This whole situation is crap. I have respect for all parties involved and I get informed from both platforms. Yes, I would probably agree far more with Ben Norton over Max Blumenthall ideologically.
But I tend to judge people based on their work, and Max (alongside Aaron Mate) are doing excellent work in covering US imperialist and capitalist attrocities. So does Ben. And that's the only part of their relationship to me, as their audience, that matters. Everything else is borderline sectarianism.
Couldn't have said it better. GZ and Norton serve different purposes to me.
Hell, the Duran ppl, who iirc are paleocons, have extremely useful analysis in certain areas. I think they're very mistaken in other areas.
At some point recently I freed myself from ideological bloc discipline as it relates to media sources and just started sampling broadly and making up my own mind according to my values. It's liberating.
I could not agree more. This is my sentiment as well. Once you become confident enough in your own ideological convictions as a Marxist-Leninist there is no reason why you can't draw on sources with all sorts of different ideological inclinations as long as the analysis they provide is solid and valuable. I find it is a sign of weak conviction in one's own position when someone tries to exclude sources based on their ideological orientation rather than their credibility on a given issue (because i don't believe in blanket credibility...everyone has their biases). I'm not going to suddenly become an anti-vax conspiracy theorist because i read Grayzone articles, and I'm not going to become a paleoconservative by listening to the Duran, because my political and ideological views were not formed on the basis of online personalities like is unfortunately the case for many among the "breadtube" left and who seem to think that simply by listening to people who are not perfectly aligned with you ideologically you will suddenly change your core beliefs about the world. If your views are informed by a solid, scientific understanding of the world, you are if not completely immune then at least highly resistent to anti-scientific nonsense and you can pick and choose what is valuable and true from the analysis of people with whom you have disagreements and discard the garbage.
I've had conversations with 'leftists' who religiously ignore right wing literature and are shocked to hear me cite it after revealing that I'm a Marxist. Concrete analysis of concrete conditions and the ruthless criticism of all that exists mfs. That means you've got to learn to read things you disagree with.
You can't treat it like a team sport where you assume that your side has a monopoly on knowledge (well, MLs do, but that's different 😉) or as if contrary views are contagious. If you're at risk of reading a biography of Reagan and becoming a neoliberal, perhaps you're not as principled as you'd like to think.
You need to remind those people that we wouldn't even have had Marxism if Marx had chosen to ignore everything Adam Smith had written in the way they choose to ignore everything that can be labeled "right wing".
Part of being politically (and scientifically) literate is being able to treat sources critically.
Got to wonder how much of this is pushed by state security services. People are far less dangerous if they don't know what's really happening. Iirc @yogthos@lemmygrad.ml is regularly challenged e.g. for citing Rand. As if you can know what the right wing thinks by ignoring it's bloody think tanks (which happen to be quite open about the horrors they want to unleash on the world and, lo and behold, whose policy papers often become policy a few months or years later).
It's absolutely incredible how much of this stuff is right there in the open. The really sad part of all this is that even when this information is officially published and accessible, people will still refuse to acknowledge it. This is what we're up against.
About ten seconds after I posted this I saw that you'd been heavily down voted for saying that China has long term economic plans. It's misplaced but I can understand libs being mad at praise for China. But mad at basic facts? Come on now.
It's no coincidence that you find agreement over basic facts in the kinds of sources we're talking about. Not always. And it can be spun in different ways. But, yeah, it's just… yeah… I'm lost for words when I come across it. Online anti-communists are deeply unserious yet entirely unaware of it, apparently. They can have strong and what they think are rigorous viewpoints without ever really having delved into the topic.
I think that's exactly it. Liberalism has effectively become a religion for these people and they just filter out any information that contradicts what their ideology preaches. There is a positive aspect to this however because it makes it impossible for the west to make coherent plans to advance western hegemony. The political class is an echo chamber that's completely disengaged from reality at this point, and the policies they pass continue to fail in a spectacular fashion.
Online anti-communists are deeply unserious yet entirely unaware of it, apparently.
I met one that didn’t know didn’t know Africa and South America weren’t countries until yesterday. It astounds me they can know so little when we are the same age (granted we’re 15, but still).
Once you become confident enough in your own ideological convictions as a Marxist-Leninist there is no reason why you can't draw on sources with all sorts of different ideological inclinations as long as the analysis they provide is solid and valuable.
This is literally what Marx and Engels did. They read Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, etc and it was all important in forming their thought. They even read scientific stuff like Darwin, etc.
I think leftists need to look outside their little bubble otherwise things are going to blindside them. One example I can think of is how most lefists were completely blindsided by Andrew Tate and didn't even know about him until after he had already blew up and was on the verge of having all his social media purged. And the standard response is "hurr durr why do I need to know about him, hE's A nObOdY!!" I mean yeah, to you he might be but he was super influential to millions of men and boys(and still is). And if you want to reach these guys you need to know what they are immersed in. Then you can apply a mass line tactic of sorting them into advanced, intermediate, backwards and do all that analysis. But you can't analyze what you aren't even aware of.
At some point recently I freed myself from ideological bloc discipline as it relates to media sources and just started sampling broadly and making up my own mind according to my values. It’s liberating.
I do get it why some people in the West are sceptical of mRNA vaccines even India government didn't do thorough check and tests but I can tell I took Russian Sputnik V and now micro Red army are running in my veins. That's far more reliable than Pfizer. Aaron mate is really good though.
This whole situation is crap. I have respect for all parties involved and I get informed from both platforms. Yes, I would probably agree far more with Ben Norton over Max Blumenthall ideologically.
But I tend to judge people based on their work, and Max (alongside Aaron Mate) are doing excellent work in covering US imperialist and capitalist attrocities. So does Ben. And that's the only part of their relationship to me, as their audience, that matters. Everything else is borderline sectarianism.
Couldn't have said it better. GZ and Norton serve different purposes to me.
Hell, the Duran ppl, who iirc are paleocons, have extremely useful analysis in certain areas. I think they're very mistaken in other areas.
At some point recently I freed myself from ideological bloc discipline as it relates to media sources and just started sampling broadly and making up my own mind according to my values. It's liberating.
I could not agree more. This is my sentiment as well. Once you become confident enough in your own ideological convictions as a Marxist-Leninist there is no reason why you can't draw on sources with all sorts of different ideological inclinations as long as the analysis they provide is solid and valuable. I find it is a sign of weak conviction in one's own position when someone tries to exclude sources based on their ideological orientation rather than their credibility on a given issue (because i don't believe in blanket credibility...everyone has their biases). I'm not going to suddenly become an anti-vax conspiracy theorist because i read Grayzone articles, and I'm not going to become a paleoconservative by listening to the Duran, because my political and ideological views were not formed on the basis of online personalities like is unfortunately the case for many among the "breadtube" left and who seem to think that simply by listening to people who are not perfectly aligned with you ideologically you will suddenly change your core beliefs about the world. If your views are informed by a solid, scientific understanding of the world, you are if not completely immune then at least highly resistent to anti-scientific nonsense and you can pick and choose what is valuable and true from the analysis of people with whom you have disagreements and discard the garbage.
I've had conversations with 'leftists' who religiously ignore right wing literature and are shocked to hear me cite it after revealing that I'm a Marxist. Concrete analysis of concrete conditions and the ruthless criticism of all that exists mfs. That means you've got to learn to read things you disagree with.
You can't treat it like a team sport where you assume that your side has a monopoly on knowledge (well, MLs do, but that's different 😉) or as if contrary views are contagious. If you're at risk of reading a biography of Reagan and becoming a neoliberal, perhaps you're not as principled as you'd like to think.
You need to remind those people that we wouldn't even have had Marxism if Marx had chosen to ignore everything Adam Smith had written in the way they choose to ignore everything that can be labeled "right wing".
Part of being politically (and scientifically) literate is being able to treat sources critically.
Got to wonder how much of this is pushed by state security services. People are far less dangerous if they don't know what's really happening. Iirc @yogthos@lemmygrad.ml is regularly challenged e.g. for citing Rand. As if you can know what the right wing thinks by ignoring it's bloody think tanks (which happen to be quite open about the horrors they want to unleash on the world and, lo and behold, whose policy papers often become policy a few months or years later).
It's absolutely incredible how much of this stuff is right there in the open. The really sad part of all this is that even when this information is officially published and accessible, people will still refuse to acknowledge it. This is what we're up against.
About ten seconds after I posted this I saw that you'd been heavily down voted for saying that China has long term economic plans. It's misplaced but I can understand libs being mad at praise for China. But mad at basic facts? Come on now.
It's no coincidence that you find agreement over basic facts in the kinds of sources we're talking about. Not always. And it can be spun in different ways. But, yeah, it's just… yeah… I'm lost for words when I come across it. Online anti-communists are deeply unserious yet entirely unaware of it, apparently. They can have strong and what they think are rigorous viewpoints without ever really having delved into the topic.
I think that's exactly it. Liberalism has effectively become a religion for these people and they just filter out any information that contradicts what their ideology preaches. There is a positive aspect to this however because it makes it impossible for the west to make coherent plans to advance western hegemony. The political class is an echo chamber that's completely disengaged from reality at this point, and the policies they pass continue to fail in a spectacular fashion.
I met one that didn’t know didn’t know Africa and South America weren’t countries until yesterday. It astounds me they can know so little when we are the same age (granted we’re 15, but still).
War-driving is a necessary skill to develop when one's enemies like leaving their plans plastered on the walls.
I personally think liberal media is extremely useful to be familiar with because they tip their own hand so often if you know how to spot it.
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This is literally what Marx and Engels did. They read Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, etc and it was all important in forming their thought. They even read scientific stuff like Darwin, etc.
I think leftists need to look outside their little bubble otherwise things are going to blindside them. One example I can think of is how most lefists were completely blindsided by Andrew Tate and didn't even know about him until after he had already blew up and was on the verge of having all his social media purged. And the standard response is "hurr durr why do I need to know about him, hE's A nObOdY!!" I mean yeah, to you he might be but he was super influential to millions of men and boys(and still is). And if you want to reach these guys you need to know what they are immersed in. Then you can apply a mass line tactic of sorting them into advanced, intermediate, backwards and do all that analysis. But you can't analyze what you aren't even aware of.
Couldn't have said THAT better!
I do get it why some people in the West are sceptical of mRNA vaccines even India government didn't do thorough check and tests but I can tell I took Russian Sputnik V and now micro Red army are running in my veins. That's far more reliable than Pfizer. Aaron mate is really good though.