Everyone in this thread is deeply unserious. If anyone thinks any of this matters I beg you to touch grass and join an org.
I have no issue with Hassan because Hassan exists in his own world. His only purpose is to begin the process of deprogramming libs.
He’s also one of the only ones I’ve seen that actually seems like he would just full hog for any real revolutionary movement that forms. Dude was just a steamer and is now probably equally as influential as Fox news. He knows this leads nowhere and welcomes punches from the left.
TLDR; keep bullying Hasan, keep agitating. Join an org, don’t hate people who follow him, but make sure they learn as much as possible and help show them what his role actually is.
Great summation tbh. And if he doesn’t then he knows what that means. He has to know this.
Yep, he’s not really that quiet about being a sacrificial lamb. I honestly read this post not as him clowning on someone, but as him saying “please take this fucking burden off me and actually build a vanguard, I will immediately recuse myself and step aside when that happens” which I actually kinda believe. Bro is tired, but he’s not gonna stop till the zoomer vanguard executes him with a smile on his face.
slow down there he is not that important. But I get your meaning.
Lol, it was meant as hyperbole of course. I just don’t see him as someone who gets fully subsumed by the party. His entire position is to be “left of the Dems” so even if they do become actually social democrats at some point I think he’ll continue to hold that position.
And yeah, he’s not consequential as a political figure, but honestly Marx wasn’t either. It took a new generation of workers to carry the very moderate manifesto into a revolutionary movement.
(Also not comparing Hasan to Marx in terms of theory, just in terms of practical influence on the working class of their time)
Hexbears’ obsession with Hasan continues to baffle me. He’s just a vaguely center-left streamer, that’s it really. Doesn’t do anything controversial or exciting in any direction. I’ve seen him say and do some pretty good stuff and bad stuff, and I’m left very ambivalent.
I really don’t know how other people here have built up such strong feeling about him that they must ‘criticise and call psyop’ or ‘laud him and all entryism’ with every action he does.
Yeah that’s right I’m taking shots at BOTH SIDES here
i dont think he gets posted that much, but honestly he’s kinda getting to the point where calling him “just a streamer” is way understating his impact, the media is obsessed with him for months now and he’s actively trying to get involved with politics to a significant level. Like, the dems in control of the party genuinely see him as a threat, i really dont think we should be downplaying him as a little smoll bean streamer anymore
Many people on hexbear are not based in the US thus don’t see him mentioned every day in media.
fair enough
This mostly just points to your own ignorance about what is going on in the mainstream media. Hasan comes up around here once, maybe twice a week, but he is non-stop in the news cycle for mainstream Dems. The fact that my mother knows who he is means that he has reached the average politics watcher (which is still a minority entertainment product).
Okay? So why do we care so much about him that there are more posts about him than those with actual power?
I would rather hear more about local state and county level politics than some streamer.
Because doxxing? I am already way too flagrant with my shit, but like, I am pretty secure.
It doesn’t have to be local to you. Highlight novel actual reporting.
I have been saying this about Hasan (and all ‘leftist’ streamers/podcasters/etc) for years lol. Ultimately I do genuinely believe that once you hit a certain point in terms of wealth/yearly income, especially when your wealth is derived from sitting in front of your computer/microphone all day giving your opinions on various political things and promoting various people in politics to 2000+ sycophants in your chat or subbed to your patreon, you just become a Petite Bourgeise caricature of who you claim to be.
This goes for all 5 of the Chapos (
believe it or not he’s had what I’d consider to be the ‘ideal’ grift - he made his money, made a bit more agreeing to co-host Bad Faith, and then dipped - never to be seen posting online again outside of presumably some teenager’s DMs) and everyone who streams on Twitch.tv.You can say “Well Hasan went to Cuba and did activism” and “He kept X union afloat” and that’s well & good, admirable even, but I don’t think that absolves him from the fact that he also will gladly support some ex-nazi democrat candidate who will probably vote Yes on any Cuba sanctions and do fucking nothing but middling shit in office. Same guy who supported Fetterman and when challenged on this (before Fetterman was even elected), basically said the same thing he says today about Platner. “
I don’t like him either but you know we have to play this game to win guys!! Also don’t bring this up in 2 years when I’m tweeting about how much of a piece of shit Platner is because I’ll say something smug like ‘you really got me with that one’”“We need more John Fettermans. Stop looking a gift horse in the mouth. Ugh leftists have this really bad ability to make every candidate’s worst traits/moments the only thing that matters. He supports M4A!!!”
Adam Johnson & Nima Shirazi remain undefeated.
Ultimately I do genuinely believe that once you hit a certain point in terms of wealth/yearly income
It’s not even about the amount, it’s about them wanting to continue to do their current job as a streamer/podcaster/whatever. If they are too extreme they get deplatformed, so they have to remain very mild in their opinions, they have to “play to the algorithm” and making content that gets views is more important than content that incites the masses. Anyone who is extremely radical probably isn’t going to last long on any corporate media at all, if they are even willing to use it in the first place. No one wants to lose their job, and in a field like that, where the “boss” is way more arbitrary and inconsistent than most, these guys would probably much rather play it safe.
It’s not just these sorts of jobs too, it’s anything creative on the internet. If you want to make a living off of it, it can’t be too radical or too extreme or else it will just be removed, so anyone pushing properly revolutionary ideas online will need to do it as a hobby or side project, which means their soul-crushing job under capital will need to come first, which will prevent them from making much content, and if you don’t produce tons of content, you get buried by the algorithm. There’s probably hundreds of really solid leftist youtubers and podcasters and such who do it in their off time and get maybe 20 views an episode because they can only release one every 6 months or so and the algorithm hates their content or their stuff just gets taken down because it is actively educating and inciting.
Yeah I get that in terms of Hasan but also he could just stream himself talking about international politics, or just politics in general, without doing the DNC endorsements and saying shit like “actually you’re wrong for caring about the fact that Platner isn’t a good candidate because of the nazi tattoo, the mercenary work, etc. he needs to win otherwise you’re never getting anything like universal healthcare but go off king i’ll be there with you when you start the revolution” to anyone in his chat/online who raises the point to him. Entryism and its consequences.
I actually have a lot less sympathy for the Chapos when it comes to this because they’re outside of the whole Twitch.tv ecosystem and while Patreon does have the ultimate say over their $2.4 million dollars a year, it is insane to me for them to make the mistake with Fetterman and then immediately go “Yeah I’m supporting Graham Platner” to which I can only say: …okay, here’s hoping he gets M4A passed, maybe that’ll put him back in the positive for ‘lives saved’ versus ‘lives taken’ (I have no idea if Graham Platner has ever killed a man but I’d wager he probably watched multiple die over the course of his time in Abu Ghraib and did nothing so he’s in the negative as it stands given his pride of having served)
when were hasan or the chapos ever vanguardist revolutionaries? they didn’t switch it up; that was never their politics. this entire line of thinking smacks of envy.
and to their (ultra-inclined) credit, will and felix, on a recent ep, essentially disowned zohran, and called on him to use extra-legal means to impede or disperse zionist counterprotesters. what more could possibly be asked for?
I’m not saying they were or have to be ‘vanguardist revolutionaries’ lol. As I said in my original comment - there is just a certain “why are you even supporting them then??” that cannot be easily squared away when you’re listening to Felix Biederman say something along the lines of “Chapo’s endorsements do not even have a realistic effect on Maine elections so you guys shouldn’t be upset at us for supporting Graham Platner even if you disagree with us”. And sure, the Chapos have never called themselves communists or anything - but Hasan actively does call himself a socialist???
Good for Chapo for ‘disowning Zohran’ whatever the fuck that means; weird comparison to make in general though given Zohran doesn’t have or ever had a nazi tattoo, wasn’t stationed in Abu Ghraib, wasn’t a mercenary, and hasn’t made ‘proud veteran’ a central board in his campaign’s platform. Zohran’s also just a fucking mayor. He’s not sitting in Congress actively letting the wheels of the US government continue to flatten various other countries, marginalized people’s rights, etc.
Should I wait another year or so for them to walk back their Graham Platner episode in which Will basically says “yeah he’s a mercenary and that’s a blight on his soul…but I’d still personally vote for him”?
It should only take like 2-3 key Senate votes on like war powers resolutions or something being shut down by a 48-52 vote for them to start tweeting “Graham Platner is scum of the earth” right? lol
Let it be known that I’m not a ‘electoralism is stupid hahaha you should be out giving unhoused people copies of Capital Vol I’ leftist. I have defended politicians before (speaking of Zohran), I vote pretty regularly because I understand it does have importance and only takes literally 5-30 minutes out of my day once every 2-4 years. But there is a difference between going “Yeah chat I’m voting for Kamala Harris because at the end of the day, I just don’t want Trump to win, and I think you should too” as an American ‘left of center’ or even socialist streamer & going “Yeah I support this senate candidate who lives on the opposite end of the country who only recently got rid of his nazi tattoo after claiming he didn’t know what it was despite serving for 5+ years, was there when the US army was torturing hundreds of people in a prison in Abu Ghraib, and consistently says he’s proud of his service & time being a mercenary”.
Anyways you’ve been up and down this thread defending Hasan so I assume you are just reacting out of affection. Which is fine, you’re allowed to like Hasan and think he does good - I think he does too for the most part; but he & the Chapos are still fucking stupid for this and the fact that your only argument in defense of them is “when did they ever say they were vanguardist revolutionaries” is funny
what more could possibly be asked for?
The fact of the matter is that they should have seen this shit coming from a mile away.
Or, more realistically, held their endorsement of them UNTIL it has been proven that they will put their money where their mouth is on these kinds of issues.
It takes two seconds to say, “Hey, I like the cut of his jib, but we have been burned too many times in the past for us to give a ringing endorsement. In particular, their unwillingness to distance themselves from the Democrats speaks to a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the American electoral system.”
You know, be a fucking materialist for once? Actually wait to see how things play out while biding your time and organizing, as opposed to speaking shit and being fucking wrong?
But the fact of the matter is their job is to fill airtime and be funny. Not be correct. And so they will continue to do so.
Nah bro listen bro we gotta do entryism bro I know it’s failed hundreds of times in hundreds of countries bro but we gotta do it ONE MORE TIME
Get off the internet. Get your head in some books. Stop glorifying content creators like they are the Al-Ghayb
i think hasan is… mostly ok. i appreciate that he doesn’t left punch very much outside of responding to criticism’s from his left, and even then he never stoops to truly stupid stuff like calling people “red fash tankies”. I generally like there is a “left-leaning” commentator near the top of twitch. For someone with such an anti-imperialist worldview he is too eager to accept US narratives about western enemies at times, i think maybe out of trying to triangulate a position that wont scare too much of his lib audience away. I think most of his bad takes about electoralism and what not come from a place of despair/doomerism ironically. He doesn’t see a pathway to revolution and thus has resigned himself to milquetoast dem entryism and reform. I think he is probably being somewhat serious in this tweet that if he actually thought he saw a vanguard party with a clear path to victory he would throw his weight behind them. It is a big failing as a self proclaimed communist to give into that despair though.
all this to say, title is funny but i think it’s not fair to compare him to contrapoints. Hasan’s views really haven’t changed that much even since he first started streaming, and if anything he is more “left” than before, he never used to defend china to the extent he does now, even if he tends to do unnecessary hedges with it still.
The thing I don’t understand about Hasan’s electoral politics is why he only talks to DSA people instead of third party local politicians. Even if he personally thinks DSA has a higher chance of success of instilling class consciousness among the masses, I had hoped he would still also report on other orgs who try that such as PSL. Maybe PSL is super tiny compared to DSA? IDK I’m not from the US so I probably shouldn’t even involve myself in this discussion
PSL is super tiny compared to the DSA, yes. Now, it’s not easy to tell the exact size difference since think since PSL doesnt really accept you if you’re not willing to devote a huge portion of your life to it while all it takes to be in dsa is either pay like 10 bucks a month or write a fee waiver application*, so you cant even really go based off of DSA having 100k paper members, but based off of my experience DSA still has way more organizers than PSL.
and it’s not “DSA having a higher chance of success of instilling class consciousness”, it’s that DSA runs candidates pretty much exclusively through the democratic party ticket and thus can actually win elections and thus can actually win credibility among workers by excercisng power, and that spending time on local third party politicians is both 1) a waste of time and 2) actively harming his own credibility, because the average person will think you’re kind of a crank for even talking to a 3rd party person let alone acting like they can win
*this fee waiver is something you can 1000% bs your way through, my local dsa chapter when i was organizing flat out told us to lie and get the waiver even if we could affort because they really didnt like national and didnt want us giving them money directly lmao
All I’m saying is that if I was making six- figures a MONTH i would have set up so much mutual aid and given equipment and resources to already established orgs.
The only way you’d catch me in a mcmansion is if it was also being used as the central meetingplace for the commune I fund
I mean, an individual funding a union on par with entire labor orgs is pretty impressive and practically unheard of
Ok respect where it’s due that’s awesome
your original post was correct, he does nothing locally, he’s not funding any mutual aid in Los Angeles, the amazon labor union was on the other side of the country while people die on the streets a few blocks from his home
Yes and locally he and a lot of other pseudo progressives are backing a zionist
yeah I think he’s raised like millions for other things too. he is certainly doing much more than most people with his status and if he didn’t exist it’s not like there would be anyone filling his place in a more radical way, just a power/audience vacuum for the right to fill
That’s not how media vacuums work. People don’t just randomly switch ideologies because a streamer doesn’t exist. Someone else would simply fill the market gap and consumption demand. That’s why it is so difficult to change people’s views online, it has absolutely nothing to do with their actual material conditions, and it is those material conditions that cause them to seek out certain kinds of media.
If there isn’t a left leaning lib like Hasan, there will be the amount of people who watch him looking for something else to watch, and 9/10 other options are significantly to the right of Hasan. If he didn’t exist there is no reason to assume some other person with the same politics as him would be attracting that audience, it makes more sense that they would be scattered about to whoever exists now, and landing on someone further to the right. If you can explain how this wouldn’t be the case id consider it but just saying it isn’t how it works isn’t convincing
Or they would simply stop consuming on that platform or find an alternative source, or someone else would fill the market gap. This shit is clearly profitable and prevelant. It’s not like Chapo ever stopped making money, even when Bernie stopped being a thing.
Someone would want to make money in that gap.
Edit: Unless you presuppose that watching streamers is literally an addiction, where addicts will go to less that premium sources to consume, which isn’t a terrible model, but if that is the model for online ideological discourse we are already well and truly fucked.
If i made even a quarter of hasans income i think i’d literally have more money than i could know what to do with
Wait, Hasan is actually defending that dem mf that had the nazi tattoo? /srs
yes. he says that “platner has changed”
look at my western left, there’s no wayMy feelings are extremely mixed. I want to believe people can change. I do think seeing the evil eye to eye can awaken people, even if that change isn’t immediate. I also think that we live in a Nazi ass country so yeah a gormless boot could get a Nazi tattoo and have it just float through the milieu for a time.
I also think it’s an incredible indictment of everything that he says he got security clearances etc with that tattoo. Apparently nobody noticed it was a symbol from the literal SS? I’m not buying it. There’s a real story here that our government doesn’t give a fuck about blatant Nazi ink. That’s real fucking bad.
I still don’t trust Platner but the whole thing is fucky
Apparently nobody noticed it was a symbol from the literal SS? I’m not buying it.
His fellow crayon eaters tried to use the excuse that holding up the SS flag isn’t nazi shit because SS stood for “scout sniper.” They all fucking knew.
I’ll never forget that brazen lie, like all those dudes raised on the same WWII movies as me didn’t know what the SS symbol was. Also wasn’t Australia part of that debacle?
The tattoo is a red-herring for the fact that Platner “served” at Fallujah, was a torture-camp guard at Abu Ghraib, and worked as a mercenary for Blackwater, long after they were pretty much exclusively known for committing war crimes (and had changed their name to avoid the association with said crimes).
Enlisted in the Marines, the branch where all the serial killers and white supremacists go to. Continued reenlisting in the same baby face shooting branch. Worked as a mercenary in Blackwater because he couldn’t adapt to civie life where he can’t shoot babies in the face anymore. Became a petty bourgeois small business owner because working is boring if you can’t shoot babies in the face.
Totenkopf tattoo: maybe he was just an idiot and has changed. He did get it covered up.
“Serving” in the Fourth Reich’s army, then becoming a mercenary: redemption requires at minimum he makes “marg bar amriKKKa” the most important plank of his platform. Veterans who do not feel ashamed of being veterans are irredeemable.
Exactly, I know so many veterans who have nothing but regret for that time and are anti-war and so on. Platner clearly loved that period of his life and regrets nothing, which is disturbing
See that’s part of why I don’t trust him. He’s like “anti war” as in “bring the boys home” it’s too government coded “love da troops” setting off some real old John Kerry shaped alarm bells in my head
Exactly. “Bring the boys home?” Why, so they can pilot drones and murder people in safety? Fuck them, it warms my heart whenever I hear one of these war-criminal boys die.
Exactly, he says the right things because he’s supposed to, not out of any internal growth or commitment. It feels very manufactured and it is
Do you have a breakdown of what branch each of those vets served in?
Lol no but I think most were army although a few air force come to mind
Nah I get it, we have to believe people can change. I remember seeing a video of a guy that become a nazi in prison I think and that later came to regret that so he covered the tattoo and changed his ways (I don’t remember more than that since it was a long time ago I saw it, but I think he also was very vocal anti nazi in that video). But the thing is that changing requires action to back it up, and last I checked, Platner was a military dog turned mercenary that kept doing war crimes but for a private company and he never apologized for either, this is the opposite of changing, it reeks of covering your bullshit to appear more palatable.
The only way I would trust this guy and type of person is if he went all out on denouncing all this shit, including his military and mercenary work (that I heard he never apologized for) and being open about being anti-imperialist and a principled leftist. But given this is the US we are talking about, if he was simply anti-imperialist he would already be further left than Sanders, which would be a record compared to what you can expect from that hellscape.
Honestly, from all I’ve seen of the US, y’all need a new Black Panthers or at least the existing communist parties need to do try something else, cause the moment you have a candidate running that had a nazi tattoo is the obvious sign shit needs to change fast in case that wasn’t obvious already. I know there’s progress and good work being made, but the empire keeps escalating their aggressiveness as they fall and we are all at risk specially here in the global south. Shit feels grim.
I’m not expecting every vet to be Mike Prysner but any of them that claim to align with my politics should be aspiring to be more like Mike Prysner in beliefs at the minimum. You have to be against US empire and the military that feeds it and feeds off it. That bar isn’t in heaven it’s barely off the floor yet I don’t see more people clearing it, it’s quite grim.
And yeah, I always hold out hope for rehabilitation but, it’s the Fourth Reich, it’s like if you were to take me out of an AA meeting and drop me off outside a bar. Steeping in this culture makes rehabilitation of that awful chud military mindset harder.
True but here’s the full context
Platner has
exchangedmoney with sellout Hasan Pikerhe supports all of the fake leftists/progressives.
he’s a liberal that hasn’t finished all of the leftist reading so he’s still wrong about a lot of stuff including calling himself a leftist.
look! he got the tattoo covered, what more could you want!
Oof
Yes Hasan is a moron or a sellout
he just hasn’t finished the reading yet.
I think he’s been brainwashed by the Dems people he’s been interacting with
Well, thats too bad.
Contrapoints really got ahead of her selling out with that name. It already feels like an insult pun. It makes stuff like Cointelpoints seem like a hat on a hat when it isnt
Iran-Contrapoints affair
Thats the other one ive seen. Natalie Wynn Adami works for the Star Trek fans and is super fitting but it’s hard to get something that doesnt feel labored
I think it’s funny to do this after the democrats spent like a year marking you out as as bad as trump.
I’m not the one with a massive audience and a ton of money, but sure
You won’t find me running defense for Planter but it takes more than a massive audience and a couple million dollars to “build the vanguard”.
Gives you a much better chance than the average bear
My opinion is that he is maximizing his current position by platforming DSA and PSL openly alongside his coverage of American electoralism. This obviously normalizes these organizations in the eyes of his mainstream audience, and these organizations provide opportunities for those people to interact with actual comrades (and thus “build the vanguard”).
The state of the imperial core left necessitates that a lot of lib shit (electoralism, DSA cringe, etc) is going to happen as a precursor to anything cool happening. It is up to us as political operatives to make the best use of the conditions around us. What is important is to be clear about the alternative vision.
I think the key to the alternative vision from within the core is to delegitimize the genocidal, imperial occupation of the North American continent by the United States. This is not to mention the imperialism that occurs overseas, of course. From this perspective Hasan is playing “both sides”: legitimizing through his coverage of US electoralism, and delgitimizing through his coverage of US imperialism. One side offers a mainstream platform, the other offers an off-ramp toward something actually useful.
I find this very useful in my political practice. It is much easier to point out “electoralism isn’t going to take you very far, we need to be more serious about anti-imperial/decolonial actions” to more and more people, since Hasan’s coverage has legitimized much of what I have to say before people hear from me.
This doesn’t give him a pass for whatever he says, it is just that I view it as a scoop of bad with a heap of good. That’s politics though.
Has he been platforming PSL? I don’t watch him but hadn’t heard about anything like that, I only ever seen him boost dems including some Zionists
He sings PSl’s praises every time it’s brought up and had them on stream during the May Day marches
Except PSL doesn’t seem to be willing to take advantage of his open door policy, and they weren’t particularly assertive or noticeable during the May Day Stream
Yes he has been invited to speak at PSL organized protests, and will name drop them on stream somewhat often. He could do more, and if PSL can get a shot a real win, I feel pretty confident that he will throw his full weight behind them. That will be the true test, becuase he does talk about how he doesn’t feel like he can support a third party unless and until it is viable to win something. He does a lot more for DSA right at the moment, more than he does for the Democratic party (ofc there is quite a bit of overlap there), because they have been gaining ground and actually pulling wins and strong challenges.
The essence of my comment is that is not up to Hasan to build PSL/the vanguard/whatever third party, he is just a commentator. That is up to us. If the legitiamcy of such a movement actually depends on the support of media commentator Hasan Piker, then I don’t expect it to get very far. It needs to have a robust amount of grassroots political support in the first place before he comes into the conversation.
He could do more, and if PSL can get a shot a real win, I feel pretty confident that he will throw his full weight behind them.
Maybe it’s time he pushed a little harder on the left side of the scale then
but it takes more than a massive audience and a couple million dollars to “build the vanguard”.
what? No it doesn’t
You’re talking about building a cadre of dedicated and coordinated revolutionaries not talking about building and maintaining an army, which you could honestly probably still do with millions of dollars
I’d encourage you to elaborate on that. I’m wondering if you think that operating a party is less expensive than [I think] it is, or if you think Piker has more cash than [I think] he does.
He said “build the vanguard” and a vanguard doesn’t necessarily need to “be a party”
With millions of dollars you can literally pay at least a few dozen people to do nothing but be dedicated revolutionaries, congratulations you’re now building the vanguard
Right, I guess my understanding is that he makes around $1m/year (very likely less) through his streaming co-op. He has to pay himself ($250k?) his producer ($200k?) and an editor ($80k?). Travel and production costs are probably around $100k, probably a bit more.
That leaves around $400k available for political donations. People in the left-media space attest that he does make donations to various orgs without announcing it all the time. Since this is under the table, we dont really know where this funding goes, but I an willing assume he is generous toward Palestinian liberationary causes at a minimum. It’s not exactly building a vanguard, but I don’t have an issue with directing funds toward staff or resources for those orgs at all. I guess I could speculate further, but we are talking about a couple hundred thousand year at this point. It’s not enough to make-or-break the success of the left, if the vanguard depends on a couple hundred thousand a year from a single streamer, it is not robust enough to take and wield power anyway.
400k would pay for yearly 50k salaries for 8 people to do literally nothing but agitate, infiltrate other organizations, coordinate with established groups like the PSL, etc if you’ve done that congrats you’re establishing the vanguard
The vanguard isn’t The Bolsheviks, it’s the people who ultimately led and coordinated the bolsheviks, and it’s easier to cultivate, educate and train people for those roles when it’s literally their job.
He has to pay himself ($250k?) his producer ($200k?) and an editor ($80k?). Travel and production costs are probably around $100k
Citation needed (i’m not literally asking for citation) and also insane numbers to a person who makes <30k a year
Really i thought “oh well millions of dollars doesn’t mean he has millions in income” after i posted but like no lol that’s so much money
These payroll numbers include 50-100% overhead (typical rule of thumb) since they need to pay taxes and healthcare. I don’t think it is exactly my business how much they are personally paid by their co-op. not to sound too “bootstraps”, but they earned it with minimal labor exploitation*.
A trip to a speaking event is going to be $3k minimum for travel/food/lodging for two people for a one day in and out, and probably $800/day along the way. I figure they are spending at least 30 days on the road this year.
I don’t think it would be wise to circumvent taxes as that offers red meat to the feds to throw you in jail immediately.
I do agree that it’s necessary to have paid leadership, I hope Piker is aware of this and doing his part, but he doesn’t have any accountability to me anyway besides parasociality I guess. This is also why I’m more interested in discussing how his platform can be used for better or worse for on the ground activities, rather than whatever he is actually doing.
400k would pay for yearly 50k salaries for 8 people to do literally nothing but agitate, infiltrate other organizations, coordinate with established groups like the PSL, etc if you’ve done that congrats you’re establishing the vanguard
no it wouldn’t, there’s employment taxes and shit, even if they didn’t set up benefits, and if he was just using contractors we’d clown on him over that.
Good luck convincing twitch viewers to do anything
Idk I run into people in my organizing and personal life who cite him as an influence. Because these are my current and potential comrades I am interested in discussing how we can take advantage of his reach rather than discussing whether the streamer is doing a good or bad thing. He is not accountable to me or anyone else, so I need to work with whatever I’ve got.
oh yeah I am on board with the pipeline concept, I don’t really care if people are streaming or enjoying streamers or anything tbh I just also don’t expect anything out of anyone involved. people get radicalized in all kinds of ways, either way it won’t be enough before the empire collapses and either way we’ll have to figure out how to survive in the aftermath. and I do believe that if something actually viable cropped up Hasan would be one of the few people with as much influence as him who would probably support it in the end
And they’re Americans, too
Starting to think the brooklyn ‘left’ doesn’t just love right wing aesthetics, all they need is a right winger to hint about free healthcare
Hey that’s unfair! He lives in West Hollywood, not Brooklyn!
i can’t believe the “brooklyn ‘left’” tricked Mainers into supporting this pro-m4a, anti-genocide right-wing aesthete smdh.
Just talking shit and saying buzzwords (ie antigenocide and m4a) vs going on multiple imperial combat tours and imprinting a nazi tattoo on your own body
Which part is aesthetics again?
me whinging about tattoos about is materialistic; you caring about policy outcomes is aesthetics
okay
What about the part where he returned to occupying middle eastern territory for the love of the game? You’re going to ignore that as well, or are you just take another reactionary’s word for wanting a better world while they demonstrate evil time and time again. This racist will surely prove everyone wrong this time!
Also ‘Whinging about a nazi tattoo’ is edgelord shit
anti-genocide unless he’s the one who gets to carry it out
NnnnoooooOOOOOOOO LEAVE MY HECKIN STREAMER HIMBO BEST FRIEND ALONE HES A SOCIALISM TOO GUYS
he read it, then promptly forgot about it
Check the title lol
He still read it and promptly forgot the contents, the man’s a himbo!
a bunch of righteous, pure, direct actors are not actually acting, and it’s this himbos fault, lol.
you have no clue about the real actions of anyone online, i fucking hate when people spout this take off. i actually post way less now that im not organizing, i dont even call myself a communist anymore due to my utter lack of action but this shit of accusing people who are posting criticisms you disagree with as larpers has got to stop
It’s a three day old account. They are gonna troll.
according to some posts, mr. piker gets 30k viewers, the most out of “left” “influencers”, do you think the rather curious absence of any green or psl candidates on his stream is unintentional?
if the message is we should support those who might win, why not support hakeem jeffries (as endorsed by aocia and obamdani)?
building something requires logarithmic effort (as in - getting from 1 to 10 is as hard as from 10 to 100), do you think 3rd party will benefit from mr. piker attention or lose? do you think mr. piker will win or lose from supporting 3rd party?
i’ll say i am surprised and disappointed he hasn’t had PSL reps on his stream if that’s the case; and would agree that he could/should use sprinkle some clout in races for socialist party candidates as strategically appropriate.
but the implications of the OG post is that hasan is intentionally designing right-wing coded candidates – that seems plainly untrue, given his prominent support of other non-good ol’ boy oyster farmers (zohran ran, what a 6 hour marathon, and couldn’t bench 100 lbs? dude is a waif). further, this contention it is incoherent with the larger thrust that hasan is failing to take a leadership role: is the issue that he’s a bad leader, or not a leader at all?
if the message is . . . .
the message is, and should be, we want to win, by any means necessary. winning doesn’t mean Go Blue; it means ending genocide, it means everyone gets healthcare, elder care and an education, can have meaningful work, and a home. and if the organic intellectuals in Maine want some meathead advocating for that, so be it. and any means means any means. and if the people are still only ready for the ballot box, so be it. more vanguardist energy should be spent preparing for after the ballot box, and not the endless moral posturing, the endless kvetching online about a streamer.
hakeem jeffries
Well that has an easy answer, for me at least- ive never heard the guy say even a single word that was not 1000% incontrovertible Loser Shit
![Finally, a second cointelpoints [cw:hasan]](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/79a52618-3c2c-40cb-b40d-843dbe22b1ce.png){kind=link}