American Patriotism Dicussion /w Jackson Hinkle, Caleb Maupin, and InfraredShow 🚀 Infrared Content Catalog

all right all right i'm ready now

cool um

i'll just i'll start it off with just

myself and then i'll drag you guys in

for the youtube stream for sure for sure

all right everybody what's up welcome

back to the show thank you so much for

joining me here

um this is the dive and it's also haza's

stream as well i guess because i think i

think you guys are able to hear me right

now so um i hope everyone is doing well

it's good it's good to all be here for

this

um

i think most people know why we're here

but i'll just briefly summarize there i

put out a tweet and this isn't a new

thing like patriotic socialism is a very

very old idea and really it's it's

rooted um in the historical practice of

socialism so this is not a new thing but

i put out a tweet that i didn't think

was controversial i said i'm a

marxist-leninist i'm an anti-imperialist

and i'm an american patriot and it

sparked a massive debate debate online

um not just in the united states but

like across many countries

and uh

a lot of people were a lot of people

have already done live streams this week

kind of uh discussing the debate from

the opposite side of the

uh you know political spectrum as far as

this goes and i wanted to bring these

two individuals together

for a conversation

um

about why we all feel

that patriotism

is inherent to the fight for a marxist

line and his future and uh these are two

individuals that i think um

you know are very smart very uh

well-spoken when it comes to this issue

in particular and i think you'll find

their comments um i think you'll find

them very interesting so without further

ado i want to bring them on first we

have caleb maupin um caleb is an

incredible uh political commentator

analyst author he's written numerous

books you can find his work at uh well

you can find on his twitter if you just

look up caleb maupin but i believe it's

calebmaupin.com you can correct me if

i'm wrong yes i see the shake of the

head and then the second individual will

be bringing on is haas from the infrared

show runs a very popular uh twitch

stream and also has a youtube channel

and we've all been doing work together

and i've i've had both of them on my

show before but this is the first time

we're all coming together for a collab

stream which i know a lot of you have

wanted so

uh here you go

the men the myths the legend caleb

maupin

how you guys doing

great good how about you jackson

i'm doing well thank you so much for uh

for being here

you know we didn't really uh we didn't

really like talk too much before as to

like how we wanted to dive into this but

um given that i just kind of gave that

brief summary i maybe maybe each of you

could go one at a time and

caleb maybe you first and uh discuss

your

general thoughts on

the tweet that was um

the tweet that was put out by myself and

the reaction that unfolded well sure um

what immediately comes into my head

many times i have had this image in my

head

you know some average american family

enjoying their afternoon and then

there's a com you know someone's

knocking on the door

opens the door hello i'm from the local

communist organization uh oh okay great

well tell me what your group believes in

uh well we think that everyone in this

town is a dirty rotten euro settler and

your living standard is too high so we

want to drive down your living standard

to make it more fair to people in the

third world um and while we're at it um

we are planning to engage in violence

and property destruction tonight and

tear this town apart light some

buildings on fire um you know you'll

come with us right oh and uh while we're

at it we love drugs we think drugs are

amazing is anyone in your family

addicted to opioids or heroin or

marijuana yet we want to get them

addicted to it because drugs are just

awesome and while we're at it um you

know have any of you considered becoming

sex workers you know i mean you know

prostitution we are all about that that

is our central issue uh so will you sign

up and join our group

now of course i'm being hyperbolic no

one literally does this um and i think

that that is the essence of the problem

that is the essence of the problem right

there because i have done actual

political work i have knocked on

people's doors i have sold people

newspapers and you realize that you know

it seems pretty basic that in politics

the way to get people to support you is

to make the case that you're going to

make their lives better people generally

vote for candidates that they think are

going to improve their lives people

generally support political movements

political ideologies that they feel will

improve their lives

however unfortunately a lot of our

politics on the so-called left has

degenerated not into a program and a

strategy for actually dismantling

imperialism building a socialist world

but rather kind of an identity that

people can buy into they can be on the

internet they can feel really radical

they can be very angry at the society

around them they can give voice to their

their very very very pent up angry

feelings of rage they don't fit in with

the society around them they realize

that there are evil things that go on

and other people don't realize them and

they're frustrated they feel alienated

that's not real politics uh and and look

national chauvinism you know i've heard

that my whole life you know this is the

greatest country in the world you know

and if you so much as ask people like

why is the united states the greatest

country in the world they look at you

and go what you don't think it's the

greatest country in the world you must

be brainwashed everybody knows you know

we all hate that okay we all hate

national chauvinism we all hate jingoism

uh you know we all hate this idea that

the united states is this infallible

country that's never done anything wrong

slavery jim crow segregation murder of

native americans korea vietnam you know

there's been horrendous things that have

gone on in the history of the united

states and we offered no support for

that obviously but while all of those

things were going on while slavery was

going on there were people like matt

turner and harriet tubman and john brown

uh you know when there was exploitation

in the sweatshops you had gus hall uh

you had william z foster you had eugene

debs you had the labor movement you had

people organizing for the rights of

women during the vietnam war you had

people who burned their draft cards and

said hell no we won't go you had people

that ran through the streets of of the

city that i'm in right now in new york

city with the flag of the national

liberation front of vietnam chanting ho

ho ho chi minh the nlf is going to win

and i would argue that the anti-war

activists and the suffragists and the

labor movements and the abolitionists

and the anti-racists are just as much a

part of the history of this country as

are the war makers and the colonizers

and that socialism when it comes to the

united states will be this progressive

current in american history taking power

and mobilizing to dismantle imperialism

build a whole new world uh raise people

out of poverty and build a better life

for people around the world and for

people in this country i think that's a

pretty winning message that i would be

comfortable knocking on somebody's door

with so forgive me if i was a little bit

provocative there but i couldn't resist

no i love it i love it i think that was

very well said and it reminded me of

what michael perenti once said he said

you know this is our country and we have

to fight to take it back so haas

oh and for anyone in the audience let me

know how my mic is people were saying it

was a little bit loud at the start but

has uh your thoughts on the initial

tweet and the and the reaction that um

came after it

yeah i think um

i think we really need to

delve a little deeper in terms of

a caleb is 100 entirely right that they

do have a losing strategy and they have

a strategy of failures basically people

who cannot win the masses and cannot win

in this country

but

a more fundamental problem with leftists

is um

they actually don't

uh

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care they they say well we don't want to

win we just want to be right and as a

matter of fact winning among the masses

in america would be a bad thing because

the masses in america are a bunch of

settlers

uh upon whom we can only desire um

misfortune and disaster and punishment

divine

retribution for the sins of the fathers

so i think we should walk it back a

little bit and actually um

assess the fundamental controversy from

the standpoint of the history and

experience and theory of marxist

leninism

because it's not just that as kayla

pointed out that the strat

adopting american patriotism is the

winning strategy it's also fundamentally

correct and principally correct from the

standpoint of marxism leninism so

now one of the first ways we can um

ground the controversy is this what is

the soil of socialism or marxism or

communism is this soil the abstraction

of individual morality

set against the world or is it the

actual given majority overwhelming

majority of people that preside and live

within your country

where does socialism become real where

does it become

um relevant what is the the class

struggle is the class struggle and

abstraction of thought or is it

something whose context is inevitably

national and civilizational and so on

and so on now there's the example of

history this controversy actually isn't

being brought up for the first time in

history actually marxism leninism is

what came to define

itself

significantly on this basis of this

precise question what is the real ground

of the class struggle so the first form

of this was when lenin

refused to recognize that the

westernized city elites

in russia were the sole primary

and privileged site of the class

struggle lenin elected to

recognize that the national russian

peasantry

the democratic petty bourgeoisie as he

put it was the site of the fundamental

class differentiations that were only

apparent in the cities the real essence

of those differentiations were happening

in the countryside um

and then

through the course of the experience of

the bolshevik party a term came to be

adopted which was called liquidationism

now liquidationism um was a phenomena

that basically

um

was this

this trend in tendency whether for

coming from the left or from the right

that

when there's a new historical um

situation to just completely basically

abandon the entrenched wisdom

accumulated by the party and its

experience let's just liquidate the

party's program liquefy the party's

tradition and continuity and let's just

start from scratch

the reason i'm bringing that up is

because in the 20s and this actually

forms a significant part of the origins

of

stalin's socialism in one country and

and what we call stalinism itself

was actually happening in the sphere of

aesthetics

so

many of the

more radical um

figures of

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revolutionary culture within russia

we're pushing for this idea called

proletarian culture prolet cult

and the basic idea was that the old

russian culture was completely stained

by the sins and wrongness of the past

and we need to create a brand new

proletarian culture

and

the

majority of bolsheviks responded to this

prolet cult this this idea that was

being pushed

with the accusation that it was a form

of liquidationism but instead of being a

form of liquidationism against the party

it was a form of liquidationism against

the entrenched experience of history

itself specifically in the form of

russia's national traditions russian

literature and also european literature

and so on and so on so lenin responded

to these people by saying

listen

we need our the russian people to be a

cultured at the bare minimum with the

works of

civilization with all of the treasures

of mankind

from the european enlightenment to

russia's own traditions and so on and so

on we cannot seed russia's national

traditions to the enemy we have to give

them new meaning because we're actually

the ones inheriting them

so they applied this accusation of

liquidationism which was first levied

against

detractors from the party

uh to those people who are trying to

invent a brand new culture

um so i think an important detail here

is the fact that

the past

well and and one last thing i don't mean

to ramble but

the

opponents of american patriotism will

point out well that's very well and fine

um

russia was a real civilization in a real

country that was founded based on some

kind of authentic tradition whereas

america was a kind of settler colony

that was founded on the basis of pure

abstraction right it's the united states

it's the constitution with its negative

rights it doesn't really have a

substantive

reality per se

and and they will say on that basis we

cannot speak uh we cannot apply the same

logic to america

and with that i think one should be very

careful to acknowledge that the same

logic could be applied to communism or

socialism itself communism and socialism

is not readily

um

possessed of a substantive content it's

kind of the same way a kind of

abstraction and that's why i think in

countries like the united states

communists not only have to follow the

example of the bolsheviks and of

marxist-leninists in other countries we

should also recognize that communists

are

within the united states uniquely

privileged with the ability to give new

meaning to the uh

so-called american project what was 1776

about what was this

united states

to a point where we should recognize

that

the goal of communism is not only to

give new meaning to those things

but also to inherit them to also succeed

them and

be what they were always meant to be if

that makes sense like represent what the

meaning of uh

1776

and the united states of america is and

as far as substantive cultural and

civilizational realities only then

can the authentic civilizational

realities that encompass the united

states whether it's

the latin

american culture or spanish culture in

the south or indigenous cultures

or black culture or

appellation and the european culture all

of these things can given be given more

authentic

substantive

expression

by a communist-led

united states

because communists are uniquely endowed

with the ability to recognize

that

the abstract formalism of the bourgeois

state of the united states is not enough

to address the deeper you know national

realities and this was the case in the

soviet union and it was the case

wherever communists ruled they were

especially attuned

uh and sensitive to the fact that it's

not enough to declare yourself a

universal

state and a universal party you have to

address the specific national realities

so in no way is acknowledging the

continuity of the united states of

america and seeking hegemony over it

incompatible with recognizing the

specific

national realities or whatever you want

to call them

within america whether it's spanish

indigenous black

or also european

so

can i can i add something

go for it i should have started with

this actually and i i apologize because

my mind slipped but i want to say this

you know when i was in cleveland there

was a local activist named cheryl lesson

and she was a member of the

revolutionary communist party the maoist

group and she went to prison for two

years for lighting an american flag on

fire and that was wrong

and there's been various attempts to

outlaw flag burning in the united states

and i would be the first to protest

against that people have the right to

express themselves in that way and i

will add that the first people to burn

the flag and protest in the united

states were african-americans it was

marcus garvey and while i think that

proletarian patriotism and such is a

very good strategy that we should adopt

i respect the right of any colonized

person and black person a chicano person

any indigenous person to burn the flag

to say that they are not an american to

argue that they need to have their

self-determination and a national

territory and that my belief in

proletarian patriotism as an overall

strategy is not a negation of that in

any conceivable way right and i i and i

and i i want to also talk about how

cheap some of this can be right because

you know i i i support all black

nationalism whether it's you know the

uhuru movement minister farrakhan the

move organization i support all black

nationalism and a lot of the people

criticizing us don't i support all

anti-imperialist states iran venezuela

cuba any country that's fighting for its

independence against imperialism i

support them a lot of people criticizing

us don't and that this you know

demonstration of i hate america i want

nothing to do with america oh look how

revolutionary i am is really fake if you

don't actually support black nationalism

if you don't actually support iran and

cuba and venezuela if you accuse people

who criticize uh the syrian uh the the

syrian anti-syria propaganda about

chemical weapons if you accuse them of

being nazis you have no right to

criticize us on that ground and say

we're pro-imperialist because we won't

we won't tweet you know f the usa on

social media and that it's really it's

really kind of childish to think that

you can make up for not really being

anti-imperialist in your politics by

virtue signaling with this you know this

kind of teenage rebellion verbiage which

is what a lot of this really is um you

know because at the end of the day i

mean support for actual anti-imperialist

forces that's what makes you

anti-imperialist

yeah very good points very good points

um i have a few things i i want to i

want to pick your minds on but the first

one is that and has you kind of brought

this up a little bit is that a lot of

people have been saying like well

you can't be an american patriot because

of reasons x y or z because of

it being a settler colony or b it being

an imperial power the imperial power

right now on the globe and what i think

a lot of people don't understand is that

you know the red lettuce uh brought this

up on their twitter actually i'll put it

up for everyone

um so you can see they said ultras love

to misinterpret revolutionaries russia

was a former imperial empire cuba

venezuela bolivia peru et cetera we're

all settler states and their

revolutionary movements use proletarian

patriotism to rally the masses to form a

worker state but u.s workers can't get

the [ __ ] out of here so i'm curious like

whoops i'm curious your thoughts on um

that hypocrisy that we've seen from so

many ultras

just like continuing to tout that line

that like oh you can't be a patriot

because of like this or that reason

but then they go off supporting

socialist causes and the countries that

have a very very not a similar history

but like in the way that they're

pointing out it is a similar history be

it because of it being a settler state

or it being an imperial power so caleb

you want to address that first um sure i

mean if haaz wants to go first since

i've either of you yeah um

uh sure i guess i'll just be a little

bit quick um

so

you know um i think this question this

precise question can be so adequately

addressed

from the perspective of dialectical

materialism again which is within the

arsenal given to marxist leninists now

from the perspective of dialectical

materialism that also entails a unique

view of morality so from the dialectical

materialist perspective

no one is an abstract universal moral

agent devoid of any material or

substantive base for their existence no

one is out here just representing some

kind of you know

some kind of abstract mind floating

above reality so when people

are expressing habits and attitude and

ideologies they are taking as their

bases real material premises and among

those premises are national premises

they're premises uh that belong to one

country it's not a coincidence that so

many leftists are just so uniquely

american it's such a uniquely american

phenomenon

uh to care about jay sakai and all this

kind of stuff and

that's not a coincidence right it's

coming from those real

premises

from the dialectical materialist

perspective the notion

um

that america as a whole can be condemned

on the basis of its immorality as a

whole is an absurdity because morality

belongs to this fear of an agent's

will and intervention in the present

tense here and now right not in the past

but here and now in the present tense

and if

american leftists because uh sorry to

clarify dialectical materialism is a

kind of ontology of reconciliation which

means you cannot say there's a founding

sin of america and then everything

henceforth is sinful at one point you

have to sober up and be able to

reconcile yourself with the fact that

the reality of america has endured it

has endured the test of time it has

become

an irreversible material part of

people's way of life people's uh means

of life and people's uh reality you

cannot

spit on the hand that feeds you and

clothe yourself and feed yourself and

support your entire existence on the

basis of

these material premises and then pretend

that you're completely absolved from

having to engage or confront them in any

kind of way like oh i'm not an american

patriot i'm not an american

even though america is the basis of your

um existence it's the it's the basis of

your reality and it's what's

contextualizing your position in the

first place the dialectical materialist

perspective forces the individual not to

blindly accept everything done in the

name of america or amer the american

government or america's representatives

but just confront your own material

premises own up to them and acknowledge

them that's how i interpreted jackson

street when he said he's an american

patriot he's owning up to the fact that

he is an american he lives in america

and marxism leninism or communism for

him means serving the american people i

don't see what context communism

possibly could have

beyond that it's not a moral

condemnation of the world a little less

the material world it is insight into

material necessity itself that if

america

has been around this long

if the american people have constituted

themselves as such for this long and

you've taken that for granted as the

basis for your existence at what point

do you have to make peace with that

are you going to wage a war against

reality for all eternity until you get

the divine retribution where all of the

settlers are you know

brought to justice by history or some

other stupid thing like

you know and the disgusting hypocrisy is

the fact they talk about and condemn

americans as settlers and say all these

things but then in effect and in

practical reality they end up serving

the aims of the american deep state and

the state department effectively being

tools of american

colonialism or imperialism more than

anyone else as caleb pointed out there's

no one who has had more solidarity with

black national self-determination in the

online ml sphere than caleb there's

nobody who has been more persistently

um

supportive and given solidarity to

anti-imperialist forces globally so we

have to appreciate this irony they are

themselves repeating the path it's like

what you do not

uh what is it you are doomed to that

which you repress you are doomed to

repeat

by isolating themselves from the masses

in the name of this jay sakai [ __ ]

whatever they're on they are repeating

the original sin of settler colonialism

they are making themselves

settlers who are fortifying the ramparts

against the masses and creating their

own little pure community set against

the american people so we have to

appreciate that irony they are the most

uniquely

american

phenomena in the world you don't find

leftists in russia and then you know and

even in europe at least when europeans

are not being americanized or elsewhere

or latin america or africa you don't see

them you know expressing these

sentiments it's a uniquely american

phenomenon so sorry for rambling but

well i would like to add that okay first

of all we need to differentiate between

a number of things because as soon as

you say this you can immediately people

start throwing a whole bunch of things

and conflating a whole bunch of things

at you okay patriotism just means loving

the land in which you live wanting life

to get better for the land or country in

which you live patriotism refers

specifically to a country right uh

that's what it means that's all that

patriotism means that's patriotism

nationalism is a different concept

nationalism is loyalty to a nation and

the united states is not a nation it's

not a nation state it's not scotland

it's not france it's not germany uh we

are not you know we don't have the

attributes of a nation here we don't

have a common culture a common

background a common language even so

we're not a nation so you can't be a

nationalist for the united states and on

top of that national chauvinism is the

belief that your nation or your

nationality is superior to other nations

and discriminating against other nations

so when you say you're a patriot you're

not being a nationalist and you're

definitely not being a national

chauvinist you're simply saying you want

a better life and a better future for

the country um and

what is so frustrating is that that

people seem to

argue that oh saying you're a patriotic

american that means blah blah blah blah

blah blah that means oh that you don't

blah blah blah you don't recognize the

country was founded on slavery you don't

and it's like no all that means is we

want a better life for the country and

at the end of the day you can't really

be an american patriot without being an

internationalist if you're really

patriotic to this country you want

imperialism dismantled you want a better

relationship with countries around the

world and an end to the exploitation of

the third world you want global

relations based on win-win cooperation

you want an end to these wars you want

to break up the big corporations that's

really loving america and if you're

truly an internationalist if you truly

want what's good for the world you would

want the united states to move towards

socialism and dismantle imperialism and

so there's no contradiction whatsoever

to truly be patriotic to this country

you must be an internationalist and an

anti-imperialist to truly be an

anti-imperialist and an internationalist

you must be patriotic to this country

there is absolutely no

no uh no confusion there there's no

contradiction between these terms um but

people just continue to to and and this

is a great example of how it's another

example of a very common trend which is

the internalization of our enemy's

narrative um and you know the most

common example of this is the myth of

the 20th century i have heard my whole

life communism failed everywhere it's

ever been tried never had any success

wow you know china is the second largest

economy in the world soviet union

industrialized defeated the nazis cuba's

health care system but oh no it just

failed everywhere it's ever been tried

and you would think when someone becomes

a communist they would be recognizing

that that's not true but they don't i i

hear so many people say oh that's true

but i'm a special kind of communist i

read marx myself and i came like my own

magical theory so i accept your premise

i've just got my own well this is what

we're doing on this thing we're

internalizing our opponents have told us

to be a communist means you're a dirty

rotten unpatriotic enemy of the country

you're a traitor to the country and

we've internalized our enemies narrative

here uh we've internalized this joe

mccarthy had the house un-american

activities committee um you know and and

in the communist party of the united

states which was led by real organizers

like william z foster and eugene debs

and gus hall and bill haywood and others

they went before the house on american

activities committee and they said this

is an un-american committee and they

said we're the real patriots and this

congress is full of fifth columnists who

supported the nazis during world war ii

it's full of poll taxers and racists and

jim crow segregationists who are

depriving people of their civil rights

we're the real americans and you accuse

us of being violent revolutionaries

maybe you've never read the declaration

of independence uh you know that calls

for you know maybe you've never read

thomas jefferson um and they got up

there and they said we are we are not

un-american you are un-american this

committee is un-american and that was

the correct stance to take that you know

that that at the end of the day um

people in the united states are going to

identify as americans um and they're

going to want to make life better in

their country historically the way

communists take power

is not on the basis of their rhetoric

it's not on the basis of their ideology

even it's on the basis of their program

what are you for the bolsheviks were for

peace land and bread and the people of

russia and the surrounding countries

supported them because they thought

peace land and bread would improve the

country right china was for land to the

tiller the communist party was for land

to the tiller land to the peasantry a

new china breaking free from the

imperialists defeating the japanese

invaders well the people of china

supported the communist party because

they thought the program of the

communist party would improve things at

the end of the communist manifesto karl

marx in the second to last paragraph he

says that communists everywhere support

every uprising against the existing

order of things that's every uprising

not just ones that are liberal not just

ones that are politically correct not

just ones that have a good view or a

good demand every uprising but in all of

them they bring forth the property

question the as the leading question so

whenever people are at odds with the

system in the united states whether

they're mad that their taxes are too

high uh whether they're mad about you

know banks foreclosing their homes

whether they're mad about the wars

communist job is to go to them and and

show support for them as as having an

uprising against the system and then

bring forward a program demands

that would challenge the question of

property that would move us towards

socialism that's what our job is and if

we want people to accept our program

they need to understand that the program

will improve their lives i mean it's

just kind of basic right i mean this is

just you know so on the basis of our

program we should be formulating demands

that will improve people's lives when it

comes to the issue of climate change i

have raised fusion city right right now

fusion energy is really the only hope

for getting out of the nightmare of

fossil fuels we're not going to get out

of windmills we're not going to get out

of it with solar panels we need to

construct a global united effort to

defeat fossil fuels to harness the power

of fusion energy

and that is a program build fusion city

an international combined effort with

russia with china with venezuela with

iran india south africa every country in

the world working on fusion energy

combine their efforts build a gigantic

facility in the heartland of the united

states of america to solve the problem

of fossil fuels get us off of fossil

fuels once and for all with fusion

energy make it not a competition between

countries but a global unified effort to

defeat fossil fuels that's a program are

you for it or are you against it well if

you're for it if you're for it we're

gonna have to challenge all kinds of

capitalist power we're gonna have to

push back the power of the fossil fuel

corporations and the big banks and we're

gonna have to team up with the chinese

communists and with russia and with

other countries to do it so are you for

it are you against it well if you're for

it that's a pretty darn patriotic

program isn't it isn't that a pretty

pretty patriotic program uh when it

comes to the issue of immigration right

we talk about the sandino zapata

economic corridor you know there are

there are people piling into the united

states from central america from

guatemala from honduras uh there are

criminal organizations like ms-13 that

have formed there's dead bodies on the

border every day this situation can't

continue right and donald trump and his

big giant wall that's not solving the

problem because that makes those

criminal gangs even stronger people

can't walk across the border they get

smuggled in uh you know the more afraid

immigrant communities are the more we

have ice kicking down doors the more

terrified people are going to be that's

not the solution uh liberals they offer

basically the same thing right it's not

it's not kids in cages now it's children

in facilities that's what it is now uh

but it's the same thing when you get

down to it but we have a solution which

is the sandino zapata economic corridor

the united states and mexico and

nicaragua and china need to team up to

economically develop honduras and

guatemala jobs schools education

hospitals effective teaming up with

communities to fight the narco gangs

there needs to be an emergency program

of economic development for central

america and that would mean jobs in the

southwestern united states in texas new

mexico arizona southern california that

would mean jobs in mexico that would

mean jobs in nicaragua an economic

corridor from the southern united states

all the way down to nicaragua through

central america through mexico that's a

patriotic program that would solve the

crisis of mass migration on the border

the humanitarian issues it would make us

a lot safer it would stop the flow of

drugs into this country that's a real

solution and it's a very patriotic

solution and it's on the basis of

solutions like this that communists take

power and in order to have solutions

that raise the question of property in

order to have those you have to be

patriotic

very well said very well said i'm

curious your thoughts on um

uh there were there was a there was a

stream i think hakeem may have said this

uh and they were talking about this

whole debate the patriotism debate

and

they were discussing the fact that uh

you know america has such a rich history

of imperialism and settler colonialism

um how could anyone

call themselves a patriot when that is

so much of what our history american

history is

and uh you know i would obviously push

back on that and say well

no like there's plenty of history that

should be celebrated right and there's

an active attempt by liberals today to

try and erase that history uh from the

minds of young americans right um

but i'm curious to hear both of your

takes on that because it is you know

that that is a true thing like there has

been a lot of evil that has been done in

the name of the american empire

uh

way way before we were on this planet so

um i look at it and i say you know i

want to celebrate and learn from and

carry on the torch of good that this

country has done and i want to use that

to improve the lives of my fellow

americans

and i want to reject the evil and also

learn from the evil that has been done

in our country's name but reject that

and take this country back um

haas do you want to take a crack at that

yeah i think um again we should probably

this is an issue of um again a very uh

widespread confusion that

self-proclaimed marxist and marxist

lenin have on the question of morality

and morality is something we should take

very seriously

um

because a lot of the mistakes come from

not having a materialist perspective on

the matter now it's undoubtedly true

that there was a unique evil i will

agree there is a unique evil of european

colonialism and specifically the

colonization of america that is not even

comparable to the forms of um

you know um

aggression and uh

you know slavery and so on of the

pre-modern um

status quo so i agree there is a unique

evil of uh this kind of modern european

colonialism no denying that

so it's not that i'm trying to say like

well this is the true for every single

country's past and america is just no

exception no i agree it is a unique evil

the problem is it has already happened

it has already happened

and if we do not believe that this

reality can be reconciled that

we cannot

um

so to speak uh

clean the mess or at least help try to

clean the mess created by the sins of

the forefathers

um

there is no moral position that can

judge

the past

in this way in other words america has

created a mess so to speak right with

americans settle colonialism and the

genocide of indigenous and slavery this

i agree is all a mess created by america

but only as americans can we clean the

mess we created can we address

this original problem we're not going to

address it by turning our backs on this

country and its people and saying

they're all evil and they're condemned

because in effect you are actively

participating in that original evil by

by doing that and saying that if we say

if we take responsibility for those

original crimes

and i agree america must take

responsibility and i'm not speaking in

the form of atoning for its sins

or rectifying the problem but strictly

in the sense yes we have to acknowledge

this is part of the founding of america

we should own up to it and if we cannot

see how

there can be a reconciliation and a

redemption of the american project even

after this you're in no position to

judge it from the perspective of

morality if we don't we can at the same

time own up to this hideous ugly history

and also believe

that

there is a reconciliation of this

history of this original wound that is

to put it in this kind of hegelian way

the wound is reconciled

this very original evil has a deeper

meaning than just you know meaningless

barbarism and it must

amount to something more than that and

communists are uniquely disposed to

being able to allow it to amount to more

than that and i think the form this

takes

is the united states as a

because america as caleb pointed out is

not a nation it's a union state it's a

union state of various different states

and it's um

almost it's in a state that

by the example of um stalin on the

national question is almost completely

uh

devoid of

any specific

national uh particularity when it comes

to the pure form of the state obviously

there are national realities but when it

comes to the united states it is devoid

of any particular specific

uh national content

what is more communist than that

communists need to inherit that

um

and give new meaning to it

uh to this form

uh

and morality cannot be treated as

something where well i may have not been

um around at that time with settler

colonialism but now

i am uniquely able to you know they like

to use this word you're reproducing and

you're reinforcing this settler

colonialism by participating in it by

being a communist and admitting you're a

patriot this is a completely bankrupt uh

mentality it's a completely bankrupt

moral or ethical position

you are already participating it whether

you acknowledge and own up to it or not

unless you want to leave this country

and go live in a different country um

it still forms the basis of your

existence you're doing it either way

right you're not an again you're not an

abstract you know ghost

looking down upon the world you're an

individual who has real material

premises who has real premises in this

reality and in this country

um

so so when people try to treat morality

as like an individual is the ultimate

arbiter of every uh moral reality and

that moral action on part of the

individual will is what defines an

individual's morality well that's not a

materialist perspective a materialist

perspective says you are culpable and

engaging in actions as an individual

whether you attribute them with the

quality of moral will or not as marx

puts it men and women enter into

relations independently of their will

and they are doing it but they don't

know it as marx put it right you're

being an american you just don't know it

and you're not acknowledging it you're

just as your hands are just as dirty as

anyone else it's just that you're a

hypocrite

right

um

so the point is you are not

pure or cleaning your hands or uh

somehow

morally uh

sorry morally

correct by withdrawing from this reality

and saying oh i want to create my own

pure reality this is a false reality

uh this is a complete this this is what

kind of hegel would describe as the

beautiful soul and since dialectical

materialism comes from hegelian

dialectics to put it in english's words

the standpoint of marxism leninism to

reality is that all that is real is

rational

but not without further qualification

the meaning is all that is real is

rational but not everything that is

apparent is necessarily real for example

as mao used to put it american

imperialism

is a paper tiger mao predicted that

american imperialism would collapse

under the weight of its own

contradictions without any moral

intervention on part of americans

whatsoever so marx so being opposed to

imperialism doesn't mean that you're

enacting some kind of you know purely

moral uh

uh you know

prescription and imposing that upon

reality it means you are expressing

insight into material necessity you

recognize that american imperialism and

american racism and all these things

these hinder the forces of production

that are waiting to be unleashed these

hinder the flow of history that is

waiting to be realized and it becomes a

question of time and the point of

communism is to accelerate a process

that is in a sense

uh inevitable and insofar as we're

participating in this reality the only

moral thing to do is be true

to what is already happening and being

unleashed american imperialism will

collapse uh all of the evils of america

that we attribute to america will not

last forever but insofar as we're living

in this world the only will

that can be expressed that can be called

moral is one which acknowledges this and

expounds this insight into action

so that's what i'll say

well i i want to add that you know we

shouldn't accept that all these things

that have gone on in the history of the

united states that were absolutely evil

and wrong

benefited the country um slavery for

example held back the industrialization

and economic development of the united

states um and that was one of the main

motivations for the civil war the

industrial capitalists were furious

about the fact that in the south uh they

maintained an agrarian economy uh

without industrialization and and there

was a clash between the semi-feudal

slave economy of the south and the

rising industrial economy of the north

and if you look at the u.s south the

reason that even today hundreds of years

later it is still poorer than the rest

of the united states it's still largely

agrarian it's still less developed is

because of the legacy of slavery now um

that's not to say that wealthy white

plantation owners didn't benefit from

slavery but if you look at the u.s south

overwhelmingly the majority of the

population uh of white people weren't

benefiting from it um you know black

people certainly weren't benefiting from

it being you know murdered and exploited

and worked to death they weren't

benefiting from it but the majority of

white people weren't benefiting from it

because they had the lowest wages in the

country because they were competing with

people who worked for free uh you know

and and slavery overwhelmingly was bad

for white workers in the south and the

defeat of slavery was a victory for the

u.s economy overall it led to unleashing

industrialization in the country

and this is what w.e.b du bois has

talked about in his history of the

united states and his uh black

reconstruction he makes this point um

and at the time that slavery was going

on uh it was labor unions and those who

fought for the rights of workers that

were the biggest opponents of slavery

for this reason because even if even if

these labor unions were racist they

understood that slavery drove the wages

of workers down it hurt the u.s economy

um so by saying that you know that you

can't be patriotic in the united states

because of slavery the strongest

arguments against slavery at the time

were being made by people who were

arguing in the interests of the united

states and slavery hurt all working

people in the united states so that that

logic just doesn't add up um and you

know and this has been completely eroded

i watched you know john oliver he did

this piece about confederate monuments

and if you watched the piece you would

think that slavery was good for southern

white people it was good for southern

white people they should just feel

guilty about it well that's bullcrap it

wasn't good for southern white people

and the idea that slavery was good for

southern white people is propaganda that

was invented by the democratic party

that was invents gone with the wind

birth of a nation the ku klux klan they

did all this stuff to rewrite history to

convince low-income white people that

they were better off when slavery went

on but that was a big fat lie and

liberals now go around repeating this as

if this is a fact oh yeah well you know

slavery benefited all white people in

the united states and uh but they should

just feel guilty and ashamed of this

that's not actually what went on um and

you know this whole narrative i've often

criticized the book the book to kill a

mockingbird it's a really nice story

it's very touching uh but it has

absolutely nothing to do with the

anti-racist struggles of the 1930s right

it's you know you have this town in the

south and there are these black people

and these black people couldn't possibly

fight for their own rights they're just

helpless victims you know and they're

just these passive helpless victims and

then all the poor white people are a

bunch of rednecks and racists and all

that and the hero is this wealthy white

lawyer with a heart of gold who just

steps in and tries to hold back all

those poor white rednecks from their

racism that's not what happened in the

1930s it takes place in the 1930s before

the second world war in the south at

that time the communist party was going

to the south and building labor unions

of sharecroppers and textile workers of

black and white and gus hall and william

z foster and those folks were going

around the south and they were saying

that

racism and jim crow hurt all working

people and that they needed to build a

fighting labor movement for the rights

of all working people and that jim crow

hurt all workers and that putting the

needs of the black people at the front

of the class struggle was a way to

liberate all workers and it was it was

the the white rednecks who were joining

the same labor unions as the

african-americans and teaming up

together that shut down the state of

south carolina in 1934 and caused the

national guard to be sent in um you know

you read the history of what went on in

alabama go read hammer and hoe by robin

d g kelly and it was it was the white

poor people and the black poor people

standing together and understanding that

racism hurt all workers and then putting

the needs of black

people would lead to the liberation of

all workers that made the wealthy white

lawyers and made the businessmen and the

bankers panic and made them panic and

and push racism and ku klux klan ism

like you wouldn't believe um and also is

part of what motivated roosevelt to pass

his popular reforms to try and calm the

class struggle so that's just you know

that that book to kill a mockingbird

it's not really about the 1930s every

work of art reflects the period in which

it was created not the period in which

it takes place that reflects the mindset

of the civil rights movement

and what was happening during the civil

rights movement was that all over the

world in africa and in asia and latin

america the colonized people were

breaking free and they were breaking

free and the soviet union and china were

the leaders of that global national

liberation struggle and to humiliate the

united states and to expose the

propaganda to the united states they

showed the picture of emmett till's

mutilated body they showed jim crow

segregation and they said the united

states are a bunch of hypocrites they

say they believe in freedom look what

they do to the black people and in

response to that the richest capitalists

in the northern wing of the democratic

party uh like the kennedy family and

others said okay we need to fix this jim

crow problem so we can have better

optics and that's what tequila

mockingbird is really about it was the

rich capitalist of the north saying all

right we're going to go down south can

you guys cut this out we're trying to

make to make him think we're the free

country against the commies that's what

was really going on there and that's

what to kill a mockingbird is really

about okay and this notion that the rich

are the enlightened ones with the good

values and the poor people are all a

bunch of you know racist white trash who

were all in the clan and and the black

people couldn't possibly fight for their

own rights well the only reason there

was a civil rights movement was because

before that there was a black

nationalist movement there was malcolm x

there was the nation of islam and black

nationalism and revolutionary politics

was getting strong that also motivated

the northern wing of the democratic

party to start working with dr martin

luther king jr and others so so this

notion that black people can't fight for

their own rights that's false this

notion that that poor white people are

these racist rednecks that need the rich

people to control them that's false the

whole narrative we have around this is

all false and this feeds into the

mindset a lot of a lot of american

communists the way they see this is that

you know they feel they don't fit in

with this country which i've felt that

way my whole life and and many people

feel alienated especially now with the

economy in crisis a lot of young folks

don't have a decent job and and there's

a lot of social alienation and confusion

and and they don't feel like they fit in

so they they adopt marxism so they can

say i'm the good american all the

americans around me you're evil you're

supporting the empire you're euro

settlers but i discovered the truth of

communism on the internet so i can sit

on the internet and type away and call

people racist and sexist all day and

feel good about myself well that's not

real politics that is not real politics

and that's what like third worldism is

really about right third worldism is a

way

and look labor aristocracy is a real

thing right i mean that there is has

been sections of the us working class

that have benefited from imperialism and

been off bought off by it that's a

reality but the the reality of the

period we're currently living in is the

breakdown of the labor aristocracy those

good paying jobs are gone uh that white

picket fence home that was the staple of

the american dream of the 1950s has been

foreclosed it's boarded up i mean i mean

so to be screaming about labor

aristocracy right now i mean yes in the

50s and 60s and 70s that was a real

barrier to popular organizing now uh you

know average americans are ready to

fight average americans are against the

wars average americans think the

government is working for for someone

else and not them average americans are

are fed up they want jobs they want

health care and education um average

americans are ready to fight back now is

not the time to say they're not ready to

hear it and if you think it's impossible

if you if you are in the mindset that

it's impossible we can never win over

average americans so why even try

stop right i don't take dating advice

from incels okay i don't

i don't take barbecuing advice from

vegans and if you think it's impossible

we can never win the american people to

socialism there is no hope shut up shut

up go learn to play golf you know maybe

go join the alt-right i don't know what

you should do but you shouldn't be a

communist then because communism is

about winning i mean we actually want to

see

imperialism be dismantled we feel we

have an obligation here in the center of

the empire to build an anti-imperialist

working-class movement and if you don't

think that's possible i don't know what

you're doing i don't know why you're

trying to tell me how i should do

something that you don't think is

possible you don't think what i i'm

trying to do is possible and win

americans to anti-imperialism socialism

then don't tell me how to do it because

we're i mean you don't think it's

possible

yeah just one really final thing i don't

mean to it's not going to be long but i

just want to say

yeah the um

you know i think a lot of this really i

don't mean to keep going back to

morality but it's almost like people

just have this crazy

um

cynicism about like oh how could

something be both morally correct and

human and at the same time benefit the

people like how could it be that slavery

is it just a coincidence you're saying

it's a coincidence that slavery just so

happened to harm white people because

they're in this state of frenzied

liberal moralism where they want to feel

like they're in a state of a pure will

divorced from material reality material

reality is completely evil and the only

thing that is within the sphere of good

is your voluntary will right but that's

not a materialist perspective a

materialist perspective reconciles the

will with material reality which means

yes what is ultimately good is what is

good for the people what is ultimately

bad is what is bad for the people this

this is marx's humanism 101 and and marx

only thought the proletariat

was significant because for him the

proletariat was the section of the

people within the in germany and

elsewhere and in england that he thought

represented the future and represented

the fate of all the the majority of the

people in the class he called them the

ingenious soil of the people right so

this idea that oh you're just a

coincidence that how can you say that

imperialism and racism harms the

american people wouldn't it be more

convenient if they actually benefit from

it and that i'm the only moral person

because i'm the one who's in the know

well no that's a completely idealist and

false understanding of morality and

second i just want to leave this on this

i'm not going to go into it but i also

think we should also reevaluate here the

significance of the popular front in

relation to this question of patriotism

because i think

that's where communist parties worldwide

started to really

understand its significance so that's it

yeah um

one thing i've seen brought up by a lot

of

like leftists and not not just like mls

but um left us more broadly that

supports the idea of being like a

patriotic revolutionary is that the most

patriotic stance

on any given issue is to be uh you know

on the left you know if you it's not

patriotic to want to send your brother

your son your daughter whoever into into

imperialist endless wars you know it's

not patriotic to to want to ruin and

destroy this country for the benefit of

the top one tenth of one percent it's

not patriotic to you know allow 68 000

people to die every year because we

don't have basic health insurance

guaranteed as a human right so

um i want to read this this was actually

a tweet that was put out by dc metro cp

usa

um in response everything that was being

uh debated on twitter they said a word

from an elder comrade fidel once uh

fidel castro once told a group of black

nationalists and white students during

the years the black power movement in

vietnam war who did not want to

associate with the usa flag while other

groups from other countries sat next to

theirs

uh

that the u.s flag is can i skip one here

no that the u.s flag is their flag he

then said that they cannot allow the u.s

ruling class to own the flag the working

class of the us must fight for the flag

and once socialism is established it is

up to the workers to decide what they

want to do with the flag in the united

states as it exists

uh they go on here and talk more about

like you know patriotism isn't the same

as nationalism but um you get the you

get the gist there of uh what they were

talking about i'm curious your thoughts

like um

and i think i i haze i think i've seen

you talk about this but do you feel as

though uh you know a communist must be a

patriot a patriot essentially must be

like a communist because of the values

that those two

um you know those two like points of

view hold

yes absolutely i could ramble endlessly

about why this like especially is true

for marxists but i'm not going to

obviously but

like uh

you know you have to understand

something for marx marx arrives at his

humanism and the proletariat in a very

uh beautiful way um

marx was a hegelian and hegel you know

created this kind of um

this system this philosophical system in

which he encompasses all of being

through the mind the mind

and thinking and being really truly

become one in hegel's case so hegel is

just dealing with the pure what is

purely within our ability from the

perspective of thought individual

thought and from that he reconciles all

of reality from the individual

standpoint for marx to turn around and

then say that here in the ingenious soil

of the people like the lowest

denominator the most kind of abandoned

accursed

um

landless and kind of deprived section of

humanity that this actually represents

the point of true dialectical

reconciliation marx was saying

that marx's humanist gesture means that

the highest insights of thought

individual thought and morality and so

on were ultimately united with the

reality of humanity which means

that communism is ultimately about the

people that is what it's about it's not

for an imagined people it's not for a

good people we think of in our head that

doesn't exist in reality it's not for a

different specimen it's for humanity and

specifically it's for the people the

only context and meaning

given to a communist is to serve the

people and the people

obviously subsist in within the context

of a country right a people if there are

a people and not an imagined and

abstract one

have a country and america is a country

with a people right china is a country

with a people russia is a country with

the people there is no meaning to

communism especially from the marxist

perspective without being with serving

and serving the people what the people

are

so patriotism has always just been a

given for communist now there's

confusion because the communist

manifesto famously says the working man

has no country

but you have to understand why they were

saying that because they had predicted

within the communist manifesto that all

distinctions with in terms of borders

and countries were being dissolved by

capitalism right

so

and they also predicted a lot of other

things were being dissolved classes were

being dissolved and they also sorry

families were being dissolved religion

was being dissolved they also predicted

that for the same reason that you know

the revolution was going to emerge in

the advanced countries well after 18 the

revolutions of 48 um and the experience

of history marx and engels you know they

they changed their v their um their

understanding of what

uh of what they were saying in the

manifesto reality had proven them wrong

that the most advanced sections of the

proletariat were not in england by the

end of marx and angles life

they were in uh germany right which was

the most backward

country in europe when they wrote the

communist manifesto and then marx and

engels were anticipating that the

revolution was was going to start in

russia right which was the most backward

of countries um

there so

in essence um

they were

they were proven wrong about all

national distinctions or distinctions

between countries and borders and states

being dissolved

uh for the same reason that they were

they turned out to be wrong about a

great deal many other things but

marxism doesn't mean you elevate every

word written in the communist manifesto

to the status of a dogma i mean yes in

terms of what they were trying to say

they were right right they were right

because the meaning of what they were

saying was

um

no country is eternal no nation is

eternal and they are all subject to an

eternal process of kind of

transformation and that's kind of the

wisdom of what they're trying to say but

um

the the sad thing is is that it's not

it's not like i'm just for the first

time pointing this out i mean marx and

engels themselves basically pointed this

out mark said in the critique of the

gotha program that the proletariat must

take national form it's national

informed class struggle and content

lenin continued this stalin continued

this mao continued so the history is

already there and the reasoning for it

is already there

um

so yes in some in short communists must

be patriots if you're not a patriot

you're not a communist simple as that

[Music]

well i would like to say one thing

because you know viewing this from a

tactical point of view okay

during the vietnam war era uh the united

states in the 50s and 60s up into the

mid 70s had a very booming economy and

there was a very

big industrial working class in the

united states and that industrial

working class saw their living standards

dramatically increase after the second

world war there i mean they were in

depression conditions before the second

world war the 1950s things got way

better and because of that a lot of

workers loyalty to empire was bought and

so the communists in the united states

from the communist party from the

socialist workers party from the workers

world party they had to make a tactical

decision how do we oppose this genocidal

war in vietnam and at first they tried

to oppose that war on the basis of you

know proletarian class struggle don't

fight a boss's war etc um but it didn't

work um but they realized though that a

lot of the people fighting in the

vietnam war uh they were people who had

grown up in this very comfortable middle

class right and that uh going into the

army and fighting a war is not the most

comfortable thing and it's not a lot of

fun and especially if you had more of a

cushy middle-class upbringing that

cannot be particularly good and you know

military discipline is very harsh and

such so the anti-vietnam war movement

over the course of the vietnam war

learned to make kind of a middle-class

pacifist appeal that that was the way to

win americans to oppose the vietnam war

in that time okay and they were right to

do that trying to oppose it on a class

basis when workers had a high standard

of living booming economy wasn't going

to work that was the right thing to do

in those situations but you don't want

to be a general fighting the last war

right the vietnam war ended a really

long time ago after the vietnam war

there was something in the united states

called the new communist movement and

that was the the revolutionary communist

party and the communist workers party in

the october league and other groups and

they went and got jobs in factories

throughout the entire 1970s and tried to

win their co-workers to communism uh you

know sold the newspapers and the plant

and a lot of their co-workers again

there was still a very strong industrial

middle class in the united states a lot

of their co-workers didn't want to hear

it and said go screw yourself you know

go go back to russia yukami or whatever

because there was still a very strong

industrial middle class and then as you

get to the end of the 1970s you had the

first major economic downturn um and so

a lot of the communists thought oh wow

now they're going to listen to us now

there's an economic downturn well no

things have been getting better and

better and better until suddenly they

got worse so of course the reaction of

most of the working class was to get

more conservative and to go you know for

the ronald reagan you had the reagan

reaction but after the reagan reaction

you had a lot of those communists who

had gotten their jobs in factories they

just retreated they said you know what

it can never be done right we tried it

for 10 years uh throughout the course of

the vietnam war protest movement we

learned to make a middle class appeal it

can never be done average americans can

just never be one to socialism well you

know 1978 1980 1981 that was a really

long time ago and conditions have

drastically changed since that time and

lennon very famously said that if the

situation changes in 24 hours the

tactics must also change in 24 hours and

that the left in the united states has

gotten used to operating in a period

where there was enough of the booming

economy enough the solid labor

aristocracy

we assume that we're going to be this

bohemian fringe that the only people are

going to listen to us are college kids

and hippies there might be an alliance

with the black liberation struggle in

the black national movement but for the

most part we're going to be a fringe

element so let's

that is not the way to win we're in a

different period now capitalism is in

crisis the united states is falling

apart interest in socialism is very

widespread across the country we could

actually win now but in order to win

we're going to have to update our

tactics right the new left the vietnam

war the new communist movement of the

70s that's all

a long time ago and we're now faced with

a country full of people that are hungry

full of people that have seen their

relatives locked in jail or died from

opioids full of people who have seen

their relatives shot in afghanistan or

shot in iraq or in syria and they're

tired of it and we need to find out how

to make a populist appeal a populist

appeal that we will fight for you and

again that's not we're going to fight

for you and make the country worse and

tear things apart and light things on

fire and beat people up and and no we're

going to fight for you by making a

better country and that we need to

communicate to them that while we may

not agree with with how the united

states was founded we may not agree with

all the awful things in this united

states we want to make their lives

better we love them and i will also add

this i've made this analogy before but

uh you know in legal terms they talk

about fruit of a poison tree right and

that's the idea that you know if a cop

comes into your house and searches

without a warrant what he finds is not

admissible because the way he acquired

that evidence is was was impure and so

the result is impure it is the fruit of

a poison tree and i've said many times

that the united states as it currently

exists is the fruit of a poison tree it

is tainted by the legacy of slavery and

jim crow and the vietnam war and the

korean war and this extermination of

native americans and the the

exploitation of the chicano people and

the theft of mexico of texas and

california from mexico the united states

is definitely poisoned by all of that

and in the 1950s and 60s despite that

booming economy all of those cars all of

those hula hoops and tv sets and

refrigerators were dripping with blood

and that was the blood of the people

around the world that were being

exploited the blood of the black people

who were suffering under jim crow the

blood of the chicano people the blood of

the indigenous people and that in a lot

of ways the collapse of the united

states that we're watching the gradual

deterioration of the country is very

much the chickens coming home to roost

and we can recognize this none of this

is incompatible with being a patriotic

socialist none of what i'm saying is

contrary to being a patriotic socialist

because one of the most key

things that all progressive forces have

done is they've recognized that what we

are appealing to people to do is to

change we are telling people to change

right we're telling people that the way

we used to function as a society the way

the world works doesn't work anymore

that that we're telling people that that

we have to change and turn things around

and that's that's what communists have

always done wherever they go they go and

they tell people that used to think one

way and used to act one way to act a

different way and now more than ever is

it time to go to the american people and

to say you know the ideology we've been

spoon fed about individualism and

capitalism not gonna work that you know

national chauvinism and jingoism not

gonna work that support for these wars

not gonna work that belief that profits

should come before people and free

markets not gonna work

what are we doing if we are not going to

people who disagree with us and getting

them to change our minds what are we

doing yeah and and

go ahead yeah just really quick um you

know what you said also is i also

think that

this is one of just maybe my view is

that i think this the the communist

party um seriously underappreciated and

did not really learn

the real significance of the popular

front even in the post-war period i

think i think mao actually gave new

significance to the meaning of popular

front in a way that um the soviet

aligned parties did not at at the outset

really accept and i think um

when we look at it from the perspective

of populism

the conservative instincts of american

working class and working people i don't

think are in any way incompatible with a

general um kind of revolutionary or

anti-establishment

rejection of the vietnam war i think

perhaps maybe i i don't know genuinely i

don't know is that

maybe uh communist because the the

theory of the class struggle remember is

institutionalized theory right it's a

specific kind of marxist theory that

only the initiated understand trying to

impose it on reality is not going to

work in that period or

in this period right um

but if they had a kind of more maoist

understanding of the significance of the

popular front and interpreting the

popular front from the perspective of

populism

maybe it could have been possible that

that communists could have led the nixon

reagan

rule a kind of uprising against the

democrats because ultimately let's

remember who started the vietnam war

um

if i remember correctly it was under a

democratic administration right and the

democrats at this time it's very

interesting we're starting to change

their strategy from the working class

americans to appealing to marginal

groups in an alliance with the

professional managerials so i think

communists did have an opportunity

perhaps at this time maybe they couldn't

for for historical reasons but

retrospectively i think from a maoist

perspective

it could have been those reagan

democrats who could have been the base

for a communist anti-war populism

i don't know

a lot of what the fake laugh puts out

these days is just anti-working-class

bigotry i mean you know vosh is a

disgusting creature a rich kid from

beverly hills who thinks average working

class people when they get together and

start organizing for their rights are

scary and authoritarian and it triggers

him and oh my god and that's what all

this equating of communism and fascism

is really about right this is hannah

arendt uh this is the congress for

cultural freedom this is susan sontag

what they really believe it actually

comes from leo strauss the neocon

philosopher which is basically there are

these great people the intellectuals the

philosopher kings who are meant to rule

over all of us and and everything must

be done to protect these people's sacred

right to rule over the rest of us and

whenever you know the rabble start

getting together and demanding their

rights and and mobilizing and building

mass movements and wearing uniforms and

waving flags and making demands whenever

that happens it must be crushed

immediately because that's nazi germany

that's communism that's the labor

movement and they in their minds all

populism is the same fascist right-wing

populism left-wing economic populism is

all the same because it threatens their

ability to rule over the rest of us and

that's what they really think when it

really gets down to it this is neocon

philosophy uh and on the on the right it

manifests itself with you know free

market economics and you know hawkish

foreign policy on the left it manifests

itself and kind of social liberalism and

the belief that average people are

dangerous rednecks who need to be

controlled but at the end of the day

anti-populism is the essence of neocon

philosophy and that's what the synthetic

left believes it's essentially just

politicized anti-populism they are

afraid of the masses of people bosch is

a great example of that i mean he really

just hates working-class people i mean

after january 6th he tweeted out

something to the effect of uh you know

um you know these people can't coexist

with the democratic society either they

get disappeared or we all do right so in

the name of protecting his sacred

freedom to live in beverly hills and

read about anarcho-communism he wants

working-class people who might support

trump to get dragged away in the middle

of the night and taken to guantanamo bay

disappeared we all know what that means

that's what vosh wants but he's

lecturing us about freedom um and this

is the iron the the irony i guess you

could say of of of liberalism is that

liberalism is never afraid to utilize

illiberal institutions to defend itself

um

you know you couldn't have an open

liberal society without an entity like

the us army and do you think the us army

is a free thinking institution that

drill sergeant you know everyone must

think for themselves sir yes sir you

know what is the meaning of truth we

don't know sir yes

i mean the liberalism is the class

privilege of a privileged few right and

it depends on very illiberal

authoritarian institutions to prop it up

okay and they have contempt for these

authoritarian illiberal institutions the

military that goes out you know that

bosh wants to keep in afghanistan that

military is people from red states okay

largely it's people from red states

those people he hates he wants to send

them to afghanistan to go fight for the

women okay you know this is this this is

the irony of the whole thing is that

this is very much a class divide the

synthetic left is the middle class you

know

reviling in contempt for the broad

masses of workers who are going to

mobilize and are going to fight for

their rights um and i would like to see

them fight for their rights on the basis

of a progressive anti-racist

anti-imperialist program um and if

that's not the case uh their alienation

could express itself in a vulgar

right-wing way and i would like to see

that not happen so you know i think

we're on the right path here but i'm

sure you know bosch would disagree

yeah speaking speaking of uh people like

vosh

um

i see like a lot of the i see a lot of

the uh arguments from the other side of

the spectrum on this debate coming from

the same type of people that promote

like like

like very heavily like woke cancel

culture ideology

um

curious your thoughts on on because okay

also like as we discussed earlier being

a patriotic marxist leninist patriotic

communist um that was the norm

historically wherever you saw these

popular movements take place so i'm

curious your thoughts on where uh the

american left

decided to reject that notion that that

should be the norm

and um how it's kind of shifted into

what it is today this like now now it's

like a woke cancel culture and like now

this this you're gonna get canceled if

you say you're a patriot but where did

it begin in american culture because it

wasn't always like this

so uh caleb has like a very in-depth uh

background of knowledge i have a kind of

narrative myself but he wants to go

first and

be sure

well i mean when you talk about i mean i

guess to give expression to what you

were talking about i um

you know i tweeted out it used to be or

i tweeted out that leftists are mad

about wars poverty inequality etc

and it seems that synthetic leftists are

not mad about wars poverty and

inequality they're mad that

working-class people are mad about wars

poverty and inequality in a politically

incorrect way um and that you know

largely if you look at you know if you

look at i remember you know way back

when i was like 19 years old i went to

the u.s social forum which was this left

wing gathering they had in atlanta

georgia they had two of them they had

another one a couple years later in

detroit you know and i have been reading

communist stuff i'm from a small town in

ohio and i went to the u.s social forum

and all the different communists maoist

trotskyist anarchist groups are there

but there were a lot of young folks

there at this u.s social forum who had

piercings uh body piercings and they

worked at

planned parenthood or the aclu

or or students against sweatshops or

some kind of ngo uh and they had

piercings and they were talking this

ideology they didn't sound like anything

i'd ever read in communist theory and it

was about white-skinned privilege and it

was about gender oppression and it was

about about you know intersectionality

and they were talking this totally

different language um and they you know

they were making quite a bit of money at

their you know at their ngo liberal jobs

and you know they they had their nose

piercings and and

it's weird a lot of them had gone to ivy

league schools harvard and yale and

stanford and places like that and i

remember even back then thinking who are

these people why is this isn't the same

thing as communism this isn't what i've

read in william c foster this isn't what

i've read in mao's little red book this

is something different um and what that

ideology is that the ngocialists i like

to call you know or the synthetic left

really uh what they espouse this stuff

started at the elite ivy league schools

and it was really training for the

business class right and it's you know

it's basically that if you you know if

you own a big corporation in the united

states and you go to do business in

africa and you act like a uh

uh a racist [ __ ] and and you speak to

people in a condescending way and you

don't acknowledge their culture and

their history

you're not going to do a very good job

and you're going to hurt the image of

the united states around the world and

this was about getting the business

community here in the united states and

getting people from these upper middle

class backgrounds to go to the

developing world and interact with them

in a more kind of polite way and these

ngos were built by the cia and and all

of that and it was about trying to kind

of revamp and reinvent the image of the

united states and the height of that was

the election of barack hussein obama as

president of the united states right we

had an you know a president of the

united states who was not white and had

a muslim middle name and and had gone to

a muslim school how do you think the

arab spring would have gone if george w

bush had been in office during it things

would be very differently but it's only

because barack obama was president of

the united states that the usa was able

to co-opt the arab spring and turn it

into the destruction of libya the most

prosperous country on the african

continent turned into a civil war in

syria the usa was able to hijack the

arab spring because they worked really

hard on tweaking the optics of

imperialism and that's what

intersectionality is and that's what

white skin privilege is this is all just

tweaking the optics of imperialism it is

sensitivity training for the lieutenants

of empire it's go to the developing

world and don't act like an [ __ ] and

hire people of different races and hire

people of different different genders

and make sure you're representative and

learn that's all this is it's not

marxism it's not socialism it's not

communism i i think that that needs to

be said now as far as the thing about

the popular front

i i just i can't resist going down this

this rabbit hole because every time i

bring this up some wise guy who thinks

he knows everything he's like really

well read about marxism says oh oh you

want to be a patriotic socialism well

that's called browderism what you're

doing you're reviving earl browder i've

read a book see i know all about this no

you haven't read a book go read william

c foster's history the communist part of

the united states go read the struggle

against revisionism go read the

pamphlets from the anti-browder campaign

earl browder's deviation was not that he

was advocating american patriotism the

whole american communist party did that

for the whole time from the time it was

founded up until that time earl

browder's deviation was that he opposed

strikes he wanted to prolong this the

the wartime strike pledge of world war

ii he didn't want to end it he wanted it

to keep going that he he said that u.s

imperialism was progressive in latin

america he supported american

imperialism against juan peron and and

other nationalist leaders in latin

america he opposed the independence of

puerto rico he said that black people

did not constitute a nation uh earl

browder's deviation and his dissolving

of the communist party and changing it

to the communist political association

was far

far more wide-reaching than just

patriotism yes earl browder was into the

american patriotism thing and that was

part of the way the popular front was

implemented in the united states but any

other communist leader would have done

the same thing and the french communists

did that and the uh you know and the

spanish communists did that during the

spanish civil war and the british

communists did that and that to say that

that is browderism is is just juvenile

and it's just a complete

it's very very naive um and that uh that

you know in many cases you have the

maoist movement they're kind of they're

trying to explain away you know how the

communist party when it was good was

doing things that they say are the

opposite of what they do and so they've

just made earl browder the fall guy for

the policies that were widely practiced

and implemented um and i will add that

you know one writer i really admire and

respect is nelson perry an

african-american communist and nelson

pirie advocates proletarian patriotism

you read his writings he advocates uh

appealing to people on a patriotic basis

african-american communist maoist kicked

out of the communist party during the

1950s went on to form the communist

labor party he very much is an advocate

of proletarian patriotism uh and despite

the fact that he's an advocate of

self-determination for the black belt he

didn't see a contradiction there um and

it's quite interesting because you know

who else was an advocate of this kind of

stuff was the black panthers right go to

listen to the black panthers talk the

black panthers aligned themselves not

only uh with puerto rican organizations

and chicano organizations they align

themselves with with a white

organization called the young patriots

and the young patriots i might add they

did something that i would never do i

think was a big mistake they actually

had the confederate flag as their symbol

now i am opposed to the confederate flag

i think it's an offensive symbol but

they align with a group of young white

people working-class white people from

chicago and appalachia who were

organized and organized fighting

imperialism aligned with the black

panthers and called themselves the young

patriots now could you imagine if we

started a communist group now called the

young patriots i mean we would be

destroyed people would kill us but the

black panthers had no problem aligning

with them because the black panthers

understood that this was going to be on

the basis of a class struggle right um

and that is that is what is completely

missing class struggle politics populism

we are fighting for the broad majority

of american people against a billionaire

monopolist elite that has destroyed this

country economically that sends our

children off to die in wars that is

looting the place that is driving us

into poverty the destiny of the american

people is in solidarity with the people

of the world against the big

corporations and banks and that needs to

be our message it is our job as

communist at the center of the empire to

convince the american people that it is

in their interests to stand against

imperialism if we're not doing that we

are not doing our jobs

um yeah and uh also i wanted to add um

regarding the origins of this current

left

you know it's it's um

i think something happened specifically

in the post-war period in the united

states or maybe even earlier than then

which has a lot to do it's it's a

confusion of marx's theory

where the material class struggle was

confused and kind of conflated with

something that really belonged to this

fear of information and media theory

prop proper so you have this distinction

between the material objectivity of the

class struggle and the manner by which

the knowledge of the class struggle is

disseminated right the consciousness of

the class struggle right these are two

crucial distinctions that i think may

have been taken for granted

um

at a certain point uh the united states

became more of a kind of economy of

signals and information and mass media

and you know there was an increasing

increased level of what they call

marxism socialization which basically

means

um you had this kind of um

economization of spheres of life that

previously weren't like communities and

cities and things like that

and this gave rise to the emergence of a

specific class

of

how should i put it an institutionalized

class of the american which was an arm

of the american let's say deep state

whatever the deep state was at that time

um and these institutions also fostered

a specific and unique view of

their relationship to the american

people which was one of social

engineering um

so the kind of post-new deal and new

deal social engineers

and kind of technocrats

increasingly adopted a perspective of

what is rationally contrived within an

institutional setting versus the actual

material reality of the people this was

like their primary contradiction they

were trying to overcome

um and also not just rationally

contrived but like what is the site of

the free use of

moral and intellectual and philosophical

whatever thought

um

now when the vietnam war came i think

this was a crucial period um

the progressive forces struggled with uh

developing and cultivating a basis for

the opposition toward the war that was

beyond mere

individual morality

we could clearly see this was an immoral

war i mean that's very much clear to

everyone i'm not denying that but

morality is not enough to um

enough to convince the masses to win the

masses right

uh unless we're speaking about the

middle classes who you know have the

kind of

free time to be moral

contemplate and care about these kind of

a cultured moral issues

so

increasingly i'm skipping a lot of stuff

but increasingly leftism had to become

associated with

middle-class moralism and hyper

reflexive which basically means

um based it was no longer something

forged in the kind of material senses of

the american people they're kind of

intuitions and so on it was a refor

force from the perspective of reflexive

institutions

um

this inevitably uh corresponded with the

fact that leftists increasingly had to

align themselves with democrats because

all expressions of reactionary

tendencies were obviously coming from

the rule america and the working class

with their conservative instincts

um leftists didn't recognize that

if

if communists do not lead the rural

working class reactionary elements will

be the spontaneous form of uh socialism

right marx and engels talk about

reactionary socialism feudal socialism

and this is what we were starting to see

with the reactionary populism uh in the

postwar period i would even argue to an

extent maybe this was some of the basis

of mccarthyism and that you know the

john birch society and all this kind of

stuff

right so

um

i think there was a kind of confusion of

the meaning of the popular front where

communists believe the popular front

means you stand behind the institutions

that represent the people and you don't

create an alternative organ for

representing the people like

that we have to rally behind the

democrats because they represent the

popular elements well actually no they

don't represent the popular elements of

america at least

by the time of the counterculture they

stop doing that they're on their way to

stop doing that

they represented uh

a representation of the popular

interests of america which is a very

crucial distinction

um

but at a certain point

the american left and communists as a

whole

faced with the inability to transmute

the consciousness of the class struggle

and the precepts of communism and

marxism the only way they could kind of

spread this ideology was within an

institutional setting where people take

thoughts and theories as the premise of

their daily lives like who is going to

take as the premise of their daily lives

uh ideologies right it's going to be

people who exist within institutional

settings who make their daily bread

being paid to spread ideas and write and

read and research and things like that

um and also to to be part of uh

scala pointed out ngos

social engineers activist groups and

these kind of interests corporate and

business

culture interests so there was this

inability to understand that the

consciousness of the class struggle is

not the same thing as the actual

essential site of the class struggle

like it's one thing to know what class

struggle is it's another thing

um

to recognize where it actually is

happening in reality

and

it's in my view marxist and marxist

lenin is within america even marxist

leninist i mean this is especially true

for the the more extreme ones like

maoists

those type of people they completely

lost the ability uh to to make this

distinction so when they would go to the

workers for example or working class

people with their special ideology and

ideas and workers just flat out reject

this they would go this is proof that

these are a reactionary class they're

not

they're not accepting my special theory

in ideology

but your special theory in etiology has

no content you're not making a concrete

analysis of a concrete situation when

you're speaking to people about marxism

in the class struggle that they're just

going to see you as an academic and an

intellectual who's coming from the

universities trying to socially engineer

their lives but if you expound the

insights of marxism into

a concrete analysis and specifically

from the perspective of media and

information theory

a concrete understanding of what the

real content of america's working class

interests are you will be able to

scientifically arrive at a message that

does resonate with america's working

people and which does allow communists

to really lead

as a popular force and not a force

confined to institutions

or mar the marginal fringe right of

people with piercings and

this crazy kind of stuff

so

to me i think

we require a comprehensive

re-evaluation of uh the post-war period

specifically

um

because i think

especially around the sino-soviet

conflict a really big air of confusion

and uncertainty was thrusted upon

communists within the west and within

america that i don't think has has been

resolved uh as of yet

so we must have a comprehensive

reevaluation and that's why i also say

you know speaking in regards to existing

parties like the communist party

they must they should re-evaluate the

significance of the popular front right

uh maybe

the popular prompt was the correct

strategy right in the 30s and so on but

what does it mean to be faithful to that

strategy of the popular front does it

mean

uh trailing behind the democrats or

might it mean

forming alliances with new third-party

initiatives like the people's party and

and things like that so i think that is

really the crucial question when it

comes to what are the origins of this

kind of synthetic fake

um left which is really a bourgeois

a force of bourgeois consciousness and

culture

and how can communists overcome the

mistake of having fallen into the trap

of

aligning themselves with it in the first

place

um

caleb do you have time for one more

question i don't want to keep you too

long sure i know hazel will probably be

streaming all night but

um i this is actually a question for the

both of you uh from a super chatter uh

chaya who asks i don't know if you've

read the book i know you're familiar

with uh their ideas but they said what's

the biggest thing jay sakai gets wrong

in his settlers book

well for me i would say that he takes

a

problem in us society is very real and

he

makes it something

that therefore leads to the conclusion

that it is never possible that we could

have socialism right he takes

he takes some very very very true things

and there is some misrepresentation in

the book he

misquotes william z foster intentionally

uh distorts what william c foster is

saying at one point to make the gliac

foster look deeply insensitive and

racist when if you read the context of

the paragraph he was clearly not saying

what he says and it's a it's it's a book

that is is problematic in many ways but

the main thing is it points to true

things there is racism among the white

working class of the united states there

is a history of settler colonialism and

and you know what you can call settler

populism with andrew jackson and other

things is very problematic however

the world is constantly changing a does

not equal a

tomorrow is not the same as today and

the world is constantly in flux and for

him to take that you know the arguments

that he makes there basically lead to

the conclusion that it's hopeless that

you can't do anything that there is no

hope um and

i must say you know who is jay sakai

nobody knows it's just there's some

interviews on the internet there's some

articles that have been posted around

very mysterious that book is from the

1980s it's been floating around there

was this weird like very secretive

communist group for a while called mim

or the maoist internationalist movement

that was like you know circulating that

book among prisoners uh throughout the

90s and and such and that book is a very

strange book it kind of

kind of appeared out of nowhere the

author is he still alive is he still

writing stuff there's a couple articles

there's some like interviews where you

can hear his voice that's it no one

knows who he is no one knows where he

came from that book is everywhere and

anarchists mind you the same kind of

people who think that anyone who admires

mao is the same as a neo-nazi anyone who

admires stalin as a neo-nazi are

printing this book by this so-called

maoist and circulating it around because

it's just so important that we get

people to understand that there's no

hope for revolution in the united states

because all the white people are

inherently evil euro settlers very

mysterious right and look let's be real

okay

i don't want to be paranoid and i'm not

leveling any allegations i just want to

say that if i was the u.s government i

would want every communist in the united

states to get settlers shoved down their

throat it's the best thing you could

give to a communist in the united states

you want to convince people that there's

no hope don't go out and organize don't

build a revolutionary movement that's

the book to read it is the most

demoralizing it is the most effective

piece of propaganda

and the fact that no one really knows

who the author is the fact that people

who hate communists people who advocate

violence against communists the antifa

anarchist crowd you know are

distributing that book even though they

hate in theory they hate the people who

wrote it uh you know the fact that that

book is everywhere you can't go to any

communist space communism read it

everywhere this book is and it leads you

to the conclusion that there's no hope

you shouldn't do anything

very mysterious very very mysterious

right and that you know the us

government goes all over the world

carrying out all kinds of psychological

operations and disinformation campaigns

to try and prevent communist revolutions

do you think that they wouldn't take big

efforts to try and control the left in

the united states and again i saw that

book floating around among prisoners

when i was doing prison activism in ohio

it was very weird and people didn't know

where it came from and the group mim the

maoist internationalist movement was

distributing it it was founded by a guy

named henry park who mysteriously died

and he had some kind of psychological

breakdown and no one ever saw him either

you would just see his newspaper left

around places very shady history there

with that book very shady history i

don't know what's what's happened maybe

the documents will be released 50 years

from now i'm very very very suspicious

of that book i must say i am highly

suspicious of it and when someone showed

me i mean i admire william z foster he's

probably the greatest communist in

american history and when someone showed

me how intentionally they lied to make

it look like he was being blatantly

racist when if you read the full

paragraph he was saying pretty much the

exact opposite of what they quoted him

as saying at that point i was just

shocked i mean that's the work uh it

struck me as as this is not coming from

a good place this isn't a communist

who's just frustrated with the white

working class and has come to some

negative conclusions this is there's a

sinister agenda here at work there's

people being manipulated i i have very

negative feelings about that book and

the role that it's played and i must add

my final thought i'm a little

long-winded tonight but

i have you ever noticed that it seems

like all the third world is for the most

part are white

like it's the weirdest thing you know i

i've met so many communists of color

that are african-american or latino or

whatever and they seem to have no

problem having white workers and black

workers stand arm in arm and they you

know but it's this white it and it tends

to be white people from like upper

middle class backgrounds who are the

ones that are most attracted to this

idea that that you know white people are

inherently reactionary and stuff you

would think it would be people of color

that would come to this conclusion based

on the racism they've experienced but

it's actually a very middle-class thing

you know and before it was put into

words with settlers and stuff like that

the weathermen the weather underground

this was their excuse for doing their

bombing campaign their ultra-left

adventurous bombing campaigns they said

oh you know the white people are all

pigs they're all bought off you know

they're not hip and revolutionary and

you know the white youth must choose

size now and and all this look at who

the weathermen were right look at who

the weathermen were right you know i

mean bill ayers you know the bill ayers

who was later became a he's just a

democrat now a friend of barack obama

but he was this big weather underground

bombing guy his family they are the

richest family in chicago he's

you want to talk about a family that

comes from money bernadine dorn

very very wealthy mark rudd

very very wealthy background these are

not working class people who got

frustrated with the other workers this

is very much a kind of upper middle

class deviation uh to add to the

mysteriousness of that book in

particular so again anti-populism is

toxic get rid of anti-populism that's

the neocons that's leo strauss that's

the congress for cultural freedom hannah

aren't susan sontag irving crystal cia

money this is not our movement communism

has been a popular movement fighting for

the people against empire

yeah the way i would put it um the way

i'd have to put it is basically um

so jay sakai he talks about he's going

into the real dirty history of the

origins of the american people and

settlers all this thing leaving that

aside for one quick second it's really

interesting how at the same time that

jay sakai is engaging in this kind of

historical reductionism and all this

kind of stuff he treats himself as a

free rational agent completely talking

from the abyss and from the aether

jaisakai doesn't believe

that ideological and intellectual

reflexivity has a material basis if he

did believe that he would recognize that

the ability to be given this insight

this consciousness he's trying to foster

right that rests on the basis of a

specific not only a specific class but a

specific people there's only a specific

type of people

as a general trend who are soaking this

stuff up and as kayla pointed it out

it's majority white leftist it's white

people white leftists who see this hyper

criticism and hyper reflexivity as a way

of avoiding

the material premises of

i guess their own people which is the

working class if they can estrange

themselves from the working class they

can maintain their comfortable class

position as purely institutional and

purely reflexive classes without ever

being forced to confront their real

material the real material basis of

their class like it is the sweat and

labor of america's working people that

feeds academics and

professional managerials and

institutionalized people and by cutting

themselves off from the popular majority

in the broad strata they are cutting um

they are cutting off the possibility of

their privileged social position ever

being threatened

they always are hyper critical against

white people and all this stuff because

what they're basically saying is we are

the real white white people in charge

like they have a monopoly on being

the preeminent uh

white people in power basically they

they have this issue with um

america's working class like you know

during the new deal when fdr he brought

down farmers from texas he brought up

farmers from texas and he gave him

positions in government right

um people who don't they want to prevent

america's working people the rural

people from having any of the

opportunities because at the end of the

day this is a very mediocre

class of people who are just not

talented not very bright not very

original not very creative and

nothing would eliminate their class

basis more than opening the gatekeeping

ramparts and allowing in some real

genuine and authentic

uh talent and intelligence and

creativity to pour in from the popular

majority so this is kind of a very

common theme throughout the history of

kind of elites trying to

you know be more morally pure than than

masses right it's a form of gatekeeping

basically and another thing too is that

um

you know what jay sakai gets especially

wrong his whole entire idea of settlers

is wrong because lenin already pointed

out that there is no pure proletariat a

proletariat is always entwined with a

democratic petty bourgeoisie you won't

you know the proletarianization is when

you are stripped of all land and you

have nothing to salvate your labor

historically speaking

this was never a permanent phrase

there's always some kind of return to

some kind of stability um when during

the russians during the war and in the

crisis in the russian empire the factory

proletariat went and returned to

cultivate their landed plots that they

had in the country right there's always

this kind of duality of the proletariat

on the one hand in this kind of

peasantry on the other hand that manages

to persist even beyond

the agricultural peasantry we have the

case of the middle class so-called

middle class the post-war baby boomers

who had their

suburban homes and their white picket

fences and cars

um

and the same is true for the period of

the 19th century you had

uh settlers right who had their own plot

marx also described them in capital um

they were able to subsist on the basis

of their own kind of private property

who at the same time were being subject

to proletarianization now sakai

dismisses this class as a bunch of

immoral settlers stealing indigenous

land but that's not the only thing that

defined this specific class would also

define this

specific class was as marx was

describing their means of subsistence

right and which also made them the base

of not only the jacksonian

populism which of course had many

problematic racist and also uh so on

problems but also

phenomenal like the farmer's alliance

and the pn which would become the

people's party which cemented an

alliance between

the so-called settlers relevant to

jaisakai small white farmers and also

black republicans who also had their own

small farms

and wanted to

create a movement

to build infrastructure and and

to get off the gold standard and things

like that which would benefit the

overall majority of america's people

so

sakai basically commits the error of

saying because they are settlers who in

effect

often participated in the wholesale

theft of indigenous land

um that this means that's all they were

and that's that's what you can reduce

the entire genesis of the american

people too when in fact that's a detail

in an aspect but it's not actually what

primarily defined the genesis

of what we call the american people

proper it's a horrible aspect and a

horrible fact of the history but to

reduce it to that is to um

refuse to engage in a materialist

analysis of

what this how this class actually was uh

reproducing itself and constituting

itself materially so that's my criticism

of sakai

can i make your website quick yeah

okay um you know we published at the

center for political innovation our

textbook it's called we are city

builders uh the

center for political innovation

educational manual and we included in it

a very important uh piece called talk on

the question of philosophy by mao

zeitung and it is one of the rare

examples of mao kind of off script where

it's a transcript of mao speaking to a

group of college students about

philosophy uh and i included it and the

reason i included it is because if you

read that speech talk on the question of

philosophy mount zee tongue 1964 that's

who mao really was mal was a mass

organizer mao knew how to talk to people

mao told jokes mao told stories mao knew

how to interact with people he begins

that speech by telling the the young

people there he says go to the

countryside that's where you're going to

get your real education is by being

among the people and that's what

communists need to do uh if you can go

to the people if you can start pushing

revolutionary ideas you can start

building organizations you will break

out of this internet edgelord culture

and you'll understand why proletarian

patriotism is not a bad thing if done in

a rational anti-imperialist anti-racist

way

learning comes from the masses from the

masses to the masses the revolutionaries

are the fish and the masses are the

water that's what what mountain said

that's the approach that we need to have

from the masses to the masses leading

while learning learning while leaving if

we can develop that kind of approach of

approach we can develop a mass line that

will eventually lead to the overturning

of capitalism in the united states by

building a mass movement of working

people

very well said um

thank you both so much for your time i

don't want to hold you any longer i know

we've been talking for a while but i

feel like we hit

a lot of really good topics i feel like

we hammered out this uh you know this

debate from a you know side that hasn't

been discussed too much online yet um

but i feel like it's very well

represented i mean

if you guys saw the breakdown of the

tweet that i initially sent out it i

mean it was kind of split 50 50 to be

honest which i didn't initially think it

was going to be controversial but it was

and then i was actually kind of

surprised at how split things were so

um

hopefully if there were people on that

side of the spectrum that were thinking

you know you can't be a patriot in a

marxist londoness and an

anti-imperialist all at the same time

maybe now if they've watched this

either in this live stream or if someone

else is reacting to this further down

the line

you will understand that yes it is very

possible and actually it is

the only correct stance to have when you

look at the values of what being a

patriot really means so um thank you

again uh i've included links to both of

your channels twitter's um in the pinned

comment on this chat so if anyone in

watching wants to go follow go do so and

i encourage you to do so

do you have any last words or where

people can follow you and find you

i will just say we need a government of

action that will fight for working

families and that will lead us

eventually to the development of

socialism with american characteristics

the kind of socialism that works in

china is called socialism with chinese

characteristics it is uniquely applied

to china's conditions and when socialism

comes to the united states it will be a

socialism with american characteristics

i'm not sure what those american

characteristics will be and that will be

developed in the course of building a

mass movement and in the course of

struggle but it will be a unique brand

of socialism and if you don't recognize

that you're clueless

cause

um i guess i will just leave something

that might be a little controversial but

it's just my personal uh opinion

i really see great value in the

communist party of the usa i disagree

greatly with the

the strategy they have taken for a very

long time but this is a party that's

over a hundred years old it's tried and

tested against every form of ultra left

fanaticism and infantilism

and

i while there i think

it requires a comprehensive reevaluation

and internal criticism

i really think that it can be a platform

for american communists to congregate

around

um

because it is the communist party in my

view it is the original america

communist party of the usa

and uh

i i've i view it may perhaps i could be

wrong i'm willing to be proven wrong but

i i do see a future in it um

as far as like

potential is concerned so i guess i'll

just

say that i don't know

but yeah

cool well uh thank you so much for uh

coming on and

i think everyone from what i've seen in

the chat really enjoyed this so uh

hopefully it's not the last time you're

both always of course welcome back on

and i look forward to building this with

all of you thank you so much yeah

all right

i'll catch you guys later