+ 40 years of cold war propaganda + times of heightened contradictions + living in the heart of the empire itself.
The CW propaganda was wild, someone once told me people in the USSR were “miming” working at the factory line (like the line was empty and they just mimed work) because there was nothing to produce. Like what? How does that even make sense lol. They were older, probably heard this as a kid in school. It was a real generational shock for me hearing this.
My POV is that yugo has a big audience and should be mindful of what he says, especially since he knows his audience is mostly baby leftists. And secondly Johnstone has herself gone on unhinged rants before:
She herself is a weird hodgepodge of liberalism and mildly progressive views. She’s said several times she’s not a communist and actively refuses to become one.
And when they’re called out for it they double down trying to “explain” how they were right and then never change. They have 0 material analysis, they’re just doing vibes-based politics. Is this how yugo wants to conduct politics with the masses? Would he publish this rant under a party name? If not, then why publish it on twitter under his own name? This is the kind of stuff you say with friends, and they gently steer you in the right direction.
Why are our idols now streamers and youtubers? Why do we care what these petty bourgeois enthusiasts who try to make a living taking money from baby comrades think about how struggle is conducted? Of course they’ll defend their petty-bourgeois views when it comes down to it. That’s what makes them money. Viki herself took a long break because she made, you guessed it, deeply ignorant remarks.
Yet they call for left-unity and expect us to side with their shit views and opinions, sweep them under the rug, while they continue on thinking and spouting whatever words they want. But it’s us, the marxist-leninists, that have to be on our best behavior around them.
Like I don’t know, I don’t always have the right takes and I’ve made comments to people on the internet that I regret. I apologize to them and talk to friends to understand the problem and synthesize my own conclusion from it. I don’t tell more principled people that they’re the ones who need to change and not me, cause that’s what they’re doing here. Coming from caitlin and vicki, it’s deeply selfish and self-centered to say this. They think because they’re big names with an audience that automatically makes them right and everyone else wrong.
When Lenin said “Among the Jews there are workers, toilers, they are in the majority. They are our brothers, comrades in the struggle for Socialism, because they are oppressed by capitalism. Among the Jews there are Kulaks, exploiters, capitalists, just like amongst us all,” he preceded it with:
Only entirely uneducated and completely oppressed people can believe the lies and slanders which are being spread about the Jews. These are survivals from the times of serfdom, when the priests burnt heretics at the stake, when peasants were trampled upon and were blind. But these dark survivals of serfdom are disappearing, the people are beginning to see.
Notice Lenin didn’t say “you must have faulty genes if you believe otherwise you disabled r-word”.
Criticism and self-criticism is a core component of marxism to progress forward. Normally it implies we find issues to remedy and then remedy them, so we all progress together. In this case, I’m not really sure where to even begin. I think it speaks for itself (esp. the “now I’m not calling them the r-word, just the diminutive that’s acceptable in your circles :)”)
But people don’t deserve to have their shit takes swept under the rug just because they’re nominally on “our side”. He chose to publish this on Twitter and leave it up, what are we supposed to do? Smile while he continues saying whatever unhinged shit crosses his mind that day under the shower, never getting challenged for it? What example does this set for the new leftists that watch him, who start to think communism is just about appearing edgy and being counter-culture?
I want to leave one last thought; you suggest to debate rightists, but why not rightist views and right deviationist views? Not everyone who calls themselves a communist is immediately our comrade, people don’t suddenly develop all the correct theory and ideas as soon as they proclaim themselves to be a marxist.
exactly, the contradictions are internal - or in other words, they’re coming from inside the house!
It’s the second time I’ve seen him tweet shit like this. I can probably dig up the previous time if I go looking in my discords.
I can understand being exasperated esp when you’re an somewhat known figure you probably get a lot of trolls and content of this sort sent your way, and sometimes you just quip something back at them. but to take the time to type out all of this and then decide “yes, I shall now send this. It’s a good idea” is something else.
Believe people when they show you who they are. Anyone can appear however they want when they control the camera, but posts like this are off-the-cuff moments where they feel like they’re talking to their friends around the campfire.
Here was the last time actually (archive):
his defense was the person in the video is a millionaire nepo baby so that makes it okay. Like again there’s a difference between saying “eat the rich” and making an entire eugenics screed over a video.
That’s the point! Ukraine really sees itself as the center of the world currently, and anyone who is not cheering for them, they think is against them. Reddit country.
Winning behaviour is when you antagonize a third of the world’s population lmao
I didn’t ban you.