I genuinely went to read this in good faith since it's The Intercept (I know it's not great, but it's not CNN) but decided to do a quick text search for Zenz just to make sure. And of course, the whole fucking thing is full of Zenz.
This is just ridiculous at this point. I really don't want to be a genocide-denier if there is actually one happening, but for fuck's sake this is just ridiculous, LET ME SEE ONE REPORT ON THIS WITHOUT ZENZ ALL OVER IT.
At this point, I genuinely don't really like any publication. I like some of the Grey Zone folk, I love that they're unabashedly leftists unlike other US leftist who always hide their "power level," but their insane pro-Putin and Russia shit is really a turn-off.
How can you be a leftist and pro-Putin?
It's one of those "I'm anti-imperialist" things some leftists do. So they don't "really" support Putin, but defend him at every stop just because he's opposed to the U.S.
I think that's fine to a certain extent, but the GZ folk go way and above to defend Putin.
GZ is probably controlled by Putin to some extent (well, not him personally, you get the idea). Russia controlled media can often be good because Russia is trying to seriously rival the west, which means that it is in the interest of Russia to stir shit up in the west. Some of the shit they're trying to stir up is useful for the left. Some definitely not. But the point is, while the media they control are basically propaganda media, they're opposed to the other propaganda media that is a more immediate concern for the left so you can reap some benefits from that. But also they're still propaganda media so be slightly careful with that. People mock the Russiagate thing but it's not like Russia isn't trying to interfere at all to any extent. All superpowers do that.
Yeah this in US socialist circles is sometimes called Marcyism or Campism because it mirrors stances the WWP took under Sam Marcy, and that tradition was largely continued with how PSL, despite splitting from WWP, maintained those positions. Interestingly with GZ, you can see it take some of those positions (especially with Ben Norton) right after Norton joined PSL (and started attacking DSA as Trotskyite) and deleted a bunch of his old posts about Syria lol.
Navalany or whatever his name is that's us-backed dissidence is outright fash so it's one of those cases of extremely critical support because there's no better options to take in the west
Blumenthal probably goes too far but I'll take that over shit like the OP
What? I thought he was just a neolib and kinda racist, not full fash.
Idk I'm parroting a post here from a week or so ago but I think his being kinda racist included calling for pogroms