Ladies and gentlemen, a fascist. [applause] [Music: Wagner, TannhƤuser Overture] My fellow Americans, a war is about to be
waged between everything you love and everything you hate. Our very right to exist as a people is under
attack. Foreign invaders disguised as immigrants and
refugees are being imported to our lands by a cabal of globalist elites. And if we donāt
stop it soon, the result will be rape, chaos, and the end of civilization as we know it. I want you imagine the faces of your wives
and children. Picture their pure, white, innocent faces. Now, watch as those same wives are violated,
and those same children dashed to pieces under the black boots of the Third World horde. Does that thought fill you with rage? Good.
We must be prepared to fight: to fight for our children, for our nation, for our history,
for our culture; to fight for the homeland weāve always known and the people weāve always loved. Make America Great Again. Hail victory. [applause] Ladies and gentlemen, a leftist. [applause] [meowing] So, actually, according to Hegel, the for-itself
can only be actualized through the in-itself, so the individuation of the subject necessarily
demands the transcendence of the dialectical object through the sublimation of negative
materiality. [audience laugh] Aw, fuck you, you fucking racists! Death to
capitalism, hail Satan! [audience boos]
[Tabby hisses] [Music: āFuneral March of a Marionetteā] So, that speech didnāt go too well, huh? Well, what do you expect? We have the politicians
against us, a media run by giant corporations, and a complacent white middle class that prefers
order to justice. Opposition to leftism is hardly surprising. So letās accept that all of thatās true.
The gameās rigged. Fine. Now how do you respond to that situation? Do you change nothing
about your strategy at all and then blame the system when the predictable happens? Or
do you try to improve your rhetoric somehow? Look, I donāt really need optics advice
from a bougie queer aesthete who puts style over substance and thinks shining a pink light
on everything can cover up her counterrevolutionary Trotskyite tendencies. I mean are you even
a communist? No, Iām not a communist. Well, why not? I like stuff. I like this, and I like this,
and I like this. And thatās why I canāt be a communist. Justine, you do realize that Marxism distinguishes
between private property and personal property, right? Youāre allowed to own possessions,
you just canāt exploit people by owning the means of production. Well, most of my stuff was made by Chinese slaves. Well, you should feel bad about that. Look, Iām just trying to help
you out here. Queer eye for the Marxist-Leninist. You know. Actually Iām an anarcho-syndicalist. Right. Do you have any friends who arenāt
leftist militants? [hiss] Thatās what I thought. You know, Tabby,
people think youāre weird. And theyāre afraid of you. Well, fascists are afraid of me. Really. Well letās take a look at your twitter
feed. Let's see, we've got guillotines, Soviet memes, āLiberals get the bullet too?ā Bitch no
wonder everyone thinks youāre some kind of scary terrorist. Okay, Jesus, letās hear your mind-blowing
revelations about respectability politics. Great. Letās start by taking a look at these
pins and patches. Positives first. The rose is great. Love the rose. Fantastic.
Now, the hammer and sickle. We're gonna need to get rid of that. Oh, Iām just wearing it ironically. Now donāt you start with that. I donāt
care if itās ironic or not. It makes me think of bread lines and gulags and it needs
to go. Well, maybe youāre right. Fine, Iāll get
rid of it. See, I can think about optics. Whatās that in your bag? Oh this? Yeah, weāre gonna need to do something about
that too. Now hold on, getting rid of the hammer and
sickle is one thing, but Marx is a foundational thinker in the history of progressive politicalā Iām not talking about getting rid of Marx,
Iām talking about giving him a makeover. I mean just look at the cover of that thing. It's making me depressed just looking at it. Red and gold, what is this foreign shit, like
a Chinese or a Soviet flag? Itās un-American. I donāt trust it. I donāt like the cut
of its jib. So you want a Marx-Engels Reader wrapped in
an American flag? Oh, I can do you better than that. Letās start with a gradient. Add a grid.
Maybe a wave grid. Letās get some shiny fonts. Maybe a bust. A pink bust. With 3D
glasses. Pink glasses. Maybe some palm trees. Aw yeah.
[a e s t h e t i c music] Or how about this: lots of brands. More more
more. Oh my god. Itās beautiful. Okay, one more, one more. A pink field. Chick
lit. Yassss girl yassss. I just realized that I actually hate you. [knocking] Hello fellow whites, do you have a moment
to talk about the need to secure a homeland for our people and a future for white children? Get the hell out of here before I smash your
face you Nazi bitch. Effective, isnāt it? Well, I see your point. But this whole Antifa
thing. I canāt help but wonder, from a strict PR perspective, if thereās some way you
can nooooooooooot do thaaaat. Are you saying we shouldnāt punch Nazis? Iām saying if 30,000 people show up to counterprotest
Nazis, you wonāt have to. [Matrix music] But that means getting 30,000 people on your
side, which youāre not gonna do by tweeting death threats and communist propaganda, and
using words like ādialectic,ā and telling everyone to read obscure European philosophers
with unpronouncable names and unintelligible ideas, and smashing windows for no reason that anyone can understand or sympathize with, and expecting that people are gonna leave
their jobs and comfortable lives to join a revolution to establish an economic system
thatās primarily associated with starvation and dictatorship. Well thatās an unfair association. Real
communism doesnāt lead to starvation and dictatorship. Has there ever been real communism? Well, yes. Between 1910 and 1912, in Revolutionary
Eastern Cameroon, a thriving though short-lived communist utopia did flourish, until it was
smashed by Western imperialism. Right. But whatās the chance of that actually happening on a large scale in the near future? You seem to not even care about whatās actually possible,
thatās how deep you are in pure theory. And if anything is anti-Marxist, itās that.
You know sometimes I think you secretly donāt want your ideas to succeed, you actually enjoy
being a pariah whose political ideas never gain any traction. Because if you have purely theoretical
political beliefs then youāre never accountable for the way things are going. Iām not saying theory is everything, only
that thereās no praxis without theory. Look, Iām not some kind of political scientist.
For all I know you could be correct. Iām just saying, itās a tough sell, and you
are not selling it. Well, I wouldnāt have to work so hard to
āsellā it if we didnāt live in a neoliberal intellectual void where complacent so-called
centrists with corporate backing have shifted the Overton window one inch left of fascism
under the heading of āfree speechā and āclassical liberalism.ā [knocking] Is someone ready to bring their wares to
the free marketplace of ideas? [hiss] Hey, hey, hey! You leave centrists alone. Thanks Justine! Jackie, get out of here. Youāre embarrassing
me in front of my Antifa friends. [whisper] Iāll see you at brunch. Mimosas! What the hell was that? Brunch? You go to
brunch with these people? Well, itās more of a boozy afternoon tea. Afternoon tea? Does Jeeves bring round madeleine
cookies and fresh-sliced lemon wedges? No, but I do have a very nice Windsor china
tea set. Unbelievable. You get the bullet too. You
get the goddamn bullet too. Awww, come on. Me?? What do you want
me to do, drink victory gin out of a rusty herring tin like the anti-imperialist revolutionaries
in Eastern Cameroon? I mean nothing is ever good enough for you people. I could be munching on a cigar in the South American Jungle shooting at capitalists with a black beret
and an eye patch, and I still wouldnāt be left wing enough for you. Well why donāt you start by not going to afternoon
tea with people who protect fascists, and not complaining about the optics of the people
who are risking their lives to keep you safe. How is Antifa keeping me safe? You do realize, donāt you, that 99% of what
Antifa does is not punching Nazis. Most of what we do is behind the scenes organizing,
infiltrating fascist groups, doxing them, disrupting their recruitment, and yes, we
do engage in defensive violence at fascist rallies. And one of these days, if you can bear to
tear yourself away from your tea set long enough, youāre gonna be at a counter-protest,
and the black bloc is gonna save your life, because you donāt look like you can fight,
and the police certainly arenāt going to save you. Well, maybe so. I mean Iām the first to
admit: these are not Nazi-punching hands. So, Iām not gonna get in your way.
But I canāt help but think that in the free marketplace of ideasāand like it or not,
thatās what weāre inā The corporate marketplace of ideas. āwhat you are matters less than what
you seem to be. And black-clad thugs in masks smashing things in the street seems pretty
scary. Aw come on. You have to admit, thereās something
kind of appealing about a guy in a mask. What about a girl in a mask? [romantic music] I think we should just be friends while I
figure myself out. Well, it was worth a shot.
My point is, you canāt just win the war in the street. You have to win the war in
the heart and the mind. You mean the propaganda war. SHHHHH donāt call it propaganda, there could
be liberals listening. Look, what the left needs to get, and what the centrists need
to get, and what only I and the fascists seem to understand, is that reason doesnāt matter
very much. Oh boy. Here we go. What is it that centrists hate about social
justice warriors? Itās not that they don't have good reasons in support
of their arguments, itās that theyāre not cool, right? Social justice warriors are not cool. What do you mean, theyāre not popular? No, no, no. I mean theyāre not cool. You
can be unpopular and still cool. In fact it can be cool to be unpopular. So what does it mean to be cool? Cool is calm, detached, and in control of
yourself. And the leading complaint about social justice warriors is that theyāre
emotional. The social justice warriors who everyone cringes at online are people, who
Iām sure are nice people, but who are having a bad moment, and theyāre caught on camera
in the in the middle of an outburst. Theyāre out of control. And thatās the problem.
Itās not cool. Look, this detached, ironic, pretend-not-to-give-a-shit
posturing that white men mistake for rationality is really just the self-celebration of comfortable,
privileged people with nothing at stake. People on the left are never gonna be ācool,ā
because anger and emotion are rational responses to injustice. I thought youād say that. But what youāre
failing to consider is that itās possible to be both angry and cool. And what
do you get when you sprinkle a little anger into a glass of cool? What? You getā¦ Ice cold. [guitar solo] Iām sorry. What? And thatās what we on the left need to become: Ice Cold Motherfuckers. [guitar solo] What the hell are you talking about? Miles Davis.
Incredibly cool. But pretty angry.
Did not take shit from white people. But also: ice cold motherfucker. So your plan is to win over centrists by becoming
an ice cold motherfucker. Precisely.
What we need is social justice, drugs, and rock n' roll. This is ridiculous. And I suppose you think this is ridiculous? I think itās stalemate. No itās not, my queen is wide open. No it isnāt. Take me. Iām gonna get going now. Wait, where are you going? Iām gonna go bash the fash. Wellā¦ be careful. Sure. Enjoy your tea tomorrow. What a goddamn lunatic. Iām gonna miss her. [Music: āFuneral March of a Marionetteā] What ever happened to Bruce and Trixie? They got into a fight on Skype, remember?
Anyway they killed each other, theyāre both dead. They kind of fired guns off in random
directions, itās best not to think about it too much.
7:20
Not really. Marx specifically critiques any and all forms of ideology and theory that aren't initially derived or based on the real material conditions of man. Any "theory" that doesn't start with a consideration of man's material conditions is not Marxist. Thus, not caring about what is "even possible" because one is too "deep" into "theory" is a garbage critique.
The supermarket of ideas is a bad understanding of how history develops. Our ideas don't need to 'succeed.' What does succeed even refer to? Succeeding within the framework of bourgeois parliamentary politics? Are we just the left wing of capital? Socialism is not social democracy, and although social democracy is a perfectly valid endeavor to pursue, it is not socialism. We cannot "convince" proles of communism anymore than you can "convince" someone of the laws of physics. This is not to say that communism is dogma nor that it is an objective truth, rather, I am trying to make the point that communism isn't just some random utopian nonsense that your average leftist pulled out of their ass. It is a theory derived from an analysis of the history of man and from the inner workings of capitalism itself. People can critique the theory, defend it, advance the theory, etc. But whether your average liberal within a developed nation agrees with your positions or not means nothing at this point. We are clearly not in any sort of revolutionary situation at the moment.
Communism is in large part the logical conclusion of the premises already in existence. People can educate themselves, and we can help that process of course. Part of being a communist is keeping the theories accessible and 'intact' so that future generations and peoples don't have to start their analyses and critiques from square one. I am not attempting to say activism is pointless in the least bit. That being said, unless any one of you decides to directly attempt to advance the productive forces of society, create some incredible open source tech, engage in direct action (helping people within communities, etc), or advance Marxist theory/critique, you won't really be helping to """achieve""" communism by simply attempting to market our ideas and theories. If your goal is to move politics within developed nations to the left so that social democratic policies get passed, then YES, this IS your goal. However, once again, that is not communism.
I usually like Contra, but this video is terrible. The criticisms are nonsense.
If you ignore the massive amount of things that leftists do that aren't punching nazis, then all they do is punch Nazis, no shit. It's like when liberals get all their news from twitter and write think pieces about how Antifa don't help combat poverty, when if they actually knew anything about leftists politics they'd know the people punching Nazis are the same people organising soup kitchens and free day care etc.
Also, "The left needs to be cool, and not talk about punching Nazis all the time. They should talk about 'Drugs and Rock and Roll' instead". Maybe listen to some e.g. Oi Polloi and realise again, the people punching Nazis and playing in Antifascist bands are the same people.
For people who think Contra favored the interviewer character / that the points made by that character are hers, or that she purposely straw manned the militant character as to provide a shit liberal take need to read the comment/clarification literally pinned to the video:
"Political videos tend not to be interpreted very charitably (I know this video is going to be upheld by centrists as evidence Iāve āgone full Antifaā and by leftists that Iām a closet centrist) so Iād better state unambiguously what I think.
The character Tabby represents a lot of what I think is wrong about leftist strategy: the indifference to optics, the undisguised hostility to the ideologically impure, the sectarian nitpicking, the alternation between extreme optimism (āa communist revolution can happen in the United States and it will go well if it doesā) and extreme pessimism (āneoliberal propaganda has so tight a grip on the general public that why should we even bother trying to appeal to them?ā), the blurring of lines between recognizing the necessity of violence in certain situations and the aesthetic celebration of violence as an end in itself. Nevertheless I try to represent Tabby with some sympathy, and anticipate that my viewers will like herāmy audience is at least 95% trans Antifa cat girls, but I hope that doesnāt prevent them from thinking about the critique.
The character Justine is a mouthpiece for a lot of my complaints about the left, and the recipient of some leftist criticisms of me (āyou go to brunch with these people?ā), but I chose not to represent her as an attractive alternative. Sheās complacent, frivolous, and ineffective, full of derision for the way other leftists do things but not contributing much for her own part either. When a fascist comes knocking on the door itās better to have Tabby there than Justine. To see if Justine can put her money where her mouth is weād have to see what speech she delivers following the fascist speech. This YouTube channel is effectively my attempt to make that speech, and I canāt be the one who judges how successful it is.ļ»æ"
She is literally saying the antifa character is 100/100 correct about bashing the fash, ffs.
Never does she say do not bash racists / queerphobes / fascists/ mysoginists, but pointing out that just bashing is certainly not the path to revolution.
IMO focalizing on self-defence against reaction, however it materializes, is important if not crucial, but ultimately, especially if done by and for itself with no actual mass organizing and movement building, is really fucking defeatist and purely defensive.
If anything the "ice cool" description of revolutionary action is reminiscent of the BPP.
I agree with Contra. I think left is already cool, we just need to tailor our messages and presentation for the contexts we're in so they don't get shot down on surface level things. So if we're trying to communicate to people who think wearing a suit (emblems of the bourgeoisie) is cool or smart then we were a suit and prepare accordingly. Just think of it as socialist covert ops.
Here's what's wrong with both of the "sides" in this video:
I know so many comrades who need to see this
she is my new favorite youtuber. bless her.
My comment was removed for containing ableist language (woops, I wish the bot pointed out what I said so I can correct it)
But what I said was: the left needs to be effective communicators. For real, a book on organizational or interpersonal communication should be required reading along with Marx for those on the left.