Or does he just have some hot/weird takes that got him in trouble?
Someone on Reddit told me he (Rovics) thinks Matthew Heimbach has reformed, for instance. Reading Heimbach's Wikipedia page he still sounds like a massive Nazbol to me (emphasis on the Naz)
I struggle to believe Rovics could make a mistake like that. I've listened to all his music, never seen him miss in a song that I can think of. Also talked to him prior to learning this and he seems cool to me
I'm suspended on Reddit for 3 days. That's why I'm asking here for now. Most charitable thing might be to ask Rovics to explain himself, but I'd have to make a Twitter account again
I thought hisSaint Patrick battalion song was okay but that's 8 years old. Very Billy Bragg esque so not favorite style of music but as a musician he's competent
Different strokes. I admire him foremost as a lyricist and a maker of agitprop. World class and so I can't for the life of me understand how Heimbach went off track. so badly. Probably didn't listen properly. Teenager moment
Heimbach possessed the incredible wisdom to go to David Rovics for salvation. Instead of checks notes his Nazbol friends, any hardcore anarchist, me irl 5 years ago
Seems to enjoy violence (Heimbach) so might make a good anarchist with extensive re-education. Maoist maybe but with even more education (and an article of apology published in a major US newspaper, please).
A Nazbol is better than a Nazi, but holy fuck please do better. This also goes for Haz of Infrared, et. al.
Haz doesn't have to write an article of apology, He just has to read some fucking books and delete his Twitter. And uhhh maybe get some pussy. Decent looking guy but so unhinged that he drives people away. Like I do with rich girls btw (not bragging, regret trying)
"Marry a rich woman if you hate work so much" was my mother's best original advice. "Life sucks, get used to it" is her best saying, but overused
are you kidding me those lyrics are straight up trash lmao
way too long winded. leftist music equivalent of a leftist 20k word essay disguised as a meme
phil ochs was this but not hammy as fuck
Too many words in my music. Workers good boss bad
His style is a few chords, maybe in a cool open tuning, exceptional picking and strum patterns, and relatively low-quality lyrics because Rovics churns these songs out. He released a song about a tiktok ban attempt like 12 hours after the news broke. They aren't church-hymn simple lyrics like the IWW handbook because they're not singalong songs.
enjoy your nursery rhymes. The American collective music tradition is dead
Had no idea who the guy was till a few minutes ago after I dug for whatever interview rovics did where he said the thing.
Here's the interview where he talks about someone named giliad atzmon and heimbach
I also know nothing about giliad so I can't say anything on that. On heimbach the article by rovics says that he knew heimbach for a significant period of time saying quote "Matthew Heimbach was a teenage leftwing kid who came to one of my shows and listened to my music. He got very seriously sidetracked, became a prominent white nationalist, boosted by the rightwing media constantly. I hadn't been keeping track of his career or anything, but I started hearing from him by email a couple years ago, and we corresponded back and forth a few times, with some very interesting, soul-searching (for Matthew in particular) discussions."
Wow. That quote is very interesting. I think I'm going to defer to Rovics' judgement here. He knows Heimbach whereas I've only just read his Wikipedia page. I had heard of Heimbach in the Trump years though. Didn't like what I heard
Portland anarchists, ML(M)s, etc. can judge can judge David Rovics as they please, But I think I disagree. My advice to the cancellers would be to go and talk to David instead of combating him. You combat liberals, not your comrades.
Moreover I've met him in person and I would not combat him lightly unarmed. Keep in mind he's 25 years older than me and I'm a speed-addled violence enjoyer
David is a kinder, less authoritarian, happier* person than me. I defered to him on this basis and the clarity of his post. Just talk to him or message him on Twitter. He doesn't bite.
*wiser too. Told me to quit Twitter
My advice to the cancellers would be to go and talk to David instead of combating him. You combat liberals, not your comrades
it's generally good practice to if you respect someone and want to maintain a relationship when annoyed with them first talk to them about it 1-1 on a human level before escalating things
Wise. Trying to live more that way. Schopenhauer didn't do that for Hegel and instead seethed for 30 years after he was dead. Or maybe he didn't actually think much about Hegel and made a low effort jibe here and there. That'd fit
Sneerclub tells me behaving like that is was if not fine, at least du jour then. I guess it is. Most of our faves were a bit that way. Marx for sure. Absolute poster of his day
behaving like that is pretty common now it's just not a great way of dealing with things
Oh shit true. Red Scare posters behave that way and are also generally wrong about most things
Also cocaine is a bourgeois drug. That would have gone well. Oh well. Not crack obviously (never tried it) but maybe bad value due to low duration. Maybe doesn't fry your brain as badly as meth though
Personally I wouldn't since my experience with the Faraday speaks debacle convinced me to not trust someone who makes their public personality a "I'm the ex-alt right guy here to pull people left" Schick but I'll trust you to know what you're talking about
I'll think about it for 5 years before recommending anything to the Nazbol unless he demonstrates extraordinary capacity. Haz maybe a year
But yeah (sorry for the Gonzaloid, psycho talking point) you're right. People are fucking disposable. Comrades are disposable, you and I are disposable.Better than us are born every day. And so why use ex-fash? They're damaged use-commodities maybe
I talked to a 17 year old Lebanese-Australian communist on R*ddit. You'll see her on the news some day if she doesn't get dragged under by bourgeois shit or drugs or bad academia.
Don't tell her the news comment. She'll hear it at uni. ATAR rankings make Australian students wankers often enough.
I'm conflicted about the Australian education system. French system too for that matter.
Education systems in their entirety: French > Australian = US > UK .
I'll elaborate on this more and when I know enough to put Cuba >= France, etc. French system is GOAT for mathematicians but it also produced Macron, so
Personally I'd treat the two of them the same as they both are, in Marxist-Leninist terms, right-opportunists who's class loyalties are to be constantly under suspect regardless of whether or not they consistently perform in the interests of the working class as they have revealed their petite-bourgeoise thought-process and behaviors.
Whether or not they can be useful is a separate question related to whether or not they can willingly submit themselves to the interests of the party, willingly obey its party line, and willingly fight to fulfill the will of the party to their best possible ability regardless of whether or not they agree with it or not.
And don't think you should call your opinion gonzoloid or psycho as I think it's a valuable opinion from a very distinctly different point of view from my own. Also don't call yourself disposable. While it may be true that individuals may come and go it is their impact on the collective that survives them which immortalizes their work.
I'll say it again, you are not disposable. You're akin to a thread of colorful yarn being woven into the tapestry of humanity, one of countless billions that have existed or will exist. Your impact may be miniscule in the grand scheme of things but you still have an impact upon it, and should you choose to organize and work in a collective you become a strand in an unbreaking braid that can greatly impact the tapestry of humanity and alter its artistic direction. So please value yourself more comrade, know that I do.
This is a great post and thank you so much. Class analysis is the great mental work saver and not in a bad way. Sometimes I get distracted and forget this.
I am trying to look after my health better. I use prescription speed in what I see as moderation, nothing faster (Australia's favourite drug, + Hitler's favourite drug ffs).
I have a psychiatrist (prescriptions) and a psychologistt to talk to.
The latter is exceptionally good, Marx appreciator. Can tell the difference between anger/manchildishness and (hypo)mania/psychosis. Not everyone can, Libs will call the cops or get you sectioned for making them feel uncomfortable.: yelling opinions without an econ PhD, breaking things for fun, publicly being drunk/high
Psychiatrist is cool. Clever but hard to kow if good. From Sri Lanka initially, bodes well imo. Charges for appointments though. You don't have to in Australia. But all (stimulant prescribing) psychiatrists do, I'm told. She's probably a self-made multi-millionaire though. Maybe doesn't relate to Australian poverty and how abject it can be.Not an empathy deficiency so I don't know what her problem is
Semi-recreational speed posts (e.g. here today) are better than drunkposts (what I was doing on rsp). More serious but less funny
My psychiatrist is good because I fucked up with stimulants hard one. Full psychosis. She 1. didn't section me (I sectioned myself and regretted it) and 2. still prescribes me high dose dex
Nick Land is a cautionary tale against speeding. Erdos is ideally the way to do it, if at all. Erdos took therapeutic doses for depression I believe. Not sure. Modafinil is good imo. Doesn't shoot your blood pressure sky high like other stims
You could also email / whatsapp / signal him, he looks pretty responsive. I like his music, don't know (or care) about his politics outside of lyrics. He seems annoying in the way that anybody who's been active in the US left for a decade plus is annoying. Hopefully that'll happen to me one day.
Yeah he's fine with any he says. It's not urgent that I talk to him right now
i mean he did a song about cancel culture lol. idk he seems fine to me but i wouldn't be that surprised.
I have some extremely "bourgeois" opinions (most +"worst" shared with Schopenhauer, not libertine French philosophers btw let's be clear). Bad enough for an insta-ban here and on r/communism and excommunication from real life organisations, et.
Antintalism btw. Thing is I don't go around telling people not to have kids, life sucks, etc. It' unproductive
*In a nod to libertarianism and convention: do whatever the fuck you want. Most people I respect have kids. Marx and Mao had many.
I'll only ever argue this shit if requested. Or on BadPhilosophy maybe. But Join The Church of Euthanasia if you at all agree. Chris Korda rules. Never met her
r/antin*talism had to split in two pre COVID btw because most people there are just sad people who understand one truth by accident.
Some of them are verging on eco-fascism. Thing is they don't do anything irl. Crueler to let the worst ones them live or kill themselves.
Good ones ought to be driven left naturally, but depression is a hell of a neurotoxin
antinatalism isn't bourgeois, it's just an enormous self-suck
I didn't know who Rovics was prior to listening to that interview with Heimbach a couple weeks ago(I stalk the activities of 'reformed nazis' like Heimbach because I'm fascinated by how fucking stupid they are.) But whatever it is that made Rovics renowned on the left, he sounds to me like a naïve, gullible and somewhat dimwitted person.
Heimbach made it abundantly clear that he was still in every sense of the word a nazi but all that shit flew over Rovics' head as he gushed over the idiot nazi's workerist platitudes. At one point one of them literally said they hadn't read much of Marx because his writings were too difficult and the other agreed. Then Heimbach the imbecile made a reference to Marx's 'On The Jewish Question' making it perfectly clear that that was one of Marx's many writings he hadn't read/understood by incorrectly projecting his own anti-Semitic bullshit onto Marx. The nazi said Marx wrote 'jews hold a disproportionate amount of power'(he didn't!) which, if you're familiar with nazis, you'll know is just a diplomatic way of saying a very different thing. Rovics made no objections. Heimbach made some toned down comment about 'whites' to which, again, while it was obvious what he meant, Rovics made no objection to.
Idk why people even call these people 'nazbols', the nazi's themselves were what we would now call 'workerists'...Heimbach is following that playbook to a T. His understanding of socialism literally boils down to a friend-enemy distinction between 'workers' and 'capitalists.'
anyways, sorry for the rant, but I don't understand why anyone would have enough respect for Rovics to give enough of a shit about whether he gets cancelled or not. I don't know what he's famous for but based on that interview he sounds to me like the worst, most dangerous kind of socialist(the kind that would defect to the fascist side once push came to shove)
Don't apologise for screeds. Speed screeds or any other kind of screed. Unless it's bad, e.g. Mein Kampf what meth does to shitty people
Give me a few hours to reply. Haven't slept in 48+ hours. My eyes are starting to fuck up to the point of being annoying. That's where I draw the line. Used to draw it at hearing things (not joking). Never seriously heard voices but I'd get hear music in the human of sn electric fan. Sorry for self-absorbed aspects of certain posts. Trying to only tell anecdotes I think might help others
