians, it is un-Islamic to do so" yet this guy is repeating Zionist taking points about them thirsting for settler blood.

                                • voight [he/him, any]
                                  ·
                                  10 months ago

                                  You have been commended! @voight@hexbear.net sent you the Club Penguin Stinky Cheese Award. +300 Lems have been added to your account.

                                • voight [he/him, any]
                                  ·
                                  edit-2
                                  10 months ago

                                  Dude, do you think that American troops are all smol beans who joined because they need free healthcare or something? Peep the liberal realist substack. https://adamtooze.com/2023/07/25/chartbook-229/

                                  Guess what, actual real revolutionaries that seize power around the world are children of desperation who ARE fulfilling their revenge fantasy and that's GOOD. Infinite revenge on the western world. The Yemenis and North Koreans are constantly fantasizing about killing American troops, and that's what makes them the best people on Earth. Your lack of anger is an indictment of you, the underclasses of the world have legitimate anger and will only prevail when they embrace it fully as a class.

                                  Just reposting this to emphasize what you managed to twist into "ugh, leftists just want to kill whitey"

                                  • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                    ·
                                    edit-2
                                    10 months ago

                                    Look I'm not the one pretending the Yemen and NK soldiers are bloodlusting subhumans who constantly think about killing American soldiers. They're normal people with normal, mundane existences and fantasies and would love to get on with their lives and pay the US absolutely zero mind if we didn't constantly fuck them over.

                                    • voight [he/him, any]
                                      ·
                                      10 months ago

                                      Do you hear the cry from all over the world? "Please, make this stop somehow, but don't treat the volunteer air force too harshly with your words."

                                        • voight [he/him, any]
                                          ·
                                          10 months ago

                                          Do you have a retirement fund? Would you like me to tell you what it does, so you can interpret what I'm saying as a call for your body to be mulched and sent to Argentina to fertilize grapefruit orchards?

                                    • voight [he/him, any]
                                      ·
                                      10 months ago

                                      You are pretending that's what those words mean, it makes the way you misunderstand the words of the people you're trying to defend yourself with even more disgusting.

                                      • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                        ·
                                        edit-2
                                        10 months ago

                                        Here's a question: how many North Korean soldiers should one talk to before authoritatively pontificating about their constant violent fantasies?

                                        • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
                                          ·
                                          edit-2
                                          10 months ago

                                          Come on it's the one thing ignorant westerners know about DPRK that's actually correct: That the whole population is "indoctrinated" (I would said, educated by their specific history) since birth to hate America, their society is hyper-focused around the Korean War and never allowing such a situation to happen again. Hence the nukes and militarization. That's entirely correct, the vast majority of the population hates America with all their heart. DPRK foreign policy is basically entirely anti-American at every turn just to spite them, and it makes them the most based nation in terms of their statements and actions (Yemen is giving them a run for their money lately).

                                    • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
                                      ·
                                      10 months ago

                                      You: Yemeni are just mundane boring people

                                      Actual Yemenis, in the millions in the streets: We don't care, we don't care. Bring on the great World War. Finally a chance to directly fight the great Satan. We will eradicate the Zionists, their American backers and stop the genocide in Gaza or die trying. Praise Allah.

                                        • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
                                          ·
                                          edit-2
                                          10 months ago

                                          this dude pisses me off lmao, but there is slight truth to this. I loved Game of Thrones when I was a kid and I was in the region, my uncle brought me a copy of it in English when I was 13 or 14 and it helped me learn it. Saying that westerners and non-westerners have the same subjectivity is incorrect though. Being colonized vs. colonizer changes ones entire outlook. As seen here with Blanqui.

                                          • voight [he/him, any]
                                            ·
                                            10 months ago

                                            He totally has a point about the pop culture stuff, but it gets taken to absurd heights, especially considering how voices from any region other than 14 eyes countries are treated on social media

                                              • voight [he/him, any]
                                                ·
                                                10 months ago

                                                I'm just gonna assume literally every country on the Mullvad server list is playing ball.

                                                • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
                                                  ·
                                                  10 months ago

                                                  Show

                                                  I don't think Brazil, Hong Kong, Singapore or South Africa necessarily are, they're in a different category - at least since Lula took power and China has security control of HK. All the others, sure.

                                                  • voight [he/him, any]
                                                    ·
                                                    edit-2
                                                    10 months ago

                                                    IOU a full reply to this. Thanks for pointing those 4 out. Immediate takeaway is they are all still playing a sub imperialist role. Despite SAfrica and Brazil starting to reorient themselves away from the west geopolitically I feel like it would be easier for them to be penetrated.

                                                    Idk, "everything Mullvad touches is fucked" isn't really serious but 👀👀👀 i mean a lil bit

                                • voight [he/him, any]
                                  ·
                                  10 months ago

                                  Bro thought when they said "we hate the government, not the people" they meant "we don't hate the troops who kill us"

                        • 420blazeit69 [he/him]
                          ·
                          10 months ago

                          But if immediately jumping to "this sucks, wish I could kill him" and harboring consistent, violent thoughts directed at another person isn't creepy, what exactly is creepy supposed to mean?

                          Very glad we still have folks here who understand how ordinary people would react to some of the stuff we post.

                          For some reason I'm reminded of us pointing and laughing at Israel for being so up their own asses they don't realize how they're creeping out everyone who doesn't already agree with them.

                          • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                            ·
                            10 months ago

                            Very glad we still have folks here who understand how ordinary people would react to some of the stuff we post.

                            I mean, on here I don't really care; it's for internal consumption. In my massive struggle session about how Killing Alexei Romanov was not justified, I got off some zingers about the execution. It's fine, we're all mostly on the same page here.

                            The point I'm getting at in this thread is there are plenty of people who wont' hesitate to make fun of NJR for "making leftists look ridiculous" while posting "Daddy Xi pls nuke us all" from a twitter account with a mao-aggro-shining profile picture.

                            • 420blazeit69 [he/him]
                              ·
                              10 months ago

                              it's for internal consumption

                              I agree with basically everything, but I don't know why we all think a public forum is our exclusive hidden clubhouse, or if it was, why that would matter if someone wanted to write/post somewhere else about "look at how crazy the left is."

            • voight [he/him, any]
              ·
              10 months ago

              Lol, sure, spend all your time defending people who talk like TotalBiscuit style youtubers and clutching your pearls at references to revolutionary violence against people who are directly responsible for changes that have horrible effects on our lives, like hours and layoffs. Maybe your instinct that those people are "cringe" is not in fact rooted in your need to spread revolutionary consciousness?

            • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
              ·
              10 months ago

              I'm making a criticism of a broad movement I'm a part of (leftism) for conisdering it more 'acceptable' to engage in weird/creepy things like post-revolution revenge fantasies ( "wall" "gulag" etc)

              If you don't think walls or gulags will be required you're out to lunch

              • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                ·
                edit-2
                10 months ago

                If you don't think walls or gulags will be required you're out to lunch

                If you think anyone talking a big game about walls and gulags online is gonna have any role in organizing any of that, you're on like 15 layers of useless speculation.

        • 420blazeit69 [he/him]
          ·
          10 months ago

          The best example of sectarianism surrounding this guy is "he has anarchist critiques of AES states, therefore he's not a True Leftist like me and is actually a fascist."

          If some anarchist on here said they had some big problems with the USSR or DPRK, you could argue with them over it, but you wouldn't be allowed to be insulting and dismissive the way people are to this guy.

          • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
            ·
            10 months ago

            You are incorrectly paraphrasing me, and I know it's me you are vague posting about. Why don't you quote me directly so people can see my actual arguments and words instead of you twisting them?

            NJR is not an anarchist. He's a social democrat. I didn't call him a fascist, I called him a "social fascist" which has a specific meaning and is its own term - and it correctly applies to all social democrats in the imperial core who don't prioritize their imperialist state as the primary problem to overcome

            • 420blazeit69 [he/him]
              ·
              10 months ago

              Why don't you quote me directly

              "Debate me debate me debatemedebatemedebateme DEEEBATEEEE MEEEEEE!!!1!11@!!"

              logout

              Fascists should be shot. If you think fucking Nathan Robinson needs to be shot, you're out of your goddamn mind.

              • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
                ·
                edit-2
                10 months ago

                I think the population of United States of America is about 50-60% ideologically fascist, and I think they should be re-educated not shot, unless they commit a serious crime or engage in counter-revolutionary activity. Social Fascist is actually the left-most portion of fascist America. Liberals are centrist fascists and chuds are Rightwing fascists. They're all imperialists, which means they're fascists.

                Fascism is not only a military-technical category. Fascism is the bourgeoisie’s fighting organisation that relies on the active support of Social-Democracy. Social-Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism. There is no ground for assuming that the fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie can achieve decisive successes in battles, or in governing the country, without the active support of Social-Democracy

                NJR is a moderate imperialist. Liberals and chuds are extremist imperialists.

                • 420blazeit69 [he/him]
                  ·
                  10 months ago

                  Let's see your best example of him expressing support for imperialism.

                  • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    10 months ago

                    The country he lives in and pays taxes to is currently the most imperialist nation on Earth, the center of global capital, and at war with the DPRK. This is what he has to say about the DPRK in a Current Affairs article in his supposedly "socialist" publication. He admires the aesthetics of DPRK (who wouldn't), but then repeats Liberal western talking points attacking the Socialist nation his country is at war with currently.

                    https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/04/attempting-to-understand-north-korea

                    If they do believe it, we should be very worried, according to B.R. Myers’s The Cleanest Race. Myers says that the DPRK’s governing ideology has been misunderstood by the United States. We think of it as “authoritarian communist,” thanks to its all-powerful state and various Stalinist trappings. But Myers says this is misleading: The regime is closer in character to fascism, because of its racism and nationalism (Stalinists have many unappealing qualities, but they do not build their ideology around race and nation). The communist elements, Myers says, are window dressing. Even Kim Il-Sung himself knew little about Marxism, and he dismayed the Russians when they quizzed him on it. And strictly speaking, the regime operates as a monarchy. Myers says that “socialism” is not the right term, because it doesn’t describe the self-image we see in the state’s propaganda, which heavily emphasizes the purity of North Koreans and their need for a protective parent-leader.

                    Absolute anti-communist imperialist horseshit. Reactionary nonsense. He should be ashamed of repeating this. This is who he is quoting and platforming by the way. A contributing editor to The Wallstreet Journal, The Atlantic, New York Times.

                    Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963), usually cited as B. R. Myers, is an American professor of international studies at Dongseo University in Busan, South Korea, best known for his writings on North Korean propaganda. He is a contributing editor for The Atlantic and an opinion columnist for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Myers is the author of Han Sǒrya and North Korean Literature (Cornell, 1994), A Reader's Manifesto (Melville House, 2002), The Cleanest Race (Melville House, 2010), and North Korea's Juche Myth (Sthele Press, 2015).

                    Myers was born in New Jersey, near Fort Dix. His mother is British, and his father was a U.S. Army officer from Pennsylvania who served in South Korea as a military chaplain, often helping out local orphans.

                    Myers spent his childhood in Bermuda and his high school youth in apartheid-era South Africa, and received graduate education in West Berlin during the early 1980s, occasionally visiting East Germany. He earned an MA degree in Soviet studies at Ruhr University (1989) and a PhD degree in Korean studies with a focus on North Korean literature at the University of Tübingen (1992). Myers subsequently taught German in Japan and worked for a Mercedes-Benz liaison office in Beijing during the mid-1990s.

                    Lmao, this is who you are getting in bed with when you get in bed with these credentialist nerds. Went to school in Apartheid South Africa, Nazi West Germany and then now is a hardline anti-DPRK anti-communist. Some white guy involved in colonizing Korea and a contributing editor of The Atlantic. Back to NJR:

                    For example, personally, I find Myers’ explanation appealing. If I’m being honest, though, that’s probably partly because it lumps Kim Jong Un in with right-wing fascists, and distances him from the left. I’ve always felt that “socialists” have no more responsibility for dictatorships that call themselves socialist than democratic republicans have for, well, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Since I oppose dictatorships universally, pointing out that there have been “leftist” dictatorships poses no actual challenge to my politics. Instinctively, though, I confess that I’d feel relieved if Kim Jong Un was lumped in with the right rather than the left.

                    Oh damn dude that's just social fascism. Like I said. Spreading imperialist intrigue.

                    That’s not to say that patriotism is coerced rather than sincere. A lot of it surely is sincere. Chol-hwan Kang, in The Aquariums of Pyongyang, recalls that as a child, he sincerely saw Kim Il-Sung as a kind of Santa Claus, who neither urinated nor defecated

                    Yes they're just brainwashed ants who believe mythical stupid things. He's repeating anti-communsit bullshit from South Korean versions of the National Inquirer to his audience of Western social chauvinists, re-inforced their ingrained racist anti-communist hatred of the Korean people that they recently genocided.

                    There is a coherent aesthetic to many of them, and Bonner draws attention to the repeated use of the country’s “traditional motifs and color palette.” It’s no surprise that that should be the case, since authoritarian rule provides an easy shortcut to aesthetic consistency.

                    Yes, the authoritarian rule. That's the only reason these inscrutable asiatics have beautiful design and architecture, the only reason they can coordinate as a society and remove ads and other eyesores.

                    That beauty may have been built on a mountain of human suffering, but, if we’re being honest, so have many of the world’s aesthetic treasures.

                    Yes, Pyongyang is like the Egyptian monuments of old, and KJU is an emperor that sits atop it.

                    Just shut the fuck up Liberals goddamn this nerd sucks. BOOOOOOO

                    • 420blazeit69 [he/him]
                      ·
                      edit-2
                      10 months ago

                      che-laugh I ask for your best example of him supporting imperialism and you lead with "he lives in the U.S."? Seriously?

                      Then you follow it with... a bad take on the nature of the DPRK's government, but still lacking any support for the U.S. on the peninsula? You got nothing.

                      • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
                        ·
                        edit-2
                        10 months ago

                        no I said he called DPRK "red fascist" as an American, who have killed millions of Koreans and are at war with them. That is social imperialism. Learn to read or learn to argue in good faith, this is pathetic. Servile succ apologist nonsense. You should be ashamed.

        • voight [he/him, any]
          ·
          edit-2
          10 months ago

          Right, I said it's within the rules as far as sectarianism. I find the discourse on this site funny. You're humorous.

    • voight [he/him, any]
      ·
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      How about we go for the kind of weird where we are weirdly focused on topics instead of the most abstract meta-discussion possible