I’ve watched this video a bunch of times, and it utterly baffles me. I genuinely cannot understand how BadEmpanada came to this conclusion.

To start off this video, he immediately does the most annoying YouTube loser thing ever. He does the whole, “I’m gonna piss off some people with this heh heh heh” thing. That’s annoying to begin with. He appears to believe that anti Americanism is “contrarianism” when it isn’t. The vast majority of internet contrarians are not Intersectional Third Worldists. He then defines the “socialism” that he follows as “trying to do the best possible for the majority of people” which is incredibly anti materialistic and anti scientific marxist. Then, he breaks into the contrarian bullshit of the “but” principle, where he pretends to be against America (he really isn’t). It’s very clear that he’s lying about how much he doesn’t like America. He then says that he opposes America for political reasons and not just “because it’s america.” You know, a lot of people in the Middle East, who live in constant fear for clear skies because they could be vaporized by missile blasts, hate America because it’s America. To say that this is wrong is to delegitimize the third world who is oppressed primarily by the white western country of America.

Then, he does the EPIC contrarian thing where he brings up China. I’m gonna just say it outright here. Fuck critical support. China isn’t doing anything wrong. It is following correct Dengist principles. Criticism of China is entirely rooted in Americanism, White Supremacy, Western Imperialism, and Sinophobia. China is not “state capitalist.” It is Leninist-Dengist. China has lifted millions out of poverty. China has developed the most advanced rail system in the world. China is bringing benefit to non western nations across the world. If you have problems with that, go fuck yourself.

Then he brings up Iran. Iran is in the same boat. Iran is a good anti American country that strives to destroy imperialism from the white westerners. Iran deserves uncritical support. Calling Iran “far right” is a false flag, and is the most western thing ever.

I’m gonna read a quote here where he’s being sarcastic, but it’s entirely true.

US aligned is bad, US opposed is good.

This is entirely true.

This whole video is a CIA Black Ops Gladio hit piece against some of the only good western journalists. The Grayzone is a great news source. To attack it is to promote white supremacy and western imperialism.

He then defends the US by saying it has been on the right side of history (it hasn’t) occasionally (never)

You know what I can’t even go two minutes into the video without screaming. BadEmpanada is a white westerner from Australia who is promoting the colonization of non western Argentina. Fuck him and fuck anyone who defends him.

  • DirtbagVegan [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Lmao he’s absolutely right. I’m sorry, but if the gray zone style of America bad is the best anti-Imperialism we have, anti-Imperialism is toast. We need to make better arguments. You can have “critical support” for governments. We can acknowledge that Venezuela is having a crisis that is partially the fault of the regime without supporting the US-backed coup.

    The Grayzone guys do the laziest parroting of pro-regime sources which people would absolutely correctly recognize if it was coming from CNN or whomever.

    Anti-imperialism is an absolute necessity for our time and it deserves better advocates than these dipshits.

    • gammison [none/use name]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Yep. Just look at the garbage Norton put out on Ecuador this week. He called an indigenous political movement, which he supported 2 years ago, a movement which has the support of the Ecuadorian communist parties, ultra left anarchist us puppets. Just a total lack of understanding of Ecuadorian politics when there's great people one could go to like Thea Riofrancos (who spent 7 years among Ecuadorian socialists) instead (who Norton is also baselessly attacking on twitter right now for her criticizing his piece).

      • iKarli [comrade/them]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Are you referring to Pachakutik and Yaku Pérez? Have to admit that he is pretty problematic:

        When asked about Andrés Arauz's plan to give $1,000 to 1 million mothers who are the heads of their households once he's elected president, Yaku Pérez claimed these people will "probably spend it all on beer that same day."

        According to Leonidas Iza, an indigenous leader and president of the Indigenous and Peasant Movement of Cotopaxi, Evo Morales did not invite Yaku Pérez to the inauguration because the Pachakutik candidate celebrated the right-wing dictatorship in Bolivia. He also never condemned the Anez regime's massacre against indigenous protestors. He accused Morales and Correa of “authoritarianism, machismo, extractivism, and populism.” Pérez also called Maduro and Correa “colonial, ethnocidal, and racist.” He rooted for their governments to "fall":

        “Now all that’s missing is for Rafael Correa and Maduro to fall. It is just a matter of time.”

        The "us puppet" description of Pachakutik originally comes from Venezuelan-American journalist Eva Golinger who revealed that the Pachakutik party and anti-Chavista opposition parties were financially supported and trained by the US government's National Democratic Institute which is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, United States Agency for International Development, and the US Department of State.

        • gammison [none/use name]
          ·
          4 years ago

          I think it's a gross distortion to simplify CONAIE and Pachakutik to that. It just doesn't make sense. CONAIE spent decades fighting Texaco and other US oil companies to get them out of Ecuador and tried to emulate Chavez in a failed coup in 2000. I don't like Perez either, but the situation is quite complicated. For example he has the support of the ML communist parties in Ecuador which is bizarre. Pachakutik and CONAIE as a whole act very differently from each other even though Pachakutik is nominally the political arm of CONAIE (for example the head of CONAIE did attend that meeting in Bolivia while Perez did not). I mean the very neoliberal reforms Norton tried to attach to CONAIE via Pachakutik were heavily protested against by CONAIE itself in 2019, and CONAIE as a whole heavily supported MAS after the coup in Bolivia. Norton's piece is more than anything a hit job against CONAIE because of their opposition to Correa (or rather Correa's successor Andres Arauz) , opposition that exists because despite Arauz's left wing leanings, he is pro extracting Ecuador's resources which CONAIE categorically opposes (and has severe apprehension about as people in Arauz's party were found to have taken bribes from multinational corps for extraction policies though I'm not sure what the truth of Correa's bribery conviction is considering the rightward turn of Morena).

          Here's a long form interview with Thea Riofrancos on the entire situation which she just had a book come out on.

          The best explanation that I can give on why Pachakutik showed up in that list is that the US gave money to every single political party that opposed Correa, whether that opposition was legitimate or not in its grievances.

        • gammison [none/use name]
          ·
          4 years ago

          IDK what makes him do anything outside of being a massive contrarian to get outrage clicks. Like I do not know. He's been this way for years. The only time I see his pieces on my timeline is when he attacks some other writer or organization I follow. The real mask off moment for me was when he doxxed a DSA housing steering committee member and called her COINTELPRO for speaking up about her sexual assault, and then called the whole org state department controlled Trotskyites around the same time.

    • disco [any]
      ·
      4 years ago

      The gray zone is so bad it’s almost astonishing, I wish I was surprised by how much people here seem to like them. Most of what they put out reads like it could be from the LaRouche Movement or something.

      • gammison [none/use name]
        ·
        4 years ago

        I assume it has to be people who mostly read grayzone and nothing else, and don't organize with anyone except maybe their fellow grayzone readers because IRL (or even if you just read books from Haymarket or Verso) you will run into people who strongly dislike them (because grayzone attacks their orgs) almost immediately. Either that, or people who read sparingly and just don't pay attention enough to notice. The pod has not interacted with them since like 2016 which was a bit before they really started going off the rails and people started noticing. There's also a definite bent they've taken ever since Norton joined PSL.