Political bloodsports debate

I stop at a time when I look you in your heart

Yeah.

I was controlled.

These guys keep on taking.

You like me?

There you go.

So

Hey guys, we have some technical errors.

Soviet, what's going on?

Um, William Jennings, appreciate you, bro.

Feisty Vortex, thank you guys, appreciate it.

Uh, we have some technical errors, actually, guys.

This stream is actually starting way earlier than it should.

Uh, we usually start it later when we have more people in here.

Uh, but the reason I have started it quickly is because I was lied to by kick kick told me that many more people were here than are, but anyway, we'll start anyway, whatever.

Um.

But it's okay, because uh w I have some announcements to make for today's stream.

One is I'm gonna be responding to JT or Second Thoughts criticism of the ACP for this video.

Uh it's also gonna be uploaded and edited and stuff, but stick around.

And here's the thing about the confront the chairman.

Segment for today.

Lawn guy, what's up?

Um I don't know if you guys even want these Confront the Chairmans anymore because nobody there's nothing ever in Space's content that's relevant to Confront the Chairman, alright?

Stream crashed.

Oh yeah, we're dealing with some issues, huh?

That's great.

Stream is really crashing, ah.

Is it good, guys?

Harold, what's going on?

Appreciate you.

Is the stream going good or what?

We're not doing our weekly Rambly stream.

We are going to be doing a confront the chairman tonight.

If you guys, if I see in the spaces content there are challengers who are willing to commit to come, then I'll do it tonight.

If we don't have challengers and if I'm just going to be having another stream,

Where I'm gonna be dealing with Rambly and then nothing else, and then I'm gonna have the odd person come up on the space and be like,

Ugh.

Hello?

Hello?

Can you hear me?

Yeah.

Well, Haz, I just wanted to say that.

I don't really have a problem with you at all.

I just wanted to know what you think about Bitcoin.

Like, I don't wanna fucking deal with that, right?

I just

You got it.

We need in Spaces content challengers who are willing to commit at the bare minimum.

People that are willing to confront me through the text medium that are saying this, Haz.

I'm too much of a pussy to use my voice, but I'm going to type this criticism out that I want you to address on your confront the chairman.

That's what we want in spaces content.

It's not a fucking show request channel.

It's not a fucking place you put shit that you want me to respond to.

It's for challengers only that you're linking this person challenging you directly, not indirectly.

You don't put some random fuck that makes an offhand comment about me in there.

You put a person that says, I'm here, I'm gonna confront the chairman with this.

Okay, nobody understands that though.

It's like a lot of people just don't get it, and that's whatever.

But is the stream crashing out or what?

What's going on?

What is going on with the stream?

Is the stream crashing out?

What is going on with the stream?

What are we dealing with?

Yup, it's freezing for me.

Fuck.

You know, um

Okay, ones if the stream is working, twos if there's problems.

Oh, so what's up?

Alright, it's working.

Okay.

If it's working, it's working, you know?

I don't know what to say.

Alright, well, we're going to be responding to second thought.

One Dime Podcast, give me one second.

Because and people

Okay.

So, all right.

So, let's just start.

Let's just start.

All right.

Again, the confront the chairman.

I want to emphasize this.

We will do it tonight if you can show me that there are actual challengers tonight.

If there are no challengers tonight, we're just going to be doing this and we're going to be doing it together.

Okay.

So, I want to give you guys some background context.

JT or Second Thought, however they go by, we actually have a history with this individual.

We made a stream criticizing them once.

He made a post on Twitter responding.

So I guess there's bad blood, there's beef, there's drama, there's something.

But in any case, I am not interested in any kind of drama.

I'm not interested in any personal beef or any pettiness.

I don't care.

He doesn't know me.

I don't know him.

I'm willing to put any kind of differences at that level aside.

I know that there is a big, implicit.

You know, oh, it's like high school.

You can't sit with them.

They're like, I don't care about that, right?

Let's talk about socialism.

Let's talk about Marxism.

Let's talk about building a working class movement and bolstering and strengthening left-wing politics in America.

If you're actually serious about that and you're on board with it.

I will give you my hand.

I mean, not literally, but

You know, you get the idea.

You

Like, I'm willing to put differences aside for a greater cause.

And I see no reason why he should not be either, right?

Unless he's afraid of, you know, the certain streamer networks.

I don't know.

I'm not going to make assumptions.

Again, I'm not claiming I know him.

I'm not claiming.

And you know what?

Let me just tell you guys something.

I hate to say this.

I'm not going to say it.

I'm not going to say it.

I was going to say.

You know, I actually think this guy

Is literally just ACP material.

I watched his interview.

If you're coming in here expecting me to blow up on this guy and be angry at him, I'm actually not.

He made his criticism in the beginning, he made a really nasty comment about us, which I'll ignore, but he does actually delve into some of the nuances surrounding socialist patriotism and questions that I do think a reasonable person who's been introduced to Marxism would have.

And in good faith, I'm going to try to address that and respond to it.

And that's, and this is going to be educational.

You know, it's going to be for the purposes of if you're coming from his line of thinking, which I think is worth raising, you know, this is my response.

You know, so anyway, he mentioned the ACP on going on a podcast, the One Dime podcast.

I don't know who the One Dime guy is, but the host of this podcast.

Look, don't nail me to a cross.

I don't know who this host is, but I was pretty uh impressed.

By some of the pushback they were giving JT on a lot of you know, there's a lot of things these guys were talking about that I was like, wow, this is these guys should be in our party.

What's the issue?

I mean, they're totally they just kind of share our view about a lot of things, actually, more than you'd expect.

It's actually incredible.

Okay.

I was very surprised by his responses here.

I'm not going to sit here and call these guys lip tards, all right?

I'm not going to sit here and be like, these guys are just total crazy lip tards.

Here's the thing: JT is not a crazy lip tard.

He's not an insane psychopath.

He's not.

And as much as he might apologize for those people or want to be charitable toward them, he is definitely not that himself.

100% he's not.

Again,

He's called me names in the past, maybe.

I don't know.

Him and Hakeem, and they don't like me.

I don't care.

It's high school politics.

I don't care about that.

I'm not being merciful either.

I'm being objective.

This guy's not a crazy lip tard.

All right.

This guy is literally like, I meet, I'm not even lying.

Fuck, am I stupid for saying this?

ACP members remind me a lot of this guy.

Big time.

If you're in the ACP, you can confirm that like you're almost like your average ACP member is kind of like, in terms of personality and in terms of like temperament and even ideological temperament, very similar to this guy.

And I'm just being objective.

I'm just being objective.

Okay, let's just watch it.

Believe in the kind of vision of like a more like there is a model for every country to follow or will like different countries follow their own path to socialism?

And if so, like what is uniquely American about American socialism?

Like do you think will have to be done that's different from past socialisms?

That's a good question.

I mean it's tough because the United States is so big, geographically diverse and stuff.

China is too, but they managed.

But it's like you have groups like the ACP and I'm going to get flack for this now that are trying to do the whole patriotic socialism thing, which Long guy, what's up?

I have to turn these fucking alerts off.

I don't know what the fuck.

I mean, my Twitch channel's not monetized, so I don't know what's going on, but they're harassing me, turning that off.

Jesus.

They're like these these Streamlabs alerts.

What is that?

Anyway, sorry.

Wraps up.

Editors, editors, please ignore that.

We're going back.

It's like you have groups like the ACP, and I'm going to get flack for this now, that are trying to do the whole patriotic socialism thing, which wraps up.

Okay, first.

Australia Stanny, thank you, but

Okay.

Hold on, we're gonna do it one more time.

For this now, that are trying to do the whole patriotic socialism thing, which wraps up

Alright, hold on.

We're gonna like redo it a lot.

Geographically diverse and stuff.

China is too, but they they they managed.

But it's like you have groups like the ACP, and I'm gonna get flack for this now, that are trying to do the whole patriotic socialism thing, which

Alright, first disclaimer, the term patriotic socialism does not originate with our movement.

It doesn't originate with the Infrared Movement, with Midwestern Marx, with Jackson Hinkle.

This was a term that was invented by bad faith actors to label us with something that sounds like National Socialism.

The correct term is from the textbooks, Orthodox, Marxist-Leninist introductory textbooks that were created in the Soviet era.

I mean, this is how fundamental and orthodox this is.

This is fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism.

It's Marxism-Leninism 101.

It's literally a canonical part of what Marxism-Leninism is.

The term is called socialist patriotism, and it is the default outlook of all Marxist-Leninists around the world.

It is default.

There's nothing extraordinary about

That position of socialist patriotism, it is the default view, and no, it does not just apply to socialist countries, okay?

So

When I say Marxism-Leninism, I'm referring to political traditions around the world of Marxist-Leninist Communist parties that were part of the Comintern that upheld the line of socialist patriotism.

So in Britain, the Communist Party in Britain always held historically to a patriotic view.

That's also true for the CPUSA.

That's also true for the Communist Party in France.

The Communist Party, well, it was banned, but in the 30s in Spain, it was similar.

The Communist Party was banned after the Franco took over.

But regardless, it's the norm of all Communist parties that adhere to the principles of Marxism-Leninism.

To have the view of socialist patriotism.

And it's literally canonized in introductory textbooks.

You don't just have to read Dmitrov in the 30s, although that is also part of the introduction to the position of socialist patriotism.

But the term patriotic socialism, to be clear, was a term that was invented by bad faith actors.

The only, I think there was a neo-Nazi who actually appropriated that term.

Um and created a party called the Patriotic Patriot Socialist Party, cynically, because it sounds like National Socialism, because they were agreeing.

they they like the term so much, but it's like the only people who use that term are Nazis or leftists themselves unironically.

We may have used it ironically to mock the people accusing us of it, but to be clear, that term

Yeah, editors are probably gonna have a field day with this.

Um yeah.

Anyway, let's continue.

Which wraps up.

ideology of you know westward expansion, of manifest destiny into the socialism thing, takes the the fifties aesthetic of the the dad and the boy grilling in the back yard, white picket fence, dog, you know, that sort of thing, and tries to marry that to vague socialist ideals, which which generally just ends up being Mussolini light.

That is not the correct approach.

I want to be very clear about something which is a theme you'll find me repeat repeatedly.

There is no Mussolini or Mussolini light that is a meaningful accusation whatsoever in the absence of an actually existing Communist, left wing or socialist movement that is being hijacked.

Accusing us of being Mussolini-lite is meaningless because there is no context, there is no meaningful context that you could that fascism could even be made sense of outside of being in reaction to an already existing very powerful socialist, communist, or revolutionary movement, none of which exist in the USA right now.

So stop calling people Mussolini-lite who are communists, because there is no communist movement that's at least large enough to hijack to make that meaningful, right?

I think this is a nebulous term that he's using as a term of abuse because he can get away with it, because he knows that he's not going to get a lot of flack.

If he called, for example, Hassan Piker Mussolini Light, he'd probably get a lot of flack.

But he's using it as a term of abuse.

He's not interested in justifying it rationally.

He's not interested in explaining, well, this is why this is leading to Mussolini Light.

I think he's alluding to the idea that sometimes when our members use retro futuristic aesthetics in America,

And combine that with communistic imagery, that he thinks this is like an inherently reactionary thing.

This is a longing for the past.

I think that, though, that this also misses crucially that the 50s were not just a time of conservatism and the right.

The 50s were also a time when the American working class politically was probably the strongest and benefited the most.

And that was also a context that gave rise to the civil rights movement as well.

A lot of people associate the 50s with just a completely racist environment.

But what they often overlook was that the legacy of Jim Crow was actually a consequence of FDR and the New Deal compromising with Southern Democrats and thereby keeping these institutions of Jim Crow, which came after Reconstruction in place.

And the reason MLK was actually able to unite and rally the nation against the Jim Crow system and the policy of segregation in general was because due to the strength of the working class in America at the time and due to the actually progressive nature atmosphere of politics in general at the time, these vestiges and systems that continued to be perpetuated in the South and elsewhere, they were regarded as an embarrassment and a blemish and completely in contradiction with the ideals or with the principles upon which this nation exists for or is founded by.

And if it wasn't for that context of an extremely strong labor movement, which is why you had the white picket fences, a lot of that has to do with just the power and leverage of labor.

We were dealing with a time in America where, I mean, you had what, like a 90% tax rate on the wealthy, and you had an immensely stronger, you know, a sense of social welfare and so on and so on.

So nobody is necessarily trying to.

Return to that.

I think what those aesthetics, which are not aesthetics used by our party, by the way, but I would grant that they are aesthetics used by the infrared movement sometimes.

That's not because people want to go back to that.

It's just because, like the utilization of imagery and aesthetics from 20th century socialist or communist movements, I'm not saying the 50s of America was socialist or communistic, but it's one of the most recent memories and ways in which the American working class remembers a time in which it was much more powerful and had much more of a seat at the table than it does now.

It was just stronger and had a way better situation than it does now due to the organized power of labor.

And there has been a huge regression with respect to the leverage and power of labor within the scheme of the class struggle since then.

We're not trying to return to that point.

We're just trying to

Um, we're just trying to basically say that the only way that labor can regain power, which will obviously look very different in the 21st century, is through the leadership of a communist movement.

And I think there's nothing wrong with evoking aesthetics of family life and of being able to, you know, support a family on a single job.

I think that's pretty reasonable expectation that Americans want to have.

That doesn't mean women should be excluded from the workforce.

But it does mean that, you know.

The ability for people to form communities, the ability for people to form a meaningful civil society that isn't full of drugs and isn't full of confusion and so on and so on.

That's really what that evokes.

It doesn't necessarily evoke that literal time period, like that we want to return to that.

So that doesn't mean we think that, you know,

All culture can just return to that point in time, you know, and and that we want to completely eliminate all of the changes in American culture that have happened since then.

It just kind of is a vague way of evoking a sense of shared community, which I think we have lost as a country and which we don't have.

And if you want to utilize imagery that evokes that in a way that purely evokes imagery that comes from the future, I would just tell you, good luck.

It would probably be wildly speculative.

I think there is a dialectical

significance to the fact that of retrofuturism in particular here, right?

Which is just being able to kind of meaningfully evoke what it means for there to be American communism.

And you're not literally giving people a snapshot of the future we're fighting for.

You're not literally giving them a high-res 4K image of what life or what we expect life is going to look like.

I think that very much just is a misunderstanding of what memes and what art in general is supposed to actually express and convey.

Which is not necessarily a just direct picture a photograph of reality that we want, but more the the underlying meaning being evoked by that.

And you're a lot of people interpret that meaning it's purely in terms of being re a reactionary fantasy.

But it's only a reactionary fantasy if you confuse the form for the content.

And I think people really overlook that for a huge segment of America's working class, that was a time in which they had a stronger position.

They had more leverage and power than they have now.

And I don't think there's anything wrong with playing up the positive aspects of that, not necessarily neglecting and ignoring the negative.

Coming from some YouTuber.

But I don't I think socialism has to develop on its own time, on its own terms, depending on the specific material conditions of the country in which it arises.

So, like Thomas Sankara's socialism looked different than Castro's socialism, which looked different from Mao's socialism.

So American socialism, if the United States exists as an entity the way that it does today, will look different from those, I think, if we can achieve it.

Some people think the US.

I think the only reason JT mentioned us was because he knows how similar he sounds to us when he says things like what he just said there, but he just wants to distance himself from us so that nobody will accuse him of being like us because we are so toxic and have such a bad reputation.

But in good faith, the problem that you'll find consistently with Second Thought or JT, however they want to go by, is that they're not willing to actually commit to any kind of ground zero of like, what is the shared American community?

What is America?

Like, what could American socialism possibly even begin from?

And you have to actually, in a practical way, deal with that question if you're interested in building socialist politics.

You can't just first build a socialist politics devoid of national form, win power, and say, okay, now we're going to address the question.

It has been long understood by communist movements since even