#401

Ufuk_Surekli posted:

alright - I'll stop taking a stance of neutrality on the allegations themselves.


you clearly weren't speaking from a neutral position previously, and acting as if you now openly doing so is some kind of novel about-turn is ridiculously dishonest

your mitigation of the claims here by reference to the particular context in which certain figures are invoked is completely sidestepping the actual organisational implications of the piece. you're elaborating a defence based on purely rhetorical concerns without addressing at all the practical implications of political associations. in what sense does the quality of a message matter when weighed against the operational security concerns of building links with those connected to the intelligence community and far-right?

a reasonable (and perhaps likely) rebuke to these accusations would be to defend becker & his party on the basis that any such associations are purely minor trivial ones for the sake of media production. for all i know, this is quite possible the case. however, it is not self-evident that this is true and the public association absolutely warrants the question of the practical extent of such associations. the general public has no way of knowing the full spectrum of becker's immediate political relationships, so we have absolutely no basis to assume that such links solely exist for the sake of innocuous media appearances. again, maybe they do, but it is only transparency from becker or the psl about the extent of their relationships with reactionary political currents that can answer this basic question

i believe the psl is perfectly capable of resolving such basic concerns directly. hand-wringing about whether they can survive such an elementary process of accountability positions them as absurdly weak, it's hardly a defence. i do not think it is unreasonable at all to demand that if a communist platform plays host to reactionary political currents for the sake of their political agitation, their organisational distance from such is made clear

without directly quoting mao again, dismissing legitimate critical questions because of who is voicing them or the tone in which it is written is what lets dust & germs fester

Ufuk_Surekli posted:

here, try this for comparison:


the issues with this equivalency should be obvious. only the braindead would see o'reilly as a serious, legitimate political advocate rather than the host of a ratings-chasing entertainment show. manson & the icp are invited on to draw lowest common denominator attention, not for the purpose of broadcasting particular points of agreement for the purpose of serious political agitation

#402
The debate is whether commies should go on RT, which is usually progressive and good but sometimes has anti immigrants and libertarians (which from RT perspective are also disruptive to the West and bring them more viewers).

Casting the many progressive people who have appeared on RT as cryptofascists is also an opsec issue, classic cointel.

I think having Global South gov infrastructure available against Empire is a good thing, but if we are supposed to boycott them I'd like to see alternative strategies from the animé marxist who doesn't leave their house.

#403
whether communists should go on broad base media platforms like rt to advocate views to a wide audience is a completely different question to whether a local communist org governed media platform should host reactionary associated currents and the questions of political allegiance that raises. if you're diminishing these concerns to simply a question of "this person went on rt one time" then you're just being overtly disingenuous
#404
Kiriakou for example is far from communist, pretty sure his job up until a couple of years ago (and quite possibly to this day) requires active opposition to communism, why a leader of a ML party would cohost a radio show with him is a mystery
#405
I'm untainted btw everyone as I've never listened to this podcast
#406

Petrol posted:

Kiriakou for example is far from communist, pretty sure his job up until a couple of years ago (and quite possibly to this day) requires active opposition to communism, why a leader of a ML party would cohost a radio show with him is a mystery


i am pretty much completely certain that the individuals making great efforts to handwave this concern would be affirming such usic ties as a black mark if the party was one they happened to disagree with

#407

blinkandwheeze posted:

whether communists should go on broad base media platforms like rt to advocate views to a wide audience is a completely different question to whether a local communist org governed media platform should host reactionary associated currents and the questions of political allegiance that raises. if you're diminishing these concerns to simply a question of "this person went on rt one time" then you're just being overtly disingenuous



1 its not a Communist org platform its a show on RT
2 having a show on RT is just a step up from appearing on it. I've seen RT described by leftists as fascist and guests told they are fascist for appearing on it.
3 its not at all been proved that the guests named are reactionary. Or more specifically: 1 validly bad guest is shown and a dozen good ones are named and shamed because of it
4 its a disingenuous debate all round yay

I've seen kiriakou hosted numerous times on the Real News, an independent left liberal channel which I've found very useful.
I agree that communists should have a better standard

#408
[account deactivated]
#409
i wasn't referring to sputnik radio as the platform in question, but the loud & clear show in particular. i'm not an idiot, i wasn't under the impression the psl were operating an entire russian oriented news agency

a media based political project of the leadership of the psl and actively promoted by the psl, utilised as a platform of political agitation for the psl platform by said leader, is functionally a media organ of the psl. that it might not formally be presented as such is a trivial formal distinction which does not impact the questions raised. namely, that becker has a close working relationship with a spook that founded an organisation of veteran spooks.
#410
also xipe, you are the only one bringing up the question of sputnik radio hosting as a political concern. it's entirely a nonissue as far as i'm concerned
#411
could he have a show on sputnik radio and also get to choose his own co-host, or is the kiriakou partnering kind of part and parcel with having the platform?
#412
[account deactivated]
#413
nobody here is calling for a boycott. also none of that content sounds bad but i'm pretty sure it could all have been discussed without needing a CIA dude cohosting, so
#414
everyone itt sounds pretty jelly that cia dude ray mcguffin managed to retire early and bag a sweet podcasting gig while yall still putting in 9 to 5 at langley
#415

tears posted:

putting in 9 to 5 at langley


Some of us work the late shift.

#416
according to some nerd replying to that article the PSL steal money from US military veterans... more of this please

#417
other good fundraising praxis: use DPRK counterfeit $100 bills to get rich and degrade the Empire's economy



https://www.nknews.org/2013/05/the-rocky-road-to-pyongyang-dprk-ira-relations-in-the-1980s/
#418
For every podcast you don't listen to, I will listen to three.
#419

xipe posted:

according to some nerd replying to that article the PSL steal money from US military veterans... more of this please


isnt the second part of that sentence a bit more concerning though

#420

lo posted:

xipe posted:

according to some nerd replying to that article the PSL steal money from US military veterans... more of this please

isnt the second part of that sentence a bit more concerning though


the "sics bourgeois courts and cops on whistleblowers who expose this theft" bit? it just links to what seems to be a completely irrelevant anticommunist blog attacking the credentials of a some troop associated with PSL/ANSWER http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=16332

#421
its talking about mike prysner, former lead of March Forward and PSL LA, not exactly some rando. while he still hangs around the party i dunno if hes still a member. the claim of stolen funds comes from kevin baker and john hernandez, both former members of PSL LA and kevin is a former March Forward member as well. afaik john left of his own accord after the theft and may day snitchjacketing and kevin was expelled for shouting hebrew at palestinian activists and defending israel. LA was such a clusterfuck that most of the leadership was expelled and the steering committee forcibly disbanded. it only reformed recently, though several members of the old SC are once again in leadership

Edited by JohnBeige ()

#422

JohnBeige posted:

and kevin was expelled for shouting hebrew at palestinian activists


#423

xipe posted:

according to some nerd replying to that article the PSL steal money from US military veterans... more of this please


pplswar likes to post about how everything would have been better if the mensheviks had been in charge and about the good works that mollycrabapple is doing in puerto rico; very disrespectful to post here, please check your sources

#424
Yeah they got mad at a chapter of the DSA for being insufficiently accepting of pro life arguments or w/e
#425
I don't know who the 'ppls war' guy with the Bernie Sanders picture is nor did I click on any of their links, I just thought it funny they were scandalised at the thought of stealing donations going to the US military... But

#426
Stealing money for vets and using it on communism is indeed, very funny
#427
its jill steins fault trump got elected
bernie would have won
hal draper
democratic socialists of america
assad barrel bombs
bolshevik coup
DSA's molly crabapple
white working class
noam chomsky
marx was a democratic socialist
berniecrats
maduro is a fascist
1920s kautsky quotes
well, according to NYTimes dot com
socialism has nothing to do with communism
we need a party like syriza
x was a democratic socialist
the stalinists at jacobin magazine
#428
Edward snowden betrayed working people and the oppressed masses by revealing confidential secrets to ISIS and also by serving russias agenda to elect trump is a take hotter than the sun, i thinkb ive finally found the fabled neoliberalism w/ marxquote characteristics, someone offer @pplswar an acount asap pls
#429
that person seems to have combined all the coolest trot and dsa style ideas into a single perfect organism "One-hundred years ago on November 7, a radical Marxist party came to power in Russia promising to establish socialism through the rule of workers’ and peasants’ councils known as soviets. Yet within one year after the soviet government’s birth, the new regime had become a one-party state with neither freedom nor democracy for Russia’s toiling classes."
#430
Hello organizers and organizees. and chimpanzees.
#431
I started an org (non overtly poltical though) but it's really hard work you know and im getting very stressed out
#432
hmmm. after I posted that post.. I read my sig. It is the nature of rhizomes to be connected. And I'm like yeah. Is IS the nature of rhizomes to be connected. I'm inspired now. nice.
#433
as a recent transplant to the largest city on the canadian west coast, does anyone have any recommendations for orgs? I see the wobbs have a small presence, so i might get involved with them again, but now there's no longer any major language difficulties, i can more confidently join a more exacting org as well.
#434
[account deactivated]
#435

glomper_stomper posted:

i don't think fascists have an "entryist" plan for the PSL.



didn't read the article but i laughed when i imagined someone saying that fascists have an "entryist" plan for the PSL, and being like, really concerned and serious so i hope it's in there

#436
i want to write a weekly broadsheet that is every time like The continued Rykovism of CNN is really ticking me off!!
#437

cars posted:

glomper_stomper posted:


i don't think fascists have an "entryist" plan for the PSL.



didn't read the article but i laughed when i imagined someone saying that fascists have an "entryist" plan for the PSL, and being like, really concerned and serious so i hope it's in there


cool to imagine a clique of fascists with fancy hair and outfits all sitting down in a room and asking for status reports on the plan for the psl. meeting minutes are taken, notes are compared, the master plan of getting more racist guys on a communist mans radio show is coming together

#438
as an outsider to communist parties I like these debates a lot, and they make me want to "get involved", but then I remember that I hate planning and meetings. "can't somebody else do it"- now that's a slogan I can get behind
#439
[account deactivated]
#440