cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/766438
Some of the replies and reposts have me chuckling.
Ben Norton is one of the best commentators on modern politics, it’s tough to find people who are Pro-Russia for THE RIGHT REASONS! There are a shitload of Pro-Russia people who are supporting them because Mainstream media is against them and they’re not full on Nazis (otherwise they’d support Ukraine) so they think that they must be good. These people would support ISIS just to be confrontational. Ben Norton actually talks about the Euromaidan, the Alley of Angels and US Imperialism. Uncritical support indeed🫡
American left is kinda nutty in that there are a lot of people siding with Blumenthal in the replies which I find insane. Some choice ones include a guy ridiculing Norton for calling Blumenthal’s turn right-wing. Some guy implying Norton is paid by Pfizer. Another one did not like how Norton covered the “freedom” convoy.
They need to readsettlers.org.
I could not care less if Norton stole money or intellectual property or whatever. It’s great if he did.
Why is it insane that people are siding with Blumenthal? I don’t know much about him/the situation, but these accusations seem pretty serious.
I think they’re talking about Norton’s takeover (assuming Blumenthal is telling the truth) of their shared Patreon and social media accounts
Eh, Settlers is kinda a bad book, has been done better since 1979, and includes stuff you learn in history class in school anyway.
The problem with the people supporting Blumenthal in the comments is that Twitter is filled with PatSocs and LaRouchites.
So fuck 'em
includes stuff you learn in history class in school anyway.
dog what, did you go to school on the moon or something?
Uh, I was in a southern state. I learned a lof of what it talked about in several history classes before reaching college (which definitely did talk about this stuff as well).
PSL is doing activism against imperialism. It’s just not talked about because the media likes that anti-war stuff is only coming from the right, and RAtWM can be used as evidence for horseshoe theory.
They didn’t cover next to anything that Sakai covered in Settlers in my history classes; for damned sure. Let’s hear about why you find it to be ‘a bad book’; because the only ‘critique’ I ever hear about it seems to be coming from aggrieved settlers who don’t like what they’re reading from an accountability standpoint; and I want to see if you’re any different to that trend.
Been there, argued that, not wasting the electrons again. Go away.
I’m non-white. The person misquotes several people and attacks several orgs I know in-person for being. We don’t even know the person’s credentials or whether they are a “Sakai” to begin with. Prove to me the credentials of the person and maybe I’ll take what the person says at face-value; until then, read it critically and maybe consider the other side of the story when it comes to documenting the labor movement.
I liked settlers. It’s thesis was a little extreme, but I learned a lot of new stuff from it (probably because it’s old). Which parts did you learn in history class? In a way I don’t want patsocs to be able to group us in the Sakai stans, but I’d also like to promote it to spite them. Yes, there are better books now.
We are communists, we don’t automatically refuse extreme just because. Problem with it that it was undialectical and thus unmarxist.
The Filipino War, the genocide of Indigenous peoples, the ethnic cleansing of the “civilized tribes,” New Deal and the inherent racism of it, etc. I’m, err, not exactly sure what I’m missing, but there you go.
But hey, if you want to spite PatSocs, you do you. As you yourself said, there are better books now since 1979.
Yeah, I’m with Ben on this one. The whole thing from Max Blumenthal appears to be incredibly malicious. First question is, why come out with this now. What is he trying to achieve with this smear campaign. As Ben arrives in a new country to benefit from the goodwill of his hosts, citizens must be warned that a criminal mind is lurking in their midst. Seems a tad much, is he warning all of China against him?
The only thing I could think of would be him trying to get Ben’s visa revoked. China has pretty strict non-criminal record requirements on their visas (at least on work visa, not sure about other types).
I am also fully on Ben Norton’s side. I too would probably have had to split over fundamental disagreements with someone like Blumenthal once he started to peddle anti-vax conspiracy theories. A reminder that although the Grayzone is a very useful journalistic outlet that frequently breaks news and uncovers stories that are extremely important, and they are far more credible than the mainstream media, it is nonetheless clear that there are significant ideological differences between us MLs and them. These differences will sometimes result in ugly outbursts like this which would have been better kept private.
It’s sad how much the anti-vax cult has spread.
Because there is a kernel of truth. Reports about negative side effects were actively supressed in the west and people concerned about those effects were immediately equated to nazis. Perfect soil for radicalization.
Not to mention the unprecedented push to immediately use experimental mRNA vaccines when old school ones would have sufficed just fine. It’s like pharma wanted to do a massive experiment and we were not allowed to opt out. Even if they turn out just fine, I believe that was seriously unethical and damaged the credibility of health institutions. They also destroyed their own credibility by going back-and-forth on their statements so much - at first saying masks were useless, then saying SIKE! masks are useful and mandatory and we were fooling you before to prevent a rush on masks. How is anyone supposed to believe these lying cretins when they change their story every 5 minutes?
Obviously China took the optimal path here with 0 covid policy during the initial outbreaks until they could vaccinate enough of their population (their vaccines weren’t mRNA btw, neither is Cuba’s), and China is much more competent and has the credibility to make these demands of the population. Idk if that was ever possible in the US, seems like the US was just set-up and doomed to fail on COVID and a couple pharma fucks exploited that failure for massive profits.
The scaremongering about mRNA vaccines is overblown, they are nowhere near as “experimental” as some people make them out to be. Some of the vaccines having adverse side effects is not unusual, a lot of medicine does, it’s always about the balance of risk vs reward, do you save more people than you harm.
Of course i have no doubt that the pharma companies cut corners on this like on any other product. It’s what you get when you give such an essential task to private companies. The private sector is synonymous with corruption. It’s why countries should have state healthcare and research institutions which should be kept ready to be mobilized to the task in case of national emergencies.
And the masks flip flop was because they were initially worried that they would run out of masks for medical professionals if everyone rushed to buy them. They lied to cover up how unprepared they were and because people would not like being asked to refrain from buying something that could save them from getting infected, because there is zero understanding of the concept of making sacrifices for the greater good of society in the hyper-individualist west…except when the rich tell the poor that they have to be sacrificed on the altar of the economy, that somehow is always acceptable.
Yes the West’s handling was overall a complete shitshow and it is not surprising that this has driven people to conspiracy theories and undermined their faith in modern medicine. China is one of the few countries that actually had both the political will and the practical capabilities to do it right, the way it should have been done everywhere.
