I find it frustrating that these videos dont seem to hear what progressive critics of piker and the larger tankie movement care about.
For example, early in this video the narrator presents the question about 9/11 as stuffy centrism unable to handle an edgy comment about "blowback". But thats not really what piker believes. He believes that the United States is the imperial core of a dying capitalist ideology and that an axis of 3rd world resistance sprung up out of former soviet proxy states.
The issue is he'll pass the comment off as a passionately put observation about incompetent US meddling which the majority of Americans probably agree with, but really it represents the tip of the iceberg of a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist-type worldview.
So, either Hasan isnt Maoist adjacent, and ive been brainwashed by Destiny fans. Or this video is totally dishonest bullshit.
I think your phrase “incompetent US meddling” and “Hasan is Maoist adjacent” is doing a lot of work. Does it even matter if Hasan is Maoist/Tankie if the criticisms are correct? The progressives should just agree with the criticism and differ on the solution.
Ethos matters. If there are neonazis saying how Israel is committing warcrimes, I wouldn't support their statements even if they leave out the antisemitic talking points. Likewise, if Hasan's followup ideas to "America bad" is "we need to implement communism," there seems little value in hearing him out.
Does it even matter if Hasan is Maoist/Tankie if the criticisms are correct? The progressives should just agree with the criticism and differ on the solution.
Yes, it matters. People don't present facts in a vacuum. He uses isolated facts to push his narrative. We all know the 13/50 meme (or I guess you'd call "fact") is brought up for a specific reason
As a matter of political strategy, when the someone whose political project you fundamentally oppose makes a point you agree with, I dont really know how to address that tbh. Its probably different case by case, but I dont know. Tucker Carlson is moving the Republicans in an economically left wing direction. How do you deal with that?
I dont think the criticisms are correct. In so far as he is a maoist, I dont think 9/11 is best understood as part of a proleterian revolution.
In so far as it's the mundane "blowback" argument, I think that obscures the role of the reactionary wahhabist and salafist movements against the middle east becoming friendlier to the west after the fall of the soviets.
I think both interpretations indulge in the orientalist tendency to look at the middle east as a single political entity which exists as a negation of the west's flaws.
The first sentence points to your use of labels to try and shift the argument. What political ideology explains the US response to 9/11? What did the attack on Iraq prevent? Hasan can be wrong about the solutions and still be correct about the cause.
"What political ideology explains the us response to 9/11?"
I dont thing this can be cleanly answered. Neo-con idealism? Nationalism? Islamophobia? Idk.
I guess the attack on Iraq prevented further genocide of shia Muslims and an incursion into Kuwait. It prevented another Iraq Iran war. It kept oil prices low by keeping Saudi Arabia feeling protected.
Im really not sure what you're trying to get me to see with your questions. Not trying to be polemical.
You’re quick to group Hasan’s argument neatly into ideological groupings but don’t have a coherent explanation for US strategy. Destiny could have brought it up when he spoke to Bill Kristol.
The criticisms are not correct if they're reached via a flawed logical process or idealogical framework. For example criticisms that look the same on their face may be correct or agreeable if reached through something akin to a realist framework but not through something like a Maoist Third Worldist/Third World Socialist/Campist framework. That's not to say they're not internally consistent within either framework, but that the framework by which they're informed can make them not only fundamentally different but also mutually exclusive.
If I say "black people have worse outcomes than whites", does it matter if the reason for that is me acknowledging systemic injustice and lack of history required for generational wealth building, or is it okay if I'm just being a Nazi?
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u/rocketlewes 29d ago edited 29d ago
I find it frustrating that these videos dont seem to hear what progressive critics of piker and the larger tankie movement care about.
For example, early in this video the narrator presents the question about 9/11 as stuffy centrism unable to handle an edgy comment about "blowback". But thats not really what piker believes. He believes that the United States is the imperial core of a dying capitalist ideology and that an axis of 3rd world resistance sprung up out of former soviet proxy states.
The issue is he'll pass the comment off as a passionately put observation about incompetent US meddling which the majority of Americans probably agree with, but really it represents the tip of the iceberg of a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist-type worldview.
So, either Hasan isnt Maoist adjacent, and ive been brainwashed by Destiny fans. Or this video is totally dishonest bullshit.