And Alan Macleod and I hope Aaron Maté leaves also.
The shift began with Covid, specially when the ‘‘Freedumb Truckers’’ showed up in Canada, and the Patsocs were on the rise, which also coincides with the return of the Larouchies and the notoriety of CPI…It also coincides with Max showing up on Jimmy Dore’s show more frequently, and instead of influencing Jimmy towards the left, again, since he had been shifting right himself, Max fell in with Jimmy…He marched in D.C along with reactionaries that were against lockdowns and vaccine mandates, and the day I saw him walk out on stage with sunglasses to the cheers of MAGA, alongside Awaken with JP and some snake oil peddlers, I unsubscribed from the Grayzone. During that time, as an addendum, I was subbed to Mint Press News, and Max’s friend, Dan Cohen, whom has done decent work before on Haiti and isn’treal, also chomped at the bit of the antivax bullshit that swept the US, and was at that same march. That day, I unsubscribed from Behind the Headlines, Dan Cohen’s show, and Mint Press News for giving a platform to that shit.
After Ben left The Grayzone, the quality of guests, articles and the audience itself, got worse…This is not a matter of taste, or an opinion, this is a fact. If you’re listening to people whose focus is on the WEF, Karl Schwab, Covid, punching down on LGBTQ+ people cause you think it’s part of some western assery to interfere in other countries, that speak of ‘‘globalists’’, that think the US can be reformed or fixed, and are still attached to it, then you’re not getting the correct information, nor, ideological formation. I don’t care if every blue moon, they say something right about Ukraine or some other world issue. If that comes at the expense of selling some new form of ‘‘Judeo-Bolshevism’’, then I want no part of it. Cause at the end of the day, things in the world have simple explanations.
It’s so disappointing, I shared some of GZ articles with a friend of mine, primarily about Xinjiang. I was getting through to them but then that friend sent me a link of Max going full antivax asking, “this your guy?” and since then they pretty much treat anything political coming from me as a lizard people conspiracy.
Also, Ben does good analysis but he doesn’t do investigative journalism which is what was good about Grayzone.
What do you make of Aaron Mate?
Also, Ben does good analysis but he doesn’t do investigative journalism which is what was good about Grayzone.
Yeah, this was the best about them. They had a track record of consistently good work, and Moderate Rebels was one of my favorite shows. It was funny, educational and the guests were how I found out about a lot of cool people.
Aaron from what I remember is a radlib á la Chris Hedges, people with a good heart, but without theory, who still regard the USSR as ‘‘authoritarian’’, or speak ill of the Stasi and East Germany without understanding the context of those moments in history. He’s still got some anticom brainworms and it’s related to his father coming from Hungary. He lived through the 1956 counterrevolution, and regards that uprising against the socialist government as a good thing. Despite all this, Aaron does good work when he sticks to the facts, he just has this blindside, or hurdle. I haven’t followed them in years now so this is going from memory.
What came of this disappointment with Grayzone was a great lesson in applying Ockham’s Razor. When Covid happened, instead of observing the fact that China did better than the West, and understanding how they did it, people decided to spin tales and over complicate everything with antivax conspiracies. It was so baffling to see otherwise smart people getting spun around like that. I think that was my main takeaway from all this, that the simplest explanation is the way to go.
GZ: I gotta get me some of that Jimmy Dore money…
JD: I gotta get me some of that Joe Rogan money…
JR: Did you know if you smoke a pound of chimpanzee hair your mitochondria – is it fur? Jamie, do Chimpanzees have fur or hair? Hold on, I want to know this…
Hahahaha, that’s exactly how it happened.
i subscribed to mint press news… luckily with a virtual card because they didn’t stop trying to bill me for about 8 months even after repeated emails from me telling them to cut the shit
At one point I noticed Mint Press was using html canvas fingerprinting and some other shady js, which is a no-go for me.
I do like Lowkey and Asa’s work and other EI contributors on there, but I wouldn’t trust them with personally identifiable information like payment systems.
Ooof, man, that sucks.
I also have a video of how people like Tulsi Iversen and Dore turned Rightward. https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=5frqh-hm8h8 https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=Tx2Hp-gJAzU https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=yTEs42WCDCs All of these were made by The Kavernacle.
Thanks for the vid, I’ll check it out.
Blumenthal’s anti-vax views are cringe, but i don’t see the problem with this tweet (assuming that it’s true, which feel free to correct me if it’s not) What is worse, having some idiot grifter at your anti-imperialist event, or marching alongside weapons manufacturers who are fueling imperialist wars and a genocide? I’m not saying PSL shouldn’t take part in a march for a good cause just because these evil organizations are trying to co-opt it, but it does seem hypocritical to attack others with guilt by association while doing worse yourself.
i don’t see the problem with this tweet (assuming that it’s true, which feel free to correct me if it’s not)
a very cursory search shows Rage Against the War Machine is a Libertarian Party event, which means at best right-wing libertarians and more likely outright fascists who are cynically using calls for liberty to immiserate and oppress minorities. good on the PSL for attacking them.
Just to be a pedantic ass; all libertarians are right-wing. The best of them are the anti-war lot, but I sometimes wonder how, if they were in charge, they would square their own collapsing capitalist economy against doing a little imperialism.
I don’t know PSL, I’m not United Statesian, but I found this trying to find pride parade and PSL, Lockheed Martin, etc.
Lockheed Martin was present in 2023 DC Pride Parade, and PSL was present in 2016 DC Pride Parade, but I couldn’t confirm the presence of both simultaneously, nor do I know what was PSL’s purpose in this corporate event.
Yeah, from what I’m seeing here I don’t actually see how he’s wrong here. All this shows is that for as bad as we might say Blumenthal is, PSL isn’t really proving themselves any better than him.
for as bad as we might say Blumenthal is, PSL isn’t really proving themselves any better than him
Another way of putting is is that neither is bad, they just aren’t perfect and do or say things that they should be criticized for. I don’t like this tendency that leftists have to immediately want to cut all ties to a person or organization as soon as they perceive a problem. We need to stop doing this moral puritanism thing when it comes to people who, at least in the struggles over the primary contradictions, are on our side. The Grayzone has issues but they are a valuable anti-imperialist outlet. PSL has issues but they are a valuable socialist organization trying to do good work inside the imperial core.
Oh no doubt, I’m not condemning everything Blumenthal ever did or said based on one or two bad positions, and you’re right that there is a tendency to discard everything a person says in this space because they don’t pass every single purity test that we place on them. Hell, one look at OP’s post history shows you that it’s all too easy to just end up spending more time shitting on people who you agree with on 90% of things, rather than those who you agree with 0%.
Yeah, Grayzone is weirdly Nazbol. Ben Norton has a tweet thread about why he left the Grayzone due to Max Blumenthal’s right-wing tendencies.
Bookmarking this for reference, thank you.
I’ll be honest, I thought that Max Blumenthal was better than this. I’m disappointed.
Really sucks this guy is a chud when they have some valuable reporting…
