So Caleb Maupin is now labelled a Nazbol. That seems to be the newest buzzword that means ‘bad person’ And i say that, because if you go look at the comments, not one person mentions anything that he did that is nazbol-ish.
And now Thought Slime, the Serfs, and now apparently Luna Oi, and Noncompete are attacking or cancelling or cutting ties with him.
So, opinions? On Caleb, or the others?
I value your opinion as communists, because something similar happened to me, involving alleged communists.
YouTube does tend to platform grifters and some truly heinous people, MLs not excluded.
Maupin has the potential to improve, but until he gets past his own ego ( check out this vid of him bragging about being trumps favorite reporter below), I don’t see him improving.
My biggest gripe with him tho is that he pushes for “US with socialist characteristics”, rather than decolonization, balkanization, and overthrow of the imperial core. He consistently rejects and tells people not to read settlers, divided world divided class, and dismisses the concept of US metropolitan labor, putting him ultimately on the same side as vaush and all the other US chauvinists when it comes to the colonial question.
Again, he could improve in the future, and I hope he does.
Exactly.
I honestly think a lot of MLs saw Caleb defending actually existing socialism and immediately thought the guy is a well educated marxist.
One couldn’t be farther from the truth. The guy shares the CPGB-ML misunderstanding of what materialism is (mistaking materialism as naive empiricism/scienticism), misunderstands what dialectical materialism, and is generally VERY badly read.
As you mentioned earlier, he is shit on everything touching national-liberation struggles. He also is shit on anything touching issues analyzed from a marxist standpoint but not directly related to class: gender, feminism, anti racism, decolonization, etc. All of which all have a solid corpus of materialist and marxist analysis that are crucial to know and implement in your praxis and organizing, as a communist.
That and his questionable ties and frequentations (his dogshit interview of the CPGB-ML leader is an example), makes it very easy for people to go from: “ok this guy is a bit of a grifter who is way less well read than I thought and with an incomplete theoretical groundings, and somehwat of a chauvinist class essentialist with a big ego” to “ok this guy is a nazbol”.
I disagree with that step. But I do agree Caleb really needs to work on his shit. I totally understand why someone like Luna Oi would be very skeptical of Maupin.
Also quick question, this guy is not part of ANY ML parties in the US isn’t he?
Nope, he used to be active in the World Workers Party, but he left years ago. He pushes for going “out of the movement, into the masses”, being generally dissatisfied with all the US socialist parties and views the movement as having been going nowhere. So nope, he’s not in a ML party right now and it doesn’t seem like he’s going to be either.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
I read a tweet a while back that went “tankies have no power: all the best youtubers are varying shades of anarchists”
Which just about summed up their entire petit-bourgeois, individualistic and faux revolutionary world view
If youre not in a communist party then you have no political power anyway and no amount of youtube celebrity (only a slight step up from Youtube comments) is going to change that
Im sure there is a definitive question of who is right and wrong in this ‘struggle’ to which i reply they are both worse
Which just about summed up their entire petit-bourgeois, individualistic and faux revolutionary world view
That sure clarifies things. Thanks.
So i googled the first on your list as i had a bet with myself hes plugging a patreon like so many other ‘left’ grifters
Oh what a surprise
Tbf explicity ML youtubers have Patreon too. Not much wrong in wanting to make some money.
IDK who any of these people are, and it can be a sign of grifting to be collecting on Patreon, but to play devil’s advocate, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are. To be honest, just looking at that screenshot it does look HD and professional so I’d guess that they are well-off with YouTube and Twitch money alone, but just saying if you’re a full-time content producer, you can have a Patreon without being a grifter.
Workers should be compensated for their labor. Yes, that means that communist and anarchist YouTubers could, and I think, should, have Patreons. Especially if you refuse to run ads, which Thought Slime does.
How are you supposed to make leftist content? Running ads? That seems hypocritical. Working a day job? That’s fine, but you’ll but have less time to make content. Honestly I think Patreon is probably the best way because everyone gets the content for free, the creator gets compensated for their labor.
Of course, once we live in a classless, moneyless, stateless society, then the conversation would be different, but YouTubers got rent due every month, too.
Ive got no problem with anarchists or communists being paid for their labour
But in the workers movement there has always been a petit bourgeois strata that has always wanted to make a ‘living off being a marxist’ and in doing so set about organising their life about selling their petit booj views out in a book (or YouTube channel in this case)
My comments in this thread is only to say that people shouldnt care what these people say and if they were serious about organising for socialism they would organise within their communist party, funnel their funds to their communist party and seek an average workers wage from their communist party like…Communists always have
It speaks to their individualism that they dont
And thats fine…but communists shouldnt take them seriously
Correct take
I just think people should be evaluated by what they say. Like, I tried looking up Michael Parenti’s net worth, and it seems to be somewhere upwards of a million? Although I only found two sites that gave a number without me enabling javascript, so idk how reliable that stuff is. One site said $1 million, another said $8 million, I dunno, it’s a lot, whatever the number happens to be. And I don’t mean to elevate thought slime to same level as Parenti, or equate book sales to Patreon subscriptions, so this is a very loose analogy, but the point is: people can make bank and still be worth listening to. Not all the time, but Michael Parenti shows that it’s true at least once. I just find it distasteful to screenshot someone’s patreon links to discount them. Whether or not someone is a grifter should be determined by their words and actions, not just their income. But being wary of grifters is good.
deleted by creator
I mean, he doesn’t ask for donations, but also he doesn’t give out his books for free. (Unless he does, if so, lemme know, because I want a physical copy but don’t very much want to pay for one)
Do you think a better model for monetizing content would be to put videos behind a paywall? To make the analogy more 1:1 with book sales. From an ethical perspective, I mean. I think you’re likely to make less money by charging for videos than giving them out for free and asking for donations.
I dont think its distasteful - on the contrary im sure Comrade ThoughtSlime appreciates the free advertisement for his patreon and kofi tips!
I never really paid much attention to breadtube (thought it was full of libs) and kinda just watch spooky scary socialist and hakim and politsturm. Never really liked thought slime, always found him irritating.
I mean, Caleb hangs out with NazBols or at least attends the Nazbol convention, so he at least doesn’t hate them. And theres no doubt his stance on Transgender issues are a bit sus, but that certainly doesn’t make him “not a leftist”. He certainly isn’t a valuable voice on the left, what kind of Leftist praises Trump and is seen with Aleksandr Dugin?
deleted by creator
He said he applauded Trump, soft praise but praise no less. Ok maybe I unintentionally swallowed some Lib shit, what is that conference called? But he was sitting there, next to Dugin in front of a Eurasia Party flag so I guess I took some libs word for it. Was the Conference actual ‘Ran’ by Dugin?
He didn’t applaud trump. He applauded some of trump’s attacks on elites and bankers. Which, yeah, trump had a point. He was also lying and shit, but he was right on that point.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
I found the whole video, I’ll see how out of context he was taken. Obviously saying that Trump said one thing he liked isn’t saying he loves Trump. Perhaps I’ve suspended my skepticism a bit too much. I’m Trans and a Jew so maybe I just go emotional about it. Conference “The alternatives to globalism: the strategies of the multipolar world” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED-_woEjAmI&feature=emb_logo
deleted by creator
Well, I doubt Putin and Dugin are buddies, they aren’t even in the same party. Honestly the Eurasia Party is kind of confusing. It pays lip service to communism and anti-imperialism. It says the problem with the west is mainly spiritual? They support Autocracy. A bit of an enigma, but certainly not full on fascism.
deleted by creator
Dugin is a loon. Spent a while reading about him just now. Read up on his 4th position stuff in his own words. Basically it’s a long list of stuff that he doesn’t like. Liberalism, communism, fascism, SJW’s etc. But not one word of what it is.
Some of his earlier 3rd position stuff was functionally very similar to strasserism. So: Right wing social politics, left wing economics.
deleted by creator
Holy shit, I just watched Thought Slime’s video and I can not tell what Caleb was thinking with that video. He picked a fight with no basis and made a fool of himself. I just don’t understand this whole format of “advancing ideas”, where petit bougoise YouTube personalities react to each other’s videos.
Also, their video shows Caleb at a nazbol meeting with a prominent nazbol, so it’s not a baseless accusation.
I mean, though slime is a petit bougoise leftist and not a principled communist but they’re entertaining and keep people to the left side of center.
deleted by creator
I mean, I know him going to NazBol conventions isn’t proof, but it’s definitely suspect.
deleted by creator
He attended a conference with Dugin. He read his book before going, so he def knew Dugin was a nazbol [before dugin rebranded himself] and he read the book, and said he got some good points from it. Same as when he applauded SOME aspects of trump’s campaign, but did not show approval for trump as a whole.
However, none of that makes him a nazbol. same as if you as a reporter have the opportunity to interview or attend a conference with Hitler, does not make you a nazi.
Same as interviewing Joti Brar who sure looks like a transphobe, does not make him a transphobe. And not derailing the whole interview by attacking her on a subject that he admit he knows fuck all about, does not mean that he agrees with her.
Hell, i can read Mein Kampf and take some good points from it, without liking it, or approving of either nazism or hitler. even if the only point is to lean how nazis think, so as to fight them.
deleted by creator
I think the claim Maupin is a Nazbol is just an attempt to cancel anyone these breadtubers don’t agree with i.e ‘tankies’. However, Caleb really does have a bad streak of who he talks to. Just last week he talked to Daniel Burke who is Funded by a LaRouche PAC. Their discussion was mostly about the rising tensions between China and the U.S, but I’m confused why Maupin would talk so cordially with this person? Curious about others thoughts as I don’t really understand the modern day LaRouche movement
deleted by creator
Looks like ‘Nazbol’ is just a smear word. For the left.
deleted by creator
It’s like cooties. I was thrown off a page for being a nazbol. For showing approval for Caleb. Who was a nazbol for showing approval of dugin.
This hit is catching. like 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon, but with cooties.
I hate to say it, but Thought Slime is right. Maupin is a transphobe and that needs to be corrected if he wants me to like / defend him. Economics and defending AES isn’t enough.
he sucks
