From the guest list, the show looked like it was created to have a space where left commentators of various sorts would come on and hash out ideological differences as the US left is in the wilderness post-Bernie. It would be interesting, I thought, to have a show where an ultra like Sean KB from The Antifada could explain Marxist theory on a panel with social democrats and have some kind of discussion.
It turns out that its basically just a radlib version of The Five from Fox News, where they just take turns kicking the tires on the days news.
Does anyone actually want a show like this? It seems like its trying to fill a market that doesn't exist - or maybe existed a few years ago and doesn't today. When I look around, I don't think to myself, "You know who has some understanding of the political struggle we face in this moment? This DSA-backed state legislator from NYC."
Listening to it was deeply unsettling. I don't recommend it.
Eh not all of the millions of Bernie supporters are chapos. A lot of them have moved on to worrying about getting DSA libs elected down ballot.
hot take: even though they're libs, it's probably good if dsa has more people working for material change rather than less and helping them & pushing internal narrative left is probably also good
what i'm saying is you may not be able to take the entryism out of a trot, but you can take the trotskyism out of entryism
Honestly I don't think it's a worthwhile strategy but I'm not really worried about it. Some Communists get bent out of shape by social fascism but until they're close to real power I see them as not really our allies or enemies.
This is an important point. My view on this stuff is that Communist organizations have a lot of problems with bootstrapping, and folks who agree with communist goals should just join whatever the largest and most radical organization you have that's active in your area.
In NYC that's clearly DSA, in Seattle that's socialist alternative. Both cities have PSL chapters, but they aren't especially visible. United fronts shouldn't be seen as a long term strategy, but we're so weak right now there's literally no other option.
I strongly disagree with the idea of just joining the biggest leftist group in your area if others exist. I do agree that a United Front is imperative at this point but United Front means separate but allied, not literally united.
For instance, if you live in Seattle, SAlt may be the biggest group but PSL also has a good size chapter there and I think they're doing the right stuff whereas SAlt says a lot of good things but also has wrecker tendencies because they're trots. If they're all you have in your area, then yeah go ahead and join. But if they're is a better alternative, you should join it. Sale goes for DSA and NYC.
The left needs to be united on two comorbid things right now: antifascism and antiracism. Nothing is really more important than that as we won't have a left if fascism ascends. But when it comes to long term political praxis, I think it's worth it to join smaller groups like PSL and FRSO if they actually do good work.
Edit: An example from my city is that DSA is the biggest left wing org but they do basically nothing but knock on doors for DSA candidates. PSL is very small (though in the process of doubling their local membership) but that's by design because they're a cadre party. Even with a tiny membership they've successfully organized Tenants Unions in low income housing developments. DSA will put up tables outside of JHU to let the most privileged kids in the world know their students rights while PSL is turning people in slums into Marxist-Leninists. What your org does is extremely important.
In my experience smaller orgs are totally incapable at organizing meaningfully sized events or engage in real struggles and just focus on leftist education.
This isn't bad and is necessary, but for most people looking to get their hands dirty with something, you want to join a bigger org that is actually engaged in real struggles.
Honestly, I've seen plenty of people move away from party organizing in favor of issues organizing because people want to get their hands dirty. But issues organizing does pull in a liberal direction, these bigger orgs are more capable at retaining these sorts of people.
Edit: to reply to your edit, I agree with what you've said about DSA in certain areas. I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about the largest org that is engaging in this real struggles like tenant organizing and union infiltration. DSA in NYC has some groups of people doing that stuff per some of my friends from when I lived there.
Read my edit to the previous comment. I know what you mean for sure. PCUSA for instance has a near perfect party line but they don't actually do anything. I get not joining them, but I think just organizing for the sake of organizing is useless. If you're organizing towards the goal of more socdems in city council, then I think it's a waste of time. It's going to vary from place to place but I think it's important to build good organizations. The last thing we need is a bunch of revolutionary energy being fed into a liberal organization where it will inevitably burn out.
I edited my post because of your edit lol:
I agree with what you’ve said about DSA in certain areas. I’m not talking about that, I’m talking about the largest org that is engaging in this real struggles like tenant organizing and union infiltration. DSA in NYC has some groups of people doing that stuff per what I've heard.
This said, I disagree with you about adding socdems/demsocs to city council. If you can get meaningfully left people who are willing to always call people out on their shit, you can make meaningful change including nationally. The key requirement is total loyalty to the movement and never acting as an independent individual. Change often starts at the state and local level (minimum wages, cheaper healthcare, free higher education, defunding police, ect).
The left needs to be united on two comorbid things right now: antifascism and antiracism. I have one problem with this viewpoint; How does it get us power? In the current moment, will defeating fascism through electoralism, street fighting, or generally get us power to achieve communistic goals? We need power. Power to do these things first, more than anything else.
Lee Carter is more left than that. What he really is, is a successful version of joshua 4 congress.
Again, I think that's just him being dumb than any sort of lack of desire to end capitalism. Hence he's just a more successful J4C.
But oof that's a bad take, tactical differences do not make a different ideology.
I don't know exactly what he did, but I get an impression that Lee Carter operates too much as an independent individual, rather than as a part of a local political movement.
These latest NYC DSA electeds for the most part only really do things that the chapter votes for their elected officials to do although there still is some horizontalism. In the case of Sawant in Seattle, everything she does is done with the consensus of SAlts leadership committee.
oh absolutely not, but the wins we can make can strengthen our case & reforms can always be schools for revolution
historically we haven't lived in a late capitalist imperial core
i'm not saying it's the only strategy, but i don't think the doomer take should be applied so cut-and-dry. do you have an alternate vision for leftism in the contemporary us?
why and how socdem reformist entryism to the second most anti socialist party in history
i don't know why you think i want to run entryism into the democratic party; i want the broad left to take a serious look at DSA for 1) networking™ and 2) direct action separate from their electoral fights
more suited to the conditions of America and it’s system as you imply
it's not, it's just a thing that we can do to find others with similar leanings as us. socdem structures aren't the solution outright, but if we can use them to fight relevant fights (helping the non-shit unions, direct action against interesting things) even as a launching off point, that's far more interesting to me than just sitting around
Europe
again you're kind of missing my point as i don't think the democratic party is worth saving in general. out of interest, were there relevant left base movements within the big european center left parties? or were they fully integrated into the party structure?
0% success rate of pushing any country or [working?] class that engages with it even a bit to the left
for what it's worth, alexa who is salvador allende
pushed the conversation and working class organization more towards revolutionary potential
you may well be right, but what tells you that this revolutionary potential will be meaningfully leftwing instead of some weird melting pot of Q, fascists, and fundamentalists? yes leftwing militant action can be effective, but so can the neoliberal PR machine. hell, even the vague concept of antifa took enough hits recently. i don't see a way this can go well without organization and outreach that simply won't exist if we just sit around and wait for the crisis to deepen
What is a "chapo" and how is it different politically from just being a Bernie supporter? Are there not enough shows interviewing DSA candidates yet?
chapos are folks who are approximately 10% less lib than the average bernie supporter but believe that figure is 100%
Chapos are folks who think they are more radical than Ho Chi Mihn based purely on the dankness of their memes.
i've been posting hard today, glad i had a good take :heart-sickle:
I think anyone on this website thinks about leftism and anti-capitalism all the time — like it's our lens of the world. A Bernie supporter might only want healthcare and a safety net for people. Like Bernie supporters want to regulate capitalism while chapos probably don't want any capitalism
I meant people on this site and the old sub, not people on the podcast
Yea. That's what I meant too. What makes a poster on r/CTH different politically than a Bernie supporter?
We generally aren't scared of talking about communism in a good light, many of us actually want capitalism to be completely destroyed, we are very pro-gun and aren't morally opposed to violence. You won't see regular Bernie fans talking about US Imperialism or defending Assad for instance.
It's not like everyone on here is a professional revolutionary, but we generally aren't just people who want regulated Capitalism. I know real estate agents who stan Bernie and donated/volunteered for him. People that legitimately dream of opening their own real estate business, and work towards that goal lol.
I really do think there is a class component in the difference. Most people here are poor, working class or maybe labor aristocracy. Lots of highly educated, comfortable PMC types in the S4P crowd.
I agree with everything you just wrote. The question is how does the average poster to this board differ in their actual political actions than the typical Bernie supporter. There's not a communist party to be a member of, labor unions are basically all business unions, nobody is holidaying in the PRC to meet up with other communists, there's no international to speak of.
Of course there are orgs that are nominally parties. There are not professional party members in PSL though. The PSL can't organize strike actions. It's not the hub that directs organizing. This is what is meant when talking about a party.
It's kinda hard to have paid professional revolutionaries when you're small. They're just in the beginning stages but they're growing rapidly. They currently organize tenant unions and those campaigns have shown some benefits and made inroads work a segment of the Proletariat that the mostly white left has been unable to for decades.
I'm knocking PSL. Lots of good comrades. They are nearly solely responsible for maintaining some modicum of an antiwar movement during the Obama years. But I cannot imaging a future of a 3,000,000 member PSL. I think if we are able to build a real communist party in the US again, it will come out of a synthesis of mostly new orgs bourn out of developing material conditions. The PSL will likely have a role in that, but I don't think it will be The Party
This website is far more tankie and anti electoralism the old sub. What made the old sub unique from /r/wayofthebern though was that chapo hated non leftists far more and was better at bullying them.
I think this is mostly a matter of timing since the Bernie ship has sailed. The change is fine with me though.
This place is materially more pro China in uncritical ways than the old sub was. That could also just be timing, but I was one of the more pro China people in some threads there for just giving critical support.
PSL doesn't operate like the others though. It's not a mass party, it's a cadre party. You have to apply to be a member and you're expected to actually organize. The vast majority of people in a party like the Greens will never organize and most that do, do it casually.
I liked it, but the panelist part was boring.
Virgil making Briahna laugh was great
I was listening on my walk home and had to stop just as the panel was starting, but that was my impression. Virgil hits my exact sense of humor, and him just talking with Brie was great.
Wouldn't surprise me if the panel part of the show was bad, though
I'd say it was more dry than bad, but tastes differ. Certainly wasn't as entertaining as Virgil freestyling.
Whether it's a bit or not is hard to tell with Virgil's dry tone, though it frustrated me quite a bit to hear Virgil talking about Sanders being our "last chance".
Sanders may have been our last chance for making radical change inside the system as it exists today. It was not our last chance for revolution.
Trotsky's idea of a permanent revolution is what has stuck with me more than many other left theories. The revolution is not something that should be considered to have an end date as it doesn't live within one man, it exists within every person who draws breath in defiance of a structure they know can be changed.
Virgil's despair over the Bernie loss, while understandable, is also anti-dialectical and should be avoided.
This is also why no individual has come out of BLM unlike the 60s IMO. This is a sign of progress. It's a movement without a face to kill.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot. But shouldn’t their be a leader for being to essentially rally behind? Or is that more in the sense of party forming where we would need that?
is it progress? or are we doomed to repeat occupy and chaz? I think its good that people are showing their discontent but how do we channel that to change instead of slight adaptation
Where the fuck do you see the American people rising up for revolution?
30-40% of this country would lose their effing minds and start killing everyone with green hair or a nose ring if there was a civil war.
Electoralism might be hopeless, but sometimes that is all you got.
Revolution shouldn't be tied inextricably with violent revolt. It's a revolution every day to survive under oppression from a ruling class who wants to grind the human spirit into dust in exchange for short-term and near-sighted gains.
30-40% of voters would react like you said, but that only makes them ~20% of the population. Although I share your feeling, I see far less people able and willing to sustain a violent struggle or do guerrilla tactics for the left as opposed to those on the right. Any revolution here would have to be propped up by the Chinese or Canada/Mexico. How the fuck that shakes out I have no idea.
We are like 110 days of protest into police brutality in one or several cities at a time. And people are getting bolder.
My fear is it becomes the new normal and doesn’t have the same shock as may/june did. fingers crossed but without the material structures needed to support itll be hard
30% of the population stayed loyal to king George during the revolutionary war. Big whoopty do.
straight answer, BJG tweeted this video as a "mission statement of sorts":
https://twitter.com/briebriejoy/status/1304449306712248320
so “maybe we can stop s4p libs from falling down the apathyhole”? i think i can get behind that
By what? Telling them there is still hope if they just vote 3 justice democrats into Congress every cycle for the next 80 years?
sure; guess we'll see how this pod shakes out & whether virgil can keep it sorta-on-track. wonder when matt will tweet some takes on it.
Maybe he'll bite on a stream. I'm sure there's friction between them with Matt very clearly stating that Bernie's campaign was a failure and the strategy of reforming the democratic party is dead
matt retweeted someone dunking hard on virgil, there was a post on here about it. guess virgil's a lost cause
I think it's fine as entertainment if you have any interest in American electoral politics. I think expecting it to be some kind of activism will lead to disappointment. We'll see how it evolves over time.
It's not even entertaining though. That's the problem. It seems to take itself seriously but doesn't actually having clear goals.
So far, it's basically Virgil's jokes about the content piggies coming for their slop, but actually.
It was to me, but the way I consume most podcasts is usually as a passive form of entertainment while I do something else.
We need to give them time, the banter without the panel at the beginning of both episodes was good. The panelists were bad because they didn't come in to talk about what they are specialized in.
Taking the comment at face value here.
Who though? Is if for r/SandersForPresident? If it is, what is the idea? To bring them in and introduce them to communism? Cause that doesn't seem to be the case.
Yeah, it felt pretty weird, like pod save america or something but just a little more left.
Deeply weird is the feeling I had listening. Almost an out of body experience really.
I thought to myself, "We are living in the zone now," in the Virgil Texas voice while listening to a Virgil Texas podcast that I think he is hosting unironically.
My impression is that the podcast is about political tactics rather than about political ideas. The left does legitimately need to learn to think more strategically and we need more news shows that promote that type of thinking.
What "political tactics" are they going to discuss? And a "news show" is antithetical to a show on political strategy, unless you think Steve kornacki is a political strategist
Political tactics that the bernie campaign was able to deploy to push back against the Bernie bro narrative and other related things. How the left can effectively communicate their ideas in ways that drive voter turnout and campaign volunteers.
I'm not talking about Kornacki, but I am talking Joy Reid and Nicole Wallace. Essentially just a Bernie oriented version of their commentary. These folks are legitimately political strategists even though they work against us.
Wait. You think Joy Reid and Nicole Wallace are teaching MSNBC moms "political tactics"?
Absolutely, theyre communicating things in a coordinated language that apply a form of critical theory to advance their broader political goals.
We need far more of that on the left. There can never be enough until there's enough content to consume 24/7 like people do with msnbc.
In short, we're talking about churning out good talking points. And you're absolutely right that we need far more of that on the left, because the #1 goal right now has to be to get more people on our side.
Yeah, the panels seemed to undermine the whole pipeliney idea. Brie and Virgil with a guest or two might actually be interesting, but apparently they have shit taste in panelists.
Honestly, if the show is going to be interesting, it would require BJG to torpedo her PMC ambitions and I don't think she's up for that.
BJG already torpedod any sort of meaningful PMC ambition when she tweeted Bernie shouldn't have endorsed Biden when he first dropped out.
She easily could've chosen to go down a path that resulted in her own MSNBC show and she did the opposite.
Nah. She can still get hired on campaigns. That's not that big a deal.
I'm just trying to draw a distinction between her and Symone Sanders really.
I saw that edit (professional career -> PMC ambitions), and I think I'm a bit more optimistic than you wrt. how useful she wants to be. It shakes out to the same thing though; the show's doomed already
Yea. Edit was to clarify my point.
She says its like "unfiltered Hear the Bern," which I guess just ends up as Hear the Bern with some cursing. She's basically doing the schtick where politicians think using profanity makes them more relatable lol
I'm still more annoyed she went back to NJR than this show being libby. oh well
There's a second episode out already? I have only listened to the first and it's... seeming to me like they're still trying to figure out what the show is really supposed to be. Still, there's potential there imo
They made one a few weeks back as a format test [numbered zero] and paywalled that
https://www.reddit.com/r/leftpodcasts/comments/iqj3gy/episode_0_kamala_time_capsule_bad_faith/
Sean KB is an ultra? damn, I hadn't picked up on that yet. are you sure?
Yea. He's pretty influenced by communization theory. Has relationships with contributers to endnotes, etc.
thanks. I have only listened to Antifada eps where a Chapo was a guest
I liked the non secret episode, bust that's just because I liked the specific people they had on but the topic of discussion wasn't too great. I think virgil's wonkiness plus the insider type information around how political communications works from bri can be an interesting news show. Press secretaries broadly speaking do make good news hosts due to their connections and understandings around communication techniques.
Also these DSA backed NY legislators do have some interesting backgrounds so it's disappointing they didn't focus on their work in like housing policy rather than anything else.
My guess is that this will fill a similar space as those sorts of podcasts you see come from like the intercept rather than something more entertainment focused than chapo.
My guess is that this will fill a similar space as those sorts of podcasts you see come from like the intercept
Well, exactly. Do we not have enough commentary from "progressives"? Is that missing from the podcast space?
I think BJG is further left than your giving her credit for. She's very talented at communications and I'm glad that she has a podcast with more edge than feel the bern. Virgil is a very good co-host for her.
The podcast space is already oversaturated though, I would've preferred them have a daily news show that would take viewership away from rising.
She's not a Marxist, which in my book is kind of the minimum to be called a leftist in any true sense.
The term leftist, per my understanding, purely means anti capitalist and has nothing to do with other tendencies. It's a term that exists to create a united term for all anti capitalist tendencies.
Marxism has often been the only successful anti capitalist ideology, but the formerly ML parties in Europe that now mostly operate as demsocs are still leftist.
You're not going to see social democrats put a multi year moratorium on rent increases for all properties in a major city like Die Linke did in Berlin. That's still an anti capitalist action even though it still operated within the constraints of the capitalist constitutional government.
This is just how left politics since the fall of the USSR has operated. The logic you're applying would label Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez as liberals because they worked within their existing institutions.
I don't know if Die Linke is explicitly Marxist, but it's basically made up of a mix of old former GDR communists and young radicals. And Chavez and Morales are nationalists first and foremost. Third-world nationalism is always difficult politics to decipher. It's not liberal in the western sense. But nationalism is a key component of liberalism. Eh, the point of the thread is about Virgil's new podcast so this convo is getting sidetracked anyway.
They're like DSA in that they both have a Marxist caucus but that isn't the whole org.
Some people actually are in touch with reality and realisze that an armed revolution agaisnt a state which has ful controll over its institutions will never work
I wasn't expecting BJG to tell people to take up arms and meet in the hills to plan a protracted people's war lol. I guess the only other option is radlib "activism" though
They arent calling for that or do you just want them to call for a armed insurrection and guerilla warfare from the the southern swamps or in the rocky mountains?
You have such a naive understanding of what MLs think a revolution would look like. It's almost like radlibs don't understand Marxist theory and think that the current order will last forever.
You let Assad and Lukashenko cum on your face and dont question anything about it why should i give a shit about marx if everyone jerking him off defends bloodthirsty dictators
Exhibit One on Politics as Sexual Pathology.
Again, read a book. I've tried explaining principled anti-imperialism to you before but you just throw out pathetic insults and parrot horseshit bourgeois talking points about foreign leaders like you're on fucking fox news.
Fuck off Assad is completely irredeemable he doesnt even have the old rotten soviet system to back him up its not anti imperialism to defend the death of 500 000 pepole for a fucking dictator who has only ever tought of himself
Damn you wanted the Nazis to win too? This is definitely Mike Pompeo's account
Funny how every country that opposes US Imperialism is accused of genocide by US-controlled NGOs citing dubious "evidence". Wonder what that's all about 🤔
because the people who get in power and dont cooperate with the imperial core obviously arent usefull anymore. Are you going to defend Saddam just like Assad? Assad could have given enven tiny reforms but the corrupt syrian state tought it was too much and the poeple revolted and assad chose to kill all of them do yyou think he can stop now that he has killed hundreds of thousands just so he could keep his absolute rule
