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.
NJR is a anti-Marxist demsoc who dresses like he's about to give a lecture on phrenology. If he's been vindicated, then fine, good for him. But I don't think it demands a lot of of soul searching from anyone who dunked on him. And personally I was around for the old days too. It was pretty much like it is now and the obstacles to organizing here were the same then as they are now, which is why it didn't happen.
people shouldn't feel bad for self-cannablizing and libeling a good leftist voice, and he dresses dumb
no investigation no right to speak, no posting of your own drip no right to speak
Boy it be awful if that was even close to what I said huh
From the post I linked in the text:
I say in Why You Should Be A Socialist that [Marx] had “a better understanding than almost anyone else of the way that economics determines the fabric of the social world,” and praise texts of his as “brilliant” and “profound,” full of “great insight.” I am not sure how that can be squared with thinking I have scant regard for him.
I’m not saying he’s Vijay Prasad. There’s only so much I can expect from any western leftist, Hexbear included. But he’s created a successful leftist magazine that some people tried to tear down and were thankfully unsuccessful. Learning about what went on has made me do some soul-searching and conclude a world with Current Affairs, and NJR writing what he writes, is better than one without, no matter our disagreements.
Also, we’re using DemSoc as a pejorative now too, huh? I remember when we used to split hairs, saying SucDem were acceptable to dunk on because they actually just wanted Nordic-style welfare states, but DemSocs were genuine socialists. I guess the circle of acceptable leftists must get ever smaller. The site can’t remain left unity forever. When will the anarchists (the few that remain) be culled?
Lmao, he said on the Current Affairs podcast that the left would be better off if Marx had never existed. That's how people got the idea that he had scant regard for Marx.
Also, we’re using DemSoc as a pejorative now too, huh? I remember when we used to split hairs, saying SucDem were acceptable to dunk on because they actually just wanted Nordic-style welfare states, but DemSocs were genuine socialists. I guess the circle of acceptable leftists must get ever smaller. The site can’t remain left unity forever. When will the anarchists (the few that remain) be culled?
Reading this in a weepy Jordan Peterson Kermit voice. It's a description of his position, not a pejorative jesus
Lmao, he said on the Current Affairs podcast that the left would be better off if Marx had never existed.
Damn, he actually came up with a worse take than Chomsky's "The fall of the USSR was the best thing to happen to socialism".
What a time to be alive.
Westoids on here will still defend him because they never met a succ imperialist they didn’t like
If I had a time machine that could take me to a white room outside space and time which contained both baby Karl Marx and baby Hitler, I would shoot Marx twice, because without socialism Hitler wouldn't have been able to commit genocide
With how much this guy has been straight-up lied about, and given his verbatim statements directly to the contrary, I'm not going to believe this unless someone posts his actual words, not a summary from someone who doesn't like him.
There are plenty of posts from the time discussing it. Here's someone purportedly quoting him verbatim.
Show
But there's also a lot of deleted posts. This was like 3-4 years ago. Believe what you want ig
A guy who writes 10,000 word articles every other day supposedly hates Marx, but no one has an article where he actually bashes Marx? He's supposed to have said something on a podcast, but we don't have the podcast to listen to, we just have years old tweets of people supposedly quoting one line from it, devoid of even basic context?
A bunch of people repeating smears they don't actually know the basis of would look exactly like this. And we know that's happened once to the guy already.
I remember this when it actually happened, so I find it quite easy to believe. But there's enough link rot that it's hard to pinpoint where it was said and I'm not going to listen to every episode of the podcast from around that time just to prove it to you, no offense.
I also remember when "he hates Marx" started circulating, and I remember tracking down an episode where he mentioned Marx and thinking "Oh he thinks some leftists treat Marx a little dogmatically? That's all this is?"
I don't think it makes sense to rip on other leftists without receipts to back it up. If you think the only receipt is buried in some obscure corner of the internet 3-4 years back, maybe this is not an especially key part of the guy's thinking.
Perhaps you're right about that. However I maintain that being skeptical of Jacobin style dudes who dress as dandies is reasonable as a default stance
Skepticism is reasonable, sure. I just think we have to be a little more careful about writing leftist figures off, because (1) we can't get anywhere if we tear each other apart and (2) there are tons of bad actors who want to create and encourage leftist infighting.
When will the anarchists (the few that remain) be culled?
when @Nakoichi@hexbear.net bans them for making cringe posts
"socialism is when you agree with me and the more you agree with me the more socialister it is"
Me: the left in the west needs everyone we can get so any kind of left punching is unjustified
Also me (sometimes): lmao look at this demsoc dipshit
I think having really firm and well-defined principles is important, and I also think it's hard to do without a larger organization helping you maintain them. As an individual we are too caught up in our own emotions, the whims of the crowd, our personal experiences and parasocial relationships to always see our own principles clearly, and this kind of cannibalistic dunking is the result.
I also think that cointelpro never ended, and that a lot of the shit stirring that often paralyzes the western left isn't organic.
The NJR redemption struggle sessions will be 10x the size of his cancellation
Oh you forgot the arguments that go along the lines of ...
"... sorry... bow tie detected, opinion discarded..."
What if we all just agreed to love him, because he is great? Checkmate atheists.
While this still makes my eye twitch, it's better than all the people who are running with the dumb "indiscriminate attacks on global shipping" narrative - even people who are purportedly pro-resistance (usually the same people posting shit like WHY ISN'T IRAN DOING ANYTHING. WHERE IS XI. WHY IS HEZBOLLAH NOT DOING ANYTHING)
It boggles the mind. The few sane voices are like islands on a sea of reaction ready to genocide Yemen for daring to stop the genocide of Palestine.
I’m surprised, but pleasantly, to see Nathan as one of those islands.
That's a bit of a screed sorry, by "bazinga takes" I mean if you're actually arguing about whether Ansar Allah attacks on Israeli shipments raised prices for USian "working class "people"" (more on this later) to the point where you reach "that's a good thing" you've swallowed the framing that's it's the attacks and not the capital strike increasing prices, and those prices are actually responsive to shipping costs instead of being calculated by "how many people in this neighborhood will probably pay 7.99 for chips absentmindedly?" and how much the suppliers feel like laying waste to everything, etc.
Those takes also rely on thinking that price increases only happened the last 2 months.
I think some bazinga takes like that are an unavoidable result of focusing a lot of energy on media criticism without reorienting yourself outside of the western media sphere & hyper reactionary tea partier types. It's about more than simply adding foreign sources. Geopolitical explanations of current events are too difficult to fit into online discussions without setting off a bunch of false positives from prior incoherent reactionary takes people familiarized themselves with through political entertainment.
No yeah I agree with that. I’ve been reading a book again after a long time and the difference between what you can learn (and more importantly, communicate) in a proper book vs Twitter is astounding. I knew that already, in a way, but getting into reading again has just reinforced it.
And a real book, for me, is absolutely essential. Too often with pdfs and ePubs I read a page or two then go watch YouTube or do something else.
Oh yea I'm focusing a lot of my effort now on collecting material for a guided bibliography + review questions (the solution to how to help a buddy who doesn't actually have time to read yet). I was originally vetting & reviewing a bunch of leftist parapolitics books from our milieu like Mirage Men, NATO's Secret Armies, etc (as well as shitting on Poisoner in Chief + Legacy of Ashes, searching up screeds written by other people about how much they hated certain chapters lol) but I zeroed in on Open Veins by Galeano & have moved on to reading better history lol.
If I can recommend 2 books for you from what I'm going over on right now:
Georg Lukacs - The Destruction of Reason-Penguin Random House LLC (Publisher Services) (2021).epub 0.9 MB https://files.catbox.moe/w2jp94.epub
[2nd] Samir Amin - EUROCENTRISM (2010, NYU Press) - libgen_1.li.epub 0.3 MB https://files.catbox.moe/7p7ty8.epub
I forgot to add: that goal is very admirable. I wish you all the best! A guided bibliography is better than reading twitter threads.
Thanks for those links! I’ll give those a read. I’m currently going through Nothing Human is Alien to Me which is a conversation/interview Vijay Prasad had with Aijaz Ahmad, an Indian Marxist who passed away a couple years ago. I don’t know if it exists online, but here’s the Amazon link.
[immediately robs the man's grave before your very eyes]
Hm limited availability online at a glance
Lmao that gave me a laugh. Yeah, it’s a problem I run into often. Libgen is a great resource, but there are far, far too many books that have never been put online in the first place.
Lately I keep realizing shit like uploading the books is my job & it's horrifying.
Oh also I've posted two of these before but I think they're very well-rounded articles so I pass them around!
Article on The Destruction of Reason & why it's relevant
One of Samir Amin's most recent articles before he died
Article related to the book you mentioned for any third party reading this
Tldr what I mean is without a bibliography or a class to guide you reading is easy to be distracted from until you construct your own program or dig one up online. Making audiobooks or study guides helps break the cycle of others not having enough time to study.
im shaking and crying right now, i didnt realize war hinged on the interdiction of enemy supply lines
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.
You need to understand most hexbear users are leftist by vibe and life experience, not theory.
They like to imagine they'd be party members in the revolution but they're not. They are the equivalent of the peasant soldiers fit with their own reductive Little Red Book they've put together from posting and memes. They have the right ideas but they have weird group dynamics because their structure is based on social groups not theory.
Most came to leftism more so because it gave political legitimacy to personal grievances, not a desire for truth. Most don't hate cops because they represent the bourgeoisie class interest, they hate them because they were jerks or arrested them for smoking pot. That's fine as an impetus for starting, but you have to fucking read theory. If you haven't at least read some Marx and Lenin then you are liberals in actions if not in view.
I've read plenty of theory and I've never gotten that vibe
This place is more well read and up to date on theory then 99% of leftist places on the English speaking internet
They have the right ideas but they have weird group dynamics because their structure is based on social groups not theory.
Most theory is about the study and observation of different social groups, what does "weird groups dynamics" even mean in this context?
Plz tell me you're not whining about forum cliques, let folks have their internet friends, shit really isn't that dire
If you're a union-buster who dresses like you're three question marks away from sending brain-teasers to Batman then I'm going to bully you
I wanna thank you for your comment because now I’m able to formulate a better TLDR: He didn’t do any union-busting and your bullying can harm your supposed political aims in the real world.
Ok yes but he does dress like 2004 Tucker Carlson in a world where bowties are illegal and that can also harm your supposed political aims in the real world.
like 2004 Tucker Carlson in a world where bowties are illegal
damn but if it ain't true
And the best way to get someone who would definitely just listen if you told them that without hostility is to… insult them on an online forum where they’ll never read it? Sounds like people here just really want to bully others, huh?
One of the only active comms is dunk_tank. The entire purpose of this website is bullying of reactionaries, and social imperialists who attack actual socialism are dunk worthy reactionaries.
Do you see yourself reflected in the attacks against him? Is that why you are so upset?
Do you see yourself reflected in the attacks against him? Is that why you are so upset?
Good and rational discussion among comrades
there's little other explanation for such hard Stanning of a milquetoast succ imperialist unless you share those qualities.
"Maybe we like bullying a little too much for its own sake" is not stanning
The situation at hand here is not about his views. It’s about people sharpening their pitchforks over something they learned about in a game of telephone.
It’s really odd that people here can acknowledge that the cops and the legal system can ruin the lives of even the most loyal bootlicker or zionists can slander activists to ruin careers, but somehow think they’re immune to being a target of a witch hunt by lazy, uninformed internet posters.
oh no he's getting cancelled for saying DPRK is a stalinist red fascist authoritarian dictatorship and repeating The Atlantic propaganda! This cancel culture is getting out of controool!!!
Stupidpol
What the hell are you even on about? OP claims he was a union buster, and the response was no, he was not. He was slandered for failing to purge inefficient and hostile idiots working with him. I don’t care if he thinks Ron Paul is Jesus. You’re just getting upset over some irrelevant shit.
Sorry I got mixed up about what thread I was in and had expected that your read the OP post here:
https://hexbear.net/post/1610802?scrollToComments=false
That's what I'm "canceling" him for anyway, as in I think he is a hack fraud social imperialist and his publication is a joke. Sorry to make a leap in your perspective, but yeah this guy sucks big time and we shouldn't be defending him. I hold him in the same respect I hold someone like Robert Evans in.
I know this isn’t a cool or good thing to say, but I read enough of that article to get sick from the saccharine prose and saw the scroll at was only ten percent of the way down.
If whoever njr is didn’t squash a Union attempt at whatever current affairs is, can you explain it here? I’m not reading all that.
Various CA employees who treated CA as a writing club that gave them and their friends checks wanted NJR to support hiring a white woman friend of theirs over a WOC and also to let the person hired as an admin assistant write articles and not do admin work. Company had a big long retreat while all this was happening. One item discussed was turning CA into a worker-owned co-op. The workers, who had representation on the board, could have fired NJR at any time and done this themselves. After the retreat, worried about the direction these employees were trying to take CA, NJR asked for their resignations in an indelicate way, but did not have the authority to fire them.
They all publicly announced that they had been fired (they had not) and implied that they could not pay their bills. In reality they had all quit and been given 5 months severance with benefits.
Thank you. I neither expected nor deserved to have someone else wade through this bullshit and then summarize it for me. You’re truly wonderful.
If you can't ask these internet weirdos for summaries of internet leftist bullshit, who can you ask?
Really should just name the shitheads so the whole thing can be put to bed
your bullying can harm your supposed political aims in the real world.
were talking about a newspaper here what are we a bunch of trots?
shit at least trot pubs are run by an org idek what sort of political aims a random succdem rag accomplishes.
were talking about a newspaper here
If leftists will blindly go along with ruining this guy's career over made up bullshit, we could easily do it to someone who matters more.
The lesson here is to actually investigate accusations of misconduct, not to write this off as OK because the guy doesn't meet some arbitrary standard of importance.
Edit: We also failed to sniff out the grifting of his accusers, who lied about getting fired and having no money to ask for sympathy money on Venmo. Everyone loves to write off various lefties as grifters, so we should be all over this, right?
the magazine was overtaken by what Jo Freeman has termed “The Tyranny of Structurelessness.” This is the mistaken idea that informal structures with ill-defined positions are more truly radical and leftist than those with systems of accountability. At Current Affairs, it was assumed that everyone including the business manager and administrative assistant could be a writer.
As a result, there was a disregard for the fundamental importance of the behind-the-scenes work—like business affairs, raising subscriptions, and mailing packages—that goes into creating a magazine, print and online. At Current Affairs, everyone—including every single board member—was an aspiring writer and public intellectual but the actual burden of publishing fell mostly on two editorial staff, Robinson and Gold. Of the two, only Robinson worked at the physical office in New Orleans alongside Silcox and Gauthreaux.
Man I would’ve hated to be Nathan lol. Imagine having to be nice to a bunch of pretentious hippies while doing all the leg work. He needed to channel his inner
We have so many jonkler emotes and yet not a single rizzler emote.
I was proposing the US should bomb Israel to facilitate the "Free flow of global commerce".I love that the latest struggle session is about an anti-Marxist social democrat on a predominantly ML and anarchist site. Like I said before, all the dude does is write good articles sometimes. He's not worth dying on a hill over. lol
Three day bans for everyone who participated in that foolishness
Embrassing display all around, imagine getting pressed over NPR riddler in either direction
This is what happens when global climate changes makes it too cold/hot outside to find grass to touch... smdh
His views are irrelevant here. Ultimately, it’s a lesson on why Utopianism is terrible.
The way he structured his company is similar to what many people on this site want in an “anarchist” or “communist” society: there are no ranks, everyone gets an equal say in every decision and do whatever job they want without le evil boss man watching them. He tried that. And what did that get him? A bunch of slander from his colleagues, followers, and internet strangers. And remember, he wasn’t even allowed to purge anyone. He had to pay them and give them benefits if they resigned and this is the result.
Maybe no one should give a shit about him because he’s anti Marxist or a social imperialist or whatever. Okay. But how will you deal with a bunch of pretentious (or dangerous) children in your organization, party, government, community, workplace, etc. who think they’re all intelligent and hot shit and make inappropriate demands then try to tear you down when you decide they’re detrimental to your agenda?
Nathan Robinson is not worth a 150 comment thread, get a grip hexbear
More evidence the only good part of Hexbear is the news megathread.
I get that NJR dresses like a time traveler from the Titanic but it's not like John Fetterman's hoodies have had any demonstrable improvement on his opinions. If sartorial idiosyncracy is your biggest gripe I say let the poor guy have his ascot.
Dressing like Willy Wonka is a step up from a plain “gentleman’s” western suit.
yEaH bUt He DrEsSeS wEiRd
As if these same people don't post elsewhere about rejecting certain societal norms or embracing their own peculiarities to feel themselves.
Anyone posting such drivel should be ashamed.
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.
I like how this won't even get removed due to sectarianism because you're blanketly trashing "a lot of leftists" as creepy
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.
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?
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".
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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
Dude you wrote three responses to the same comment in three minutes and posted them all
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!
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
)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)
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
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.
huh? That doesn't make any sense. I can be mad at social chauvinists and mad at social chauvinists. There's no contradiction here
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.
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
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.
why have you never directly engaged my points, only dodged them as glancing blows? Why can you not respond without smug misdirection?
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".
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.
No, you'll be posting about how badass your future revolution will be on hexbear.
Smug over literally nothing just because you can't say "okay fair point" you have to undermine the conversation in every way possible.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
Revolutionary defeatism is only for Russians, who should know better than to support a government violating international law.
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.
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
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.
No, he won't. He'll act cute and then drop "free Iran!" to try to waste more of people's time.
Alright then, let's find out. Give me the Current Affairs pro-air strikes article and we can hash it out.
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.
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.
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.
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"
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.
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.
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.
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.
I my defense I would have stopped if someone had convinced me it was good to shoot the kid.
G'night
every criticism
not every criticism, but certainly every one parroted from the mouth of a contributing editor of The Atlantic
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.
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.
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.
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.
No we're talking about people mimicking posh aristocratic culture lmfao you don't get to turn this into homophobia
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.
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!
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?
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
There is a middle path between Calvinist predestination to hell, KKKilling all KKKraKKKers, and viewing everyone as a
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.
If you think BlackRedGuard or the Austin maoists or whatever are the left it would explain so much of this exchange tbqh
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.
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
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
Dude, you're fine. I like the energy. Sorta a seriously unserious kinda vibe. Shine on you crazy diamond.
Thanks the other people deserve it (they are no spring chickens) and I'm chilling now. Remain silly
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"
You are just repeating conservative/Nietzchean critiques of socialism as "Ressentiment" that have been used against socialists for hundreds of years.
TALK TO EM
Ressentiment is good, and it is my friend. Kill the masters. Drink their fucking blood.
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.
You have been commended! @voight@hexbear.net sent you the Club Penguin Stinky Cheese Award. +300 Lems have been added to your account.
Bro thought when they said "we hate the government, not the people" they meant "we don't hate the troops who kill us"
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"
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.
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.
Here's a question: how many North Korean soldiers should one talk to before authoritatively pontificating about their constant violent fantasies?
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).
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."
No, but I also don't hear "get him,he's wearing a cravat".
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?
Do they grow grapefruit in Argentina? Seems a bit temperate for that.
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.
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.
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
I'm just gonna assume literally every country on the Mullvad server list is playing ball.
- 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.
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
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.
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
profile picture.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."
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?
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
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.
Right, I said it's within the rules as far as sectarianism. I find the discourse on this site funny. You're humorous.
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.
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
Why don't you quote me directly
"Debate me debate me debatemedebatemedebateme DEEEBATEEEE MEEEEEE!!!1!11@!!"
Fascists should be shot. If you think fucking Nathan Robinson needs to be shot, you're out of your goddamn mind.
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.
Let's see your best example of him expressing support for imperialism.
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
- 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.
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.
How about we go for the kind of weird where we are weirdly focused on topics instead of the most abstract meta-discussion possible
Probably the guy talking about drinking people's blood downthread.
![NJR with a good point re: Houthis blockade. [Also a personal reflection on him, parasocial relations, dunking, and Hexbear]](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/0e8ab287-3ea4-4210-a2bb-7d6df14a29e2.jpeg){kind=link}