Analysis Episode #14 - Russia/UkraineKeep your private data private with our sponsor, Aura! Get two weeks free, no strings attached, with our link: https://a...
Has anyone watched the new episode from First Thought/JT?
Meh. His latest video about the Romanian coup was underwhelming. I expected more. I didn’t understand why he needed to portray Ceaușescu in such a bad light.
I’m the last person to say he was the best communist leader ever, but as someone actually from that country (which Hakim is not) i can tell you that he wasn’t anywhere near as bad as he has been portrayed by the anti-communists for the past 30 years. He made a lot of mistakes (IMF loans? Really? Wtf was he thinking?!) but we also achieved a lot of great things under his leadership. The industrialization programs were a massive success. The amount of power plants, dams, factories, etc. that were built in that time are unprecedented to this day. And to his credit he didn’t go along with the revisionist later Soviet (Brezhnev, Gorbachev, etc.) policies either, instead choosing to forge close relations with Kim Il Sung and the DPRK.
It might have been underwhelming, but not an outright disaster such as this one from JT. In the end, I would say there aren’t that many good videos about Ceausescu in general, so no surprise there. A preferred way to learn about socialist Romania would be reading relevant literature, at least for now.
True. Ultimately i’m not mad at Hakim for that video, it was fine i guess, i was just sort of disappointed because it was a bit shallow, and the topic is important to me.
What i am mad about is that none of the other two guys of the trio told JT that this Ukraine video is dogshit and that you can’t discuss the Ukraine conflict without talking about its internal politics. No mention of the Maidan coup, the Nazification of Ukrainian society or the de-facto NATO-ization of its army from 2014 on? And no talk about how the Kiev regime was poised to invade the Donbass republics in February-March 2022? JT tried so hard to pander to the libs that he ended up saying nothing but lib shit.
Even trying to make it seem like Ukraine won some kind of big David vs Goliath victory in the beginning for not immediately folding is ridiculous when you take a look at the actual facts. Russia went in with less than 100k troops. Ukraine had a massive army at the start, several times bigger than the initial forces the Russians sent in. And armed to the teeth and trained by NATO for eight years. If anything Russia was the underdog at the start, numerically at least if not in terms of equipment.
To try and say that Russia wanted to and expected to overrun all of Ukraine in some “blitzkrieg” but Ukraine valiantly held on against all expectations is just parroting the pro-Ukraine narrative that was sold to the Western public in the entire first year. Reality is much more mundane than that. Russia wanted to shock the Kiev regime into coming to the negotiating table. And they did. They went to Istanbul and almost reached an agreement.
And then the idea that Ukraine could be doing much better and could be winning if only the evil Hamas hadn’t diverted the West’s attention, if only the West was more consequent about sending them weapons and shit, if only they didn’t delay the military aid, bla, bla, bla. All the bullshit that the mainstream media has been spouting these past six months. Utter nonsense. It’s embarrassing for communists to repeat those talking points. In reality the West simply doesn’t have any more shit to give to Ukraine without disarming themselves - which many of the smaller countries have done!
This wasn’t some “stab in the back” by the West. It was always going to turn out this way in a war of attrition, which is why it was so stupid for Ukraine to insist on turning it into one by refusing to negotiate.
Bottom line, this video appears to have been made by someone who has consumed exclusively western mainstream media commentary on the conflict and has entirely bought into it. I cannot reach any other conclusion than that these guys simply have refused to engage with any other points of view or educate themselves about the actual facts. It is embarrassing and shameful and has caused me to reconsider their credibility and competence across the board.
What i am mad about is that none of the other two guys of the trio told JT that this Ukraine video is dogshit and that you can’t discuss the Ukraine conflict without talking about its internal politics
That we don’t know, I guess. Whatever they may tell him (or may have told already) - I doubt they will do it publicly or in the comment section, and also - he may as well tell them “my channel - my rules, I’m doing it”. IDK about Hakim, but Yugo is probably not gonna say much - I remember him posting a copy of the two gymnasts meme on Twitter - “the US does this and that, all the dirty tricks - loses; China does nothing - wins”, where he conveniently smeared the “Support the Nazis in Ukraine” piece with a gray line. Yugo received a TON of shit in the comment section for that - deservedly so.
I remember him posting a copy of the two gymnasts meme on Twitter - “the US does this and that, all the dirty tricks - loses; China does nothing - wins”, where he conveniently smeared the “Support the Nazis in Ukraine” piece with a gray line. Yugo received a TON of shit in the comment section for that - deservedly so
I remember seeing him post this meme and then others showing the original, revealing what he had chosen to cross out. It was incredibly weird and I am honestly so confused as to why he would do that. Did he respond to the backlash? Because I don’t remember if he did.
This Ukraine situation just seems like one they don’t want to touch with a ten foot pole and I don’t understand the motive. Why won’t they talk about it?
Figuring out one’s motive is always difficult. Perhaps due to their material interests - being afraid of losing the audience. Perhaps because of good old ignorance. Perhaps due to fear of pushback or persecution. Perhaps they got co-opted, or there’s something insidious about the three. Time will give us the clues, I guess
Perhaps due to their material interests - being afraid of losing the audience.
It has not escaped my notice that they have had more and more corporate sponsors on their videos lately. Once you go down that path you are simply forced to toe a certain line else your money tap will be turned off. And when you rely on monetizing your content to support yourself and your family you really have no choice. At that point they own you.
JT recently ditched all sponsors. Not sure about the other two guys, I would’ve thought that with the Deprogram’s success they wouldn’t need to rely as much on sponsors, but I don’t know much about how content creators make a living. Still, I really don’t get it why they’re so lib and silent on this topic
I think in this case the easiest answer is probably the most correct: they don’t say much, or anything at all, because it might result in a lot of vitriol. I understand being worried about being labeled as a propagandist for Russia (I had to face this at school when writing a paper about the Donbas) but thats why education is the best outlet. If you approach the topic from that angle without any polarizing language then it can be hard to call someone a Putin-simp or whatever.
I think it’s a mistake to obsess so much about appearing “unbiased”. There is no such thing. Everyone has to make a choice which side they stand on. Are you with the empire or against it? You should not be afraid of being called names, in fact it’s an indication that you are doing something right. Let the facts speak for themselves. Pandering to liberal sensibilities does not make liberals to come closer to your side, you just move closer to theirs. Whatever the Deprogram think they are achieving, they are wrong. There are plenty of people who are receptive to the anti-imperialist message, and outside of liberal circles too. The right is very successfully courting them and they are not afraid of being labeled Putin puppets. If leftists continue in this misguided strategy of appealing exclusively to liberals and on liberals’ own terms that is a recipe for defeat. As we are clearly seeing right now in Europe.
If you approach the topic from that angle without any polarizing language then it can be hard to call someone a Putin-simp or whatever.
This is categorically false and I would encourage you to make a single post on .world to see how it is so. They will call you all sorts of things because the view you’re espousing is one they are hostile to, any question of presentation is secondary. Most dedicatedly-political spheres (and many besides) are like that.
That’s fair, I guess maybe I am too optimistic. I still don’t believe them making this video was worth it because it doesn’t add anything to the overall conversation, it just regurgitates the same information seen elsewhere. Because of how Russophobic the western side of the internet/political sphere is, maybe it’s best to avoid this topic if you can’t handle any backlash. I wish people didn’t get so aggressive when talking about this war objectively, but they do. Reading the comments on the Boy Boy video was disheartening but it does prove your point, no matter what you say, if you give the slightest hint of “justifying” the “invasion” then cognitive dissonance kicks in.
No, i would have to do some more research myself before i can recommend something that covers the entire period of his leadership in Romania in a satisfactory way, but on the topic of the 1989 coup specifically you can find some pretty good articles on marxists.org published in Workers World in 1990:
The first of these also goes into a bit of the history of socialist Romania and brings up some legitimate criticism of policy errors that were made by Nicolae Ceaușescu.
It’s well sourced and i appreciate how balanced it is. They rightfully criticize Ceaușescu on points where he clearly deserves to be criticized (some of the foreign policy mistakes made by Romania were really egregious), but they also highlight the achievements of Romanian socialism during his era.
Meh. His latest video about the Romanian coup was underwhelming. I expected more. I didn’t understand why he needed to portray Ceaușescu in such a bad light.
I’m the last person to say he was the best communist leader ever, but as someone actually from that country (which Hakim is not) i can tell you that he wasn’t anywhere near as bad as he has been portrayed by the anti-communists for the past 30 years. He made a lot of mistakes (IMF loans? Really? Wtf was he thinking?!) but we also achieved a lot of great things under his leadership. The industrialization programs were a massive success. The amount of power plants, dams, factories, etc. that were built in that time are unprecedented to this day. And to his credit he didn’t go along with the revisionist later Soviet (Brezhnev, Gorbachev, etc.) policies either, instead choosing to forge close relations with Kim Il Sung and the DPRK.
It might have been underwhelming, but not an outright disaster such as this one from JT. In the end, I would say there aren’t that many good videos about Ceausescu in general, so no surprise there. A preferred way to learn about socialist Romania would be reading relevant literature, at least for now.
True. Ultimately i’m not mad at Hakim for that video, it was fine i guess, i was just sort of disappointed because it was a bit shallow, and the topic is important to me.
What i am mad about is that none of the other two guys of the trio told JT that this Ukraine video is dogshit and that you can’t discuss the Ukraine conflict without talking about its internal politics. No mention of the Maidan coup, the Nazification of Ukrainian society or the de-facto NATO-ization of its army from 2014 on? And no talk about how the Kiev regime was poised to invade the Donbass republics in February-March 2022? JT tried so hard to pander to the libs that he ended up saying nothing but lib shit.
Even trying to make it seem like Ukraine won some kind of big David vs Goliath victory in the beginning for not immediately folding is ridiculous when you take a look at the actual facts. Russia went in with less than 100k troops. Ukraine had a massive army at the start, several times bigger than the initial forces the Russians sent in. And armed to the teeth and trained by NATO for eight years. If anything Russia was the underdog at the start, numerically at least if not in terms of equipment.
To try and say that Russia wanted to and expected to overrun all of Ukraine in some “blitzkrieg” but Ukraine valiantly held on against all expectations is just parroting the pro-Ukraine narrative that was sold to the Western public in the entire first year. Reality is much more mundane than that. Russia wanted to shock the Kiev regime into coming to the negotiating table. And they did. They went to Istanbul and almost reached an agreement.
And then the idea that Ukraine could be doing much better and could be winning if only the evil Hamas hadn’t diverted the West’s attention, if only the West was more consequent about sending them weapons and shit, if only they didn’t delay the military aid, bla, bla, bla. All the bullshit that the mainstream media has been spouting these past six months. Utter nonsense. It’s embarrassing for communists to repeat those talking points. In reality the West simply doesn’t have any more shit to give to Ukraine without disarming themselves - which many of the smaller countries have done!
This wasn’t some “stab in the back” by the West. It was always going to turn out this way in a war of attrition, which is why it was so stupid for Ukraine to insist on turning it into one by refusing to negotiate.
Bottom line, this video appears to have been made by someone who has consumed exclusively western mainstream media commentary on the conflict and has entirely bought into it. I cannot reach any other conclusion than that these guys simply have refused to engage with any other points of view or educate themselves about the actual facts. It is embarrassing and shameful and has caused me to reconsider their credibility and competence across the board.
That we don’t know, I guess. Whatever they may tell him (or may have told already) - I doubt they will do it publicly or in the comment section, and also - he may as well tell them “my channel - my rules, I’m doing it”. IDK about Hakim, but Yugo is probably not gonna say much - I remember him posting a copy of the two gymnasts meme on Twitter - “the US does this and that, all the dirty tricks - loses; China does nothing - wins”, where he conveniently smeared the “Support the Nazis in Ukraine” piece with a gray line. Yugo received a TON of shit in the comment section for that - deservedly so.
I remember seeing him post this meme and then others showing the original, revealing what he had chosen to cross out. It was incredibly weird and I am honestly so confused as to why he would do that. Did he respond to the backlash? Because I don’t remember if he did.
This Ukraine situation just seems like one they don’t want to touch with a ten foot pole and I don’t understand the motive. Why won’t they talk about it?
Figuring out one’s motive is always difficult. Perhaps due to their material interests - being afraid of losing the audience. Perhaps because of good old ignorance. Perhaps due to fear of pushback or persecution. Perhaps they got co-opted, or there’s something insidious about the three. Time will give us the clues, I guess
It has not escaped my notice that they have had more and more corporate sponsors on their videos lately. Once you go down that path you are simply forced to toe a certain line else your money tap will be turned off. And when you rely on monetizing your content to support yourself and your family you really have no choice. At that point they own you.
JT recently ditched all sponsors. Not sure about the other two guys, I would’ve thought that with the Deprogram’s success they wouldn’t need to rely as much on sponsors, but I don’t know much about how content creators make a living. Still, I really don’t get it why they’re so lib and silent on this topic
I think in this case the easiest answer is probably the most correct: they don’t say much, or anything at all, because it might result in a lot of vitriol. I understand being worried about being labeled as a propagandist for Russia (I had to face this at school when writing a paper about the Donbas) but thats why education is the best outlet. If you approach the topic from that angle without any polarizing language then it can be hard to call someone a Putin-simp or whatever.
I think it’s a mistake to obsess so much about appearing “unbiased”. There is no such thing. Everyone has to make a choice which side they stand on. Are you with the empire or against it? You should not be afraid of being called names, in fact it’s an indication that you are doing something right. Let the facts speak for themselves. Pandering to liberal sensibilities does not make liberals to come closer to your side, you just move closer to theirs. Whatever the Deprogram think they are achieving, they are wrong. There are plenty of people who are receptive to the anti-imperialist message, and outside of liberal circles too. The right is very successfully courting them and they are not afraid of being labeled Putin puppets. If leftists continue in this misguided strategy of appealing exclusively to liberals and on liberals’ own terms that is a recipe for defeat. As we are clearly seeing right now in Europe.
This is categorically false and I would encourage you to make a single post on .world to see how it is so. They will call you all sorts of things because the view you’re espousing is one they are hostile to, any question of presentation is secondary. Most dedicatedly-political spheres (and many besides) are like that.
That’s fair, I guess maybe I am too optimistic. I still don’t believe them making this video was worth it because it doesn’t add anything to the overall conversation, it just regurgitates the same information seen elsewhere. Because of how Russophobic the western side of the internet/political sphere is, maybe it’s best to avoid this topic if you can’t handle any backlash. I wish people didn’t get so aggressive when talking about this war objectively, but they do. Reading the comments on the Boy Boy video was disheartening but it does prove your point, no matter what you say, if you give the slightest hint of “justifying” the “invasion” then cognitive dissonance kicks in.
Aye, do you have any good sources on Ceausescu, as a Romanian?
No, i would have to do some more research myself before i can recommend something that covers the entire period of his leadership in Romania in a satisfactory way, but on the topic of the 1989 coup specifically you can find some pretty good articles on marxists.org published in Workers World in 1990:
Reactionary coup in Romania and General admits long-term coup planning
The first of these also goes into a bit of the history of socialist Romania and brings up some legitimate criticism of policy errors that were made by Nicolae Ceaușescu.
Aye, that’s good for now…
Here’s another good one, an article from the PSL doing a very good job giving a broad overview of the modern history of Romania:
Romania: 30 years removed from socialism
It’s well sourced and i appreciate how balanced it is. They rightfully criticize Ceaușescu on points where he clearly deserves to be criticized (some of the foreign policy mistakes made by Romania were really egregious), but they also highlight the achievements of Romanian socialism during his era.