Or they get trapped in South Korea by the government and chat shit about how much it sucks compared to DPRK

Haha nah there's nothing wrong with liking Green Day. Their first few albums are really good and they really connected with the sort of aimless feeling in young people in America at the time. It's kind of a meme to rag on them in punk circles because they got mainstream popularity and an image of being this mad subversive band with some of the most milquetoast, myopic anti-war music ever and if there's one thing punks love it's saying things aren't real punk.

One time a reddit anarchist told me that green day were the best anticapitalist band. Even a fed wouldn't be stupid enough to say that; hating green day is the biggest requirement to be an anarchist

Tyranny of Structurelessness by Jo Freeman is a good read on why this happens

"Falling rate of profit? Never heard of her."

Since Hakim was mainly just asking questions and wasn't able to give his own thoughts in the video, he made a comment with any thoughts and disagreements he had with what Wolff said:

"My thoughts: If we had more time, I would've asked a lot more and asked particularly for clarification on some statements he made. I think most of my disagreements are from either misunderstandings on my part or a lack of clarity on the professor's part. Both of these would've been cleared up with more time, but sadly we only had 30 minutes (which I dragged out to 45ish lol).

1. Professor Wolff seems either confused or otherwise deliberately unclear when it comes to the idea of imperialism and China. His answer wasn't a definite yes or no, which is fine. The qualifying remarks, however, seems strange ("the movement to control their sources of inputs of raw materials..." for imperialism). It isn't incorrect per se, but it isn't entirely correct either. The definition is too broad, basically. Finally, he seems to insinuate any country that exhibits the Capitalist "employer-employee relationship" can be considered imperialist (or "takes part in such activities", in his words). Maybe in clarification he means that they have the tendency to do so?

2. Professor Wolff's definition of Socialism seems to hinge particularly heavy on the "reorganization of the enterprise" aspect, to the point that, if it isn't present to his definition, it isn't Socialism (according to him). Now I feel this is a similar error to those that consider solely state control by a proletarian party to be legitimate Socialism, and the technicalities of how production is organized is a secondary or even tertiary matter. In my personal opinion, both of these need to be present (and historically were present to various degrees) for a full-bodied Socialism to exist. Regardless, Wolff's strange comments in which he links Soviet Socialism to a social-democratic formulation (and hence a form of state-Capitalism) is just silly and plain wrong. I'm sure he would've clarified had I asked, but we didn't have the time. For those interested though, Soviet Socialism did not have markets (in the extensive sense; only for cooperative farms), did not have a market for labour-power, did not have private ownership (with the notable exception of cooperative farms in the Khrushchev-era), did not have and allow ownership of capital by private individuals, did not have wage-labour, did not have a separate class that related differently to the means of production than the proletarian/peasant base of the USSR....etc. This is very different from even the most radical form of Social-Democracy practiced by Europe, which retained all of these features. Most of the difficulties of realizing Soviet Socialism were a result of the USSR's conditions (i.e. agrarian society with a notable peasant population, destruction as a result of war(s), international diplomatic and military harassment etc.), and Wolff has recognized this in other talks.

3. Professor Wolff seems to be very adamantly pro--economic planning. What a chad.

4. Professor Wolff seems to think in a very "long-game" way towards worker cooperatives. His train of thought seems to be: Build up of cooperatives -> Develop increased political capital and a drive to push for their interests -> Slowly join the political system (which benefits cooperative development), and eventually the material conditions and the consequences of such action would heighten the class struggle to a possible point of revolution (or some level of civil strife, at least). This isn't the only way it could go in his mind, it seems, but I have a feeling that that is what he intended to highlight. There is merit to this position, but I think this should be only part of a wider Socialist movement (and I think Wolff might feel the same). Very interesting.

5. Criticisms of Yugoslavia? Dunking on markets again. Absolute chad.

This was from a very short chat where I didn't have the time to really ask too deeply on each point. Nonetheless, it was very interesting and fruitful. He is obviously a very intelligent man with a lot of nuance to his positions. In the future, I hope to be able to get him on again for a longer time, so that we can delve a little deeper. Lemme know what you guys think."

Wolff can be a bit non-committal about the implementation of socialism sometimes but I like what he has to say on the futility of markets and the need for dual power

What use is it to just state China isn't a proletarian dictatorship like it's a fact? Marxism Leninism has been called state capitalism since time immemorial so these arguments have been played out thousands of times. Until someone demonstrates a better way of instituting a proletarian dictatorship these quibbles are pointless and ignore the material reality of how hard it is to change an entire mode of production.

we protect noname at all costs

letthemfight.gif

Cold countries always have shit food tbf

https://twitter.com/BarrySmellson/status/1374108927328149507

Maybe I'm misreading but I don't see how what you said relates to the bit you quoted at all. How does saying "animal liberation is intertwined with leftism" mean you're not left wing unless you're vegan?

I agree that this idea that "leftist" is like some identity that you either are or are you aren't is so toxic honestly but there's a difference between focusing on other areas of leftism because you're not as passionate about animal liberation and straight up rejecting the idea that it should be a goal at all.

I don't think it's controversial to say that a core part of leftism is opposing exploitation and suffering. The rhetoric used by vegans in the past few days has been inflammatory, occasionally racist and honestly useless but it has drawn out a lot of the tired old arguments against animal liberation that I didn't expect to see in a supposedly leftist space and it's been really disappointing on all sides.

Everyone talks past each other on this site it's fucking exhausting.

Wow I just watched the RC video. Where did he even get the idea that FALC means the things he's railing against?

I literally don't even think a strand of leftism exists that advocates for tech companies to lead the revolution like what is he even talking about lol? Has breadtube run out of people to make reaction vids to that now they're just creating new idiots?

There's no way to disprove that I suppose.

All I know is I've read enough accounts from former PSL members to be skeptical of the org.

All the sources are linked at the bottom if you don't like how they're written about. For the first incident you can read the document that outlined the concerns that PSL members sent to PSL leadership here

I think it's important to take accusations seriously instead of dismissing them immediately because of a tone you don't like.

I mean PSL has previous

The idea that just because you've met someone that means you somehow know they wouldn't do something like this is the exact same attitude that leads to women not being believed about sexual assault

yeah i have no issue if someone wants to celebrate biden getting elected like i think it's dumb but crack on, but maybe don't do it with a digital minstrel show celebrating the man who incarcerated shitloads of black people

also i try to be pretty understanding so probs would've just ignored it but fuck me she was posting new ones like every 5 mins

Something about the depersonalisation of the the internet makes no one have conversations in good faith. I've had in person conversations when doing stalls and stuff and it's night and day the difference it makes with people taking each other seriously and actually listening.

bro that's exactly the same time i unfollowed her lmao. shit was so fucking gross.