4 Comments

I’m sorry if this sounds blunt, but it’s more about defending Fred Hampton Leftists’ efforts than trying to tear down yours: If you already know the one Correct Way to effect positive change for the left, just do it and get out of these peoples’ way. You've already indicated you don’t need them, by casting them as “unserious” and misguided “grifters,” so there’s no need to pay them any mind — right?

Honestly, the thinking here is tortured. Jackson Hinkle supposedly marginalized “nurses, teachers, and Netflix employees from the working class,” but the entire point of conceptualizing a working class is to understand a subordinate class position within capitalism. Hinkle must be truly skilled if he can marginalize those people from their position of marginality ... or, maybe this entire premise doesn’t really make sense. Maybe it rests on an aesthetic sense of class rather than the Marxist sense in which you’re supposed to be critiquing.

Further, are we supposed to think that all liberal media and all of the social sciences marginalize these same groups of people? “Pollsters and economists ... generally define ‘working class’ as lacking a college degree.” Ugh — these people really need to stop listening to grifters like Jackson Hinkle and Jimmy Dore!

And I guess we should give this same advice to Barbara and John Ehrenreich. I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to find out we stopped them from copy-pasting bunk theories from the post-left grifter class.

What else ... oh! It seems like amid the smearing of the so-called anti-vaxxers, and the black people who are friends with white nationalists (?!), you actually forgot to mention that the people actually hosting this summit are distinct human beings from these. The hosts, it turns out, are just a group of YouTubers and on-the-ground activists, all of which have audiences too small to make a living from streaming. They hold down a variety of jobs and other means to make ends meet. And they have the apparently deplorable wish to have conversations about political strategies and goals.

I guess because ”actual labor organizers,” the ones you anointed as such, haven’t achieved the loftiest goals of the Fred Hampton Leftists, the entire FHL project should be discredited. “No ‘actual politician’ has achieved American socialism, but that’s unlikely Bernie/The Squad’s actual goal.”

Maybe the reason the left is splitting into silos is because of active smear campaigns against its less powerful segments. It’s absolutely disappointing to see this coming from you. I hope you don’t delete this comment unless you delete this piece.

Expand full comment

You can't build a house without a good foundation. In this case the foundation consists of post-leftist, alt-righters and other streamers talking about Hasan.

Expand full comment

Who are the alt-righters?

Expand full comment