So Caleb Maupin is now labelled a Nazbol. That seems to be the newest buzzword that means ‘bad person’ And i say that, because if you go look at the comments, not one person mentions anything that he did that is nazbol-ish.

And now Thought Slime, the Serfs, and now apparently Luna Oi, and Noncompete are attacking or cancelling or cutting ties with him.

So, opinions? On Caleb, or the others?

I value your opinion as communists, because something similar happened to me, involving alleged communists.

  • Zaratustash@lemmygrad.ml
    1·
    4 years ago

    Exactly.

    I honestly think a lot of MLs saw Caleb defending actually existing socialism and immediately thought the guy is a well educated marxist.

    One couldn’t be farther from the truth. The guy shares the CPGB-ML misunderstanding of what materialism is (mistaking materialism as naive empiricism/scienticism), misunderstands what dialectical materialism, and is generally VERY badly read.

    As you mentioned earlier, he is shit on everything touching national-liberation struggles. He also is shit on anything touching issues analyzed from a marxist standpoint but not directly related to class: gender, feminism, anti racism, decolonization, etc. All of which all have a solid corpus of materialist and marxist analysis that are crucial to know and implement in your praxis and organizing, as a communist.

    That and his questionable ties and frequentations (his dogshit interview of the CPGB-ML leader is an example), makes it very easy for people to go from: “ok this guy is a bit of a grifter who is way less well read than I thought and with an incomplete theoretical groundings, and somehwat of a chauvinist class essentialist with a big ego” to “ok this guy is a nazbol”.

    I disagree with that step. But I do agree Caleb really needs to work on his shit. I totally understand why someone like Luna Oi would be very skeptical of Maupin.

    Also quick question, this guy is not part of ANY ML parties in the US isn’t he?

    • KJMac@lemmygrad.ml
      1·
      4 years ago

      Nope, he used to be active in the World Workers Party, but he left years ago. He pushes for going “out of the movement, into the masses”, being generally dissatisfied with all the US socialist parties and views the movement as having been going nowhere. So nope, he’s not in a ML party right now and it doesn’t seem like he’s going to be either.

      • developred@lemmygrad.ml
        1·
        4 years ago

        “out of the movement, into the masses”

        Honestly I respect that intent as for every decent ‘ML’ organizing group in the US there are 3 which actively hurt the movement in their own confusion.

        But it seems to me it’s more accurate to describe him as having left the movement and gone into niche internet communities.