What kind of electoralism is it, proletarian or bourgeois, idealist or materialist? Do they declare solidarity with the occupied third world, or do they sympathize with the naval gazing narcissism of the first world labor aristocracy?
The fact that Bad Faith believes "self driving cars are the future" and "we can go full clean energy without fossil fuels" tells us they're just merely woke liberals who don't know about the effects of resource extraction. How can you be a Marxist with less of an understanding of basic physics than papa Karl? It's impossible to be a materialist if you're as delusional as the Elon Musk death cult redditors
I dunno this seems kind of... bad faith.
YEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAH
:sicko-speeeeen:
I read all the people complaining about Bad Faith here, but having listened to most of the podcast episodes, I have no idea what the people complaining are even referring to.
I was on your side, but then you pointed at the big neon sign that says “IM A :LIB: ”
Insanity is trying the same strategy and expecting different results.
Tried listening myself and just feels... kind of gross. Know the phrase "grifting" gets thrown around here, but that's kind of how it feels to me.
I don't mean to be a jerk, but when I say "I don't really know what people are specifically referring to" and you respond in clichés, that doesn't help me out too much.
It's a nerdy left podcast, just like chapo is a grungy left podcast and cum town is a aspiring spree-killer podcast and if that's not your milieu that's fine but that's not a critique.
Fair enough, here's more direct criticism:
Bad Faith podcast (at least what I've listened to) seems to fall into the mentality of if we just talk about deep systemic structural problems enough, things'll change. Here's a bunch of distinguished folks to talk about it too.
Having been through two Bernie runs already, seems pretty clear it's not a problem of popular consciousness but of powerful interests within the Democratic party itself that want to squash any change despite popular support. And it seems to me that Brie and Virgil are two people who should clearly "know better."
A cynical read? Maybe. But that's my critique.
I mean this critique is discussed at length in the most recent episode so 🤷
It's good they're addressing this... uh, checks podcast... 50 episodes in. What do they say? (Or even the relevant timestamp.)
Gave it a try when it came out, I really did. Just found it pretty disappointing overall. Rev Left is more my thing.
I don't think they're suggesting that simply talking about stuff will change anything. Say what you will about electoral politics, but trying to put new people in power is a much more serious attempt at change than just talking, and Brie and Virgil both put (varying degrees of) real work into the Bernie campaign.
it’s not a problem of popular consciousness but of powerful interests within the Democratic party itself that want to squash any change despite popular support
How much of the Democratic base would you say were firm Bernie supporters? It's somewhere less than half, and possibly much less. We didn't see party elites kneecap an overwhelming favorite (or even a candidate with clear majority support) -- we saw them kneecap a candidate with plurality support, but who most of the party would move on from without a second thought.
There's definitely a problem of popular consciousness and a problem with the Party's vested interests.
it’s even worse because Brie thinks that working for a presidential campaign after spending years in the corporate lawyer world, makes her qualified to have any type of commentary on left causes to the point that she’ll start a fight with the DSA when they vote (as democratic organizations often do) to not put energy into her day late pet cause when they’re already organizing around their own strategies
I never have this opinion but if Brie wanted an ounce of my respect she’d get a fucking job because she really seems to be living off of all of our money (I’ll never get over how people who aren’t fucking working to live think they have anything useful to say about people who are)
Also the other day I looked into her past and apparently she grew up in Saudi Arabia and Nairobi going to an international school where her parents taught so I’m genuinely worried about the way she believes she’s a spokesperson for the black American experience // also when her father died there was an obit in the times (which says enough) about how he got killed due to His Americanness Not Being Recognized Abroad and while its super sad and I don’t want to pick anything like that apart it read to me as very very tone deaf
You can’t read that and not think that she’s indeed a misfit black girl (I saw this as a black woman)
I like Virgil because he’s similarly privileged but at least knows his life is a joke
if Brie wanted an ounce of my respect she’d get a fucking job
lol what kind of conservative horseshit is this
I’m being purposefully draconian as a joke // “Brie the welfare queen” probably wouldn’t hit as well (I say this as a black woman who grew up on welfare)
It’s the dunk tank we dunk here on the edgy dirt bag left website named after podcast hosts who say slurs
Also yes ppl shouldn’t have to have jobs but people shouldn’t also just sit on their mass wealth while other people are exploited, and make judgements about how the people being exploited are handling their exploitation
Fortunately I have a solution: Brie, go work some service job where people aren’t wearing masks and get some perspective instead of moralizing over poor black people like me
Another one: Brie, literally join any local movement (having a DSA card in your Kate spade wallet doesn’t count) and use the ample amount of time and financial security you enjoy to help out.
Also : Brie your boyfriend is currently union busting and harming his black and brown support staff comrades and you should probably focus on that instead of demanding to speak to the manager of the DSA
people shouldn’t also just sit on their mass wealth while other people are exploited
- What are you even talking about -- it's laughable to claim Briahna Joy Gray has anything approaching "mass wealth."
- "Be poor and work a service job or else I'm not going to listen to you" is textbook reactionary garbage, and it doesn't stop being reactionary garbage because people make jokes here.
If you're going to rip on other leftists, don't make shit up about them or use right-wing talking points that are dunk-worthy themselves.
Yeah, I guess you're right. Lying about other leftists is OK. Attacking them with drivel you'd hear on Fox News is great. This is a perfectly acceptable way to treat people working towards socialism, and misguided infighting has never been a problem within the left.
Carry on -- I'm sure this bullshit will bring the revolution any day now.
Bro calm down nobody is lying here and you’re freaking out. This is the internet ..... dare I say you’re engaging with what I wrote in extreme bad faith
Also Brie is not some vaguard figure working towards socialism by talking into a mic. I know everyone has their role but she’s literally just a person with way more money than you bro
Claiming a person has "mass wealth" when they don't is a lie. Having some baseline level of respect for your comrades -- like not lying about them and baselessly attacking them -- is essential to any socialist project. Do you want to build solidarity and get something done, or do you want to shit in each other's Cheerios on the internet?
Also Brie is not some vaguard figure working towards socialism by talking into a mic.
There is zero possibility of any socialist project getting off the ground unless we convince millions more people to become leftists. What role would you say media plays in politics? Do we need more leftist propaganda out there, or less?
Also : Brie your boyfriend is currently union busting and harming his black and brown support staff comrades and you should probably focus on that instead of demanding to speak to the manager of the DSA
Wait what the fuck can I get a source on this??
Given the fact that 10000 people on twitter viscerally hate BJG, the fact that this hasn't been shouted to the rooftops from there makes it pretty clear it's a distortion.
We need to clamp down on textbook wrecker shit like "this person who is very publicly trying to help is secretly awful, just trust me bro." People should have at least something to back that sort of accusation up.
No :freeze-peach: for utterly baseless attacks
Lol. I was a huge BFG stan until the Force the Vote thing. She has shown her ass on this one, she's not a socialist. She's a progressive liberal, and that's fine but I'm tired of sharing left spaces with progressive liberals.
You guys can hang out with the neoliberals, they are closer to you ideology. Stop trying to pretend to be us.
Nobody knows who her boyfriend is because she’s not public about it. it seems like a weird thing to make up for needless internet points in a small site but do you
Hope you have this same energy for every "leftist" podcast including Chapo and Trueanon who rake in more a year than 95% of anyone here will ever make in their lives
I'm pretty sure they are saying that people like Brie lack the experience of being an underpaid worker. Which is true about her and a lot of people.
Her issues are more PMC, as Marxists, we should understand how and why that is. /u/purr made a great argument for the material causes of Brie's opinions.
people like Brie lack the experience of being an underpaid worker
This place really must be full of libs, because any leftist would know that you can't throw a rock in this country without hitting a job with poor conditions and low pay. Plenty of people like Brie -- people who are now working a decently comfortable office job -- have experience with shitty jobs. If you worked somewhere in high school you almost certainly had one of those jobs. If you worked somewhere in college you likely had one of those jobs. If you worked an unpaid internship you definitely had one of those jobs. Journalism is notorious for having a few cushy prestige jobs at the very top and a long, lean tail.
Which is true about her
It's amazing we have so many people in here who know every detail of this person's life.
So you're just angry people are criticizing her and don't really have anything to add, do you?
I'm saying your criticisms are horseshit. You're making shit up. You don't have a clue if she worked a low-paying job at some point, yet you're assuming she hasn't (and, implicitly, that it's impossible to legitimately advocate for socialism unless you've been poor). You claim that "people like Brie" categorically have no experience with low-paying jobs despite literally millions of examples to the contrary (i.e., people who make nice money now but didn't always). None of this is debatable -- you're just wrong.
And yeah, I get angry when I see wrecker behavior like this, because making shit up about other leftists is so obviously harmful. How the fuck are we supposed to get anything done if we spend our time baselessly attacking each other?
I get angry when I see wrecker behavior like this
Defending BJG is more "wrecker shit" that anything else right now.
If you care about leftist unity, you should be consider about people with voices focusing so much time and energy on "wrecker shit" like FTV.
If you’re working in some petit boug job off the back of workers, you absolutely should get a real fucking job or fuck off. It’s “workers of the world” not “scumbag lawyers of the world”. I’d rather listen to a ups driver and some fast food worker do a left wing podcast than some brain dead rich kids.
oh right, you're not a worker unless you wear overalls and break rocks all day
You’re not a worker if you live off your trust fund and patreon money from your radlib podcast. Fuck off with your stupid lib rhetoric, it’s pathetic.
lol she has a trust fund now?
Is it really so much to ask that we not make shit up about other leftists?
Idgaf about any rich kid “leftist” podcast grifter, they’re useless and they can all burn for all I care.
Is entertainment not a commodity? Is making entertainment not a form of labour? Where does podcasting become a fake job?
Patreon is among the least exploitative ways of making money. You're not even imposing a monetary cost on other people.
Workers work to survive, we have no choice. These are rich kids larping at public intellectualism, and they’re lucky enough to be subsidized by the morons that like them. I doubt that either of them have to do this “job”, they do it so they can inflate their egos. What, you gonna call Vaush an exploited prole too? Come on, give me a fucking break.
Everyone needs money to survive. Podcasting is not exploitation. And there's nothing wrong with donating to people who produce free content you like. What next? Are you going to start attacking street performers?
What you're doing now is moralizing bullshit, not material analysis. Class is not defined by money or type of labour, but relation to the means of production.
lmao really? that would explain a lot especially how he went into hiding to regenerate after Bernie got kneecapped
He’s explicitly endorsed revolutionary socialism. A lot of “demsocs” use electoralism to base build through exposure and heightening contradictions. Hiding your power level so meemaw actually thinks about the policies without dismissing out of hand. Without some accelerated crisis like a world war at the frontline of our cities, the US will not have a critical mass of radicalized people otherwise.
“we can go full clean energy without fossil fuels”
lol are you saying full clean energy isn't possible and we will always need fossil fuels? Because that's aaaa... take.
I think that they are saying Bad Faith implied building new green energy can be done without fossil fuels, which is probably not true.
We will have a carbon boom if we decide to tackle climate change, at least for a short time. Carbon sequestration via forest replanting, plant based clothing, etc is so far behind in North America it's an embarrassment.
Naomi Klein is very good at talking about this. She very real about the conversion to green energy requiring a lot of carbon.
Honestly, carbon sequestration and regreening may be the only way to save the planet. Obviously, used in conjunction with other methods.
Obviously, used in conjunction with other methods.
:gui-better:
I think it's because of their US focus and just how conservative our national politics are. Plus, Virgil and Brie are specifically wonks.
Unironically this is the first struggle session I didn't see coming.
And, in my failure to anticipate it, I have violated the Prime Directive.
why do you attack the climate points in particluar ?
whats your alternative , seems to be a useless target to attack /build urpoint upon , Whats do you want , no green energy because " they also need fossilfuels and ressources" ? like what is your practica porpuse in this position ?
I would not argue the main point but why do you hang it up on this wierd climate tangent ?
I'm not the OP, but here's the problem with basing your climate policy on "self-driving cars are the future" and "clean energy without fossil fuels".
It's not that clean energy without fossil fuels is a bad idea, it's that if we are to clean up the energy system, we need to do it in a way that doesn't destroy the Earth in the process. And that requires a major change to the fundamental make-up of our society, not just changing the tech used in transport and electricity and continuing on business otherwise unchanged.
Currently resources extraction is responsible for about 50% of global CO2 emissions, with metal mining responsible for about 20% of global emissions - even before manufacturing. Now, to electrify the car and van fleet of the UK alone, reaching the UK's electric car and van targets by 2050, would take double the current global cobalt production, almost all of global neodymium, three quarters of global lithium production, and half of global copper production (source: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/press-office/press-releases/leading-scientists-set-out-resource-challenge-of-meeting-net-zer.html ) . Add on electrifying all the other countries, and you get a rise in metal extraction that would see armies blasting their way across the Earth scrapping over every last pound of metals left, and burning enough fossil fuels to turn the Earth into Venus.
So clearly we can't focus on electric cars, because electric cars are a really inefficient way to transport people, and electrifying global car fleets would destroy everything.
Instead what we need is a real green industrial revolution, where we decarbonize as much as possible every sector of human society as fast as we can, while growing carbon-negative industrial sectors as fast as possible to such that surplus carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere as fast as possible.
Methods to decarbonize human society include reducing the use of carbon-emitting activities such as transport, fossil fuel combustion for electricity, resource extraction, factory farming of beef, etc. We can also find carbon-neutral ways to carry these activities out. The example in the OP of electric cars are one way to decarbonize transport, but you can reduce emissions from transport much faster by switching out private cars for good quality public transport and bicycle infrastructure, while reducing the need for mass commuting in the first place. Getting people out of their petrochemically fueled cars and into petrochemically fueled buses is a very fast way to reduce the carbon footprint of their transport. But yes, we can have electric cars as PART of the solution in the mid to long term.
Carbon-negative activities include carbon-negative building (e.g. a housing boom with carbon-negative materials like hemp-crete, bamboo and sustainable timber), carbon-negative fuels and products, biochar, regenerative agriculture and forestry. Note carbon-negative fuels in the mix - there are forms of biodiesel that can make existing cars, trucks and buses carbon negative. This works by sucking CO2 out of the air into the plant that is later used as a feedstock to make the biodiesel. A portion of the CO2 stays in the ground or is used to make biochar in the process, meaning when the diesel is burned, less is returned to the air. This means that existing diesel based vehicles can continue operating in a carbon-negative way, saving the construction of a new electric vehicle and its engine and battery.
These carbon-negative activities can be used to reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere, while allowing some hard-to-change emitting processes (such as production of steel) to continue. A real green industrial revolution that brings global CO2 levels back to 280 parts per million by mid-century is within our grasp.
But none of this stuff, neither the reduction of unnecessary consumption, transport, fossil fuel combustion, extraction, nor the ramp up of carbon-negative processes to pull the surplus CO2 out of the atmosphere, will happen if we continue with an economic system that is based on the seeking of profits by selling the surplus value created by workers. Resource extraction, fossil fuel use, and conspicuous consumption are some of the few profit-generating activities remaining for capital. The engine of capital requires the profits to keep flowing, and it requires people working to create the value from which those profits are stolen.
Likewise, capital cannot tolerate the development of alternative carbon-neutral or carbon-negative industries that threaten its business models. So industrial hemp is still illegal in many places. Carbon-negative fuels are kept in a nascent stage of development. As fossil-fuels became increasingly difficult and costly to dig out of the ground, producers use government subsidies to keep them profitable and outcompeting the alternatives.
Our world is dying. Capitalism is killing it. And that is why we need a global socialist revolution. We have nothing to lose but our chains. We have a world to win.
Is the reason we have those elemental needs because the technology requires it or because Capital requires it? Would an Authoritarian state be able to make it happen if concerns of profitability were cast aside or is it literally just not physically possible with the technology we currently have?
The assumption should be that anything electoralist is bourgeois electoralism. Why would you think otherwise?
Dem soc doesn't establish dictatorship of the proletariat, more at 11“we can go full clean energy without fossil fuels”
Are you claiming we can never get rid of fossil fuels?
pray tell how you make steel for nearly all green energy projects without fossil fuels, for example. Or how you mine copper when all mining vehicles run on diesel. It's the very crux of why "simply replace all our current stuff with green stuff 👶🧠" is not only an impossible task, but once that would run counter to the entire purpose of green energy, since remanufacturing our entire energy ecosystem will release insane amounts of carbon.
DEGROWTH from fossil fuel use and removal of capitalism (a system predicated on infinite growth) is the only way to begin a green future. Eventually we can stop using fossil fuels (for energy production at least) but that's the last step in a long march that we haven't even begun as a society.
pray tell how you make steel for nearly all green energy projects without fossil fuels, for example.
Use electricity to generate heat. Use heat to operate a foundry.
remanufacturing our entire energy ecosystem will release insane amounts of carbon.
Physical capital is exhausted through operation and periodically needs to be repaired/replaced regardless of the energy source.
DEGROWTH from fossil fuel use and removal of capitalism (a system predicated on infinite growth) is the only way to begin a green future.
"Growth" is simply a measure of money velocity from year to year. Money isn't real, so simply adjusting monetary policy can cause "economic growth" without changing real land, labor, or energy consumption. The rapidly inflating financial sector demonstrates as much.
Also - as you note - we have an abundance of exigent fossil-fuel consuming capital. If nothing else, clearing away that old capital so we can make use of the underlying land and raw materials will take labor and energy. That's another 30 years of increased growth whether you like it or not.
Use electricity to generate heat. Use heat to operate a foundry.
its not that simple. You need coke (derived from coal) to smelt iron ore with in order to produce steel. without coal, you cannot make steel. electric foundries can only melt scrap steel to make recycled steel products.
Physical capital is exhausted through operation and periodically needs to be repaired/replaced regardless of the energy source.
not in a time frame fast enough to avert climate catastrophe. and lots of governments also literally do not have the capital to repair/replace old existing dirty technology, let alone replace it with green stuff.
“Growth” is simply a measure of money velocity from year to year. Money isn’t real, so simply adjusting monetary policy can cause “economic growth” without changing real land, labor, or energy consumption. The rapidly inflating financial sector demonstrates as much.
that's not the growth I'm taking about. I'm basically talking about consumption. Capitalism must be ended or forced to reduce it's commodity production and not manufacture anything at all in order to reduce global carbon emissions. There is no way to manufacture what we do at the current numbers without fossil fuels until all energy is 100% green, and as I already mentioned, you can't manufacture green energy products without carbon release.
The answer is severe degrowth of consumption and the economies of the top emitting economies, per capita. It's not gonna be pretty or fun and it will never happen until Capitalism is destroyed. That's why the green vision of a easy transition to utopian green economies while enjoying the benefits of economic growth is a massive lie and will never manifest. if you want to be committed to saving the environment, people in the first world especially need to commit to restructuring society entirely. no more cars, endless commodity consumption, exotic fruits shipped from overseas. technology will not save us, green or not.
I think if you look at the types of absolutely ghoulish firms Brie worked for as a corporate lawyer, it's not at all surprising.
Walking away from a lucrative career to do leftist politics seems like a sign that one is serious about leftist politics.
Seems more like classic new lawyer syndrome because the working conditions are awful and the legal profession operates as a pyramid scheme. My sister lasted about two and half years before she left to be an education bureaucrat.
She left to become an editor for current affairs, and I'm not sold on the idea that becoming a journalist to do electoralism takes on the democrats is doing leftist politics.
Do you... actually listen to the whole episode?
Why?
Go outside, high five a tree, skip for a bit, sing a tune off key.
