To be fair, it’s sucked for awhile. Who talks shit on food not bombs? Radlibs. The answers radlibs.
Anything more specific than "they talked shit on some organization?" One person's "talking shit" is another person's legitimate criticism is another person's dry humor.
Also :fidel-salute: to the long tradition of chapo dot chat claiming they don't listen to the podcast while clearly still listening to it
Amber definitely warned listeners against retreating to “anarcho shit like food not bombs” post Bernie. And I’ve been a listener for a year, but keep punching that strawman.
They’ve been edgy socdems for awhile, that’s indisputable.
I mean, if it’s literally the only left activity going on in the town you live in, which it often is, idk what the fuck else she wants people to do. Start a PSL branch that two people will show up to (one of whom is you and the other is a 50 year old guy who’s always late)?
warned listeners against retreating to “anarcho shit like food not bombs” post Bernie
Sounds like a bit of shit talk mixed with a legitimate criticism, which is kind of the show's whole MO.
Doing good things in your immediate community is good, but it's not going to solve any large problem (like climate change). There is a real risk of giving up on large problems, helping your community, and then your community getting fucked by those large problems when they come home to roost. Helping your neighbors is good, but if that's all we do we're going to fail.
Doing good things in your immediate community is good, but it’s not going to solve any large problem (like climate change).
Local organization meeting international conversation. Action can be recruitment as well. If you hear that a bunch of socialists just cleaned all the trash out of your local part, it will probably change your view on socialists.
No local community shit won't solve global warming, but like literally nothing I can do will solve global warming. But I could clean up my local environment with a relatively small group of people.
If you hear that a bunch of socialists just cleaned all the trash out of your local part, it will probably change your view on socialists.
All of this is 100% good. My focus was on the "retreating" language, which suggests doing local activism but nothing bigger. I think there's a risk of doing great things in your neighborhood only to see all that swept away when the big problem you ignored matures.
nothing I can do will solve global warming
Nothing you can do 100% on your own will solve global warming, and any solution will take years to create. But that doesn't mean you can't support state or national organizations that are working in the right direction.
All i can think is it was meant to say "Dont retreat to the old forms of activism" but FnB is good, but maybe it should be treated the same way you remember to take out recycling, as a civic responsibility to others.
i try not post when mad should i ever do something like leave half the words in my rants unsaid, so for podcasting personalities (and a writer for fucks sake) if there's more to be said in that very moment, fucking say it?
but that's really charitable, and dragging a charity that does direct action sucks
Also :fidel-salute: to the long tradition of chapo dot chat claiming they don’t listen to the podcast while clearly still listening to it
As our forefathers in the old sub did, we follow in their footsteps
Yeah, I've found them to be less a chore to listen to lately. They seem to have (mostly) gotten over their existential crisis of the post Bernie era. I don't go in expecting something serious with the show. I like listening while going on a run.
Food Not Bombs likes getting in Twitter spats with “tankies” and getting very mad at “Assadists”
Wish they would just shut the fuck up and serve food to the poor
Realistically it's one person from the org with the twitter handle. I doubt most members for FnB even know there's a twitter page.
I guess stopping your members from using your organization name to post cringe is AuThOriTaRiAn
Realistically it’s one person from the org with the twitter handle.
That person's job is to say "This is where we are serving the food. Please inform everyone in your neighborhood who is hungry. Please re-tweet and share."
If you're talking about Assadists, and the tweet isn't being posted from Aleppo with the message "Assadists are also welcome to the food", you're doing it wrong.
I was not aware there was a single food not bombs twitter, there are like hundreds of Food not Bombs twitter accounts for every city which one in particular are you referring too?
Does "radlib" even mean anything?
(not disagreeing with the post. that word just irritates me because it's often used without any meaning)
Woke social liberals who think Capitalism in its current state can be reformed
In theory it's a liberal who sees all the issues with the current setup of Neoliberal capitalism and think it can be reformed.
In practice it's just used as a new term of people who really like capitalism or something.
that word just irritates me because it’s often used without any meaning
Same thing with "grifter."
Nah I'm fine with grifter. A grifter is someone who pretends to be a serious person but is really just trying to make a quick buck.
Sure, but it's another term that's often misused. People will call anyone (for example, Bernie) a grifter now.
Matt has said in a stream that the only way a podcaster can actually be a grifter is if you pay for the podcast and there's no podcast. "Grifter" is way overused to mean "someone I don't like who makes money".
Yes. Delivering a product is typically a good defense, although I do feel like certain right wing projects are grifts in the more expansive sense.
Like, TPUSA delivers a product, but it's not "converting the young", it's just fooling the old. I'd say that's a grift - a product is being delivered, but it's certainly not the one promised?
True. If people are supporting a podcast on patreon while thinking that what they're doing is helping to make it more prominent so that it can convert a different demographic that it's not actually appealing to, that would be a grift.
There has to be some bad intent on the part of the grifter, too. If TPUSA knows it's appealing just to boomers and loser college Republicans, but it sells itself to right-wing money as a pipeline for a broader segment of youth, that's a grift because they know they're not providing what they claim to be providing, but are cashing in off of it anyway.
It's an extreme stretch to apply this logic to a podcast that isn't really selling itself to anyone as anything specific. And we should be treating self-described socialists out there creating openly-socialist media with good faith, anyway.
Idk how many of these people take themselves “seriously”. They may think they’re doing “some good” (which yeah, is fucking debatable) but I don’t think they’re “serious people”.
Also it’s a spectrum not a binary. You can kinda be a true believe but also wanna make some paper at the same time.
I use it to refer to those who voice good-sounding criticisms of liberals from the left but either do not identify as socialist (Matt Taibbi) or believe reform through electoral politics is still a viable route rather than revolution (Thomas Frank, Michael Moore). If I'm feeling particularly annoyed with them at a given moment I'll also use it disparagingly to refer to "humanist" non-Marxist socialists like Nathan J Robinson, Bernie Sanders, or Chris Hedges.
If I’m feeling particularly annoyed with them at a given moment I’ll also use it disparagingly to refer to “humanist” non-Marxist socialists
I'm with you on applying it to people who are still hoping some type of reformed capitalism can work, but when you start calling other socialists "-lib" because you disagree with their philosophical justification for socialism that seems like a bridge too far. If they're willing to seriously criticize even an idealized version of capitalism they're on our side.
Well their philosophical justification for socialism often creates rifts because the real world doesn't map onto idealist preconceptions.
So when it comes to doing things like opposing imperialism, non-marxist socialists get tripped up because states like Syria, Iran or the DPRK don't represent their utopia. They then end up flattening the distinctions and say things like, "well the US is bad but so is Assad" and end up repeating US propaganda that justifies imperialist intervention.
And if your idea of socialism is based in liberal ideas like individual rights and representative democracy, then don't freak out about being called a lib, just defend your position.
So when it comes to doing things like opposing imperialism, non-marxist socialists get tripped up because states like Syria, Iran or the DPRK don’t represent their utopia. They then end up flattening the distinctions and say things like, “well the US is bad but so is Assad” and end up repeating US propaganda that justifies imperialist intervention.
This is an excellent point, but I think it misses something important. "Humanist" socialists will agree with Marxist socialists on 95% of things, including all the domestic policies we can work on right now at local levels. Where they (sometimes) disagree is on foreign policy, which is not something the left will realistically be able to change for quite some time.
Right now we have local organizations and local politicians to the left of the Democratic Party doing good things, and both types of socialists are in lockstep on all of that. Meanwhile, even if we had Bernie as president and 500 AOC clones in Congress it would still be an uphill battle to dismantle the military-industrial complex. We're talking about shutting down the entire foreign intelligence apparatus and starting from scratch, dramatically scaling down the size of the military, closing dozens of military bases around the world, trying to figure out how to exit all the conflicts we're in without fucking things up even worse, etc. The biggest point of contention between Marxist and "humanist" socialists is so far out of reach right now it makes no sense to let it get in the way.
And if your idea of socialism is based in liberal ideas like individual rights and representative democracy, then don’t freak out about being called a lib, just defend your position.
By the same tolken, maybe Marxist socialists shouldn't be antagonizing other types of socialists by calling them libs -- just make your case.
My experience with most radlibs (individual people, not public political figures) has been that they are people who get that capitalism sucks, but their brain is so rotten and stuck in the liberal mindset they can't see anything past liberalism. They constantly have meltdowns and are incapable of seriously thinking of any poltitical action past voting and posting on social media. Their worldview is very contradictory and broken.
These kinds of people often don't remain radlibs for long because it's a very unstable way of being.
Whatever anyone thinks of their politics, it's still the funniest podcast out of all podcasts.
The pod died with Bernie’s election bid. The whole podcast was building up to Bernie’s presidency. It didn’t work out.
I listen, but a lot of the charm is gone for me. It seemed like a better world was possible, when left ideas had forced the window open 0.000001% during the early Trump era, and then gathered momentum during Bernie's second presidential run.
Not that it'd be easy, it's never easy, but I feel like the show was infused with some hopefulness of a better world if we can figure out how to stick it to the shittiest people on Earth, and dunk on some shit-libs along the way.
But now with covid and with Biden as the "left alternative" and everything that represents, the world just seems a lot more bleak than it did 6 months ago and while the show may not have changed much in and of itself, the political landscape no longer feels as inviting to be laughed at. And I think that's reflected in the show too. The humor is still there and it's still directed at the same shitty targets, but the hopefulness seems sucked out of the hosts. I don't blame them either, but it's not as fun to listen to. Matt is basically the only one who seems like he has a sliver of idealism left.
They also just stomped on people for 6 months and the public reaction is basically "oh good, fuck those rioters".
They just used race to sweep race based discrimination under the rug.
Making fun of prison abolitionists is dope as fuck, dontcha know?
I believe their angle on prison abolitionists has been that it's an unrealistic goal to try to impose on BLM and associated movements. When you have the chance to have a national conversation and push for specific change, asking for prisons to be abolished delegitimizes the whole movement - not just in the eyes of normie libs, but also most regular people marching angry at racist cops.
It's actually an establishment tactic to give more airtime to the most extremist voices to say, "See? You don't want what ANTIFA wants." And then pro-establishment radlibs can pretend to be to the left of genuine progressives. "Oh, you want police reform, but believe in prisons? Conservative!" Just like their favorite anti-Bernie tactic, "Oh, you're for radical change, but want an Old White Man for President? Privileged Bernie Bro!"
My favorite line was Amber's: "We need a place to put Hillary Clinton." Prison abolition is like communism, a goal we all want. But in the medium-term we want to jail war criminals, Wall Street lackeys, right-wing militias, fascists, and billionaires who will otherwise shoot all of us if we try to take power.
...You may disagree with this line of thinking, that's cool. But Cancelling!!! anyone who professes it is just CIA-sponsored leftist infighting.
I believe their angle on prison abolitionists has been that it’s an unrealistic goal to try to impose on BLM and associated movements. When you have the chance to have a national conversation and push for specific change, asking for prisons to be abolished delegitimizes the whole movement - not just in the eyes of normie libs, but also most regular people marching angry at racist cops.
I think it's sus for a group of podcasters who argue they are, comedians, first and intellectuals second, and almost all of them white, argue that prison abolition is an unrealistic goal to impose on BLM. BLM is Black-led, and the prison abolitionists I know and read about are almost all Black. Dismissing the demands of Black Americans (who most direly know what's needed to help fix society) because to them, Brooklynite hipsters with a million-dollar podcast, because it sounds "unrealistic", it's hilarious, a real joke.
Arguing for Prison Abolition is right, it is the correct take, and it is a position we ultimately want to achieve, so trying to tamp down and criticize it into oblivion, or dismiss outright is a truly enraging thing to do. Again, ingrained in my brain is the reporting of Louisiana prisons going up to 120º celsius because the prison system refuses to put it in AC. The hundreds and thousands of prisoners that have died from flooding in prisons. Raw sewage pollution of their water supply (already sus to begin with). The covid-19 pandemic just ravishing people who shouldn't be in prison in the first place.
Maybe it's because I lean or have ML tendencies, but it is the peoples' movement's responsibility to have the correct line as developed from the needs of the people, so when people look to a "leader", the party is there, having told them what they needed cause you listened to their plight. One of the reasons the Bolsheviks obtained so much support is because they were against WWI from the beginning and Lenin's own party had to actively try and stop his writings from being published while he was in exile because they were wildly and truly "unpopular" or "dangerous" as it dealt with government and accusations for treason, but pulling out from WWI was the right thing to do.
We as leftists, need to be now, where the people will be in the near future. That's what helps us succeed as a movement. Dismissing "unpopular" ideas (again, that's according to Amber, bless her heart), because the Liberals are going tsk tsk, is wrong and shortsighted.
My favorite line was Amber’s: “We need a place to put Hillary Clinton.”...But in the medium-term we want to jail war criminals, Wall Street lackeys, right-wing militias, fascists, and billionaires who will otherwise shoot all of us if we try to take power.
El paredón.
Dismissing “unpopular” ideas ... because the Liberals are going tsk tsk, is wrong and shortsighted.
That's not where the criticism of prison abolition (PA) is coming from. The criticism is exactly the opposite: that Liberals are trying to kill the movement by demanding things like PA.
white, argue that prison abolition is an unrealistic goal to impose on BLM. BLM is Black-led, and the prison abolitionists I know and read about are almost all Black. Dismissing the demands of Black Americans
This is some series of rhetorical tricks you're pulling. "BLM is Black-led + some BLM support PA, therefore criticizing PA is anti-Black, especially if it's Whites criticizing it." You're fooling yourself mightily if that logic satisfies you.
If the majority-Black BLM actions can succeed without support - great, maybe the FBI will sleep this time and the Panthers can seize power XD... But the current movement that has swept the nation isn't majority Black. The reason Antifa is being demonized is because many non-Black radicals are involved. The reason there's a possibility for change within the current system is because White youths and radicals are pressuring White authorities - many protests are majority-White. They're the only ones I've seen, living in WASP New England.
PA is not a "Black demand", that's silly. It's a fringe demand that Black and non-Black majorities do not support.
And our argument is that this demand, if you try to make it the face of BLM, will actually doom other Black demands, even the most mild ones. So YOU are the one dismissing Black demands, mi amigo, how do you like them manzanas?
because it sounds “unrealistic”
It doesn't sound unrealistic, it IS unrealistic to expect PA in the US as an outcome of the present movement. We'll be lucky if we get anything.
Arguing for Prison Abolition is right, it is the correct take, and it is a position we ultimately want to achieve, so trying to tamp down and criticize it into oblivion, or dismiss outright is a truly enraging thing to do.
Arguing for PA is great - full power to you. But criticizing it is NOT sending it to oblivion - especially when the criticism is about the time and place of arguing for it, not the principle itself. CTH, despite our best efforts, is not yet the only mandatory audio program in the country. Don't exaggerate its power.
ingrained in my brain is the reporting of Louisiana prisons going up to 120º celsius ...
That's a weak argument for PA, btw. Scandinavian prisons are nice. You can make prisons nice if you care to.
One of the reasons the Bolsheviks obtained so much support is because they were against WWI from the beginning and Lenin’s own party had to actively try and stop his writings from being published while he was in exile because they were wildly and truly “unpopular” or “dangerous” as it dealt with government and accusations for treason, but pulling out from WWI was the right thing to do.
Except PA is not a wildly popular/dangerous idea, not even with the downtrodden and criminalized. "Defund the police" has a chance to be, but PA is just nowhere near that.
El paredón
Oh, "the wall." So until Uber-Stalin leads the Red Army through a space-time gate and exterminates all our political enemies, we will do nothing? It's total victory or nada? To me, this is CIA-sponsored, Pelosi-endorsed shouting down of movements by insisting they aren't radical enough.
Finally, demands should lead to greater change, not be dead ends. Community-based police oversight boards would build democracy, would build local power, would curtail the power of the police. Defunding police would weaken the state, provide funding for social services. What would PA accomplish? Liberal and reactionary backlash.
Prison abolition is like communism, a goal we all want. But in the medium-term we want to jail war criminals, Wall Street lackeys, right-wing militias, fascists, and billionaires who will otherwise shoot all of us if we try to take power.
For all the (justified) energy this community spends pushing back on propaganda like "Stalin sent 6,589 kabillion to gulags for thought crime!!", you'd think this point would be self-evident. You can't laugh about the futility of debating reactionaries or fascists in the marketplace of ideas, praise MLs for realizing that and acting upon it, then turn around and argue that all prisons everywhere, for any reason, should be abolished abolished. That's an incoherent position.
