New CTH episode is up. It's an interview with Adam Curtis. It's very good...

Excellent ep. Proud of my lads for getting Curtis onboard

I have to admit the idea of revolution is a little frightening. The revolutionary catechism is pretty much the only way to do it. You have to be completely committed to revolution. You can't do anything by halves if you're going to overthrow the existing socio economic order, but I wouldn't even know where to begin. I don't really savor the idea of getting executed by a cop.

Wait, on board with the show, or… /onboard/?

that ending is one of the most powerful things I've heard on the internet

wew, nice touch

I think that is reasonable. Look at the Bukharin thread that is up right now

Think of all the old soviets that were sincere leftists and died in Stalinist purges. It's a scary thought. Curtis's metaphor of the earthquake, with the ground not even being a point of stability, seems accurate. Whether it be violent or peaceful, a revolution will at least always be violent in the sense that it will touch every kind of institution and destroy it or reform it in some way.

It's clear why the liberals in power are afraid of it, or the managers and high income types. Even if the world is falling apart around them right now, they don't want to actually gamble on the change which COULD be preferable, but may also cause them to lose everything.

A question I have for leftypol after listening to this episode is did the left learn anything from this election

I think the left did. The liberals will never learn.

Nothing new has come of it yet. I really don't know if anything was learned. The left hated Hillary and the dems already, but begrudgingly many of them voted for her, including Chapo.

One thing that should be repeated over and over is that there is a power vacuum right now. Trump lost because Hillary was a shit and nobody came out for her where it counted. The democratic platform did not speak to anybody in the rust belt states, and that lost the election. I see a lot of libs rallying behind future presidential candidates like Biden, which would be a fucking shame if they just went with a stronger democrat.

I think we still live deep in the midst of the hypernormalization that Curtis talked about. Libs are still afraid to act, they don't want a big change that could upset their lives in any substantial way. They can't imagine any other world.

Sometimes I feel like the best thing the left can do is organize the left, even if it is a minority of the population, and basically do what the Nazis did in the sense of running a tight organization that looks capable of taking power. Or hell, like they talked about in this podcast with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. There needs to be an option, a concrete option, not just an idea that disparate people airily nod at. If leftists, co-ops, and maybe some unions that would take part in it could organize under a party banner that makes its presence known in some way, through activism, branding, getting itself in the middle of events and media, that would be a big step. Then people would have an object at hand to say "maybe this could be an answer?".

It might also help that it is something new. The Green party and Libertarians have been around for a while. They're almost institutional losers. Getting a brand new thing, like the rise of Podemos, could capture minds.

Excuse me, Trump won* because nobody came out for Hillary.

Chapo guys voted for Hilldawg?

they're all DSA shills, who are in turn Dem shills so probably

Well, actually maybe not. They said they wanted her to win though, and thought it was preferable to Trump. I don't know if they actually voted for her.

At the end of the day they are still reformists.

This. The boys are entertaining but never forget that the DSA's whole strategy is to move the Dems left.

...

Adam has a very good point.

As a Socialist, I don't think I've actually really heard Socialists talk about what Socialism would look like beyond vague buzzwords like "Classless", "Collectivized industry", "Egalitarian" etc.

What is our VISION for Socialism? The thing I see many people bring up is Star Trek I guess. But without a concrete vision to work towards, we can't really capture the imagination of people.

I think felix said he'll probably vote green

Hell zizek's made this point plenty

They're run by marxists fam.

Nah they're explicitly anti communist, and say so on their twitter.

I talked with one of their organizers on twitter and he told me that a few of their higher ups are Marxists.
I'm not a member and probably never will be, just relating what I've heard.

Matt is clearly further left than Feliz and will though he's actually read Marx
Also Amber is a str8 Marxist

soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/episode-65-teaser-the-brutal-question

They uploaded it on it's own as a teaser for the episode

I think the reason this is so difficult for the left is because, unlike conservatives, we want to create a new world, something better than anything that has hitherto existed. We can't use nostalgic imagery like they can. What we can use is utopian imagery, but many are averse to that because it can seem dishonest, corny and even totalitarian. Popular culture has already made the public familiar with utopian imagery. It would be a very simple thing to draw a parallel between those fictional utopias and the new world we would like to create, in the same way reactionaries can point to postcard versions of the recent past in support of their programs.

But that pushes us towards doing the shit that liberals do with harry potter I think what we need to focus more on is the practicality of our goals

I'm not suggesting we literally say "dude it's like Star Trek", but I do think propaganda and imagery is important. The form it should take in the 21st century is something I don't know yet, but popular utopias could be a starting point. Again, I'm not suggesting we draw explicit parallels, but we could draw on them for inspiration.

...

Fair enough as long as we don't go full retard

Yeah, I just reread my original post, and I can see why you would have thought I meant literally "we star trek now", which would be a terrible idea.

What movie is this referencing

The Plane Scene
youtube.com/watch?v=-Li998pZxwU

I'm going to be nice and point out that it's the dark knight rises

Superman Returns

I tried fam
youtube.com/watch?v=VW_R98EBO7s&feature=youtu.be

Nice job user

Not bad but I think adding music ruins it

lel
twitter.com/pattonoswalt/status/808362476999847936

Now we have to spread this like wildfire

I feel like patton oswalt liking them is a mixed blessing

Chapo realized that alot of people responded to that moment so they uploaded it by itself. So other can mess around with it if they want.

soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/episode-65-teaser-the-brutal-question

The left learned to stop worshiping identity politics, and that politics means you have to actually go talk to plebs that don't have twenty genders memorized.

The left haven't learned anything, the media is helping the neoliberals scaepgoat responsibility to the Russian fake mail trying to poison their precious bodily fluids.
The democrats have lost power in every office in the land and they still keep yelling and crying about fucking tranny toilets, trump won because the people in the rust belt wanted to give a big fuck you to the people who outsourced their jobs.

this is how democrats win white people back

1. Stop the gun shit, republicans won, face it.

2. Stop the idpol pandering shit about the lgfbtbbq intersectional muslim latinax faggotry, start the american pandering

But hillary won the popular vote.

Where do you think you are?

Hillary ran up the score in California and New York. There's a massive disconnect between these places and the flyovers, where the manufacturing core that actually made this country what it was has disappeared.

mobile.twitter.com/CHAPOTRAPHOUSE/status/808552565373882373

Congrats user

she also wont he popular vote over obama, it means nothing.
THE REASON TRUMP WON IS BECAUSE HE STOLE THE RUSTBELT FROM THE DEMOCRATS BECAUSE BILL CLINTON SIGNED NAFTA AND OUTSOURCED ALL THEIR JOBS AND THEN THE HIGHLY EDUCATED AND TOLERANT LIBERALS SPENT THE NEXT DECADES MOCKING LOWER CLASS WHITES TELLING THEM THEY WERE LOSERS AND DESERVED TO DIE FOR BEING RACIST

OH SHIT

congratz comr8 u did it

Chapo house confirmed leftypol browsers?

reddit.com/r/ChapoTrapHouse/comments/5i0yrs/adam_curtis_change_chapo_trap_house/

Confirmed browsers of their own subreddit, perhaps.

Since the end of the cold war actual change has not been allowed to occur.
The president became a manager, the president is like the manger of a taco bell, he isnt going to be all "what if we sell pizza", no, he is going to just keep selling tacos and rake in money.

But ever since the recission, both people on the left and right have been getting angry at the establishment, the neocons, the neoliberals.
The right formed the tea party and the alt right, elected trump.

The left……failed, like they always do, occupy was destroyed, bernie sanders was held down by the DNC, SJW's obsessed with identity politics took over everything making the left seem insane to normal americans.

I was watching this guy on youtube, he said, if you really want to rebuild the democratic party, you should put stress on it, so his idea, is to lose the midterms, yup.
Because if you lose the midterms, then you can really start the neoliberal purge.
And in 2020 you can put up a socialist candidate

Oh an another thing.
You want to know the big difference between the democrats and republicans.
If a republican fucks up, that fucker is out of there, they make him feel the pain, the republican voters are well okay with telling a politician to fuck off and replacing them

I mean the GOP, wanted jeb to win……jeb

Democrats are too respectful of their politicians, even if they fuck up hard, they subscribe to lesser evilism, "i know they suck but i guess we have to eat shit"

eyeroll.jpg

The United States failed. The West, failed.

this post failed

Your dad

yer mum

That's just "racism won trump the election" phrased differently. Hillary didn't even try to pander to "intersectional feminists" on tumblr or whatever (they just sometimes tried to make it seem like to so they can win some college liberals), it was mostly focused on winning the fabled "moderate conservatives". People didn't turn away from the dems because they were turned off by the idpol rhetoric, they turned away from the dems because the dems were extra pro-status quo this election, and people despise the status quo because it's shitty and making their lives miserable. The rust belt is a usually blue-voting region, and went with Obama twice. They only went with Trump this time because he offered something new, specifically on trade. btw the dems didn't just lose white voters, they've lost blacks and latinos at similar or greater rates, because they offered nothing to the American WC of whatever race.

is it any surprise that the left always fails though? we encounter more resistance from the ruling class for a reason. most leftist movements have at least a thread of anticapitalism running through them, whereas the right doesnt

that's why movements on the left are crushed with urgency, like occupy or sanders, while movements on the right are co-opted as useful idiots, like the tea party or trump

we can't use nostalgic imagery but we can use romantic imagery, lots of primitive societies had sharing economies and we can use that as a narrative. We can claim communism is a return to natural order

Frederic Jameson has done his part to spur some imaginings at least.

This is a good idea, but be careful not to fall into impotent hippydom.

As much as I like Curtis' monologue at the end, does anyone else feel like he dodged the question?

I at least think Will asked what sort of programme and platform a new left-wing movement should have. Something that would capture people's imaginations and shit. Curtis was right in everything he said, but it's the right answer to a different question.

I think that he answered the question, but it was kinda sly. Will asks how can we know whether or not it is real, and what it would look like, he answers the first part and dodges the second.

Everyone dodges that question tbh. I think Adam Curtis is a guy who wants to tell the left what they are doing wrong, but doesn't have confidence in himself to tell the left what to do. That isn't a knock on him either, I think most people feel that way for good reason. They can identify the problem, but problem solving is more difficult.

This episode is easily their best. I hope they take this and greater politicize the show and start to create, look for, and promote real revolutionary change. Amber being on the show I think is a step in the right direction but I hope they break with the DSA because *snort* itsch sheet

Amber is DSA too. The Chapo boys will never prompt revolutionary change because once they start being truly sincere about what they believe in and desire, they lose irony points and also open themselves up to loads of criticism. What they do is criticise and take the piss out of would be enemies of the revolution, but they don't advance the revolution in any way. I'm saying this as someone who loves the boys and the pod, but at the same time I'm aware of its constraints and their limits.

I do find it funny when you have so many people on twitter saying they were "radicalised" by Chapo to the extent that they join the DSA though, as if it's some sort of revolutionary vanguard.

If you'd stop LARPing for a second you'd realise that there's zero hope for a Left that even bothers framing reality in terms as ridiculous as "enemies of the revolution".

I wouldn't be dropping those terms around people who aren't leftists fam, don't worry.

But Clintonites are enemies of the revolution, plain and simple

Stop larping

Recognizing your enemies isn't larp'ing. This big tent liberal bullshit that's popped up here after the election needs to fucking die.

you're being too cynical i think
also stop saying larp, it's almost as idiotic of an insult as "cuck"

liberals out

That describes most of us right now, including probably the Chapo boys himself.

The Left suffers with a severe lack of self-confidence, because everything we want is impossible under the current system. Or even if it is possible, it's undesirable because the established order is so against it that they will do everything to fuck with it. So we're left in an awkward position where either we propose small gains that will be laughed out of any polite society wonk room, or we first preach the overthrow of the current order as the first step before any change and we start our descent into another wave of braindead Citizen Smith-type leftists who shout "reformists!" at everything.

Stopp l a r p i n g

larp

The guy is saying they're Clintonites when they've been shitting on her and her voting base

It's absurd

Lotta leftists are trying to dilute themselves for liberal consumption in the wake of the elections.

You know the way Hillary chased after those mythical "moderate republicans" the whole election? Leftists are chasing after these mythical "radical liberals". Sure Bernie Sanders alerted some young people to socialism, but the majority of his voterbase put their Bernie signs in the bin and obediently voted for Hilldawg after the primaries. They'll go back to their cushy lives and forget about politics for another 4 years.

were you even following the conversation dumb anfem? I said the Chapo boys criticise Clintonites, who are enemies of the revolution. Not the Chapo boys.

My excuse. It's the morning

Bro if they don't drop terms like "historical materialism" every couple of words that means they're clintonite reformist libs

So the left is free of enemies? This sentiment is so far removed from reality and historical precedent that it's laughable. Every political movement has enemies.

What makes you a friend of the left by being obnoxious about our own "enemies". Your foresight is lacking, and so is your hindsight.

Curtis was right to criticize people like you who do nothing but make things worse for ourselves

It's pathetic. You notice how the tone of the board flipped to refomism immediately following the election? Opportunists everywhere fam.

I'm a friend of the left because I participate in leftist political action and y'know actually hold leftist views.

Please enlighten me as to what my foresight is lacking and what I'm failing to see behind me.

That labeling political enemies so easily is a good idea if they're not rich or reactionary or very much at all liberal.

If they don't fall into those three categories I might as well call you a political enemy for my own reasons.

Thing is, the "Left" is only popular to any significant degree when the leftmost options of the establishment have gone into power, exhausted its potential for progressive reforms and as consequence revealed themselves as the shitdicks they are.

This is why after eight years of Obama we have a nascent Left-wing movement and popular support for people like Sanders, while after 8 years of Bush we had Michael Moore. Even the Green Party had managed to lose the little support they had in the beginning of the decade.

12, 16 years of Democratic rule would mean no excuse. Last time Democrats stayed in power for so long the US ended up with the New Deal, which was a sham itself but at least it was some degree of populist reform (meant precisely to steal support from the Left). Now the Democrats would have fuck all to show, just like Obama has fuck all to show, and they would be forced to deal with the reality that only a radical option can bring some degree of material comfort to the masses.

Now're back at lvl 1. Trump will do something stupid that will cause outrage among liberals, the Left will join them in an impotent attempt to stop it, and when the next Democratic president is elected the word on everyone's agenda will be "hey, don't be divisive! It's either that or Republicanism and four more years of [dumb Trump policy that will probably continue under the next Democrat]"

The reason elections are important is precisely to expose the limitations of elections. If the balls keeps going from Dem to GOP and back again we'll continue stuck in the fucking Groundhog Day of disillusionment -hope-disillusionment cycle.

And for this purpose, Clinton was perfect. She was a shitty, corrupt, horrible speaker with a robotic personality that was inheriting a country after 8 years of "eh" liberal presidency. When I thought she would win that was legit the first time I felt some radical change could come in the future. But with Trump we pressed the restart button, and it's back to sixteen years ago.

Do you think that the left was victorious and we are living in socialism?

I don't label everyone who isn't a Posadist an enemy. But I also don't live in whatever la la land you crawled out of that I'm naive enough to think that we don't have enemies. I think a lot of people need to realize that we aren't going to convince everyone that we're right and that we are going to face a lot of opposition from your magical "radical" liberals.

Where did I say we didn't

Also on the topic of radical liberals, that's you

So we need to shill for the Dems for just one more election and we'll finally achieve a mass socialist movement, right?

You accused some dude of larp'ing because he called Hillary and her legion of sycophants enemies.

What makes me a liberal?

No because I just woke up and I believed I saw the amazing observation of an idiot that chapo were hillary voters and "enemies of the revolution" or some shit

lol

No, we're back at the beginning so now it's at least three.

Enjoy it, we've just renewed our global contract for another decade and a half of liberal centrism.

it's fucking hard being a socialist when our prospects looks so bleak comrades

think of how easy it is to be a fucking liberal or conservative, it's even easier to be a Holla Forumstard these days

you can just sit back and tweak things a little here and there and you're content

lol just lol

Is there going to be a rise of contrarian anti grey wolves now

People who unironically like Phil Greaves and Red Kharina exist and they browse Holla Forums too.

DUDE MILITARIZE LABOR LMAO
Jameson is cancer

lel

i'm in

I'm worried this will result in some primitivist tendencies
And that's as reactionary as you can get

That is a valid concern, we just need to think more and fill the gaps