DEBATE with BEN BURGIS: MAGA COMMUNISM vs. LIBERALISM 🚀 Infrared Content Catalog

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hi hello can you hear me

hello

does my mic work or what

seem like it's working

okay oh I'm muted all right

okay

welcome Ben

oh I just realized

[Music]

right

that was the gotcha gotcha

foreign

and I'm just setting up your guy's face

cams and then we will go live

thank you

based

I set this debate up can we get some z's

and chat

hi what's up guys stay tuned I might be

playing some atomic heart after this

debate

so long time in the making

long anticipated you guys have known

about it for about a week

so here it is

thank you so much Shane appreciate you

man I don't know if I have to pause

donations for the debate

what but I will unpause them after the

debate for sure

so I'm gonna pause those right now but

after the debate they will be unpaused

let me see some sun gorillas in the chat

guys

foreign

but uh so guys Ben Burgess was really

adamant that I don't yell at him

and the DMS he's like and then the

minute the minute uh you interrupt me or

violate the rules I am leaving I am not

gonna do what that what you do with that

Destiny Guy where you're just gonna yell

at me and stuff and it's like dude I've

I don't do that unless you people

personally insult me and another thing

and then modern day he was like please

don't don't bully him because he'll

leave and it'll never come back on I was

like yeah I wasn't planning on it I was

planning on focusing on the uh substance

of the debate which it's my opponents

that always have to kind of

Veer into other directions I'm the guy

who focuses on the meat and potatoes

right

laughs

now you Jen are

I'll just unpause the donors till they

so they actually go through with him

gorilla Sun thank you so much

all right I appreciate you we are all

set up to go

looking forward to an exciting debate my

only goal is to try and help you guys

get clean sound bites and so I want you

guys to have back and forth there is

always the option if one or both of you

wants to go into 30 second or a minute

or whatever time intervals but we want

the dialogue and so it's just going to

be your up to 10 to 12 opening minute

statements about an hour of open

conversation and then 30 ish minutes of

q a

so yeah so I thought what I remember

from what would agree to is there's the

uh yeah I was given the default if

you've done different um all ears what's

the what's the other one okay sorry I

just thought so we went over this in the

in the group chat beforehand I just

thought we uh

we talked it was the uh

40 uh 40 minutes of open discussion then

five minute close in said that uh and

then at 45 30. that is perfect that that

works just as well I

sounds good my only question

is

the affirmative normally goes first

but I'm open to any side going but do

you guys have a problem

so I can't unmute myself

oh yeah one second

so I would be the affirmative in this

case right yes and these are five minute

openings

so I was at five it is ten minute

openings okay 40 minutes of dialogue

five minute closings 30 minute audience

q a

yeah I mean I can go first no problem

okay that sounds good then with that

we are going to go live the only thing

other things I'll say if you see me

opening the door walking around I can

still hear you it's wireless

and if you see me going like this it's

because the music is playing and you

can't hear it but they can and all right

with that

I'm going to meet you both and we're

going live

in three two one

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that I am going to hand it open over to

the affirmative for their opening

statement the floor is all yours

so uh

so you can just interrupt me if I'm

getting close to the uh the limit so

I'll just begin so Maga communism is one

of the most maligned yet misunderstood

phrases on the internet as far as

political discourse is concerned toward

the end of the last year uh during the

end of the summer it gained traction on

Twitter and started trending leading to

various different political commentators

to give their own takes on the apparent

absurdity and Paradox of this phase

reaction to the phrase is a good litmus

test of political sensibilities in my

view those who react suddenly to the

apparent Union of ideological opposites

fail to grasp the subtlety of its

imminent irony we know that on a

superficial level Maga and communism

seem to be the opposite of each other

various pseudo-intellectuals fail to

pre-appreciate the provocation already

inherent in the slogan though why should

that be the case given that the Maga

movement is being carried entirely by

the blue-collar working class who also

happen to be the historical subject of

communism

now to make a brief comment I am

familiar by the study by Nicholas Carnes

which alleges that the Maga movement is

in fact not made up by the white working

class however the methodological flaws

in that study are very clear in as far

as how they Define the working class

according to that study class is defined

by income and not occupation but when

you actually analyze the data on the

basis of occupation you can very clearly

see

that blue collar jobs that would fit the

definition of productive laborers as per

the Marxist definition people who are

working with their hands in manual forms

of Labor that are directly involved in

the transformation of nature as per

Marx's definition of what labor actually

is rather than just the service industry

although these jobs tend to be called

middle class and as by average have a

higher income than service jobs that is

what the working class has always

actually meant as per the Marxist

definition so the blue collar working

class overwhelmingly votes in favor of

trump and overwhelmingly makes up the

core of the Maga movement and we don't

actually just need to consult data to

understand this because we understand it

intuitively and anecdotally if anyone

has any if you've ever gone to a trump

rally it's just painfully obvious what

kind of demographic dominates the Maga

movement especially compared to other

Republicans meanwhile we have plenty of

data that show how there has been a

shift in a transition among wealthy

suburbanites and white-collar

professional managerials but especially

the traditional Republican strongholds

in the suburbs the white suburbs moved

over to Biden and Democrats in

unprecedented numbers from 2016 up to

the most recent

election and the midterms right so we

are seeing a shift and a swapping of

class demographics in each respective

party and that much is I don't think

there's room for dispute there

now other responses which attempt to

compare Maga communism to national

socialism are even more sophomoric the

latter phrase was corned

opportunistically to hijack a real

existing socialist movement which

doesn't exist in any comparable form in

the United States moreover it did so for

purposes of assimilating said movement

to both the institutions of the German

Imperial estate and for purposes of

waging Wars of aggression yet the

strategy of Maga communism is both

counter hegemonic Anti-Imperialist and I

would even add in some sense at least

anti-government we recognize in Maga and

aim to dismantle the Imperial estate

machine known as big government and a

fervent rejection of foreign

interventionism this stands in contrast

to the so-called Democratic socialists

which by the aforementioned Criterion

the significance of the state

institutions in war actually do have far

more in common with the ideology of

Hitler

now finally the real consension of this

slogan is that it implies the return to

a counter hegemonic and in some

revolutionary communism standing opposed

to the ruling class institutions

reigning over American Society at every

cultural informational and sociological

level this was put it at odds with the

so-called Progressive left but what is

so Progressive about a left that can do

nothing but in concrete terms defend the

actually existing status quo what

progress since the defeat of Bernie

Sanders in 2016 has it actually made

anyone serious about communism in this

country should know that Maga represents

the only remaining counter hegemonic

political force as Democrats rhinos and

neocons form one globalist Center

uniting together for an agenda for war

now finally I'll add

my opponent here Ben Burgess wrote a

book called give them an argument which

was apparently targeted toward everyday

right-wingers and right-wing rhetoric

this is severely misguided the real

people who need an argument are in fact

the Democratic party in Joe Biden who

people like Ben Burgess if I am not

wrong here

we're claiming can be pushed left or at

least some kind of left-wing force can

gain hegemony over the Democrat Party

and hijack it for purposes of realizing

those aims where where is that where are

the results for that why don't your

arguments work in the direction of the

democratic party basis basic Marxism

tells us that the ruling class will

always control the government in a

democracy a so-called democracy so how

are you going to push even when the

Democrats agree with your arguments they

still will not make do on them why

because they're in the pockets of the

capitalistic ruling class which is clear

as day to anyone so where's the argument

for Biden where's the argument for the

squad and AOC who not once have actually

sacrificed their careerist and uh

opportunist Ambitions for the purposes

of building a mass socialist movement in

this country what concrete steps have

been taken besides advocating for people

to vote for Biden to Stave off the

supposed threat of fascism which by the

way has never been clearly defined has

actually been made none so

I'm not sure if I uh am close to the end

of my time but I think that's actually

all I need

yep you still had four minutes but that

is fantastic thank you so much infrared

for your opening statement and with that

we are now going to hand it over to Ben

for your opening statement

all right thanks Amy uh I'm glad to know

that cause knows the title of one of my

books uh it's pretty clear that he has

no idea what I said there or anything

else that I've ever written or said uh

since the arguments that he's attributed

to me that you can push find it to the

left something about fascism are pretty

hilariously far from uh the actual

positions that I've taken of those

issues I could just go to jacobin.com uh

Slash author slash Burgess and find out

what I've actually said about all those

subjects pretty quickly okay but I want

to move on from that uh to

um

get right to the point about why I think

trying to uh attach any sort of

pro-working class or anti-imperial

politics to the mega label is not just a

provocation but actually incoherent

uh first on foreign policy uh Trump was

actually a way bigger militarist than

Obama added Subway as a bigger

billetress to bite it and to put this in

perspective when I say that I spent the

Obama years constantly arguing with

liberals about drones and detention at

Obama's failure to end the war in

Afghanistan and I've spent the last year

being accused of being a Putin apologist

because I want peace negotiations in

Ukraine but if you objectively look at

all the things that changed in foreign

policy from Obama to Trump in almost

every way as bad as Obama was Trump was

even worse and more aggressive Trump

tore up the Iran deal and assassinated

solomoni bringing the United States Iran

closer to the brink of War than we've

been since the hostage crisis at the end

of The Carter Administration uh U.S

policy has always been to help Israel

and screw over the Palestinian people

but Trump was at least in at least one

way literally the worst uh U.S president

ever on that subject he did what no

president had been willing to do since

Israel's illegal annexation of

Palestinian territory in East Jerusalem

in 1967 uh after the 1967 war and moved

the U.S state of Jerusalem thus official

is signing off of that annexation and

taking that issue off the table for any

future U.S sponsor peace talks which was

of course very high on Indio Khan wish

list he has another thing Trump did he

doubled the rate of drone strikes in

Yemen if he lifted all of Obama's

policies that in any way put any kind of

restrictions or oversights on the use of

drones basically just letting the

generals do what they want and again

what Obama did was bad enough as far as

I'm concerned Obama is a war criminal

who should stay on trial at the Hague

but Trump was a worse work criminal we

don't even know how many innocent people

were killed by Trump's considerably

expanded version of the Drone War

because he got rid of the reporting

requirements moving from of the Middle

East the Latin America Trump reversed

Obama's opening to Cuba and tightened up

the Embargo on that country outside of

Cuba uh the two presidents were about

equally bad in Latin America Obama

backed the coup in Honduras Trump backs

the coup in Bolivia Bernie Sanders by

the way who was mentioned earlier spoke

out against both of those if you wanted

an example of a politician who might be

imperfect in various ways and not as

they had to get a reventionist as I'd

like but who's about ten thousand times

better on any of those issues about uh

foreign policy than Trump or any of the

bag of people in Congress on Afghanistan

Trump pledged to theoretically get out

if he made it to a second term we'll

never know if he would have kept that

promise

uh Biden was the one who actually ripped

off the Band-Aid while every single bag

of Republican criticized him for quote

unquote surrendering and dishonoring

America by letting the Taliban take over

as American troops were leaving

oh and yeah before we finish foreign

policy Trump was far more of an

anti-russia Hawk that Obama had been

Trump has acted like a peace Nick about

Russia now that he's out of office it's

the easy way to court voters for 2024

but when he was in office he was super

aggressive about opposing the Nordstrom

pipeline hell he bombed Damascus while

there were Russian soldiers stationed in

the city and let's talk about Ukraine uh

as hard as it is to remember back in

2014 uh Republicans would constantly

criticize Obama for being too soft on

Putin one of the things they were always

slamming him for was not being willing

to send heavy weapon reading Ukraine for

their war against russian-backed

separatists of the donbass well by the

end of his first year Trump did exactly

that uh and move in from Russia to China

that Trump who was obviously a huge

anti-china Hawk uh is constant feature

of his rhetoric uh and right now just

this last week all the biggest bag of

republicans in Congress have been

lighted up to the claim about how

China's an existential threat and how

the United States needs to send more

money to Taiwan it's cut economic links

and so on even the bag of people who

want less age you create all set if you

look at their reasons for voting that

way that their reason is they think

China is a bigger threat than Russia we

should focus on China

move into domestic policy Trump was a

way bigger Union Buster than either

Obama or Biden and I hate Obama and

Biden uh I think those are just mediocre

pro-corporate Democrats and Biden's move

to stop the rail strike was Despicable

and it showed that even if Democrats are

the softer if the two parties of capital

there's still very much a party of

capital but the fact is that Trump was

by any possible standards worse he

filled the National Labor Relations

Board with hardcore Union Busters who

made it way harder for ordinary Working

Class People you know whether those blue

collar workers Haas is talking about or

white collar workers who by the way are

also very much part of the uh you know

what kind of color you wear is not the

question the question is do you own uh

the means of production do you know do

you are you forced to sell your labor to

a capitalist to make a living uh whether

you're slinging coffee at Starbucks or

working in a coal mine uh but any case

any kind of working class people who

want higher wages or more of a say at

their workplace if they wanted to

organize you do that was made far Harder

by the Trump Administration

uh midwild has been domestic policy

accomplishment was a tax cut for rich

people

and the Trump Administration worked

constantly a week in workplace safety

regulations to protect workers for being

injured or killed on the job

when you talk about so-called Mega

communism what you're doing is you're

attaching allegedly communist politics

to the flag of tax cuts of deregulation

of Union busted uh of assassinated

solomonia and usually moving the U.S

embassy to Jerusalem to fuck over the

Palestinians uh you're attach it to the

flag of escalated tensions with Russia

and China even as you lick the boots of

Wall Street and Corporate America you're

using the word communism but you're

attaching it to the flag of the worst

most hardcore enemies of the working

class and again mainstream Democrats

like Obama and Biden are absolutely at

it it's the working class but Trump and

the bag of people in Congress are worse

last year all of the biggest bag of

republicans in Congress your Marjorie

Taylor agreeds you know people like that

Matt Gates voted against a proposally

even cap the price of insulin for

diabetics because even capping it not

making it free just capping it is too

much of a violation for them of the

Sacred right of capitalists to make as

much money as possible

now if you want to say lots of working

class people voted for Trump and we

should try to appeal to them I

absolutely 100 agree with you now all of

you know I don't know what this analysis

is that supposedly proves that the

majority even if blue collar workers

voted for uh for Trump uh I haven't seen

that I'd be interested to hear about it

uh but uh certainly if you just look at

exit polls that ask about income which

yes is a imperfect proxy for

relationships the means of production

but you know but it does give you a

rough idea uh the majority of people

who've made less than fifty thousand

dollars a year vote for Biden uh

majority of people who made more than a

hundred thousand dollars a year voted

for Trump

um and there is you know what Haas is

talking about in terms of Class D

alignment the sort of like weakening of

those traditional correlations is true

but it's it's still true despite that

that the majority of the working class

voted for Biden uh honestly Trump's most

hardcore base of support was from small

business owners who hate unions that

love tax cuts but sure that still leaves

probably 10 civilians of working class

people who vote for Trump and even if

most working-class people voted for

Biden I absolutely don't think we should

give up on winning lots of working-class

trump voters over to the left with

better material politics in the future

I don't personally use the c word

communism uh in 2023 because I'm not a

larper I don't get off on triggering

people by using words they associate

with the failures of the Soviet Union

rather than with the kind of socialism

we could build in the 21st century but I

absolutely am a socialist the long-term

goal of my politics is collective

ownership and workers control the needs

of production I'm also a Marxist in the

sense that I agree with Marx's theory of

history with his core insights about

base and superstructure and how modes of

production rise and fall throughout

history and I do think that theoretical

framework could tell us important things

about how to win socialism in the 21st

century I expect we'll get into all that

in the Q a I certainly hope so but I

wanted to say at least that much to give

people a sense of where I stand

audiologically and even sticking to the

politics of the Here and Now not those

long-term goals I do think we need a

class word out of culture War I'm not

talking about throwing anybody under the

bus in terms of social policy I actually

think those polit evidence shows that uh

the majority of working class Americans

uh are actually fairly socially

Progressive the views on gay and trans

people abortion rights Etc but I do want

to strategically focus on economics and

cut out the sensorious nonsense the

identity politics and I do think a left

that does that could absolutely win over

some percentage of the working class

vendors who voted for Trump so

uh last point right we need to be able

to do that certainly went over some of

those voters if we're going to even get

the kind of political realignment that

would get us Medicare for all this

country to provide workers control of

doing some production but I don't think

you get there by

um by lying to people about the

fundamental distinction uh we don't win

their trust by insulting their

intelligence and hoping they can't tell

the difference between working class

socialist Politics on the one hand and

pro-corporate Union busted Pentagon

non-serve in mega Politics on the other

what we need to do instead is to tell

them the truth about both Biden and

Trump about both mainstream Centrist

Democrats and taxes cutting Union busted

Mega Republicans and we need to offer

them something better

oh

thank you so very much doctor

doctor for your your opening statements

both of you we are about to go into 40

minutes of open dialogue I want to keep

on

sending love out there and a reminder

that if you send in questions tag me at

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neutral debates even further with that

the floor is all of yours gentlemen

I think causes muted

so that was a very kind of diverse array

of different jibber jabber talking

points I'd like to go one by one and

address the main ones that I've heard

and that I took note of at least that

were significant enough so the first one

was the claim that Trump was more

militarist than Obama now this is a

non-argument in relation to the topic of

debate because the topic of debate is

about Maga communism which is clearly

centered on the Maga movement not Trump

as an individual as far as Trump

possibly no no Ben you said you were

gonna quit this debate if I interrupted

you so I'm gonna go through one by one

and actually respond to your claims in

that case in that case anyway could we

get the two minutes so

well because if you're gonna go through

every single thing I just said that

sounds like a statement so let's let's

uh yeah I'd like to actually respond to

what you at all the points you raised

because they were all bullshit and I'd

like to actually be able to respond to

them

sure so how long do you want to do it

um I mean I I don't think it'll probably

just take like five minutes

okay if you want to do five minutes then

I'll do five minutes I can live with

that Amy that's perfectly fine if it

feels like you're not having a good flow

we can always shorten that or just go

back into open conversation so since you

both want it infrared five minutes so

since this was actually about the Maga

movement and not Trump as an individual

we actually have to square Trump's

policy making decisions and actions

while he was president in relation to

the Maga movement the Grassroots

movement that actually propelled them

into office in the first place now first

and foremost the claim that he's a

militarist just patently isn't true why

because Trump didn't start any new Wars

he overthrew zero governments during his

term and it's as simple as that there

was no equivalent to the color

Revolutions of the so-called Arab Spring

Libya Syria under his presidency you

could say he drone more people that's

not so much Trump it's the Imperial

estate machine which no one president

could successfully dismantle it is true

that Trump obviously compromised with

rhinos and neocons who by the way right

now are at war with the Maga movement

and Trump as a person but that has no

bearing on the sentiment that is within

the Maga movement which is

overwhelmingly anti-interventionist and

anti-war no one denies that Trump

staffed his government with Bolton and

Pompeo in order to compromise with the

Republican party which otherwise

wouldn't have tolerated his political

existence and many in the Maga movement

even critique him for that I and I'm

included in that right but that has

nothing to do with the actual Grassroots

counter hegemonic force that is the Maga

movement now

um the question is where do those

policies come from did they come from

the Maga movement that actually

distinguished Trump's political career

in the first place or do they come from

his the neoconservatives that are

already entrenched in the Imperial State

machine and which rule no matter who the

president actually is as Putin pointed

out once

um confusing Trump for the traditional

Republican party is just a glaring

mistake here now you're saying Bernie

Sanders is more anti-war than Trump well

anyone can have good rhetoric but we

don't know that because he's never

actually been president because he

doesn't have the balls to actually have

a chance to be president so we don't

know how he would act but we can

actually see the record how he acts and

Ascend and how much he compromised in

notos to the Democrats pro-war uh

Ambitions and it's very clear that

Bernie Sanders would probably be much

more of a Warhawk than Trump and I'll

tell you why because Trump doesn't care

about so-called human rights-based

pro-democracy interventionism and Bernie

Sanders does that would automate

automatically make him a more probe War

President than Trump because you

mentioned Trump's anti-china rhetoric

but guess what that's just inflammatory

demagogic whatever rhetoric internal to

America when it came to foreign policy

Trump wanted nothing to do with Taiwan

he didn't really himself want anything

to do with the Hong Kong protests he

said Taiwan is what miles away from

China we're not that is not we have

nothing to do with that he didn't

entertain any of the bullshit about the

so-called oyer genocide

and he had a much better relationship

with G on a personal level than both

Obama and Biden today now the claim that

he was a union Buster it neglects the

fact that nobody's been able to organize

a mass Union moving for decades in this

country that's not that's not completely

owed to the suppression of unions it's

owed to changes in the relations of

production which make yes unions became

more established more politically

entrenched more bureaucratic and more

generally undesirable to the average

person who doesn't really want to have

to be tied down to working at fucking

McDonald's for the rest of their life

finally uh you I'm gonna skip some stuff

but your conception of class is utterly

false you may claim that anyone who's

just employed is part of the proletarian

class this is a fundamentally

anti-marxist definition according to

that definition a CEO would be a

proletarian because CEOs are also

employed and they don't necessarily own

any means of production just because

they're CEOs according to this

definition which tries to rank them

members of the professional managerial

class and on the class of unproductive

laborers as the same as the advanced

segments of the proletariat which is the

productive laboring class marxists have

always recognized that by the way

because productive laborers represent

the general interests of Labor the

service industry doesn't represent those

interests because the service industry

doesn't actually produce any value in

the Marxist sense so you can change the

definition of class and then say that

Biden has more working-class support

that's fine but all you're doing is

changing the name of thing meanwhile in

actual reality studies and you wanted an

example of this and I'll give you one

minute

yeah let me just get it real quick so

the New York Times uh it uh did a study

that uh in

just really quick I have to get this

of the 265 counties they evaluated most

dominated by blue collar workers areas

where at least 40 percent of the

employed adults were blue collar workers

Biden just won 15 right

um

compared to the rest which went for

Trump trump by 10 points won by average

in Workforce in the various counties

Biden Juan

they were 23 Blue Collar compared to

Trump's 30-some percent right in the

average counties they both won now in

another finally there's many studies but

I'll show you one of the main ones

got it right here so it's a study by the

John Hopkins University

by Stefan L Morgan which is called Trump

and the white working class and the

result of that study and the conclusion

was that

28 of Trump's 2016 voters were Obama

voters in 2012 in comparison

uh the Obama to Trump voters were

disproportionately white and working

class whereas the 2012 non-voters were

disproportionately

so

the conclusion was that Trump has a

narrow victory in 2016 because of the

support of the white working-class

voters whom he targeted that was the

result of the study by John Hopkins

University so

yeah uh so very obviously anybody who

heard what Haas just said could go back

to earlier in the video and see what he

said originally and see if they're not

even remotely the same Clan nothing in

either of the studies that he mentions

uh provides anything approaching direct

evidence that the majority of

blue-collar workers uh voted for Trump

and also Haas is very much the one who's

rejected the traditional Marxist

definition of class uh which has

absolutely nothing to do uh with whether

you're a service worker or you work at

extraction or you work in uh in

production uh it's about your

relationship to the means of production

uh CEOs typically uh even though they

are employees uh do not meet the

definition that I just gave uh which is

that you have uh that uh you can't uh

you're not in a position to support

yourself through ownership of the means

of production if you're a CEO you

probably do in fact uh half the economic

resources you know from which you could

uh you know start your own small

business uh and support yourself that

way you know you're not in that position

where you know where you're forced to uh

to sell your labor to a uh to a

capitalist obviously

um but even with regards uh so even if

we're somehow excluding service workers

I.E the vast majority of the working

class the vast majority of the poorest

part of the working class in the United

States uh which is an extremely silly

thing to do but even if we are excluded

uh excluded those people uh the fact you

know they like this attempt at extremely

indirect evidence from you know the

looking at the number of counties where

you have more people as opposed to the

direct evidence about exit Polly though

uh does not show very much now I would

prefer it effects of pollsters ask you

uh do you uh uh do you own a business uh

or uh or are you know or do you have

managerial Authority in a business or do

you neither own nor have managerial

Authority as opposed to asking them a

bad income level I think that would be

much more clarified but until that

income level as directly asked to those

exit polls is uh is a pretty good

indicator uh as rough as it is uh that's

uh that's pretty decent now the idea

that uh the idea that Mega uh is a

counter hegemonic movement is absurd

Maga is a branding exercise uh by

Republicans uh it's a uh you know I mean

it obviously cannot in any way shape or

form be separated from Trump as a person

in fact we've heard this over and over

and over again since Ron DeSantis has

started to make a play for the bag of

peace with faithful that Trump is Mega

uh which is uh which is clearly the

majority of the majority sentiment uh

and especially after you know after

Trump had been for the president for

four years and his record was very far

for beta anti-interventionist uh and uh

and very uh and very very very far from

somehow clawing back neoliberal

economics in fact he was doing the

opposite of that uh then like I think it

was overwhelmingly clear that Mega is

the personal fan club of Dove Donald

Trump there's absolutely nothing about

it that's immediately counter hegematic

in terms of building alternative centers

of power uh what does to you know as you

know as limited and flawed as a way as

it can build alternative sensors of

power is uh building labor unions so

workers have a direct form of

organization at the workplace whether

blue collar or otherwise and his nlrb

um has said yeah they're applied lots of

other reasons that you do this have

decline besides uh government Union

busted that's all true but it is also

true that his at lrv was aggressively

anti-union to a far greater extent than

either Obama's or Biden's people could

read an article by Paul Prescott called

Trump claims he's pro-worker but his

labor board has tried to destroy worker

organize it goes through decision after

decision after decision by the hardcore

Union Busters the Trump appointed to the

nlrb that have made it much more

difficult uh to uh to organize unions

uh on foreign policy listed into Haas

said well okay sure uh at least he

didn't you know he didn't start any new

Wars I think said uh you know I think

chaki that is the only indication of

militarism is pretty absurd on the face

of it and they'd like well hey I mean if

uh uh you know Obama you know there's

Libya the first term but he doesn't

start any entirely new wars in the uh in

the second term meanwhile uh I I listed

off a bunch of countries where uh

Trump's policies were far more

aggressive uh that uh that Obama's uh

Obamas had did again back it out of the

Iran deal assassinated solomoni having

worse more anti-palestinian policies

with regard to uh with regard to Israel

uh have it uh you know uh reversing the

opening to Cuba and tied in the Embargo

expanded this road War now ha says oh is

that coming from Mega or is it uh or is

it just coming for people who would be

in power regardless of who's President

well neither what it's coming from

Donald Trump there is no such thing as

Maga separately from Trump magazine just

a day with Trump's fan club and uh as

far as Trump goes uh would would Haas

says things that sound to me like

nothing so much is the kind of thing I

would hear from Obama supporters in 2010

oh sure you know we still have drones we

still have indefinite detention but no

one president could be expected to

reverse all that what do you believe

that the great Lance Theory the

president could just do whatever they

want that's how liberals talk to 2010.

it's almost exactly the same as how Haas

is talking now uh the uh it completely

ignores that what I was pointed out is

it's not just that Trump didn't

completely end the Drone where he

greatly expanded the Drone War there

were there were twice as many Road Dutch

Road strikes in yet by the way speaking

if you haven't he says we don't know if

birdie was adding interventionist the

Trump well Bernie Sanders spearheaded a

bipartisan resolution to end the U.S

involvement it's uh Saudi Arabia's

genocidal war in Yemen trump vetoed it

so yes I'd say we do know Trump backs

the coup in Bolivia because Sanders

criticized that

Etc so Trump also last Point Trump uh

severely rolled back the uh restrictions

on the use of drones that came from

Trump that wasn't just whoever was in

office

uh can I go now

okay so regarding your understanding of

class I know you're not a Marxist so you

just got this from Twitter or you got

this from whatever your DSA Social

Circles no class is not just defined by

whether you own the means of production

or not class is also defined by the

means of your subsistence how do you

actually earn a living in relation to

the accumulation of capital in the

production of value the working class

actually produces value and earns its

living because of the actual value of

its labor it actually can reproduce the

value of its labor plus producing a

surplus value most service workers don't

actually fulfill that definition but the

whole significance of the service worker

thing and the productive labor things

the reason productive laborers are more

the core of the working class I'm not

saying service workers are outside the

working class they just don't fit the

strict definition of the Marxist

proletariat and one of the reasons for

that is because institutionally speaking

they're more a class of people who are

trained to perform they have to perform

certain things they have to be instilled

with specific forms of consciousness

rather than actually produce tangible

real things having some direct

relationship to the transformation of

nature which is how Marx defines labor

now your your added thing about CEOs oh

CEOs don't count because they have

enough extra Capital to start a small

business well then it would just be

defined by income there's plenty of

professional managerials who if I'm not

mistaken you would Define as members of

the working class coders and other

people graduate students who probably do

have some extra disposable income that

would allow them to pursue other

endeavors that is not actually according

to your definition how class is defined

it's not defined by income but the

relationship to the means of production

having the ability to start a business

doesn't necessarily mean you are doing

that so the absurdity of your definition

of what class is is very clear now Maga

is not a trump fan club

it's the only counter hegemonic

political force for the sole reason that

it is not loyal to the ruling

institutions of society you could say

it's loyal to some image some idea of

trump which it is right but it's not

loyal to the mainstream media it's not

royalty loyal to the ruling corporations

of society it's not loyal to Pfizer it's

not loyal to the pharmaceutical industry

it's not loyal no it's not loyal to the

military industrial complex it's also

not loyal to the sacred institution of

so-called democracy either which is

really the most important we can't

really get into the details on YouTube

obviously about that whole one but

that's why Maga is counter hegemonic

because it is searching for an America

that is not being officially represented

by the gramskian hegemony within our

society the Bourgeois hegemony that is

why Maga is a counter hegemonic Force

you can point out how Trump was beholden

to Sheldon Adelson and Pompeo and Bolton

and the neoconservatives during his

presidency things I haven't denied but

to say that all of this was coming from

Trump blatantly you know

denies the obvious reality which was

obvious even to Trump by the way later

on that yes he had to compromise with

these people and all this bullshit was

coming from them Bolton Pompeo the Neo

conservatives and even before then yes

Sheldon Adelson when it came to the

whole Israel policy now it's true that

Trump gave the neoconservatives more

free and Reign than they probably would

have had under Obama but that doesn't

change that's just a failure of Trump's

own character and individual person it

has nothing to do with the Maga movement

that propelled him into power in the

first place and which is right now the

target of all of those three figures

that I just melted Adelson is going to

DeSantis uh Pompeo wants to run for

president himself John Bolton is an

avowed enemy of trump right now so

mentioning all this shit is completely

pointless now the the thing is is that

you mentioned something about unions

really quick unions have been

politicized for a long time and

bureaucratized and they're in bed with

the Democrats it's not surprising that

Republicans are against them today it

doesn't mean by the way that unions

today are even pro-worker it's very

possible that unions are unpopular among

workers today among many workers today

actually they're bureaucratic and

they're yes corrupt in many ways as well

the ones that are in bed with the

Democrats which almost all of them are

they're a political institution

now finally you said something about how

oh I sound like an Obama supporter right

now no The crucial difference is that

Obama supporters were loyal to the

Bourgeois hegemony of society the Maga

movement is not it's almost that simple

right I'm not apologizing for Trump oh a

president can only do so much I don't

care about Trump trump is an individual

he's just a symbol as far as Maga is

concerned now you could say Maga blindly

agrees with everything Trump says but

even if he did it wouldn't be true

because Trump on the V issue which you

can't even mention on YouTube without

triggering the uh sensors but on the

whole um let's say medical issue that

you can't talk about on YouTube Trump

supporters went against Trump himself

and actually booed him in person so no

they don't just blindly listen to

everything Trump says but they do trust

him in a way they don't trust the ruling

hegemony of society Trump is a chaotic

personality and I think it's better for

these people to trust this chaotic TV

personality guy who can probably be

moved in any possible Direction really

then the overwhelming force of Bourgeois

hegemony the Civil Society NGO

institutions the mainstream media the

corporations the um

think tanks the uh military industrial

complex the politicians yada yada yada

Wall Street main Wall Street and

Washington and so on I mean time you

have all of that on one hand and then

you have this funny chaotic guy Trump on

the other I think Communists have a

better chance working among people who

trust the funny chaotic Kai more than

they do the ruling Bourgeois hegemony of

society as a whole

okay uh I gave you the definition of

Class A couple times it sounds like you

weren't listed very closely so I'm going

to try one more time so the definition

of class that Karl Marx gives if you

read this book Capital uh is uh not at

all what you said it is again every time

he talks about class he's talking about

relationship to the uh to the means of

production uh that the uh so the usual

way that some that you know Marx would

put it is they're going to workers owe

nothing

um you know that they they own they own

nothing but their own their own labor

they don't you know they don't own any

means of production so therefore they

have no choice uh but to uh to work for

people who do own the means of

production now you can criticize this

definition on various grounds I think it

can be tightened up uh I think that the

uh that

um you know some of your examples I

think point to something that that's

actually real which is you should also

talk about managerial Authority uh as a

uh and not uh and not just uh and not

just ownership strictly speaking which I

think again would you know is another

problem with your attempt to sort of uh

say under the Marxist definition CEOs

would count uh so we need to switch to

your non-marxist definition that's about

you know whether you're blue collar or

not uh but uh that's one criticism

another criticism is that

um the uh some workers do to a certain

extent on some means of production so

G.A Cohen and his excellent book Karl

Marx's theory of History uh gives an

example about uh the

um uh gives uh gives an example about

um the uh you know like a garment worker

who might you know actually have to own

their own sewing machine you know to at

brigade's work and maintain it

themselves uh and suggests like a sort

of friendly Amendment simply to the way

Marx talks about it which is well you

know workers don't own any of their own

means of production and are thus you

know have no realistic Choice except for

to go to work which for the people who

do uh suggests that uh that a

modification of that is that workers

can't make a living for their ownership

of the means of production which I think

is a fair uh is a fair modification uh

now I think the I think the part about

unions is incredibly revealing uh that

you know Haas went from first saying

that well

um you know oh it can't be right like

I'm saying uh that Trump uh was far more

anti-uduia that you know because that's

this is just a distraction because

really there are these bigger structural

reasons that the labor movement has

declined now I don't deny there are

bigger structural reasons but it is

undeniable if you look at the nlrb

President Obama that under Trump that

Trump was far more anti-union and then

Haas says well unions are in bed with

the Democratic party so fuck him I guess

uh they we don't care if uh we don't

care if Trump and the rest of the bank

of politicians are ferociously anti-ud

and they're actually the worst enemies

of the organized working class uh I

think that refutes itself I don't need

to uh I don't particularly need to add

anything to it except to say he says he

wouldn't be surprised if unions were

unpopular actually the majority of

Americans say they were joining Union if

they could uh the um out and whereas a

tidy percentage of private sector

workers or you do that as that is in

fact about the Ferocious climate of

Union busted the fact that labor laws

are so tilted against organizing unions

uh in uh in the United States uh the uh

the ways like all sorts of things that

have happened to increase the bargaining

power of capital and decrease the

bargaining power of Labor final Point uh

we've heard these repeated claims that

there's something counter hegematic

about Mega as a movement of course it's

not a movement it's a branded exercise

for Trump supporters uh but

um but we haven't heard anything

counterhagibotic they're actually doing

if you organize it you need in your

workplace you're actually doing

something that's needed for counter

hegemonic you're you're setting up an

alternative Center of power to the power

of the boss there's nothing counter

hegematic about supporting a politician

or using a set of rhetoric or uh spouted

some slogans we're told in particular

that it's counter hegematic because they

uh they're going against uh they have no

loyalty to uh Pfizer uh the

military-industrial complex or

mainstream media well by and large the

most Mega line politicians are the

biggest anti-china Hawks uh none of

those people criticized uh Trump for

doing things like assassinated solomoni

so this this claim about the military

industrial complex is pretty dubious as

far as you know as far as Pfizer goes I

think just you know saved vaccines don't

work that's not a that's not anti-big

Pharma the anti-big pharmacist would be

saying we should nationalize them or at

least not let them profit off of uh of

making these that that their products

should instead be free to everybody

finally it's particularly ludicrous to

say that Maga in particular is counter

hege about it because uh mainstream

media is a big rhetorical whippy boy for

them because by that stay upstairs you

can go back to the 1980s the Moral

Majority would be counter hegematic you

could go back to uh the Dixon

Administration and you know Spiro Agnew

who's constantly denouncing you know the

liberal media is counter hegematic sure

yes this has been a staple of

conservative rhetoric for several

decades is the opposition to mainstream

media but again what do they actually

want to do to change media ownership

structures for example in a better

Direction absolutely nothing because not

all is there no actual movement here not

only is there no Alternative Center of

power to in institutions that has

mentions there isn't even a political

program that uh that would I would do

any of these things what is it that

these guys what what is it that they

would support that would actually uh

that would actually beautifully

undermine any of these centers of power

all right I'm good okay so I'm gonna

begin this with a quote from Frederick

Engels so science definitions are

worthless because always inadequate the

only real definition is the development

of the thing itself but this is no

longer a definition so let's take the

definition of the thing itself which is

the working class and Marx's time the

people who only had their labor to sell

were overrunningly the people who were

actually producing the Surplus value

that was responsible for the process of

capital accumulation to begin in the

first place they were actually selling

their labor as per the Marxist

definition now this isn't just because

they didn't own or get their money for

means of production it was because they

were actually selling their labor but

plenty of Industries within the service

industry are not selling their labor at

all they're selling performances and

they're selling the immediate uh

performances of use values which can't

be transformed in any kind of uh

value what's can't crystallize any value

whatsoever therefore it is dubious to

say they're selling their labor in the

first place just because they're wage

laborers doesn't mean they're selling

their labor it means they're getting

paid to do shit that is oftentimes

demeaning and inhuman and I'm completely

against the service industry but that

doesn't mean you have to you're going to

uphold them as the

quintessential uh proletariat of the

times the proletariat is still the blue

collar working class that actually

produces things and tangibly changes

nature the outside world and some kind

of concrete tangible way this is a base

and if you read Marx's Capital instead

of J.A Cohen who rejects Fred uh Hegel

without whom capital is completely

meaningless you would know that

significance of Labor why labor in the

proletariat is even significant in the

first place even as far as Marxism is

concerned it doesn't just come from the

fact that they don't own anything and

they have nothing to lose there's a

great deal more than that

now finally with real this whole jibber

jabber about the unions I said

establishment unions as far as the

ability to create new unions it's pretty

rare recently it happened with the

Amazon labor union but that's precisely

because Chris Smalls actually worked

with Maga people and worked with people

who were uh not Democrats and he

succeeded and it had nothing to do with

who the fucking president was it has

everything to do with the strategy he

pursued in in the creation of the Amazon

labor union which I'm not against by the

way but yeah Trump made it harder for

the establishment democrat-run unions to

expand big fucking deal I don't give a

shit I don't care about these

establishment unions uh let them all be

destroyed I don't give a fuck they're

demo they're run by the Democrats and I

haven't I don't know why I as a

communist should have any uh loyalty to

Democrat bureaucracies now obviously I

guess most Americans would say they like

unions and they prefer to join unions

because they pay better but 40 of actual

union members only 40 of actual union

members say that their membership is

quote extremely important so I'm

guessing there's probably something Lost

in Translation there regardless it

wouldn't surprise me that Americans

want the better pay that unions provide

but there's also more strings attached

to that which among actual union members

themselves lead to some kind of

contention and ambiguity but regardless

how can those unions concretely expand

without the Democratic party because

they're in bed with the Democrats right

now that's the question I'm not willing

to sacrifice building a counter

hegemonic political force for the sake

of expanding the democrat-run unions now

a simple counter hegemonic fact of the

Trump movement which you're neglecting

to point out it's like you want to talk

about workers what about Biden's rail

deal it's like probably the worst

rollback on the labor rights of uh the

working class in this country maybe

since Reagan right where he made it

illegal for federal rail workers to go

on strike destroying their collective

bargaining rights who are the people in

Congress and in the Senate who rejected

this bill it was Maga people over

and even Republicans beyond that it was

overwhelmingly the Progressive Democrats

who voted for it and it was the cons the

Maga people who were at the fore of

rejecting it so that's a simple example

of the counter hegemonic force of the

Maga movement

but even beyond the Congressional

representatives and all those kinds of

people this sentiment among the Maga

movement about sending arms to Ukraine

and the escalation of the war into World

War III and overwhelmingly critical of

the U.S administration's escalation of

that war in comparison to Democrats and

Biden

um they criticized Pelosi's visits to

Taiwan uh you mentioned oh well Nixon

you're saying Nixon was also counter

hegemonic or his movement was yeah

Nixon's voter base it was counter

hegemonic I mean that's why Watergate

happened read your fucking history yes

there were counter hegemonic elements uh

in Nixon supporters yes that's an actual

fact of history and you're laughing

right now because you haven't read

you're clearly illiterate on the subject

matter and you you're one of those

people who think Watergate happened

because of Nixon's corruption and not

because of the CIA dude keep laughing

you're gonna look in the mirror and see

a dumb fuck when you actually read your

fucking history now formulating a

political program is actually task of

communist partisans the absence of one

right now doesn't mean it's impossible

but when you actually formulate that

political program who is going to be

more receptive to it people who are

unquestionably loyal to whatever the

fucking mainstream media and the

institutions of society like Academia

say or people might who might lend you

their ear to hear something new that

society and the establishment has been

telling them not to believe such as that

communism is in fact not completely evil

and Stalin and Hitler were not in fact

the same

okay

um yes I could not help myself I will

say uh that I did say it in the debate

if the personal insult started uh but I

will I'll give you one uh they have a um

but yes I could not help myself but

laughing at the claim that uh that you

know Watergate didn't really happen that

it was some sort of CIA plot against uh

I guess this guy who the CIA hated for

some reason even though Dixon was the

one who was uh

doing things like bombing Cambodia like

um uh like uh helping to organize the

coup against South Noriega day and uh in

Chile uh that is a very odd thing for

somebody who calls himself a communist

uh to uh to say but

um in any case going back to uh

definition plus you note that the only

place I talked about Gia Cohen was to

talk about a criticism uh that I thought

was a fair criticism because I've been

talking about the way Marx talks about

uh class in Capital uh not about uh not

about Cohen uh I brought up Cohen

because uh of a point that he makes in

Karl Marx's theory of history about uh

the um about like a sort of possible

criticism or friendly amendment to that

but if you just read Capital itself uh

every time he talks about class uh it's

um it's always overwhelmingly in terms

of relationship to the means of

production of course obviously that

angle spoke about definitions Cuts both

ways because if you say I don't like

definitions then that doesn't favor one

definition or another but if you're just

looking at the way that marks throughout

the entirety of the 33 chapters of

capital uh talks about class it's always

about who owns the conditions of Labor

and who is forced to uh to Labor uh to

uh to labor for them the reason that the

working class is an important category

in Marxism is that it is a category of

the population obviously that you have

uh you know you have laboring classes

and all sorts of societies right you

know but this is one that has the

capacity and the interest uh to take

over to expropriate the needs of

production uh from uh from capitalists

and uh create a society that would not

be divided into classes but would also

not just be distributed crumbs given the

way that the forces of production have

been developed under capitalism creating

the possibility for that universally

shared abundance in

um in the few future uh on uh on unions

uh I also think it is pretty funny that

less than an hour has gone by since my

opening statement but Haas has already

forgotten what I said because he says oh

what about the real uh the rail deal uh

which I actually brought up and talked

about in my opening statement

um and yes as I said in my opening

statement that certainly proves that

even if the Democrats in the softer part

of the capital they're still very much a

a party of capital but I'd like to point

out two things about the rail deal and

about the uh the partisan contrast as it

shows there one uh houses is try to have

it both ways at a pretty epic scale he

says uh he says that on the one hand uh

he says oh fuck the establishment you

did he only cares about independent you

did so if the establishment unions were

all destroyed then that's fine with him

but then he brings up Biden crushes of

established unions those are not Plucky

new independent unions you know there's

established rail workers unions as

evidence for correctly the fact that uh

by designated the working class which I

agree I said in my opening statement uh

Trump is the worst one and of course

Maga is absolutely nothing except for

Trump's fan club but uh Biden is

certainly that'd be the working class

the real deal certainly shows it because

it does not we should not say fuck the

idiots the unions of various sorts are

the only counter hegemonic force in

society and on the subject of

um uh you know certainly the only one

that has the kind of numbers of the kind

of capacity and the kind of power that

they do not the only one but the only

one that has all of those things finally

this idea that Trump filling that lrb

with hardcore Union Busters who make

ruins uh who made a whole series of

rulings over turning Obama presidents

and making it harder to organize unions

well that's only making it harder for

the bad established Democrat aligned

unions uh is ludicrous on its face of

course that makes it equally hard in

fact harder for independent unions that

don't have the same resources to stand

up to that Union busted uh at final

point I think it would be amazing to get

if we had Chris Falls here and yes he

absolutely was willing to work with

people who voted for Trump which as I

said about opening statement I advocate

too uh but uh and he was right to do so

he himself of course would never call

himself a mega guy who's very open about

his disagreement with that and if we had

Chris Falls here and said hey hey Chris

do you think it matters who's sitting on

the nlrb do you think that these nlrb

rulings uh have make a difference to how

how easy or hard it is for an

independent Union like the Amazon labor

union to organize warehouses I think we

know what he would say in fact uh the

lrp has repeatedly intervened on the

side of the Amazon laboring Union which

would certainly not have happened if

Trump was still in office

thank you Dr Ben I am going to say that

each of you are going to get one more

round and then you're going to get

closing statements so technically you

get two more five minutes before we go

into q a but infrared back to you and

then Dr Ben you get one more reply so I

just wanted to speak to the baffling

ignorance of uh so-called Dr Burgess

here that he claims that it's extremely

odd to think that the CIA was behind

Watergate well it's such a widespread

commonly held view that even the CIA

itself on its own fucking website felt

it necessary to address the claim

themselves so no it's not an odd View at

all it's a pretty conventional view you

don't have to be in extreme conspiracy

theorist to know that the CIA was in

fact at odds with Nixon uh and the Nixon

Administration now regarding your claims

of what Mark says in capital about how

he strictly defines class I'm gonna

actually demand the citation there

because I know for a fact as someone who

has read all three volumes of capital

that Marx never actually got around to

strictly defining class Ironically in

the last volume the third volume of

capital in the very last chapter he was

planning on it and he broke maybe a few

sentences on it and that's literally

where the whole project cut off so I

know you're talking out of your ass when

you're trying to say that Marx was

defining the meaning of class

uh in capital strictly in that way no he

wasn't he was using class in a way that

was not uh

um that was not uh sorry

that was not precluded by any specific

strict definition but class as far as

Marx and Engels recognized it

and in addition to being about relations

to production isn't just about what you

own it's also what your relation to the

actual material objective process of

production is and Marx and capital makes

it very clear what productive labor is

especially when in the second volume of

capital he makes it very clear that the

unproductive Laborer of Clerks and these

other people who belong to a class of

parasites literal parasites and function

don't actually belong to the proletariat

in the strict sense now it's the general

quality of the labor of the proletariat

that makes them uniquely revolutionary

according to Marx not simply because

they're repressed and they're

marginalized or whatever

it's specifically about the generality

of their labor in the era of General

commodity production which means they

stand for a class of Labor in general

Marx's definition of Labor is very clear

in his early manuscripts and in his

early writing about a transformation of

nature not just the performance of

services

now the significant thing about Biden's

action wasn't that it targeted

establishment unions but that he made it

unilaterally illegal for Railway workers

to strike regardless of the type of

Union that actually makes it worse than

what Trump was doing which

overwhelmingly was targeting The

Establishment unions uh so I don't even

know why you would even bring that up

Biden made it unilaterally with without

regard for what kind of unit it is

illegal for Railway workers to strike

not just targeting establishment unions

but the rights of workers in general

including their collective bargaining

rights and there is no evidence that

established unions are counter hegemonic

in any way through the debt I mean it's

not even true in the post-war period uh

of the history of the United States what

evidence is there is that these

establishment unions form some kind of

opposition to this Imperial estate

machine they have long been assailed by

the Imperial estate machine as many

astute Marxist observers have been

observing for a very long time now the

reason it's hard to form you you new

unions right now is overwhelmingly

because of the failed strategies of past

Union organizers you could say that

there it does make a difference who's

sitting on the uh nlrb or whatever but

guess what according to I'm a communist

on basic Marxist and I'm someone who

stands against the status quo in general

politics takes precedent you don't

sacrifice your ability to fight The

Establishment and no toe to the fucking

Democrats just because they're going to

make it marginally easier for you to do

any kind of specific tactic because the

overall strategy is about smashing the

Imperial estate machine and destroying

the Deep State it's not actually about

um uh just doing unions so the strategy

takes precedent over the various

specific tactics employed to realize it

okay uh I find it pretty significant

that has continually responds to things

that I don't say it ignores things that

I do say I obvi I did not say that it

was just about workers beta pressed or

marginalized that has absolutely nothing

to do with what I said he just made that

up out of nothing that has no

relationship to anything I said anybody

who doesn't believe me should be invited

to pause and go back a few minutes to

the last time I talk and compare what he

said to what I actually said what I said

is that uh is that the working class has

an interest in

um uh in expropriated uh capital and

creating this other kind of society that

uh that is

um that is uh that uh would provide this

uh universally shared abundance uh

because of the way the forces of

production have been developed by

capitalism so if you look for example at

the end of the next to last chapter of

capital chapter 29 32 uh and look at the

last couple paragraphs there where he

talks about expropriated the means of

production from capitalists and then

look at the the footnote that he

provides there he talks about uh how all

of these other classes right like the

class that actually makes up the

hardcore of Vega uh the the petty

Proprietors are ultimately reactionary

because they would have turned back the

clock from you know sure big Capital

taking away the stuff that they have uh

to uh to get back that stuff uh and

restore uh this Petty private property

of the ownership of the beads of

production whereas only the working

classes and interest in going forward to

this new and different kind of society

based on Collective ownership uh he also

says oh that is saying that there's a

strict definition of how class and

capital nope I didn't say that uh uh

what I said is that uh the Eagle's point

about uh not liking strict definitions

goes against both the definition that I

was using to add the definition that you

were using but if you look at the way

that Marx talks about class and capital

over and over and over this is very

simple I would invite people to just

like if you've got like the Kindle

edition of capital uh just search for

phrases like conditions of Labor there

and you will find over and over and over

that Marx I will talk about you know

things like the conditions of Labor

being concentrated in this minority of

the population everybody else having

nothing to sell but their labor whatever

in every single point of that book where

uh where Marx talks about

um he contrasts capitalism with

feudalism uh it's always about uh the uh

the ways uh that the um is always about

the relationship to the means of

production uh that you know so you look

for example at chapter 23 of Capital

where he talks uh he's got this nice

little thought experiment about

imaginate a single Lord and a single

peasant uh and you know and the the

relationship between them and then he

says imagine if uh the Lord announced

one day hey good news feudalism is over

you're free bad news I own this land and

now you have to label for me for such

and such many hours a day and the

peasant ends up having to labor for the

Lord just as many hours as they did

before and it's technically voluntary

but you know all of that contrast is

about ownership in the needs of

production uh I I also think if you're

looking at volumes two and three got to

keep in mind uh these uh these are

nothing like vital you know works like

uh like volume one is these are things

that were left very unfinished in many

cases very unorganized variables to do

the best that he could with them now

moving on from uh Capital which I'm

happy to talk about it's one of my

all-time favorite books uh ever written

but uh moving it on from that to

Contemporary American politics uh haza's

of what happened with the rail vote is

extremely flawed in two ways uh first

and maybe most importantly he says oh

Biden made it illegal for rail workers

to strike regardless of what kind of

unions they have now what happened was

that Biden used the the railway act

which sold hideously reactionary deal

act that was already on the books uh to

impose a contract on unions which what

kind of unions independent unions

hypothetical unions the future no this

is not like a taking away any rail

workers ever going on strike ever again

uh decision that somehow they had made

this is applying uh this Railway Labor

Act that already existed uh to impose a

deal on a bunch of those establishment

you dids that Haas says he doesn't care

if they're all destroyed right we can

take away all the power that the

American working class currently has and

it's all fine it's all worth it because

uh the Trump movement is coucher

hegematic in the sense that uh even

though there's no source of power that's

a dependent of capital the Trump

movement even though there isn't even a

political platform that would somehow

hurt Capital but just in the sense that

rhetorically uh the bag of movement you

know says things about how they don't

like the mainstream media and you know

they might say rhetorically add to war

things sometimes that's how cheap a date

he is for what counts as counter

hegematic uh for that he's willing to

destroy the entire power of the

organized working class in the United

States that is not a deal anybody should

take

thank you Dr Ben and with that it is

going to conclude the open dialogue of

the debate I want to thank our

interlocutors for stepping into the ring

as they're about to make their closing

statements and then we are going into

the Q a so please keep on sending me

those chats and super chats I'm sending

love out there as well to all of those

mods keeping everything so amazing and

with that infrared I am handing it back

over to you for your five-minute closing

statement the floor is all yours so okay

I only have five minutes uh he said the

okay you're saying the working class is

a uniquely revolutionary because it's

interested in expropriate capital you

didn't elaborate why though you didn't

elaborate the actual reason for that I

actually did I actually said because the

general quality of their labor allows

them to uh establish a relationship to

production that grounds production based

on its material premises which is what

labor is whereas Capital doesn't ground

production based strictly on the use

value the necessity of its material

premises but on abstractions actually

the form of value which is an

abstraction that isn't a a specific

human use value it's a quality of

abstraction and alienation and it's

Universal form that doesn't care about

any particular content so that's why the

Revolutionary and yes labor is Central

to that now you said something about

capital I don't which volume do you cite

volume 1 chapter 29 I looked at chapter

29 of volume one

um

28

23 okay 23 23 or volume one well I'm you

haven't actually cited and deployed into

an argument why that helps your argument

that Marx is strictly defined in class

on the basis of yeah I did say that okay

you interrupted me and if I were if you

were if I were you right I would have

Rage Quit like a little bitch because of

that but I'm not going to do that but

that's what you promised to do which is

interesting

but it's interesting that you're calling

the blue collar working class that oh

rumely makes up the core of the Maga

movement Petty Proprietors when he just

cited J.A Cohen who clarified that

people who own instruments of production

that augment their labor doesn't make

them not part of the working class so

that's an interesting contradiction

there you said I have a flawed

understanding of the Railway act just

because Biden exclusively imposed it on

establishment unions but he set the

precedent for the ability to use that

act to be imposed on any a yes any kind

of Union as long as it conflicts with

some kind of National Security interest

that's the fucking point bringing up

that pedantic point about how he just

used it against the establishments yeah

because it's the establishment unions

who at that time were trying to um

we're trying to go on strike if they

weren't establishment unions you don't

think he would have done the same

fucking thing he probably would have

done it quicker because he has no

fucking reason to want to work with

unions that aren't politically loyal to

him now you're saying that oh Conor

hegemonic is just about not having the

right kind of rhetoric uh sorry Conor

hegemonic is just about having a

specific kind of rhetoric that's not

what I'm saying but whether you have

unquestioning loyalty to The

Establishment whether you can see

there's a clear contradiction that yes

the Hedge Bourgeois hegemony of society

is not the site of the kingdom of Truth

you can't blindly trust the experts that

matters when you are trying to convince

people to get on board with new ideas

yes that does fucking matter it matters

that people are able to question power

be suspicious of power and act and vote

in ways that contradict what the

Bourgeois hegemony is telling them to so

you can say that's just rhetoric but why

did why did Maga people get labeled as

domestic terrorists as of recent why is

the governor saying that something that

happened a few years ago you can't

really talk about on YouTube is like

worse than 911 because they acted in a

way that is clearly not aligned with the

Bourgeois hegemony so it's not just

rhetoric it's also action even your

fellow Democrats recognize that when

they say that Trump is the most

dangerous fascist threat to democracy

there is

I like that he's a threat to the

so-called democracy I think communism is

also a threat to this sham of a

democracy and I want to unite with Maga

in crushing this veneer of a neoliberal

democracy and establishing a state by

for and of the American people

thank you so very much I've read for

your closing statement and with that

we're going to hand it off to Dr Ben for

your closing statement

right right

uh yes I uh I'm sorry you did actually

ask me a question about 10 seconds

before that so uh so so I did uh point

out that you were once again saying

something that not only I didn't say but

that I'd actually just said in my

previous statement I'd reminded you that

I didn't say but you can't seem to stop

yourself from lying about it which is

interesting

um so uh obviously I'm not making a

claim about strict definitions uh I you

know I I said earlier right that you

know that I'm talking about the uh the

way you know you can talk about an

implicit definition right you know but

um you know both of us at various points

have big claims about how Marx defied

things but then you pointed out that's

quote forbid goals about not liking you

know definitions and I said okay fair

enough

um but let's look that's the definitions

but at the way overwhelmingly every time

that Marx talks about class and capital

how does he talk about it now the

argument from uh from chapter 23 was

just a particular Vivid example because

it was about how somebody in this sort

of hypothetical case where it happened

in a very quick and simple way would

switch from being a member of the

passenger age when they're both A

working class where the only difference

is about what their relationship is to

uh the means of production now is that

compatible with the way that you're

understanding this yeah fair enough

right but it's uh it's also you know but

I think it is suggestive that over and

over and over and over again throughout

that book whatever Marx is talking about

a class uh the stuff he always brings up

is about relationship uh to uh to the

means of production you also seem to

have forgotten what the context was of

my point about the uh the rail strike uh

which is not that I think that you know

Biden wouldn't have done the same thing

with independent unions that wasn't my

point at all and you I think you know

that I think you must know that I have a

hard time imagine you could possibly not

know that my point was that there's this

giant contradiction at the heart of your

views on the one hand you said that fuck

the establishment unions your fight of

all the establishment unions are totally

crushed by right-wing

um uh Union busted appointees to the

nlrb and making you know making a series

of decisions that make it very difficult

to form unions of any kind uh but then

on the one on the other hand you're

getting bad at Biden for crushing

establishment unions now I think you've

got it right the second time and wrong

the first time your right to be bad at

Biden for imposing uh the deal on

establishment unions you're wrong to say

Fuck The Establishment you did I don't

care if they all go away because what

you're doing is you're wishing away what

tiny little bit of power the American

working class has in favor of nothing in

favor of well there's some rhetoric here

that I like that if you look at just the

right parts ignore all the uh ignore all

of the uh extremely intense

anti-communist rhetoric in the bag of

movement Etc and look at just the parts

you like that there's some rhetoric that

sounds like something you can work with

and so you're just going to focus on

that even if supported it even if voted

that way you said acted Ed voted that

way means that you're destroyed what

little power the working class has in

this neoliberal uh hellscape uh I also

of course did not say uh that uh the

blue-collar workers who support Trump

are Petty Proprietors uh you're making

that up what I said was that Trump's

hardest core base of support was not

workers at all but Petty Proprietors

small business owners that that's

Trump's hardest score base of support uh

which I think you know is uh is true it

is certainly contradicted by nothing you

said of course the majority of people

who voted for Trump are members of the

working class just like the majority of

people who voted for Biden are members

of the working class but just like you

can make sense of saying that the uh

that for example uh that there's a

particular sort of importance to certain

kinds of PMC layers and to the Democrat

at a party I think you can make sense of

saying that petty Proprietors not

workers who might know the road sewing

machine uh but uh but people who own

their own businesses are the hardest

core of the support of the bag of

movement final point I don't know how

long I have left I'm just trying to make

this very quickly

a little bit over a minute or about a

minute now about a minute okay final

point just take a long step back from

this Haas admits that the Trump

administration's foreign policy uh was

in many important ways more

interventionists more in line with what

The neocons Wanted than the Obama

foreign policy I gave a bunch of

examples that earlier uh

yet uh somehow we're supposed to we're

supposed to believe that we're striking

a blow against the empire by voting to

for Trump and other Mega Republicans uh

Trump is himself a billionaire his uh

his movement and his uh his rise to

power was uh was uh funded by other

right-wing billionaires uh like Peter

Thiel but somehow uh we're supposed to

believe that uh that a billionaire uh

who uh who a billionaire who did

everything in his power to uh to crush

unions to deregulate to uh to get rid of

workplace safety regulations to tell cut

taxes for rich people that the movement

behind that guy because they don't like

the mainstream media they don't like

Pfizer uh that that movement uh is so

promisingly counter hegemonic that for

the sake of empowering it you should be

willing to destroy every single

establishment Union in the United States

that's insane and it certainly has all

of nothing to do with anything that

anyone could call a forum of Socialism

or communism

then

infrared and Dr Ben for that Lively back

and forth because we're about to go into

the Q a section I want to keep on

reminding everyone that both of our

interlockers

links are in the description below so if

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to the Q a keep on tagging me with your

questions and super chats at Amy Newman

but five dollars from thunderstorm

fascism means Trade union in Italian

so if if I will I'll respond to that

question by pointing out that uh the

whole point is that the President Biden

set won't just affect establishment

unions it's about the precedent not just

about the specific unions he um that it

were affected by and plus the it proves

that they were never a viable medium to

represent independent working-class

power in the first place why didn't they

go on strike anyway because they have no

independent power at all even if it was

illegal they had no independent power

that's why they didn't go on strike in

the first place so it's you claiming

this is some kind of glaring

contradiction so when I say I don't give

a shit about established reunions of

course I don't look at how weak they

were in the face of Biden's fascistic

acts against them so yeah let the let

the fucking establishment yeah I don't

give a shit I do care about when the

government starts stepping in and

establishes a precedent to uh destroy

the collective bargaining rights of the

working class I do care about that but

which can be used not only against

establishment unions but against the

working class in general that's a very

dangerous precedent so that's stupid and

saying all the petty Boozled Lenin

talked about an alliance with the

Democratic Petty bourgeoisie an element

among the peasantry which was necessary

for a united front against the Bourgeois

hegemony

so you saying the petty was using

inherently reactionary contradicts basic

communist history he said stuff about

the relations of production which was

jibber jabber because we're talking

about the relationship to the actual

process of production not just to the

title of whether you're employed or not

but what actual relation you have to

production where does your Revenue

actually come from where did your income

actually come from in relation to

production so that's my answer to the

question from the person thank you so

much for contributing to modern day

debate yes

thank you so very much for that response

and that Super Chat thunderstorm and

then back to back uh spice infrared from

Ethan for two dollars

infrasell is a clown for Banning me

um you are a little bitch if I will to

that person but thank you so much for uh

contributing to modern day debate I

support modern day debate so thank you

so much for your generous donation to

them

that's right we support all of the

audience out there as well as both of

our interlocutors who we're very

thankful for coming on another two

dollar Super Chat from Ethan they want

to know has are you role playing

no uh Mr doctor sorry Burgess says that

communism is just LARP and yet

Democratic socialism as far as the

American working class is concerned it's

just as marginal and irrelevant as

communism I choose the Communist with a

Capital C because they're going to see

you as a communist either way you have

to embrace it and actually be honest

with people about what you're actually

about so I'm not just role-playing I

think communism actually has meaning and

what I what I would say would it would

you sum it up what is communism actually

about it's actually in the word and

people laugh at this and think it's

simplistic but it's not it's about the

common interests of human beings as

opposed to profit and money and it's

almost that simple when you actually

read Marx's early philosophical

manuscripts it's the real movement to

sublate the present state of things to

establish a human oriented kind of

society so and it's also about the power

of the working class the political the

social the cultural the hegemonic power

of the working class that's what

communism means to me it's not a

specific system or a specific

and state of society as Mark said it's a

real movement

okay uh so I've been muted this whole

time that we've been doing Q a uh since

I uh but I would just say uh for the

first question or it's not at all true

that uh fascism maybe in Italian means

Trade union it comes from fascists which

means double stick it's a much older uh

word than you did and of course the

fascist and Italy crushed trade unions I

like the way that has took the

opportunity of pretended to answer that

question to just uh do a long monologue

respond to everything I'd said in my uh

my closing statement uh but

um but there is no precedent that's

established by by and evoking the

railway uh Labor Act uh just said the

Act was brought up from the past it's

existed since 1926. right so it's a new

precedent for using that before there's

no uh there's no uh there's no new

precedent there but obviously yeah there

is ways if clearly there is you can use

it in new ways odd establishment unions

shows the Bible is hideously working

class that establishment unions do

matter and we shouldn't say no they

don't they were ineffective in

responding to that fascistic don't let

the ball go into uh no they're not

they're not effective obviously uh

they're clearly not affected

as I've said in my opening statement and

odd words uh you got to talk to like

five minutes out interrupted give me 90

fucking seconds uh they have a uh and

[Music]

um

so that's just nonsense I also didn't

say that petty Bush was he was

inherently reactionary I just said that

it was the hardest core of Trump's

support please stop making things up and

respond to what I actually do you have

any data citations anything

well I also I just want to say Dr Ben I

apologize for that yeah I had to

manually unmute because I wanted

everything to go smooth but did you get

everything answered that you wanted

yeah that's fine all right with that we

are moving forward thank you for those

super chats from thunderstorm and Ethan

Osborne and your response is Dr Ben and

infrared another five dollar Super Chat

coming in from thunderstorm

don't care what genocidal Marx thinks

class is being an upstanding person and

you can't buy it

uh I'd like to take the opportunity to

respond to that by saying that the

railway act has been Dr Benson was from

192. it was from 1926. it was clearly

deployed it was used to get it was

brought back into existence

it was brought back into existence in a

novel way very clearly so it can't it is

a precedent because it can be used in

new ways very clearly and there's no

reason to think it couldn't be used

against non-establishments or other

forms uh it's despicable to use it yeah

it's a new way of using that app it's a

new way of using the app there's nothing

to say it can't be used against other

forms of workers self-organization

there's no reason to think that there's

no reason to think that it can't be used

in other forms of workers

self-organization to go back to the

argument about the railway Labor Act uh

that we should also talk about the fact

that uh that the uh that all of the big

bag of Republicans uh voted it against

even softened the deal by adding a

couple of God they have sick days yeah

but they voted against the ACT entirely

and which is what I think should vote

against the ACT they act as it isn't on

the table yeah they did they voted

against the enforcement of that act they

didn't want to add some cookies and

crumbs to that act that whole thing

needs to go I agree with how they voted

that was Bernie's bullshit so you agree

with them

Bernie Bernie wanted to add that Bernie

what he said oh yeah he just did it to

cover his tracks he just didn't say look

I'm voting for The I'm Bernie Sanders

I'm gonna vote for fascism against the

workers but I'm gonna propose a fucking

bill that is impossible to fucking pass

and he knew it was impossible to pass

alongside that one that Biden wanted to

pass so Bernie was just making a fucking

excuse for why he voted for Biden's

fascism don't fucking sit here and say

put it against the enforcement of the

ACT but he also voted for the sick days

no he wanted in addition he only and he

pushed for it in Congress because he

said alongside this one we're also going

to have another one for guaranteed sick

days Bernie Sanders in the Senate voted

against the enforcement the original

iteration of the ACT Bernie was for it

because he wanted to add another

stipulation for the sick days yes and

all right we are moving forward

we got Spice coming towards Ben five

dollars from John why is Ben Burris here

I thought has was debating president

I think that was supposed to be Sunday

but we also want to remind all of our uh

audience out there always try and attack

the

arguments not the interlocutors however

if you would like to respond to any of

that after that I don't know enough

about the inside baseball yeah president

Sunday president Sunday uh has not

gotten back to me about when he because

he wanted to arrange a debate that he

needed two weeks to plan for he never

got back to me about it he said he would

so here I am waiting for him to get back

to me so it's that simple

well thank you for those responses and

the Super Chat Jonathan and then a five

dollar Super Chat from Barry schwitzer

fiscal conservatives might vote for

Trump but Maga are social conservatives

primarily white Christian nationalists

thoughts from both

um I don't I don't think there it's a

specific ideology I do agree since the

majority of people in America are in

fact white it's not a surprise that the

majority of you know the white collar

working class 57 of them voted in 2020

for Trump up you know 10 points from

before but are you noticing a trend it's

not about white it's not about race

Hispanics you're noticing a 10 point

increase since 2016 when their blue

collar they're voting for Trump 36

percent of them in 2020 that's the trend

is upwards right even for the black blue

collar it's the same thing the trend is

upwards far more marginally from nine

percent to 12 but it's still consistent

with the other trends that the blue

collar working class regardless of its

race is starting to go toward Maga

and that's a trend now the majority of

the non-white blue collar working class

is still not fully in Maga clearly not

Maga but the trend is in that direction

and that's what the data shows us

so I would not say it's a white

nationalist movement or whatever that

means I it's an American movement

America is mostly white but America is

also black it's also Latino and it's

also other things and you know

it's clear to me that it's a American

Maga alternative America non hegemonic

non-official unofficial America you

can't be a communist who wants to fight

for the working class if you're going to

be working within only the official

America you have to work within the

unofficial non-represented America that

was left behind by the neoliberal elites

and then the question was for both so

yourselves uh so uh the claim was that

uh fiscal conservatives might vote for

uh for Trump which they served would do

the overwhelming majority of people who

voted for Trump were just people who

voted for Romney in 2012. uh the uh the

uh in 2016 at least 2020 there were more

non-voters on both sides because uh the

voting rates were unprecedented on both

sides it's still the case the majority

of working-class Voters voted provided

but of course the overwhelming majority

of Americans are part of the working

class so that's going to be the majority

of both by the Trump invited voters uh

as far as as far as social conservatives

it's certainly true that Biden did a lot

of social conservative things that

divide the working class uh by appealing

to Patty bigotry uh but the uh but uh my

biggest objection to is I'm saying it's

a white Christian nationalist move but

it's not a movement at all there's no

movement there there's no there's no

Alternative Center of power there

there's just a family Club of one Union

busted billionaire politician and the

purpose of the fan club is to get people

to vote for the uh for for one of the

two parties of official America which is

the Republican Party

thank you so much for thank you I

literally called for people to vote for

Biden it's hilarious

and that Super Chat Barry and then a

Super Chat five dollars from Chris

Albanese to both interlocutors from your

perspective who are the best political

leaders currently in power anywhere in

the world

it's very easy Xi Jinping It Takes the

Cake Xi Jinping I think second right now

Vladimir Putin Kim Jong-un

um these are it's very easy for me you

know Rai C and Iran I'm a big fan uh Ali

femini

I'm a big fan of them as well uh

obviously I'm not a I don't really have

much against Assad it's really the

counter hegemonic International forces

that I think are the best and I you know

I don't really like Trump that much the

person I'm not you know I'm not I don't

hate him but I'm not an unquestioning

follower of trump the person but I

really like how Trump shook hands and

met with Kim Jong-un I'll never forget

that I think that you know

that is something no other president

would have done and I really appreciate

about that about trump it really cements

that Maga isn't I mean that's something

that Bolton and Pompeii were saying no

no don't do that that was all Maga that

was 100 red Maga what Trump did and uh I

want to strengthen and deepen that

element of Maga

and you know it was a beautiful thing

yeah so I think it's uh pretty

astounding to give Trump uh points for

that uh for uh because one uh he

actually brought the United States North

Korea closer to the brink of war that

they've been for decades so what you're

essentially giving them credit for is

calming down from his own temper tantrum

and two that led to uh not only no peace

deal to finally have the Korean conflict

but the United States never even had a

no first use policy for uh for dupes

against uh against North Korea that's

exactly how uh how meaningless that is

and how far you have to stretch if you

want to make this impossible case that

the guy who doubled the Drone rate of

drone strikes the guy who uh vetoed

Bernie Sanders resolution to end U.S

support for the CIS genocidal Saudi war

in Yemen the guy who assassinated

solomoni and tore up the Iran deal and

ended the opening to Cuba was somehow

some kind of anti-war pro-piece uh

president I also find it very very funny

uh to uh list Vladimir Putin who

oversees a gangster capitalist Olga who

is in fact the direct successor of the

people who destroyed the Soviet Union

and imposed neoliberal shock therapy

audit uh as you know guys to call

yourself a communist uh and say that

this guy made Vladimir Putin who

actually the in the speech he gave

before invaded Ukraine blamed Lenin for

enabling uh Ukrainian nationalism uh

that you know call it that one of your

favorite leaders I think is pretty funny

I think as far as the United States goes

I think the person who's by far done the

most to support working-class politics

is Bernie Sanders as far as world

leaders go uh I uh my vote would be for

uh Lula de Silva who uh with the uh you

know who after being imprisoned under

the uh bolsonaro uh regime unjustly and

very much with Trump's support uh is now

out of prison has tried to end the war

in Ukraine uh is actually uh authored in

the side of U.S interests in many ways

but uh is actually somebody who

represents working class movement and

not just some nationalist leader who

crushes the working class in his own

country while oh sure having an

interimperialist rivalry with the United

States which describes practically

everybody who we just heard listed

this guy knows his Lenin very clearly

the kpr of the Communist party but we do

it a big back and forth Communist Party

of the Russian Federation supports Putin

and the special military operations I'm

an actual communist you are a Democrat

sir stop fighting Lenin Democrats sorry

I'm very confused about what the format

is supposed to be yeah

from Sunflower I think both sides made

good points tonight thanks

thank you so very much sunflower for the

support and you got uh each a fan out

there

and then a five dollar Super Chat from

thunderstorm thank you so very much for

the support and love Thunder Marx and

engel's ideology murdered in estimated

80 million white people in the Soviet

Union on purpose

that is simply a lie uh if you're

willing to believe everything that these

state-sanctioned

globalist sanction history books tell

you about the Soviet Union you know you

gotta really question are you really

getting the real history are you getting

what they told you to think

uh it's simply not true Stalin is an

enemy of the globalist to this day His

Image his likeness is an enemy even

Lenin is and Putin is has the right to

be critical of Lenin because he's the

successor of the Russian State and

Stalin London different on their

nationality policies

ever so slightly but importantly and I

kind of agree with Stalin's orientation

more than Lenin I don't think it's

necessarily unfair to say that Lenin's

policy on nationalities was inherited

from Western social democracy not really

applicable to the Russian circumstances

but regardless you know we're talking

about Stalin as a person who stood up to

the globalists he stood up to the

international ruling Elites and he from

scratch built up his own country

industrialized it turned into a

superpower and enriched his own people

like never before in history gave them

literacy gave him culture gave them

pride and beat the Nazis I think it's

very clear that Stalin

was a hero so I'd like to I'd like to

speak to this question uh of course

um Putin is the successor not have

leaded or even Stalin but literally was

to hand-picked successor of Boris

Yeltsin uh the guy who uh who did more

than anybody else to uh to destroy the

Sophie you did and frankly economically

raped the corpse uh so uh you know

positioned him as a successor to uh you

know Soviet communism is pretty funny uh

now I do agree that it's absurd to the

Soviet state officially that Marx's

ideology uh was uh was responsible uh

for

um the crimes of uh of stalinism because

if you actually look at everything that

Mark said about socialism consistently

you know he's Mark speaks out repeatedly

against uh against censorship a lot of

his early writings in the 1840s are uh

or are about that which is not

surprising because it was the uh he was

the editor of uh of a newspaper that was

uh that was routinely censored I we're

here to Claim by the way earlier that uh

the existence of democracy is

incompatible with Communism which is

certainly not Marx's view in fact Mark

says repeatedly in the 1870s uh that in

the most advanced democracies which was

the Soviet Union so it was Democratic

understanding about uh as a result of uh

working class parties uh taking power uh

electorally uh you might not talk about

neoliberalism but that's what he says

whatever he talks about what he means by

socialism

again no strict definitions Marx doesn't

argue like that uh but he tends to talk

about the Society of associated

producers in other words workers control

the needs of production which is no he

said communism was the real movement

pretty difficult it's pretty different

from uh what they had in the Soviet

Union

the Soviet Union was the real a real

movements

now you're just kind of a

pseudo-intellectual who's like oh it's

not realistic

nobody buys us and thunderstorm we now

have a two dollar Super Chat well we got

Spice for you infrared has got his

cheeks clap

well we can take a poll and we can see

what people think but I think uh Dr Ben

is no longer a doctor I've taken his PhD

and I've got two phds now one from

acetar bear one from Ben I've got two

phds on my back and I'm pretty confident

in that and uh he's doing the whole oh

it's not real communism thing nobody

buys that it was real communism real

communism was actually existing real

movement of Communism in the 20th

century it's very clear everyone can see

that uh good luck with your Democratic

Socialist LARP which just means voting

for Biden and the Democrats every four

years

and thank you soap for your Super Chat

infrared for your response a ten dollar

Super Chat from Johnny

foreign

why do you think farmers are required

for Greece I can't even say Farmers own

their own farm and they hire workers so

according to your work definition they

are the berkees do you not see how a

sane this is

okay so uh I would say that if you're

talking about agricultural labor versus

uh Urban I don't think that's a

difference in principle I think that

most farms in the United States are

actually uh you know most Farmland in

the United States has been farmed as I

understand it has been done directly or

indirectly by corporate agribusinesses

at this point uh so certainly people who

own those uh are part of the bourgeoisie

if you're talking about you know small

reforms bourgeoisie thank you oh sorry

if you're talking about uh if you're

talking about smaller farms uh that's

still the uh that's still the case that

uh they're you know that you have you

know like a relatively small

agricultural business that you know that

still has a bunch of employees then yeah

I mean if you're uh if you're somebody

you know you are still you know a petty

capitalist at least I don't think

there's anything absurd about that

that's not a moral condemnation right

that's not like you know you're a bad

person

uh but if we're interested in overall

class analysis try to figure out what

the interests are of uh of different

social classes so we could try to think

about how to get better political

outcomes uh so we can think about how to

try to go beyond either as you said

voted for Democrats which you know uh is

not great or voting for Republicans

which is worse because you know you're

talking it might just tell people to

vote for Biden who are what's that

because if you're faced with the choice

between two enemies you should cast a

defensive vote I've never voted in my

life

they have a and uh I don't know why

you'd ask a question if you didn't want

to hear the answers so that they have a

ad as far as ways and which Biden would

do less damage we've talked about that

extensively that they have a that uh

that wall of correspondent you know

Biden is a representative of one wing of

capital uh and you know again I was the

first one in this debate to bring up his

invocation of the Railway uh Labor Act

uh and I've certainly ridiculous

arm reduction overall Biden uh was uh

you know Biden uh did not move as

aggressively to crush the working class

As Trump did so I think if you're I

think

no I mean that's just Biden involved the

government

use the government he's a fashion

strategy it's the two parties that you

would expect uh

yeah to go back to the original question

the point about class analysis is that

if you want to go beyond have it either

vote for the Lesser evil or the greater

evil but actually build something better

and you want to think about what kind of

movement could build something better

that this kind of class analysis is

going to be but you don't understand

what classes are irrelevant that the

people who are going to be the backbone

of building something better not through

some supposedly counter hegematic

branded exercise but through actually

building up institutional power for

example with you you mean

illicit Agricultural Labors what unions

oh yeah sort of the question show me the

unions which ones

the democrat-run unions

they have a uh so so unions tend to uh

you know like you did included

independent unions like Amazon labor you

did what you said earlier yeah that's

like the one eight that's the one

exception that's about like including

both independent unions like that and

once what other ones besides what others

what other Independence there's no other

it's just democrat-runner vote for

Democrats or Republicans in the election

they'll tend to go for Democrats because

they know that the Republicans are going

to board even you don't believe that the

Democrats are in bed with the

bureaucratic Union it's corruption the

unions are a company it's a business

they're a corporation I don't care if

Trump busts all of them and destroys

every single Union of the United States

as long as it's establishment okay

okay so Trump trump yeah so Trump trump

is busting the union because Trump is

busting the unions by dismantling the

government and Biden is busting the

unions by using government as a cudgel

against the workers whereas Trump is

just dismantling government bureaucracy

which I'm all for I want to dismantle

the government not use it against

workers which is what Biden did Trump

did not do that

uh Trump did use government against

workers that's all that point about the

nlrb is about all the ways the Trump

used against workers of course you

mentioned Capital earlier and then

capital is all about did Trump make it

illegal for workers to unionize and when

you answer it has to be Ben's final

because it was his question

all right okay uh uh so neither Trump

nor Biden made it flatly illegal for

workers to utilize what Biden did was

not set any precedent but use this

hideously reactionary awful anti-working

class Railway Labor Act in precisely the

way that's been used before setting the

president

meanwhile uh people like Bernie Sanders

in the Senate and proceeded to leave at

the house did the right figure voted

against his use of the Railway Labor Act

uh they uh they voted against opposing

the deal on workers but that in a

separate vote they voted in favor of

adding the sick days uh whereas uh

whereas some Republicans voted against

the first thing uh you know because they

had very few political costs for them

they knew it wouldn't go through uh they

could get some points from doing that

but then they voted against even adding

the sick days which is pretty pathetic

and I think tells you everything about

who these people are again if you want

to know which of these is the greater

evil which of these is going to more

aggressively move to crush the working

class pretty clearly the Republicans but

that doesn't mean that the Democrats

aren't a party of capital it just means

they're the somewhat softer party of

capital long term we need to get past

both of them and I think ridiculous

branded exercises like Mega communism

that fly the flag of the greater evil uh

there's no way shape or form that that

could contribute yeah the DSA is in a

brand totally not a brand uh on that we

are moving thank you so very much Johnny

uh for your Super Chat and your

responses guys and then a five dollar

Super Chat from Mig

for infrared congratulations on earning

your second doctorate

oh thank you yeah the pleasure is all

mine

um glad for uh earning that second I'm

not sure what to do with these phds

because they're so useless because so

many stupid people hold them despite

having no knowledge of anything but I

guess it's a nice title that will

impress uh losers at cocktail parties I

guess that's what I get maybe if even

yeah so but anyway you know what I

really think about this PhD which is

really interesting is that you know it

it obviously it is a precedent when

Congress and Rashida to leave and the

squad and all these people okay

well you did the same thing you did the

same thing I want to answer my questions

you're not a doctor anymore Mr Burgess I

want to answer my question I want to

talk about phds and my PhD

you were given time to talk about and

respond to me you were asked about you

were asked about farmers and you took it

as an opportunity to respond

if I could just ask you just uh whatever

your point is finish up next 30 seconds

yeah so all I was trying to say is that

you know it's clear that uh Bernie

Sanders in the squad did vote for the

initial

um Railway act in Congress that later

went into the Senate to be enforced

except Bernie Sanders had some jibber

jabber about oh I'm also going to attach

something for the six days he knew it

wasn't possible and he still pushed for

it to be passed in Congress anyway it

was a complete sham and a fraud and uh

saying that these Squad and these

Democrat progressives opposed it is a

complete lie and that's using government

against workers as opposed to

dismantling existing regulations one is

substantially worse one is fascistic the

other you could accuse of being

regulatorily irresponsible but it's not

fascism where you're using the cudgel of

the law to actually use the precedent of

using this kind of act to make it

Bernie Sanders is a senator he pushed

for it to be passed in the Congress we

all have him on record for that

thank you both interlocutors and Mig for

that stupid chat and then ten dollar

Super Chat coming in from Chris Morlock

thank you so much Chris for Ben if Maga

is a branding exercise of trump then why

is desantas making a major play to co-op

this it's a multi-tier political

movement not fully under the control of

trump or Republicans yeah uh so uh to

said to us who by the way I hope we

could agree is this establishment of

establishment Republican as there is all

the Romney people love him Etc you're

right he is making a play to uh co-opt

this branded exercise it's rhetoric

anybody could use rhetoric anybody could

try to co-op that but also it's been

extremely unsuccessful because uh

because it's uh it's nothing it there's

no definition of Mega apart from Trump

and so what do you hear from the bag of

Faithful over and over and over again as

Ron DeSantis starts to make this play no

I'm sorry this is a no-go there is no

Maga without Trump that's a phrase you

hear over and over and again

and there is

well you're about to give you a chance

to respond a second infrared uh just

sending a lovely reminder out there that

we are about to hit the 30 Mark we're

going to be doing some overtime for

questions but if you have

this is the last chance to get your

birding desire question is because we

value our interlocutor's time and we re

respect them we want them to get out and

orderly uh manner but sending in a two

dollars around chat lots of love from

oh oh no hold on a five dollar Super

Chat from Emily

congrats on your double doctorate Dr

halves

uh thank you again the pleasure is all

mine you know it's really that mother is

no MOG without Trump well Trump himself

is a brand you hit Trump the political

actor he's just a chaotic TV personality

guy yeah he's probably gonna be

immortalized in the Maga movement's

future as a meme he's a meme in our

community too but to say there's no

future of Maga without Trump is not true

I don't actually think it's maga's not

the end point it's just the beginning

Maga is a vehicle to realize something

greater which is a counter hegemonic

American form of politics something that

has been impossible for decades at least

since Reagan right or since Jimmy Carter

there's always been the official

co-opted official version of America and

Trump added chaos to the misc mix I'm a

maoist MAO said when chaos under Heaven

situation is excellent I completely

agree with that so I I'm honored to be

um have my second PhD I'm gonna put it

right

right there under my Mao uh pendulum and

it'll just sit tight cozily in the

corner and I'll bring it out whenever I

have to impress uh pseudo-intellectuals

and midwits who need this form of

institutional validation in order to

actually hear me out

So yeah thank you thank you so very much

Emily for your Super Chat and infrared

for that response and then coffee mom

for two dollars

PSA if you don't vote has fans choose

for you

yeah yeah I mean that's the beauty

that's just the thing is my my fans are

also Haas just gave a monologue in

response to something that wasn't even a

question yeah but that was toward me

that was a question directed toward me

though so yeah yeah so to answer that

question if we're talking about my

friends are pretty much all baby chats

used to even pretend to be doing Q a

you're just giving speeches

we'll assess this out because I want

both of you it was technically for

infrared but then we're gonna go to Dr

Ben and then you can have the very last

year sorry Mr Ben

that we are going to hand it over to you

I've read that you Dr Ben but infrared

if you would like because it was for you

but I feel like it's present for both

yeah yeah yeah so so yeah um you know my

fans are Giga Chads we don't actually

vote as individuals if we are part of

some independent Working Class party and

we want to strategically vote for

someone we'll do it we don't have that

party right now we're trying to do that

with the cpusa and I'm launching my own

organization sometime this month

actually and maybe we will vote maybe we

won't as an organization but voting as

an individual is super cocked I mean how

are you going to vote and pretend you're

part of a democracy and you're

responsible for the system you're not

you're not responsible for the system we

have the so-called democracy we have is

a complete sham no point in voting as an

individual you should vote as part of an

organization

because if you don't if you just vote as

an individual you're basically saying

yeah I believe in American democracy is

a real thing no it's not it's completely

fake uh anyone who talks about voting

for harm reduction or anything is a

fraud Ohio humanitarian of you it's a

complete idealistic anti-marxist

anti-materialistic anti-commonsense kind

of argument our votes don't matter

that's what I believe at the end of the

day as individuals they don't matter

they might matter when we organize

ourselves into Collective

groups and political parties that can

articulate an independent interest of

the people a counter hegemonic one

but at the end of the day

we we don't we can't exercise our real

will by voting if we're going to be

trying to take on the ruling class

that's what I believe

and thank you infrared and then Dr Ben

over to you

yeah I think that uh I think that you

should uh you should vote uh in order to

um uh to minimize the harms the

Strategic interests of the working class

uh I am thrilled to hear that Haas is

discouraging uh people who are persuaded

by any of his nonsense uh from uh from

voting please listen to him uh please do

not vote for uh the uh the union busted

billionaire that he wants to reduce to a

chaotic

and all right we're gonna move forward

five dollar Super Chat also thank you so

very much coffee mom for the support

five dollars from Yellowstone commie

has with the easy w got another fan out

there

I think it's self-evident to anyone with

a brain appreciate your comment you know

it's just sad that Mr Burgess didn't do

his homework about basic Marxism maybe

he would have done better but it's quite

sad you know but thank you so much

appreciate it thank you so very much

Yellowstone for the support and that

response and then five dollars from

Brenton lengle has please Define fascism

was that for me or I didn't quite catch

that is that for me I believe so yeah

fascism is the terroristic dictatorship

of the Imperial estate machine and

finance Capital fascism isn't when

people with blue hair get offended and

their feelings get hurt fascism is not

when you're opposing the so-called

Progressive cultural agenda of the

Rockefeller open Society foundation and

the various billionaire philanthropy NGO

philanthropies and academic institutions

and their latest cultural Trends which

have no bearing among the organic

changes in culture among the people that

is not reactionary that's not fascist

fascism is actually something like what

you have in Ukraine or the azovite

terrorists are murdering philosophers

and murdering journalists just because

they have dissenting views and you know

banning all political opposition and

trying to ethnically cleanse Russians in

the name of a pure Europe Western

European enlightened identity that's

real fascism when you have the rule of

these lump in Terrorist Thug azovites

with this veneer of a Bourgeois

constitutional order which is in fact

state of emergency that's fascism right

fascism is not anything like the Maga

movement or Trump which is just a plain

old populist movement it's an ambiguous

form of populism which unlike the coward

Bernie Sanders actually had the ability

to stand up to the status quo and

declare a complete secession from the

deep state in the establishment

meanwhile Bernie Sanders is uh fully and

fully there with his friend Joe Biden

[Music]

or Super Chat from Emily again Bernie is

Biden's child catcher

very true very poignant observation he's

trying to round up all these children to

vote for Biden and they get nothing in

return what about the student debt

cancellation which never happened right

thank you bunny thank you the most

Progressive Administration in the

history of America since FDR Joseph R

Biden who may be a clone by the way we

don't even know but Biden's funding

terrorists in Ukraine he wants to bring

us to World War III he's a fat he's

engaging in fascist policies against the

working class like Trump never did

before right Biden is uh trying to

censor the freedom of speech of

Americans on social media collaborating

with big Tech the State corporate merger

that you do find in fascism Biden's a

disaster the inflation's a disaster

whose old Administration is a disaster

thank you Bernie Sanders and the DSA and

all the progressive leftists who wasted

people's time telling people to vote for

him by the way I never tell people vote

for Trump

I don't do that I want to use Maga the

Maga movement I want to go to them and

build a new party that's my goal I just

think Maga is the most willing to list

here here you out when it comes to

wanting to build a new party if there's

a new party that comes in America it's

going to come from AGA establishment

Republicans don't want a new party they

want nothing to do with Maga all of the

rhinos are against the Maga people it's

a complete Civil War in the GOP all the

new political stuff is going to come

from Maga all everyone else is going to

be left behind to eat shit and good

riddance fuck the Democratic Socialist

Bernie Sanders the progressives the

squad

I did monologue that just doesn't even

pretend to have anything to do with the

question it's amazing oh it does indeed

I think I answered that question okay

one was off at about two one's in the

chat if I answer the question actually

uh at just at just a rambled odd and odd

I thought we were doing Q a uh I don't

know I don't know what's going on here

this is certainly not the uh the format

we're talking about wow another actual

questions maybe answer a question so a

five dollar our Super Chat from Andrew

Saturn he's a pedophile Andrew Saturn is

a pedophile who's monitoring human

trafficking websites of trafficked

Russian women which he's posting he's

actually a like underage miners

suspected of being trafficked Russian

women who he's frequenting these

websites we have proof of this so this

is the person you're getting a question

from it's interesting but yeah Andrew

Saturn is pretty much confirmed

confirmed pedophile he's a confirmed

Battlefield he has a lot of trouble with

format this guy yeah but Andrew Saturn

is a confirmed pedophile I want that to

be honest

Wikipedia expert Adam to hair AKA has

has swords on his wall like a weeb we

still always appreciate attacking yeah

he's a pedophile though he's still a

powerful and uh he says my name is Adam

to here He's Calling My Name take him

seriously so he's he's doing a fail docs

where he calls me Adam's Here Andrew

Saturn actually targeted an innocent

random family just because some 30 year

old guy was named Adams here some random

guy in in Michigan and he targeted them

and attacked them and posted all of it

and it's you know

sorry you got the wrong guy but someone

has to reach out to that family and warn

them about this fat disgusting slovenly

pedophile in New Jersey who is uh

targeting random people just because

they're suspected of being me right it's

fucking stupid right but anyway yeah

thank you so very much Andrew for the

Super Chat and your response infrared

and then we are moving forward a five

dollar Super Chat from Samir

Dr Ben please pull up the data for the

percentage of government subsidy Farms

by state it's scary over 77 percent in

some mostly red states too

um okay

sure that sounds right uh that there's a

lot of government subsidies for

agribusiness I'm not sure if there's a

question there

but yes that sounds plausible

thank you so very much Samir and your

response Dr Ben and then John R Eight

dollar Super Chat to both speakers

what revolutionary potential lies in

service workers in particular make sure

to both speakers what revolutionary

potential lies I imagine are in surface

of workers in particular service workers

is that it

yes so I'll I'll very quickly answer

this because I've answered it before I

don't actually discount service majority

of workers are probably service workers

I think the Revolutionary potential

comes when they're not attached to their

workplace and they're not loyal to the

workplace so when service workers stand

up and say this is a bullshit pointless

fucking job that should be automated and

I shouldn't have to work this stupid job

we should just reduce the labor hours

and have real jobs right so they can

more people can have them then that's

where the Revolutionary when they want

to be emancipated from their dumb

demeaning slave-like service-like jobs

that's the Revolutionary potential but

when they're like Starbucks Baristas who

say we want to be like the Twitter

employees who have all these amenities

and all these privileges and we want to

basically be be happy working at

Starbucks and Starbucks is a beautiful

job we just want to make it better with

more rights and stuff that's when

they're counting revolutionary because

they're trying to do trade Union craft

unionism which is a reactionary Force

among the working class basically trying

to escape the generality of the

predicament of Labor create these new

Institute tuitions where they can be

coddled and be separated from the

working class and they're and also loyal

to the Democrats which is what in

practice happens especially with the

Starbucks labor union so it's it's it's

a different potentials when they hate

their jobs and they're fighting against

the very existence of their own jobs in

favor of maybe Ubi or reducing the work

week or something like that even on

their Bitcoin grind set whatever that

shit is Wall Street bets whatever trying

to find alternative ways of living and

emancipate from the bullshit jobs that's

when they're revolutionary but when they

love their jobs and just want to

unionize them and be coddled within

those jobs and institutionalize those

jobs as an arm of the fascistic

democratic party that's when they're

reactionary so there's two elements and

tendencies among service workers I think

the one I pointed out first is the

majority majority of service workers

hate their jobs want to be emancipated

from it a minority of the most

privileged ones the Starbucks ones not

you don't see the Dunkin Donuts workers

doing the Starbucks shit right Starbucks

ones want to unionize because they want

to Institute their job most service

workers hate their fucking job they

don't want to institutionalize it or be

attached to it so that's my answer

uh okay well that might be the dumbest

thing I've ever heard in my life just to

uh so

um uh Haas acknowledges that the

majority of the American working class

is in service work uh and it sounds like

he's opposed to any effort by the

majority of the working class uh to uh

get uh more control over the wages and

conditions in which they work uh because

uh because anything in service work

that's doing that is just what

reinforcing the existence of of service

work obviously as far as automation goes

whether we're talking about industrial

production whether we're talking about

slinging coffee at Starbucks whether

we're talking about anything else

automation under conditions of

collective ownership and control by the

workers is great because it just means

that there's less hours that everybody

has to work uh that's equally true in

both of those sectors uh of course uh

automation under capitalism often plays

out in a much more destructive way the

idea that what there's something that's

like different about Starbucks the

Dunkin Donuts because the clientele is

pretty ludicrous uh I in fact uh I think

that they get paid way more on average

they have a that uh that um

Dunkin Donuts workers I hope will

surprise ahaz and if they did I would

certainly support their unionization

efforts it sounds like he would not

which is maybe not surprising they're

not going to do that I think tonight has

been uh has been tried to uh argue that

the fan club of a union busted

billionaire is somehow counter hegemonic

because like they don't like the liberal

media

and to add to add on to that oh my God

hi let's add on to the question maybe

are we going to do this you you've got a

yeah most people don't want to be tied

down to their jobs or are we going to

just take turns into the question which

by the way is already getting angry Mr

Ben you're getting angry Mr Ben because

this is this are you getting angry

insufferable it would be nice

you can let your tears loose oh my God

Jesus Christ man you're such a you sound

a little bit angry Mr Ben just sit down

for two seconds and let's stick to the

format that we agreed to you sound a

little angry Mr Ben

yeah well I think extended conversation

with idiots does that but you have yet

to prove the format yeah but you're the

idiot here oh my God yourself shut are

you gonna are you gonna cry you're

yelling that dude you sound angry I'm

telling you to shut up Mr Ben

you are breaking calm down Mr Man you

bet that we had about the phone

here's that soy Starbucks rage the

moderator to please moderate Mr Ben calm

down oh my God Mr Ben we're at the end

of it it's not that serious stop we're

at the end of it then Mr Ben we're at

the end stop crying stop Mr Ben

stop you have idiots

The Rage of an imbecile doesn't know

anything about what class means doesn't

know anything about the generality of

Labor and the significance of general

labor and its interests

we are about to uh I'm gonna unmute you

I asked you both to unmute just try we

are really really over on overtime I'm

trying to look for just anything that is

an actual question but I'm going to

start I think just skipping over the the

Fanfare and the ad homs though I love

all the support and energy that the

entire audience has been given and

sends in love

uh

[Music]

give me uh

uh yeah we're going to be moving fast

because I'm skipping how many times do I

vote

um

how many times

okay how about Franklin Ben what's worse

Among Us co-ops being surprised by Trump

or nuclear war

nuclear war is worse and as far as how

we got to this point uh Trump uh

actually did a lot to escalate U.S

Russia tensions uh who set heavy

Weaponry to Ukraine uh which Republicans

have criticized Obama for not doing he's

trying to have it both ways and move

towards uh pretending to be pro peace

now he's out of power and it's a

convenient way of getting votes but as

far as what actually took us to this

point a lot of that does have to do with

Donald Trump's policies as president

thank you

you as if you spent significant time in

any of these anti-homogony countries if

not why

from Brenton five dollar Super Chat

I'm I'm muted

um

you did oh this is muted uh yeah you

have to you have to actually I can only

give you the permission to unmute

yourself

oh okay sorry I just saw that so the

question was sorry can you repeat that

sorry about that absolutely the question

is has have you spent significant time

in any of these anti-homogony countries

if not why not

um I have rarely left the US mostly

because

uh I think I traveled to the Bahamas

once when I was a child in my adult life

I just can't afford it

uh I plan on I mean I don't know if I

can go to Russia I plan on going within

the next two years

same with China but you know

I I've had a childhood vacation outside

the US like once I think I don't even

know if that if it was outside the US I

don't even know if it was the Bahamas I

just don't remember

but

I've just never really been outside the

U.S I'm actually an American I'm uh I

care about America right but I also care

about being counter hegemonic and

fighting the globalist Deep State

reigning over us and I could recognize

that the states the these other

countries are fighting

the hegemony so I support them right

they're fighting the enemy of the

American people the way I see it and you

know it's the people who were you know

in Trump's Administration selling arms

to Ukraine sending more arms to Ukraine

even though Trump wasn't

responsible for that himself because

Trump is just a TV personality he's not

really a serious political leader in any

capacity he's just a TV personality who

spoke enough Truth for Working Class

People to start rallying behind him

you know uh it's just things like that

you know

um I support counter hegemonic forces I

don't support you know privileged

Starbucks

Baristas relative to other service

workers trying to create new bulwarks

and fortresses of the hegemony in the

form of these unions uh talking about

harm reduction Improvement conditions

it's not going to happen McDonald's

workers don't give a shit about their

job enough to want to unionize they want

to emancipate themselves from that job

and Mr Ben wants to tie them down and

enslave them to these humiliating

anti-human nine-to-five wastes of human

time because it's better it's easier to

control them and you know control their

Consciousness and

indoctrinate them into becoming

Democrats and agreeing with everything

Pfizer in the media says so yeah

thank you so much for that Super Chat

and your response and then

once again doing a little bit of

looking for not ad homs and looking for

good questions

uh

from

[Music]

ten dollars from bizart

does has consider himself an Arab Muslim

who supports Trump trump did a Muslim

ban move the U.S embassy to Jerusalem

bomb Syria and killed Somalia

okay

um again it was it was the people in

Trump's uh Administration who Trump who

are now against Trump openly that bombed

Syria Trump was the only person to speak

out and tell the truth about how Assad

and Russia were fighting Isis during his

electoral campaign but you know

um as far as the Muslim ban it was a

nothing burger that was really a whole

lot of nothing I mean like I don't

really give a shit that's the truth yeah

do I think Maga people are more racist

against Muslims and Arabs no I just

don't think they've met a whole lot many

and they just know about they knew about

Isis I'm against Isis too the Obama

Administration funded Al Qaeda in Syria

and in Libya so they didn't know a whole

lot about Muslims and you know I trust

these Maga people who are just more

plain spoken than the so-called liberal

anti-racists who are probably the most

racist people of all as far as my

experience is concerned Maga people

treat me like a human being at the end

of the day liberals you know look at me

I'm an Arab Muslim man and they look for

every opportunity to you know exploit

that fact of my racial background to use

it against me and leftists are the same

way actually you know so

you know as far as who's the real racist

it's the KKK Clan Democrats all the way

you know my experience with Maga people

has been very positive

and I think they're more open-minded to

Islam than Liberals are that's just my

experience and I think we're coming down

to the last few super chats I really do

want to thank both of our interlocutors

for going over time for doing it for the

audience a another Super Chat from

brentonlangel five dollars thank you so

much just want to acknowledge has

attacked Ben on voting for Biden and

then argues for voting strategically

no I don't argue for voting at all as an

individual I argue for organizations to

potentially vote if it's strategically

beneficial to them just like Lenin did

that's not an it's not someone who

believes in democracy that's like

strategy and it's not based on arm

reduction by the way but what's going to

bring the organization to power is what

matters so the DSA for example save over

democrats for harm reduction not vote

for Democrats because we need to seize

power for the working class so it has

nothing to do with voting

individualistically or making moral

Arguments for voting I don't believe in

voting as an individual but

organizations can make decisions to vote

um especially where it matters this is

part of Marxism leninism but the most

important thing is voting for your own

people like your own Independent party

that's where it usually what we're

talking about here like yes tell your

party to vote for your own party's

candidates Communist Party candidate is

running for local office who's your

local yeah you got to tell your people

to vote of course

as for voting for one of the two major

parties I can't really see a scenario in

the U.S where that would be appropriate

even for an independent organization or

party but there's no Eternal rule uh

there's you know

the point is against individual voting

that's my point

thank you so very much Brenton and your

response infrared and then our last two

of the night

from Veron five dollars ask Ben if he

believes in the labor aristocracy has

knows what to do next

um

no I don't think that's a useful

theoretical construct uh but I'm also

very curious if these McDonald's workers

that has doesn't want to allow to

unionize plenty of McDonald's workers

been fired for trying to unionize it

sounds like he would be on the side if

the bosses who fired them because he

thinks those Unions would uh would tie

them to the jobs somehow even though the

actual effective unions is to give

people more time off for those jobs

um I'd be fast I'm not I don't want to

stop doing it I just don't want to waste

time I try to organize you dids are part

of the so-called labor aristocracy yeah

I'm not going to stop McDonald's workers

from unionized unionizing I'm just not

going to waste any time as a communist

pretending that's a the labor movement

of the working class and using all my

resources to go and do it like the cpusa

uses all the resources to go and or try

and organize Baristas I would not do

that for any segment of the service

industry at all it's a waste of time I'm

not gonna sit here and help

McDonald's uh stop the I don't care what

the outcome is it has nothing to do with

me

it's that simple

thank you so very much this is going to

be our last Super Chat question I do

want to send a super thanks to everyone

who has sent in super chats there were a

bunch more uh support for both of you

guys so you I think it was a lively

debate and the audience loved it and way

wet this is basically the double

q a time and so I really do want to

thank you guys for basically sticking

around but the last question of the

night from Mark Reed a five dollar Super

Chat has can you explain what c s and V

is in the labor theory of value and

explain the relationship between them

so if you're referring to the generation

of surplus value and constant capital

and variable Capital variable Capital

also has to have the quality of being

able to produce the Surplus value which

initiates the process of capital

accumulation now in the beginning stages

of capital Marx doesn't really explain

the kind of material basis of why this

is he just explains that it's something

that happens

but he very clearly understands later in

capital and especially through in the

grand receipt and so on and so forth

that why this happens is because

value and capital is nothing more than

the crystallization and estrangement of

real labor the process by which mankind

on a social level transforms the natural

world

how Surplus value actually comes to be

produced it's not just it's not simply

the difference between constant and

variable Capital go do your homework

again

and uh read read about it because the

production of surplus value

and this is especially clear in the

whole disputes about the uh

transformation problem is much more

subtle and um

complex than that

because you're dealing with the

transformation of something at a local

level to a social level and an aggregate

level right that's where the Surplus is

actually being produced

so go ahead go ahead and do your

homework again because you clearly uh

are not well up to speed on it

it's going to come to our conclusion

on tonight's debate of Trump trump

communism on trial I do want to thank

everyone out there for joining us on

modern day debate we are a neutral

non-partisan platform welcoming everyone

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audience including tonight's debate on

Trump communism on trial with our

Debaters Dr Ben and infrared who were

here to help us find that answer and

give us two scoops of q a i so much

thank you plus if you like what any of

our guests have said tonight all of

their links are in the description below

you can find them right down there

finally if you're looking for even more

fun after the show feel free to check

out our MDD Discord which often throws

After parties around the topic and with

that I am Amy Newman with modern day

debate we hope you continue having great

conversations discussions and debates

good night

uh thank you so much for hosting it uh

you did a great job uh it was a pleasure

always a pleasure to be on modern day

debate probably the best I would say the

best debate platform

on YouTube right the best one thank you

so very much and I just want to

apologize for my little mishaps like no

problem no problem the me the muting uh

it took me a second some just to see

like oh okay and then uh I want to thank

you guys thank you so much read upon 30

minutes and I feel bad when I get super

chats not to do them but then at a

certain point I realize like they're

never going to stop it will never end

and so I really do want to thank you

infrared and doctor I think it's yeah I

think it's the best on YouTube I think

uh Mr Ben here is a little angry I'm in

a Jolly jovial mood celebration because

you broke our agreement many many times

um no you broke it by interrupting me do

you remember how you interrupted me I'm

sorry but like I don't know

10 seconds after Mr Ben you asked me a

direct question Mr Ben no you

interrupted me even before you

interrupted me even before they took

advantage of you you established the

president

Ben you broke the agreement I don't know

why he Rage Quit he must have uh

infrared I enjoyed the debate I actually

have to go myself I hope you have yeah

goodbye goodbye and bye-bye lovely to be

talking to you again lovely yep bye-bye

ah Ben Ben Ben he Rage Quit in a fit of

rage

in a fit of rage Ben left the debate

because he interrupted me first and I

was like okay are we doing this

interrupting thing and I was pretty

um civil about it because here's the

thing

it was just a q a who cares about the Q

a right the main debate I was following

the rules the whole time no one can deny

that he actually interrupted me in the

main segment of the debate he did that

first I let it slide then when we got to

the Q a I took a more light hearted

approach but I also wanted to defend my

arguments the Q a is just you know not

really

the most important part of uh debate as

far as being able to follow rules is

concerned guys we have plenty of

donations to get to and then we're going

to get to Atomic Hearts but what a great

debate

and as far as things I didn't have time

to address coming I mean you don't

understand Marx's class very clearly

because he's saying well anyone who's

employed rather than employing is

the working class that's not necessarily

true as far as service I'm not saying

most service workers are not part of the

working class I'm not saying that I'm

just saying how they give expression to

their class interest is not on the shop

floor through their jobs it's through

their overall predicament of having

bullshit rather than substantive jobs

the people who have substantive real

jobs or the blue collar working class

therefore the interest of the blue

collar working class which is to

actually bring back real jobs represents

the interests of the whole working class

including the service workers that's all

I've been trying to say

uh he said some shit like oh Trump did

this Trump did that yeah he did everyone

knows Trump did all those things

but if you think Maga is just

Trump's personal actions you don't get

it you don't understand it Maga is a

completely different America

all Maga is is a declaration of

independence from the mainstream

Bourgeois hegemony now in terms of what

they fill that with positively it's not

much

and maybe it's just Trump's own schemes

sure but it still represents this

different version of America this

unofficial America and there is a lot of

potential there

as far as

building on that right and I've given

examples of that when it comes to an U.S

interventionism even when Pelosi visited

Taiwan when it comes to I should have

mentioned this holy shit I wish I

mentioned this the spill in uh Ohio

who's raising their voice about the

spill in Ohio it's Maga Biden and the

Democrats are the ones who are trying to

cover it up and say oh that's a

conspiracy theory you can't say that

anyway guys I'm gonna unpause that we

have a lot of super chats to go through

I'm gonna unpause all of them

let the flood thank you zero cult leader

for that

gifted membership we're gonna go ahead

and do this base thank you so much

defeat Hayes already won

I have no idea

I have no idea thank you so much

thank you so much Sartorius gorilla Sun

thank you Sartorius appreciate you

appreciate you so much

thank you so much dark for the 25. thank

you so much old man from the woods

appreciate you dark with the 25 thank

you so much man appreciate you

appreciate you so much

thank you so much on the second PhD

thank you so much appreciate you so much

appreciate you so much

thank you so much iron rose Vince Burger

getting cooked well done thank you so

much I'm Rose appreciate you

base thank you so much voidberg ben

Burgess sounds like he's storing a brick

in his nostrils every time he gibbered

his chair creaks every time he jabbered

his chair squeaks facts he's going to

snap from his way so we fact checked

that that turns out to be true thank you

Sophie appreciation

yes I support it

I should have brought that up too

there's a lot of things I didn't bring

up oh well thank you so much Atari

appreciate it does mean Union or League

the first fascist unions were the

Italian national syndicalists jibber

jabber from Dr Ben

thank you so much Harold rippenberger

yeah

I think you took the L but I think my

enemies will say he won probably because

like he said the things they agree with

the degree Dr Oz thank you so much emila

appreciate you

thanks so much Victor no one will vote

for war mongers thank you so much Victor

appreciate you

base thank you so much Braun ask Ben if

he believes in the labor aristocracy and

go tank mode on him but

oh man good morning Revolution thank you

so much amirio holy fuck thanks man

thank you

appreciate you

we're gonna probably play some Atomic

holy fuck Tristan with the 50. great job

today wow

fat Dono thank you so much man

appreciate you

good morning Revolution thank you so

much PJ Cornell with the 10

. appreciate it man

uh Nadia thank you so much Captain

appreciate it comment double doctorate

Haze w

reciate you thank you so much Wing

appreciate you man

two phds in the bag Sun gorilla

minutes yeah I can are you done based

I really like those places two robot

Lovers by Russian cosplayers because

they're so thank you so much

what was your favorite part

thanks so much emila I have never seen a

more thorough evisceration in my life

than this debate a subliterated Ben Ben

looked lost and bewildered by the

arguments of the great ass

based thank you so much PJ get the spill

in Ohio wouldn't have happened if there

had been a non-overwork rail worker

yeah true

I can't believe I didn't mention that

um so guys Nadia's making

um dinner based thank you so much

thank you so much Ron appreciate you man

yeah Nadia is making dinner it's gonna

be ready

soon but I'll play like thank you so

much metal Ben wouldn't talk about

Ukraine or the neocon split with Maga

crucial emissions W Austin yeah because

oh it's just a brand well then all

apologies

thank you

thank you so much amila

appreciate you it's on

he was getting really heated

Ben was getting heated thank you so much

flaming after all of that bickering and

chipper jabber I still do not know what

the positive content of Mr Ben's

position is

oh my God this whole thing is pretty

he's a union Buster and it's ridiculous

um what

that would happen under any Republican

Administration that's a problem with the

Republican Party by the way

Rising

now how is Trump a union Buster even is

this just regard to federal employees

only

um

or what because I hope people know our

Railways are privately owned not owned

by the government I hope people know

that

but um

so that's like what it's probably just

federal employees always a union Buster

get out of here

debate

okay let's look at the uh anti-union

actions by the Trump Administration

together because let's all learned

together right

um uh oh this stuff looks pretty serious

um the anti-hit list

the this is what he was talking about

the lb no this is something else

issued a memo regarding these anti-union

priorities immediately after taking

office

so this is just a republican Trump was

running on the Republican ticket

unfortunately and this is just what any

Republican would have done

cracking down on the bannering the rat

and the fat cat the Trump Administration

issued an advice memo finding that

Building Trades Union use of a large

banner and a large inflatable Fat Cat

was unlawful secondary picketing

activity

oh no an inflatable

oh God this is horrible

um made it more difficult to pick at a

subcontractor finding out the workers

were supposedly attempting to pressure

the property manager rather than the

employer so this is just bureaucratic

bullshit

this this makes this is union busting no

it's not

um

how do you unionize a subcontractor

right

how do you even do that the change

nature of the relations of production

changed the era of unionism largely

belongs to fortism the Amazon labor

union changed that I agree

but

there's a reason it was possible and

there's a reason Trump's Administration

didn't make it impossible for the Amazon

labor union to happen when you're

talking about this gray area of

subcontractors and all this shit it's

like

it's a whole different ball game

uh the Trump board held that employers

don't violate labor law when they

monitor or search employees personal

vehicles on company premises it's bad

but

is this okay this makes it impossible to

make independent unions

this is kind of vague but okay

most shit is online anyway right

okay this is not this doesn't seem very

substantial to me

this is allowing employers to do things

they weren't before that's all bad stuff

it's it's like basic Republican bullshit

of empowering the private sector but

it's one thing to empower the private

sector

at the expense of federal regulations

but it's another thing to use the

government

against workers

by making it in the name of National

Security like that is a whole different

fucking ball game nothing like that was

even under the Republicans right

um

so yeah

guys I gotta take a piss I'll be right

back

but um Nadia's making food and I'm gonna

I have some time to spend with you guys

to play atomic heart right but I'll be

right back I'm gonna go take a piss

I'm gonna go take a piss I'll be right

back

I've taken over

it's like you guys gotta tell Haas bye

because I made filet mignon and

um

it doesn't taste good when it's cold so

bye

nothing I just

based that male moderator was a clown

all right so let's uh let's first

someone don't know thank you so much

Lord Emperor Trump appreciate you for

the 20. let me go ahead and uh make my

tweet announcing my victory

I am pleased to

announce

the conquest of my second PhD

I am now a doctor double doctor

or DDR

Sim

should I say that I am now a double

doctor or DDR

I am now

what is referred to as a supreme doctor

Supreme doctor I like that one

a supreme doctor

and

um

more of a doctor than all the experts

combined

unfortunately Ben

is no longer a doctor at all because

I took his PhD

from him and it's mine now sorry Mr

Burgess that's my tweet

no I gotta edit this

I I spelled from wrong

but from okay updated

all right

beautiful

just beautiful

um

I'm glad to see some people who disagree

with me about the Barista thing still

agree with me overall because yeah Ben

is a Democrat shill

um

overall like he's a Democrat shill he

supports the Ukraine bullshit

um he's up running apologetics for

Biden's fascist regime and that's what

matters at the end of the day like

it's like I want to tell the midwestern

marks people you want to go organize the

Starbucks people into a revolutionary

movement

I'm not going to oppose you go do it and

be successful I will not oppose you I

just personally don't think that's the

move and that's the most wise use of

resources and strategy especially

because of how much the blue collar

working class has been neglected but if

you want to go do that and you're not an

opportunist and you're not someone who's

going to shield for Democrats you have

my support right I'm not going to oppose

you in doing that

like prove me wrong I'm not against you

as long as we're all on the same fucking

side

about

the hegemony being the enemy that's all

that matters right

the whole Barista shit was accelerated

because of how much our enemies got so

buttered by it to the point of

supporting nafo neo-nazis and like

people like Andrew Saturn who like

reveal to the world they were open

pedophiles it's like crazy shit right

um yeah

but anyway

so I promised my viewers I would play

atomic heart but do you want to eat

dinner here no this is a filet mignon

let's have dinner here it's a table it's

a nice table

I know it's a nice table all right I'll

just eat along no come on

Just Eat Here pull up a chair I worked

really hard on the smell

wait wait wait wait

stop

um

all right well guys not listen tomorrow

we're gonna play Atomic car in a huge

long stream which I'm gonna stream early

I promise and vow this to you okay

it's just that Nadia's been working so

hard

on a very extravagant steak dinner it's

a flaming a filet mignon okay

and

you know what I mean it's like

it's also I would only be able to play

for like 30 minutes or 45 minutes

but we're also going to watch the three

body problem

while we eat right

because we've been watching that Chinese

show the three body problem

every night and uh she only likes

watching one episode a day and what do

we have with those episodes huh what do

we always have with those episodes we

have cookies because she makes cookies

and non-alcoholic homemade beer so we

bought so she put me on this not I also

is what what's the point of that but if

I'm an adult and I want to like sit and

kind of have a snack

non-alcoholic beer is the move it's got

a lot of carbs

it's not like it's not sugar it's not

like for babies

and it's just nice to have a

non-alcoholic beer while you watch the

three body problem

um

and uh

you know I like beer I just don't like

alcohol because alcohol fucks your mind

up but I do like beer so that's what

we've been drinking is not alcoholic

beer I like beer just not the alcoholic

kind because alcohol destroys your mind

but can someone tell me about this

because there's been a dispute because

it says

0.05 percent no that's just on one under

point of and I'm kind of like is what is

this right enough sugar sometimes has

like even on a lot of foods yeah sugar

sugar oh okay it's just like vanilla

extract

there's also the one what is it called

Heineken Heineken it has zero like 0.0

percent

right

that one's good

it's a trace one not even worth

mentioning yeah just drink Sparkling

water then dude it's not sparkling water

there's carbs in it yeah it has carbs

which means it's like if you work out

and you go to the gym it's very nice to

have it because it's like

you need protein and carbs

instead of getting your carbs from junk

and like french fries it's probably

better to just get it with from some

non-alcoholic beer so yeah so it has

carbs but it's it's got sugar too

you know

so yeah

um

did you watch the debate at all I did

I watched them so Ben was getting a

little heated in the Q a and it's like

dude why don't you just have an open

debate and it's like he needs it to be

so formalized and I was following the

rules until he started interrupting me

and I was like okay let's just have the

debate dude you don't have to like be

such a stickler oh if you interrupt me

once I'm quitting well he interrupted me

and I didn't quit so at this point it's

like let's focus on the substance

I think Ben just wanted to like make his

statements without any pushback is he

like a

perfect I think but he said a lot of

stupid things

about Marxism which weren't true

um he also claims to be a Marxist but

talks about harm reduction which is

idealistic and liberal has nothing to do

with my Marxism is about class Warfare

what does harm reduction have to do with

class Warfare nothing repeat that was

biologist and nutritionist recommends

consuming pure sugar and honey

the honey shit I understand I've never

heard the pure sugar stuff I'll check it

out but you know it's like

he's like oh harm reduction for the

working class we're not the Nannies of

human beings in the current system we

want to build working-class power to

take power the conquest for power is

what matters not making life better

under the current power

even if taking power results in the

short term and life getting worse it's

better than promoting life getting

better under the current hegemony

period because the current hegemony in

the long term will destroy the human

race go eat with no you Violet I know

how hard filet mignon is to cook atomic

heart can wait till tomorrow

okay okay all right okay guys great

great debate

um

great debate

and we'll play Atomic car tomorrow I

promise we'll play like three four hours

of it possibly on Rumble

I don't know I'm gonna make a sandwich

tomorrow so you can be here do you have

I'm gonna just stream early tomorrow

like I'll stream at four

if I stream at 3 P.M how much how many

you guys would show up listen

people tell you that they're gonna shoot

no no place just add two no I can't it's

my workout is easy no no my workout's

easy tomorrow I can easily stream at 3

P.M

no three and then I'll stream from three

to like nine

so 3 P.M Arab time and then like uh you

know we can have any kind of dinner

all right three or four I don't know

three or four anyway guys I'll see you

tomorrow

great debate beautiful debate see you

guys tomorrow bye