But what differentiates this behavior from Nima’s? Nima does not spread imperialist propaganda as VP of Spitfire. (Unless he does and there’s some specific evidence of this we haven’t seen.)
The point of PR is propaganda. Do you know the history of the PR industry? Spitfire's job is to create propaganda. Bellingcat's is to create it.
The Gates Foundation and the Brookings Institution do carry out imperialism, but not literally every single thing they do is part of that initiative.
Not everything Bellingcat does carries out that initiative. Sometimes they rightfully and truthfully cover stories.
Meanwhile, Nima co-hosts a podcast that does the exact opposite of that and actually propagandizes against those same groups. Nima spreads counter-imperialist propaganda, whereas Evans spread imperialist propaganda.
It doesn't matter what he personally believes. What matters is his company is serving the function anyways. Controlled opposition is a thing. Surely don't believe that saying the US is imperialist makes the CIA shook.
One is a useful idiot for US empire, doing a spook’s work to undermine international solidarity with victims of American imperialism,
This is just unfalsifable. For one you can't judge the impact of what Evans has said on relations between the US leftist project and Syria. And I don't expect you try. You'll just say that it's helping in some capacity that we can never know. If we never go to war with Syria over chemical weapons, it will always be a possibility due to the propaganda. If we do go to war for any reason or even some sort of skirmish, then it was because the propaganda helped it happen. There's no condition under which this can be wrong.
You also don't know what happened in Syria unless you were there. Either you don't know and you're just choosing the opposite of what the imperialists say out of principle. Or you have read some news or state messages that say it never happened. But you're relying on another government, another media with ties to that government. But you trust that more than the US government. So let's not pretend this is a case where there's some undeniable facts involved and you know for sure that Assad is just getting a bad wrap. Surely you understand that you can be leftist or a victim of imperialism and still do bad things. So what this comes down to is that you don't trust the State Department, and I'm not judging you on that. I don't either. Evans seems to trust them more than most leftists. So that's a point against him. But we're not talking about Evans cheering on military intervention in Syria. He certainly didn't want the US to abandon the Kurds (simplified version of events I know), but that's not the same as advocating for Iraq War 2: Syria.
His position isn't as aligned with the State Department's as you think. And I know this because I've listened to enough of his podcasts (all three) and watched his protest videos. I haven't listened to his Women's War or Portland Uprising specials yet. But his detractors cut out all nuance, as I said before. I've actually said he was wrong about Qaddafi when he made that stupid post about it, like I posted on his twitter. But again, there are shades of gray. You can believe that china is authoritarian and not support any real action against it. That doesn't support sanctions against China even if the State Department also says China is authoritarian.
So, once again, this comes down to you seeing someone being wrong, and then associating that wrongness with helping imperialism. There's no clear mechanism as to how this helps imperialism in this specific instance, nor can you quantify the effects. Ultimately that is a value judgement, or a moral judgment. Because supporting imperialism is wrong. If it wasn't then you wouldn't be complaining about it. So you're saying that Evans is doing something bad, willingly or not. And if I choose to listen to propaganda, what does that say about me? If I'm not so blindly critical that I write him off as a spook not worth listening to, then I'm doing something wrong. If I tell someone they should listen to BTB then I'm spreading propaganda too.
Now, if the latter isn't true. If I can be both a good leftist and not fall for propaganda while listening, then so can others. If you don't judge people about their podcast consumption, then you're not judging the act of consuming propaganda. If people can listen without the propaganda working...then it's not very good propaganda and not really that dangerous. If the propaganda doesn't actually change anything materially and if it doesn't cause political action, then what? I'm just critically listening to someone who's wrong sometimes. All this struggle over nothing. If you're worried about all the kiddies who won't be critical and just accept it because they trust his other stuff, then that's the lib argument about Russia. If some facebook memes bring us down then oh well. The real problem is teaching people to be critical, not demanding podcasts hosts with a few thousands listeners subscribe to a specific Marxist worldview and disagree with the government on everything. Just like Russia playing on racial tensions isn't the problem, it's having racial tensions to begin with.
As evil as the Gates Foundation et al. are, they do have interests that align with those goals, it’s just that they’re fundamentally limited by the capitalist framework and outweighed by the other fucked up stuff they do.
And Evans has interests that are completely incompatible with pretty much everything capitalist imperialists. Unless you think that they too want a bottom-up organization and all that stuff too. He works for a paper that lets him run with his work on right wing extremism.
There’s no comparison between the two of them.
There absolutely is. You're relaxing your standards for one and tightening them for another. You're implying that some small percentage of a podcast saying Assad bad is damaging how the left views Syria. You're saying getting at 1099 from bellingcat is spreading propaganda. You're saying that being wrong on one of the worst platforms for discussion is parroting propaganda. As if the entirety of Evan's views on foreign policy fit in a 240 character limit and perfectly match the State Department's plans. Or that they don't match but they're close enough to get people to the edge of distrusting Syria/China/Bolivia/Russia/etc so that the SD can push them over the edge and support imperialism.
I gotta go to bed man. I've been up for about 30 hours now. Your dislike or distrust of Evans is more tenuous than you're willing to admit. I really do not care about Nima. Them being CIA agents has no real material effect on the leftist movement. The leftist movement won't fail because some people listened to a podcast and then didn't trust Syria enough. If Robert Evans went full on interventionist tomorrow all that would happen is some breadtube videos and shitposts. Then we'd all forget about it. I think Chapo has a larger audience than Evans and would be a better means to spread propaganda. If the CIA's success depends on BTB then that's great news for us. This whole revolution thing will be a lot easier. I think Evans has useful information regardless of what he thinks about Syria or China or Bolivia. So I'm gonna keep writing off these criticisms. I'm gonna keep saying he's not an agent. When some goober posts one of the same three twitter screenshots of his we can have this conversation again, just like I already had it before. Podcasters aren't the movement. They aren't even thought leaders. They're themed infotainment at best. AM talk radio for the internet.
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The point of PR is propaganda. Do you know the history of the PR industry? Spitfire's job is to create propaganda. Bellingcat's is to create it.
Not everything Bellingcat does carries out that initiative. Sometimes they rightfully and truthfully cover stories.
It doesn't matter what he personally believes. What matters is his company is serving the function anyways. Controlled opposition is a thing. Surely don't believe that saying the US is imperialist makes the CIA shook.
This is just unfalsifable. For one you can't judge the impact of what Evans has said on relations between the US leftist project and Syria. And I don't expect you try. You'll just say that it's helping in some capacity that we can never know. If we never go to war with Syria over chemical weapons, it will always be a possibility due to the propaganda. If we do go to war for any reason or even some sort of skirmish, then it was because the propaganda helped it happen. There's no condition under which this can be wrong.
You also don't know what happened in Syria unless you were there. Either you don't know and you're just choosing the opposite of what the imperialists say out of principle. Or you have read some news or state messages that say it never happened. But you're relying on another government, another media with ties to that government. But you trust that more than the US government. So let's not pretend this is a case where there's some undeniable facts involved and you know for sure that Assad is just getting a bad wrap. Surely you understand that you can be leftist or a victim of imperialism and still do bad things. So what this comes down to is that you don't trust the State Department, and I'm not judging you on that. I don't either. Evans seems to trust them more than most leftists. So that's a point against him. But we're not talking about Evans cheering on military intervention in Syria. He certainly didn't want the US to abandon the Kurds (simplified version of events I know), but that's not the same as advocating for Iraq War 2: Syria.
His position isn't as aligned with the State Department's as you think. And I know this because I've listened to enough of his podcasts (all three) and watched his protest videos. I haven't listened to his Women's War or Portland Uprising specials yet. But his detractors cut out all nuance, as I said before. I've actually said he was wrong about Qaddafi when he made that stupid post about it, like I posted on his twitter. But again, there are shades of gray. You can believe that china is authoritarian and not support any real action against it. That doesn't support sanctions against China even if the State Department also says China is authoritarian.
So, once again, this comes down to you seeing someone being wrong, and then associating that wrongness with helping imperialism. There's no clear mechanism as to how this helps imperialism in this specific instance, nor can you quantify the effects. Ultimately that is a value judgement, or a moral judgment. Because supporting imperialism is wrong. If it wasn't then you wouldn't be complaining about it. So you're saying that Evans is doing something bad, willingly or not. And if I choose to listen to propaganda, what does that say about me? If I'm not so blindly critical that I write him off as a spook not worth listening to, then I'm doing something wrong. If I tell someone they should listen to BTB then I'm spreading propaganda too.
Now, if the latter isn't true. If I can be both a good leftist and not fall for propaganda while listening, then so can others. If you don't judge people about their podcast consumption, then you're not judging the act of consuming propaganda. If people can listen without the propaganda working...then it's not very good propaganda and not really that dangerous. If the propaganda doesn't actually change anything materially and if it doesn't cause political action, then what? I'm just critically listening to someone who's wrong sometimes. All this struggle over nothing. If you're worried about all the kiddies who won't be critical and just accept it because they trust his other stuff, then that's the lib argument about Russia. If some facebook memes bring us down then oh well. The real problem is teaching people to be critical, not demanding podcasts hosts with a few thousands listeners subscribe to a specific Marxist worldview and disagree with the government on everything. Just like Russia playing on racial tensions isn't the problem, it's having racial tensions to begin with.
And Evans has interests that are completely incompatible with pretty much everything capitalist imperialists. Unless you think that they too want a bottom-up organization and all that stuff too. He works for a paper that lets him run with his work on right wing extremism.
There absolutely is. You're relaxing your standards for one and tightening them for another. You're implying that some small percentage of a podcast saying Assad bad is damaging how the left views Syria. You're saying getting at 1099 from bellingcat is spreading propaganda. You're saying that being wrong on one of the worst platforms for discussion is parroting propaganda. As if the entirety of Evan's views on foreign policy fit in a 240 character limit and perfectly match the State Department's plans. Or that they don't match but they're close enough to get people to the edge of distrusting Syria/China/Bolivia/Russia/etc so that the SD can push them over the edge and support imperialism.
I gotta go to bed man. I've been up for about 30 hours now. Your dislike or distrust of Evans is more tenuous than you're willing to admit. I really do not care about Nima. Them being CIA agents has no real material effect on the leftist movement. The leftist movement won't fail because some people listened to a podcast and then didn't trust Syria enough. If Robert Evans went full on interventionist tomorrow all that would happen is some breadtube videos and shitposts. Then we'd all forget about it. I think Chapo has a larger audience than Evans and would be a better means to spread propaganda. If the CIA's success depends on BTB then that's great news for us. This whole revolution thing will be a lot easier. I think Evans has useful information regardless of what he thinks about Syria or China or Bolivia. So I'm gonna keep writing off these criticisms. I'm gonna keep saying he's not an agent. When some goober posts one of the same three twitter screenshots of his we can have this conversation again, just like I already had it before. Podcasters aren't the movement. They aren't even thought leaders. They're themed infotainment at best. AM talk radio for the internet.