Communist Patriotism ft. Caleb Maupin & Jackson Hinkle

2021-09-22
you go
the men the myths the legend caleb
maupin and haas how you guys doing
great good how are 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 of 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
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
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 uh 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 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 has um oh
and for anyone in the audience let me
know how my mic is people are saying
there's 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
uh 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
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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
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
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
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
relevant what is 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 uh 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 liquid either parties program
liquefy uh the parties 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
um
figures of uh
revolutionary culture within russia were
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
um
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 um 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 cede russia's national
traditions to the enemy we have to give
them new meaning because we're actually
the ones inheriting them
um so they applied this accusation of
liquidationism which was first levied
against
um
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
um
possessed of a substantive content it's
kind of the same way a kind of
abstraction and that's why i think in in
countries like the united states
communists not only have to follow the
example of the bolsheviks and of marxist
leninist and other countries we should
also recognize that communists are um
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 a substantive um
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
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 uh 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 were 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 sorry 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 uh
addressed
from the perspective of dialectical
materialism again which is within the
arsenal given to marxist leninist 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 attitudes and
ideologies they are taking as their
bases real material premises
and among those premises are national
premises there are premises
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 phenomena
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
um
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 um
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
um
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 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 j sakai
whatever they're on they are repeating
the original sin of settler colonialism
they are making themselves um 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 uh 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 in 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 could 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 uh it's not scotland
it's not france it's not germany uh
we're 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 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 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 healthcare
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 an american this
committee is un-american and that was
the correct stance to take that you know
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
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 the 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 um 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
going to have to challenge all kinds of
capitalist power we're going to have to
push back the power of the fossil fuel
corporations and the big banks and we're
going to 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 uh
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
has 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
you know um
aggression and uh
you know slavery and so on of the
pre-modern
status quo so i agree there is a unique
evil of uh
this kind of modern european colonialism
no denying that uh 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
clean the mess or at least help try to
clean the mess created by the sins of
the forefathers
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
american settled colonialism and the
genocide of indigenous 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
uh this original uh 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 are 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 is caleb put it 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 of settler
colonialism but now i am uniquely able
to st you know they 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 that's not a
materialist perspective because 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 uh 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
irrational 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 in so far 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
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
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 and that was one of the main
motivations for the civil war the
industrial capitalists were furious
about the fact that in the south they
maintained an agrarian economy
without industrialization and and there
was a clash between the semi-feudal
slave economy of the south and the
rising industrial economy in 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 uh 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 talked about
in his history of the united states and
his 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 us 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 invest
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
uh 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 of 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 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 at the front 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
reform 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 in 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 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 to kill a 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
them 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 and 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 u.s working class
that have benefited from imperialism and
been off bought off by it that's a
reality but 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 and 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 and
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 the 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 in 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 re-evaluate 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 uh seen brought up by a
lot of
like leftists and not not just like mls
but um left this 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
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 us
ruling class to own the flag the working
class of the u.s 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 has 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
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 from 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's 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
um
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
changed their v their uh 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 engles 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
engles 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 were 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 inform
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
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 they're 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 bosses 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 ukami 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 had 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 of a solid labor
aristocracy
we assume that we're going to be this
bohemian fringe that the only people
that 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 gonna 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 gonna 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
gonna 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 are telling people that the way
we used to function as a society the way
the world works doesn't work anymore
that we are 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 going to 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
um
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
uh 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 uh reagan
democrats who could have been the base
for a communist anti-war populism
i 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
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're 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 6 he tweeted out something to
the effect of uh you know um you know
these people can't co-exist with a
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 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 u.s
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
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 bosh 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 no this this
you're gonna get canceled if you say
you're a patriot uh but where did it
begin in american culture because it
wasn't always like this
so uh caleb has like a very in-depth um
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 had been reading
communist stuff i'm from a small town in
ohio and i went to the us social forum
and all the different communist maoist
trotskyist anarchist groups are there
but there were a lot of young folks
there at this u.s social forum who had
piercings body piercings and they worked
at
planned parenthood or the aclu
or or students against sweatshops or
some kind of ngo
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 skin
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 williams 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 a racist and you speak to
people in a condescending way and you
don't acknowledge their culture and
their history uh you're not gonna do a
very good job and you're gonna 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 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 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 ah 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 of 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 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 peary an
african-american communist and nelson
peary 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 uh 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 aligned 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 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
um where the material class struggle was
confused and kind of conflated with
something that really belonged to the
sphere of information and media theory
proper 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 is an increasing
increased level of what they call
marxism socialization which basically
means
um you had this kind of
economization of spheres of life that
previously weren't like communities and
cities and things like that
um
and this gave rise to the emergence of a
specific class um
of
uh how should i put it an
institutionalized class of the american
which was an arm of the american um
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 uh 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
now when the vietnam war came i think
this was a crucial period
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 uh middle class moralism
and hyper
reflexive which basically means
um
it was no longer something forged in the
kind of material senses of the american
people their kind of
uh intuitions and so on it was
forged 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 rural america and the working class
with their conservative instincts
leftists didn't recognize that
uh
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 post-war 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 counter culture they
stopped 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
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
ideologies right it's going to be people
who exist within institutional settings
who make their daily bread
um 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 sight 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 oh this is proof that
these are a reactionary class they're
not we'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
and 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 uh 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
re-evaluation and that's why i also say
you know speaking in regards to existing
parties like the communist party
they must they should reevaluate the
significance of the popular front right
uh maybe
the popular front was the correct
strategy right in the 30s and so on but
what does it mean to be faithful to that
strategy of 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
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
uh 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 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 settler's
book
well for me i would say that he takes
a
problem in u.s society that 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 williamson foster is
saying at one point to make williamson
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 he'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 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 move but 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 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 and arm and they you
know but it's this white 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 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
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 arendt 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
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 caleb pointed it out
it's majority white
leftists it's white people white
leftists who see this hyper criticism
and hyper reflexivity as a way of
avoiding
the material premises of um
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
and 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
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
uh
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 he won't you know the
proletarianization is when you are
stripped of all land and you have
nothing to salvage 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
and the same is true for the period of
the 19th century you had
settlers right who had their own plot
marx also described them in capital
they were able to subsist on the basis
of their own kind of uh 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 um 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 uh the farmer's alliance
and the p and which would become the
people's party which cemented an
alliance between
the so-called settlers relevant to j
sakai small white farmers
and also
black republicans who also had their own
small farms
and wanted to um
create a movement
to build infrastructure and and uh 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
refuse to engage in a materialist
analysis of
what this how this class actually was
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 zedong 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
mao 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 mount seiton said
that's the approach that we need to have
from the masses to the masses leading
while learning learning while leading 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 um
either in this live stream or if someone
else is reacting to this further down
the line um you will understand that yes
it is very possible and actually it is
uh 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 um do you have
any last words or where people can
follow you and find you
um 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
um
fanaticism and infantilism
and
i while there i think um it requires a
comprehensive reevaluation and internal
criticism
um 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 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 uh i look forward to building this
with all of you thank you so much yeah
all right
i'll catch you guys later