https://twitter.com/War_Takes/status/1546579298508750852?cxt=HHwWiICyibHrxvYqAAAA
The Rhodesia episode itself was good, but then I went through his tweets. of course he omits the NATO proxy war when discussing ukraine (framing it purely as a russian invasion that happened for no reason) in addition he had this lovely drivel where he responded to Luna Oi, saying she's "Denying the agency" of people in countries like Vietnam (her home) for noticing how often the US backs color revolutions. He's also quote tweeting himself while claiming "tankies" called him a "cuck" and presenting no evidence anyone said any of those things.
After this guy, and AdamSomething, I'm waiting for them to bring Vaush on and start complaining about "tankies" every episode. I'm starting to think the entire "Nate Bethea" produced podcast circuit: WTYP, Trash Future, Lions Led By Donkeys, 10K Losses, etc. is just social imperialist drivel. Nate Bethea and Joe Kasabian are both vets of the US invasion of Afghanistan (not conscripts, but actual fucking volunteers who fell for imperialist propaganda and now feel or pretend to feel some guilt about it) , and wouldn't you know it, every podcast Nate Bethea produces tows a tepid "both sides are always equally bad" line with regards to US imperialism. Joe Kasabian in particularly loves to play up Soviet atrocities with western sources like Montefiore and Snyder. Weird. Getting very disappointed in this shit. Chapo-adjacent pods, for all their faults, aren't nearly this bad when it comes to US imperialism.
Getting real tired of this line I see increasingly in media: Pointing out US hegemonic involvement is "denial of the people's agency". If you point out the US's specific involvement in this or that coup, this or that color revolution, this or that forced loan, this or that diplomatic pressure, no matter how specific you get, or how well-documented your sources, you get accused by liberals of "believing everything ever is the USA's fault." They apply a false broadness of scope to the specific historical point to discredit it.
i did a deep dive on his takes and they all suck
https://i.ibb.co/v48FMTJ/war-takes.png
just nonstop complaining about "authoritarians" "tankies" basically repeating MSM talking poings about Cuba, China, DPRK, NATO, Ukraine. Constant whining and saying shit like i.e. "if you say something is the CIA you're erasing the agency of the people the CIA is overthrowing." Constant "you know not everything ever is america's fault OK????"
He's doing the classic Twitter thing of making up a guy and getting mad at them, but he's insisting that the guy he made up is representative of all "tankies".
"Tankies" almost always have the most nuanced and informed takes about protests and uprisings outside the imperial core, meanwhile idealist leftists like to imagine that every single demonstration by a large group of people is proletarian in character and fueled by nothing but legitimate grievances against the obviously bad leadership and happened completely in a vacuum unaffected by events elsewhere.
Even then they give more agency to random foreign reactionary movements more than revolutionary socialist ones. They’ll say that communists are all conniving but when it comes to Hong Kongers waving the British flag, it’s very organic and has nothing to do with the CIA (even though the west has written about HK being a hotspot for spies)
when it comes to Hong Kongers waving the British flag, it’s very organic and has nothing to do with the CIA
It literally doesn't matter, too. Anyone waving a British flag is obviously the wrong side to be taking.
Love to get called a tankie for doing class analysis of Hong Kong protesters and realizing they suck
:very-smart: "Seems like the people waving British colonial flags and ranting about how 'mainlanders' are subhuman might be racist assholes."
:wojak-nooo: "TANKIE REDFASH 1984 STALINIST PUPPET!"
whoever came up with the "denying agency" line must have gotten a raise at the State Department
deserves a whole book about it. or at least a :citations-needed: episode
like early this year with the Kazakhstan protests, like it could have been a color revolution, but it's doesn't have to be just because Vladimir Putin said it was, a lot more information than is available is needed, and, the people had legitimate grievances with the regime
I think people have an itchy trigger finger throwing out color revolution and :cia: (admittedly it's not a bad guess in most cases ), but, a lot of the time it's really hard to tell unless you're actually in the country/ there is a ton of reporting / or you speak the language, bc in a lot of these countries material conditions are so bad that a massive regime change demanding protest can come organically out of pretty much nowhere ie Sri Lanka
(but the phrase denying agency is libshit )
What was that one trot newspaper that said South Vietnam had the right of self determination?
WTYP literally can't stop losing. How hard is it to vet your guests? Except they probably agree with this. :yea:
Except they probably agree with this.
yep. i bet at least one of them is following this guy
Yea Alice is funny and I like her on the pod but she has posted some cringe shit when it comes to imperialism
The "denying people's agency" line always conveniently portrays entire countries' populations as monolithic and unified in spirit against their governments, rather than acknowledge that there has rarely, if ever, existed a revolutionary moment without various factions, influences, and desires for the future.
To deny that outside resources can affect the outcome of a struggle, in terms of bolstering an otherwise unpopular movement or to take advantage of real problems and amplify discontent or to co-opt and steer the momentum of struggle towards a particular result, is decidely naive and non-materialist.
I wonder, do these people decrying the denial of agency often also believe that Russia interfered in US elections - or used troll farms to heighten tensions and divisions in their country? Is this not also denying the agency of US citizens?
Have yet to see a single one of these people discuss the agency of the people of the donbass republics as opposed to the republics being pure Putinite ops run by KGB agents.
The "denying agency" line reminds me of a Gelderloos quote that I saw on hexbear one time.
The only way for a media-savvy activist organization to bring together such diverse crowds in a mass and create the pseudo-movement they need to ride to power is to ardently avoid any theoretical debate, any collective discussion of strategy, any envisioning of new worlds or elaboration of social critiques, any truly creative processes. What they want are sheep. Sheep who will dress in orange or pin a rose on their t-shirt, baaa “yes” or “no” in unison, and go home when those entrusted with the thinking have decided it is time.
A Color Revolution is nothing but a putsch, a bloodless coup, a regime change. And this regime change is not in the interests of those who take to the streets. The nonviolent protesters in a Color Revolution never stop being spectators. They are spectators to their own movement, and at no point are they allowed to collectively formulate their interests. The interests, like the strategic decisions, come from above. Because the fundamental characteristic of every Color Revolution, the glue that holds the strategy together, is elite support.
I always like to point out that a student-community equity organization ran the first George Floyd protests, but 'somehow' BLM got the national media coverage.
their only motive is to cause unrest, violence, and death.
now hold on sometimes they're also trying to get a hold of some juicy juicy natural resources
After this guy, and AdamSomething, I’m waiting for them to bring Vaush on and start complaining about “tankies” every episode. I’m starting to think the entire “Nate Bethea” produced podcast circuit: WTYP, Trash Future, Lions Led By Donkeys, 10K Losses, etc. is just social imperialist drivel.
The same alarms have been going off in my head, too. It doesn't take long listening to any one of these pods before they force feed you a little bit of shit mixed in with their goods. Hell, just this last WTYP episode, Liam had to take time to make a comment about how, "Communists, known for being the good guys" or whatever.
Hell, just this last WTYP episode, Liam had to take time to make a comment about how, “Communists, known for being the good guys” or whatever.
Literally indistinguishable from something a Nazi might say during an online argument for a liberal audience. Cool.
yeah i remember that I just remember rolling my eyes and thinking "ah yes, another sectarian moment from liam"
a little bit of shit mixed in with their goods
That pod is more shit than goods IMO, for like the last ten or so WTYPs I've stopped listening after only a couple of minutes. Still subbed to their YouTube though, the rat viscera bit was just that good I guess.
It's okay Comrade, the atmospheric railway rocked my world, too
Meat deck was excellent. Safety third should literally be its own pod. I've thought that long before they started doing it that a podcast focused on worker issues, organizing and just fucked up stories of mismanagement and worksite chaos would be a really good pod, especially if someone in labor law was a key portion of it.
Liam is such is bitch lol he thinks hes so fucking tough because hes from philadelphia or something
I've seen Liam, he's liable to die of a heart attack or stroke if he were to ever get into a fight, but he's always talking about fighting people or fucking people up in the most toxic ways, it's so goddamn obnoxious. He's also not funny and adds so little to the podcast, the best things I've heard him say are how his socialist dad makes fun of him for being an anarchist.
He and Alice make it impossible to pay attention to the pod
Like rosz will talk about support beams or something and he and alice will butt in with some random anecdote
Hell, just this last WTYP episode, Liam had to take time to make a comment about how, “Communists, known for being the good guys” or whatever.
Meh. Liam's dad is a shameless Trot and they've never made any secret of being "Both Sides Gang" when it came to the Cold War.
One of the more frustrating things about getting deep into the Leftist History podcasting is that they end up painting a picture in which all the Soviets were saints and all the Westerners were monsters. You don't see a lot of ink spilled on Nicolae Ceaușescu or Edward Gierek. Nobody spends much time asking where Gorbachev and Yeltsin even came from, as though these guys weren't also Communist Party leaders. Nobody talks about Bo Xilai nearly doing to China what Modi has done to India, much less how India fell to capitalism in the first place. Nobody likes to talk about the shitty industrial labor conditions in the Soviet bloc or the environmental costs of a given five year plan.
For all the shit WTYP gets, they're not above "going there" so-to-speak. Digging through the dirty laundry of the Soviet heyday and pointing out where the problems were.
If the leftists who spend all their time digging through the trash bin of history come out smelling foul, that's the nature of the business. The 20th century sucked and we're still dealing with its consequences.
Nobody spends much time asking where Gorbachev and Yeltsin even came from, as though these guys weren’t also Communist Party leaders.
Probably millions of gallons of ink have been spilled in arguments about where and how the USSR went wrong. It might be the most discussed subject on the left. Many people have even made worthwhile arguments, unlike (as far as I know) Liam.
Episode 81: Palace of the Parliament, Episode 78: Supersonic Transport, and Episode 68: The Nedelin Catastrophe
all seem to advance their theories.
Why are you even mentioning Modi? He isn't even remotely left wing or claimed to be. You want to know when India fell to capitalism? It happened as soon as the USSR collapsed. The fall of Soviet Union was the single worst moment in history for any country that had hopes for moving left wing.
Anyways, I don't care what a bunch of white guys have to say about communism. I certainly wouldn't listen to Americans telling people what's good or bad. Especially when they always seem to find an excuse for their shitty ass country that's responsible for so much destruction around the world including the Soviet Union.
Wasn’t Bo a more overtly leftist figure than Xi and the current CPC mainstream?
As I understand it, he was pretty nakedly neoliberal. His "New Left" was about lowering taxes, encouraging more private foreign investment, and taking on lots of foreign debt.
This is a strategy we've seen play out across Europe, Africa, and Latin America by The World Bank and the ECB, among other institutions. What's pitched as this soft business-friendly consumerist leftism ends up being a means of stripping people of their sovereignty the privatization and debt collections.
Modi's been operating under a similar playbook, particularly in India's agricultural regions. He's tried to break up communal farms into private turf and use the market system to bid down everyone's incomes.
You say you care about agency, yet you seem to be downplaying the Central Intelligence Agency. Curious.
it seems to be a habit of his
https://i.ibb.co/v48FMTJ/war-takes.png
Idk bro, we literally just saw two U.S. backed (notice I didn't say caused, though I could easily make that case for Venezuela) attempts at revolutions in both Venezuela and Bolivia in the last 6 years. I'd say chances are pretty good that there are others that are always on the boiler plate.
I'm firmly of the opinion that the CIA gets up to so much shit that it is 100% rational to assume that if something bad happens they had a hand in it.
yeah, and it's unfair to demand leftists wait for "proof" since that is by definition something that is not going to be investigated by anyone with the power to do so. It took until 2013 for the 1953 coup against Mossadegh to be declassified and I'm supposed to "wait for proof?" instead of going "yep this advances america's ruling class's material interests so the CIA probably did it"
The problem is Liam and if I could, can I just take a second to just whine about how much Liam sucks? I dont feel like he adds anything to the podcasts he's in. He's shitty and boring, which unlike a lot of the people most people here would complain about tend to be bad and funny. Dude has the most boilerplate :liberalism: takes about politics and just likes to make Roz bleep out the venting that is too hyperbolic for someone like him to actually do.
I cant speak about Nate Bethea being bad, I only started listening to LLBD and wasnt really impressed by him as I was Liam.
He says he was raised by principled marxists or whatever, but none of whatever he has to say about anarchism is grounded in any actual theory. Just aesthetics and vibes.
He just repeats bland anti capitalist stuff about 15 min into each episode, then fucks off. Whenever he chimes in later on, it’s only about like the eagles or a bland joke/story about roz that no one on the show laughs at.
He says he was raised by principled marxists or whatever
His dad is a trot and has apparently dunked on him before.
His dad is a trot and has apparently dunked on him before.
Liam once said on air, without a trace of irony "my dad once asked me if I get my news from the CIA"
I cant speak about Nate Bethea being bad
simple. he's a veteran of an imperialist US war and he funds and produces all these podcasts behind the scenes. weird!
Produce yes, but fund? Come on dude. I got blocked by Alice on Twitter over China takes, it's a lot of them that are liberals, not just Nate
fair
i say "fund" because I figured he ran all the patreons and was responsible or the social networking that got them off the ground in the first place. but you're right that's probably an overstatement
Idk about their patreons, and you aren't wrong that he's involved with a LOT of podcasts
Oh what's that Liam? you'd like to do something legally actionable and horrendous to the people around you? You literally have nothing pleasant or informative to say, and have the personality of a goat? You joke/talk about therapy, but in a way that makes us doubt that you're actually serious about addressing whatever obstacles you might have? Haha, well let's move on.
fr though, I think WTYP is kind of an unserious project amongst Liam and Roz who are friends and also Alice because she's a weirdo, and determined podcaster. Liam sucks, but it's easy to imagine him being onboard, not to endorse or support his shitty anarchist views, but because he needs to be included with something. Like, he's got mental problems and maladaptive behaviors, but Roz and Alice letting him podcast with them is nice and sociable, which I can't not endorse.
its funny or cathartic once or twice, but afterwards its just pathetic.
Holy shit, fuck these libs so much. Of all the people you could go after, you choose Luna Oi? Over something like this?
The western "left" is a fucking joke.
Theres one big reason why they go after Oi so fervently
She has the audacity to not be white
There are only a few people that if you criticize them I will immediately disregard your opinions about anything serious, and Luna Oi is one of them.
If you disagree with her you’re probably wrong
More like denying the Central Intelligence Agency their agency. Got 'em.
WTYP is a PROUD COMPANY run by three TRUE ENTREPRENEURS for the IMPERIAL INTERESTS of this BUSTY but still CHASTE nation we called the UNITED STATES
I've basically fucked off from listening to anything Alice is on, including Trashfuture and Kill James Bond. I have zero patience for left-anticommunism anymore.
