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Shitposting in other comms please!
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
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 way
My 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
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
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.
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.
True but here's the full context
Platner has ~~ex~~changed ~~money with sellout Hasan Piker~~
he 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.
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
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 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
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
NnnnoooooOOOOOOOO LEAVE MY HECKIN STREAMER HIMBO BEST FRIEND ALONE HES A SOCIALISM TOO GUYS
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 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'"
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.
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.
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
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).
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
Everyone in this thread is deeply unserious. If anyone thinks any of this matters I beg you to touch grass and join an org.
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.
